Augustine, Confessions §aug_conf_02_002: And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved?
Source: Augustine, Confessions (c. AD 400) (aug_conf_02_002) · father
And what was it that I delighted in, but to love, and be loved? but I kept not the measure of love, of mind to mind, friendship's bright boundary: but out of the muddy concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which beclouded and overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness of love from the fog of lustfulness. Both did confusedly boil in me, and hurried my unstayed youth over the precipice of unholy desires, and sunk me in a gulf of flagitiousnesses. Thy wrath had gathered over me, and I knew it not. I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee, and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and further from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots of sorrows, with a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.
Witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15)
- manuscript_tradition: Patrologia Latina (Migne) vol. 32 — Confessions Latin text
- critical_edition: Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (CCSL) 27 — Verheijen
- translation: Pusey translation (1838) — Library of Fathers
- translation: Pine-Coffin translation (Penguin Classics, 1961)
- republication: Internet Archive — Confessions (multiple editions)
- republication: Project Gutenberg — Confessions
- citation_tradition: Aquinas, Summa Theologica — cites Confessions extensively