Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 80–109.
xii Introduction mysteries, both those glimpsed in the epic of human history and those astir in the depths of the human heart. But Augustine's center and passion was another far greater mystery, the God he met in his Bible and in his heart.
This book is an introduction, intended for first-time readers of Augustine. I do not presume readers know anything much, or anything at all, about his life, world, or thought. For nearly two decades, I have worked to introduce undergraduates, graduates, and many, many others to the art of reading Augustine. A book is not a classroom, of course, but the years of teaching have alerted me to needs that newcomers often have. The challenge is how best to enter into his life, thought, and world. That world of his, the world of Late Antiquity, is both dauntingly intricate and deceptively remote from our own. To enter it, one needs certain basics and a measure of sympathy. Augustine himself used to ask readers for a certain benefit of the doubt when starting out:
Let everyone who reads these pages move along with me when he is equally sure of things. When he is equally hesitant, let him delve into them along with me. When he realizes the error is his, let him come back to me. When it is mine, let him call me back. And so let us go forward together, along the road charity lays out, setting our sights on the One of whom it is said: "Seek His face always" (Ps 104:4).6
I do not think the book you have in your hands is the only one you will need. It is best read alongside one or more of the remarkable scholarly introductions to Augustine's life and theology. All the same, it is one thing to read about him and quite another thing to read him. Augustine can be difficult at times, but that does not lessen the need to hear him in his own words and on his own terms.
Often those who seek Augustine himself are content to work their way through his Confessions (Confessiones). It is one of the unquestioned masterpieces of world literature and offers a brilliant evocation of his early career and his inner life. It is also one-sided. In Confessions, we hear Augustine the middle-aged bishop tell us of Augustine the thirty-something convert—and tell us of himself in all the glaring clarity of retrospect. Confessions may be brilliant, but it tells us about only a modest portion of his life and offers but a small glimpse into his restless and wide-ranging mind.
This book sketches a broader, fuller portrait by gathering Augustine's many sides into a single volume. It brings together, one might argue, not a single portrait of Augustine, but rather a portrait gallery, a gathering of the many Augustines under one roof. Confessions is certainly here, but only as a
6. De Trinitate 1.3.5 (CCL 50:32); my trans. On this, see Robert Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 80–109.