Christian Classics: Augustine's Confessions

Last Tuesday Before Pentecost

Tuesday is books, arts, architecture, movies, and TV review day. Today I'll start a series of occasional reviews of books that can easily be called the classics of Christianity. I'm starting with what would have to be rated the greatest Christian Classic of them all, St. Augustine's Confessions. I have read this book more times than any other book I've ever read, 14 times to be exact. I have taught it in a number of courses, both in churches and in college classes. That is not to say that I love this book. I don't. I just can't get around the fact that it has had more influence on the development of Christianity than any writing other than the New Testament. All the subsequent great Christian thinkers in the West and many in the East and in Africa read it and were strongly influenced by it, including Martin Luther and John Wesley.

Confessions is often called the first psychological autobiography. Augustine writes with total honesty about himself, never brags nor boasts, but tells his deepest thoughts and his worst sins. Augustine was born in North Africa in the city of Tagaste in 354 A.D. He lived during the time that the great Roman Empire, which was now a Christian Empire, was rapidly falling apart. Augustine treasured the greatness of Rome and the Empire it had built. All of North Africa was part of the Empire. During Augustine's time North Africa became the center of Christian thinking and in many ways the center of Roman civilization. Rome itself and all of Italy and the European part of the Empire was being invaded by marauding barbarian tribes. Augustine had moved to Rome and from there to Milan during this time. In 410 Alaric and the Goths sacked the city of Rome and left the city in ruins. Waves of barbarians would come thereafter. In North Africa it was the Vandals, the tribe from which we get our word vandalism. 

Here's a brief outline of Augustine's story. He was born to and brought up in a mixed family. His father was a pagan and his mother, St. Monica, a Christian. He went to the finest schools and consistently far excelled his peers and amazed his teachers. By the time of his late teens he had become famous as a teacher of Latin rhetoric. He had not adopted the religion of his mother. He saw too many problems in Christian theology, especially in the understanding of the Trinity and in problem of evil. He read deeply in neo-Platonic philosophy, then became more and more enchanted with the Manicheism, a religion from Babylon that emphasized a stark dualism of good and evil, light and darkness. He was as follower of Manicheism for nine years. 

Augustine was tremendously excited when he learned that one of the great Manichee teachers, Faustus, was coming to North Africa and would be teaching in Carthage, where Augustine was now living and teaching. Faustus came, lectured, took questions. Augustine asked too many difficult questions that Faustus had no adequate answer for. Utterly disappointed, Augustine abandoned Manicheism and went across the Mediterranean to Milan in northern Italy, which was an education hotbed where Augustine knew he could encounter some of the best current thinkers and teachers in the Empire.

I should note that before he left North Africa Augustine had a long term affair with a young woman (whom he never names) that produced a son, Adeodatus. He took Adeodatus with him but abandoned the woman. His mother, Monica, was extremely disappointed in him, but kept praying that one day he might see the light of Christ.

In Milan Augustine sampled all the best of philosophies and religions. He was most impressed by a brilliant thinker Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.  Ambrose could deal with Augustine deepest questions and thoughts in way that no one else Augustine had previously encountered could. St. Ambrose was equally impressed with Augustine. Ambrose did not convert Augustine but prepared him well for conversion. Augustine had his questions answered but had yet to encounter Christ. 

That happened in a garden, near Milan. Augustine had long been bothered by an event in his youth, when he had stolen a massive number of pears from a neighbor's pear tree and gotten away with it. The guilt of that event stayed with him all the way to Milan (he showed no guilt whatever about abandoning the mother of his son). By this time St. Monica had moved to Milan to be with her son and care for her grandson. In the garden Augustine heard a child's voice singing, The child was singing a Christian children's song with words from Romans 14 that ended "Come back and follow me." Augustine heard it as the voice of God. I would call it a "God thing." Augustine understood it as God's completely irresistable grace.  He came back to Milan and told his mother about it. All her many years of prayers for him were answered. Soon both he and Adeodatus were baptized.

Much follows in Confessions and much more in the many books Augustine would write over the rest of his life. He wrote Confessions in 397 A.D. He would live to 430 A.D. He became bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Confessions is by no means an easy read, but then great thought usually takes a dedicated reader. I highly recommend it.

Faithfully,

Christian