Book 5: Augustine Moves to Rome

About this time an opportunity opened up for Augustine to move to Rome. Aside from a higher income and more prestige he was prompted to leave Carthage by the general bad behavior of the students there. The boorish, disruptive and even violent behavior of his students was a great frustration to him.

The move to Rome was resisted by his mother Monica. In the end, Augustine lied to her and departed secretly by ship in the night. When he arrived in Rome he became deathly ill but did not seek baptism because he still did not believe in the incarnation. He credits his eventual recover from this illness to his mother’s daily prayers for him, morning and evening.

In Rome he continued a “half-hearted” adherence to the sect of the Manicheans. In particular he enjoyed their belief that we were not personally responsible for our sins but some other nature within ourselves causes us to sin. There was no need to go to confession since he blamed “some other force” for his sins (5.10.18). This belief is linked to his belief that “evil was not only a substance, but even a bodily substance” (5.10.20).

In Rome he was attracted to a school of philosophy known as the Academics. This school recommended universal doubt about the possibility of human mind discovering truth. This lead him to be less attached to the beliefs of the Manicheans, but he says he was too lazy to seek anything else (5.10.19).

Augustine enumerates what continue to be his objections to Christianity. First he found it contemptible that God could confine himself to “appearance in human flesh” (5.10.19) and thus “could not have been born of the Virgin Mary” (5.10.20). Second he could not believe that a good God could “create any evil nature” (5.10.20) since he believed that evil was “a bodily substance” (5.10.20). He also doubted the truthfulness of the Scriptures and even that the New Testament writings “had been falsified by some unknown persons bent on interpolating the Christian faith with elements of the Jewish law” (5.11.21). Although he admits that this last charge was made without any proof.

When Augustine began to teach in Rome he soon discovered that were problems of a different sort in Rome. Although the students were better behaved in class groups of them would conspire to dodge the fees they owed to their teachers. In the midst of his frustration about this word came to him of a job offer in Milan asking for a master of rhetoric. Augustine used his Manichean contacts to obtain recommendations for the job. He was successful and proceeded to move to Milan. He notes that secretly a large part of his motivation for the move was to get away from the other Manicheans.

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

 

All quotes in this series of blogs from Confessions are from, St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21^st Century, Ed John Rotelle, O.S.A., (New York, New City Press, 1997)

Image from Chapel of the Choir, Church of St. Augustine.  Piazza Sant'Agostino 4, San Gimignano.  Scene 5. Augustine opens a school of rhetoric in Rome

Confessions Book 5: Meeting Faustus

In this book Augustine begins to relate his experiences during his 29^th year. In particular he had begun to read certain “philosophers” (we would call them scientists today) who had studied the sun and the moon and were able to predict accurately the precise day, and hour and extant of the next solar or lunar eclipse. This research and the accuracy of their calculations convinced him that they had discovered the truth. These truths seem to contradict central aspects of the Manichean myths. The Manicheans did not seem to have adequate answers to these and other philosophical problems but they assured him that when the Manichean Bishop, Faustus arrived he would answer all Augustine’s questions. Augustine notes,

Now, I had read widely in the works of philosophers, committed a good deal to memory and still retained it, and I began to compare certain elements from my reading with the long-winded myths of the Manichees. The philosophers’ conclusions seemed to me more probable . . . (5.3.3).

Augustine notes the human pride which accompanies the philosophers who examine these heavenly phenomena. Distracted with this knowledge they fail to look for the Creator who made these calculations possible. Augustine admits,

Many true statements do they make about creation, but they do not find the Truth who is artificer or creation because they do not seek him with reverence. (5.3.5)

In fact Augustine goes on to parallel these philosophers with the corruption of the human conscience as seen in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans 1:19-20. Their unsound reason, distorts the truth into a lie, “and they worship and serve the creature instead of the creator” (5.3.5). In spite of this distortion he admits they have come to many true conclusions and compare to Mani “who had written voluminously (and incoherently) on these subjects . . . there was a wide discrepancy” (5.3.6).

Finally Bishop Faustus arrived in Rome. He was a very persuasive and eloquent speaker. It quickly became evident that in spite of Bishop Faustus’ elegant speech, he was not knowledgeable about philosophy. Augustine says he was ill-educated in the liberal arts, apart from grammar, and had read very little of Cicero or Seneca. In the end Faustus turned out to be completely incompetent for Augustine’s purposes.

This created a crisis in Augustine’s belief because it was obvious that Mani was ignorant of these matters and yet “still had the effrontery to teach them” (5.5.8). To make matters worse Mani claimed to be speaking through the Holy Spirit, with his full authority.  Augustine realizes that this was sacrilegious because Mani passed off “his erroneous opinions as those of a divine person—himself no less” (5.5.8).  Although Augustine did not immediately leave the company of the Manicheans his enthusiasm for their beliefs was waning.

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

All quotes in this series of blogs from Confessions are from, St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21^st Century, Ed John Rotelle, O.S.A., (New York, New City Press, 1997)

Image from Chapel of the Choir, Church of St. Augustine.  Piazza Sant'Agostino 4, San Gimignano. Scene 4. After meeting Faustus of Mileve, Augustine decides depart for Ostia

Book 4: What is Beauty?

Augustine recounts his early thoughts on the nature of beauty. He notes that he had written several books on the topic which he has now lost, though he seems quite familiar with their content. He theorizes that beauty has two aspects. First there is the idea that some objects have an inherent quality, ‘beauty’ which we recognize as intrinsic. We also recognize a second aspect; some things are beautiful because of their harmonious relation or adaption to other things.

Augustine begins to muse about a certain orator to whom he dedicated his work on beauty. Is the love of an orator different than the admiration of an actor? Can we love traits in someone that we wouldn’t wish to have for ourselves? He notes that someone can love a horse but not desire to change places with it (4.14.22). He asks, “Do I love in one man what I would hate to be myself, when I too am a man?” (4.14.22). Augustine analyses the problem philosophically and drives beneath the unity of the species ‘man’. An individual has hidden depths affections and ‘movements of the heart’ that are known only to the Lord. He concludes that our nature as individuals depends more on the will than on the intelligible structures we exemplify.[i]

Following the intuitions of Cicero, Augustine observed the unity found in virtue and the fragmentation of human life seen in the vices. Initially he thought that the disunity was caused by an indefinable substance of evil but looking back from the present the he notes that “evil is no substance at all” (4.15.24). Later he will understand that evil is not a thing but the absence of the good.[ii] As we shall see in Book 5, Augustine used the idea of ‘evil as a substance’ to avoid personal responsibility for his actions. Augustine thought that at this point that the mind or rational soul was the supreme good (4.15.24).

Augustine interrupts the flow of his narrative with yet another anecdote, this time from seven years before he writes his first book. At the age of twenty he reads a Latin translation of Aristotle’s Categories. Again he highlights a mistake that he fell into as he tried to understand God as an instance of the categories rather than as identical with the ‘transcendentals’ (4.16.29).[iii] He will later correct this mistake in Book 7.

Plato had argued that the sensible world is a reflection or shadow of ideas which transcend the sensible realm. Chief among these transcendental properties are the one, the true and the good. Aristotle agreed with these transcendental properties but saw them not manifest in ideas but in the forms of actual things. One significant difference between Plato and Aristotle is that Plato indirectly also includes beauty as a transcendental property. Plato “argues in the Lysis and Timeaus that whatever is good (Greek: agathon) is also beautiful (Greek: kalon), and in the Republic that everything that exists participates in the good.”[iv] Augustine’s error was to attempt to see God as mere category rather than as a transcendental property. Jacque Maritain describes transcendentals as “concepts which surpass all limits of kind or category and will not suffer themselves to be confined in any class, because they absorb everything and are to be found everywhere.”[v] Ultimately Augustine is left awash in his own pride. He compares himself to the Prodigal son, who, “left you and set out for a distant land to squander it there on the quest for meretricious[vi] gratifications” (4.16.30). He concludes his prayer in this book,

We need not fear to find no home again

Because we have fallen away for it:

While we are absent our home falls not to ruins,

For our home is your eternity (4.16.31).

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

 

 

 

 

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[i] Ibid., p. 108. Vaught notes that this is a development in thinking by Augustine which moved beyond common the Neo-Platonist thinking of Plotinus.

[ii] For a defense of Augustine’s views on evil against the objections of modern philosophers see Donald A. Cress, “A Defense of Augustine’s Privation Account of Evil,” Augustinian Studies (1989)20: 109 – 127.

[iii] Daniel Gallagher, “The Platonic-Aristotelian Hybridity of Aquinas’s Aesthetic Theory”, Hortulus: The Online Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies Vol. 2, No. 1, 2006, p. 2-15. http://hortulus.net/journal/20061Gallagher.pdf Accessed 4/23/2011.

[iv] Ibid. p. 2.

[v] Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, trans. J. F. Scanlan (New York: Scribner, 1930), p. 30. As quoted in Gallagher.

[vi] “meretricious: of or relating to a prostitute : having the nature of prostitution” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meretricious

A Pope for All Ages

A we approach the Beatification of Pope John Paul II I think we are all struck with the shear magnitude of his accomplishments.  The Vatican Website lists the statistics for his life.  John Paul II made 104 trips abroad and visited 129 unique countries.  He visited 617 cites, and  logged over 1,000,000 miles of travel during his 26 year long pontificate.  He wrote 14 major Encyclicals, 14 Apostolic Exhortations, 14 Apostolic Constitutions, and 45 Apostolic Letters.  He also performed 1338 beatification ceremonies and 482 canonizations.  It seems everyone wants to claim him, he is A Pope for Workers; The Pilgrim Pope ; The Youth Pope ; The Feminist Pope ; The Pope for Catholic-Jewish Relations;  The Champion of the Poor;  The Pope for East-West Relations; and Pope  of Diplomacy. Fearless in hope and love, the Pope who changed and saved lives.

Pope John Paul II, Pray for us!

Book 4: Anecdotes from Augustine’s Life

In Book 4, Augustine tells us that he lived with a girl whom he does not name. The relationship was for pleasure and not for the purpose of marriage and family though he acknowledges that he was faithful to her. Later in Book 6 we will glimpse the deeper feeling he felt for this woman (6.15.25). Based on his discussion of his son Adeodatus in 10.6.14 the chronology of these nine years does not appear to be clear. It is likely that he had already taken this partner earlier (cf. 2.2.4).

Augustine relates a number of anecdotes from his life. A sorcerer tries to have Augustine engage his services in order to win a poetry contest through his occult arts and Augustine refuses. On the other hand, Augustine is greatly attracted to astrology. Looking back he sees how wrong minded this is and how even if astrology were to seem correct in its predictions this could be due to chance which he compares to the practice of randomly opening a book and happening upon a passage that appears to give a hidden message.

As the Catechism reminds us all forms of divination are grave sins against the first commandment;

All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. (CCC 2116)

In this book Augustine also relates the painful experience of the death of a friend in Thagaste. One of the overall themes of Confessions is that of ‘friendship’ both in its positive and negative aspects. Augustine clarifies that “friendship is genuine only when you bind fast together people who cleave to you [God] through the charity poured abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (4.4.7). In this anecdote, he discusses a deep but purely human friendship. Meeting a childhood friend, Augustine leads him into Manichaeism and together they experience a friendship ‘sweeter than any sweetness’ (4.4.7). After only a year of being friends, the young man becomes fatally ill with a fever and is baptized. To Augustine’s surprise when his friend recovers temporarily he completely rejects Manichaeism. Augustine describes the anguish of their parting but comes to realize that his misery is due to his mind being chained by friendship to mortal things (4.6.11). “Woe to the madness which thinks to cherish human beings as though more than human!” (4.7.12). His intense grief over this loss, lead him to leave Thagaste and his memories there and to move to Carthage. In Carthage he notes that “what restored and re-created me above all was the consolation of other friends” (4.8.13) and allowing his mind to be distracted by their pleasant company.

This distraction is not truly a cure for his soul. Confronted with the death of a friend, the ‘god’ of Manichaeism is not able to bring rest to his soul. He is unable to live with his grief or to flee from it though he does flee to Carthage. The ‘re-creating’ he speaks of above is related to what he says about time. He writes;

Time does not stand still, nor are the rolling seasons useless to us, for they all work wonders in our minds. They came and went for day to day, and by their coming and going implanted in me other hopes and other memories. (4.8.13)

Time “becomes a principle of association that collects and disperses ideas and memories into the unity of the present moment”[i] The ideas and memories from earlier times are juxtaposed by time to rearrange their order and significance. Recollection is possible because time is linear but it is also discontinuous and reconstruction is necessary. The key to reconstruction or transformation is learning to love all things in God. Augustine writes;

If sensuous beauty delights you, praise God for the beauty of corporeal things, and channel the love you feel for them onto their Maker (4.12.18).

This is not a naive denial of the continued power of concupiscence after our conversion. Augustine notes, “Why follow your flesh, perverted soul? Rather let it follow you, once you are converted” (4.11.17). This is not to imply that once we are converted we effortlessly return to the state of original innocence experienced by our first parents in the garden. Augustine continues,

Return to your heart, then, you wrongdoers, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him and you will stand firm, rest in him and you will find peace. Where are you going, along your rough paths? (4.12.18).

We must seek Christ, the bridegroom, who has withdrawn from our sight, “so that we might return to our own hearts and find him there” (2.12.19). This interior transformation allows us to bring Christ into the world carry others off to God, because we “burn with the fire of charity” as we speak in the Spirit.

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Text © Scott McKellar 2011

[i] Vaught, Journey, p. 98.

Book 4: Augustine the Manichean

In book 4, Augustine begins by describing his floundering in the Beliefs of the Manichaean sect for nine long years (from his nineteenth to his twenty-ninth year). Vaught notes the movement in Books 2-4 from stealing, to loving, then finally to deceiving. Augustine is deceived and he deceives others.

The founder of Manichaeism is Mani who was born in Babylonia under Persian rule in 217. Mani’s personal history was written by his enemies and contains often contradictory unreliable accounts.[i] In modern time several manuscript collections of Manichaean writings have been discovered in Northwest China (Turkestan) and Egypt.

The beliefs of the Manichaean appear to fit within the broad category of Jewish Christian heresy of Gnosticism.[ii] As we noted above in the introduction, Manichaeism was particularly concerned with the problem of the existence of evil. Where did evil come from? Did God create evil? These questions were answered by proposing a radical dualism between the realm of light, or God and the realm of darkness or Satan. According to the Manichaean doctrine, Adam and Eve are actually the progeny of male and female demons. The first human parents are not the creation of God but resulted from Satan’s evil initiative. Particles of the Kingdom of Light were trapped in the visible world. God countered this tactic of the devil by sending Jesus from the realm of light to reveal divine knowledge (Greek, gnosis) to Adam and Eve.

In Augustine’s time the Manichaean religion had spread to Rome and Carthage and across North Africa. In practical terms the adherents of this faith considered themselves Christians. They believed that the present visible world was a mixture of light and dark elements. God, “the Father of Greatness” set up the sun and moon as collector stations for light to pass back to the realm of light. Adam and Eve were created as the progeny of demons to counter the Sun and moon and keep the light trapped in the material world principally by generating offspring. In turn God countered this move by sending Jesus from the light-realm to reveal divine knowledge (gnosis) to Adam and Eve. Coyle notes that this was not the Jesus of orthodox Christianity, “for Manicheism seems to propose several entities called Jesus” yet none of them was a savior except as the bearer of saving knowledge. Further since they believed matter was evil, the “true” Jesus could not have been born of Mary.[iii]

The followers of the Manichaean religion tried to help the world through the agency of its members who were divided into the Elect (who were generally Manichaean presbyters, bishops, and deacons) and the auditors or hearers who included both men and women. The ultimate goal was the release of all light from matter through the agency of the Elect. The Elect carried out this task through digestion. They practiced a rigorous asceticism eating no meat and consuming certain grains, vegetables and fruits thought to contain light. Once enough light was release and great fire would erupt and complete the process of separation of light and darkness. The Elect followed a rigorous moral and ascetical code. They were not permitted to kill any living thing, including harvesting food (others had to do this for them) and they observed frequent prayer (seven times per day) and fasting. The Elect were perpetual wanders owning nothing and depending on the Hearers for their care. The Hearers lived a less restrictive life with fewer prayers and fasts and were allowed to marry (though procreation was discouraged).

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

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[i] Coyle, “Mani, Manicheism,” in Augustine through the Ages, p. 520.

[ii] The Standard work on Gnosticism is Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: the Nature and History of Gnosticism, trans. Robert McLachlan Wilson (San Francisco: Harper, 1987) based on expanded revised German ed. (1980). Two other important works which argue persuasively that Gnosticism is a post-Christian phenomenon deserve mention. Edwin M. Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism: A survey of the Proposed Evidences, 2^nd ed., (Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 1983) and Simone Pétrement, A Separate God: The Christian Origins of Gnosticism, trans. Carol Harrison (San Francisco: Harper, 1984).

[iii] Ibid. p. 522.

Book 3: Student Years at Carthage

Arriving at the great capital of Africa, Carthage, Augustine says that he was “In love with loving” not that he was in love with anything but that he was “casting about for something to love” (3.1.1). Vaught comments, “If the love of stealing is a love of nothing, the love of loving is love for the deeper nothingness from which stealing for its own sake emerges.”[i] This vacant idea of loving is linked to sexual promiscuity, where the desire to love and be loved is sweeter if he can enjoy a lover’s body. His desire to experience strong emotions is fed by being a spectator at the theatrical shows featured Carthage. He enjoyed being moved to tears by the theatrical tragedies (3.4).

In Carthage Augustine became a master in the School of Rhetoric with a goal of working in the law courts (3.6). He associated with a group of friends who called themselves the ‘wreckers’[ii] but distanced himself from their activities of bullying sensitive freshmen.

Studying treatises on elegance, he discovered a work by Cicero, called Hortensius which contained an introduction to philosophy. He was “won over not by its style but by what it had to say” that is by the notion of philosophy as the love of wisdom. He notes, “I was aroused and kindled and set on fire to love and seek . . . wisdom itself” (3.8).

As mentioned earlier in the introduction, Augustine’s interest in philosophy led him to read the Sacred Scriptures. He was immediately put off with the poor Latin translation that existed at the time (cf. Sermon 51.6). He was looking for the elegant prose of Cicero and found instead what appeared to be barbarous and unappealing. He blames his lack of appreciation on pride.

About this same time he began to listen to a group of Manichaean’s who “subtly maneuvered” him into accepting their views. The raised questions about the origin of evil and criticized anthropomorphic descriptions of God, and the moral practices of the Old Testament saints (3.7.12). The Manichaean’s were confused about the existence of absolute morals found in God’s eternal law rather than codes based on human custom and did not understand the idea of progressive revelation (3.13-3.8.15). God had slowly revealed his nature in the Old Testament. Looking back Augustine called absurd the belief of the Manichaean’s that if one of their elect ate a fig and belched or groaned in prayer “he would spew out angles, or even particles of God” (3.9.17).

Augustine’s deception led his mother Monica to grieve for him with many tears and to implore God for help. As she beseeched God, she had a vision or dream which Augustine recounts. He notes, “She dreamed that she was standing on some kind of wooden ruler, and she saw a young man of radiant aspect coming toward her” (3.11.19). The young man was happy while she was sad. He asked her why she was sorrowful, and she said because of his ruin. He admonished her to take note that, “where she stood, there also did I” (3.11.19). She took courage in the belief that Augustine would eventually be a Christian, though for nine more years Augustine “floundered in the mud of the deep and the darkness of deception” (3.20).

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

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[i] Vaught, Journey, p. 69.

[ii] “Eversores, literarily those who upset, overthrow, sack the city” Boulding, WSA I/1, p. 78 n. 12.

Book 2: Adolescence

In book 2 Augustine moves on to discuss the sins of the flesh he committed during adolescence. He notes that he only delighted in loving and being loved but without proper restraint. His erupting puberty sent him into a “fog of lust” and he “floundered in the tumultuous sea” of his fornications (2.2.2). He asks, “Who was there to alleviate my distress?” Why did his parents not encourage him to marry? Could he not have been content to use his sexuality to procreate children? Yet he recognizes that he would not have found peace in marriage, since he feels called to the celibate life. Yet at the age of sixteen his family tolerated him forming a relationship with a concubine, rather than a marriage (2.4).

In that same year he was forced to return to his native Madaura, while his father saved up to send him to Carthage. Although he recounts that his mother warned him to keep clear of fornication and adultery, he was reckless and did not head her advice. Driven on by peer pressure he recounts that he even pretended to obscenities that he had not committed (2.7) in order to appear a rascal to his adolescent friends.

In Augustine’s mind one particular episode in the adolescent life stands out, and that is the robbing of the pear tree.[i] Augustine reminisces about the thief of pears from a tree near his home. With a group of boys he stole the fruit simply to enjoy stealing. He notes that its fruit was “not enticing, either in appearance of flavor” (1.4.9). The boys took enormous quantities of fruit and ate very little, the rest they thru to the pigs. The wasteful act was done primarily for the sinful pleasure of doing what was forbidden.

Does Augustine intend to highlight this episode because of its parallel to eating the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil in the Genesis account of the Fall? Is there a contrast with his later conversion under the Fig tree in the Garden in 8.12.28? Both seem quite likely but why specifically a pear tree? Shanzer has proposed that the pear may also be a verbal allusion to the pagan Roman literary tradition.[ii] The common Roman understanding of pears is that they are ordinary and cheap. There are apparent parallels between this story and a parable in Horace about an unwanted gift of pears which also involves boys and pigs. Shanzer notes,

Horace explored the graceless and useless gift with a rustic fable that highlighted the behaviour of the giver. Augustine took a criminal and meaningless theft and explored it from the point of view, not of the giver or receiver, but of the taker. In both cases boys and pigs get pears, in neither does either derive any good from the fruit. The stories are two different reflections of the similar facts.[iii]

An even stronger reaction might come from a Manichaean background. Manichaean mythology believed that trees sprang up from the semen of demons and there fruit contained the particles that escaped from the Kingdom of Light. A Manichaean would never intentionally pick fruit and if they did they would ask one of the Manichaean elect to ingest it to release its hidden light.[iv]

While all of this must surely have been in his mind, the focus appears to be on the Genesis parallel and the mystery of sin. Augustine makes it clear he had no ethical reason to steal the fruit. It was stolen purely for the pleasure of the act itself. He also makes clear seven times in (2.8.16-2.9.17) that he would never have stolen the fruit alone. Does the theme of negative peer pressure, or the danger of bad friendships, parallel the situation of Adam and Eve? Does it parallel the ‘stolen’ pleasure of sexual concupiscence?

The next section of his text talks about how the beautiful form of physical things attracts our eyes (2.5.10). Augustine then discusses friendship which draws human beings together, but notes that “sin gains entrance through these and similar good things when we turn to them with immoderate desire” (2.5.10). He then moves on to enumerate a list of vices which lurk in “counterfeit beauty” (2.13); pride, ambition, flirtatiousness, curiosity, ignorance and stupidity, sloth, extravagance, avarice, envy, anger, timidity, and sadness (2.13). He concludes that, “a soul that turns away from you therefore lapses into fornication” (2.14). He asks, “Is there anyone who can take stock of his own weakness and still dare to credit his chastity and innocence to his own efforts?” (2.7.15). Although this incident of stealing fruit is real, it stands as a metaphor for his own meaningless stolen pleasures which are a part of the corruption of the bad company he kept.

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

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[i]Danuta Shanzer, “Pears before Swine: Augustine, Confessions 2.4.9” Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 42 (1996), 45-55. Augustine appears to have mixed thoughts from both the classical author Horace and the Bible in Gen 3.

[ii] Ibid., p. 50.

[iii] Ibid., p. 52-53.

[iv] Vaught, Journey, p. 55.

Infancy and Childhood (Confessions 1.6.7-1.20.31)

In discussing his infancy Augustine is forced to talk about what he in a sense cannot know or understand because he cannot remember and as an infant he lacked the cognitive tools to assess his environment. This beginning highlights a profound place of humility that represents our common condition as humans. We all begin in a state of original innocence. Although we cannot examine this state through recollection we can explore it by inference through the observation of other infants. St. Augustine is not attempting to engage in scientific enquiry or to develop a theory of cognition. His focus is on the will and the practical context of communal interaction. Carl Vaught notes, “The infant’s struggles to express its desires reflect a fundamental opposition between positive and negative elements in its nature, and it is out of this internal conflict that the negative community of fallen individuals emerges.” [i] Here we begin to touch on the tension between original innocence and original sin in the human condition. The Church affirms that the doctrine of original sin is an essential part of the faith (CCC 388-390). The Catechism reminds us;

How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".²⁹³ By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. (CCC404)

Or solidarity with Adam leaves us afflicted with this condition but the Church has not clearly defined the exact mechanism for its transmission. Various theories were being debated at the time of St. Augustine and even today the Catechism calls this “a mystery that we cannot fully understand” (CCC404).

By analogy to other babies Augustine recounts his first smiles and also his tantrums “because my elders were not subject to me” (1.8) and even the “sins of infancy” including greed and jealousy (1.7.11) though he is quick to point out that we do not discipline infants for this behavior because they would “not have been able to understand” (1.7.11). Ultimately Augustine moves on, comparing his infancy to a dark blank in his memory on par with the time he spent in his mother’s womb (1.12).

Moving on to his boyhood Augustine begins to describe his acquisition of language. Some modern philosophers have criticized Augustine for what they perceive to be his overly simplistic approach to the subject. Ironically this is based on a failure to read him carefully. Augustine makes it clear that language is learned through a framework of social conditioning based on the interactions with the linguistic community formed by his parents and nurses (1.8.13).[ii]

Augustine’s early school experiences appear to be mostly negative. He enduring being beaten at school and recounts his heart felt fear of such torments. Hi parents only mocked his punishments. Looking back he notes the irony of disciplining children for their love of play when many similar adult pursuits are considered “business” (1.15). Yet he acknowledges his fault, “I sinned because I disobeyed them not in order to choose something more worthwhile, but simply because I loved games” (1.10.16). His disobedience was motivated by the triple concupiscence of vain glory, curiosity, and lust. For these follies he begs God’s mercy.

Next he recounts an incident where he became deathly ill with a fever. He earnestly begged to be baptized but recovered. He notes;

My cleansing was therefore deferred on the ground that if I lived I would inevitably soil myself again, for it was held that the guilt of sinful defilement incurred after the laver of baptism was graver and more perilous (1.11.17).

Looking back Augustine, asks God to what purpose his baptism was delayed. He could have entered adolescence with the graces of this sacrament to face the waves of temptation. God has turn to profit the lessons he learned.

In his studies Augustine loved Latin literature and hated Greek. He preferred learning in the language of his community rather than studies in a foreign tongue. His boyish mind was taken with the frivolous tales of Virgil’s Aeneid. He notes how he wept “over Dido, who killed herself for love” (1.13.20). He notes further that he gave full reign to his curiosity studying the Greek and Roman myths which model many obscene deeds. He complains about the use of words as finely-crafted vessel into which “the wine of error” was mixed “by teachers who are drunk themselves” (1.26). Augustine recounts how he became a gifted speaker, yet he recounts how empty and vacant it is to recount “licentious deeds in correct and well-turned phrases, in ample and elegant style” (1.18.28). One can be trained in fine speech yet still neglect the eternal rules directed to unending salvation (1.29).

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Text © Scott McKellar 2011

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[i] Carl G. Vaught, The Journey toward God in Augustine’s Confessions: Books I-VI, (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003), p. 32.

[ii] Vaught, Journey, calls Augustine’s account “proto-Wittgenstienian.” p. 41.

The Paradox of God’s Omnipresence (Confessions 1:2.2-1.6)

St. Augustine begins with a series of paradoxical questions about the nature of God. If the heart naturally longs for God, how does the soul encounter him? Do we first invoke him or praise him, or do we first know him or call upon him? What is the role of faith? Following intuitions from Scripture, Augustine notes that beyond the natural knowledge of God is the preaching of the Gospel. The incarnation leads to the progression of first hearing, then believing, to calling and seeking, and then ultimately to finding and praising. It is in finding that we fulfill the natural longing that God has placed in each heart.

Yet how do we conceive of this relation between the soul and God? How can God be said to “come into us” or “fill us”? How can we contain an infinite God? In fact God is everywhere wholly present, yet cannot be contained wholly by anything or anyone. Augustine notes;

“Yet all those things which you fill, you fill with the whole of yourself . . . Are you not everywhere in your whole being, while there is nothing whatever that can hold you entirely?” (1.3.3).

God is series of paradoxes, “supremely merciful and infinitely just, most hidden yet intimately present, infinitely beautiful and infinitely strong, steadfast yet elusive, unchanging yourself though you control the change of all things, never new, never old, renewing all things. . .” (1.4.4).

Ultimately it is through the eyes of faith that Augustine is able to understand. He says “Lord open the ears of my heart.” “The house of my soul is too small for you to enter: make it more spacious by your coming. It lies in ruins: rebuild it” (1.6).

One is reminded of C.S. Lewis’ final Narnia book, The Last Battle, where Lewis compares Narnia to the experience of heaven.

The further up and further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.

  Elsewhere quoting the text of Isaiah 7:9 (Old Latin of the LXX), Augustine will say, “Unless you believe, you will not understand.” (Answer to Faustus, 12:46, and 22:53)[i] This phrase is probably the source of Anselm’s famous motto is “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum).

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[i] Answer to Faustus, a Manichean, Trans. Roland Teske, S.J., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21st Century, Ed. Boniface Ramsey, (New York, New City Press, 2007),12:46 (p. 156), 22.53 (p. 335). Cf. also his Sermon 118.1 where he says “faith precedes, understanding follows.” Sermons III/4 (94A-147A) Trans. Edmond Hill O.P., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21st Century, Ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., (New York, New City Press, 1992), p. 225.

 

 

 

 

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[i] Answer to Faustus, a Manichean, Trans. Roland Teske, S.J., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21st Century, Ed. Boniface Ramsey, (New York, New City Press, 2007),12:46 (p. 156), 22.53 (p. 335). Cf. also his Sermon 118.1 where he says “faith precedes, understanding follows.” Sermons III/4 (94A-147A) Trans. Edmond Hill O.P., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21st Century, Ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., (New York, New City Press, 1992), p. 225.

Restless Hearts: Introduction (Book 1.1)

St. Augustine’s work begins with an introduction. O’Donnell points out the uniqueness of this introduction, noting that in “the history of Latin literature, its originality and oddity are clear”.[i] Rather than opening with a letter of dedication, Confessions begins with an abrupt direct address to a silent God. “Great are you, 0 Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; your power is immense, and your wisdom beyond reckoning” (1.1)[ii]

The opening words echo Psalm 48:1 “Great is the LORD and highly praised” (NAB) and Psalm 96:4 “For great is the LORD and highly to be praised” (NAB) and Psalm 147:5 “Great is our Lord, vast in power, with wisdom beyond measure” (NAB). It is as though we have walked into a room to find Augustine praying and praising God.

Even though we are human and exist as part of a fallen creation we still long to praise God. Augustine reminds us; “You stir us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you” (1.1). These are the most famous words of this work. It is as if we were created with a God-shaped hole in our hearts. We have a natural God-given appetite for praising God. It is something which happens spontaneously in the human person.

The closest analogy is human love. If we imaging a young man who sees a young woman. The man looks at her not so much out of duty or social convention, but initially out of intrigue for her beauty. If the mysterious chemistry of human attraction is right between them, in further encounters he can be captivated by her beauty, intrigued by her person, draw by her personality. She remains a beautiful woman but also becomes a person with a name. St. Augustine puzzles over the mystery of ‘knowing.” He notes;

“Grant me to know and understand. Lord, which comes first: to call upon you or to praise you? To know you or to call upon you?” (1.1)

Do we not need to know and to believe before we can praise? But it would appear that merely seeking is enough to lead us inexorably toward praise. We are draw to praise by our very nature;

“But scripture tells us that those who seek the Lord will praise him, for as they seek they find him, and on finding him they will praise him” (1.1)

This whole section echoes St. Paul in Romans 10:14. Faith comes through hearing the Word preached. St. Augustine concludes; “My faith calls upon you, Lord, this faith which is your gift to me, which you have breathed into me through the humanity of your Son and the ministry of your preacher.” These words parallel St. Augustine’s own experience of conversion as he listened to the preaching of Bishop Ambrose. He notes later in our text,

“As I opened my heart to hear how skillfully he spoke, the recognition that he was speaking the truth crept in at the same time, though only slowly by degrees” (Conf. V.14.24).

Although friendships and other human relationships can bring us joy, our heart remains restless and without peace until we find rest in God.

 

 

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

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[i] James J. O’Donnell, Augustine, Confessions: Text and Commentary. 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) Online edition: http://www.stoa.org/hippo/comm1.html#CB1C1S1 Accessed 3/4/2011.

[ii] Once again unless otherwise noted all quotes are from , St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21^st Century, Ed John Rotelle, O.S.A., New York, New City Press, 1997.

The Thematic Structure of Confessions

Augustine divides his work into 13 books. Generally scholars have had difficulty finding a way to link the autobiographical material in Books 1-9 with Augustine’s soul searching present reflections in Book 10 and finally his allegorical exegesis of Genesis 1 in Books 11-13. Augustine’s treatment of the theme of memory and the Eucharistic theme Cavadini has identified show how these apparently varied parts fit together. The internal structure of the first nine books seems to follow ages of man according to the ancient world: infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth and maturity. In addition to this simple structure, Augustine may be employing other rhetorical techniques.

William A. Stephany has argued that one can recognize a clear structure to the first nine books of Confessions that is call a chiasm (from the Greek letter chi or ‘X’).[i] In a simple chiasm the elements in one statement are paralleled and reversed in the next statement A-B parallels B-A. For example Amos 5:5;

but do not seek Bethel; Do not come to Gilgal, and do not cross to Beer-sheba.

For Gilgal shall be led into exile, and Bethel shall become nought. (NAB)

In a more complex chiasm a series of items pair leaving a central item for emphasis such as “lying” in Psalm 52:3b.

Psalm 52:1b-5a[ii]

Stephany argues that,

“Books 1-9 of the Confessions form a chiasm, with Book 5 at the center and the other books arranged in pairs on either side of the central book: Book 4, in other words, balancing Book 6; Book 3 balancing Book 7; Book 2 balancing Book 8; and Book 1 balancing Book 9. So seen, Book 5 becomes the center of Augustine's narrative of conversion, the point to which the first four books lead, and from which the last four proceed.”[iii]

A diagram of the flow of Augustine’s account of his life shows the clear parallel elements;

Special emphasis is given to Book 5 and the parallel elements show contrasts between the Fallen and redeemed states. Stephany also comments on the contrasts within Book 5 between the Manichean bishop and Bishop Ambrose;

“At the beginning of the Book, Augustine awaits one Bishop expecting the truth, but he received only rhetoric; at the end of the Book, he frequents the sermons of the other Bishop out of professional curiosity, expecting only rhetoric, but he received the truth.”[iv]

As we begin to work our way through the various books, we will try to keep this overall structure of Books 1-9 in mind.  It is interesting to note that this same structure is seen in the famous Carmen Christi hymn found in Philippians 2.  This is one of St. Augustine’s favorite passages.

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

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[i] William A. Stephany “Thematic Structure in Augustine’s Confessions,” Augustinian Studies 20 (1989):129 – 142.

[ii] Robert L Alden, “Chiastic Psalms (II): A Study in the Mechanics of Semantic Poetry in Psalms 51-100” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 19-3 (1976) 191-200, esp. 191-192.

[iii] Stephany, 129-130.

[iv] Ibid. 139.

What Sort of Book is Confessions?

The Genre of Confessions

James J. O’Donnell comments; “Augustine never practices the humility of the man who would escape attention. In prostrating himself before the divine in the Confessions, Augustine performs an astonishing act of self-preservation and self-justification and paradoxically, self-aggrandizement.”[i] Charles T. Mathewes has pointed out that our perception of St. Augustine precisely at this point is clouded by our modern notions of autobiography. Is the act of writing one’s story down not inherently vain? Mathewes argues that Augustine’s work “is not in fact merely autobiographical, it is properly speaking anti-autobiographical”[ii] The aim is pedagogical and psychological, helping us to recognize negatively that our sinful lives are far less intelligible than we presume and positively that our existence is a gift of sheer grace on God’s part. There is no presumption that we narrate our own lives, but rather that the story is only intelligible from the perspective of salvation.[iii] Does this allow St. Augustine to escape O’Donnell’s criticism? Augustine is probably not completely free of vanity, but Mathewes’ point is well taken and topic of grace is one of Augustine’s most prevalent themes.

Although parts of the work may have been published previously the work as a whole has a definite unity. The work seems to be divided into three parts. Books I-IX discuss Augustine’s past life, Book X his present life and books XI-XIII are a commentary on Genesis 1 and some philosophical issues. Scholars are not agreed on a single unifying theme. The ascent of the soul to God (or the fall and return of the soul to God) is one prominent theme. Others have focused on Book XI.2.26 and Augustine’s treatment of memory. Augustine discusses a memoria (memory) of the past (Books I-IX ), a contuitus (an intensive look) of the present (Book X) and an expectatio (anticipation) of the future (Books XI-XIII).[iv]

John Cavadini has suggested that although Augustine follows the ancient custom of not speaking directly about the secrets of the Eucharistic rite, he is nonetheless alluding to a Eucharistic understanding throughout this discourse.[v] The theme of memory is in fact Eucharistic. He notes that, “the Eucharist is at the intersection of memory and hope.”[vi] In fact, “the person bound to the Eucharist in faith is bound to the memorial of God’s mercy that configures or even defines all of one’s own memory.”[vii]

A related theme is St. Augustine’s connection between the vices of 1 John 2:16 “the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the arrogance of a life” (concupiscentia carnis est, et concupiscentia oculorum, et superbia vitæ) and the triple concupiscence of the vices libido (lust of the flesh), curiositas (curiosity) and superbia (pride of life)[viii] O’Donnell sees this triadic pattern as the key to the first eight books and part of Book X. In Book X Augustine discusses each of the five senses as concupiscence of the flesh. He discusses touch (X.30.42), taste (X.31.45), smell (X.32.48), hearing (X.33.50) and sight (X.34.53) before moving on to curiosity (X.35.57) and finally worldly ambition (ambitio saecula) in Book X.38.63.[ix]

In the end, Augustine’s ‘confessions’ are not his alone but those of Adam and Eve and of the whole human race. The Confessions are rather the story of God’s own saving action and gracious work of forgiveness which culminates on the cross and is made present to us in the Eucharist. It is the story of our fallen state and of the “healing remedy who hung upon a tree, the medicine for our wounds” (Conf. X.13,35).

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

 

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[i] O’Donnell, Augustine, p. 36.

[ii] Charles T. Mathewes, “Book One: The Presumptuousness of Autobiography and the Paradoxes of Beginning” in A Reader’s Companion to Augustine’s Confessions, Ed. Kim Paffenroth and Robert P. Kennedy, (Louisville: Westminster Press, 2003), p. 8.

[iii] Ibid., p. 8-9.

[iv]Van Fleteren, “Confessions,” 227-232, esp. 28.

[v]John C. Cavadini, “Eucharistic Exegesis in Augustine’s Confessions” Augustinian Studies 41:1 (2010) 87-108, esp. p. 89.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii]Cf. 1 John 2:16 “sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life (NAB).” N. Joseph Torchia, “Curiositas In The Early Philosophical Writings of Saint Augustine” Augustinian Studies 19 (1988) 111 – 119. Torchia notes, “curiositas is intimately connected with Augustine’s theory of the soul’s fall. Curiositas abets the fall in several ways. In epistemological terms, it inspires the soul’s interest in lesser realities; such an interest manifests itself in natural science and those intellectual pursuits which direct the soul to vain, empty images. In a metaphysical sense, it prompts the soul to abandon a “higher”, contemplative mode of being in favor of a “lower,” temporal one. In a moral context, curiositas fosters the soul’s commitment to partial, limited goods in opposition to an abiding commitment to a greater, all-encompassing Good,” p. 118.

[ix] Cavadini, p. 100 n. 53.

St. Augustine the Catholic

Augustine’s Conversion

Augustine’s despair quickly began to change, when in Holy Week in the year 386 he heard the preaching of St. Ambrose of Milan. He notes, “As I opened my heart to hear how skillfully he spoke, the recognition that he was speaking the truth crept in at the same time, though only slowly by degrees” (Conf. V.14.24). In particular he was struck by the following truths;

“I heard some difficult passage of the Old Testament explained figuratively; such passages had been death to me because I was taking them literally. As I listened to many such scriptural texts being interpreted in a spiritual sense I confronted my own attitude, or at least that despair which had led me to believe that no resistance whatever could be offered to people who loathed and derided that law and the prophets.” (Conf. V.14.24)

Augustine was intrigued by the citation of St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians; ‘The letter kills but the spirit gives life’ (2 Corinthians 3:6). He notes,

“I was delighted to hear Ambrose often asserting in his sermons to the people, as a principle on which he must insist emphatically, The letter is death-dealing, but the spirit gives life. This he would tell them as he drew aside the veil of mystery and opened to them the spiritual meaning of passages which, taken literally, would seem to mislead. (Conf. VI.4.6)

Augustine became aware of the possibility of the spiritual sense of Scripture and this led him to accept the authority of Sacred Scripture. He notes,

“It is because we are weak and unable to find the truth by pure reason that we needed the authority of the Sacred Scripture. . . .The Authority of sacred writings seemed to me all the more deserving of reverence and divine faith in that scripture was easily accessible to every reader, while yet guarding a mysterious dignity in its deeper sense.” (Conf. VI.5.8)

These shifts in his thinking prepared him for the mystical experience in the garden which he recount in Book VIII of Confessions. Augustine heard a child’s voice instructing him to "Pick it up and read, Pick it up and read” (Conf. VIII. 29) and imitating the example of St. Anthony whom he had just been reading he responds by picking up the Scriptures and reading Romans 13.

Fr. Bertrand de Margerie, S.J. notes that St. Augustine internalized two things from this experience of conversion. Firstly, that the words of Scripture are speaking to him directly as the ever-living Word of God. Secondly he saw the connection between divine providence and Church tradition, in the parallel between his experience and St. Anthony’s. [i]

After a short retreat with his friends, Augustine returned to Milan to be baptized. Not long after this his mother Monica died and he made plans to travel back Africa to establish something very like a monastery in Thagaste dedicated to the study of Scripture.[ii]

Augustine’s Ordination and Consecration

His qualities as a speaker and his recent conversion prompt the local people to acclaim him as a candidate for the priesthood. St. Augustine was ordained a priest in 391.[iii] Shortly after this the local Bishop Valerius has him consecrated as coadjutor Bishop. Realizing his short comings, Augustine pleaded with Bishop Valerius to allow him some time to study Scripture to prepare for this new role.[iv]

John M. Rist notes, “Yet at the time of his ordination Augustine’s biblical knowledge was still quite limited, for his intellectual formation had to this point been largely unscriptural.”[v] Augustine had spent most of his time studying Cicero, Virgil, Terence, and Sallust and only more recently the neo-platonic philosophy of Plotinus.  Beginning what was to become a lifetime of commenting on Scripture, Augustine first wrote a series of sermons on our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. 

Today, St. Augustine’s extant works total over 5 million words! This has led to the famous saying of St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) that ‘the man who claims to have read all of Augustine is a liar’. Joseph Kelly comments, however, “The Famous remark of the Spanish scholar Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636), that anyone who claimed to have read all the works of Augustine was a liar, was referring not to the number of the saint’s works but to their accessibility in the early middle ages.”[vi]  No one library in the early middle ages contained all of St. Augustine’s works

St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636)

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

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[i] Bertrand de Margerie, S. J. An Introduction to the History of Exegesis Volume III Saint Augustine, Trans. Pierre de Fontnouvelle. (Petersham, Massachusetts: Saint Bede's Publications, 1991).

[ii] There is some debate about how formally one should use the term ‘monastery.’ G. P. Lawless “Augustine's First Monastery: Thagaste or Hippo? Augustinian Studies 25: 1/2(1985) 65 – 78. Lawless argues with P. Brown for monastic style life at Thagaste. He notes, “Life at Thagaste was characterized by surrender of property and possessions (certainly in Augustine's case), fasting, fraternity, dialogue, prayer, spiritual reading, (principally the Scriptures) and work of an intellectual bent.” p. 68.

[iii] Allan Fitzgerald, O.S.A. “When Augustine Was Priest,” Augustinian Studies 40:1 (2009) 37–48.

[iv] St. Augustine, Letter 21 in Letters (1-99) II/1, trans. Roland Teske, S.J., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21^st Century, Ed. John Rotelle, O.S.A., (New York, New City Press, 2001), p. 55-57. Cf. Michael Cameron, “Valerius of Hippo: A Profile” Augustinian Studies 40:1 (2009) 5–26.

[v] Rist, Augustine, p. 15.

[vi] Joseph F. Kelly, “Late Carolingian Era” in Augustine through the ages: an encyclopedia Ed. Allan Fitzgerald, John C. Cavadini. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) p. 127.  More details here

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

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St. Augustine’s Own Story: Confessions

Introduction

 This series of posts will follow St. Augustine’s own story of his life in his most famous work, Confessions.  Augustine will describe his infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth[i] as well as his conversation and early life as a Christian. As we read Confessions we will examine each stage of his life in some detail but as an initial framework we should note some significant turning points in his life which divide his life into four periods. His life is divided into four periods by three ‘sign posts.’ [ii] The period of his early life, his conversion and Baptism (386), his ordination to the priesthood (391) and subsequently to the episcopacy, and the period following his re-examination of Paul’s letter to the Romans and his reply to Simplicianus (396). At each of these points his thinking takes a significant shift.

St. Augustine was born in Tagaste (now Souk Ahras in Algeria) in the year 354 AD. North Africa had long since fallen under the control of Rome and had experienced a long period Romanization and of material prosperity. Peter Brown notes an inscription at Timgad in modern southern Algeria which reads, ‘The hunt, the baths, play and laughter: that's the life for me!’ [iii] Augustine was the son of a non-Christian Father, Patricus, and a Christian mother, Monica.

Augustine’s Early Life

Apparently the general atmosphere of the home was Christian it was not initially very pious. Although St. Augustine recounts that he first learned his faith from his earliest memories. “with my mother’s milk”. . . “my tender little heart had drunk in that name.” (Conf. III.4.8) Following a misguided practice of the times, young Augustine was enrolled by his parents in the catechumenate but not baptized. He notes; “My cleansing was therefore deferred on the pretext that if I lived I would inevitably soil myself again, for it was held that the guilt of sinful defilement incurred after the laver of baptism was graver and more perilous” (Conf., I, 11.17)[iv]. He laments this practice, and what he regards as the squandering of his youth. He notes that in his youth he initially turned his “attention to the Holy Scriptures to find out what they were like” (Conf. III.5.9). Unfortunately, after comparing the Bible to Cicero’s dignified Latin prose he judged the Scriptures to be ‘unworthy’ (Conf. III.5.9) He later notes,

“My swollen pride recoiled from its style and my intelligence failed to penetrate to its inner meaning. Scripture is a reality that grows along with little children, but I distained to be a little child and in high and mighty arrogance regarded myself as grown up.” (Conf. III.5.9)

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. comments on the difference between the Latin Bible Augustine read and the later Vulgate translation;

“The Latin Bible that Augustine read was different. Its language was uncultivated, awkward, grammatically deficient, sometimes barbarous, and occasionally incomprehensible. A man trained to exquisite good taste, who sneered at those who said omo instead of homo, (Confessions 1, 18, 29) might well find the Christian Bible repulsive.”[v]

The main concern of his parents was for his career and so he was sent to the metropolis of Carthage to study rhetoric. His studies of Cicero lead him to an interest in philosophy. In his personal life he entered an unofficial marriage with a concubine and had a son, Adeodatus.

Augustine the Manichean

While in Carthage, he joined a self styled ‘Christian’ group following the Mesopotamian prophet Mani. He became an ‘auditor’ (listener or hearer) of the Manicheans. Manichaeism answered the question of the existence of evil by proposing a radical dualism between the realm of light, or God and the realm of darkness or Satan. Adam was the product of the mating of a male and female demon, as was Eve. The first human parents are not the creation of God but resulted from evil’s initiative. Light was trapped in the visible world. God counters this tactic by sending Jesus from the light realm to reveal divine knowledge (gnosis) to Adam and Eve. For the Manicheans Jesus was not the same as the orthodox Christianity, since human flesh in their view has evil origins and comes about through procreation which emulates the demonic origin of Adam and Eve[vi].

Augustine’s conversion takes place after he succeeds to the Chair of Rhetoric in Milan in 383. Here he meets Bishop Ambrose who is an eloquent speaker and who defends the Old Testament against the criticisms of Manicheans. St. Augustine’s main difficulty with the Bible (aside from the poor Latin style of his translation) was the lack of agreement between the genealogies of Christ in Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Looking back he writes;

“I am speaking to you as one who was myself caught out once upon a time, when as a lad I wanted to tackle the divine Scriptures with techniques of clever disputation before bringing to them the spirit of earnest inquiry. In this way I was shutting the door of my Lord against myself by my misplaced attitude; I should have been knocking at it for it to be opened, but instead I was adding my weight to keep it shut.”[vii]

Again looking back in his work The Usefulness of Belief (AD 391), Augustine writes,

“But there is nothing more rash—and rashness as a boy I had plenty—than to desert the professed expositors of books which they possess and hand on to their disciples, and instead to go asking the opinion of others who, for no reason I can think of, have declared most bitter war against the authors of these books.”[viii]

Under the teaching of the Manicheans Augustine had come to profess “despair” which led him to believe that the Old Testament was filled with difficulties that could not be resolved (Conf. V.14.24).

Text © Scott McKellar 2011

 

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[i] St Augustine follows the ages of man according to the ancient world: infantia, puerita, adulescens, and iuventus. Frederick Van Fleteren, “Confessions” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A., Grand Rapids, Erdmanns, 1999, p. 229. James J. O’Donnell notes, “To approach that book with the best effect, let us dwell on the Augustine of 397, the forty-two-year-old getting ready to tell his story in the form destined to become famous. For him, “youth” (iuventus) ended at forty-five, to be succeeded by “maturity” (gravitas) and then by “old age” (senectus) at sixty.” O’Donnell, Augustine: A New Biography (New York: Harper 2005) p. 26-27.

[ii] John M. Rist, Augustine, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. p. 14.

[iii] Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, Revised Edition with a New Epilogue, ?

[iv] Unless otherwise noted all quotations from, St. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21^st Century, Ed John Rotelle, O.S.A., New York, New City Press, 1997.

[v]Joseph T. Lienhard , Augustinian Studies Volume 27, Issue 1 – 1996, p. 9).

[vi] J. Kevin Coyle, “Mani, Manicheism,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A., Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1999, esp. 521-522, cf. Serge Lancel, St. Augustine, trans. Antonia Nevill, London, SCM Press, 2002, p. 31-36.

[vii] St. Augustine, Sermon 51, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., The Works of Saint Augustine for the 21st Century, Ed. John Rotelle, O.S.A., New York, New City Press, 1997, 51.6.

[viii] St Augustine, De utilitate credendi , vi, 13, trans. Burleigh, p. 301.