Question 3 - Catiline and Pears

Augustine goes throughout the beginning of his text accounting for his sins, taking blame, and explaining that all of his positive attributes are because of God. This is all well and good, with a nice message to people that if they don't sin, and confess their past sins, and just follow God, everything will work out, but he seems to be glorifying himself. You know, like when parents say "Don't worry, son, when I was your age I didn't always get things on the first try, either!" Like, Augustine is seen as someone so infallible in the eyes of the public that saying these things will come as a huge shock. Which maybe for their time, it did.

But I still can't get over this pear-stealing example. And why in the world he compared it to murder. He seems to be implying that his crime of stealing apples was a worse offense than murdering someone because "No one would commit murder without a motive" and that was just what he did with the pear. It's so grossly melodramatic. Especially with such a false statement.

He backs up this odd assertion with a reference to "Catiline." And I may have looked up this text, called The Conspiracy of Catiline, by Sallust, during class... Sallust describes a great criminal of his time, known as Catiline, and his life and trials. One trial in particular is what the section referenced in Confessions. Augustine says that even Catiline had a motive, yet, "If a motive for crime did not readily occur, he incited them, nevertheless, to circumvent and murder inoffensive persons." [XVI]

This would imply to me, that Catiline had no motive, and he then pretended to have one in order to kill. Augustine says that Catiline killed for the grandeur and wealth, and that "not even Catiline himself loved his crimes." This is a stretch though, if you ask me. To equate the desire for wealth with loving another's wife as a motive for murder, I think is not possible. While both are lousy reasons to kill, to determine that killing a lot of people will result in wealth and grandeur is a much more complex way of thinking.

Meanwhile, if you wanted to go with Augustine and say that Catiline had a legitimate motive, then Augustine stealing pears was motivated by his desire for his friends' acceptance and his own personal thrill.

Link to Sallust-The Conspiracy of Catiline (the section referenced is [XVI]): http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_sallust_catiline_1.htm