So under the three forms of lust I have considered the sicknesses of my sins, and I have invoked your right hand to save me (Ps. 102:3). ... This is why I lost you: you do not condescend to be possessed together with falsehood.

augustine, confessions, x.66

structural hypothesis: three forms of lust, he discusses all three in books 5 and 6 (right?) and there are three "grant what you command and command what you will" statements in book 10, all paired with "and you command continence." focus of the work is augustine's search for sexual purity. he finds that he can be a stand-in husband or warden of Christ's bride. and with such a wave of my hand i dismiss all "sexual tension and frustration" and "psycho-sexual disorder" theories of augustine. by the end of the work, any of this so-called sexual tension is resolved because augustine has found the bride he is responsible for.

My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. Grant what you command, and command what you will.

augustine, confessions, x.40

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.

augustine, confessions, x.38

this passage is to my soul what bright light is after hours in the pitch black. after 1700 years, augustine's love for God is as fiery in the darkness of the world as it was while rome crumbled into black ruins. this has made me create a new category for the common-blog: "most beautiful things ever written."

The answer must be this: their love for truth takes the form that they love something else and want this object of their love to be the truth; and because they do not wish to be deceived, they do not wish to be persuaded that they are mistaken. And so they hate the truth for the sake of the object which they love instead of the truth. They love truth for the light it sheds, but hate it when it shows them up as being wrong (John 3:20, 5:35).

augustine, confessions, x.34

again, the eastern church comes to mind, or at least the Orthodox i've had contact with. but God help me, that last sentence is true of my heart more than anyone i know.

Therefore, my God, my confession before you is made both in silence and not in silence. It is silent in that it is no audible sound; but in love it cries aloud. If anything I say to men is right, that is what you have first heard from me. Moreover, you hear nothing true from my lips which you have not first told me.

augustine, confessions, x.2

But now the goods I sought were no longer in the external realm, nor did I seek for them with bodily eyes in the light of this sun. In desiring to find their delight in externals, they easily become empty and expend their energies on 'the things which are seen and temporal' (2 Cor. 4:18). With starving minds they can only lick the images of these things (Plotinus 1.6.8.8).

augustine, confessions, ix.10

sadly enough, this picture reminds me as much of the eastern Orthodox church as of the pagans. Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe!

So I hurried back to the place where Alypius was sitting. There I had put down the book fo the apostle when I got up. I seized it, opened it and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit: 'Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecendies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts' (Rom 13:13-14).

I neither wished nor needed to read further. At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart. All the shadows of doubt were dispelled.

augustine, confessions, viii.29

like aeneas, augustine hears the messenger from God. mercury gets his attention (tole et lege) and then gives him the message from God. this done, dido (sexual lust) is no more than another creusa (manicheeanism perhaps?), and "tenuisque recessit in auras" (Aeneid, 2.791)

edit: of course, creusa is actually the woman he leaves in carthage. she bears him a son, but she's taken away by the counsel of monica (aphrodite, who shows augustine what it means to love). at another level, though, creusa could be platonism and dido manicheeanism, the first giving him actual knowledge of God, the second pretending to be the fulfillment of that knowledge and being therefore the worst kind of lie. i like both explanations.

For you evil does not exist at all, and not only for you but for your created universe, because there is nothing outside it which could break in and destroy the order which you have imposed upon it. But in the parts of the universe, there are certain elements which are thought evil because of a conflict of interest.... All these elements which have some mutual conflict of interest are congruous with the inferior part of the universe which we call earth.... Because my soul did not dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to you whatever was displeasing. Hence it came to adopt the opinion that there are two substances.

augustine, confessions, vii.19

It pleased you, Lord, to 'remove from Jacob the opprobrium of being junior' (Ps. 118:22), and that the 'elder should serve the younger' (Rom 9:13); and you called the Gentiles into your inheritance. And I had come to you from the Gentiles and fixed my attention of the gold which you willed your people to take from Egypt, since the gold was yours, wherever it was.

augustine, confessions, vii.15

In reading the Platonic books I found expressed in different words, and in a variety of ways, that the Son, 'being in the form of the Father did not think it theft to be equal with God,' because by nature he is that very thing. But that 'he took on himself the form of a servant and emptied himself, was made in the likeness of men and found to behave as a man, and humbled himself being made obedient to death, even the death of the cross so that God exalted him' from the dead 'and gave him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should box, of celestial, terrestrial, and infernal beings, and every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father' (Phil.2:6-11) -- that these books do not have.

augustine, confessions, vii.14

I loved beautiful things of a lower order, and I was going down to the depths.

confessions, iv.20

He who for us is life itself descended here and endured our death and slew it by the abundance of his life. In a thunderous voice he called us to return to him, at that secret place where he came forth to us.

confessions, iv.19

My desire is for you, justice and innocence, you are lovely and splendid to honest eyes; the satiety of your love is insatiable. ... As an adolescent I went astray from you, my God, far from your unmoved stability. I became to myself a region of destitution.

confessions, ii.18

My infancy is long dead and I am alive. But you, Lord, live and in you nothing dies.

confessions, i.9

[monica is begging bishop ambrose for help with augustine, her prodigal son]

When he had said this to her, she was still unwilling to take No for an answer. She pressed him with more begging and with floods of tears, asking him to see me and debate with me. He was now irritated and a little vexed and said: 'Go away from me: as you live, it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish.' In her conversations with me she often used to recall that she had taken these words as if they had sounded from heaven.

confessions, iii.21

this quotation has haunted my memory since i read it for the first time. must have been close to 7 years ago. anyhow, i finally got it tonight. she is hannah, bereaved of children and shamed before the other women. her husband is dead, just as elkanah is a dead man as far as hannah (and the fruit of her womb) is concerned. ambrose is eli, who, in wanting to get rid of the persistent widow, judges rightly and promises redemption. and augustine will, like samuel, prophesy and lead his people out of the dark days of a dying dynasty. when the rest of the world seems to shatter (when the ark is taken), samuel is the unifying force behind israel, bringing justice beneath the terebinth trees. so as rome crumbles will augustine fight heresy from hippo.

Friendship can be a dangerous enemy, a seduction of the mind lying beyond the reach of investigation. ... As soon as the words are spoken, 'Let us go and do it,' one is ashamed not to be shameless.

confessions, ii.17

My faith, Lord, calls upon you. It is your gift to me. You breathed it into me by the humanity of your Son, by the ministry of your preacher.

confessions i.1

That is the outcome when you are abandoned, fount of life, and the one true Creator and Ruler of the entire universe, when from a self-concerned pride a false unity is loved in the part.

confessions iii.16

neoplatonic gold well-looted, i say.

You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

st. augustine, confessions, I.i.1

always at once humbling and encouraging, disturbing and emboldening. "batter my heart," indeed, till it rests in Thee.