Notes
on Augustine's Confessions
Book
5: Rome and Milan
Contents of Book 5:
Summary
Augustine reflects on the purpose of
confession. This might be a good point in which to discuss the various
meanings of confession that Augustine uses through the work. The term itself comes from the latin confiteri, which means to
acknowledge, to proclaim or to praise. Based on this etymology,
John O'Meara (The Young Augustine, 2-3) has argued that Augustine uses
the term in three distinct but interrelated senses in the Confessions:
as confession of sins (confesio peccati) confessions of praise (confessio
laudis) and confession of faith (confessio fidei).
In this section, Augustine clearly is using
the term in the second sense. He is hoping that his praise of God's
goodness will lead him to love God more and ultimately to become one with Him
[5.1]. The foolish person, he maintains, is so focused on the good of
created things, that he fails to recognize their source (God). Unless he
comes to understand that all created things are good only though their participation
in God, he will undoubtedly come to misuse these good things This is
exactly what Augustine did in his own life [5.2]
Summary
When he was 29 years old, something happened
to Augustine that led him to become dissatisfied with Manicheanism. One
of the great leaders of the Manicheans, Faustus of Mileve, had come to
Carthage in 382, and Augustine was hoping that this Faustus, who was known for
being a persuasive speaker, could address some of his concerns about the
religion. Instead, what he realizes is that although Faustus may be a
good rhetorician, he is not a very good religious thinker.
Having now studied the writing of various
philosophers (Cicero, Aristotle, etc), Augustine comes to realize that their
explanations of reality were far more probable than the weird Manichean system
that Faustus espoused.
He then goes on to say something about these
philosophers that will be significant later on in his story. In his
maturity, Augustine realizes that pagan philosophers had some legitimate
things to teach him about the created realm and perhaps even about the Creator
himself. But, because they are filled with pride, they are incapable of
leading him to God. The problem is that pagan philosophers don't
proceed "religiously" (humbly) in their investigations and,
therefore, fail to realize that they need some extra help--namely, Christ, the
mediator between God and human beings, and his Church. These silly people
think that they can do it all on their own, simply by using the powers of
their intellects [5.3]. Still the philosophers are better off than the
Manicheans who are completely in error both about God Himself and the way to
Him [5.4 -5.5].
As for his meeting with the famed Faustus, Augustine
was disappointed to discover that Faustus couldn't respond adequately to any
of his problems with the Manichean faith [5.6]. The only positive thing
that Augustine can say about him was that he was modest enough to recognize
his own limitations as a thinker. The result of his encounter with
Faustus was that Augustine gradually began to lose interest in Manicheanism,
and is resolved to find some better system to put in its place [5.7].
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Read
Confession 5.3 - 5.7 |
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The
Move to Rome (5.8 -5.9) |
Summary
The following year (383), Augustine decides
to leave Carthage for Rome. Although this was a serious move for him to
make, he was aided by having Manichean connections in Rome to help him get
established.
This was an opportunity for a young man from the
provinces to earn a nice living and perhaps gain some fame teaching rhetoric
in the ancient capital of the Empire (it also was an opportunity for him to
escape the annoy presence of his mother, who was probably incessantly haranguing
him about his heretical tendencies) [5.8].
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Confession 5.8 - 5.9 |
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More
Problems with Manicheanism (5.10 - 5.12) |
Summary
Either out of habit, or because he had not
yet found something to take its place, Augustine takes up Manicheanism again
when he arrives in Rome. He still cannot get beyond his dualistic view
of the universe, since it enabled him to deny any responsibility for his
sins.
Still he cannot embrace Manicheanism
completely any more after his encounter with Faustus, so he begins to look for
some reasonable alternative. Because his mind has been tainted by the
Manicheans against the Catholic Church, he certainly is not going to look
there, even though, being in Rome, he is in the very heart of the
Church. Instead, he enters into a brief flirtation with the Academics
(i.e., the later version of Plato's Academy), who practiced a form of radical skepticism
(the belief that everything must be doubted and nothing could be proven to be
true).
Because he is still working within the perimeters
of Manichean metaphysics, he finds he is capable of thinking about God only as
a material, and therefore finite, being [5.10]. He also still possesses
the erroneous ideas of the Manicheans about the nature of Christ and the
illegitimacy of the Old Testament [5.10-5.11]
Although his pupils in Rome are better
behaved than those he taught in Carthage, he finds that they have their own
particular vice: they would leave their instructor when the time came
for them to pay him. All in all, things in Rome are not quite as
tranquil as Augustine had hoped they would be [5.12]
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Read
Confession 5.10 - 5.12 |
Summary
Fortunately, the Manicheans provide
Augustine with another golden opportunity: they support his application
for the position of professor of Rhetoric in Milan. He accepts the
position, and without realizing it winds up in a city where Christian-Neo-Platonism
is spreading like wild-fire. At the heart of this movement is the
Catholic Bishop of the city, Ambrose. Augustine is immediately swept off
his feet by Ambrose's sermons, which combined a delightful rhetorical style
with far more intelligent doctrine than he had ever heard from the
Manicheans. Augustine begins to realize that, despite Manichean
objections, the Catholic faith was, in fact, quite reasonable [5.13-14]
Ambrose showed Augustine that the Old
Testament (which the Manicheans rejected) could be read figuratively and was
in complete accord with the New Testament. Later Augustine will also be shown
how to think about God and the soul in purely spiritual terms when he discovers
the famed "books of the Platonists." With
the help of Ambrose, he finally has the courage to reject Manicheanism and
become a catechumen in the Catholic Church. Although he is still not a
committed Catholic, he has run out of options [5.14]
The good news is that, although Augustine initially
joins the Church half-heartedly, he has, nonetheless, taken the first real
step on the road to his ultimate salvation. God will steer the
ship of his life from this point on in the story and take him places he never
even could have imagined.
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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Miles, Margaret. Desire
and Delight: A New Reading of Augustine’s Confessions. New York:
Crossroad Publishing, 1991.
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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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