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Summary

A close friend of Augustine’s, whom he had persuaded to become a Manichee, falls seriously ill, and while he is unconscious, his family has him baptized. He seems to recover, and Augustine jokes with him about the baptism, but his friend will not listen to his jokes. When his friend suddenly dies, Augustine is overcome with grief. Augustine eventually has to leave Thagaste for Carthage to escape the memories. The love of friends is good, but friends must be loved in God, not for themselves alone, for only God does not perish or change. People look for rest in the physical world and fix their hearts on things that pass away, not moving through them to recognition of the God who made them. True life and true love are found in Christ alone.

Commentary

Augustine’s passionate attachment to his friends serves as the basis of this section, which discusses the nature of friendship. The death of Augustine’s childhood friend in Thagaste acts as another message from God. His friend’s Catholic family has him baptized on his deathbed, just as was almost done to Augustine. Now a Manichee, Augustine no longer believes baptism is necessary, but his friend, also a Manichee, abruptly refuses to share in his contempt for Catholic ritual and rejects Augustine’s attention. Whether the baptism has a miraculous effect on his friend or his friend simply had a deathbed conversion is not made clear. Augustine is shaken by his friend’s conversion but still refuses to see the message God is sending.

Augustine’s description of his grief is familiar to anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. But Augustine’s excessive grief becomes a sin. He revels in his own misery, weeping inconsolably over his friend. Characteristically, Augustine turns to analysis of his emotions: Why, he asks, do tears give relief? He cannot answer this question, but analysis of the emotion of grief is a subject to which he returns in Book 9.12, where he weeps over Monica’s death. Here, he