I did not see, however, the core in Thy great work, in Thy art, O Almighty, "Who alone workest miracles." My soul wandered among corporeal images: the "beautiful," which is such in itself, and the "corresponding," which agrees well with another object, I defined and distinguished, using proofs and examples from the physical world.

Then I turned to the nature of the soul, but the false concepts I had about the spiritual world prevented me from seeing the truth. Truth stood before my eyes in all its power, and I turned my tormented mind away from the incorporeal to lines, colors, and large sizes. And since I couldn't see it in my soul, I thought I couldn't see my soul either. I loved the concord engendered by virtue, and hated the strife engendered by depravity. In the first I saw unity, in the second – separation. This unity appeared to me as the co-ordination of reason, truth, and the highest good; separation is like a kind of irrational life and the highest evil. I, the wretched one, thought that it was not only a substance, but that it was a kind of life in general, only not coming from You, Lord, from Whom all things are. Unity I have called a monad, as a kind of mind that has no sex, and separation is a dyad: it is anger in crimes and lust in vices. I didn't understand what I was saying. I did not know and did not assimilate to myself that evil is not a substance at all, and that our reason is not the highest and unchanging good.

I was perhaps twenty-six, twenty-seven years old when I finished these scrolls, unfolding my fictions before me, these material images that deafened the ears of my heart. I alerted them, sweet Truth, to hear Thy melody resounding deep within me. I thought of "the beautiful and the appropriate," I wanted to stand on my feet and hear You, "to rejoice with joy when I heard the voice of the bridegroom," but I could not: my delusion called me loudly and carried me out; Under the weight of my pride I fell down. "Thou didst not give my ears joy and gladness," neither did "my bones rejoice," because "they were not broken."

And what good was it to me that, when I was twenty years old, when I came into my hands a work by Aristotle entitled "The Ten Categories" (the Carthaginian rhetorician, my teacher, and other people who were supposed to be scholars, puffed up with pride, chattered about it, and when I heard this title, I only dreamed of this book as something great and divine), Was I the only one who read and understood it? When I talked about these categories with people who said that they had difficulty understanding them, and then only with the help of learned teachers who explained them not only verbally, but also with the help of numerous drawings in the sand, it turned out that they could tell me about them only what I had learned from myself in my solitary reading. In my opinion, this book was quite clear about substances and their attributes: for example, man is a quality; how many feet tall he is is a quantity; his attitude towards others: for example, whose brother he is; the place where it is located; the time when he was born; his position: standing or sitting; what he has: shoes or weapons; what he does or endures. Under these ten categories for which I have given examples, and under the category of substance itself, there are an infinite number of phenomena.

What was the use of this for me? And there was harm. Considering that everything that exists in general is embraced by these ten categories, I tried to consider You, O Lord, wonderfully simple and unchangeable, as the subject of Your greatness or beauty, as if they were associated with You as a subject, i.e. as with a body, while Your greatness and Your beauty are You yourself. A body is not great or beautiful because it is a body: smaller or less beautiful, it is still a body.

My thoughts about Thee were a lie, and not the truth: my miserable fiction, not Thy blessed fortress. For Thou hast commanded, and so it has been with me: the earth "began to bear me thorns and thistles," and with difficulty I received my bread.

Book Five

Accept my confession, which is sacrificed to Thee with my tongue, which Thou hast created and caused me to confess Thy name; all my bones are healed: let them say: "Lord! Who is like Thee?" Man communicates nothing new to Thee, confessing what is happening to him, for the closed heart is not closed to Thy gaze, nor does human hardness repel Thy right hand: Thou softenest it whenever Thou wilt, whether merciful or vengeful: "And there is none to hide from Thy heat." Let my soul praise Thee, that I may love Thee. All Thy creatures praise Thee unceasingly: every soul that turns to Thee with its own mouth; animals and inanimate nature through the mouths of those who behold them. May our soul arise in Thee from fatigue: leaning on Thy creatures, let it come to Thee, Who did them wonderfully: Thou hast renewal and true strength.

I will tell before the eyes of my Lord about the year when I was twenty-nine years old.

A certain Manichaean bishop named Faustus came to Carthage. It was a terrible snare of the devil, and many were entangled in it, seduced by his sweet talk, which I also praised, but discerned between it and the true essence of things, which I so eagerly strove to know. I did not look at the verbal vessel, but at what knowledge this Faustus, so famous among them, offers me to taste from it. Rumor had it that he was well informed of all the lofty teachings, and was especially versed in the free sciences. As I had read many philosophical books, and remembered their contents well, I began to compare some of their propositions with the endless Manichaean fables: it seemed to me more probable that the words of those "who had the understanding to investigate the temporal world," although "they had not found its Lord," seemed more probable. For "Thou art exalted, O Lord, and Thou seest the humble, and the proud Thou knowest from afar," but Thou drawest near only "to the brokenhearted," the proud do not find Thee, even though in their learned curiosity they count the races and grains of sand, measure the expanses of the stars, and investigate the paths of the luminaries.

They make these enquiries according to the intelligence and faculties which Thou hast given them: they have found many things, and have foretold many years in advance the eclipses of the sun and the moon, their day, their hour, and what they will be. Calculations did not deceive them: everything happens as they predicted. They wrote down the laws they had discovered; they are known even today, and they predict in what year, in what month of this year, on what day of this month, and at what hour of that day the moon or sun will be darkened in such and such a part. Everything will happen as predicted.

People who are ignorant of this science are amazed and amazed; the informed rejoice and boast. In impious pride, departing from Thee and departing from Thy light, they foresee long ago the future eclipse of the sun, and do not see their own in the present. They do not reverently seek out where they get the abilities with which they seek all this. And even when they find that Thou hast created them, they do not entrust themselves to Thee, that Thou mayest preserve them as Thy creation, nor do they sacrifice to Thee that which they have made of themselves: they do not kill for Thee their exalted thoughts, like "birds"; nor their curiosity, like the "fish of the sea," which makes them wander in the secret "paths of the abyss," nor their debauchery, like "beasts of the field," so that You, O Lord, "the consuming fire," may destroy their deadly cares, and recreate them for immortality.

They have not known the Way, Thy Word, by which Thou hast created both that which they calculate, and those who calculate, and the sense by which they distinguish the objects of calculation, and the reason by which they calculate: "Thy wisdom is incalculable." Thy Only-begotten Son Himself "has become wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification unto us"; but He was considered one of us, and paid tribute to Caesar.

They did not know this Way, that they might descend by Him from themselves to Him, and through Him ascend to Him. They did not know this Way; they think that they have ascended to the stars and shine with them – and now they have fallen to the earth, and "their foolish heart is darkened."