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St. Augustine's Confessions
(Excerpts in textbook):
Vocabulary:
biography, temptation motif, patristic
Introduction: Where
did Saint Augustine work as a bishop (i.e., what city and
what continent?)
Lecture or Handouts: Why
might we say that Saint Augustine "bridges the gap
between the Roman Empire and the medieval world"? What
was happening to the city where Saint Augustine lived at
the moment he was on his death-bed? How is this historical
event a marker for distinguishing between the late Roman
or Patristic Period and the subsequent "Dark Ages"?
Identify the following characters:
Saint Augustine, Monica, Alypius
Reading Questions:
- Book II, Chapter 1 What contrast does
Augustine make between how he appeared in his own eyes
and how he appeared in God's eyes?
- Book II, Chapter 2 How old was Augustine
when "the madness of lust" held full sway over
him?
- Book II, Chapter 3 For whom does Saint
Augustine write The Confessions? Who is his stated
audience?
- When Augustine first shows signs of puberty, how does
his father react? How does his mother, Monica, react to
the same news?
- Why did Augustine "make himself out worse than
he really was"? What did he hope to gain by boasting
of imaginary vices to his friends?
- When Augustine claims he "walked the streets of
Babylon," what does he mean? Is he really in Babylon
or Mesopotamia?
- Book II, Chapter 4 What evidence does Saint Augustine
provide to prove that theft is against the law written
in men's hearts? (i.e., how is theft unlike other crimes
in which criminals take amusement by sharing their deeds?)
- When Saint Augustine is moved to the sin of theft, what
does he decide to steal? Once he has stolen these items,
what do he and the other boys do with this stolen property?
What does this reveal about their motivations for the
theft--i.e., what is the motivation for this theft?
- Augustine contrasts his sin with the sin of Cataline.
Who is this fellow Cataline? What did he do that was so
horrible? (Look him up in an encyclopedia or online resources
dealing with the old Roman Republic.) Why Saint Augustine
think his sin was worse than Cataline's evil deed?
- Book II, Chapter 6 Why does Saint Augustine
say that it is by a sinner's own deeds that he is himself
harmed? What examples does he use to illustrate this point?
- Book II, Chapter 7: When Saint Augustine
looks back on his youth, to whom does he give credit for
any sins he did NOT do?
- Book II, Chapter 8: When Saint Augustine
contemplates his sin, and asks whether he did this out
of peer pressure, what paradoxical conclusion does he
reach? How does this seem to contrast with his points
in Chapter 9?
- Book II, Chapter 9: When Saint Augustine
discusses laughter, why is this point pertinent to figuring
out if he was motivated by peer pressure or not?
- Book II, Chapter 10: What do you think
Saint Augustine mean when he says, "I became to myself
a wasteland?"
Passages for Identification:
A: In that sixteenth year of my
flesh, when the madness of lust held full sway in me--that
madness which grants indulgence to human shamelessness,
even though it is forbidden by thy laws--and I gave myself
entirely to it. Meanwhile my family took no care to save
me from ruin by marriage, for their sole care was that I
should learn how to make a powerful speech and become a
persuasive orator.
B: To whom am I narrating all this? Not
to thee, O my God, but to my own kind in thy presence--to
that small part of the human race who may chance to come
upon these writings.
C: She deplored and, as I remember, warned
me privately with great solicitude, "not to commit
fornication; but above all things never to defile another
man's wife." These appeared to me but wommanish counsels,
which I would have blushed to obey. Yet they were from
Thee, and I knew it not. I thought that thou wast silent,
and that it was only she who spoke.
D. There was a pear tree close to our
own vineyard, heavily laden with fruit, which was not tempting
either for its color or for its flavor. Late one night--having
prolonged our games in the streets until then, as our bad
habit was --a group of young scoundrels--and I among them,
went to shake and rob this tree. We carried off a huge load
of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to dump out to the hogs,
after barely tasting some of them ourselves. Doing this
pleased us all the more because it was forbidden.
E: I fell away from thee, O my God, and in my youth
I wandered too far from thee, my true support. And I became
to myself a wasteland.
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