COURSE: The Confessions of Saint Augustine. A Classic of Religious Literature
Fu Jen University, Taiwan
B. McGinn
April, 2009
I. Description.
Few books in world literature have been as much read as the Confessions of Saint
Augustine. The book is a true “classic” in the sense that it has no final, agreed-upon
meaning, but is a rich text in which readers can always find new meanings. The classic
status of the Confessions is threefold:
1. It is one of the central texts in the history of Christian literature;
2. It is an important book in the Western literary canon, even for those who are not of the
Christian tradition. This is both because it is the greatest literary work of the late Roman
Empire, and also because it has been so widely read in the West over the past fifteen
centuries.
3. It is a monument of world literature, especially because of its exploration of the role of
inner consciousness in the construction of human life.
This course is designed to introduce students to the reading of this classic book. It will be
structured around a series of key questions that Augustine confronts as he tells his life
story and its wider significance. Some, but not all of these questions, are listed below.
II. Texts.
A. Required.
Augustine, Confessions.
There are a number of English translations of the Confessions.
For this course we will use Saint Augustine. Confessions, translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin
(Penguin Books, 1961).
Other full translations include:
The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by John K. Ryan (Image Books, 1960).
The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by Rex Warner (New American Library,
1963)
The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century. PartI/1. Confessions,
translated by Maria Boulding (New City Press, 1997)
St. Augustine: Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick (Oxford, 1998)
In addition, the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard has a two-volume St.
Augustine’s Confessions, with a Latin text and facing translation by William Watts, first
published in 1631.
B. Useful. The literature on the Confessions is very large, so I mention only a few works:
James J. O’Donnell, Augustine Confessions, 3 vols. (Clarendon Press, 1992). A
indispensable work. Vol. I contains an edition, while Vols. II-III are an extensive
commentary.
A Reader’s Companion to Augustine’s Confessions, edd. Kim Paffenroth and Robert P.
Kennedy (John Knox Press, 2003). A book-by-book commentary by a number of noted
Augustine scholars.
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Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo. A Biography (University of California, 1967). Possibly
the best modern book on Augustine. Parts I-II treat Augustine up to the time of the Conf.
III. Requirements for Course.
1. Attendance at all lectures.
2. Brief weekly paper (1 page) on the topic assigned by the lecturer.
3. Final paper (3-4 pages). Choice of one of three topics assigned by the lecturer.
4. Class Discussion. Augustine’s Confessions is a book filled with questions, both the
questions he asks God and the questions that the book addresses to us. Hence, it is
important to make room for discussion, for questioning and answering, within the class
itself. I realize that all students may not have equal command of English, or feel ready to
bring up their own questions in class. As a way around this I am enclosing lists of
questions for each session and will look for ways to encourage each student to be able to
express some view on at least one of these questions in each class (this could take a brief
written form).
IV. Syllabus.
1st Lecture. Monday, April 6: Introduction to Augustine.
(13:40-15:30)
--Augustine’s Life and Works
--Structure and Purpose of the Confessions
2nd Lecture. Thursday, April 9: Confessions, Book 1: Who is God?
(10:10-12:00)
--Is it possible to speak to God?
--Is it possible to speak about God?
--How do infants and children relate to God?
--What is the role of infancy and childhood in the
development of the self?
3rd Lecture. Monday, April 13: Confessions, Books 2-5: What is sin?
(13:40-15:30)
--What is sin? And why do we sin?
--What kind of love was Augustine seeking?
--What are the forms of sin?
--What did reading Cicero’s Hortensius do for Augustine
and what did it not do?
4th Lecture: Thursday, April 16: Confessions, Books 6-7: What is truth?
(10:10-12:00)
--What were Augustine’s main problems in overcoming
Manichaeanism?
--How did the Platonists help him?
--What is the role of Christ in this book?
--What did Augustine discover in Paul?
5th Lecture: Monday, April 20: Confessions, Books 8-9: What is love?
(13:40-15:30)
--What is the function of the conversations that
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Augustine recounts in Book 8?
--What is the proper understanding of why the will is
dual?
--How are grace and love related?
--What happened at Ostia?
6th Lecture, Thursday, April 23: Confessions, Book 10: What is memory?
(10:10-12:00)
--How does Augustine describe his condition while
writing the Confessions?
--What is memory?
--What is the relation of God and memory?
--What is happiness?
7th Lecture: Monday, April 27: Confessions, Book 11: What is creation? What is time?
(13:40-15:30)
--What does it mean to say God creates?
--When does God create?
--Can we know what time is?
--What is the role of time in the Confessions?
8th Lecture: Thursday, April 30: Confessions, Books 12-13: What does the Bible tell us
about creation?
(10:10-12:00)
--Why does Augustine turn to biblical exegesis?
--How does he interpret Genesis?
--Why does Augustine’s reading emphasize the church?
--Has his spiritual reading any value today?
Remarks on Reading Augustine.
1. A meaningful reading of Augustine’s Confessions should be more than just
learning what the text says, that is, its content. Rather, Augustine invites the reader to
take part with him in a journey or process of discovery of the true self (though not a
modern self-discovery, or finding out who we are by our own efforts). To quote a passage
from Charles Mathewes (A Reader’s Companion to Augustine’s Confessions, 22):
“Augustine’s general aim in the Confessions is to help us be prepared to relearn
ourselves, and yet, and by doing so, truly to know our lives for the first time.”
Augustine himself provides us a clue to this. Near the end of his life he wrote a
series of notes on his various books that he called the Retractions. In it he both corrected
some things said in these books and provided notes on the context and meaning of his
writings. In Retractions 2.32 he introduced the Confessions as follows:
The thirteen books of my Confessions praise the just and good God for my evil
and good acts, and lift up the understanding and affection of men to Him. At least,
as far as I am concerned, they had this effect on me while I was writing them and
they continue to have it now when I am reading them. What others think about
them is a matter for them to decide. Yet I know that they have given and continue
to give pleasure to many of my brethren.
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2. One problem we have in reading the Confessions is that our world is not
Augustine’s world, and our beliefs are not necessarily his. (Even contemporary Christians
may not share all of Augustine’s beliefs and claims.) We don’t have to agree with
Augustine, however, in order to learn from him. Again, I quote a pertinent remark from a
contemporary student of the Confessions, James Wetzel (A Reader’s Companion to
Augustine’s Confessions, 57): “I don’t mean that we ought to bring some crude
defensiveness about truth to reading Augustine and then join with him in rejecting what
he rejects. I mean that we ought to care enough about truth to notice how Augustine goes
about seeking his truth…. The falsity that counts most for him—because it does the most
damage—is falsity of the heart.”
A good reading of the Confessions is a reading that strives to avoid falsity of the
heart, even the falsity of agreeing with Augustine when we are not really convinced.
3. One of the important themes found throughout the Confessions is how
Augustine learned to read the Bible properly, especially by not taking everything said
there in a literal way. From that perspective, the Confessions is an exercise in the spiritual
reading of his own life, that is, bringing out its inner meaning. There is evidence that
Augustine wrote the book with the purpose of expressing both surface and inner
significations that each reader should strive to profit from in reading the book. For
example, in Conf. 12.31 he says:
For my part I declare resolutely and with all my heart that if I were called upon to
write a book which was to be vested with the highest authority, I should prefer to
write it in such a way that a reader could find re-echoed in my words whatever
truths he was able to apprehend. I would rather write it in this way than impose a
single true meaning so explicitly that it would exclude all others, provided these
did not offend me with their falsehood.
4. Augustine scholars, such as Robert McMahon (A Reader’s Companion to
Augustine’s Confessionsm 218-23), have noted the importance of distinguishing between
Augustine the narrator (i.e., the voice of Augustine speaking to God always in the
present) and Augustine the author (i.e., the hidden voice of the bishop who is writing all
this down from his memories). The narrator is often presented as not knowing where his
life is heading, while the author has thought out the meaning over the years and
presumably knows what he wants to do with the book. But Augustine would insist that
the real author is God, speaking to both narrator and author in his heart and through the
scriptures. Hence, while Augustine the author knows more than what Augustine the
narrator does, only God really knows the outcome. What Augustine is asking the reader
to do is to enter into this situation by re-enacting the ever-deepening story of their own
lives by meditating on how he found meaning in his life under God’s guidance. From this
perspective, it is interesting to note that Augustine begins and ends the Conf. with
citations of the same biblical text from Mt. 7:7 (quarentes enim inveniunt eum: “Those
who seek him will find him”), implicitly cited in 1.1 and explicitly cited as the last words
in 13.38.
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LECTURE 1. AN INTRODUCTION TO AUGUSTINE AND THE CONFESSIONS
Part I. Who was Augustine and why is he important?
(A) Historical Context of Augustine’s Life.
--the triumph of Christianity
--the Christian Empire (respublica Romana Christiana)
--the problem of the Barbarian Invasions (Battle of Adrianople, 378; Sack of
Rome, 410)
--theological turmoil: the Arian controversy; the Donatists; the Pelagians
--the world is beginning to change: the transition from Ancient to Medieval;
emergence of “Late Antique Society”
(B) Key Events in Augustine’s Life.
I. Before Baptism.
--born 354 in Thagaste in N. Africa
--parents and social status
--school days (the Roman educational system)
--wider horizons: going off to Carthage (371)
--Augustine’s ambitions and sexual life
--reading of Cicero’s Hortensius (373)
--Augustine’s life in Carthage
--migration to Italy and wider horizons (383)
--Augustine’s “religions” before Christianity: Manichaeanism
--Augustine in Rome and Milan (professor of rhetoric, 384-86)
--the gradual conversion and influence of Monica and Ambrose
--retreat at Cassiciacum (Sept., 386-March, 387): early writings
--baptism (Easter 387)
--Rome: experience at Ostia and death of Monica (Fall, 387)
II. Back in Africa.
--returns to Africa and Thagaste (388)
--founds monastery at Hippo and is ordained priest (391)
--begins first of his major works, Enarrationes in Psalmos (c. 392-422)
--writing on Paul (394-96) and against the Manichaeans and Donatists
--consecrated bishop of Hippo (395)
III. Augustine the Bishop
--Confessiones written (c. 397-401)
--De doctrina christiana (c. 397-400; only finished in 421)
--debates with Donatists and anti-Donatist councils (397-407 and on)
--begins his second major work, De Trinitate (c. 399-422)
--begins third major work, De genesi ad litteram (c. 401-15)
--begins writing fourth major work, Tractatus in Johannem (c. 406-21?)
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--writings of Pelagius come to his attention (411)
--early writings against Pelagius: De spiritu et littera (412)
--begins writing fifth of his major works, De civitate dei, in reaction to Fall of
Rome in 410 (413-27)
--attends council of Milevis which condemns Pelagius (416)
--further writings against Pelagius and his followers (412-20)
--controversy with Pelagian bishop, Julian of Eclanum (421-30)
--“Semi-Pelagian” controversy (426-28)
--death and burial of Augustine during Vandal siege of Hippo (430)
(C) Augustine’s Opponents.
Augustine’s life and writings were shaped by his struggles to defend orthodox, catholic
Christianity against its opponents, both inside and outside the Christian community.
1. Arians. Arius and his followers held that the Word, the second person of the Trinity, is
not consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father and therefore not “God” in the full
sense. This view had been condemned at the Council of Nicaea (325) and the First
Council of Constantinople (381), but there were still Arians and Arian sympathizers in
Augustine’s time.
--Semi-Arians. The position of those who said that the Word was “like” the
Father, but who refused to speak of “consubstantiality.”
2. Donatists. The Donatists were a North African schismatic group who taught that the
sacraments performed by unworthy priests were not valid and that therefore only
Donatus and his followers were the true catholic church.. Augustine struggled
against them during his whole career as priest and bishop.
3. Manichaeans. The dualistic religion founded by the prophet Mani in the third century
C.E. Manichaeans taught that there were two gods, the evil god who created the
material universe, and the good god who sent Jesus to redeem fallen souls.
Augustine was a Manichaean for a number of years and the Confessions tell the
story of his break with them. Early in his ecclesiastical career he wrote many
treatises against the Manichaeans.
4. Origen and Origenism. Origen (d. 254) was the greatest of early Christian biblical
interpreters and Augustine learned much from him. Some of Origen’s views, such
as those on the fall of the soul, etc., became controversial in the period 400-10 and
Augustine later became more critical of Origen and his thinking.
4. Pagans. Although the Emperors had been Christian since before Augustine’s birth,
there were still many pagans and pagan practices in Augustine’s world. Augustine
decisively rejected pagan ritual and wrote against it. He read and used pagan
philosophy, especially Platonic and Neoplatonic authors, but became more and
more negative toward them, especially in the De civitate dei.
5. Pelagians and their sympathizers. Pelagius (c. 360-c.420) was a Celtic monk who
became an important spiritual director in Rome around 400. He and his followers
held that Adam’s sin had not permanently harmed human nature, but only
provided a bad example. Therefore, it remained possible for humans to avoid sin
on the basis of their own will power.
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--Semi-Pelagians. Towards the end of his life some of Augustine’s readers,
mostly monks, criticized his insistence that any movement toward the good on
our part can only be the effect of grace. They held (as had the early
Augustine) that fallen humans had enough freedom to ask for God’s help. (At
a later time they were called Semi-Pelagians)
(D) Augustine’s Writings.
Augustine was one of the most prolific writers in the history of Christianity.
--117 surviving treatises of varying length, beginning with the Contra Academicos (Fall,
386-Spring, 387). The longest, the Enarrationes in Psalmos, consists of 206 sermons on
the 150 psalms and takes up 2377 printed pages in the English translation.
--298 letters survive, many of which are really treatises in letter form.
--396 sermons are ascribed to Augustine, though some of these are of doubtlful
authenticity.
Part II. What Kind of a Book is the Confessions?
(A) Questions for Discussion.
1. What is the genre of the Confessions?
--autobiographical or not?
--style of the Confessions
--the originality of the Confessions
2. What is the structure of the Confessions?
--Are there two parts of the Confessions (Books 1-9 and Books 10-13), or actually
three (Books 1-9, 10, 11-13)?
--Why does Augustine abandon the story of his life at the end of Book 9?
--How do Books 10-13 relate to the earlier books?
3. Who is the audience of the Confessions?
4. What is the purpose of the Confessions? In other words, what does Augustine hope his
readers will get from reading it?
5. What is the role of the Bible in the Confessions?
LECTURE 2. BOOK 1 OF THE CONFESSIONS: WHO IS GOD?
(1) Structure of the Book. (A note on numbering chapters and sections in the
Confessions. The division of books goes back to Augustine, but the numbering of
chapters only to the sixteenth century and the numbering of paragraphs to the
seventeenth. Most editions and many translations number books, chapters, and
paragraphs, so that references look like this: 1.1.1-5.5.6. For the sake of simplicity, I will
only number book and chapter, e.g., 1.1-5. The basic structure of this book is evident:
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1.1-5: Introductory address on the mystery of God
1.6-7: The story of Augustine’s infancy
1.8-19: Augustine’s boyhood
1.20: Confession and Thanksgiving
(2) Some Passages for Close Reading. Since we cannot examine the Confessions line-byline, for each lecture I will concentrate on some passages that all students should read
with special care. This does not mean to neglect the rest of the reading, since these
passages will make better sense when seen in the context of the book in which they
appear.
(a) 1.1-5: Introductory address on the mystery of God.
Structure:
1.1—the problem of knowing and praising God.
--Which comes first: petition or praise? knowing or praying?
--the necessity of faith
1.2-3—Where is God?
1.4—Who is God?
---a brief treatise on the divine names (De nominibus dei)
--How can we name God at all? How can we even address God?
1.5—Praying to God as Savior
(b) 1.6-7: Augustine as Infant
Structure:
1.6—The status of infants; the characteristics of infancy
1.7—The sins of infants
(c) 1.18-19: The Sins of Childhood
Structure:
1.18—What is the nature of sin? How does the Bible help us understand sin?
1.19—Augustine’s sinful state in childhood
(d) 1.20: The Final Act of Confession in Book 1.
(3) Some Questions for Discussion concerning These Passages.
(a) The Latin words confessio/confiteor are used 111 times in the work and provide it
with its title.
--How do you understand the meaning of this word?
--What is Augustine “confessing”?
-- To whom is Augustine confessing?
--What is the role of memory in confessing 1, especially because Augustine is
talking about many things he was too young to remember?
b) The first five chapters (1.1-5) constitute one of the most important passages in
Augustine’s writings on his views of God.
--Why does Augustine begin this way? Would it not have been better just to get
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started with the story of his life, or tell the reader what he hopes to do in the
book?
--What are the obstacles Augustine finds to speaking about God? What are the
obstacles of speaking to God?
--What are the main characteristics, attributes, or predicates that Augustine uses in
speaking about God? Are some of these more important than others? Is there
a primary attribute (e.g., Goodness, Being, Truth, Beauty)?
c) Augustine’s picture of infancy (infantia) in 1.6.-7 has often been seen as a largely
negative one.
--How does Augustine describe infants? Is this picture true to your own
experience of infants?
--What are the sins of infants? Can infants really commit sin?
--Why does Augustine devote so much time to analying the nature of infancy?
--What are the roles of parents and nurses?
--How is confessio used in this section?
d) Augustine spends more time in his portrayal of his childhood (pueritia in 1.8-19).
--What distinguishes infancy from childhood?
--What is the origin of language for Augustine?
--What are the distinctive sins of childhood?
--What is Augustine’s attitude towards his education and his teachers?
--What is his attitude towards his parents?
--Again, why does Augustine give a largely negative picture?
e) The conclusion of Book 1 provides one of the more detailed passages on the meaning
of confessio and the purpose of the book.
--Does this thansgiving prayer add anything to the earlier uses of the term found
in Book 1? What does the prayer contribute to the larger rhetorical structure of
the book?
ADDENDUM
I recently wrote a paper dealing with Book 1.1-5 and its influence, especially the phrase
semper agens/semper quietus (always active/always at rest). I am including a copy of the
first part of this paper to help you in your reading of the text.
SEMPER AGENS, SEMPER QUIETUS:
Notes on the History of an Augustinian Theme
Ancient literature reveals no precedent for the opening chapters of Augustine’s
Confessiones. Instead of a dedicatory epistle, or an introduction explaining the purpose of
the book, Augustine abruptly presents us with an impassioned plea to God, almost
embarrassing in its revelation of his desires, his failings, and his puzzlement over how to
know God and how best to praise him. (Such addresses to God in the second person are
found in 381 of the 453 paragraphs that make up the Confessiones.) A careful reading of
even the first chapter, however, reveals that we are dealing with something that is as
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much a conversation as an address, because the words that Augustine directs to God,
even when he is wondering how to talk to him, are God’s own words to humans found in
scripture. The opening phrase, Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde, is a quotation
from a line of praise found in three psalms (Pss. 47:2, 95:4, and 144:3), and the fifteen or
sixteen lines of the first chapter alone contain six further biblical quotations or
reminiscences. Our initial reticence about listening in on this private conversation is part
of Augustine’s strategy for providing us a pedagogical model by highlighting the
“testimony of sin” (testimonium peccati) that is the necessary prerequisite for the
“testimony of praise” (testimonium laudis) -- the task of every believer. This is the
problem the bishop poses at the outset. Augustine, furthermore, presents his quandary as
ours—from the perspective not of one who knows the answer, but of one who knows the
way to the answer that shall only be fully given when we attain perfect rest in heaven.
The goal of heavenly repose is adumbrated both at the beginning of the prayer in the most
famous phrase from these chapters: “You have made us for yourself and our heart is
restless until it rests in you” (quia fecesti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec
requiescat in te), as well as toward the end in chapter five which opens with the plea,
“Who will allow me to find rest in you?” (Quis mihi dabit adquiscere in te?) and closes
with the difficult text, “Do not hide your face from me: that I may die, lest I die, so that I
may behold it” (noli abscondere a me faciem tuam: moriar, ne moriar, ut eam videam).
In 1945, in the wake of World War II, Romano Guardini published a short
commentary on Confessiones 1.1-5 under the title Anfang (i.e., Beginning) in which he
says, “The Confessiones begin with five chapters which scarcely have a parallel in
literature.” These five chapters (1.1.1-1.5.6) do more than merely set the stage for the
story of Augustine’s life, beginning with his infancy (1.6.7); they are an image of how the
reader is meant to appropriate in his or her life what Augustine learned from talking with
God about the purpose of his own existence. In order to conduct this conversation, we,
like Augustine, have to discover the truth about the God we address, or at least as much
as is necessary to enable us to direct our faltering speech to the real God and not some
counterfeit (aliud enim pro alio potest invocare nesciens). The problem of finding the
proper way to address God is a key issue throughout the Confessiones. Hence, the
teaching about the divine nature set out in the first five chapters, though presented as a
meditation on God’s word given through the mouth of the preacher and the prayer of the
believer, rather than as a theological exposition, is crucial to a correct reading of the
book. In this opening meditation-conversation Augustine encapsulates what he has
learned about God thus far on his journey through life, a voyage both intellectual and
affective.
Intellectually, Augustine had had to overcome his Manichaean view of God as a
mass of physical light extended throughout the universe, a corporeal reality in conflict
with the physical body of darkness and evil. Through the help of the libri platonici, as he
explains in Book 7, he came to realize the superiority of incorporeal reality, or light, over
all corporeal nature, and even to attain a partial vision of the Supreme Light and Truth,
that is, the immutable reality of God. In the visionary account (or accounts) in Book 7,
Augustine quotes Exodus 3:14 (ego sum qui sum) in the first report (7.10.16), and in the
second tells us that he came “to ‘that which is’ in a flash of trembling glance” (pervenit
ad id quod est in ictu trepidantis aspectus: 7.17.23). Augustine certainly held that Being
(esse and even ipsum esse) was among the names that can be properly used of God, but
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we should beware of thinking that Augustine gave Being the kind of priority among the
divine names that Thomas Aquinas did, just as we should not neglect the powerful, if
unsystematic, apophatic aspect of his theology.
The intellectual conversion recounted in book 7 of the Confessiones, however,
was not sufficient to save the sinner who had wandered far from God, as the bishop
explains in 7.20.26. Augustine was now firmly rooted in truth, telling God, “I was certain
that you are and you are infinite,…, you who are always the same as what you are, and
not something other or in another fashion by way of any part or movement, and also that
all things come from you solely by the most firm evidence that they exist….” But
Augustine could not enjoy, or have fruition, of this knowledge, nor could he address God
in a correct way, because of his own sinfulness, his pride, and especially his ignorance of
the need to turn to the Incarnate Word for help. Only Christ’s grace poured out in his
heart could effect the conversion that would enable him “to discern and distinguish the
difference between presumption and confession” (discernerem atque distinguerem quid
interest inter praesumptionem et confessionem). In David Tracy’s trenchent formulation:
“…only by naming Jesus of Nazareth…the Christ can we name God… In Augustinian
christology, the Form Christ gathers all other forms to name God…. Augustine’s
theology is theocentric through and through. At the same time, Augustine’s theocentrism
is constituted in and through his emphatic christomorphism.” The conversion of the heart
through the grace of Christ described in Book 8 was essential for the creation of the
proper inquiry about how to know and praise God that Augustine later described in the
first chapters of Book 1.
These five chapters, while often analyzed, continue to produce new insights into
Augustine’s thinking. The first chapter confronts the problem of the relation between
knowing and praising: “Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call
upon you or to praise you, and to know you or to call upon you” (“da mihi, domine, scire
et intellegere utrum sit prius invocare te an ladare te, et scire te prius sit an invocare te”).
The answer to the conundrum is given in terms of the hard-won message gained through
Augustine’s pilgrimage back to God set forth in Books 4 to 9. God must first be known
before he can be properly invoked (invocare), sought (quaerere/requirere), and found
through praise (invenire/laudare), but proper knowledge of God is not gained through our
own personal effort. Only the faith that comes through the Word made flesh and the
ministry of the preacher enables us to speak to God in proper fashion: “Lord, my faith
calls upon you, the faith you gave me and inspired in me through the enfleshment of your
Son and the ministry of your preacher.” Given that faith alone allows us to address God
correctly, chapters two and three of the opening of the Confessiones turn to the issue of
location: where is the God whom we are addressing? In a long series of questions
Augustine explores the problem of the mode of God’s presence as the supreme spiritual
being who is both in all things as their deepest reality and yet beyond them in his
transcendence, concluding with the rhetorical query, “Or are you everywhere in a total
way and yet nothing can totally take hold of you?” (an ubique totus es et res nulla te
totum capit?).
Augustine is now in a position to direct a real invocation to God in the form of an
address that is also a summary of his understanding of the divine nature. Chapter four
may initially seem like an exercise in philosophical inquiry (the platonici would have
agreed with much of what the bishop says), but once again Augustine corrects such a
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view by beginning with scripture, the words of Psalm 17:32: “Who are you therefore, my
God? Who, I ask, except the Lord God? For who is Lord save the Lord, or who is God
save our God?” What follows is one of the bishop’s most remarkable texts on God: a
short treatise de divinis nominibus. In a quasi-hymnic and liturgical fashion, making
much use of antithetical parallelism, Augustine provides the reader with a list of fifty-two
predicates or names of God, expressed not in the third person, but, as befits the nature of
the Confessiones, in the vocative. As Werner Simon has shown, these are not really
philosophical terms, but are for the most part taken from scripture, especially from the
Psalms.
Augustine begins with ten predicates in five pairs ascribed to God on the basis of
what Scott MacDonald has called the principle of supremacy, that is, God must be spoken
of as the highest in any category of thinking. The attributes appear as a quasi-doxology,
and, indeed, they later formed the basis for an early medieval liturgical prayer. The group
begins with terms that are more or less synonymous: summe, optime/ potentissime,
omnipotentissime, but moves on to pairs that express different, even antithetical, aspects
of the divine nature: misericordissime et iustissime/ secretissime et praesentissime/
pulcherrime et fortissime. Some of these predicates, such as omnipotentissime, are
grammatically incorrect, but demanded by the supremacy of God’s nature. Augustine
follows this first list of attributes with two longer lists of dual attributes, mostly
paradoxical or antithetical. The first collection has six members. God is praised as:
stabilis et incomprehensibilis
unmoving and incomprehensible
immutabilis, mutans omnia
unchanging and changing all things
numquam novus, numquam vetus never new, never old
innovans omnia et in vetustatem perducens superbos et nesciunt renewing all things
(Wis. 7:27) and drawing back the proud into decay and they know it not (Jb 9:5 VL)
semper agens, semper quietus
always in action, always at rest
colligens et non egens
gathering together and not needing [anything]
At this point Augustine introduces a break by inserting two clauses listing three
non-antithetical attributes each intended to express God’s loving care for all things
(portans et implens et protegens/ creans et nutriens et perficiens). After that he closes his
mini-treatise with a new series of twelve dual predicates, mostly antithetical and drawn
from the biblical account of God’s dealings with his people during the time of the Old
and New Laws. Finally, the hymn of praise at the end of chapter four closes with the
invocation of a central theme in the bishop’s theology necessary for understanding all
speech about God, what has been called the sermo fallibilis, that is, the simultaneous
insufficiency and necessity of speaking about God. “What have we said, my God, my
life, my holy sweetness; or what does anyone say when he speaks of you? Yet woe to
those who keep silent about you, though even those who say much are [really] mute.”
Chapter five, containing two paragraphs, closes the beginning of Book 1 by
investigating our personal appropriation of the doctrine of God set out in chapter four.
Augustine first returns to the kind of tortured questions seen in chapters one and two, as
he struggles to discern what God means to him personally and what he means to God.
The answer depends on God: “Tell me by way of your merciful acts (Ps. 106:8), Lord my
God, what you are to me. Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation’” (Ps. 34:3). Now that
God is clearly understood as the God who saves, Augustine can close with the plea of the
constricted and sinful soul to be enlarged and made whole through God’s forgiveness,
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utilizing, once again, the language of the Psalms (Pss. 18:13-14, 26:12, and Ps. 129:3). At
the end the bishop gives everything over into God’s hands, admitting that he cannot
contend with God, “who is the Truth.” “I do not deceive myself lest my iniquity lie to
itself.”
The eruption of antithetical pairs of attributes for God in chapter four is what
interests me here. Why did Augustine make this move? The supremacy principle of
language about God does not seem to demand it, but further insight into the nature of
God’s existence may provide a clue. In his early treatise De moribus manichaeorum
Augustine had recognized that nothing is contrary to God except nothing itself, that is,
non-being. Therefore, attributes that seem antithetical if applied to created beings, may
not be so when ascribed to God. From early on Augustine insisted that God must be
immutable, but mutability means changing--gaining and losing something--not lack of
activity. Therefore, God can be immutabilis, but as mutans omnia. Furthermore,
Augustine’s continuing meditations on God’s absolute simplicity—God is what he has—
meant that everything that could be ascribed to God was really one, or identical, with the
divine nature. Therefore, although creatures may be active (agens) at one time, and at rest
(quietus) at another, passing from one state to the other, or even simultaneously active
with respect to some condition while at rest with respect to another, God, in the
supremacy of his nature, is always, simply, and immutably, semper agens/semper
quietus. While this antithesis is not verbally present in the biblical text, it seems clear that
it has a scriptural root in Augustine’s ongoing meditations on God’s continuing creative
action and the rest (requies) ascribed to him on the seventh day in Genesis 2:2.
The Structure of the Divine Names in Conf. 1.1.4
Group I
1. summe, optime,
Highest, Best,
2. potentissime, omnipotentissime (a), Most Powerful, Most Omnipotent,
3. misericordissme et iustissime (b), Most Merciful and Most Just,
4. secretissime et praesentissime,
Most Hidden and Most Present,
5. pulcherrime et fortissime,
Most Beautiful and Most Strong,
Group II
1. stabilis et incomprehensibilis,
Unmoving and incomprehensible,
2. inmutabilis, mutans omnia,
Unchanging, changing all things,
3. numquam novus, numquam vetus, Never new, never old,
4. innovans omnia et in vetustatem Renewing all things and drawing the proud
perducens superbos et nesciunt (c). back to decrepitude and they know it not.
5. semper agens, semper quietus,
Always in act, always at rest,
6. conligens (d) et non egens.
Gathering together and not in need [of anything].
Group III
1. portans et implens (e) et protegens, Supporting and filling and protecting,
2. creans et nutriens et perficiens.
Creating and nourishing and completing.
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Group IV
1. quaerens, cum nihil desit tibi,
Seeking, though nothing is lacking to You,
2. amas nec aestuas,
You love and You are not agitated,
3. zelas (f) et securus es,
You are jealous and You are undisturbed,
4. paenitet te (g) et non dolet,
You repent and do not grieve,
5. irasceris (h) et tranquillus es,
You are angry and are at peace,
6. opera mutas (i) nec mutas consilium (j), You change your works but not your plan,
7. recipis quod invenis et
You take back what You find and have
numquam amisisti,
never lost,
8. numquam inops et gaudes lucris, Never in need and rejoicing in what You gain,
9. numquam avarus et usuras exigis, Never greedy and [still] demanding interest,
10. supererogatur tibi ut debeas (k), Over payment is made to You so You may be a
et quis habet quicquam non tuum? (l) debtor, yet who has anything that is not yours?
11. reddis debita, nulli debens,
You pay debts though in debt to no one,
12. donas debita (m), nihil perdens.
You cancel debts without losing anything.
(a) Jb. 8:5, etc.; (b) Ps. 114:5; (c) Jb. 9:5;l (d) Ps. 146:2; (e) Jer. 23:24); (f) Ps. 78:5; (g)
Gen. 6:6; (h) Ps. 105:10; (i) Ps. 101:26; (j) Ps. 32:11; (k) Lk. 10:35; (l) 1 Cor. 4:7; (m)
Mt. 18:32.
LECTURE 3. CONFESSIONS 2-5: WHAT IS SIN?
In these books Augustine continues his confessions concerning his life between
about age 16 in Thagaste (370 AD) and his time in Carthage, Rome, and Milan to about
age 30 (384 AD). These books contain accounts of stages of descent into sin, as well as
initial attempts to move back to God. Many themes are introduced and there are various
structuring principles at work. Two that are especially significant are:
a) The general pattern of descensus/ascensus, that is the descent into sin and the ascent,
or reversion process, made possible by Christ (see especially 4.12); and
b) The threefold root of all sin, based on a passage in 1 John 2:16—omne quod est in
mundo, concupiscentia carnis et concupiscentia oculorum et ambitio saeculi (Old Latin
Version: “Everything in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of
the eyes, or worldly ambition”). Augustine stresses the importance of this in Conf. 10.35
and many scholars have seen it as influential on the structure of books 2-8, specifically in
the following chiastic structure:
--concupiscentia carnis (found in Bks. 2-4, esp. 2) – not overcome until Bk. 8
--concupiscentia oculorum (= curiositas, i.e., pursuit of useless or harmful
knowledge, stressed in Bk. 3) – overcome in Bk. 7
--ambitio saeculi (Bk. 4, esp. 4.7) – overcome in Bk. 6
In this lecture I will once again provide for each book: (1) an outline of the structure of
the book; (2) some key passages for careful reading; and (3) some questions for
consideration in class discussion.
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I. Book 2
(1) Structure of Book
2.1: Initial act of confessio
2.2-3: Adolescence and sexual awakening
2:4-10: Theft of the Pears
(2.4: description of the incident
(2.5: meditation on evil human desires
(2.6-10: Augustine’s real motives reveal the nature of sin
(2) Special Reading will be needed of the whole of Bk. 2:4-10
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--Why did Augustine choose this relatively insignificant incident for such a
detailed examination?
--Lust seems to be the major aspect of his confession of sin, so why choose an
example of theft?
--Is it possible to explain evil?
--What motivation “explains” his evil act?
--What is the relation between this incident and biblical teaching on sin?
--Augustine closes Bk. 2 with the famous phrase that he has become a regio
egestatis, that is, “land of wanting, or wastefulness.” How would you
explain this?
II. Book 3
(1) Structure of the Book
3.1-3: Student life at Carthage
(3.1: being “in love with love”
(3.2: the theatre and the difference between sorrow and pity
(3.3.: the delusions of law and rhetoric
3.4-10: First Stirrings of the Pursuit of Truth
(3.4: Reading Cicero’s Hortensius (ca. 373)
(3.5: A first look at the Bible
(3.6: Joining the Manichees
(3.7: Troubling philosophical questions
(3.8: The three fundamental forms of sin (1 Jn. 2:16 introduced)
(3.9: Human and divine judgment
(3.10: Manichaean errors
3.11-12: Monica’s concern for Augustine and her dream
(2) Careful Reading of 3.1, 3.4, and 3.6-7.
(3) Questions for Discussion
--What does Augustine mean by “being in love with love”? Why is this wrong?
--Augustine testifies to the effect that reading Cicero’s Hortensius had on him at
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age 19. What did it do for him? In what way was it lacking?
--Why did Augustine join the Manichees after being “converted” to philosophy?
--What are the philosophical issues that worry Augustine, especially in 3.6-7?
--Why is the issue of whether or not Justice changes important for him?
III. Book 4.
(1) Structure of the Book. Augustine’s life in Carthage and Thageste (c. 373-82 AD)
4.1: Another act of confessio as introduction
4.2-3: Augustine at Carthage
(4.2: Augustine’s mistress
(4.3: Augustine and astrology
4.4-9: Augustine back in Thagaste. The death of a close friend.
(4.4: the death of Augustine’s friend
(4.5-7: a meditation on grief
(4.8-9: meditations on time and friendship
4.10-12: Further speculation on difficult problems
(4.10-11: time and speaking
(4.12: the order of love and movement up and down
4.13-16: Augustine back in Carthage
(4.13-15: writing his first work (now lost) and his errors
(4.16: reading Aristotle
(2) Please give careful reading to 4.1-2, 4.4-6, and 4.12
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--How do you read Augustine’s attitude towards his mistress? Did he “love” her?
--Why is Augustine so troubled over his grief for his dead friend? What is wrong
with this grief?
--What is Augustine’s theology of grief?
--What is the role of Christ in this Book?
--Book 4.4.9 contains one of the more famous texts from the Confessions—factus
eram ipse mihi magna quaestio (“I have become a great question to myself”).
What leads Augustine to posing this question here and what does it
mean?
--How does Augustine understand love of God and love of neighbor in 4.12?
IV. Book 5. Augustine goes to Italy. Note that books 1-4 take place in Africa, while
books 5-9 take place in Italy.
(1) Structure of the Book
5.1-2: Initial act of confessio
5.3-7: Augustine’s encounter with Faustus the Manichaean at Carthage
(5.3: Anticipating Faustus
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(5.4-5: errors of the Manichaeans
(5.6-7: Faustus as a disappointment
5.8-12: Augustine goes to Rome (383 AD)
(5.8: another confession
(5.9: Augustine’s illness at Rome—sins and original sin
(5.10-12: Augustine’s problems at Rome; disillusionment with the Manichees
5.13-14: Augustine goes to Milan and meets Ambrose
(2) Passages for Close Reading: 5.1-2, 5.6, 5.9, 5.10, and 5.14
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--Book 5 is the middle book of the “historical” sections (Bks. 1-9). Is there any
thing in this book that suggests it functions as a structural center?
--Once again, Augustine opens this chapter with an act of confession? Is there
anything new added here?
--What did Augustine’s disappointment over meeting with Faustus have to teach
him about the nature of truth?
--Augustine is now clearer about the errors of the Manichees (e.g., 5.10). How
would you summarize these errors?
--What did Augustine find liberating about Ambrose’s mode of interpreting the
Bible?
--How does Augustine describe his state now that he is definitely attracted to
Christianity? What has he gained? What does he still lack?
LECTURE 4: CONFESSIONS 6-7: WHAT IS TRUTH?
In these two books Augustine describes his situation in Milan, living with his
mother, mistress and child, as well as a group of friends, in the period ca. 384-86. This
was a time of major development for him as he struggled to pursue philosophia (i.e., love
of wisdom), to find out more about Christianity, and to overcome his own sins and
failings. It is an “in-between” state, but one in which the intellectual pursuit of truth, first
enkindled by reading Cicero’s Hortensius (Bk. 3.4), is progressing, even if other aspects
of his life are stuck.
I. Book 6. As Eric Plumer points out (A Reader’s Companion to Augustine’s
Confessions, 89-90), this book is perhaps the richest in terms of a presentation of
character and incident (Monica, Ambrose, Alypius, Augustine’s mistress, the happy
beggar).
(1) Structure of the Book.
6.1-6: Augustine and Monica at Milan
(6.1-2: Monica’s vision and her piety
(6.3: Encounters with Ambrose
(6.4-5: Faith and reason issues
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(6.6: the account of the happy beggar
6.7-10: Augustine and Alypius
6.11: Augustine’s state of mind at age 30 (384 AD)
6.12-13: Marriage plans
6. 14: Philosophical plans: an ideal community
6.15: Augustine’s mistress sent away
6.16: Inner turmoil in Augustine’s soul
(2) Passages for Close Reading: 6.1, 6.4-5, 6.11, 6.15-16
(3) Questions for Discussion
--What is the role of faith in this book?
--Why do stories about Alypius take up so much space in this book? What are
Alypius’s virtues? What are his vices?
--Why does Augustine eventually agree with Alypius that marriage is
incompatible with the pursuit of wisdom?
--Why was Augustine’s mistress sent away? Does this seem fair? Why did he take
another mistress?
--What is the source of Augustine’s inner turmoil?
Book 7. This book marks an important stage in Augustine’s conversion to truth about
God and the overcoming of curiositas (vain and useless imagining). It also includes
accounts of Augustine’s ascent to momentary “visions” of God. Nevertheless, intellectual
conversion is not enough.
(1) Structure of the Book
7.1-7: A survey of Augustine’s intellectual problems
(7.1-2: God as immutable and incorporeal; Manichaeans are wrong
(7.3: Whence comes evil I? The problem of free will
(7.4: God’s nature
(7.5: Whence comes evil II?
(7.6-7: the break with astrology, but continuing turmoil within
7.8-17: The effect of reading “the books of the Platonists”
(7.8: God takes pity on Augustine
(7.9: Reading the books of the Platonists
(7.10: Introversion and Ascent I
(7.11-16: God and the nature of evil as perversion of the will
(7.17: Introversion and Ascent II
7.18-21: the Need for Christ
(7.18: Christ as Mediator
(7.19: Christological errors corrected
(7.20: Reflections on Platonic ascent
(7.21: turning to Paul
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(2) Passages for Close Reading: 7.1 and 4 (on the nature of God), 7.9-10 (the Platonic
books and Augustine’s first ascent), 7.12 and 16 (What is evil?), 7.18-21 (role of Christ
and deficiencies of Platonism)
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--Augustine has now reached truth about God. How did he overcome his
materialistic conception of God? What are the decisive truths about
God that he has attained?
--What did the Platonists teach him about God? What was lacking in the books of
the Platonists? Why does he cite the Bible instead of the Platonists’ books
here (7.9-10)?
--What did Augustine experience in Bk 7.10? Why was the experience short and
incomplete?
--There has been a debate over the ascent texts of 7.10 and 7.17, with many
scholars (e.g., P. Courcelle) taking them as accounts of actual mystical
experiences of ca. 386), while some other scholars (e.g., R. O’Connell, P.
Cary) insist that they are meditations on particular forms of philosophical
insight. What do you think?
--What does Augustine finally realize about the nature of evil?
--How does Augustine describe his “breakthrough” about the correct view of
Christ toward the end of this book?
--What does Augustine gain from reading Paul’s Epistles?
LECTURE 5: CONFESSIONS 8-9: WHAT IS THE TRUE NATURE OF LOVE?
In these two books Augustine brings the story of his conversion to its conclusion, dealing
with events that took place in Milan and Rome during the years 386 to 388. These books
tie together many of the themes that have guided his earlier presentation of his life, but
also add important new material on grace, the true nature of love, and the goal of human
life in attaining contact with God.
Book 8. The culmination of Augustine’s process of conversion, but (in the truest sense)
life is always a process of conversio for Augustine. This book is structured around two
conversations leading up to the famous garden scene. The influence of Paul’s Epistle to
the Romans is evident throughout (8.1 cites Rom. 1:21-22; 8.4 cites Rom. 4:17; 8.5 cites
Rom. 7:16-17 and 22-25; 8.10 cites Rom. 7:17, 20; and 8.12 cites Rom. 13:13 and 14:1).
(1) Structure of the Book.
8.1: Introduction. Augustine’s life still in confusion
8.2-5: Augustine’s conversation with Simplicianus
(8.2: the story of the conversion of Victorinus
(8.3-4: intellectual issues discussed
(8.5: two wills contend in Augustine
8.6-7: Augustine’s conversation with Ponticianus
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(8.6: Ponticianus tells the story of Antony and of the monks of Trier
(8.7: God is turning Augustine around
8.8-12: Augustine in the garden
(8.8: Augustine and Alypius in the garden
(8.9: the divided will
(8.10: Manichaean errors about the divided will
(8.11: Augustine in crisis
(8.12: Tolle, lege! (“Take and read!”); Augustine reads Rom. 13:13; the roles of
Alypius and Monica in this scene
(2) Passages for Close Reading: The whole of the book is importance, but be sure to
study 8.5 and 8.8-12.
N.B. Scholars beginning with A. Von Harnack, and continuing with P. Courcelle and L.
Ferrari, have cast doubts on the “historicity” of the conversion scene for a variety of
reasons, such as the fact that Augustine does not make much use of Rom. 13:13 in his
other writings. For a discussion of the issues and defense of the broadly historical
character of the narrative, see O’Donnell, Augustine’s Confessions III:59-69.
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--What is the function of the two conversations that preceed the garden account?
--What is the souce of the two wills?
--Why are the Manichaeans wrong about the divided will?
--Is there any significance to the location of the conversion?
--What is the significance of the child’s voice and why does Augustine obey it?
--In picking up Paul and opening him at random isn’t Augustine giving his life
over to chance (see the comment of Vindicianus in Conf. 4.3)?
--What does he find in Paul that he did not find before?
--Why are Alypius and Monica also featured in the conversion account?
ADDENDUM. Augustine’s Doctrine of Grace.
“Grace” (Gk.: charis; Lat.: gratia) means “gift.” In one sense everything we have
is a grace or gift from God, but in Christian teaching grace is generally used in the more
restricted sense of the special gift that God gives to fallen humans to rescue them from
sin and allow them to share in God’s own way of life. God’s saving grace is given freely,
but it is also received by a human person who has been given free will as a constituent
part of nature. Therefore, a series of issues emerged in Christian teaching about the
essence of grace and its relation to human freedom. These issues, which are rooted in the
Bible, especially in the writings of Paul, include:
a) What was the effect of Adam’s fall on human nature?
b) What kind of freedom remains after the Fall?
c) What is grace and what are the channels by which it is communicated?
d) Granted that grace is necessary for salvation, what contribution do we make?
Augustine pondered these questions throughout his life and his teaching changed
and developed over the years. As the “doctor of grace” (doctor gratiae) his teaching
remained very influential on Western (not Eastern) theologies of grace for many
centuries, but in different ways, especially because of the evolution in his views (e.g., the
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early Augustine advanced views that the later Augustine rejected). In the last twenty
years of his life, especially because of his encounter with the views of Pelagius and his
followers, Augustine wrote a number of treatises on grace.
Although the Confessions do not discuss grace in an explicit way (the term occurs
most often in book 10), Augustine’s thoughts on grace and freedom are essential for
understanding the work, nowhere more than in Book 8. In order to situate this context
here is a brief outline of how Augustine’s teaching on grace developed down to the time
of the Confessions:
(1) Augustine’s earliest writings (ca. 387-94) did not say much about grace. In works like
the De libero arbitrio (On Free Choice) written between 388 and 394 Augustine
emphasized the power of free choice to combat the Manichaeans who held that the evil
god had enchained humans. For example, in book 2 he says, “For man, insofar as he is
man, is good because he can live aright if he chooses to do so.” Pelagius and his
followers later cited these passages against Augustine when he attacked them for saying
the same thing. In his Retractions Augustine tried to defend himself, saying: “In these
and similar statements of mine, because there was no mention of the grace of God, which
was not the subject under discussion at the time, the Pelagians think or may think that we
held their opinion. But they are mistaken in thinking this.”
(2) In the years immediately preceding the writing of the Confessions Augustine began
thinking more about grace, largely because of his reading and commenting on Paul’s
epistles (he wrote two commentaries on Romans and one on Galatians during this time).
He now clearly recognized that due to the effects of Adam’s sin (original sin), grace was
necessary for fallen humans in order to perform good actions. (Pelagius denied this.) But
Augustine still held positions he was later to reject, specifically what came to be called
“Semipelagianism,” that is, the teaching that even after the fall humans retain sufficient
freedom to turn to God on their own and beg for the grace to overcome sin. As he put it
in his Exposition of Some Propositions from the Epistle to the Romans: “Therefore, let
the man lying low, when he realizes that he cannot rise by himself, implore the aid of the
Liberator, for then comes grace…”
(3) In 397 Augustine wrote to his old friend Simplicianus, now bishop of Milan after the
death of Ambrose. In this treatise, On Various Questions to Simplicianus, he rejected the
“Semi-Pelagian” view that he had recently put forth. Now even turning to God to ask for
grace is impossible without the aid of prevenient grace. For example, he says: “God calls
in his mercy, and not as rewarding the merits of faith [i.e., our turning to God]. The
merits of faith follow his calling rather than precede it.”
Augustine’s theology of grace was to evolve much more, especially after 411, but
the theology of grace he had worked out by 397 is doubtless a part of the motivation he
had for the writing of the Confessions.
Book 9. Birth and death are major themes. Augustine has died to his old sinful life and
will be reborn through baptism. Monica, have birthed Augustine, both in life and in the
life of grace, will die. Other deaths and rebirths in baptism are noted. Augustine and
Monica enjoy a brief foretaste of heaven, before Augustine goes back to Africa to begin a
new life.
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(1) Structure of the Book
9.1: Thanksgiving to God for restoring his freedom.
9.2: Wrapping up things in Milan; Augustine gives up teaching
9.3-5: Augustine and his friends at Cassiciacum
(9.3: Verecundus and Nebridius
(9.4: Augustine’s early writings; love for the Psalms
(9.5: decision to be baptized
9.6-7: Augustine and his son Adeodatus baptized
9.8-13: Monica’s life and death reviewed
(9.8-9: Setting out for Africa; confessing thanks for Monica’s life
(9.10: Augustine and Monica experience a foretaste of heaven
(9.11: Monica’s death two weeks later
(9.12: Augustine’s grief; confessio and an appeal to the reader
(9.13: Augustine prays for his mother
(2) Passages for Close Reading: 9.1, 9.8-10, 9.12-13
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--Why did Augustine and his friends retreat to Cassiciacum?
--Does it seem strange that Augustine does not make more of his baptism?
--Why does Augustine include the story about Monica’s drunkenness (9.8)? What
is his attitude towards his son Adeodatus (9.6) and his father, Patricius (9.9)?
--What happened at Ostia? Is the location important? Is the timing significant?
Why are Augustine and Monica together? What did they experience? Is this
the “vision of Ostia” as it is often called?
--How would you describe the role of knowing and of loving in the ascent to God
portrayed in 9.10?
--Book 9 contains five deaths, culminating in that of Monica (Books 1-8 only
record 2 deaths). Is this significant? What might it suggest?
--Why is Augustine sad about being sad over his mother’s death?
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COURSE.2: The Second Part of Augustine, Confessions
Fu Jen University
B. McGinn
April 2009
LECTURE 6. CONFESSIONS Bk. 10: What is Memory? What is Happiness?
Book 10 is the longest book in the Confessions and its relation to the other books,
as well as its own internal structure, has produced a good deal of discussion. The theory
that the book was a later insertion has now been rejected and it is clear that the book is
more than a summation of books 1-9. It seems best to see book 10 as the connecting
book, which looks back to books 1-9 to provide new insight on the meaning of the act of
confessio (this is why it begins with the most extensive explanation of confessing in 10.15) at the same time that it looks forward to books 11-13 in which the story of Augustine’s
life will be seen against the wider background of the biblical account of the creation and
history. In books 1-9 Augustine was reflecting on his past through present memory, while
in book 10 he is reflecting on his present in present memory. Thus, one way of
understanding the relation of the books is the movement from memories (bks. 1-9) to
memory and happiness (bk. 10) to the problem of creation and time (bk. 11), to end in a
consideration of the relation of time and eternity (bks. 12-13).
The structure of the book also illustrates the basic pattern of ascent/descent found
throughout the Confessions, and, as James O’Donnell, argues (Augustine’s Confessions
III:151-53) has a close relationship to the mystical ascent in book 9.10. In his words:
“This is no longer an account of something that happened somewhere else long ago; the
text itself become the ascent. The text no longer narrates mystical experience, it becomes
itself a mystical experience…” I agree with Pamela Bright, however (A Reader’s
Companion to Augustine’s Confessions, 158-65), that the best way to view the use of the
ascent/descent paradigm in this book is to see it in the form of a three-panelled triptych,
as illustrated here.
(1) Structure of the Book.
10.1-5: Introduction: The nature of confessio
10.6-19: Panel I--Ascent of the God-seeking self by descending into memoria
(10.6-7: What do I love in loving God? Ascent from material universe and from
the reasoning soul (see book 9.10)
(10.8-9: ascent (descent) into memoria
(10.10-19: exploration of memoria
--10.10-11: memoria and ideas
--10.12: the principles of thinking
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--10.13: How memoria is found
--10.14: memoria and feelings
--10.15: memoria and images
--10.16: How can we remember forgetfulness?
--10.17: memoria and the self. Ascent to God must go beyond the soul
(book 9.10)
--10.18-19: lost and found in memoria
10.20-27: Panel II--What is true happiness?
(10.20-25: Joy and happiness are found only in God and God is in memoria
(10.26-27: God is present within and above us as Truth and Beauty.
10.28- 41: Panel III: Descent of the sick self still subject to the triple temptation (1 Jn.
2:16) of concupiscentia carnis, concupiscentia oculorum, ambitio
saeculi
(10.28-29: Augustine is still a “burden to himself”
(10.30-34: 1st Temptation—concupiscentia carnis and temptations of the senses
(touch, taste, hearing, smell, sight)
(10.35: 2nd Temptation—concupiscentia oculorum (curiosity) and temptations of
the mind
(10.36-39: 3rd Temptation—ambitio saeculi and temptations of pride, praise, and
self-deception
(10.40-41: a summary of ascent and descent dynamism
(10.42-43: Conclusion: the role of Christ as the True Mediator (the one who descends so
that we may ascend)
(2) Passages for Close Reading: 10.1-5 (confessing); 10.8, 16-19 (nature of memoria);
10.20-27 (happiness and God); 10.40-43 (summary)
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--How would you summarize Augustine’s teaching on what it means to
“confess”? In what sense is “confessing” a necessary or useful
Practice today?
--Much of what Augustine continues to confess in book 10, especially in 10.3039, seems to consist of an attraction to innocent pleasures and morally
indifferent issues. Why is Augustine so worried about these minor things?
--Augustine’s notion of memoria is obviously different in a number of ways from
what we mean when we talk about memory. What are some of these
differences?
--How does Augustine conceive of happiness? Where is happiness to be found?
What is the relation of happiness to memoria?
--In what sense is it true to say that Augustine finds God in book 10, but that God
is still far off? (see 10.27)
--What is Christ’s function as mediator? Does the Christology of this book add to
how Christ was understood in the earlier books?
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LECTURES 7 AND 8. THE LAST THREE BOOKS OF THE CONFESSIONS.
In the Retractions 2.32 Augustine says: “The first ten books were written about
myself; the last three about holy scripture, from the words “In the beginning God created
heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1) as far as the Sabbath rest (Gen. 2:2).” Augustine was quite
conscious of the special nature of the last three books, but he saw no problem in the unity
of the two parts of the Confessions, because it was obvious to him (if not to all his
readers) that the message about the meaning of human existence that he found revealed in
his life and proclaimed in his confessio of God’s goodness and his own sinfulness was the
same as the message about the creation and dependence of all things on God found in
Genesis. Augustine’s “small story” is the same as the “big story” found in the Bible. This
is why it is legitimate to see the whole of the Confessions as what Thomas Martin calls “a
biblical project,” that is, a guide to reading the Bible “that will nourish and support the
demands and challenges of Christian living” (A Reader’s Guide to the Confessions, 187).
The story of his conversion that Augustine tells in books 1-9 and reflects upon in
book 10 is not an exercise in self-discovery, but a painful learning that we can only
realize who we are in conversation with God. God does not ordinarily speak to us
directly—even Augustine’s brief moments of “mystical” contact with God are veiled and
mysterious. But, as Augustine learned, God has spoken to us through his revealed word
in the Bible, and this is the language that he uses to speak back to God throughout the
Confessions. Initially through the instruction and preaching of Ambrose (Conf. 5.14),
Augustine (who first thought the Bible was confusing and badly written) began to realize
that it was necessary to discern the inner spiritual message of the Bible in order to share
in its saving power. Hence, the mysterious meaning of the events of his own life, which
only became clear to him many years later as he wrote the Confessions, was a mirror
image of how to read the inner truth of the biblical message of creation and fall contained
in Genesis 1-2.
The distinction between the “literal” or obvious sense of the words of the Bible,
and the “spirit” or their inner signification, is the key to Augustine’s method of
interpreting the Bible (and that of almost all ancient Christian exegetes). Of course, even
the literal meaning of words that were easily understood as words was not always easy to
discern, as the example of heretics showed. As Augustine put it in Conf. 12.10: “I have
faith in your books, but their message is hard indeed to fathom.”
A Note on Augustine’s Exegesis of the Bible.
Augustine’s method of biblical interpretation is often called “allegorical,” from
the Greek allegoria, meaning “to read other” (i.e., say one thing, but read it in another
way). Augustine, like other ancient interpreters, did not deny that most passages in the
Bible possessed a “literal” meaning, that is, the letters and words made sense and often
had a clear historical application. Since God was the author of the Bible and God had
infinite wisdom, however, Augustine felt that the whole Bible, both the parts more or less
easily understood and the radically obscure and puzzling parts, had deeper, spiritual
meanings that would help guide the reader on the path to salvation. Allegoria was one of
the terms used for this kind of “deep interpretation” (e.g., in allegoria: 13.21; allegorice:
13.24; in allegoria figurari: 13.25). Augustine also often spoke of figura, or dicta
figurata, “figural statements” (13.24), that is, seeing Old Testament texts, persons, and
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events as “figurings” or “foreshadowings” of their fulfillment in Christ and the church.
This mode of inner penetration of the hidden depths of the text can also be called
“spiritual reading,” in the sense that the goal of interpretation was to build up the inner
spiritual life, that is, love of God and love of neighbor. Hence, in his exegetical treatise
On Christian Teaching, which he was writing at the same time as he was working on the
Confessions, Augustine lays down several rules for good exegesis that help explain what
he is doing in the last three books of the Confessions. The most important of these are
found in On Christian Teaching 3.10:
(1) Not confusing the literal and the figurative: “We must first explain the way to
discover whether an expression is literal or figurative. Generally speaking, it is this:
anything in the divine discourse that cannot be related either to good morals or to the true
faith should be taken as figurative.”
(2) Making sure that every reading adheres to the rule of faith and God’s intention to
build up love: “Scripture teaches nothing but charity, nor condemns anything but
cupidity, and in this way shapes the minds of men….It asserts nothing but the catholic
faith as it pertains to things past, present, and future.” Hence, any reading is good and
legitimate that does not conflict with faith and that builds up love of God and love of
neighbor (and conversely, overcomes “cupidity,” defined as “a motion of the soul toward
the enjoyment of one’s self, one’s neighbor, or any corporeal thing for the sake of
something other than God”).
Many people would create a great divide between Augustine’s spiritual reading of
the Bible and modern attempts at “scientific,” historical-critical reading. The truth is that
every reading of older texts is “interpretive,” that is, rather different from how their
authors and original audience would have read them. Even contemporary “historicalcritical” readings try to bring meaning out of ancient texts in the present through forms of
textual and historical investigation which would have been unimaginable to the original
authors. We all read “in another way,” that is, “allegorically.” Of course, there are real
differences between ancient allegory and its presuppositions and rules and modern
“allegory” and its linguistic and historical approach. For one thing, the audience is
different. Ancient interpreters wrote for believers and had as their purpose the desire to
defend the faith of the church against errors and to build up of love of God and neighbor.
Modern interpreters write for an academic, or scientific, community, with the intention of
discovering more about the original context and meaning of a text or book. Our place in
history and our modern education give us familiarity with this approach, and makes
Augustine’s mode of reading seem strange and arbitrary. Nevertheless, Augustine’s type
of exegesis demanded rare skills of the reader and was conducted according to subtle
rules and criteria. Ancient spiritual exegesis only looks arbitrary and boring because we
do not know the rules of the game (something like an American dismissing cricket).
For those who wish to gain more insight into Augustine’s interpretation of the
Bible, which should be seen not as an alternative to, but as a partner with, modern
historical-critical biblical studies, there is no better place to start than in Augustine’s On
Christian Teaching. The other great theoretical description of such forms of exegesis is in
Origen’s On Principles, Book 4.
A Note on the Christian Doctrine of Creation.
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Books 11-13 form one of the major places in Augustine’s writings where he sets
forth the Christian doctrine of creation against its two major opponents: pagan
philosophers and Manichaean teachers. The errors that Augustine is trying to combat can
be summarized as follows:
(1) Pagan philosophers, who mostly believed in a First Principle of the Universe (whether
or not they called it “God”), argued that the First Principle and the universe were part of
one continuum, a single necessary system. This led them to conclude that the universe
was a necessary product of the First Principle. The world had to exist, if there was a First
Principle. They differed as to (1) the mode of the “production” of the universe from the
First Principle; (2) the relation between the universe and time; and (3) the way in which
the First Principle acted in the universe. Aristotle certainly (and Plato probably) held that
the universe was eternal. Plato in the Timaeus sounded much like Genesis in insisting that
goodness was the motivation of the Demiurge/Creator in forming the universe, but he
also held that in order to make what we see, the Demiurge had use the “primal stuff” that
had always been hanging around. Aristotle held that the First Principle, or “Thinking
Thought,” moves the universe as its final goal, but cannot take any direct interest in a
world so inferior to his perfect self-contemplation.
(2) The Manichaeans argued that the existence of evil and suffering in the world can only
be explained in terms of a fundamental dualism. Two eternal and eternally opposed
Principles, one of good and one of evil, have always been at war. Our world is the scene
of battle in which the soul-realities dependent on the Good God (whose existence is
revealed by Jesus) are trapped in the material bodies and evil world that come from the
“Bad God” whose works are decribed in the creation account of the Old Testament.
From the second century C.E. on, Christian thinkers had begun to work out what
became the classic Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, that is, that the one Supreme
God created all things out of nothing (i.e., no pre-existent thing or matter) and that he did
so out of his own free decision, not out of any necessity of nature. The world was not
necessary; only God was. Christian thinkers also began to argue that this act of creation
was not eternal, but was temporal—not in the sense that it took place in time (How could
there be time before time?), but that creation marked the beginning of time conceived of
as the measure of created being. God’s plan to create the universe was eternal (otherwise
God would be changing his mind), but the actual creation was a creation with time. These
claims involved complex philosophical and theological problems, many of which are still
under discussion. We can see Augustine wrestling with them in the last books of the
Confessions.
In thinking about the Christian doctrine of “creation from nothing,” I find it is
useful to keep four principles in mind (the four D’s): dependence and distinction,
decision and duration.
Dependence and Distinction:
These are corollary notions. Christian, Jewish and Muslim theologians hold that the
world must be conceived as contingent (not necessary) and therefore totally dependent on
God. The total dependence of the world on God means that God has no need of anything
else (e.g., pre-existent material of some kind) to make the universe. Otherwise, he would
not be the sovereign God, but only a kind of artificer reponsible for half of the finished
product. This position also means that the universe is fundamentally distinct, or other
than God. The God-world distinction is fundamental to the creation-centered
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monotheisms—God would be God even if the world had never existed and the reality of
the world adds nothing to the reality of God. As Augustine says in Conf. 13.1, God has
no need of us. Augustine’s view of the distinction between God and the world is most
often expressed in terms of the infinite difference between God’s immutability and the
mutability (changefulness) of everything else. It is obvious for Augustine, as for other
Christian theologians, that the world must be absolutely dependent on God—it cannot
explain itself.
Decision and Duration:
If the world depends on God’s freedom, then it must involve a decision on God’s part.
God’s freedom should not be conceived of after the model of human choice (i.e.,
choosing between alternatives A or B), but is rather a form of absolute freedom about
which we can have only hints. Although God’s nature is eternal, that is, totally
independent of time, that does not mean that his creation need be eternal, especially
because the world is distinct from God. One of the elements of the “decision” aspect of
the Christian doctrine of creation was to try to understand God’s motive in creation. Why
did God create? Here Christians were happy to see Plato (Timaeus 29E) and Moses (Gen.
1:10, etc.) agreeing—God created out of his generous goodness. Augustine also stressed
this (see, e.g., Conf. 13.2 and 4, etc.). Finally, there was the question of the duration of
the universe. Aristotle argued that the world must be eternal. The first verse of Genesis
(“In the beginning God created heaven and earth”) suggests that there was a definite
starting point to the universe and one that involved temporality. This was the view that
Augustine and most Christian theologians defended, but there were other positions on the
duration of the universe among Christians, some of which argued that from some aspect
at least the universe could also be seen as eternal. A complicating factor here was the
phrase “in the beginning,” which was usually interpreted not so much as a “beginning
with time,” but as “in the Beginning (or Principle), that is, the Eternal Word of God” (see,
e.g., Conf. 11.5-8).
The Over-all Structure of Books 11-13.
Books 11-13 are a model of Augustine’s exegesis, both literal and spiritual-figurative,
concentrating on the creation account of Genesis 1:1-2:2 (please be sure to read this part
of Genesis!).
A. Books 11-12 deal with the literal exegesis of Gen. 1:1, “In the beginning God
created heaven and earth.”
--Book 11: deals with temporal creation, that is, the world we see around us.
Hence the two major issues are: What is creation? What is time?
--Book 12: deals with invisible and a-temporal creation, consisting of the highest
created reality, a spiritual being that Augustine identifies with the biblical
“heaven of heavens” (Ps. 113:16), as well as the lowest form of reality,
“formless matter” identified with the “earth was formless and empty”
(Gen. 1:2).
B. Book 13 concludes the study of the literal meaning of Gen. 1:1-3 in 13.1-14,
before turning to a figurative exegesis of Gen. 1:3-2:2, the account of the six
days of creation and God’s rest. The second half of book 13 (13.15-38)
interprets this account as a figura of the role of the church in salvation
history as it leads believers to heavenly rest.
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Hexaemeral Exegesis.
The account of God’s creation in six days (Greek: hexaemeron) and his rest on the
seventh day was the most-frequently studied part of the Bible and almost all early
Christian interpreters wrote on it. Augustine, especially due to his time with the
Manichaeans who got the meaning of creation so wrong, returned to the Hexaemeron
over and over again, writing a record five different interpretations. Books 11-13 of the
Confessions come in the middle:
(1) On Genesis against the Manichaeans (c. 388-89).
(2) Literal Commentary on Genesis. The Incomplete Book (393). Augustine says he had
to give this up because it found it too difficult.
(3) Confessions, books 11-13 (c. 400).
(4) Literal Commentary on Genesis. One of Augustine’s major works. 12 books written
between c. 401-15.
(5) City of God, books 11-14 (written c. 417-18).
LECTURE 7. CONFESSIONS, Book 11. What is creation? What is time?
Book 11 has been described as the most philosophical of the books of the
Confessions. It also raises questions about how this difficult discussion of theoretical
issues relates to the earlier books. What Augustine is doing here is stepping back from his
investigation of his own personal search for truth and happiness in conversation with God
to set his story against the wider background of the universal human search for truth and
happiness. The two major problems analyzed in this book were integral to the argument
of the earlier books, but had not been treated explicitly there. They are:
a) Creation—Augustine had to learn and confess his creaturely dependence on God
in order to begin to free himself from sin, whose very nature it is to
deny that we are really creatures. What is the meaning of creation
as set forth in the Bible?
b) Time—The act of confessing comes from meditating on one’s past in the present with
a view toward the future. The essence of creaturehood is to exist in
time. God alone is totally outside time as eternal being. Hence to
understand what it means to be a creature, we need to explore the
mystery of time. Since the eternal God creates a universe characterized
by temporality, it is no accident that Augustine’s discussion of the
meaning of time takes place within the context of his attempt to
understand what Gen. 1:1 says about creation.
(1) Structure of the book.
11.1-2: Introduction—Augustine as bishop; the desire to interpret the Bible
11.3-13: Creation as taught in the Bible—a commentary on Genesis 1:1
(11.3-5: the truth of “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”
(11.6-11: three questions about the text:
--11.6: How did God make? By the Word.
--11.7-9: How did God speak? How can the eternal God speak in time?
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--11.10-13: What was God doing before creation? Against the
Manichaeans.
11.14-28: The Mystery of Time: A Series of Paradoxes and Problems
(11.14-20: Clarification of what we mean by time, especially the division of time
into past-present-future
(11.21-26: What do we measure when we measure time? Deeper understanding of
time as measurement of the soul’s present awareness (i.e.,
expectation-attention-memory). Time as distensio animi.
(11.27-28: Can we really measure time?
11.29-31: Personal appropriation of this truth. Christ, the Father’s Mediator, makes time
the arena of our redemption.
(2) Passages for Close Reading: 11.1-6; 11.9; On time: 11.14, 20, 26-28; 11.29-31
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--How does Augustine understand creation? What are its main characteristics?
--What are the differences between our words and God’s Word?
--Augustine seems to take the notion that God created the world as
a necessary conclusion from observing the world. Many other religious and
philosophical systems do not think that the world must be a created reality.
What do you think?
--Does God create in time?
--Is time merely subjective for Augustine, as some have claimed (e.g., Bertrand
Russell)?
--What is the significance of the turn to Christ in the last three chapters?
--in 11.9 Augustine says, “I shudder to feel how different I am from it [the light of
Wisdom]: yet insofar as I am like it, I am aglow with its fire.” How do you
interpret this passage? How would you relate it to the whole message of book
11?
--How do you read the final chapters (11.29-31)? Do they indicate that Augustine
has given up trying to define what time is?
LECTURE 8. CONFESSIONS, BOOKS 12-13: What Does the Bible Teach about
Creation?
In these books Augustine becomes more properly exegetical in the sense that he
begins to actually interpret the creation account verse-by-verse, frequently with the help
of other passages from the Bible (inter-textual interpretation, that is, using one text to
help figure out the meaning of another). As noted above, book 12 purports to be a literal
interpretation of Gen. 1:1-2, while book 13 is mostly a figurative reading of Gen. 1:3-2:2.
In practice, as you will note, Augustine’s “literal” reading often seems “non-literal” to us.
Book 12. The issue that Augustine takes up here is far from modern views of creation
and cosmology and therefore not easy for us to grasp. Augustine had to take it up for
reasons both exegetical and philosophical. Briefly put, the exegetical reason was the
appearance in scripture of the term “heaven of heavens,” which called out for
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interpretation of how this heaven related to the “heaven” we see. Philosophically, many
pagan philosophers, such as Plato, had thought that the “Creator/Demiurge” could only
create our universe by shaping and forming existences out of an eternal something, a kind
of primal formless substance that was co-eternal with the Creator. Augustine needed to
show how the absolute perfection, eternity, and immutability of God ruled out views
about God needing to use some kind of material to form the universe.
(1) Structure of the Book.
12.1: Introduction
12.2-13: Interpretation of “heaven” and “earth” in Gen. 1:1 as a-temporal creations
(12.2-9: the meaning of the “heaven of heavens” (= unfallen intellectual world)
and of “earth” (= formless matter as the source out of which all forms
arise by God’s act of formation)
(12.10: Prayer to Truth
(12.11-13: Summary on these two realities as non-temporal, but not co-eternal
12.14-29: Reflections of the Interpretation of Scripture (N.B. The remainder of book 12 is
basically a treatise on difficult issues in interpreting the Bible and therefore
bears a close relation to the Augustine’s writing of On Christian Doctrine.)
(12.14-15: The problem of conflicting views on Biblical interpretation
--12.14: profundity of scripture (mira profunditas)
--12.15: What is certain about creation (God is immutable and eternal)
(12.16-26: How to deal with conflicting views
--12.16: introductory prayer for enlightenment
--12.17: What is doubtful/disputable about creation (four other
explanations of “heaven and earth” presented
--12.18-22: An examination of exegetical freedom in relation to the five
views of “heaven and earth.” (Augustine still seeks the “truth” of
what Moses said: every sentence of 12.19 begins with verum.)
--12.23-26: principles for finding the author’s intention (charity and truth).
Truth is not a private possession, but God’s gift to the community.
(12.27-29: What is the truth about Gen. 1:1?
12.30-32: Augustine’s conclusion: The one Holy Spirit is at work in diverse readings, as
long as the rules of correct belief and love are at work.
(2) Passages for Close Reading: 12.2-5 and 8-9 (the heaven of heavens and formless
matter); 12.15-18 (what is certain and what is doubtful); 12.25; 12.30-31
(3) Questions for Discussion:
--On what basis does Augustine decide that the “heaven” of Gen. 1:1
refers to the “heaven of heavens” on Ps. 113:16?
--How do you understand the “heaven of heavens”? What kind of a creature is
this? How can we know it exists? What is its purpose?
--What do you think of Augustine’s claim that there can be multiple true
readings of different biblical passages? Doesn’t this conflict with truth of
much of the Bible’s claims (e.g., “You shall not kill”)?
--Does Augustine’s view of legitimate different scriptural readings have any use
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today?
--Who were Augustine’s opponents in this discussion?
Book 13. In the last book of the Confessions Augustine continues his exegetical task,
both with further exploration of the meaning of creation and then by turning to
“figurative” exegesis, that is, an attempt to read the inner message of the seven days of
Gen. 1:3-2:2, not as an account of the cosmological formation of the world (this is
something he does in his Literal Commentary on Genesis), but as a message about
recreation, that is, humanity’s return to God through the agency of the church, the Body
of Christ. For Augustine, it would not be enough just to have the correct understanding of
how God created the world at the beinning of time, but we also have to gain something
that is useful for our lives in the present. Citing Meister Eckhart, a great thirteenthcentury student of Augustine, we can say that we need to “understand” the text, that is,
intelligere, which Eckhart etymologizes as intus-legere, or “read within.” This part of
Augustine’s interpretation emphasizes the moral application of the biblical messages
(what was later called tropologia). (Robert McMahon in his book, Augustine’s Prayerful
Ascent. An Essay on the Literary Form of the Confessions, even argues that book 13
provides the key to the structure of the whole Conf., with the first nine books based on
the paradigm of the nine acts of creation of the seven days, and the allegory of the return
to God in book 13 providing the model for books 10-13.)
(1) Structure of the Book.
13.1: Introductory prayer of thanks
13.2-11: Deeper exploration of the literal meaning of creation
(13.2: God creates from his goodness
(13.3: Exegetical basis in “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3)
(13.4-11: Role of Holy Spirit and the Trinity in creation—Spirit moving over
waters (Gen. 1:2b)
--13:5: Three person of Trinity found in Genesis account
--13.7-9: Holy Spirit and the two forms of the “weight of love”—caritas
and cupiditas
--13.11: image of the Trinity in us
13.12-38: Figural-Allegorical Reading of Genesis 1:3-2:2: Application to the church and
the lives of Christians
(13.12-14: Introduction—The first day (Gen. 1:3 = Mt. 3:2) and Augustine’s
present situation in the Church
(13.15-16: The second day (Gen. 1:6)—the firmament as the Bible
(13.17: The third day (Gen. 1:9-10)—the bitter sea and the earth
(13.18-19: The fourth day (Gen. 1:14-15)—the lights in heaven
--13.19: summary of three stages of moral meaning
(13.20: The fifth day (Gen. 1:20-21)—reptiles, birds, and sea monsters
(13.21-28: The sixth day (Gen. 1:24-31)—creation of living souls and humanity
--13.21: production of living souls and creeping things (Gen. 1:24-25)
--13.22: creation of man in God’s image (Gen. 1:26)
--13.23: man’s dominance over the animals
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--13.24: “increase and multiply” (Gen. 1:28)
--13.25-27: nourishing herbs-trees-fruits (Gen. 1:29)
--13.28: “God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:31)
13.29-34: Summary of Augustine’s teaching on creation
(13:29: How God speaks in time
(13.30: 4 errors about creation
(13.31: Hymn to God the Creator
(13.33-34: Literal and figurative meanings of God as creator
13.35-38: The Peace of the Sabbath (Gen. 2:2)
(2) Passages for Close Reading: 13.2-12 (creation and the Trinity); 13.15 (the
firmament); 13.22-24 (figural meaning of creation of man); 13.29-34 (summary
of teaching on creation)
(3) Questions for Discussion.
--Where does Augustine get his teaching about the two stages of creation (13.2)?
--What is the role of the Trinity in creation and where does Agustine find it in
Genesis?
--What does Augustine mean by the “weight of love”(pondus amoris)? Have we
seen this before in the Conf.?
--Why is the interpretation of the firmament as the Bible (13.15-16) a fitting
figural reading?
--What is the role of Paul in this book (see, e.g., 13.7, 13.18, 13.22, 13.25-26)?
--What is the significance of the Sabbath for Augustine? What are the
characteristics of the Sabbath?
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