Augustine'sConfessions

I just finished reading The Confessions of St. Augustine, a book I had previously read in seminary. This book chronicles the author’s life moving from his infancy and rebellious adolescence, through succeeding periods of doubt and misplaced religious loyalties, to his eventual conversion to the Catholic faith under Bishop Ambrose, another famous church father.

Augustine was born in 354 AD to a Christian mother and a pagan father. After a very “worldly” adolescence he first embraced Manichaeism, then Neo-Platonism. Finally, after years of prayer by his devoted mother, Monica, on Easter Sunday, 387 AD, at the age of 33, Augustine was baptized. He was later ordained Bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa in 395. He died in 430 AD, just a few years before the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Confessions were written in 397 AD in a series of thirteen chapters called “books.” The first nine books are basically autobiographical and cover the years 354-87; the last three books are a mainly an allegorical commentary on the first chapter of Genesis. I must admit that this concluding section of this book is a bit tedious. It includes long-winded philosophical and theological arguments that remind me of reading Moby Dick where H. Melville felt it necessary to describe the physiology of whales and mechanics of whaling in excruciating detail. For example in Book 10 the author provides a long discussion of the nature of memory. Then in Book 11 he includes a long (and confusing) discussion of the nature of time. These parts are so tough to read that some translators and editors even abridge the book by leaving out all or parts of these Books.

The fascinating parts of the book are where the author speaks in first person to God and we are allowed to “overhear” that conversation. The Confessions were one of the first personal histories ever written. Everyone can relate as Augustine recounts his struggles with doubt and his struggles against sin. He writes, “For as I became a youth, I longed to be satisfied with worldly things, and I dared to grow wild in a succession of various and shadowy loves. My form wasted away and I became corrupt in your [God’s] eyes, yet I was still pleasing to my own eyes – and eager to please the eyes of men” [2.2.2]. Augustine goes on to share how his sins were due to a “misdirection” of his gifts away from God (the Creator) and toward the material, created world. Augustine describes how he delayed his conversion and baptism, fearing he would fall again into sin: “I delayed my conversion to the Lord; I postponed from day to day the life in you [God], but I could not postpone the daily death in myself. I was enamored of a happy life, but I still feared to seek it in its own abode and so I fled from it while I sought it. I thought I would be miserable if I were deprived of the embraces of a woman….for I imagined that it depended on one’s own strength, though I found no such strength in myself…” [6.11.20] Eventually Augustine would father a son out of wedlock and “become more wretched as you [God] came nearer” before finally becoming a Christian. This finally occurred in a garden in Milan where Augustine had fled while wracked with doubt, guilt and grief. While in the garden he overheard a child from a neighboring house chanting, “Take up and read, take up and read” (Tolle lege, Tolle lege) which Augustine took as a sign to pick up his Bible and read the first passage he came to, which happened to be Romans 13:11-14,

And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

Upon reading this, Augustine made a full commitment to Christ and immediately felt blessed by doing so. He writes, “I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to, for instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away” [8.12.28].

I enjoyed reading the book, but honestly, Augustine “confesses” all we really need to learn from it on the very first page. For there, at the beginning of Book One we read Augustine’s confession of praise, taken from Psalms 145 and 147, “You are great, Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is your power, and infinite your wisdom” [1.1.1). He also confesses the reason we must “confess” on that very same first page, “For you have made us for yourself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in you” [1.1.1].

I encourage you to read this book, if for nothing else than to improve your prayer life. You will be blessed if you do “take up and read” as the author - and I did.