ST. AUGUSTINE - "I LOVED THE EVIL IN ME"

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From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D.)

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Your law, O Lord, punishes theft; and this law is so written

in the hearts of men that not even the breaking of it blots it out: for no thief bears calmly being stolen from - not even if he is rich and the other steals through want.  Yet I chose to steal, and not because want drove me to it - unless it was a want [lack] of justice and contempt for it, and an excess of iniquity.  For I stole things which I already had in plenty, and of better quality.

Nor had I any desire to enjoy the things I stole,
 but only the stealing of them and the sin.

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There was a pear tree near our vineyard, heavy with fruit, but fruit that was not particularly tempting either to look at or to taste.  A group of young blackguards, and I among them, went out to knock down the pears and carry them off late one night, for it was our bad habit to carry on our games in the streets till very late.  We carried off an immense load of pears, not to eat - for we barely tasted them before throwing them to the hogs.  Our only pleasure in doing it was that it was forbidden.  Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart: yet in the depth of the abyss You had pity on it.  Let that heart now tell You what it sought when I was thus evil for no object, having no cause for wrongdoing save my wrongness.  The malice of the act was base and I loved it - that is to say I loved my own undoing, I loved the evil in me - not the thing for which I did the evil, simply the evil: my soul was depraved, and hurled itself down from security in You into utter destruction, seeking no profit from wickedness but only to be wicked.

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