On Order 2.45–2.54

"But do not, mother, I beg you, let this as it were immense forest of things frighten you away from what we need of them for what we are seeking. For certain things will be chosen from all of them, very few in number but very powerful, and, though hard for many to know, they will be as easy for you, whose talent is new to me every day, and whose mind, whether by age or by wonderful temperance most removed from all trifles and emerging from the great stain of the body, I know has risen high within itself, as they will be hard for the slowest and those who live most wretchedly. For if I said that you will easily attain to a speech free from faults of pronunciation and language, I would surely lie. For even I, who had great need to learn these things thoroughly, am still criticized by the Italians for many sounds of words, and they in turn are criticized by me as regards the sound itself. For it is one thing to be secure by art, another by birth. As for what we call solecisms, perhaps any learned man who pays careful attention will find them in my speech; for there was someone who very skillfully persuaded me that even Cicero himself committed some faults of this kind. And as for barbarisms, in our times a kind has been discovered such that even that speech of his by which Rome was saved seems barbarous. But you, despising these things, either childish or not pertaining to you, will so know the almost divine power and nature of grammar that you will seem to have held its soul and left its body to the eloquent."

"I would say this also of the other arts of this kind; and if you perhaps despise them entirely, I advise you, as far as I dare as your son and as far as you allow, to guard firmly and carefully that faith of yours which you received through the venerable mysteries, and then to remain constantly and watchfully in this life and these morals. As for the most obscure and yet divine matters: how God both does no evil and is almighty, and so many evils happen; for what good he made the world, since he was in need of nothing; and whether evil always existed or began in time; and, if it always existed, whether it was under God's control; and if it was, whether this world also always existed, in which that evil was tamed by divine order. If this world began to exist at some time, how was evil held by God's power before it existed, and what need was there for the world to be built, in which evil, which God's power was already restraining, should be shut up for the punishment of souls? If there was a time when evil was not under God's dominion, what suddenly happened that had not happened through eternal ages past? For to say that a new plan arose in God, not to say impious, is most foolish. But if we say that evil was troublesome and as it were wicked toward God, as some think, no learned man will keep from laughing and no unlearned man will fail to be angry; for what harm could that nature of evil, whatever it is, do to God? If they say it could not, there will be no reason for building the world; if they say it could, it is an inexpiable crime to believe that God can be violated, and not even in such a way that he provided by his power that his substance should not be violated; for they admit that the soul pays penalties here, while they want there to be no difference at all between its substance and God's. But if we say that this world was not made, it is impious and ungrateful to believe it, lest it follow that God did not build it. So about these and such matters nothing is to be inquired except by that order of learning, or not at all."

"And so that no one may think we have embraced something very wide, I say this more plainly and briefly: no one ought to aspire to the knowledge of these things without that twofold knowledge, as it were, of good disputation and of the power of numbers. If anyone thinks even this too much, let him know numbers alone very well, or dialectic alone. If even this is endless, let him know perfectly only what one is in numbers and how much it can do, not yet in that highest law and highest order of all things, but in the things we perceive and do everywhere every day. For philosophy itself takes up this learning, and in it he will find nothing more than what one is, but far more deeply and far more divinely. Its question is twofold, one about the soul, the other about God. The first makes us know ourselves, the other our origin. The former is sweeter to us, the latter dearer; the former makes us worthy of the happy life, the latter makes us happy; the first is for learners, the latter for the already learned. This is the order of the studies of wisdom, by which each becomes fit to understand the order of things, that is, to discern the two worlds and the very Father of the universe, of whom there is no knowledge in the soul except to know how it does not know him."

"Keeping this order, then, the soul now given over to philosophy first looks into itself, and, having been persuaded by that learning that reason is either its own or itself, and that in reason either nothing is better and more powerful than numbers or reason is nothing but number, it will speak thus with itself: 'By a certain inner and hidden movement of mine I can distinguish or connect the things that are to be learned, and this power of mine is called reason. But what is to be distinguished, except what is thought to be one and is not, or certainly is not as much one as it is thought? Likewise, why is anything to be connected, except that it may become one as far as it can? So both in distinguishing and in connecting I want one and I love one; but when I distinguish, I want it purified, when I connect, whole. In the former, foreign things are avoided; in the latter, proper things are joined, so that something one and perfect may come to be. For a stone to be a stone, all its parts and its whole nature have been solidified into one. What of a tree? Would it not cease to be a tree if it were not one? What of the members and organs of any animal and whatever it consists of? Certainly if they suffer a divorce from unity, it will not be an animal. What do friends strive for but to be one? And the more one they are, the more friends they are. A people is one city, for which dissension is dangerous. And what is to dissent but not to think one thing? From many soldiers one army is made. Is not any multitude the less easily defeated the more it comes together into one? Hence the very coming together into one is called a wedge (cuneus), as if co-uneus. What of all love? Does it not want to become one with what it loves, and, if it succeeds, become one with it? Pleasure itself delights more vehemently for no other reason than that bodies loving each other are brought together into one. Why is pain harmful? Because it strives to tear apart what was one. So it is troublesome and dangerous to become one with what can be separated.'"

"'From many things lying about before, then gathered into one form, I make one house. I am better, since I make it and it is made; better precisely because I make it; there is no doubt that in this I am better than the house. But I am not in this better than a swallow or a little bee (for the one builds nests skillfully and the other honeycombs); I am better than these because I am a rational animal. But if reason lies in fixed measures, is what birds build less fittingly and harmoniously measured? On the contrary, it is most rhythmical. So I am better not by making rhythmical things but by knowing numbers. What then? Could they make rhythmical things without knowing? They certainly could. How is this taught? From the fact that we too fit our tongue to the teeth and palate by fixed measures so that letters and words break forth from the mouth, and yet when we speak we do not think by what movement of the mouth we must do it. Then, what good singer, even if unskilled in music, does not keep in memory while singing, by natural sense itself, the rhythm and melody he has perceived, than which what can be done more rhythmically? The unlearned man does not know it, yet he does it, nature working. When then is he better and to be ranked above cattle? When he knows what he does. Nothing ranks me above cattle except that I am a rational animal.'"

"'How then is reason immortal, and I am at the same time defined as something rational and mortal? Or is reason not immortal? But one is to two as two is to four is a most true ratio; and this ratio was no more true yesterday than today, nor will it be more true tomorrow or a year from now; nor, if this whole world collapsed, could this ratio cease to be. For it is always such; but this world neither had yesterday nor will have tomorrow what it has today, nor even on this very day, or in the space of one hour, has it had the sun in the same place; so, since nothing in it remains, it has nothing in the same way even for a short space of time. So if reason is immortal, and I, who distinguish or connect all these things, am reason, that by which I am called mortal is not mine; or if the soul is not the same as reason, and yet I use reason and am better through reason, I must flee from the worse to the better, from the mortal to the immortal.' These and many other things the well-educated soul speaks and turns over with itself, which I do not want to pursue, lest, while I wish to teach you order, I exceed measure, which is the father of order. For step by step it leads itself to morals and the best life, no longer by faith alone but by sure reason. To one who carefully considers the force and power of numbers it will seem most unworthy and most lamentable that by its own knowledge a verse should run well and a cithara harmonize, while its own life and itself, which is the soul, follows a crooked road and, with lust ruling over it, is out of tune with the most shameful din of vices."

"But when it has composed and ordered itself and made itself harmonious and beautiful, it will dare to see God, the very source from which all truth flows, and the very Father of truth. Great God, what will those eyes be, how sound, how fair, how strong, how constant, how serene, how blessed! And what is it that they see? What, I ask, should we think, judge, say? Everyday words come to mind, and all are soiled by the meanest things. I will say nothing more than that we are promised the sight of a beauty by imitation of which other things are beautiful, by comparison with which they are ugly. Whoever has seen it (and he will see it who lives well, prays well, studies well), how will it trouble him why one who wishes to have children has none, another has them abundantly, another exposes them, hates them before they are born, loves them once born? How will it not conflict with him that nothing will be that is not with God, from which it follows necessarily that all things happen by order, and yet that God is not prayed to in vain? Finally, when will any burdens or dangers or disdains or flatteries of fortune move this man? For in this sensible world one must consider earnestly what time and place are, so that what delights in a part, whether of place or of time, may be understood to be much less good than the whole of which it is a part; and again, so that it may be clear to a learned man that what offends in a part offends for no other reason than that the whole is not seen, with which that part wonderfully harmonizes; while in that intelligible world any part is beautiful and perfect like the whole. These things will be said more fully if your studies resolve to keep, as I urge and hope, either the order we have described or another, perhaps shorter and more convenient, but still right order, and keep it altogether diligently and constantly."

"That we may be allowed this, the greatest effort must be given to the best morals; for our God will not be able to hear us otherwise, but he will most easily hear those who live well. Let us pray, then, not that riches or honors or such fleeting and tottering things, which pass away at any resistance, may come to us, but those things that make us good and happy. That these prayers may be fulfilled most devoutly, we lay this task above all on you, mother, by whose prayers I believe and affirm without doubt that God gave me this mind, that I put nothing at all before finding the truth, want nothing else, think of nothing else, love nothing else; and I do not cease to believe that we shall obtain so great a good, which we have desired through your merit, by your asking too. Now, Alypius, what shall I urge or advise you? You are not excessive, because loving such things, however much, can perhaps always be rightly called too little, but never too much."

Here Alypius said: "You have truly brought it about that the memory of the most learned and great men, which sometimes seemed incredible because of the greatness of the things, we not only do not hold doubtful, through daily consideration and through this present admiration we have for you, but could even swear to it if necessary. For what? Has not that venerable and almost divine discipline of Pythagoras, which has rightly been both held and proved so, been opened today by you almost before our eyes, when you showed both the rules of life and not so much the paths of knowledge as its very fields and clear seas, and, what that man held in great veneration, the very sanctuaries of truth, where they are, what they are like, and what sort of men should seek them, so briefly and so plainly that, although we suspect and believe that you have still more secret things, we would think ourselves not without shamelessness if we thought anything more should be demanded?"

"I accept this gladly," I said, "for it is not so much your words, which are not true, as the true mind in the words that delights and stirs me; and it is good that we have decided to send this writing to one who is accustomed gladly to tell many lies about us. And if others perhaps read it, I do not fear that they will be angry with you. For who would not most kindly pardon the error of one who loves when he judges? But as for your mention of Pythagoras, I believe it came into your mind by some hidden divine order. For a very necessary thing had completely slipped my mind, which I usually admire in that man (if anything committed to writing is to be believed; though who would not believe Varro?) and, as you know, praise almost daily: that he handed on the discipline of governing the state to his hearers last, when they were already learned, already perfect, already wise, already happy. For he saw such great waves there that he would not entrust them to anyone but a man who would both avoid the rocks in governing almost divinely and, if everything else failed, would himself become like a rock to those waves. For of the wise man alone can it be said most truly: 'He, like a rock of the sea, stands unmoved,' and the rest that has been said in splendid verses to this effect." Here the discussion came to an end, and, all being glad and full of hope, we dismissed the gathering, since the night lamp had already been brought in.