Confessions (Augustine)

Confessions is an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books, by Augustine of Hippo. It was written in Latin between AD 397 and 400.

For the confessions of my past sins (which thou hast forgiven and covered that thou mightest make me blessed in thee, transforming my soul by faith and thy sacrament), when they are read and heard, may stir up the heart so that it will stop dozing along in despair, saying, "I cannot"; but will instead awake in the love of thy mercy and the sweetness of thy grace...

By continence the scattered elements of the self are collected and brought back into the unity from which we have slid away into dispersion.

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Book 1

• O my God! What miseries and mockeries did I then experience when it was impressed on me that obedience to my teachers was proper to my boyhood estate if I was to flourish in this world and distinguish myself in those tricks of speech which would gain honor for me among men, and deceitful riches! To this end I was sent to school to get learning.
  • Book 1, Chapter 9, p. 9, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• We were sinning by writing or reading or studying less than our assigned lessons. For I did not, O Lord, lack memory or capacity, for, by thy will, I possessed enough for my age. However, my mind was absorbed only in play, and I was punished for this by those who were doing the same things themselves. But the idling of our elders is called business; the idling of boys, though quite like it, is punished by those same elders, and no one pities either the boys or the men. For will any common sense observer agree that I was rightly punished as a boy for playing ball—just because this hindered me from learning more quickly those lessons by means of which, as a man, I could play at more shameful games?
  • Book 1, Chapter 9, pp. 9-10, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I disobeyed them, not because I had chosen a better way, but from a sheer love of play. I loved the vanity of victory, and I loved to have my ears tickled with lying fables, which made them itch even more ardently, and a similar curiosity glowed more and more in my eyes for the shows and sports of my elders. Yet those who put on such shows are held in such high repute that almost all desire the same for their children. They are therefore willing to have them beaten, if their childhood games keep them from the studies by which their parents desire them to grow up to be able to give such shows.
  • Book 1, Chapter 10, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• But why, then, did I dislike Greek learning, which was full of such tales? For Homer was skillful in inventing such poetic fictions and is most sweetly wanton; yet when I was a boy, he was most disagreeable to me. I believe that Virgil would have the same effect on Greek boys as Homer did on me if they were forced to learn him. For the tedium of learning a foreign language mingled gall into the sweetness of those Grecian myths. For I did not understand a word of the language, and yet I was driven with threats and cruel punishments to learn it.
  • Book 1, Chapter 14, p. 14, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• There was also a time when, as an infant, I knew no Latin; but this I acquired without any fear or tormenting, but merely by being alert to the blandishments of my nurses, the jests of those who smiled on me, and the sportiveness of those who toyed with me. I learned all this, indeed, without being urged by any pressure of punishment, for my own heart urged me to bring forth its own fashioning, which I could not do except by learning words: not from those who taught me but those who talked to me, into whose ears I could pour forth whatever I could fashion. From this it is sufficiently clear that a free curiosity is more effective in learning than a discipline based on fear.
  • Book 1, Chapter 14, p. 14, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Woe unto you, O torrent of human custom! Who shall stay your course? When will you ever run dry? How long will you carry down the sons of Eve into that vast and hideous ocean.
  • Book 1, Chapter 16, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I do not blame the words [of fiction], for they are, as it were, choice and precious vessels, but I do deplore the wine of error which was poured out to us by teachers already drunk. And, unless we also drank we were beaten, without liberty of appeal to a sober judge.
  • Book 1, Chapter 16, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• What is it now to me, O my true Life, my God, that my declaiming was applauded above that of many of my classmates and fellow students? Actually, was not all that smoke and wind? Besides, was there nothing else on which I could have exercised my wit and tongue? Thy praise, O Lord, thy praises might have propped up the tendrils of my heart by thy Scriptures; and it would not have been dragged away by these empty trifles, a shameful prey to the spirits of the air.
  • Book 1, Chapter 17, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Look down, O Lord God, and see patiently, as thou art wont to do, how diligently the sons of men observe the conventional rules of letters and syllables, taught them by those who learned their letters beforehand, while they neglect the eternal rules of everlasting salvation taught by thee. They carry it so far that if he who practices or teaches the established rules of pronunciation should speak (contrary to grammatical usage) without aspirating the first syllable of "hominem," he will offend men more than if he, a human being, were to hate another human being contrary to thy commandments. It is as if he should feel that there is an enemy who could be more destructive to himself than that hatred which excites him against his fellow man; or that he could destroy him whom he hates more completely than he destroys his own soul by this same hatred. Now, obviously, there is no knowledge of letters more innate than the writing of conscience—against doing unto another what one would not have done to himself.
  • Book 1, Chapter 18, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• It is as if he should feel that there is an enemy who could be more destructive to himself than that hatred which excites him against his fellow man; or that he could destroy him whom he hates more completely than he destroys his own soul by this same hatred.
  • Book 1, Chapter 18, p. 18, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• When a man seeking the reputation of eloquence stands before a human judge, while a thronging multitude surrounds him, and inveighs against his enemy with the most fierce hatred, he takes most vigilant heed that his tongue does not slip in a grammatical error, for example, and say inter hominibus [instead of inter homines], but he takes no heed lest, in the fury of his spirit, he cut off a man from his fellow men [ex hominibus].
  • Book 1, Chapter 18, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• This was the wrestling arena in which I was more fearful of perpetrating a barbarism than, having done so, of envying those who had not.
  • Book 1, Chapter 18, p. 18, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Even in these trifles and also in my thoughts about trifles, I learned to take pleasure in truth.
  • Book 1, Chapter 19, p. 19, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Herein lay my sin, that it was not in him, but in his creatures—myself and the rest—that I sought for pleasures, honors, and truths. And I fell thereby into sorrows, troubles, and errors.
  • Book 1, Chapter 19, p. 19, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Those things which thou hast given me shall be developed and perfected.
  • Book 1, Chapter 19, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 2

• Thus thou mayest gather me up out of those fragments in which I was torn to pieces, while I turned away from thee, O Unity, and lost myself among “the many.”
  • Book 2, Chapter 1, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I did not keep the moderate way of the love of mind to mind—the bright path of friendship.
  • Book 2, Chapter 2, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• … rejoicing in that sort of inebriation in which the world so often forgets thee, its Creator, and falls in love with thy creature instead of thee …
  • Book 2, Chapter 3, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• The law is punished by thy law, O Lord, and by the law written in men’s hearts, which not even ingrained wickedness can erase. For what thief will tolerate another thief stealing from him?
  • Book 2, Chapter 4, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Behold, now let my heart confess to thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing. I loved my error—not that for which I erred but the error itself. A depraved soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself, seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself.
  • Book 2, Chapter 4, p. 25, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Ambition seeks honor and glory, whereas only thou shouldst be honored above all, and glorified forever. The powerful man seeks to be feared, because of his cruelty; but who ought really to be feared but God only?
  • Book 2, Chapter 6, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• All things thus imitate thee—but pervertedly—when they separate themselves far from thee and raise themselves up against thee.
  • Book 2, Chapter 6, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 3

• I was not in love as yet, but I was in love with love; and, from a hidden hunger, I hated myself for not feeling more intensely a sense of hunger. I was looking for something to love, for I was in love with loving, and I hated security and a smooth way, free from snares. Within me I had a dearth of that inner food which is thyself, my God—although that dearth caused me no hunger. And I remained without any appetite for incorruptible food—not because I was already filled with it, but because the emptier I became the more I loathed it. Because of this my soul was unhealthy; and, full of sores, it exuded itself forth, itching to be scratched by scraping on the things of the senses. Yet, had these things no soul, they would certainly not inspire our love.
  • Book 3, Chapter 1, p. 31, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Although he that grieves with the unhappy should be commended for his work of love, yet he who has the power of real compassion would still prefer that there be nothing for him to grieve about. For if good will were to be ill will—which it cannot be—only then could he who is truly and sincerely compassionate wish that there were some unhappy people so that he might commiserate them.
  • Book 3, Chapter 2, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Those studies I was then pursuing, generally accounted as respectable, were aimed at distinction in the courts of law—to excel in which, the more crafty I was, the more I should be praised. Such is the blindness of men that they even glory in their blindness.
  • Book 3, Chapter 3, p. 34, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I studied the books of eloquence, for it was in eloquence that I was eager to be eminent, though from a reprehensible and vainglorious motive, and a delight in human vanity. In the ordinary course of study I came upon a certain book of Cicero’s, whose language almost all admire, though not his heart. This particular book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy and was called Hortensius. Now it was this book which quite definitely changed my whole attitude and turned my prayers toward thee, O Lord, and gave me new hope and new desires. Suddenly every vain hope became worthless to me, and with an incredible warmth of heart I yearned for an immortality of wisdom and began now to arise that I might return to thee. It was not to sharpen my tongue further that I made use of that book.
  • Book 3, Chapter 4, pp. 34-35, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• In Greek the love of wisdom is called “philosophy,” and it was with this love that that book inflamed me. There are some who seduce through philosophy, under a great, alluring, and honorable name, using it to color and adorn their own errors. And almost all who did this, in Cicero’s own time and earlier, are censored and pointed out in his book.
  • Book 3, Chapter 4, p. 35, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I was delighted with Cicero’s exhortation, at least enough so that I was stimulated by it, and enkindled and inflamed to love, to seek, to obtain, to hold, and to embrace, not this or that sect, but wisdom itself, wherever it might be.
  • Book 3, Chapter 4, p. 35, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I resolved, therefore, to direct my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were. And behold, I saw something not comprehended by the proud, not disclosed to children, something lowly in the hearing, but sublime in the doing
  • Book 3, Chapter 5, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• The Holy Scriptures … were of a sort to aid the growth of little ones, but I scorned to be a little one and, swollen with pride, I looked upon myself as fully grown.
  • Book 3, Chapter 5, p. 36, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• O Truth, Truth, how inwardly even then did the marrow of my soul sigh for thee when, frequently and in manifold ways, in numerous and vast books, [the Manicheans] sounded out thy name though it was only a sound!
  • Book 3, Chapter 6, p. 37, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I sought after thee, but not according to the understanding of the mind, by means of which thou hast willed that I should excel the beasts, but only after the guidance of my physical senses. Thou wast more inward to me than the most inward part of me; and higher than my highest reach.
  • Book 3, Chapter 6, p. 38, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I came upon that brazen woman, devoid of prudence, who, in Solomon’s obscure parable, sits at the door of the house on a seat and says, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” This woman seduced me, because she found my soul outside its own door, dwelling on the sensations of my flesh and ruminating on such food as I had swallowed through these physical senses.
  • Book 3, Chapter 6, p. 38, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Though I was retreating from the truth, I appeared to myself to be going toward it, because I did not yet know that evil was nothing but a privation of good (that, indeed, it has no being).
  • Book 3, Chapter 7, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I was entirely ignorant as to what is that principle within us by which we are like God, and which is rightly said in Scripture to be made "after God's image."
  • Book 3, Chapter 7, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 4

• In my public life I was striving after the emptiness of popular fame, going so far as to seek theatrical applause, entering poetic contests, striving for the straw garlands and the vanity of theatricals and intemperate desires.
  • Book 4, Chapter 1, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• During those years I taught the art of rhetoric. Conquered by the desire for gain, I offered for sale speaking skills with which to conquer others.
  • Book 4, Chapter 1, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• This evil thing I refused, but not out of a pure love of thee, O God of my heart, for I knew not how to love thee because I knew not how to conceive of anything beyond corporeal splendors.
  • Book 4, Chapter 2, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 5

• For it still seemed to me “that it is not we who sin, but some other nature sinned in us.” And it gratified my pride to be beyond blame, and when I did anything wrong not to have to confess that I had done wrong. … I loved to excuse my soul and to accuse something else inside me (I knew not what) but which was not I. But, assuredly, it was I, and it was my impiety that had divided me against myself. That sin then was all the more incurable because I did not deem myself a sinner.
  • Book 5, Chapter 10, p. 77, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• They love the transitory mockeries of temporal things and the filthy gain which begrimes the hand that grabs it; they embrace the fleeting world and scorn thee, who abidest and invitest us to return to thee and who pardonest the prostituted human soul when it does return to thee.
  • Book 5, Chapter 12, p. 80, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• The Catholic faith, … I now realized could be maintained without presumption. This was especially true after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically—whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had “killed” me spiritually.
  • Book 5, Chapter 14, p. 81, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Surely unhappy is he who knoweth all [the laws of astronomy], and knoweth not Thee; but happy whoso knoweth Thee, though he know not these. And whoso knoweth both Thee and them is not the happier for them, but for Thee only, if, knowing Thee, he glorifies Thee as God, and is thankful, and becomes not vain in his imaginations (Romans 1:21). For as he is better off who knows how to possess a tree, and return thanks to Thee for the use thereof, although he know not how many cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads, than he that can measure it, and count all its boughs, and neither owns it, nor knows or loves its Creator: so a believer, whose all this world of wealth is, and who having nothing, yet possesseth all things (2 Corinthians 6:10).
  • Book 5, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant. Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like town-made or rustic vessels — both kinds of food may be served in either kind of dish.
  • Book 5, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I still thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature that sins within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it. … I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.
  • Book 5, Chapter 10, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 8

• For many of my years—perhaps twelve—had passed away since my nineteenth, when, upon the reading of Cicero's Hortensius, I was roused to a desire for wisdom. And here I was, still postponing the abandonment of this world's happiness to devote myself to the search. For not just the finding alone, but also the bare search for it, ought to have been preferred above the treasures and kingdoms of this world; better than all bodily pleasures, though they were to be had for the taking.
  • Book 8, Chapter 7, p. 139, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• I had entreated chastity of thee and had prayed, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." For I was afraid lest thou shouldst hear me too soon, and too soon cure me of my disease of lust which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished.
  • Book 8, Chapter 7, p. 139translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 10

• Men go out and gaze in astonishment at high mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad reaches of rivers, the ocean that encircles the world, or the stars in their courses. But they pay no attention to themselves.
  • Book 10, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Because "love believes all things" (1 Cor. 13:7)—at least among those who are bound together in love by its bonds—I confess to thee, O Lord, so that men may also hear; for it I cannot prove to them that I confess the truth, yet those whose ears love opens to me will believe me.
  • Book 10, Chapter 3, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• For the confessions of my past sins (which thou hast "forgiven and covered" that thou mightest make me blessed in thee, transforming my soul by faith and thy sacrament), when they are read and heard, may stir up the heart so that it will stop dozing along in despair, saying, "I cannot"; but will instead awake in the love of thy mercy and the sweetness of thy grace...
  • Book 10, Chapter 3, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• O Lord, ... have mercy upon me according to thy great mercy, for thy name's sake. And do not, on any account whatever, abandon what thou hast begun in me. Go on, rather, to complete what is yet imperfect in me.
  • Book 10, Chapter 4, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• Why, then, does truth generate hatred, and why does thy servant who preaches the truth come to be an enemy to them who also love the happy life, which is nothing else than joy in the truth—unless it be that truth is loved in such a way that those who love something else besides her wish that to be the truth which they do love. Since they are unwilling to be deceived, they are unwilling to be convinced that they have been deceived. Therefore, they hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is that they love in place of the truth. They love truth when she shines on them; and hate her when she rebukes them.
  • Book 10, Chapter 23, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• By continence the scattered elements of the self are collected and brought back into the unity from which we have slid away into dispersion.
  • Book 10, Chapter 29, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• This much thou hast taught me: that I should learn to take food as medicine. But during that time when I pass from the pinch of emptiness to the contentment of fullness, it is in that very moment that the snare of appetite lies baited for me.
  • Book 10, Chapter 31, p. 197, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

• What is sufficient for health is not enough for pleasure. And it is often a matter of doubt whether it is the needful care of the body that still calls for food or whether it is the sensual snare of desire still wanting to be served. In this uncertainty my unhappy soul rejoices, and uses it to prepare an excuse as a defense. It is glad that it is not clear as to what is sufficient for the moderation of health, so that under the pretense of health it may conceal its projects for pleasure.
  • Book 10, Chapter 31, p. 197, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 12

• Wonderful is the depth of Thy oracles, whose surface is before us, inviting the little ones; and yet wonderful is the depth, O my God, wonderful is the depth. It is awe to look into it; and awe of honour, and a tremor of love. The enemies thereof I hate vehemently. Oh, if Thou wouldest slay them with Thy two-edged sword, that they be not its enemies! For thus do I love, that they should be slain unto themselves that they may live unto Thee.
  • Book 12, Chapter 14, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

Book 13

• I could wish that men would consider three things which are within themselves. These three things are quite different from the Trinity, but I mention them in order that men may exercise their minds and test themselves and come to realize how different from it they are. The three things I speak of are: to be, to know, and to will. For I am, and I know, and I will. I am a knowing and a willing being; I know that I am and that I will; and I will to be and to know. In these three functions, therefore, let him who can see how integral a life is; for there is one life, one mind, one essence. Finally, the distinction does not separate the things, and yet it is a distinction.
  • Book 13, Chapter 11, Section 12, p. 275, translated by A. Outler (Dover: 2002)

See also

• Augustine of Hippo