The Confessions - Book II

In his late teens, the young Augustine, having finished local school and waiting to start school in Carthage, embarks on a wild lifestyle, including erotic adventures. His mother, Monica, a Christian, admonishes against this lifestyle which young Augustine dismisses as "womanish advice." His father Patrick, a pagan, seems indifferent and even somewhat expects this moral licentiousness, as long as Augustine focuses on his education, seen as a means to worldly success.

Augustine focuses on one episode from this chapter of his life which involves, of all things, pears. One night after Augustine and his friends could find no other havoc to raise, settled on stealing pears from a nearby pear tree. Augustine now wonders about this theft. He was not hungry nor needed pears. In fact, he and his friends only tasted the pears, and then threw them away to the hogs. They stole the pears for the pure evil joy of stealing. Augustine ponders - the pears themselves were good, his desire for a pear by itself was good, and friendship is good, yet all this turned evil and sin for the joy, sweetness, sport, and love of sin - a turning from God - which Augustine now deeply regrets. Augustine realizes a parallel with fornication - his desire for women and sex was good, but it all turned to evil for the joy, sweetness, sport, and love of sin - a turning from God.

Yet as Augustine recalls what he now calls "rottenness," he praises God for His mercy, His forgiveness, and especially His Grace, that has "melted away my sins as it were ice." Augustine seems to understand that as much as he might recoil at the sins of his youth, it was a journey God had him on to become the man he had become when he wrote The Confessions. The nearby icon by Meltem on the left represents this with Augustine stealing from the pear tree to the left, Augustine later sharing a meal with a friend in the center, and Augustine as a pastor, bishop, and scholar in later life to the right.

On to Book III.

Back to Book I