Confessions

Augustine again asks God to accept his confession, clarifying that he confesses not because God is unaware of his sins but because doing so gives God glory.

Faustus, a famous Manichean bishop, arrived in Carthage when Augustine was 29. Influenced by philosophy and astronomy, Augustine was beginning to have doubts about Manicheism, but still he had long awaited Faustus, hopeful he would quell Augustine’s doubts and eager to discover the immense knowledge the bishop reportedly possessed. In retrospect, Augustine condemns knowledge for its own sake, denouncing scientists who study the marvels of creation without giving God his due. Still, even then he recognized the validity of their calculations, and the undeniable contradictions between these findings and Manichean doctrine threatened his faith.

Though his eloquence and charisma impressed Augustine, Faustus proved unable to resolve Augustine’s doubts, nor did Augustine feel the reports about Faustus’s intelligence had been founded. The bishop politely declined to engage with Augustine’s questions, “for he knew that he did not know about these matters, and was not ashamed to admit it” (83). Faustus’s humility endeared him to Augustine, and, ultimately, Augustine is grateful to this figure for his inadvertent role in Augustine’s slow progression toward Christianity.