Key Arguments

• He says his certainty now concerns stability in God, not God’s existence: "Of your eternal life I was certain, though I saw it ‘in an enigma and as if in a mirror’ (1 Cor. 13: 12). All doubt had been taken from me that there is indestructible substance from which comes all substance. My desire was not to be more certain of you but to be more stable in you."
• By contrast, everything in his temporal existence is unsettled and his heart still impure: "But in my temporal life everything was in a state of uncertainty, and my heart needed to be purified from the old leaven (1 Cor. 5: 7 f.)."
• He is drawn to Christ as the way, but reluctant to follow that way’s narrow demands: "I was attracted to the way, the Saviour himself, but was still reluctant to go along its narrow paths."
• He explicitly identifies his bondage to a woman as the key fetter that destabilizes the rest of his life: "But I was still firmly tied by woman. The apostle did not forbid me to marry, though he exhorted me to something better and very much wished that all men were as unattached as he himself. But I being weaker chose a softer option, and because of this one factor I was inconstant in other respects and was wasting away with nagging anxieties."
• He notes the additional burdens attached to marriage which he anticipates with distaste: "Moreover, there were other matters which were a tiresome distraction to me, but which I was compelled to put up with because they go with married life; once tied by that, I was restricted."
• He recognizes he has moved beyond crude pagan ‘vanity’ and has already found the Creator and the divine Word as one God: "I had climbed beyond it, and by the witness of all creation I had found you our Creator and your Word who is God beside you and with you is one God, by whom you created all things (John 1: 1–3)."
• He compares himself to the man who has found the ‘good pearl’ but still hesitates to sell all: "And now I had discovered the good pearl. To buy it I had to sell all that I had; and I hesitated (Matt. 13: 46)."

Source Quotes

13: 12). All doubt had been taken from me that there is indestructible substance from which comes all substance. My desire was not to be more certain of you but to be more stable in you. But in my temporal life everything was in a state of uncertainty, and my heart needed to be purified from the old leaven (1 Cor.

My desire was not to be more certain of you but to be more stable in you. But in my temporal life everything was in a state of uncertainty, and my heart needed to be purified from the old leaven (1 Cor. 5: 7 f.).

5: 7 f.). I was attracted to the way, the Saviour himself, but was still reluctant to go along its narrow paths. And you put into my heart, and it seemed good in my sight (Ps.

25: 8). But I was still firmly tied by woman. The aposde did not forbid me to marry, though he exhorted me to something better and very much wished that all men were as unattached as he himself.

1: 22). And now I had discovered the good pearl. To buy it I had to sell all that I had; and I hesitated (Matt. 13: 46). ii (3) So I visited Simplicianus, father to the then bishop Ambrose in the receiving of grace.3 Ambrose truly loved him as one loves a father. I told him the story of my wanderings in error.

Key Concepts

• All doubt had been taken from me that there is indestructible substance from which comes all substance. My desire was not to be more certain of you but to be more stable in you.
• in my temporal life everything was in a state of uncertainty, and my heart needed to be purified from the old leaven
• I was attracted to the way, the Saviour himself, but was still reluctant to go along its narrow paths.
• But I was still firmly tied by woman.
• And now I had discovered the good pearl. To buy it I had to sell all that I had; and I hesitated (Matt. 13: 46).

Context

Book VIII, i (1–2): Augustine opens the ‘birthpangs of conversion’ by contrasting his newfound metaphysical certainty about God with his moral instability and lingering attachment to sexual relations, which keeps him from total renunciation.