Steve Brown (The Old White Guy Blog) posted a blog a last year that I only read last week as a part of some other person's rant. I don't want to talk about the post, but rather about this particular part of it:
That evening I talked about loving Augustine "but not for the reasons you think." I've often told the story of the incident that happened after Augustine's conversion when he met his former mistress in the streets of the town where he resided. She ran up to him and he ran from her. She shouted, "Augustine, Augustine, it is I."He shouted back over his shoulder, "Yes, but it is not I."
Cool…or at any rate, it was until I heard the rest of the story, to wit, Augustine's mistress wasn't asking for sex; she was asking for food and acknowledgment of the son who Augustine had fathered. When Augustine gave us his famous Confessions, he mentioned stealing apples when he wasn't hungry…but he never mentioned his son.
I'm not sure why he makes his point with this particular statement, "When Augustine gave us his famous Confessions, he mentioned stealing apples when he wasn't hungry…but he never mentioned his son." I believe that Augustine is speaking directly of his son, Adeodatus, in this passage from Confessions, Book 9, Chapter 6:
We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born after the flesh, of my sin.
I suppose that there may be some other reason why Steve Brown says this. Maybe I am completely misunderstanding him. However, his intent seems obvious when he says, "Augustine never mentioned his son" and if I am misunderstanding that then it seems an easy thing to misunderstand. I can see other people who have never read the Confessions quoting Steve Brown or passing along this as a nice example of how even the great Augustine wasn't so great. Sermons get preached around neat little nuggets like this one and then the misconception gets passed to the listeners and so it grows. It is unfortunate that Steve Brown picked somebody like Augustine, though, for whom the Confessions are a complete baring of his soul to God. He covers all of his sins, from stealing apples to having a mistress and yes, bearing a son ("after the flesh" and "of [his] sin"). If he did malign Augustine out of ignorance it would have been nice for him to have done his research a little better and if he did it with some other meaning then it would have been nice for him to have written with a little more clarity.
