Augustine in His Own Words
ly but less intensely—we thought we were doing enough. Because we had not yet been touched by that blaze that was to sweep in upon us, we thought that the low slow flame we burned with was as great as it gets. But suddenly, as soon as certain books brimming [with ideas] exhaled this sweet Arabian fragrance over us (as Celsinus24 puts it), no sooner had they sprinkled a very few tiny drops of a most precious perfume on that flickering flame than they suddenly sparked in me this wildfire—incredible, Romanianus, it was incredible—maybe, even beyond what you would believe of me—what else can I say?—beyond even what I can believe of myself. What could honors, what could human accolades, what could craving for empty fame, what, in the end, could the poultice and tether of this mortal life move me to? Steadily, I started turning inward, quickly, totally, towards myself. And I looked back— I confess it—as though from a journey's end, back to that religion which had been implanted in us in our childhood, and which had been, as it were, woven into our bone's marrow. That religion was drawing me to herself, although I did not know it. Staggering, hurrying, hesitating, I seized the Apostle Paul. For truly those men, I have to say, could never have accomplished such great things and could never have lived the way they clearly did if their writings and their principles were opposed to so great a good as this. I read the whole book with the greatest care and attention. (2.6) Then philosophy's face, however dim its rays of light before then, revealed itself to me so greatly.25
The Challenge of Radical Skepticism
In his earliest work, Augustine grapples with radical skepticism as argued for by Cicero and the Academics.26 He knew of this school of philosophy largely through Cicero's dialogue Academica, and associates its classic views with the Greek philosopher Carneades (214–129 b.c.e.).27 In the following passage, he summarizes, at the request of his friend Alypius, the Academic position as he knew it. From Against the Skeptics, Book 2:
24. "Celsinus": In Soliloquia 1.12.21, Augustine mentions Cornelius Celsus, "who says that wisdom is the supreme good"; in De haeresibus pref., he refers to Celsus, "who had compiled, in six books, the tenets of all the founders of distinct philosophic schools." There was also Celsinus of Castabala, who authored an encyclopedia of philosophy, which may have been translated into Latin; see Pierre Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident (Paris: de Boccard, 1948), 178–81.
25. C. Acad. 2.2.4–2.6 (CCL 29:20–21); my trans. On this passage, see John J. O'Meara, "Plotinus and Augustine: Exegesis of Contra Academicos II,5," Studies in Augustine and Eriugena, ed. Thomas Halton (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 195–208.
26. John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 42, notes that "unlike almost every other thinker of late antiquity, Augustine took radical skepticism seriously and was driven by his own experience to attempt to find answers to it." See retr. 1.1.
27. This global skepticism did not precisely match what we know of Carneades' own position, but reflects a later "dogmatic skepticism" and Cicero's own position. See Rist, Augustine, 41–48.