Gladly to Weep: Death and Grief in St. Augustine’s Confessions
Jane Abbottsmith, MPhil, MAR; MD/PhD student, Yale University
Is it possible to find true joy in things that threaten to leave us? Is the pain of loss compatible with felicity? And in our fleeting, ephemeral world, are there any enduring sources of gladness upon which we may fearlessly rest our affections? These questions concerned the Stoics, who were troubled by the turbulence of emotions like fear and desire and who concluded that the sage finds happiness in virtue alone. St. Augustine of Hippo, writing centuries later, was influenced by these concerns. He argued that true happiness belongs to the person who loves God above all. Created, earthly pleasures may be delighted in, as goods that come from God, but we must not set our affections upon them as if they will endure forever. And we must always be wary of our attachments to the world lest it entrap us with its enticements, and turn our hearts away from God.
It is a beautiful picture of wisdom, love, and forbearance. And yet anyone who has grieved the death of a dear friend, a beloved mother, a precious sister, may find it difficult to imagine that our hearts should be unmoved by all earthly losses. In the Confessions, Augustine twice describes his own mourning upon the death of a loved one: before his conversion, the death of his friend at Thagaste, and years later, the death of his mother Monica. In his reflections on the grief that moved him both times to tears, we see Augustine wrestling to understand his sorrow, to test the movements of his heart and discern whether he was guilty in his love of too much earthly attachment. These passages offer a window into Augustine’s position on the Stoic question. The fear of earthly suffering, fear of the possibility of loss, settled for the Stoics the hopelessness of seeking happiness in temporal goods. The Stoic sage remains invulnerable to suffering only by desiring virtue alone. In the Confessions Augustine attends not to fear but to grief, grief over the reality of loss, but he too is concerned with happiness and love. Does the Christian saint on earth, whose desire rests in God alone, ever suffer the sting of grief over the things of this world? Is grief an indication of sinful attachment to lesser goods, incompatible with the life of blessedness in which we love only God who is eternal? Or is it a virtuous consequence of the vulnerability and dependence that come from loving, from opening our hearts to goodness and friendship, and thus suffering upon their loss? With careful attention to Augustine’s reflections on the death of his friend and his mother, I argue that although his acceptance of grief is measured, marked by characteristic wariness about the temptation to excess and the danger of self-deception, Augustine believes that some created goods are worthy of love, and that we should thus grieve their loss.
It is a beautiful picture of wisdom, love, and forbearance. And yet anyone who has grieved the death of a dear friend, a beloved mother, a precious sister, may find it difficult to imagine that our hearts should be unmoved by all earthly losses. In the Confessions, Augustine twice describes his own mourning upon the death of a loved one: before his conversion, the death of his friend at Thagaste, and years later, the death of his mother Monica. In his reflections on the grief that moved him both times to tears, we see Augustine wrestling to understand his sorrow, to test the movements of his heart and discern whether he was guilty in his love of too much earthly attachment. These passages offer a window into Augustine’s position on the Stoic question. The fear of earthly suffering, fear of the possibility of loss, settled for the Stoics the hopelessness of seeking happiness in temporal goods. The Stoic sage remains invulnerable to suffering only by desiring virtue alone. In the Confessions Augustine attends not to fear but to grief, grief over the reality of loss, but he too is concerned with happiness and love. Does the Christian saint on earth, whose desire rests in God alone, ever suffer the sting of grief over the things of this world? Is grief an indication of sinful attachment to lesser goods, incompatible with the life of blessedness in which we love only God who is eternal? Or is it a virtuous consequence of the vulnerability and dependence that come from loving, from opening our hearts to goodness and friendship, and thus suffering upon their loss? With careful attention to Augustine’s reflections on the death of his friend and his mother, I argue that although his acceptance of grief is measured, marked by characteristic wariness about the temptation to excess and the danger of self-deception, Augustine believes that some created goods are worthy of love, and that we should thus grieve their loss.