Book Two, Organizing Principles

Saint Augustine's Sin
by Garry Wills

(Page 4 of 6)

The Testimony is built up on layers of theological symbols. The early books are organized around the six ages of man, which in turn call up their complements, the six ages of history and the six days of creation. The first age was marked at T 1.7, the second at T 1.13. The fourth will be reached at T 7.1. Book Two opens with the announcement that Augustine has reached the third age, adulescentia, which runs from puberty all the way to age thirty (and is not, therefore, "adolescence" in our sense, but young manhood). To see how rich this scheme was in Augustine's hand, a chart will be helpful:

Ages of Man	Six Days	History
1. Infantia (pre-verbal)	Light	Adam to Noah
2. Pueritia (speaking)	Sky/Earth	Noah to Abraham
3. Adulescentia (15-30)	Waters/Plants	Abraham to David
4. Juventus (30-45)	Planets	David to Babylon
5. Maturitas (45-60)	Fish	Babylon to Christ
6. Senectus (60-90)	Animals/Man	Christ to End

In exploring his own "third age," Augustine uses the days of creation and the ages of history to understand what he was going through. On the third day, the waters were gathered together and defined by separation from land, and vegetation was sown on earth. In the third age, the principal event was the wandering through the desert, with infidelity committed along the way, but merciful conduct leading the chosen home. For Augustine, the scriptural Exodus always called up the parable of the prodigal son, who wandered before returning to his father. To take separately the items in this cluster of concepts and images, consider (a) the vegetation, (b) the gathered and limited waters, and (c) the Prodigal.

Vegetation. Since the principal subject in this book is going to be Augustine's pear tree reflecting Adam's tree, the misuse of vegetation is important throughout the book - not only Adam's eating of a tree's produce, but his flight into trees' shadow and his attempt to cover his nudity with leaves. The text of Genesis 1.9 in the Latin used by Augustine ran this way:

And God said, "Let earth bear plants of foison, each seeding its own kind to its own likeness, the fruit tree bearing fruit of its own kind and its own likeness across the earth."5 And it was done - the earth bore plants of foison, each seeding its own kind to its own likeness, the fruit tree bearing fruit of its own kind to its own likeness across the earth. And God saw it, a good thing. And night came, then day - it was the third day.

The only plant singled out for specific mention is the fruit tree, a foreshadowing of the importance of Adam's tree.

In the first paragraph of Book Two, Augustine's maturing body is seen in terms of vegetal lushness: "At the time of my young manhood, when I burned to be engorged with vile things [like Adam eating the fruit of the tree], I boldly foisoned into ramifying and umbrageous loves...." He uses the rare verb "to forest out" (silvescere) with its rarer metaphorical sense. I use a comparably rare verb for lush growth, "to foison." His umbrageous (umbrosis) growth is dark, like the shade Adam seeks after his sin: "He fled toward an umbrous place [ad umbram] and hid amid the trees of Paradise" (Explaining the Psalms 37.15).

The vegetal images continue. He does not let God's grace soften "the thorns not allowed to grow in Eden" [3]. When he resists God, "my heart's gardener" [5], "the thorns of my own drives, with no one to weed them out from around me, shot up above my head" [6]. He sought shadow that "sealed me off from the serenity of your truth" [8]. Sins that try to hide their real nature are "shadowy" (umbratica, [12]). His own so-called freedom is a shadowy (tenebrosa) pretense [14]. His apparent lushness hides an inner "withering" [1], one that makes him a barren "terrain of deprivation" [18].

Waters gathered and defined. On the third day of creation, before vegetation was bid to grow on the land, an earlier work had to occur:

And God said, "Let the water under heaven be united into a single union so that dry land rise." And it was done. The water under heaven was united into a single union, and earth appeared. And God called the dry land "earth," and the union of water "sea."

In his own third age, Augustine sees himself as dissolute, as liquid and loose, a stormy surge not confined by boundaries. Water is the lowest of the four elements. Augustine calls it the element "nearest formlessness ... unfixed in its flowing quality" (First Meanings in Genesis 2.11). Augustine himself is like the waters before the Spirit hovered over them, an unformed chaos. To suggest his own condition, Augustine creates a chaotic sentence, all formless surge and reflux upon itself, one whose only stability is provided by reference to the boundaries that are not there:

I did not observe the line where mind meets mind. Instead of affection's landmarks drawn in light, earthmurks drowned in lust - and my erupting sexuality - breathed mephitic vapors over the boundary, to cloud and blind my heart in clouds and fog, erasing the difference between love's quietness and the drivenness of dark impulse. Quietness and drives were mingled chaotically within me, battering my impotent maturity on the anfractuosities of desire and dousing me in a maelstrom of offenses [2].

The interchangeability of everything here is suggested by the complex wordplay between limes (landmark) and limosa (earthmurky) - both have the same etymology, from limus (our "loam"), but one refers to markings on dry land and the other to sinkings in wet land. This etymological wordplay is crossed by the sound-play of luminosa ("drawn in light") and limosa. Light almost becomes dark in this clustering of near-samenesses and near-opposites, entangled in alliterations and assonances.

The ungathered waters of Augustine were also referred to in Book One, where the shaping waters of baptism were denied him. Those would have formed his clay, as the waters are separated from dry land on the third day:

Mighty storm-waves, and many, were foreseen rolling over me after my childhood; and my mother, understanding this, preferred to commit to the waters' workings my unshaped clay, rather than a self already reshaped (T 1.18).

© 2003 Penguin, 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.