Confessio [Incertus]

Confession which is called of Saint Prosper of Aquitaine. Born to me once under the law of sin, and transferred into me from my parents, a captive under the ordinary condition of death; lest I be detained by the long-standing right of a fierce master, at the very beginnings of my life, merciful and compassionate Lord, you freed me. I found the tyrant-slayer before I experienced the tyrant: and I obtained redemption before I understood servitude. Let those who wish complain about the swiftness of their salvation; let them plead a raw age and imprudent years as an excuse for violated regeneration: for me, the swift favor and hastened mercy will always be adored. For, as if unknowing, I understand that this one thing profited me: that although I withdrew from your gifts, your gifts nevertheless remained in me. Thus reborn in Christ Jesus through your Holy Spirit, I was enrolled as an heir, named a son, and received nothing less than the elder brother. Moreover, with the burden of legal observance remitted, initiated by grace, I became your Israel, not from Jacob, but from Esau: fortunate indeed, if I had preserved the substance received, not to say multiplied, but whole, even by idle innocence, if not by active effort. But, alas wretched me! having left my Father's house, I went into voluntary exile as a deserter; and, led by a multitude of all vices, deceived by the sloping paths of spacious roads, I entered into the innermost parts of Egypt.

There the robe of beauty was worn away; and with the garment of nobility corrupted, destitute and a squanderer of ancestral goods, treacherous companions, faithless friends, sold me under the spear of death and the auction of sin to the most greedy bidders. Under whose long and harsh command I was worn down, and I also passed into the laws of the Babylonians. There, through countless changes of the most savage dominations, serving not with bodily subjection but with the sweat of the soul, and confused by worthy offices, daily troubled by the worse condition of my state, I withdrew myself, as far as was allowed from my present masters, into the hidden recess of spirit and heart; and having taken up a certain volume of the holy Scriptures, I examined what hope still remained for me: and drenched with a great shower of tears, "How long," I said, "will those who hate me rule over me? How long shall I serve my enemies? Indeed, I gave myself to them, and through deadly pleasures I received the price of my perdition: but I could not bargain about myself by my own right; for I had a master, and I was not my own. For I know that I am redeemed by the blood of him to whom the celestial, the earthly, and the infernal are subject. What have I to do with those whose commerce is death? I will return to him who bought me for life. And lest the opportunity to return be delayed, because I am in the midst of a foreign people, and a barbarian guards the borders of his realm with posted watches; it is well that my redeemer, who holds all things, is not hindered by places.

He is present in the heavens, he is present in the underworld, he is wholly in the depths, he is wholly on the earth: he is not to be reached by journey, nor sought by sea-voyage. We left him behind in Jerusalem, we passed him by in Egypt, we do not see him among the Babylonians. But let us seek, and he will appear; let us knock, and he will open; let us ask, and he will grant. But, alas, wretched me! I blush because I am naked, and have nothing with which to cover the dishonor of my limbs; I am confounded by the disgrace of shameful destitution. Then with what countenance, or with what conscience, shall I approach the eyes of so great a household and the presence of so great a Father? As if indeed the judgment were more tolerable for the accused than for those who have confessed, for defiant defendants than for suppliants, for those brought forth than for those who have returned. Let the ignominy of the cross have whatever penances it will, the fire of shame will be lighter than that of Gehenna.