Under the Pear Tree

For the uninitiated - During his somewhat stormy youth, aurelius augustine and his teenage friends stole pears from a local tree. He regretted it, even decades later, and wrote about it at great length.

I’ve been translating St. Augustine’s Confessions slowly, page by page, as a way to reconnect with Latin—and with the strange, obsessive rhythm of a man who couldn’t stop thinking about God and pears.

This is not scholarly. It’s awkward and struggling and terribly human - a conversation across centuries, not a religious experience. I do not pretend to be an expert. nor am i catholic. Nor reverent. I am a secular student of the divine. govern yourself accordingly.

The thing is, I appreciate a man who reaches between what is human and what is divine. He didn’t want pears, he wanted theft - he was young and liked breaking rules. We tend to flatten the lives of historical figures, but they ate breakfast and fought with their spouses about the kids, and acted like teenagers when they were exactly that. Aurelius Augustine was a man. Reflective and clever, but just a man. And at one point, he stole a pear, and didn’t quite know why.

I get it.

N.B. - I may throw dante in here. Or St. Jerome. I do what I want.