Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

122 Zohar Atkins
vilest person contains a divine spark, 3 and therefore a self, but his evil deeds
result from an ignorance of God and a denial of the self. In the same way that
Augustine prays to know God, the sinner sins because he knows not God. Thus,
Augustine beseeches God not only to reveal His face so that he may know Him
better, but so he can keep far from sin. Augustine struggles to conquer his
concupiscent urges by channeling them towards his ultimate desire, to be as one
not with a strumpet, but rather with God Himself.
In Augustine’s biographical narrative, focusing not on his physical aging
and his worldly accomplishments, but on his spiritual journey, we glimpse the
magnificence of his individual soul, even if it is simply a function of God’s
identity. Augustine surely recognizes the strong assertion of selfhood required to
write, and acknowledges that no other self could produce a replica of his written
works, his life, and his soul. In Book VI, upon witnessing Ambrose pouring
silently over a Scriptural text, he stands mesmerized by the power of the written
word, the fixity of the otherwise open, seeing Scripture as an embodiment of the
Divine, in the same way that he calls Christ “the voice of your [God’s] truth”
(Conf. 6.10). In Book XII, he offers an exegetical interpretation of the creation
story, justifying his elucidation with one of the most poignant verifications of
the self within a divine framework:
If we both see that what you say is true and also that what I say is true, what
enables us to recognize this truth? I do not see it in you, nor do you see it in
me, but we both see it in the immutable Truth which is above our minds.
Therefore, since there is no dispute between us about the light which shines
from the Lord our God, why do we argue about the thoughts of a fellow man,
which we cannot see as clearly as we see the immutable Truth? Even if
Moses were to appear to us and say ‘This is what I meant,” we should not see
his thoughts but would simply believe his word. (Conf. 12.25)
Augustine sees the corpus of God as necessary, because it allows people to
grab hold of the immaterial, but he also enunciates the importance of remembering
that behind each personal connection and construal remains a singular
objective, Truth. Augustine mentions God significantly more than he pays pen
service to Jesus, because he has, in a certain sense, replaced Jesus, and his Confessions
have, to an extent, supplanted the Bible. Though Augustine still adamantly
vouches for the Son of God and the Biblical brainchild of God, he places
profound importance on the internal revelation of the self, the individual’s
mechanism for bonding with the divine. Augustine’s self has room to coexist
with God, to nourish itself with its mother’s milk of God’s love. Augustine
privileges the plurality of paths, joyfully promulgating the singular ends
betokened them if they embrace God—namely, eternal salvation. Building upon
the Socratic command of “know thyself,” Augustine sees self-knowledge and
3
Book 7.12, pp. 148. Augustine writes, “But if they are deprived of all good, they will
not exist at all.”