Augustinus Rhetor: A study, from the Confessions, of St. Augustine's secular career in education1

W. H. Semple

doi:10.1017/S0022046900072316

Augustinus Rhetor: A study, from the Confessions, of St. Augustine's secular career in education1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

W. H. Semple

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W. H. Semple: Affiliation:
Hulme Professor of Latin in the University of Manchester

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The Confessions of Augustine carry his life down to the age of thirtythree, from his birth at Tagaste in Numidia in A.D. 354 to A.D. 387, when he was converted to Christianity by Ambrose in Milan. He wrote the Confessions ten years later, in A.D. 397–8, at the age of forty-three or forty-four, when he had just been made Bishop of Hippo Regius, the modern Bône, in North Africa. The work is an autobiography, the one exstant autobiography in Latin literature: but it is peculiar in being addressed primarily to the Deity and in being a record not of the writer's own achievements intended for his own glory, but of all the way by which the power of God had led him. So while in places it does narrate the events of his life and the development of his mind and thought, at other places it breaks out into rapturous praise and adoration of his Redeemer and becomes not so much a narration as a prose hymn, sometimes in a minor key of contrite repentance for the sins and faults of youth now pardoned, sometimes in an exalted strain of ecstatic love, worship, and devotion towards the One to whose service he is now wholly surrendered. Under the eye of the Omniscient, Augustine reviews his life from childhood till his conversion: it is a stern and unflinching self-examination: the pranks of his boyhood are tested for early evidences of sin with the same relentless analysis as the vices, the ambitions, and self-will of his youth and manhood. We have his school-days at his native Tagaste and at the neighbouring town of Madaura: we have the turbulence of his adolescence at Carthage: we see him as a student of rhetoric at Carthage and as a professor of rhetoric at Carthage, Rome and Milan: we are told how the beginnings of his spiritual awareness were excited by the reading of Cicero's Hortensius: we learn of his long association with the quasi-Christian sect of the Manichaeans, of his growing dissatisfaction with their doctrine of a material and finite Deity, and of his long perplexity about religious problems—until through the preaching of Ambrose at Milan and through a study of Neo-platonism, he comes to a realization of an immaterial, non-temporal, non-spatial One.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , July 1950 , pp. 135 - 150

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046900072316 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950

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^{page 137 note 1} i. 6 (g): utrum alicui iam aetati meae mortuae successerit infantia mea. All references, unless otherwise stated, are to St. Augustine's Confessions, ed. P. Knoell, C.S.E.L., 1896.

^{page 137 note 2} i. 8 (13).

^{page 137 note 3} i. 14 (23):advertendo didici sine ullo metu.

^{page 137 note 4} i. 9(14).

^{page 137 note 5} i. 13 (22).

^{page 138 note 1} i. 12 (19).

^{page 138 note 2} i. 9 (14): ridebantur… plagae meae.

^{page 138 note 3} ibid.: rogabam … nein schola vapularem.

^{page 138 note 4} i. 14 (23).

^{page 138 note 5} Aug., Civ. Dei, xxi. 14: quis autem non exhorreat et mori eligat, si ei proponatur aut mors perpetienda aut rursus infantia?

^{page 138 note 6} i. 13 (20).

^{page 138 note 7} i. 13 (22): utrum verum sit quod Aenean aliquando Karthaginem venisse poeta dicit, indoctiores nescire se respondebunt.

^{page 138 note 8} i. 13 (20–2).

^{page 138 note 9} i. 17 (27).

^{page 139 note 1} Quint., Inst. Or., x. 5.4–6.

^{page 139 note 2} i. 17 (27).

^{page 139 note 3} i. 14 (23): saevis terroribus ac poenis, ut nossem, instabatur mihi vehementer.

^{page 139 note 4} i. 14 (23).

^{page 139 note 5} i. 14 (23): verba … non a docentibus, sed a loquentibus.

^{page 139 note 6} i. 14 (23).

^{page 140 note 1} i. 20 (31).

^{page 140 note 2} ii. 3 (5): sumptus parabantur animositate magis quam opibus patris, municipis Thagatensis admodum tenuis.

^{page 140 note 3} ibid.: ultra vires rei familiaris.

^{page 140 note 4} iii. 4 (7): maternis mercedibus, cum agerem annum aetatis undevicensimum iam defuncto patre ante biennium.

^{page 140 note 5} iii. 3 (6); iv. 3 (5).

^{page 140 note 6} iii. 2 (2).

^{page 140 note 7} iii. 2 (2–4).

^{page 140 note 8} iii. 4 (7–8).

^{page 140 note 9} iv. 3(4–6).

^{page 140 note 10} iii. 6 (10).

^{page 140 note 11} iv. 13 (20–1).

^{page 140 note 12} iii. 1 (1).

^{page 140 note 13} iv. 2 (2): in illis annis unam habebam non eo quod legitimum vocatur coniugio cognitam …; sed unam tamen, ei quoque servans tori fidem.

^{page 141 note 1} Cf. Cic, Tusc. Disp. i. 2, 6.

^{page 141 note 2} iii. 4 (7).

^{page 141 note 3} iii. 4 (8): non illam aut illam sectam, sed ipsam quaecumque esset sapientiam ut diligerem et quaererem et adsequerer et tenerem atque amplexarer fortiter.

^{page 142 note 1} 5(9).

^{page 142 note 2} vi 4 (6).

^{page 142 note 3} iii. 6 (10): in quorum ore … viscum confectum commixtione syllabarum nominis tui et domini Iesu Christi et paracleti.

^{page 142 note 4} Cf. iii. 6 (10) ff.

^{page 143 note 1} v. 3 (6).

^{page 143 note 2} iv. 16 (30).

^{page 143 note 3} ibid.

^{page 143 note 4} ibid.

^{page 144 note 1} iv. 16 (28).

^{page 144 note 2} iv. 16 (30).

^{page 144 note 3} iv. 2 (2).

^{page 144 note 4} iv. 2 (2): in multo fumo scintillantem fidem meam, quam exhibebam in illo magisterio.

^{page 144 note 5} iii. 3 (6).

^{page 144 note 6} v. 8 (14).

^{page 145 note 1} iv. 8 (13).

^{page 145 note 2} v. 8 (14).

^{page 145 note 3} vi. 8 (13): Romam praecesserat ut ius disceret.

^{page 145 note 4} v. 8 (15).

^{page 146 note 1} v. 12 (22).

^{page 146 note 2} v. 13 (23): ambivi per eos ipsos manichaeis vanitatibus ebrios.

^{page 146 note 3} ibid.: dictione proposita… probatum.

^{page 146 note 4} ibid.: suscepit me paterne… et peregrinationem meam satis episcopaliter dilexit.

^{page 146 note 5} v. 14 (25).

^{page 146 note 6} v. 13 (23)

^{page 147 note 1} v. 14 (24).

^{page 147 note 2} v. 14 (25) fin.

^{page 147 note 3} vi. 4 (6): volebam enim eorum quae non viderem ita me certum fieri, ut certus essem quod septem et tria decem sint.

^{page 147 note 4} vii. 9 (13).

^{page 147 note 5} vii. 9 (13–14).

^{page 148 note 1} vi. 11 (18).

^{page 148 note 2} vi. 14 (24).

^{page 148 note 3} vi. ii (20) ff.

^{page 148 note 4} vi. 13 (23).

^{page 148 note 5} ibid.

^{page 148 note 6} vi. 15 (25).

^{page 148 note 7} ibid.

^{page 148 note 8} viii. 7 (17): da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo.

^{page 149 note 1} vi. 15 (25).

^{page 149 note 2} ix. 2 (2).

^{page 149 note 3} vi. 6 (9).

^{page 149 note 4} ix. 2 (2).

^{page 149 note 5} ix. 2 (4).

^{page 149 note 6} ibid.

^{page 149 note 7} ix. 3 (5).

^{page 149 note 8} ix. 2 (4).

^{page 149 note 9} ix. 4 (7).

^{page 149 note 10} ix. 2 (2): ut redemptus a te iam non redirem venalis.

^{page 150 note 1} Hor., Od. i. 3, 8; Aug., Conf. iv. 6 (11).

^{page 150 note 2} Aug., Retract, ii. 6, 2.

^{page 150 note 3} v. 6 (10).

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Augustinus Rhetor: A study, from the Confessions, of St. Augustine's secular career in education1

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