after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in Him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And since at that time
(Thou, O light of my heart, knowest) Apostolic Scripture was not known
to me, I was delighted with that exhortation, so far only, that I
was thereby strongly roused, and kindled, and inflamed to love, and
seek, and obtain, and hold, and embrace not this or that sect, but
wisdom itself whatever it were; and this alone checked me thus
unkindled, that the name of Christ was not in it. For this name,
according to Thy mercy, O Lord, this name of my Saviour Thy Son, had
my tender heart, even with my mother's milk, devoutly drunk in and
deeply treasured; and whatsoever was without that name, though never
so learned, polished, or true, took not entire hold of me.

I resolved then to bend my mind to the holy Scriptures, that I might
see what they were. But behold, I see a thing not understood by the
proud, nor laid open to children, lowly in access, in its recesses
lofty, and veiled with mysteries; and I was not such as could enter
into it, or stoop my neck to follow its steps. For not as I now speak,
did I feel when I turned to those Scriptures; but they seemed to me
unworthy to he compared to the stateliness of Tully: for my swelling
pride shrunk from their lowliness, nor could my sharp wit pierce the
interior thereof. Yet were they such as would grow up in a little one.
But I disdained to be a little one; and, swollen with pride, took
myself to be a great one.

Therefore I fell among men proudly doting, exceeding carnal and
prating, in whose mouths were the snares of the Devil, limed with
the mixture of the syllables of Thy name, and of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, our Comforter. These
names departed not out of their mouth, but so far forth as the sound