(i) 1. 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; 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....
(In his sixteenth year, lured on by the praise of sin common in the
company of young men with whom he associated, he seduced a girl—and
subsequently became the father of an illegitimate son, whom he loved
greatly. “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?” His
parents did not help him, did not seek to have him marry: “Neither did
the mother of my flesh, 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 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.”)
(In addition, he commits theft for the sake of theft, stealing some
pears for the pure joy of stealing—for they did not eat the pears.
“They” were the group in which he acted this part: he insists that he
would never have stolen had he been alone.)
(vi) 12. 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 anything, 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 sin.
And now, O Lord my God, I inquire 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.
(vii) 15. _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 innocence 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 read 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.