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Arguing for Augustine

Why 'The Confessions' Should be Included in Curricula

By Ollyvir ReaganPublished 5 years ago 8 min read
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Image of St Augustine of Hippona (Antonello da Messina)

There are thousands of works, which belong in the Western canon, each deserving a place in a so-called “great books” course. Among these canonized works is Saint Augustine’s Confessions. This work poses several intellectual challenges to modern readers, which makes it an excellent choice for a class designed to make students think. Moreover, it encourages a certain historical understanding of Christianity as the defining Western religion. If for no other reason, though, Confessions should be included in a course of “great books” not only for historical significance, but for the absolute beauty of its prose as an aesthetic object.

Among the challenges presented by Augustine’s Confessions is the question of its genre. The natural impulse when analyzing a work of art is to label it as something—for example, fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, science fiction. The Confessions falls into two genre categories at least, which allows for a conversation about whether or not a genre is mutually exclusive or if it is flexible, an important conversation, since binaries are a heavy occupant of modern thought and because literary genres are often viewed in terms of a binary. Confessions is, perhaps most obviously, an autobiography. In fact, it is one of the earliest autobiographies that survive to modernity. It is also a hagiography (a work written about a saint) because Augustine was canonized by the Church after his death. A person cannot be a saint while living, but he must write his autobiography during his lifetime. This fact may pose a challenge—at what point do the two genres overlap and at what point are they entirely separate? At what point do sainthood and vitality overlap? Hagiographies describe both the life and the veneration of a saint. In this case, veneration is the honoring of a saint, which leads to an interesting question: could a saint’s search account of his own fallen soul, his narrative defense of his own faith, be considered a veneration? This once more calls into question the point at which sainthood and life overlap. If one cannot be a saint while living, can one venerate one’s later sainthood in an autobiography? The act of laying bare his sins so willingly is an honorable thing, so many consider Augustine’s Confessions to be a veneration and therefore both an autobiography as well as a hagiography. The Passion of Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicitas, and their Companions could be added as a short supplementary reading to aid in this discussion. This narrative of martyrdom contains a first-person diary written by Saint Perpetua, and it is often hailed as a hagiography but could also be considered autobiographical in nature.

Confessions as an autobiography alone is an important addition to courses covering “great books” because Augustine is an important historical figure. Augustine was widely understood as one of the most fundamental theologians of the early Christian Church. In fact, the Church declared him a Doctor of the Church following his death, a title given to saints who made significant contributions to theology by means of writing or study. Perhaps the most significant contribution Augustine made to the Church is giving voice to the Doctrine of Original Sin in Book I of Confessions. He uses the behavior of babies as proof that the soul comes into this world lacking the innocence or freedom from sin which adults may later attain:

What sins, then, did I commit when I was a baby myself? Was it a sin to cry when I wanted to feed at the breast? I am too old now to feed on mother's milk, but if I were to cry for the kind of food suited to my age, others would rightly laugh me to scorn and remonstrate with me. So then too I deserved a scolding for what I did; but since I could not have understood the scolding, it would have been unreasonable, and most unusual, to rebuke me. We root out these faults and discard them as we grow up, and this is proof enough that they are faults, because I have never seen a man purposely throw out the good when he clears away the bad. It can hardly be right for a child, even at that age, to cry for everything, including things which would harm him; to work himself into a tantrum against people older than himself and not required to obey him; and to try his best to strike and hurt others who know better than he does, including his own parents, when they do not give in to him and refuse to pander to whims which would only do him harm. This shows that, if babies are innocent, it is not for lack of will to do harm, but for lack of strength. (28)

This passage may initially challenge modern readers. Modernity holds two conflicting opinions on babies. Many Protestant branches, as well as other non-Christian religions, idealize the infant as cherub-like and as the perfect clean slate. Augustine makes clear that he is opposed to this way of thinking, however. He asserts that to be a baby is to be an inherently depraved creature that is far from absolution. He reasons that because people do not allow adults to behave with the same impropriety that they allow to babies, these behaviors—hitting, throwing tantrums, even crying —must be sinful in nature. Especially following Freud’s writings on development, many people tend to assume that babies exhibit dark behaviors and that our actions as infants reflect our futures as adults. While Augustine’s assertion certainly seems to anticipate this line of thought, he makes clear that he is of the mindset that children grow out of these behaviors, rather than clinging to these sins in adulthood: “such faults are not small or unimportant, but we are tender-hearted and bear with them because we know that the child will grow out of them” (28). The idea that babies are somehow not-innocent is nonetheless still supported by the Church since infant baptism is, to this day, a widespread practice due to the pervasiveness of the Doctrine of Original Sin.

Augustine is often struck from reading lists because his writings are viewed as too doctrinaire. However, reading Augustine’s work is an important intellectual experience for students, particularly those raised outside the context of Christianity. Literature is still heavily laden with references to and ideas from Christian practices. Augustine weaves biblical material into his writing and provides interpretations as well as elaborations on the text. Moreover, Augustine wrote in years during which Christianity was still developing as a world religion. By reading his Confessions, we can garner an understanding of what Christianity was at its roots, as well as watch it develop into our modern understanding of it. Admittedly, Augustine also seeks to impose a few regrettable ideas, such as the natural depravity of babies, onto his readers. This fact is negated by the beauty of his prose composition and begs the question: can we appreciate an aesthetic object despite its less-than-agreeable content? I would argue that yes, we can. For example, Augustine compares his pain at not knowing God sooner to the suicide of Dido:

Even now I cannot fully understand why the Greek language, which I learned as a child, was so distasteful to me. I loved Latin, not the elementary lessons but those which I studied later under teachers of literature. The first lessons in Latin were reading, writing, and counting, and they were as much of an irksome imposition as any studies in Greek. But this, too, was due to the sinfulness and vanity of life, since I was flesh and blood, no better than a breath of wind that passes by and never returns. For these elementary lessons were far more valuable than those which followed, because the subjects were practical. They gave me the power, which I still have, of reading whatever is set before me and writing whatever I wish to write. But in the later lessons I was obliged to memorize the wanderings of a hero named Aeneas, while in the meantime I failed to remember my own erratic ways. I learned to lament the death of Dido, who killed herself for love, while all the time, in the midst of these things, I was dying, separated from you, my God and my Life, and I shed no tears for my own plight. (33)

A modern reader would likely find a comparison of separation and suicide to be distasteful, particularly because suicide is such a rampant epidemic as of late. However, elegant prose composition often allows us to accept ideas which are otherwise unpleasant.

Augustine contradicts himself in this passage; he “loved Latin,” but only truly loved learning the literary aspects of the language. In fact, he compares Latin to Greek, a language “distasteful” to him. However, he uses this contradiction to his advantage. The elementary Latin lessons he disliked so strongly gave him the tools for knowing God, which is one of his greatest joys. This part of the passage may also be a reference to ancient Christians’ prioritization of the practical and necessary over the superfluous and luxurious. It was the literary aspect of Latin, what could be considered to be the more luxurious part of his education, however, which gave Augustine the comparison which leaves modern readers awestruck.

In the latter half of this passage (“But in the later lessons… plight”), Augustine demonstrates the quality of his education by making reference to Virgil’s Aeneid, a reading which at the time would indicate someone had gone through extensive Latin training. This half of the passage is striking in its comparisons. Augustine draws double parallels between himself and these characters. First, he compares himself to Aeneas, the hero of the Aeneid, who spends years following the fall of Troy wandering in search of a new home. Augustine is, in this analogy, himself also a wanderer, straying from the path his mother—Monica, a Christian—had showed him in his childhood. His comparison may also be taken to mean that he wanders from the light of God. The second comparison Augustine draws is between himself and Dido. Dido founded Carthage and ruled as its queen, but prior to the founding of the city, Dido also wandered in search for a new home following the murder of her husband. In this way, at least, all three entities mentioned here are the same. Dido and Aeneas were lovers for a year, and Dido “killed herself for love” when Aeneas left Carthage to continue his search for a settling place. Augustine then says he was also dying as he read the Aeneid because he was separated from God. Aeneas’s wandering is, according to Augustine’s comparison, directly the cause of Dido’s death. By making these comparisons, Augustine suggests that his own wandering is directly the cause of his own death and separation from God.

The Aeneid passage of Confessions appeals to many modern readers because of its comparisons but also because of its drama. In just a few short sentences, Augustine implies the slow death of his own soul at the separation from God, and he does so in a book written explicitly to express and to defend his closeness with God. Stylistically, too, this passage is appealing. It is not overwhelmingly didactic or wordy, which admittedly could be attributed to either Augustine or the translator. The plain-language style of Confessions is similar to the Bible, in that it feels like it was meant for the common reader rather than the college student, which makes it an easily enjoyable read. While this contradiction, as well as the seemingly simple style, are appealing on their own, Augustine also uses his background in rhetoric to make this passage more palatable. By comparing himself to not one but two tragic characters, he is making an obvious case for his pitifulness—a textbook appeal to pity. Aeneas and Dido suffered greatly in their lives, and, by association, apparently so has Augustine. Moreover, in antiquity, a knowledge of the Aeneid implied a high level of education under the tutorage of a highly qualified educator, so by making reference to the Aeneid, Augustine is also employing an appeal to credibility, a common appeal in ancient forensics as well as in debates. Since Confessions is an argument for Augustine’s own devoutness, this appeal does not feel inherently out of place. By employing drama and appeals in his writing, Augustine demonstrates that he is also a master of rhetoric, and by tying Biblical analogies and references, he shows a mastery of his faith.

By virtue of historical significance alone, Saint Augustine’s Confessions belongs in any course which seeks to cover the great works of the Western canon. Augustine is often removed from syllabi because he is deemed too doctrinaire and seeks to impose some regrettable ideas. However, the elegance and sheer beauty of his prose more than justify his addition to any reading list.

Works Cited

Augustine. Confessions: Saint Augustine. Translated and edited by R. S. Pine-Coffin, Penguin

Classics, 2015.

Notes:

All italics are my own, to distinguish my text from the block quoted text.

literature
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About the Creator

Ollyvir Reagan

I'm nonbinary, they/them pronouns.

I'm sapphic.

I'm a Classics Major and an aspiring

Latin teacher.

I love Latin, history, math, art, and literature.

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