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Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430

"The Confessions of St. Augustine"


Who can disentangle that twisted and intricate knottiness? Foul is
it: I hate to think on it, to look on it. But Thee I long for, O
Righteousness and Innocency, beautiful and comely to all pure eyes,
and of a satisfaction unsating. With Thee is rest entire, and life
imperturbable. Whoso enters into Thee, enters into the joy of his
Lord: and shall not fear, and shall do excellently in the
All-Excellent. I sank away from Thee, and I wandered, O my God, too
much astray from Thee my stay, in these days of my youth, and I became
to myself a barren land.


BOOK III

To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a
cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and
out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought
what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a
way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food,
Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hungered; but
was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because
filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it.


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