اورلیوس آگوستین در ۱۳ نوامبر سال ۳۵۴م در تاگاست، ناحیه‌ی رومی نومیدیا ـ الجزایر کنونی ـ متولد شد و در ۲۸ اوت ۴۳۰م، در هیپون ـ که به دست واندال‌ها اشغال شده بود ـ دیده از جهان فروبست. مفروض است که خانواده‌ی او ریشه‌ی بربر داشته‌اند. پدرش پاتریسیوس بی‌ایمان بود و مادرش مونیکا، مسیحی‌ای معتقد. پدر، به رغم بی‌ایمانی، بر تفوق مهر مادری واقف بود و لاجرم هرگز در شیوه‌ی تربیتی مادر نسبت به فرزند، چون‌وچرا روا نداشت. از آن‌جا که پاتریسیوس ملاّکی خرده‌پا بود، بی آن که از تمکّن و تموّل آن‌چنانی برخوردار باشد، کمابیش از پسِ معیشت خانواده و تأمین هزینه‌ی تحصیل فرزند برمی‌آمد.

آگوستین پسری هوش‌مند بود. از این رو او را به قصد تحصیل به مادورا، شهر مجاور تاگاست رهسپار کردند و با آن که در آن‌جا به تفریح، تفنن، و بازیگوشی روی آورد، از درس خواندن غافل نشد و فقط پس از اندکی وقفه، تدارک تحصیل متوسطه‌ی وی در کارتاژ دیده شد و همان‌جا بود که به رسم آن روزگار، فن بلاغت آموخت. سپس از طریق مطالعه‌ی مقولات عشر ارسطو، در جدل چیره‌دست شد. در ۱۹ سالگی هورتنیوس اثر سیسرون را مطالعه کرد و از این رهگذر، لهیب حکمت در جانش زبانه کشید. کتاب مقدس را نیز در همین سن برای اوّلین بار مطالعه کرد. امّا گرفتار مقایسه‌ی ترجمه‌ی نارسای کتاب مقدس به زبان لاتین با متون فاخری چون هورتنیوس و اِنه‌اید شد. گفتنی است این امر که خود از معضلات جامعه‌ی مسیحی آن روزگار به شمار می‌رفت، فرزانگان را به صرافت تنقیح و پیرایش نسخه‌ی موجود انداخت؛ هرچند که این تلاش، همچون هر گام تازه‌ای، دشواری‌هایی در پی داشت. در پی یافتن تفسیری کامل از هستی، از جمله درک مقولات خیر و شر و حل معضل قادر مطلق و ره یافتن به مبدأ از طریق ادله‌ی ساده، به مسلک مانی روی آورد. چه، به زعم خود در آیین ترسایان، دلایل عقلانی کم‌تر می‌یافت و مانویان نیز به او در حل معضلات فکری‌اش قول مساعد می‌دادند. آنان ابتدا بر مبانی فکری مسیحی خرده می‌گرفتند و سپس داعیه‌ی دلیل و برهان سر می‌دادند.

با این‌همه، فقدان حجت وحیانی و عینی در دین مانی، اسباب تکدر خاطر آگوستین را فراهم آورد و موجب طرح مجادلات فراوانی از جانب وی به طرفیت مانویان شد. همچنین از طریق مطالعه در علوم طبیعی، افسانه‌پردازی‌های ایشان در باب مه و خورشید و فلک را به چالش کشید. از رهگذر مراوده با مانویان بود که به مسند ایراد خطابه در میلان دست یازید؛ شهری که مرکز ایتالیایی امپراتوری روم بود و آمبروسیوس در مسند اسقفی این شهر جلوس کرده بود. آگوستین پس از آن که در جانب وی مورد استقبال واقع شد، مدتی به استماع وعظ‌های او پرداخت و در عین حالی که مجذوب فن بیان او شده بود، به قدرت شگرف آمبروسیوس در تبیین و توضیح عهد عتیق پی برد.

آمبروسیوس کتاب مقدس را از طریق تأویل بازخوانی می‌کرد و آموزه‌های افلاطون و فلوطین را در اامه‌ی ادله‌ی خویش به کار می‌بست و بدین‌ترتیب آگوستین به سرچشمه‌ای از معانی نوینِ حقیقت ازلی دست یافت. در همین زمان بود که زیبایی‌های کتاب مقدس را به مکاشفه نشست و به ظرافت، تفاوت خدای صانع افلاطونیان با خدای خالق مسیحیان را فهم کرد. سه سال بعد به همراه دوستش آلیپیوس و فرزند نامشروعش آدئوداتوس، مهیای تعمید شد. در همین سال مادرش مونیکا، هنگامی که از دست دغدغه‌ی خاطر برای ایمان آگوستین خلاصی می‌یابد، چشم از دنیا فرومی‌بندد.

سفر آگوستین به میلان، پنج سال به طول انجامید و سپس به آفریقا بازگشت؛ جایی که خاطره‌ی مانویت او هنوز از حافظه‌ی جمعی آن زدوده نشده بود. لذا برای اثبات گسست خود از گذشته‌اش، باید وقت بسیاری را صرف ارائه‌ی مباحث ناب در جهت باورهای نوینش می‌کرد. وی بیش از سیزده رساله در رد آرای مانویان به رشته‌ی تحریر درآورد. گذشته از این‌ها، دو کتاب از میان آثار او، در زمره‌ی کتب مانای تاریخند؛ نخست اعترافات که در سال ۴۰۰م، یعنی در سال ۴۶ سالگی وی نوشته شده است و ناظر بر شرح زندگی و احوال اوست. و دوم، شهر خدا، که در واقع متشکل از دو بخش است: بخش عمده و غالب آن در دفاع از مسیحیت و رد اتهاماتی که توسط غیر مسیحیان رومی بر آیین مسیحیان وارد می‌آمد نوشته شده و مابقی، در بر گیرنده‌ی پاره‌ای دیدگاه‌های اجتماعی ـ سیاسی آگوستین است.

کتاب حاضر، یعنی اعترافات، از نثری ��ودبسنده برخوردار است؛ نثری که سرشار از اندیشه‌ها وخاطره‌های شخصی و خانوادگی است و در ضمن واگویی و واکاوی آن خاطرات، عالی‌ترین افکار انتزاعی فلسفی و کلامی را در میان می‌گذارد؛ چنان‌که امروزه نیز اندیشه‌هایش درباره‌ی مباحثی مانند حافظه، زمان، و زبان، قابل تأمل است. در عین حال، کشش و جاذبه‌ی متن که از تجربه‌ای وجودی برمی‌خیزد، حتّی می‌تواند سرآغازی باشد برای افراد علاقه‌مند، امّا غیر متخصص در حوزه‌ی الهیات وجودی. چرا که پرده‌برداری از خفایای زندگی یک انسان کمال‌طلب، خود به منزله‌ی ارائه‌ی نمونه‌ای است برای کسانی که به حقیقت عشق می‌ورزند و سودای تبلیغ آن را در سر دارند.

Five stars isn't enough, but it's all I have.

Le confessioni: ”se nessuno me lo chiede so cos'è, ma se mi chiede che cos'è, non lo so più”

Anche se volessi fare una vera riflessione su questo libro non ne sarei capace: è troppo. Alle Confessioni si potrebbe attribuire il gioco di parole che nel libro undicesimo introduce all'esperienza del tempo: ”se nessuno me lo chiede so cos'è, ma se mi chiede che cos'è, non lo so più”.
Per farlo:
mi bisognerebbe la fede, che non ho, per capire il colloquio a tratti passionale tra Agostino e Dio;

mi bisognerebbe, per penetrarne la filosofia e la spiritualità, la conoscenza dei padri della chiesa interpreti delle scritture e di Plotino di cui francamente non sono mai riuscita a capire quel pochissimo che ho letto;

mi bisognerebbero cinquant’anni di meno come ai tempi della prima lettura - non so più se ne capii qualcosa - per non sembrarmi esagerati sensi di colpa e vergogna per atti e fatti comuni a tutte le adolescenze e gioventù di ogni epoca e a maggior ragione per quella società di decadenza;

mi bisognerebbe non avere, sempre, nella mente la “shoah” per accettare che il male non esiste essendo semplicemente mancanza di bene.

E allora?
Stupiamoci e chiniamo la testa di fronte alla più grande e profonda riflessione sul tempo che sfiora l’intuizione dello spazio-tempo e in cui il compiacimento del bel ragionamento, che permea tutto il libro, quasi scompare davanti al sincero sbigottimento di Agostino per i proteiformi aspetti del tempo, “ancorato al soggetto che porta in sé il passato, e si tende verso il futuro, conoscibile attraverso lo stesso passato» come scrisse Maria Betterini, studiosa di Agostino.

Augustine truly appreciated the vastness of the majesty of God and set out on the journey of knowing him deeply and thoroughly. This book is a beautiful picture of a personal relationship with God in action. Augustine speaks to God in joy and in despair, he confesses, he praises, he questions, and he seeks for answers. He does all this in language steeped in scripture and a growing awe of his savior.

Because of that, this book is in a very personal style. It’s a conversation between Augustine and God. And like any other Christian’s relationship with God, one we can learn from and be encouraged by, but always as an outsider. We can’t participate in Augustine’s conversation. We must have our own. This book is a call for us to have our own “Confessions”, our own conversation and relationship with God.

(I do think this book would better in group discussion, especially with someone who is very familiar with it and is able to pull out the best parts. It can be very repetitive at points, and certain topics didn’t seem to warrant the amount of pages they were given.)

—

“I was afraid of being rid of all my burdens as I ought to have been at the prospect of carrying them.”

“You took me up from behind my own back where I had placed myself because I did not wish to observe myself, and you set me before my face so that I should see how vile I was, how twisted and filthy, covered in sores and ulcers.”

“You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you…you called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radient and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you.”

“How deep is your profound mystery, and how far away from it have I been thrust by the consequences of my sins. Heal my eyes and let me rejoice with your light.”

“Terrified by my sins and the pile of my misery, I had racked my heart and meditated taking flight to live in solitude. But you forbade me and comforted me saying: “that is why Christ died for all, so that those who live should not live for themselves, but for him who died for them.”

Confession is said to be good for the soul; and the Confessions of Saint Augustine of Hippo are good for any person’s soul, regardless of their religious or philosophical beliefs. There is something profoundly compelling in the rigorous, uncompromising manner in which Augustine describes the way he consciously, by an ongoing act of will, worked to bring his magnificent intellect into conformity with the dictates of Christianity – and gave God all the credit for the outcome.

Some scholars have referred to the Confessions as the first true autobiography, or at least the first spiritual autobiography; and as with other masterpieces of autobiography in later years – Richard Wright’s American Hunger, Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood, the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Malcolm X – Augustine’s Confessions benefits from the author’s unflinching, warts-and-all portrayal of his life.

Among its other benefits, the Confessions does much to put one back in the time of the Roman Empire’s first decades as a Christian state. It was a time when Western Christianity grappled with a great many other strains of thought. Augustine is frank, for example, in setting forth what he once found seductive about Manichaean philosophy, with its belief that, because evil is so different from good, it had to be the subject of a completely different creation, the work of some being other and lesser than God Himself:

“Since I still had enough reverence, of some sort, to make it impossible for me to believe that the good God created an evil nature, I posited two masses at odds with each other, both infinite, the bad with limited, the good with broader scope. From this pestiferous origin there followed other blasphemies. If my mind tried to recur to the Catholic faith, I was made to recoil, since the Catholic faith was not what I made it out to be” (pp. 100-01).

Here, as elsewhere, I thought that Augustine was being awfully hard on himself; but his conclusions follow logically from his premises. Evil actions proceed from the imperfections of human nature as stained by original sin. For good actions, the glory belongs to God, who is all good and inspires all good action.

Augustine is comparably unsparing in condemning himself for the sinful ways of his youth. A chapter on the theft of pears, written perhaps with an eye toward Adam and Eve’s own theft of fruit from the tree of knowledge in Chapter 3 of Genesis, becomes for Augustine a parable for the nature of sin generally; the fruit of the pear tree was “not enticing either in appearance or in taste”, but Augustine and his friends continued to steal, because “Simply what was not allowed allured us” (p. 32).

And Augustine is just as tough on himself when it comes to sexual behavior – though he admits that his sins did not go as far as those of his fellows. Moreover, a large part of his sexual life seems to have involved a long-term, monogamous, mutually faithful relationship with a woman who eventually bore Augustine a son. This is not exactly fleshpots-of-Egypt stuff; but nonetheless, Augustine looks back at this part of his life in terms of how it took him away from God.

Augustine, who loves God so, nonetheless reserves some of his fondest words of love for his mother Monnica – a devout Christian who never gave up hope while encouraging her son to leave his secular ways and embrace the Christian faith: “Her flesh brought me forth to live in this daylight, as her heart brought me forth to live in eternal light” (p. 196). That process of conversion involved Augustine going from North Africa to Milan, making friends with fellow converts, and eventually receiving baptism and holy orders; and his early training as a rhetorician (he praises Cicero’s Hortensius as a book that “changed my life”) made him a most eloquent, tenacious defender of the Christian faith.

Along with describing the process by which he became a Christian – much of it in the second person, addressing God directly – Augustine of Hippo includes some thoughtful theological reflections of the kind that he would eventually build upon further in The City of God. Readers who enjoy close reading and exegesis of Scriptural passages will enjoy those passages of the Confessions in which Augustine looks at the opening passages of Genesis, speculating on the manner in which time came out of God’s timeless eternity, and working to reconcile seeming paradoxes in Genesis regarding references to God alternately in the singular and the plural. Augustine reconciles that seeming contradiction thus:

“For you make [humankind] capable of understanding the Trinity of your unity and the unity of your Trinity, from its being said in the plural ‘Let us make,’ followed by the singular ‘and God made man,’ and from its being said in the plural ‘to our pattern,’ followed by the singular ‘to God’s pattern.’” (pp. 337-38)

This edition of the Confessions of Saint Augustine is noteworthy in that it was translated by the noted scholar and author Garry Wills, a renowned classicist and devout Catholic who nonetheless has been willing to criticize his beloved church whenever he has felt that, as a human institution, it has erred in its mission of bringing humankind closer to God. Wills also provides a perceptive and helpful introduction, though I can’t help thinking that footnotes of the kind that grace other Penguin Classics books might have helped further.

By the time Augustine wrote the Confessions, between 397 and 400 A.D., Christianity had already been made the official religion of the Roman Empire, in accordance with the emperor Theodosius I’s promulgation of the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 A.D. Yet it was still a world in which believers in Christian and pre-Christian religions competed for adherents, proselytes, converts. No one of his time worked on behalf of, or defended, the Christian faith with greater consistency or strength of heart than Saint Augustine of Hippo. His Confessions are inspiring, for that reason alone, to anyone who has ever cared enough about an idea to fight for it.

While I have read FROM Augustine widely, I have never read a complete work all the way through until now. It seemed appropriate to begin reading Augustine in full with this timeless classic. I greatly enjoyed it, and highly recommend it. I only give it 3 stars for the fact that after describing Augustine's "conversion" (arguably, that moment in the garden describes a different moment as he already believed in God and the truth of Christianity though he did not fully surrender to Christ until this moment), it seems to wander into an extensive, out of place meditation on the first chapters of Genesis.

Augustine's Confessions is a literary masterpiece of world-historical importance, to be sure. There is hardly a subsequent European Christian author for whom his work did not loom as the very paradigm of how doctrine is to be approached, and how it is to illuminate one's individual life and reflection. It forms the acme of moral inventory and autobiographical reflection, and contributes mightily to the European concept of interiority and subjectivity which, in Charles Taylor's sense, provides one way of answering the question, what is the self?

I would not myself take it as an exposition of timeless truth, but I think the author himself would not have it be taken thus, fifteen hundred years after it was set down. Rather, I will follow his own proposed model and allow that what was good for certain people in certain remote ages is not necessarily what is good for us.

In my view, this book consists of three principle parts. The first is the autobiographical confession for which this book is principally known; the second is an allegorical interpretation of the beginning of Genesis influenced heavily by his reading of the Neoplatonists; the third is the mysterious conjunction of these two in a single work, which receives little explanation, and which, I think, is intended as a kind of koan, or an enigmatic and edifying puzzle, for the reader's contemplation. I will leave this last mystery to the reader's own imagination and take up the first two, briefly.

The story of Augustine's life is well-known - his growth from a precocious, well-educated youth to a Manichaean, his brief foray into Neoplatonism, and his subsequent conversion to Christianity. This journey is presented by the author as a kind of morality tale in which he gradually learns what he needs to learn in order to accept right doctrine, and here his encounter with Neoplatonism was decisive. Although he is clear that its abstract idiom left his compelling existential and soteriological concerns unaddressed, it nevertheless provided him conceptually with the tools he needed to conceive of spiritual matters in abstract terms. An illustration of this paradigm may be seen in his analysis of Genesis.

Here I must say that I fundamentally differ from Augustine's moral paradigm, which in my eyes is chiefly concerned with virtue, in the sense of coming to know what is the right thing to do, and doing that thing. My own moral idiom is fundamentally motivated by compassion and care for all beings.

Take, for example, the famous story of the pear tree, which Augustine uses as a case study in the depravity of his youth, and the nature of sin in general. As a boy, Augustine conspired with other youths to despoil a neighbor's pear tree, having no need of its fruit, and indeed having their own store of better-quality pears, but they delighted in the act of transgression itself.

Augustine unpacks this incident at some length and is disturbed by what he sees as the intrinsic compulsion for people to do wrong for its own sake, and to take a kind of delight in it. It is this "for its own sake" that characterizes his moral concern, while to me what is of even greater concern is the effect this act had on his neighbor, whose pears were robbed, and who may not have been able to easily bear their loss. But this does not occupy Augustine's reflection in the least - what matters to him is the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of the act itself.

I take a certain anthropological and psychological interest in walking down this road with Augustine, but I do not agree that whether or not we've got it is the most important thing. I suppose this is a question of whether one follows the Christ of the beatitudes, and take the injunction to love one's neighbor as one's self as pre-eminent, or one follows the Christ of Paul, who takes the assertion of the right creed as redemptive and thus of cardinal importance. For myself, I would rather be wrong and do my neighbor right than the opposite.

So I can only go so far along with Augustine in his agonized self-reflection, absorbed as it is with a question of right doctrine, and also convinced of the wickedness of man in a degree that in my mind debases the spiritual reality and potentiality of human life. I would not agree, for example, that a badly-behaved baby is acting sinfully, though for Augustine it is the manifest cruelty of infants that demonstrates the doctrine of original sin. For Augustine, behind every human error lies sin, and I do not see it that way.

As a philosopher, I naturally found Augustine's allegorical reading of Genesis rather exciting, though it may leave some readers confused. I was particularly fascinated by his analysis of time, his demonstration that it cannot mean what we normally take it to mean, and his use of that argument to demonstrate that the priority of various acts in the sequence of creation as presented in Genesis cannot be taken to mean a literal, temporal priority, but rather a logical or ontological priority. For God, for whom all time is equally "now," the act of creation is always, and creation is always created and sustained by the act of creation, which seems to our senses to be the play of time.

This is clearly one of the most important books in the late classical period, and of colossal importance for understanding the intellectual history of Latin Europe. Fortunately, it is highly readable and often engrossing.

The Bible says Elijah was a man like us but that his prayer was miraculously effectual. Confessions is a great way to make the same reconnection with the church fathers and saints who came before us but after the time of the biblical canon.

Augustine is candid. He faced the same temptations and rode the same relations we do. He is an honest narrator of his own vicissitudes, and thereby his attestation to the faithfulness of Christ is all the more meaningful.

Clearly, he deserves five stars, but my reading experience was kept from absolute perfection by my inability to maintain interest, and sometimes comprehension, as he talked at some length philosophically about the science of perception.

I have a few *very* mild theological issues with this, but otherwise it is a marvelous masterpiece that everyone should read. I am very excited to read it in Latin (so excited that I might just do it this summer even though I could wait for a class sometime in the next couple of years... I can tell this book will be better in Latin.)

Will be back to add quotes!

(I read books 1-9 for my literature class. I plan to read 10-13 over spring or summer break, but even if I don't I am counting this for my reading challenge because that's basically a whole book, right?)

(My rules for what counts as "reading" a book have relaxed this semester as I've realized that if I didn't count reading most of a book, I would have read four or five less books than Goodreads says I have. And we cannot have that. Because I certainly did read most of those books. So I'm saying they count.)

It is often (and rightly) said that we reread great books, not because the books change but because we do. This is my third reading of the Confessions. I read them as a young man; then again several years ago; and now once more. At each of these stages of my life, God has used the words of Augustine to speak different truths to me. On this reading, some things that struck me more profoundly than in earlier readings are these:

(1)tAugustine’s unbridled honesty about his prior sexual weakness. When we consider that he is writing this while a prominent leader in the church, reflecting back on his life before conversion, I cannot but admire his transparency.
(2)tHis deep friendships also struck me as noteworthy. He has fun with his friends, jokes with them, lives with them, debates with them. They struggle over philosophical and theological questions. And eventually they become Christians together.
(3)tHis relationship with his mother, too, is so personal and moving. We know the name Augustine today because God answered the long-lasting, fervent prayers of Monica.

There is much more, of course, but these are three aspects of the Confessions that hit me in a new and fresh way in this reading. If you have never read the book, make 2025 the year when you do.

"Confessions" is the type of book with a heavy dynamic caliber that it should be read slow, thoughtfully, and with a highlighter. Saint Augustine doe not hold back in his shortcomings. He paints a black, very personal, wicked youth. He confesses all and bares his soul. The passages about his mother were extremely soulful revealing the man as an affectionate son. He writes with hopeful authority; yet in a humble voice and always in a way that I could relate with it in today's hectic pace. His style was unique to me for he included and addressed God as one of his readers not as a truth seeker, such as myself, but as The Almighty. The content itself is woven with scripture in such a way that it drew me in instead of losing me or making me feel like a wretch. The author covers his sinful youth and years of his adult life; pursuit for truth; his faithful mother; his pagan father; even a friend that was addicted to attending gladiatorial shows! He also covers subjects such as invisible nature, memory, and time. Saint Augustine lived A.D. 354-430 and was one of the outstanding figures of the declining Roman Empire. He was a prolific writer of books, letters, and sermons. I highly recommend this book; especially to anyone who is seeking truth and answers about the seen and unseen world around them as well as self-evident mysteries such as memory and time.

Confesiunile sunt spectacolul frământărilor eului, angrenat într-o stare interogativă permanentă: cine sunt, care este rațiunea existenței mele, de unde vin și unde trebuie să ajung sunt întrebările implicite ale unui discurs în aparență monologic, dar care este un dialog cu Dumnezeu. Ceea ce vrea Augustin să-i facă să înțeleagă pe semenii săi este proiectul Providenței în ceea ce-l privește.

,,Mare ești, Doamne, și cu adevărat vrednic de laudă! Mare este puterea Ta, iar înțelepciunea Ta nu poate fi măsurată. Și totuși, un om, o neînsemnată frântură din zidirea Ta, vrea să Te slăvească! Un om purtând asupra sa datul morții, purtând mărturia că Tu te împotrivești celor trufași. Și totuși, un om, o neînsemnată frântură din zidirea Ta, vrea să Te slăvească. Tu l-ai îndemnat să-și afle bucuria lăudându-Te pe Tine, căci pentru Tine ne-ai zidit, iar inima noastră este neliniștită până să-și afle odihna în Tine.”