I came to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust.
Arrived...at adolescence I burned for all the satisfactions of hell, and I sank to the animal in a succession of dark lusts: my beauty consumed away, and I stank in Thine eyes, yet was pleasing in my own…..
I had not yet fallen in love, but I was in love with the idea of it [leading to ] a feeling that something was missing…
To love and have my love returned was my heart’s desire, and it would be all the sweeter if I could also enjoy the body of the one who loved me.
…in this I did not keep the measure of mind to mind , which is the luminous line of friendship; but from the muddy concupiscence of the flesh and the hot imagination of puberty mists steamed up to becloud and darken my heart so that I could not distinguish the white light of love from the fog of lust. So I muddied the stream of friendship with the filth of lewdness and clouded its clear waters with hell’s black river of lust.
Both love and lust boiled within me, and swept my youthful immaturity over the precipice of evil desires to leave me half drowned in a whirlpool of abominable sins.
I might well have listened more heedfully to the voice from the clouds....It is good for a man not to touch a woman....
Arrived...at adolescence I burned for all the satisfactions of hell, and I sank to the animal in a succession of dark lusts: my beauty consumed away, and I stank in Thine eyes, yet was pleasing in my own…..
I had not yet fallen in love, but I was in love with the idea of it [leading to ] a feeling that something was missing…
To love and have my love returned was my heart’s desire, and it would be all the sweeter if I could also enjoy the body of the one who loved me.
…in this I did not keep the measure of mind to mind , which is the luminous line of friendship; but from the muddy concupiscence of the flesh and the hot imagination of puberty mists steamed up to becloud and darken my heart so that I could not distinguish the white light of love from the fog of lust. So I muddied the stream of friendship with the filth of lewdness and clouded its clear waters with hell’s black river of lust.
Both love and lust boiled within me, and swept my youthful immaturity over the precipice of evil desires to leave me half drowned in a whirlpool of abominable sins.
I might well have listened more heedfully to the voice from the clouds....It is good for a man not to touch a woman....
I should have listened more closely to these words and made myself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven; and so in all tranquillity awaited Your embraces.
Instead I foamed in my wickedness, following the rushing of my own tide, leaving You and going beyond all Your laws. Nor did I escape your scourges…
You were always by me, mercifully hard upon me, and besprinkling all my illicit pleasures with certain elements of bitterness, to draw me on to seek pleasures in which no bitterness should be. And where was I to find such pleasures save in You O Lord, You who use sorrow to teach, and wound us to heal, and kill us lest we die to You.
Where then was I, and how far from the delights of Your house, in that sixteenth year of my life in this world [when] the madness of lust-needing no licence from human shamelessness, receiving no licence from your laws-took complete control of me and I surrendered wholly to it?
The briars of unclean lusts grew so that they towered over my head, and there was no hand to root them out. On the contrary my father saw me one day in the public baths, now obviously growing towards manhood and showing the turbulent signs of adolescence. The effect upon him was that he already began to look forward to grandchildren, and went home in happy excitement to tell my mother. He rejoiced, indeed, through that intoxication in which the world forgets You its Creator and loves what You have created instead of You, the intoxication of the invisible wine of a will perverted and turned towards baseness.
With the basest companions I walked the streets of Babylon [the city of this world understood as a bastion of moral depravity as opposed to the city of God composed by the righteous ] and wallowed in its filth as if it had been a bed of spices and precious ointments. To make me cleave closer to that city’s centre, the invisible Enemy trod me down and seduced me, for I was easy to seduce.
Instead I foamed in my wickedness, following the rushing of my own tide, leaving You and going beyond all Your laws. Nor did I escape your scourges…
You were always by me, mercifully hard upon me, and besprinkling all my illicit pleasures with certain elements of bitterness, to draw me on to seek pleasures in which no bitterness should be. And where was I to find such pleasures save in You O Lord, You who use sorrow to teach, and wound us to heal, and kill us lest we die to You.
Where then was I, and how far from the delights of Your house, in that sixteenth year of my life in this world [when] the madness of lust-needing no licence from human shamelessness, receiving no licence from your laws-took complete control of me and I surrendered wholly to it?
The briars of unclean lusts grew so that they towered over my head, and there was no hand to root them out. On the contrary my father saw me one day in the public baths, now obviously growing towards manhood and showing the turbulent signs of adolescence. The effect upon him was that he already began to look forward to grandchildren, and went home in happy excitement to tell my mother. He rejoiced, indeed, through that intoxication in which the world forgets You its Creator and loves what You have created instead of You, the intoxication of the invisible wine of a will perverted and turned towards baseness.
With the basest companions I walked the streets of Babylon [the city of this world understood as a bastion of moral depravity as opposed to the city of God composed by the righteous ] and wallowed in its filth as if it had been a bed of spices and precious ointments. To make me cleave closer to that city’s centre, the invisible Enemy trod me down and seduced me, for I was easy to seduce.
My mother had by now fled out of the centre of Babylon….
From St.Augustine,The Confessions of St.Augustine,trans.F.J.Sheed and St.Augutine,Confessions,trans.R.S.Pine-Coffin.
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