With the onset of adolescence in Book II, Augustine enters what he seems to
consider the most lurid and sinful period of his life. He "ran wild," he
writes, "in the jungle of erotic adventures...and became putrid in [God's]
sight." In addition to his first sexual escapades, Augustine is also quite
concerned with an incident in which he and some friends stole pears from a
neighborhood orchard. Augustine deeply regrets both of these sins, and offers a
few brief insights as to how and why he committed them.
[II.1-4] Though sinful in acting out his erotic desires, Augustine gives
himself some credit, writing that "the single desire that dominated my search
for delight was simply to love and be loved." Again, God has given Augustine
only good properties, and it is his own fault for misdirecting those properties.
In this case, the problem was that his love had "no restraint imposed [on it] by
the exchange of mind with mind." Hence, pure love was perverted by its
misdirection toward worldly things (bodies). Ideally, according to Augustine,
sex is used only for procreation, and even then only in a relationship focused
not on lust but on a loving, rational partnership (as he sees Adam and Eve
relating before their fall).
[II.5-8] Having finished grade school at this point, Augustine was
preparing to leave for Carthage for further study. His father Patrick had
managed to raise funds for this, and Augustine praises him for trying so hard to
educate his son. Still, he notes, his father had no proper moral concern for
him--as was the overwhelming custom, education was seen simply as a means to
worldly success.
"But in my mother's heart," writes Augustine, "you had already begun your
temple." The Catholic Monica often admonished young Augustine against
fornication, and he now recognizes that God was speaking through her. At the
time, however, her warnings seemed "womanish advice which I would have blushed
to take the least notice of." Eventually, Monica tends to lets Augustine do as
he will, fearing that a proper wife at this stage would impede his chances for a
good career.
[II.9-14] Augustine considers the theft of the pears next. What
particularly disturbs him about this teenage prank is that he did it out of no
other motive than a desire to do wrong. "I loved my fall [into sin]," he
writes. The pears were not stolen for their beauty, their taste, or their
nourishment (there were better pears at home), but out of sheer mischief.
Investigating this point further, Augustine again concludes that his actions
simply represent a human perversion of his God-given goodness. In fact, each
thing he sought to gain from stealing the pears (and everything humans desire in
sinning) turns out to be a twisted version of one of God's attributes. In a
remarkable rhetorical feat, Augustine matches each sinful desire with a desire
to be like God: pride seeks loftiness (and God is the highest), perverse
curiosity desires knowledge (and God knows all), idleness is really aiming at
"quietude" (and God is unchanging in his eternal repose), and so on.
The underlying theme here is, again, Neoplatonic. For the Neoplatonists,
all creation (the material world) has "turned away" from God's perfection,
becoming scattered into a chaotic state of mutability, temporality, and
multiplicity. God remains unchangeable, eternal, and unified, and creation
always seeks (whether it realizes it or not) to return to God. Here, Augustine
has argued that even sin itself fundamentally aims at a return to God.
[II.15-18] Book II ends with a consideration of the peer pressure on
which Augustine partly blames the theft of the pears. The main lesson he takes
from this is that "friendship can be a dangerous enemy, a seduction of the
mind." Like love, it must be subjected to reason if it is to be truly good.
