The Beggar and The Pursuit of Eternal Joy
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“All our efforts were directed solely to the attainment of unclouded joy; it appeared that the beggar has already beaten us to the goal, a goal which we would perhaps never reach ourselves.” (Confessions VI.IX)
In Book VI of the Confessions, St. Augustine records an account of his encounter with a drunken beggar. St. Augustine sees this drunken beggar who is living in sincere temporal benevolence. The beggar is satisfied with little and his source of joy is truthfully displayed in his actions. St. Augustine’s perception of the beggar’s condition of joy prompted him to reflect upon his own pursuits.
The drunken beggar wills to throw certain aspects of his life away for making merry. He is, though, authentic in that pursuit. He acts in accordance with his thoughts and, thus, makes merry while drunk. His joy is distorted because (1) it is not eternal joy as it is the satisfaction of a lower, temporal aim, and (2) there is an impairment to his perception when experiencing his life drunkenly. Despite his experience of joy being distorted, he lives in sincere temporal benevolence and does not hide his desire for the temporal.
St. Augustine compares himself to the beggar, concluding that, unlike the beggar who was demonstrating sincere benevolence, he was “dragging [his] load of unhappiness along.” (VI.IX) Although he was living his life among the elites, pursuing higher education, and working as a successful rhetorician, St. Augustine was not happy in his condition. He deduces that he is submitting to vices in the pursuit of temporary felicity, yet he is not experiencing the same joy as the beggar. Instead of being left with joy, he is left with anxiety. In a sense, the beggar had what St. Augustine was looking for: truthful joy.
By identifying this, St. Augustine reveals that although he, too, is driven by the search for the satisfaction of temporal goods (temporal glory and praise), he is being inauthentic in that pursuit. St. Augustine weds the seeking of temporal goods with deception. He recognizes that in the pursuit of the temporal, he has to lie in order to reconcile himself with the feeling of joy while the beggar is authentic in his pursuit and need not reconcile any disjoint between his pursuits and his feelings. The beggar, in this way, is closer to the eternal because he is honest about his desire for temporal pleasures. St. Augustine covers his same desire for temporal goods with his societal placement. He puts a veil over his joy, unlike the beggar. Moreover, he distorts his joy. His distorted perception of his satisfaction of his desires is caused by ambition and, like the beggar, he is willing to throw aspects of his life away for the pursuit of that secular ambition. Unfortunately for St. Augustine, his covered desire and the untruthful pursuit of that will not result in his sincere benevolence but will continually present as anxiety because he is submitting to the vice of deception.
The episode of the beggar and St. Augustine reveals an important lesson to those who are ambitious students at secular institutions and who wish to live fulfilling and sincerely benevolent lives. Oftentimes, the call toward lower goods like that of St. Augustine’s – temporal human praise and recognition – can cloud our eternal journey to true joy. True joy and glory can only be achieved through the fulfillment of our religious obligations and callings. Humans always have the opportunity to turn toward God and fully submit that our true benevolence is found in Him. It is important to recognize when we divert from our eternal journey toward joy for the sake of the fulfillment of temporal goods for temporal joy and rightly reorient ourselves. It is difficult to do so, but it would be worse for one to be content in their temporal benevolence because they should feel a calling to seek beyond their confined contentments. And, we should attend to that calling.
It is neither good to be anxious and successful like St. Augustine in Book VI nor to be free of anxiety but pitiful like the beggar. Because of the opportunity to reorient, humans have to respond to that call to turn to God and recognize that true glory is derived through the fulfillment of our eternally oriented religious obligations and does not come from the fulfillment of mere secular ambition.