INTRODUCTION 273
his life of self-gratification. In 386, while sitting in a friend’s garden, he heard
what he thought was a child’s voice saying, “Pick it up and read, pick it up and
read.” Augustine later recounted what happened:
I returned to the place where Alypius was sitting, for on leaving it I had put down
there the book of the apostle’s letters. I snatched it up, opened it and read in silence
the passsage on which my eyes first lighted: “Not in dissipation and drunkenness,
nor in debauchery and lewdness, nor in arguing and jealousy; but put on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh or the gratification of your
desires.” [Rom. 13:13–14] I had no wish to read further, nor was there need. No
sooner had I reached the end of the verse than the light of certainty flooded my heart
and all dark shades of doubt fled away.*The following year, Augustine was baptized and returned to Africa to found a
monastic community. Within two years he left the cloister, answering the church’s
call to priesthood. He served as a priest, and later as bishop, in the African town
of Hippo for the rest of his life.
While at Hippo, Augustine wrote voluminously on a variety of theological and
philosophical topics. Many of his works sought to define exactly what was and
was not “Christian.” His doctrinal works, such as The Trinity,established
Christian essentials; whereas his polemical works, directed against “heresies”
(positions unacceptable to the church), outlined what was not admissible.
Augustine fought two major heresies: the Pelagian and the Donatist. The
Pelagians held that sin had affected only Adam, that the will is free from sin, and
that God’s grace is given on the basis of human merit. The Donatists maintained
that the sacraments were effective only when administered by a priest in a state of
grace. Augustine argued passionately that both heresies put too much emphasis
on human ability and not enough on God’s grace.
Augustine’s most famous work, the Confessions,invented the genre of intro-
spective autobiography. The Confessionsare full of both psychological and spiritual
insight and so can be read as either devotional tract or philosophical essay. Books
I through IX are Augustine’s life story from the perspective of Christian conversion
(detailed in our selection from Book VIII). As Augustine reflects on his life, he sees
both his sinfulness and his intellectual aimlessness apart from God’s grace. He also
gives early glimpses of his mature epistemological position that God must illumine
the mind in order for an individual to gain wisdom. Following his conversion,
Augustine continued to seek understanding—though now firmly founded on faith.
Books X to XII illustrate this “faith seeking understanding,” as Augustine examines
the questions of memory, time, and creation. Our selection from Book XI explores
the nature of time and God’s relation to it. Augustine argues that God must be
“outside” time in an eternal present. This view of God as timelessly eternal was
developed by Boethius and is still influential today (see the suggested readings that
follow). I am pleased to offer this selection in the outstanding new translation by
Maria Boulding.
*Saint Augustine,Confessions,Book VIII. See reading on p. 275.