Animals fill a diverse role in Confessions. On one hand, they are labeled inferior to humans and incapable of growing close to God, but on the other hand humans are compared to animals in their relations to the Lord. These diverse roles demonstrate Augustine’s flexibility in his use of language to present his arguments concerning God, despite his renouncement of his previous career in rhetoric.
Animals may be aware of God, but “they cannot inquire into its meaning because they are not guided by reason, which can sift the evidence relayed to them by their senses. Man, on the other hand, can question nature” (213). God made humans with the ability to reason, so that they could find the meaning of his connection to creation. When Augustine examines the question of what he means by God when he refers to “this being who is so far above my soul” (213) he concludes that he must look to himself and his own soul to determine his relationship with the divine. The first aspect of the soul he examines is the way the soul fills the body. While this connection comes from God, he concludes that this tethering of body and soul is not the quality of his soul which he uses to recognize God, as if it was “the horse and the mule, senseless creatures, could find him too, because they also have this same power which gives life to their bodies” (213). The scripture he cites is the Word of God, demonstrating that animals are senseless creatures. Augustine concludes that the trait of his soul which lets him know God cannot be one which is shared with animals. This also means that he does not know God through the ability of the soul to perceive things through the body as well, as creatures perceive with their senses as well. Nor can he find God through God through memory, as “beast and birds also have memory... So I must go beyond memory too, if I am to reach the God who made me different from the beasts that walk on the earth and wiser than the birds that fly in the air” (224). As Augustine cannot use functions he shares with animals to recognize God, animals are clearly inferior to humans in that they cannot explicitly recognize their creator. Animals’ inferiority is demonstrated throughout the text and used by Augustine to build his arguments regarding the way he can come to understand God.
While Augustine present animals as lacking basic facilities to move them closer to God, at points he uses imagery of animals to compare humans’ relationship with God. He describes “the enemy of our true happiness” (244) like a hunter who “sets his traps about me, baiting them with tributes of applause, in the hope that in my eagerness to listen I may be caught off my guard” (244). This predatory metaphor is followed by an entreaty for the Lord to care for “your little flock. Keep us as your own. Spread your wings and let us shelter beneath them” (245). In this way, humans are compared to animals in their relations to God.
In Confessions animals presented as both inferior to humans when it is convenient for Augustine to compare humans and animals in the service of his argument concerning recognizing God, but later Augustine uses metaphorical language comparing humans to animals while describing their relationship with the Lord. This flexibility in language and argument demonstrates the skills Augustine still gained during his time as a professor of rhetoric, which he now uses in the service of the Church.
Lachlan's point is interesting, because it really shows how skillful Augustine is with words. I noticed that Augustine does this same thing with light in that he says that God is not like light (134), but he uses light constantly calls God the "light of the world" throughout the text. Augustine demonstrates that he can manipulate words to say what ever he wants to be said.
ReplyDeleteLachlan, I think that your observations on how Augustine addresses animals in the text are great! One thing that I noticed (and that you mention) is that he uses both animals to represent this sort of standard or inferior being to humans but also as a point for literary device and comparison. While talking about memory Augustine states, "Perhaps these emotions are brought forward from the memory by the act of remembering in the same way as cattle bring up food from the stomach when they chew cud" (221). Augustine is using this simile to try and express something about humans from an animal process. I thought that this simile was very interesting in the light that he had just addressed this fundamental difference between humans and animals; he tried to differentiate them but in this simile he was relating them.
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