“I, miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had…”
I, miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had entreated chastity of Thee, and said, "Grant me chastity and continency, but not yet."
Augustine of Hippo · Confessions · NPNF1 I, Confessions, Book VIII, chapter vii, 17
His own account of the prayer he prayed as a student, and of why he prayed it that way: he was afraid of being answered too soon and cured of a disease he would rather have satisfied.
How this is known
These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.
The project holds the volume this row cites, NPNF series 1 vol. 1, and the build matches these words against its bytes at every rebuild. The quoted words sit inside his own sentence in the volume, and the row stores the sentence rather than the four words that circulate out of it.
Read in Pilkington, NPNF series 1 vol. 1 (1886) · J. G. Pilkington, M.A.
Also by
- Augustine of Hippo every saying recorded of this person, and their page