Not the least of the many astonishing things to be said about Augustine is the fact that it should have taken him nine years before he finally broke free of the Manichean chains that bound him. No less astonishing, of course, is the fact that it took less than a minute after hearing the singsong voice of the little child telling him to “Take it and read, take it and read” to turn his life completely around for the sake of Christ and His Church. That so much wonderment should flow from both ends of a life is the stuff of high drama. In fact, so replete are The Confessions with intense, riveting drama that it may take an accountant to keep track of all the examples. The reader, meanwhile, is given a bird’s-eye view to witness the whole story as it unfolds frame by thrilling frame.
There can be little doubt that of the nine books set down to describe Augustine’s life, Book VIII is everyone’s favorite. It is the centerpiece of the story, the necessary hinge on which all the action turns.
How does it begin? Not with bells and whistles, although there will be time for fireworks in a bit. It begins with Augustine’s simple acknowledgment that a) it was God who unshackled him from sin and error; b) that in return for saving his life he will make a sacrifice of praise to God; and c) that by telling his story he hopes others will be moved to do the same.
What other story is there to tell when an author, stricken by a life of sin, sits down to write a book titled Confessions? In a moving little piece by the late Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete called “Secrets of the Confessional,” he nails it beautifully. “Confession,” he writes, “is not therapy, nor is it moral accounting. At its best, it is the affirmation that the ultimate truth of our interior life is our absolute poverty, our radical dependence, our unquenchable thirst, our desperate need to be loved.”
As St. Augustine knew so well, confession is ultimately about praise.
In the opening chapter, Augustine tells God that it was not certainty of proof he sought but, rather, a steadfast heart completely wedded to Him. Meanwhile, everything had gone wrong. “In my worldly life all was confusion. My heart had still to be rid of the leaven which remained over,” he confesses, quoting 1 Corinthians 5:7. “I should have been glad to follow the right road, to follow our Savior himself, but still I could not make up my mind to venture along the narrow path.”
Seeing Augustine thus caught in the vise of a near fatal vacillation, what does God do? Straightaway, He sends him to an old and trusted Christian by the name of Simplicianus, who is Spiritual Father to Ambrose. Just tell him everything, the message seems to be. Who, by way of encouragement, will tell Augustine the story of the famous Victorinus, an old man of redoubtable reputation whom Simplicianus had known in Rome.
So esteemed was Victorinus among the pagans that there was even a statue of him in the forum. Long accustomed to the worship of the false gods, he nevertheless converted, “seized by the fear that Christ,” whom he had come at least privately to profess, “might deny him before the holy angels if he was too faint-hearted to acknowledge Christ before men.” And so, screwing up his courage, he tells his friend, “Let us go to the church. I want to be made a Christian…and soon afterwards, to the wonder of Rome and the joy of the Church, he gave in his name to be reborn through baptism.”
Augustine is deeply shaken by the story, especially having himself hung fire for so long, owing to a life of sin he cannot quite bring himself to abandon.
I was held fast, not in fetters clamped upon by another, but by my own will, which had the strength of iron chains. For my will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit it became a necessity…
