The Confessions Of Saint Augustine

Book II

Chapter I  -He deplores the wickedness of his youth.

   I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of

   my soul; not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God.

   For love of Thy love I do it; reviewing my most wicked ways in the very

   bitterness of my remembrance, that Thou mayest grow sweet unto me (Thou

   sweetness never failing, Thou blissful and assured sweetness); and

   gathering me again out of that my dissipation, wherein I was torn

   piecemeal, while turned from Thee, the One Good, I lost myself among a

   multiplicity of things. For I even burnt in my youth heretofore, to be

   satiated in things below; and I dared to grow wild again, with these

   various and shadowy loves: my beauty consumed away, and I stank in

   Thine eyes; pleasing myself, and desirous to please in the eyes of men.

Chapter II  -Stricken with exceeding grief, he remembers the dissolute passions  in which, in his sixteenth year, he used to indulge.

   And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved? but I

   kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship's bright

   boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the

   bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my

   heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love from the

   fog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my

   unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and sunk me in a

   gulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered over me, and I knew it

   not. I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the

   punishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee,

   and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and

   dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy

   peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered

   further and further from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots

   of sorrows, with a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.

   Oh! that some one had then attempered my disorder, and turned to

   account the fleeting beauties of these, the extreme points of Thy

   creation! had put a bound to their pleasureableness, that so the tides

   of my youth might have cast themselves upon the marriage shore, if they

   could not be calmed, and kept within the object of a family, as Thy law

   prescribes, O Lord: who this way formest the offspring of this our

   death, being able with a gentle hand to blunt the thorns which were

   excluded from Thy paradise? For Thy omnipotency is not far from us,

   even when we be far from Thee. Else ought I more watchfully to have

   heeded the voice from the clouds: Nevertheless such shall have trouble

   in the flesh, but I spare you. And it is good for a man not to touch a

   woman. And, he that is unmarried thinketh of the things of the Lord,

   how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for the

   things of this world, how he may please his wife.

   To these words I should have listened more attentively, and being

   severed for the kingdom of heaven's sake, had more happily awaited Thy

   embraces; but I, poor wretch, foamed like a troubled sea, following the

   rushing of my own tide, forsaking Thee, and exceeded all Thy limits;

   yet I escaped not Thy scourges. For what mortal can? For Thou wert ever

   with me mercifully rigorous, and besprinkling with most bitter alloy

   all my unlawful pleasures: that I might seek pleasures without alloy.

   But where to find such, I could not discover, save in Thee, O Lord, who

   teachest by sorrow, and woundest us, to heal; and killest us, lest we

   die from Thee. Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights

   of Thy house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the

   madness of lust (to which human shamelessness giveth free licence,

   though unlicensed by Thy laws) took the rule over me, and I resigned

   myself wholly to it? My friends meanwhile took no care by marriage to

   save my fall; their only care was that I should learn to speak

   excellently, and be a persuasive orator.

Chapter III  -Concerning his father, a freeman of Thagaste, the assister of his son's studies, and on the admonitions of his mother on the preservation of chastity

   For that year were my studies intermitted: whilst after my return from

   Madaura (a neighbour city, whither I had journeyed to learn grammar and

   rhetoric), the expenses for a further journey to Carthage were being

   provided for me; and that rather by the resolution than the means of my

   father, who was but a poor freeman of Thagaste. To whom tell I this?

   not to Thee, my God; but before Thee to mine own kind, even to that

   small portion of mankind as may light upon these writings of mine. And

   to what purpose? that whosoever reads this, may think out of what

   depths we are to cry unto Thee. For what is nearer to Thine ears than a

   confessing heart, and a life of faith? Who did not extol my father, for

   that beyond the ability of his means, he would furnish his son with all

   necessaries for a far journey for his studies' sake? For many far abler

   citizens did no such thing for their children. But yet this same father

   had no concern how I grew towards Thee, or how chaste I were; so that I

   were but copious in speech, however barren I were to Thy culture, O

   God, who art the only true and good Lord of Thy field, my heart.

   But while in that my sixteenth year I lived with my parents, leaving

   all school for a while (a season of idleness being interposed through

   the narrowness of my parents' fortunes), the briers of unclean desires

   grew rank over my head, and there was no hand to root them out. When

   that my father saw me at the baths, now growing towards manhood, and

   endued with a restless youthfulness, he, as already hence anticipating

   his descendants, gladly told it to my mother; rejoicing in that tumult

   of the senses wherein the world forgetteth Thee its Creator, and

   becometh enamoured of Thy creature, instead of Thyself, through the

   fumes of that invisible wine of its self-will, turning aside and bowing

   down to the very basest things. But in my mother's breast Thou hadst

   already begun Thy temple, and the foundation of Thy holy habitation,

   whereas my father was as yet but a Catechumen, and that but recently.

   She then was startled with a holy fear and trembling; and though I was

   not as yet baptised, feared for me those crooked ways in which they

   walk who turn their back to Thee, and not their face.

   Woe is me! and dare I say that Thou heldest Thy peace, O my God, while

   I wandered further from Thee? Didst Thou then indeed hold Thy peace to

   me? And whose but Thine were these words which by my mother, Thy

   faithful one, Thou sangest in my ears? Nothing whereof sunk into my

   heart, so as to do it. For she wished, and I remember in private with

   great anxiety warned me, "not to commit fornication; but especially

   never to defile another man's wife." These seemed to me womanish

   advices, which I should blush to obey. But they were Thine, and I knew

   it not: and I thought Thou wert silent and that it was she who spake;

   by whom Thou wert not silent unto me; and in her wast despised by me,

   her son, the son of Thy handmaid, Thy servant. But I knew it not; and

   ran headlong with such blindness, that amongst my equals I was ashamed

   of a less shamelessness, when I heard them boast of their

   flagitiousness, yea, and the more boasting, the more they were

   degraded: and I took pleasure, not only in the pleasure of the deed,

   but in the praise. What is worthy of dispraise but vice? But I made

   myself worse than I was, that I might not be dispraised; and when in

   any thing I had not sinned as the abandoned ones, I would say that I

   had done what I had not done, that I might not seem contemptible in

   proportion as I was innocent; or of less account, the more chaste.

   Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon, and

   wallowed in the mire thereof, as if in a bed of spices and precious

   ointments. And that I might cleave the faster to its very centre, the

   invisible enemy trod me down, and seduced me, for that I was easy to be

   seduced. Neither did the mother of my flesh (who had now fled out of

   the centre of Babylon, yet went more slowly in the skirts thereof as

   she advised me to chastity, so heed what she had heard of me from her

   husband, as to restrain within the bounds of conjugal affection (if it

   could not be pared away to the quick) what she felt to be pestilent at

   present and for the future dangerous. She heeded not this, for she

   feared lest a wife should prove a clog and hindrance to my hopes. Not

   those hopes of the world to come, which my mother reposed in Thee; but

   the hope of learning, which both my parents were too desirous I should

   attain; my father, because he had next to no thought of Thee, and of me

   but vain conceits; my mother, because she accounted that those usual

   courses of learning would not only be no hindrance, but even some

   furtherance towards attaining Thee. For thus I conjecture, recalling,

   as well as I may, the disposition of my parents. The reins, meantime,

   were slackened to me, beyond all temper of due severity, to spend my

   time in sport, yea, even unto dissoluteness in whatsoever I affected.

   And in all was a mist, intercepting from me, O my God, the brightness

   of Thy truth; and mine iniquity burst out as from very fatness.

Chapter IV  -He commits theft with his companions, not urged on by poverty, but from a certain distaste of well-doing.

   Theft is punished by Thy law, O Lord, and the law written in the hearts

   of men, which iniquity itself effaces not. For what thief will abide a

   thief? not even a rich thief, one stealing through want. Yet I lusted

   to thieve, and did it, compelled by no hunger, nor poverty, but through

   a cloyedness of well-doing, and a pamperedness of iniquity. For I stole

   that, of which I had enough, and much better. Nor cared I to enjoy what

   I stole, but joyed in the theft and sin itself. A pear tree there was

   near our vineyard, laden with fruit, tempting neither for colour nor

   taste. To shake and rob this, some lewd young fellows of us went, late

   one night (having according to our pestilent custom prolonged our

   sports in the streets till then), and took huge loads, not for our

   eating, but to fling to the very hogs, having only tasted them. And

   this, but to do what we liked only, because it was misliked. Behold my

   heart, O God, behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity upon in the bottom

   of the bottomless pit. Now, behold, let my heart tell Thee what it

   sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation

   to ill, but the ill itself. It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to

   perish, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my

   fault itself. Foul soul, falling from Thy firmament to utter

   destruction; not seeking aught through the shame, but the shame itself!

Chapter V  -Concerning the motives to sin, which are not in the love of evil, but in the desire of obtaining the property of others.

   For there is an attractiveness in beautiful bodies, in gold and silver,

   and all things; and in bodily touch, sympathy hath much influence, and

   each other sense hath his proper object answerably tempered. Wordly

   honour hath also its grace, and the power of overcoming, and of

   mastery; whence springs also the thirst of revenge. But yet, to obtain

   all these, we may not depart from Thee, O Lord, nor decline from Thy

   law. The life also which here we live hath its own enchantment, through

   a certain proportion of its own, and a correspondence with all things

   beautiful here below. Human friendship also is endeared with a sweet

   tie, by reason of the unity formed of many souls. Upon occasion of all

   these, and the like, is sin committed, while through an immoderate

   inclination towards these goods of the lowest order, the better and

   higher are forsaken,--Thou, our Lord God, Thy truth, and Thy law. For

   these lower things have their delights, but not like my God, who made

   all things; for in Him doth the righteous delight, and He is the joy of

   the upright in heart.

   When, then, we ask why a crime was done, we believe it not, unless it

   appear that there might have been some desire of obtaining some of

   those which we called lower goods, or a fear of losing them. For they

   are beautiful and comely; although compared with those higher and

   beatific goods, they be abject and low. A man hath murdered another;

   why? he loved his wife or his estate; or would rob for his own

   livelihood; or feared to lose some such things by him; or, wronged, was

   on fire to be revenged. Would any commit murder upon no cause,

   delighted simply in murdering? who would believe it? for as for that

   furious and savage man, of whom it is said that he was gratuitously

   evil and cruel, yet is the cause assigned; "lest" (saith he) "through

   idleness hand or heart should grow inactive." And to what end? that,

   through that practice of guilt, he might, having taken the city, attain

   to honours, empire, riches, and be freed from fear of the laws, and his

   embarrassments from domestic needs, and consciousness of villainies. So

   then, not even Catiline himself loved his own villainies, but something

   else, for whose sake he did them.

Chapter VI  -When he delighted in that theft, when all things which under the appearance of good invite to vice are true and perfect in God alone.

   What then did wretched I so love in thee, thou theft of mine, thou deed

   of darkness, in that sixteenth year of my age? Lovely thou wert not,

   because thou wert theft. But art thou any thing, that thus I speak to

   thee? Fair were the pears we stole, because they were Thy creation,

   Thou fairest of all, Creator of all, Thou good God; God, the sovereign

   good and my true good. Fair were those pears, but not them did my

   wretched soul desire; for I had store of better, and those I gathered,

   only that I might steal. For, when gathered, I flung them away, my only

   feast therein being my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy. For if

   aught of those pears came within my mouth, what sweetened it was the

   sin. And now, O Lord my God, I enquire what in that theft delighted me;

   and behold it hath no loveliness; I mean not such loveliness as in

   justice and wisdom; nor such as is in the mind and memory, and senses,

   and animal life of man; nor yet as the stars are glorious and beautiful

   in their orbs; or the earth, or sea, full of embryo-life, replacing by

   its birth that which decayeth; nay, nor even that false and shadowy

   beauty which belongeth to deceiving vices.

   For so doth pride imitate exaltedness; whereas Thou alone art God

   exalted over all. Ambition, what seeks it, but honours and glory?

   whereas Thou alone art to be honoured above all, and glorious for

   evermore. The cruelty of the great would fain be feared; but who is to

   be feared but God alone, out of whose power what can be wrested or

   withdrawn? when, or where, or whither, or by whom? The tendernesses of

   the wanton would fain be counted love: yet is nothing more tender than

   Thy charity; nor is aught loved more healthfully than that Thy truth,

   bright and beautiful above all. Curiosity makes semblance of a desire

   of knowledge; whereas Thou supremely knowest all. Yea, ignorance and

   foolishness itself is cloaked under the name of simplicity and

   uninjuriousness; because nothing is found more single than Thee: and

   what less injurious, since they are his own works which injure the

   sinner? Yea, sloth would fain be at rest; but what stable rest besides

   the Lord? Luxury affects to be called plenty and abundance; but Thou

   art the fulness and never-failing plenteousness of incorruptible

   pleasures. Prodigality presents a shadow of liberality: but Thou art

   the most overflowing Giver of all good. Covetousness would possess many

   things; and Thou possessest all things. Envy disputes for excellency:

   what more excellent than Thou? Anger seeks revenge: who revenges more

   justly than Thou? Fear startles at things unwonted and sudden, which

   endangers things beloved, and takes forethought for their safety; but

   to Thee what unwonted or sudden, or who separateth from Thee what Thou

   lovest? Or where but with Thee is unshaken safety? Grief pines away for

   things lost, the delight of its desires; because it would have nothing

   taken from it, as nothing can from Thee.

   Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns from Thee,

   seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure and untainted, till she

   returns to Thee. Thus all pervertedly imitate Thee, who remove far from

   Thee, and lift themselves up against Thee. But even by thus imitating

   Thee, they imply Thee to be the Creator of all nature; whence there is

   no place whither altogether to retire from Thee. What then did I love

   in that theft? and wherein did I even corruptly and pervertedly imitate

   my Lord? Did I wish even by stealth to do contrary to Thy law, because

   by power I could not, so that being a prisoner, I might mimic a maimed

   liberty by doing with impunity things unpermitted me, a darkened

   likeness of Thy Omnipotency? Behold, Thy servant, fleeing from his

   Lord, and obtaining a shadow. O rottenness, O monstrousness of life,

   and depth of death! could I like what I might not, only because I might

   not?

Chapter VII  -He gives thanks to God for the remission of his sins, and reminds everyone that the supreme God may have preserved us from greater sins.

   What shall I render unto the Lord, that, whilst my memory recalls these

   things, my soul is not affrighted at them? I will love Thee, O Lord,

   and thank Thee, and confess unto Thy name; because Thou hast forgiven

   me these so great and heinous deeds of mine. To Thy grace I ascribe it,

   and to Thy mercy, that Thou hast melted away my sins as it were ice. To

   Thy grace I ascribe also whatsoever I have not done of evil; for what

   might I not have done, who even loved a sin for its own sake? Yea, all

   I confess to have been forgiven me; both what evils I committed by my

   own wilfulness, and what by Thy guidance I committed not. What man is

   he, who, weighing his own infirmity, dares to ascribe his purity and

   innocency to his own strength; that so he should love Thee the less, as

   if he had less needed Thy mercy, whereby Thou remittest sins to those

   that turn to Thee? For whosoever, called by Thee, followed Thy voice,

   and avoided those things which he reads me recalling and confessing of

   myself, let him not scorn me, who being sick, was cured by that

   Physician, through whose aid it was that he was not, or rather was

   less, sick: and for this let him love Thee as much, yea and more; since

   by whom he sees me to have been recovered from such deep consumption of

   sin, by Him he sees himself to have been from the like consumption of

   sin preserved.

Chapter VIII  - In his theft he loved the company of his fellow-sinners.

   What fruit had I then (wretched man!) in those things, of the

   remembrance whereof I am now ashamed? Especially, in that theft which I

   loved for the theft's sake; and it too was nothing, and therefore the

   more miserable I, who loved it. Yet alone I had not done it: such was I

   then, I remember, alone I had never done it. I loved then in it also

   the company of the accomplices, with whom I did it? I did not then love

   nothing else but the theft, yea rather I did love nothing else; for

   that circumstance of the company was also nothing. What is, in truth?

   who can teach me, save He that enlighteneth my heart, and discovereth

   its dark corners? What is it which hath come into my mind to enquire,

   and discuss, and consider? For had I then loved the pears I stole, and

   wished to enjoy them, I might have done it alone, had the bare

   commission of the theft sufficed to attain my pleasure; nor needed I

   have inflamed the itching of my desires by the excitement of

   accomplices. But since my pleasure was not in those pears, it was in

   the offence itself, which the company of fellow-sinners occasioned.

Chapter IX - It was a pleasure to him also to laugh when seriously deceiving others.

   What then was this feeling? For of a truth it was too foul: and woe was

   me, who had it. But yet what was it? Who can understand his errors? It

   was the sport, which as it were tickled our hearts, that we beguiled

   those who little thought what we were doing, and much disliked it. Why

   then was my delight of such sort that I did it not alone? Because none

   doth ordinarily laugh alone? ordinarily no one; yet laughter sometimes

   masters men alone and singly when on one whatever is with them, if

   anything very ludicrous presents itself to their senses or mind. Yet I

   had not done this alone; alone I had never done it. Behold my God,

   before Thee, the vivid remembrance of my soul; alone, I had never

   committed that theft wherein what I stole pleased me not, but that I

   stole; nor had it alone liked me to do it, nor had I done it. O

   friendship too unfriendly! thou incomprehensible inveigler of the soul,

   thou greediness to do mischief out of mirth and wantonness, thou thirst

   of others' loss, without lust of my own gain or revenge: but when it is

   said, "Let's go, let's do it," we are ashamed not to be shameless.

Chapter X  -With God there is true rest and life unchanging.

   Who can disentangle that twisted and intricate knottiness? Foul is it:

   I hate to think on it, to look on it. But Thee I long for, O

   Righteousness and Innocency, beautiful and comely to all pure eyes, and

   of a satisfaction unsating. With Thee is rest entire, and life

   imperturbable. Whoso enters into Thee, enters into the joy of his Lord:

   and shall not fear, and shall do excellently in the All-Excellent. I

   sank away from Thee, and I wandered, O my God, too much astray from

   Thee my stay, in these days of my youth, and I became to myself a

   barren land.

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