The Personality Development of Saint Augustine
The following is an excerpt from Personality Shaping Through Positive Disintegration by Kazimierz Dabrowski, MD, Phd. It is Dabrowski’s analysis of the psychological development of Saint Augustine into a fully formed personality. The purpose of my sharing this excerpt now, before the publishing of the Personality Lessons, is to prime you for what kind of concepts and structures I will be publishing imminently. I feel that it is imperative to understand his theory of “personality” being an achievement attained through years of internal struggle against one’s own instincts, and I believe that this biographical illustration of the life of a man now known as a Saint is an exceptional way to do so. Whether you are a religious person or not, one can appreciate the struggles and transition of a man who desired to become greater than what he was; a man that desired to shed his flaws. You may even find that you can relate on a deeply personal level with someone as spiritually revered as St. Augustine, because he was human just as we are.
Additionally, I truly feel guilty for not completing these lessons fast enough and allowing a full month to go without publishing. An explanation for that may be forthcoming soon in a reflection, but know that I intend to make the wait worth it. This knowledge is absolutely vital to understanding humanity, and necessary if we desire to advance civilization beyond the same tired cycles of conflict. Ultimately, a society is built on individuals. I hypothesize that the more psychologically developed a large portion of the population becomes, the greater our ability to affect genuine positive change. Conversely, the less psychologically developed the individuals that make up society are, the worse the outcomes are for civilization as a whole. In this book there are several analyses of different historical figures, so if interest is high enough, I may share all of them in due time. [Note: I hand typed this from the physical book, so there may be a few errors. My apologies.]
St. Augustine
Introductory Remarks
The personality of St. Augustine presents a typical example of the development of positive disintegrative dynamisms, highly intensive dynamisms varying in form and in direct of activity. When we take a closer look at the life of the bishop of Hippo, from his early childhood to the very end, we are struck by the incessant varidirectional multiplicity of the planes of the spiritual development of his personality. In addition, the intensity of development of the particular psychic processes (guilt, subject-object, perfection) is much greater with St. Augustine than with the average man. This was the cause of his constant struggle with himself and his selection of various contradictory ways of attaining the truth. Incessant struggle for better knowledge of himself, selection from among various forms of life, and final preference for the supernatural values over all others, these were the results of many years of deliberations, doubts, breakdowns and spiritual ascents. This state is perfectly illustrated by many facts from St. Augustine’s life which have been published in detail up to the present day. We shall here omit any systematic study of the course of St. Augustine’s life from childhood to complete maturation. We merely want to make the readers, who can learn from biography the events that took place in St. Augustine’s life, sensitive enough to be able to discover in these facts the manifestations of certain laws according to which the development of St. Augustine’s personality took its course. For the theory of disintegration St. Augustine is, in some respects, its perfect illustration, although his life would not suffice to give the reader a complete reflection of the theory of disintegration.
As we shall see, St. Augustine in his last years of life had not yet attained a full harmonization of the contradictory tendencies which agitated him from his youth. Indeed, certain of his acts were in contrast with the ideal of a matured personality which he voluntary imposed upon himself.
As the root of his positive disintegration lay the conflicting character of his psyche. A violent temperament, and an easily aroused sensual excitability inherited from his father, combined with a deep intelligence, gentleness and goodness from his mother. This was more explicitly expressed by Papini:
There was in him the sensualist of his father, and the tenderhearted mystic of his mother; the greedy lover of praises and the humble self-tormentor; with his sharp and subtle sensitivity he could perceive even the farthest figures of importance in the world, the most subtle movements of the human soul, and at the same time there was present in him harmony of mind, moderate and human wisdom; a tendency to the excessive erotic life early practiced and at the same time a serenity, present often in him, which flourished in angelical and evangelical simplicity; pulsations of eager and explosive passions … There was combined in him pedantry with mysticism, a high level of thinking, exact and systematic, with affectional fire, violence, disquietude, suffering joy. … Abstraction and lyricism, logic and love of neighbor alternating but never contradicting and often complementing each other … He is a sinner first and then saint, professor first and then shepard, but at the same time he is a convert and a ruling man, a poet and rationalist, dialectician and romanticist, traditionalist, eloquent rhetorician and popularizing orator.[1]
Such characteristics already show that the possessor of this personality was doomed to a life of constant struggle and suffering, which in effect did not bring him the appeasement he sought; in fact, as the same author writes:
Augustine found happiness in nothing before he reached thirty years of age. … Neither the first academic or stage triumphs of his youth, nor the Manichaean apostolate, nor philosophical researches, nor even a woman’s love or his son’s smile gave him the permanent joy of perfect happiness. [2]
His conversion, his discovery of truth, his changes in his mode of living, his scientific achievements, his deepening love for his nearest relatives and friends, all these and more St. Augustine owed to along, long inner struggle and meditation, to errors and to violent clashing with himself.
Beginnings of the Development of Personality
We may distinguish three periods in the shaping of St. Augustine’s personality: its germination, formation, and full development. Let us briefly examine the first period, which embraces childhood and youth, namely from his infancy until he was 20 years of age.
As a child Augustine was fragile, and he remained sickly all his life. As a boy and a young man he displayed a very good memory. He was fond of amusements, shows, and sporting competitions. He was ambitious, recalcitrant, cheated in games and was greedy; he lied and stole. Although he respected knowledge he did not like to learn and had aversion to mathematics and Greek. On the other hand he willingly read poetry, particularly the Iliad and the Aeneid.
As a young man he set a high value on friendship; he was afraid of contempt; he was ashamed of his chastity before his companions, he was suggestive and voluptuous, and he wanted to be happy and famous. While studying in Carthage he acquired the knowledge demanded of a rhetorician, but also took part in all the joys which this “city of Venus” then offered to its inhabitants (theater, amphitheater, circus, racing, “clubs”). At that time he fell in love, and remained faithful for fourteen years. (“In those years I had one, not in that which is called lawful marriage … yet remaining faithful to her.”[3]) The death of his father did not affect him much.
Although in the first period of his life he showed no great tendency for reshaping himself – he did no work upon himself in a broad sense, his behavior was controlled by the self-preservation and sexual instincts – nonetheless, the indicators of personality became rather marked in this period. They consisted in a manifold psychic hypersensitivity, uncommon intelligence[4], ambition, exclusiveness of affections, love, a capability for introspection, a sensitivity to real greatness, and a peculiar faith in Christ. [5]
We may say, therefore, that the psychic structure of young Augustine was indeed primitively integrated, but there were inherent in it considerable possibilities for the development of personality. In the first period of August’s life, these germs of personality revealed themselves primarily in the area of feelings: unilevel disintegration of the emotional sphere. There were also weak manifestations of multilevel disintegration.
Augustine did not feel happy. He yearned for something great, boundless and unending. “I panted after honors, gain, marriage ...”[6] His disintegration deepened the moment he read “Hortensius,” Cicero’s philosophical treatise. There awaken in him fear as to the morality of the life he was leading; his ambivalence in relation to sensual pleasures increase; his intellectual disquietude arose, but “Hortensius” gave certainty to Augustine that wisdom and supreme God exist and they became a necessity for him, “… because even then I desired to be wise, and to grow from worse to better ...”[7] E. Gilson writes, “Wisdom, the object of philosophy was united in him with happiness. He seeks that good which satisfies all his desires and in effect brings appeasement.” [8] He sought wisdom in Christ, whom he worshiped from childhood, and found delight in reading the Holy Scriptures. He could not understand them, however, and this brought him to Manichaeism, which promised him a rational explanation of the Bible and not an anthropomorphic presentation of God.
The Period of the Formation of Personality
The disintegration of Augustine’s psychic structure that began in the first period deepened markedly in the second period of his life. This period lasted about 13 years. The disintegration of the former period deepened and extended into the sphere of feelings, as well as into his intellectual, religious and social life.
Augustine for the first time experienced the problem of death. A friend of his had died: “At this grief my heart was utterly darkened … my native country was a torment to me, my father’s house a strange unhappiness. … Only tears were sweet to me.” [9]
I fretted then, sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose it, I found not. I felt an uneasiness in my soul; not in calm groves, not in games and music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, nor in pleasures of the bed and couch; nor (finally) in books and poesy, found it repose. All things looked ghastly, yea, the very light; whatsoever was not what he was, was revolting and hateful. [10]
In these circumstances the ambivalence increased in relation to the problems of life and death, “… for at once I loathed exceedingly to live and feared to die. [11] “… For I felt that my soul and his soul were one soul in two bodies and therefore was my life a horror to me because I would not live halved and therefore perchance I feared to die, lest he whom I had loved so much should die wholly.” [12] There ensued, in a sense, a separation of intellect from volition: “To thee, O Lord, my soul ought to have been raised, for thee to light; I know it; but neither could nor would seek the remedy.”[13] Here we see appearing the “subject-object-in-oneself” dynamism: “I became unto myself an enigma, and I would ask my soul why it was sad, and why it afflicted me so vehemently, yet it could give me no answer. [14]
Experiences brought on by the death of his friend did not last long. His sensualism and primitive self-preservation instinct continued to be very strong. Augustine found new friends. After a quarrel with his mother he stayed at one of his friends and threw himself into an intemperate life. He did not, however, return entirely and forever to his former level of primitive integration, for he did not feel any happier, because always seeking truth he experienced disquietude.
There ensued further multi-directional development of the intellect (at about the age of 30). Multilevel disintegration manifested itself in this sphere. Its direct causes were contacts with the leading representatives of Manichaeism and Catholicism.
There contacts brought hesitation and uncertainty to Augustine. His trust in Manichaeism was shaken, and on the other hand there increased in him the need for a mathematical certainty as to the positive attitude of Catholicism. “For I desired to be assured of that which I did not see, as fully as I was certain that seven and three make ten.” [15] This state caused skepticism to arise in him, and with it many rather unpleasant experiences: “Doubt, then, what to hold for certain, the more sharply gnawed my heart.” [16] There then arose dissatisfaction with himself, “the more ashamed I was, that so long deluded and deceived by the promise of certainties ...” [17] However, this was still not the feeling of guilt: “For I still thought that it was not we that sin, but that I know not what other nature sinned in us; and it delighted my pride to be free from blame; and when I had done an evil, not to confess I had done any … But I loved to excuse myself, and to accuse I know not what other thing, which was with me, but which I was not.” [18] Here we see the “splitting” of personality into observed and observing factors; that is, there developed the self-observation dynamism, which was not at the same time a self-educating factor.
In course of time the dissatisfaction with himself changed into shame, to which something near despair attached because of the loss of hope of the possibility of finding the truth. He sought further, however, and leaned toward Catholicism, but here new difficulties arose. The first concerned his apprehension of spiritual beings (Augustine was completely unable to apprehend immaterial things[19]) and the second concerned the question of solving the problems of personal life within the framework of Christian morality. The disintegration already embraced the intellect, the volition, and the feelings.
There are moments when Augustine felt tired of his inner disintegration.
Meanwhile my sins were being multiplied and my concubine being torn from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding. And she returned to Africa, vowing unto Thee never to know any other man, leaving with my my son by her. But unhappy I, who could not imitate a very woman, impatient of delay, procured another, though no wife. … Nor was my wound cured, which had been made by the cutting away of the former, but after inflammation and most acute pain, it mortified, in time my pain became less acute but more desperate. [20]
He was then attracted by a calm and regular life.
… see it is no great matter now to obtain some station, and then what should we more wish for? We have store of powerful friends; if nothing else offer, and we be in much haste, at least a presidentship may be given us: and a wife with some money, that she increase not our charges: and this shall be the bound of desire. Many great men, and most worthy of imitation, have given themselves to the study of wisdom in the state of marriage. [21]
We may say that there were short-lived projections of primitive integration – what in modern terminology we could call relaxation in a too intensive developmental process. However, the fear of death and its consequences prevented his integration at a lower level.
… nor did anything call me back from a yet deeper gulf of carnal pleasures, but the fear of death and of Thy future judgment to come. … [22]
This fear deepened disintegration and led to a valuation of his inner attitudes, to a hierarchical structuring of his aims, to phenomena typical of multilevel disintegration and to the beginnings of integration at a high level. It should be made clear that St. Augustine’s apprehension, resulting from a fear of justice and of punishment for his early life, was at that time not the manifestation of pure selfless love toward the highest Ideal; it was a fear of a lower level, which in later years changed into selfless love. There developed an intense feeling of his own guilt and the feeling of shame in relation to himself, which were lacking in the former period.
… and I found myself in an evil way. And for this I grieved, and thereby I double my grief … [23]
… where I had placed it [his soul] so that I might see it not … that I might see myself, how deformed I was, how sordid, how full of spots and sores. [24]
The extant psychic structure was, however, not sufficiently disintegrated. The new and old dynamisms collided.
… my two wills, one old and the other new, one carnal and the other spiritual, fight, one against the other, and by their discord they drag my soul asunder. [25]
The results of this conflict were intensification of ambivalence toward higher values.
Was it not I that willed, was it not I that could not will, when I was deliberating whether I should serve my Lord… [26]
I … begged for chastity at Thy hand, and thus I said, “Give me Chastity and Continence, but do not give it yet.” [27]
Kierkegaardean fear and trembling, the feeling of guilt, the struggle of rising to a higher level, slow crystallization of the third factor.
Finally the spiritual crisis came and Augustine was converted. Having overcome inner resistances he united unreservedly with his ideal, thus rising to a higher level and becoming more calm. Significant here is the scene described in the Confessions:
… And I cried out at large to Thee … How long, how long? Tomorrow and to-morrow? Why not even now? Why not even at this instant, make an end of my uncleanness? … And lo, I heard a voice … ‘Take up and read. Take up and read’
And – as he says himself – after he read the passage of the Gospel commanding him to change his way of life:
No further would I read, nor was there cause why I should; for instantly with the end of this sentence, as by clear and constant light infused into my heart, the darkness of all former doubts was driven away … I desired nothing more … nor did I have any other ambition in this world. [28]
He slowly became a “new man.” He became a self-affirming and self-educating personality in this second period of the development of positive disintegration dynamisms. Ambitendencies disappeared and ambivalences weakened considerably. There appeared the attitude of moral vigilance, which prevents one from slipping to a lower level.
… rejoicing with trembling, in that which Thou hast given me, and bemoaning that wherein I am still imperfect .. a daily war by fasting, often ‘bring my body into subjugation’ … Placed then amid these temptations I strive daily against concupiscence in eating and drinking … My evil sorrows strive with my good joys; and on which side is the victory, I know not … And no one ought to be secure in that life … that he, who hath been capable of worse to be made better may not likewise of better be made worse. [29]
There also appeared humility, a full opening to transcendental values.
Thou calledst and shoutedst, and burstest my deafness. Thou flashedst, shinest, and scatteredst my blindness and [I] pant for Thee … and I burned for thy peace.[30]
In addition the feeling of guilt and love in relation to the highest ideal appeared, [31] and finally his mystic experiences intensified. [32]
This transformation of Augustine’s personality brought very useful results to the whole range of matters to which he devoted himself. Having thought over his attitude toward life and his place in it, Augustine became a useful man in the Christian community, and as a bishop fulfilled his duties successfully. He was wholly consistent in his attempts to realize in his own life, and in teaching others, the goals of life which he considered true. High intelligence and a deeply philosophical mind led Augustine to create, as a consequence of the correct development of his personality, the foundations of Christian philosophy for centuries to come. Right up until the present time certain of his thoughts – for instance, his conceptions of the world, of man, and of the spiritual life are ideas that are fertile for thousands of human minds. His philosophy reflects the shaping of his personality by way of positive disintegration and secondary integration.
A Brief Outline of His Shaped Personality
St. Augustine possessed all forms of excitability: sensual, affectional , psycho-motor, imaginational and mental. Sensual hyperexcitability is the ground for perpetual sensual hunger, continual and excessive satisfactions and dissatisfactions. Affectional hyperexcitability constitutes the ground for compassion, pity, anxiety about others and about one’s own thread of life in connection with recollection and on analysis of the past. Psycho-motor hyper-excitability, in conjunction with the other forms is the main cause of violent reactions, motor unrest, and the need for action. Imaginational excitability plays a great role in forming the hierarchy of aims and in the development of prospection. Finally, mental excitability causes a whirl, a stream of problems, thoughts, multidimensional mental attitudes, and a richness of associations and methods of work.
His variety of feelings and interests made Augustine sensitive to everything human and to all the complications of life. Strong instincts, increased excitability, a variety of seemingly contradictory interests, all these caused his fluctuation in his life, his tensions and depressions, his disquietude and enthusiasm. What we view here, therefore, is a violent process of disintegration.
The state of his continual sensual and affectional dissatisfactions, his instability of attitudes and variety of changing interests, his ambivalences and ambitendencies did not yield the possibility of finding the center which harmonizes the other dynamisms and forms a hierarchy between them. This state of continual psychic fluctuation became unbearable for him. In these circumstances there gradually arose a tendency to depart from his early way of life that was based on the self-preservation and sexual instincts. His awareness of inner disorder increase; the tendency toward a more harmonious shaping of his spiritual self also increased. His “salvation” was at stake. The growing self-consciousness and yearning to transcend the present level combined with an increase aversion for himself, with the feelings of inferiority and guilt, growing to self-hatred. The advancing process of disintegration introduced ever more fully the valuative or estimating factor.
The Manichaean dualism is solved by loving God as the highest good; skepticism is leveled by the introduction of the hierarchy of values and by the unification of free will with the will of God; sensual instincts transform into an enhanced sensitivity to beauty; affectional hyperexcitability transforms into a love of God and neighbor; imaginational hyperexcitability develops into a prospection in relations to goals. New attitudes and achievements lead to the discover of the way to ecstasy. Secondary integration is thus attained. Ceasing to be the servant of contradictions and destroying nothing natural, but appraising and feeling them from a spiritual point of view, St. Augustine transformed his sexual drive into a love of beauty, transformed the species instinct into compassion, pity, sensitivity, and active love of his neighbor, thus creating a mature, self-conscious affectional attitude.
Can one say that St. Augustine’s personality reached it fullness? Did it attain the highest development with respect to all fundamental qualities?
According to general opinions, the life of St. Augustine represents the process of toilsome harmonization of various tendencies. It seems to us, however, that with respect to certain qualities, this process did not finally come to its end. Excessive pride, for example, was not fully sublimated, because there remained some feeling of distance with respect to inferiors. Augustine also remained to the end of his life a man who love external beauty, nature, motion, a man who found delight in seeing, seeking and creating. Even when he was an old man he enjoyed himself like a boy, watching a dog chasing a hare, a lizard catching a fly, and a spider preparing its web to capture its prey. Papini is right in saying that Augustine calmed in himself and condemned, but did not annihilate, three fundamental concupiscences, namely, delightfulness, curiosity and pride. It also appears that St. Augustine had no very close or devoted friends.
The tension between the kingdoms of God and Satan – reflecting on the one hand an earthly apprehension of himself, even including contempt for God, and on the other the love of God, to the point of contempt for himself – is represented in one of his chief works (De Civitate Dei) and is evidence of his keen mental and vital dualistic attitude.
However, not withstanding this incompleteness and lack of achievement in certain areas, we may say that St. Augustine reached the highest development with respect to the majority of positive general qualities.
Citations and references:
[1] G. Papini. Sant’ Agostino. Verona: A. Mondadori, 1964
[2] Papini, op. Cit.
[3] Confessions, IV, p. 48. All quotations from St. Augustine are taken from St. Augustine’s Confessions. Translated by Edward B. Pusey. (“Harvard Classics”) New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909
[4] “…that, scarce twenty years old, a book of Aristotle, called the ‘Ten Predicaments,’ falling into my hands, and I read and understood by myself the books of those arts that are called liberal which I had an opportunity to read.” Ibid., IV, p. 62
[5] E. Gilson writes that St. Augustine “never ceased to believe that Christ is … the only way to happiness open to man.” E. H. Gilson. The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine. Translated by L. E. M. Lynch. New York: Random House 1960
[6] St. Augustine, op. Cit., IV p.62
[7] Ibid., VI p.87
[8] Gilson, op. cit.
[9] St. Augustine, op. cit., IV, p.51
[10]Ibid., 53
[11] Ibid, pp. 53-54
[12] Ibid, pp. 52-54
[13] Ibid, p. 54
[14] Ibid, p. 61
[15] Ibid., IV, p. 86
[16] Idem.
[17] Ibid., V, p. 77
[18] Ibid., VIII, p. 147
[19] Gilson, op. cit.
[20] St. Augustine, op. Cit., VI, p. 100
[21] Ibid., p. 97
[22] Ibid., p. 100
[23] Ibid., p. 90
[24] Ibid., VIII, p. 135
[25] Ibid., p. 139
[26] Ibid., p. 140
[27] Idem
[28] Ibid., pp. 141-142
[29] Ibid,. p. 191
[30] Ibid., p. 188
[31] “Yet I, though in Thy sight I despise myself and account myself dust and ashes ...”
Ibid., X, p. 173
[32] Ibid., p. 195