A Man for the 21st Century
…from the third.
I’m talking about St. Augustine and his Confessions.
Most people that are into classical/theological lit have heard of it. A few of us have read it in its entirety. I tried once, and failed miserably. I just didn’t get it. What was everyone raving about?
Now I know. It’s been two years since I last tried to read it, and now, armed with a new translation, I have discovered the incredible wisdom and richness of Augustinian prose.
Augustine is far from a ivory-tower saint. This is a guy who dabbled with women (having a child with one of them), calling himself a “slave of lust”, while being engaged to a girl (and I do mean girl; he had to wait until she was 12 to marry her. He was over 20 by this time.). He stole, caroused, got drunk, and pursued many other activities familiar to twenty-first century frat boys. His mother, St. Monica, certainly earned her “St.” with him as a son. He left Hippo to go to Rome and Milan, teaching rhetoric to support his high living lifestyle.
Yet, somehow, God found him (in no small matter due to his mother’s unceasing prayers), he became a Christian, and, eventually, Bishop of Hippo (in North Africa).
I haven’t finished this re-through yet, but I am enthralled. This should be required reading. (Nerdy book note: PLEASE get the translation I linked to above, if you’re going to read this. It is readable, elegant and VASTLY superior to the other one I tried, which I believe was published by Signet.)
Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new; late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called out and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put flight to by blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours. (Book X, 38)
