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AUGUSTINE: CONFESSIONS INDEX

BOOK TEN

CHAPTER V

7. For it is thou, O Lord, who judgest me. For although no man "knows the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him,"[327] yet there is something of man which "the spirit of the man which is in him" does not know itself. But thou, O Lord, who madest him, knowest him completely. And even I--though in thy sight I despise myself and count myself but dust and ashes--even I know something about thee which I do not know about myself. And it is certain that "now we see through a glass darkly," not yet "face to face."[328] Therefore, as long as I journey away from thee, I am more present with myself than with thee. I know that thou canst not suffer violence, but I myself do not know what temptations I can resist, and what I cannot. But there is hope, because thou art faithful and thou wilt not allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to resist, but wilt with the temptation also make a way of escape that we may be able to bear it. I would therefore confess what I know about myself; I will also confess what I do not know about myself. What I do know of myself, I know from thy enlightening of me; and what I do not know of myself, I will continue not to know until the time when my "darkness is as the noonday"[329] in thy sight.

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