Catholic Thought discussion
St. Augustine, The Confessions
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Book I
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St. Augustine praises God, acknowledges His goodness and graces he received, and confesses openly the sins especially of his younger life. He uses the word “confess” half a dozen times in the first book. The use of the word “confession” is more in the sense of declaring his faith and gratitude to God than making a clean breast of his past sins though he does both. What comes from this to me is greater awareness of the first commandment. It’s probably our pride and selfishness that we do not praise God enough in our life and show greater gratitude for his graces and all the good things for which we should be more thankful. (I am speaking for myself.) St. Augustine is forever aware of this and keeps praising and thanking God for the gifts he received. I found this passage curious, in Book I, Chapter 7, when St. Augustine asks God not to hold him responsible for the part of his life which he cannot remember, such as his childhood. “But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where I beseech you my God, where Lord, or when was I, your servant, ever innocent?” (Warner translation, p. 25)
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That's a really good point! He demonstrates with this that there are multiple spiritual dimensions to confession. The footnotes of my text explain, "'con-fession" means "to speak with." Do we look upon confession, to speak with God, as something that leads us to glorifying God?
Galicius wrote: I found this passage curious, in Book I, Chapter 7, when St. Augustine asks God not to hold him responsible for the part of his life which he cannot remember, such as his childhood. “But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where I beseech you my God, where Lord, or when was I, your servant, ever innocent?” (Warner translation, p. 25)
Peter Kreeft in "I Burned for Your Peace - Augustine's Confessions Unpacked" says that Augustine does not deny that very young children are incapable of actual sins, but that their behavior shows the presence of Original Sin (apparently an issue with Jews, Eastern Orthodox and liberal Protestants). "But Original Sin simply means that we sin because we are sinners, as we sing because we are singers. It means that Christ saves us not only from the wrong in what we do but also from the wrong in what we are. It does not mean we are "totally depraved", as Calvin taught. in fact, it is only because we are so good ontologically - made in God's image, holy, called to be saints - that sin is so awful: it defaces a holy masterpiece.
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Susan wrote: "Galicius wrote: I found this passage curious, in Book I, Chapter 7, when St. Augustine asks God not to hold him responsible for the part of his life which he cannot remember, such as his childhood..."
Thank you Susan for your interesting commentary.
I really enjoyed that book.. I gave it 5 stars.
Susan wrote: "I really enjoyed that book.. I gave it 5 stars."I'll have to add this book to my pile!
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"Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and of Your wisdom there is no end. And man, being a part of Your creation, desires to praise You, man, who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that You resist the proud, — yet man, this part of Your creation, desires to praise You. You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You. Lord, teach me to know and understand which of these should be first, to call on You, or to praise You; and likewise to know You, or to call upon You."
And so it is an open confession to God, from which he gets the title. So actually it's not a dialogue but a monologue, since I don't think God responds. I picture Augustine sitting inside a confessional, kneeling and telling God his life story, focusing on his sins, and therefore Augustine takes the reader on his life journey. I believe this is the first ever autobiography ever written.
By the way, I'm using the New Advent copy of the translation to copy and paste. It doesn't say who the translator is but I like the translation. The language looks more updated than the Pusey translation you can also find online. Here's the New Advent translation:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1101...
Translated by J.G. Pilkington. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1. Edited by Philip Schaff. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
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Thanks Gal. Where did you find that? Was it there on the New Advent page?
Edit: Yes it was, on the bottom of the page.
I read the Outler (1955) translation about seven years ago but located my original 1963- published paperback Rex Warner translation from my first exposure to this classic in a world literature class at Hunter. It was assigned in the course and also recommended “for people desiring higher education” by a non-Christian professor. It took me many years to heed his advice. My first reading was no doubt slipshod.
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"For what do I wish to say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came hither into this— shall I call it dying life or living death? Yet, as I have heard from my parents, from whose substance You formed me—for I myself cannot remember it—Your merciful comforts sustained me. Thus it was that the comforts of a woman's milk entertained me; for neither my mother nor my nurses filled their own breasts, but You by them gave me the nourishment of infancy according to Your ordinance and that bounty of Yours which underlies all things. For You caused me not to want more than You gave, and those who nourished me willingly to give me what You gave them. For they, by an instinctive affection, were anxious to give me what You had abundantly supplied. It was, in truth, good for them that my good should come from them, though, indeed, it was not from them, but by them; for from You, O God, are all good things, and from my God is all my safety. Proverbs 21:31 This is what I have since discovered, as You have declared Yourself to me by the blessings both within me and without me which You have bestowed upon me. For at that time I knew how to suck, to be satisfied when comfortable, and to cry when in pain— nothing beyond.”
So beautiful that Augustine credits God with providing his mother and the nurses their milk which in turn is God’s sustenance and love filtered through the women.
But that last sentence to me rings of a philosophic process going on, at least in these early chapters. My translation I think highlights it better: “But in those days, I knew how to suck the breast, and how to fall asleep when my body was comfortable and cry when it was not; and beyond this, I knew nothing.” Augustine is emphasizing his knowledge or lack thereof. Notice the next chapter, 1.6.8, and I won’t quote entirely but just the key phrases, again from my Burton translation: “Later I learned to laugh…,” “by and by I came to perceive my surroundings…” and then after an interlude of some other themes he continues in 1.6.10 with “as my infancy I tried to find signs in which to convey my feelings to others.” Knowledge of sucking at the breast, knowledge of falling asleep, learning to laugh, perceiving and understanding one’s surroundings, and finding signs, all this is an act of learning, that of epistemology, the acquisition of knowledge.
Now, let’s look at that interlude in 1.6.9.
“…tell, O merciful One, Your miserable servant — tell me whether my infancy succeeded another age of mine which had at that time perished. Was it that which I passed in my mother's womb?... And what, O God, my joy, preceded that life? Was I, indeed, anywhere, or anybody? For no one can tell me these things, neither father nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own memory.”
And so he questions his pre-existence, which comes prior to his gaining knowledge of the earthly world? Why? Look what comes in chapter 1.7.11:
“Who brings to my remembrance the sin of my infancy? For before You none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a day upon the earth. Who brings this to my remembrance? Does not each little one, in whom I behold that which I do not remember of myself? In what, then, did I sin?”
Sin is not something he as infant learned, but was innate in him, and that is why he questions his pre-existence, because he has found this part of his being—sin—that is not learned but innate.
After reading chapter 1 so many things stood out already that my head is kind of in a fog, but what struck me hardest was how he regretted the teachings of Greek literature. It had never occurred me to look at mythology that way before. The sinfulness of the acts of the gods being used to excuse mans evil inclinations. It struck me also how similar the issues he has with higher education are so similar to the ones we have today.
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Isn't it amazing the layers and layers of meaning he puts in each of the paragraphs?
I never learned Greek, but I think it isn't the easiest language to learn, so for Augustine to have an instant dislike to it is understandable. The one time I was in Athens I was so glad one could get by with English, because everything is, well, Greek! :)
Talea, you make a good point here how Greek mythology, and I think it goes for pagan mythology in general, the deeds of the gods excuse man's sinful inclinations. It becomes quite self-serving, especially if you are part of the upper class. How very different and foreign the Christian world view must have been to the uninitiated.
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Good point Talea. It never struck me to consider the gods like that either. I wonder if his dislike was limited to just the literature. From what I remembered St. Augustine was fascinated with Plato and Platonic philosophy. I don't know if it's in the Confessions or elsewhere.
Manny wrote: "From what I remembered St. Augustine was fascinated with Plato and Platonic philosophy. I don't know if it's in the Confessions or elsewhere...."At this stage St. Augustine is under the influence on Manichaeism’s materialism when he is twenty but hasn’t been exposed to Neoplatonists to free himself from materialism until Milan in years 384-386 when he’s 30-32. He will discover some books of the Platonists and he find in them “not indeed in the same words, but to the selfsame effect” . . . that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men." (John 1:14)
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Today we see in these literary works as some of the greatest enduring classics of Western Civilization. I imagine to Augustine they had a different connotation. He was still very much immersed in an age old pagan world where Christianity had only a short foothold of a few centuries. To distinguish the errors of the old versus the truths of the new must have been an ever-present reality.
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"See, Lord, you are my king and my God; let every useful thing I learned as a boy be devoted now to your service; let whatever I speak, write, read or count serve you, for even as I was learning such vanities you were schooling me, and you have forgiven the sins of self-indulgence I committed in those frivolous studies. Through them I acquired a great many useful words, though admittedly the same words can be learned just as well from texts which are by no means frivolous, and would make a safer path for children to tread."
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I was looking at Manny's link, and in chapter two it says, "...as nothing can exist without you...; so I believe this, but I have a daughter whose boyfriend is an agnostic/?atheist and between that and going to a Northeastern school....is very much doubting the Faith in which she was raised... :( ...anyway... how do any of you confirm this to yourselves or how do you speak to your loved ones if this comes up, or is it just the case that, you either believe in this view or you don't....I do have Feser's book that I am reading, Five Proofs for the Existence of God (where Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Plotinus and Leibniz are discussed). It is very good and readable which I plan to discuss with her over Thanksgiving. I was just wondering if anyone had any other resources or thoughts regarding...
Also, "...does whatever exists contain You" - does everything that exists 'contain' Him ?? rock, plant... so I think no.... St. Augustine goes on... "Why, then, do I ask You to come into me, since I indeed exist, and could not exist if You were not in me?" Again, rock, plant... etc... but then St. Augustine seems to clarify it with, "Or should I not rather say, that I could not exist unless I were in You from who are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things..." - this seems to say it more clearly to me, for if God IS existence, we/rock/plant are all in Him, but is the converse (that He is in all things) true? It doesn't seem so to me, but I may be understanding wrong.... If God is in all of us...by our mere existence..., why would we need Baptism?
Also, sorry! Is God in Hell? I thought God cannot be anywhere there is not perfection, the whole logical basis for Purgatory,,,so although it seems since Hell 'exists' that it also must be in God somehow as He IS existence, that wording confuses me. Is St. Augustine quoting someone speaking about God in Hell there? Who is he quoting?
And finally, if St. Augustine wrote this....how did he know when to use who versus whom?? I never get that right :)
St. Augustine criticizes his mother more than I remembered. St. Monica (not always a Saint) deliberately didn’t baptise Augustine but still used sacramentals on him: “even from the womb of my mother, who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark of His cross and salted with His salt.”
Does anyone know if this mean making the sign of the cross? Is it more clean on another translation? The church fathers speak of it often.
“my cleansing was deferred, because the defilements of sin would, after that washing, bring greater perilous guilt.”
So basically St. Monica was delaying baptism so Augustine could sin as a pagan instead of struggling as a Christian.
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Does anyone know if this mean making the sign of the cross? Is it more clean on another translation? The church fathers speak of it often.
The footnotes in my edition say this:
Book 1
"Deferring baptism until one was close to death was not uncommon in the early Church. The "first Christian emperor", Constantine, for example, was not baptized until he was on his deathbed. The theology behind this practice may have been misplaced but, as Augustine alludes to in the next sentence, it stressed the hope to leave this world with an unsullied soul, with all of one's sins remitted."
I think a follow-up question here would be, what were the practices of the sacrament of confession at the time? How easy (or hard) was it to have one's sins forgiven?
In Book 6 there is another footnote shedding more light:
"Augustine here admits to his being initiated into the catechumenate as a young boy but not baptized, a common practice in fourth-century Africa, as mentioned. At some point in his early years, Monica would have presented him to the local clergy, and a priest would have consecrated the young Augustine for Christ by tracing the sign of the cross on his forehead, prayed over him by the laying on of hands, and would have had him take a little salt on his tongue, claiming it for pious use, in particular. While this ritual would have rendered Augustine a Christian, he was still considered to be "only" a catechumen and thus not a full member of the Church, as baptism is how one is adopted into the Body of Christ (see Sermon 301A, Commentary on John 11.4)"
Kerstin wrote: "Kenneth wrote: "“even from the womb of my mother, who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark of His cross and salted with His salt.”Does anyone know if this mean making the sign of the..."
All of you guys are sooo interesting!
Two thoughts; one, as a physician, I note the waiting until they were close to death for Baptism...that is all well and good I guess if one always has the luxury of a delayed enough death...sudden death certainly must not have happened as frequently as it does now, or they probably wouldn't have risked taking that chance it seems...
Two, I thought the "laying on of hands" had a sacramental significance when done - meaning a supernatural aspect/grace was involved...but that doesn't seem like that would be the case here, right?
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Also, "...does whatever exists contain You" - does everything that exists 'contain' Him ?? rock, plant... so I think no.... St. Augustine goes on... "Why, then, do I ask You to come into me, since I indeed exist, and could not exist if You were not in me?" Again, rock, plant... etc... but then St. Augustine seems to clarify it with, "Or should I not rather say, that I could not exist unless I were in You from who are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are all things..." - this seems to say it more clearly to me, for if God IS existence, we/rock/plant are all in Him, but is the converse (that He is in all things) true? It doesn't seem so to me, but I may be understanding wrong.... If God is in all of us...by our mere existence..., why would we need Baptism? "
I caught on that too Susan when I read it. First, let me just say that I am not a theologian, I only play one on the internet. ;) But I have given thought to this over the years.
Augustine comes awfully close to pantheism there, but I think you have to consider that in Christianity God is both transcendent and immanent, meaning He is outside and inside. What does it mean to be inside? When I ponder this I recall this quote from Paul’s letter to the Colossians (Col 1:15-17):
15He [Christ] is the image* of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For in him* were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
I don’t know exactly what Augustine means but the way I think of it is that God’s power (not God’s essence) is infused in all things so that they hold together. If you’re thinking scientifically (and I’m an engineer by career) the material world would go unstable without God’s power infused in it to hold it stable. Anyway that’s how I think of it. Perhaps that is what Augustine is thinking too, though I can’t be sure.
Is God in hell too? I don't know. I imagine He would have power over it, so my guess is yes.
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I was looking at Manny's link, and in chapter two it says, "...as nothing can exist without you...; so I believe this, but I have a daughter whose boyfriend is an agnostic/?atheist and between that and going to a Northeastern school....is very much doubting the Faith in which she was raised... :( ...anyway... how do any of you confirm this to yourselves or how do you speak to your loved ones if this comes up, or is it just the case that, you either believe in this view or you don't...."
That could be an important discussion but not part of this book discussion. How about I open a topic for this under Catholic chat? I'm off to doing that now.
Edit: Here's the link to the topic:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
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All comparisons fall ultimately short of the reality of God, but I do like the idea of God being the author. In a book the imprint of the author is everywhere yet he is not the book nor the content.
When Bishop Barron talks about God, he emphasizes all the time that God is not a creature or entity within the universe. This is the mistake many atheists are making. He is totally Other.
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So basically St. Monica was delaying baptism so Augustine could sin as a pagan instead of struggling as a Christian. "
Ha! You can find the argument about "whom" being an object rather than a subject. Frankly in practice it's all nonsense. You never go wrong when you use "who." It's a false argument. Never use "whom."
[Geez, I hope I'm not going to stir another hornet's nest with that. Like I said, I'm not a scholar. I just play one on the internet...lol.]
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“even from the womb of my mother, who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark of His cross and salted with His salt.”
Does anyone know if this mean making the sign of the cross? Is it more clean on another translation? The church fathers speak of it often. "
Kenneth I think that's refering to a Catholic Baptism, which is more than pouring water over the head or dunking into water. In a Catholic Baptism a sign of the cross with chrism, a solidified oil I think, is traced over the forehead. You can read about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrism
I think in the sentence you quote Augustine is using it as a metaphor, since he is still inside the womb.
Manny wrote: "Susan wrote: "I was looking at Manny's link, and in chapter two it says, "...as nothing can exist without you...; so I believe this, but I have a daughter whose boyfriend is an agnostic/?atheist an..."Haha. Responded in the other post first. I'll remember that. :)
Manny wrote: "Susan wrote: "I was looking at Manny's link, and in chapter two it says, "...as nothing can exist without you...; so I believe this, but I have a daughter whose boyfriend is an agnostic/?atheist an..."Hmmm. That is an interesting way to look at it...reminds me of the Shroud...all that power that just radiates.....
As I understand it, God exists in all; our acknowledgment of God and awareness of sin, results in our need for baptism. Infants are baptized by those who understand the reality of sin, original sin, which permeates throughout this world. To me pantheism is stating that god is everything. I understand Augustine as saying, in His creation God is there, one God, creator of all; without whom nothing would exist.
Virginia wrote: "As I understand it, God exists in all; our acknowledgment of God and awareness of sin, results in our need for baptism. Infants are baptized by those who understand the reality of sin, original sin..."Hmmm. Thanks for writing this...this makes me realize for a zillionth time, that even when I think I understand something, I don't...one comment from someone can make everything fuzzy for me again...
Does God exist in all?........ I can say firmly that I believe everyone's existence is due to God...they would not have existed without Him...but does God exist in all (and were you meaning just humans here, or 'all' all?)
I think I thought, we became God's children with the Sanctifying Grace from Baptism, which happens with the aid of the Holy Spirit...but this is where I get more confused again...I asked this is another place....is the Sanctifying Grace, God?, Holy Spirit?, more accurately expressed, the life of the Trinity?
Without Baptism, would God be present in us?
Then, obviously, God is 'in' those who partake in the Eucharist, but that comes after....
I thought our need for Baptism was there whether we acknowledged God or sin....although obviously those that decide to be Baptized acknowledge and are aware of it...I thought Original Sin would affect all, thus a 'need' for Baptism, whether 'they' realized it or not... (although again, there are different types of Baptisms and all up to God in the end.....)
They always say one can come to know God through His Creation...does that mean 'in His creation, God is there', although in another sense, God is everywhere....
If that made any sense to anyone and they felt inclined to contribute...thanks
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"Catholicism and Eastern Christianity[edit]
“According to Christian theology, the transcendent God, who cannot be approached or seen in essence or being, becomes immanent primarily in the God-man Jesus the Christ, who is the incarnate Second Person of the Trinity. In Byzantine Rite theology the immanence of God is expressed as the hypostases or energies of God, who in his essence is incomprehensible and transcendent. In Catholic theology, Christ and the Holy Spirit immanently reveal themselves; God the Father only reveals himself immanently vicariously through the Son and Spirit, and the Divine Nature, the Godhead is wholly transcendent and unable to be comprehended."
Here's the website if you want to read the whole thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanence
Assuming Wikipedia is accurate, the Byzantine conception appears to be close to what I was trying to say above, though I have to say the whole paragraph confuses me.
New Advent library has a huge entry on Immanence which is just as hard to understand. Here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07682...
Someone more philosophically mined than me can perhaps explain it to us but as far as finding a nugget with the essential meaning, perhaps this paragraph is it:
"God, then, transcends the world which He has created, and in which He manifests His power. We know His works; through them we can demonstrate His existence and find out many of His attributes. But the mysteries of His inner life escape us; Trinity, Incarnation, Redemption are known to us only by revelation, to which revelation the immanence of our rational and moral life presents no obstacle whatever."
Perhaps there isn't an easy Catholic definition, other than to say God is both transcendent and immanent.
With advent coming up on us, a thought jumps to my mind. Does Immanence = Emmanuel? The sound alike. I don't know.
Right from the start we get an idea how Augustine thinks. He begins with God, and places creation and humanity in this context, and lastly himself. And just a few lines down in the beginning paragraph comes one of his most famous quotes: “Our hearts are restless until it rests in you” – this is the more famous wording. In my text the word “restless” is substituted with “unquiet”, as in the original Latin the word Augustine used is “inquietum.” The unquiet that comes from being away from God – as the footnotes in my text phrase it.
Augustine begins with his infancy and boyhood and weaves into it existential questions common to all humanity. “(2) Since nothing that exists would exists without you, does it follow that whatever exists does in some way contain you?” “(9) But you, O Lord, are ever living and in you nothing dies, for you exist before the dawn of the ages, before anything that can be called “before.”” And many more such thoughts. They remind us how deeply connected the eternal is with the temporal. Augustine never loses sight of this in his narrative.
He talks of how dependent he was as an infant on his parents and nurses, yet wonders how sin influences even a baby. How does sin grab hold of a soul?
Augustine enters school and like any child, he prefers playing with his buddies instead of studying. This is told in such an immediate voice we are right there with him. And when he realizes that some of the canings he suffers as punishment for playing instead of studying, while the teachers keep amusing themselves, we are rightfully incensed with him. Don’t we all have memories when the adults around us were not consistent in their actions vis-à-vis what they expected of us?
Augustine becomes more and more aware of his own sins and how they take hold of his soul.