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. Worldly 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.