Saint Augustine's Sin

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by Garry Wills

Viking Press

Due/Published November 2003, 128 pages, cloth

ISBN 0670032417

Wills gives a fresh interpretation of Book Two of the Augustine's Confessions, the section that is most read and discussed by modern readers. As Wills argues, for most readers, Augustine plus sin equals sex, and people are so blinded by this equation that they often misinterpret the events of Augustine's life, and fail fully to understand Augustine's concept of sin. Contrary to what readers have assumed, there is no evidence that Augustine was sexually promiscuous. He took a common-law wife in his teens and remained true to her alone until just before his conversion. When he reflects on the nature of man's sinfulness in the Confessions, sexual indiscretion is not Augustine's main focus. Instead it is man's power to transgress that occupies Augustine as he struggles to fathom how good creatures can choose to perform evil deeds. Meditating on an event from his own life, Augustine describes his shame after participating in a minor theft as a teenager and interprets this act - and all other acts of sin - in light of the three "founding sins": the fallen angels' rebellion, the temptation of Adam, and Cain's fratricide." Again, Wills frames this section of the Confessions with a wide-ranging introduction, concluding commentary, and notes throughout. In addition, Wills provides a discussion of the three founding sins in an appendix, with analysis of passages from scripture and from Augustine's City of God.