And yet, let me speak before You, O Merciful One, to me, "dust and ashes." Allow me to say: To Thy mercy, not to the man who will ridicule me, I appeal. What do I want to say, Lord my God? "Only that I don't know where I came from, to this—shall I say—dead life or living death?" I don't know. Thy mercy greeted me with consolation, as I heard it from my parents according to the flesh, through whom Thou didst create me in time; I don't remember it myself. My first consolation was milk, with which neither my mother nor my nurses filled their breasts; Through them Thou hast given me the nourishment necessary for the babe according to Thy institution and according to Thy riches, distributed to the depths of creation. Thou hast given me not to desire more than Thou hast given, but to my nurses the desire to give me what Thou hast given them. For them my good was good, which I received from them, but it did not come from them, but through them, for from Thee are all good, and from my Lord all my salvation. I understood this later, although Thou didst call upon me even then, with gifts from without and within me. Even then, I knew how to suck, calmed down from bodily pleasure, cried from bodily inconveniences – as long as that was all.

Then I began to laugh, first in my sleep, then in my wakefulness. This is how I was told about me, and I believe it, because I saw the same thing in other babies: I do not remember myself at that time. And so gradually I began to understand where I was; I wanted to explain my desires to those who would fulfill them, but I could not, because my desires were in me, and those around me were outside of me, and they could not enter my soul by any external sense. I floundered and shouted, expressing with the few signs I could and as far as I could, something like my desires, but these signs did not express my desires. And when they did not obey me, whether they did not understand me, or so as not to harm me, I was angry that the elders did not obey me, and the free did not serve as slaves, and I avenged myself by weeping. That infants are like this, I learned from those whom I could recognize, and that I was the same, they themselves, the unconscious, told me more about this than my conscious educators.

And behold, my infancy has long since died, and I live, O Lord, Thou Who livest always, in Whom nothing dies, for before the beginning of the ages, and above all things, of which it may be said "before," Thou art God and Lord of all Thy creation, Thou art the cause of all that is unstable, the principles of all things that change are unchangeable, the order of disorder and temporal is eternal, O Lord, Answer me, did my infancy come after some other age of mine that had died, or was it preceded only by the period which I spent in my mother's womb? Something has been reported to me about him, and I myself have seen pregnant women. And what happened before that. My joy, my Lord? Have I been anywhere, have I been anyone? There is no one to tell me about it: neither my father nor my mother could do it: there is no other person's experience here, no memories of their own. Do you laugh at my asking this, and command me to praise you and confess you because I know?

I confess Thee, O Lord of heaven and earth, giving Thee praise for the beginning of my life and for my infancy, of which I do not remember. You allowed a person to guess about himself from others, to believe a lot about himself, relying even on the testimony of ordinary women. Yes, I was and lived then, and already at the end of infancy I was looking for signs with which I could communicate to others what I felt. Where does such a creature come from, if not from You, Lord? Is there a master who creates himself? Does the spring flow in another place, from which being and life flow to us? No, Thou art the creator of us, O Lord, Thou for Whom there is no difference between being and life, for Thou art perfect Being and perfect Life. Thou art perfect, and Thou dost not change: with Thee the present day does not pass, and yet it passes away with Thee, because with Thee all things; nothing could pass away if you did not contain everything. And since "Thy years do not run out," Thy years are today. How many of our days and the days of our fathers have passed through Yours today; from Him they received their form and somehow came into being, and others will pass through it, receive their form and somehow come into being. "You are always the same": everything tomorrow and what follows it, everything yesterday and what is behind it, You will turn into today, You have turned into today. What do I care if someone doesn't understand this? Let him also rejoice, saying, "What is this?" Let him rejoice, and prefer to find Thee without finding, than finding Thee, not to find Thee.

Hear, O Lord! Woe to the sins of men. And man says this, and Thou hast compassion on him, for Thou hast created him, but hast not created sin in him. Who will remind me of the sin of my infancy? For no one is clean from sin before You, not even a babe, whose life on earth is only one day. Who will remind me? Some little thing in whom I will see something that I do not remember in myself?

So, what was my sin then? By the fact that, crying, he reached for his chest? If I do this now, and with my mouth agape, reach not only for my breast, but for food suitable for my age, then I will in all fairness be ridiculed and chosen. And then, therefore, I deserved to be scolded, but since I could not understand the one who was scolding, it was neither customary nor reasonable to reproach me. As we age, we eradicate and discard such habits. I have not seen a knowledgeable person who, while cleaning up a plant, would throw out good branches. Was it good, however, even for one's age, to weep to seek even that which would be given to harm? Is it cruel to be indignant at people who are not subject to control, free and elderly, including one's parents, to try to the best of one's ability to beat reasonable people who do not obey at the first demand because they did not obey orders that would be disastrous to obey? Infants are innocent because of their bodily weakness, and not because of their souls. I saw and observed the jealous baby: he did not yet speak, but pale, looked bitterly at his foster-brother. Who does not know such examples? Mothers and wet nurses say that they atone for it, I don't know by what means. Perhaps it is innocence, too, with a spring of milk that is abundant and abundant, not to endure a comrade who is utterly helpless, living on this food alone? All these phenomena are meekly tolerated, not because they are insignificant or unimportant, but because they will pass with years. And You confirm this by saying that the same thing cannot be seen calmly at an older age.

O Lord my God, it was Thou who gave the infant life and body, which, as we see, Thou didst endow with feelings, Thou didst firmly bind its limbs, Thou didst adorn it, and Thou didst imbue it with the striving inherent in every living creature for the fullness and preservation of life. Thou commandest me to praise Thee for this, "to confess Thee, and to sing Thy name, O Most High," for Thou wouldst be almighty and good if Thou didst do only this, which no one but Thee could do; The only One from Whom all measure comes, the Most Beautiful, Who makes all things beautiful and orders all things according to His law. This age, Lord, of which I do not remember that I lived, in relation to which I rely on others, and in which, as I guess from other infants, I somehow acted, I do not want, in spite of my very fair conjectures, to include in this life of mine, which I live in this world. As far as the fullness of my forgetfulness is concerned, this period is equal to that which I spent in my mother's womb. And if "I was conceived in iniquity, and in sins my mother fed me in her womb," where, O my God, where am I, O Lord, Thy servant, where or when have I been innocent? No, I'm missing that time; and what have I to do with him, when I cannot find any trace of him?

Have I not passed from infancy to childhood in my present time? Or rather, it came to me and replaced infancy. Infancy has not disappeared – where has it gone? And yet he was no longer there. I was no longer a baby who could not pronounce words, but a boy who spoke was me. The elders did not teach me by offering me words in a definite and systematic order, as they did a little later with the letters. I have acted according to my own reason, which You have given me, O my God. When I wanted to communicate my heart's desires by shouts, various sounds, and various bodily movements, and to obtain their fulfillment, I found myself unable either to obtain everything I wanted, or to make it known to all whom I wanted. I grasped in my memory when adults named a thing and turned to it at this word; I saw it and remembered it: the word that sounded is the name of this thing. That the adults wanted to name it was evident from their gestures, from this natural language of all peoples, which is made up of facial expressions, winks, various bodily movements and sounds, expressing the state of the soul that asks, receives, rejects, avoids. Gradually I began to think about the signs of which are the words that stand in their place in different sentences and are often heard by me, I forced my lips to cope with these signs and began to express my desires with them. Thus, in order to express my desires, I began to communicate with those among whom I lived by these signs; I entered more deeply into the turbulent life of human society, depending on the orders of my parents and on the will of my elders.

My God, God, what misfortunes and mockery I experienced then. As a boy, I was asked to behave properly: to obey those who urged me to seek success in this world, and to perfect myself in the eloquence that human honor and deceptive wealth serve. I was sent to school to learn to read and write. Unfortunately for me, I did not understand what was the use of it, but if I was lazy to study, then I was beaten; the elders approved of this custom. Many people who lived before us paved these sorrowful paths along which we were forced to pass; toil and sorrow were multiplied for the sons of Adam. I have met, O Lord, people who have prayed to You, and from them I have learned, comprehending You to the best of my ability, that You are Someone Great and can, even while remaining hidden from our senses, hear us and help us. And I began to pray to Thee, "My help and my refuge": and calling upon Thee, I overcame my tongue-tiedness. Small, but with considerable fervor, I prayed that I would not be beaten at school. And since Thou hast not heard me, which was not to my detriment, the grown-ups; including my parents, who did not want anything bad to happen to me, continued to laugh at these beatings, at my great and grievous misfortune at that time.

Is there a man, O Lord, who is so great in spirit, who has cleaved to Thee with such great love, is there a man, I say, who in his pious love is so highly attuned that the racks, cats, and the like, for deliverance from which Thee is everywhere besought with great trembling, would be of no consequence to him? (Sometimes this happens from a certain stupidity.) Could he have laughed at those who were cruelly cowardly of this, as our parents laughed at the torment to which we boys were subjected by our teachers? I did not cease to fear them, nor did I cease to ask Thee to be delivered from them, and I continued to sin, exercising less in writing, reading, and pondering lessons than was required of me. I, Lord, had no lack of memory or ability, with which Thou didst wish to give me sufficiently, but I loved to play, and for this I was punished by those who did the same thing themselves, of course. The amusements of adults are called business, for children they are also business, but adults punish for them, and no one feels sorry for either children or adults. Will a fair judge approve of the beatings I endured for playing ball and forgetting to learn the letters with which I, an adult, played a more ugly game? Did the mentor who beat me do not do the same thing as me? If he was beaten in some question by a learned fellow, was he less choked by bile and envy than I was when a playmate got the better of me in a ball match?

And yet I have sinned, O Lord God, who restrained all things in the world and created all things; but only restraining sins, O Lord my God, I have sinned, violating the instructions of my parents and teachers. For I was later able to make good use of the letter, which, at the request of my relatives, whatever their intentions, I should have mastered. I was disobedient, not because I chose the best part, but because I loved the game; I loved to win competitions and was proud of these victories. I amused my ears with false tales, which only aroused curiosity, and I was more and more inclined to look with my own eyes at the spectacles and games of the elders. Those who arrange them are of such high rank that almost all desire it for their children, and at the same time willingly allow themselves to be flogged if these spectacles interfere with their learning; Parents want it to give their children the opportunity to put on the same spectacle. Look upon this, O Lord, with a merciful eye, and set us free, who are already calling upon Thee; release also those who do not yet call upon Thee; let them call upon Thee, and Thou shalt set them free.

I heard as a boy about eternal life, promised to us through the humiliation of our Lord, who descended to our pride. I was marked with His sign of the Cross and salted with His salt when I came out of the womb of my mother, who trusted much in You. You saw, Lord, when I was still a boy, one day I was so sick with sudden pains in my stomach that I was almost dying; Thou didst see, O my God, for even then Thou wast my guardian, with what spiritual impulse and with what faith I demanded of my pious mother and of our common mother Church, that I be baptized in the name of Thy Christ, my God and Lord. And my mother in the flesh, who with faith in Thee carefully nurtured in her pure heart my eternal salvation, in confusion hastened to wash me and commune me with Thy Holy Mysteries, O Lord Jesus, for the remission of my sins, when suddenly I recovered. Thus my purification was postponed, as if it were necessary that, if I remained alive, I should roll still more in the mud; apparently, the dirt of the crimes committed after this ablution was imputed to a greater and more terrible guilt. And so I already believed, my mother and the whole house, except my father, who, however, did not overcome the lessons of motherly piety in me and did not restrain me from believing in Christ, in Whom he himself did not yet believe. My mother has endeavoured that my father should be You, O Lord, rather than he, and in this Thou hast helped her to gain the upper hand over her husband, to whom she was superior to him, for in this also, of course, she was subject to Thee and Thy command.

Lord, I want to know, if it pleases Thee, with what intention my Baptism was then postponed: were the reins of my sinful inclinations released for my good? Or were they not released? Why, to this day, the word rings in my ears from all sides, now about one person, now about another: "Leave him, let him do it: for he is not yet baptized." When it comes to bodily health, we do not say: "Leave him, let him be wounded again: he is not yet healed." How much better and more quickly would I have been cured, taking care of this both myself and together with my loved ones, so that the spiritual salvation granted by Thee might be overshadowed by Thy shadow. It would have been better, of course. What a storm of temptations hangs over a person after leaving childhood, my mother knew this, and preferred that it should break out rather over the dust of the earth, which will then be transfigured, than over the image of God itself.

In my childhood, which was less dangerous than my youth, I did not like occupations, and could not bear to be forced into them; I was nevertheless forced, and it was good for me, but I did not do well myself; If I hadn't been forced, I wouldn't have studied. No one does anything good if it is against their will, even if a person does something good. And those who forced me did not do well, but it turned out to be good for me according to Your will, O Lord. They only thought that I should apply what I was forced to learn to satisfy the insatiable thirst for poor wealth and shameful fame. But you, "whose hair is numbered," took advantage of the error of all who insisted that I should study, and of my own reluctance to learn, and of my own reluctance to learn, and for my chastisement, which I fully deserved, I, a little boy and a great sinner. Thus, through those who did wrong, Thou didst do good to me, and justly recompensed me for my own sins. For Thou hast commanded, and so it is, that every disordered soul should bear its own punishment within itself.