Issue #6: Augustine and the Inner Life

See previous Issue: The Cappadocian Fathers: The Integration of Theology and Spirituality

The greatest Church Father and theologian of the Western Church is arguably Saint Augustine, or Aurelius Augustinus, as he was called. One of his most famous works is his autobiography, Confessions, which provides significant detail about his early years.[1] Today, when we hear the word “confessions,” we typically think of confessing sins or wrongdoing.[2] There is certainly some of that in Augustine’s book, where he takes a transparent approach, exposing the evil and darkness in his heart—especially in his youth. But by Confessions, he had more in mind a testimony. As Liftin explains, the book is written as a prayer and bears “witness to the unfathomable greatness of divine grace in the midst of human sin.” Augustine takes us on a journey through his years of restless wandering until, at last, he found God—or, as he would have put it, God found him.[3]

The Confessions presents Augustine as a “restless wanderer.”[4] He tried to find peace in various religious and professional pursuits.[5] This theme is central to Confessions. In Ruden’s translation, at the start of Book One, Augustine writes one of the most memorable lines of the entire work: “In yourself you rouse us, giving us delight in glorifying you, because you made us with yourself as our goal, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”[6] Here, he describes the spiritual longing that many people attempt to satisfy by whatever means they can—yet only God can truly fulfill this hunger. Thankfully, Augustine discovered that true peace comes only by knowing God through Jesus Christ.[7]

As ancient as Augustine’s works are, Confessions, along with his major writings such as The City of God and On the Trinity, remain profoundly relevant today. Though likely unintentional, I was struck by how similar the lyrics of “Hopeless Wanderer” by Mumford & Sons[8] are to Augustine’s Confessions:

You heard my voice, I came out of the woods by choice

Shelter also gave their shade

But in the dark I have no name

So leave that click in my head

And I will remember the words that you said

Left a clouded mind and a heavy heart

But I am sure we could see a new start

So when your hopes on fire

But you know your desire

Don’t hold a glass over the flame

Don’t let your heart grow cold

I will call you by name

I will share your road

But hold me fast, hold me fast

‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer

And hold me fast, hold me fast

‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer

I wrestled long with my youth

We tried so hard to live in the truth

But do not tell me all is fine

When I lose my head, I lose my spine

So leave that click in my head

And I won’t remember the words that you said

You brought me out from the cold

Now, how I long, how I long to grow old

So when your hope’s on fire

But you know your desire

Don’t hold a glass over the flame

Don’t let your heart grow cold

I will call you by name

I will share your road

But hold me fast, hold me fast

‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer

And hold me fast, hold me fast

‘Cause I’m a hopeless wanderer

I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I’m under

And I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I’m under

The skies I’m under

Similarly, in Augustine’s City of God, he describes the Christian as an exile in the world. As Litfin notes, “Believers must wander far from their heavenly home while sojourning temporarily in the City of Man, until at last they reach their heart’s true desire, the tranquillity of God’s presence.”[9] In this sense, all Christians are restless wanderers.

According to The Christian Mysticism Podcast, Saint Augustine was a phenomenal theologian, regarded by many as the greatest of the Western theologians. Yet he has also been called the “Prince of Mystics.” He was unusual in that, while he disliked the Greek language, he loved Greek philosophy and evidently read Latin translations of Greek works. Known for his Neoplatonism, Augustine was particularly influenced by Plotinus, which may have shaped his mysticism. At the time, mysticism was understood more as contemplation.[10]

Neoplatonism was founded by Plotinus in the 3^rd century AD. Simply put, He based his ideas on Plato’s philosophy. Plotinus taught that everything has its origin in a single, perfect source called “The One.” It’s from The One that the Divine Mind, which contains perfect ideas, emanates. From there, the soul, which connects the spiritual to the physical, also emanates, followed by the imperfect material world. Neoplatonists, therefore, believed that souls come from The One, and that the purpose of the soul is to return to this origin, the Divine source, through spiritual growth and understanding. The spiritual is the essential reality that seeks to reconnect with the ultimate truth.[11]

Augustine engaged with various Neoplatonists as well as Christians. Initially, he was “blown away” by the Neoplatonic texts. Although this philosophical framework remained with him, it was the Christian faith that ultimately captured his heart, especially through his encounter with Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan. Augustine writes very little about his own mystical experiences, but he does offer three striking accounts in his Confessions:

1. Augustine’s first mystical experience (Book 7, Chapter 10). Being admonished by all this to return to myself, I entered into my own depths, with You as guide; and I was able to do it because You were my helper. I entered, and with the eye of my soul, such as it was, I saw Your unchangeable Light shining over that same eye of my soul, over my mind. It was not the light of everyday that the eye of flesh can see, nor some greater light of the same order, such as might be if the brightness of our daily light should be seen shining with a more intense brightness and filling all things with its greatness. Your light was not that, but other, altogether other, than all such lights. Nor was it above my mind as oil above the water it floats on, nor as the sky is above the earth; it was above because it made me, and I was below because made by it. He who knows the truth knows that Light, and he that knows the Light knows eternity. Charity knows it. O eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity! Thou art my God, I sigh to Thee, by day and by night. When first I knew Thee, Thou didst lift me up so that I might see that there was something to see, but that I was not yet the man to see it. And Thou didst beat back the weakness of my gaze, blazing upon me too strongly, and I was shaken with love and with dread. And I knew that I was far from Thee in the region of unlikeness, as if I heard Thy voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men: grow and you shall eat Me. And you shall not change Me into yourself as bodily food, but into Me you shall be changed.” And I learned that Thou hast corrected man for iniquity and Thou didst make my soul shrivel up like a cobweb. And I said: “Is truth then nothing at all, since it is not extended either through finite spaces or infinite?” And thou didst cry to me from afar: I am who am. And I heard Thee, as one hears in the heart; and there was from that moment no ground of doubt in me: I would more easily have doubted my own life than have doubted that truth is: which is clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.[12]

2. Augustine’s Conversion Story of the Garden (Book 8, Chapter 12). When my most searching scrutiny had drawn up all my vileness from the secret depths of my soul and heaped it in my heart’s sight, a mighty storm arose in me, bringing a mighty rain of tears. That I might give way to my tears and lamentations, I rose from Alypius: for it struck me that solitude was more suited to the business of weeping. I went far enough from him to prevent his presence from being an embarrassment to me. So I felt, and he realised it. I suppose I had said something and the sound of my voice was heavy with tears. I arose, but he remained where we had been sitting, still in utter amazement. I flung myself down somehow under a certain fig tree and no longer tried to check my tears, which poured forth from my eyes in a flood, an acceptable sacrifice to Thee. And much I said not in these words but to this effect: And Thou, O Lord, how long? How long, Lord; wilt Thou be angry forever? Remember not our former iniquities. For I felt that I was still bound by them. And I continued my miserable complaining: “How long, how long shall I go on saying tomorrow and again tomorrow? Why not now, why not have an end to my uncleanness this very hour?”

Such things I said, weeping in the most bitter sorrow of my heart. And suddenly I heard a voice from some nearby house, a boy’s voice or a girl’s voice, I do not know: but it was a sort of sing-song, repeated again and again, “Take and read, take and read.” I ceased weeping and immediately began to search my mind most carefully as to whether children were accustomed to chant these words in any kind of game, and I could not remember that I had ever heard any such thing. Damming back the flood of my tears I arose, interpreting the incident as quite certainly a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the passage at which I should open. For it was part of what I had been told about Antony, that from the Gospel which he happened upon he had felt that he was being admonished, as though what was being read was being spoken directly to himself: Go, sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come follow Me. By this experience he had been in that instant converted to You. So I was moved to return to the place where Alypius was sitting, for I had put down the Apostle’s book there when I arose. I snatched it up, opened it and in silence read the passage upon which my eyes first fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences. I had no wish to read further, and no need. For in that instant, with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in all my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away.

Then leaving my finger in the place or marking it by some other sign, I closed the book and in complete calm told the whole thing to Alypius and he similarly told me what had been going on in himself, of which I knew nothing. He asked to see what I had read. I showed him, and he looked further than I had read. I had not known what followed. And this is what followed: Now him that is weak in faith, take unto you. He applied this to himself and told me so. And he was confirmed by this message, and with no troubled wavering gave himself to God’s good will and purpose—a purpose indeed most suited to his character, for in these matters he had been immeasurably better than I.

Then we went in to my mother and told her, to her great joy. We related how it had come about: she was filled with triumphant exultation, and praised You who are mighty beyond what we ask or conceive: for she saw that You had given her more than with all her pitiful weeping she had ever asked. For You converted me to Yourself so that I no longer sought a wife nor any of this world’s promises, but stood upon that same rule of faith in which You had shown me to her so many years before. Thus You changed her mourning into joy, a joy far richer than she had thought to wish, a joy much dearer and purer than she had thought to find in grandchildren of my flesh.[13]

3. Augustine’s identical mystical experience with his mother, Monica at the same time on the balcony (Book 9, Chapter 10). When the day was approaching on which she was to depart this life—a day that You knew though we did not—it came about, as I believe by Your secret arrangement, that she and I stood alone leaning in a window, which looked inwards to the garden within the house where we were staying, at Ostia on the Tiber; for there we were away from everybody, resting for the sea-voyage from the weariness of our long journey by land. There we talked together, she and I alone in deep joy; and forgetting the things that were behind and looking forward to those that were before, we were discussing in the presence of Truth, which You are, what the eternal life of the saints could be like, which eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man. But with the mouth of our heart we panted for the high waters of Your fountain, the fountain of the life which is with You: that being sprinkled from that fountain according to our capacity, we might in some sense meditate upon so great a matter.

And our conversation had brought us to this point, that any pleasure whatsoever of the bodily senses, in any brightness whatsoever of corporeal light, seemed to us not worthy of comparison with the pleasure of that eternal Light, not worthy even of mention. Rising as our love flamed upward towards that Selfsame, we passed in review the various levels of bodily things, up to the heavens themselves, whence sun and moon and stars shine upon this earth. And higher still we soared, thinking in our minds and speaking and marvelling at Your works: and so we came to our own souls, and went beyond them to come at last to that region of richness unending, where You feed Israel forever with the food of truth: and there life is that Wisdom by which all things are made, both the things that have been and the things that are yet to be. But this Wisdom itself is not made: it is as it has ever been, and so it shall be forever: indeed “has ever been” and “shall be forever” have no place in it, but it simply is, for it is eternal: whereas “to have been” and “to be going to be” are not eternal. And while we were thus talking of His Wisdom and panting for it, with all the effort of our heart we did for one instant attain to touch it; then sighing, and leaving the first fruits of our spirit bound to it, we returned to the sound of our own tongue, in which a word has both beginning and ending. For what is like to your Word, our Lord, who abides in Himself forever, yet grows not old and makes all things new!

So we said: “If to any man the tumult of the flesh grew silent, silent the images of earth and sea and air: and if the heavens grew silent, and the very soul grew silent to herself and by not thinking of self mounted beyond self: if all dreams and imagined visions grew silent, and every tongue and every sign and whatsoever is transient—for indeed if any man could hear them, he should hear them saying with one voice, ‘We did not make ourselves, but He made us who abides forever’: but if, having uttered this and so set us to listening to Him who made them, they all grew silent, and in their silence He alone spoke to us, not by them but by Himself: so that we should hear His word, not by any tongue of flesh nor the voice of an angel nor the sound of thunder nor in the darkness of a parable, but that we should hear Himself whom in all these things we love, should hear Himself and not them: just as we two had but now reached forth and in a flash of the mind attained to touch the eternal Wisdom which abides over all: and if this could continue, and all other visions so different be quite taken away, and this one should so ravish and absorb and wrap the beholder in inward joys that his life should eternally be such as that one moment of understanding for which we had been sighing—would not this be: Enter Thou into the joy of Thy Lord? But when shall it be? Shall it be when we shall all rise again and shall not all be changed?”

Such thoughts I uttered, though not in that order or in those actual words; but You know, O Lord, that on that day when we talked of these things the world with all its delights seemed cheap to us in comparison with what we talked of. And my mother said: “Son, for my own part I no longer find joy in anything in this world. What I am still to do here and why I am here I know not, now that I no longer hope for anything from this world. One thing there was, for which I desired to remain still a little longer in this life, that I should see you a Catholic Christian before I died. This God has granted me in superabundance, in that I now see you His servant to the contempt of all worldly happiness. What then am I doing here?”[14]

Augustine was a towering figure in Christian mysticism, articulating the journey of the inner life as a path to encounter God in Confessions. He taught that God is not found in external things, but in a life transformed by divine grace. He also integrated elements of Neoplatonism—particularly the idea of the soul’s ascent to the One or to God—with Christian theology. Augustine reframed this as the soul’s ascent to God through the grace of Christ. These ideas would later influence the writings of the Franciscan scholar and mystic Bonaventure, as well as the anonymous English mystical work The Cloud of Unknowing.

Confessions itself has been considered a work of mystical theology, as it contains several accounts of Augustine’s encounters with the divine presence. He places strong emphasis on longing, desire, and fulfillment in God—an emphasis evident from the very first page of Confessions—which deeply resonates with the mystical tradition.

Although Augustine wrote his own monastic rule, his mysticism has profoundly shaped the Western mystical tradition, especially among the Benedictines, Cistercians, and Carmelites. His influence can be seen in the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Ávila.

Task

Read Confessions over the next few weeks. You can find a free copy here. As you read, keep a spiritual journal where you engage with Augustine’s narrative and theology. And then write a 300-word reflection on where you see echoes of Augustine’s longing in your own life. What are you truly seeking? How might Augustine’s experience inform your own pursuit of deeper meaning and fulfillment?

See previous Issue: The Cappadocian Fathers: The Integration of Theology and Spirituality

Notes

[1] Wendy Helleman and Musa A. B. Gaiya, Early Christianity: A Textbook for African Students (Langham Global Library, 2019), 372.

[2] Bryan M. Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction, 2nd ed. (Baker Academic, 2016), 216.

[3] Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers, 216.

[4] See James K. A. Smith, On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts (Brazos Press, 2019), 59..

[5] Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers, 215.

[6] Helleman and Gaiya, Early Christianity, 377–78; Sarah Ruden, Confessions: A New Translation (The Modern Library, 2018), 3.

[7] Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers, 215.

[8] Mumford & Sons, Hopeless Wanderer, Bable, Universal Music Publishing Group, 2012, Music.

[9] Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers, 215.

[10] St. Augustine: The Prince of Mystics, directed by The Christian Mysticism Podcast, 2023, 55:33, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSkCv5N76uY.

[11] St. Augustine.

[12] Augustine, Confessions, 2nd Ed., ed. Michael P. Foley, trans. F. J. Sheed (Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2006), 128–29.

[13] Augustine, Confessions, 159–60.

[14] Augustine, Confessions, 178–80.

AI Disclaimer:

This article has been edited for grammar, clarity, and readability using AI-assisted tools. The core content, theological insights, and personal reflections remain my original work.