Confessions by St. Augustine

I originally read the first 10 chapters of this work in my Great books club and loved it as did all the ladies in the group. But then for my other book club recently I finished listening to the entire work from the beginning to the end and now I don't like it and I don't like St. Augustine. I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh, because he may have been doing the best he could with what he had, but he ended up with some very strange ideas.

First-- the parts I liked--
I liked the story of his life and his conversion. I liked how he acknowledged the hand of God in his life even when he didn't realize it up to the point where he was converted. I agree with the idea that God guides and directs our lives and turns bad experiences to our good and that he is merciful and waiting and putting circumstances together that will help us in the long run. I agree that we don't often see the hand of God in our lives until after the fact.

I liked the description of Augustine's education and teaching experience. He was a master of rhetoric and knew Latin and Greek, studied a lot of philosophy and I found that quite interesting and enlightening.

I liked his mother's stalwartness and her approach to dealing with her husband. Back then, wives were very like property of their husbands and it was the man;s right to punish her as he saw fit including hitting. Monica, Augustine's mother, was never hit because she let her husband have his say and blow off steam, so that he wasn't so angry with her and things mostly went her way, because she had patience and self-control.

That's pretty much all I liked. Now to the issue dealing with women since I already started talking about it.

I don't like the ancient attitude towards women. They really thought that women were almost a different species and even mentioned how surprised they were that Monica had such fortitude when they were traveling at one point.

I also didn't like Augustine's personal actions toward women. He had a mistress to whom he was completely faithful for like 14 years and she was too and they even had a son together, but when his mother arranged that he be married for advantage, he sent her away and kept their son. He writes about how he felt like his heart was torn out, but instead of bringing her back and standing up against his mother and the society, he just got a new mistress to last until his betrothed was old enough to marry. It seemed to me that his friends and mother came above everything else even the mother of his only son.

One funny part was when about ten of the guys thought it would be great to live together and take turns providing for the necessities of life so that they could use that time to study, and they thought it would work great until someone asked how their wives would feel about it, and the whole plan was discarded.

His philosophies seemed to me very involved and reminded me of the scripture "ever learning, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth". Some of the things he would say were good and there were a lot of good quotes, but his over all actions and attitudes, I thought, were disturbing.

Like all these great books, I'm really glad I read it. It gives me a better understanding of the ancient world, and where our current ideas get their roots. I am also even more grateful for the Book of Mormon to really clear up a lot of these confusing ideas about God and salvation. I love learning.

Blogging is a great outlet, it seems easier to write to someone even if nobody actually reads this, I will read it again in ten years, and I'm sure laugh at my naivity.

Thanks for reading!!