After the Romans crucified Jesus, beheaded Paul, and crucified Peter during the first century, Christians within the Empire feared and fled persecution until 313, when Emperor Constantine passed a law that established the freedom of religion (Novak 27). Under his new legislation, Constantine converted to Christianity. Constantine asserted that the Empire, which once killed Jesus, would now worship the “King of the Jews.”

 

Religious studies scholar Huston Smith explains that the “Church was the mystical body of Christ,” an extension of God’s love to those on earth (336). Christians at the time were obligated to make the Church an ever-expanding religious institution. In Constantine’s reign, Roman hegemony expanded throughout the region until its zenith at the turn of the fifth century. The Catholic Church grew exponentially as well, increasing its number of churches and clergy.

 

When the Church integrated itself into Roman government, lower-class Romans converted not for the religion’s sake, but rather “the opportunity of social advancement, the benefits of submitting to a strong patron, and protection against governmental oppression,” according to scholar Ralph Novak (198). Historians label the fourth century as the “wavering century” because many Romans were uncertain about committing to Catholicism (Novak 195). With social mobility as a priceless currency, Christianity was more of a label than a declaration of faith.

 

Within this era, one account illuminates that of a firm believer who represents his time. Often wavering in his confidence to faithfully serve God, Aurelius Augustinus, or Augustine, recounted his religious journey in the autobiography Confessions. Peter Brown, an authority on Augustine’s works, explains that Confessions was a “training for [Augustine’s] present career” as a priest because he examined his faults and used prayer to find serenity (Augustine, 162). Written in 397, the autobiography displays the “perils of his past” by lamenting his sinful decisions throughout his childhood to adult life (Brown, Augustine, 159). Of the many temptations Augustine discussed, he detailed his struggles with his sexual appetite the most. Because Augustine is the only known theologian to document his past sexual endeavors, Confessions established the paradigm for discourses concerning sex and the body for the Catholic Church (Brown, Augustine, 167; Brown, The Body and Society, 388). More than a precursor to his seminal work, City of God, Confessions highlighted the transition of a Roman who practiced Christianity while he ascended the social ladder in the Empire.

 

Conversations about sexuality, a crux in Confessions, represent the greater Roman Empire in the fourth century. While Augustine believed that his actions were merely because he gave in to his bodily pleasures and free will, his quasi-upper-class status as a male granted him more freedom than most Romans to commit these “sins.” Augustine’s detailing of his upbringing, relationship with his concubine, and participation in Manichaeism primarily aid in discussing sexuality and social status. These actions, he believed, dominated his moral compass before his conversion to Christianity. I will engage with the fact that in committing to God’s laws and celibacy, his perspectives on sexuality denounce the Romans’ morally permissible actions, all while framing the time’s values on familial and patriarchal ties. Ultimately, Confessions is an indictment of the sexual mores of Augustine’s time.

 

Two principles concerning the Bishop’s interpretation of Christianity and sin arise during his introspection of his grammar school years. His school’s curriculum centered around the canonical Aeneid, which caused Augustine, who preferred to read and write what he wanted, to dislike Virgil’s epic (Augustine 55). A scene that piqued his interest, however, was Dido’s suicide. Reflecting on how he wept for Dido, Augustine felt guilty for having “love for the world,” following the world’s “lowest creatures,” and letting stories, not God, dictate his emotions (Augustine 56). Firstly, if the Christian focuses on the lower goods, earthly matters, and not the highest good, God, they impede their progression in their relationship to God by focusing on meaningless things. According to the Bishop, his sin was that he “[sought] pleasure, honors, and truths” in the world and failed to seek God for his wisdom (Augustine 63). Then secondly, although Christians have free will, they must learn to control their feelings, desires, and temptations. The Bishop states that the Christian has self-control when they “[cling] to [God’s] hand with all [their] heart” (Augustine 58). Put simply, man has free will, and diverting action and emotions towards the world and not God disrupts their path to salvation.

 

When not in school, Augustine lived in a male-dominated household. Augustine watched his alcoholic and adulterous father, Patricius, abuse Monica, Patricius’ wife and Augustine’s mother. According to Augustine, women “marveled” at Monica’s resilience; Augustine notes that Monica “never reported or revealed by any sign that Patricius had beaten [her] or that they had... a family quarrel, even for a single day” (Augustine 219). Patricius’ behavior was relatively consistent with the time, as men often were “the undisputed head of the family” who demanded “gratitude, submission, and veneration” (Shelton 11). The father had as much mercy and benevolence as “his personality and temperament” allowed for (Shelton 17). Patricius evidently exhibited what Rein Nauta calls “a machismo complex” (77). They suggest he was driven by “a male-centered ideology that encourages men to be sexually aggressive, to brag about their sexual prowess and their genital attributes, and to dominate women sexually” (77). The expectation for the man, should he have a wife and children, was to maintain dominion over his family.

 

Augustine, however, did not entirely despise his father. Patricius paid for his education, an anomaly during that era. “Who at that time did not praise and extol [Patricius],” asks Augustine, “because, beyond the resources of [Patricius’] own estate, he furnished his son with everything needed for this long sojourn to be made for purposes of study” (Augustine 67). How the father treated his family was inconsequential because his ability to financially support his family determined his value within society. (Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, 152; Shelton 17). Augustine watched his mother suffer silently. Yet, through time and the fact that Patricius was no more than a provider, he expected little from his father emotionally.

 

While Patricius perpetuated secular Roman ideals, Monica tried to instill in Augustine over-arching Christian values, most of which contradicted the Empire’s beliefs that pertained to morality and masculinity. Seeing as “she endured offense against her marriage bed” from Patricius, Monica still found a way to govern her house and son “piously” (Augustine 220). Monica led by example, and Augustine notes that she was “a servant of [God’s] servants,” someone who “praised [God] and honored [God],” with all her heart (Augustine 220). Augustine recalled his mother’s “wish,” which was that he “keep from fornication, and most of all from adultery with any man’s wife” (Augustine 68). This meek woman wanted him to be everything Patricius was not; Monica especially asked Augustine to respect the sanctity of his marriage and love God unceasingly. Augustine initially saw her words as “a woman’s warnings,” but in retrospect, he realized that they were from God (Augustine 68). He believed that God spoke through her, warning him about his future vices.

 

When Augustine wrote about Monica and Patricius’ relationship, he often discussed Monica’s reaction to Patricius’ abuses, rather than Patricius’ abusive actions themselves. Augustine accepted that Monica’s role was to care for her house and children despite Patricius’ nature. Faithfulness and care, as exhibited by Monica, were effeminate. Without a check to his power in their household, Patricius asserted himself over his family and other women. It follows that because men held such power over their family and women, almost all expressions of male sexuality were morally permissible within the Roman Empire.

 

There are two events from Augustine’s early years that showed him the importance of sexuality to Roman men. The first was the event that transpired at the bathhouse. While Augustine cleaned himself, he saw that Patricius noticed “how [he] was growing into manhood and was clothed with stirring youth. From this, as it were, he already took pride in his grandchildren and found joy in telling it to [his] mother” (Augustine 68). Though many translations on this scene exist, with many academics translating the Latin to “excess virility” instead of “stirring youth,” they agree that Patricius noticed Augustine’s erection. Here, Patricius categorized a bodily function, the erection, as a social happening. Secondly, when Augustine recognized that sexuality was praiseworthy, he used this idea to curry favor amongst his friends. When his friends bragged about their sexual endeavors, Augustine, who was admittedly “innocent... and more chaste than others,” told them that he too had been sexually active because of the “praise it brought” (68). From both events, it is evident that norms perpetuated the machismo complex, and when they received praise for having sex, it bolstered their ego.

 

As exemplified by Patricius, fathers wanted their sons to be like them in many aspects, particularly in sexuality. Much like Augustine’s friends added value to their sexual acts, one can discern that Patricius was like the average father who thrust these norms onto his sons. When Augustine wanted to fit in to his friend group by admitting to things which he had never done, this shows that speaking openly about sex was typical between young boys. If virility and having sex was praiseworthy, then there was an obvious incentive to be sexually active and share one’s experiences. Because the Romans found a man’s sexuality valuable, boys during this time were heavily influenced by their fathers and friends to dominate in the same manner.

 

With every discourse on sexuality, Augustine mentions another lamentation that furthers his conceptualization of sin. Once again, Augustine wanted to impress his friends in the famous chapter, “The Pear Tree.” Augustine stole pears because he enjoyed “the actual theft and the sin of theft” (Augustine 70). Much like when he detests his attachment to Dido, the Bishop argues that “sins are committed when... [individuals] desert the best and highest goods” (Augustine 71). When he stole the pears for the thrill, he focused on the world and its “least” goods, not God. The Bishop believes that the action is problematic because it violates God’s law. Like Kantian deontology, the action alone determines moral permissibility for Augustine. Regardless of what materializes from the action, sin can be as inconsequential as focusing one’s attention on worldly pleasures rather than God.

 

Furthermore, we can note that Augustine was in a “garden,” and that the pear was the “forbidden fruit.” Once Augustine commits the theft, he claims that “[he] leaped down from [God’s] firm clasp even towards complete destruction” (70). Many scholars liken this incident to Adam and Eve’s in the Garden of Eden when they eat the forbidden fruit. Much like that event is regarded as the “The Fall of Man,” Augustine rhetorically positions his action, one where he leaps down from God’s grasp, as akin to Adam and Eve’s (Genesis 3:23). Scholar Garry Wills argues that “the sin of the theft strikes Augustine because it is so striking a reenactment of Adam’s sin… Though there is no such thing as pure evil, this was as close to a purely evil choice as he was likely to come'' (63). In his judgment, God’s law and Roman law are mutually exclusive. Some Romans would suggest stealing the pears was trivial. However, the Bishop postulates that God would reject any notion that suggests sin’s frivolity. A literal serpent did not tempt Augustine, and this analogy may be an exaggeration if he judges himself by the laws of Rome. However, under God’s law, the only worthy characterization would be Adam’s. “Foul was the evil, and I loved it,” says Augustine, equating his situation to the sin with the greatest fecundity in the Old Testament (70). According to Augustine, no action is free from an intense judgment, and followers should avoid sin at all costs—no matter the extent to which it is carried out by the corrupt, whether it be a young boy or father.

 

For Augustine, this moral compass is almost unique to himself, seeing as he argues that each sin is so intrinsically heavy. Of course, many in the Roman Empire had not developed this Christian doctrine. Augustine pinned certain qualities in the human condition as corrupted. Yet, there were also admirable traits that one could possess; the reader sees these morally right traits in his mother, Monica. Although she lacked the scriptural knowledge that Augustine possessed at the time of writing Confessions, Monica represented that there were ‘godly’ people in this time when many were hesitant to commit to Christianity. If anything, Augustine extended conviction in God when he increased the intensity in which the person judged their quality of character, and every action and reaction to the world’s happenings, perils, and forms of temptation.

 

Once he grew older, sexuality came to the forefront of not only relationships but pleasure. Augustine’s “sins” of lust entailed not just his objective conceptualization of wrong action, but also actions specifically afforded to Augustine and his social position.

 

Of the many admissions made, none is more intriguing than Augustine’s detailing of his concubine. Unnamed in Confessions, “The Mother of Adeodatus” is a mysterious character. From what little Augustine shares, they lived together for twelve years. After she bore a son, Augustine sent her to Africa. Recounting why he even entered the relationship, Augustine states that “[he] was not so much a lover of marriage as a slave to lust” (154). Brown suggests that their relationship was “frankly sexual. Augustine chose his companion because he loved her; and he slept with her because he loved to do so” (The Body and Society, 390). Augustine loved her yet choosing to enter a relationship with her was more than a lustful decision.

 

The concubine was caught between Roman law and gender norms. According to Thomas McGinn, concubinage was a “system, or moral economy wherein different values and practices in areas of marriage, sexuality, and social reproduction coexist, often and easily, side by side” (339). Emperor Augustus held a disdain for sexual relations not within marriage. So, in 17 BCE, the famed Emperor established the Lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis (McGinn 340). McGinn states that the “this statute had as its principal aim of the repression of those forms of non-marital sexual relations considered unacceptable by Roman society;” jurists passed favorable legislation to what had already been norms within the time (340). The men sought women who were not classified as valid partners within the law if they wanted to have sex outside of marriage legally.

 

The system allowed men to maintain social status if they avoided a valid marriage. Women who could not enter a valid marriage, then, were considered by the men to have relationships that were generally sexual, much like Augustine’s. “Only prostitutes, procuresses, slaves, and peregrines (foreigners) and convicted adulteresses” were acceptable concubines, so one can assume that Augustine’s unnamed concubine fell within one of these categories (McGinn 342). These women had virtually no rights within the Empire.

 

Evidently, Augustine enjoyed the woman for pleasure, but also because he did not have to lower his status should he be found in an unlawful relationship. His relationship with her could be said to be strategic. Although Augustine wrote that their relationship was perpetuated by lust, he may have chosen her because she would not impede his social advancement.

 

To understand why Augustine wanted to maintain his social status, inspecting where he was initially within the social order is necessary. Brown notes that in Latin, Augustine describes his father, Patricius, as a tenuis municeps; “[tenuis] had referred to those who brought their character, not their bankroll, to the service of the state,” and that although there is not a precise translation to English, this description means that “by no means” were his family “paupers” (Through the Eye of the Needle, 151). In one of his later works, Augustine refers to himself as a “poor” man. However, Brown asserts that Augustine’s articulation of poor here is defined as “negatively, as the opposite of wealth” (Through the Eye of the Needle, 152). So, while Augustine may have not been poor, he certainly was not wealthy.

 

While it would not be appropriate to define Augustine as impoverished, he was afforded experiences that the lowest classes did not have. In particular, he could cultivate his intellect, so he pursued education. Upper-class men “occupied their time with unpaid public service,” and once they entered their teen years, they could then specialize in professions such as “judges, magistrates, diplomats, military officers, priests, and senators” (Shelton 6). Augustine, who wanted the social and financial freedom to be a rhetoric teacher, aspired to be greater than his father. Augustine’s main concern as a young man was focusing on his mind and pursuing a life that did not involve endlessly participating in physical labor.

 

When he pursued his passion for rhetoric, Augustine solidified himself within the higher classes. In Roman society, the upper class assumed a paternal role over the lower class and often “[devoted] their time, energy, and money to the welfare of those inferior to them” (Shelton 6). The member of the lower class showed “gratitude, submission, and veneration” (Shelton 6). In Augustine’s case, his friend, Romanianus, served as his patron. In Confessions, Romanianus is only mentioned once, and he is referred to as a “very rich” individual (Augustine 153). However, in a later essay, Augustine mentions how he brought him into “his house, his payroll, and his heart” (Brown, Through the Eye of the Needle, 153). Romanianus funded Augustine to support his teaching career in Carthage.

 

When Patricius died in 370, Augustine was obligated to serve in his father’s place at his town’s council. However, Augustine took a teaching job which exempted him from serving. Brown argues that “Romanianus brought his gifted friend [Augustine] into the charmed circle in which Patricius,” who worked hard to give him an education and better life, “had hoped to place him” (Through the Eye of the Needle, 54). Although teaching at the government level certainly was attainable, it was a fantastic feat for Augustine, considering the social and personal circumstances.

 

Once he entered Romanianus’ circle, Augustine was exposed to Manichaeism. He recalls that he committed to learning a “false religion” led by men “whose mouths were the snares of the devil” (Augustine 82). Augustine sought a higher meaning, and religion was an outlet for his search for metaphysical truths. Strategically formulated by Mani in the late third century, the religion of Manichaeism juxtaposed itself to the three major/largest religions: Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. His ethic, he believed, contained “universalist principles… which would transcend geographical and national barriers” (Gardner and Lieu 109). Mani primarily argued that families were problematic. Because “Christ was an intellect,” followers ought to only pursue knowledge. Activities like raising children or caring for a spouse distracts the follower from reaching higher understanding and should be avoided (Gardner and Lieu 109). Mani also insisted that followers commit to abstinence. According to Mani, if Christ left his body on the cross, then the body is an extraneous, useless part of life. Therefore, followers should not bring more bodies (children) into the world.

 

Manichaeism gave Augustine an outlet and reprieve from strict principles on sexual activity and marriage. If the creation of the material were regrettable, then inevitably Augustine would have loosely followed this tenet in his time as a Manichaean. During the twelve years he and his concubine lived together, they gave birth to only one child. Many scholars believe that the average Roman had many more children during this time, so having one son, Adeodatus, was uncommon. Women were “expected to bear one child after another;” so, the concubine could have had more children had Augustine not sought her for pleasure (Shelton 6). From this fact, Brown argues that Augustine likely used some form of birth control. Seeing as Manichaeism preached abstinence and, at the very least, the use of contraceptives, they partially adhered to the rules that rejected families (Brown, The Body and Society, 390). When Augustine sought a concubine instead of a wife, he followed Mani’s principle of cultivating the mind. If one focused on things that distracted the individual, they hindered their spiritual growth. Augustine’s refusal to marry was evidently consistent with Mani’s doctrine.

 

Examining a later essay by Augustine, Elizabeth Clark points out that “some Manichaeans, Augustine alleges, not only commit sexual sins, but they also try to excuse themselves by claiming that the power of evil was stronger than the power of God” (35). Some of the Manichaeans believed that they lacked free will. In practice, many decided that the body was superior to the mind in cases where they wanted to have sex. Although Augustine was not Christian then, his dialogue on the body and the mind, concerning sexuality, was almost in direct reply Manichaeism.

 

Augustine sent the woman away to Africa and kept their son, Adeodatus. Even if the concubine were married to Augustine, she lacked legal grounds to attain custody over the child because the man had full rights to the child in the relationship (Shelton 22). This event highlights the clear sign of patriarchy within familial structure under the norms of the Roman Empire. Augustine primarily sent her away because Monica pressed him to seek a young girl’s hand in marriage. She believed that once he “was married, the baptism of salvation would wash [him] clean” (Augustine 152). Monica found a twelve-year-old girl (roughly two years before the age of consent required for marriage within the Empire). For the betrothed girl, it was not uncommon to marry off one’s daughter at that young age (Shelton 24). Augustine believed that this arranged marriage was a good idea because “she appealed to him,” and he was “willing to wait for her” (Augustine 152). Augustine, however, does not marry the girl because he felt guilt from his actions. Augustine moved the concubine out of his life and replaced her; however, the burden of guilt remained equal, if not greater, for the woman who could not see her son.

 

From Augustine’s admission, it appears that both he and Patricius were products of their time. Patricius abused his wife, and although he provided his son with the funds to continue his education, his son suffered from watching his mother receive abuse yet never utter a single word about what happened. These men’s ideals on familial dominance and sexuality guided their actions, and both were without blame from Roman society. Likewise, Augustine sent his concubine to a different continent and kept their son; however, he remained unharmed. The only check to their power was guilt. Patricius, in the last few years before he died, converted to Catholicism, and Augustine found solace when he transitioned from Manichaeism to become a Catholic priest then a bishop.

The Lex Iulia did not prevent the Roman men from having sexual relations outside of the confines of marriage. Adultery and sex outside the marriage was punished by law, yes, however, the unwritten laws and attitudes granted the men a reprieve from their actions. Because abuse was not spoken about, men, in turn, were liberated from their actions. In Augustine’s circumstance, he maintained his social status by taking a concubine within his home. Men were sexually liberated, and the women, however, did not partake in the actions that the men did. While Monica told Augustine to be different from Patricius, he slipped, if not intentionally fell, into the circumstances granted specifically to the men in the Empire.

 

A defining moment in Augustine’s life that was detailed in Confessions was his emotional breakdown in the garden. Feeling defeated because of his inability to remain celibate and fight his sexual urges, he berates his friend, Alypius, for answers. Augustine erupts:

 

The tumult within my breast hurried me out [into the garden], where no one would stop the raging combat that I had entered into against myself, until it would come to such an end as you knew of, but as I knew not… I knew what a thing of evil I was… Suffering from a most fearful wound, I quaked in spirit, angered by a most turbulent anger, because I did not enter into your will and into a covenant with you, my God. (195)

 

Here, Augustine laments his submission to a lustful life and misdeeds to those around him. By then, Augustine accepted that he must turn to Christianity for strength over his body. He finally understood his mother’s words and recognized that eternal life with God was attainable at the expense of bodily pleasure. Ultimately, Augustine struggled with his free will. In her dissertation, phenomenologist Hannah Arendt notes that this scene is a “relapse” on Augustine’s behalf (10). Arendt argues that for the theologian, “happiness of having is not contracted by sorrow but by fear of losing” (10). In Confessions, Augustine realizes that maintaining a straight path to God requires that he devoid himself of his primal urges.

 

Augustine doubted that he could walk with God. This scene in the garden showed the extent to which sexuality weighed on the Bishop’s mind. Animating his free will, Augustine admits that he wants “to will firmly and finally, not to turn and toss, now here, now there” (Augustine 196). He wanted to resist temptation without extreme difficulty. Scholar James Wetzel contends that “I would wager, have fully taken notice of the fact that what Augustine is describing in Book 8 [of Confessions] is less his conversion to Christianity than to celibacy” (“Life in Unlikeness,” 44). Wetzel mentions that Augustine describes his origin, in the original Latin, is ex-femina. Instead of the orthodox ex-nihilo, “God pulls being out of a void and creates something that is no longer nothing but still in God,” the use of ex-femina, according to Wetzel, brings to light “his sexual ties to women” (“Life in Unlikeness,” 45). From Wetzel’s analysis of Augustine’s verbiage, Augustine struggled with his will to will the higher pleasures associated with God. Augustine believed his urges were inherently tied to his body. It is not only Augustine’s lack of obedience towards God, but the fact that his body provided an obstacle yet to be conquered by that point in his life. As outlined in the autobiography, the body is indeed a wedge between the individual and God. According to Augustine, the corporal self, though a means of finding the soul, is just as much a mode of destruction. Though lust is constant through time, the influences of a stagnant social class and Manichaeism are unique to the era.

 

On his journey to sainthood, Augustine became a catechumen, someone who receives training before their baptism and conversion to Catholicism. He trained under Bishop Ambrose, the cleric who presided over the Catholic Church in Milan. Augustine’s time with Ambrose proved to be somewhat influential to his spiritual growth, although they rarely discussed Augustine’s doubts concerning his problems associated with free will and the body. Augustine mentions that Ambrose was a “happy man… because so many powerful persons showed him honor” (135). Augustine especially admired his commitment to abstinence. According to Augustine, “his celibacy alone appeared to me to be a hard thing,” in comparison to learning the Christian principles found in the Bible (135) Augustine could not divulge his feelings to his mentor, citing that “crowds of busy men, to whose troubles he was a slave” (136). The student felt that he could not approach Ambrose, and at times in the text, Augustine felt uncomfortable confronting his teacher with his concerns.

 

At this point in Augustine’s life, Garry Wills writes, “[he] felt he could not give himself entirely to God while he was still tied to sexual gratification. What he needed now was not intellectual persuasion but a strengthening of the will” (Font of Life, 77). Indeed, Augustine may have needed a friend more than a mentor. Ambrose appeared to his student as a dedicated individual who mastered a skill that made him alien compared to others. Contrasted to Augustine’s time as a youth, he noticed that men, particularly those in the clergy, did not discuss sex. Although these men were committed to celibacy because of their faith, Augustine faced a drastically different set of beliefs concerning sexuality compared to his upbringing. Contrary to the men and boys that surrounded Augustine in his younger years, Ambrose was Augustine’s beacon of hope. Augustine believed that if he committed God, he would be much like his teacher.

 

Ambrose baptized Augustine in 387 and his sixteen-year-old, Adeodatus (Brown, Augustine, 39). In the same year of Augustine’s baptism, Monica, by then an alcoholic, died. Drinking small amounts of alcohol until she drank in excess, she eventually died from alcohol poisoning. The Bishop knew that his mother would find her place in heaven, with God, because “she had so lived as to give praise of [God’s] name by her faith and conduct” (Augustine 227). In her final moments, Monica proclaimed, “put this body away anywhere… I ask only this of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord” (Augustine 223). From the Bishop’s standpoint, it was apparent that bodily pleasures, whether intoxication or sexual pleasures, were the primary deterrence from God (Brown, The Body and Society, 394). Monica’s death showed Augustine that one must close the distance between them and God, even though the body remained tied to the material. Although it is true, as Kyle Harper points out, “that no moral ideology can control such quixotic, individual, human forces as shame or desire,” the struggle to battle one’s urges is the Christian’s obligation (Harper 189). Perfection is impossible, but the struggle is uncomfortable and necessary.

 

After his son’s death in the town of Thagaste in 389, Augustine maintained his spiritual journey within the Catholic Church and became an ordained priest at Hippo. Concerning Augustine’s conversion to Christianity, Nauta argues that “Augustine’s conversion is ambiguous. It represents an attempt to reinforce his own autonomy, an attempt which succeeded and failed at the same time. It is an act of resistance and an act of surrender” (83). Comparing Augustine to the prodigal son, as referenced in the Bible, Luke Chapter 15, Nauta equates Augustine’s return to his mother’s teachings as analogous. While Augustine’s surrender to Christianity and heeding to Monica’s words have similar qualities, his adventure into the unknown indicates that he does not return to a similar situation like the prodigal son. Considering the obvious, the Bishop no longer had a family; with Patricius, Monica, and Adeodatus gone, Augustine was left in despair. Although he knew that they are with God, there literally was nothing for the Bishop.

 

After Augustine watched these events, his introspection catalyzed his new doctrine. The fact that Augustine did not have a family at this point in the book is especially pertinent to this discussion. Although Augustine maintains mainly autobiographical perspectives within Confessions, this does not necessarily mean that he is not calling other Christians into action. I believe what makes Augustine’s articulation so impactful and insightful is that through his faults, he tells the reader that his life is more than just an experience with the pitfalls of Roman society. Augustine positions himself as an example. He warns the Christian of what not to do. It is almost as if in writing these words, he cannot help himself from implying that there are truths that he has ascertained from his life of sin. If Augustine does not see his mother give in to intoxication, his father abuse his wife, and the destruction of his own household, he does not write this book. He, then, writes Confessions with a call-to-action. He wanted to provide the Christian with a path that delineated from the Roman Empire. And in providing them with this new perspective, he is creating a subjective reality. He tells the reader to do not as he did, but to do as he says because God commands it.

 

In Confessions, Augustine highlighted not only his tribulations, but he also created a systematic formulation that brought religious order to sex. Surrounded by those who believed, but also many in the “wavering century,” he eventually disagreed with those like Patricius and his friends who openly discussed sex and stole pears. Monica taught Augustine to love God with all his heart, but she did not teach him how to do so. She told him to not be like his father, but the Bishop recognized the problems of masculinity, patriarchy, and sexuality on a more complex level. According to the Bishop, immoral action not only encompasses that which affects others but also the self. The Bishop concluded that the body and its wicked passions, along with the incessant need to have sex and tell the world about it, prevented the Christian from reaching God. No longer was he merely responding to the Roman Empire: he developed his ethic.

 

Augustine constructed a doctrine in reaction to those around him. In Confessions, he argues that the weak body quickly gives in to temptation. For the Bishop, temptation is anything that distracts the individual, by way of carnal pleasures, from God. This principle is applicable to Monica’s alcoholism or Augustine’s ex-femina. These emotions arise because the misguided material self lacks the mental fortitude to focus entirely on God. Temptation was different for everyone yet had the same result. Augustine wanted to fulfill his need for higher understanding and subsequently found his truth in Manichaeism. Monica searched for an outlet and found relief in alcohol. Patricius lusted after other women and could not stay faithful to his wife. In each example, they were led to sin. Seeing his parents, friends, and men in his social circle, Augustine formed what he believed to be the only morally acceptable way of finding God: one must reject what the body yearns for.

 

It is crucial to recognize that because the body is inherently problematic for the Christian, free will, too, prevents them from reaching God. Inevitably, when temptation arises, one can only battle their urges. Individuals cannot stop temptation; however, they can seek to contain the body’s needs. If strengthening of the will is what Augustine needed, then it seems as though nothing on earth, except for the Church, could have helped Augustine. Only God can stop the body from overriding the soul. The Bishop believes that prayer and submission fully allow one to pursue God. In this sense, submission is a complete understanding that the person cannot do it alone. Augustine wanted to commit to this idea wholeheartedly. Although he, as a priest, was expected to remain celibate before he was a member of the clergy, he still sought control of his will. Through his actions, the reader sees that asceticism is the best mechanism for taming carnal pleasures. Augustine often mentions fulfillment, insinuating that a hole, or void, is meant only for God. And in this search, people find other means, such as drinking, sex, stories, and false religions, to fill this gaping void. However, as much as a person’s free will can lead them astray, it is still the means to reach salvation. A double-edged sword, Christians who acknowledge the power of their free will can either conquer their pleasures or let it ruin them.

 

Augustine’s influences in Confessions were the ingrained ideologies that surrounded notions of family and sex. Firstly, his upbringing was not much different from the average individual in the Roman Empire. Augustine’s dominant father, Patricius, and docile mother, Monica, were the first relationship that Augustine witnessed. Monica’s words, which advised Augustine to follow God and not lust for women, did not immediately resonate. Seeing that sex was a tool for self-gratification and a way to impress his friends, Augustine believed that because society awarded him for displaying prowess, he too should have acted much like his father. Where Patricius is admired in the Roman Empire, he is equally despised in Augustine’s Christian ethic that discussed sexuality thoroughly. Sex should not be celebrated but instead suppressed. As the Romans gave meaning to a bodily occurrence and enabled men to receive praise for promiscuity, Augustine aimed for sex to strictly be a means in which a couple procreated and developed a more intimate bond. Augustine realized that Patricius, his friends, and subsequently the Roman Empire misguided him.

 

However, this free will, though considered universal for Augustine, was limited to the men of the time. Monica and the unnamed concubine were both at the hands of the men in Confessions. Taking abuse and dealing with the extramarital affairs of Patricius, Monica could not sever ties with her husband. Meanwhile, she was not sexually liberated. Society expected the women to stay faithful, whereas the men had sex willfully. Although Roman laws stipulated that adultery was subjected to harsh punishment, attitudes concerning what the males could and could not do were ultimately the moral compass for many in practice. Concerning Augustine’s unnamed concubine, although the two may have shared mutual love, the Bishop was enabled to dispose of her once he found a new, younger partner to serve his needs.

 

Ultimately, Augustine used the concubine as an outlet for physical pleasure. In both instances, if Augustine wanted to create an objective understanding of God’s teachings concerning sexuality, he virtually only had the men’s viewpoints and the women’s oppression. While Augustine’s principles rejected evil and wickedness, they contained logic that rivaled Roman values. Lust, urge, and promiscuity is non-unique to any period. However, Augustine’s reaction in Confessions, which uses a Catholic doctrine, and not Roman morals, is a unique glimpse into what sex meant, in principle and practice, to the average male.

 

After the Bishop wrote Confessions, he set a precedent for the ways Catholics approach sexuality. Because he is one of the first theologians to share his experiences openly, his ideas spread throughout the Church. From this autobiography, he transitioned sex as a procreative act to something that people ought to feel ashamed of doing. He vouched for the suppression of sexuality and the body’s positioning as antithetical to reaching God. In Confessions, he concludes that the body deceives the individual who wants to find God. Augustine’s opus, The City of God, written around 420, is his official articulation and philosophical breakdown of the ideas explored in Confessions. His grand idea would come to be known as ‘original sin,’ or in the simplest form, the concept that all humans are inherently sinful. Because Adam sinned in The Garden, man must bear the consequences of that regrettable action. Man cannot be free from sin, and with the free will that they do have, they still cannot free themselves from temptation because the body corrupts the functions of the soul. If this work catalyzed the fundamental understanding of sin, and especially sex, it is evident that the Romans, not just some theoretical concept of evil, were the source of his frustrations.

 

Since then, Augustine’s ideas have taken many different forms yet still maintained the same function. Ariel Sabar writes that:

 

[Augustine’s] rewrite of the Adam and Eve story almost single-handedly yoked sex in the Western imagination with shame and sin. It remains the still-perceptible hum behind debates over abortion, birth control, gay rights, and other policy matters in which the specter of sex of pleasure retains the stink of original sin. (76)

 

 Transcendent because of Augustine’s complex articulation of sex, sin, the body, and the will, Confessions shapes an objective reality out of the subjective. To think that a man, who once grew up in an abusive and broken home, converted to a pagan religion, banished his concubine, and converted back to Christianity could construct the truths surrounding sexuality for the Catholic Church is more than astonishing. Nevertheless, Augustine’s words are, according to the Church, a voice of reason for God’s word. Climbing the Roman and the Lord’s ladder, it is almost fitting that one of the most sinful men creates a doctrine so unique yet a conglomerate of what the Empire offered. Today, Augustine is revered by the Catholic Church, a sign in which any man who confesses and turns to God may have their sins forgiven.