Many contemporary editions of St. Augustine's "Confessions" end with Chapter Ten on the grounds that what follows is uninteresting; uninteresting, publishers contend, because 'Confessions' is supposed to be juicy biography, not philosophy. The sins -- the thieving (in one scene, he...
[more]Many contemporary editions of St. Augustine's "Confessions" end with Chapter Ten on the grounds that what follows is uninteresting; uninteresting, publishers contend, because 'Confessions' is supposed to be juicy biography, not philosophy. The sins -- the thieving (in one scene, he even pilfers fruit from a garden), the drinking, the sexual liaisons (including having a son out of wedlock) -- all drop away in the second half of the book. In the modern era, these scandals are viewed as the proper stuff of memoir; philosophy is not. Little do such editors realize that for Augustine, personal experience was the necessary basis of philosophical thought and religious conviction.
St. Augustine grew up a pagan. Wayward in his youth, he spent his early years traveling, like Buddha, in search of an answer to the burning spiritual questions that plagued him. One day when he was in a garden, the New Testament fell open to Paul's epistles, revealing a passage that Augustine took to be God's direct address to him. This was a bona fide epiphany. Augustine became a bishop in the Catholic Church and soon afterwards wrote the 'Confessions," an exploration of the origins of sin that is often considered to be the first autobiography. Though a religious account of penitence, the 'Confessions' also speaks to general philosophical concerns: the nature of time, the nature of free will, and the nature of human motivation. Indeed, Augustine finally embraced Christianity because he deemed it a school of thought worthy of a true philosopher.
Augustine's religious conversion couldn't have come at a more tumultuous time. When the Goths sacked Rome in 410, the pagans pointed to the encroachment of Christianity as the cause of the empire's downfall. They contended that the ancient gods, particularly Jupiter, had abandoned Rome as soon as its emperors embraced the Christian faith. St. Augustine stepped in to provide an answer to this argument. His 22-book treatise, "The City of God," would become one of the most influential books in the history of Western thought.
"The City of God" proved a valuable asset in the Church's struggle for institutional legitimacy. In the work, Augustine proposed a city that is greater than Rome or any other to be found on earth: God's city, the heavenly empire. The work is basically a formulation of history from a theological standpoint '- after arguing against polytheism, Augustine carefully establishes the Church as its necessary successor. He outlines Christian doctrines step-by-step, at once defining Catholic orthodoxy and pointing the direction for the Church.
Needless to say, St. Augustine exerted a profound influence on Christian thought throughout the Middle Ages and onwards. His legacy as the first autobiographer is perhaps even greater. Because of him, self-examination and the autopsy of the soul became a valid practice in Western culture.
[show less]
