The term “confession” has several meanings, such as admitting one’s sins and being ready to repent. Augustine began working on the Confessions when he was probably 43 years old (Teubner 1). There is no precise, clear motivation to write his own, but there may be at least two possible factors. First, his people were suspicious of his ideal standards, his career as a bright teacher of rhetoric, pagan-influenced education, his known reputation as an ex-Manichee (Teubner 57). By writing the confession, he would defend himself from this kind of criticism and demonstrate that his faith and beliefs were pure Christians. Another possible motivational possibility may have been brought up by his close friendship with Alypius, Christian converts such as Paulinus Nola, who renounced the world and his immense family fortune after his conversion to Christianity.
The Confession comprises 13 Books; books 1 to 9 recount Augustine’s life and spiritual journey, while book 10 shows the temptations, he was still facing. Books 11 to 13 are the extensions of the first chapter of Genesis. The first ten books were about Agustine, while the last three were about the scripture. All the Confessions had many themes such as nature of evil, sin, time, sufferings, lust, truth, wisdom and knowledge, weakness, pride, internal peace. According to Augustine, God cannot be the cause of evil. For Augustine says, “evil does not exist”(Teubner 78). Evil lacks good, and evil exists as long as good is absent.
Saint Augustine’s Confessions have a unified theme of inner peace. His reflections on it seem to bring his deliberate state of spiritual and psychological calmness, despite the burdens and stressors in his journey. He believes that human beings cannot find inner peace without involving God; he believes human beings were made to seek peace in God. There is excellent echoing of the solid ethical foundation portrayed by ancient philosophers as Neoplatonic and the Pythagoras vis a vis beauty; these are Augustine’s favorite themes.
Augustine was a student at Carthage, and he was troubled by troublers who interrupted his classes there, rendering him among the critical students who refused to pay their fees. In addition to that, he was financially inconvenienced (Teubner 157). Notwithstanding his disconcertment, he wishes and reassured that such students would be preferred to learn to money. He furthermore says, “You, O God, the truth and fullness of our sure good, and our purest peace” (Augustine 126). Despite being stressed, Augustine remains psychologically calm, thus concluding that inner peace is achievable whatever the situation.
At the time, Saint Augustine was describing the decision to resign his professorship after an upcoming vacation in the autumn holidays, with his chest problems giving him a further excuse to resign. He mentions to his students “who did not meditate on Your law or Your peace, but on foolish lies and legal battles” (Augustine 79). He continues by giving an extended analysis of the scripture in Psalms 4. Music was Augustine’s interest; he introduced the idea of singing psalms during the time of distress via the story of Ambrose’s Basilica. Shifting gears, love, according to Augustine, is not limited to human beings alone. But Love expands to God’s love for human beings, the love that the inanimate beings have for their natural lives. When it comes to humans, their love is multidimensional; it grows from one stage to another: love at infancy; love at adolescence; love for interests and desires.
From his infancy, Augustine indicates that he could not speak and yet he could sense bitterness and jealous in others. From the above statement, we can understand that Augustine never is fond of infants. Throughout infancy, infants would take everything selfishly for themselves only, constantly crying to be given attention and not to be ignored, to be loved only (Teubner 57). Infant’s love can only be described as love for hunger which demands to be filled, or love for pleasure that requires to be filled with comfort. That is why Augustine claims that love is one of the origins of sin; even at birth, everyone is got sin in them.
Next, the author analyzes the stages of love in adolescence. At this stage, humans start to experience different types of love. Here they will begin having desires to love, be loved, pleasures, love for earthly materials. Augustine says in his second book, “The single desire that dominated my search for delight was simply to love and be loved” (Augustine 144). He claims that humans’ thoughts of erotic desires of wanting to love or be loved could be the way that can lead to God or lead them astray from God.
Augustine attends a theatre show to understand human emotions and existence in another instance to feel the pleasure and love; desires of crying, weeping, laughing, and passion. It is clear that he wished to enjoy these desires and likes but realized gradually that as he enjoys giving into his desires, it led him astray from God’s path into alienation. Confessions has a central topic of sin, mercy, and fleeing. For the most of his life, Saint Augustine looked to be avoiding Christianity by engaging in practices and cults such as Manichaeism. Also, he is entombed in a sea of passion. He is avoiding confession because he does not believe he has what it takes to live a life consistent with the teachings of the Bible. Through the audience of sinners, this book had an impact on the Middle East. This book teaches the reader exactly what sin and confession look like in real life.
A topological understanding of how to confess and become a Christian is also imparted to the audience. In Augustine’s stories, the audience connects with them because they are relatable. Preachers who seek to reach out to the lost can find inspiration in this memoir. Inquiring minds who doubt their own misdeeds and God. This personal book shows those who have committed grave crimes that God is able to pardon them all. Many big crimes were committed by Saint Augustine, and he even challenges the Lord, “Why do you demand me to love you?” (Augustine 24). Augustine was saved by God’s grace despite his many transgressions.
Augustine introduces freedom as another set of theme that is evident in Confession. He says freedom is a man’s ability to freely have the presence of ‘evil will’ within the man’s soul. “They say this is the soul, enslaved, contaminated and corrupt…” (Augustine, 79). Free will is human desire that comes from the perfection of God’s steadfast love; this gives humans the ability to do anything freely. This proves that humans were made of God’s likeness and image.
However, freedom is not to be mistakenly used as an excuse for breaking the rules and guidelines to do anything illegal from someone’s locale. There are consequences to be met; thus, we are not free to perform actions without them being checked into balance. Augustine says, “I directed my mind to understand what I was being told, namely that the free choice of the will is the reason why we do wrong and suffer your just judgment” (Augustine 256). From his statement, we can note that freedom is the beginning of evil; as stated earlier that ‘evil will’ stay within humans’ souls. Therefore, it can be said that it is in humans’ nature that when they get any freedom, they will commit evil.
Augustine was faced with other challenges that later affected his general growth, especially while at school. In Carthage, Augustine came across a quote in the book Hortensias by Cicero, which says, “It is the pursuit of truth through a philosophy that leads a person to a thoroughly happy life” (Augustine 122). This line of quote impacted Augustine’s life and affected his growth. Still, in Carthage, he came across the Bible. Still, he had a negative attitude at first sight on the Bible since he thought the Bible was not as much comprehensive and philosophical as he wanted. But when his friend Alypius hinted about the monks that he had come across on his tour from Egypt, seeking the spiritual truth. Augustine felt humiliated and started seeking the truth about faith, and thus it led him to give up all the earthly things and started concentrating on the Godly ways.
In the City of God, Augustine considers fall of Adam as both a secret and an open sin. Its secrecy is brought about by how Adam was perceived as being superior over Eve but was easily convinced to eating the fruit of tree of knowledge. Its openness is seen as Adam directly disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit. Thus, Adam’s disobedience can be seen as self-exaltation of Adam as God and this leads to his falling from God’s grace. Sin can be said to be individuals’ self-exaltation to be as God before others like Adam turning from light to be the light himself.
After Augustine had a repetition of the fall, he plunged himself into the sea of lust. According to City of God, what were the consequences of lust? The way of the earthly city is outlined as a way of lust, where one turns to the good of the world for themselves. Sexual lust is obvious evidence of a misdirected love, here the body is in control and refuses to listen to the spirit hence pulling the spirit into earthly pleasures. The consequence of lust is death as the connection between the two is well clear.
In conclusion, Saint Augustine’s Confession contains many different themes but putting more emphasis on sin. In his writing, he shows how sin leads us to God or astray from God. These themes are pretty related to those studies in other texts by authors such as Aristotle, Plato, and Euclid.
Works Cited
Augustine, Saint. The confessions. Clark, 1876.
Teubner, Jonathan D. An Analysis of Augustine’s Confessions. Macat Library, 2018.