Notes on Augustine's Confessions

Book 2:  Augustine's Adolescence

 

Contents of Book 2:

Adolescence Lust (2.1 - 2.3)

Summary 

In Book 2 of the Confessions Augustine describes his further descent into moral disorder during his adolescent years. By the time that a youth reaches adolescence, and becomes conscious of the demands of the moral law, his sins take on a far more troubling dimension than they previously had: whereas the child cannot be held personally accountable for his sins, the adolescent, by freely and consciously choosing to transgress God’s law, incurs a far greater penalty for his transgressions than he previously would have incurred.

In 2.2  Augustine contrasts the ordered love ( caritas), in which the soul loves created thing in God, and disordered love (cupiditas or LUST), in which the soul craves created things for their own sake.  Augustine's lust leaves him "storm-tossed" and "boil[ing] over in [his] fornication."  During this period he describes himself as sinking further and further into his own depravity, because there was no one around who could put "measure on [his] disorder.  [Remember:  although he is nominally a Catholic he is not officially a member of any Church because he has yet to be baptized]

He comes home from Madura for a short reprieve from his studies.   We get the sense in chapter 2.3 that he believes that his parents failed to provide him with the kind of guidance he needed to avoid falling to sexual temptation.   Instead of imparting a unified message about the dangers of sexual activity outside of marriage, they all but justified his illicit behavior. Although his mother Monica initially warned Augustine against premarital intercourse, she almost immediately qualified her warning by discouraging him instead against adultery—a message which he evidently took to heart. Still worse, his father seemed completely uninterested "in how chaste I was," and at times even encouraged his burgeoning sexuality. 

Although there is some speculation about the extent of Augustine's wanton activities during this period, most scholars maintain that Augustine did nothing worse than the average young adult in Roman society.  Remember:  he is writing the Confessions after his conversion and like all converts he is hyper-sensitive about his failings.

Read Confession 2.1 - 2.3

The Infamous Pear Theft  (2.4 - 2.6)

Summary  

In what appears to be an almost innocuous event, Augustine aptly demonstrates the implications of personal sin in his recounting the theft of some pears during his adolescent years. On the surface the event seems harmless enough: the young Augustine and his friends stop in a neighbor’s orchard and steal some of his pears. They stole the pears, he writes, not because they were hungry, but simply for the sake of taking them, for afterwards they threw them to the pigs to eat.  The strange part of the story for many contemporary readers is that Augustine makes this little foible out to be the worst kind of sin imaginable [Conf. 2.4].  Is this guy for real?

What is the point of this weird little story?  Does it represent, as one author puts it, nothing more than a demonstration  of Augustine's "neurotic verbal flagellation"  [Miles, Desire and Delight, 28]?  I believe that we can read this story as a kind of symbolic representation of all human sinfulness.  What makes Augustine's act so darn bad is that he has now reached the age of reason and he clearly has some idea of what is right and wrong.  He knows that God's law prohibits theft of any kind, and yet he steals anyway.   His real sin is not theft, but pride--thinking that he is above God and His Law [2.5 -2.6].

Read Confession 2.4 - 2.6

Reflections on Human Sinfulness  (2.7 - 2.10)

Summary 

Augustine reflects on the reality of human sinfulness.  It is only though the grace of God that any human being has the strength avoid the life of sin to which Augustine himself fell victim.   We certainly should not feel proud of our good works, since if we were left to our own devices we could never sustain these works.  Augustine believes that when we try to stand on our own, without God's help, we can only fall big-time [2.7].  

Where has Augustine's pride gotten him?  As we shall see his tendency to sin is starting to become habitual, and soon he will not be able to stop himself from doing what he clearly knows is wrong.  He is, in short, on the path to becoming a "wasteland" unto himself [2.10]

Read Confession 2.7 - 2.10

 

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