Psalm 51 in the Confessions of St. Augustine

Abstract

St Augustine is considered by most scholars to be the most important figure in the ancient Western church. Augustine was born on 13 November 354 at Thagaste, a little town in the province of Numidia (now known as Souk Ahras in Algeria), some forty-five miles south of the coast. He was an African under Roman Rule. The 'Africa' of his day was a Latin land. Latin was its medium of education and its mother tongue. Augustine came from a humble social class. His father, Patricius, was a poor man, a burgess of slender means 1 • Yet he struggled by sacrifices almost beyond his means to give his son a vital education. A classical education was the surest way of advancement to the teaching or legal professions, and, eventually, to power. Augustine went to school first at Thagaste and then at the university town of Madaura. Because of lack of money, he had to interrupt his studies for a year when he was sixteen. His father, after saving enough money, planned to send him to Carthage where he would follow higher studies at this renowned university in the capital of Roman Africa, and also the greatest city of the Latin West after Rome. At Carthage he completed the whole normal course of studies with great success. Augustine's later thought, in a way depended on the nature of his basic education. His education was exclusively literary. He studied in detail classical authors like Vergil, Cicero, Sallust and Terence. At that time these classical texts had to be studied almost by heart. Every word written by these classics was significant. The writer did not merely write but he 'wove' his discourse. In Augustine's writings we realize the effect of such an education. His writings are full of quotations or echoes from Cicero and Virgil. Later on, Augustine would also cite his new Christian 'classic' - the Bible with astounding ease, probably often from memory.