An Augustinian Deep Dive, Pars I

So this has been something which I have wanted to do for a couple years, but I haven’t done till recently, because the summer allows for a certain amount of relaxation for me to indulge in more scholarly and human pursuits. Saint Augustine of Hippo, above all the Church Fathers, is arguably my favorite. I honor him with fervor on his feast day of August 28th. When I was a High School student learning Latin, I was blessed beyond measure to be under the tutelage of a truly extraordinary man, whose instruction has been a motive for thanksgiving for my whole adult life. He taught me Latin with a rigor and a discipline that has since formed my entire attitude toward study, and when I excelled in that discipline, he also took to teaching me Greek. Our agreement was that I would grade his Freshmen Quizzes so that he would have time to review my Greek work. That brilliant, diligent, kind man is the root of so much of my intellectual development, that I cannot but look back with gratitude.

In-between all this, I expressed interest in Late Antique Latin, and after having achieved proficiency in Cicero, Virgil, Catullus and the like, I was exposed for the first time to Augustine of Hippo in his native tongue. And so I worked on my own translation of his Confessions, a labor that brought me very close to this great saint and treasure of our theological, spiritual and philosophical tradition. My notes and my work have been the work of several decades. Along with a private translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, the Confessions have formed a key part of my leisurely scholarly pursuits.

I would like to begin a series of “deep dives” into certain sections of Augustine’s Confessions, which I hope some readers at least will find illuminating, but I also hope to draw out the spiritual beauty and profundity in the great North African saint. It is unfortunately still very much in fashion today to cast Augustine as a severe, austere figure preaching gloom and doom in the context of a decaying world. However, the man who emerges from his own words is nothing sort of a man transformed by divine grace; as such, he merits the honorific Doctor of Grace, not only for his work, but for his life.

I would like to begin with Book Ten, with a certain section where Augustine asks a very simple, yet profound question: what do I love, when I say I love God? The text may be found here for those who wish to see the source.

Non dubia, sed certa conscientia, Domine, amo te. Percussisti cor meum verbo tuo, et amavi te. Sed et caelum et terra et omnia, quae in eis sunt, ecce undique mihi dicunt, ut te amem, nec cessant dicere omnibus, ut sint inexcusabiles.

In this section, Augustine affirms that he loves God “not with a doubtful, but a certain conscience.” He says to God, “you have struck me with your word, and I have loved you.” This language is closely linked to that of the Song of Solomon 4:9-10, where the author says to his love “you have ravished [vulnerasti] my heart”. The Latin of Augustine technically says you have “wounded” my heart, which is an interesting twist on the mystical experience, because falling in love in so many senses is a vulnerability which may be described as a woundedness. This makes us ask, why does God wound us in order that we may love him? One key reason may be because love, especially divine love, acts as a sort of ‘mining’ of the heart, which digs deep and strikes at the root of our egoism. So many mystics and prophets describe an encounter with divine love as being a synthesis of pain and ecstasy; it is ecstasy because union with God is bliss; it is pain because of our imperfection and limitation as fallen beings in the flesh. Yet even with this imperfection in the physical, fallen world, God nevertheless attempts to seduce the human heart. Augustine continues:

Quid autem amo, cum te amo? Non speciem corporis nec decus temporis, non candorem lucis, ecce istum amicum oculis, non dulces melodias cantilenarum omnimodarum, non florum et ungentorum et aromatum suaveolentiam, non manna et mella, non membra acceptabilia carnis amplexibus: non haec amo, cum amo Deum meum.

This passage is the prologue to an extremely sophisticated analogy/metaphor, as most descriptions of mystical experience are. Augustine makes clear that the heavens and the earth declare to him that God is God, but he also says that these entities, unfortunately, often speak their praise “to the deaf” (surdis). Therefore Augustine attempts to explain what he does not love in the earthly things, in order to distill, like a fine beverage, what is exactly the heavenly ambrosia which intoxicates his spirit. This is an excellent example of Augustine’s apophatic method, the theological procedure which attempts to identify God by first identifying what he is not. Therefore Augustine says: “it is not the beauty of time, nor the brightness of light (that friend of the eyes), nor sweet melodies…nor [fragrance] of flowers or perfumes or sweet aromas, nor manna and honey, nor bodies acceptable for the embraces of the flesh: I do not love these, when I love my God.”

Yet at this point Augustine acknowledges that yes, his experience of God is a sort light, heat, embrace, which is as unlike the world as he can express:

Et tamen amo quandam lucem et quandam vocem et quendam olorem et quendam cibum et quendam aplexum, cum amo Deum meum, lucem, vocem, odorem, cibum, amplexum interioris hominis mei, ubi fulget animae meae, quod non capit locus, et ubi sonat, quod non rapit tempus, et ubi olet, quod non spargit flatus, et ubi sapit, quod non minuit edacitas, et ubi haeret, quod non divellit satietas. Hoc est quod amo, cum Deum meum amo.

Augustine thus tries to describe his experience with the modifier “quidam”, which occurs five times here, once for every physical sense. “Quidam” means “a certain thing”, or “something”. So he says that what he loves is a “certain light”, or a “certain voice, a certain scent, a certain food, a certain embrace, when I love my God: light, voice, scent, food, and an embrace of my interior man [self], where [something] shines in my soul, that space does not hold, and where something sounds, which time cannot snatch away, and where something sends forth fragrance, which breathing cannot disperse, and where something is tasted, which voracity cannot diminish, and where something adheres, which satiety cannot estrange.” Augustine thus ingeniously employs the powers of the five senses to approximate his experience of the numinous. Like in all analogies, his description inevitably falls short. But he does help his description by speaking of this amplexum interioris hominis, an embrace of his interior man/person, which is one of the hallmarks of a truly mystical experience.

What follows in this section of Book X is what I would call Augustine’s interrogation of nature. Unable to understand exactly what he is experiencing when he loves and experiences God, he questions the whole of creation at length, who respond in kind, non sumus Deus tuus. “We are not your God.” Understanding then the solution to his conundrum cannot be found in the physical universe, he turns to the one part of the physical universe he has not interrogated: himself. And so he says, direxi me ad me et dixi mihi, tu quis est? Et respondi: homo. “I turned toward myself and said to myself, ‘Who are you?’ And I answered, ‘A man.’” Yet even when speaking toward himself, when trying to understand what he is (a profound mystery in Augustinian psychology, which we will return to at a later date), he replies like much of the created order: ipse fecit nos. “He [God] made us.” Because all physical bodies in heaven and on earth are contingent and created by God, Augustine concludes that the place where he must be experiencing God most truly is in his soul. He concludes, Deus autem tuus etiam tibi vitae vita est. “For your God also is life of your life.” Perhaps we could also translate this like anima, “the soul of your soul.” Because if even the soul is created, then it must be sustained by something beyond itself. And so Augustine begins to soar:

Transibo ergo et istam naturae meae, gradibus ascendens ad eum, qui fecit me. “I will therefore cross over that which is of my nature, and by steps ascending to him, who made me.” In place of interrogating external entities, he turns toward that is within him, namely, in his memory and intellect. His discussion of the nature of memory is extremely significant in the history of philosophical anthropology and epistemology, but ultimately his examination ends in aporia. I believe this is exactly because in mystical experience, two mysteries intertwine: the human person made in the image of God, and the mystery of the divine nature, which is beyond human comprehension. What Augustine realizes above all is that although the capacities of human reason are immense and powerful, nevertheless, it is not ultimately through the reason that God is experienced, but through the will and the influence of charity. It is charity that above all makes one docile to God’s divine grace. And so Augustine concludes, Optimus minister est, qui non magis intuetur hoc a te audire quod ipse voluerit, sed potius hoc velle quod a te audierit. “The best minister is he who does not more regard that which he would want to hear from you, but rather him who would desire to hear that which comes from you.” If I may make a personal commentary on that, that is a fundamental difference between all true and false mysticism, which is even so prevalent in our current day. The true mystic wishes to hear exactly that which God wishes to say, in spirit of Isaiah. “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.” In contrast the false mystic hears that which is in accordance with his or her desires, as St. Paul prophecies regarding the itching ears, which in our own day are so dangerous. We thus can distinguish true mysticism from the false. True mystics speak in earnest as to what God has said, and never contradict his words, while false mystics speak more in conformity with their own desires. It is precisely for this reason that even St. Augustine has a sort of epistemological skepticism regarding his own experience with God; he can only approximate the ineffable in his words. But who God is and how he is experienced is known more by love than by reason, because although reason is necessary, it is not sufficient for divine union.

Although this is somewhat short, I hope this little “deep dive” into Augustine is somewhat helpful. I will be looking for ways to improve explanation for people who don’t know Latin, and to explicate more areas for meditation. God Bless you all.