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Book 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Confessions, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Faith and Conversion
Sin and Salvation
Interpreting the Bible
God, Goodness, and Being
Time, Eternity, and the Mind
Summary
Analysis
Augustine opens this book with prayer that God will accept his confession, and he offers praises for God’s mercies. God is always found by those who confess their sins and throw themselves on his mercy. God was right before Augustine’s eyes at this time in his life, but Augustine had deserted both himself and God. When he was 29, a charming, well-respected Manichean bishop named Faustus had come to Carthage. By this time, Augustine had read many scientific books and was beginning to find their theories more plausible than “the tedious tales of the Manichees.” He remarks on the pride that keeps the scientists, who say many true things, from seeking the source of truth. But their writings still made more sense and could be demonstrated by evidence, in contrast to the incoherent teachings of Manes.
Here, Augustine refers to Faustus of Mileve, a Manichean bishop (the Manichean church hierarchy based itself on and rivaled the Christians’ in size and social pull at this time) from what’s now Algeria. Faustus was highly regarded among North African Manichees, especially for his criticisms of the Old Testament for teaching the practice of animal sacrifice and for the moral failings of some of the biblical patriarchs. Notably, even before he met Faustus, Augustine was beginning to doubt that Manichean teachings were as sophisticated as its proponents claimed they were.
Themes
[5] Augustine notes that although Manes wrote at great length on matters of science, he neglected his greater duty of confessing his sins to God. Not only that, but he also claimed to be divine in the process. [6] At the time, however, Augustine still wasn’t sure about Manes’s teachings and looked forward to hearing from Faustus on the matter. He found Faustus to be charming and eloquent, but that didn’t satisfy him. When he finally got a chance to speak with Faustus personally, he was disappointed to learn that Faustus wasn’t a scholar or even well-read.
Looking back, Augustine sees the greatest failing of Manicheism’s founder Manes as his failure to submit to God as human beings are called to do; since he failed to honor God in his rightful place, it’s no wonder Manes had nothing coherent to say about the world. Though Augustine doesn’t specify what convinced him that Faustus wasn’t a true scholar, it’s clear that in his late 20s, Augustine is less easily swayed by personality and outward style than he was in his youth.
Themes
[7] Augustine lost hope that Faustus could answer his questions about the claims of the Manichees versus those of scientific writings. Though he appreciated the man’s modesty, his interest in Manichean doctrines declined from this time forward. Though he didn’t give up on the Manichees entirely, this was, by God's providence, a turning point toward Augustine finding God.
Since one of the most revered Manichean teachers couldn’t resolve Augustine’s doubts about the religion, Augustine seems to have lost his motivation to keep wrestling with it. Faustus’s appearance prepares readers for the contrasting figure of the Christian bishop Ambrose within the next few years of Augustine’s life. Recall that Augustine lamented his great distance from God at this phase of his life; it’s significant, then, that Augustine also highlights God’s providence in his life during the very same period—suggesting that God was actively preparing Augustine for his conversion even during the years when Augustine was not consciously seeking God.
Themes
[8] Augustine decided to move from Carthage to Rome to continue teaching. Though the pay was better, he claims his main motivation was that the students in Rome were said to be better behaved. Looking back, Augustine believes God used the unpleasant environment at Carthage to drive Augustine to the place where his soul would be saved, though neither he nor his heartbroken mother knew that at the time.
Though Augustine doesn’t mention it here, his move to Rome came about in part due to connections within the tightly knit Manichean social network, so he was clearly comfortable taking advantage of those relationships at this point, even if he was no longer persuaded of Manichean doctrine. Again, in retrospect, Augustine sees God’s providence at work in his departure from Africa.
Themes
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[9] In Rome, Augustine immediately fell ill and nearly died. If he had died unbaptized, he knows that his mother’s heart could not have withstood the grief, but God heard her fervent prayers for his soul. [10] Even after his recovery, Augustine continued to associate with the Manichees and to believe that he was not guilty for his sins, but that some mysterious nature within him was responsible for sinning. At the same time, he was beginning to be drawn to the Academics, who held that nothing could be known for certain. He had no hope of joining the Church, because the Manichees had turned him away from the belief that God could have a human body; he thought that human flesh would necessarily defile God.
After his move, Augustine continues to drift in a religiously ambiguous state, no longer affiliated with the Manichees and not yet Christian. Manichean influences still shape some of his beliefs, such as that an evil nature warred with the divine light within him and that, due to the wickedness of the material world, God could not possibly have become incarnate (two beliefs that completely contradict Christian teaching). The Academics were affiliated with the teachings of Plato, and though Platonism would soon have a major impact on Augustine, this stage of his development seems to have been marked primarily by a growing distance from his youthful certainty about good and evil, matter and spirit.
Themes
[11] Though Augustine would have liked to hear the perspective of someone knowledgeable about the Christian Scriptures, he was stuck in the Manichean belief that good and evil were two big, material masses, and he couldn’t conceive of anything different.
The fact that Augustine is open to hearing the perspective of a Christian biblical interpreter is a big deal, since rejection and mockery of aspects of the Bible was a major part of the Manichees’ former appeal. Because the Manichean belief in two cosmically opposed material entities of good and evil made such a significant impression on Augustine when he was young, he finds it difficult to move beyond it, even though he is no longer committed to the Manichees’ teaching as a system.
Themes
[12] Augustine began to teach literature and public speaking out of his home. He quickly discovered that, while Roman students weren’t violent like those in Carthage, they were unscrupulous and tried to cheat their teachers out of their fees. [13] Augustine then applied and was hired for a position teaching literature and public speaking in Milan. There he met the bishop Ambrose, whose warmth Augustine found inviting. He listened eagerly to Ambrose’s sermons, though at the time, his motivation was simply to judge Ambrose’s speaking ability, and he paid attention only to style, not substance.
That Roman students attempted to cheat their teachers is attested by other rhetoric instructors of that period, who report scenarios such as students switching to a different teacher just before their bill was due. Again, Augustine’s move to Milan and his new position there are known to have been facilitated by his Manichean connections, though he doesn’t mention it here. Probably just a year or two after his encounter with Faustus, Augustine meets Ambrose, though at first, he claims to have taken an interest in the bishop primarily as a fellow rhetorician.
Themes
[14] Gradually, however, Augustine found that he couldn’t pay attention to Ambrose’s style without listening to his meaning also. He began to think that, contrary to the Manichees’ claims, it was possible to defend the scriptures, especially after hearing Ambrose’s figurative interpretation of the Old Testament. While Augustine didn’t rush to become Catholic simply because the Church contained learned teachers, he decided to leave the Manichees. For the time being, he chose to remain a catechumen in the Church, “until I could clearly see a light to guide my steps.”
Recall that when Augustine talked with the Manichean Faustus, he found the bishop unable to resolve his doubts about the religion. Ambrose, however, quickly defuses some of the Manichean critiques of Christianity through his public preaching, even before Augustine approaches him personally. It’s worth noting that Ambrose’s interpretation, while applying spiritual meanings to the Old Testament stories, would still have upheld a basically literal interpretation as well. In other words, Christians in antiquity took the basic historicity of the biblical stories for granted in a way that many modern critical scholars don’t; it’s just that they allowed room for additional layers of meaning in a way that the Manicheans woodenly denied. Augustine himself will give an example of such interpretation in the final book of Confessions. Recall also that Augustine had technically been a catechumen, or baptismal candidate, since childhood; he just never chose to pursue baptism. Now, however, he is ready to seek a guiding “light”—that of God, rather than the inner spark the Manichees had encouraged him to nurture.
Themes
