# Augustine's Confessions



## RamistThomist (Jul 5, 2022)

Augustine. _Confessions_. trans. Rex Warner. Signet.

For the most part I will try to avoid some of the more memorable scenes. You probably already know them.

Augustine begins by lamenting his learning of Virgil. Why should he weep over Dido when his teachers did not know enough for him to weep over his own soul? This might seem that Augustine is condemning classical learning, and he probably thought he was, but Augustine's own life mirrors Aeneas's, so there is that.

Like Aeneas, Augustine arrives in Carthage. And like Aeneas, Augustine succumbs to its pleasures. He failed to understand that true love was a calm "communion of minds" (2.2). Rather, he sought only to be in love with love.

We also get a profound meditation on the proper ordering of goods. There isn't just one "flat" good thing in our lives. There is a gradation of goods. We sin by desiring lower goods at the expense of higher. This anticipates his later claim that evil is a lack and/or a perversion of the good.

In books three and four he meets a number of important people. He meets Cicero in a book, and Cicero teaches him to seek after higher things. Unfortunately, he also becomes a Manichee. From the Manichees he learned wrong ideas of God and evil. He thought substances must be physical, and so he could not imagine an immaterial substance (3.7).

He also met Faustus, the leader of the Manichees. Ironically, this would lead him out of Manicheanism. He was underwhelmed. Most importantly, he meets Ambrose in Italy, and in Ambrose's rhetoric he sees that form = substance.

Although in book seven he was still struggling with Manicheanism, he found the Platonists' books. This reoriented him to the possibility of immaterial substances. He now saw reality as a chain of being. Things are good, and the lower a good is, the more susceptible to corruption it is. This was a breakthrough. Evil couldn't exist unless there was already a good for it to corrupt. Evil, therefore, is a lack.

Book 8 contains his famous conversion scene. It is dramatic psychology. You'll have to read it. It also takes place in a garden. That is typology and very important.

Book 9 contains the baptisms of him, his son, Nebredius (I think), and Alypius.

Books 10-13 are extended meditations on memory, time, and creation.

In terms of reading and appreciating the Great Christian Tradition, this is the classic text with which to start.

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## Taylor (Jul 5, 2022)

Augustine’s meditations on memory and time are some of the most striking portions of literature I’ve ever read.

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## Logan (Jul 5, 2022)

I once had a discussion with a classmate in a math class who was also studying philosophy. At the time I had just finished Augustine's _Confessions_ and mentioned it. He said hadn't read that because Augustine wasn't really a philosopher, he was a theologian

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## ZackF (Jul 5, 2022)

Logan said:


> I once had a discussion with a classmate in a math class who was also studying philosophy. At the time I had just finished Augustine's _Confessions_ and mentioned it. He said hadn't read that because Augustine wasn't really a philosopher, he was a theologian


Evidently, he hadn't studied much philosophy yet. My undergrad was in history with a concentration in ancient medieval studies. It would be equally stupid for me to say we shouldn't read Augustine because he was philosopher/theologian and not a historian.

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## RamistThomist (Jul 5, 2022)

As to philosophy, even covenant-breakers like Bertrand Russell admitted that no one has really surpassed Augustine's discussion of time, at least not until Einstein.

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## Taylor (Jul 5, 2022)

Logan said:


> I once had a discussion with a classmate in a math class who was also studying philosophy. At the time I had just finished Augustine's _Confessions_ and mentioned it. He said hadn't read that because Augustine wasn't really a philosopher, he was a theologian


Odd view. I view theologians as Christian philosophers. They deal with all three areas—metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics—just from a Christian perspective.

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## jwright82 (Jul 6, 2022)

RamistThomist said:


> As to philosophy, even covenant-breakers like Bertrand Russell admitted that no one has really surpassed Augustine's discussion of time, at least not until Einstein.


I dont know. The philosopher/mathematician Kurt Godel wrote an interesting paper for "The Library of Living Philosopher's" tribute to Einstein in which he worked out certain extreme versions of general relativity theory where you had extreme scenarios like your past being your future and so on. In good Kantian fashion he concluded time wasn't actually real. Interesting stuff. I love Godel.


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## bookslover (Jul 6, 2022)

RamistThomist said:


> Book 8 contains his famous conversion scene. It is dramatic psychology. You'll have to read it. It also takes place in a garden. That is typology and very important.


Or, he just happened to be sitting in someone's garden as he read Romans. Augustine himself doesn't make a big deal of it. He just mentions the fact, then moves on. Why does it _have_ to be typology?

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## alexanderjames (Jul 6, 2022)

bookslover said:


> Or, he just happened to be sitting in someone's garden as he read Romans. Augustine himself doesn't make a big deal of it. He just mentions the fact, then moves on. Why does it _have_ to be typology?


I’ve never considered this before, what would the typology be?


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## RamistThomist (Jul 6, 2022)

alexanderjames said:


> I’ve never considered this before, what would the typology be?



The pear incident, which was a scene of original sin, took place in a garden. The salvation incident later took place in a garden.


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