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Comparing Confessions Of St. Augustine And The Love Letters Of

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Within the works Confessions of Saint Augustine and The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise, many similarities exist in the forms of biblical and religious references and ideals as well as attitudes toward women. However, many differences appear in the inferred intentions for writing the works and subsequently within the values exhibited by each author. Augustine begins his work with a short prayer praising God. Augustine tells of his faith in God and his need to allow God to “live in” him. In his description of God, Augustine seems to describe Him as both everything and nothing, implementing such descriptions as “unchangeable…yet you change” and “ever active, yet always at rest”. Augustine reflects on his infancy, pondering his …show more content…

He asks “what does it profit me…to make known to men in [God’s] sight…not what I once was, but what I am now?” He acknowledges that these men (his readers) seek his truth and are “glad to hear of the past sins of others who are now free of them”. Augustine finds “joy in [his] heart when [he] confesses to [God]”. He again questions what it is precisely he loves when he loves God, deciding that God exists as “a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food…”. Augustine acknowledges that God exists not only in the human senses, but also in memory and time. Augustine is astounded by the “vast, immeasurable sanctuary” that is memory. It is this vastness, according to Augustine, that allows humans to remember God without truly remembering this memory but rather remembering memories that attribute to the righteous worship of God. It is with this revelation that Augustine begins to ponder time and its relation to God. What is time but a memory of a fleeting present that has already become past? Augustine returns to his ideas of transience and finds that while time appears defined as past, present, and future it can only truly appear as an “eternal present”. He eventually decides that he does “not know what time is” and accepts that he will continue to praise God in this state of

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Before meeting Lady Continence, Augustine feels torn “between [the lust] against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh”; he wants to harmonize his feelings so he can “become [Y] our soldier” (VIII.11), who is not “bound to the earth… afraid of being rid of all my burdens” (VIII.11). Augustine feels guilty for being between a righteous life with God and an imperfect life with his secular desires, because he has acknowledged that a better life exists than he is living. However, he has not been able to make the full jump to being right with God. As a result of his internal dissonance, Augustine’s guilt manifests in a physically as Lady Continence. She appears to Augustine as “serene and cheerful without coquetry”, and tells Augustine to join the others who have already relinquished their earthly desires: “Cast yourself upon him, do not be afraid… Make the leap without anxiety; he will catch you and heal you” (VIII.27).

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