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."

For almost nine years, while I listened to the Manichaeans in my spiritual wanderings, I waited anxiously for the arrival of this same Faustus.

When he arrived, I found in him a nice man, with pleasant speech; his chatter about the usual Manichean theories sounded much sweeter. What, however, did this most elegant cupbearer bring to my thirsty lips in the precious goblet? My ears were already satiated with such speeches: they did not seem to me the best because they were better spoken; true because they were eloquent; The soul did not seem wise, because the orator's expression is proper, and the expressions are refined. The people who promised me Faustus were not good judges. He seemed to them a sage only because he delighted them with his speech.

I have known another breed of people to whom the truth itself seems suspicious, and they will not rest on it if it is presented in an elegant and lengthy speech. But Thou hast instructed me, O Lord, in a wondrous and secret manner: I believe that it was Thou who instructed me, for in this was the truth, and besides Thee there is no other teacher of the truth, wherever and whence its light may come. I have learned from You that eloquent utterances should not appear to be true because they are eloquent, and clumsy words that fall off the tongue should not appear false because they are awkward, and vice versa: artless speech will not be true, and brilliant speech will not be false. Wise and foolish are like food, useful or harmful, and words, refined and simple, are dishes, urban and rural, in which both foods can be served.

The greed with which I had waited for this man for so long found satisfaction in the lively course of his discourse, and in the proper verbal garb in which he so easily clothed his thoughts. I enjoyed myself with many, and praised and extolled him even more than many, but I was vexed that I could not, in the crowd of listeners, offer him questions that troubled me, and share them, exchanging thoughts in friendly conversation. When at last the opportunity presented itself, I took possession of him with my friends at a time when such mutual discussion was quite appropriate, and put to him some of the questions that troubled me. First of all, I saw a man who knew no liberal sciences at all, except grammar, and even then in the most ordinary volume. And as he had read a few of Cicero's speeches, very few of Seneca's books, some of the poets and Manichaeans whose works were well written in Latin, and as to this was added a daily practice of chatter, all this created his eloquence, which was made all the more agreeable and seductive by his clever ingenuity and natural charm. Are my memories correct, O Lord my God? Judge of my conscience? My heart and my memory are open to Thee; Thou hast already led me in the deep mystery of Thy Providence, and hast turned my face to my shameful errors, so that I may see them and hate them.

After Faustus's complete ignorance of the sciences of which I revered him as a great expert became clear to me, I began to despair that he could explain and solve the questions that troubled me. Understanding nothing of them, he could still possess the truth of the faith if he had not been a Manichaean. Their books are full of endless fables about the heavens and stars, about the sun and the moon: I no longer expected what I so desired, namely, that he would be able to compare them with the calculations I had read in other books, to explain to me in detail whether everything is as it is written in the Manichaeans, or at least to show it. that their proofs are not inferior in force to others. When I invited him to consider and discuss these matters, he modestly did not dare to take on such a burden. He knew what he didn't know, and he wasn't ashamed to admit it. He was not one of those many chatterboxes whom I had to endure, and who, when they tried to teach me, could say nothing. Faustus "had no right" in relation to You, but was very cautious in relation to Himself. He was not at all ignorant of his ignorance, and he did not want to rush headlong into an argument and find himself in a dead end: there was nowhere to go, and it was difficult to return. For this, I liked it even more. A humble confession is more beautiful than the knowledge I wanted to obtain; but in all difficult and delicate questions – I saw this – he behaved invariably modestly.

The zeal with which I threw myself at Mani's writings cooled; I despaired still more in other teachers after the famous Faustus had proved so ignorant of many questions that troubled me. I continued my acquaintance with him, because he was passionately fond of literature, and I, then a Carthaginian rhetorician, taught it to young men. I read books with him, either which he had heard about and wanted to read, or which I thought were suitable for that mindset. Acquaintance with this man undermined all my efforts to advance in this sect; True, I did not depart from them altogether, but I behaved like a man who, not yet finding anything better than the teaching into which he had once blindly rushed, decided for the time being to do so, and to be content with this, waiting to see if by chance something would come to light on which to make his choice.

Thus, Faustus, who for many turned out to be the "snare of death", began, unwittingly and unwittingly, to unravel the one into which I had fallen. Thy hand, O Lord, in the inscrutability of Thy Providence, did not leave my soul. My mother sacrificed to Thee for me tears of blood, which flowed from her heart day and night, and Thou didst treat me in a wondrous way. You, O Lord, have done this to me, for "the Lord strengthens a man's feet, and He is pleased with his way." And who will give us salvation but Thy hand, which renews Thy creation?