Awakening

These days, I find more hope (and learn more) from the dead than the living. Been thinking for a long time to write on Augustine of Hippo. This will be my first attempt. If you're contented with everything you are and everything around you, don't waste your time reading this. You won't understand (not playing reverse psychology here).

Adolf Harnack said Augustine was the greatest man the church has possessed between the apostle Paul and Martin Luther. The publishers of Christian History magazine simply said, "After Jesus and Paul, Augustine of Hippo is the most influential figure in the history of Christianity." Nicknamed the 'Doctor of the Church', his writings entered both the Church and the world with such revolutionary force, that it not just created an epoch in the history of the Church, but determined the course of its history in the West up to the present day. Agostino Trape summarized it like this: "Augustine was...a philosopher, theologian, mystic, and poet in one....He is a philosopher, but not a cold thinker; he is a theologian, but also a master of the spiritual life; he is a mystic, but also a controversialist...". Protestant reformers like Luther and Calvin looked back to Augustine as the inspiration for their capturing of the Biblical Gospel. The Reformation witnessed the triumph of Augustine's doctrine of sovereign grace.

So why Augustine for me? I was reading John Piper's "The Swan is Not Silent - Meditations Sovereign Joy in the Life and Thought of St. Augustine". He introduced Augustine as someone who lived in the tumultuous times between the shifting of whole civilizations. The great Roman empire was deposed before the Germans after 900 years of impenetrable security. St. Jerome wrote, "If Rome can perish, what can be safe?" In the midst of Catholic bishops being tortured to death, his friends quoted to Augustine the words of Jesus, "flee to another city". But he replied courageously, "Let no one dream of holding our ship so cheaply, that the sailors, let alone the Captain should desert her in time of peril." That sentence alone encouraged me enormously in this age when many often 'jump ships' all too easily.

One of Augustine's great books is 'The Confessions of St Augustine'. It is very rare but I truly felt inadequate and 'not ready enough' to read this book. Too brilliant and too wonderful. I've just begun to read parts of it.

The Confessions remains one of the most groundbreaking works of Western literature, THE FIRST Western autobiography (it was said he was the inventor of the autobiographical genre). Here he bared his soul, narrated his life in the style of confessional prayers. A series of 13 books of his spiritual and intellectual journey from childhood to adulthood (even some memories as an infant). He was transparent, honest, telling of his faith struggles, his temptations and sins (lust) very candidly indeed. Also his conflicts and battles with opposing thoughts and teachings of his day and the death of his mother. It is a beautiful work, the way he explored his inner world, how he captured his thoughts, prayers, battles and the awareness of the Almighty. His rhetorical style at its most brilliant.

Someone wrote today's autobiographies are all "about me" but not Augustine's. He searched his soul to know himself not as an end by itself, but as a means to an end. For him, self-reflection enhances God-reflection. He discovered and experienced the intoxication of sovereign joy.

Some excepts:

My God, how I burned with longing to have wings to carry me back to you, away from all earthly things, although I had no idea what you would do with me! For yours is the wisdom.

Personally, I was first captured by Augustine's inner crisis during his early 30s which was life-changing.

There was a small garden attached to the house where we lodged...I now found myself driven by the tumult in my breast to take refuge in this garden, where no one could interrupt that fierce struggle in which I was my own contestant...I was beside myself with madness that would bring me sanity. I was dying a death that would bring me life...I was frantic, overcome by violent anger with myself...

The climax of his inner conflict, and perhaps one of the most important days in history...

I flung myself down beneath a fig tree and gave way to tears which now streamed from my eyes...In my misery I kept crying, "How long shall I go on saying 'tomorrow, tomorrow'? Why not now? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this moment?"...All at one I heard the singsong voice of a child...'Take it and read, take it and read.'...I stemmed my flood of tears and stood up, telling myself that this could only be a divine command to open my book of Scripture...So I hurried back to the place where Alypius was sitting....seized the book of Paul's epistles and opened it, and in silence I read the first passage on which my eyes fell: "Not in reveling in drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature's appetites". I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt dispelled.

Augustine's mother, Monica (who at last found joy after interceded for her son to be saved in Christ) died not long after that. He then chose the path of the monastic, gave up the common life for a life of philosophical leisure. Later he chose Hippo to move his monastic community because they already had a bishop and less chance for him being pressed into the role. But he miscalculated. The church came to him and basically forced him to be the priest and later bishop of Hippo, where he stayed for the rest of his life. At age 36 he was thrust out of a life of contemplation into a life of action. This included clergy, legal and civil matters of his time. He never married. When he died there was no will because all his possessions belonged to the common order. His legacy was his writings, his clergy and monastery.

How do we describe our affection for God? What is the love for God in the life of Augustine?

But what do I love when I love my God?… Not the sweet melody of harmony and song; not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices; not manna or honey; not limbs such as the body delights to embrace. It is not these that I love when I love my God. And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace; but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self, when my soul is bathed in light that is not bound by space; when it listens to sound that never dies away; when it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind; when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating; when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfillment of desire. This is what I love when I love my God.

Not the end of my writings on Augustine, but I shall end this post with a song. I really like Switchfoot's song "Something More". Jon captured Augustine's confessions in his own simple, contemporary words (I can tell that many SF songs (themes) are influenced by Augustine):

Augustine just woke up with a broken heart
All this time he's never been awake before
At 31 his whole world is question mark
All this time he's never been awake before

Watching dreams that he once had
Feed the flame inside his head
In a quiet desperation of emptiness he says

"There's gotta be something more
Than what I'm living for
I'm crying out to You"

Augustine all his fears keep falling out
All this time he's never been awake before
Finding out his old dreams aren't panning out
All this time he's never been awake before

But he's mad to be alive
And he's dying to be met
In a quiet desperation of the emptiness he says

"There's gotta be something more
Than what I'm living for
I'm crying out to You"

"There's gotta be something more

Than what I've been before

I'm crying out to You"

"Hey, I give it all away
Nothing I was holding back remains
Hey, I give it all away
Looking for the grace of God today"

Hey Doctor! Won't you awake and give your remedy for the Church's ailment today? Like the cure to the Reformed community, give a healthy dose of your doctrine and your spirit to the Church today. We need a different kind of crisis! I know you're not silent...