Saint Augustine of Hippo and his Confessions - Essay Example

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO AND HIS CONFESSIONS Aurelius Augustinus, later known to be as St. Augustine, was born in the year 354, in an Roman African town known then as Tagaste, which used to be a part of the old kingdom of Numidia, on what is now somewhere in modern-day Algeria.1 While most of his early life a bit before and after becoming an ordained bishop was chronicled by his most trusted friend, Possidius in the book Vita Augustini, most of his life before that can be read in the Confessions.2 As a child, he was free and careless, but a brilliant child nonetheless, and is rather fluent in rhetoric as well as in grammar, which were the common courses during those times. In pursuit of knowledge he went to Carthage, and went back to Tagaste to teach rhetoric.3 However, the relentless pursuit of the truth made him leave his hometown and venture to Italy, and roughly after three decades had he finally became baptized in the Christian faith, much to the delight of his mother, St. Monica. It can be deduced through his works that his main goal is to find the spiritual truth, and due to himself not acknowledging the spiritual presence of God everywhere he had an early life full of sins. He died in 430, just when the Vandals were starting to besiege Calama, where he stayed for the rest of his life.4 As a reformed man who used to live in a life of sin, his book Confessions was able to convey his thoughts as well as his beliefs during and after his conversion to Christianity, as well as the struggles he had to face during the time when Rome was already crumbling and a new era was about to usher in. St. Augustine’s book, Confessions recalls most of his younger life, when he was still living in sin. The first 10 books were mostly his biography, while the remaining books focused on the first chapter of Genesis, mostly dealing with creation and the fall of grace, which he personally experienced.5 While it is not said in the book that he was a very bad child, he found pleasure in committing sins due to his search of love.6 The first book deals with his infancy to his youth, and during which he was starting to question things which he must do, as well as the good and mischievous things that he did in order to gain praise from just about everyone: from his parents; to his teachers and to his peers. However, trying to gain praises from human beings was only to make oneself feel good, and for that he confesses that he only looked for beauty and not the truth.7 The second book tells about St. Augustine’s life as a youth who was sent to Carthage in order to further his studies and become a respectable man. However, due to his relishing of the needs of the flesh, as well as to satisfy the peer pressure from his friends, he has sunk into an even lower state, much to the chagrin of his devout mother. He confessed that during these times, he was doing such things in order to satisfy his need for sinning, and nothing else.8 Concluding this book is St. Augustine admitting that having friends can either be good or dangerous, and that to live away from friends that commit sins should be the best course of action to avoid becoming a sinner even further. The third book talks about St. Augustine’s life in Carthage, how he felt that he desired to love something, but instead fell into the throes of lust.9 He also loved being an audience to theatrical plays, especially those of tragedies since he sees them as a mirror to his own life. Again, just to satisfy his vanity, he committed himself to become an eloquent speaker, to impress people. But upon reading the book Hortensius by Cicero, his whole life goal changed. He now tries to pursue the truth instead of knowledge.10 During this time he was jumping from one belief to another, and he stayed in the Manichean faith for around 10 years. Finally, through his mother, St. Monica, things were starting to become different for him. In the fourth book, most of St. Augustine’s doubts regarding the Manichean religion as well as his swindling life as a teacher of rhetoric were further described. Also, due to the death of his friend Nebridius, he was grief-stricken and once again went to Carthage to put his thoughts in ease. 11 However, near the end of the book, his mother’s ideas were starting to get to him. For one, the idea of the Manichean religion that tangible things such as the moon and the stars are divine beings become rather cloudy. Another is that there are other philosophies available, which made St. Augustine ponder even more. Upon the death of his friend, proving that God was tangible and prone to succumbing to evil was not making sense anymore, and in order to visualize God he took great lengths to associate him with bright and luminous things.12 The fifth book tells of the travels from Carthage to Rome to Milan, and near the end of the book, St. Augustine was already a beginner in the teachings of the Christian faith. What finally made him sway away from the Manichean teachings was meeting the famous sage Faustus, whom he expected to be full of wisdom and answers to his enquiries, but was in reality just a very eloquent speaker, and nothing more.13 Faustus may have been initially modest, but during the course of their discussions the answers seem to be fallacious, as many legitimate scientists were already able to dispel most of their Manichean beliefs. This made St. Augustine think that Mani, the founder of the Manichean religion was just presumptuous, and thus be rejected.14 Also, the students in Rome were being rather too rowdy for St. Augustine, and so he decided to go to Italy, and had his mother sent home. He went to Milan, and from there was exposed to Christianity even more, and eventually became more drawn to it. However, his biggest obstacle in becoming baptized is his search of a tangible god, since during this time he was still having some doubts on what to believe, and also because he was with the Manichean religion for roughly ten years. Thus he just decided to become a catechumen, and deciding to get baptized once he has a full understanding of the Christian faith.15 In the course of reading Confessions, while it can be a good source of ideas on what were happening during the fall of Rome to the barbarians, it also shows the part of Rome which has not much written about. During those times Carthage was the best place to become someone. Also, as described in the texts, people were eager to sound important and smart, which is why most young boys were sent to study in grammar and rhetoric schools, to become lawyers or politicians. To be able to go to Rome is an even bigger step, since people from Roman Africa have to cross the sea in order to get there. It also shows the differences between the ideas of people from Carthage and the people in Rome, wherein the latter were more indulgent and were vulgar in terms of their satisfactions, while in the former people were mostly happy just being respectable. Also, the book is a good source of information regarding the prevailing ideas, schools of thought and philosophies during the last years of the strong Roman Empire. Paganism was still present, and aside from the Christian religion, there were also other ideas that infused different religions and proclaiming themselves to be the ultimate truth, as in the case of the Manichean religion. While the books were vivid descriptions of life in Rome a few centuries after the death of Christ, beyond those written were more on what the author thinks and his reactions after he was converted. The books were written as a source of refuge and therapy for the writer, thus most of his musings and personal ideas were inserted into each part.16 In comparison to other biographies written during this time, it can be hard to create a timeline in order to fully use this as a historical document since there are rarely some famous people being mentioned that could at least provide much more accuracy with the events. Also, the timing of writing the book could have also made it different, since during the time it was written there were many changes that the writer would have wanted to make, and in order to convince people he had his thoughts written in the form of an instructional guide on how to live piously.17 Nevertheless, with regards to building ideas on the lives of Romans and their major cities this book is able to show the thoughts and ideals of people in that era. BIBLIOGRAPHY Augustine. Confessions. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1961. Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. Possidius, and Herbert T. (trans). Weiskotten. The Life of Saint Augustine: A Translation of the Sancti Augustini Vita by Possidius, Bishop of Calama. Merchanville, NJ: Evolution Publishing, 2008. Read More