Finished Reading: Augustine’s “Confessions”

Augustine’s (354-430 AD) autobiographical “Confessions” focuses on the relationship between one man and God. Adler and Wolff ensure in their introduction (Britannica, 1959) that the reader tracks Augustine’s rollercoaster of human spirituality as he doubts, fears, misunderstands, seeks, rejects, and accepts God. 

“Confessions” is a prayer, rehearsing everything God already knows starting from birth. “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.” (Book 2) When not working out his theology (Book 7’s personal debate on the source of evil), Augustine shows us ourselves, putting down on paper matters that we dare not: a deep desire to love and serve God, but not ready to give up sin and receive Christ’s atonement. This reading covers books 1-8, translated by Watt’s (1631), from Latin.

While Cicero’s call to love wisdom in “Hortensius” awakened a “burning desire for an immortality of wisdom” that first turned him to God, it was the Manichean Bishop Faustus that Augustine consulted to alleviate his doubts, only to discover Faustus was “a great snare of the devil,” a heretic and a fraud. As much as he preferred Carthage, he found Roman students and teachers to be serious, less disruptive, respecting one another. Carthage was a madhouse, where young men walked out of lectures to watch gladiators fight. 

While Ambrose modeled silent Bible reading to Augustine (scripture was read aloud), he also learned the allegorical method of Bible interpretation. Augustine rejected astrology by observing that two babies born at the same time, yards apart, under the same sky will have different futures. His mothers’ prayer were finally answered when Augustine, in his 30’s heard a voice telling him to read the scriptures. His Bible fell open to Romans 8:13-14, when “at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” (Book 8)