Augustine in His Own Words
quite a while I was led astray, with my eyes fixed on stars that sink into the ocean. A childish superstition frightened me from thorough investigation,17 but as soon as I was made more upright, I threw off the darkness and learned to trust more in those who taught than in those who ordered belief, having myself encountered those to whom the very light, seen by their eyes, apparently was an object of the highest and even divine veneration.18 I did not agree with them but thought they were concealing under these veils some important secret which they would later divulge. After I shook them off and abandoned them, especially after I crossed the sea, the Academics for a long while steered my course amid the waves as my helm ran up against every sort of wind. And now I have come to this land. Here I have learned to know the North Star to whom I ought to entrust myself. For I have noticed frequently in the sermons of our priest,19 and sometimes in yours, that the notion of God absolutely excludes any sort of thinking in terms of body and even of soul— though soul is the one of all things nearest to God.
I acknowledge that I did not fly quickly to the bosom of philosophy because I was detained by a woman's charm and the lure of honors so that only after attaining them I finally, as occurs only to a few of the most fortunate, sprinted with sails fully unfurled and all oars bent to that bosom where I found rest. For after I had read only a few books of Plotinus,20 of whom, as I learned, you are particularly fond, I compared them as best I could with the authority of those who have handed down to us the divine mysteries, and I was so inflamed that I would have broken away from all anchors, had not the counsel of certain people stayed me. What else was left, then, except that a tempest, what seemed an adversity, came to the rescue from the uncertainties that were holding me back? I therefore was seized by such chest pains21 that, being unable to keep up my onerous profession, through which I might have sailed to the Sirens, I threw off the ballast and brought my ship, shattered and leaking though it was, to that desired resting place.
(1.5) You see, therefore, the philosophy into which, as into a harbor, I am now sailing. But this port also is wide open, and though its breadth offers less danger, it still does not rule out all error. For I simply do not know
17. "A childish superstition": Manicheism. 18. "Light . . . object of the highest and even divine veneration": The Manichees venerated the sun as a site where the light of souls is distilled and purified. See Chapter 6.
19. "Our priest": Ambrose of Milan. 20. W. Green, CCL 29:67, opts for "Plotinus" (Plotini) as the preferred reading; other translators have followed other manuscripts which, instead, have "Plato" (Platonis) here.
21. "Chest pains" (pectoris dolor): Augustine suffered at the time an acute respiratory ailment (asthma?). Some scholars interpret it as psychosomatic, as some sort of stress or anxiety disorder. Augustine refers to it repeatedly: c. Acad. 3.7.15; De ordine 1.2.5; conf. 9.2.4. He told the city fathers of Milan that this—and not his conversion—was the reason for his resignation as orator. See O'Donnell, 3:78–79.