Confessions

by Augustine of Hippo

Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.

For they that seek shall find Him, and they that find shall praise Him.

And how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord, since, when I call for Him, I shall be calling Him into myself?

hast Thou no need that aught contain Thee, who containest all things, since what Thou fillest Thou fillest by containing it?

when Thou art poured out on us, Thou art not cast down, but Thou upliftest us; Thou art not dissipated, but Thou gatherest us.

Most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and overspreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things. Thou lovest, without passion; art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged;

receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains;

Oh! that Thou wouldest enter into my heart, and inebriate it, that I may forget my ills, and embrace Thee, my sole good!

Hide not Thy face from me. Let me die—lest I die—only let me see Thy face.

Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; repair Thou it.

I know not whence I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or living death.

For neither my mother nor my nurses stored their own breasts for me; but Thou didst bestow the food of my infancy through them, according to Thine ordinance, whereby Thou distributest Thy riches through the hidden springs of all things.

Thou also gavest me to desire no more than Thou gavest;

to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou gavest them. For they, with a heaven-taught affection, willingly gave me, what they abounded with from Thee. For this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed, from them was it, but through them; for from Thee, O God, are all good things, and from my God is all my health. This I since learned, Thou, through these Thy gifts, within me and without, proclaiming Thyself unt...

Thus, little by little, I became conscious where I was; and to have a wish to express my wishes to those who could content them, and I could not; for the wishes were within me, and they without; nor could they by any sense of theirs enter within my spirit. So I flung about at random limbs and voice, making the few signs I could, and such as I could, like, though in truth very little like, what I wished.

they, all unconscious,

Lord, who for ever livest, and in whom nothing dies:

in Thee live the eternal reasons of all things unreasoning and temporal.

can there elsewhere be derived any vein, which may stream essence and life into us, save from Thee, O Lord, in whom essence and life are one? for Thou Thyself art supremely Essence and Life.

since Thy years fail not, Thy years are one To-day. How many of ours and our fathers’ years have flowed away through Thy “To-day,” and from it received the measure and the mould of such being as they had;

Thou madest him, but sin in him Thou madest not. Who remindeth me of the sins of my infancy? for in Thy sight none is pure from sin, not even the infant whose life is but a day upon the earth.

Thou commandest me to praise Thee in these things, to confess unto Thee, and sing unto Thy name, Thou most Highest.

Thou: whose Unity is the mould of all things; who out of Thy own fairness makest all things fair; and orderest all things by Thy law.

Thy Church, the mother of us all,

“Let him alone, let him do as he will, for he is not yet baptized?” but as to bodily health, no one says, “Let him be worse wounded, for he is not yet healed.”

Thou hast commanded, and so it is, that every inordinate affection should be its own punishment.

Thou light of my heart, Thou bread of my inmost soul, Thou Power who givest vigour to my mind, who quickenest my thoughts, I loved Thee not. I committed fornication against Thee, and all around me thus fornicating there echoed “Well done! well done!” for the friendship of this world is fornication against Thee; and “Well done! well done!” echoes on till one is ashamed not to be thus a man.

I sinned, then, when as a boy I preferred those empty to those more profitable studies, or rather loved the one and hated the other.

a free curiosity has more force in our learning these things, than a frightful enforcement.

Thy laws, from the master’s cane to the martyr’s trials, being able to temper for us a wholesome bitter, recalling us to Thyself from that deadly pleasure which lures us from Thee.

Hear, Lord, my prayer; let not my soul faint under Thy discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto Thee all Thy mercies, whereby Thou hast drawn me out of all my most evil ways, that Thou mightest become a delight to me above all the allurements which I once pursued; that I may most entirely love Thee, and clasp Thy hand with al...

How long roll the sons of Eve into that huge and hideous ocean, which even they scarcely overpass who climb the Cross?

Bear with me, my God, while I say somewhat of my wit, Thy gift, and on what dotages I wasted it.

Thy praises, Lord, Thy praises might have stayed the yet tender shoot of my heart by the prop of Thy Scriptures; so had it not trailed away amid these empty trifles, a defiled prey for the fowls of the air. For in more ways than one do men sacrifice to the rebellious angels.

But what marvel that I was thus carried away to vanities, and went out from Thy presence, O my God, when men were set before me as models, who, if in relating some action of theirs, in itself not ill, they committed some barbarism or solecism, being censured, were abashed; but when in rich and adorned and well-ordered discourse they related their own disordered life, being bepraised, they gloried?

even now Thou drawest out of this horrible gulf the soul that seeketh Thee,

darkened affection is removal from Thee. For it is not by our feet, or change of place, that men leave Thee, or return unto Thee.

lustful, that is, in darkened affections, is the true distance from Thy face.

How deep are Thy ways, O God, Thou only great, that sittest silent on high, and by an unwearied law dispensing penal blindness to lawless desires.

For these very sins, as riper years succeed, these very sins are transferred from tutors and masters, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold and manors and slaves, just as severer punishments displace the cane.

It was the low stature then of childhood, which Thou our King didst commend as an emblem of lowliness, when Thou saidst, Of such is the kingdom of heaven.

Good, then, is He that made me, and He is my good; and before Him will I exult for every good which of a boy I had.

I myself shall be with Thee, since even to be Thou hast given me.