The Confessions of St. Augustine

BOOK II

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.