19. Conf. 5.10.19–10.20 (CCL 27:68–69); trans. Bourke, FOTC 21:120–22.
Against the Manichees 211
The Manichean Christ of Light
The young Augustine denied the Incarnation, having absorbed Manichean docetism, that is, the claim that Christ is not really human, but only appears so. The young Augustine thought of God as a vast mass of light and of Christ as a light-being emanating out from God's light-being. On the far side of his conversion, Augustine deeply regretted how he had been trapped by this materialist (or more precisely, corporealist) conception of God. From Confessions, Book 5:
(10.19) I had no hope of finding the truth in Your Church, O Lord of heaven and earth, Creator of all things visible and invisible. [The Manichees] had turned me away from it, and it seemed disgraceful to me to believe that You were possessed of the shape of human flesh and limited by the bodily outlines of our corporeal parts. And since, when I wished to think of my God, I knew of no way of thinking except in terms of a corporeal mass (for it seemed to me that nothing whatever existed which was not like that), in that lay the greatest and practically the only reason for my inescapable error. . . .
(10.20) . . . Thus, I was of the opinion that our Savior, Your Only-begotten Son, was, as it were, projected from the main bulk of Your most luminous mass, for our salvation. I believed nothing else about Him but what I could imagine in my vanity. I thought that a nature such as His could not be born of the Virgin Mary without some mingling with the flesh. But how what I pictured to myself could be mingled without defilement: that, I did not see. Hence, I was afraid to believe in the Incarnation lest I be compelled to believe that He was defiled by the flesh. Nowadays Your spiritual-minded people will laugh at me, in a sympathetic and loving way, if they read these confessions of mine. But that is the way I was.19
Augustine's Conversion: A Pre-Confessions Account
In 391, right after his ordination as presbyter, Augustine composed the treatise On the Advantage of Believing (De utilitate credendi), dedicating it to an old friend, Honoratus, whom he had once converted to Manicheism. Augustine wrote it to win him back to orthodox Christianity. In the following passage, he sets out an account of his conversion that predates the more extended and more famous version found in the good; (2) God as incorporeal spirit; and (3) God's eternal law measured out in ways appropriate to times and places, thus explaining discrepancies between the Old Testament patriarchs and the ethics of his time.
19. Conf. 5.10.19–10.20 (CCL 27:68–69); trans. Bourke, FOTC 21:120–22.
Confessions. This passage highlights one factor which drew the two friends to the Manichees: the Manichean appeal to reason. From On the Advantage of Believing:
(1.2) I intend to prove to you, if I can, that the Manichees are sacrilegiously and rashly attacking those of us who, following the authority of the Christian faith before we can gaze upon that Truth that pure minds look upon, are, by believing, both fortified in advance and prepared by God, who will enlighten us. And you know, Honoratus, that for no other reason did we fall in with such men than that they kept saying that they would lead willing listeners to God by pure and simple reason, separate from any terror-inspiring authority, and free them from all error. What else forced me for almost nine years, during which time I rejected the religion my parents had implanted in me as a child, to follow these people and listen to them diligently? What other reason than their saying that we had been terrified by superstition, that faith had been demanded of us before reason, while they, on the other hand, imposed faith on no one, but rather first hunted for and disentangled the truth? Who would not be enticed by these promises? And would there not be special enticement for a young mind desiring the truth and yet haughty and talkative in debates within the school of certain learned men? Such a one they then found me, spurning, of course, what seemed to be old wives' tales and desiring to get hold of and drink in the sincere and open truth they promised. But, again, what reason kept me from embracing them completely, so that I remained in that rank they call "hearers" (so as not to lose hope of this world altogether with its affairs), except that I noticed that they themselves were more fluent and eloquent in refuting others than they were strong and sure in proving their own beliefs? . . .
(8.20) Let me outline for you, as best I can, the method I used in seeking true religion. . . . For as I left you and crossed the sea, I was wavering, now delaying, now hesitating, as to what I should hold to and what I should discard. For my vacillation grew greater from day to day from the time I heard that man20 whose coming, as you know, was promised to be like one sent from heaven to solve all our difficulties, and I found him, except for a certain eloquence, just like the others. I deliberated long and hard, once I settled down in Italy, not as to whether I should remain in that sect that I now regretted having fallen into, but how to find the truth. No one knows better than you how I sighed, longing for that truth. Often it seemed to me that it could not be found, and the surging, agitated waves of my thinking carried me along to favor the Academics.21 Often, reflecting as best I could, gazing into the hu-
20. "That man": Faustus of Milevis. See conf. 5.6.10–7.13 (CCL 27:61–64). 21. "Academics": On this philosophical school, see Chapter 2.