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Book 8
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
[2] Augustine recounts that after his conversion, he decided to quietly give up his job teaching rhetoric. He waited until the autumn holidays began so that his resignation wouldn’t draw public attention. Some fellow Christians might find fault with his decision to “occupy the chair of lies” (his rhetoric professorship) even for a short time, and Augustine won’t argue with them; either way, he believes that sin was forgiven when he got baptized.
Because Augustine regards the field of rhetoric as unavoidably trafficking in falsehoods to some extent, he regards the profession as unacceptable for him as a Christian. Augustine was a public figure in Milan, so a very public resignation could potentially raise all sorts of speculation about Augustine’s motives, hence his attempt to leave quietly. Perhaps thinking of more rigorist North African Christians who criticized his ordination years later, he also offers this modest desire for privacy as a defense for not having resigned from his post immediately.
Themes
[4] A friend gave Augustine the use of his country house at Cassiciacum, so when his job ended, Augustine joyfully moved there and began writing, joined by Alypius and Monica. During this time Augustine found particular comfort in reading the Psalms, applying them to his spiritual journey thus far and longing to share the light he had found with others. [6] After the country vacation, Augustine returned to Milan along with Augustine’s illegitimate son Adeodatus (now a teenager) and Alypius, and soon all three were baptized.
Augustine’s withdrawal to the country estate in 386 was both a kind of retreat to shore up his new Christian convictions and identity in community with likeminded friends, and a transitional period from his old career to his new one as a Christian scholar and writer. Some of the earliest works in Augustine’s massive theological corpus were produced during this time. This is also one of the very few mentions of Augustine’s son Adeodatus in the book; the young man died, probably around age 16 or 17, just a few years later. While readers might find it surprising that Augustine gives so little space to the account of his baptism—after all, it would have been his official initiation into the church at last, the sacrament by which his sins to date were forgiven—the anticlimax makes sense in that it simply doesn’t involve the wrestling with the will that characterized the years leading up to it.
Themes
[7] It had not been long since Ambrose had been persecuted by Justina, the emperor Valentinian’s mother, who embraced the heresy of Arianism. Monica was among those who would keep vigil with the bishop, singing hymns to raise their spirits, a practice that caught on around the world. [8] When Augustine and some friends were on their way to Africa to start a communal life there, Monica died. [9] Augustine eulogizes his mother’s life, her strict upbringing, and her marriage to Patricius, who was often hot-tempered and unfaithful and did not become a Christian until the end of his life.
Arianism was one of the major heresies rejected by the early church, teaching that while Jesus was in some sense God, he was elevated to that status and was not “God” in the sense that God the Father was God. Ambrose took a strong stand against Arians in Milan and refused to let them worship in Catholic church buildings, which in turn influenced the emperor to change his policy of religious toleration. Ambrose is also credited with introducing the practice of hymn-singing in the Latin church. (Before this point, biblical psalms would have been the primary music in worship services.) Augustine portrays Monica as one of the influences God used to draw him into the church, so including a remembrance of her makes sense.
Themes
[10] Augustine also recalls that a few days before Monica died, the two of them had a conversation about what the eternal life of the saints might be like. Then Monica said that, having seen her son become a Catholic, there was nothing left for her to do in this world. [11] After a nine-day illness, Monica died at age 56; Augustine was 33.
Augustine and Monica’s conversation about heaven is presented as an anticipation of her approaching death; it also represents a special kind of Christian fellowship that the two couldn’t share until Augustine converted to Christianity in answer to Monica’s years of prayers.
Themes
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[12] After Monica died, Augustine struggled not to weep. He knew his mother’s life had not been extinguished, so he did not want to express open sorrow, but the loss was still painful. He didn’t even weep during his mother’s burial, though he constantly prayed that God would heal his grief. Eventually, he wept before God in private and found relief. [13] Later, he also wept for his mother’s sins after her baptism, and he now prays to God to have mercy on her soul.
Augustine worries that excessive tears are inappropriate for a Christian, since a Christian still feels pain after a loved one dies but shouldn’t mourn as though that person’s existence has ended forever. Baptism was believed to cleanse a person from the guilt of original sin (passed down from Adam) and all sins committed before baptism; Augustine’s tears here suggest that, like the fourth-century church in general, he believed the soul would still be held accountable for those unconfessed sins committed after baptism.
Themes
