CHAPTER I
1. I came to Carthage, where a caldron of unholy loves was
seething and bubbling all around me. I was not in love as yet,
but I was in love with love; and, from a hidden hunger, I hated
myself for not feeling more intensely a sense of hunger. I was
looking for something to love, for I was in love with loving, and
I hated security and a smooth way, free from snares. Within me I
had a dearth of that inner food which is thyself, my God --
although that dearth caused me no hunger. And I remained without
any appetite for incorruptible food -- not because I was already
filled with it, but because the emptier I became the more I
loathed it. Because of this my soul was unhealthy; and, full of
sores, it exuded itself forth, itching to be scratched by scraping
on the things of the senses.[58] Yet, had these things no soul,
they would certainly not inspire our love.
To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more
when I gained the enjoyment of the body of the person I loved.
Thus I polluted the spring of friendship with the filth of
concupiscence and I dimmed its luster with the slime of lust.
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