Augustine in His Own Words
easily have doubted that I was alive than that there is no truth "which is clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made" (Rom 1:20). . . .
(17.23) I marveled that I now loved You, and not a phantasm in place of You. Yet I did not stand still in the enjoyment of my God. Rather, I was snatched up to You by Your glory, but was soon snatched away from You by the natural weight of my will, and I fell back on these lower things with a groan. This was the weight of carnal custom. However, memory of you remained with me.30
Conversion of Victorinus
Here and there within Confessions, Augustine offers mini-portraits of other converts that circle round the larger central portrait of his own conversion. Here Augustine describes the conversion of Marius Victorinus (d. c. 364).31 Like Augustine, Victorinus was a North African and a rhetor who had made his way to Italy to win fame and fortune. Victorinus was the one responsible for translating those Platonist books that were so revolutionizing Augustine's thinking. Augustine heard that Victorinus, at the end of his life, had converted to Christianity. In the following passage, he hears the full story from Simplicianus (d. 400), a presbyter of the church of Milan and Ambrose's mentor and eventual successor.32 From Confessions, Book 8:
(2.3) So I went to Simplicianus, the spiritual father of (then) bishop Ambrose in his reception into grace and loved by Ambrose like a father. I told him the winding course of my error. When I mentioned that I had read some books of the Platonists, which Victorinus (at one time a rhetorician in the city of Rome who had, I heard, died a Christian) had translated into Latin, he congratulated me that I had not happened on the writings of other philosophers filled with errors and deceptions "according to the elements of this world" (Col 2:8), while in the writings of the Platonists God and His Word are indirectly introduced at every turn. Then, in order to exhort me to the humility of Christ, which is hidden from the wise but revealed to the little ones (Mt 11:25), he recalled Victorinus himself whom he had known as a very close friend when he was in Rome. And he told me a story about him concerning which I shall not keep silent. It offers ample opportunity to praise Your grace, which
30. Conf. 7.9.13–13.23 (CCL 27:101–7); trans. Bourke, FOTC 21:176–86. 31. See Pierre Hadot, Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses oeuvres, CEASA 44 (Paris: Institut d'Études Augustiniennes, 1971); Stephen A. Cooper, Marius Victorinus' Commentary on Galatians, OECS (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Nello Cipriani, "Marius Victorinus," AugEncy, 533–35.
32. Simplicianus would play a key role not only in Augustine's conversion, but also in his later work as a theologian. Augustine's Ad Simplicianum in 396 would prove a watershed in his evolving theology of grace and his interpretation of Paul's letters; for a discussion and excerpts, see Chapter 10.
Confessions 21 must be confessed to You. This very learned old man, skilled in all the liberal teachings, who had read and criticized so many works of the philosophers, the teacher of so many senators, a man who, as a mark of his distinguished career as a teacher, had deserved and received a statue in the Roman Forum (which the citizens of this world regard as an outstanding honor), up to that time a worshiper of idols and a participant in the sacrilegious mysteries. . . .
(2.4) He read, as Simplicianus said, the Holy Scriptures and studied all the Christian writings with greatest care, examining them in detail. He used to say to Simplicianus, not openly, but in a private and friendly way: "Do you know that I am already a Christian?" The latter would reply: "I will not believe it nor count you among the Christians unless I see you inside the Church of Christ." But he would smile and say: "So, do the walls [of the church] make people Christians?" He said this often, that he was already a Christian, and Simplicianus often gave the same reply, and the bantering remark about the walls was often repeated. For he was afraid of offending his friends, proud worshipers of demons.33 . . . But afterwards, by reading and longing, he gained firmness of mind and became afraid that he would be denied by Christ before the holy angels because he had been fearful of confessing Him before people. By being ashamed of the mysteries of the humility of Your Word and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious mysteries of proud demons which he had accepted as their proud follower, he appeared to himself to be guilty of a great crime. He put aside the shame arising from vanity and took on the shame arising from truth. Suddenly and unexpectedly, he said to Simplicianus (as the latter told the story): "Let us go to church. I wish to become a Christian." The latter, overcome with joy, went along with him. He was introduced into the first mysteries of instruction and, shortly afterwards, he also turned in his name to be reborn through baptism, to the amazement of Rome and the joy of the Church.34 The proud saw and grew angry; they gnashed their teeth and pined away (Ps 111:10). But the Lord God was the hope of Your servant, and he regarded not "vanities and lying follies" (Ps 39:5).
(2.5) At last, as the hour approached for the profession of faith (which at Rome was customarily uttered by those who are about to enter into Your grace in set words learned and kept in memory,35 and from a prominent place
33. "Proud worshipers of demons": For Augustine, paganism of any sort was inherently demonic; the point is that Victorinus was an ex-pagan and his aristocratic friends remained deeply committed to traditional Roman religion.
34. "Turned in his name" (nomen dedit): a technical term referring to the formal application for baptism, done usually just before Lent. Those accepted for baptism (competentes, "co-petitioners") spent Lent going through a complex set of rites and rigorous ascetical practices. See Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 61–69, 93–98.
35. "In set words learned and kept in memory": During Lent, competentes memorized the then-secret Creed. On Holy Saturday, just before baptism, they recited it back in a secret ceremony, known as the