CONFESSIONS: THE ROLE OF FRIENDSHIP ON ST. AUGUSTINE’S SPIRITUAL JOURNEY Originally written during the fourth century, St. Augustine’s autobiographical book, Confessions, was among the most influential models for Christian writers over the course of a millennium. As it is arguably Augustine’s most important text, it continues to influence theological discussion even today. Through writing Confessions, Augustine proves himself to be a professional scrutinizer. He analyzes every aspect of his own existence in pertinence to his purpose on Earth and relationship with God. Amongst the numerous topics covered in Confessions, Augustine makes exceptional mention to the role that friendship plays in his spiritual journey. In St. Augustine’s Confessions, the role of friendship is seen as both a method of ascending to God while also a being a means of drawing him further away through sin on his journey to spiritual contentment. Augustine’s spiritual journey takes place on a serpentine track outfitted with tempting divergent paths and disincentives that are scattered throughout the duration of his expedition. As just one of the many different aspects of his life, friendship plays an essential role in his journey; consequently, it is also one of the many things that Augustine scrutinizes under his theological magnifying glass. For Augustine, friendship is among the most vital facets of human existence and poses as one of the many puzzle pieces in forming the picture of who a person is
Augustine’s Confessions is a diverse blend of autobiographical accounts as well as philosophical, theological and critical analysis of the Christian Bible. Augustine treats his autobiography as an opportunity to recount his life and mentions how each event in his life has a religious and philosophical explanation. Augustine had many major events happen in his life but only 3 events would deem of extreme importance to his journey to faith. Theses major events were Book II how he describes that he considered his time of adolescence to be the most lurid and sinful period of his life, Book III how this becomes the lowest point in his relationship with God because his
In the Confessions by Saint Augustine, this great philosopher experiences many problems and emotions related to sin and evil. As a boy, he often felt darkness, blindness, and confusion while attempting to find rest in God. Augustine started out in childhood with a restless heart because he had to live in two different worlds. These worlds consisted of his mother’s Christian faith, and the world of everything else. These two worlds confused and disturbed Augustine as a child. Augustine’s father was pagan and his mother was Christian, and they both wanted him to be very successful in the world. As he became confused, he began asking questions that could not be answered such as, “Humans often feel restless, but what is it they need to feel at
Augustine financial support for his education, he did not care how Augustine’s character would advance through his education. St. Augustine’s dad paid more than a richer man would pay for their son’s education because he wanted to provide Augustine with the proper education. (Confessions, II, 5). Unlike the attitude toward his father, St. Augustine showed a great deal of respect to his mother, Monica, since she was a practicing Christian (II,60). In spite of this, Augustine criticized his mother for holding him back from his sexual desire (II,8). But his father arranged his marriage and encouraged him to have children (II,6). Unlike Confucius’s teachings of remaining reverent to your parent, Augustine openly criticized his family’s wrong doings because God was his heart and only truth (II,5).
In Augustine’s Confessions, he confesses many things of which we are all guilty; the greatest of which is his sadness of not having a relationship with God earlier in his life. He expressed to us that to neglect a relationship with God is far worse than the pity he felt for Dido. In reviewing his life, he had come to examine life and how there are temptations in this world that can keep us distracted. He tells to us how he became aware of this fact; everything is negligible except love for God, and his own guilt at not having found this truth sooner.
In The Confessions, Augustine goes on a journey to discover the truth, and purses the ideals of how he should live and what he finds value in. In his pursuit for the truth and his journey through life, Augustine is faced with obstacles that significantly shaped who he is, forming his very thoughts contained in the novel. The obstacles Augustine had to face through his life was the confrontation of sin and why humans perform sinful actions, the passing of his friend, and the passing of his own mother.
In St. Augustine’s Confessions, the tension between knowledge of God and the habitual life, and by extension the struggle between continence and incontinence, are central to St. Augustine’s evolution as a faithful servant of God. These tensions are evident in several episodes of weeping throughout the text, as the true reason for his weeping stems from a disruption in the habitual life or from his inability to change his habits. St. Augustine’s weeping as a youth over the death of Dido, his weeping before his conversion, and his mourning of the death of his mother, Monica, all stem from the tensions between knowledge and habit, continence and incontinence, and help to illustrate St. Augustine’s development over time.
Augustine’s Confessions is an autobiography written around 400 A.D which details his spiritual journey, and each of the books address a certain element of Augustine’s steps in his spiritual path. In Book III, he develops his overcoming of lust by introducing the book with the line: “I went to Carthage, where I found myself in the midst of a hissing cauldron of lust.” (III.1, pp55). The theme of non-sexual lust instantly becomes the focal point of the book and Augustine presents the “hissing cauldron” as a low point in his relationship with God, for he wanders away from his creator by loving his own ways; however, he later discovers this was merely lust compared to the true love of God. In this essay, I will argue that Book III of Confessions
However, Augustine has another agenda- his confessions are also meant to show his praise and love for God. He says this in the fifth book with: "Accept the sacrifice of my confessions by the agency of my tongue, which Thou has formed and quickened, that it may confess to Thy name... But let my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess Thine own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee." This is a clear declaration of his praise to God, and almost another underlying message of the text to the audience. So as he is writing about his life, he is trying also to set an example to the audience about how his choices were not always the best and use this as a guide to their own lives. And finally through his story, use his conversion and change as a way to praise God to show that even someone who "strayed off" the path was able to redeem themselves and how merciful and good God is to accept someone even as sinful as he was.
Faith operates in a unique way by providing the average, the noble, or the distasteful with a means to understand the world we inhabit. However, our worldly experiences also operate as a means to understanding the complexities of our faith. For St. Augustine, faith provides more questions than answers, but consequently leads to his life as a bishop and eventually sainthood. For some, however, the Bible provides the answers to all the questions that go unanswered by common sense. In St. Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine is able to further understand himself and his faith in Christ by reflecting on anecdotes of his past. Conversely, the Bible’s use of etiology provides spiritual justification for physical realities.
In St. Augustine’s Confessions and Dante’s Inferno, the central characters in their respective narratives are presented a message from which induces distinct reactions. More importantly, their reactions are reflections of their perspective concerning the Christian outlook
St. Augustine is a man with a rational mind. As a philosopher, scholar, and teacher of rhetoric, he is trained in and practices the art of logical thought and coherent reasoning. The pursuits of his life guide him to seek concrete answers to specific questions. Religion, the practice of which relies primarily on faith—occasionally blind faith—presents itself as unable to be penetrated by any sort of scientific study or inquiry. Yet, like a true scientist and philosopher, one of the first questions St. Augustine poses in his Confessions is: “What, then, is the God I worship” (23)? For a long time, Augustine searches for knowledge about God as a physical body, a particular entity—almost as if the Lord
Augustine is our exemplar to human nature, as well as the guideline to what it means to be human. He demonstrates both the good and bad qualities that humans obtain and show that not everything can always be all-good. In the Confessions Augustine talks about how he knows about his own imperfections. He states “At one time in adolescence I was burning to find satisfaction in hellish pleasures” (Augustine, Confessions, pg. 24). Many of his imperfections have brought a new way of thinking about the human being. In the Confessions, Augustine focuses on his autobiography and how sin comes from inside us humans. From this we have learned about the term introspective conscience and how it depicts when someone is constantly looking at him or herself and looking at the motivation to sin.
St. Augustine was a theologian and philosopher born in Africa to St. Monica. Although he is now known as a an incredibly influential Christian writer and thinker, his early years were defined by rebellion and discord that did not, in the least, reflect Christianity or the values that he is now known for supporting. His early years were freckled with mindless disobedience, wretched behavior, and characterized godlessness that makes his conversion to the faith incredibly remarkable and one that is worth defining in Saint Augustine 's Confessions. His incredible turnaround from a faithless man to a devout supporter of Christianity is significant and is freckled with many major milestones that truly demonstrate his spiritual and internal growth into one of the biggest spiritual icons of the fifth century. These major milestones include his realization that his boyhood was defined by pointless rebellious behavior, even though he grew up in a Christian home, his new found appreciation for philosophy as well as God and his incredible mercy during his years as a student at Carthage,
The book expresses three main concerns. One is Augustine’s frank and detailed acknowledgment of his personal sinfulness and the power he came to recognize as God’s provident grace—protective, creative, salvific—in every moment of his life. He also wrote in order to confess his own Christian faith and clearly repudiate any supposed lingering connections on his part with Manichaeism. Finally, The Confessions are a heartfelt paean of praise and thanksgiving in honor of God’s glory.
At this point in his life, Augustine is recognized for doing many things for the Church as a priest, author, and defender of faith. As an author he wrote Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, and City of God, his great work describing the Christian philosophy throughout history. In this magnificent work,