The Confessions
Book II, Chapter I: He Deplores the Wickedness of His Youth.
Chapter I.—He Deplores the Wickedness of His Youth.
1. I Will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul, not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God. For love of Thy love do I it, recalling, in the very bitterness of my remembrance, my most vicious ways, that Thou mayest grow sweet to me,—Thou sweetness without deception! Thou sweetness happy and assured!—and re-collecting myself out of that my dissipation, in which I was torn to pieces, while, turned away from Thee the One, I lost myself among many vanities. For I even longed in my youth formerly to be satisfied with worldly things, and I dared to grow wild again with various and shadowy loves; my form consumed away, and I became corrupt in Thine eyes, pleasing myself, and eager to please in the eyes of men.
Edition and rights
NPNF1-01. The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine, with a Sketch of his Life and Work. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1886.
J. G. Pilkington, translator of the Confessions
Ancient work and historical English translation: public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Copyright rules vary by country. This is a historical source transcription, not an official Church edition. Modern website material is not reproduced.
Historical footnotes and publisher introductions are omitted. Author-written openings are retained. Paragraph whitespace is normalized. Transcriptions can contain errors; this is not a critical edition. Attribution follows the historical edition, not universal scholarly agreement.
Digitization provenance (not an external reading link): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/npnf101.xml
Source section: vi.II_1.I · Text SHA-256: b4b555eff804edb10c6f872987349674aea8906be164e7fb89e0e425cd259de1