Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Augustine tells us in the Confessions that his reading of Cicero's Hortensius at the age of nineteen aroused in him a burning ‘passion for the wisdom of eternal truth’. He was inspired ‘to love wisdom itself, whatever it might be, and to search for it, pursue it, hold it, and embrace it firmly’. And thus he embarked on his arduous journey to the truth, which was at the same time a conversion to Catholic Christianity, and which culminated twelve years later in his experience in the garden in Milan.
page 291 note 1 I am relying on the translation of the Confessions by Pine-Coffin, R. S. (London: Penguin, 1961)Google Scholar, and I will adopt his division of the work into books and chapters. The passage cited is from Book In, chapter 4, Pp. 58–9.
page 292 note 1 VII, I, p. 134.
page 292 note 2 V, 10, p. 105.
page 292 note 3 VII, I, p. 134.
page 292 note 4 IV, 16, p. 89.
page 292 note 5 VI, 5, p. 117.
page 292 note 6 III, 6, p. 61.
page 293 note 1 IV, 8, p. 79.
page 293 note 2 IV, 7, p. 78.
page 293 note 3 IV, 15, p. 86.
page 293 note 4 IV, 16, p. 88.
page 294 note 1 V, 3, p. 93.
page 294 note 2 V, 5, Pp. 95–6
page 294 note 3 V, 3, p. 93.
page 294 note 4 V, 3, p. 93.
page 294 note 5 V, 10, p. 104.
page 294 note 6 VI, 4, p. 115.
page 295 note 1 VI, 5, p. 117.
page 295 note 2 VI, 5, p. 117.
page 295 note 3 VI, 5, p. 117.
page 295 note 4 VI, 5, p. 116.
page 295 note 5 VI., 5, p. 117. John Hare has reminded me that even Satan accepts the authority of Scripture. Thus Augustine's faith in Scripture certainly does not carry him straightaway to the truth.
page 296 note 1 VII, 10, p. 146.
page 296 note 2 VII, 17, p. 151.
page 296 note 3 Brown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, 1969), p. 103.Google Scholar
page 296 note 4 VII, 10, p. 147.
page 296 note 5 VII, 17, p. 151.
page 296 note 6 VII, 20, p. 154.
page 297 note 1 VII, 17, p. 152.
page 297 note 2 VII, 9, p. 145.
page 297 note 3 V1I, 9, pp. 145–6 (Romans 1: 21).
page 297 note 4 VII, 21, p. 155 (I Cor. 4: 7).
page 297 note 5 I have benefited from David Burrell's formulation of this point in ‘Augustine: Understanding as a Personal Quest’. He emphasizes that Augustine, at one and the same time, wanted to ‘acknowledge his debt to the neo-Platonists and seek to enlarge the pattern for understanding which they offered to him. The inspiration for a new pattern is manifestly Christian – the difference between a disembodied word and a word made flesh is precisely the increment which discipline adds to insight’. Ch. I in Exercises in Religious Understanding (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), pp. 11–41, especially pp. 22–5. The passage cited is on p. 24.
page 297 note 6 VII, 20, p. 154. ‘For was I not without charity, which builds its edifice on the firm foundation of humility, that is, on Jesus Christ? But how could I expect that the Platonist books would ever teach me charity’?
page 297 note 7 We may well ask why Augustine thinks it is necessary to adopt these specifically Christian attitudes in order to lay hold of the truth. The answer, I think, has to do with certain specifically Christian theological doctrines that Augustine has accepted. God is viewed as creator – transcendent and majestic; and man, on his side, has separated himself from God by a sinful act. Within this theological framework, attitudes of humility and reverence become appropriate for one who seeks to know G. The Platonists do not see the need to approach God in this way because they have a fundamentally different conception of God and, more importantly, of God's relation to man.
page 298 note 1 VIII, 9, p. 172.
page 298 note 2 VIII, 5, p. 164.
page 298 note 3 VIII, 5, p. 165; VII, 3, p. 136; and VII, 10, where he states: ‘When I was trying to reach a decision about serving the Lord my God, as I had long intended to do, it was I who willed to take this course and again it was I who willed not to take it. It was I and I alone. But I neither willed to do it nor refused to do it with my full will. So I was at odds with myself’ (p. 173). Again, the Manichees should ‘cease to deny that when a man tries to make a decision, he has one soul which is torn between conflicting wills’ (p. 174).
page 298 note 4 VIII, 5, p. 164.
page 298 note 5 VIII, 7, p. 170.
page 298 note 6 ‘I was frantic, overcome by violent anger with myself for not accepting your will and entering into your convenant’, VIII, 8, p. 171.
page 298 note 7 VIII, 7, p. 169.
page 298 note 8 VIII, 11, p. 175.
page 299 note 1 ‘My lower instincts, which had taken firm hold of me, were stronger than the higher, which were untried. And the closer I came to the moment which was to mark the great change in me, the more I shrank from it in horror’, VIII, 11, p. 175.
page 299 note 2 See VIII, I, p. 158 and 11, p. 175, where he refers to the ‘worn and slender remnant of my chain’. ‘These voices, as I heard them, seemed less than half as loud as they had been before’ (p. 176).
page 299 note 3 VIII, 11, pp. 175–6.
page 299 note 4 VIII, 8, p. 171; ‘I tried again and came a little nearer to my goal, and then a little nearer still, so that I could almost reach out and grasp it. But I did not reach it. I could not reach out to it or grasp it, because I held back from the step by which I should die to death and become alive to life’, VIII, 11, p. 175.
page 299 note 5 VIII, 11, p. 176.
page 299 note 6 VIII, 12, p. 178.
page 300 note 1 Arendt, Hannah, The Life of the Min, Vol. 2: Willing (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978, 1981), p 14.Google Scholar
page 300 note 2 Arendt, p. 29.
page 300 note 3 These passages express this point clearly enough: ‘We conclude, therefore, that the movement which, for the sake of pleasure, turns the will from the Creator to the creature belongs to the will itself’. ‘If the movement by which the will is turned this way and that were not voluntary and within our power, we could not be praised when we turn toward higher things, or blamed when, as if on a pivot, we turned toward lower ones…’ On Free Choice of the Will, trans. Benjamin, A. S. and Hackstaff, L. H. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964, 1979), Book Three, pp. 87–8.Google Scholar
page 300 note 4 Augustine states in Book Two of De Libero Arbitrio: ‘Since a man cannot rise of his own will as he fell by his own will, let us hold with firm faith the right hand of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, which is stretched out to us’ (p. 84). But this is consistent with saying that human souls are blameworthy for not doing what they can (see Book Three xx, pp. 131–3): ‘He justly punishes them because they desire to remain in ignorance and difficulty, and because they are unwilling to arrive at truth and peace through zealously seeking and learning, and humbly confessing and praying’ (p. 133). These are just the things that Augustine was able to contribute to his own conversion.
page 301 note 1 It could, of course, be maintained that Augustine finally becomes free at the moment of his final decision, viz. in the sense that he is now willing and living in accord with his greatest desire. Our concern, however, has been with whether he has any freedom of choice in reaching this final state.
page 302 note 2 x, 28, p. 323.
