. Spinning .

Augustine acknowledges his sins of youth, his excesses and preoccupation with lustful sex.  He also admits to the stealing of fruit, pears that he neither needed or wanted but along with a group of friends, stole for the pure reason of stealing.

But there is a different maner of presentation of good and evil, in that Augustine appears to allow levels of goodness to earthly pleasures that go from a low end up to the pure, highest level found in God.  Thus, he gives honor to God for granting man all pleasures, while exhorting man to seek the highest level for true happiness and good.

The life which we live in this world has its attractiveness because of a certain measure in its beauty and its harmony with all these inferior objects that are beautiful.  Human friendship is also a nest of love and gentleness because of the unity it brings about between many souls.  Yet sin is committed for the sake of all these things and others of this kind when, in consequence of an immoderate urge towards those things which are at the bottom end of the scale of good, we abandon the higher and supreme goods, that is you, Lord God, and your truth and law.  (II:10)

At the end of this Book, Augustine again brings in the danger of elevating the favor of friends over that of God’s  when he speaks of his deplorable stealing of the pears and the motivation for the act:

Why then did I derive pleasure from an act I would not have done on my own?  Is it that nobody can easily laugh when alone?  Certainly no one readily laughs when alone; yet sometimes laughter overcomes individuals when no one else is present if their senses or their mind perceived somthing utterly absurd.  But alone I would not have done it, could not conceivably have done it by myself.  (…) Friendship can be a dangerous enemy, a seduction of the mind lying beyond the reach of investigation.  (II:17)

In this way, Augustine acknowledges the pleasures of life as gifts from God, but warns that they should not be held in esteem above the giver.

How often do we appreciate the pleasure of chocolate, dark sweet cherries, a phone call from a friend, a poem, a kiss, without ever giving thought to the wonder behind them?

Still wearing his hairshirt as he recalls his adolescence and youth, Augustine again brings to mind the pursuit and meaning of Boethius’ aspirations of the mind and spirit and their potential danger from the body.  Here he stresses the difference between love and physical lust:

The single desire that dominated my search for delight was simply to love and be loved.  But no restraint was imposed by the exchange of mind with mind, which marks the brightly lit pathway of friendship. (II: 2)

And then emphasizes the toll it takes on the more proper pursuit of wisdom and truth, and good:

I had become deafened by the clanking chain of my mortal condition, the penalty of my pride.

Augustine then recognizing his errors in wasting time and effort on the physical, still admits to the pleasure as a part of man’s nature and God’s gift:

Even so, I could not have been wholly content to confine sexual union to acts intended to procreate children, as your law prescribes, Lord.  For you shape the propagation of our mortal race, imposing your gentle hand to soften the brambles which were excluded from your paradise.  (II:3)

His disagreement then, is not with God, but rather with "His" laws as handed down by man, or the church.  Augustine believed, perhaps, that as God intended it, sex would be a spiritual as well as a physical union that would serve to elevate rather than bring people to denigrate themselves and others as can happen.

In winding up Book I, Augustine gives thanks to God for the goodness in man’s nature, in his own, despite the temptations of folly that steered him off in directions other than what his elders and academic teaching tried to force onto him. 

There’s a balance he tries, I think, to reach between the scholarly and the natural instincts of learning.  While he derides himself for his interests in playing rather than study, he at the same time questions the methods by which he was taught, as well as the subject matter.  He appears to question the time spent in learning prose when instead of seeking reward in competition of lessons well-learnt, he might have been learning the true nature of his fellow mates, and more, of God.

My sin consisted in this, that I sought pleasure, sublimity, and truth not in God but in his creatures, in myself and other created beings.  (I:31)

This would seem that Augustine believes that the things of the world are not only unimportant, as I seem to recall from Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, but draw one away from the primary purpose of seeking Good.  But the basics of knowledge, of language and science and theology and history are necessary to lay a groundwork upon which to build a framework of understanding, and thus honoring God by using the talents given in combination with learning.

One thing I think I can take pride in is that I worried many thoughts about what makes certain people think and behave as they do, but more: I always questioned my own motivations. 

It’s one thing to tell yourself and others that you take a noble stance, and yet with material reward at stake, greed needs to be addressed.  As Augustine has said: "…by listening to people talking; and they in turn were the audience for my thoughts." (1:23)

Thorough research demands to see both sides, to weigh them, to explicate and form them back into intelligence and reason by logical means. It is sometimes difficult to judge one’s own intentions, and the "audience" of willing (and tremendously patient, I might add) friends to listen and offer perspective (which is only one hop away from perception, after all) was a valuable key to developing an understanding of the situation.  Emotion sways (from Consolation?) and taints what should be determined instead by ethics and compromise of desires.  So yes, "an audience for my thoughts" was more than valuable, priceless.  I only wish there were more willing, perhaps, to establish a definitive position; those who offered though, were wise and trustworthy to be neutral and openminded.

In an e-mail from Loretta (who unfortunately couldn’t do anything for me as a lawyer as she practices in New York), she’s given me more reason to learn from the experience since I claim to be a writer and she, indeed is one:

"These are such emotional issues, as great as any King Lear tragedies. Sister against sister, a father’s trust betrayed, inheritance squandered, fidelity broken, and the frustration and bitterness over no one listening or caring."

While I could never write these things as direct narrative, the means and methods will become a part of some unknown character some day.  Motivation is not always money:  motivation is freedom for one, resolution for another, and for one, truth.

Having set Augustine aside to deal with pressing issues, I pick him up again at a point where he questions both parenting and formal means of education.  He claims, I think, that as a boy what he was forced to learn by study and beatings for failures, was something that he felt at the time was wrong when life observance brought with it better understanding of the lessons.

Why then did I hate Greek which has similar songs to sing?  Homer was skilled at weaving such stories, and with sheer delight mixed vanity.  Yet to me as a boy he was repellent.  I can well believe that Greek boys feel the same about Virgil when they are forced to learn him in the way that I learnt Homer.  The difficulty lies there: the difficulty of learning a foreign language at all.  It sprinkles gall, as it were, over all the charm of the stories the Greeks tell. (1:23)

Augustine does not give me the solace of philosophy as Boethius had, but rather shows both sides; what he in youth did in rebellion, and yet still half approves of as a man.  He makes me think.  While understanding him, I cannot help but try to understand mankind and selfishly, myself.

I learnt Latin without the threat of punishment from anyone forcing me to learn it.  My own heart constrained me to bring its concepts to birth, which I could not have done unless I had learnt some words, not from formal teaching but by listening to people talking; and they in turn were the audience for my thoughts. (1:23) 

What can I take from Augustine?  Right now, the knowledge of using experience to grow.  While best, of course, to put behind me the anguish of the past few years as soon as it is truly past and done, it will have been wasted if nothing is learned.  That is, not that something must be learned, but that it can offer opportunity.  Motivation, interaction, depth of dedication to truth, acceptance.  Study living things as well as any written words.  I can learn the language of man’s nature by watching man. That, I think, is what Augustine teaches here.

Picking up Confessions once again, hopeful of going onward with a mind at peace and open to understanding.  I find that place again where I had hovered, halted.  It wasn’t clear and yet the thoughts of Augustine’s words were close to what he’s written. 

Shall I go back and read again–it was of learning, study, academic, discipline and choice, or on to further words?

I must go back.  There is a groundwork being laid here by Augustine who didn’t necessarily keep hypertext in mind.

I’m at a point of being stuck for a wee bit as Augustine appears to deride formal education for the more natural method of observation.  But there are a few things that seem necessary to take into account, such as if he is upbraiding himself for taking this path or whether he is questioning teaching methods of forced learning of some directions of study, and of which, the simple staples or the literary prose are indeed the better and more of value.

Piled on top of this I take it are some misjudgments by his peers and scholars of his own station that may color his tone of voice.

So this must be reread, in a quiet room, with the open mind of peace.

Being aware of the language use as I read, I’m also aware that unless there’s a copy of the original around to read in the language written by Augustine, the text is subject to the choice of the translator, and therefore, not pure Augustine.  This naturally bothers me.  And why wouldn’t it?  It’s obvious that in English, a teeny comma can change meaning in a sentence.  After four semesters of Spanish, it was even more obvious how difficult it is to capture one language into a fair representation of another.

I’m using Oxford World’s Classics edition, translated by Henry Chadwick (1991), and this comes from Book 1, chapter 12:

If I was conceived in iniquity and in sins my mother nourished me in her womb’ (Ps. 50:7), I ask you, my God, I ask Lord, where and when your servant was innocent?  But of that time i say nothing more.  I feel no sense of responsibility now for a time of which I recall not a single trace.  (p. 10)

Online, I found this translation by Albert C. Outler(1955):

But if “I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin my mother nourished me in her womb," where, I pray thee, O my God, where, O Lord, or when was I, thy servant, ever innocent? But see now, I pass over that period, for what have I to do with a time from which I can recall no memories?

Also online, at Bartleby’s, a Harvard Classic with a translation by Edward Pusey (1909-14):

But if I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, 28 where, I beseech Thee, O my God, where, Lord, or when, was I Thy servant guiltless? But, lo! that period I pass by; and what have I now to do with that, of which I can recall no vestige?

The first obvious difference is the missing "nourished" in Pusey’s translation.  He also uses beseech in place of ask or pray.  The innocent of Chadwick and Outler’s versions becomes guiltless in Pusey’s. A trace becomes a memory becomes a vestige.  There is an influence of the contemporary as we look at the particular time periods in which the Confessions was translated, and language choice was evidently affected by the translator’s colloquialisms and normal style as well as era.

Basically the meaning among the three remains the same, notwithstanding the tone.  But for the sensitive reader, this is part of the entire reading experience and does indeed change his own interpretation which, of course, is yet another generation of perception.

There has evidently always been the question of whether the egg or the chicken came first, and Augustine, in this epistle of faith includes science in the form of empirical consideration of infants–thereby acknowledging ignorance of his own infancy and the relationship with all mankind in this instance–addresses the nature of man:

Yet for an infant of that age, could it be reckoned good to use tears in trying to obtain what it would have been harmful to get, to be vehemently indignant at the refusals of free and older people and of parents or many other people of good sense who would not yield to my whims, and to attempt to strike them and to do as much injury as possible?

(…) I have personally watched and studied a jealous baby.  He could not yet speak and, pale with jealousy and bitterness, glared at his brother sharing his mother’s milk.  (p. 9)

Augustine does not merely quote the notion of original sin–a religious belief–but rather backs up his opinion that evil is inherent in man’s nature and must be overcome to be abandoned in favor of the good.  This is a point that has been argued likely for thousands of years and there still is disagreement on it.  Why is it relevant or necessary to know? 

Because society must establish some sort of functioning community and it does that by understanding the natural tendencies of the individual.  Rather than blame upbringing or society alone for spoiling a perfect infant predisposed to do good, it needs to recognize that the tendency leans toward selfishness and disregard for others.  Hence, approach the matter from a different point and adapt a reasonable solution accordingly.

While it is not with thought of critique here, for story or narrative style, I can’t help but allow that to enter into the reading despite my best efforts to alone enjoy Augustine for the wisdom and philosophical theory he offers.

Who then are you, my God? What, I ask, but God who is Lord?  For ‘who is the Lord but the Lord’, or ‘who is God but our God?’  Most high, utterly good, utterly powerful, most omnipotent, most merciful and most just, deeply hidden yet intimately present, perfection of both beauty and strength, stable and incomprehensible, immutable and yet changing all things, never new, never old, making everything new and ‘leading’ the proud to be old without their knowledge’; always active, always in repose….etc."  (p. 5)

Augustine is quoting scripture here, and yet by recalling it in this text, he is affirming his belief.  What smarter way to start out this narrative but by buttering up the one who you believe controls your life, or at the very least has the answers you seek.

What a wretch I am!  In your mercies, Lord God, tell me what you are to me.  ‘Say to my soul, I am your salvation’ (Ps. 34:3).  Speak to me so that I may hear.  (p. 5)

And inevitably, the biggie:

What, Lord, do I wish to say except that I do not know whence I came to be in this mortal life or, as I may call it, this living death?  I do not know where I came from.

(…) My infancy is long dead and I am alive.  But you, Lord, live and in you nothing dies.  You are before the beginning of the ages, and prior to everything that can be said to be ‘before.’ (…) In you all irrational and temporal things have the everlasting causes of their life.  Tell me, God, tell your suppliant, in mercy to your poor wretch, tell me whether there was some period of my life, now dead and gone, which preceded my infancy?  Or is this period that which I spent in my mother’s womb?  (p. 7)

Rather boldly, Augustine asks God to explain the mysteries of the soul. He oddly puts the question as to existence prior to birth, rather than the more common wonder of permanence beyond mortal death.

And with such humble piety and great homage of words, do you think he’ll get an answer?

Though written 1450 years apart, these two books, one an essay of thought and history, one a fictionalized narrative of the same, are very similar in the theme of man seeking self and answers to life and purpose.  How wonderful to have selected these two as concurrent readings!

There is a palpable difference when reading a few pages of Saul Bellow and switching to Augustine.  In both cases we have a first person narrator, and the centuries separating the language is not the only difference in voice that changes the style of the reading.  There’s a slow and deliberate intensity to the reading of Augustine that comes not from the old style writing–and this is a modern translation–but from the context of what is being read.

Do heaven and earth contain you because you have filled them? or do you fill them and overflow them because they do not contain you?  Where do you put the overflow of yourself when heaven and earth are filled?  Or have you, who contain all things, no need to be contained by anything because what you will you fill by containing it?  (p. 4)

Augustine begins his Confessions by questioning the nature of God. This is a good starting point for anyone who studies theology because intellect requires that we question faith.  From introspection and reflection on self it is a natural step to seek answers to existence and creation.

Augustine’s tone, if faithfully translated, suggests a respectful line of questioning that implies a distance that wants to be traversed, a sense of ‘you made me intelligent enough to ask you this, and gave me the blessing to do so.’

Augustine may be exactly what I should be reading right now. 

Oh yeah, oh yeah, I really can’t wait to read what this guy Augustine has to say after this in the intro:

Augustine came to find his own mother Monica possessed of great wisdom, but she spoke in a demotic syntax.  In short, although he knew that well-educated and cultured women existed, yet they were the far side of the horizon.  He himself never had one among his own circle of friends.  So he felt sure that ‘if God had wanted Adam to have a partner in scintillating conversation he would have created another man; the fact that God created a woman showed that he had in mind the survival of the human race.’  (p. xviii)