Das Böse an Augustinus’ Birnendiebstahl

Abstract

In the second book of the Confessions, Augustine flabbergasts his interpreters by exaggerating an adolescent escapade (a pear theft) and making it a monstrosity. He conjectures that the pear thieves might have commited the theft purely for the sake of thieving, and thus, that they displayed a kind of evil that is not even presented by the arch-villain of Ciceronian antiquity, the conspirer Catilina. Following Aquinas’ interpretation this comparison has been considered a reductio in most of the relevant literature up to now. This paper presents a different interpretation: Augustine is mostly serious about his claim – and there might be more to his argument than meets the eye. The interpretation developed in the present paper is based on a construal of the pear theft as collective agency.