confessions and enchiridion [173]
1 Cor. 7:28. [43] 1 Cor. 7:1. [44] 1 Cor. 7:32, 33. [45] Cf. Matt. 19:12. [46] Twenty miles from Tagaste, famed as the birthplace of Apuleius, the only notable classical author produced by the province of Africa. [47] Another echo of the De profundis (Ps. 130:1) -- and the most explicit statement we have from Augustine of his motive and aim in writing these "confessions." [48] Cf. 1 Cor. 3:9. [49] Ps. 116:16. [50] Cf. Jer. 51:6; 50:8. [51] Cf. Ps. 73:7. [52] Cicero, De Catiline, 16. [53] Deus summum bonum et bonum verum meum. [54] Avertitur, the opposite of convertitur: the evil will turns the soul _away_ from God; this is sin. By grace it is turned _to_ God; this is _conversion_. [55] Ps. 116:12. [56] Ps. 19:12. [57] Cf. Matt. 25:21. [58] Cf. Job 2:7, 8. [59] 2 Cor. 2:16. [60] Eversores, "overturners," from overtere, to overthrow or ruin. This was the nickname of a gang of young hoodlums in Carthage, made up largely, it seems, of students in the schools. [61] A minor essay now lost. We know of its existence from other writers, but the only fragments that remain are in Augustine's works: Contra Academicos, III, 14:31; De beata vita, X; Soliloquia, I, 17; De civitate Dei, III, 15; Contra Julianum, IV, 15:78; De Trinitate, XIII, 4:7, 5:8; XIV, 9:12, 19:26; Epist. CXXX, 10. [62] Note this merely parenthetical reference to his father's death and contrast it with the account of his mother's death in Bk. IX, Chs. X-XII. [63] Col. 2:8, 9. [64] I.e., Marcus Tullius Cicero. [65] These were the Manicheans, a pseudo-Christian sect founded by a Persian religious teacher, Mani (c. A.D. 216-277). They professed a highly eclectic religious system chiefly distinguished by its radical dualism and its elaborate cosmogony in which good was co-ordinated with light and evil with darkness. In the sect, there was an esoteric minority called perfecti, who were supposed to obey the strict rules of an ascetic ethic; the rest were auditores, who followed, at a distance, the doctrines of the perfecti but not their rules. The chief attraction of Manicheism lay in the fact that it appeared to offer a straightforward, apparently profound and rational solution to the problem of evil, both in nature and in human experience. Cf. H.C. Puech, Le Manicheisme, son fondateur -- sa doctrine (Paris, 1949); F.C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees (Cambridge, 1925); and Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichee (Cambridge, 1947). [66] James 1:17. [67] Cf. Plotinus, Enneads, V, 3:14. [68] Cf. Luke 15:16. [69] Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII, 219-224. [70] For the details of the Manichean cosmogony, see Burkitt, op. cit., ch. 4. [71] Prov. 9:18. [72] Cf. Prov. 9:17; see also Prov. 9:13 (Vulgate text). [73] Cf. Enchiridion, IV. [74] Cf. Matt. 22:37-39. [75] Cf. 1 John 2:16. And see also Bk. X, Chs. XXX-XLI, for an elaborate analysis of them. [76] Cf. Ex. 20:3-8; Ps. 144:9. In Augustine's Sermon IX, he points out that in the Decalogue _three_ commandments pertain to God and _seven_ to men. [77] Acts 9:5. [78] An example of this which Augustine doubtless had in mind is God's command to Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a human sacrifice. Cf. Gen. 22:1, 2. [79] Electi sancti. Another Manichean term for the perfecti, the elite and "perfect" among them. [80] Ps. 144:7. [81] Dedocere me mala ac docere bona; a typical Augustinian wordplay. [82] Ps. 50:14. [83] Cf. John 6:27. [84] Ps. 74:21. [85] Cf. Ps. 4:2. [86] The rites of the soothsayers, in which animals were killed, for auguries and propitiation of the gods. [87] Cf. Hos. 12:1. [88] Ps. 41:4. [89] John 5:14. [90] Ps. 51:17. [91] Vindicianus; see below, Bk. VII, Ch. VI, 8. [92] James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5. [93] Rom. 5:5. [94] Cf. Ps. 106:2. [95] Cf. Ps. 42:5; 43:5. [96] Ibid. [97] Cf. Ovid, Tristia, IV, 4:74. [98] Cf. Horace, Ode I, 3:8, where he speaks of Virgil, et serves animae dimidium meae. Augustine's memory changes the text here to dimidium animae suae. [99] 2 Tim. 4:3. [100] Ps. 119:142. [101] Ps. 80:3. [102] That is, our physical universe. [103] Ps. 19:5. [104]