Confessions - Augustine - III - Book 5

Required reading
Confessions by Augustine (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Book V.

My summary
Today we read Book V which is an account of Augustine's 29th year.

Augustine is excited when a certain Bishop of the Manichees, named Faustes, visits.  But Augustine quickly realises that Faustus is a great speaker and not much else.

So Augustine goes to Rome to teach rhetoric, much to the despair of his mother.

He continues to struggle with the Manichaean teaching, particularly that the flesh is evil and so Jesus could not be born a human.

But here in Rome Augustine meets Ambrose the Bishop and is convinced to abandon the Manichees and become a catechumen in the Catholic church.

What grabbed me
Interesting to see the Manichaean response to Augustine's dilemmas: 'Furthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures, I thought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to confer upon these several points with some one very well skilled in those books, and to make trial what he thought thereon; for the words of one Helpidius, as he spoke and disputed face to face against the said Manichees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage: in that he had produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily withstood, the Manichees’ answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this answer they liked not to give publicly, but only to us in private. It was, that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by I know not whom, who wished to engraff the law of the Jews upon the Christian faith: yet themselves produced not any uncorrupted copies.'

It is not a very good argument to simply say that the Scriptures have been corrupted when they don't support your view when you have no proof of the corruption.  All you have is your 'incorruptible' word that the Scriptures are corrupt.

Next week's reading
Read Book VI.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.