Same, Augustine, Same

December 17, 2025

By your mercy our worldly activities always brought some bitterness in their train, and we reflected on the reason why we endured this. We met only darkness and turned away in disappointment to say ‘How long is this to go on?’ We frequently used to speak in this way. But although that is what we said, we did not give up those activities. There was no certain source of light which we could grasp after we had abandoned them.

myself was exceedingly astonished as I anxiously reflected how long a time had elapsed since the nineteenth year of my life, when I began to burn with a zeal for wisdom, planning that when I had found it I would abandon all the empty hopes and lying follies of hollow ambitions. And here I was already thirty, and still mucking about in the same mire in a state of indecision, avid to enjoy present fugitive delights which were dispersing my concentration, while I was saying: ‘Tomorrow I shall find it; see, it will become perfectly clear, and I shall have no more doubts. […] What great men the Academic philosophers were! Nothing for the conduct of life can be a matter of assured knowledge. Yet let us seek more diligently and not lose heart. The books of the Church we now know not to contain absurdities. The things which seemed absurd can also be understood in another way which is edifying. Let me fix my feet on that step where as a boy I was placed by my parents, until clear truth is found. But where may it be sought?

When can it be sought? Ambrose has no time. There is no time for reading. Where should we look for the books we need? Where and when can we obtain them? From whom can we borrow them? Fixed times must be kept free, hours appointed, for the health of the soul. Great hope has been aroused. The Catholic faith does not teach what we thought and we were mistaken in criticizing it. The Church’s educated men think it wrong to believe that God is bounded by the shape of a human body. Why do we hesitate to knock at the door which opens the way to all the rest? Our pupils occupy our mornings; what should we do with the remaining hours? Why do we not investigate our problem? But then when should we go to pay respects to our more influential friends, whose patronage we need?14 When are we to prepare what our students are paying for? When are we to refresh ourselves by allowing the mind to relax from the tension of anxieties?

Let all that perish! Let us set aside these vain and empty ambitions. Let us concentrate ourselves exclusively on the investigation of the truth. Life is a misery, death is uncertain. It may suddenly carry us off. In what state shall we depart this life? Where are we to learn the things we have neglected here? And must we not rather pay for this negligence with punishments? What if death itself will cut off and end all anxiety by annihilating the mind? This too, then, is a question needing scrutiny.

~ Saint Augustine, Confession, VI (17-19)