Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
Et ecce intus eras And see; You were within, inside me, et ego foris and I was outside, et ibi quaerebam and out there I sought You, et in ista formosa, quae fecisti and I—misshapen—chased after deformis inruebam. the beautiful shapes You had made.
Mecum eras, You were with me, et tecum non eram. but I was not with You. Ea me tenebant longe a te, Beautiful things kept me far off from You— quae si in te non essent, things which, if not in You, would not be, non essent. not be at all.
Vocasti et clamasti You called and shouted out et rupisti surditatem meam, and shattered my deafness. coruscasti, splenduisti, You flashed, You blazed, et fugasti caecitatem meam, and my blindness fled. fragrasti, et duxi spiritum You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath et anhelo tibi, and panted for You. gustaui et esurio I tasted You, and hunger et sitio, and thirst for more. tetigisti me, You touched me, et exarsi in pacem tuam. and I burned for your peace.55
The Art of Confession
The architecture of Confessions is far from obvious. It is far from clear how autobiography (Books 1–9), psychological meditation (Book 10), and a commentary on the opening verses of Genesis (Books 11–13) fit together. This apparent lack of unity has provoked a vast scholarly industry that, year after year, produces one theory after another attempting to explain why Confessions is a unified work. Some scholars have simply thrown up their hands. The great Augustinian scholar Henri Marrou once wondered aloud whether "Augustin compose mal"—whether Augustine is a poor constructor of books.56
55. Conf. 10.27.38 (CCL 27:175); my trans. See O'Donnell, 3:196–98. 56. Henri Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, 4th ed. (Paris: Boccard, 1958), 61. In his later "Retractio," 665–72, Marrou recanted this objection, noting that Augustine's organizational style was more like that of a composer of music than of a constructor of scholastic treatises, that Augustine often introduced key themes subtly mezza voce before bringing them symphonically front and center.