Confessions

The Confessions stands as the foundational spiritual autobiography of Western civilization. Written by Augustine of Hippo around 397–400 AD, this masterwork traces the disorder of desire, the hunger for truth, and the soul's movement toward God. From the theft of pears to the gardens of Milan, from Manichaean speculation to Christian baptism, Augustine recounts a life of wandering and homecoming that became the template for Western introspection.

The work is divided into thirteen books: the first nine narrate Augustine's life from infancy through his conversion and his mother Monica's death; the final four turn to philosophical meditation on memory, time, and creation. Together they form a sustained prayer addressed to God, an exercise in self-knowledge conducted before the divine gaze.

Confessiones fundamentalis vitae narratio spiritalis Occidentis civilitatis exstat. Ab Augustino Hipponensi circa annos 397–400 AD scriptum, hoc opus perturbationem cupiditatis, famem veritatis, animaeque motum ad Deum persequitur.

Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation.

Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee?

For who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee?

Magnus es, Domine, et laudabilis valde: magna virtus tua, et sapientiae tuae non est numerus. Et laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae, et homo circumferens mortalitatem suam, circumferens testimonium peccati sui et testimonium quia superbis resistis: et tamen laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae.

Tu excitas ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. Da mihi, Domine, scire et intellegere utrum sit prius invocare te an laudare te, et scire te prius sit an invocare te.

There was a pear tree near our vineyard, laden with fruit, tempting neither for colour nor taste. To shake and rob this, some lewd young fellows of us went, late one night, and took huge loads, not for our eating, but to fling to the very hogs, having only tasted them.

And this, but to do what we liked only, because it was misliked. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart, which Thou hadst pity upon in the bottom of the bottomless pit. Now, behold, let my heart tell Thee what it sought there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to ill, but the ill itself.

It was foul, and I loved it; I loved to perish, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my fault itself. Foul soul, falling from Thy firmament to utter destruction; not seeking aught through the shame, but the shame itself!

Pirus erat in vicinia nostrae vineae pomis onusta nec forma nec sapore inlecebrosis. Ad hanc excutiendam atque asportandam nequissimi adulescentuli perreximus nocte intempesta et abstulimus inde onera ingentia non ad nostras epulas, sed vel proicienda porcis, etiamsi aliquid inde comedimus, dum tamen fieret a nobis quod eo liberet quo non liceret.

To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares.

For within me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hungered; but was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it.

Veni Carthaginem, et circumstrepebat me undique sartago flagitiosorum amorum. Nondum amabam et amare amabam et secretiore indigentia oderam me minus indigentem. Quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare, et oderam securitatem et viam sine muscipulis.

So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, "Take up and read; Take up and read."

Instantly, my countenance altered, I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find.

I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence." No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.

Dicebam haec et flebam amarissima contritione cordis mei. Et ecce audio vocem de vicina domo cum cantu dicentis et crebro repetentis, quasi pueri an puellae, nescio: "Tolle lege, tolle lege."

Arripui, aperui et legi in silentio capitulum quo primum coniecti sunt oculi mei: "Non in comessationibus et ebrietatibus, non in cubilibus et impudicitiis, non in contentione et aemulatione, sed induite Dominum Iesum Christum et carnis providentiam ne feceritis in concupiscentiis." Nec ultra volui legere nec opus erat. Statim quippe cum fine huiusce sententiae quasi luce securitatis infusa cordi meo omnes dubitationis tenebrae diffugerunt.

The day now approaching whereon she was to depart this life, we being alone were discoursing together very sweetly; and forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, we were enquiring between ourselves in the presence of the Truth, which Thou art, of what sort the eternal life of the saints was to be.

And when our discourse was brought to that point, that the very highest delight of the earthly senses, in the very purest material light, was, in respect of the sweetness of that life, not only not worthy of comparison, but not even of mention; we raising up ourselves with a more glowing affection towards the Self-same, did by degrees pass through all things bodily, even the very heaven whence sun and moon and stars shine upon the earth.

Yea, we were soaring higher yet, by inward musing, and discourse, and admiring of Thy works; and we came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might arrive at that region of never-failing plenty, where Thou feedest Israel for ever with the food of truth.

Imminente autem die quo ex hac vita erat exitura, contigit ut soli cum ea staremus; et valde suaviter loqueremur, et praeterita obliviscentes in ea quae ante sunt extenti quaerebamus inter nos apud praesentem veritatem, quod tu es, qualis futura esset vita aeterna sanctorum.

Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee! For behold Thou wert within me, and I outside; and I sought Thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that Thou hast made.

Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. I was kept from Thee by those things, yet had they not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness: and Thou didst send forth Thy beams and shine upon me and chase away my blindness.

Thou didst breathe fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and do now pant for Thee: I tasted Thee, and now hunger and thirst for Thee: Thou didst touch me, and I have burned for Thy peace.

Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi! Et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam; et in ista formosa quae fecisti deformis irruebam.

Mecum eras, et tecum non eram. Ea me tenebant longe a te, quae si in te non essent, non essent. Vocasti et clamasti et rupisti surditatem meam; coruscasti, splenduisti et fugasti caecitatem meam.

Fragrasti, et duxi spiritum et anhelo tibi; gustavi, et esurio et sitio; tetigisti me, et exarsi in pacem tuam.

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say boldly that I know, that if nothing passed away, time past were not; and if nothing were coming, a time to come were not; and if nothing were, time present were not.

Those two times then, past and to come, how are they, seeing the past now is not, and that to come is not yet? But the present, should it always be present, and never pass into time past, verily it should not be time, but eternity.

If time present (if it is to be time) only cometh into existence because it passeth into time past, how can we say that either this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be; so, namely, that we cannot truly say that time is, but because it is tending not to be?

Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio: fidenter tamen dico scire me quod, si nihil praeteriret, non esset praeteritum tempus, et si nihil adveniret, non esset futurum tempus, et si nihil esset, non esset praesens tempus.

For sixteen centuries, the Confessions has guided countless souls toward self-knowledge and communion with God. Its message remains startlingly relevant: that true peace is found not in the scattered pleasures of the world, but in the One who made us for Himself.

Augustine wrote from the depths of his own struggle—with lust, with ambition, with the seductions of rhetoric and philosophy—yet his words speak directly to anyone who has felt the restlessness of a heart not yet at home. The path he describes, from dispersion to integration, from the love of creatures to the love of Creator, remains open to all who would walk it.

"Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee."