Augustine wrote confessions as a bishop. He wrote about many situations from his earlier life. When reading Confessions you must keep in mind that these are the words of an older man talking about his past self. If young Augustine had written Confessions it would have been a much different book. Love is an interesting topic. We all love or are loved in one capacity or another. Romantic love is a different beast altogether. Often times we are obsessed with the idea of love and we will do anything we can to obtain and keep a relationship. These relationships are not always the most wholesome, in Augustine’s case they were not. Love and other emotions are not something that should be sought after for their own sake. Augustine makes this point
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Augustine focuses on the feeling of pity he talks about how we dislike going through trials and suffering but we love being moved to tears by a performance or a book. He views this as an evil and sinful action. He condemns these productions and the whole affair of crying over someone elses pitiful existence, when it is not a real situation (Conf. 3:2). Just because a situation is fictitious does not mean that it can not be helpful in the real world. Any made up story has to have its roots in the real world because we are creations of God not creators of new things. There is nothing wrong with watching a play or reading a book, we learn from the ideas of the stories and we also learn about emotions that the ideas, vices, and virtues elicit. We can learn about ourselves and our own vices by seeing them portrayed in a play. This is the very thing that happened to Augustine and a theory as to why these plays and stories made Augustine so uncomfortable. Augustine was uncomfortable that he was feeling the same emotions as the character in the story who had vices. The reason that he felt the same as them was because he too struggled with that vice. The emotions themselves were not sinful but, however, were a mirror in which he saw his own reflection.The audience is like Augustine, they reflect on their own emotions. Now, the actors are a different story than the
Augustine focuses on the feeling of pity he talks about how we dislike going through trials and suffering but we love being moved to tears by a performance or a book. He views this as an evil and sinful action. He condemns these productions and the whole affair of crying over someone elses pitiful existence, when it is not a real situation (Conf. 3:2). Just because a situation is fictitious does not mean that it can not be helpful in the real world. Any made up story has to have its roots in the real world because we are creations of God not creators of new things. There is nothing wrong with watching a play or reading a book, we learn from the ideas of the stories and we also learn about emotions that the ideas, vices, and virtues elicit. We can learn about ourselves and our own vices by seeing them portrayed in a play. This is the very thing that happened to Augustine and a theory as to why these plays and stories made Augustine so uncomfortable. Augustine was uncomfortable that he was feeling the same emotions as the character in the story who had vices. The reason that he felt the same as them was because he too struggled with that vice. The emotions themselves were not sinful but, however, were a mirror in which he saw his own reflection.The audience is like Augustine, they reflect on their own emotions. Now, the actors are a different story than the