The Confessions - Book III

Augustine, whose father had died by now, moved to Carthage at age 18, where he continued his sinful ways and began his studies in rhetoric. He studied one of the great rhetoriticians, Cicero (his bust on the left) - specifically Horentius, a book now lost to us. It argued that the the pursuit of truth through philosophy - the love of wisdom - led to the happy life. This thought deeply moved Augustine "and turned my prayers to Thyself O Lord." Augustine "longed with an incredibly burning desire for the immortality of wisdom." Eventually, this lead him to start reading the Bible.

Unfortunately, the Bible Augustine started reading was a poor Latin translation of the Greek, and it seemed too "lowly" for his "swollen pride" and his "sharp wit" could not seem to "pierce the interior" of it.

Soon, Augustine fell in with the Manicheans, a heretical Gnostic Christian sect that arose in Persia, which combined Greek philosophy with Christianity. Augustine describes Manicheanism, but critically as a Christian following his conversion. So Augustine complains they offered him the sun and the moon, things God created, instead of offering God himself. Their God was confused with material matter, instead of understanding his immortal and spiritual nature. And as with other Gnostics, they did not believe God could have created this world with its evil material matter - that must have been done by a demi-God. Augustine would be confused by the Manicheans for the next 9 years.

In the meantime, his mother, Monica began to ardently pray for Augustine. She saw the local bishop and asked him if he would talk to young Augustine. The bishop declined, saying Augustine was not teachable yet, and urged her to keep praying for him. She told the bishop of her tears over Augustine. He told her, "Go thy ways and God bless thee, for it is not possible that the son of these tears should perish." Monica took this as the voice of heaven.

Back to Book II.

On to Book IV.

The Confessions - Book II

In his late teens, the young Augustine, having finished local school and waiting to start school in Carthage, embarks on a wild lifestyle, including erotic adventures. His mother, Monica, a Christian, admonishes against this lifestyle which young Augustine dismisses as "womanish advice." His father Patrick, a pagan, seems indifferent and even somewhat expects this moral licentiousness, as long as Augustine focuses on his education, seen as a means to worldly success.

Augustine focuses on one episode from this chapter of his life which involves, of all things, pears. One night after Augustine and his friends could find no other havoc to raise, settled on stealing pears from a nearby pear tree. Augustine now wonders about this theft. He was not hungry nor needed pears. In fact, he and his friends only tasted the pears, and then threw them away to the hogs. They stole the pears for the pure evil joy of stealing. Augustine ponders - the pears themselves were good, his desire for a pear by itself was good, and friendship is good, yet all this turned evil and sin for the joy, sweetness, sport, and love of sin - a turning from God - which Augustine now deeply regrets. Augustine realizes a parallel with fornication - his desire for women and sex was good, but it all turned to evil for the joy, sweetness, sport, and love of sin - a turning from God.

Yet as Augustine recalls what he now calls "rottenness," he praises God for His mercy, His forgiveness, and especially His Grace, that has "melted away my sins as it were ice." Augustine seems to understand that as much as he might recoil at the sins of his youth, it was a journey God had him on to become the man he had become when he wrote The Confessions. The nearby icon by Meltem on the left represents this with Augustine stealing from the pear tree to the left, Augustine later sharing a meal with a friend in the center, and Augustine as a pastor, bishop, and scholar in later life to the right.

On to Book III.

Back to Book I

Augustine's Confessions - Book I

Augustine takes the first few sections of Book I to praise God. For Augustine, praising God is a confession.

Then Augustine starts his biography. He not only takes us back to his birth (depicted in the painting on the left), but he speculates on his life in the womb, and even before the womb, which reflects his philosophical bent.

Instead of telling us what others told him about his childhood, or reflecting on his earliest recollections, Augustine tells us about his childhood from what he has learned from observing children, and then drawing inferences and conclusions about them and about him as a child. He concludes that children, including himself as a child, regardless of how cute they may appear, are sinners.

He also notices that the children, who start out by playing children's games, grow up to be adults who play more elaborate versions of children's games in business and politics.

Augustine tells us he did manage to learn a few good things in school, like how to read and write. (The painting to the right shows young Augustine being taken from his mother, Monica, to go to school.) However, he found that his teachers mostly wasted his time, since they seemed intent on teaching their pupils how to play the more elaborate games adults spent their time engaged in.

Back to Introduction.

On to Book II.

Augustin's Confessions

I long intended to read The Confessions (usually called The Confessions of St. Augustine in order to distinguish it from other books by that name). I finally decided to read it - and write about it in this blog. It contains 13 books, so I will post as I finish each of its 13 books. I will start with an introduction.

Scholars consider The Confessions as the first autobiography written in the West. In one way, it's a strange autobiography since Augustine wrote it during 397 and 398, when he was about 40 years old. Many think he wrote it as a response to those who considered him too young as a Christian to serve as a bishop, were worried about the rumors of his wild background or his former attachment to an anti-Christian religion. Augustine certainly meets all these concerns head on.

However, it is not just an autobiography, or just a confession, as we tend to think of those words. For Augustine, "confession" meant not just telling your sins, but also to praise God. And a good portion of the book delves into deep philosophic considerations, as Augustine ponders some of the deep questions about life - as well as deep questions about God.

That is why The Confessions had not only such a deep influence in the Middle Ages, but still influences down to this day, as it is widely read and known by Christians across denominational lines, as well as by non-Christians who respect Augustine's thoughts and the journey he descibes.
On to Book I.

Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis - Overview

The Puritan Dilemma

I finished reading The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop by Edmund S. Morgan, who used to be Professor of History at Yale.

Many caricaturize Puritans as drab people who mostly lead drab lives, except perhaps for insidious witch-hunting, who insisted on austere living. Professor Morgan instead presents them as real people who made the daunting decision to settle a new land, and faced a variety of challenges as they did so, especially John Winthrop, the elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company.

Imagine if you wanted to escape the evils of society to set up a new land where God's will and law would be followed - to be an example to the rest of the world. How would you divide the land, set up the government, set up the churches? What would be the relationship between the state and the church, between the government in Massachusetts and England, between the churches in Massachusetts and England, between believers and non-believers in Massachusetts? The Puritans, under the leadership of Winthrop, worked out solutions to these problems, though not perfectly, yet in ways that affect us down to this day, as we still graple with many of these issues, as Mr. Morgan explains in this excellent book.

The Puritans, who were part of the Church of England, but wanted to purify it, had to work through issues of separtism (those who simply wanted to separate from the Church of England), presbyterianism, and congregationalism. They also had to work through issues about what to forbid without winding up forbidding what God did not forbid. Through it all, Morgan presents a history of real people working through these real problems, with the gamut of the wise and foolish, the far and short sighted, the impetuous and the patient, and at times, these traits appeared in the same person, including Winthrop, though overall, he proved to be an admirable, though not perfect, leader of this new country.

Unity and Diversity

Whatever we believe, as we look out on this world (or the cosmos), we observe an incredible diversity, in the animal kingdom, in the plant world, in geology and topography, in the planet and stars. So we wonder if there is a unity to this diversity, on various levels, and on an ultimage level. Greek philosophy focused on this question. Modern science focuses on this question, so that for the final years of his life, Albert Einstein tried to find an ultimate unity theory that would tie everything in science together, which he called a unified field theory. He died before he found that unity theory. Some scientists press on in this quest. Some think they have found it in string theory, but no one has yet come up with a testable experimental prediction, and so string theory remains outside of science for now and only an interesting theory.

However, even if someone found a unified field theory, this would still not be an ultimate unity of everything, it would be limited to science.

When the early Church Fathers met to discuss the nature and doctrine of the Trinity in Nicene, they realized that in the Trinity, a perfect answer existed to the problem of unity and diversity. They did not come up with the Trinity to solve this problem. Instead, they realized that the unity of the One God, with the diversity of the Three Persons of God, meant that unity and diversity eternally existed on the highest order of existence, and was fundamental to the entire creation.

So it makes sense at every level of creation to find various levels of unity and diversity, including a wide range of diversity yet still with unity.

This thinking on unity and diversity helps me in thinking about the Body of Christ, the Church. Some worry about the diversity they see in the Church. I mostly rejoice in it. There is unity in the head of the Church, who is Jesus Christ. Yet there is plenty of room for diversity in various denominations, associations, fellowships, and local churches, reflecting various traditions and flavors of Christianity, as long as orthodoxy is maintained.

The Nicene Creed states a basic orthodoxy, as well as states the highest order of unity and diversity within the Trinity. It does not get lost in some of the more minor doctrinal issues. That is why almost all Christian churches agree on the Nicene Creed, or at least do not dispute it. The Nicene Creed is not the only early church creed almost all Christian Churches agree on, but it the most well known one.

So I hope and pray that while we in the Church do not overlook our differences, we can appreciate them as part of the diversity in the Body unified under our Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the Church.