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Notes on Augustine’s Confessions, Book II
iii(5)
Augustine’s father sent him to school in a mode far beyond his actual means. Again, may we never be so concerned with intellect and “culture” that we boast in that and stretch our credit on things that will not help us spiritually.
iii(6)
Classic Platonism: Patrick, Augustine’s father, is said to have gotten drunk to celebrate his son’s sowing his seed about, which Augustine notes as his “will [being] directed downard toward the inferior things.” The lesser good, that is: children are good, sex is good, but not the greatest good under these circumstances.
iii(7)
Augustine’s mother wasn’t perfect, as he has already told us, but she was a godly woman with good advice for her son–indeed, advice shot through with God’s own wisdom. What she spoke anxiously, Augustine heard but “hearing, he did not hear” as God says through Isaiah (and Christ) of Israel. When we think that God is not talking with us–when He keeps silent when we’re on our knees but we’re receiving teaching and admonition, edification and exhortation from our brothers and sisters in Christ, that’s Him telling us to heed their wisdom.
In Confessions we see a helpful, polarized evaluation of the Christian versus the secular mindsets. When Augustine talks of vice, he invites us to look on it with shock and horror, which is jarring in the face of secular delight and even Christian complacency.
References.
Augustine, St.
Confessions. Henry Chadwick, trans. ISBN
0-19-283372-3 (Paperback).
