into my ears?  None of them, however, sank into my heart to make 
me do anything.  She deplored and, as I remember, warned me 
privately with great solicitude, "not to commit fornication; but 
above all things never to defile another man's wife." These 
appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I would have blushed 
to obey.  Yet they were from thee, and I knew it not.  I thought 
that thou wast silent and that it was only she who spoke.  Yet it 
was through her that thou didst not keep silence toward me; and in 
rejecting her counsel I was rejecting thee -- I, her son, "the son 
of thy handmaid, thy servant."[49]  But I did not realize this, 
and rushed on headlong with such blindness that, among my friends, 
I was ashamed to be less shameless than they, when I heard them 
boasting of their disgraceful exploits -- yes, and glorying all 
the more the worse their baseness was.  What is worse, I took 
pleasure in such exploits, not for the pleasure's sake only but 
mostly for praise.  What is worthy of vituperation except vice 
itself?  Yet I made myself out worse than I was, in order that I 
might not go lacking for praise.  And when in anything I had not 
sinned as the worst ones in the group, I would still say that I 
had done what I had not done, in order not to appear contemptible 
because I was more innocent than they; and not to drop in their 
esteem because I was more chaste.

     8.  Behold with what companions I walked the streets of 
Babylon!  I rolled in its mire and lolled about on it, as if on a 
bed of spices and precious ointments.  And, drawing me more 
closely to the very center of that city, my invisible enemy trod 
me down and seduced me, for I was easy to seduce.  My mother had 
already fled out of the midst of Babylon[50] and was progressing, 
albeit slowly, toward its outskirts.  For in counseling me to 
chastity, she did not bear in mind what her husband had told her 
about me.  And although she knew that my passions were destructive 
even then and dangerous for the future, she did not think they 
should be restrained by the bonds of conjugal affection -- if, 
indeed, they could not be cut away to the quick.  She took no heed 
of this, for she was afraid lest a wife should prove a hindrance 
and a burden to my hopes.  These were not her hopes of the world 
to come, which my mother had in thee, but the hope of learning, 
which both my parents were too anxious that I should acquire -- my 
father, because he had little or no thought of thee, and only vain 
thoughts for me; my mother, because she thought that the usual 
course of study would not only be no hindrance but actually a 
furtherance toward my eventual return to thee.  This much I 
conjecture, recalling as well as I can the temperaments of my 
parents.  Meantime, the reins of discipline were slackened on me, 
so that without the restraint of due severity, I might play at 
whatsoever I fancied, even to the point of dissoluteness.  And in 
all this there was that mist which shut out from my sight the 
brightness of thy truth, O my God; and my iniquity bulged out, as 
it were, with fatness![51]

                          CHAPTER IV

     9.  Theft is punished by thy law, O Lord, and by the law 
written in men's hearts, which not even ingrained wickedness can 
erase.  For what thief will tolerate another thief stealing from 
him?  Even a rich thief will not tolerate a poor thief who is 
driven to theft by want.  Yet I had a desire to commit robbery, 
and did so, compelled to it by neither hunger nor poverty, but 
through a contempt for well-doing and a strong impulse to 
iniquity.  For I pilfered something which I already had in 
sufficient measure, and of much better quality.  I did not desire 
to enjoy what I stole, but only the theft and the sin itself.

     There was a pear tree close to our own vineyard, heavily 
laden with fruit, which was not tempting either for its color or 
for its flavor.  Late one night -- having prolonged our games in 
the streets until then, as our bad habit was -- a group of young 
scoundrels, and I among them, went to shake and rob this tree.  We 
carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to 
dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves.  
Doing this pleased us all the more because it was forbidden.  Such 
was my heart, O God, such was my heart -- which thou didst pity 
even in that bottomless pit.  Behold, now let my heart confess to 
thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously 
wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself.  It was 
foul, and I loved it.  I loved my own undoing.  I loved my error 
-- not that for which I erred but the error itself.  A depraved 
soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself, 
seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself.

                           CHAPTER V

     10.  Now there is a comeliness in all beautiful bodies, and 
in gold and silver and all things.  The sense of touch has its own 
power to please and the other senses find their proper objects in 
physical sensation.  Worldly honor also has its own glory, and so 
do the powers to command and to overcome: and from these there 
springs up the desire for revenge.  Yet, in seeking these 
pleasures, we must not depart from thee, O Lord, nor deviate from 
thy law.  The life which we live here has its own peculiar 
attractiveness because it has a certain measure of comeliness of 
its own and a harmony with all these inferior values.  The bond of 
human friendship has a sweetness of its own, binding many souls 
together as one.  Yet because of these values, sin is committed, 
because we have an inordinate preference for these goods of a 
lower order and neglect the better and the higher good -- 
neglecting thee, O our Lord God, and thy truth and thy law.  For 
these inferior values have their delights, but not at all equal to 
my God, who hath made them all.  For in him do the righteous