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 license,
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.