When we read about saints such as Augustine, we think they have never done anything wrong in their lives. Yet Saint Augustine, in his youth and partly also as an adult, went through a period of rebellion. His excesses were such that, after recognizing the mistakes of his life, he wrote an entire book, The Confessions, detailing his sinful behavior. He made a true confession, recounting without reservation all his hidden secrets.
In this article, we discover a different “Augustine”: real and human, someone who makes mistakes and sins, who bares his soul through a slow and difficult journey of growth toward conversion and the search for himself, the truth, and God.
Introduction
Saint Augustine (354-430), Church Father, bishop, writer, rhetorician, philosopher, and theologian, continues to be a point of reference for many men and women seeking answers. Yet in one of his works, the Confessions, an exceptionally perceptive autobiography and one of the most widely read books of all time (its autobiographical nature makes it accessible to everyone, not only theologians), he retraces the story of his long inner struggle and examines his life in depth. With candor, he shows us a different “Augustine”: real and human, someone who makes mistakes, sins, and has a conflicted relationship with himself and also with God, at least initially; a boy like so many others who hates going to school, struggles with certain subjects, and prefers playing ball; a young man like so many others who hides the truth from his parents, keeps company with “bad companions,” and discovers the pleasures of the flesh…
1. His relationship with his father
Augustine had a difficult relationship with his father, Patricius. He was a pagan and converted to Christianity only late in life; he ensured that Augustine received a good literary and rhetorical education. He was quick-tempered, harsh and difficult by nature, gruff, moody, and devoted to wine, entertainment, and carnal pleasures. His wife Monica gently brought him closer to the faith: he was in fact baptized in 371, shortly before he died.
2. He is intelligent but does not apply himself
From an early age, he got up to mischief and played pranks: sometimes he lied to his parents and teachers, stole small things from the pantry, and cheated in games to win. As for his studies, Augustine attended classes first in Tagaste (his hometown, in Algeria), then in Madaura, and finally in Carthage. He was very intelligent, curious, and quick-witted, but he was not an exemplary student. He preferred playing ball to attending classes, and his teachers often reprimanded him. He also had difficulty with Greek, which he hated, but he loved Latin and was moved when reading Virgil’s Aeneid. This is what he wrote: «I did not love studying and hated being forced to do it […] I hated the Greek I was taught as a child […] Instead, I had developed a passion for Latin» (Book I).
3. The crisis at sixteen
The age of 16 is a very particular period for Augustine, during which he leads an idle and rather unruly life, “dragged among the crags of the passions, plunged into the whirlpool of vices, giving himself over to games and loves” (Book II). It is a period of intellectual and moral crisis, full of doubts and anxieties, during which his mother’s concerned words - urging him to be prudent - fall on deaf ears, while those of his peers help increase in him a certain attraction to sin.
He is uninterested in religious matters, to the point of mocking a friend who had been baptized on his deathbed, only to recover afterward! Indeed, he wanted nothing to do with God: “Within me was a hunger insensitive to inner nourishment, to you yourself, my God” (Book III).
4. Thief!
After returning to Thagaste from Madaura, Augustine continues his dissolute life in the company of disreputable friends. One night, Augustine and his group trespass on private property and steal some pears, which they then feed to pigs. It might seem like a minor thing, but to him it was quite serious. The fact that it was a premeditated theft not prompted by necessity makes the sin even graver and less justifiable: Augustine steals the pears with his friends partly because he allows himself to be drawn into a transgressive undertaking and, above all, for the pleasure of breaking the law. He feels attracted by the desire for what is forbidden, by the taste for wrongdoing. Later, he wrote that throwing away the pears “gave us even greater pleasure because it was forbidden” (Book II).
For Augustine, it is the first taste of his “dark side,” the beginning of an escalation of vices.
5. Cohabitation and the “illegitimate” son
After the year spent in idleness and debauchery in Thagaste, Augustine goes to Carthage to resume his studies. However, once again, he gets up to all sorts of mischief and is captivated by the allure of pleasure, writing candidly: “I arrived in Carthage, and all around me roared the whirlpool of sinful loves” (Book III). He becomes passionate about theatrical performances and “dark loves” and, as he writes himself, “I threw myself into the snares of love, eager to be caught” and “frenzy took hold of me, and I surrendered completely to lust.” He falls in love with a girl whose name he never revealed, and the two begin a relationship. Their union produces Adeodatus (meaning “gift of God”). Augustine becomes a father at just 18 (he is not yet a Christian; in fact, he will convert to Christianity around the age of 30). Augustine takes his son and the boy’s mother with him when his career takes him to Rome, but he continues to refuse marriage even though their relationship lasts for about ten years. His lover eventually makes the difficult choice to leave him. “She was stronger than I was,” he writes.
6. A new mistress
The shock of being abandoned by the mother of his son drove Augustine to try to bring some order to his love life, and so a marriage was arranged with a young woman. The problem was that she was so young that he had to wait two years for her to reach the age at which she could marry. In the meantime, Augustine lost his composure and took another mistress. He writes that he was “impatient with the delay” and a “slave to lust.”
7. Breaks his mother's heart
All these life choices and his actions wounded his mother Monica above all. It is easy to imagine that her heart was broken and that she wondered where she had gone wrong in raising such a dissolute son. One day, a bishop gave his mother this advice: “Leave him where he is. Pray only to the Lord for him. He will discover for himself, by reading, where his error lies and how great his impiety is” (ibid., III 12). Monica, a fervent Christian, offered God an earnest supplication, with tears, fasting, and prayers, to see her converted son again. After years of prayer and tears, Monica saw the fruit of her tireless spiritual efforts, and Augustine, who was close to Manichaean heresy and was also struck by the preaching of Bishop Ambrose, converted and decided to be baptized.
At the end of the Confessions, Augustine writes: “My mother said to me: ‘Son, […] there was only one reason why I wanted to remain a little longer in this life: to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. God has granted my wish beyond all my expectations; he has allowed me to see you in his service’” (Book IX).
Conclusion
Like Augustine, we all have stories from our past that are embarrassing to remember and even more embarrassing to confess. And most of the time, with a shrug of the shoulders, we say, “That's just how I am.” Who among us has not thought this at least once and then perhaps realized that it is an excuse not to leave our comfort zone?
Augustine's life and his honesty in admitting everything offer an encouraging example of the fact that no matter what our past mistakes may have been, it is never too late to change our lives, follow Jesus Christ, and live his Gospel.
Then, let us pray with Saint Augustine:
“Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you. Yes, because you were within me and I was outside: there I searched for you. In my deformed state, I threw myself upon the beautiful forms of your creatures. You were with me, but I was not with you. Your creatures kept me far from you, though they would not exist unless they existed in you. You called, and your cry broke through my deafness; you flashed, and your splendor dispelled my blindness; you spread your fragrance, I breathed it in and now I yearn for you; I tasted you and now I hunger and thirst for you; you touched me, and I burned with desire for your peace.”
