Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
THE SOLILOQUIES 3I seek healing. Even if it believes that this is true, and that only so will it attain the vision, but at the same time despairs of healing, will it not abandon the quest and refuse to obey the precepts of the physician? A,—Most assuredly, especially because its disease must have sharp remedies. R.—So to faith must be added hope. A.—That I beheve. R.—Suppose it believes all this is true and hopes that healing is possible, but does not love and desire the promised light, and thinks it must meantime be content with its darkness which through habit has become pleasant, will it not, no less, spurn the physician? A.— Perfectly true. R.—Therefore a third thing is necessary, love. A.—There is nothing more necessary. R.—Without these three no soul is healed so that it may see, that is, know God.
13. When its eyes are healed, what next? A.—It must look. R,—Yes. Reason is the power of the soul to look, but it does not follow that every one who looks, sees. Right and perfect looking which leads to vision is called virtue. For virtue is right and perfect reason. But even looking cannot turn eyes already healed to the light unless these three things are present: faith that believes that the object to which our looking ought to be directed can, when seen, make us blessed; hope which is assured that vision will follow right looking; love which longs to see and to enjoy. Then looking is followed by the vision of God, its true end in the sense that there is nothing more to look for. This truly is perfect virtue, reason achieving its end, which is the happy life. This vision is knowledge compounded of the knower and that which is known; just as vision in the ordinary sense is compounded of the sense of sight and the sensible object, of which if either is lacking there is no seeing. vii, 14. Now let us see whether these three things are still necessary when the soul has attained the vision, that is the knowledge, of God. Why should faith be necessary when vision is already attained? And hope, too, when that which was hoped for is grasped? From love alone nothing can be taken away, but rather much must be added. For when the soul sees that unique and true Beauty it will love it more. Unless it fix its eye upon it with strong love and never leave off looking towards it, it will not be able to abide in that most blessed vision. But while the soul inhabits this mortal body, even if it fully sees, that is, knows, God, the bodily senses perform their proper functions. They may not have power to lead astray, but at least they can make things difficult. Faith may be called that which resists the senses and believes that the world of the mind is better. Again, in this 32 AUGUSTINE: EARLIE R .WRITINGS life, though the soul may be blessed by the knowledge of God, nevertheless it has to bear many bodily troubles. It must hope that all these disadvantages will cease after death. In this life hope never departs from the soul. But when after this Hfe the soul gives itself wholly to God, love remains to hold it fast. Faith cannot be said to be, where truth is assailed by no falsehood. Nothing is left to hope for when everything is securely possessed. There are three stages in the soul's progress: heahng, looking, seeing. Likewise there are three virtues: faith, hope, love. For healing and looking, faith and hope are always necessary. For seeing, all three are necessary in this life, but in the life to come love only. viii, 15. Now listen while I teach you something concerning God from the analogy of sensible things, so far as the present time demands. God, of course, belongs to the realm of intelligible things, and so do these mathematical symbols, though there is a great difference. Similarly the earth and light are visible, but the earth cannot be seen unless it is illumined. Anyone who knows the mathematical symbols admits that they are true without the shadow of a doubt. But he must also believe that they cannot be known unless they are illumined by something else corresponding to the sun. About this corporeal sun notice three things. It exists. It shines. It illumines. So in knowing the hidden God you must observe three things. He exists. He is known. He causes other things to be known. I am venturing to teach you how to know God and yourself. But how will you take what I say? as probable or as true? A.—As probable assuredly, but I must confess I am aroused to a greater hope.
I know that what you have said about the line and the sphere is true, but I would not dare to say of any of your other statements that I know it. R.—That is not surprising, for nothing has been expounded hitherto which demands comprehension. ix, 16. But now let us get on without delay, and let us begin with the first question of all, whether we are healed and sound. A.—That we shall discover by investigating your inward state or mine. Do you ask and I shall give my opinions in reply. R.—Is there anything you love besides knowledge of yourself and of God? A.— I could, of course, reply that in my present mood there is nothing that I love more, but it would be safer to say that I do not know. My experience has been that often, when I supposed that nothing could move me, something has come into my mind which has affected me more than I imagined. It may not have completely drawn me away from my thoughts,
THE SOLILOqUIES
but in fact it has interrupted them more than I supposed. It would seem that I can be affected by three things chiefly, fear of losing my friends, fear of pain and fear of death. R.—So you love your health, your own Hfe in the body, and to be surrounded by your friends. Otherwise you would not dread the loss of these things. A.—I confess that is so. R.—So your mind is somewhat disturbed because all your friends are not here with you, and because your health is not very good. That is the point. A.—You are right. I cannot deny it. R.—If you were suddenly to become sound and well, and to see all your friends around you enjoying peace and cultured leisure, you would be transported with joy. A.—Yes, to some extent. And if it all happened suddenly, as you put it, how could I contain myself? How could I be expected to dissimulate transports of joy. R.—So up till now you are agitated by the well-known diseases and perturbations of the mind. What impudence for such eyes to wish to see the sun of the intellectual realm! A.—You have jumped to conclusions as if I did not feel that I had made any moral progress, that some temptations had lost their power and that some resistance had been offered. Ask about this.
X, 17. R.—Don't you see that corporeal eyes even when sound are often smitten by the light of the sun and have to be averted and find refuge in darkness? Why then do you speak of progress, and not only of what you wish to see? Nevertheless let us discuss the progress we think we have made. Do you desire riches? A.—No, not for a long time. I am now in my thirtythird year. Nearly fourteen years ago I ceased to desire riches, and, if perchance they came my way, I cared for no more than a necessary hvehhood, enough to support a life of culture. One book of Cicero's easily and completely persuaded me that riches were not to be sought and that, if they were acquired, they were to be used wisely and cautiously. R.—What about honours? A.—I confess that only recently, in these last few days, I have ceased to desire them. R.—What about marriage? \Vould you not like to have a wife who was beautiful, chaste, obedient, educated or at least whom you could easily teach, bringing enough dowry, though you despise wealth, at least to keep her from being a burden on your leisure, especially if you are pretty certain that she will not cause you any trouble? A.—Paint her virtues as you will, and heap up good quahties, nevertheless I have decided that there is nothing I must more carefully avoid than the marriage-bed. I find there is nothing which more certainly casts a man's mind out of its citadel than female blandishments
A.E.W. rt and bodily contacts which are essential to marriage. So if it is part of the duty of the Sage (which I have not yet learned) to have children, anyone who has intercourse with a woman for this purpose only seems to me worthy of admiration rather than of imitation. The danger of attempting it is greater than the happiness of achieving it. Accordingly in the interests of righteousness and the Uberty of my soul I have made it my rule not to desire or seek or marr)' a wife. R.—I am not now asking about your resolutions, but whether you are still strugghng with lust or have already overcome it. The question has to do with the soundness of your spiritual eyes. A.—I am completely free from desires of this kind, and I recall them with horror and disdain. What more need I say? This virtue increases in me day by day. The more my hope increases of beholding that spiritual Beauty for which I long so eagerly, the more does all my love and pleasure turn to it. R.—What about the pleasures of the table? How much thought do you give to them? A.—Foods which I have determined not to touch attract me not at all, but I confess that those which I have not banned do indeed delight me when they are available. But I can see them removed, even when I have tasted them, without any emotion. When they are not to hand no longing for them insinuates itself to disturb my thoughts. Do not trouble to ask me any more about food or drink or baths or any other bodily pleasure. I desire only so much of them as contributes to my health. xi, 1 8. R.—You have made good progress. But the vices which remain still greatly hinder you from seeing the light. I am attempting an argument that can apparently prove either that nothing remains for us to conquer, or that we have made no progress at all and that the corruption of our vices, which we thought to have removed, is still with us. Suppose you were persuaded that you could not live in the pursuit of wisdom with your numerous friends unless you had an ample private fortune to supply your needs, would you not desire and choose riches?
-A'— I might. R.—Suppose it appeared that you would persuade many to seek wisdom ifyour authority were increased by having honours showered upon you, and that your friends could not moderate their cupidities and turn wholly to seek God unless they themselves received honour and could do so only as a result of your having honour and dignity, would not honours be desirable, and the obtaining of them a pressing concern? ^'—That is so. R,—I do not want to introduce marriage into this argument for possibly it is not so relevant. But suppose your wife had an ample income which could support all whom you wished to live with you in leisure, and that she were willing. Suppose she belonged to a noble and influential family so that through her you could easily obtain the honours you admitted might be necessary. I wonder whether you would consider yourself in duty bound to contemn all this. A.—When would I venture to hope so?
19. R.—You say that as if I were asking about your hopes. I am not asking about what gives no pleasure simply because it is beyond your reach, but about what gives pleasure when offered to you. A spent pestilence is a very different thing from one that is merely quiescent. The dictum of certain learned men is in point here. "All fools are mad just as dung stinks—you don't smell it all the time but only when you move it." There is a vast difference between smothering cupidity with despair, and driving it out of a sound mind. A.—Although I cannot answer you, you will never persuade me in my present state of mind to believe that I have made no progress. R.—I suppose the reason is that you think that, while you might conceivably desire these things, it would not be on their own account they were to be sought but on account of something else. A.—That is what I wanted to say. When I desired riches I desired them that I might be a rich man; and when I wanted honours, desire for which I have but recently overcome as I said, it was because I was dehghted with their lustre. I never expected anything from marriage but to obtain pleasure respectably. In those days I quite simply wanted those things. Now I utterly spurn them. But if there is no other way of obtaining what I now desire, I would not seek them as things to be enjoyed. I would undergo them as things I must endure. R.—Quite right. I agree that cupidity is not the right name for desire for something that is wanted on account of something else. xii, 20. But why, I ask, do you wish your friends to Hve and to live with you? A.—That with one mind we may together seek knowledge of our souls and God. For in this way, if one makes a discovery he can without trouble bring the others to see it.
R.—But if they are unwilling to inquire? A.—I shall persuade them to be wi Uing. R.—But if you cannot persuade them, because they think they have discovered the truth already, or that it cannot be discovered, or are hindered by other cares and longings? ^.—We shall do the best we can. R.—Bui if their presence hinders you from inquiry, will you not wish and strive