Summa.
Confessions
Chapter 1. He Deplores the Wickedness of His Youth.
I want to remember my past corruptions and the fleshly defilements of my soul. Not because I love them, but so that I may love you, my God. I do this out of love for your love. I call back my most wicked ways in the bitterness of my reflection so that you might become sweet to me. You are sweetness that does not deceive. You are sweetness that is blessed and secure. You gather me from the scattering in which I was torn to pieces. I was turned away from you, the One, and I vanished into many things. In my youth I once burned to satisfy myself with things below. I dared to grow wild with various shadowy loves. My beauty wasted away. I rotted before your eyes while pleasing myself and desiring to please the eyes of men.
Chapter 2. Stricken with Exceeding Grief, He Remembers the Dissolute Passions in Which, in His Sixteenth Year, He Used to Indulge.
What delighted me was nothing more than loving and being loved. But there was no proper boundary from soul to soul where the bright border of friendship should be. Instead, mists rose up from the muddy desires of the flesh and the hot spring of adolescence. These clouds darkened and obscured my heart. I could not tell the difference between the clear sky of love and the fog of lust. Both boiled together in confusion. They swept my weak youth over the cliffs of desire. They plunged me into whirlpools of shameful acts. Your anger had grown strong over me, but I did not know it. I had gone deaf from the grinding of my mortal chains, the punishment for my soul's pride. I went further and further from you, and you let me go. I was tossed about and poured out and scattered and boiled over in my sexual sins, and you were silent. O my joy that came so late! You were silent then, and I went on traveling far from you into more and more barren seeds of sorrow, in proud dejection and restless weariness.
Who could have given proper measure to my torment? Who could have turned the fleeting beauties of earthly things to good purpose? Who could have set boundaries for their sweetness so that the waves of my youth might surge only as far as the shore of marriage? If there could be no calm in those waters, at least let them be contained by the purpose of bearing children. This is what your law prescribes, Lord. You shape even the offspring of our mortality. You have power to lay a gentle hand that tempers the thorns shut out from your paradise. Your omnipotence is not far from us, even when we are far from you. I should have listened more carefully to the thunder of your clouds."Such people will have trouble in the flesh, but I spare you.""It is good for a man not to touch a woman.""The unmarried man thinks about the things of God and how to please God. But the married man thinks about the things of the world and how to please his wife."I should have heard these voices with greater attention. Cut off for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, I would have awaited your embrace with greater happiness.
But I boiled over in my misery. I followed the rushing current of my own impulses and abandoned you. I broke every one of your laws. Yet I did not escape your punishments. What mortal ever does? You were always there in your merciful rage. You sprinkled the bitterest troubles over all my forbidden pleasures. You did this so I would seek joy without offense. But when I looked for where I could find such joy, I found nothing except you, Lord—nothing except you who shape pain into commandment. You strike in order to heal. You kill us so we will not die away from you. Where was I then? How far had I wandered in exile from the delights of your house? This happened in the sixteenth year of my fleshly age. The scepter of lust took hold of me then. I gave myself completely into its hands. This madness was shameful by human standards and forbidden by your laws. My family had no concern to save me from ruin through marriage. Their only concern was that I should learn to make the finest speeches and persuade others with my words.
Chapter 3. 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.
During that year my studies were interrupted. I had returned home from Madauris, the nearby city where I had begun to study literature and rhetoric. My father was preparing the expenses for a longer journey to Carthage. He was driven more by determination than by wealth, since he was just a poor citizen of Thagaste. Who am I telling this to? Not to you, my God. Instead I tell this story before you to my people, to the human race, to whatever small portion might encounter these writings of mine. And why do I do this? So that both I and whoever reads these words might consider from what depths we must cry out to you. What comes closer to your ears than a confessing heart and a life lived in faith? Everyone praised my father in those days. He spent beyond his financial means to provide his son with whatever was needed for studies, even in a distant land. Many fellow citizens were far wealthier, yet none undertook such efforts for their children. Meanwhile this same father gave no thought to how I was growing in your sight, or how pure I was becoming. He cared only that I should become eloquent, or rather abandoned by your cultivation, O God. You are the one true and good Lord of the field of my heart.
But when I reached that sixteenth year, I took a break from all schooling out of domestic necessity and began living with my parents. The thorns of lust grew wild in my head. No hand was there to root them out. What's more, when my father saw me in the baths showing signs of puberty and dressed in the restless garments of adolescence, he rejoiced as if already anticipating grandchildren. He joyfully told my mother about it. He was drunk with that intoxication in which this world forgets you, its Creator, and loves your creation instead of you. This comes from the invisible wine of a will that is twisted and bent toward base things. But in my mother's heart you had already begun your temple and started your holy dwelling place. My father was still only a catechumen, and recently so. Therefore she leaped up with holy alarm and trembling. Although I was not yet a believer, she still feared those crooked paths walked by those who turn their backs to you instead of their faces.
Woe is me! I dare to say that you remained silent, my God, when I wandered farther from you. Were you truly silent to me then? Whose words were those except yours that came through my mother, your faithful servant, which you sang into my ears? Yet nothing from those words descended into my heart to make me act upon them. She wanted me to listen. I remember in private how she warned me with enormous concern not to commit fornication. Above all, she urged me not to commit adultery with any man's wife. These warnings seemed like women's talk to me. I would have blushed to obey them. But they were your words, and I didn't know it. I thought you were silent and that she was speaking. Through her you were not silent to me. In her you were being despised by me, her son, the son of your handmaid, your servant. But I didn't know this. I rushed headlong with such blindness that among my peers I felt shame for having committed lesser shameful acts. I heard them boasting of their sins. They gloried all the more as their deeds became more disgusting. I was driven to act not only by lust for the deed itself but also by desire for praise. What deserves condemnation except vice? To avoid condemnation, I became more vicious. When I lacked some committed sin to equal myself with the corrupt, I pretended I had done what I had not done. I didn't want to seem more contemptible because I was more innocent. I didn't want to be considered more worthless because I was more chaste.
Look at the companions I traveled with through Babylon's streets. I wallowed in its filth as if it were cinnamon and precious ointments. The invisible enemy trampled me at the city's very heart so I would cling there more tightly. He seduced me because I was easily seduced. My mother had already fled from Babylon's center. She moved more slowly through its outer districts. She had warned me about purity. She was concerned about what she heard of me from her husband. She sensed it was already corrupting and would be dangerous in the future. She tried to restrain it within the bounds of married affection since it could not be cut out entirely. She did not care about this from fear that a wife's chains might hinder my hopes. Not the hopes my mother had for me in the future age with you. Rather the hopes of learning that both parents desperately wanted me to know. My father thought almost nothing about you but only empty things about me. My mother thought those customary studies of doctrine would not only cause no harm in reaching you but would actually help somewhat. This is how I piece it together as I recall my parents' attitudes as best I can. The reins were loosened for my pleasure beyond all proper restraint. I fell into the dissolution of various desires. In everything there was darkness blocking out the clear light of your truth from me, my God. My wickedness emerged like fat from a sacrifice.
Chapter 4. He Commits Theft with His Companions, Not Urged on by Poverty, But from a Certain Distaste of Well-Doing.
Your law certainly punishes theft, Lord. So does the law written in human hearts. Not even wickedness itself can erase that law. What thief willingly puts up with being robbed? Not even a rich man driven by poverty. I wanted to steal and I did steal. No need drove me to it. No lack compelled me. I was disgusted with justice. I was bloated with wickedness. I stole what I already had plenty of. I had much better things than what I stole. I didn't want to enjoy the thing I was stealing for. I wanted the theft itself. I wanted the sin itself. There was a pear tree near our vineyard loaded with fruit. The pears weren't attractive to look at. They didn't taste good either. We wicked young men set out to shake down that tree and carry off its fruit. This happened late at night. We had been playing games in the streets until late as was our destructive habit. We carried away huge loads of pears. We didn't take them for our own meals. We threw them to the pigs. We may have eaten a few. But we did this simply because we enjoyed doing what was forbidden. Look at my heart, God. Look at this heart of mine that you took pity on in the depths of the abyss. Let my heart tell you now what it was looking for there. I wanted to be evil for no reason. My wickedness had no cause except wickedness itself. My evil was disgusting. I loved it anyway. I loved destroying myself. I loved my own ruin. I didn't love the thing I was ruining myself for. I loved my ruin itself. My soul was vile. It was breaking away from your heavens into destruction. I wasn't seeking some shameful advantage. I was seeking shame itself.
Chapter 5. Concerning the Motives to Sin, Which are Not in the Love of Evil, But in the Desire of Obtaining the Property of Others.
Beauty exists in lovely bodies and in gold and silver and all such things. In the touch of flesh, harmony has the greatest power. Each of the other senses has its own fitting response to physical things. Temporal honor has its own charm. The power to command and overcome others has its own glory. From this comes the hunger for revenge. Yet in seeking all these things, we must not depart from you, Lord, nor turn aside from your law. The life we live here has its own attraction because of a certain beauty it possesses. It harmonizes with all these lesser lovely things. Human friendship is sweet with its dear bond because it creates unity from many souls. Because of all these things and others like them, sin enters in. We turn toward these things without restraint. Though they are the lowest goods, we abandon the better and highest goods. We abandon you, Lord our God, and your truth and your law. These lower things do have their pleasures. But they are not like my God who made all things. The righteous person delights in him. He is the joy of those who are pure in heart.
When investigators examine a crime to determine its motive, they typically find no credible explanation unless it appears the perpetrator was driven by desire to obtain one of those goods we have called base, or by fear of losing them. These goods are beautiful and attractive in their own right. Yet they are lowly and worthless compared to higher and blessed goods. A man commits murder. Why did he do it? He desired another man's wife or property. He wanted to steal what he needed to live. He feared losing something similar to that man. He burned with desire for revenge after being wronged. Would anyone commit murder for no reason at all, taking pleasure in the murder itself? Who would believe such a thing? Even that madman of excessive cruelty, who was said to be evil and cruel for its own sake, still had a stated motive."Otherwise,"he said,"his hand and mind would grow sluggish from idleness."But why did he say this? What was his purpose? Obviously, through practicing such crimes he intended to capture the city and gain honors, power, and wealth. He wanted to escape fear of the laws and financial difficulties caused by poverty and guilty conscience. Therefore, even Catiline did not love his crimes for their own sake. He certainly had some other purpose for which he committed them.
Chapter 6. Why 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 did I, wretched as I am, love in you, my theft, my criminal act of that night in my sixteenth year? You were not beautiful, being theft itself. Do you even exist that I might speak to you? Those apples we stole were beautiful because they were your creation, most beautiful of all, creator of all things, good God, highest good, my true good. Those apples were beautiful. But my miserable soul did not desire them. I had plenty of better fruit available to me. I picked those apples only to steal them. After picking them I threw them away, having feasted on nothing but wickedness itself, which brought me joy. If any of those apples entered my mouth, the crime itself was the seasoning. Now, Lord my God, I ask what delighted me in that theft. I see that it had no beauty at all. I do not mean beauty like justice and wisdom possess. It did not even have beauty like the human mind possesses, or memory, or the senses, or living vitality. It was not beautiful like the stars in their splendor, each lovely in its place, or like the earth and sea full of creatures who replace the dying by being born. My theft did not even possess the defective and shadowy beauty that deceiving vices claim.
Pride imitates your loftiness. But you are the one God above all things. Ambition seeks nothing but honors and glory. But you alone deserve honor above all others and are glorious forever. The cruelty of rulers wants to be feared. But who should be feared except the one God? What can be snatched or taken away from his power? When could this happen? Where? How? By whom? The flattery of the lustful wants to be loved. But nothing is more gentle than your love. Nothing is loved more beneficially than your truth which is beautiful and radiant above all things. Curiosity pretends to pursue knowledge. But you know all things perfectly. Even ignorance and foolishness hide under the name of simplicity and innocence. Yet nothing is found more simple than you. What could be more innocent than you? The works of evil are enemies to themselves. Laziness supposedly desires rest. But what rest is certain except in the Lord? Luxury wants to be called satisfaction and abundance. But you are fullness and the unfailing supply of incorruptible sweetness. Wasteful spending casts the shadow of generosity. But you are the most abundant giver of all good things. Greed wants to possess many things. You possess everything. Envy fights over excellence. What is more excellent than you? Anger seeks revenge. Who takes revenge more justly than you? Fear shudders at strange and sudden things that threaten what it loves. It does this while trying to protect its security. But what is strange to you? What is sudden? Who separates from you what you love? Where is security firm except with you? Sadness wastes away over lost things that desire once enjoyed. It feels this way because it would not want things taken from itself just as nothing can be taken from you.
This is how the soul commits adultery. It turns away from you and seeks outside you those things that are pure and clear. But it cannot find them unless it returns to you. All who distance themselves from you and lift themselves up against you imitate you in a twisted way. But even by imitating you this way they show that you are the creator of all nature. Therefore there is no place where anyone can completely escape from you. What did I love in that theft? In what way did I imitate my Lord in a corrupt and twisted manner? Did I take pleasure in breaking the law through deception since I could not break it through power? Was I a prisoner imitating a crippled freedom by doing with impunity what was not allowed? Was this a dark resemblance to omnipotence? Here is that slave fleeing his master and chasing a shadow. O corruption! O monster of life and depth of death! Could I freely do what was not allowed for no other reason than because it was not allowed?
Chapter 7. He Gives Thanks to God for the Remission of His Sins, and Reminds Every One that the Supreme God May Have Preserved Us from Greater Sins.
What shall I give back to the Lord for all that my memory recalls, while my soul feels no fear from it? I will love you, Lord. I will give thanks. I will praise your name because you have forgiven me such great evils and wicked deeds. I credit it to your grace and mercy that you melted away my sins like ice. I credit to your grace even the evil things I did not do. What evil could I not have done, I who loved crime for its own sake? I confess that all has been forgiven me. Both the evils I did of my own will and the evils I did not do because you were my guide. What person, thinking of his own weakness, dares to credit his purity and innocence to his own strength? Would he love you less, as if your mercy were less necessary to him—the mercy by which you forgive sins when people turn to you? Anyone who heard your call and followed your voice and avoided the things he now reads about me as I remember and confess—let him not mock me for being healed as a sick man by that same physician. From that physician he received the gift of not falling sick, or rather of falling less sick. Therefore let him love you just as much—no, even more. Through the one who heals me of such great sicknesses of sin, he sees himself kept free from such great sicknesses of sin.
Chapter 8. In His Theft He Loved the Company of His Fellow-Sinners.
What benefit did I gain, wretch that I was, from those deeds that now make me blush with shame when I recall them? Most of all, what did I gain from that theft in which I loved the stealing itself? Nothing else. The act itself was nothing. This made me all the more wretched. Yet I would not have done it alone. This is how I remember my state of mind then. I absolutely would not have done it alone. Therefore I also loved the companionship of those with whom I committed the act. So I did not love nothing other than theft. Rather, I loved truly nothing else, because even that companionship was nothing. What does this mean really? Who can teach me except the one who illuminates my heart and separates its shadows? What is this thought that comes into my mind to question and examine and consider? If I had loved those apples I stole and wanted to enjoy them, I could have done so alone. It would have been enough to commit that sin to reach my pleasure. I would not have needed to inflame my lust's itch by rubbing against my accomplices' minds. But since I found no pleasure in those apples, my pleasure was in the crime itself. The fellowship of sinning together made that crime possible.
Chapter 9. It Was a Pleasure to Him Also to Laugh When Seriously Deceiving Others.
What was that feeling in my soul? It was certainly completely shameful and excessive. Woe to me for harboring it. But still, what was it? Who can understand their own sins? It was laughter. It was like a tickling of the heart because we were deceiving those who never thought we would do such things and who strongly opposed it. So why did that particular thing delight me when I wouldn't have done it alone? Is it because no one easily laughs by themselves? Indeed, no one does easily. But still, laughter sometimes overcomes people when they are alone and isolated, when no one else is present, if something extremely ridiculous strikes either their senses or their mind. But I would not have done that thing alone. I absolutely would not have done it alone. Here it is before you, my God—the living memory of my soul. I would not have committed that theft alone. In that theft, what I stole did not please me, but the act of stealing did. That act alone would absolutely not have pleased me, nor would I have done it. O friendship that is utterly hostile! O seduction of the mind that cannot be understood! O craving to harm that springs from play and jest! O appetite for another's loss! There was no desire for my own gain. There was no lust for revenge. But when someone says"Let's go, let's do it,"there is shame in not being shameless.
Chapter 10. With God There is True Rest and Life Unchanging.
Who can untangle that most twisted and complicated knot of problems? It is disgusting. I do not want to focus on it. I do not want to see it. I want you instead, justice and innocence, beautiful and lovely with honest light and satisfying beyond all satisfaction. With you there is deep rest. With you there is life undisturbed. Whoever enters into you enters into the joy of his Lord. He will not be afraid. He will find himself perfectly at home in perfect goodness. I flowed away from you and wandered off, my God. In my youth I strayed too far from your stability. I became for myself a land of poverty.