Confessions

Book V begins with another extended prayer to God similar to that which begins Book I. As Augustine’s narrative nears his conversion, he finds it necessary to reiterate the awe and love he feels for God, the gratitude he has for God’s forgiveness, and the rationale for setting all this out in writing. More clearly than before, Augustine acknowledges the apparent redundancy of his efforts: “A person who confesses to you is not informing you about what goes on within him, for a closed heart does not shut you out” (76). Still, Augustine confesses, valuing the massive spiritual benefit it holds for both God and human:

But allow my soul to give you glory that it may love you the more, and let it confess to you your own merciful dealings, that it may give you glory. […] [L]et the human soul rise […] to you. There it will find its refreshment, there its true strength (77).

From the beginning of Confessions, Augustine has made clear his belief that his life has played out according to God’s plan, but here in Book V his conviction takes on a prominent dimension of personal importance. As he nears his conversion to Christianity and his influential ministry, he constantly speaks of events as essential steps guiding him toward his fate. When he lists his reasons for going to Rome, he asserts that his perceived motivations were an illusion, for “in truth it was you […] who for my soul’s salvation prompted me to change my country, and to this end you provided both the goads at Carthage that dislodged me from there and the allurements at Rome that attracted me” (85). Similarly does he rationalize the lies he told his mother to ease his departure, suggesting that his deception was necessary as part of God’s “deep wisdom […] act[ing] in her truest interests […] for you meant to make me into what she was asking for all the time” (86). Finally, regarding his nearly fatal illness, Augustine insists that saving his life was a foregone conclusion given Monica’s piety and Augustine’s own role in divine destiny: “This is why you restored me from my sickness: you saved your handmaid’s son and gave me back my bodily health for the time being, preserving me so that you might endow me with better and more dependable health later” (88).

Augustine’s self-importance here is reasonable given his conviction that he is now doing God’s work and the importance of establishing his religious authority for his audience. However, when examined, these claims raise questions. Firstly, while Augustine’s inability to imagine any other path that might have led him toward Christianity is a convincing show of his faith in God’s plan, it is reasonable to imagine that he might have come around even had he stayed in Africa. The apparent forces that drove him out of both Carthage and Rome had nothing to do with religion, and the fact that he does not leave Milan for similar reasons suggests his true struggle was indeed internal, which he acknowledges when he speaks of “crav[ing] spurious happiness” in Rome (85). Indeed, the primary work of dislodging Augustine’s Manichean faith was done via his experiences with Faustus before he left Carthage. He makes this point more clearly in Book VIII when he speaks of his impending conversion as “a journey not to be undertaken by ship or carriage or on foot, nor need it take me even that short distance I had walked from the house to the place where we were sitting” (150). Therefore, it is completely within the realm of possibility that he might have come to Christianity even had he stayed in Africa.

Moreover, his conviction that Monica’s piety caused God to protect him and bring him to Christianity seems odd considering how many other pious mothers have nevertheless lived through the deaths of their children, failed to convert them to their religions, or both. The mother of Augustine’s friend whose death was detailed in Book IV may be one such example. Similarly, Augustine reveals in Book IX that Monica prayed fiercely for Patricius as well (170), yet his untimely death was not averted, and the fact that Patricius’s baptism occurred on his deathbed, a common practice at the time for those hoping to wash away a life of reckless sin, suggests this conversion may have been insincere (172). Perhaps Augustine did not consider these contradictions, or maybe he felt that the connections to God in these situations were not sufficient to merit salvation. Either way, his analysis of these events suggests that he viewed the part he would play in divine destiny as particularly important and that he wanted readers to share that view.

This sense of exceptionalism becomes still clearer upon considering the wider impact of some of Augustine’s actions and judgments in Book IV. He is grateful to Faustus for the role he played in fracturing his own belief in Manicheism, but his acknowledgment that Faustus “was a death-trap for many” complicates the value of this figure in God’s plan (84). Even if Faustus inadvertently pushed others away to Christianity, it is highly likely that this charismatic bishop drew a far greater number to Manicheism. The role Augustine’s students play in driving him from Carthage and Rome raises similar concerns, for he seemed to make no effort to ameliorate their negative behaviors, admitting that he left because of “what I might suffer” but thinking nothing of whichever unlucky teachers replaced him and suffered in his place (91).

In discussing his trajectory, Augustine demonstrates a belief that the ends justify the means—that whatever harm came to others as a result of his actions and inactions regarding Faustus and his students is immaterial when compared with his far more important personal journey toward God. In Books I and II, he repudiates the lies he told in his youth and adolescence, but here he defends his deception of his mother as a necessary evil, even if he almost certainly could have left without tricking her. This seems especially odd considering his repudiation of Monica back in Book II for prioritizing his studies over marriage, regardless of the fact that she did so believing the ends she sought would justify those particular means (37).

Augustine demonstrates further hypocrisy in his condemnation of the beliefs of Mani, the central figure of Manicheism, for making claims that ran counter to scientific discoveries, for the Bible also makes claims that have not held up—some of which, such as the implication that pi is equal to three (1 Kings 7:23-26), were known to be inaccurate even in Augustine’s day. While these discrepancies do not invalidate Christianity as a whole for Augustine, they do for Manicheism: “If ever such a man [as Mani] were proved to have spoken untruly, could anyone doubt that he must have been grossly deranged, and that his ideas were abhorrent, and to be rejected outright?” (81).

Many believers view religious texts and teachings as vessels of metaphorical rather than literal truth and are therefore unbothered by these sorts of contradictions and inaccuracies. Even Augustine reveals this perspective to be a necessary lens for his eventual conversion to Christianity:

I realized that the Catholic faith […] was in fact intellectually respectable. This realization was particularly keen when once, and again, and indeed frequently, I heard some difficult passage of the Old Testament explained figuratively; such passages had been death to me because I had been taking them literally (92).

Although Augustine appears unwilling to employ figurative interpretations to Manicheism and even predicates much of his Christian thinking on literal interpretation of the Bible, as evidenced by his discussion of “the sins of the Sodomites” in Book III (52), his willingness to leave literal meaning behind when he feels it is appropriate constitutes an essential part of his transition to Christianity. Indeed, figurative readings of scripture will constitute the foundation of Books XII and XIII, the culmination of Augustine’s efforts in Confessions.

Conversely, considering the often-fraught relationship Christianity has had with science over the centuries, Augustine’s discourse on this topic is quite open-minded. While he makes clear his belief that scientists, like everyone else, should put God first, he acknowledges “many true conclusions which [scientists] had drawn from creation itself” (79). Although he feels these observations are irreconcilable with Manicheism, evidently he finds them more compatible with Christianity. Although it is unclear how Augustine would have responded to the leaps in scientific knowledge that have come since his death, many of which quite directly contradict Biblical teachings, his liberality is a powerful tool in the hands of those who seek to reconcile Christianity and science.