Review of St. Augustine's Confessions

St. Augustine in 400 AD

"All things looked gloomy, even the very light itself"

St. Augustine was around 46 years old when he wrote his Confessions. Augustine was a professor of Rhetoric at a public school in Carthage in the Roman Empire. He ended up teaching in Rome and Milan until his conversion to Christianity and the Catholic Church later in his life.

If there was a blogger that wrote a letter to God and posted his thoughts and confessed his inner most feelings with each blog post, you'd basically have a bastardized modern version of what Augustine wrote in his Confessions. His confessions were just that, him confessing to his Creator.

It's so refreshing to read about Jesus. All the modern education I received banned the reality and impact Jesus had on history and culture, and with it, the philosophical and cultural past of our own Western heritage has been verboten.

What I liked about the book:
Augustine wrote some of the deepest and most honest questions I've ever read, and some of the most relative to my own life. He was concerned with which path to follow in life, and wanted to know if he was on the right one.

These were some of my favorite questions of his:

"Where do you go along these rugged paths? Where are you going?"

"I was sinking down to the very depths. And I said to my friends: "Do we love anything but the beautiful? What then is the beautiful? And what is beauty?" 

"I will set my feet upon that step where, as a child, my parents placed me, until the clear truth is discovered. But where and when shall it be sought? Ambrose has no leisure – we have no leisure to read. Where are we to find the books? How or where can I get a hold of them? From whom could I borrow them? Let me set a schedule for my days and set apart certain hours for the health of the soul."

That line really got to me, "we have no leisure to read,"  which is one of the struggles I deal with myself. But Augustine knew that in reading you can find health for the soul.

Part of me had given up on the idea that there was truth in life, and to a certain extent, I don't think there is any 'truth,' just perspectives. But I still look for wisdom. I still try to find the right answers to some of the same questions that Augustine he himself struggled with nearly 400 years after Christ was born.

I don't have very many answers.

But in reading literature, I have gained many different perspectives, which have given me a much broader understanding of my own place and time in this world. I appreciated his honesty. I appreciated his questioning and his openness. He was a very real human being that cared for these grand ideals, which is quite a refreshing contrast to the nihilism in modern books, i.e., On The Road by Jack Kerouac. 

It wasn't a fun read. Much of the book is about the nuances in christian doctrine and the nature of God. While I do, to an extent, find that interesting at times, it's really not my cup of tea. But I did enjoy Augustine's humanity. I would recommend you read it, too, at least some of of the parts where he was talking about his own personal experiences.

This was probably the most powerful quote from the book that I read:

"Men go forth to marvel at the heights of mountains and the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the orbit of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves."

When Francesco Petrarch, the father of Humanism, climbed the famous Mt. Ventoux in France, he had this very book in his pocket. As he reached the summit, he read that quote.

I find it an amazing reality that I can read this same quote and experience a somewhat similar understanding and awe that Petrarch had at the top of that mountain in France. I think that's what reading can do for you, share a soulful insight about life with fellow travelers across distant land and times. In the word we are connected to each other. Right? Isn't that what you are doing now reading this blog post? Are we not sharing a mind?

Good night.