Week 3: Book II — The Stolen Pears

1.Augustine describes his sixteenth year as a time when "the madness of lust took the rule over me, and I resigned myself wholly to it." He also says his father was delighted by signs of his son's developing manhood, while his mother was filled with holy dread. What does this contrast between his parents reveal about two very different visions of human flourishing?

2.The pear tree theft is the centerpiece of Book II. The pears were not beautiful, not tasty — Augustine and his companions threw most of them to the pigs. He confesses: "I loved mine own fault, not that for which I was faulty, but my fault itself." Why does he find this particular sin so disturbing? What does it reveal that other sins do not?

3.Augustine argues that every sin is actually a distorted imitation of God's attributes — pride imitates God's exaltedness, cruelty imitates God's power, lust imitates God's love. He writes: "Thus doth the soul commit fornication, when she turns from Thee, seeking without Thee, what she findeth not pure and untainted." How does this framework change the way you think about your own temptations?