Throughout the Confessions we are constantly reminded of Augustine’s

struggle with worldly desires. He “sought pleasure, sublimity, and truth not in God

but in his creatures, in [himself] and other created beings” (1.20.31). From this

passage we are reminded of the words of Saint Paul, a man that was profoundly

influential on Augustine’s writings. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul wrote that

“[Sinners] [exchange] the truth of God for a lie, and [worship] and [serve] created

things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). This means that people often

substituted worshipping God with worshipping material or worldly things. The word

‘worship’ is often associated with prayer and religious rituals but in this context it

also means to exalt. Contemporary society is also guilty of this by idolizing many

things such as celebrity lifestyles, physical attributes, money and power. This

worship of worldly things lead Augustine to “[plunge] into miseries, confusions and

errors” (1.20.31), painfully remembering the destruction these things wrecked on

his life. Augustine begins the Confessions in saying, “To praise [God] is the desire of

man...[God stirs] man to take pleasure in praising [Him]” (1.1.1). Augustine believes

that God gave man an innate desire or drive to worship, praise and love Him. The

goal of man then is to satisfy this desire. Just like Augustine, many people go about

it erroneously and ultimately never become satisfied through their false idols.

Pleasure, sublimity and truth can only really be found in God. Man’s purpose then is

to worship God (Isaiah 43:21), a purpose that is discovered and affirmed through

the life story that is Augustine’s Confessions.

As an adolescent and a young man we find that Augustine was constantly

driven by his sexual impulses. In his recollection of these memories, Augustine

concludes that he engaged in these acts “simply to love and be loved” (2.2.2). His

intentions were good, but as the proverb goes: the road to hell is paved with good

intentions. Like many people at the time, he sought pleasure in something other

than God. Augustine describes his misguided intentions as “[c]louds of muddy

 2

carnal concupiscence” (2.2.2). He was deceived so that his heart was “befogged

and obscured...so that it could not see the difference between love’s serenity and

lust’s darkness” (2.2.2). He sought love because of God’s instilment of that innate

desire but only found a false and worldly imitation of it. This imitation of God’s love

was, as Augustine describes, “allowed by shameful humanity but under [God’s] laws

illicit” (2.2.4). The majority of society believed and even embraced this imitation as

acceptable, even though Christian belief condemns it. Augustine’s own father “was

overjoyed” with his son’s virility, “that he would now be having grand-children”

(2.3.6). Apart from his father, his friends also praised sexuality. Similar to

contemporary locker-room conversations, Augustine and other boys “derived

pleasure not merely from the lust of the act but also from the admiration it evoked”

(2.3.7). Augustine writes, “I was ashamed not to be equally guilty of shameful

behaviour when I heard them boasting of their sexual exploits” (2.3.7). He was so

ashamed that “to avoid being despised...[he] used to pretend [he] had done things

[he] had not done” (2.3.7). It’s no wonder why Augustine engaged in these acts,

considering the majority of society glorified only the most debauched of sexual

deeds. “[C]hastity [was] taken as a mark of inferiority” (2.3.7), giving young boys

little or no regard towards abstinence.

While Augustine “ran wild in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures” he was

never truly satisfied in his exploits. Growing older, he came to Carthage to pursue

his studies. His impulses continued to increase in what he describes as an internal

hunger (3.1.1). Despite being surrounded by “a cauldron of illicit loves” (3.1.1), he

“had never been in love and...longed to love” (3.1.1). Feeling empty he threw “[his

soul] to outward things, miserably avid to be scratched by contact with the world of

the senses” (3.1.1). This only caused his internal hunger to intensify. To quell his
 3

hunger he went to the theatre, hearing stories that “compelled [his] tears to flow”

(3.2.4). He enjoyed focusing on the dilemmas of the actors rather than on his own.

“[The theatre shows] were...representations of [his] own miseries” (3.2.2). This

caused Augustine to become a spectator rather than a sufferer, covering his misery

with mercy and sadness with compassion (3.2.4). In his own self-deception “there

was pleasure” (3.2.3). Unfortunately, like lust, he was never satisfied, craving more

‘fuel for the fire’ (3.2.2). Augustine could not find true pleasure in either theatre or

lust, leaving him to become more dominated by his appetites. It is at this point in

his life that Augustine’s priorities underwent dramatic change. His sole desire for

pleasure soon expanded to sublimity thanks to his study of Cicero’s Hortensius.

Originally given as a school assignment, Augustine’s reading of Hortensius

sparked more than just a “sharpening of...style” (3.4.7) but the more important

question of wisdom’s role in his own life. For Augustine, the most fascinating aspect

of Cicero’s philosophy was to “embrace wisdom itself, wherever found” (3.4.8). This

call to knowledge was unquestionably received by Augustine and in turn “changed

[his] feelings...altered [his] prayers...and gave [him] different values and priorities”

(3.4.7). His old priorities of lust and theatre “became empty” (3.4.7), though many

years would need to pass until they were totally abandoned. This was Augustine’s

first conversion, but was most certainly not his last. His priorities may have changed

but his methods of acquirement remained the same. Augustine “longed

for...wisdom” (3.4.7) but like everything else he sought sublimity in the world, not

God. As the narrator, Augustine specifically attests his errors, referring to the

Apostle Paul’s words on philosophy: “See that none deceives you by philosophy and

vain seduction following human tradition...and not following Christ” (Col 2:8-9).

Similar to his other experiences it was not long until he became unsatisfied in his
 4

desire for wisdom. Augustine attributes this to the Christian beliefs passed down by

his mother and so “[o]ne thing alone put a break on [his] intense enthusiasm—that

the name of Christ was not contained in [Cicero’s book]” (3.4.8). Searching for

wisdom, Augustine then looked in “the holy scriptures” (3.5.9). He was a very

intelligent, even being the top of his class (3.3.6) but unfortunately his academic

success “inflated [him] with conceit” (3.3.6). This caused the young Augustine to

not see the inward meanings of the Bible, deeming it “unworthy in

comparison...with Cicero” (3.6.9). With no success in the Bible and the Hortensius’

inability to “entirely grip [him]” (3.4.8), Augustine’s search for sublimity soon turned

to truth.

Augustine now “burned” (3.4.8) with desire to discover truth and, like his

experiences with lust, threw himself at anything (3.1.1) claiming to offer it. It is

because of this that he “fell in with” the Manichees. The Manichees were “proud

men...earthly-minded and loquacious” (3.6.10) and unlike the Bible, they offered

Augustine a doctrine that pleased his conceited mind. They were very slick with

words but “their heart was empty of truth” (3.6.10). The doctrine of the Manichees

taught that God was corporeal, not spiritual. He sought truth or God in the world

because of this doctrine, being misguided from the real truth. They “brought [him] a

diet of the sun and moon” (3.6.10), but his “hunger and thirst” (3.6.10) was

ultimately for God. “Nevertheless, because [he] took [the diet] to be [God], [he]

ate...but was left more exhausted than before” (3.6.10). For nine years (4.1.1)

Augustine continued to follow the Manichees, travelling away from the truth even

though he “thought [he] was going towards it” (3.6.11). His enthusiasm for the sect

met with controversy in his later years as “a professor of rhetoric at Carthage”

(5.7.13). In those years, Augustine “had done much reading in the philosophers”
 5

(5.3.3) and “compared...their teachings with the...fables of the Manichees” (5.3.3).

As a result, Augustine “did not notice...anything resembling what [he] had learnt in

the books of secular wisdom” (5.3.6). Augustine even went as far as comparing his

knowledge from the philosophers with that of Mani by way of calculation. He found

that “[Mani] was not in agreement with the rational explanations which [he] had

verified...and...observed with [his] own eyes” (5.3.6). These disagreements cast

major doubts on the tomes that supported the doctrine of Manicheism (3.6.10), and

caused Augustine to question their accountability. In response to this undermining

of doctrine, Augustine was never directly answered by other Manichees but was

“promised...that...Faustus [would be able to answer his] questions” (5.6.10). So

Augustine waited until he could question the Manichee bishop in Carthage. After

discussing his concerns with Faustus, Augustine’s “enthusiasm...for the writings of

Mani was diminished” (5.7.12). Faustus avoided his questions or confessed that he

was “uninformed in these matters” (5.7.12). Unsatisfied with Faustus’ answers and

in turn the doctrine of Mani as a whole, Augustine decided to “leave the Manichees”

(5.13.25) and abandon their “false statements about...the Truth” (3.6.10).

The underlying link in each pursuit of Augustine is that all of them ended with

dissatisfaction. Augustine’s fault was in that he “sought pleasure, sublimity and

truth not in God” (1.20.31) but in the world. There was no total satisfaction in his

sexual acts of lust, by his study of wisdom in philosophy or by his devout following

of truth in Manicheism because things of the world cannot satisfy the desire of man.

This innate desire, assigned by God to the soul of every human, can only be

satisfied by worshipping God. If this is our desire, then our purpose is to satisfy this

desire, our purpose is to worship God. We cannot substitute God with imitations of

the world, and if we do we should expect the same result as Augustine:

 6

dissatisfaction. The lesson learned from his Confessions is to stop trying to find

satisfaction in the world, a lesson that took Augustine many hardships and nearly

half his life to learn. To seek pleasure, sublimity and truth—truly—we must simply

seek them through God.