Aurelius
Augustinus
Confessions
Book X chapter 1-40
Traduction
and commentary
Lord, you know me fully. May I know you, like you know me. May I
know you as I am known1.
You are the power of my soul. Enter in it and make her to your
own home, without spot or wrinkle 2.
That is my hope and therefore do I speak. And that hope is my
real joy.
As to the other pleasures in this life, we regret the most what
we not should regret, and the least what we really should regret.
See, you love the truth and he who does the truth comes to the
light3. This I like to do by my confession to you in my heart and in
my book before many witnesses.
1 Cor. 13:12; 2Ef. 3 5: 27; 3Joh
3: 21
Commentary
In
this book, written in the form of a prayer, Augustine directs himself to God,
whom he calls his Lord. God is here not an abstract
presence. Augustine addresses him as a person, as a You. This image
of God has something paradoxical. God is both the Lord, the transcendent,
who thrones far above man, and at the same time he is a very intimate
presence. He is called the power, the inspiration of the
soul. According to the famous statement in Conf, III, vi (11), is he: interior
intimo meo et superior summo meo, more intimate to our inner self than we
are ourselves, while at the same he thrones far above the human
consciousness. He is the one who is both immanent in man and transcendent
to him.
The
question that raises rather soon is: Who is this God to whom Augustine
addresses himself? It is, given the context and the many citations from
the Bible, probable to see in him the God of the Bible and the God of the
Christians. But with this we shift the question. For the question
remains how saw Augustine this biblical and Christian God?
Pascal
once created the distinction between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and
the God of philosophers and scholars, as if it were two separate
entities. Is he merely the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or the God of
the philosophers too? Is he the God of Christians or also the God of
non-Christians? Is he the exclusive God of a defined religion and creed or
the universal God, to whom everyone has access and can address himself?
The
following text has to show in what extent there is a reason for this
distinction. Let us first assume that God is the universal God, the God of
humanity, that is of Christians and non-Christians unless it turns out
otherwise
May I know you…
Augustine
desires to know God fully, like God knows him. It is good to know the
context of the Epistle to the Corinthians, that is cited in the beginning
of this book. It is a hymn to love. Although our actual knowledge is
poor, we strive for a mature and fully knowledge. Now we see as in a hazy
mirror and in riddles, but then we see from face to face. Now I know only
partly but then I shall fully know as I am known myself.
Knowing
someone has here his broader meaning. It implies also loving
someone. It aims at a full union with the person you desire to know.
The
desire to know God fully is asking for a state of complete and absolute
unity. It is not clear whether this is achievable in this
life. Still, Augustine is asking for this, because the desire is the hope
and the hope gives already the joy of completion.
In
fact, the quotation above implies two states. The imperfect state of the
soul at present as in a hazy mirror and the perfect state
that is desired. The latter condition is nothing else but the mystical
union of God and the soul to see face to face. This
quotation from the Epistle to the Ephesians gives it a particular
dimension. This talks about the love between man and woman, which is an image
of the mystical love between Christ and his church. The latter frees the
soul from an too individual desire. It refers to the union of Christ with
his church, that suggests the union of the divine Logos with all humanity.
What
Augustine desires is not a little thing. It is finding satisfaction in
this life with nothing less than the absolute. That means, to be
completely fulfilled by the light and truth of the divine Being.
You are the power of my soul ..
When
you assume that God is the power of the soul , then the desire to know God is
directly related to the wish to know yourself and vice versa.
The
task to know yourself is also the goal of classical philosophy and of every
pursuit of wisdom. Hence the classic adage Know Thyself. For
Augustine is this task, as he formulates in
his Soliloquia two-fold: to know God and to know the
soul. But this goal is only apparently twofold, because it is in fact one
single reality: to know God in the soul. Whoever wants to know
himself should know God. And who wants to know God must enter into
himself, to relate to the divine dimension of the soul.
To do the truth..
This
biblical view that knowing the truth must be taken in this broader sense of
doing the truth, is also evident in another way. Augustine was an early
convert to philosophy, in which the quest for the truth is a search for
wisdom. Philosophy in this sense is especially
a practical matter. It is about living truthfully and find true
happiness.
This
kind of practical philosophy requires choices. For Augustine it demands a
total turnabout. What we worry about it is mostly futile, once we have
come to realize that the only important thing in this life is to know God, that
is: to love him as the Being itself and to try to admit this divine power
within ourselves.
If
God is truth, then every other truth found in this life is only partly true and
only insofar as it related to this ultimate truth.
Chapter 2
Before your eyes, Lord, the abyss of human consciousness is
open.4 How could I hide something in my confession before you.
I would hide me for myself, but myself not for you.
And now my groaning is witness that I find no peace in myself,
you are my radiant light, my peace, my love and my desire. I'm ashamed of
myself, and reject myself, and choose you. And I can find only peace with
myself and with you in you.
To you, Lord, all what I am is manifest. I have already
mentioned what the benefit is of my confession. I do this not with the words of
my voice, but with the words of my soul and the crying of my mind, which is
well known to your ears.
When I am evil, I confess to you that I am displeased with
myself. When I am good, I confess that I do not ascribe it to myself. For you,
Lord, give your blessing to the righteous5, but only after that you
made him from an unjust to a just man.6
Therefore I do my confession to you both in silence and not in
silence: my voice is silent, but my heart cries.
And I say here nothing right, or you have it already heard of
me. And you will hear from me nothing right, or you have it already told to me.
4Heb.4: 13; 5 Ps.5:13; 6 Rom.4:5
Before your eyes, Lord, the abyss of human consciousness lies
open ...
The
first lines of this chapter, reveal already the tension that exists between God
and the soul. God knows the soul, but the soul does not know God or only
partially. To God nothing needs to be confessed, but the soul needs to confess
something to herself. She cannot hide herself to God, but only hide herself to
herself.
Augustine's
confession is therefore also directed to himself. Late I have loved you,
beauty so old and so new, late I have loved you. And see, you were in me, and I
was in the world outside and sought you there. (X, 38) That aspect too is
present in this book of the Confessions. Besides a conversation with God in
himself is it also a conversation with himself, with a deeper unconscious part
(literally the abyss of consciousness). And at the same time it is a
conversation with his readers.
In
order to know God Augustine wants to know the soul entirely. He speaks of the
depth, the abyss of human consciousness. This must be understood in the
broadest sense. In Latin conscientia indicates both consciousness and
conscience. His purpose is therefore to know the depths of the soul which the
superficial mind prefers to hide to itself, but which has to be revealed in the
light of the truth.
And now my groaning is witness ...
What
emerges from the depth is the groaning and sighing of the soul. It is a deep
felt missing, the desire in all its aspects. It is literally the physical
dissatisfaction with himself, since the soul is herself not enough and cannot
find in herself the ultimate truth and happiness.
But
this groaning also reveals an ineradicable longing for an ultimate fulfillment.
The sighing of discontent can turn into sighing
of love and longing, as the soul chooses to live with God. Here
is briefly expressed the conversion that took place in the life of Augustine.
The diversion of himself as objective and the turn to God as the source of life
and happiness.
In
this view there is in a way a conflict between the soul and God. As long as God
is not accepted as the power of the soul, she has a miserable existence. She
lives in darkness and dissatisfaction, which is perceived as a disease. That is
one side of what Augustine expresses in his confession.
But
there is also question of a certain unity between God and the soul.
As far as she tries to live out of God, she is overwhelmed by light and peace.
The joy of this experience is the other side of Augustine's confession.
Yet,
God and the soul are not identical nor is God the possession of the soul. The
relationship to God is characterized by desire, by a longing that is not
completely fulfilled. Augustine's confession is a cry of the mind and a cry of
the heart in the knowledge that God is at the origin of this cry and therefore
hears understands it.
For you, Lord, give your blessing to the righteous ...
From
the observation in Chapter 1 that God is the power of the
soul follows that whoever lives by this power lives rightly and
whoever ignores this power does not fully participate in the truth and is
therefore not living rightly. This principle of one
living rightly must be the original meaning of what the Bible calls
the righteous.
On
the other hand, no one can claim the truth and therefore also to be righteous,
but one can only aspire to be it. Augustine claims for himself in this respect
no merit. It is God who takes the initiative and leads the godless (which is
not always synonymous with the wicked) to the right existence.
And you will hear from me nothing right...
As
for himself, Augustine is convinced that he by himself does not have access to
the truth and in this respect cannot preach anything to others. It is God in
him, which is, like in every man, his magister interior, his inner
teacher, who teaches him what is right.
Chapter 3
What have I to do with man? What is the benefit that they hear
my confession, as if they could heal all my sicknesses? It is a race, eager to
know the lives of others, but reluctant to improve their own.
Why do they want to hear from me who I am, when they refuse to
hear from you who they are? And when they hear me talking about myself, how can
they know that I am talking the truth? Because nobody knows what's going on in
man except the spirit of man which is in him.1
But if they hear from you about themselves, they cannot say:
‘The Lord is lying’. To hear you speaking about oneself is nothing else than to
know oneself. Therefore anyone who knows himself and says: ‘That is not true’,
is a liar to himself.
But because love believes all things2, at least among
those who are bonded and unified by love, I want to make my confession to you
in such a way, Lord, that these people may hear it. I cannot prove that my
confession is true, but they will believe me, if love opens their ears to me.
1 1 Cor. 2:11; 2 1 Cor. 13:7
Commentary
As
already mentioned the Tenth Book is written in the form of
a personal prayer. Augustine directs himself from the beginning to
God, whom he calls his Lord. God is no abstract presence. Augustine addressed
to him as a person, a you.
Although this book is
written in the form of a personal prayer, this prayer is not private because it
is explicitly expressed in the presence of many witnesses. In this respect
it is a public testimony or confession for all men who read this book about the
truth he found. Who undertakes such a work assumes that this truth is not only
an individual but a universal one that concerns everyone and can be known by
everyone.
Therefore there is in this book question of a triangular relation. Besides
Augustine who directs himself in his writing directly to God, the readers who
read his confession are involved in this relationship too. They also have the
Word, the Logos, as their inner teacher. And from this position they
are witnesses of this search for God. It supposes that the reader will take
part in this search.
In what follows Augustine points out in detail what he expects from his
readers. The following chapters must bring them in the disposition that they
understand the scope of his words and are willing to listen.
What have I to do with men? ...
Augustine
uses as an orator all his rhetorical means to make that his audience, or in
this case his readers, may properly understand the content of his confession.
Hence that he departs from the negative. What is the point of writing this book
and revealing himself to others? He cannot expect any help from the side of his
readers to resolve his discontent.
When they refuse to hear from you who they are ...
Moreover,
he begins to consider as unsuitable that kind of readers, which only wants to
read his confessions out of external interest and curiosity. That kind of
readers do not question their own life and will therefore never penetrate to
the truth, nor in that of Augustine, nor in that of themselves.
But
he hopes to reach a different kind of readers, who are more internally
involved. in him and God. Readers who want to know themselves and therefore are
prepared to listen to God who is speaking in them as the truth.
This
chapter too is based on the vision that at the end of chapter 2 was expressed,
that the truth about man comes not from Augustine, but from God. It is the
divine Logos who as an inner teacher instructs man about
his life. This implies that every man can only come to the truth about himself
by listening to that inner voice, like Augustine tries to do. Therefore he does
not impute himself a superior role, but he places himself next to the reader in
the same relationship to God who is the truth. Both are united by the desire to
know the truth about themselves and God.
How can they know that I am talking the truth ?....
Here
the question is posed to what extent Augustine’s words are verifiable. The
content of his book would be meaningless if the reader cannot verify it in any
way.
His
words have no reference to an objective norm outside. Therefore you have to
admit that all is subjective, as far as it expresses an inner truth. Hence the
quotation from 1 Cor. 2:11 : No one knows what's going on in man except
the spirit of man which is in him.
Yet
you can verify what is said, as far as in every man lives an universal
conception of what is true. You may call it an inter subjective norm by which
in principle everyone recognizes and understands the truth in others. This is
in Augustine’s vision because everyman participates in the universal presence
of the Word, the Logos.
Condition
for this understanding is that the reader is willing to open himself to read
this confession from the inside, which is not the same as reading
uncritically. On the contrary, whoever reads this confession tests its
relentlessly by the Logos, the sense of truth that is in him. Important here is
the moment of recognition of what already is known internally. This applies
indeed to all literature.
Chapter 4
You are the physician of my inner self. Make me see clearly with
what benefit I do this confession. You have forgiven and covered up my past
mistakes, and so you let me find happiness in you by transforming my soul by
faith and your sacrament. It will stir up the hearts of others who hear or read
these confession, so that they don’t sleep in despair, saying: ‘I cannot do
this’. And the love of your mercy and the sweetness of your grace. will
encourage them. For your grace gives force to any weak person who is conscious
of his weakness.
It is a dellight for good people to hear the past evils of those
who are now free of them. They are not delighted in these evils, but that they
were in the past and do not exist any more.
My Lord, I open my conscience to you every day, relying more on
your mercy than on my own innocence. What benefit is it, I ask you, what
benefit, that I confess in this book before your eyes and all the people not
who I was but who I now am?
I have seen and mentioned the benefit of my confession of the
past. But many people too want to know who I am now, at this moment when I am
writing my confessions. Some people know me, others do not. Sometimes they
have heard something from me or about me. But their ear is not at my heart,
where I am who I am
So they want to learn from my confessions who I am in my inner
self, where they cannot penetrate with their eyes or ears or mind They want to
do that by believing me, because how else could they know me? The love that
makes them good people, tells them that I am not lying in my confessions. And
that it is love in them that believes me.
Commentary
You are the
physician of my inner self ...
Make me see clearly with what benefit I do this
confession ..
This
chapter continues with the benefits and the significance of Augustine's
confessions to his readers. The opening phrase is somewhat rhetorically as if
he should convince himself of the benefit of his confession. But although he
puts himself on an equal line with his readers, he still finds his spiritual
development worthwhile to be considered by others.
From
a life of restless search for truth, Augustine finally found happiness in God,
who is the Truth. He does not want to present this development as something
unique, but stresses that this development is meant for everyone
For your grace gives force to every weak person…
That
Augustine does not attribute his spiritual development to his own merits, but
to God's work in him, is more or less the main theme of his confession. More
than the emphasis on his own weaknesses and faults, his confession is a praise
to God, who is the power of the soul and the fulfillment of her deepest desire.
The
constant antithesis Augustine creates between human weakness and divine grace
requires some explanation. Because it cannot be that God's greatness can only
be proclaimed by portraying man as poor as possible. This opposition is in a
sense rhetorical, because it is still based on the assumption that the soul
finds herself opposite to God. But from Augustine’s point of view,
that God is the inner power of man, this contrast is no longer valid.
That is the positive side too of what Augustine calls his confession.
The
antithesis between personal merit and divine grace has also a polemical side.
It reacts to an opinion, which was popular too in the philosophy of that time,
according to which man would possess all the means to achieve his happiness and
thus was self-supporting at the point of his own salvation.
This
polemic aims in fact at an attitude of human hubris which is not open to what
man exceeds. But when you accept that God is the inner strength of the
soul, everyone has all the means in himself to achieve his salvation, by which
the above antithesis is eliminated.
Augustine's
position is one of modesty, by which he creates a connection with his readers.
After all everyone is weak by nature and dependent on God's grace. And when
Augustine in his confession would somehow rely on his own merit and effort, it
could form a barrier for the reader and discourage him to follow that same
path.
In
this matter recognizing your own weakness appears to be an advantage, because
it opens the soul to God's power. As far as soul misses or does not recognize
God's power, she is sick and God is the doctor who has to cure her. As far as
the soul experiences God's power, she experiences it as grace.
By transforming my soul through faith and your sacrament …
The
operation of this grace is seen here as a transformation of the soul by faith
and God's sacrament. Here we meet two terms which need some explanation. It is
not absolutely obvious that the current conceptions of faith, sacraments and
church are identical with these terms of Augustine's days. To believe means for
him at least not to accept and affirm blindly a creed. There is no question
that the mind has to be switched off when believing begins. In Augustine’s view
you must believe to understand, but equally understand to believe. Hence his
adage: Believe to understand (Crede ut intelligas), and understand to believe
(intellige ut credas).
On
the other hand, believing involves more than adhering to certain intellectual
insights. The inner sense that God is the strength and the fulfillment of the
soul, influences the whole person and demands to submit to that
power. It is this religious devotion, which is experienced as happiness.
The
divine sacrament is the baptism Augustine received. It is the symbol of a new
birth of the soul and a seal of this change that had taken place in his inner
self.
But
many people too want to know who I am now, at this moment when I write my
confessions…
In
Book X Augustine's confession has a turn. He tells no longer about his past,
but about who he is, the moment he writes his Confessions. He now leaves the
historic events to give the reader more insight into his mind and in what are
his inner motives at that time.
This
book is compared with the previous books more philosophical and focused more
inwardly It is the way of introspection, a quest for God's presence in his
consciousness. The fact that he wants to involve readers in this quest, means
that he is not only preoccupied with his individual consciousness, but with
human consciousness in general.
It
is clear that Augustine’s Confessions are not a simple autobiography. He may be
in a sense at the beginning of the confession literature, his objective is not
to give very personal story of his mental condition. His confession has a to
his person transcendent purpose. First by praising God for his work in him, but
then to incite the people (his brothers) to understand and love God. So he
summarizes himself the purpose of the Confessions in his Reviews (Retractationes)
at the end of his life.
Chapter 5
But what
good do they expect of this? Will they share my joy when they hear how
close I have come to you by your grace? Will they pray for me, when they
hear how I am held back by my own weight?
To such
people I want to reveal myself. For it is a great good, O Lord my God,
that many give thanks to you because of us and many pray you for us. Let
a brotherly mind love in me what you teach us to love and regret in me what you
teach us to regret.
Let it be the heart of a brother, not of an outsider, not one of those aliens,
whose mouth speaks idle speech while their right hand does evil1.
Let it be
the heart of a brother, who rejoices, if he approves something
in me and grieves, if he disapproves something in me. And, whether he
approves or disapproves , he is loving me.
To such people
I want to reveal myself. They will be relieved by what is good and sigh by
what is bad. The good is your work and your grace, the bad is my fault and
your judgments. They will be relieved by the first and grieved by the
last. And from their brotherly hearts this will rise up as incense for
you.
But you, O
Lord, who takes delight in this smell of your holy temple, have mercy on me in
your great mercy.2 You who not ever abandons what you have
started, perfect what is imperfect in me.
1Ps. 143:7; 2 Ps. 50:3.
It must be a brother, not an outsider ..
From the previous chapter
it became clear that Augustine writes initially for an audience that knows him
closely or from hearsay. But basically, he sets no limit to his readers on
condition that they read his confessions with the right attitude. He seeks
a fraternal, sympathetic bond. Readers should not be strangers and
outsiders, but sympathize with him in his quest for God's presence.
It is therefore not
obvious that Augustine only writes for insiders in the sense that
they belong to the church or confess themselves as Christians. It is more
likely that he aims at all the people who have a certain openness for what him
moves, recognize something of it in themselves and try to follow it.
Chapter 6
So, when I go on to confess, no longer about what I was, but what I am now, the benefit is this: that I pronounce it not only in my heart before you with quiet joy full of trembling and silent grief full of hope, but also before the ears of all believers, who share my joy and my mortality. They are my fellow citizens and fellow travelers on this pilgrimage, whether they go before me or after me or accompany me on my way. They are your servants, my brothers, who you have chosen to your children. They are my masters, who you commanded me to serve, as I want to live with you and out of you.
This Word of you would have little meaning for me, as it was only spoken in words and was not shown before in deeds. That's why I want to do your service with words and deeds, but under the protection of your wings. For the peril would be too great if my soul is not submitted to you under your wings. You know my weakness.
I am a little child, but my father ever lives and he is the protector I need. For he who gave birth to me and he who protects me are one and the same. You are all the good I have. You are the almighty, who are with me even before I am with you.
To those people who you command me to serve I will reveal not who I was, but who I am and still am. But I speak no judgment about myself.1
May they listen to me in this spirit.
11 Cor. 4:3
Commentary
That's why I want to do your service with words and deeds
The relation of Augustine to his readers is further elaboreted. It's not a brotherly relationship, but he considers the writing of his book as a service. In that respect all his readers are his equals. He tries to give direction to all fellow humans, who are like him pilgrims on their way to God
Augustine reers here to the lif of Christ as a service to men. He mentions him as the divine Word, the Logos, who is according to the Gospel of John is from the beginning with God and is God, by whom everything is made. It is this Word that works in creation and is the ligt of men.
Within the framework of his creative Word, that enlightens men, he places his confessions, as a service in words. These words, however, can only work if God is at their origin. God is the source of all knowledge. Hence he does not want to judge himself and also ask his readers to leave it to God
Chapter 7
It is you, Lord, who judge me. Even though nobody can know
what's going on in man except the spirit of man that is within him1, yet
there is something in man which is not known even by the spirit of man that is
within him. But you, O Lord, know all about him, because you made him.
Although I despise myself in front of you and consider myself as
dust and ashes, still there is one thing I know of you which I do not know
about myself. It is true, we now see as in a hazy mirror full of mystery,
but not yet face to face.2 And therefore, as long as I travel
far away from you, I am more aware of myself than of you.
Yet I know that you cannot be affected by any force, while I do
not know which temptations I can resist or not. And my hope is in the knowledge
that you are faithful and do not allow us to be tempted more than we can bear. But
with the temptation you give us also the way to withstand.3
I shall therefore confess what I know of myself and what I do
not know. For even what I know of myself, I know by your light. And what I
do not know of myself, I do not know until the time that my darkness is as
noonday4 , when I behold you.
11Cor.2:11 ; 21Cor.13:12 ;3 1Cor.10:13
; 4Isa.58:10
Commentary
It is true, we now see as in a hazy mirror...
After
the introductory chapters, Augustine gradually passes to his real
subject: to know God. This is primarily to know oneself. He
will confess what he knows about himself and what he does not know. Prior to
that he has to admit that in the human mind the knowledge of oneself and of god
is surrounded by darkness.
This
is partly because of the situation in which man finds himself. He has not
made himself, and he is not at the position of the maker who oversees
everything. His knowledge of him is partially, unclear, as in a
hazy mirror. He is more aware of himself than of God .He is alienated from
its roots, away from his homeland. That means: he wanders away from God,
his origin.
This
situation which can be illustrated with biblical texts corresponds with
platonic notions. It is the situation of the cave dwellers who, with their
backs turned towards the light, can only see the shadows of the true
reality. It reminds Plotinus, who argues that the soul has wandered away
from its origin, the One, and finds herself in a land of multiplicity and
confusion.
Yet I know that you cannot be affected by any force…
Within
this state of darkness and ignorance Augustine testifies that he nevertheless
has some knowledge and notion of God. The knowledge that God is an
reality that cannot be affected by any force. That means that God is
a supreme form of being, which by no external cause can be influenced or
changed. He does not explain in what way he came to this central
conviction. Was it by philosophical evidence or by mystical
experience? Or by both?
The
following chapters have to explain that.
Chapter 8
Without a doubt and with a great
conviction, I love You, Lord. Your word pierced my heart and from that
moment I got in love with you.But also heaven and earth and all that they
contain tell me from all sides to love you. And they don’t stop to tell it
to all mankind, so there is no excuse for anyone not to love you.1
But more powerful you will have
mercy on whom you are merciful and show pity on whom you have pity.2 Otherwise
heaven and earth would proclaim your praises to deaf ears.
But what do I love when I love you?
Not the beauty of a body,
not the charm of a moment,
not the brilliance of the light so
pleasant to my eyes,
not the sweet sounds of songs in
various tones,
not
the gentle smell of flowers, balms and perfumes,
not
manna and honey,
not the embrace of attractive
limbs.
All this I do not love when I love
my God
And yet there is a light, a sound, a smell,
a food, an embrace, I love,
when I love my God.
But a light, a sound, a smell,
a food, an embrace of my inner man,
where in my soul shines a
light that cannot contain any space,
where sounds a tone that does not
fade away in time,
where is a gentle smell that is
never blown away,
where I taste a food that never
diminishes the appetite,
where I know an embrace that
exceeds every satisfaction.
That I love when I love my God.
1 Rom. 1:20
Commentary
Your word pierced my heart…
In this chapter is clear in what sense Augustine has some knowledge of
God. He is struck in his heart by the inviolable divine reality and got in
fire with love. The human desire is here struck by the arrow of the divine
Eros.
There is a large emphasis on
the great conviction that Augustine loves God. God is here not so
much the conclusion of a purely logical evidence or the product of a blind
faith. God is an existential experience. Because: Your Word
pierced my heart and from that moment I fell in love with you.
In
explaining the action of the Word you can think of reading the Scripture or the
preaching of the Word, but parallel and preceding to it is the inner
divine Word, the Logos, who speaks in his inner man and touches
him. It is this inner experience of divine reality that led him to the
love of God. Parallel to this there is the recognition of
the Word, the Logos in all creation, that confirms God's
presence and encourages him to love.
In the Seventh Book of the Confessions, (VII, 16) Augustine
describes the initial experience that he is suddenly touched by the Word. By
reading some books, among others the Neo-Platonists Plotinus and Porphyry, he
turns in his inner self and discovers with the eye of his soul, the
unchangeable light, higher than his mind. And in love, he recognizes it as the
divine truth and eternity:
That love of God is here indicated
as Amor. It is the equivalent of the Greek Eros, which also means
desire. This love of God has the character of Eros in the broadest sense. In
his Confessions it is clear how strong Augustine's life is dominated
by this initial impulse of the heart, the physical desire for sexual
intercourse, but at the same time the spiritual desire for truth and happiness.
His development is not so much denying this initial impulse
of Eros as well redirecting it to a more spiritual purpose and
destiny. It would be a mistake as one would think that with the love of
God Eros would be eliminated.
But
also heaven and earth…
Not only the inner divine Word, but
also the consideration of heaven and earth could men bring to discover God's
creative Word in all things and to love him. All creation makes clear to the
mind the richness and ingenuity of its creator, but not everyone is as
sensitive for that. In chapter 10 Augustine will return to this subject.
And yet there is a light, a sound, a smell…
Augustine expresses his love of God
in physical and sensory images, while he at the same time denies that it
concerns something physical and temporary. He speaks of the inner
man (Rom. 7:22, Eph. 3:16-17), who is distinct from the outer man,
but in a sense is analogous and parallel with him. The inner man has as the
outer man senses, eyes, ears, a mouth, a heart. The whole body is here a
metaphor for inner experiences. Opposite to the temporary and limited nature of
sensory experience is the permanence and the fullness of spiritual experience.
We can speak of mystical love, because Eros is here the central impulse.
Despite the opposition between the
five senses of the body and of the soul, between the temporal and eternal
experience, it must be admitted that they both are inspired by a similar
desire. Although they don’t work in the same area, they draw basically from the
same source, Eros, who is of divine origin.
In classical
tradition, Eros is the child of Poros (Prosperity)
and Penia (Poverty). That involves that human desire is from the
beginning characterized by the consciousness of fundamental loss and at the
same time of total fulfillment.
In the following chapters there is
often question of a negation and of an affirmation that immediately results
from it. That is because in Augustine’s view the outer physical world does not
stand alone. She is in all respects also reference and image of a spiritual
reality. That does not mean that in this view the sensory reality is denied,
but is placed in a broader and more meaningful perspective.
The spiritual, the divine side of
the world is not directly manifest. The indescribable should always be
indicated by images and metaphors. It is obvious to search for these metaphors
in the immediate physical and sensory reality. Many of these images could be
called archetypal. But the image is affirmation and both negation, and should
not be taken literally. Always must be denied that it coincides with what it
refers to. Therefore the images as projections of the inner desire have to be
broken down and denied and formulated once more.It becomes more and more clear
that Augustine is aware that in the spiritual domain it is better to say what
something is not than what it is. This kind of denial
suggests more and does more appeal to human intuition. It also applies to what
he has to say about his God.
Chapter 9
But what is the God I love?I asked the earth. And it said I am not. And everything on this earth gave me the same answer.
I
asked the sea and its depths and the creatures that lived in it. And they
answered: We are not your God. Seek what is above us.
I
asked the winds that blow. And all the skies with all its inhabitants told
me: Anaximenes is wrong. We are not God.
I
asked the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars. They said: We too are not
the God you seek.
And
I said to all the beings that surround my senses: Tell me about my God,
who you are not. Tell me something about him. And with a loud voice they
cried: He made us.
My
questioning was my attention to them. And their answer was their beauty
Then
I turned to myself and asked: Who are you? And I replied: a man.
I have a body and a soul. The one is the outer, the other the inner part.
I asked the whole mass of
the universe about my God and the answer was: I am not God. He has
made me.
Commentary
We
are not God …
In
the search for God, this chapter is characterized by denial, because in the
ascent to the highest good any incomplete answer must be denied and passed by.
At
the question who God is, the earth and all the cosmic elements witness that
they are not God. God is superior and above all that exists. He is
transcendent to all this, for he is their creator. The human soul can
come to this conclusion by sensory perception
My
questioning was my attention to them…
Augustine's
question who and what God is has a particular character. In chapter 10 he
goes further into it. The mind is not a tabula rasa. Attention of the mind
is a condition for the information you get by your senses. Therefore the beauty
of
heaven
and earth is not only the external sensory beauty, but reveals also to the
attentive viewer order and coherence of everything.
But of those two the
inner part is superior…
This observation briefly summarizes the theme of this book: to draw attention
to the inner life of man, who is too much inclined to search outside. God
is a reality, which mainly should be approached in the inner world.
But
also the outside world speaks of God. That is the subject of next
chapter.
Chapter 10
This beauty of the universe should be evident for all those who
have good senses. Why does it not speak for everyone the same language?
The animals, from small to large, see it, but cannot question
about it. They have no reason to judge what their senses report.
But men can put questions, so that they by all what is made can
see and understand God’s invisible Being1. But their love for
the material things make them dependent and therefore they are unable to judge.
Moreover, created things only give answers to those who
interrogate and evaluate them. They speak always the same language, that of
their beauty. When the one only sees their beauty and the other, by seeing
it, also put questions, it appears not different to the one than to the
other. But although they have the same appearance, their beauty is silent
for the one and speaks to the other. Or rather, it speaks to all, but only
they understand it, who compare its voice, coming from the outside, with the
truth within themselves.And the truth tells me: Your God is neither heaven nor
earth, nor any other physical being. Their nature tells us this. For
to anyone who sees it all material nature is less in the parts than in the
whole.
But you, my soul, are, if I may say so, of a higher
order. For you animate the matter of my body and gives it life. No single
body can do this to another body. YourGod is fo r you the life of your life.
1Rom.1: 20
Commentary
Why does it not speak everyone the same
language?...
We
find here, as in Chapter 8, a reference to the text of Romans 1:20. It
refers to the human ability to understand God's invisible nature by considering
the beauty of the universe. Basically every person is endowed with this
ability, because one has to conclude to it is by human reason itself. Hence the
sentence that there is no excuse.
Yet
this ability is not fully used by everyone. As a reason is mentioned that many
people have become so attached to earthly and material things that they have no
sensitivity for the language that speaks the beauty of all things.
But only they understand it, who compare its voice…
The
condition is that one has to turn in his inner self and tests the beauty of
visible things to an inner mental standard and insight. This standard is
nothing more than human reason itself, the inner Logos.
When
Augustine seeks the God whom he loves, he seeks him first of all as
Beauty, for love is in a special way focused on beauty. And because of
this standard, the beauty of everything refers to an beauty which is spiritual
and absolute.
Beauty
means not only that something is well-formed, but also that it shows an inner
order and harmony. In this respect every man endowed with reason should
understand that all that radiates beauty does not stand alone, but is also a
reference to an absolute spiritual beauty, source of all order and harmony.
When
Augustine in his search for God lets all material things of heaven and earth
behind him, he appeals to the understanding of human reason, that all matter
is less in its parts than in the whole, and therefore cannot be
entirely perfect.
But you, my soul, are, if I may say so, of a higher order…
Here
at the end reappears the the interest of the soul and the inner self as the
immaterial character of man. The soul is in this view the center in the
hierarchy of human life. The soul gives life to the body, but at the other
hand receives life from God.
The
question remains open how God as the life of the soul can be experienced.
What do I
love when I love my God?
Who is he that rises above the top of my soul?
Through the soul I will ascend to him.
I will go beyond the power by which I am bonded with my body and fill its frame
with life. It is not by that power that I find my God. Otherwise the
horse and the mule, which have no understanding, could find him too1,
because their bodies have life by the same power.
But there is another power, by which I not only give live to my
body, but also can perceive with my senses. My Lord gave me this faculty, when
he ordered my eyes to see and not to hear and my ears to hear and not to see.
Likewise to each of the other senses he gave their own place and
function. And while I am one mind, I feed my senses with these different
functions.
But I have to go beyond this power as well, because I have this
in common with the horse and mule. They also perceive by their body.
1Ps.32, 9
Through the soul I will ascend to him…
The search for God is a way up. God is a reality of the soul and there
he must be sought. But even there he is the transcendent. He is beyond the
top of the soul.
The soul is not only the center of the hierarchical order between God and the body, it also has layers itself, who are subordinate to each other. Hence Augustine ignores step by step layers of such faculties which the soul has in common with the animals in order to reach finally a level where God may be found.
Chapter 12
I will go beyond this natural ability of mine and rise step by
step to him who made me. And so I come the fields and spacious palaces of
memory, where are the treasures of countless images which have been conveyed by
the perception of many things.
There are also stored the images which are formed by our
thinking, by which we increase or diminish or in some way change what our
senses have perceived. And it also contains everything that is stored and
maintained, as far as they not have not been sunk and buried in oblivion.
When I am in this storehouse of memory, I ask to produce the
images which I want. Some come forth immediately, others take longer
time, as if they have to be pulled up from more hidden places. Some emerge
in swarms, especially when I am looking for something quite
different. They crowd in front of me as if to say: Surely we are what
you want? And with my inner hand I wipe them away from the face of my
memory, until which I want becomes clear and emerges out of its dark
hiding place
Others finally appear, when I call them, smoothly and in perfect
order. They come and give place for those memories which follow. And
when they leave, they return to their place, ready to emerge again when I want
them. That is exactly what happens when I recite something by heart.
Commentary
And so I come the fields and spacious palaces of memory…
In
this first part of Book Ten we come to the main subject. If Augustine
wants to know God, he has to search in the soul. And within the human soul he
has to investigate memory. For memory is the human ability that distinguishes
us from animals in a substantial way. Therefore, the term memory has
not to be understood too restricted. It means here not only the passive
faculty by which we remember things from the past. The animals have this
too. But it is also an active power, by which we are thinking
and acting. The Latin word memoria, which Augustine uses, means
both memory as the place where our memories are stored as
also the act of remembering.
On
the one hand, this text refers to memory as a storage of
images formed in the past. Augustine uses the spatial images of fields,
palaces, treasuries to show the immensity of the memory. On the other
hand, he refers also tot the activity of remembering here
and now, the recalling of what is present in this storage. In short:
the ability to recall, select and use at will images of our memory.
This
points to memory as a form of thinking. So is mentioned that the
images in memory are not purely sensory images but also images that are formed
by our thinking.
Therefore
the term memory refers in this text not the past. It has here
not more the function to tell what has happened in his early life This is finished
in the previous nine books.
This
Tenth Book is about the present. It treats memory
as a source of consciousness here and now. In this regard memory
has a timeless function, because its content is here detached from the past and
describes his present state of mind.
The
following chapters continue the search for God in memory. And it follows a
certain order, because memory has its layers. Here too plays the process
of the ascent from the lower to the higher a role.
In this memory all the perceptions are preserved separately and
by category, according to their way of entry. So the light and all colors and
shapes are entered by the eyes, sounds by the ears, all the smells by the nose,
by the mouth every taste. Finally all what is hard or soft, hot or cold,
rough or smooth, heavy or light, whether inside or outside our body enters by
the sense of touch.
All this sensations are saved in memory to be remembered when
needed and to get it back from that vast storehouse with its secret and
indescribable cavities. Each enters the memory by its own gateway and is
put on his own place. But the things we sense do not enter themselves, but
their images are there available, so that our mind can recall them, when we
think.
Who can say how these images are formed, even though we know by
which senses this images are recorded and stored within? For even in
darkness and in silence I can, if I wish, reproduce colors from my memory and
distinguish between white and black or any other color. And no sound
invades to disturb my visual images.
Yet the sounds are also present in my memory, although they are
stored separately. For I can call them too when I wish and they are
immediately available. And even if my tongue does not move and my throat
gives no sound, can I sing as much as I wish. And when I recall this other
treasury of sounds, the images of the colors, who are in my memory too, do not
intervene and not disturb.
In the same way I can recall at will what other senses have
brought in my memory and stored there. I distinguish between the scent of
lilies and violets without smelling, between honey and sweet wine, between
smooth things and rough ones without tasting or touching, simply by using my
memory.
In this memory all the perceptions are preserved separately and
by category…
First
Augustine explores the layer of sensory images. It's about everything
which is received by our senses from the outside .
Here
begins already the wonder about the working of memory. It is not only the
vast storage space of the innumerable impressions that surprises, but also
their perfect order. All images have their own place according to their
category and do not interfere each other.
Another surprising feature of the memory is that the images are detached from their original environment. Sounds can be recalled without having to sound, smells without having to smell etc. That shows the creative power of the mind to re-use images from memory at will and combine them.This is elaborated in the next chapter.
Chapter 14
All this I do inside me, in the vast hall of my memory. There
are the sky, the earth and the sea with everything I have perceived with my
senses, except those things I have forgotten.
There I meet myself as well. I remember who I am, what I did and
when and where, and in what mood I was when I did it. There are also all the
events I remember, whether I experienced them myself or heard it from others.
From the same resource too I can compare images of events with others I have
experienced, or found acceptable on basis of my experience. I combine them with
images of the past and from there I think about what I will do in the future
and have to expect. And I think all this again as if they
are present.
When I say to myself in this vast recess of my mind, full of
those many images: I will do this and that, the image of what I will do is
immediately present. I can say to myself: Let this or that
happen, May God prevent this or that, and at the moment I say this, the
images of all I say spring forward from the same treasury of my
memory. And I could not mention them if their images were not there.
Commentary
There I meet myself as well…
Besides
the finding that memory is so immeasurably vast that it even can represent
heaven, earth and sea, there is the key sentence of this chapter: There I
meet myself as well. Here the focus shifts from the outside world to the
inner world, from the sensory level to an more inner psychological level.
These
two levels are explicitly delimited, when in the next chapter is established
that many people marvel at the wonders of heaven, earth and sea, but have no
attention to the wonder of themselves. Without disregarding the outside world
(see his digression on the beauty of creation in chapter 9 and 10), Augustine
is trying to provoke amazement for this world inside.
From the same source too I can compare images of events with others I have experienced …
This underlines that memory is a creative power. It also includes the imagination. This imagination is not pure fantasy, but based on past experience. It is a form of thinking and reflecting, because it can compare and combine several images of past events to new ones.
I will do this and that ..
Here
memory produces also material for acting. It contains not only the images of
what has been done in the past, but also of what has to be done in the future.
And I think all this again as if they are present...
Here
too appears the wonderful power of memory. It has the ability to represent past
and future, and with this it transcends what is fixed in time. Through this
power memory or rather consciousness, has the character of timelessness
The
wonder about memory is actually wonder about the human mind in its whole. How
can it create images and how can it deal with those images by thinking? This
wonder will be discussed more explicitly in the next chapter.
This power of memory is great, my God, extremely great. It is an
vast and endless sanctuary. Who has plumbed its bottom?
This faculty I possess. It belongs to my nature, and yet I
cannot grasp the totality of what I am. When the mind is too narrow to contain
itself entirely, what is that part of it which it cannot grasp? Could it be
outside and not inside itself? Why can the mind not grasp it? This question
fills me with great wonder. It bewilders me.
Yet men are going out to gaze in wonder the high mountain peaks,
the mighty waves of the sea, the broad courses of the rivers, the vastness of
the ocean, the circuits of the stars. But they leave themselves. They are even
not amazed at the thought that I could talk about all these things without
seeing them with my eyes. But I could not even speak of the mountains, the
waves, the rivers, the stars, (which I have seen), or the ocean, (which I know
only by hearsay), unless I could see them in my memory with the same large size
as if I saw them outside me. And yet I have not absorbed them in me by seeing
them with my eyes. They are not bodily in me, but their images. And I know by
which bodily sense each of them is imprinted in my mind.
It is an vast and endless sanctuary…
The
repeated affirmation of the immensity of memory indicates its importance in the
argument. This spatial infinity leads into two directions. The note It is
an vast and endless sanctuary. Who has plumbed its bottom? refers
from one side to the bottom of human consciousness, where knowledge
is at its end. It resumes what in the beginning of chapter 2 is called the
abyss of human consciousness.
On
the other hand it refers to the emphasis on the fact that there is also no
limit to memory at the top of the mind, to what cannot be determined
by our senses any more, but only can be known intuitively. In arguing this it
opens a transcendent layer in the memory, where eventually God can be found.
This faculty I possess. It belongs to my nature, and yet I
cannot grasp the totality of what I am…
To
understand your memory is here equivalent to understanding yourself. It means:
This memory is my identity. The ego wonders about the scope of his own self.
The conclusion has to be: if the memory has no limit, there is also no limit to
the self.
The
inability to understand anything of oneself is not a rhetorical phrase, but a
significant finding. The classical ideal of know thyself meets here a
problem You cannot fully know yourself unless you involve in your knowledge
also those dimensions that go beyond the usual comprehension, it has to involve
those areas that are above and underneath the common
awareness.
Yet men are going out to gaze in wonder…
It
underlines the general tendency to look outside oneself rather than have
attention to one’s inner self. This is in a sense understandable, because what
is outside is easier perceptible. To look within oneself one needs other, more
spiritual, senses, for the inner realities are not in the same way perceptible
as realities in the outside world. Augustine notes that this movement to the
interior world is neglected by an obvious outward orientation, while God is a
reality just of the inner world.
This
orientation outward may be so dominant that it leads to a chronic centrifugal
tendency. In that case, one does not know or forget the depth of the soul. For
Augustine the return to one’s inner self is essential for the relationship with
God. It is called his interior-ism. In this respect he is a
psychologist avant la lettre. For it assumes that religion has to be
understood and interpreted from the psyche. These are psychic, inner
experiences, not the observation of physical facts. The tendency is often to
project religious experiences as physical facts in the outside world and to
forget their origin. That is why Augustine considers this outside tendency as a
moral qualification. It is a form of alienation.
Later
in this Tenth Book he puts it thus:
See, you were in me,
but I sought you out of me.
And in all my formlessness
I fell upon the well formed things
you have created.
You were with me,
but I was not with you.
(Confessions X,38)
Chapter 16
But these
are not the only treasures in the vast space of my memory.
It also contains everything I have learned of the liberal sciences and not has
been forgotten. This knowledge is stored much more inward, at a place which is
not really a place. And it are not the images, but this capacities themselves,
which I carry in me.
For what literature is, how to debate, how many different questions there are-
all my knowledge about these matters is stored in my memory. But this
capacities are there not as images, which I hold in my memory while I leave the
thing itself outside.
They are not like a voice which leaves a impression in our ears,
so that you can recall the sound, even when it is no longer there.
They are not like a fragrance that passes by the wind and
evaporates, and in passing by stimulates our sense of smell, so we can remember
it later on.
They are not like food, which keeps its taste in our memory,
although it has already lost its taste in our stomach.
They are not like something we feel with our sense of touch,
which our memory can still recall, even when the contact is over.
In all these cases, none of those things themselves are in the
memory. But only their images are here recorded with amazing speed and stored
in a wonderful kind of compartments, where memory can recall them in a amazing
way.
But this capacities are there not as images, which I hold in my
memory while I leave the thing itself outside…
The
way to find God is a way inside, deeper into memory and soul. This chapter
prepares the further journey by finding in memory not only the images which are
received from outside through our senses. In memory are also a variety of
skills and ideas, which have a more inner origin. In the following chapters
will be searched for capacities and notions which have somehow their origin in
our mind.
On the other hand, when I am told that there are three kinds of
questions: Whether a thing is, What it is, and of What sort it is, I retain the
images of the sounds of which these words are composed. I know that the sounds
themselves are gone in the air and exist no more. But the ideas, indicated by
these sounds have not reached me by any of my senses and I did not see them
anywhere else than in my mind. Not their images are in my memory, but the ideas
themselves.
How did they get in? Let them tell me, if they can.
For, I run along all the entries of my body, but do not find any
by which they have entered. My eyes tell me: If they have color, we should have
reported them. My ears say: If they make sound, we should have noticed them. My
nose says: If they have any smell, they should have passed by us. The sense of
taste says: If they have no taste, you should not ask me. Touch also says: If
they have no physical body, I have not touched them, and if I did not touch
them, I have nothing to report.
How did these concepts enter into my memory? I really do not
know. For when I learned these things, I relied not on the mind of another. In
my own mind I have recognized them and confirmed them as true. I entrusted them
to my mind as a place of storage from which I could produce them if I wanted.
So they were already there, even before I had learnt them, but
not in my memory. Where were they? Why I instantly recognized them, when they
were mentioned, by saying: Yes, that is true? It must have been, that they
were already in my memory, but so hidden and buried in remote cavities, that I
might not have been able to think of them, if someone not incited me to dug
them out.
when I am told that there are three kinds of questions…
Augustine
appeals to an inner logic, which is universal and always valid. Essentially
there are only three kinds of questions about anything. This points to an
innate human ability, an insight which comes not from outside.
Let them tell me, if they can…
Augustine
has a group of cynic people in mind, who don’t believe in innate ideas.
So they were already there, even before I had learnt them…
It
is a platonic conviction that many of our ideas and conceptions have not their
origin from outside, but are slumbering in our mind and must be awakened.
Therefore they are, as Augustine noted earlier, much more inward and hidden.
In
many cases, remembering happens by a kind of learning. But in this view the
role of the teacher to find the truth is special. He is not the authority who
dictates the truth and so transfers knowledge, but rather one that incites the
student to be aware of his own hidden insights.
I relied not on the mind of another…
This
form of insight is autonomous and personal. It is the own mind (and heart)
where truth is found. In this matter of logic thinking learning is recognition
of rules which are already present in the mind. This confirms the presence of
insights, which hitherto have remained unconscious and slumbering.
if someone not incited me to dug them out…
This
refers to the role which the teacher plays to awaken in the student a truth
which is still hidden, but basically there.
We came to the conclusion that in learning such concepts we do
not receive them in our mind as images by sensory experience, but that we see
them in our mind as they really are without the help of images.
Thinking is nothing else than gather together concepts which are
in our memory in a dispersed and disordered way.
By giving them our attention, we make sure that these concepts,
which lay hidden, scattered and neglected in the memory, are placed so to say
ready to hand. So that, once we are familiar with them, they become easily
accessible to our mind,.
My memory contains a large number of these concepts, things I
have already discovered and, as I mentioned, are ready to hand. Things of which
is said that we have learned them and know them.
If I would stop to pay attention to them for a certain time,
they sink and slip away in more remote hiding places of my memory. Then I have
to think them out again as if they were new and draw them out the same place as
before, for in another place they cannot be. Once again they have to be brought
together so that they can be known. This means that they should be collected
from their scattered state.
Hence the relationship between the Latin word for collecting
(cogo) and thinking (cogito), as it is the case
with ago and agito, and facio and factito. But
the word cogito is entirely claimed for the human mind, so it is only
used for what is thought i.e. collected in the mind, but not what is collected
elsewhere.
Thinking
is presented here as collecting insights which did not come to us through
external sensory images, but are, hidden or not, present in our minds. It supposes
an innate logic ability, which can combine all sorts of concepts and can judge
whether some combination is true or false.
By giving them our attention…
The
role of attention is here important. Because without this attention many
insights, which are in principle in the mind, get in oblivion. This shows that
consciousness is not fixed, but fluctuates according to our attention.
Once again they have to be brought together…
Thinking
is a constant activity in order to unify insights which are here and there
present in our mind. On the basis of this lies the search for unity
Chapter 19
The memory also contains the innumerable principles and laws of
numbers and dimensions. None of them has been impressed in our minds by our
sensory experience. They have no color, no sound and no smell. You cannot taste
or touch them.
When they are discussed, I hear the sound of the words which
signify them, but the sound of the words and these concepts are two different
things. The sound of the words vary in Greek and in Latin, but these concepts
are neither Greek nor Latin.
I've seen lines that were drawn by craftsmen, as thin as the
threads of a spider web. But the principle of the line is different. It is not
the image of the lines I have seen. We recognize them inside ourselves, without
reference to any material object.
I have also experience with the numbers we use for counting
things by all my bodily senses, but the principle of these numbers is
different. It is not the image of the things we count, but something which has
definitely its own existence. Who does not see that, may laugh at what I am
saying. But let me pity him who laughs at me.
The memory also contains the innumerable principles…
Gradually
we are introduced to concepts that precede all sensual realization. So our
concept of the line is not derived from the lines we observe, but on
the contrary we call something line because it corresponds to our concept of
what a line is.
In
the same way our concept of the number is not derived from our
numerical counting, but to our counting underlies an inner concept of what
counting is.
Who does not see that, may laugh at what I am saying…
In
Augustine's days the existence of numbers in the mind was a controversial
subject. At the basis lies here his platonic vision that there are ideas in the
human mind, which are not derived from the outside world, but have an
autonomous existence.
The fact that these ideas are imperceptible gives reason to be skeptic about them. The way Augustine goes is that that of introspection and intuition, by which one has to conclude to the existence of inner ideas. This way is needed to continue the search for God
Chapter 20
All these ideas I hold in my memory. I remember also the way I
have learned them.
And my memory holds also the many false objections put forward
to these ideas. Even if these objections are false, yet my memory of them is
not false. I also remember that I distinguish between the true and false
objections against them.
But the memory of this distinction which I make now, is
different from memories of this distinction which I made in the past, every
time I thought about this matter.
I remember also that I did understand this questions more often.
And I store in my memory what I distinguish and understand at this moment, so
that I later on shall remember that I did understand this question now.
So I remember that I remembered. And when I later on shall
remember what I remembered today, it is by the power of memory.
Commentary
So I remember that I remembered …
Gradually the argument gets a more abstract character. The reader is taken along to functions in memory which are hard to imagine. A slight dizziness comes over him. That is exactly the purpose of the rhetorician who is Augustine. It has to demonstrate how ingenious and complex our mind works.
Chapter 21
My memory also contains my feelings. They are not in the
same way in the mind as when I have experienced them, but in a very different
way that is in correspondence with the process of memory. For when I
remember a happy moment, I don’t need to be happy and I don’t need to be sad,
when I remember a sad moment from the past. I can recall moments of fear
without any fear, and think of my former desires without any desire. Sometimes,
on the contrary, I remember my past sadness with a happy feeling and my
happiness with a sad feeling.
This is not surprising when it concerns the feelings of the
body. Body and mind are different. And it would not be strange that I
remember with joy a bodily pain that is gone away. But in the present
case, memory and mind are one and the same. We even call the memory the
mind, for when we tell another to remember something, we say: See that you
keep this in mind. And when we forget something, we say: It was not
in my mind, it slipped out of my mind.
When this is the case, how can it be that, when I remember my
past sadness with joy, there is joy in my mind and sadness in my
memory? And how can it be that my mind is happy because of that joy and my
memory not sad when it remembers that sadness? Does memory not be a part
of the mind? Who would dare to say that?
Without doubt memory is something like the stomach of the mind
and joy and sadness are like sweet and bitter food. When this food is
committed to memory, it is as it were transferred to the stomach, where it can
remain, but has no taste anymore. This comparison is rather ridiculous,
but any resemblance is there anyway.
For when I
remember a happy moment, I don’t need to be happy…
There is a discrepancy between the emotion itself and its memory. The
actual fChaeelings of the mind need not be identical with the feelings one
remembers. Hence Augustine's assumption that the memory of past emotions
have a special place in the human mind. He uses as an image the working of
memory like that of the stomach. In both cases their content does not match
with what was tasted. In the next chapter he develops this image.
Chapter 22
But when I say that there are four kinds of emotion: desire,
joy, fear and sadness, I call them in my mind from my memory. All I can discuss
about them, whether it is their classification, their species or their
definition, I get it from that source. And yet I am not touched by those
emotions when I call them from my memory. Before I recalled them to discuss
them, they were already there. Otherwise I would not be able to remember them.
Perhaps these emotions are brought forward from the memory by
the act of recollecting like food is brought from the stomach in the process of
rumination. But why then in the mouth of my thinking, when I discuss, that is
remember them, is not the sweet taste of joy or the bitterness of sorrow? Maybe
the comparison does not fit here, because surely the two are not wholly alike.
Who would even want to talk about such feelings, when every time
we mention sadness or fear, we were forced to be sad or anxious? Yet we could
not speak of them at all unless we found in our memory not only the sound of
their names but also the notions of those feelings themselves. For we have not
received these notions through any gateway of our body. Our mind has
experienced those feelings within itself and entrusted them to memory. Or
possibly the memory retained them itself without any act of the mind.
And yet I am not touched by those emotions…
The
fact that memories of emotions have lost their real sensation points towards a
special mechanism of memory. In this last case the emotions are
abstractions , independent from their primary experience. They are notions of
moods. And in this form there are limited. Augustine mentions the main four.
For we have not received these notions through any gateway of
our body...
I
think that Augustine wants to show in the course of his argument that even in
this respect the human spirit plays a central role and not the sensory
experience. The emotions do not come from outside, but are certain innate
abilities of the mind. They have in memory their own existence. Hence: Our
mind has experienced those feelings within itself.
Whether these processes takes place
by images or not is difficult to say.
I can mention
a stone or the sun when these things
themselves are not present to my senses, but their images are available in my
memory.
I can
mention physical pain, but as long as I do not
feel it, the pain itself is not present to me. Yet if an image of pain were not
present in my memory, I should not know what I was talking about. And in a
discussion I should not be able to distinguish pain from pleasure.
I can
mention physical health, when I'm in good
condition. This shape is present in me. But if no picture of it is in
my memory, I could not remember what the sound of this word meant. And
sick people could not know what was meant, when the word health was mentioned,
unless its image had not been retained in their memory, even when that
condition no longer exists.
I can mention
the numbers, by which we count things. And see, in my memory
are not their images present but the numbers themselves. I can mention
the image of the sun . Then this image too is in my memory.
But I recall not the image of the image, but the image itself.
I can
mention memory and I recognize where I speak about. Where else
will I recognize it except in my memory itself? Surely we cannot in fairness
assume that the memory is present to itself by means of its image and not
directly to itself?
Commentary
Whether these processes takes place by images or not is difficult to say…
Augustine mentions a number of examples, where we remember something
through an image in memory: stone, sun, health. But he also mentions examples,
where there is no question of an image, but where the notion self is present in
the mind, as in the concept of number.
He then poses the more or less rhetorical question of whether memory,
especially remembering, can remember itself or whether this happens through an
image. The question seems sophisticated, but in the argument it serves to show
that in the mind there are not only images of reality outside us, but also the
concepts, feelings and ideas themselves. If that is not the case, God cannot be
found there.
What then, if I mention forgetfulness? I recognize here too
the meaning of the word. But how would I recognize it without remembering
it? I'm not talking about the sound of the word, but the reality to which
the word refers. If I had forgotten this, that sound had no meaning and I
was unable to recognize what it implied.
When I remember my remembering, my memory is present to
itself. But when I remember my forgetfulness, there are two things
present: my memory by which I remember and my forgetfulness which I remember.
Yet what is forgetting more than loss of memory? How can it
be present in my memory, while, when forgetting is present I am unable to
remember? Everything we remember must be present in memory, because when we
hear the word forgetfulness, we can never know what it means, if we are unable
to remember it. So forgetfulness must be present in our
memory. Therefore, it is there so that we will not forget, but when
it is there, we forget.
Should we
then conclude that, when we remember forgetfulness, it is not itself present in
our memory, but only through its image? Because if forgetfulness itself is
in our memory, would not be the result that we forget rather than
remember? Who will resolve this problem?
Who can understand how this works?
What then, if I mention forgetfulness?...
Forgetfulness
is a new and special element, that is introduced in the
argument. Remembering refers to knowing, but forgetting refers
to not knowing any more. It is something negative, the negation of
remembering. The question is whether this is a absolute negation or a
negation of knowledge which previously existed and is missed. Hence not
knowing anymore.
When I remember my remembering…
As
a reader you become a little dizzy, when there is question of remembering
remembering. You wonder where Augustine wants to go in his argument. He
relies in any case on the ability of the human mind to consider itself and make
itself an object of contemplation. It results from the ability of the mind
to take distance of itself and then enter into dialogue with itself.
When forgetting is present I am unable to remember…
Augustine
introduces here a contradiction, a apparent paradox. On the one hand it is
clear that forgetting is present in memory. On the other hand, there is
the understanding that, where there is forgetting there cannot be
remembering. It is a form of reasoning from the absurd to create a better
insight in how memory works. This reasoning would also be called a form
of sophism, a sophisticated argument, of which the conclusion proves
ultimately to be false. At first glance the reasoning is consequent: where
is forgetting, there is no memory. A closer examination shows that this
argumentation implies two unequal items The form in which forgetting is in
our memory is of totally different, more abstract, nature than the act of
forgetting itself.
Should we then conclude that...
This
is a rhetorical question, the answer is still not clear, either positive or
negative. The following chapter has to answer about this question.
Who can comprehend how this works?...
Augustine
uses here the means of the aporia, the inability to bring a
philosophical issue to a solution. It is also a rescue to open the blocked
argument on another level.
I am
laboring hard on this subject, my Lord, and the field of my labour is my own
self. I have become for myself a soil that costs many dificulties and much
sweat1. For I am not examining the spaces of heaven, nor am I
measuring the distance of the stars or seeking the balance of the earth. I am
examining myself, my memory, my mind.
It is not surprising that whatever I am not is distant from me.
But what is nearer to me than myself? And yet I do not understand the power of
my memory, when without it I could not even speak about myself. What should I
say, now I am sure that I remember my forgetting? Should I say that what I
remember is not in my memory? Or say that forgetting is in my memory to prevent
me from forgetting? Both assumptions are equally absurd.
What about a third possibility? To say that my memory holds the
image of my forgetting and not my forgetting itself. But how can I say this,
because, if the image of something is imprinted in the memory, the thing itself
must first necessarily have been present to imprint its image?
For that is de way I remember Carthage and all the places where
I have been. In the same way I remember all the faces that I have seen and
everything that the senses have reported to me. That is also how I remember my
health or the sickness of my body. When they were present, my memory took all
the images of these things. And those images remained so that I could see them
and remember them, even when these things were absent.
Therefore, if my memory contains the image of my forgetting and
not my forgetting itself, then it must have been present at some time, so that
memory could capture its image. But when it was present, how dit it inscribe
its image in my memory, as it deletes by its presence everything that there
already was recorded? And yet I am in some way, how incomprehensible and
inexplicable it is, sure thatI remember my forgetting, even though forgetting
erases everything we remember.
1 Gen.3: 17)
Commentary
I am laboring hard on this subject…
Augustine
admits that the subject is very difficult for him too. In the same time it
serves as a rhetorical turn in which he sympathizes with the reader, who can
hardly follow him in this abstract reasoning.
The field of my labour is my own self…
The
study of one’s own consciousness turns out to be heavy. Here we find something
paradoxical: The study of the universe places us before mysteries. The research
of our own mind should be easier, but in fact turns out to be an even greater
mystery.
Here
again sounds what in chapter 15 was said: People may wonder about the universe,
but they ignore their own minds.
What about a third possibility?..
The
third possibility, that forgetting is only present in the memory as an image,
proves to be invalid, because an image of forgetting cannot be created if
forgetting itself was not first present in our mind. But in that case
forgetting erases all the memory of itself.
Here
is question of a deadlock: None of the possibilities is sufficient and the
reader is confronted with a circular argument.
Augustine
passes, aware or not aware, a fourth possibility. In that case forgetting is
present in memory as an abstract notion which is derived from
experience, not as the actual act of forgetting itself.
And yet I am in some way, how incomprehensible and inexplicable
it is,..
The
effect of the impasse which Augustine describes is, that the presence of
forgetting in the memory is retraced to an inexplicable mystery. That
underlines in the argument the fact that the process of the memory is amazing.
The power of memory is great, my God, awe-inspiring
and unfathomable in its endless multiplicity. And this is my mind, this is
myself.
Who am I,
my God? What is my nature? A life that is varying, of many forms and
beyond measure.
See the countless fields, caves and caverns of my memory. They are in
innumerable ways full with innumerable things. Some are there by their
images, like all material objects. Some like sciences and arts are there
by themselves. Others, like our emotions, in the form of certain ideas or
impressions, which are are still present, even though our mind does not feel
them. For whatever is in the memory must also be in the mind. I run
through all this things and fly from one to another. And I penetrate
between them as far as I can, and I find no end. So great is the power of
memory. So great is the power of life in man, mortal though he is.
My God, you
are my true life, what shall I do?
I shall go beyond this power in me, which we call memory, so
that I reach you, my sweet Light. What do you say to me? You are
always above me and I will rise in my mind upwards to you. I will pass this
power in me, which we call memory, in my desire to touch you where you can be
touched and embrace you where you can be embraced.
For beasts and birds also have memory. Otherwise they could
not find their their lairs and their nests or the many other things that are
part of their habitual life. In fact they could not have habits at all without
their memory.
So I will rise above memory to touch him who set me apart from the four-footed
animals and has given me more wisdom than the birds of the sky.
As I rise above my memory, where can I find you, my true and
safe Sweetness, where can I find you? If I find you outside my memory, I
have no memory of you. And how can I find you without a memory of
you.
And this is my mind, this is myself ..
Augustine
underlines more and more the mysterious nature of memory. Here we see
a certain identification when memory is mentioned as centre of the mind and the
mind as the identity of man himself.
So great is the power of life in man, mortal though he is...
This
is the great paradox: Although man is mortal and therefore finite, he has
mental faculties that are unfathomable and therefore unlimited.
My God, you are my true life, what shall I do?..
Although
the memory is a wonderful, unfathomable and boundless power, Augustine still
considers for a moment to continue his quest for God. He wants to pass
beyond memory and try to touch God at the place where he can be
touched. But at the same time he wonders whether God can be found outside
memory, because he would have no memory of him.
So we turn back to memory as the place where God can be found.
Chapter 27
The woman
who had lost her drachma, searched for it with a lamp1.
She would never have found it without some memory of it. Otherwise,
when it was found, how would she know it was the one she had lost?
I remember that I have searched many lost things and have found them. Therefore
I know that, when I was looking for something and people asked me: Is this
it? or Is that it?, I would always answer No, until they showed me
the thing I wanted.
I could not
find something that I had lost without any memory of it, even when it was
showed to me, because I could not recognize it. That is always what
happens, when we look for something what is lost and find it.
If anything vanishes from sight but not from the memory, such as
a visible object, its image is retained in us and we look for it until we see
it again. And when it is found, we recognize it by the image that we
have in us.
We do not say that we have found what was lost unless we
recognize it and we cannot recognize it unless we remember it. It was only lost
from our sight, but not from our memory.
1 Luke. 15.8
The woman who had lost her drachma…
Augustine
quotes an well-known example: the biblical parable of the woman who had lost
her drachma. This concerns not so much the content of the parable, but the
proposition that in every search there is a remembering of what one is looking
for. Therefore in the search for God there must be also some notion of
what one is searching.
What if the memory itself loses something? This happens for
example when we have forgotten something and try to remember it. Where else can
we find it than in the memory itself? And if something else presents
itself, we reject it, until the thing we are looking for appears. And when it
appears, we say: That's it. But we could not say that without recognizing,
and we could not recognize it without remembering. But that we had
forgotten is a fact.
Or could it be that it not entirely disappeared from memory, but
a part of it remained and helped to find the other part? And may be that
memory realized that it could not function as usual because something was cut
off. And feeling crippled by the loss of the part to which it was accustomed,
kept demanding that this missing part should come back?
This happens, when we see or think of a person we know and whose
name has escaped us. We try to remember his name, but every name that
comes to our mind does not suit him, because we are not accustomed to connect
it with him. Thus we reject all names, until the good one comes up, which
fully corresponds with the familiar image of that person.
Where else does that name come from than from memory itself?
Because, even when someone else prompts us, it comes from our
memory. Because we do not accept it as a new piece of knowledge, but we
confirm by our memory that it is the right name.
If that name was completely erased from our mind, we could not
remember it, even with the help of another. For we have not completely
forgotten, when we think we have something forgotten. If we had it
completely forgotten, we should no longer be able to search for what has been
lost.
And may be that memory realized that it could not function as
usual because something was cut off…
This
concerns a form of forgetting which is only partial. The memory is missing
something that was familiar and tries to recall it. Forgetting is here not
a form of knowledge that is completely lost, but of knowledge that is lost, but
has left some traces in our mind. In this context forgetting supposes a
felt loss, which searches for what is missing.
If that name was completely erased from our mind, we could not
remember it…
Besides
the form of forgetting from above there is the absolute form of
loss. There is nothing in memory that remembers of what is missing. Then
each search is useless.
At
this stage of the argument the question occurs why Augustine engages himself so
long in the analysis of what is forgetting. Slowly the reader has to be
convinced that the search for God is based on some notion of God in memory.
There must be something in memory, though is it a felt lack, that enables the
search and therefore cannot be regarded as meaningless.
How then do I look for you, O Lord? When I look for You, my God,
I am looking for the happy life. I want to look for You, so that my soul
may live. For it is my soul that gives life to my body and it is You who
give life to my soul.
How then do I seek this happy life? For I do not possess
it, until I can say: I am satisfied; this it is. But then I have to say
which way my quest proceeds. Am I looking for it in memory,as though I had
forgotten, but still remember that I had forgotten? Or am I looking by
the need of learning a life that is quite unknown, whether I have never
known it or had it so forgotten that I do not remember that I forgot it?
Is the happy life not what all desire and nobody does not
desire? Where did they learn about it, if this desire is so common? Where did
they see it, that they love it so much? Certainly, we have it in us, but how I
do not know. Some people are happy because they actually possess it,
others are happy in the hope for it. Their happiness is of a lesser degree than
the happiness of those who actually possess it, but their happiness is of an
higher degree than of those who do not possess it, nor hope for it.
Yet even those people must possess happiness in in some way,
otherwise they would not long for it. And that they long for it is without any
doubt. In some way they have learnt what it is and therefore they have a
certain notion of it. And my problem is to discover whether this notion is in
the memory or not, because if it is there, then we were once happy. It may
be that we were all happy individually or that we were all happy in the man
Adam, who was the first to sin, in whom we all died,1 and from
whom we we all descend in misery. But I will not go into this
question now.
My question is whether happiness is in the memory. For we
would not love, it if we did not know what it is. We hear the word and we all
admit that it is where we are looking for. And it's not just the sound of the
word by which we are attracted. When a Greek will hear this word in Latin,
it does not appeal to him because he does not know what has been said. But
he is attracted to it, as soon as he hears the word in Greek. So happiness
is neither Greek nor Latin, because all people yearn to obtain it, whether they
speak Greek or Latin or any other language.
Therefore everyone knows it. And if they were asked whether they
wish to be happy, without any doubt all would answer that they do. But that is
only the case if happiness itself, to which this word refers is found in their
memory.
1Kor.15, 22
The
search for God is here connected with the search for complete happiness. And
coversely the search for complete happiness must result in the search for
God. Complete happiness is here equal to enjoy God. The word happiness can
have several meanings and several interpretations according to several levels
of perception. It is evident that the happy life for Augustine has this
absolute meaning of enjoying God. All degrees of happiness are in fact seen in
that perspective.
Augustine
speaks of the soul as the central element in man. It is the centre of
spiritual and physical life. The emphasis lies therefore on an inner
happiness which is dependent on finding God
For I do not possess it, until I can say: I am satisfied; this
it is…
This
identification of happiness with enjoying God finds is origin in human
desire. This desire has in fact a transcendent aspect, because it finds no
satisfaction in any partial goal. It is aiming at an complete
fullfillment.
But then I have to say which way my quest proceeds…
In
the question what is at the origin of human desire for happiness, two options
are presented Either it is based on a certain notion of something we
forgot, or this happy life has no notion at all in our memory and we are
searching for something entirely unknown. The second option does not
explain adequately the presence in our minds of this universal desire for
happiness. This will be further worked out.
And that they long for it is without any doubt…
It
seems important to me that Augustine bases the religious desire on a general
human quality: the desire to be happy. That does exclude the tendency to
consider the religious sense as something exclusive. In this perspective
everyone has basically this quality in himself.
Yet even
they must possess happiness in in some way…
Everyone
wants to be happy. In this respect all people are equal, whether they
claim to possess happiness, or merely expect it or possess and expect it not at
all. This last category is explicitly not excluded.
if it is there, then we were once happy…
If there is a notion of complete happiness in our memory, the conclusion should be that we were once happy. In what way we were happy once is a side-question, which Augustine does not want to work out in this argument. Yet he suggests shortly two possibilities. We lost that happiness personaly or as a member of mankind personified in our mythical ancestor Adam. In both cases we lost a state of complete happiness and got into a state of misery and mortality. Augustine connects this loss of happiness with human guilt by quoting Paul 1Kor.15,22.
Adam
represents here whole humanity. This leads to think of an original sin, by
which humanity moved away from its original state of happiness.
Then the way to happiness is the way mankind tries to find back to that original state from which it emerged. This reminds the vision of Plotinus, who argues that we did emanate from the One and are searching to return to that oneness. Guilt is that we gradually have lost ourselves in the multitude of an material life and have forgotten to focus on the one thing that is necessary.
Chapter 30
But in what way is happiness present in our memory? Is it in the
same way as Carthage, when we have seen that city? No, for happiness cannot be
seen with the eyes , it is not a physical object.
Is it in our memory like we remember numbers? No, for when you
know the numbers, you do not seek to obtain them further. We know what
happiness is and love it. But we also seek to possess it, because we want to be
happy.
Is happiness in our memory as the art of eloquence? No, for many
people know what is meant by the word eloquence without being themselves
eloquent. And many also desire to be eloquent too. That proves that they have
some knowledge of it. However, it is by their senses that they have noticed
that others were eloquent and therefore they get pleasure in it and desire to
be eloquent themselves. Of course they would have no pleasure in it without any
inner knowledge, and they would not want to be eloquent without any pleasure.
But there is a difference with the happy life. We have no physical perception
of the happy life in others
Is hapiness then present in our memory in the same way as when
we remember joy? Yes, perhaps it is. Even when I am sad I can remember joy,
just as I can remember happiness, when I am unhappy. Yet never I have seen my
joy with my physical senses, or heard, smelled, tasted or touched it. But it
was something I experienced in my mind., when I was joyful. And the notion of
it stuck in my memory, so that I can always recall it, sometimes with aversion,
sometimes with longing, depending on the different things of which I remember
that they gave me joy. For I was sometimes overwhelmed with joy in shameful
acts and when I remember them now I feel disgust and detest it.
But other times I had joy in good and honourable things and I
remember them with longing, even though they are now no more within the bounds
of possibility. And therefore I am sad when I remember joy of long ago.
Yet never I have seen my joy with my physical senses, or heard,
smelled, tasted or touched it…
The
memory of happiness is in the memory in the same way as the memory of joy. That
is that both are present not by sensory experience but by an inner experience,
which remains in memory in a neutral way. Therefore you do not need to be happy
or joyful, when you remember happiness and joy of the past. It is sufficient
that you ever have experienced joy or happiness to speak about it.
Chapter 31
Where and when have I experienced my happy life, so
that I can remember it and love it and long for it?
Not just I
alone, or a small group, but we all want to be happy. If we did not know so
surely what it was, we should not desire it so certainly.
But what
does this mean? If two men were asked whether they want to join the army, it is
quite possible that one says yes and another no. But if you ask them whether
they want to be happy, they will both immediately and without any hesitation
answer that they want it. When one wants to join the army and the other not,
they have the same intention that is to be happy. Is it then the case that
everyone finds his joy in different ways? Even so, they all agree that they
want to be happy, just as they would all agree, if asked, that they desire joy.
And this joy they call happiness. Even though they search it in different ways,
they all have the same goal, that is joy. No one can say that he has no
experience of joy. And this is why he finds the happy life in the memory and
recognizes it as soon as he hears these words.
And this joy they call happiness ...
Earlier in chapter 30 we saw that the experience of happiness is similar to that of joy. Here we find some identification, when the universal experience of happiness is associated with the universal experience of joy. The emphasis lies on the fact that in this case everyone seeks the same experience, regardless of how they actualize it
Chapter 32
O Lord, far
be it from the heart of your servant who confesses to you, far be it from me to
think that I am happy with any joy whatever. For there is a joy that is not
given to those do not love you, but only to those who love you for your own
sake. You yourself are their joy.
And this is the true happy life: to find joy in you, for you and
because of you. This is the true happiness and there is no other. Those who
believe that happiness is found elsewhere, pursue a different kind of joy and
not the true one. Yet their pursuit is aimed at some image of that true joy.
Commentary
O Lord, far be it from the heart of our servant...
From
the prior identification between happiness and joy one might mistakenly
conclude that any joy can make happy. Augustine anticipates this
conclusion and wants to avoid it. There are all kinds of joy and there are
many layers and intensity of happiness, dependent on the object one enjoys.
There
is only one kind of joying that can make totally happy and that is to rejoy in
God, the ultimate truth of human existence. Any other attempt to be happy
pursues only a partial goal, and therefore this joy can only be partial.
Yet their pursuit is aimed at some image of that true joy....
The
pursuit of those who seek their joy and happiness elsewhere has a certain
affinity with the search for God as well. Augustine uses here the word image.
The target may be different, but in the effort and desire is a certain
affinity. With this he maintains the universal aspirations of mankind to
complete happiness and thus implicitly to God.
Should we then conclude that it is uncertain that all men want
to be happy, when there are some who do not find in you their source of joy.
Because, if enjoying you is the true happy life, they do not desire the happy
life?
Or should we rather say that all men desire it, but, because the
desires of the flesh compete with the desires of the spirit1, they
do not do what they wish and fall back to what they are able to do and are
content with it, since their will is not sufficient enough to enable them to do
it?
For if I ask them whether they prefer to find joy in truth or in
falsehood, they do not hesitate to say that they prefer the truth, just as they
prefer happiness. True happiness is indeed joy in the truth. This means joy in
you, my God, who are the Truth, my true Light, to whom I look for my salvation.
This is the happiness that all desire. This happy life everyone wants. Joy in
the truth everyone wants.
I have known many people who wished to deceive, but none that
wished to be deceived. Where did they find the notion of happiness unless it
was where they found the truth? For they love the truth, since they do not want
to be deceived. And when they love happiness, which is the same as joy in the
truth, they must also love the truth. But they could not love it, if
there was not any notion of it in their memory.
Why then do they have no joy in this? Why are they not happy? It
is because they are more concerned with other matters. And this gives them more
misery than this weak awareness of the truth brings them happiness.
There is still a faint glow of light among men. Let them walk,
let them walk, for fear that darkness comes over them 2
1 Gal. 5:17; 2 John.12:35
Is it therefore uncertain that all men want to be happy…?
Here
there is a distinction between the desire for perfect happiness and the will to
pursue actually this happiness. The will often proves to be weak and the
temptation to settle for a partial fulfillment is great. So all have in
principle the desire for perfect happiness, but not always the will to achieve
it.
Joy in the truth everyone wants...
Here
truth is introduced as a new concept. Who wants complete happiness, wants also
complete truth. Truth has here a larger meaning. It involves not only the sense
that a certain knowledge is right, but the experience that our total existence
is right. In that way complete happiness and truth are on the same level.
But
they could not love it, if there was not any notion of it in their memory...
Seeking
for truth and finding truth is based on a kind of inner knowing what truth should
be and what not.
Because they are more concerned with other matters…
Here,
Augustine comes back to the weakness of will to pursue the truth. Occupation
with material matters must compensate the desire for happiness. But that gives
not the experience of being in the truth. Hence the existential misery, apart
from material worries, that it brings with it.
There is still a faint glow of light among men...
In
this appeal sounds hope. The light of truth is not wholly extinguished in this
world and in mankind. It is a appeal to conversion, to change direction and
walk the way toward the goal for which every human being is destined.
Why does truth engender hatred? Why does your man who proclaims
the truth becomes an enemy to them, although they love
happiness, which is simply joy based on the truth?
The reason can only be that man’s love for truth is such, that
those who love anything else than the truth, pretend that it is the truth. And
because they do not want to be mistaken, they do not want to admit that they
are wrong. And that is why they hate the truth for the sake of what they regard
as their truth.
Men love the truth if it gives them shine, but they hate it as
it puts them wrong2. And because they don’t want to be deceived
themselves, they want to deceive others. They love the truth, when it reveals
itself, but hate it as it reveals their faults. Therefore the truth gives them
the retribution they deserve, by revealing their truth against their will,
while truth itself remains hidden from them.
Thus, even thus, is the human mind. So blind, languid, shameful
and dishonorable, that it wishes to be hidden, but does not wish that anything
is hidden from it. It achieves just the opposite: it does not remain hidden
from the truth, but the truth remains hidden from it.
Yet even in this miserable state it would rather find joy in
true than in false things. One day it shall be happy if it, not distracted by
any trouble, will rejoice in the truth, the sole Truth, by which all things are
true.
2 John. 3:20
Why does truth engender hatred?..
In
this chapter it is made clear that many people take their own truth for the
only truth and exclude thereby other possibilities. But what about Augustine
himself? He too proclaims his truth as the absolute truth. The difference is
that the truth which many proclaim is at its best a partial truth, as Augustine
is concerned with a transcendent truth, which he not wholly possesses, but
corresponds with an universal idea and includes in this way everything that is
true. The proclaimer of transcendent Truth meets hostility, because he reveals
accordingly the inadequacy of any partial truth.
Men love the truth if it gives them shine...
The
truth gives shine to people who claim to possess it, but the confrontation with
a higher truth works confusing. The reaction may be two-fold: either the own
truth is questioned and man opens himself to the higher truth,
or he does not admit he is wrong and refuses the higher truth
and hate it. In the latter case he is deceiving himself.
Therefore the truth gives them the retribution they deserve...
People
who deny the transcendent truth shut themselves away from it. And in that
denial their self-deception is manifest. The truth they deny does escape them,
while their own truth is unmasked as insufficient.
Yet even in this miserable state it would rather find joy in
true than in false things...
Augustine’s
judgment about men is hard. But here he turns it into a hopeful perspective.
Everyone is in principle focused on the truth. It is an inner drive which is
universal. Matter is only that this orientation finds its goal in the
transcendent truth itself.
See how I explored the vast spaces of my memory in search for
you, my Lord. And I have not found you outside it. For I have nothing found
about you except what I remember, since the time I learned
of you. And never since then I have forgotten you.
And where I found the truth, I found my God who is Truth itself.
And since I did know this truth, I have never forgotten it. From the time I
learned of you, you stay in my memory. And it is there that I find you, when I
think of you and enjoy you. These are my holy delights which you have given me
in your mercy, having regard to my poverty.
And I have not found you outside it...
This confirms that every religious experience is an inner one. It concerns
psychological facts, not physical. Attempts to find God outside of human
consciousness prove to be vain. Also the attempt to seek God in the beauty of
creation presupposes an appeal to an inner truth. There is no physical
evidence.
These are my holy delights you have given me in your mercy...
To be touched by God, of which Augustine testifies in this book, is the moment when he really learned to know God. In chapter 8 it is called: Your word has pierced my heart and I got to love you. This concerns a mystical meeting with God, that puts in the shade all other feelings.
Chapter 36
But where in my memory are you staying, my Lord? Where do you
stay there? What kind of resting place have you made for yourself? What kind of
sanctuary have you built for yourself?
You have granted my memory the favor to stay there, but I
ask myself in what part you stay.
When I tried to think of you, I went beyond those parts of the
memory which I have in common with the animals, because I did not find you
between the images of material things.
So I came to that part of my memory where my emotions are
stored, but I did not find you. And I entered into the seat of my mind itself,
which is too in my memory -because the mind can remember itself- , but you were
not there .For you are not the image of a material thing, nor an emotion of a
living being, like happiness or sadness, desire or fear, remembering or
forgetting, or any other feeling.
Likewise, you are not the mind itself, for you are the Lord and
God of the mind. All these things are subject to change, but you remain
immutable above all things. And yet, you have deigned to live in my memory
since the time I got to know you.
Why do I ask in what place of my memory you stay, as if there
really are separate places? You certainly live there, because I remember you
ever since I got to know you, and I find you there when I think of you.
but you remain immutable above all things …
Above
is not a place, but an indication that God is transcendent and transcends the
human mind.
You certainly live there ...
On
the other hand you find here the affirmation that God is immanent and present
in the inner consciousness of the human being. That reminds the earlier
statement of Augustine that God is more inward than our inner self and higher
than the top of our mind.
Here more inward and higher are not indications of a location, but both images of God's transcendence. They are images of a psychic experience. God is not only the distant majesty but also an intimate presence, more with our selves than we are. It is noteworthy that Augustine mentions both relations. There is a tension between the two, but at the same time they complement each other.
Chapter 37
Where then did I find you so that I could know you? For you were
not in my memory, before I got to know you.
Where then did I find you, so that I could know you, if not in
you above me? Yet there is no place, whether we come to you or go back from
you, there is no place.
O Truth, you watches everywhere for all who counsel you. And you
reply at the same time to all who ask counsel of you, even if they are
consulting you on different things.
The answer you give is clear, but not all hear it clearly. .All
ask you for what they want, but the answer they hear is not always what they
want.
Your best servant is he who not so much expects to hear from you
what he wants as to want what he shall hear from you.
O Truth, you watches everywhere for all who counsel you...
Augustine
calls God besides Beauty also Truth. This designation implies not only the satisfaction
of intellectual knowledge, but of every human aspiration. It is the opposite of
everything what in life turns out to be false and idle.
God
gives counsel to anyone who seeks the truth. That truth can have a different
content for everyone, but it is not always in accordance with what one wants.
Here means to counsel God in fact to search for God's order.
Late have I
loved you,
Beauty so ancient and so new,
late have I loved you.
See, you
were within me and I was in the world outside,
and I sought you there.
And in my de-formed state,
I threw myself on the well-formed things,
which you have made.
You were
with me, but I was not with you.
And these
beautiful things. kept me far from you
and yet, if they had not their existence in you,
they had no existence at all.
You called
me and cried loud to me,
and broke my deafness.
You did shine over me your radiant light
and dispelled my blindness.
You have
tempted me with your fragrance;
I inhaled it and sigh for you.
I have tasted you,
and now I hunger and thirst for you.
You have
touched me,
and I burn with longing for your peace.
Commentary
Late have I loved you...
Late
in his life, Augustine really got to know and love God. This passage is often
translated with too late. But apart from the fact that this translation is
not a literal one, it adds too much drama. In this case, it is never too late.
In fact he regrets that he had God never seen before as the perfect Beauty,
while he was so close.
and yet, if
they had not their existence in you, they had no existence at all…
The beauty of all things would be nothing if they not existed in God as the
pure Being and Beauty. To be able to see this, you need a new way of seeing and
Augustine regrets that he has experienced this so late.
You called me and cried loud to me…
It
reflects the insight that all his search for long time would have been vain if
God not at a certain moment had sought him and tempted him with his Beauty.
Here
again sensory images are used to express a spiritual experience. It reminds the
passage in chapter 8, in which Augustine describes how he experiences his God,
when he talks about a light, a sound, a smell, a food, an embrace of my
inner man. It is a new spiritual perception, which exposes the old way of
seeing and hearing as blindness and deafness.
Another
question is whether this form of spiritual sensibility which Augustine has
discovered does influence inversely the ordinary way you use your senses. I
think of chapter 10, where the question is posed why the beauty of the
universe, does not speak to everyone the same language. The answer is that only
they can fully understand that language, if they check it to their inner truth.
This suggests that a spiritual insight immediately affects the way one
perceives the world outside.
And I burn with longing for your peace ...
As
mentioned earlier, God is here identified with peace. It is the peace for which
elsewhere in the Confessions, the restless heart is searching: to rest in God.
Illustrative is the passage from Chapter 2, where Augustinus is confessing:
And now my groaning is witness that I find no peace in myself,
you are my radiant light, my peace, my love and my desire. I'm ashamed of
myself, and reject myself, and choose you. And I can find only peace with
myself and with you in you .
Unrest,
discontent, displeasure form in Augustine’s experience the background of his
desire and aspiration. This dissatisfaction is a common human experience. The
remarkable point is that Augustine interprets it as an desire for God. Because
he is feeling that this deficiency concerns his whole existence, he opts
totally for God who is at the origin of his existence.
On
the other hand, it is not given that this peace in God is complete. God is for
him a certainty.Therefore he finds rest in God. But this peace is an partial
and incomplete one. The next two chapters explain this.
When at last I will be joined with you with all
my being, there will be for me no more hardship and pain. And my life will
be the true life, entirely full of you. You lift up all those who are full of
you. But because I am still not entirely full of you, I am a burden to myself.
The joys in my life, over which I should have sorrow, struggle
with the sorrows, over which I should have joy. And which side will gain the
victory, I do not know.
Have mercy on me, Lord, in my misery.
My sorrows that are evil struggle with joys that are good. And
which side will gain the victory, I do not know.
Have mercy on me, Lord, in my misery.
See, I do not hide my wounds from you. You are the physician I
am sick. You are merciful, I need your mercy. Is not human life on earth a
trial?1
For who longs for misery and trouble? You command us to endure
them, not to love them. No man loves what he must endure, even though he likes
that he is able to endure. And though he is happy that he can endure, yet he
would prefer that he had nothing to endure.
In adversity I desire prosperity and when I live in prosperity,
I fear adversity. Is there any middle between both states, where the human life
is not a trial?
Miserable is the prosperity of this world, not once but twice:
because of fear of adversity and the fear that happiness will not last.
Miserable is the adversity of this world, not once or twice, but
three times, because of the constant desire for prosperity, the harshness of
the adversity and the threat that our endurance may break.
Is the human life on earth not one long, unbroken period of
trial?
1 Job. 7:1
But because I am still not entirely full of you...
This
chapter announces already the turn to the second part of the Tenth Book. There
Augustine describes in more detail how far he is advanced in his aspiration to
live with God. In this second part he discusses to what extent he made progress
in restraining his sensual desires. And although it is clear that he has found
God, that does not mean that he is entirely full of God. On the contrary, he
depicts himself as wretched, wounded, subject to doubts and inner struggles.
He
starts by referring to a ideal heavenly situation, in which he will be wholly
united with God. It is a mystical union, of which he occasionally in his life
had the experience by the ascent which he has described in the previous
chapters. To touch God where he can be touched.
Is the human life on earth not one long, unbroken period of
trial? …
This
reference to the book of Job is a rhetorical question to which the reader
cannot do otherwise than agree, especially when so many arguments support the
proposition. Yet we are not used to speak of life in that negative sense,
because it appears to us as a very pessimistic world view. Rather we would
stress that there is much to enjoy in this life so that you can hardly call it
a trial.
Yet,
from a philosophical point of view, you can have little objection to this
negative description of human existence. Life in itself has no clear meaning
nor direction. It is transient and doomed to death. The conclusion is as
pessimistic as we find in Augustine’s description. The difference is that
Augustine sees this life in another perspective. Death is not the end. Life is
seen as a passage, a journey to a timeless union with God. This destination
gives meaning and direction to a life which is senseless in itself.
I
try to explain why Augustine put such an emphasis on life as a trial. Perhaps
because it is the only and final meaning of what we endure in life. When life
is a journey, adversities have to be endured to reach the homeland, the union
with God Augustine mentions in the beginning of this chapter. This gives a
moral sense to the word trial. We are in an certain way tested if we are ready
for this final destination.
There is no
hope for me except in your great mercy. Give me what you command and command me
what you will.
You ask us to control our sensory desires. A certain writer has said: When I
knew that nobody can control himself except by God’s gift, it was wisdom to
recognize whence this gift came.1
It is indeed by continence, that we are gathered and brought back to the unity,
from which we floated away by losing ourselves in multiplicity.
He loves
you less, who besides you loves something else that he does not love for your
sake.
Love who
always burns and never dies
Love, my God, set me on fire.
You command me to be continent.
Give me what you command
And command me what you will.
1 Wisd. 8,21
Commentary
You ask us to control our bodily desires…
Augustine
asks God for continentia. I interpret it as self-control. It
concerns the ability to master the bodily pleasures in favor of the spiritual
pleasures that are found in God. You could also interpret it
as moderation or temperance. This corresponds to the classical
ideal of being moderate and keeping the right balance. It is also the wisdom
of never too much.
Continentia
has here not necessarily the meaning of abstinence. That should be the
case, if any physical pleasure should be considered as evil and undesirable.
The devotion to God asks therefore no total abstinence from every bodily
pleasure, but moderation.
Still,
Augustine meant to abstain entirely in one aspect It concerns sexual
intercourse, even within marriage.
In
the next chapter, he formulates it as follows:
You asked me not to commit fornication, and though you did not
permit me to marry, you suggested me something better. And thanks to your
grace, I have chosen this way of life even before I became a minister of your
sacrament.
This
implies that Augustine did not come to his decision to abstain from any sexual
contact, because of his function as a bishop and priest. His decision was
already made and had a different reason.
This
decision took place during the period which we call his conversion. In this
Book, Chapter 8 we find it expressed in his declaration of love: Your word pierced my heart and from that moment I got in
love with you. This dedication turns out to be so radical that
a relationship with a woman is no longer an option.
Elsewhere
in the Confessions Augustine confesses that he is attracted to this ideal of
total dedication which in many Christian communities was pursued. And although
addicted to sexual pleasure, he is more and more tempted by the ideal of sexual
continence. In this inner conflict appears to him Lady Continence:
From the direction I had turned my face, but was trembling to
go, appeared the chaste beauty of Continence ., in her serene and modest joy,
and she allured me decently to come closer and hesitate no longer. She
stretched out her gentle hands to welcome and embrace me. And she showed
countless examples for me to follow. Among them were many boys and girls, many
young adults and people of all ages, honorable widows and elderly women who
were still virgins. And between them all was Continence herself, not barren,
but a fruitful mother of children, born in joy of You, Lord, her husband.
(VIII,27)
You
could say that the best cure for an addiction is a total abstinence. But this
is more. It is the turn to a new ideal. When Augustine mentions that God
suggested him something better than marriage, it must have been the choice of
another marriage.
and though you did not permit me to marry, you suggested me
something better…
What
is to Augustine better than marriage? It can be nothing else than another
marriage, a mystical marriage, an immediate union with God, which in this
chapters is sought and found. From the beginning it is clear that this is the
union of God with the soul, the anima, which is imagined as an
embrace that will never end. (Chapter 8) .
Conclusion
The
circle is complete. The end turns back to thr first chapter of this book. The
whole of this chapters confirm that Augustine's desire to know God is in fact
the desire to love him totally. To know God appears to be
to confess God. That means that the soul wants God as a partner,
ready for Him without spot or wrinkle. (Chapter1)
Hence
this knowing of God is not so much a matter of the brain, but more of the
heart. It is the desire to be totally fulfilled by the divine Being.
In
order to know God you have to love him and in order to love him you have to
know him. Both movements are here present.
The
separation that Pascal has created between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
and the God of philosophers and scholars turns out to be not applicable.
You
can call this distinction an anachronism, since it dates from a time when
philosophy was already detached from theology. It is from the time that
theology had such a limited conception of the divine revelation that philosophy
and other forms of human knowledge and experience became second handed. But
this was not the case in Augustine’s days.
Augustine
integrates here the Christian faith in the Neo-Platonist philosophy of his
time. For him, philosophy and theology, natural and supernatural knowledge,
were not distinct areas, so this disastrous distinction should be ever made.
For without this basic human knowledge and experience any faith would float in
the air.
God
is not only the God of the Bible, but also the God of the philosophers, who,
like the neo-Platonic philosophers, seek Truth and Beauty. Hence Augustine
calls God preferably Beauty. Beauty is even more than Truth a reality that
affects the heart.
Although
Augustine in this book directs his goal for knowing God inwards, he
excludes in any way the knowledge of God we can experience from
the outside world. There is an interaction. The whole universe speaks of
God as the creator. Even here the world is seen under the aspect of
beauty. The things speak the language of their beauty (Chapter10).
When
not everyone sees it, it is because they lost this attention by their
occupation with material matters. This attention should come from within, from
the human capacity to judge. The material world can never be the supreme good.
All matter is ephemeral and partial. Therefore, God is a reality of the soul
which is spiritual.
Augustine
seeks God in that part of the soul that transcends the animal level. Therefore,
the concept of memory (memoria) has to be understand here more broadly.
It's not just the memory of what happened in the past, but it includes the
entire human consciousness.
In
that context, he finds in memory the universal notion of happiness that is
innate in every man. Although not everyone has the same notion of what
happiness is, this happiness must ultimately be the total fulfillment in the
Divine Being.
This
notion of the total Being is an knowledge from the negative, from the permanent
feeling of something missing, while one finds in nothing totally satisfaction.
This awareness of what is missing gives a certain intuition of his total
fulfillment.
For
Augustine, this is not a purely rational proof, but an inner
certainty: Without any doubt and with great certainty, do I know that I
love you, Lord. With your word you pierced my heart and I love you since.
(Chapter8)
This
complete knowledge of the divine being is a goal, not a reality. Repeatedly is
stated that this divine reality can only be seen in images and puzzles as in a
blurry mirror. To see God face to face is not what this world can
offer. The human reality is for Augustine an obscure in which one walks
groping. He speaks of a night that will be light like noon in the
contemplation of God. (Chapter7)
After
Augustine has ascended to the highest peaks of the human soul in the previous
chapters, he ends up in a lower key. In chapter 39 he describes the miserable
condition of earthly existence. Life on earth is a continuous trial. Not only
in adversity, but also in prosperity. In both are always many reasons to worry.
Yet
it is wrong to assume that according to Augustine, God cannot be known in this
transitory existence. He has always in his life tried to know him. That is to
say it in his own words to touch him where he can be touched. The
ascent to God as described in the Tenth Book is not standing alone. It was for
him a daily habit: This I frequently do. It gives me delight, and I take
refuge in this pleasure from necessary business, so far as I am able to take
relief. But in all those investigations which I pursue while consulting you, I
can find no safe place except in you.(X, chapter 65)
But
this are short moments. Soon there is the fall back in the earthly reality,
like he tells in the same chapter 65:
Sometimes you lead me in a extraordinary sensation of utter
sweetness, which as it would take totally hold of me, would be an experience
that cannot be compared with anything in this life. But then I fall back into
the things of here below with their empty self-importance. I am again absorbed
by my habits and held in their grip. (X, 65)
It
turns out that Augustine’s desire of knowing God is a mystical one. It is a
mysticism in a philosophical way.
.