Lesson Three, Augustine and His Confessions

First: These next few lessons are only a short overview. I have another entire course on the Confessions that I will delve into when we get that far along. Many of the major doctrines that we see in religious denominations all around us have their infant beginnings in Augustine's Confessions. For instance, the Doctrine of Total Depravity, adopted later by what we know as the Calvinist movement of the Reformation, is found in its beginning state in the Confessions. In 1.7.11, Augustine takes great pain to show that infants are pre-voluntarily corrupted, and hence ruined before they began. "The only innocent feature in babies are their frame, their minds are far from innocent." (i.e. babies are born totally depraved.).

Somewhere here I have a book written by a lady (with an M.A.) with the Methodist denomination. And of course, like most modern denominations, the Methodist have Augustine's doctrinal frame work. When she broaches the subject of Total Depravity, she readily admits that Augustine taught such a thing, but makes the statement that "Augustine learned this doctrine from Ambrose." (Ambrose of Milan was the man who converted Augustine to Christianity.) In fact, Ambrose did say, "Before we are born we are infected with the contagion, and before we see the light of day we experience the injury of our origin." (Ambrose of Milan, 340-397). But, there is where our search for the origins of the doctrine stops. We will have a great deal to say about Augustine's total depravity and original sin as we move on. And now, a short outline of Dr. Cary's lectures on the Confessions of Augustine.

We now look at Augustine's life as written in his autobiography, the Confessions. The Confessions will be examined from three thematic angles. (1) The Intellectual angle where the philosophical love of Wisdom is the theme. We follow his intellectual development from the point at which a book by Cicero sparked his initial interest in philosophy through the long period in which he sought the truth in the Manichean heresy, up to the time he encounters the "books of the Platonist," which provide him with a key to understanding God but do not give him the strength to get back to the God he has lost by his

sin.

Some key concepts in the Lectures

1. Define what philosophy means for Augustine.

2. Explain the relation between philosophy and Christianity according to Augustine.

3. Describe the importance of Cicero in Augustine's intellectual development.

4. Summarize the teachings of the Manichaeans.

5. State three intellectual problems of Augustine's to which Platonism provided solutions.

6. Discuss what Augustine learned as a result of reading the books of the Platonist.

I. An Introduction to Confessions.

A. Author: Augustine the bishop, age 45 (not to be confused with Augustine the character within the autobiography, ages 1-35).

B. It is too superficial to interpret this as a story as a wayward youth. It is more like a portrait of a wayward soul - it is meant to supply all of our souls.

C. In the next three lectures, Dr. Cary will approach the Confessions through three thematic angles (like looking at the same thing from three different sides.).

1. Intellectual angle: the mind's search for the truth.

2. Emotional angle: the heart's love and loss.

3. Religious angle: the soul's road home.

II. Encountering Philosophy: Cicero's Hortensius

A. The setting of Augustine's youth: Africa as the Bible belt of the Roman Empire.

B. Augustine reads Cicero's Hortensius (3:4.7-8)

1. Augustine's rhetorical education - an education geared for political success and involving the study of master orators like Cicero.

2. But Cicero also wrote an exhortation to philosophize.

3. Augustine's heart is suddenly on fire for "Wisdom," what ever that might be."

4. The only thing missing was the name of Christ - or was it?

C. Pagan philosophy aims for Wisdom ("whatever that might be") but does not know the name of Christ. Since Christ is the Wisdom of God (as Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1:24), this means that philosophy seeks the reality of Wisdom but does not know its name.

III. Joining the Heretics: Manichaeanism

A. Soon after reading Cicero, Augustine turns to the Christian Scriptures but quickly rejects them because he is to proud to understand their humble words (they were to simple for him).

B. The Manichaeans (3:6.10-7.12 and 5.10.18-20).

1. The Manichaean heretics were opposite of the pagan philosophers: they knew the right names (e.g. Christ) but knew nothing of reality.

2. The Manichaeans were materialist, believing that even God was a material, visible thing (i.e. the light from heaven).

3. The Manichaeans were rationalist, criticizing the Catholics for the importance of faith.

4. The Manichaeans were dualists (Gnostics), thinking that everything that existed was made up either of Good Stuff (divine light) or the Bad Stuff (dark, evil, filthy matter). They thought this contempt for the material body or bodily side of life made them more spiritual.(A Gnostic would never have been baptized since that involves the physical body). They thought the human soul a fragment of the divine light trapped in a filthy human body.

5. Augustine's attraction to Manichaeanism had a lot to do with the fact that he was (according to his own self portrait), a smart "snot nosed" kid (3:12.21).

IV. Catholic Teachings: Ambrose

A. Ambition takes Augustine to Milan and Ambrose (5:13.23).

B. Ambrose teaches Augustine a non literal interpretation of the Scriptures which helps him understand why the Manichaeans are wrong about the Catholics (5:14.24-25).

C. Milan was the center of Christian Platonism.

V. Platonist Vision: In the Up (Confessions 7)

A. On the brink of his conversion, Augustine was struggling with thee interrelated problems.

1. Trying to see a non-bodily substance.

2. Striving to understand the omnipresence of God (7:1.2)

3. Asking where evil comes from (unde malum)(7:5.7)

B. Augustine suffers from intellectual questions (7:7.11).

C. Augustine encounters "the books of the Platonist" (7:9.13-15).

D. Augustine finally glimpses the divine truth. (7:10.16).

1. Grace: God is his guide

2. Inward turn: the nature of the soul is his clue (for the soul is incorporeal, like God).

3. Looking upward: he sees God above his own mind, the light by which his mind's eye sees.

4. Dazzled eyes: he can't keep looking that way for long, because the glory of God is too bright for his mind's eye to gaze at.

E. What Augustine learned from his moment of Platonist Vision.

1. Truth (i.e. God) is incorporeal and omnipresent (7.10.16).

2. All the God created is good (7.13.19-15.21).

3. Evil is not a form of being but the corruption of a thing's being. (7:11.17-12.18).

4. Evil comes from the corruption of will (7:16.22).

Questions to consider?

1. Augustine portrays the search for Wisdom and Truth as central to his life. Does it make sense to live a life like that? Is it impractical? Is that search already central to our lives? Can such a search make us happy?

2. Does Augustine's inward turn and glimpse of God (His movement" in then up") seem like anything we might be familiar with?

Essential Reading

Augustine, Confessions, books 3,5, and 7

Brown, Augustine of Hippo, chapters 4-5,8-11.