Confessions

Augustine prepares to tell God about the lustful promiscuity of his adolescence. Augustine regrets that his parents cared too much about Augustine’s career prospects at this stage to marry him off, as he presumes matrimony would have prevented much sin. Still, he trusts these events were part of God’s plan.

When Augustine was 16, Patricius, prioritizing ambition over Christian morals and the economic hardship his decision would bring about, prepared to send Augustine to study in Carthage, the most important city in Roman Africa at that time. Around that time Patricius proudly discovered his son’s budding sexuality and shared the news with his wife. Horrified, Monica warned Augustine away from the sin of lust. In reflection, Augustine attributes this advice to God himself, but at the time he disregarded it. Instead, afraid to be more innocent than his peers, Augustine cultivated his lust and even fabricated stories of additional promiscuity to increase his reputation.

One evening, Augustine and his friends stole pears from a nearby orchard not to eat them but simply out of “a greedy, full-fed love of sin” (37). Reflecting on this event, Augustine articulates a theory of sin.