Augustine's Tribute to His Mother

Augustine's Tribute to His Mother

Introduction

The Confessions of St. Augustine is probably the first book-length autobiography and certainly the most influential. Saint Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 353-430) pioneered the introspective study of one's own life; for him, this effort would ultimately lead to knowledge of God, to whom Confessions is addressed.

Confessions are divided into 13 books. The first nine contain a narrative of Augustine's life up until age 33, focusing on his religious and moral development. Augustine's life here is quite busy. In traveling to Carthage, Rome, and Milan to study and teach, he makes many friends and encounters various religious and philosophical movements, most of which carry him further from God. Much of Confessions' narrative is marked by Augustine's regret over his youthful sinfulness. As a middle-aged Christian writing Confessions, he knows the moral standard he should have adhered to, and he laments that he had previously ignored God in favor of the fleeting pleasures of sex, vanity, and lawlessness. The climax of the narrative books is Augustine's conversion to Christianity, which occurs dramatically in a Milan garden.

Book 1

Following a lengthy invocation in which his ecstatic adoration of Deity manifests itself, Augustine arrives at his birth in the sixth chapter of the first book. He knew, he says, only how to suckle, be satisfied with pleasant things, and to cry when he was hurt. Later he learned to smile and to make his wants known by crying. When adults did not fulfill his whims, he became angry and punished them by crying more.

Thinking back on matters that he cannot remember—the desires that he felt in infancy—Augustine thinks that even as a baby he must have been both manipulative and sinful. In Book 1, chapter 9, he recalls the circumstances of his early schooling and how he was whipped if he was slow to learn. He recalls being punished for preferring play to school, and says that adults are not punished for analogous preferences.

Book 2

As the second book begins, Augustine avers that he wants to recall his failings, not because he loves them, but because he wants to love God. He confesses that as a youth he ran wild through various "shady loves." He admits to lustful and shameful actions in his boyhood. Matrimony might have saved him, but his parents were focused on his education, not on the state of his soul's well-being and the realities of postpubescent adolescence. His 16th year—a year the family could not afford to send him to school—proved especially difficult for the young Augustine.

His mother tried to redirect his course, but he despised her advice, favoring the approval of his wicked companions. If he could not match them in vice, he pretended to that sin rather than be laughed at for chastity.

Book 3

Book 3 opens with Augustine's arrival in Carthage—ostensibly to continue his studies. He confesses that he immediately plunged into love affairs. He also cherished the theatrical depiction of love affairs (chapter 2), in which he imaginatively ...