Confessions

Augustine suggests that we can only remember that which was forgotten if some part of it remains unforgotten. True happiness, then, derived by knowing God, must be in our memories, or we would neither know what it is nor attempt to find it. Desired by all, happiness functions uniquely in our minds in Augustine’s conception. He notes that happiness takes many forms and is reached by many avenues, but God is the only path to pure happiness, which is “joy in the truth” (200), though those who are deceived may shun the truth to protect their sinful happiness.

Augustine cannot determine how or where God resides in the memory and concludes he transcends it entirely, for God is everywhere. Exalted, Augustine celebrates God with one of his most famous poems, which begins, “Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new” (203).

Noting that his hardships endure and necessitate God’s mercy, Augustine takes inventory of his sins.

Categorizing his temptations by sense, Augustine begins with touch. He regrets that he still remembers his sexual exploits and is especially disturbed that he dreams of sex and cannot prevent unconscious arousal. He prays for total extinguishment of his lusts. Proceeding to taste, Augustine prays for relief from gluttony, which he finds particularly vexing since he cannot abstain from eating. He cautiously suggests that smell and sound do not trouble him, though he acknowledges his understanding is limited and worries that singing may be a trap, even when the lyrics are holy. He concedes that he struggles to avoid becoming captivated by beautiful sights and criticizes artisans who add to this challenge by creating unnecessarily beautiful works. Still, he credits himself for generally remembering to look through them to their source and thanks God for forgiving him when he fails.

Augustine additionally chastises himself for “concupiscence of the eyes” (214), which he defines as desire for unnecessary experiences and knowledge. Though he transcends these experiences to praise God’s creation, he blames himself that his initial interest arises out of base curiosity.

The problem of pride particularly confounds Augustine, even if he struggles less with it than he used to. To minister well inevitably brings praise, which he confesses he still enjoys, and he knows he should be glad on behalf of those who praise him since to praise is a virtue, but still he is unable to discern to what degree he is successful in preventing praise from motivating him and thus cannot fathom his pridefulness. Again acknowledging his limited understanding, he thanks God for healing him regardless.

Augustine states the need for mediation between humanity and God, condemning the Devil as a false mediator, praising Jesus as the true mediator, and thanking God for sacrificing his son for this purpose.

After reiterating the value of confession, Augustine prays for truthful understanding of scripture that he might not mislead his followers.

Augustine wonders how God made heaven and earth, wishing he could speak to Moses, whom tradition credits as author of Genesis, about the matter. He concludes that creation resulted from a mysterious, eternal, sublime command uttered by God, “that Word who is God” (228), a term associated with Jesus. He wonders further how this eternal Word could have brought about a world in which nothing lasts, though he notes that Jesus can be seen as the beginning not just in a temporal sense but also in a spiritual sense, as in the source of goodness from which everything emanates and to which all must return.

Augustine criticizes the shallow understanding of those who would ask what God was doing before creation, claiming the question is illogical since time is part of God’s creation and God himself does not experience the passage of time.

He then explores the concept of time itself, proposing that the idea, however familiar, has no true essence with the possible exception of the present moment. Probing further though wondering if to do so is sacrilegious, Augustine asserts that even judgments about time have no basis in truth. Augustine then reverses course and concedes that practical experience indicates that time must be real, regardless of its inability to hold up to logical scrutiny. He reasons that future and past events must exist yet be hidden and that, wherever they are, they must actually exist in the present or they could not exist at all. Confessing that his intellect is overwhelmed, Augustine nevertheless proceeds, determining that all memories of the past and predictions of the future are rooted firmly in the present. Conceding the utility of past and future as concepts despite their nonexistence, Augustine marvels that it is possible to measure time, begging God for help understanding these mysteries.

Augustine writes of a man who told him that the movements of astronomical objects constitute time, a perspective Augustine rejects, asserting that they do not constitute time but merely mark its passage. Wondering if his certainty despite confusion indicates that “I simply do not know how to articulate what I know” (241), Augustine trusts that God will show him more. Sensing God’s guidance, Augustine suggests that what we perceive as time is in fact “tension of consciousness” (242), that to conceive of time is a testament to the power of the mind, which can produce moments as images and thereby expect the future, attend the present, and remember the past. Augustine ends by praying for relief from this illusion so that he may anchor himself in God's calm eternity.

Augustine begins exploring creation as described in Genesis. He establishes his interpretation that the heaven of the first verse is not the sky or cosmos but “heaven’s heaven,” (248), the imperceptible realm of God. He asserts that that verse’s earth, described as formless and invisible, was a primordial “nothing-something” (250), the furthest from God that material creation can be and yet the essential foundation of all that followed. Augustine notes that time is not accounted for in this primal stage, for the formless earth was empty of occurrence and heaven’s heaven so tightly bound to God that it “participates in your eternity” (252). Augustine exalts God for his eternity and creation and venerates heaven’s heaven, “that mind of all the citizens of your holy city” (253) where Augustine longs to be, for existing at the highest possible material state, the other end of the spectrum from formless earth.

Augustine praises scripture for being accessible yet profound and expresses hatred for those who denigrate it. Invoking a host of Biblical minutiae and repeatedly shifting perspectives, Augustine spends the remainder of Book XII cycling between the following ideas. He speaks of people who challenge his interpretations while admitting the truths they reveal. Detailing several other common interpretations of Genesis’s opening verse, Augustine further justifies his own while asserting the impossibility of knowing which, if any, was in the mind of the author. He defends all interpretations so long as they presume honest intent and reveal some element of God’s truth, on which he lays several specific limits. Prizing interpretability over specificity, he celebrates scripture’s capacity to nourish with such versatility.

Augustine ends by confessing he feels limited to advancing the interpretation that feels truest to him, hoping it will be the best possible.

Augustine calls God into his soul, humbled at his creator who calls to him without need. Augustine then returns to creation, which God similarly bestowed out of supreme goodness rather than necessity, suggesting all of creation should cling to God in gratitude. Discussing creation’s first light, Augustine asserts this too was unnecessary but was made to allow greater closeness to the divine. Realizing the first verse of Genesis contains the Holy Trinity—Father as creator, Son as beginning and source of creation, and Holy Spirit that “hung poised over the waters” (277)—Augustine rejoices. The later arrival of the Holy Spirit gives Augustine pause, but he finds answers by drawing metaphorical connections with the Holy Spirit’s power for lifting the human soul. He proposes that through this same power the Holy Spirit created the first light. The Trinity, he asserts, is particularly challenging to understand, so he cautiously draws an analogy to a far inferior trinity within each of us: being, knowledge, and will—distinct yet intrinsic parts of each individual.

Beginning an allegorical survey of each day of creation that establishes his vision of holy society, he returns to the light of the first day, seeing in it God’s power to turn us back toward him. The sky, created on day two, becomes the scroll of scripture, spread across the world to enlighten humanity below. The third day saw the gathering of waters to make the seas, whose clashing currents represent people wrongly pursuing happiness. Land was formed, too, and on it, vegetation grew. In this process Augustine sees our souls as soil, watered by acts of mercy from God and one another.

Augustine asserts that the sun, moon, and stars, which God created on the fourth day, signify the wisdom of the virtuous lighting up the sky’s scripture to provide further guidance. The birds and fish of day five become signs and sacraments, earthly manifestations of divine law.

On the sixth day, God created animals on land, and Augustine imagines also a living soul produced, pure and in need of neither baptism nor conversion, the obedient animals within it like temptations to sin held at bay. The humans created that day constitute God’s faithful. Made in God’s image, they should aspire to him, not imitate each other, and their judgment over living creatures signifies their authority to guide the lost toward salvation. Augustine sees God’s command to increase and multiply as justification of abundant interpretations of scripture and pathways toward faith, while he views the food God provided as the joy that results from godly actions. Resolving the contradiction implied by a timeless God looking on his works at multiple specific times, Augustine concludes that God’s actions must be made intelligible in human terms and renounces those who fail to recognize God’s goodness as the source of everything, tacitly criticizing the Manichees.

Augustine reviews creation literally and asserts that women are rationally equal but physically and sexually subordinate to men. He then reviews his figurative interpretation, naming it as a vision for church-led society. He exalts both readings, then speaks of the seventh day as the rest promised to God’s followers. Augustine thanks God for answering his calls and concludes with an amen.