James Baquet

    The Christian bishop Augustine of Hippo (a place in modern Algeria) was a powerhouse of theology. His monumental “City of God” alone runs to nearly 1,200 pages in paperback — and he wrote many more lengthy works in addition to that.

    But before writing that colossus, he wrote a smaller, more intimate book, which is in fact considered to be the first true autobiography in Western culture. Other writers had produced reflections on life, like the “Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius, and certainly there were biographies, but no one had really told the story of his or her own life.

    These are the “Confessions” of “Saint” Augustine, a fascinating character who was born a North African Berber (from which we get the word “Barbarian”) on the edges of the Roman Empire.

    The arc of the story is familiar today: how a “bad” boy became good. In Augustine’s case, we are told of his “sinful” behavior in fairly homely (and tame-sounding) ways, none of which would be unusual in a young man today.

    The most notable instance is when Augustine and his friends stole pears from a neighbor’s tree. “I did not desire to enjoy what I pilfered,” he wrote, “but the theft and sin itself.” He was from a good family; he had plenty to eat. It was the thrill of doing wrong that motivated him. Later he added, “I loved my own error — not that for which I erred [the pears], but the error itself.”

    They ended up throwing the pears to some pigs.

    From this low motivation, Augustine ascended to the heights of rectitude. He begins the book with one of the lessons he had realized, one that has become a famous quote: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee [God].”

    Having reached a low point, he is sitting in a garden when he hears a voice like that of a child chanting repeatedly, “Take up and read; take up and read” (in Latin, “Tolle lege; tolle lege”). He thinks it an odd thing for a child to say at play, so he picks up a Bible and lets it fall open. He then reads the first passage it opens to, one that encourages him to set aside his sinful ways and live a Christian life.

    The rest is history.

    Vocabulary

    Which word above means:

    1. reason for doing something

    2. not fancy, unpretentious

    3. something or someone with great potential for success

    4. something very large

    5. made a mistake, did wrong

    6. stole

    7. singing in a formal manner

    8. progress, course

    9. an old-fashioned word for “you”

    10. proper behavior, righteousness