Confessions: Saint Augustine by Garry Wills

Author:Garry Wills [Wills, Garry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Catholic, Christian literature; Early, Catholic Church - Bishops, Bishops, Algeria, Christian saints, Philosophy, General, Religion, Personal Memoirs, Hippo (Extinct city), Christian Theology, Christian saints - Algeria - Hippo (Extinct city), Biography & Autobiography, Augustine, Bishops - Algeria - Hippo (Extinct city), Christianity, Religious, Biography
ISBN: 9780143039518
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2006-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

II

CASSICIACUM

2. I resolved ‘under your gaze’ not to break off teaching in a disorderly way, but gradually to give up my activities as a peddler of glibness in the marketplace, so no more boys could buy from my lips the weapons of their distraction, as they put their minds not to ‘thinking of your law,’ or of your peace, but to ‘untruthful ravings’ and verbal joustings. Luckily, only a few days were left before the harvest-time vacation. I could last them out and retire tidily, no longer, after you gave me release, to return to my racket. This plan I shared with you, but with none but a few of my associates, who agreed to keep it among ourselves. We were ‘climbing from the valley of lamentation’ and ‘singing a song of gradual ascent,’ while you directed ‘stinging arrows’ and ‘cauterizing coals’ against the tacit criticism of those who, feigning to help us, hinder, and love us only as they love a favorite food, to devour us.

3. Your arrow flew to our heart as well, to wound it with love, to transfix our inner self with your words. These arrows arriving thick in our thoughts were your saints, transformed by you from black to white, from dead to living, to be our models. They were a fire to wither up the sluggishness dragging us down. They kindled us, and ‘all sly talk’ opposing us just fanned the flames higher instead of putting them out. Admittedly, since ‘you have made your title holy to the nations,’ there would also be some to praise the decision we had promised you. But it would have looked like self-promotion for me to resign with the holiday so close. Given the prominence and visibility of my position, an abrupt departure would have drawn everyone’s attention, to wonder why I decided not to wait the short time before the break. Many would claim I was trying to make a stir—though what would it avail to have my state of mind pried into for gossip, making ‘my blessing a thing to be reviled’?

4. Besides, the labor of teaching that summer had taken its toll on my lungs. I was short of breath. Chest pains were symptoms of trouble. I could speak only hoarsely or for short times. This had worried me earlier as forcing me, almost of necessity, to give up my teaching schedule, or at least to take time off for some cure and recovery. But now things were different. A new plan had taken shape and become firm (as you, my God, are my witness), to ‘retire and behold that you are God.’ I was glad to take this as a valid response to parents whose concern for their sons’ education made them careless of my freedom. Comforted with this reflection, I put up with the irksomeness of the time to be served—I suppose it was about twenty days, and they were made all the more irksome since I now lacked the desire for money that had braced me to take on so much.

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