Contents – Book X Book X Chapter I In God alone is the hope and joy of man. Chapter II That all things are manifest...
BOOK TEN From autobiography to self-analysis. Augustine turns from his memories of the past to the inner mysteries of memory itself. In doing so, he...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER II 2. And what is there in me that could be hidden from thee, Lord, to whose eyes the abysses of man’s...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER III 3. What is it to me that men should hear my confessions as if it were they who were going to...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER IV 5. But for what profit do they desire this? Will they wish me happiness when they learn how near I have...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER V 7. For it is thou, O Lord, who judgest me. For although no man “knows the things of a man, save...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER VI 8. It is not with a doubtful consciousness, but one fully certain that I love thee, O Lord. Thou hast smitten...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER VII 11. What is it, then, that I love when I love my God? Who is he that is beyond the topmost...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER VIII 12. I will soar, then, beyond this power of my nature also, still rising by degrees toward him who made me....
BOOK TEN CHAPTER IX 16. And yet this is not all that the unlimited capacity of my memory stores up. In memory, there are also...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER X 17. But now when I hear that there are three kinds of questions–“Whether a thing is? What it is? Of what...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XI 18. Thus we find that learning those things whose images we do not take in by our senses, but which we...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XII 19. The memory also contains the principles and the unnumbered laws of numbers and dimensions. None of these has been impressed...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XIII 20. All these things I hold in my memory, and I remember how I learned them. I also remember many things...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XIV 21. This same memory also contains the feelings of my mind; not in the manner in which the mind itself experienced...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XV 23. Now whether all this is by means of images or not, who can rightly affirm? For I name a stone,...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XVI 24. When I name forgetfulness, and understand what I mean by the name, how could I understand it if I did...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XVII 26. Great is the power of memory. It is a true marvel, O my God, a profound and infinite multiplicity! And...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XVIII 27. For the woman who lost her small coin[339] and searched for it with a light would never have found it unless...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XIX 28. But what happens when the memory itself loses something, as when we forget anything and try to recall it? Where,...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XX 29. How, then, do I seek thee, O Lord? For when I seek thee, my God, I seek a happy life....
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXI 30. But is it the same kind of memory as one who having seen Carthage remembers it? No, for the happy...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXII 32. Forbid it, O Lord, put it far from the heart of thy servant, who confesses to thee–far be it from...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXIII 33. Is it, then, uncertain that all men wish to be happy, since those who do not wish to find their...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXIV 35. Behold how great a territory I have explored in my memory seeking thee, O Lord! And in it all I...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXV 36. But where in my memory dost thou abide, O Lord? Where dost thou dwell there? What sort of lodging hast...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXVI 37. Where, then, did I find thee so as to be able to learn of thee? For thou wast not in...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXVII 38. Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXVIII 39. When I come to be united to thee with all my being, then there will be no more pain and...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXIX 40. My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXX 41. Obviously thou commandest that I should be continent from “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes,...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXI 43. There is yet another “evil of the day”[351] to which I wish I were sufficient. By eating and drinking we restore...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXII 48. I am not much troubled by the allurement of odors. When they are absent, I do not seek them; when...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXIII 49. The delights of the ear drew and held me much more powerfully, but thou didst unbind and liberate me. In...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXIV 51. There remain the delights of these eyes of my flesh, about which I must make my confession in the hearing...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXV 54. Besides this there is yet another form of temptation still more complex in its peril. For in addition to the...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXVI 58. Shall we, then, also reckon this vain curiosity among the things that are to be but lightly esteemed? Shall anything...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXVII 60. By these temptations we are daily tried, O Lord; we are tried unceasingly. Our daily “furnace” is the human tongue.[386] And...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXVIII 63. “I am needy and poor.”[389] Still, I am better when in secret groanings I displease myself and seek thy mercy until...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XXXIX 64. Within us there is yet another evil arising from the same sort of temptation. By it they become empty who...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XL 65. Where hast thou not accompanied me, O Truth, teaching me both what to avoid and what to desire, when I...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XLI 66. And now I have thus considered the infirmities of my sins, under the headings of the three major “lusts,” and...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XLII 67. Whom could I find to reconcile me to thee? Should I have approached the angels? What kind of prayer? What...
BOOK TEN CHAPTER XLIII 68. But the true Mediator, whom thou in thy secret mercy hast revealed to the humble, and hast sent to them...
BOOK TEN From autobiography to self-analysis. Augustine turns from his memories of the past to the inner mysteries of memory itself. In doing so, he...
