Contents – Book VII Book VII Chapter I He regarded not god indeed under the form of a human body, but as a corporeal substance...
BOOK SEVEN The conversion to Neoplatonism. Augustine traces his growing disenchantment with the Manichean conceptions of God and evil and the dawning understanding of God’s...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER II 3. But it was not sufficient for me, O Lord, to be able to oppose those deceived deceivers and those dumb...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER III 4. But as yet, although I said and was firmly persuaded that thou our Lord, the true God, who madest not...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER IV 6. For in my struggle to solve the rest of my difficulties, I now assumed henceforth as settled truth that the...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER V 7. And I kept seeking for an answer to the question, Whence is evil? And I sought it in an evil...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER VI 8. By now I had also repudiated the lying divinations and impious absurdities of the astrologers. Let thy mercies, out of...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER VII 11. By now, O my Helper, thou hadst freed me from those fetters. But still I inquired, “Whence is evil?”–and found...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER VIII 12. But thou, O Lord, art forever the same, yet thou art not forever angry with us, for thou hast compassion...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER IX 13. And first of all, willing to show me how thou dost “resist the proud, but give grace to the humble,”[184] and...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER X 16. And being admonished by these books to return into myself, I entered into my inward soul, guided by thee. This...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XI 17. And I viewed all the other things that are beneath thee, and I realized that they are neither wholly real...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XII 18. And it was made clear to me that all things are good even if they are corrupted. They could not...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XIII 19. To thee there is no such thing as evil, and even in thy whole creation taken as a whole, there...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XIV 20. There is no health in those who find fault with any part of thy creation; as there was no health...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XV 21. And I looked around at other things, and I saw that it was to thee that all of them owed...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XVI 22. And I saw and found it no marvel that bread which is distasteful to an unhealthy palate is pleasant to...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XVII 23. And I marveled that I now loved thee, and no fantasm in thy stead, and yet I was not stable...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XVIII 24. I sought, therefore, some way to acquire the strength sufficient to enjoy thee; but I did not find it until...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XIX 25. But I thought otherwise. I saw in our Lord Christ only a man of eminent wisdom to whom no other...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XX 26. By having thus read the books of the Platonists, and having been taught by them to search for the incorporeal...
BOOK SEVEN CHAPTER XXI 27. With great eagerness, then, I fastened upon the venerable writings of thy Spirit and principally upon the apostle Paul. I...
BOOK SEVEN The conversion to Neoplatonism. Augustine traces his growing disenchantment with the Manichean conceptions of God and evil and the dawning understanding of God’s...
