Cicero's orations and a few of Seneca's books, some of the poets, and
such volumes of his own sect as were written in good Latin, he acquired
a certain seductive eloquence. But it soon became clear that he was
ignorant in those arts in which I thought he excelled, and I began to
despair of his solving the difficulties which perplexed me. He was
sensible of his ignorance in these things, and confessed it, and thus my
zeal for the writings of the Manichæans was blunted. Thus Faustus, to so
many a snare of death, had now, neither willing nor witting it, begun to
loosen that wherein I was taken. Thou didst deal with me that I should
be persuaded to go to Rome and to teach there rather what I was teaching
at Carthage, my chief and only reason being that I heard that young men
studied there more peacefully, and were kept under a more regular
discipline. My mother remained behind weeping and praying. And, behold,
at Rome I was received by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I was
going down to hell, carrying all the sins that I had committed. Thou
healdest me of that sickness that I might live for Thee to bestow upon
me a better and more abiding health. I began then diligently to teach
rhetoric in Rome when, lo! I found other offences committed in that
city, to which I had not been exposed in Africa, for, on a sudden, a
number of youths plot together to avoid paying their master's salary,
and remove to another school. When, therefore, they of Milan had sent to
Rome to the prefect of the city, to furnish them with a rhetoric reader
for their city, I made application that Symmachus, then prefect of the
city, would try me by setting me some subject for oration, and so send
me. Thus to Milan I came, to Ambrose the bishop, best known to the whole
world as among the best of men, Thy servant. To him I was unknowingly
led by Thee, that by him I might knowingly be led to Thee. That man of
God received me as a father, and showed me an episcopal kindness at my
coming. Thenceforth I began to love him. I was delighted with his
eloquence as he preached to the people, though I took no pains to learn