Saturday, 15 January 2011

1998 Augustine of Hippo

For the second time in five years my attention has been focussed on the life of St Augustine. The first instance occurred when preparing for the 100th birthday of my mother and I was reflecting on Catholicism and decided that I needed to reconsider my own lack of faith and what I now knew and did not know of that faith. I was struck that not only did the three religions, which have dominated civilization over past 2000 years, originate in North Africa within a comparatively short geographical distance of each other, but that their Holy Books were in fact written by North Africans and where North Africans exercised significant influence over the direction of those religions. I suspect it was not coincidence that shortly after viewing a True Movie about the life of Emperor Augustine, and who did so much to establish the scale and nature of the Roman Empire, there should be another film, a two part mini series on the life of the man who individually influenced the direction of Christianity 450 years or so later and in particular the future of the Church of Roman.

I suspected from what I remembered from my last enquiries that the mini series played fast and loose with the facts of his life and this is indeed so because much of what is in the film is conjecture and created to suit contemporary audiences who seek thrills, adventure and sexual romance as part of their entertainment if they are remain to be engaged. Yet on reflecting further I suspect the mini series comes closer to the truth about the man as he was than many contemporary writers now want us to believe.

For the past forty years or so I have owned a short biography of the life and work of St Augustine written by Rebecca West, first published in 1933 and reissued in Heron Men of Destiny series in the 1970’s Dame Rebecca West was one of the great intellectual writers of the 20th century and this is demonstrated by the breadth and depth of her essays on Augustine.
In addition I read Wikipedia and half a dozen other internet writings. I did start the Concessions on which much of our knowledge of the man and his background are known but decided that continuing would not add to my life or to my work, at that time.

The mini series shows a young man, apparently the only son of a North African ambitious catholic mother Monnica of several generations, and an atheist North African Father Patricius, Council member, small holder, tax gatherer, wife beater and womanizer He was born, he tells us in Thagaste (Suk Arras) Numidia, now Algeria November 13th 354 AD. He was not however the only son.

I had the impression from the film that his father was not enthusiastic about his education and that his career plans were fermented by his mother, However it is my understanding that his father supported the boy going away to school at a neighbouring town and then to Carthage, a two day journey from home. In the film it is his mother who negotiates that the boy should go to Carthage to study to become a lawyer after hearing a visiting teacher make magic with words convincing listeners through argument and force of personality that his views were facts. He goes to stay at the home of a friend of his sponsor only to discover that the man has died and the home and business is being run by his son who spends his free time in pleasures with women and drink, vividly depicted in the TV series.

He allocates to Augustine a young and sexually alluring servant slave who becomes his concubine because she is unable to marry because of caste differences but gives herself only on the basis that she will not be shared with other women. According to Rebecca West his confessions suggest some homosexuality followed by rampant heterosexuality. The film also makes clear his willingness to do whatever is required of him to achieve worldly success, including at one point considering dumping his woman in order to marry for wealth and connections, or to become celibate when a career advancing opportunity arises as well as lying to his mother and running off from his wife and child when another opportunity arises. In Carthage he gets a man off accused of attempting kill his wife, something which he then does after his release Appointed Orator to the Emperor at his Court in Milan he prepares a speech attacking the role of the Catholic Bishop because it is what is expected of him by his employers. Thus the picture is painted of not just an unchristian man but a ruthless self interested man. I wanted to know if this was a true portrait.

Yet this picture is also matched by a man driven to search for the truth and aware when he falls short of the standards he has set for himself. The greatness of the work by Rebecca West is that she places Augustine in the context of his time with the Roman Empire beset with civil wars and where Christianity although the official religion of the Empire was still only practiced in full sincerity by a minority. Rebecca attempts to find evidence for the forces which motivated Augustine and which there is sufficient information for me to believe that from the outset he never felt himself comfortable as a child as later he was to feel uncomfortable in many of the adult roles where he explored such being a monogamous lover and a parent. He was uncomfortable with traditional schooling methods wanting to be engaged and challenged and failing to understand the long term value of order, routine, system, wanting to get quickly to the point of understanding and being in control.

It is evident that from early on he wanted to be somebody, and in the film he wants to get a way because to remain he feared he would become like his father. In the film he returned home for the death of his father bringing his concubine with him to his mother’s concern and finding that he had no connection with her and her way of life he stays in the home of the Roman friend of his mother who in the film became his sponsor. My understanding is that his father raised the funds for his education.

When his father dies he become dependent for help from his mother but she had her other children to also support and this was to take its toll on her life.

What interests me is that although a creative he is said to have been hostile to art as strongly as he was to Christianity. I was particularly interested to read Dame Rebecca’s observation that that Art is bound to come under the censorship of our sense of guilt, which suspects all activities if they are not part of the process that we hope will redeem us from our (stains)? (sins)?, not be giving pleasure but by withholding it; and is bound to incur disapproval of the death wish we all have in varying degrees, since by analysing experience it makes us able to handle experience and increase our hold on life. He was against literature about the Gods because they appeared to engage in lecheries and crimes which mortals then imitated and was against stage plays because they aroused emotions that were often hysterical and unprofitable. West ascribes his reactions to a man deprived of his African cultural heritage by occupier who then attempted to impose their culture on the conquered peoples.

Although Augustine rejected Christianity for a time he became follower of a rival religion Manichaeanism which Dame Rebecca says that although our knowledge is limited it was not in fact a religion as we ascribe today but was an art and a myth part of which including that earth life is a continuous battle between forces within human beings and from external forces so that the eating of flesh of any kind, the taking of life and sexual pleasures were dark forces and park of the kingdom of darkness which cannot be defeated but can be kept separate. West suggests that from his subsequent attacks on the faith he had little understanding of what is known despite an involvement of some nine years.

In the film he sets of for Rome without telling his concubine and saying to his mother he was only accompanying his friend as far as Carthage to see him off but while this aspect was true he took his wife and child with him believing it would be a better place to continue his studies and obtain a better position with better pay and recognition. He was not a man able to live without being looked after in and out of bed.

The film accurately covers that soon in Rome he was approached to become the Orator to the Imperial Court when the child Emperor was effectively controlled by his mother. In the film his mother, concubine and son arrived to stay with him without prior knowledge, when in fact his woman and son travelled with him.

What then happened is that Augustine he found himself obsessed with his official enemy, Bishop Ambrose and commenced to listen to everything the man had to say. When his mother joined him about a year after his arrival he told her that he was at the point of conversion and was waiting for some sign before baptism. It was at this point that Augustine became sympathetic that he should marry for money and consolidating his position, prepared to abandon the woman he had lived with for fourteen years and bore him a son. In the film this situation arises when she becomes pregnant and this development changes his mind about discarding her. In fact the woman was sent back to Africa but he kept his son with him and his mother: what speakable cruelty. The chosen bride to be was only 12 or 13 at the time so that two years were to pass before the ceremony could take place. Augustine is said to place blame on his mother who wanted him to have a proper wife before his baptism but if this was so Dame Rebecca rightly suggests she would have secured someone he could marry immediately. She suggests the motive was financial because his mother was having difficulty in supporting their life in Milan and her other son and daughter. It is known that the betrothal having taken place his found himself another concubine and regretted parting with his long term lover. It is also suggested that he engaged in homosexuality again, since his youth.

He was 33 when after a period of intense preparation he was baptised into the Catholic church. He and his mother and friends then ended their life in Milan and made their home in Ostia, the Port of Rome. West suggests that the death of his mother at the age of 55 soon after, from marsh fever, demonstrated her satisfaction at bringing him into the Catholic church but also the toll of supporting her son and other children following the earlier death of her husband.

It is said that the death of ones mother is a watershed in most lives. For some it marks the loss of the crutch, he moral framework, the motivation for existence and without her the individual falls apart or looks for someone, or something to replace the void. For other’s the passing provides a new sense of freedom and ability to be one’s true. Dame Rebecca suggests that part of motivating drive of Augustine to prove the existence of an after life was to establish the ongoing spiritual existence of his mother. It is an interesting proposition. He returned to the family home, wound up the estate of his father and used the proceeds to set up what in effect was a small monastery where he is said to have lived contentedly for 3 years.

What happened next changed the Catholic Church. An official in the city of Hippo, now Bone in Algeria told someone he was considering becoming a monk and this came to the attention of Augustine who set out to go to the city. How far this the right explanation for the visit is open to question. The city had a Catholic Bishop who was old and from Greece, whose Latin was poor and did not speak the local language. Augustine’s reputation preceded him and the city population were of a view that he should be their Bishop, their preacher, something not possible while the existing Bishop remained but Augustine was nevertheless effectively kidnapped by the population and made into the role of Presbyter. Augustine is said to have burst into tears at this recognition although it said some locally thought this was disappointment he was not being made into their Bishop. Official he was not able to preach in his new role but the Bishop recognising his value delegated the task to preach to the new arrival because of his mastery of Latin. The Bishop then fearing he would lose Augustine as Bishop elsewhere persuaded the authorities to agree that the city could uniquely have two, and after some reservation agreed.

In fairness to Augustine that we know so much about his life before becoming Bishop of Hippo is because his Confessions revealed this to us. His life raises many interesting issues. Does it devalue or enhance the life he subsequently led? Can human being change so fundamentally? Did he remain celibate? I will try and answer these questions another time.

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