The Confessions of Augustine of Hippo is regarded as the world’s first autobiography. But it is much more than that. It is part memoir, part theological argument, and part prayer. Augustine was born to a Christian mother in northern Africa in 354 CE, and died a Christian bishop in nearby Hippo in 430. But in the intervening years he travelled all over the Mediterranean world, and dabbled in all kinds of different expressions of religion. His life, and therefore his writing, dwell on one basic question and its obvious flip-side: What is good? and therefore What is evil?

We will read the first two parts of the Confessions. The work is addressed to God. We, the readers, are eavesdropping on Augustine’s prayers. He has cc’d us on the email to God, so to speak. Early in his adulthood Augustine experimented with Manichaeism. This religion was a hodgepodge of different philosophies. Its main teaching was dualism: bodies and all material things are bad, and spiritual realities are good. Manichees were determinists who looked to the stars for guidance in their lives, and supported each other in giving up “things of the flesh.” Augustine had rather enjoyed the fleshly life as a younger person, and sought help in moving beyond that.

After he became persuaded that Manichaeism was bunk, Augustine was converted to a different philosophy, neo-Platonism. This is a philosophy that is a kind of classification system. According to neo-Platonism, material things are not bad in themselves. In fact they can be quite good. But they are at a lower level of “goodness” than spiritual things. And spiritual things (like souls, ideas, thoughts and words) are lower than spirit itself. Augustine took neo-Platonism and made it Christian when he was baptized in 387 CE in Milan. He came to conceive of all of creation as belonging somewhere or another on a hierarchy of goodness. Inanimate material lay at the bottom, living things above that, delights and communication above that, the soul above that, etc., leading upward to the greatest good, which Augustine calls “God.”

Evil, for Augustine, is two things. First, it is the directing of one’s attention lower on the chain rather than higher (i.e., sex or eating are not bad in themselves, but when one makes more of them than they are, one’s desires are “disordered” and sin results). This is understandable, if not condonable. But more shockingly, sin is also the wickedness of doing something wrong for no reason whatsoever (thus the pear story on pp. 28-31).

So what are we to do about this? We constantly choose lower goods over higher ones (should I watch the Kardashians or a documentary? Hmm…). What’s more, humans consistently trick themselves into thinking their vices are virtues: Pride imitates what is lofty, curiosity (gossip) appears to be a zeal for knowledge, prodigality presents itself under the shadow of generosity, etc. (pp. 31-2). Confronted with the charge that they have replaced higher things with lower ones, Augustine thinks most people will repent, but will be unable to change without the grace.

The quest for the soul’s rest in God is rooted in paradox; Augustine begins his Confessions by noting that he seeks God, but that one seeks only what one already knows about, and what one knows one already possesses - so why seek it? (pp. 3-5). The paradox is relieved by the knowledge that God is found in one’s own soul. And the title “confession” has a double meaning: it means a making public of one’s inner life (especially one’s sins) but also meant praising God. The interplay of these inward and upward movements constitutes the drama of the book.

Some questions to consider while reading: