Augustine’s Forbidden Fruit
Michael McClung

            Augustine’s Confessions, Book II, chapter 6, page 49.

What then was it that I loved in that theft of mine? In what way, awkwardly and perversely, did I imitate my Lord? Did I find it pleasant to break your law and prefer to break it by stealth, since I could not break it by any real power? And was I thus, though a prisoner, making a show of a kind of truncated liberty, doing unpunished what I was not allowed to do and so producing a darkened image of omnipotence? What a sight! A servant running away from his master and following a shadow! What rottenness! What monstrosity of life and what abyss of death! Could I enjoy what was forbidden for no other reason except that it was forbidden?

            Augustine’s Confessions deal primarily with his spiritual journey through which he gains reconciliation with God. Throughout his self-examination, Augustine struggles to know why he sinned and why he cannot overcome his desire to sin. We find that this passage wrestles with the motivation behind Augustine’s most pronounced sin: the theft of pears from a tree. What made this sin so conspicuous was the lack of an apparent reason, since Augustine neither wanted to eat the pears nor could he sell them, and after stealing them he simply threw them away. He conjectures that he stole the fruit to be able to steal and, thus, exercise some form of liberty. Indeed, by stealing the pears, Augustine was able to outwardly manifest the state of his heart which was in rebellion to God.

            Augustine’s sin is of a specific species. There are at least two different kinds of sin, one a sin committed for apparent profit, and yet, since no sin is ultimately profitable, their real cause is a deficiency of knowledge. The second type is one committed while knowing that it can bring no profit and will ultimately bring harm. The sin that Augustine is describing is clearly within the second category, because he states that his motivation to commit this sin – steal pears from a tree – was not hunger or monetary gain. He knew that stealing the pears was wrong yet did it anyway in order only to steal because there was something in the wrong act that brought him pleasure: “[w]hat then was it that I loved in that theft of mine?” The answer to this question is that it produced in him “a darkened image of omnipotence.”

            Sins which produce no personal gain are committed from a different motivation, and the pleasure derived from them is different than the pleasure derived from sin committed for profit. Augustine explores this motivation under the terms “liberty” and “omnipotence”, thus the shadow Augustine followed was an assertion of his own power in the face of God’s omnipotence, and by chasing after it he was running away from God. Sinning based on this motivation is a method of expressing dissatisfaction with the laws set forth by God, and as such it is treason of a cosmic dimension. It is the same kind of sin as Adam and Eve’s, and Satan’s. The individual imitates God in a way he is forbidden by asserting that he is above God’s law.

            Sinning in defiance has a far greater potential to ensnare than sinning for gain. This is because it causes a disruption of the precarious balance of the dichotomous requisites of man’s subjection to God and man’s free will, and as a result man’s will is over-emphasized. Thus Augustine’s struggle of will before his conversion was so great  because he was having to deal with capital sins – sins such as this theft – and dealing with them required him to submit his will to God’s. The passage that brought Augustine’s conversion was Romans 13:13-14, which deals with obedience to law, and it is interesting to note how this passage begins: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation”, Romans 13:1-2. It was Augustine’s defiance and resistance that had to be overcome.

            Augustine’s emphasis in describing his theft is not really on the sin itself, but on what prompted the sin – the state of his heart, which was his primary impediment to becoming a child of God. Thus, this passage is key for understanding Augustine’s relationship to sin and the dynamics of his conversion. By stealing the fruit, Augustine was awkwardly imitating God’s omnipotence by asserting his own contorted omnipotence, and thus, acted out his opposition to God.  Not only was rebellion the sin from which he had to repent, it was also the main obstacle to his repentance.