Confessions
of St Augustine
A Review by
Thomas A. Middleton
Augustine’s Confessions was written by this saint himself,
and is primarily a story of personal conversion. It was Augustine’s status as a
“Saint for Sinners” that first brought his life and writing to my attention. I
obtained a copy of a Lighthouse Catholic Media CD featuring an audio narration
of his story.
I was fascinated to first learn of Augustine’s ascent from a
life of sin through his conversion to a deep Catholic faith to become a priest and
Bishop. That he would not only make this tremendous leap, but that he would
also write so well about it, and would in fact become one of the great minds of
the Catholic Church, to me is truly awe-inspiring. At the time I first listened
to the Lighthouse CD from Lighthouse, I was spending a lot time driving. Most
of my informal studies in Catholicism, then, took place via audio CD in my
truck. I made a mental note that one day, when I had more time to read actual
books, I would track down a copy of Confessions.
What a delight, then, when I discovered that Confessions not
only on the reading list for this course in Church History, but it was
available as an audiobook. I listened anew to Augustine’s life story, but this
time in his own words, narrated roughly 1600 years after he lived, and the
scenes he spoke of came to life in vivid color in my mind’s eye.
I did not expect to find in the later chapters of this
much-anticipated book, Augustine’s insights into metaphysics. Given the full
context of the author’s life which precedes his philosophy in the earlier
chapters, I found Augustine’s thoughts on philosophy much easier to grasp than
the writings of Aristotle I had to read in my metaphysics course.
Augustine was born to a devout Catholic mother, Monica, and
a pagan father, Patrick, in Roman North Africa in the third century AD. While
his parents held differing views on faith, they both agreed that their son
should be well trained in oration, and they made great sacrifices from their
modest income to facilitate this. In Patrick’s view especially, a man would be
measured by the skill with which he could speak and the debates he could win,
not on the virtue he possessed or even so much the content of his speeches.
Perhaps owning to his mastery of dialect, Augustine wrote
Confessions as if he were speaking to God. The author himself notes that it is
for the benefit of those who might encounter his writings in the future in the
following words;
“To
whom tell I this? not to Thee, my God; but before Thee to mine own kind, even
to that small portion of mankind as may light upon these writings of mine. And
to what purpose? that whosoever reads this, may think out of what depths we are
to cry unto Thee. For what is nearer to Thine ears than a confessing heart, and
a life of faith?” (Augustine) [1]
This early side note in the text seems to give the first
glimpse of insight into the hand of the Holy Spirit at work through Monica and
Augustine. In Augustine’s own retrospective look back across his early life, he
could not initially see the value he derived from the training in dialectic
that his parents felt was so important. Clearly, the Holy Spirit made use of
Augustine’s thus refined dialectic ability to help him write for the benefit of
future Christians.
In another oddity of his autobiography in which the wisdom
only later becomes apparent, Augustine actually attempts to begin his
autobiography with his time in his mother’s womb. On the surface, this seems
pointless since of course the author remembers nothing of his time there. There
is, however, a value to this approach in the present day that would not have
been clear at time of writing. In view of the world’s current acceptance of
abortion and the prevailing view of secular law that human life begins at
birth, we see once again the influence of the Holy Spirit in reinforcing
through the words of this great saint that life actually begins at conception.[2]
In any case, Augustine does report at least one positive
occurrence in utero through the following words; “…even from the womb of my
mother, who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark of His cross and
salted with His salt.”[3]
Just as Augustine does with his very first words of this
great book and throughout it’s pages, he frames his rhetorical question of God concerning
the time of his soul’s actual beginning through words of praise for The
Almighty. Indeed, the entire dialectic manuscript could be described as a
prayer.
He goes on to describe his childhood through age fifteen as
that of a typically high-strung and mischievous boy. He relates how he first
learned, as children do about faith in the abstract, of the existence and the
teachings of God, but that these made little initial impression upon him. He
was more driven, it seems, by a childhood desire to impress his friends and win
their praise. He relates one particular anecdote in which he and some friends
stole some pears and threw them to the hogs. They did this, he reports, not to
eat, but simply for the pleasure of stealing.[4]
Thus far in Augustine’s report of his young life, I had
already heard many parallels to my own youth. Whereas Augustine had but one
devout Catholic parent and he developed a passion for the pursuit of
philosophical truth, I too received a wonderful upbringing in faith and
conservative ideology from my devout Catholic parents, developing a penchant
for debate in my teenage years. I didn’t steal, but I did get into lots of
playground scraps with other boys my age.
It is in Augustine’s report of his adolescence that our
paths depart for a time more fully, though there are still some parallels. He
dismissed his mother’s admonitions against fornication and adultery and plunged
fully into sexual escapade, even taking on a concubine at the age of
seventeen. I was much more considerate
of my mother’s moral sensibilities, at least. Instead of giving her worry over
moral decay, I instead gave her great worry over my physical safety when I embraced
the thrill of danger by joining both the Army Reserve and the local volunteer
fire department.
Augustine looks back on this time in his life from the mere
vantage point of a few decades and summarizes both the depth of his depravity
and the heart of what was missing in his life through one remarkable sentence;
“And what was it that
I delighted in, but to love, and be loved? but I kept not the measure of love,
of mind to mind, friendship's bright boundary: but out of the muddy
concupiscence of the flesh, and the bubblings of youth, mists fumed up which
beclouded and overcast my heart, that I could not discern the clear brightness
of love from the fog of lustfulness.”[5]
Beclouded as his heart was by muddy misty fog of lustfulness
bubbling out of concupiscence, is it any wonder that he could not discern the
clear brightness of love? Augustine is as
clear in retrospection as he was clouded in adolescence, that his desire for
love concurred with an absence of God’s closeness brought about by his own sin.
Augustine’s writings next take us forward into his young
adulthood. He continues his sexual sins but he goes on to study
philosophy, and later to teach. It was
during these years of young adulthood that his burning desire for truth came to
the fore. He continued to somewhat resist the Catholicism of his mother while
he investigated other religions of the day. He actually joined a heretical
version of Christianity called Manicheanism, which held that good and evil were
equal beings locked in an ongoing struggle. Perhaps he found this idea
comforting, since his mind possessed a strong thirst for truth while his loins
continued to hunger for other things.
It is in book III that Augustine reports on a vision
reported to him by his mother, Monica. In her vision she stood on a long narrow
strip or platform where she encounters a stranger and shares with him that she
is distraught over her son’s refusal to become a Christian. The stranger tells
her that “where you are, there will he be also”. She turns and finds Augustine
standing right behind her on the platform.
Encouraged by this vision, Monica tells a priest about it,
in hopes that he will help convert Augustine. The priest reports that Augustine
is not yet ready, but he encourages Saint Monica nonetheless to keep trying and
praying for him. Interestingly, these very same thoughts were shared by another
priest to another mother of a future priest 16 centuries later. Is it any
wonder I love this mother and son team of saints?
Slowly but steadily, through time and the intrusion of sad
events like the death of a friend into his life, Augustine draws nearer to God.
He figures out that astrology is completely false, and this paves the way
toward his eventual departure from Manicheanism. He figures out that his grief
is rooted in a misunderstanding that all beings are temporal. Looking back upon
this period in his life after his conversion it becomes clear to Augustine the
if he had but believed in God and the hereafter, he would not have been so
affected by grief at the end of what would only be the earthly life, not the
eternal life of the departed.
In his writings nearer the center of Confessions, Augustine shares with us some more insight into the
sermons of Bishop Ambrose and the emerging thought at the time which played a
part in his coming to accept Catholicism. There are two key issues which he
shares with us which he had troubled over at great length and which kept him
away from fully accepting Catholicism… just yet.
The first was the account of creation in Genesis, and the
second was the concept of the substance of God. Through Ambrose’s sermons,
Augustine came to learn that much of the more implausible content in the old
testament was becoming understood by the Catholic Church as metaphorical in
nature.
When it came to the idea of God having only a spiritual
substance outside of space and time, this was difficult for Augustine to
accept. He goes on to slowly wrap his head around this concept, and as he does,
the last vestiges of his doubts about God fall away.
There is a scene which Augustine relates to us in very great
illustration, his own agony in the garden, in which his conversion finally
takes place. He is living at the time with two close friends.
He and his buddies are so close that as Augustine states… “I retired then into the garden, and
Alypius, on my steps. For his presence did not lessen my privacy; or how could
he forsake me so disturbed? We sate down as far removed as might be from the
house.”
I knew what was coming when I read these words, because I
had already listened to the audiobook, but I have been thunderstruck tonight,
because such a very similar climax occurred in my own life, alongside a very
close battle-buddy of mine with whom I had served in combat… a young man, who
just like me, was also was discerning a call to Holy Orders…. a friend of my
own so close that, as Augustine described, “his
presence did not lessen my privacy”. I
too tore out my hair and pounded my forehead, wrestling with the call of God,
heart pounding, breath coming quickly… tears even rolled down my cheeks…
because that was the very night I felt called to become a priest!
We were in the choir loft providing the music at the funeral
mass of his Pastor that morning when the call came. It was later that evening
that my buddy and I retired to his front porch to reflect, and I shared with
him the call that I felt during mass. “Why
me? Why me?” I asked repeatedly, “for
I am a sinful man… why would God call a sinner like me to become a priest?”
Taking it all in… silently, my buddy waited for me to be
still, nodding, knowingly. When I fell
quiet, he answered, slowly and calmly… “Because
God does not call the qualified, Tom, He qualifies the called”.
It’s been almost three years now, and tonight, just as I re-read
this moment of conversion of St Augustine, I am struck by the incredible
parallel between Saint Augustine’s conversion and my own. Literally as I typed
these words, out of nowhere, I suddenly received a message from my own Vocations
Director.
After speaking with this good and holy priest for a few
minutes, I turned to my Bible as Augustine did some 1600 years ago, and opened
it to a random page. There, in astonishment, my eyes settled on 2 Corinthians
2:14
14 But thanks be to God,* who always leads us in triumph in Christ* and manifests through us the odor of the
knowledge of him* in every place.
15 For we are
the aroma of Christ for God among those who are being saved and among those who
are perishing,
16 to the
latter an odor of death that leads to death, to the former an odor of life that
leads to life. Who is qualified* for this?
17 For we are
not like the many who trade on the word of God; but as out of sincerity, indeed
as from God and in the presence of God, we speak in Christ.
And on the following
from 2 Corinthians 2:4;
2 Rather, we
have renounced shameful, hidden things; not acting deceitfully or falsifying
the word of God, but by the open declaration of the truth we commend ourselves
to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
4 in whose
case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, so that they
may not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of
God.
5 For we do
not preach ourselves* but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves
as your slaves for the sake of Jesus.
6 For God who said, “Let light shine out of
darkness,” has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the
face of [Jesus] Christ”[6]
Having recovered now, let us return to the pages written by Augustine.
The remainder of his Confessions goes
on to describe the solidification of his faith, the role of Bishop Ambrose in finishing
Augustines priestly formation, and Augstine’s views on Metaphysics.
Frankly, I found the book and the audio positively electrifying,
and I am grateful for having read it.
Bibliography
Augustine, Saint. "Project Gutenberg." 16
May 2013. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm.
eBook. 1 March 2016.
"The Confessions of St. Augustine (Unabridged)." ITunes.
Narr. Simon Vance. Audible.com, 1 Jan. 2008. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.
Paul. New American Bible. Revised ed. N.p.: USCCB,
n.d. Bible. US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Web. 02 Mar. 2016. 2
Corinthians 2:14-17, 4:1-6
[1]
"The Confessions of Saint Augustine." Project Gutenberg's The
Confessions of Saint Augustine. Trans. Edward Bouverie Pusey. Project
Gutenberg, 16 May 2013. Web. 1 Mar. 2016. Book II, page 15
[2]
"The Confessions of Saint Augustine.", Book II, page 5
[4] "The
Confessions of Saint Augustine.", Book II, page 17
[5] The
Confessions of Saint Augustine.", Book II, page 14
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