The Confessions of Saint Augustine (Outler)/Book I/Chapter XVI


 * He blames the method in which the young are taught; and shows why the poets attribute vices to the gods.

But woe to thee, thou torrent of human custom! Who shall stand against thee? how long shalt thou not be dried up? how long roll the sons of Eve into that huge and dreadful sea, which even they scarcely overpass who embark upon the wood? Did not I read in thee of Jove the thunderer and adulterer? both, certainly, he could not be; but so it was devised, that the sham thunder might authorize and pander to real adultery. And now which of our gowned masters, lends a sober ear to one of the same clay as themselves, who cries out, "These things Homer feigned, and transferred things human to the gods; would that he had brought down things divine to us!" (Cic. Tusc. i. 26). Yet more truly had he said, "The are indeed but fictions; but by attributing a divine nature to wicked men, crimes were no longer deemed crimes, so that those who commit them might seem to imitate not abandoned men, but the celestial gods."

And yet, thou hellish torrent, into thee are cast the sons of men with rich payments for such learning; and a great business is made of it, when this is being publicly done in the forum, within sight of laws appointing a salary beside the scholar's payments; and thou lashest thy rocks and roarest, "Hence words are learnt; hence eloquence is acquired; most necessary to gain your ends, or set forth your opinions." As if we should have never known such words as "golden shower," "lap," "deceit," "temples of the heavens," or others in that passage, unless Terence had brought a lewd youth upon the stage, setting up Jupiter as his example of debauchery, while he views a "certain picture painted on the wall, where this was shown, how Jove, they say, once dropped in Danae's lap a golden shower, and on the woman passed deceit." And then mark how he excites himself to lust as by celestial authority; "But what God?" saith he. Why, he that shakes the topmost temples of the heavens with his thunder. And may not I, weak man, the same thing do? Eh, but that I did, and merrily." (Terence, Eun. Act iii. Sc. 5.) Not one whit more easily are the words learnt for all this vileness; but by their means the vileness is committed the more boldly. Not that I blame the words, being, as it were, vessels elect and precious; but that wine of error which is in them, was given to us to drink by teachers intoxicated with it; and if we, too, drank not, we were beaten, nor could we appeal to any sober judge. Yet, O my God (in whose presence my remembrance of this is now harmless), all this unhappily I learnt willingly and took delight in it, and for this was pronounced a hopeful boy.