Confessions
St. Augustine, trans. Henry Chadwick
Oxford University, 1992
p. 3
A middle-aged Augustine introduces himself to fellow Christian believers by letting them overhear his extended prayer to God. His confessions are sometimes in the form of praise: he confesses God’s greatness and goodness. And sometimes he confesses his sins: of self-deception, lust, conformity to the evil of peers. Sometimes Augustine sounds anxious, as if his prayer is intended as therapeutic self-examination. Very often Augustine’s prayer exhibits real beauty. So, at the outset, this: “Man, a little piece of your creation, desires to praise you, a human being ‘bearing his mortality with him’ (2 Cor. 4:10), carrying with him the witness of his sin and the witness that ‘you resist the proud’ (1 Pet. 5:5). Nevertheless, to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation.” Then comes one of the most famous sentences in all patristic literature: “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.”