Monday, March 31st, 2014
Saint Augustine: Confessions
Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo. He was partly responsible for stabilizing the early Christian church and he was the first thinker to offer a coherent philosophy consistent with the teachings of Jesus and the letters of Paul.
Saint Augustine’s Confessions is composed of 13 different books and are broken up into different parts of Augustine’s life; books one to nine address his life beginning as an infant, book 10 highlights his temptations, and books 11 to 13 explanation of Genesis. I will be discussing the first three books. In book one, Augustine discusses his life as an infant and how much he allegedly sinned at the point of his life, even though he doesn’t remember. In book two, Augustine discusses a particular story where he and his friends commit a sin. And book three, He is forced to move to Carthage and continues speaking of his past sins and temptations as a teenager. He also gets to know Manicheism. I believe Augustine’s main goal of this book is for others to learn.
Confessions was written around the year 397. It was written, for several reasons, religion being a main one. While Augustine discusses his journey and sins that he has committed in the past, Confessions is not an autobiography, rather a personal perspective towards God, and how Augustine sees and feels about Him.
In his analysis of Confessions, Richard Miller says regarding evil, “According to Augustine, evil arises when we seek to overcome our fundamental lack as mortal creatures by attaching ourselves to changeable goods in excess of their quality and being. We confuse mutable for immutable goods, drawn as we are to objects of beauty that are finite and contingent in our restless quest for enduring happiness.”
Discussion Questions:
- According to Augustine, what is evil? How do you think he defines it?
- Why did Augustine steal a pear? Why was this significant? What can be observed from this? What are Augustine’s feelings and views on sin?
- What does Augustine mean when he asks God to “come into him”? (Book 1 section 2)
- What were the three Manichee challenges?
–Max
Source:
Miller, Richard B. “Evil, friendship, and iconic realism in Augustine’s Confessions.” Harvard Theological Review 104.4 (2011): 387+. Biography in Context. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Document URL
http://ic.galegroup.com.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/ic/bic1/AcademicJournalsDetailsPage/AcademicJournalsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=BIC1&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Journals&limiter=&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&search_within_results=&p=BIC1&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CA271595502&source=Bookmark&u=cuny_baruch&jsid=50cb8668a8735a3ced6c1cb210aeb6f1