Augustine Six Pack

AUGUSTINE’S CONFESSIONS, READING 6

BOOK FIVE

A year of decision. Faustus comes to Carthage and Augustine is disenchanted in his hope for solid demonstration of the truth of Manichean doctrine. He decides to flee from his known troubles at Carthage to troubles yet unknown at Rome. His experiences at Rome prove disappointing and he applies for a teaching post at Milan. Here he meets Ambrose, who confronts him as an impressive witness for Catholic Christianity and opens out the possibilities of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Augustine decides to become a Christian catechumen.

CHAPTER III

3. Let me now lay bare in the sight of God the twenty-ninth year of my age. There had just come to Carthage a certain bishop of the Manicheans, Faustus by name, a great snare of the devil; and many were entangled by him through the charm of his eloquence. Now, even though I found this eloquence admirable, I was beginning to distinguish the charm of words from the truth of things, which I was eager to learn. Nor did I consider the dish as much as I did the kind of meat that their famous Faustus served up to me in it. His fame had run before him, as one very skilled in an honorable learning and pre-eminently skilled in the liberal arts. And as I had already read and stored up in memory many of the injunctions of the philosophers, I began to compare some of their doctrines with the tedious fables of the Manicheans; and it struck me that the probability was on the side of the philosophers, whose power reached far enough to enable them to form a fair judgment of the world, even though they had not discovered the sovereign Lord of it all. For you are great, O Lord, and you have respect unto the lowly, but the proud you know afar off. You draw near to none but the contrite in heart, and canst not be found by the proud, even if in their inquisitive skill they may number the stars and the sands, and map out the constellations, and trace the courses of the planets.

I have to admit that I am convicted by the phrase "you draw near to none but the contrite in heart, and canst not be found by the proud". I am guilty of falling into this category at times, allowing my pride to get the best of me. It is difficult, because pride has a tendency to get in the way of a lot of relationships, specifically, with God, family, friends, coworkers, even the oppressed and needy. It is my hope that being only 24 and aware of the dangers of my pride, that I may be able to (with the good Lord's help) stop that pride in its tracks, and maintain a respectful relationship as one of the lowly followers of God.