Augustine on Time

One last passage from Confessions. Book XI begins a discussion of the first words of the the Bible, “In the Beginning God made the heavens and the earth”. This leads Augustine to a discussion of time. Twenty-five chapters later, Augustine writes these words:

I confess to you, Lord, that I still do not know what time is. Yet I confess too that I do know that I am saying this in time, that I have been talking about time for a long time, and that this long time would not be a long time if it were not for the fact that time has been passing all the while. How can I know this, when I do not know what time is? Is it that I do know what time is, but do not know how to put what Iknow into words? I am in a sorry state, for I do not even know what I do not know! (Confessions, XI:25)

As well as being quite funny, I find Augustine’s interest in this issue fascinating. I have only just begun to think a little about time, and have a sense that I need to do it more (though if Augustine couldn’t work it out, I’ve got bucklies). Does anyone know anything really interesting to read on this?

Augustine on the Bible

I made up my mind to examine the holy Scriptures and see what kind of books they were. I discovered something that was at once beyond the understanding of the proud and hidden from the eyes of children. Its gait was humbl, but the heights it reached were sublime. It was enfolded in mysteries, and I was not the kind of man to enter into it or bow my head to follow where it led. But these were not the feelings I had when I first read the Scriptures. To me they seemed quite unworthy of comparison with the stately prose of Cicero, because I had too much conceit to accept their simplicity and not enough insight to penetrate their depths. It is surely true that as a child grows these books grow with him. (Confessions, III:5)

Its [The Bible's] plain language and simple style make it accessible to everyone, and yet it absorbs the attention of the learned. By this means it gathers all men in the wide sweep of its net, and some pass safely through it and come to you. They are not many, but they would be fewer still if it were not that this book stands out alone on so high a peak of authority and yet draws so great a throng in the embrace of its holy humility. (Confessions, VI:5)

Augustine’s understanding of the Scriptures and their interpretation was a world away from us. Yet I am struck by how insightful these descriptions remain, and how true they ring to my experience.

Augustine on Science

I had read a great many scientific books which were still alive in my memory. When I compared them with the tedious tales of the Manichees, it seemed to me that, of the two, the theories of the scientists were the more likely to be true. For their thoughts could reach far enough to form a judgment about the world around them, though they found no trace of him who is Master of it. You, Lord, who are so high above us, yet look with favour on the humble, look on the proud too, but from far off. You come close only to men who are humble at heart. The proud cannot find you, even though by dint of study they have skill to number the stars and grains of sand, to measure the tracts of constellations and trace the paths of planets. (Confessions, V:3)

It seems to me that this judgment remains timely. Science can discover what the universe is like and has the power to dispel many myths; yet when it tries to reach beyond itself to declare on ultimate questions, it is not surprising that it cannot come good on its promises.

Augustine on telling your own story

In his Confessions, which I have recently been reading, St Augustine journeys back in his memory to his childhood and adolescence, though it gives him some displeasure to recount what he regards as a shameful past. In Book II, he makes this fascinating explanation for his doing so:

I must now carry my thoughts back to the abominable things I did in those days, the sins of the flesh which defiled my soul. I do this, my God, not because I love those sins, but so that I may love you. For love of your love I shall retrace my wicked ways. The memory is bitter, but it will help me to savour your sweetness, the sweetness that does not deceive but brings real joy and never fails. For love of your love I shall retrieve myself from the havoc of disruption which tore me to pieces when I turned away from you, whom alone I should have sought, and lost myself instead on many a different quest. (II:1)

Augustine seems to be aware that the question of his self is at stake in his telling his story. He says he thinks through his earlier life in order to “retrieve” himself. I think there is something very wise here: what is at stake in my testimony, my own story about my life, is my self, whether I will be a whole, or whether I will ultimately be lost. I’d be interested to hear how other respond to this.