The Myth of Suddenness: Augustine

Saint Augustine's Conversion
by Garry Wills

(Page 6 of 8)

Since Augustine tells us he already accepted the doctrines of the church, the only "conversion" in the garden scene is the embrace of celibacy. But why did he think that was a precondition of baptism? The answer to that question is enough to throw doubt on the suddenness of his conversion. He was being pulled toward celibacy and pushed toward it. The pull came from the fact that he was not simply accepting Christianity but aspiring to be a Christian philosopher. Ascetic separation from bodily exigency was part of the concept of a philosopher in Late Antiquity. Augustine tells us in Book Eight [17] that he had aspired to this high calling since reading Cicero's Hortensius. That book made Augustine first ask for "chastity, but not yet." The view of the body in Hortensius appears from Cicero's comment that the soul is manacled to the body the way corpses were strapped, face to face, on the prisoners of Etruscan pirates.⁴³ Augustine's low opinion of Ambrose came from the fact that he was too involved in earthly concerns. Augustine and his fellows meant to "divinize" themselves in lofty ascetical contemplation. Their thought was to be too esoteric for general communication. As he wrote from Cassiciacum to another of his circle:

I think we make enough concessions to our time if some pure stream of Plotinus is channeled through dark and thorny tangles to refresh a few, rather than loosed indiscriminately in the open, where its purity cannot be preserved from the random trampling of cattle.⁴⁴

The distance of this man from the Augustine we know from his later works can be seen in the fact that he dedicates Happiness in This Life to Mallius Theodore because he thinks true happiness is not only available on earth but that Theodore has achieved it. We can imagine the derision with which Augustine the bishop would treat such a claim.

The vocation to which Augustine felt called used celibacy only as a means - as one of the disciplines to free the mind for philosophical adventures. Augustine shows his bent at Cassiciacum in the Dialogue with Myself (line 20) where it is the intellectual life that concerns him.

Reason: I ask you now why you are so concerned that those you love should remain alive, whether with you or away from you?

Self: That we may by joint effort explore our own souls and God, so that any who happens first on some knowledge can the more readily share it with the others.

Reason: What if they are not interested in such exploration?

Self: I shall make them interested.

Reason: But what if you fail - what if they think they have sufficient knowledge, or that more is not discoverable, or that other things are more interesting or pleasing?

Self: I shall deal with them, and they with me, as best we can.

Reason: But what if their presence interferes with your own explorations? If they don't change their ways, won't you take steps, or try to, to be rid of them and their ways?

Self: Yes, that's right.

Reason: So neither their life in general nor their life with you is desired for its own sake, but only insofar as it helps you in your quest for wisdom?

Self: That's it.

If Augustine was being pulled to celibacy by his high intellectual yearnings, he was also being pushed there by his misgivings about marriage. What does he mean by being "forced to put up with unwanted aspects of married life, once bound to it" [2]? If he could not even bear a friend near him who was not dedicated to the intellectual life, is he expressing a fear that any wife would not join his spiritual quest? Of course, he lived with the mother of his child, and loved her deeply, though there is no indication that she had intellectual interests, or was even literate. But that was before he had made his decision to live the pure life of contemplation. The very labored and circuitous way he refers to his problem with marriage indicates that he is being delicate about a more touchy subject - chastity in marriage.

Augustine, like many Christians and some non-Christians, took the view that concupiscence in marriage was sinful. Admittedly, one was allowed to indulge in sex for procreation, though even that should be done in a decorous way, without losing self-control (T 6.22). But where procreation was not possible, sex in marriage was a sin, though a venial one, for the one demanding the act, though not sinful for the one acceding to the demand (out of what Paul called the marriage "debt" - I Corinthians 7.3).⁴⁵ Augustine knew himself well enough to recognize that he would not find it easy to be as close to a woman as he was to his son's mother and abstain from sex on all occasions when procreation was not desired and possible. Even if this was only a venial sin in itself, inordinate repetition of the demand could become a more serious matter.⁴⁶ Besides, repeated sinfulness and indulgence of the flesh would clash too painfully with the pure aspirations he was entertaining for himself and his intellectual soul mates. Marriage would make a mockery of those ideals. If he could not be "chaste in marriage," it were better to forgo marriage entirely. It was a matter of all or nothing. His attitude at the time of his conversion is plainly stated in the Dialogue with Myself (17), When asked by Reason if a beautiful and virtuous wife would appeal to him, Augustine answers:

Portray her as you will, endow her with every good, yet have I made up my mind that nothing is more to be shunned than union with woman. I know nothing that so topples a man from the defense of his own soul's battlements than female attractions and the fleshly couplings that are the condition of having a wife. If a philosopher is allowed to beget children - a point I am not sure of - then he who has sex only for that purpose gets my admiration but not my imitation. The risk is greater than the chance of success. I have therefore laid this command on myself, rightly and usefully I believe, to protect the freedom of my soul by giving up any concern or quest or contract with a wife.

That passage does not necessarily conflict with the story of the garden, though its tone is certainly different. In the garden, grace breaks the impasse. In the dialogue, Augustine has laid a command on himself, to secure his own freedom. Throughout this section of the dialogue (17), Augustine is being asked about his progress - which is a matter of process, not of an abrupt break or sudden gift.

Reason: I was not asking about what command you gave yourself, but whether you were still struggling with it. Or have you won a clear factor over lust? The subject is still the soundness of your eyes [desire].

Self: Well I am surely not seeking such things any more, nor even longing for them, and when I remember them it is with horror and contempt. What more can you call for? I am making daily progress, since the more I hope to see the beauty I burn for, the more my love and resolve focus on it.

This is a description of gradual conversion ("I am making daily progress"), and of natural motivation (hope strengthens resolve). That the changes being discussed are still in process becomes apparent on the next day (25), when Reason recalls the assurance with which Augustine said that he no longer desired the sex act, but abominated it.

Reason: Last night, surely, as we lay awake pondering between us what had been said, you became aware, for all your confidence to the contrary, how much you were still incited by the bitter sweetness of tempting images, admittedly less powerful than before, yet stronger than you had presumed. It was as if your most intimate Healer were impressing on you both how far you had advanced under his treatment and how far you had to go toward healing.

Self: No more I beg, no more! Why torture me? Why probe me so sharp and deep? I have no strength left for weeping. I can still, even now, keep no promise, make no boast, so do not question me further on this.

Is this the same man who said, at the end of his garden experience, that he was flooded with assurance [29]? The dialogue, written at the time, expresses a state of mind far different from the one described eleven years later in The Testimony.

© 2004 Viking, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine's Childhood, Saint Augustine's Memory, and Saint Augustine's Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.