Confessions

Frequently in Book IV, Augustine directs his writing toward human readers rather than to God. He has done this occasionally before this point, even acknowledging it directly in Book II: “But to whom am I telling this story? Not to you, my God; rather in your presence I am relating these events to my own kin, the human race” (35). Here, Augustine’s hope that people would read his book takes on a fundamentally religious dimension. After an extended discussion of God’s greatness and a poem honoring Jesus’s sacrifice, Augustine writes, “This is what you must tell [other souls], to move them to tears in this valley of weeping, and by this means carry them off with you to God” (69). Throughout Christianity’s history, many of its practitioners have felt called to bring others to the faith. Augustine clearly shares this perspective, and, in writing this book, he is fulfilling that responsibility.

That prayerful poem is not the first one Augustine composes for Confessions. He ended Book I with a poem of thanksgiving. While Books II or III include none, Book IV boasts three—one calling for the strength to remember that God is the source of all transient beauty, the aforementioned one about Jesus, and a final one that ends Book IV by asking for God’s protection of his followers and forgiveness of those who have gone astray. Each poem is focused on a central element of Augustine’s text. He never introduces them but simply breaks right from prose into these poetic appeals. They present their author in raw, heartfelt passion for his God, something God as supposed reader would likely appreciate. For human readers, these poetic prayers legitimize his faith while also availing themselves to be prayed again by those who agree with Augustine.

More frequently, Augustine appeals to his readers’ logic. A particularly powerful example arises in his discussion of transient things of beauty. To illustrate the vanity and irrationality of wishing these things would last forever, Augustine proposes an analogy: “When […] you listen to human speech, you do not want to halt the succession of syllables: you want them to fly on their way and make room for others, so that you may hear the whole” (67). While Augustine’s condemnations of eloquence and rhetoric might seem to cast his narrative’s reliance on them as hypocritical, it is important to remember that he only condemns them when they are valued independently of the truthfulness of what they convey. For instance, he approves of eulogy “as long as […] the one who proclaims [the eulogized person’s] merits is not doing so with intent to deceive” (70). Thus, as Augustine certainly feels his purposes in writing Confessions are virtuous, fluent persuasiveness in their service is justifiable.

Augustine’s discussion of eulogy comes as he is marveling at the impacts of his admiration and envy of Hierius. Similar to his wonderment at the role camaraderie played in the pear episode, Augustine finds himself struggling to articulate the nature and value of praise. He recognizes that it was shallow of him to consider others’ opinions of Hierius so highly, regardless of how viscerally powerful that impulse was, for he perceived in Hierius that which he wanted for himself. What confuses him, then, is his tendency to admire those whom he does not envy. He speaks of his respect and love for actors but is perplexed that “I would have preferred obscurity to notoriety like theirs, and would rather have been hated than loved in that manner” (70). In the end, he gives up, concluding, “A human being is an immense abyss, but you, Lord, keep count even of his hairs, and not one of them is lost in you; yet even his hairs are easier to number than the affections and movements of his heart” (70). Referring to an assurance Jesus makes of God’s care in the Gospel according to Matthew (10:30), Augustine here takes refuge in God’s inscrutable mystery, and yet, by ending with an observation of how much vaster than our physical forms are our emotional and mental realities, he emphasizes the doubt he struggles with all the same.

Again, Augustine himself and many readers who share similar beliefs might not be bothered by these mysteries since mystery is itself inherent in most conceptions of the divine. However, it is curious that Augustine invokes the irrational elements of other faiths as evidence of their falsity yet shrugs off those that remain within his own worldview despite his religious framework. This tension is especially clear in the explanation the doctor gives him of how astrologists manage some accurate predictions if their methods are fraudulent:

Think how frequently it happens, he said, that a person looks for guidance in the pages of some poet who was singing of an unrelated matter and had something quite different in mind, yet a line stands out which is wonderfully apposite to the question in hand (61).

Later, Augustine would recognize the truth of this perspective regarding astrology, but at the time he remained unconvinced “because the authority of the writers weighed with me too heavily” (61). Beyond personal preference and unverifiable spiritual intuitions, it is not clear how Augustine can accept the doctor’s logic as it applies to one of these belief systems and not another. Even astrology’s emphasis on predicting the future cannot be cited as the crucial difference given that Augustine indicates belief in soothsaying in Book XI (235-36).

Still, Augustine’s Christianity is the core of Confessions, and it continues to lead him to structure his narrative in a way that might frustrate those expecting a more conventional autobiography. Here, this amounts to his choice to devote a single paragraph to the only extended romantic relationship of his life. Although this woman will reappear nearly as briefly later, all we learn about her now is that Augustine was committed to her but that he views their relationship as sinful when compared with “a marriage contracted for the purpose of founding a family” (59). This contention is slightly ironic given that he will father a child with this woman, although admittedly their relationship was likely not initiated with that goal. Again, the potent complexity of relationships with other humans presents challenges to Augustine’s worldview, some he acknowledges head on but others he seems scarcely aware of.

Augustine remains steadfast in his conceptualization of sin, though, repeating his belief that evil is not some external force but instead arises from a lack of proper relationship with God. This comes up as he reflects on and condemns the books he wrote. In those books, Augustine proposed that beauty arises in an object from some quality inherent to the object as well as resulting from its harmony with its environment, a notion he now considers inaccurate since “the whole vast question hinged on your artistry, almighty God, who alone work wonders” (71). From his misconceptions and influenced by Manichean dualism, he concluded at that time that evil is a force that promotes fragmentation among the good and beautiful in the world, later changing his perspective: “But I did not understand what I was talking about,” Augustine reflects. “I did not know, never having learned, that evil is no substance at all” (72).