Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (continued)
INTRODUCTION
tinian spirituality, which has often been called a spirituality of conversion, can never be understood apart from St. Augustine's Confessions, where he reveals his own personality and his unique call from God.
Christian spirituality, as we know, existed from the time of Christ's encounter with His first disciples, who responded to His creative power of transforming them by His words and actions into children of God, images of this Divine Son who exists as generous love.
This is the spirituality Augustine discovered in the Scriptures and interpreted by the reflection of his classically educated mind, which was forced to respond to the challenges of heretics. This spirituality, derived from the Scriptures and made public in the Liturgy, had been lived and discussed for two centuries before Neoplatonism appeared on the scene. The Word of God was the source of this Christian spirituality, which was referred to by the Greek Fathers as a gnosis, an understanding, as far as possible, of the Mystery, "an interiorized comprehension of the Seriptures causing us to attain the very heart of the design of God as it is realized in Christ."
This Christian gnosis was what St. Paul called true wisdom, an awareness of the Divine Plan discoverable in Scripture and in history. Very early in his career Augustine experienced the call to wisdom, and he instinctively felt that this was a call to Christ. He discovered that the role of the Logos was to win us from ignorance and to lead us to the light of wisdom expressed in the Divine Law. Later he became convinced that wisdom cannot thrive without faith, hope, and charity. In his first completed work, The Happy Life, he concluded that happiness is found in a perfect knowledge of God, the Truth. But Monica, his Christian mother, reminded all present that this perfect knowledge is obtained by a "wellfounded faith, a joyful hope, and an ardent love."? It took many years for Augustine's notional assent to this remark to become real assent.
As Clement of ,Alexandria once said: "Christian gnosis be-
2. Ibid., p. 295.
3. Augustine, The Happy Life, 1.4.35.