Augustinian Studies 48:1–2 (2017) 263–278

doi: 10.5840/augstudies2017101241

Augustine and John’s Gospel from Conversion to Confessiones

Michael Cameron
University of Portland

Abstract: How did John’s Gospel draw and compel Augustine before and during the
composition of Confessiones? Analyzing references to John in Augustine’s works
from his embrace of Nicene Christianity to the writing of Confessiones, this paper
finds a growing (and Johannine-based) emphasis on the importance of Christ’s hu-
manity. Augustine strategically invokes two texts in Confessiones’ crucial seventh
book: John 1:14, “the Word was made flesh,” and John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth,
and the life.” This paper considers three features: first, how the rhetorical device of
anticipation (prolepsis) allows Augustine simultaneously to unify his developing
Christological perspective and to build drama into his conversion narrative; second,
how the structure of Confessiones, which first works to understand divine transcen-
dence and then seeks to relate that divine transcendence back to time, emphasizes
the central role played by the Gospel of John in advancing Augustine’s conversion
story; third and finally, how invocations of John’s Gospel typify the way that, for the
Augustine of Confessiones, reading scripture had become the means of achieving new
spiritual self-comprehension. Texts from John were not mere receptors or reflectors
of spiritual forces that moved Augustine toward conversion, but, rather, powerful
agents of conversion in their own right.

Introduction
Augustine’s early reading of scripture reveals the growth of his mind. This refers
not to his development of abstract hermeneutical theory, but to effects of his prac-
tice of moving biblical texts from page to life. Early sermons, letters, and treatises
allow us to watch Augustine grasp and actualize texts in his own world, and we
can compare treatments of particular texts over time to see continuities and shifts

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in understanding. Because biblical texts for him were not mere monuments, but
dynamic, divine forces mediated by human vocabulary that drive assiduously toward
the salvation of readers and hearers, by definition they were not ends in themselves.
A text’s “meaning” was not complete without assimilation by an audience. Because
the texts intended ultimate good, they stirred caritas, the summa of scripture.1 As
scripture, the texts embedded the accommodations necessary for readers and hearers
to grasp and own them for their salvation. For Augustine, the work of rhetorical
accommodation internal to the texts allowed readers to transpose themselves into
scripture in order to make it their own; the power to understand was given with the
text itself. It was his mission to release that power for readers and hearers.
Confessiones (conf.) allows us to see this dynamic play out in Augustine’s own
life. Although meta-reflections on conditions for interpreting and understanding
biblical texts occur in conf. (especially Book 12’s dialogue with contemporaries over
scripture’s literal sense), this work mostly reveals the concrete ways that scripture
impacted Augustine’s life. Eugene TeSelle once wrote that, although Augustine was
not an analytical scholar of scripture like Origen or Jerome, he was a theological
thinker who “took his exegetical activities seriously,” and who, because of scripture,
had “changed his thought in crucial ways from time to time.”2 Because conf. shows
his thought changing under the impact of closely reading the biblical texts, it opens
a door for us to view and weigh Augustine’s reading practice.
Of course, this paper cannot go very far toward taking the full measure of that
practice in conf. The modest goal here is to take one strand of that practice, to
examine the patterns of his habits and experience, and to draw out some tentative
implications. I propose to make an initial exploration of Augustine’s reading of
John’s Gospel up to and in the writing of conf. My question is: how did Augustine’s
reading of John draw him, compel him, and transform him in the time before and
during the writing of conf.? My procedure is: (a) to collect and read the Johannine
texts that appear in his works composed during the 380s and 390s; (b) to trace
Augustine’s ways of reading and trends of mind in that time; (c) to discern how the
Johannine texts formed him in that dramatic decade and a half; and (d) to measure
the importance of John’s Gospel to Augustine as he wrote conf. The analysis will
show how the texts of John act not as mere receptacles or reflectors of the truth and
love that moved Augustine’s spirit, but, rather, as powerful agents of conversion
in their own right.

1. Doctr. chr. 1.35.39 (BA 11/2: 126); cf. en. Ps. 140.2 (CCSL 40: 2026–2027).
2. Eugene TeSelle, Augustine the Theologian (New York: Herder, 1970), 345.

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John’ Gospel in Augustine’s Early Biblical Reading: The Texts

Categories of Texts
Augustine refers to John’s Gospel roughly 200 times in extant texts prior to
conf., and about 70 times in conf. itself. Many references in both groups occur in
passing and will not be considered here. By way of summary, significant quotations
and strong allusions from Johannine texts in Augustine’s works of the period fall
into four main categories:

I. A number of pre-conf. references to texts from John’s Gospel, and the

important themes they raise, are not repeated in conf. For example:
A. John 1:10–11, on Christ coming “to his own place and people and not
received” (De duabus animabus [duab. an.] 7.9; De diuersis quaestioni-
bus [diu. qu.] 62; Contra Adimantum Manichei discipulum [c. Adim.] 1
and 13.2; Enarrationes in Psalmos [en. Ps.] 6.5; De doctrina christiana
[doctr. chr.] 1.12.12; Ad Simplicianum [Simpl.] 2.18);
B. John 1:17, on the law of Moses “made grace and truth” by Christ (Simpl.
1.17);
C. John 3:14 (cf. Num. 20:9), on the hermeneutical importance of Moses
“lifting up the serpent in the wilderness” (c. Adim. 14; Expositio epistulae
ad Galatas [exp. Gal.] 22);
D. John 10:30, on the Son’s equality to the Father: “I and the Father are one”
(diu. qu. 69.1; De fide et symbolo [f. et symb.] 9.18; Contra epistulam
Manichaei quam uocant fundamenti [c. ep. Man.] 6.7);
E. John 14:27, on Christ’s “peace that the world cannot give” (diu. qu. 75.1;
Epistulae ad Romanos inchoata expositio [ep. Rm. inch.] 8.3; Epistulae
[ep.] 33.2; en. Ps. 10.6, 20.3, and 28.11);
F. John 15:15, on divine “friendship” with spiritual adepts: “I have called
you friends” (De Genesi aduersus Manicheos [Gn. adu. Man.] 1.7.11;
diu. qu. 68.2; Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistule apostoli
ad Romanos [ex. prop. Rom.] 62.20; en. Ps. 5.9, and 7.1).
II. A number of pre-conf. passages reappear in conf. with little change of
meaning or emphasis, as in the references to:
A. John 4:14, on the Word as a “well of water springing up to eternal life”
(Gn. adu. Man. 2.5.6; conf. 6.1.1 and 13.21.31);

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B. John 7:39, on the Spirit “not yet given” because Jesus was not yet glori-
fied (en. Ps. 7.6; c. ep. Man. 10.11; conf. 9.4.9);
C. John 8:44, on the devil as “the father of lies” (Gn. adu. Man. 2.14.20,
2.16.24; c. Adim. 5.1; en. Ps. 16.11 and 17.46; conf. 7.21.27, 12.25.34,
and 13.25.38).
III. Surprisingly few significant texts appearing in conf. are without parallel in
pre-conf. works, but there are several. For example:
A. John 3:21, on the one who “does” the truth and so comes to the light
(conf. 10.1.1, and 10.37.62);
B. John 3:29, on John the Baptist as “the friend of the bridegroom” (with
whom Augustine identifies) (conf. 4.15.27, 11.8.10, and 13.13.14);
C. John 4:48, on not seeking “signs and wonders” (conf. 10.35.55, and
13.21.29).
IV. Several Johannine texts cross over into conf. from previous works while
changing emphasis and perspective, in line with the personal story of spiri-
tual self-discovery and conversion that he tells there. These passages are:

A. John 1:1–9, on the divine Word:

1. John 1:1, “the Word was in the beginning with God, and is God” (De
uera religione [uera rel.] 3.4; diu. qu. 63 and 69.1; f. et. symb. 9.18;
doctr. chr. 3.2.3; conf. 8.1.2, 10.43.68, and 11.6.8–7.9);
2. John 1:3–4, the Word “through whom all things were made” (duab.
an. 7.9; De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manicheorum
[mor.] 1.16.27; uera rel. 3.3–4; diu. qu. 39 and 69.1; [ep. Rm. inch.]
4.11; De Genesi ad litteram inperfectus [Gn. litt. inp.] 16.56; f. et.
symb. 4.5–6; doctr. chr. 2.27.41; conf. 5.3.5, 8.1.2, and 11.2.4);
3. John 1:9, the Word as “the light that enlightens everyone coming into
the world” (Gn. adu. Man. 1.3.6; uera rel. 39.73, 42.79, and 52.101;
conf. 4.15.25, 8.10.22, 9.4.10, and 13.10.22);
B. John 1:14, on “the Word made flesh” (Gn. adu. Man. 2.24.37; uera rel.
16.30; ex. prop. Rom. 4.9; diu. qu. 69 and 80.1; en. Ps. 3.9 and 18.2;
f. et symb. 4.6; lib. arb. 3.10.30; c. ep. Man. 37.42; doctr. chr. 1.13.12;
conf. 7.9.13–14, 7.18.24 [twice], 7.19.25, and 10.43.69).
C. John 14:6, on Christ “the way, the truth, and the life”
1. John 14:6b and c (referring to “the truth” and/or “the life,” but not as
“the way”) (De beata uita [beata u.] 4; duab. an. 1.1; mor. 1.13.22

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and 1.16.28; diu. qu. 38; Acta contra Fortunatum Manicheum [c.
Fort.] 3 [quoting Fortunatus]; f. et. symb. 2.3; en. Ps. 4.8, 5.3; doctr.
chr. prol.; ep. 33.3; conf. 1.13.20, 4.9.14, 4.5.10, 10.22.32, 11.2.4,
13.25.38, and 13.29.44);
2. John 14:6a (including and highlighting “the way”), (doctr. chr.
1.34.38; conf. 5.4.5, and 7.18.24, with echoes to 7.21.27).
Observations
This paper focuses on category IV, offering eight summary observations on that
category. This is then followed by more expansive analyses of important passages.

1. The focus of Augustine’s most significant uses of Johannine texts is intensely

Christological.
2. The three subcategories of texts break down neatly between the first (IV.A)
relating to Christ’s divinity, and the last two (IV.B, IV.C) relating to Christ’s
humanity.
3. The texts in IV.A on the Word’s divinity carry through the same sense from
pre-conf. works to conf. itself.
4. The texts in IV.B on the Word made flesh likewise carry through the same
sense from pre-conf. works to conf. itself.
5. Augustine consistently portrays his post-conversion embrace of Nicene
teaching on the union of the full divinity of the Word with the genuine
humanity of Jesus as an article of faith.
6. The epithets of John 14:6 on Christ as “the truth” and “the life” in IV.C.1,
and Christ as “the way” in IV.C.2, stand as distinct subcategories.
7. The epithet of Christ as “the way” appears only once before conf.; in fact,
it appears immediately prior—in doctr. chr.—and only once in conf. itself.
8. A question arises about Augustine’s exact understanding of this epithet of
Christ as “the way,” and about his developing understanding of the function
of Christ’s flesh for salvation in the pre-conf. period.

Analysis of the References

1. John 1:1–9: Texts from John on Christ’s divinity (IV.A)
The divinity of the Word in equality with the Father was standard Christian
teaching by Augustine’s time, after earlier wrangling about subordinationism, the

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making of the Nicene Creed, and the controversial shift toward a non-materialistic
perception of God’s being that overcame his Manichean outlook. By reconceiving
divine transcendence with the help of “Platonic books” (conf. 7.9.13), he also
reconfigured the Manichean claims about Christ’s divinity within a Nicene frame-
work. The Creed’s assertion that the Son came from Father as “light from light”
countered Manichean claims as the true religion of light. The straightforward use
of texts from this category coheres with indications that: (1) he held some form of
faith and understanding about Christ’s divinity all through his Manichean period
(conf. 5.10.20); and (2) that his Nicene re-conception of Christ’s divinity required
relatively few adjustments (even if those few adjustments were crucial). Indeed, his
reference to taking in the name of Christ with his mother’s milk (conf. 3.4.8) may
indicate his passive or intuitive faith in Christ’s divine status from an early age.
His Nicene re-conception of Christ’s divinity at conversion and baptism occurred
without apparent struggle or trauma.

Texts from John on Christ’s Humanity

1. John 1:14: “The Word was made flesh” (IV.B)
Such was not the case with his attainment of faith and understanding about the
Incarnation. Augustine’s embrace of the true flesh of the Word in the Incarnation
marked his definitive break with Manichean beliefs; Manicheans themselves noted
this and attacked him for it.3 From his later Catholic perspective, Augustine’s time
of Manicheanism was a near fatal deviation that put him at risk of eternal judge-
ment for rejecting the means of redemption (which was not a Manichean concept)
by holding that Christ’s humanity, and particularly his death by crucifixion, were
at best salutary illusions designed to allure flesh-bound souls into Manichean truth
(conf. 5.9.16). At conversion, Augustine embraced by faith the truth of Christ’s full
humanity united to full divinity.

2. John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (IV.C)
On the other hand, Augustine’s understanding of the full implications and opera-
tions of that union of flesh and divinity in Christ were not completely developed
(conf. 7.19.25). In line with this, an odd history characterizes Augustine’s quota-
tion and unfolding of Christ’s words in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and
the life.” Augustine’s earlier understanding of Christ emphasized the Word who
took flesh in order to teach spiritual persons an example of spiritual freedom and

3. See, e.g., c. Sec. 5 (CSEL 25/2: 911–913).

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ascent; this noetic emphasis focused on the action of the divine Word. As the list
in IV.C.1 shows, John 14:6 appeared early and often, but Augustine then focused
only on the latter parts of the verse that refer to Christ’s divinity, namely, as “truth”
(beata u. 4), “life” (duab. an. 1.1), and as divine channel, for “no one comes to the
Father except through me” (mor. 1.16.28; cf. John 14:6b). References to Christ as
“the way” are conspicuously absent, a studied aversion that surprisingly persists
for ten years after he became a Nicene Christian. Not until 396 does a noticeable
shift of emphasis take place; language of Christ as “the way” begins to appear when
Augustine writes, “while [Christ] himself is the homeland (patria), for us he also
made himself the way (uia) to the homeland.”4 The same passage of doctr. chr. also
subtly recasts the indicative statement John 1:14, “the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us,” by shifting the last part to a purpose clause. Augustine quotes John 1:14
in the standard way, “and he dwelt (et habitauit) among us” in doctr. chr. 1.13.12
(BA 11/2: 92), but at the end of that paragraph changes et habitauit to ut habitaret,
quietly transforming the declarative sentence into a statement of purpose: “the Word
became flesh so that he might dwell (ut habitaret) among us” (ibid.). This appears
alongside a statement about Christ’s joint divine-human self-offering that fuses
salvation’s means and end; in his own person, Augustine wrote, Christ was both
road and home, or, in another figure, both medicine and doctor.5 The fuller meaning
of this shift emerges at the beginning of doctr. chr. 1.34.38, where Augustine first
recalls the earlier ut phrasing and then yokes the “way” language specifically to
John 14:6. This is the first of many times that this text speaks of the humanity of
Christ in Augustine’s works. Our Lord’s purpose in coming to us, Augustine wrote,
was “to offer himself as the way,” and so he “deigned” to take our flesh: “this is
why the Lord said, ‘I am the way the truth and the life,’ by which he means, ‘by
me you come, at me you arrive, and in me you abide.’”6
Readers accustomed to Augustine’s plentiful later references to John 14:6 on
Christ as “the way” might miss its striking novelty in doctr. chr. That it finally
appears only in 396 suggests that a new dimension of understanding has emerged
concerning the functional interrelationship of Christ’s humanity and divinity. The
change occurs not in Augustine’s Nicene faith in the actuality of the Incarnation
and in the truth of the two natures, which demonstrably was an article of faith for
him from the time of his baptism. It is rather a shift in understanding the function

4. Doctr. chr. 1.11.11 (BA 11/2: 90; trans. is my own): “cum ergo ipsa sit patria, uiam se quoque
nobis fecit ad patriam.”
5. Doctr. chr. 1.14.13 (BA 11/2: 92): “ipsa est medicus medicina.”
6. Doctr. chr. 1.34.38 (BA 11/2: 126; trans. is my own): “sic enim ait: ‘ego sum uia et ueritas et uita,’
hoc est ‘per me uenitur, ad me peruenitur, in me permanetur.’”

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of their interrelationship for the sake of salvation. Theologically speaking, it marks

the moment when his soteriology makes a flush fit with his Christology.
Why did Augustine not advert to Christ as “the way” before this time? It seems
that “the way” was an important Christological title among Manicheans (c. Fort.
3), one that the Manichean Augustine would have propounded and appealed to in
the pursuit of new converts. The Manichean understanding, however, rejected the
Nicene conception of Christ’s humanity as flesh born of a human womb. They
referred “the way” and other Johannine titles like “the truth” (John 14:6) and “the
door” (John 10:9) to the divine Light that led souls from the Son to the Father; “the
way,” in other words, was a Manichean title of Christ’s divinity (c. Fort. 3). Several
texts show that, after conversion and baptism, Augustine continued to think of
Christ the mediator to the Father in terms of his divinity, rather than his humanity.7
It appears he lacked a complete theology of the Incarnation and, particularly, of
redemption by the cross for some time after baptism, a situation that the spirituality
of his newly adopted “Platonism” would have done little to reverse. The data seem
to indicate that Augustine the ex-Manichean avoided “way” language about Christ
until he was able to understand and articulate more exactly the Nicene understand-
ing of the saving function of Christ’s humanity. But this did not develop until the
mid-390s when, under the tutelage of St. Paul, Augustine came to appreciate how
flesh made Christ “the mediator between God and humanity” precisely as “the man
Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5 [emphasis added]). “Mediator” was a human, and not only
a divine, function (exp. Gal. 24).
In other words, by the time of writing doctr. chr., Augustine’s thought about
Christ’s humanity became more than just the step on the way to the higher rungs
of the spiritual life; his flesh was a basic and continually necessary pathway to
finding God. The temporal man of flesh became our permanent “way” to the
eternal Word. After grasping this, Augustine drew on the “way” language of John
14:6 to shape his understanding of “flesh” in John 1:14. In effect, it became the
middle term that bound together in close conjunction the vision of Christ’s divinity
in John 1:1 and the truth of Christ’s humanity in John 1:14. Thereafter, he often
quoted the two texts from John 1 together. Augustine essentially said that, if one
wants to attain to a vision of Christ’s divinity as portrayed in John 1:1, then one
has to travel along the “way” of John 14:6 that is embedded in the “flesh” of John
1:14. As he later summarized it, “Christ as God is the homeland to whom we go;

7. For what follows, see my Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figurative Exegesis,
Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 229–231 and
the notes to those pages.

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Christ as man is the way by whom we go.”8 Characteristically, to make this central
teaching memorable he fashioned it into punchy epigrams that could have served
as the late antique equivalent of bumper stickers: “To him we go, through him we
go”;9 or even more tersely, “through Christ to Christ.”10 Such sayings aphoristically
mirror the tight, strategic mix of divinity and humanity in Augustine’s perception
of Christ as formed by John’s Gospel. Together they confirm an observation made
a generation ago by T. J. van Bavel: “A certain shift in emphasis is discernible in
Augustine’s thought. This moves down from God to man. . . . [I]n the develop-
ment of Augustine’s spiritual life an increasing preoccupation with John plays an
important part.”11
The Johannine texts not only set up the theological context of conf., but also
advance Augustine’s story of conversion itself. Book 7 plays a crucial role. Almost
the entirety of the so-called prologue to John’s Gospel appears in an important
passage after Augustine’s report on his fateful reading of “the books of the Pla-
tonists.” The passage, conf. 7.9.13–14, commends those books for their agreement
with John’s teaching on Christ’s divinity (“that I did read there”), but also deftly
criticizes them for their ignorance of Christ’s humanity. That which “I did not read
there” concerning the Incarnation is presented as truth to be grasped in the future
(i.e., at the time of conversion proper).
In [the books of the Platonists] I read (not that the same words were used, but
precisely the same doctrine was taught, buttressed by many and various argu-
ments), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; he was
God . . . the true Light, which illumines every human person who comes into
the world” . . . but that “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” none
of this did I read there.12

8. S. 123.3.3 (PL 38: 685): “deus christus patria est quo imus: homo christus uia est qua imus.”
9. Ibid.: “ad illum imus, per illum imus.”
10. Io. eu. tr. 13.4 (BA 71:678): “per christum ad christum.”
11. Tarsicius J. van Bavel, Christians in the World: Introduction to the Spirituality of St. Augustine,
trans. Marcella van Bryn, Spirituality for Today, vol. 2 (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co.,
1980) 77. Originally published as Augustinus, Van liefde en vriendshap (Baarn: Het Wereldven-
ster, 1970).
12. Conf. 7.9.13–14 (CCSL 27: 101; trans. Boulding, WSA 1/1: 169–170): “ibi legi non quidem his
uerbis, sed hoc idem omnino multis et multiplicibus suaderi rationibus, quod ‘in principio erat
uerbum et uerbum erat apud deum et deus erat uerbum’ . . . ‘lumen uerum, quod inluminat omnem
hominem uenientem in hunc mundum’ . . . sed quia uerbum caro factum est et habitauit in nobis,
non ibi legi.”

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Making Sense of Augustine Reading John in Confessiones Book 7

Prolepsis
Beyond the suggestion of future spiritual-theological advances in Augustine’s
mind, we note the anticipatory placement of the text from John at a critical juncture in
the narrative amidst the head-spinning developments of Book 7. This Johannine text
is introduced at a moment of high drama, with Augustine’s soul, as it were, in the bal-
ance, as a sort of meta-challenge from Augustine-as-present narrator with knowledge
of the future to Augustine-as-past character. The moment of actually meeting that
challenge in faith is still in Augustine’s narrative future, but his voiceover insertion
of texts from John’s prologue make it present. The literary-rhetorical device that
accomplishes this is prolepsis.13 It injects a future perfect “will-have-been-so” into
the narration, and anticipates the demand on Augustine’s story-persona about an
article of faith that, at that time in the narrative, was something he was untutored
about, and which demanded a commitment he was incapable of making. More than
an assent of mind, a full understanding of the Incarnation would demand of him
what moderns would call an existential surrender of heart and life. Nevertheless,
the device of prolepsis suggests and unfolds all this future activity by anticipation,
and so draws his character closer to the garden decision point in Book 8, and to
Ambrose’s baptismal font in Book 9. Prolepsis draws hope from those future events
and projects it back into the earlier moment by means of the quotation from John.
Its placement in Book 7 speaks to the portrayal of scripture’s power as an active
divine agent in conversion that transcends time but that also participates in time,
and to the reciprocal exchange between text and life that conversion will bring
about. The impact of this exchange is evident in conf. already from its opening
lines, which presume the conversion and scriptural impact toward which the story
moves. In Book 7 we see this begin to emerge for Augustine the character, the same
Augustine who eventually becomes Augustine the narrator.
Another instance of prolepsis using a text from John’s Gospel is even more
pronounced. In conf. 7.18.24, having just been beaten back from his Neoplatonic
ascent to the vision of “that which is” (7.17.23), even though creation’s forms had

13. Quintilian treats prolepsis in argumentation in Inst. Or. 9.2.16–18 (Quintilian III, trans. H. E.
Butler, LCL 127 [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976], 382–385): “Anticipation, or as the
Greeks call it πρόληψις, whereby we forestall objections, is of extraordinary value in pleading.
. . . However, it forms a genus in itself, and has several different species. . . . [M]ost frequent of all
there is preparation, whereby we state fully why we are going to do something, or have done it.”
For a modern perspective on the use of prolepsis in narrative, with an overview of literary scholar-
ship, see Teresa Bridgman, “Thinking Ahead: A Cognitive Approach to Prolepsis,” Narrative 13,
no. 2 (2005): 125–159.

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prepared him for it in accord with Romans 1:20, Augustine the narrator confesses
that, back then, he still lacked the necessary strength to “enjoy” the vision of God.
He would not find it, he continues—and this is the proleptic part—“until I embraced
the mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5), who
was calling to me saying, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’” (cf. John 14:6). This
embrace will occur at his conversion in the garden, when a voice enjoining him to
read helps him to discover Romans 13:14’s injunction to “put on the Lord Jesus
Christ” (conf. 8.12.29), which is itself a proleptic statement anticipating Augustine’s
baptism in conf. 9.6.14. The word “until” (donec) in conf. 7.18.24 allows Augustine
to underscore and explain the importance of embracing Christ the mediator while
putting off the moment of the actual embrace until the garden scene and the baptism
scene. Furthermore, those moments can then be related without clogging the narra-
tives with theological explanations when conversion and baptism finally do occur.

Structure
Astute observations from two analysts of conf. bring perspective to the narrative
of Book 7 and its quotations from John’s Gospel. Insights from Frederick J. Crosson
and Isabelle Bochet help us discern the central importance of John’s Gospel in the
construction of Augustine’s conversion story.14
Frederick J. Crosson explains that the problem occupying the first part of conf.
in Books 1–7 is Augustine’s trouble in imagining God’s transcendence due to the
materialistic ideas that dogged him. But when the “books of the Platonists” set
him free, writes Crosson, he sees God as true Being, I am Who Am. “He is seen, in
a timeless moment, as what exists immutable, eternally timelessly [sic]. Being is
given in vision, in a present which never changes. Not only is He not in space, He
is not in time.”15 However, Crosson continues, the resolution of the problem of how
to perceive the divine transcendence generates a new problem, that of conceiving
the mode of God’s presence in the world. The transcendent God had interfaced with
creation, and that meant some kind of relationship to time. “But now he understands
God as not only transcendent to the world but as acting in time. If the true conception
of God utterly separates Him from the world, how is it possible for us to recognize
Him, to confront Him, in a worldly state-of-affairs, to literally hear the words by

14. See Frederick J. Crosson, “Structure and Meaning in St. Augustine’s Confessions,” Proceedings
of the Catholic Philosophical Association 63 (1989): 84–97, and Isabelle Bochet, “Points de
contact avec le De doctrina christiana,” in “Le Firmament de l’Écriture”: L’Hermeneutique
Augustinienne, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 172 (Paris: Institut
d’Études Augustiniennes, 2004), 94–106.
15. Crosson, “Structure and Meaning” (n.14), 94.

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which He calls us?”16 Nothing in Augustine’s new “Platonist” approach allowed for
eternal divinity to “call” temporal beings; and yet God’s “call” is key to Augustine’s
conversion, and “call” becomes a crucial image in Book 7 and beyond.17 “What he
now wants to know is how what he has experienced in faith is to be understood;
and that means to understand what the relation of God to the temporal world is.”18
Thus, the second half of conf. (i.e., Books 7–13) is dominated by the analysis of
memory, time, and eternity’s relation to it. The structural center of conf., therefore,
is Book 7, not only because of the symmetry of splitting in half the thirteen books,
but also—or even more—because it literally makes central the juxtaposition of
resolving the first problem of divine transcendence and posing the second one of
divine temporality. The remainder of conf. aims to understand and explain how the
eternal Word relates to time and utterly transforms it. This is the same Word that
is portrayed as “calling” Augustine at a portentous moment (cf. conf. 7.18.24) in
terms of John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and life.” This section anticipates
the means of resolving the second problem of divine temporality.
It is significant that only in 396, while writing doctr. chr. and on the cusp of
writing conf., did Augustine introduce his new, fuller reading of John 14:6 on Christ
the man as his “way.”19 When the text reappears in conf. 7.18.24, it anticipates
the greater fulfillment in his conversion and renewal. But while it is narratively
proleptic, it is still theologically climactic, and paints a spiritually transformative
portrayal of Christ as Augustine’s “way,” the one who covertly calls as Augustine’s
misguided soul struggles for stability. This injects high drama into the references
to John’s Gospel in Book 7. Those texts, and the conversion that they both effect
and symbolize, thus stand at the very heart of the message that Augustine wanted
to convey to readers and hearers.

Self-Comprehension
For Isabelle Bochet, scripture is the medium of Augustine’s new spiritual
self-comprehension in conf. The language of conf., she writes, was prepared for
by Augustine’s work on doctr. chr., and knowing this clarifies our reading of his
story. Building on work of Alberto Pincherle, Leo Ferrari, and Ulrich Duchrow,
Bochet shows that conf. implemented, and even structured itself around, doctr. chr.’s

16. Ibid., 92.

17. See conf. 7.6.8 (CCSL 27: 97–98); 7.9.15 (CCSL 27: 102–103); 7.18.24 (CCSL 27: 108); 7.21.27
(CCSL 27: 110–112); cf. 10. 27.38 (CCSL 27: 175).
18. Crosson, “Structure and Meaning” (n.14), 95.
19. Doctr. chr. 1.34.38 (BA 11/2: 126).

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exposition of scripture’s place in the soul’s seven degrees of progress, or steps of

ascent to spirit, that begin with fear and ascend to wisdom.20 Augustine related these
seven steps to the gifts of the Holy Spirit described in Isaiah 11, and to the Beatitudes
of Jesus in Matthew 5. For Augustine, the first step of timor and second step of
pietas lead to the third step of scientia, which integrates the knowledge of scripture
with the knowledge of self; ultimately, and more precisely, knowledge from the
reading of scripture engages the soul in the act of “confession.”21 The crucial point
is that interpretation of scripture is the basis and means of the new comprehension
of self that Augustine displays in conf. From the vantage point of the third step of
knowledge succeeding fear and piety, one can discern the structure of conf. as the
description of a literary itinerary.22 That is, Books 1–9 describe Augustine slowly
but constantly developing fear of God; Book 10 describes the achievements and
failures of his piety toward God; and Books 11–13 demonstrate new knowledge
of God and of self by analyzing with the new eyes of spiritual understanding the
scriptural beginnings in Genesis 1 (though he implies reading all of scripture this
way, from Genesis to Revelation, “from the beginning in which you made heaven
and earth until our everlasting reign with you in the holy city”).23
Thus, scripture launches, advances, and provisionally completes Augustine’s
journey of conversion to knowledge of God and renewed self-understanding in conf.
The end is implied in the beginning, and the opening lines of conf. are saturated
with scriptures, thus drawing from the start on the wisdom that Augustine gains,
narratively speaking, only at the end.
Thus scriptural interpretation appears as the destination [aboutissement] of the
itinerary described in conf.: the itinerary that leads Augustine from the pagan
readings evoked in the first books to the reading of the scriptures upon which the
work becomes complete. But this point of arrival is at the same time the point
of departure. For the reading of scripture is the very principle itself of conf.:
it is, in effect, what makes possible the new self-understanding that Augustine
displays there.24

20. Bochet, “Points de contact” (n.14), 94; idem, “Note complémentaire 6,” in La Doctrine Chré-
tienne: De doctrina christiana, BA 11/2 (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1997), 500–
506.
21. Bochet, “Points de contact” (n.14), 94.
22. Bochet, “Note complémentaire 6” (n.20), 504–505.
23. Conf. 11.2.3 (CCSL 27: 195; trans. is my own): “ab usque principio, in quo fecisti caelum et ter-
ram, usque ad regnum te cum perpetuum sanctae ciuitatis tuae”; cf. Bochet, “Points de contact”
(n.14), 100.
24. Bochet, “Points de contact” (n.14), 100. Trans. is my own.

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Augustine appropriates the texts of John into the narrative of him discovering
wisdom and truth as both the goal of the story and its precondition. He tells the tale
of how the texts from John portray him being incorporated into Christ, while from
the beginning of conf. we see that Christ has incorporated him into all the texts that
appear. Christ gives the texts to Augustine to make his own. So scripture’s story
becomes Augustine’s story, and he allows scripture to tell his story by using its
words as if they were his own words. In conf.’s first person engagement with John
1:1–14 at the time of reading the Platonic books (“I read there . . . I did not read
there”: conf. 7.9.13–14 [emphasis added]), he addresses his own half-formed faith
with the voice of his future faith; and the invocation of John 14:6 at the time of his
failed ascent to spiritual vision (“he was calling to me and saying, ‘I am the way,
the truth, and the life’”: conf. 7.18.24 [emphasis added]) speaks from the future to
his past need to go further to embrace the mediator. Together the texts from John
portray Augustine so inhabiting the texts that they imbue him with spiritual force,
propel his character toward conversion in the garden, and allow him to speak retro-
spectively to his younger, still-converting self (and, by implication, to every reader
who may yet convert). Book 7 marks Augustine the character’s decisive passage
toward reading scripture as one who believes (conf. 7.21.27);25 the texts of John
were the narrative drivers in that movement.

Conclusion
This study has considered the appearance of texts from John’s Gospel up to and
into the writing of conf., and opened up several leads. It has suggested a number of
continuities and shifts in the function of Johannine texts from pre-conf. works to
conf. itself: the importance of John’s texts that speak of the Incarnation; the advance
that appears in considering the use of different parts of John 14:6; the strategic
placement of texts in the pivotal Book 7 of conf.; the impact of these texts as agents
of change in Augustine’s conversion story; the importance of Augustine’s personal
appropriation of Johannine texts for his journey toward a new self-conception.
From this vantage point, we can better appreciate the depth and importance of the
well-placed section of Book 7 where, immediately after being disappointed that
his hard, slow ascent toward the vision of God became a rapid fall away from it,
two principle Incarnation texts from John point the way forward. This Janus-faced
passage looks back on the weak, troubled state that he was converting from, and
looks forward to the strong, grace-filled state that he was converting to. The relevant
lines from conf. 7.18.24 read as follows:

25. Ibid., 99.

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I kept looking for the way to get strength enough to go on enjoying you, but
would not find it until I embraced “the mediator between God and man, the man
Christ Jesus” [1 Tim. 2:5], who is “God over all, blessed forever” [Rom. 9:5].
He kept calling to me and saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life” [John
14:6]—that is, as the food that I was too weak to take, but that he was mixing
with his flesh. For “the Word was made flesh” [John 1:14] so that our infancy
might suckle your wisdom, through which you created everything.26

The collection of biblical texts in this paragraph typify the thick quilt of scripture
that covers the conf., and that plays various roles as illustrations, talking points,
meditative performances, ideal projections, suggestive perspectives, recollections of
persons, configurations of events, and portrayals of feelings, thoughts, and desires.
But, above all, they are media for Augustine’s self-portrayal wherein he strikingly
transposes himself into the story of the Bible, and thus renders himself a recipient
of grace, just as he hopes his readers might also do. Augustine becomes Adam in
the garden turning away from his Creator; he becomes Moses on the mountain
seeking a spiritual vision of God’s glory; he becomes the prodigal son wandering
and squandering himself in the land of unlikeness; he becomes Paul alternately
pleasing and spurning God with his divided will; he becomes the deer grazing in
sunlit meadows of the vast biblical forest, and the bird fluttering in patches of shady
but tasty foliage. The passage in conf. 7.18.24 pictures the way of understanding
Johannine scripture that forms all these images of the various Augustinian personae,
and lays down the Christological-soteriological base from which they arise. By them
Augustine makes deeply personal the gigantic and otherwise forbidding biblical
theater of cosmic salvation in a way that invites readers and hearers to enter in
and dwell there.27 Texts from John’s Gospel especially drive Augustine’s story by
enabling his search for wisdom and truth.
Augustine’s restless searching is central. A certain tension exists in his thought
between the Johannine pursuit of wisdom and truth and the Pauline longing for
redemption and grace. We hear much from scholars about Paul’s influence on
Augustine, particularly in the early period when he read Paul closely on important
issues, and the Apostle changed his mind in decisive ways. And yet overemphasis
on Augustine reading Paul may obscure the depth of his debt to John. This paper

26. Conf. 7.18.24 (CCSL 27: 108, trans. is my own): “et quaerebam uiam conparandi roboris, quod
esset idoneum ad fruendum te, nec inueniebam, donec amplecterer mediatorem dei et hominum,
hominem christum iesum, qui est super omnia deus benedictus in saecula, uocantem et dicentem:
ego sum uia et ueritas et uita, et cibum, cui capiendo inualidus eram, miscentem carni, quoniam
uerbum caro factum est, ut infantiae nostrae lactesceret sapientia tua, per quam creasti omnia.”
27. See his prayerful meditation as he turns to treat scripture in detail at conf. 11.1.1–2.4 (CCSL 27:
194–196).

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has begun to test a claim made long ago by Romano Guardini, and has found some
support for it:
In spite of Augustine’s profound indebtedness to the discoverer of Christian
existence, St. Paul, it is St. John who is his real master. The Tractatus in Joan-
nem, the De Trinitate, as well as countless passages in his other writings prove
this. Still clearer proof is the deep, unmistakable permeation of all his writing
with the Johannine spirit. St. John’s is the ideal image that roots Augustine both
in mind and being in the New Testament.28

28. Romano Guardini, The Conversion of St. Augustine, trans. Elinor Briefs (Westminster, MD: New-
man Press, 1960), 76–77. Originally published as Romano Guardini, Die Bekehrung des Aurelius
Augustinus. Der innere Vorgang in seinen Bekenntnissen (Leipzig: J. Hegner, 1935).

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