Reading Old Books - Augustine's Confessions Book IV

Today we are looking at Book IV of Augustine’s Confessions. I’ll be posting my summary of Book V on (about) February 12th.

Augustine begins to discuss a period of nine years from age 18 to 27. During this time he was a teacher of rhetoric, teaching his students what he describes as “trickery”. His goal was not that they would use this skill to have an honest man condemned (although it certainly could be used for that), but rather to act on behalf of a guilty man when it was required.

Augustine describes this period of his life as a time of seducing and being seduced, being misled and misleading. He pursued the liberal arts and “religion”, which he would later recognize to be a time of pursuing his ambition and superstition.

During this time, Augustine became friends with a man he grew up with. They studied together growing up, but were not friends at that time, only later becoming friends. This is an important relationship for Augustine because his friend would grow ill and be near death. His friend would briefly recover, but ultimately die, sending Augustine into a period of grief and mourning. Through this Augustine realized that this grief is caused by treating mortal things as immortal. Ultimately the things of this world will all pass way, and when we become attached to them, their inevitable loss tears us to pieces, leaving us with only a weariness of life and a dread of death. Time would ultimately dull Augustine’s grief, but not make him wiser, as he would again love others as immortal, setting himself up for more grief in the future.

Augustine uses the rest of the chapter to discuss his intellectual life during this period. He published a work titled “Beauty and Congruence”, in which he argues that there are two kinds of beauty – they beauty that is innate in an object, and the beauty that comes from the harmony with which it fits with other objects. Augustine notes that his focus is still on the things of this world. He also during this time reads Aristotle’s “Ten Categories”. Augustine notices that he is able to understand the work after his own reading, while other intellectuals discuss the difficulty of the book. This, of course, gives him the urge to trust in the power of his own intellect. The other thing that results from this is that Augustine uses the categories as a way to try to understand God, when in fact they are meant to explain the physical world.

This chapter reminds me that it is all too easy to love the world, despite the fact that it is passing away (1 John 2:15-17). Instead, to use Augustine’s vocabulary, we should love that which is actually immortal, which is God. Beauty, ambition, superstition, pride, knowledge will all disappoint and ultimately pass away. Only God truly satisfies.

Posted by David Fenton on Feb 2, 09:20 PM