us were under an
illusion, we are not God.' I asked the sun, moon, and stars, which
said, 'We are not God whom thou seekest.'" And it came home to St.
Augustine that there is only one thing which can answer his question
about the divine--his own soul. The soul said, "No eyes nor ears can
impart to thee what is in me. For I alone can tell thee, and I tell
thee in an unquestionable way." "Men may be doubtful whether vital
force is situate in air or in fire, but who can doubt that he himself
lives, remembers, understands, wills, thinks, knows, and judges? If he
doubts, it is a proof that he is alive, he remembers why he doubts,
he understands that he doubts, he will assure himself of things, he
thinks, he knows that he knows nothing, he judges that he must not
accept anything hastily." Outer things do not defend themselves when
their essence and existence are denied, but the soul does defend
itself. It could not be doubtful of itself unless it existed. By its
doubt it confirms its own existence. "We are and we recognise our
being, and we love our own being and knowledge. On these three points
no illusion in the garb of truth can trouble us, for we do not
apprehend them with our bodily senses like external things." Man
learns about the divine by leading his soul to know itself as
spiritual, so that it may find its way, as a spirit, into the
spiritual world. Augustine had battled his way through to this
knowledge. It was out of such an attitude of mind that there grew up
in pagan nations the desire to knock at the gate of the Mysteries. In
the age of Augustine, such convictions might lead to becoming a
Christian. Jesus, the Logos become man had shown the path which must
be followed by the soul if it would attain the goal which it sees when
in communion with itself. In A.D. 385, at Milan, Augustine was
instructed by St. Ambrose. All his doubts about the Old and New
Testaments vanished when his teacher interpreted the most important
passages, not merely in a literal sense, but "by lifting the mystic
veil by force of the spirit."

What had been guarded in the Mysteries was embodied for Augustine in
the historical tradition of the Evangelists and in the community where
that tradition was preserved. He comes by degrees to the conviction
that "the law of this tradition, which consists in believing what it
has not proved, is moderate and without guile." He arrives at the
idea, "Who could be so blind as to say that the Church of t