I could not forgo the library which with great care and labor I had got together in Rome. And so, miserable man that I was, I would fast, only to read Cicero afterwards … [in a dream] I flung myself upon the ground and did not dare to look up. I was asked to state my condition and replied that I was a Christian. But he who presided said: “Thou liest; thou art a Ciceronian, not a Christian. ‘For where thy treasure is there will thy heart be also.’ ” Straightaway I became dumb, and amid the strokes of the whip—for he had ordered me to be scourged—I was even more bitterly tortured by the fire of conscience … In the stress of that dread hour, … I called upon His name: ‘O Lord, if ever again I possess worldly books or read them, I have denied thee.’ [coming out of the dream] I acknowledge that henceforth I read the books of God with a greater zeal than I had ever given before to the books of men.
Select Letters (22)
It is impossible that the body’s natural heat should not sometimes assail a man and kindle sensual desire; but he is praised and accounted blessed, who, when thoughts begin to rise, gives them no quarter, but dashes them straightway against the rock [Christ].
Letters (22:6), p. 67
It wearies me to tell how many virgins fall daily … over how many stars the proud enemy sets his throne, how many hollow rocks the serpent [Devil] pierces and makes his habitation.
Letters (22:13), p. 79
What have I to do with the short-lived pleasures of the sense? What have I to do with the siren’s sweet and deadly songs?
Letters (22:18), p. 91