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Chapter 3

So, can heaven and earth contain You, since You fill them? Or, when you fill them, you still remain uncontainable, because they can’t contain you all? And where do You pour out what remains of You, who fills heaven and earth? Or do You, who contain everything, have no need to be contained in anything, since what You fill is filled by containing, without being in the least contained by what you fill? It is not the vessels filled with You that make You unchangeable and immutable; Although they themselves are broken and crushed, You Yourself do not suffer the damage from that, not at all dependent on them. And when You pour yourself out on us from above, You do not deplete Yourself, but replenish us, do not fall, but restore, do not waste Yourself, but gather us - others. But, filling everything with yourself, do you fill everything with everything with yourself? Or since creatures cannot contain You – their Creator – entirely, do they not contain You in parts? And besides, is everything in the same measure, or in different sizes separately, that is, the larger ones are larger, and the smaller ones are smaller? And therefore, should we not assume parts in You, both larger and smaller? or are You everywhere, and nothing can contain You completely?

Chapter 4

What are you or who are you, my God? What or who, I ask, if not the Lord God? For who is the Lord except the Lord? or who is God besides our God? - The highest, the most perfect, the most powerful, the most omnipotent, the most good and merciful and the most just and just, inaccessible to anyone and inherent in everything, the most magnificent beauty and invincible generosity and elusive incomprehensibility, unchangeable in Himself, and changing everything, not new, neither old, never renewed and never growing old, but renewing everything and aging proud in ignorance, and always acting and always resting, collecting and not needing anything, bearing and filling and supporting everything, creating and nourishing and perfecting, about everything caring and lacking in nothing. You love, but you don't care; you are jealous, but you remain calm; you repent and do not grieve; you are angry and not indignant; you change affairs, but do not change intentions; you perceive what you gain without ever losing anything; You do not suffer need or lack of anything and rejoice in every acquisition; alien to any greed, but you demand growth and interest. You are given due honor and glory in order to please You and, as it were, incline You to generosity; but who has anything that he has not received from You? By repaying, you pay off debts without being indebted to anyone; by forgiving, you leave debts without losing anything through it. But what are all my words, O my God, my life, my divine joy and joy? And woe to those who are silent about You, when even those who speak many words are silent.

Chapter 5

Who will give me peace in You? Who will give me this consolation, so that You will descend and enter into my soul and fill my heart with You, so that I can forget all my grief and accept and love You, my only good? What are you to me? Have pity on me so that I do not remain voiceless, so that I can say to myself: what am I for You, that You command me to love You, so that if I do not love You, then You will be angry with me and cause terrible disasters? Are these disasters great or not so great if I do not love You? Alas for me! Tell me, out of Your compassion for me, O Lord my God, what You are for me. Tell my soul: I am your salvation.

Say it so I can hear.
My heart and the hearing of my ears are ready before You, O Lord; Open them and say to my soul: I am your salvation.
And I will run after this voice and overtake You. Do not hide Your face from me: I will die, but let me not die before I even see it.

The temple of my soul is too narrow for You to enter into it and fit in it: but you expand it. All of it is in ruins: but You restore and renew it. I know and confess that there are many impurities in it that can offend Your gaze; but who will clean it? Or to anyone other than You will I turn and cry: and from my secret

(falls)
cleanse me, O Lord, and

keep Thy servant
(sins) (Ps. 13:14)?
I believe, and I also say
(Ps. 115:1; 2 Cor. 4:13), You know, Lord.
Didn’t I confess my sins before You, my God, exposing myself to them? And - You have forgiven me my iniquities, You have forsaken the wickedness of my heart
(Ps. 31:5).
I do not enter into judgment or contention with You, because You are the truth; and I do not want to deceive myself, lest my unrighteousness lie to itself
(Ps. 26:12).
Yes! I will not argue or enter into court with You; For if you look at iniquity, O Lord, O Lord, who can stand?
(Ps. 129:3).

Augustine Aurelius

Confession

Augustine

Confession

Book one

1. “Great are You, O Lord, and worthy of all praise; Great is Thy power and immeasurable is Thy wisdom.” And man, a particle of Your creation, wants to praise You; the man who carries his mortality with him everywhere carries with him the evidence of his sin and the testimony that You “resist the proud.” And yet man, a particle of Your creation, wants to praise You. You delight us with this praise, for You created us for Yourself, and our heart knows no rest until it rests in You. Let me, Lord, know and comprehend whether to begin by calling out to You or by praising You; whether it is necessary to first know You or call upon You. But who will call to You without knowing You? An ignorant person can call not to You, but to someone else. Or, in order to know You, we must “call to You?” “How will they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? and how will they believe You without a preacher? And those who seek Him will praise the Lord.” Those who seek will find Him, and those who find will praise Him. I will seek You, O Lord, calling upon You, and I will call upon You, believing in You, for You have been preached to us. My faith, which You gave to me, which You breathed into me through Your Son made man, through the ministry of Your Confessor, calls to You, O Lord.

II.

2. But how can I cry to my God, to my God and Lord? When I call on Him, I will call Him into myself. Where is there a place in me where my Lord would come? Where will the Lord come to me, the Lord who created heaven and earth? Oh my God! Is there really something in me that can accommodate You? Do heaven and earth, which You created and on which You created me, contain You? But without You there would be nothing that exists - does that mean everything that exists contains You? But I also exist; Why do I ask You to come to me: I would not exist if You were not in me. I am not yet in the underworld, although You are there. And “if I go to hell, You are there.” I would not exist, my God, I would not exist at all, if You were not in me. No, or rather: I would not exist if I were not in You, “from Whom are all things, through Whom are all things, in Whom are all things.” Truly so, Lord, truly so. Where should I call You if I am in You? and where will you come to me from? Where, beyond the boundaries of earth and sky, should I go so that my Lord can come to me from there? Who said: “Heaven and earth are full of Me”?

III.

3. So, can heaven and earth contain You if You fill them? Or do You fill them and something else remains in You, because they cannot contain You? And where is this remnant of Yours poured out when heaven and earth are filled? Or You don't need a container. You, Who contain all things, for what You fill You fill by containing? It is not the vessels full of You that give You stability: let them break. You won't spill out. And when You pour out into us, it is not You who fall, but we are raised up by You; It is not You who is scattered, but we are gathered by You. And everything that You fill, You fill everything entirely with Yourself. But everything is not able to contain You, it only contains a part of You, and everyone simultaneously contains the same part? Or are individual creatures separate parts: larger ones, larger ones, smaller ones, smaller ones? So is one part of You greater and the other less? Or are You whole everywhere and nothing can contain You whole?

IV.

4. What are you, my God? What if not the Lord God? “Who is the Lord but the Lord? and who is God besides our God?” The Most High, the Most Gracious, the Most Powerful, the Almighty, the Most Merciful and the Most Just; the most distant and the closest, the most beautiful and the strongest, the motionless and incomprehensible; Unchanging, Changing everything, eternally Young and eternally Old, You renew everything and make old the proud, but they do not know it; eternally in action, eternally at rest, collecting and not needing, carrying, filling and covering; you create, nourish and improve; you are looking, although You have everything. You love and don't worry; you are jealous and not worried; you repent and are not sad; you get angry and remain calm; You change Your works, and do not change your advice; you pick up what you find and never lose; you never need and rejoice in profit; you are never stingy and demand interest. It is given to You in abundance, so that You may be in debt, but does anyone have anything that is not Yours? You pay your debts, but You owe no one; you pay off your debts without losing anything. What else can I say, my Lord, my Life, my Holy Joy? And what can we even say when talking about You? But woe to those. who are silent about You, for even those who speak have become numb.

5. Who will let me rest in You? Who will allow You to enter my heart and intoxicate it so that I forget all my evil and embrace my only good? You? What are you to me? Have mercy and let me talk. What am I to You, that You command me to love You and are angry if I do not do this, and threaten me with great misfortunes? Is it not a great misfortune not to love You? Woe is me! Tell me according to Your mercy, O Lord. My God, what are you to me? “Say to my soul: I am your salvation.” Say it so I can hear. Here are the ears of my heart before You, Lord: open them and say to my soul: “I am your salvation.” I will run towards this voice and overtake You. Do not hide Your face from me: I will die, I will not die, but let me see it.

6. The house of my soul is too small for You to enter there; expand it. It's collapsing, update it. There is something in it that will offend Your gaze: I confess, I know, but who will clean it up? and to anyone other than You, I will exclaim: “Cleanse me from my secret sins, O Lord, and deliver Your servant from those who tempt.” I believe and therefore I say: “Lord, You know.” Didn’t I testify before You “against myself about my crimes. My God? and you have forgiven the iniquity of my heart.” I do not argue with You, Who is the Truth, and I do not want to lie to myself, so that my untruth does not lie to itself. No, I am not arguing with You, for “if You look at iniquity, Lord, Lord, who can stand?”

VI.

7. And yet let me speak before You, O Merciful One, to me, “dust and ashes.” Let me still say: I turn to Your mercy, not to the person who would ridicule me. Maybe you will laugh at me, but when you turn to me, you will take pity on me. What do I want to say? Oh my God? - only that I don’t know where I came from here, into this - should I say dead life or living death? Don't know. I was greeted with consolations by Your mercy, as I heard about this from my parents according to the flesh, through whom You created me in time; I don’t remember this myself. My first consolation was milk, with which neither my mother nor my nurses filled their breasts; Through them You gave me the food necessary for the baby according to Your decree and according to Your riches distributed to the depths of creation. You have given me the desire not to desire more than You have given, and to my nurses the desire to give me what You have given them. Out of the love You inspired, they wanted to give me what they had in abundance from You. For them, my goodness, received from them, was good, but it did not come from them, but through them, for all good things come from You, and all my salvation comes from My Lord. I understood this later, although You called to me even then with gifts from outside and invested in me. Even then I knew how to suck, calmed down from bodily pleasure, cried from bodily discomfort - for now that was all.

Chapter 6

With all this, Lord, allow me, although I am earth and ashes, allow me to raise my voice before Your mercy. Allow me this, for I will speak before Thy mercy, and not before a man who laughs. Perhaps You will laugh at me, but You will take pity and have mercy on me. For what do I want to say before You, O Lord my God? – I want to start with what I don’t know and don’t comprehend, where I came from here - into this mortal life, or life’s death, from where I say I came here. And I, a stranger, received Your compassionate mercy and then Your consolations greeted me, as I heard from my carnal parents, father and mother, from whom You formed me at a certain period of time; for I myself do not remember any of this. Thus, at first, Your Providence nourished me with the sweetness and joy of human milk. It was not my mother, not my nurses who fed me with their breasts, but through them You gave me, a baby, baby food, according to the law of nature that You had ordained for it, and according to the richness of Your bounties, with which You blessed all creatures according to their needs. You also made me feel that I did not desire or demand this food any more than You gave it, and instilled in those who fed me the desire to give me what You gave them. And they willingly, out of natural impulse, gave me what they had received in abundance from Your bounties. For my good was also their good, and although it was transmitted to me by them, it did not come from them, but only through them was accomplished by You, since every good comes from You, O God, and from my God is all my salvation. And I understood this later, from You Yourself, from those grace-filled gifts that You give us.

And at that time I knew nothing more than to suck my mother’s breast, rest on her bosom, be comforted by her caresses, or cry at unpleasant bodily sensations.

Then I began to smile, first in my dreams, and then in reality. They told me this about me, and I believed it, because I saw the same thing with other babies, although I don’t remember that about myself. And so, little by little, I began to distinguish the objects around me and tried to convey my desires to those that could satisfy me, but I could not, because my desires lay within me, and their fulfillers are outside of me, and not with any of my feelings, nor with any their instincts could not penetrate my soul. All I had to do was use different body movements and sounds of voice, as some signs corresponding to my desires, and I made the signs that I could; but these signs were poor and inexpressive, so they turned out to be unsatisfactory. And when my desires were not satisfied, either because they did not understand me, or because they were afraid to harm me by fulfilling my desires, I became indignant and annoyed at my elders, who did not obey me, who did not depend on me, who did not obey me, and myself I punished myself for crying. This is how infants are in general, as much as I could learn from observing them, and I myself was the same; These same babies, who cannot speak and are not self-aware, assure me of this more than my talkative and self-aware teachers could assure me.

And now my infancy has long since died for me, but I still live. But You, Lord, always live, and nothing dies in You, because You always exist from the beginning of time and first of all, whenever anything exists, and You are God and the Lord of everything created by You; With You are the final causes of everything that is transitory, in You are the immutable principles of everything that changes, and everything, in itself temporary and in itself incomprehensible, finds for itself in You and with You both eternal life and everlasting peace. Tell me, falling at Your feet and begging You, my God, tell me, in Your mercy towards Your unworthy servant, tell me: was my infancy preceded by any other age of my life, no longer existing for me, or was this age limited? only by the state that I spent in my mother’s womb? For I was given some understanding of this state, which I spent in my mother’s womb, and I myself saw pregnant women. What happened to me before that, my joy, my joy, my God, was I somewhere or something before that? And I have no one who would tell me anything to this: neither father, nor mother, nor experience over others, nor my memory can give me an answer. Oh, do not laugh at me when I ask about this, You who command me to glorify and praise You, God, for all that I have come to know, and to confess You as Lord.

I confess You and I confess to You, Lord my God, Lord of heaven and earth, giving You praise both for that primitive state of mine that preceded infancy, and for my infancy itself, which I do not remember, but regarding which You gave man the opportunity to make guesses and conclusions from observations of others and about oneself, and to believe a lot about oneself based on the testimony of nurses and nurses. For I still existed and lived then, although I began to look for signs to express and communicate to others the feelings and sensations of my being and my life at the end of infancy. And where could such a quickened being come from, if not from You, Lord? Is there and can there be an artist who created himself? Or is it possible to imagine another final cause of our existence and our life, besides You, Lord, as our Creator and Creator, to Whom being and life are inseparably inherent, since You Yourself are the highest being and the highest life? You are the Supreme and do not change. For You, the real day never passes, although it also passes in You, because this is all in You; otherwise there would be no paths for him to pass through if You did not contain him within Yourself. And since Your summers do not become scarce

(Ps. 101:28), then are these Your years not an everlasting, one and the same continuous day? And how many days of ours and our ancestors have already flowed through this Yours, which never changes in anything - always a real day, and from it or in it they received modifications, no matter how they changed, and how many more will pass them in different modifications, what are no matter these changes, You are always and invariably the same (ibid.); and with You all our past and all our future takes place in the eternal present. What's the harm if someone doesn't understand my words? It is enough for him if he says: what does this mean? Let him be content with this, and at the same time let him desire to find You without seeking, rather than to not find You by seeking.

Confession

The publishing house of the Sretensky Monastery published the book “Confession” by Blessed Augustine of Hippo.

Confession / Transl. from lat. M. E. Sergeenko; entry Art. diak. A. Gumerova. – M.: Sretensky Monastery Publishing House, 2006. – 320 p.

“You created us for Yourself, and our heart knows no rest until it rests in You.”
This is how the bishop of the North African city of Hippo, Blessed Augustine, appeals to God. “I fell in love with You too late, Beauty, so ancient and so young, I fell in love with You too late! Here You were in me, and I was in the external and there I looked for You.” Augustine sets out all his long search, his entire difficult path to God in his “Confession” as in a fiery prayer to the Lord. The autobiographical story “Confession” was written by Augustine at the request of the bishop of the Italian city of Nola, St. Paulinus, to whom our calendar appends the title “Merciful” (January 23, old style). The Confessions were probably written in 397–400, ten years after Augustine's conversion to Christ, shortly after his elevation to the episcopate. Aurelius Augustine was born on November 13, 354 in Tagaste in Numidia, in the family of poor representatives of the provincial nobility Patricius and Monica. Monica was a devout Christian, while Augustine's father was baptized only before his death in 371. According to the custom of that time, Augustine was catechized from childhood, but not baptized. Augustine received a good education, but due to a lack of funds from his parents, philanthropists helped pay for his education. Augustine received his primary education in his native Tagaste, then he continued his education at the grammar and rhetoric school of the neighboring city of Madavra (363–366).

To continue his education, in 369 the future saint went to the capital of Latin Africa, Carthage. Here the young man was drawn into the whirlpool of riotous life, from an illegal relationship his son Adeodate is born (Augustine devotes his dialogue “On the Teacher” to a conversation with him). Reading Cicero awakens in Augustine “the love of wisdom” and moves him towards spiritual quests. Then he reads the Holy Scripture, but the word of God does not make a favorable impression on him (this is often explained by the rudeness of his contemporary translation - Italas). Here in Carthage Augustine’s passion for Manichaeism began, which lasted about ten years. Upon completion of his education in 373, he returned to Tagasta, where he taught grammar and rhetoric. The following year, Augustine moved to Carthage and continued his teaching and scientific activities there. Around the same time, Augustine undertook his first literary philosophical experience - he wrote the treatise “On the Beautiful and the Appropriate,” now lost. The fascination with Manichaeism gradually passes, Augustine begins to realize its inconsistency. Augustine's next intellectual passion was the skepticism of the New Academy, and then Neoplatonism.

Meanwhile, Augustine in 383 went to Rome to teach rhetoric, and then to Milan, where he soon became the official rhetorician. Here in Mediolan, Augustine meets the great theologian and saint Ambrose and listens to his sermons, which returns Augustine to Christianity. Augustine dates his conversion to 386. In preparation for baptism, he withdraws from secular affairs. Soon after Augustine's baptism, his mother, Blessed Monica, dies, having waited for her son to convert to Christ. After this, in the fall of 388, the newly enlightened Augustine returned to his native Tagaste, donated all his estate to the local church and began to lead a strict ascetic life. Augustine's fame as a learned theologian and ascetic spread throughout Africa, and in 391 the community of the city of Hippo, where he was on a casual visit, insisted on his ordination to the priesthood.

In Hippo, the new presbyter is engaged in teaching and preaching, helping the elderly Bishop Valery. During his presbytery, Augustine founded the first monastery in Numidia. He also deals with the interpretation of Holy Scripture and polemics with the Manichaeans. In 395, Bishop Valerius makes Augustine his vicar, and the following year, after the death of Valerius, Augustine is elevated to the See of Hippo and remains there for 35 years, until his death. The years of episcopal service became for St. Augustine the time for writing a huge number of works of a dogmatic, exegetical, apologetic and pastoral nature; he preached many sermons. Of Augustine’s dogmatic works, the most significant is the treatise “On the Trinity,” written in 400–415, which had a great influence on the development of subsequent Western theology. Having survived the capture of Rome by Alaric in 410, Saint Hippo from 413 to 426 wrote a monumental work in 22 books, “On the City of God,” dedicated to the problems of history and the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the earthly state.

The saint devoted a lot of energy to protecting the people of God from false teachings. Thus, the entire theological and church activity of Blessed Augustine can be divided into several stages according to the main directions of his polemics. The initial stage is a fairly successful polemic against Manichaeism. Augustine held many debates with the Manichaeans and wrote many theological works on this topic. The next stage was a long and persistent struggle against the Donatist split that was then spreading in Africa. The Donatists insisted that there was no place for sinners in the Church and those who sinned should be expelled from the Church. The sacraments of the Church, according to the Donatists, are valid only under the condition of the personal holiness of the priest. The Bishop of Hippo developed a broad polemic with the schismatics; in 411, through his efforts, a Council was convened in Carthage, which condemned the Donatists, but even after their separation from the Church, the Donatists existed until the Muslim conquest.

The fight against the heresy of the British monk Pelagius becomes a new stage in the saint’s activity. Pelagius taught that the sin of the first people did not make a decisive change in human nature, and, therefore, the achievement of salvation is possible through one’s own human strength - strict asceticism and spiritual work. In 412, the Council of Carthage condemned the follower of Pelagius Celestius, and the new Council of Carthage in 416 re-condemned Celestius, as well as Pelagius himself. However, Rome's attitude towards Pelagius was ambiguous, and even after the Great Council of Carthage in 418, Pelagianism found many followers. Confronting the danger that Pelagianism posed, Augustine formulated a doctrine of the importance of grace in the matter of salvation, known as the doctrine of predestination. At this point, Augustine's opinion disagrees with the teaching of the Eastern Church. In the ecclesiastical West itself, Augustine’s teaching laid a solid foundation for centuries-old debates about the relationship between freedom and grace. The exponent of the most balanced view on this issue can be called the Monk John Cassian, who taught about the synergy of the grace of God and the free will of man in the matter of salvation.

The result of all of Augustine’s polemical activities is the essay “On Heresies” (428–429), where he gives a brief description of 88 heresies, starting from Simon Magus and ending with Pelagianism. Undertaking a revision of his entire literary activity, St. Augustine wrote “Revisions” in two parts in 426–427, where he cataloged and critically evaluated 93 of his works. In 426, Blessed Augustine, weakened by illness and old age, elected presbyter Heraclius as his successor, to whom he transferred part of his responsibilities. In 430, Hippo was besieged by the Vandals who invaded North Africa from Spain. During the siege, Blessed Augustine fell ill and died peacefully on the tenth day of his illness, August 28.

In the Western Church, the veneration of St. Augustine began early and was very widespread. His name was included in eastern monthly books only in the 19th century. His memory was probably included in the Russian month book according to the “Synaxarist” of St. Nicodemus the Svyatogorets and is celebrated on June 15 (old style). But even before the name of Blessed Augustine appeared in the Eastern calendar, the Eastern reader became familiar and dear to the work of the Bishop of Hippo, in particular his “Confession”. The first printed translation of the Confession into Russian was made in 1787 by Hieromonk Agapit (Skvortsov). A new translation of the “Confession” was carried out by the Kyiv Theological Academy in 1880, among other works of St. Augustine, included in the “Library of the Works of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Western Church” published by the Academy.

The translation published in this edition was made by the remarkable philologist and historian of antiquity Maria Efimovna Sergeenko (1891–1987). This translation, prepared by Maria Efimovna in Leningrad during the siege, by the famous orientalist N.I. Conrad called it a feat of labor and inspiration. The text of the translation was first published in Theological Works in 1978.

Bringing to the attention of the reader this translation of the Confessions, we note that the quotations and paraphrases of Holy Scripture, which St. Augustine abundantly uses, are given in the form as they were proposed by the translator. Blessed Augustine himself probably used the ancient Latin translation of the Bible, the so-called Itala (the Vulgate of Blessed Jerome, which later became the canonical translation of the Holy Scriptures for the Western Church, was not yet completed). Perhaps Blessed Augustine gave some passages from the Holy Scriptures in his own translation, trying to convey to the reader the meaning that concerned him, and not the literal text. In this regard, translations of quotations from Scripture in this edition often do not fully correspond to the text of the Russian Synodal translation.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

CONFESSION OF BLESSED AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO

BOOK ONE

1. “Great are You, O Lord, and worthy of all praise; Great is Thy power and immeasurable is Thy wisdom.” And man, a particle of Your creation, wants to praise You; the man who carries his mortality with him everywhere carries with him the evidence of his sin and the testimony that You “resist the proud.” And yet man, a particle of Your creation, wants to praise You. You delight us with this praise, for You created us for Yourself, and our heart knows no rest until it rests in You. Let me, Lord, know and comprehend whether to begin by calling out to You or by praising You; whether it is necessary to first know You or call upon You. But who will call to You without knowing You? An ignorant person can call not to You, but to someone else. Or, in order to know You, we must “call to You”? “How will they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe You without a preacher?”2. And those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Those who seek will find Him, and those who find will praise Him. I will seek You, O Lord, calling upon You, and I will call upon You, believing in You, for You have been preached to us. My faith, which You gave to me, which You breathed into me through Your Son made man, through the ministry of Your Confessor, calls to You, O Lord.

2. But how can I cry to my God, to my God and Lord? When I call on Him, I will call Him into myself. Where is there a place in me where my Lord would come? Where will the Lord come to me, the Lord who created heaven and earth? Oh my God! Is there really something in me that can accommodate You? Do heaven and earth, which You created and on which You created me, contain You? But without You there would be nothing that exists - does that mean everything that exists contains You? But I also exist; Why do I ask You to come to me: I would not exist if You were not in me. I am not yet in the underworld, although You are there. And “if I go to hell, You are there.” I would not exist, my God, I would not exist at all, if You were not in me. No, or rather: I would not exist if I were not in You, “from Whom are all things, through Whom are all things, in Whom are all things.” Truly so, Lord, truly so. Where should I call You if I am in You? and where will you come to me from? Where, beyond the boundaries of earth and sky, should I go so that from there my Lord will come to me, Who said: “Heaven and earth are full of Me”?

III

3. So, can heaven and earth contain You if You fill them? Or do You fill them and something else remains in You, because they cannot contain You? And where is this remnant of Yours poured out when heaven and earth are filled? Or do You not need a container, You Who contain everything, for what You fill You fill by containing? It is not the vessels full of You that give You stability: let them break. You won't spill out. And when You pour out into us, it is not You who fall, but we are raised up by You; It is not You who is scattered, but we are gathered by You. And everything that You fill, You fill everything entirely with Yourself. But everything is not able to contain You, it only contains a part of You - and everyone simultaneously contains the same part? Or are separate creatures – separate parts: larger ones, larger ones, smaller ones, smaller ones? So, is one part of You greater and the other less? Or are You whole everywhere and nothing can contain You whole?

4. What/are You, my God? What if not the Lord God? “Who is the Lord but the Lord? and who is God besides our God? The Most High, the Most Gracious, the Most Powerful, the Almighty, the Most Merciful and the Most Just; the most distant and the closest, the most beautiful and the strongest, the motionless and incomprehensible; Unchangeable, Changing everything, eternally Young and eternally Old, You renew everything and make old the proud2, but they do not know it; eternally in action, eternally at rest, collecting and not needing, carrying, filling and covering; you create, nourish and improve; you are looking, although You have everything. You love and don't worry; you are jealous and not worried; you repent and are not sad; you get angry and remain calm; You change Your works and do not change your advice; you pick up what you find and never lose; you never need and rejoice in profit; you are never stingy and demand interest. It is given to You in abundance, so that You may be in debt, but does anyone have anything that is not Yours? You pay your debts, but You owe no one; you pay off your debts without losing anything. What else can I say, my Lord, my Life, my Holy Joy? And what can we even say when talking about You? But woe to those who are silent about You, for even those who speak have become numb.

5. Who will let me rest in You? Who will allow You to enter my heart and intoxicate it so that I forget all my evil and embrace my only good, You? What/ Are you to me? Have mercy and let me talk. What am I to You, that You command me to love You and are angry if I do not do this, and threaten me with great misfortunes? Is it not a great misfortune not to love You? Woe is me! Tell me, according to Your mercy, O Lord my God, what/ Are You for me? “Say to my soul: I am your salvation.” Say it so I can hear. Behold the ears of my heart before You, Lord: open them and say to my soul: “I am your salvation.” I will run towards this voice and catch You. Do not hide Your face from me: I will die, I will not die, but let me see it.

6. The house of my soul is too small for You to enter there; expand it. It's collapsing, update it. There is something in it that Thy gaze may be offended by: I confess, I know, but who will clean it up? and to anyone other than You, I will exclaim: “Cleanse me from my secret sins, O Lord, and deliver Your servant from those who tempt.” I believe and that’s why I say: “Lord, You know.” Have I not testified before You “against myself about my crimes, O my God? and You have forgiven the iniquity of my heart.” I do not argue with You, Who is the Truth, and I do not want to lie to myself, so that my untruth does not lie to itself. No, I am not arguing with You, for “if You look at iniquity, Lord, Lord, who can stand?”

7. And yet let me speak before You, O Merciful One, to me, “dust and ashes”6. Let me still say: I turn to Your mercy, not to the person who would ridicule me. Maybe you will laugh at me, but when you turn to me, you will take pity on me. What do I want to say, Lord my God? - only that I don’t know where I came from here, into this - should I say - dead life or living death? Don't know. I was greeted with consolations by Your mercy, as I heard about this from my parents according to the flesh, through whom You created me in time; I don’t remember this myself. My first consolation was milk, with which neither my mother nor my nurses filled their breasts; Through them You gave me the food necessary for the baby according to Your decree and according to Your riches distributed to the depths of creation. You have given me the desire not to desire more than You have given, and to my nurses the desire to give me what You have given them. Out of the love You inspired, they wanted to give me what they had in abundance from You. For them, my goodness received from them was good, but it did not come from them, but through them, for all good things come from You and all my salvation comes from My Lord. I understood this later, although You called to me even then - with gifts from outside and invested in me. Even then I knew how to suck, calmed down from bodily pleasure, cried from bodily discomfort - that was all for now.

8. Then I began to laugh, first in my sleep, then while awake. This is what they told me about me, and I believe it, because I saw the same thing in other babies: I don’t remember myself at that time. And then gradually I began to understand where I was; I wanted to explain my desires to those who would fulfill them, but I could not, because my desires were within me, and those around me were outside of me, and they could not enter my soul with any external feeling. I floundered and screamed, expressing with the few signs that I could and as much as I could, something similar to my desires - but these signs did not express my desires. And when they did not obey me, whether they misunderstood me or so as not to harm me, then I was angry that the elders did not obey me and the free did not serve as slaves, and I took revenge for myself by crying. That babies are like this, I learned from those whom I was able to recognize, and that I was the same, they themselves, unconscious ones, told me more about this than my conscious educators.

9. And now my infancy has long since died, and I live, Lord - You, Who lives always, in Whom nothing dies, for before the beginning of the ages and before everything that can be said “before”, You are - You are God and Lord of all Thy creation - the reasons for everything unstable are steadfast with You, the beginnings of everything that change are unchangeable, the order of the disorderly and temporary is eternal - Lord, answer me, did my infancy come after some other dead age of mine or was it preceded only by a period that I spent in my mother's womb? Something was told to me about him, and I myself have seen pregnant women. And what happened before this, my Joy, my Lord? Have I been somewhere, been anyone? There is no one to tell me about this: neither my father nor my mother could do this, there is neither someone else’s experience nor my own memories here. Do you laugh at the fact that I ask this, and order me to praise You and confess You for what I know?

10. I confess You, Lord of heaven and earth, giving You praise for the beginning of my life and for my infancy, which I do not remember. You allowed a person to guess about himself from others, to believe a lot about himself, even relying on the testimony of ordinary women. Yes, I was and lived then, and already at the end of infancy I was looking for signs with which I could tell others about what I felt. Where does such a being come from if not from You, Lord? Is there a master who creates himself? Is there a source flowing somewhere else, from where being and life flow to us? No, You create us, Lord, You, for Whom there is no difference between being and life, for You are perfect Being and perfect Life. You are perfect and You do not change: today does not pass by You, and yet it passes by You, because You have everything; nothing could pass unless You contained everything. And since “Your years do not fail,” then Your years are today. How many of our days and the days of our fathers have passed through Yours today; from him they received their appearance and somehow arose, and others will pass by, receive their appearance and somehow arise. “You are always the same”: everything of tomorrow and what comes after it, everything of yesterday and what is behind it, You will turn into today, You have turned into today. What should I do if someone doesn't understand this? Let him rejoice, saying: “What is this?” Let him rejoice and prefer to find You without finding You, rather than finding You and not finding You.

VII

11. Hear, Lord! Woe to human sins. And the man says this, and You pity him, for You created him, but did not create sin in him. Who will remind me of the sin of my infancy? No one is clean from sin before You, not even a baby whose life on earth is one day. Who will remind me? Some little one in whom I will see what I don’t remember in myself?

So, what did I sin then? The one who, crying, reached for his chest? If I do this now and, with my mouth open, reach not only for my breast, but for food suitable for my age, then I will, in all fairness, be ridiculed and scolded. And then, therefore, I deserved scolding, but since I could not understand the scolder, it was neither accepted nor reasonable to scold me. As we age, we eradicate and discard such habits. I have not seen a knowledgeable person who, when cleaning a plant, would throw away the good branches2. However, was it good, even for one’s age, to strive with tears even for what would have been given to harm? To be cruelly indignant at people who are not subject to control, free and elders, including one’s parents, to try to the best of one’s ability to beat up reasonable people who do not obey the first demand because they did not obey orders, the obedience of which would be disastrous? Babies are innocent in their bodily weakness, and not in their soul. I saw and observed the jealous little one: he had not yet spoken, but he was pale and looked with bitterness at his foster brother. Who doesn't know such examples? Mothers and nurses say that they atone for this, I don’t know by what means. Maybe this is also innocence, with a source of milk, generously pouring out and abundant, not being able to bear a comrade, completely helpless, living only on this food? All these phenomena are meekly tolerated, not because they are insignificant or unimportant, but because over the years they will pass. And You confirm this by saying that the same thing cannot be seen calmly at an older age.

12. Lord my God, it was You who gave the baby life and a body, which you equipped, as we see, with feelings, firmly united his members, adorned him and invested him with the desire inherent in every living creature for the fullness and safety of life. You command me to praise You for this, “to confess You and sing Thy name, O Most High,” for You would be Almighty and Good if You only did this, which no one could do except You; The only One from Whom is all measure, the Most Beautiful, Who makes everything beautiful and orders everything according to His law. This age, Lord, about which I do not remember that I lived, regarding which I rely on others and in which, as I guess from other babies, I somehow acted, I do not want, despite my very fair guesses, to be classified as this life of mine that I live in this world. In terms of the completeness of my oblivion, this period is equal to the one I spent in my mother’s womb. And if “I was conceived in iniquity, and my mother nourished me in sins in her womb,” then where, my God, where, Lord, am I, Thy servant, where or when was I innocent? No, I'm missing this time; and what do I care about him when I can’t find any trace of him?

VIII

13. Have I not, moving towards the present time, passed from infancy to childhood? Or rather, it came to me and replaced infancy. Infancy has not disappeared - where did it go? And yet he was no longer there. I was no longer the baby who couldn't speak, but the boy who spoke. And I remember this, and later I realized where I learned to speak. The elders did not teach me by presenting me with words in a certain and systematic order, as they did a little later with letters. I acted according to my own reason, which You gave me, my God. When I wanted to communicate my heart desires with screams, various sounds and various body movements and achieve their fulfillment, I found myself unable to either get everything I wanted or let everyone I wanted know about it. I caught in my memory when adults named some thing and turned to it based on this word; I saw it and remembered: the sounded word is the name of exactly this thing. That the adults wanted to call her, this was evident from their gestures, from this natural language of all peoples, composed of facial expressions, winks, various body movements and sounds, expressing the state of the soul, which asks, receives, rejects, avoids. I gradually began to understand what the words that were in their place in different sentences and that I often heard were signs of. I forced my lips to cope with these signs and began to express my desires with them. Thus, in order to express my desires, I began to communicate with those among whom I lived with these signs; I entered deeper into the turbulent life of human society, depending on my parents’ orders and the will of my elders.

14. My God, God, what misfortunes and mockery I experienced then. I, a boy, was asked to behave as I should: to obey those who urged me to seek success in this world and improve in the rhetoric that is earned by human honor and deceptive wealth. They sent me to school to learn to read and write. To my misfortune, I did not understand what use it had, but if I was lazy in learning, they beat me; the elders approved of this custom. Many people who lived before us paved these sorrowful paths along which we were forced to pass; labor and sorrow were multiplied for the sons of Adam. I met, Lord, people who prayed to You, and from them I learned, comprehending You to the best of my ability, that You are Someone Big and can, even remaining hidden to our feelings, hear us and help us. And I began to pray to You, “My Help and My Refuge,” and, calling on You, I overcame my tongue-tiedness. Small, but with considerable fervor, I prayed that I would not be beaten at school. And since You did not hear me, which was not to my detriment, the adults, including my parents, who never wanted anything bad to happen to me, continued to laugh at these beatings, which were great and severe at that time. my misfortune.

15. Is there, Lord, a man so great in spirit, clinging to You with such great love? Is there, I say, a man who in his pious love is so highly disposed that the rack, cats and similar torments, about getting rid of which Everywhere with great trepidation they beg You, would you be nothing to him? (Sometimes this happens due to some stupidity.) Could he laugh at those who cruelly cowarded this, as our parents laughed at the tortures to which our teachers subjected us boys? I did not cease to be afraid of them, and did not cease to ask You for deliverance from them, and continued to sin, practicing less in writing, in reading and in thinking about lessons than was required of me. I, Lord, did not lack either memory or abilities with which You wished to sufficiently endow me, but I loved to play, and for this I was punished by those who themselves did, of course, the same thing. The fun of adults is called business, children have it too, but adults punish them for them, and no one feels sorry for either children or adults. Would a fair judge approve of the beatings that I suffered because I played ball and during this game forgot to learn the letters with which I, an adult, played an uglier game? The mentor who beat me was not doing the same thing as me? If a fellow scientist defeated him in some question, was he less choked by bile and envy than I was when a fellow player got the better of me in a ball competition?

16. And yet I sinned, O Lord God, who restrains everything in the world and created everything; sins are only restrained. Lord my God, I have sinned by violating the instructions of my parents and teachers. After all, I was subsequently able to make good use of literacy, which, at the request of my loved ones, whatever their intentions, I had to master. I was disobedient not because I chose the better part, but out of love for the game; I loved winning competitions and was proud of these victories. I amused my ears with false tales that only aroused curiosity, and I was more and more tempted to look with my own eyes at the spectacles and games of the elders. Those who arrange them have such a high rank that almost everyone wants it for their children, and at the same time willingly allow themselves to be flogged if these spectacles interfere with their teaching; parents want it to give their children the opportunity to put on the same spectacles. Look at this, Lord, with a merciful eye and free us, who are already calling on You; free also those who do not yet call on You; let them call upon You, and You shall set them free.