DISCUSSION HANDOUT · SESSION TWO
Augustine’s Confessions
Augustine’s Confessions
Augustine’s Confessions
by St. Augustine
by St. Augustine
Read the story of Alypius, pray with the vine and the branches, then bring the questions to your table.
Read the story of Alypius, pray with the vine and the branches, then bring the questions to your table.
THE READING
“While present, I will be absent.”
“While present, I will be absent.”
Alypius was a close friend of St. Augustine who, despite despising the violence of the Roman gladiatorial games, allowed his friends to persuade him to attend one. Convinced that he was strong enough to be present without being influenced, Alypius soon discovered the danger of trusting in his own strength when confronted with temptation.
CONFESSIONS · BOOK 6, CHAPTER 8
Choosing not to forsake the secular course which his parents had convinced him to pursue, he went before me to Rome to study law, and there he was unbelievably carried away with extraordinary eagerness to watch gladiatorial shows. For, while he was totally averse to such spectacles and held them in disdain, one day he ran into a number of acquaintances and fellow students who were coming from dinner. Amid his own strong refusals and resistance, they dragged him along, with friendly force, into the amphitheater when these cruel and deadly shows were underway. He protested, “Though you might drag my body there and prop me up, can you also force my mind and eyes to look upon these shows? Thus, while present, I will be absent, thereby overcoming both you and them.”
Despite this, they urged him onward, desiring to see if he could actually do what he had said he would. When they arrived and had taken their places as best they could, the whole place was ablaze with that savage pastime. But he, closing his eyes, forbade his mind to range abroad after such evils. Oh, if only he also had stopped his ears! For during the fight, when one of the men fell, a mighty cry arose up from all the people, striking him strongly so that, overcome by curiosity, convincing himself that he could despise all this and feel superior to it even upon seeing it, he opened his eyes and was stricken with an even deeper wound in his soul than the bodily wound suffered by the man he had wished to see.
And how much more miserable was his own fall than that of the man whose fall had raised the mighty noise of the crowd, entering Alypius’ ears, unlocking his eyes, and thus paving the way to strike down and beat a soul that was more bold than resolute, and all the weaker in that it had presumed to do by its own power something for which it should have relied upon you.
For as soon as he saw that blood, he immediately drank in the savagery, and not turning away his gaze, he fixed his eyes on it, gulping in the madness, unaware, taking delight in that guilty fight and becoming intoxicated by such blood-soaked pleasures. No longer was he the man he was when he had come, but now he was one of the throng to which he had come, a true associate of those who brought him there.
Why say more? He beheld, shouted, kindled, and carried forth from there a madness that would goad him to return not only with those who first brought him but also before them, indeed, dragging along others too.
Yet, with your omnipotent and all-merciful hand you plucked him from there and taught him to have confidence in you and not in himself. But this would take place later on.
Choosing not to forsake the secular course which his parents had convinced him to pursue, he went before me to Rome to study law, and there he was unbelievably carried away with extraordinary eagerness to watch gladiatorial shows. For, while he was totally averse to such spectacles and held them in disdain, one day he ran into a number of acquaintances and fellow students who were coming from dinner. Amid his own strong refusals and resistance, they dragged him along, with friendly force, into the amphitheater when these cruel and deadly shows were underway. He protested, “Though you might drag my body there and prop me up, can you also force my mind and eyes to look upon these shows? Thus, while present, I will be absent, thereby overcoming both you and them.”
Despite this, they urged him onward, desiring to see if he could actually do what he had said he would. When they arrived and had taken their places as best they could, the whole place was ablaze with that savage pastime. But he, closing his eyes, forbade his mind to range abroad after such evils. Oh, if only he also had stopped his ears! For during the fight, when one of the men fell, a mighty cry arose up from all the people, striking him strongly so that, overcome by curiosity, convincing himself that he could despise all this and feel superior to it even upon seeing it, he opened his eyes and was stricken with an even deeper wound in his soul than the bodily wound suffered by the man he had wished to see.
And how much more miserable was his own fall than that of the man whose fall had raised the mighty noise of the crowd, entering Alypius’ ears, unlocking his eyes, and thus paving the way to strike down and beat a soul that was more bold than resolute, and all the weaker in that it had presumed to do by its own power something for which it should have relied upon you.
For as soon as he saw that blood, he immediately drank in the savagery, and not turning away his gaze, he fixed his eyes on it, gulping in the madness, unaware, taking delight in that guilty fight and becoming intoxicated by such blood-soaked pleasures. No longer was he the man he was when he had come, but now he was one of the throng to which he had come, a true associate of those who brought him there.
Why say more? He beheld, shouted, kindled, and carried forth from there a madness that would goad him to return not only with those who first brought him but also before them, indeed, dragging along others too.
Yet, with your omnipotent and all-merciful hand you plucked him from there and taught him to have confidence in you and not in himself. But this would take place later on.
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION
John
15:1–5
John
15:1–5
“Apart from me you can do nothing.”
“Apart from me you can do nothing.”
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
FOR YOUR TABLE
Discussion questions
Discussion questions
01
01
Where have you bet on your own willpower and lost? What made you so sure you’d be fine?
Where have you bet on your own willpower and lost? What made you so sure you’d be fine?
02
02
What’s your version of closing your eyes but leaving your ears open — where do you go through the motions of avoiding something while still leaving the door cracked?
What’s your version of closing your eyes but leaving your ears open — where do you go through the motions of avoiding something while still leaving the door cracked?
03
03