Evangelikal: Jurnal Teologi Injili dan Pembinaan Warga Jemaat
p-ISSN 2548-7868, e-ISSN 2548-7558
https://journal.sttsimpson.ac.id/index.php/EJTI/

Volume 8, Number 1, January 2024 (1-16)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46445/ejti.v8i1.732

Allusions and Omissions in Augustine’s Confessions
Benjamin Elliott
University of Georgia, United States of America
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses possible biblical allusions and omissions in Augustine’s Confessions,
arguing that the themes he presents can be understood with greater nuance if viewed in light of
not only the scriptural passages he chooses to support them but also the verses from the
immediate context, which he omits. The paper will examine four examples from within the
Confessions: the way that in the Confessions but not elsewhere, he only utilizes the second half
of James 1:17, eliding the phrase ‘Father of lights,’ his use of the term unam for his concubine,
his depiction of his mother Monnica like the apostle Paul, and possible reasons for his elision of
portions of the prologue to John. As a result, this paper has offered four possible instances of
Augustine omitting, or only allusively referring to, specific scriptures throughout the
Confessions: his omission of God as the Father of lights when referencing James 1, his allusion
to the una columba of the Canticle of Canticles in describing his concubine, his undertone of
Pauline episodes in recounting the tale of Monnica's arrival in Rome, and finally his omission of
John the Baptist from It has been suggested that, in each of these cases, a deeper grasp of the
parts of the Bible that Augustine has left out can help us comprehend the major arguments that
he has made in more depth.
Keywords: Allusions, Omissions, Augustine’s Confessions

Article history
Submitted: Sept. 14, 2023

Revised: Nov. 7, 2023

Accepted: Nov. 14, 2023

Corresponding author: Benjamin Elliott (benjamin.c.elliott@gmail.com)
How to cite this article:
Elliott, B. (2024). Allusions and Omissions in Augustine’s Confessions. Evangelikal: Jurnal Teologi Injili dan
Pembinaan Warga Jemaat. 8 (1): 1-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46445/ejti.v8i1.732
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INTRODUCTION
Collocutus esne cum amante cara?
Fatus est de mene aliquid, uel ullis?
Maius omittens retegit quam ea effans:
omnia dic mi!
You spoke with my dear sweetheart?
Did she say anything about me... or about anyone else?
She gives more away when she leaves things out than she does when she works
them in: Tell me everything!
The purpose of this paper is to discuss possible biblical allusions and omissions
in Augustine’s Confessions, with the goal of suggesting that the themes he presents can
be understood with greater nuance if viewed in light of not only the scriptural passages
he chooses to support them, but also the verses from the immediate context which he
chooses to omit.
Augustine's Confessions is a significant and moving Christian autobiography
exploring an individual soul's philosophical and emotional development (Objantoro,
2020; Pucci, 1991). The Confessions broke entirely fresh ground as literature, and the
genre of autobiography owes many of its characteristics to Augustine. The book is a richly
textured meditation by a middle-aged man on the course and meaning of his own life
(O’Donnell, 2022). Augustine's Confessions is a complex work that contains allusions to
classical literature, such as Horace's Odes, which transform his recollections into
contrived literary reflections (Pucci, 1991). The book also contains omissions, such as the
lack of details about Augustine's family and his son's mother, which have puzzled
scholars. The problem of evil is a critical aspect of Augustine's Confessions, and it is
arguably critical for comprehending his life in Books 1 through 9 of the work (Matusek,
2011). Augustine's Confessions is not his autobiography but a deliberate effort to recall
crucial episodes and events in which he can now see and celebrate the mysterious actions
of God's prevenient and provident grace.
Following a brief section arguing that allusions and omissions do not appear in
the Confessions by happenstance, and that reading scripture with reference both to what
is said and what is not said is itself a part of Augustine’s interpretive toolkit, the paper
will proceed to discuss four examples from within the Confessions where the reader can
gain a somewhat richer sense of the text by observing the verses to which he only alludes,
and considering reasons for why he may have omitted them. The first of these examples
will be Augustine’s use of exclusively the second half of James 1:17 (in Augustine, 1876,
secs. 3.6.10 & 4.15.25) to describe God, compared with the way he uses that verse in the
remainder of his writings. The second example will be a brief discussion of his use of the
term unam for his concubine in 4.2.2. Third, the paper will address the New Testament

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backdrop to Augustine’s depiction of his mother in 6.1.1–6.2.2, especially insofar as it
evokes episodes from the life of the Paul the apostle. Finally, a fourth section will engage
with possible reasons for Augustine’s elision of portions of the prologue to the gospel of
John which he discusses in 7.9.13–7.9.14.
It would be impossible to demonstrate beyond all question that Augustine had
each of these passages in mind when he wrote the Confessions, but nevertheless it should
not be counted excessive to aver that he would have been aware of these alternative or
additional readings, and could have assumed that a portion of his readership would as
well. This would have opened the door to his communicating with them—and with us—
with a greater subtlety against the backdrop of not only what he kept in but also what he
decided to leave out.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ADJACENT TEXTS FOR AUGUSTINE
Before presenting the examples of omission and allusion themselves, it is
important to highlight the extent to which Augustine himself would have been
comfortable with this method of interpretation. An instance from the Confessions itself is
salient. Near the conclusion of the garden scene in 8.12.29–8.12.30, the reader finds
Augustine, having heard the child’s voice singing so unusually from the neighboring
house, “nihil aliud interpretans divinitus mihi iuberi nisi ut aperirem codicem et legerem
quod primum caput invenissem.” (“I understood it as nothing short of divine providence
that I was being ordered to open the book and read the first passage I came across.”
(Augustine, 1876, sec. 8.12.29)). The passage which Augustine encounters is Romans
13:13–14, which he marks with his finger, crediting the whole process to the direct agency
of God, specifically on account of how unusually he was motivated to read it and how
randomly he chose it. But for Augustine, there was an even further proof that he had been
divinely impelled to read this passage. Returning to Alypius, who asks to also read what
he has just read, Augustine thrice highlights the presence of an additional passage which
had an enormous impact upon his friend, writing that Alypius, “attendit etiam ultra quam
ego legeram. et ignorabam quid sequentur. sequebatur vero ….” (“He looked even further
on than I had read. I did not know what came next. But this is what came next ….”
(Augustine, 1876, sec. 8.12.30)).
The marginal references presented in the modern text somewhat undersell the
proximity of the two sections; although the verse which so impacted Augustine is chapter
thirteen of Romans, and that which Alypius read is in chapter fourteen, the second in fact
immediately follows the first, not simply over the page, but immediately in sequence. In
fact, although the latter verse stands within its own sentence, it very likely would have
been presented in scripto continua, with perhaps not even a space between them, though
perhaps with a section break noted in the margin. M. P. Parkes (1992, p. 161) discusses
an extant manuscript which may have been similar to Augustine’s, containing
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fragments of the earliest surviving copy of the Vulgate version of the Gospels…
produced in Italy at the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century. The
text is laid out in two columns and has been copied in scripto continua … Each
periodus or kapitulum … begins on a fresh line with a littera nobilor set out to the
left in the margin. Within the kapitula no medial pauses are marked.
The MS is listed in Parkes’s (1992) text as, ‘St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 1935’. Compare
also even Nestle’s modern Novum Testamentum Latine, which runs Romans12–15
together in one long sense block, beginning and ending with a line space, with chapter
numbers set off in the margin.
Both Augustine and his first readers would have been familiar with texts similar
to the St. Gall manuscript described here. For Augustine himself, part of the outstanding
significance of the text that changed his life was not only its own content and timing, but
the fact that immediately adjacent to it was another text equally impactful for someone of
far different disposition than he himself. See 8.12.30 where Augustine notes of the mores
of Alypius that, “a me iam olim valde longeque distabat.” “It was in keeping with his own
character; in that respect he had already been markedly different from me for a long time,
and for the better.” Even though he did not at the time know what the hidden context of
Romans 13–14 was, it mattered to him, and when he discovered it, it affected the way he
understood how God was at work through the text he had read.
A second instance from outside the Confessions makes an even stronger argument.
Partway through his exposition of Psalm 43, Augustine makes a methodological
digression and draws in a portion of the 22nd Psalm to help explain the inscription of the
43rd. He writes that
Hoc [‘ad intellectum’] et in illo psalmo est, cuius primum versum ipse Dominus de
cruce dixit: ‘Deus meus, Deus meus, respice in me, quare me dereliquisti?’ . . . vocem
de cruce non dixit suam, sed nostram. Non enim umquam eum dereliquit Deus, nec
ipse a Patre umquam recessit; sed propter nos dixit hoc: ‘Deus meus, Deus meus,
utquid me dereliquisti?’ Nam sequitur ibi: ‘Longe a salute mea verba delictorum
meorum.’ Et ostendit ex quorum persona hoc dixerit; non enim in ipso delictum potuit
invenire.” (Augustine, 1841b, sec. 43.2 (col. 483))
This phrase [‘for the understanding...’] is also in that Psalm whose first verse the
Lord says from the cross: ‘My God, my God, look at me, why have you forsaken
me?’ . . . the voice from the cross did not speak of himself, but us. For God has not
ever left him, and neither has he ever receded from the Father; but he says this
concerning us: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ For it follows there:
‘Far from my salvation are the words of my faults.’ And this shows which person
this Psalm is spoken of; for it is not possible that fault would be found in him.”
(Augustine, 1841b, sec. 43.2 (col. 483))
Augustine’s goal here is to describe the person of whom both Psalms are speaking, and
his argument is that when Jesus speaks from the cross, as recorded in Matthew 27:46, he
only quotes the first half of the first verse of Psalm 22, “my God, my God, why have you
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forsaken me;” but the full meaning of that quotation is only found by reading forward to
what follows. In the other half of the verse, which is omitted in Matthew’s gospel, the
psalmist says, “far from my salvation are the words of my faults.” As well as the following
verse, in regard to which Augustine repeats his argument, but elided here in the interest
of space. According to Augustine, since any talk of having faults cannot apply to Jesus,
it is clear that the Psalm (as well as the lament from the cross), must be understood as
addressing the body of Christ, the church, and not Christ himself. In short, correct
conclusions about Matthew 27 (and Psalm 43) can only be reached if both the spoken and
the unspoken portions of Psalm 22 are kept in mind.
The similarity between these two instances is not the subject matter itself, but the
way that in each Augustine gains something by drawing in nearby scripture passages
which were left unmentioned in the original text (that is, Romans 13 or Matthew 27). The
goal of this paper is to employ that same interpretative tool within Augustine’s own text
and, as he did, incorporate an assessment of surrounding and omitted texts to help draw
heightened impressions or conclusions about the use of the texts which are mentioned.
THE ‘FATHER OF LIGHTS’ FROM THE BOOK OF JAMES IN CONFESSIONS
3.6.10 AND 4.15.25.
The first example of Augustine omitting a portion of a biblical text concerns his
use of James 1:17, which occurs twice in the Confessions. In book three, in the middle of
a reflective critique of the emptiness of Manichaean doctrine, he writes, “ego nec priora
illa, sed te ipsam, te veritas, in qua non est commutatio nec momenti obumbratio,
esuriebam et sitiebam.” (“But I was hungering and thirsting not for those primary works,
but for you yourself, you who are Truth, in whom is no variation nor shadow of turning.”
(Augustine, 2014, sec. 3.6.10). Again in book four, he writes of God that, “es enim tu
lumen verum quod inluminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum, quia in te non
est transmutatio nec momenti obumbratio.” (“You are the true light that lightens everyone
who comes into the world, for in you is no variableness nor shadow of turning.”
(Augustine, 2016, sec. 4.15.25.)). The interesting thing about these two citations is not
the small ways that they differ, the two are very similar in sense both to one another—
‘You are truth/ light of truth … and in you is no variation or shadow of turning’—and to
the Vulgate text of James 1:17. (“Omnem datum optimum, et omne donum perfectum,
desursum est, descendens a Patre luminum, apud quem non est transmutatio, nec
vicissitudinis obumbratio.”). Sabatier (1743, sec. 3.936) in fact shows instances of
Augustine interchanging ‘commutatio’, ‘immutatio’, ‘demutatio’, and ‘transmutatio’ in
his use of this verse.
No, the curious thing is not their variation, but their similarity in only quoting the
latter half of the verse, which itself is a subordinate clause in the source. The key phrase
that Augustine cuts in both cases is the one referring to God as Pater luminum; in James,
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it is the Father of lights who does not change, specifically because his nature is light and
not shadow.
This is a surprising move for Augustine because he seems quite comfortable
referring to God as the Father of lights in the context of James 1:17 across a wide selection
of his other works, as Suzanne Poque writes, “il n’a pas hésité à donner à Dieu, comme
l’avait fait Mani, le nom de ‘Père de la lumière.’” Poque’s study on symbolic language
in Augustine, includes a helpful survey of Augustine’s use of ‘light’ terminology against
a Manichaean backdrop, including the discoveries of the 20th century: “Son symbolisme
de la lumière ne répudie pas des formulations qu’il avait rencontrées dans le
manichéisme.” (Poque, 1984, p. 350). Seven times he quotes the verse in its entirety, and
seven other times quotes it up to the end of the sense unit naming God as the Father of
lights, leaving off the terminal subordinate clause (all in the context of describing the gifts
of God). Four times he quotes the second half of the verse only, as in the Confessions, but
in each of the other two of those cases it comes in a context where he has been specifically
discussing God as Father, and as the creator of the heavenly lights, in other words, such
that adding the descriptor, “quem non est transmutatio,” fills in James’s full meaning
rather than excluding a part of it. Three other instances discuss God as the Father of lights,
but lack any reference to ‘shadows’; one further reference refers to Jesus himself as rex
luminum, and one to Mary as matris lucis (perhaps as a reference to her being the mother
of Jesus, who is the light).
This leaves the two passages in the Confessions as somewhat unique. The first, in
3.6.10, comes right after a discussion of God’s opera ... lucida et caelestia—the reader
can see that he has them in mind—but God is not mentioned as Father in this section, and
the works themselves are mentioned specifically in order to discount their importance.
Even moreso, in 4.15.25 he not only omits mentioning God as the Father of lights, but in
fact takes a phrase from John 1:9 that originally refers to Jesus, and includes the word
light, and applies that to God instead of calling him Father of lights.
The Manichaean manuscripts recovered in the 20th century can help add context
to Augustine’s decision to use James 1:17 in this way. Samuel Lieu writes of these that,
“the newly discovered ‘Prayer of the Emanations’ from Kellis begins with praise for the
Great Father of Lights (i.e. Father of Greatness), the principal deity of the Manichaean
pantheon: ‘I worship and glorify the Great Father of Lights …. For you are God the
foundation of every grace and life and truth.’” (Cf. Gardner, 2011, p. 88; Lieu, 1998, p.
226). If Augustine, when he wanted to use the portion of James that speaks of God’s
immutability, had quoted the entire passage (wherein all good gifts come from the Father
of lights), it would have immediately created resonances of these Manichaean themes in
the context of the Confessions, which he certainly would have wanted to avoid, especially
in light of the allegations Augustine himself was facing of remaining a partial or cryptoManichaean. Jason BeDuhn notes that these allegations were at least partially in the
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background of the Confessions, writing that, “certain peculiarities in the structure and
emphases of Confessions raise the possibility that Augustine’s most famous work began
life as his defense to the charges of Megalius.” (BeDuhn, 2013, 2:241-2).
Augustine wanted to draw on the support of the book of James as an authority for
the unchangeableness of God, but at the same time wanted to avoid giving any
ammunition to his opponents who were pressing him with incriminations that he was still
a follower of Mani under the surface. The argument of this paper is that he carefully used
the portion of James that he wanted to, and intentionally elided (or replaced) the
remainder. In seeing this, the reader gains a greater appreciation both for his nuance in
laying out his argument, but a clearer picture of quite how present the charges of cryptoManichaeanism must have felt to him at the time of writing.
AUGUSTINE AND HIS CONCUBINE IN CONFESSIONS 4.2.2.
In Confessions 6.15.25 Augustine records his painful separation from the African
woman who had been his concubine for a decade and a half, sent away so that she would
not be an impediment to his newly planned marriage. Besides historical materials which
would allow the modern reader to recreate the social and personal aspects of the life of a
woman like this generically. As in Powers’ (1993) excellent essay, “Sed Unam Tamen,”
(esp. 49–50) in which she incorporates generic material with references from the
Confessions and later works to create a composite picture. The full story of this woman,
and even of the details of her relationship with Augustine, are, as Margaret Miles (2007,
p. 168) writes, “tantalizingly inaccessible. Readers of Augustine’s Confessions can do no
more than glimpse her, and we cannot with confidence identify her influence on her wellknown partner. Without using far too much imagination, we cannot reconstruct a fully
fleshed character.” All we have are the slightest of clues left within the text.
One of these clues regarding the story of Augustine’s concubine after he sent her
home to Africa can perhaps be seen in his Quaestiones in Exodum. Of the many questions
Augustine discusses, he gives by far the most space to three: the Ten Commandments,
the numerological significance of the number of exiles who left Egypt, and then,
interestingly, the case of what to do if a son is given a slave girl as a wife but then later
decides he would prefer to marry someone else, a case very close to Augustine’s own
(Ex. 21:8-9). Although concubinage is not mentioned in the Exodus text itself, Augustine
goes to comparative great lengths in arguing that this is specifically a concubine who is
being discussed, and specifically one who has been used regularly and sexually by the
son, again aligning it with Augustine’s own experience. In Exodus, Moses prescribes that
she may be put away, but she cannot be deprived of three things: food, clothing, and the
sexual opportunity to produce a descendent. Augustine, however, reinterprets this to mean
that if the concubine is pushed out of the house she ought to take some kind of benefit
with her, such as someone with the class of ‘daughter’ might, but he limits even this by
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saying that if the son has humiliated her by the means of concubinage (“concumbendo
huniliasset,” (2.78.3), then it ought to be sufficient that she is set free and does not
continue in servitude (“id est, satisfaciet ei non teneri in servitude,” 2.78.4). This does not
mean with necessity that Augustine’s concubine was treated exactly in this way, but it is
instructive perhaps to see how carefully he treats this passage.
An additional clue is the title that Augustine gives her in Confessions 4.2.2. “In
illis annis unam habebam,” he writes, “non eo quod legitimum vocatur coniugio
cognitam.” (“During those years I kept to one woman . . . but it was not that form of union
which alone is recognized as legitimate.” (Augustine, 2016, sec. 4.2.2)). Her name is not
given, either here or elsewhere, and in fact the Latin text does not even provide the word
‘woman’, but simply names her as una, as the ‘one’ whom Augustine had during all those
years. A variety of ideas have been proffered for why she remains nameless, from the
misogynistic to the compassionate; after surveying a number of the alternatives, Miles
(2007, p. 169) suggests that,
…it is at least possible that, for Augustine, her name remained, after a decade, too
resonant with the pain of their parting to mention. Perhaps Augustine also
remembered all too well the pleasures and delights of intimate relationship, and these
memories threatened his new life as a celibate priest and bishop.
Although conjectural, both of these possibilities bear weight because they are grounded
in textual evidence of a long term, faithful relationship, which would have been attended
with strong feelings, even after the separation.
That background perhaps opens the door to see the woman’s title here, una, as
alluding to something more than simply a statement of how many concubines were in
Augustine’s life, especially as the latter half of his sentence gives that description much
more effectively: “sed unam tamen, ei quoque servans tori fidem.” (“Still, she was the
only one, and I kept faith with her as with a spouse.” (Augustine, 2016, sec. 4.2.2)). Given
the second ‘una’ in the text, the first would be almost redundant if its only purpose was
enumeration. Rather, it makes more sense within its sentence as a substantive, giving the
sense of, ‘I had a something … but only one of those somethings.’ In this sense, a possible
comparison, or oblique allusion, that could stand behind his use of the word una is the
dense use of una in the Canticle of Canticles or in Psalm 44.
Canticle 6:7–8 speaks this way: “Sexaginta sunt reginae, et octaginta concubinae,
et adolescentulae quarum non est numerus. Una est columba mea, perfecta mea, una est
matri suae.” (“There are sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and young women beyond
number. But my perfect dove is one, the only one born of her mother.”) Sabatier (1743)
notes that Cassiodorus attests the even fuller (and quite lovely), “una est dilecta mea, una
est sponsa mea, una est columba mea.” Compare also Cant. 5:2 where Augustine has,
“soror mea, proxima mea, perfecta mea, columba mea.” (Sabatier, 1743, secs. 2.382,
385). If Augustine felt constrained—internally or externally—to not give her name, here
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he perhaps deftly uses that very act of not naming her to praise her and to quietly express
both his fidelity and his intense feelings for her, through a subtle second layer in the text,
by allowing the Canticle’s beautiful depiction of its young lovers to refer also to him and
his own unam. The beloved in the Canticle is also unnamed, and also in a relationship of
tremendous social imbalance but passionate mutual affection. It is interesting to note
further that earlier in the Vulgate of the Canticle where the beloved describes herself as,
“nigra sum, sed formosa,” Augustine attests a reading of, “fusca sum et speciosa,”
perhaps (even unconsciously) using a word more suitable for someone of north African
origin. Cant. 1:5. “I am black, but beautiful,” and “I am brown, but beautiful,”
respectively (Augustine, 1841a, sec. 3.32.45, 1841c; Cf. Sabatier, 1743, p. 376). In fact,
to the extent that verse seven, given above, describes the situation in which she is leaving
Augustine, verse eight would read well as his reassuring reply, as he finds his own story
in the biblical text (Augustine, 2016, As in Confessions 8.12.29, described above). The
Confessions show amazing similarity to the context of Canticle 6:7–8: there in fact will
be another concubine for Augustine, and (as was then planned) a teenaged princess, but
never again, we can perhaps hear him alleging as he remembers the pain of their
separation, another ‘one, his una columba perfecta.
An additional faint echo of this depth of feeling can also be heard in his discussion
of the unity of the church in his commentary on Psalm 44: “Ecce Roma, ecce Carthago,
ecce aliae et aliae civitates filiae regum sunt;… et ex omnibus fit una quaedam regina.”
(“Take a look at Rome,” he says, “and Carthage, and these and those other cities: they are
all daughters of the king; … and from all of them is only one queen.” (Augustine, 1841b,
sec. 44.25)). On the one hand, the faithful union of king and queen remains for him a
powerful image, useful for describing the unity of the church. On the other though, when
here, later in his life, he is talking about the una regina of the king, he names cities from
his own story as representing her origin, of course, but also the cities of her origin, those
of his una columba. There have are many cities—her cities, and others also—and many
people in them, but there is only one queen. The simile is effective precisely because it
draws on the reality of the relationship; there is a duality of sense.
Which is to say, when Augustine uses unam in book four of the Confessions, there
is more going on than simply enumeration. He is also depicting the depth of his own
emotional attachment and his relationally fidelity to her against the backdrop of the use
of una as a term for one’s beloved in the Canticle and the Psalms, texts he used and with
which he was familiar (Prelipcean, 2014).
MONNICA AND PAUL IN CONFESSIONS 6.1.1–6.2.2.
A third example of instructive allusion in the Confessions occurs in the first two
sections of book six, in which Augustine speaks about his mother Monnica. Like any
historiographer, Augustine selects certain events to narrate Monnica’s story, and presents
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them with purpose. In particular, this section will examine how three consecutive
episodes selected by Augustine to tell his mother’s story heavily allude to accounts
regarding the apostle Paul in the New Testament: the storm, the lack of joy at Augustine’s
half-conversion, and Monnica’s foreswearing of her practice of visiting the chapels or the
saints with food and drink.
The first episode is that of Monnica and the sailors as she makes her way back to
Augustine, having previously been left inconsolate on the beach after he had fled during
the night. Augustine (2016, sec. 6.1.1) writes that, “across the perils of the seas she offered
encouragement even to the sailors, who were more accustomed to offer comfort
themselves to travelers inexperienced in seafaring. She assured them that they would
make land safely, because you had promised her this in a vision.” This scene is strongly
resonant of the crossing of the Mediterranean towards Rome by Paul described in the
book of Acts, wherein Paul too exhorts the sailors on his own ship, saying, “take courage!
None of you will lose your lives …. last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and
whom I serve stood beside me, and he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul, for … God in his
goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you.’”(Acts 27:22-24 Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, 1996). It is interesting to note that upon Paul’s arrival, on Malta,
not at Rome, because of the shipwreck, he himself is shown impervious to danger
(uninjured by a snake bite) and then attending the sick and healing them with his prayers.
Each of these accounts shows encouragement being given, by the less experienced and
authoritative person, a supernatural vision, and a promise of safety which was fulfilled.
The second episode is that of Monnica’s earnest pleading for—and confidence in
the return of—her son’s faith, and in particular her disinterest in celebrating his departure
from the Manichaeans until he had fully accepted the Catholic faith. “In fact,” Augustine
(2016, sec. 6.1.1) writes, “because she was convinced that you would yet grant everything
that was still unfulfilled of your complete promise to her, she replied to me with utter
sincerity, in the total faithfulness of her heart, that she believed in Christ that before she
departed this life she would see me a catholic Christian.” This is a direct mirror of the
attitude of Paul as he writes to the church in Philippi, where he says, “I am certain that
God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally
finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns … Knowing this, I am convinced that I will
remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your
faith.” (Philippians 1:6, 25 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, 1996). A further parallel
here can be seen in the sentence which follows, where Monnica’s “prayers and tears
poured out more abundantly, begging you to hasten to help and to lighten my darkness,”
which is a regular Pauline theme of groaning in prayer and tears on behalf of the church,
as in Galatians 4:19 where Paul specifically uses the imagery of a mother (“Oh, my dear
children! I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue
until Christ is fully developed in your lives.” NLT) and II Corinthians 11:28 (besides all
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this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches.” NLT). Again, each
selection has commensurate components: a partial beginning effected by God, certainty
of full completion, and lack of concern that death might somehow interrupt the
relationship of the two parties before that time.
Finally, the third episode is that of Monnica’s decision to give up visiting the
shrines of the saints, to which, Augustine (2016, sec. 6.2.2) writes, “she acquiesced with
such obedient devotion that I myself was astonished.” The reason that was given (from
Ambrose) for the proscription of this activity was not theological, but, “so as to give no
opportunities to drinkers to consume alcohol to excess.” (Augustine, 2016, sec. 6.2.2).
Here again is a strong echo of the practice of Paul. In his first letter to the Corinthian
church, in response to a question about a specific practice (eating meat sold by unbelievers
in the market), Paul noted that there was no spiritual problem with it, but that he was
happy to walk away from it anyway. He writes that:
not all believers know this. Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real,
so when they eat food that has been offered to idols, they think of it as the worship
of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated… For if others see you—with
your ‘superior knowledge’—eating in the temple of an idol, won’t they be
encouraged to violate their conscience by eating food that has been offered to an idol?
… So if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long
as I live. (I Corinthians 8:7–13 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, 1996).
Each reader of course approaches the text differently, and none of the above are verbally
identical, but it is perhaps a small surprise that none of these three parallels are marked in
Hammond’s text; de Labriolle has a note in the Budé edition referencing Galatians 4:14
as background for Confessions 6.1.1. Although the type of food being eaten differs, both
Monnica and Paul begin with one practice, see the way that it could injure another
believer, and then swiftly abandon it.
If not for the purpose of evoking Monnica’s similarity to the apostle, it is difficult
to say why Augustine would have chosen precisely these three narratives, and have
grouped them together back to back to tell the story of her arrival. Instead, the position of
this paper is that he is not only telling Monnica’s story, but also signaling his awareness,
perhaps newly at this juncture within the Confessions, of Monnica as the apostle sent by
God for his benefit. Rather than Ambrose, or others, whom Augustine would rather have
selected as a preacher for himself, God has appointed a different preacher to come to him
on mission—facing dangers, suffering long through prayer and tears, and setting aside
the preferences of self (Please cf. Augustine, 2016, sec. 1.1.1 on Augustine’s awareness
of his need for a preacher). Though she does not reference the scenes at the outset of book
six, Janet Soskice (2002, p. 449) reinforces this as one of the genuinely Augustinian
themes of the Confessions, that “this, Augustine has come to believe, is the way God
elects to speak to us, by means of neighbors, friends, family and in his case, although he

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did not always see it so, through Monica, his mother.” Soskice in this section is
specifically referencing Confessions 1.1.1, regarding the role of the preacher, and 2.3.7
regarding Augustine’s slowness to see that God was speaking to him through his mother.
“Preachers, teachers, mothers—other people—that is how God chooses to teach us,”
(Soskice, 2002, p. 450). By recognizing the way that Augustine presents Monnica through
vignettes resonant with themes from the life of Paul, the reader can gain added clarity as
to the role that Augustine sees her playing in his life in general and during the season
from now through his conversion especially.
AUGUSTINE’S OMISSION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST FROM JOHN 1 IN
CONFESSIONS 7.9.13–7.9.14.
A fourth and final example of Augustine’s strategic use of omission can be seen
in the way that he interacts with the first chapter of John’s gospel in book 7.9.13–7.9.14.
Amid the crush of biblical citations—especially his running quotations from John chapter
one—it might almost feel surprising that Augustine left anything out as he discusses the
value of the themes which he read in the works of the Neoplatonists. Hammond
(Augustine, 2016, sec. 323 n. 30), Augustine’s translator, notes in the margin that, “the
Scripture saturation in this section reaches a peak of intensity, as A. sets out side by side
where the two belief systems coincide, and where Christianity contains what classical
wisdom lacks.” But more is going on here than simply a crush of quotations; Augustine,
as always, has curated his list to illustrate exactly what he wants to say.
There are, however, two significant omissions from his lengthy quotation from
John. The first is that the reference to the Law and to Moses in verse 17 is elided; rather
than saying that the Law came through Moses and grace through Christ, Augustine cuts
out the natural climax of the passage altogether and ends with verse 16 (Augustine, 2016,
sec. 7.9.14). Second, and even more amazingly, all the references to John the Baptist,
whose story is interwoven with that of Jesus as God the Word in John’s prologue (in
verses 6, 7, and 15), are abruptly cut. In each case, Augustine quotes right up to the
mention of John, and then simply passes right over him. In fact, in verses 6–8, John the
Baptist is not only excised from the text, but replaced! In this section of the Confessions,
every component of John 1:5–9 is quoted intact (if paraphrased), except for the omission
of John the Baptist, who is replaced by the phrase anima hominis, the “soul of man” as
God’s designated witness to the light (Augustine, 1876, sec. 7.9.13).
On the surface, this seems like an unusual move for Augustine, who elsewhere is
very comfortable discussing John the Baptist, and who has access throughout his other
works to the complete text of the first chapter of John, both in written form and,
considering that it is such a notable passage, likely also in memory. Lienhard (2001, p.
197) notes that, “Augustine often mentions John the Baptist, with name and title about
one hundred fifty times, and far more often simply as ‘John,’” Sabatier (1743, p. 325)
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demonstrates that there is almost no variation between Augustine’s text and either the
Vulgate or Sabatier’s own reconstructed Vetus Italica, which in these verses are
themselves identical. Allan Fitzgerald (in Augustine, 2009, pp. 15–16) remarks of John 1
that, “after many years [Augustine] would remember and record the words of Simplician
about the prologue of John: ‘This passage should be inscribed in letters of Gold and set
up in the most prominent place in every church.’” It is not the humanity, or fleshliness,
of John which seems to be the difficulty, for Augustine includes here John’s references
to human flesh and sexual procreation unproblematically, as foils to God the Word just
as John the Baptist himself is. From John 1:13: “verbum, deus, non ex carne, non ex
sanguine non ex voluntate viri neque ex voluntate carnis.” (“The Word, which is God,
was not born of flesh, nor of blood nor of human will nor of the will of the flesh.”
(Augustine, 1876, sec. 7.9.13)). Nor is there any significant anti-semitic or anti-Mosaic
Law bias here or elsewhere in the Confessions; Augustine is comfortable praising God’s
plan and his Law (and at the very least mentioning them) even when they are not fully
understood. Cf., for example, Confessions, 4.9.14, where he presents the themes of law
and truth in parallel, just as would have been the case here had he completed John’s
prologue with verses 17 and 18: “lex tua veritas, et veritas tu.” (“Your law is truth and
you are Truth.” (See also Augustine, 1876, sec. 6.4.6)).
The key to understanding this puzzling omission can perhaps be found with the
help of Joseph Lienhard, who prepared a careful study surveying all instances of
Augustine’s mention of John. In “John the Baptist in Augustine’s Exegesis,” Lienhard
(2001, p. 202) notes that Augustine uses John flexibly, depending on demands of the
context, as a pivot point between the old age and the present one and “twice calls John
the limes, the boundary-stone, between the testaments.” Sometimes John is deployed as
a symbol of the closure of the old era, sometimes as the opening of the new. “When
Augustine entered into controversy, however,” Lienhard (2001, p. 203) continues,
he had to treat the two eras more subtly. The verse lex et prophetae usque ad
Johannem might seem tailored to Manichean dualism, dividing the Old Testament
from the New, and creation from redemption … [and] writing against the Donatist
Petilian, who had argued that John’s baptism was without effect, … Augustine
distinguishes sacramentum praefigurantia rem futuram from the nostri temporis
sacramenta, which attest that what the former sacraments proclaimed would come
has indeed come.
The question to ask therefore is this: insofar as the Confessions can be considered a
document written into the context of controversy, what could stand behind Augustine’s
omission of John the Baptist here?
In fact, what if instead of thinking about John the Baptist having been discarded,
what if instead Augustine is considered to have deployed him flexibly, silently, in the
background of a passage so famous that many of his readers would have noticed his

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absence? Rather than John the Baptist having been replaced by ‘the soul of man’, what if
Augustine is using this omission to make the point that in his own personal journey (and
perhaps that of others too), the soul of man is to the arrival of the new era of his life as
John the Baptist was to the arrival of the incarnate God the Word: a God-sent forerunner
necessary to prepare the way for the ultimate Truth. What if the omission is intentionally
designed to evoke the idea that, in one sense, the soul of man here is John the Baptist?
This subtle move would stand up well against the Donatists in maintaining a high value
for John’s ministry and his baptism. It would stand up well against the Manichaeans in
avoiding the dualism of saying that bad old fleshly John is the thing that needed to be
surpassed by the eternal light of the Word—instead, it is an element of the kingdom of
light (the soul of man) which itself is surpassed by the ultimate Truth—and maintaining
the unity of God as the single actor behind both creation and redemption. Lienhard (2001,
p. 205) succinctly comments that, “against Manichaeans and (to a lesser extent) Donatists,
Augustine had to defend the continuity of the old dispensation, including John the Baptist,
with the new.” And it would stand up well against the Neoplatonists, or those who thought
Augustine was too influenced by them: their philosophy had an important place, even one
ordained by God, just like John the Baptist did, as Jesus said, “of all who have ever lived,
none is greater than John. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than
he is!” (Luke 7:28 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, 1996). By having John the Baptist
present in this text, though in the background, Augustine is signaling to his readers that
philosophy is his John the Baptist, and can play the same role that John did for the ministry
of Jesus, that of one who comes shouting in the desert and preparing the way. In doing so
he charts a careful course between the Manichaeans, the Donatists, and those over reliant
on the Neoplatonists, and offers this nuanced pathway of processing the place of
philosophy to the alert reader as well.
CONCLUSION
“The Confessions,” says Outler in the introduction to his 1955 translation, “are
deliberate.” Augustine writes with precision and with intentional rhetorical goals. “He
omits very much indeed. Yet he builds his successive climaxes so skillfully that the
denouement in Book VIII is a vivid and believable convergence of influences,
reconstructed and ‘placed’ with consummate dramatic skill.” (Outler, 1955, p. 17 in the
introduction to, Confessions and Enchiridion). In the Confessions, Augustine is fully in
control of his medium, his narrative, and his sources; he is capable both of including just
the right vignette or reference to illustrate an idea, or leaving out or alluding to another to
give it shape or a fuller sense. The argument of this paper has been that by giving special
attention to the allusions and omissions that Augustine uses, the attentive reader can gain
a more nuanced sense of his text, just as Augustine was himself aware of the importance
of keeping the wider context of the scriptures he was reading in mind.
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As such, this paper has presented four potential examples of Augustine omitting,
or speaking only allusively of, certain scriptures over the course of the Confessions: his
omission of God as the Father of lights when referencing James 1, his allusion to the una
columba of the Canticle of Canticles in describing his concubine, his undertone of Pauline
episodes in recounting the story of Monnica’s arrival in Rome, and finally his elision of
John the Baptist from his discussion of John chapter one. It has been argued that, in each
of these instances, understanding better the portions of the Bible that Augustine has left
out can help add depth to our understanding of the portions that he has worked in, and the
key points that he uses them to support. Against the Manichees who said the universe
was splitted; alone without his perfect dove whom Europe’s shores had quitted; his mom
to Paul, his soul to John, by narrative he fitted: it’s no surprise we learn so much by what
he has omitted.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living
Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers,
Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. English translations of the Confessions
are taken from Carolyn Hammond’s Loeb edition. Unless marked, all other translations
and verse elements are the author’s own.
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