The Confessions of Saint Augustine, first report

Saint Augustine, Confessions (approx 400 CE, translated by R S Pine-Coffin 1961, Penguin Classics edition): pages 1–110, from beginning to end of Book V

If St Augustine invented the literary form of autobiography, he did it by accident. The impression I have so far is that in Confessions he is telling the story of his life as a teaching device. The message seems to be that humans depend on the mercy of God for everything, from mother’s milk to the ability to read. Secondary to that, humans are born sinful. So far at least, quite a lot of his ink is spilled in arguing with the Manichees, and a lot of that argument is pretty opaque to the casual reader, by which I mean me.

Still, it’s quite a thing to spend 10 minutes or so each morning in contact with a mind that was alive nearly two millennia ago. Two moments grabbed me in the very early chapters.

In writing about his early schooling, even while saying he was a wicked child (for wanting to play rather than study!), he argues against against harsh physical punishment as a teaching tool. After saying he hates Greek but likes Latin, he explains that he learned Latin from his mother and nurses, and Greek from his stern school teachers. He generalises:

This clearly shows that we learn better in a free spirit of curiosity than under fear and compulsion.
hinc satis elucet maiorem habere vim ad discenda ista liberam curiositatem quam meticulosam necessitatem.

(1:14)

A little further on, after arguing that the innocence of childhood is a myth, he comes face to face with Jesus’ apparently contradictory view in Matthew’s Gospel, and offers this bit of ingenious argumentation:

It was, then, simply because they are small that you used children to symbolise humility when, as our King, you commended it by saying that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
humilitatis ergo signum in statura pueritiae, rex noster, probasti, cum aisti: talium est regnum caelorum

(1:19)

If I’m just going to quote the bits that stood out for me from amid the theologising, I can’t go past this wonderful paragraph about friendship:

We could talk and laugh together and exchange small acts of kindness. We could join in the pleasure that books can give. We could be grave or gay together. If we sometimes disagreed, it was without spite, as a man night differ with himself, and the rare occasions of dispute were the very spice to season our usual accord. Each of us had something to learn from the others and something to teach in return. If any were away, we missed them with regret and gladly welcomed them when they came home. Such things as these are heartfelt tokens of affection between friends. They are signs to be read on the face and in the eyes, spoken by the tongue and displayed in countless acts of kindness. They can kindle a blaze to melt our hearts and weld them into one.

(3:2)

I had expected confessions to loose living. So far, the main wickedness he confesses to is his adherence to the Manichean heresy. He does mentions a de facto wife, but when he goes from Carthage to Rome, he doesn’t tell us if she comes with him.

This morning, his career as a teacher of literature has led him to Milan, where he is deeply impressed by the lectures of (Saint) Ambrose. He finally makes a break from the Manichees. He’s impressed by ‘the academics’, but doesn’t throw in his lot with them. Nor does he embrace the Catholic Church (which is R S Pine-Coffin’s translation of catholica ecclesia, and fair enough, though the capital letters may be a bit misleading), but he becomes a catechumen, which I understand to mean he sees himself as under instruction.

To be continued.