Key Arguments

• He accounts for how, having disdained Scripture, he fell in with a proud, verbose sect: "That explains why I fell in with men proud of their slick talk, very earthly-minded and loquacious."
• He depicts their speech as demonic snares coated with Christian terminology: "In their mouths were the devil’s traps and a birdlime compounded of a mixture of the syllables of your name, and that of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that of the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.15 These names were never absent from their lips; but it was no more than sound and noise with their tongue. Otherwise their heart was empty of truth."
• He emphasizes that they constantly spoke of ‘Truth’ but in fact lacked it: "They used to say ‘Truth, truth’, and they had a lot to tell me about it; but there was never any truth in them."
• He notes that they uttered falsehood not only about God as Truth but also about the created elements, where even pagan philosophers speak more truly: "They uttered false statements not only about you who really are the Truth, but also about the elements of the world, your creation. On that subject the philosophers have said things which are true, but even them I would think to be no final authority for love of you, my supremely good Father, beauty of all things beautiful."
• He reveals his deep interior desire for God as immutable Truth: "Truth, truth: how in my inmost being the very marrow of my mind sighed for you!"
• He explains that instead of feeding this hunger with God, they served a diet of created luminaries: "Those people used to sound off about you to me frequently and repeatedly with mere assertions and with the support of many huge tomes.16 To meet my hunger, instead of you they brought me a diet of the sun and moon, your beautiful works—but they are your works, not you yourself, nor indeed the first of your works."
• He insists that even the physical order is inferior to God’s spiritual creation, showing that their cosmology displaced the proper hierarchy of goods: "For priority goes to your spiritual creation rather than the physical order, however heavenly and full of light.17"
• He clarifies that his desire was not even for the highest spiritual creation but for God himself as unchanging Truth: "But for myself, my hunger and thirst were not even for the spiritual creation but for you yourself, the truth ‘in whom there is no changing nor shadow caused by any revolving’ (Jas. 1: 17)."
• He characterizes their teachings as ‘splendid hallucinations’ and suggests that even direct sun‑worship would be less deceptive: "The dishes they placed before me contained splendid hallucinations. Indeed one would do better to love this visible sun, which at least is truly evident to the eyes, than those false mythologies which use the eyes to deceive the mind."
• He says that because he mistook these myths for God, they did not truly satisfy him: "Nevertheless, because I took them to be you, I ate—not indeed with much of an appetite, for the taste in my mouth was not that of yourself. You were not those empty fictions, and I derived no nourishment from them but was left more exhausted than before."
• He uses the analogy of dream food to capture the illusion of nourishment: "Food pictured in dreams18 is extremely like food received in the waking state; yet sleepers receive no nourishment, they are" (the sentence continues beyond the provided text).

Source Quotes

I disdained to be a little beginner. Puffed up with pride, I considered myself a mature adult. vi (10) That explains why I fell in with men proud of their slick talk, very earthly-minded and loquacious. In their mouths were the devil’s traps and a birdlime compounded of a mixture of the syllables of your name, and that of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that of the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.15 These names were never absent from their lips; but it was no more than sound and noise with their tongue.

Puffed up with pride, I considered myself a mature adult. vi (10) That explains why I fell in with men proud of their slick talk, very earthly-minded and loquacious. In their mouths were the devil’s traps and a birdlime compounded of a mixture of the syllables of your name, and that of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that of the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.15 These names were never absent from their lips; but it was no more than sound and noise with their tongue. Otherwise their heart was empty of truth.

Otherwise their heart was empty of truth. They used to say ‘Truth, truth’, and they had a lot to tell me about it; but there was never any truth in them. They uttered false statements not only about you who really are the Truth, but also about the elements of the world, your creation.

On that subject the philosophers have said things which are true, but even them I would think to be no final authority for love of you, my supremely good Father, beauty of all things beautiful. Truth, truth: how in my inmost being the very marrow of my mind sighed for you! Those people used to sound off about you to me frequently and repeatedly with mere assertions and with the support of many huge tomes.16 To meet my hunger, instead of you they brought me a diet of the sun and moon, your beautiful works—but they are your works, not you yourself, nor indeed the first of your works.

Truth, truth: how in my inmost being the very marrow of my mind sighed for you! Those people used to sound off about you to me frequently and repeatedly with mere assertions and with the support of many huge tomes.16 To meet my hunger, instead of you they brought me a diet of the sun and moon, your beautiful works—but they are your works, not you yourself, nor indeed the first of your works. For priority goes to your spiritual creation rather than the physical order, however heavenly and full of light.17 But for myself, my hunger and thirst were not even for the spiritual creation but for you yourself, the truth ‘in whom there is no changing nor shadow caused by any revolving’ (Jas.

Those people used to sound off about you to me frequently and repeatedly with mere assertions and with the support of many huge tomes.16 To meet my hunger, instead of you they brought me a diet of the sun and moon, your beautiful works—but they are your works, not you yourself, nor indeed the first of your works. For priority goes to your spiritual creation rather than the physical order, however heavenly and full of light.17 But for myself, my hunger and thirst were not even for the spiritual creation but for you yourself, the truth ‘in whom there is no changing nor shadow caused by any revolving’ (Jas. 1: 17). The dishes they placed before me contained splendid hallucinations.

1: 17). The dishes they placed before me contained splendid hallucinations. Indeed one would do better to love this visible sun, which at least is truly evident to the eyes, than those false mythologies which use the eyes to deceive the mind.

Nevertheless, because I took them to be you, I ate—not indeed with much of an appetite, for the taste in my mouth was not that of yourself. You were not those empty fictions, and I derived no nourishment from them but was left more exhausted than before. Food pictured in dreams18 is extremely like food received in the waking state; yet sleepers receive no nourishment, they are

You were not those empty fictions, and I derived no nourishment from them but was left more exhausted than before. Food pictured in dreams18 is extremely like food received in the waking state; yet sleepers receive no nourishment, they are

Key Concepts

• men proud of their slick talk, very earthly-minded and loquacious.
• In their mouths were the devil’s traps and a birdlime compounded of a mixture of the syllables of your name, and that of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that of the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.
• They used to say ‘Truth, truth’, and they had a lot to tell me about it; but there was never any truth in them.
• Truth, truth: how in my inmost being the very marrow of my mind sighed for you!
• To meet my hunger, instead of you they brought me a diet of the sun and moon, your beautiful works—but they are your works, not you yourself
• my hunger and thirst were not even for the spiritual creation but for you yourself, the truth ‘in whom there is no changing nor shadow caused by any revolving’ (Jas. 1: 17).
• The dishes they placed before me contained splendid hallucinations.
• I derived no nourishment from them but was left more exhausted than before.
• Food pictured in dreams18 is extremely like food received in the waking state; yet sleepers receive no nourishment

Context

Book III, section vi (10): Augustine explains his attraction to a verbose, quasi‑Christian sect (implicitly the Manichees), analyzing their deceptive use of Christian language, their false cosmology centered on sun and moon, and how, because his real hunger was for God as immutable Truth, their teachings were like dream‑food that left him spiritually starved.