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Accept my confessions, O Lord. They are a sacrifice offered by my tongue, for yours was the hand that fashioned it and yours the spirit that moved it to acknowledge you. Heal all my bones and let them say Lord, there is none like you.
If a man confesses to you, he does not reveal his inmost thoughts to you as though you did not know them. For the heart may shut itself away, but it cannot hide from your sight. Man's heart may be hard, but it cannot resist the touch of your hand. Whenever you will, your mercy or your punishment can make it relent, and just as none can hide away from the sun, none can escape your burning heat.
Let my soul praise you, so that it may show its love; and let it make avowal of your mercies, so that for these it may praise you. No part of your creation ever ceases to resound in praise of you. Man turns his lips to you in prayer and his spirit praises you. Animals too and lifeless things as well praise you through the lips of all who give them thought. For our souls lean for support upon the things which you have created, so that we may be lifted up to you from our weakness and use them to help us on our way to you who made them all so wonderfully. And in you we are remade and find true strength.
In the sight of my God I will describe the twenty-ninth year of my age.
A Manichean bishop named Faustus had recently arrived at Carthage. He was a great decoy of the devil and many people were trapped by his charming manner of speech. This I certainly admired, but I was beginning to distinguish between mere eloquence and the real truth, which I was so eager to learn. The Manichees talked so much about this man Faustus that I wanted to see what scholarly fare he would lay before me, and I did not care what words he used to garnish the dish. I had already heard that he was very well versed in all the higher forms of learning and particularly in the liberal sciences.
I had read a great many scientific books which were still alive in my memory. When I compared them with the tedious tales of the Manichees, it seemed to me that, of the two, the theories of the scientists were the more likely to be true. For their thoughts could reach far enough to form a judgement about the world around them, though they found no trace of him who is Master of it. You, Lord, who are so high above us, yet look with favour on the humble, look on the proud too, but from far off. You come close only to men who are humble at heart. The proud cannot find you, even though by dint of study they have skill to number stars and grains of sand, to measure the tracts of constellations and trace the paths of planets.
[...]
For almost the whole of those nine years during which my mind was unsettled and I was an aspirant of the Manichees, I awaited the coming of this man Faustus with the keenest expectation. Other members of the sect whom I happened to meet were unable to answer the questions I raised upon these subjects, but they assured me that once Faustus had arrived I had only to discuss them with him and he would have no difficulty in giving me a clear explanation of my queries and any other more difficult problems which I might put forward.
[...]
My long and eager expectation of Faustus's arrival was amply rewarded by the way in which he set about the task of disputation and the goodwill that he showed. The ease with which he found the right words to clothe his thoughts delighted me, and I was not the only one to applaud it, though perhaps I did so more than most. But I found it tiresome, when so many people assembled to hear him, not to be allowed to approach him with my difficulties and lay them before him in the friendly give-and-take of conversation. As soon as the opportunity arose I and some of my friends claimed his attention at a time when a private discussion would not be inappropriate. I mentioned some of my doubts, but soon discovered that except for a rudimentary knowledge of literature he had no claims to scholarship. He had read some of Cicero's speeches, one or two books of Seneca, some poetry, and such books as had been written in good Latin by members of his sect. Besides his daily practice as a speaker, this reading was the basis of his eloquence, which derived extra charm and plausibility from his attractive personality and his ability to make good use of his mental powers.
[...]
As soon as it became clear to me that Faustus was quite uninformed about the subjects in which I had expected him to be an expert, I began to lose hope that he could lift the veil and resolve the problems which perplexed me. Of course, despite his ignorance of these matters he might still have been a truly pious man, provided he were not a Manichee. The Manichean books are full of the most tedious fictions about the sky and the stars, the sun and the moon. I badly wanted Faustus to compare these with the mathematical calculations which I had studied in other books, so that I might judge whether the Manichean theories were more likely to be true or, at least, equally probable, but I now began to realize that he could not give me a detailed explanation. When I suggested that we should consider these problems and discuss them together, he was certainly modest enough not to undertake the task. He knew that he did not know the answers to my questions and was not ashamed to admit it, for unlike many other talkative people whom I have had to endure, he would not try to teach me a lesson when he had nothing to say. He had a heart, and though his approach to you was mistaken, he was not without discretion. He was not entirely unaware of his limitations and did not want to enter rashly into an argument which might force him into a position which he could not possibly maintain and from which he could not easily withdraw. I liked him all the better for this, because modesty and candour are finer equipment for the mind than scientific knowledge of the kind that I wished to possess. I found that his attitude towards all the more difficult and abstruse questions was the same.
[...]
So it was that, unwittingly and without intent, Faustus who had been a deadly snare to many now began to release me from the trap in which I had been caught. For in the mystery of your providence, my God, your guiding hand did not desert me. Night and day my mother poured out her tears to you and offered her heart-blood in sacrifice for me, and in the most wonderful way you guided me. It was you who guided me, my God, for man's feet stand firm, if the Lord is with him to prosper his journey. What else can save us but your hand, remaking what you have made?
It was, then, by your guidance that I was persuaded to go to Rome and teach there the subjects which I taught at Carthage.
[...]
At Rome I was at once struck down by illness, which all but carried me off to hell loaded with all the evil that I had committed against you, against myself, and against other men, a host of grave offences over and above the bond of original sin, by which we all have died with Adam. You had not yet forgiven me any of these sins in Christ nor, on his cross, had he dissolved the enmity which my sins had earned me in your sight. How could he dissolve it on the cross if he were a mere phantom, as I believed? In so far, then, as I thought the death of his body unreal, the death of my own soul was real; and the life of my soul, because it doubted his death, was as false as the death of his flesh was true.
[...]
If I had died in that state, my mother's heart would never have recovered from the blow. Words cannot describe how dearly she loved me or how much greater was the anxiety she suffered for my spiritual birth than the physical pain she had endured in bringing me into the world. I cannot see how she could ever have recovered if I had died in that condition, for my death would have pierced the very heart of her love. And what would have become of all the fervent prayers which she offered so often and without fail? They would have come to you, nowhere but to you. But would you, O God of mercy, have despised the contrite and humble heart of that chaste and gentle widow, so ready to give alms, so full of humble reverence for your saints, who never let a day go by unless she had brought an offering to your altar, and never failed to come to your church twice every day, each morning and night, not to listen to empty tales and old wives' gossip, but so that she might hear the preaching of your word and you might listen to her prayers? Could you deny your help to her, when it was by your grace that she was what she was, or despise her tears, when she asked not for gold or silver or any fleeting, short-lived favour, but that the soul of her son might be saved? Never would you have done this, O Lord. No, you were there to hear her prayer and do all, in due order, as you had determined it was to be done. It could not be that you would have deceived her in the visions you sent her and the answers you gave to her prayers, both those that I have recorded and the others which I have not set down. All these signs she cherished in her faithful heart, and in her ceaseless prayers she laid them before you as though they were pledges signed by your hand. For, since your mercy endures for ever, by your promises you deign to become a debtor to those whom you release from every debt.
So it was that you healed my sickness. To the son of your servant you restored the health of his body, so that he might live to receive from you another far better and more certain kind of health.
[...]
I began actively to set about the business of teaching literature and public speaking, which was the purpose for which I had come to Rome. At first I taught in my house, where I collected a number of pupils who had heard of me, and through them my reputation began to grow. But I now realized that there were difficulties in Rome with which I had not had to contend in Africa. True enough, I found that there was no rioting by young hooligans, but I was told that at any moment a number of students would plot together to avoid paying their master his fees and would transfer in a body to another. They were quite unscrupulous, and justice meant nothing to them compared with the love of money. There was hatred for them in my heart, and it was not unselfish hatred, for I suppose that I hated them more for what I should have to suffer from them than for the wrong they might do to any teacher ... For their warped and crooked minds I still hate students like these, but I love them too, hoping to teach them to mend their ways, so that they may learn to love their studies more than money and love you, their God, still more, for you are the Truth, the Source of good that does not fail, and the Peace of purest innocence. But in those days I was readier to dislike them for fear of the harm they might cause me than to hope that they would become good for your sake.
So, when the Prefect of Rome received a request from Milan to find a teacher of literature and elocution for the city, with a promise that travelling expenses would be charged to public funds, I applied for the appointment, armed with recommendations from my friends who were so fuddled with the Manichean rigmarole. This journey was to mean the end of my association with them, though none of us knew it at the time. Eventually Symmachus, who was then Prefect, set me a test to satisfy himself of my abilities and sent me to Milan.
In Milan I found your devoted servant the bishop Ambrose, who was known throughout the world as a man whom there were few to equal in goodness. At that time his gifted tongue never tired of dispensing the richness of your corn, the joy of your oil, and the sober intoxication of your wine. Unknown to me, it was you who led me to him, so that I might knowingly be led by him to you. This man of God received me like a father and, as bishop, told me how glad he was that I had come. My heart warmed to him, not at first as a teacher of the truth, which I had quite despaired of finding in your Church, but simply as a man who showed me kindness. I listened attentively when he preached to the people, though not with the proper intention; for my purpose was to judge for myself whether the reports of his powers as a speaker were accurate, or whether eloquence flowed from him more, or less, readily than I had been told. So while I paid the closest attention to the words he used, I was quite uninterested in the subject-matter and was even contemptuous of it. I was delighted with his charming delivery, but although he was a more learned speaker than Faustus, he had not the same soothing and gratifying manner. I am speaking only of his style for, as to content, there could be no comparison between the two. Faustus had lost his way among the fallacies of Manicheism, while Ambrose most surely taught the doctrine of salvation. But your mercy is unknown to sinners such as I was then, though step by step, unwittingly, I was coming closer to it.
For although I did not trouble to take what Ambrose said to heart, but only to listen to the manner in which he said it - this being the only paltry interest that remained to me now that I had lost hope that man could find the path that led to you - nevertheless his meaning, which I tried to ignore, found its way into my mind together with his words, which I admired so much. I could not keep the two apart, and while I was all ears to seize upon his eloquence, I also began to sense the truth of what he said, though only gradually. First of all it struck me that it was, after all, possible to vindicate his arguments. I began to believe that the Catholic faith, which I had thought impossible to defend against the objections of the Manichees, might fairly be maintained, especially since I had heard one passage after another in the Old Testament figuratively explained. These passages had been death to me when I took them literally, but once I had heard them explained in their spiritual meaning I began to blame myself for my despair, at least in so far as it had led me to suppose that it was quite impossible to counter people who hated and derided the law and the prophets. But I did not feel that I ought to follow the Catholic path simply because it too had its learned men, ready to vouch for it and never at a loss for sound arguments in answer to objections. On the other hand I did not think that my own beliefs should be condemned simply because an equally good case could be made out for either side. For I thought the Catholic side unbeaten but still not victorious.
Next I tried my utmost to find some certain proof which would convict the Manichees of falsehood. If I had been able to conceive of a spiritual substance, all their inventions would at once have been disproved and rejected from my mind. But this I could not do. However, the more I thought about the material world and the whole of nature, as far as we can be aware of it through our bodily senses, and the more I took stock of the various theories, the more I began to think that the opinions of the majority of the philosophers were most likely to be true. So, treating everything as a matter of doubt, as the Academics are generally supposed to do, and hovering between one doctrine and another, I made up my mind at least to leave the Manichees, for while I was in this state of indecision I did not think it right to remain in the sect now that I found the theories of some of the philosophers preferable. Nevertheless I utterly refused to entrust the healing of the maladies of my soul to these philosophers, because they ignored the saving name of Christ. I therefore decided to remain a catechumen in the Catholic Church, which was what my parents wanted, at least until I could clearly see a light to guide my steps.