Summary
Augustine is now on the road to entering the
big leagues. He has been able to put his education to use teaching
rhetorical skills to young men in Carthage. At the same time, he
continues his life as a "hearer" (novice) in the Manichean
religion [4.1]
In 370 he begins a common-law relationship
with a nameless woman, who bears him his only child, Adeodatus, in 372.
We know that, although Augustine never married this woman, he was clearly in
love with her, since he spent the next 15 years living faithfully with
her [4.2]. Not so bad for a guy who is supposed to be a sexual
addict! Of course, in his later years, Augustine will look back on this
union with some regret, since he then recognizes that there is a world of
difference between a marital covenant blessed by God and even the most
committed common-law relationship.
Summary
Augustine's relative happiness during this
period of his life is marred by a tragedy that occurs to a close friend of
his, whom he had led into the Manichean faith. This friend is stricken
with a sudden illness and, while he is unconscious, his family has him baptized
in the Catholic faith. Eventually he recovers somewhat, but wants
nothing to do with Augustine as long as he remains a heretic. When his friend
finally dies, Augustine is devastated. "My own country was a
torment to me," he writes, "my own house was a strange
unhappiness...And myself to myself had become a place of misery, a place where
I could not bear to be and from which I could not go. For my heart could
not flee away from my heart, nor could I escape from myself." His
friend's death has left him inconsolable [4.4].
After talking about this tragic incident, Augustine
then spends eight more chapters trying to explain to the reader why his love
for his friend was morally problematic in the first place. Augustine
believes that the sole cause of his misery lies in the fact that he loves his
friend with the kind of love that should have been reserved for God alone.
To understand what Augustine is getting at
here, we need to understand the distinction that he makes between uti (use)
and frui (enjoyment). The term frui (enjoyment) signifies
the type of love for a thing that is sought for its own sake (propter se),
while uti (use) represents the love for something sought after for the
sake of something else (propter aliud). Thus to enjoy something
is is to value or desire it as an end in itself; to use something, on the
other hand, is to value it as a means of obtaining something higher. It
should come as no surprise that Augustine believes that God alone should be
enjoyed, while the world and everything in it should used as a means of
enjoying God.
Human beings, as part of the created realm,
are to be loved propter aliud (for the sake of something else) not propter
se (for their own sakes). When we truly love another, we do not love
that person in himself, but rather in God. We either love the presence
of God within the other so that He might ultimately come to be in the
other. "Blessed
is the man who loves you, who loves his friends in you, and his enemies
because of you." Augustine prays, "He alone loses
no one dear to him, for they are all dear to him in one who is not
lost." [4.9]
The cause of Augustine misery lies in the
fact that he tries to love his friend for his own sake; he loves a transient
being as though he was an immortal, and therefore must be devastated when his
friend dies. Had he loved his friend in, for and through God, he
would have had correctly ordered love (caritas), and would have been able to
put his friend's death into some kind of reasonable perspective. Sure,
he would have been sad that his friend had died, but he would have had the
satisfaction of knowing that he lived on in God [4.12].
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Confession 4.4 - 4.12 |
Summary
Augustine's philosophical reflections on the
nature of beauty inspire him to write his first work, "The Beautiful and
the Fitting," a work which has been lost to posterity (probably by Augustine's
own doing). He dedicates the work to the orator, Hiereus, who was renowned
for his rhetorical skills. Again, we see that Augustine's pride is still
causing him to lust for fame, and so he is naturally impressed--in a shallow
sort of way--by famous people around him [4.13 - 4.14].
He begins to engage in metaphysical
speculations about the nature of reality, although his Manichean dualism is
still leading him to rather silly conclusions [4.15]. His pride also
leads him to attempt to read Aristotle's Categories, a rather difficult
work on metaphysics and other complex works in the liberal arts. The
fact that he seems to understand these works so easily, does little more than
puff up his already inflated ego. Even worse, these works lead him to erroneous
conclusions about the nature of God. The ignorant folk around him, he
later realizes, were actually far better off than he was, since their
ignorance led them to look to the Church for answers, whereas his pride leads
him further away from it [4.16].
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Confession 4.13 - 4.16 |
Suggestions
for Further Reading
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Brown, Peter.
Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1967 [esp. 46-60 on Manicheanism].
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Mallard, William.
Language and Love: Introducing Augustine’s Religious Thought
Through the Confessions Story. University Park PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1994.
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McNamara, Marie
Aquinas. Friendship in St. Augustine. Fribourg:
The University Press, 1958.
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Miles, Margaret.
Desire and Delight: A New Reading of Augustine’s Confessions.
New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1991.
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Monagle, John.
"Friendships in St. Augustine's Biography." Augustinian
Studies 2 (1971): 81-92.
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O’Meara, John J.
The Young Augustine. London: Longman Publishing, 1954 [esp.
61-79 on Manicheanism]
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Starnes, Colin.
Augustine’s Conversion: A Guide to the Argument of Confessions
I-IX. Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press (1990).
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Schlaback, Gerald
W. Fr3endship as Adultery: Social Reality and Sexual
Metaphor In Augustine's Doctrine of Original Sin." Augustinian
Studies 25 (1994): 179-199.
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