I’m going through my very first reading of The Confessions of St. Augustine, and as the title suggests, I’ll be adding my reflections as I go through. (I thought about calling it “Confessions Considerations” but I don’t think the alliteration was as catchy as the rhyme. Either way it was a mouthful. Anyway…)

The Confessions seems to be one of those books that almost every Christian says that they want to read someday, as if by rote quotation. I was in that camp. Now I’ve happily moved next door to the clique that has read “parts” of the Confessions, with various definitions of what “parts” actually means. This is a common and popular group for many people when dealing with any historical works of literature.

It gives you a good esteem boost when you can say “Why yes, I am currently reading The Confessions of St. Augustine”, hoping that the listener assumes, by logical corollary, that you also study various other works of literature that only “intelligent” people read. I am currently in this group for Plutarch’s Lives, which I have been “currently reading” for over a year and half.

I hope I don’t remain in the “currently reading” camp too long with The Confessions. It smells funny.

Book 1, Ch. 6, 10

I give thanks to thee, O Lord of Heaven and Earth, giving praise to thee for that first being and my infancy of which I have no memory. For thou hast granted to man that he should come to self-knowledge through the knowledge of others…

This was the first of Augustine’s insights that hit me. Instead of lamenting the fact that no one can remember their early childhood, Augustine uses it as an excuse to praise God. I admit, it seems he gets a little tongue-in-cheek when immediately following, he says:

…and that he should believe many things about himself on the authority of the womenfolk.

But obviously, I think he’s serious and sincere. And its a good precedent to establish. He’s essentially praising God for the fact that no man is island, and, with his reference to the “womenfolk”, he might even be hinting back to the Garden of Eden, when God declared that it was not good for man to be alone.

We cannot know ourselves except that which is reflected off others. There is a part of “us” that is inescapably defined by other people. This is especially true for Christians in regard to Jesus. Jesus was the truly human one, showing what it was like to be a perfect reflection of the image of God, what it meant to live up to fallen humanities original vocation.

If we wish to be truly human, to know who we are supposed to be, we must rely on the God reflection that Jesus gives off, just as, when we were babes, we had to rely on others to fill in the gaps. Adam needed Eve to help make him whole. We need the Spirit of God, bouncing off of the Son and into our hearts, to make us whole.

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