The Pear Tree

Today's Reading

Read Genesis 3:1-7 (the fall of Adam and Eve) and Romans 7:15-20 (Paul's struggle with sin).

Augustine's Insight

One of the most famous passages in the Confessions is the story of the pear tree. As a teenager, Augustine and his friends stole pears from a neighbor's garden. They didn't eat them — they threw them to the pigs. The pears weren't even particularly good. Augustine didn't steal from hunger or desire for the fruit.

So why did he do it?

This question haunts Augustine for pages. The theft was senseless. And that is precisely what horrified him. He could not explain his sin by pointing to a rational motive. The only explanation was that he loved the sin itself — the thrill of breaking the rule, the camaraderie of shared rebellion.

"It was foul, and I loved it. I loved to perish. I loved my own fault — not that for which I had faulted, but my fault itself."

Reflection

Compare this to Genesis 3. Eve's temptation follows a similar pattern. The serpent doesn't just appeal to appetite ("the fruit was good for food") but to something deeper: "you will be like God." The desire isn't merely for the fruit — it's for autonomy, for self-rule, for the thrill of crossing a boundary.

Paul captures the same mystery in Romans 7: "I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing." There is something in the human will that is bent, broken, drawn to rebellion not for its rewards but for its own sake.

Going Deeper

Augustine's pear tree story is his version of the fall. It reveals that sin is not just about bad choices — it's about a corrupted will, a heart that has turned inward on itself. This is what theologians call "original sin": not just the first sin in history, but the ongoing condition of every human heart.

The good news — which Augustine will discover later in the Confessions — is that God can transform the will itself. But first, we must be honest about how deep the problem runs.