Augustine (354-430 C.E.): Confessions
Saint Augustine (354 – 430 AD) was also known as Saint Augustine of Hippo who created his image through his teachings and writings. Augustine of Hippo was born in North Africa Tagaste or what is currently known as Algeria in the year 354. He lived for approximately 67 years after which he died on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. His life was a bridge for the gap that existed between the customary Christian pagan Rome and the Middle Ages of Christianity. According to him, this gap was the cause of separation between the genuine people and places they were conversant with. He lived not as descriptions of the past and future but like most humans he lived in the present which was full of uncertainty.
His homeland was in the Roman Empire since the demolition of Carthage five hundred years prior to his birth. This place had been reconstructed by the Romans as metropolis of the roman Africa with immense prosperity as earlier on but bravado no threats to the Africans. The language of business was Latin and the prevailing religious conviction became Christianity which was aggressively in conflict with the ethnicity of the old Rome. The inspiration in Augustine to become a seeker of the truth was derived from Marcus Tullius works in philosophy- a roman speaker and politician. With such inspirations, Augustine engaged in aggressive studies of philosophy and moved from one phase to the next without due satisfaction. He dedicated himself to dualistic philosophy where he dealt with the divergence between good and evil and this was part of the answer if not the answer to the confusion that haunted his mind. The ethical contribution of philosophy was minute to him and so he abandoned it and joined rhetoric and later he went back to philosophy after the influence of Bishop Ambrose.
In this essay, the main purpose is to establish the driving forces for Augustine’s will to be at peace in God and the contribution of his life and works to humanity. Many things are displayed in his confessions contributing to this desire and include adoration and wisdom, the yearning to love and be loved, his affection for his concubine’, and lose of his friend among others contribute to his strong will to pursue God and become a committed Christian.
Confessions by Saint Augustine are a book with thirteen more books each being a confession of a part of his life and an examination of the cause of his confessions and the bible. The first book is a confession of the saint’s infancy and early childhood life. In this book, Augustine confesses how he fell ill and almost got baptized before he was sent to school to study Latin literature. The second book is a confession of Augustine’s adolescence, his life in education and his sexual maturity (Edward 2007). It is at this stage that he stole pears with his friends and age mates and he felt as if he had become a wasteland after this act. This he views as part of his past wickedness and feels despite the age it was a sin worth confession. The third part of the confessions is a book about the early adulthood of the saint who proceeds to Carthage for more studies (Wiersbe 2005. After reading Cicero’s Hortensius, he is inspired by love for wisdom and after encountering Manichaeism Augustine became a Manichee. The fourth book on Augustine’s confessions is about his life as a teacher of rhetoric in Tagaste, the way he took in a mistress or a concubine, his appeal to astrology, and the emotional loss of a close friend who he felt as if their two souls had gradually been converted into one. This leads him to a seeking scrutiny for grief and humanity (Edward 2007).
The fifth confession is on the saints teachings in Carthage and after meeting with Bishop Faustus, Augustine is disappointed with the bishop’s lack of knowledge. He later leaves Carthage for Milan and find bishop Ambrose who makes him increase his rejection of Christianity and do he remains in the Manichees’ teachings. In the sixth book of confessions, Augustine gains more knowledge on Christianity but hasn’t enough conviction to accept it fully. His mother forces him to leave his concubine by arranging marriage with a Christian girl. In the seventh confession, Augustine reads Platonist philosophy and accepts Christianity and renounces Manichaeism. In the other books, Augustine denounces the world and fully gets committed to Christianity, though with several instances spiritual crisis till he is baptized and resigns work (Wiersbe 2005). His last confessions are then set to examine temptations of the senses and the memory, and the explanations of the first and second verses of the book of genesis and finally the recount of creation in the book of genesis.
Augustine (354-430 C.E.) confession is the earliest known account of infant growth. In this confession, Augustine provides an extraordinarily comprehensive and developmentally suitable account of his personal infancy, recounting how he sucked from his mother’s breast and the prototype of calming down and crying he had adapted (Edward 2007). Augustine accounts how his smiled during sleep as is common for most infants today. All this information about him was as a result of what others like his mother told him and he agreed to it as it is what is observed in most infants today (Wiersbe 2005. He speaks of his failure to remember his sins since infancy and boyhood to 14 years. Unlike children who wait till they are fed, Augustine realizes that God wants humans to think of each other before one thinks of self. This is brought by the fact that humans should be social beings and know the concerns of each other.
This description from Augustine discloses how infant amnesia, or the apparent loss of memory concerning one’s own infancy, is currently readily acceptable as a fact for the past several thousands of years ago (Augustine 2006). This supports the fact that the events happening in the life of an individual before the age of 3 or to some extent 4 years of age cannot be explicitly recounted, or organized into a comprehensive narration structure which appears separated from one (Wiersbe 2005. He gives an account of his live and all things he had done at each stage of growth in his life. He faces grief after the loss of his closest friend and mother. He also faces antagonistic forces within him that opposes his commitment to Christianity.
After sometime, he resigns from his work as a professor and decides to enter into Christianity after his baptism. It is at this moment that he studied the human memory and the temptations of the senses (Augustine 2006). His analysis of himself and the reasons for his confessions only makes him realize that men have a way by which they come to Christ and this way is influenced by the memory, self and the powers of the self. He also expounds on the fresh and the temptations and appetites that directs what the fresh does. With such things surrounding man and preventing him to live in harmony with God, there was need for a mediator between man and God.
In his adolescence Augustine finds himself in the wrong company of friends and this leads him to committing crimes like stealing, and giving in to bodily desires of lust where he ends up marrying a concubine and sees no harm in such act till his mother forces him to marry a Christian girl and drive away the concubine (Augustine 2006). Augustine is not satisfied with his actions of stealing and eats some of the pears in guilt and for failure to finish them he throws the rest to the pigs as he had never lacked anything at home but was stealing. He tried to figure out the causes to his actions and realizes group mentality was what the driving force was.
In his adolescence, he indulges into lustful actions and this shows the blindness he has for life as a young adolescent just as is seen in most adolescents today at such an age. The knowledge and acceptance of Christ is useful to succeed at this stage in life but for him he was so lost. In addition, in his early adulthood, Augustine grieves for the loss of his friend only to realize that loving that is of God is accompanied with losses (Augustine 2006).
Saint Augustine’s life as a child and as an adult was confused and full of blindness as he had two worlds to live by; the world of everything else and the world of the faith believed by his mother, Monica (Wiersbe 2005). After his baptism and salvation, Augustine discovers that the lord is all by himself with no match and above all humanity, His power is great with non restricted wisdom. Human beings as he was, should aspire to praise Him like the lowly creatures does (Augustine 2005).
References
Augustine, S., (2006). The Confessions of Saint Augustine. 1st World Library. Fairfield: IA.
Edward, B., (2007). The confessions of Saint Augustine. Forgotten Books. Retrieved from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=OosmJlQ3lPkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=confessions+of+saint+augustine&hl=en&ei=9lLbTZeBB8bHrQeftpTHDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-preview-link&resnum=2&ved=0CDkQuwUwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Wiersbe, W., (2005). Confessions of Saint Augustine. Baker Book House. United States of America: USA.
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