Summary: Confessions (page 3)

This echoes Stoic arguments for the perfection of the whole, understood as a harmonious Cosmos, as exemplified in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.

The apparent imperfection of an event arises from isolating it from the sequence to which it belongs: imperfection is always an abstraction.

Moreover, evil is not a substance, but rather the perversity of a will that turns away from the sovereign substance—You, my God ¹. Thus, the origin of evil lies not in God but in human beings, grounding human rather than divine imperfection.

However, this enlightenment is fleeting, and human weakness draws Augustine back into a life of debauchery: My strength failed, and I was drawn back to my habits; from that moment on, I was left with only a tender memory, as of a fragrance from foods I was not yet able to taste ².

The conversion itself is not completed until Book VIII of the Confessions. Victorinus, a friend of Saint Augustine, publicly professes his Christian faith. Augustine burns with the desire to follow his example but cannot bring himself to act. He feels ashamed: he once held back out of uncertainty, yet now that his doubts are resolved, he still cannot act — while others have converted with far less certainty.

Augustine vividly describes this period of turmoil leading up to his conversion: Thus, I was tormented within; I was consumed by a violent, unbearable shame ³.

He seems to lose all willpower: How my thoughts lashed my soul, driving it to follow me toward You! Yet it resisted and refused, offering no excuse at all. Every argument was spent. ⁴.

Thus, it is as though his soul were torn in two:

I was the self that willed, and the self that refused; I was both one and the other. I neither fully embraced nor fully renounced my desire. Thus, I struggled within myself and was torn apart ⁵.

He experiences the final resistance of the flesh and once again gives in to debauchery. At last, he hears a voice repeating: ‘Take and read.’ He then picks up the Bible and reads a passage at random. It called on him to renounce debauchery. Amazed by such a coincidence and convinced that God had given him a sign, Augustine converts and hastens to inform his mother, who rejoices.

He gives up teaching rhetoric.

Books X and XI are immensely rich and represent the heart of Augustine’s reflections on time and memory.

The Bishop of Hippo begins by reaffirming that God is not found in the world but within ourselves:

What, then, is this God? I questioned the earth, and it said to me: 'I am not God.' Everything upon it gave the same answer to me. I asked the sea and its depths, the living creatures that move within it, and they answered me: 'We are not your God; look above us.' [...] 'Then tell me something about Him,' I said. They cried out, loud and clear: 'He created us.' To question them, I needed only to contemplate them, for their beauty was their answer. ⁶

Thus, it is not through the senses that I come to know God.

Could it be through memory?

Augustine offers a remarkably profound description of this faculty. He is the first philosopher to devote such sustained attention to it:

I reach the plains, the vast palaces of memory, where lie the treasures of innumerable images born of perceptions of all kinds... ⁷

He exclaims: Great is this power of memory, vast beyond measure, O my God! It is a sanctuary of infinite magnitude. Who has plumbed its depths? ⁸

¹ VII, 16
² VII, 17
³ VIII, 7
⁴ ibid.
⁵ VIII, 10
⁶ X, 6
⁷ X, 8
⁸ ibid.