Reading Old Books - Augustine's Confessions Book III

Today we continue our reading and discussion of Augustine’s Confessions with Book III. We will begin our discussion of Book IV in 2 weeks on Junary 29th.

In Book III, Augustine ends his time of leisure and continues his studies in Carthage. He begins his account of the time with a discussion of his love for the pageantry of the theater. While all men wish to be happy, he notes that we also enjoy watching suffering. In this case it was the fictionalized suffering of the theater. The greater the suffering in the theater, the more Augustine liked it. Ultimately this is because he likes to feel sympathy for the characters. It was this that attracted him, feeling like a sympathetic person for these fictional sufferings.

Augustine moves on to a discussion of his education. The “Liberal Arts” he studied were to prepare him for service in the “brawling law courts”. He was introduced to Cicero, and fell in love with Cicero’s exhortation to philosophy, and became a lover of wisdom. With his Christian heritage from his mother, he applied his mind and learning to the scriptures to see what they were, but they seemed unworthy compared to the wisdom of Cicero.

Eventually Augustine became a Manichean. In retrospective, Augustine has harsh words for them, referring to them as “destroyers” and “foolish deceivers”. This was a period of Augustine’s life when God seemed very far away. The Manicheans were carnal, using words about God, but having no real knowledge of Him. They loved to ask obscure questions to mock servants of God and muddle peoples’ minds (the 4th century equivalent of “can God make a rock so big he can’t move it?”). In the end, he realizes that this was a time when he knew no true inner righteousness.

Augustine recounts that his mother wept for him during this time, fearing that he was moving too far from God. She had a vision of his eventual salvation, but Augustine mocked this and tried to explain it away. When his mother asked the bishop to reason with her son, the bishop refused, declaring that Augustine was unteachable. His advice to her was “Just pray the Lord for him”.

Two things really struck me from this chapter. First, Augustine’s description of his love for the theater sounds like a very modern problem. So much of what we entertain ourselves with is the misery of others, either fictional (on scripted dramas) or semi-real (on reality television shows). In the end, Augustine asks the question, “is such a life a life at all?” It’s a question I should ask myself when I pick up the remote control.

Second was Augustine’s description of the Manicheans. I’ll admit that I know little about them, and didn’t find what Augustine said about them very helpful. But his description of them that they “spoke of God”, but in word only forces me to do some self examination. Do I speak of God, and quote the scriptures, and explain truths I understand, but in the end have an understanding of God which is my own invention, ultimately unrelated to God as he reveals himself in the scriptures? Do I speak of God in words only, without any real inner righteousness?

Posted by David Fenton on Jan 15, 05:24 PM