On St. Augustine
A Public Penance -- St. Augustine's Confessions and the Open-Reader Text
Autobiographical writing assumes many forms, some of which are more private than others: there are those written for publication and mass-exposure (such as memoirs or biographies), while others may be intended to be private (diaries, journals). Out of all the varieties of autobiographical record, the most personal statement imaginable is an individual's confession to God. The purpose of this essay is to determine the aim and significance of Augustine's choosing to write his confession to God as a text open to all readers. According to Henry Chadwick, while a great deal of the text is devoted to praising the goodness of God, the Confessions may also be read as an exercise in self-justification. If this is so, then how does Augustine justify making this intensely private, intimately personal testimony a document of public presentation?
To answer this question, it is necessary to analyze Augustine's view of human nature and his understanding of Christianity in general. When Augustin speaks of himself, he has little to say that is good; in the very first book of the Confessions, Augustine presents his view of infancy: "At the time of my infancy I must have acted reprehensibly...infant limbs [are] innocent, not the infant's mind." In later passages, he chastises himself with even greater vigor: "I became evil...it was foul, and I loved it...I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall." Augustine's self-loathing is also seen when he speaks of God, as he sees God in terms of discipline and punishment: "You imposed discipline on me and have forgiven me the sin of desiring pleasures." With this statement, Augustine becomes a champion of self-denial; his psychology is further revealed when he writes of the penalties that befell him during his youth: "Punishments were imposed...and no-one feels sorry for the children or the adults." He delights in the fact that he was punished because, as the reader knows, his conception of God is also based on punishment: we are all to be punished for the evil, sinful nature of humankind. It is on the basis of this model--children punished by the adult world, humanity punished by God--that Augustine makes his sweeping, authoritative judgments: "These are the chief kinds of wickedness. They spring from the lust for domination or from the lust of...sensuality"; "The consequence of a distorted will is passion."
Augustine's narrative gains credibility when he confesses his former willingness to live a sinful life: "I came to Carthage and...sought an object for my love; I...polluted the spring water of friendship with the filth of concupiscence." He states how he enjoyed the sinful pleasures of the non-Christian life and takes great pains to detail his psychological state during that period. For instance, when the adolescent Augustine steals the pears, he states: "Wickedness filled me. ... My desire was...not stealing but merely the excitement of doing what was wrong." In relating youthful misdeed like the stealing of the pears, Augustine uses the literary device of prosopopoeia to construct a portrait of himself in words. In the Confessions, Augustine paints himself as the happy sinner: a man who has lived a sinful life, yet was divinely blessed. Indeed, a second prosopopoeia occurs when Augustine is given sainthood, as his entire life is sanctified when the Church enshrines his memory. In this way Augustine becomes a Christ figure who is born, dies, and rises again--the second time as the father of the Church, as one who has lived a life 'free from sin'. Still another prosopopoeia occurs when Augustine constructs the 'face' of God in the following terms:
Who are you then, my God? ... Most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet most intimately present, perfection in both beauty and strength...incomprehensible, immutable yet changing all things.
In passages such as this one, Augustine justifies his behavior simply by constructing an all-powerful-God who exists as supreme legislator over every facet of the world, surrounding the individual at every turn. As an unintended result, Augustine makes the soul a prisoner of God just as he makes the body a prisoner of its own sexual desire. This idea of man-as-prisoner, constantly under surveillance by the all-seeing eye of God, would come to play a role of tremendous importance in the Western conception of human nature. Augustine's justification lies simply in the fact that he recognizes God as the unblinking ruler of life, and pays him His due tribute with flattery and an elegant prose.
"In seeking him they shall find him, and in finding they will praise him," Augustine says, seeing his confession as an act performed through God's love. To Augustine, this confession is a form of oblation, a gift-giving performance to God. "How can I call upon you," Augustine asks, "Surely when I call on him...[it is] an act of believing in [God]." This indicates Augustine's motivating force in writing the Confessions is to affirm his faith. "Lord, I would seek you, calling upon you--and calling on you is an act of believing in you." For this sentence, it is clear that Augustine believes his confession is an act of faith; the act of writing down his sins will bring him closer to the lord and closer to the nature of God. If this logic were to continue, it would follow that the more Augustine writes about God, the more he is a believer. Although this reasoning may have its holes, it nevertheless agrees with the logic of this period. In his ontological proof, St. Anselm (1033-1109) verifies the existence of God with a tautological statement that was, at best, circular and fallacious: according to Anselm, God's existence is proven simply by the fact that we can imagine such a being. Augustine employs a similar kind of logic when he reasons, "Why do I request you come to me when, unless you were within me, I would have no being at all?"
Certainly, the open-readered quality of the narrative is related to the religion Augustine has become a member of; Christianity itself is a self-justifying pfactice, as the Church legislates which thoughts and deeds are permitted and which are not. If one is a Christian, one is obligated to remain committed to the Christian code, a regime of signs which uses the Bible as a sacred, unquestionable text. Augustine uses his alignment with the Christian faith and its self-justifying ideology as a way of covering his tracks--this mendacious new way of defending the self: the tactics of the early Christians who throw down their weapons, as if to say, 'Look here, I come unarmed--let me go in peace--or else run the risk of jeopardizing thy soul'. Augustine clearly understands how, by using the Bible as the proof-text of a divine will, one can have no weapons, yet remain impervious. Augustine uses this same authority of the Bible to flesh out and substantiate his arguments: in the first book alone, there are over sixty Biblical quotations. In this way, with scripture and entreaties, through supplication and prayer, Augustine creates the illusion of being true to the facts. Augustine's text is so dependent on Biblical references, one suspects that he cannot even draw breath without finding God on his lips.
In book VIII, Augustine relates the most important chapter in his life: his conversion. He begins by telling the story of Victorinus, whose conversion is met with great celebration. This conversion story foreshadows Augustine's own acceptance of the Christian faith. Upon hearing this story, Augustine eagerly decides to follow Victorinus' example; at that time, Augustine tells us, he was growing aware of a dichotomous will within his own being: "one carnal, the other spiritual...their discord robbed my soul of all concentration." After Ponticianus has gone, Augustine goes into the garden, where he is confronted by a vision of "the dignifies and chaste Lady Constinence," who gives Augustine the courage to accept a life of chastity by givine him insight into the nature of Christianity.
There were large numbers of boys and girls, a multitude of all ages, young adults and grave widows and elderly virgins. In every one of them was Continence herself, in no sense barred but 'the fruitful mother of children...'
This sequence with Lady Continence can be read as the story of a writer who discovers his audience: when Augustine sees the faces, he experiences a revelation--he is flooded with ecstasy and a sense of purpose. Augustine then experiences a second supernatural vision, coming in the form of a voice of a young child, repeating the phrase, "Pick up and read, pick up and read." Taking this voice as an instruction, Augustine reads a passage which speaks of the worthlessness of a life of the flesh, and writes, "with the last words... All the shadows of doubt were dispelled." With his conversion, Augustine renounces his sinful life and "ambition for success in this world." Having discovered that continence is the meaning of a Christian life, Augustine gains the inspiration and courage necessary to live as a man of God. He accepts his lot as a man whose pleasure lies in making faces with words; he will become a man of God, and will write an autobiography that will prompt others to a similar conversion.
Herein lies the justification for this most private testimony as a text to be read by others: by confessing his life as a sinner and his conversion to the Lord, Augustine sees his confession as a work that convinces one of the vanity of sinfulness and the emptiness of the sinful life. The Confessions are not for God alone but, rather, are addressed in the spirit of the Lord to all Christian believers and to all potential Christians; to all those Augustine saw when Lady Continence spread her arms and displayed the multitude of faces who remained continent, and served the Lord. By justifying his life's passage from sin to conversion, Augustine justifies the 'open-readered' nature of his text. He writes this public confession because he wishes to acknowledge the transformative power of Christ in the hopes that his reader may also experience a similar conversion. For the same reasons that he became a Christian, then, does Augustine allow others to read his confessions: to bring the human soul closer to God.
Autobiographical writing assumes many forms, some of which are more private than others: there are those written for publication and mass-exposure (such as memoirs or biographies), while others may be intended to be private (diaries, journals). Out of all the varieties of autobiographical record, the most personal statement imaginable is an individual's confession to God. The purpose of this essay is to determine the aim and significance of Augustine's choosing to write his confession to God as a text open to all readers. According to Henry Chadwick, while a great deal of the text is devoted to praising the goodness of God, the Confessions may also be read as an exercise in self-justification. If this is so, then how does Augustine justify making this intensely private, intimately personal testimony a document of public presentation?
To answer this question, it is necessary to analyze Augustine's view of human nature and his understanding of Christianity in general. When Augustin speaks of himself, he has little to say that is good; in the very first book of the Confessions, Augustine presents his view of infancy: "At the time of my infancy I must have acted reprehensibly...infant limbs [are] innocent, not the infant's mind." In later passages, he chastises himself with even greater vigor: "I became evil...it was foul, and I loved it...I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall." Augustine's self-loathing is also seen when he speaks of God, as he sees God in terms of discipline and punishment: "You imposed discipline on me and have forgiven me the sin of desiring pleasures." With this statement, Augustine becomes a champion of self-denial; his psychology is further revealed when he writes of the penalties that befell him during his youth: "Punishments were imposed...and no-one feels sorry for the children or the adults." He delights in the fact that he was punished because, as the reader knows, his conception of God is also based on punishment: we are all to be punished for the evil, sinful nature of humankind. It is on the basis of this model--children punished by the adult world, humanity punished by God--that Augustine makes his sweeping, authoritative judgments: "These are the chief kinds of wickedness. They spring from the lust for domination or from the lust of...sensuality"; "The consequence of a distorted will is passion."
Augustine's narrative gains credibility when he confesses his former willingness to live a sinful life: "I came to Carthage and...sought an object for my love; I...polluted the spring water of friendship with the filth of concupiscence." He states how he enjoyed the sinful pleasures of the non-Christian life and takes great pains to detail his psychological state during that period. For instance, when the adolescent Augustine steals the pears, he states: "Wickedness filled me. ... My desire was...not stealing but merely the excitement of doing what was wrong." In relating youthful misdeed like the stealing of the pears, Augustine uses the literary device of prosopopoeia to construct a portrait of himself in words. In the Confessions, Augustine paints himself as the happy sinner: a man who has lived a sinful life, yet was divinely blessed. Indeed, a second prosopopoeia occurs when Augustine is given sainthood, as his entire life is sanctified when the Church enshrines his memory. In this way Augustine becomes a Christ figure who is born, dies, and rises again--the second time as the father of the Church, as one who has lived a life 'free from sin'. Still another prosopopoeia occurs when Augustine constructs the 'face' of God in the following terms:
Who are you then, my God? ... Most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet most intimately present, perfection in both beauty and strength...incomprehensible, immutable yet changing all things.
In passages such as this one, Augustine justifies his behavior simply by constructing an all-powerful-God who exists as supreme legislator over every facet of the world, surrounding the individual at every turn. As an unintended result, Augustine makes the soul a prisoner of God just as he makes the body a prisoner of its own sexual desire. This idea of man-as-prisoner, constantly under surveillance by the all-seeing eye of God, would come to play a role of tremendous importance in the Western conception of human nature. Augustine's justification lies simply in the fact that he recognizes God as the unblinking ruler of life, and pays him His due tribute with flattery and an elegant prose.
"In seeking him they shall find him, and in finding they will praise him," Augustine says, seeing his confession as an act performed through God's love. To Augustine, this confession is a form of oblation, a gift-giving performance to God. "How can I call upon you," Augustine asks, "Surely when I call on him...[it is] an act of believing in [God]." This indicates Augustine's motivating force in writing the Confessions is to affirm his faith. "Lord, I would seek you, calling upon you--and calling on you is an act of believing in you." For this sentence, it is clear that Augustine believes his confession is an act of faith; the act of writing down his sins will bring him closer to the lord and closer to the nature of God. If this logic were to continue, it would follow that the more Augustine writes about God, the more he is a believer. Although this reasoning may have its holes, it nevertheless agrees with the logic of this period. In his ontological proof, St. Anselm (1033-1109) verifies the existence of God with a tautological statement that was, at best, circular and fallacious: according to Anselm, God's existence is proven simply by the fact that we can imagine such a being. Augustine employs a similar kind of logic when he reasons, "Why do I request you come to me when, unless you were within me, I would have no being at all?"
Certainly, the open-readered quality of the narrative is related to the religion Augustine has become a member of; Christianity itself is a self-justifying pfactice, as the Church legislates which thoughts and deeds are permitted and which are not. If one is a Christian, one is obligated to remain committed to the Christian code, a regime of signs which uses the Bible as a sacred, unquestionable text. Augustine uses his alignment with the Christian faith and its self-justifying ideology as a way of covering his tracks--this mendacious new way of defending the self: the tactics of the early Christians who throw down their weapons, as if to say, 'Look here, I come unarmed--let me go in peace--or else run the risk of jeopardizing thy soul'. Augustine clearly understands how, by using the Bible as the proof-text of a divine will, one can have no weapons, yet remain impervious. Augustine uses this same authority of the Bible to flesh out and substantiate his arguments: in the first book alone, there are over sixty Biblical quotations. In this way, with scripture and entreaties, through supplication and prayer, Augustine creates the illusion of being true to the facts. Augustine's text is so dependent on Biblical references, one suspects that he cannot even draw breath without finding God on his lips.
In book VIII, Augustine relates the most important chapter in his life: his conversion. He begins by telling the story of Victorinus, whose conversion is met with great celebration. This conversion story foreshadows Augustine's own acceptance of the Christian faith. Upon hearing this story, Augustine eagerly decides to follow Victorinus' example; at that time, Augustine tells us, he was growing aware of a dichotomous will within his own being: "one carnal, the other spiritual...their discord robbed my soul of all concentration." After Ponticianus has gone, Augustine goes into the garden, where he is confronted by a vision of "the dignifies and chaste Lady Constinence," who gives Augustine the courage to accept a life of chastity by givine him insight into the nature of Christianity.
There were large numbers of boys and girls, a multitude of all ages, young adults and grave widows and elderly virgins. In every one of them was Continence herself, in no sense barred but 'the fruitful mother of children...'
This sequence with Lady Continence can be read as the story of a writer who discovers his audience: when Augustine sees the faces, he experiences a revelation--he is flooded with ecstasy and a sense of purpose. Augustine then experiences a second supernatural vision, coming in the form of a voice of a young child, repeating the phrase, "Pick up and read, pick up and read." Taking this voice as an instruction, Augustine reads a passage which speaks of the worthlessness of a life of the flesh, and writes, "with the last words... All the shadows of doubt were dispelled." With his conversion, Augustine renounces his sinful life and "ambition for success in this world." Having discovered that continence is the meaning of a Christian life, Augustine gains the inspiration and courage necessary to live as a man of God. He accepts his lot as a man whose pleasure lies in making faces with words; he will become a man of God, and will write an autobiography that will prompt others to a similar conversion.
Herein lies the justification for this most private testimony as a text to be read by others: by confessing his life as a sinner and his conversion to the Lord, Augustine sees his confession as a work that convinces one of the vanity of sinfulness and the emptiness of the sinful life. The Confessions are not for God alone but, rather, are addressed in the spirit of the Lord to all Christian believers and to all potential Christians; to all those Augustine saw when Lady Continence spread her arms and displayed the multitude of faces who remained continent, and served the Lord. By justifying his life's passage from sin to conversion, Augustine justifies the 'open-readered' nature of his text. He writes this public confession because he wishes to acknowledge the transformative power of Christ in the hopes that his reader may also experience a similar conversion. For the same reasons that he became a Christian, then, does Augustine allow others to read his confessions: to bring the human soul closer to God.
posted by Andrew B. Noselli at 8:58 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home