Confessions by St Augustine

Paperback: Confessions (Latin: Confessiones) is the name of an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books, by Saint Augustine of Hippo, written in Latin between 397 and 400 AD. The work outlines Saint Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. Modern English translations of it are sometimes published under the title The Confessions of Saint Augustine in order to distinguish the book from other books with similar titles. Its original title was Confessions in Thirteen Books, and it was composed to be read out loud with each book being a complete unit.

Confessions is generally considered one of Augustine's most important texts. It is widely seen as the first Western Christian autobiography ever written (Ovid had invented the genre at the start of the first century AD with his Tristia), and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages.

The work is not a complete autobiography, as it was written during Saint Augustine's early 40s and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work, The City of God. Nonetheless, it does provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights.

In the work, Augustine writes about how much he regrets having led a sinful and immoral life. He discusses his regrets for following the Manichaean religion and believing in astrology. He writes about his friend Nebridius's role in helping to persuade him that astrology was not only incorrect but evil, and Saint Ambrose's role in his conversion to Christianity. The first nine books are autobiographical and the last four are commentary and significantly more philosophical. He shows intense sorrow for his sexual sins and writes on the importance of sexual morality. The books were written as prayers to God, thus the title, based on the Psalms of David; and it begins with "For Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee." The work is thought to be divisible into books which symbolize various aspects of the Trinity and trinitarian belief.

Confessions was not only meant to encourage conversion, but it offered guidelines for how to convert. Not only does Confessions glorify God but it also suggests God’s help in Augustine’s path to redemption. 

Written after the legalization of Christianity, Confessions dated from an era where martyrdom was no longer a threat to most Christians as was the case two centuries earlier. Instead, a Christian’s struggles were usually internal. 

Augustine’s conversion was quickly followed by his ordination as a priest in 391 CE and then appointment as bishop in 395 CE. Such rapid ascension certainly raised criticism of Augustine. Confessions was written between 397-398 CE, suggesting self-justification as a possible motivation for the work. 

 

Much of the information about Augustine comes directly from Augustine’s own writing. Augustine’s Confessions provide significant insight into the first thirty-three years of his life. Augustine does not paint himself as a holy man, but as a sinner. The sins that Augustine confesses are of many different severities and of many different natures, such as lust/adultery, stealing, and lies.

Considering the fact that the sins Augustine describes are of a rather common nature (eg the theft of pears when a young boy), these examples might also enable the reader to identify with the author and thus make it easier to follow in Augustine's footsteps on his personal road to conversion. This identification is an element of the protreptic and paraenetic character of the Confessions.

Due to the nature of Confessions, it is clear that Augustine was not only writing for himself but that the work was intended for public consumption. Augustine’s potential audience included baptized Christians, catechumens, and those of other faiths. Furthermore, with his background in Manichean practices, Augustine had a unique connection to those of the Manichean faith. Confessions thus constitutes an appeal to encourage conversion.

(The above excerpts are taken from Wikipedia)

Confessions by St Augustine was translated (with an Introduction) from the Latin by R S Pine-Coffin. R S Pine-Coffin, a Roman Catholic, was born in 1917. He was educated at Ampleforth and Peterhouse, Cambridge and died in 1992. 

About the author: St Augustine of Hippo, the great Doctor of the Latin Church, was born at Thagaste in North Africa, in AD 354. The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, he was brought up as a Christian, and at the age of sixteen went to Carthage to finish his education for the law. In 375, on reading Cicero's Hortensius, he became deeply interested in philosophy. He was converted to the Manichean religion, some of whose tenets he continued to hold after he had founded his own school of rhetoric at Rome in 383.

At Milan, he was offered a professorship and came under the influence both of Neoplatonism and of the preaching of St Ambrose. After agonizing inward conflict he renounced all his unorthodox beliefs and was baptized in 387. He then returned to Africa and formed his own community; but in 391, he was ordained priest against his wishes and five years later, he was chosen bishop of Hippo.

For thirty-four years, St Augustine lived in community with his cathedral clergy. His written output was vast; there survive 113 books and treatises, over 200 letters, and more than 500 sermons. Two of his longest works, his Confessions and City of God, have made an abiding mark not only on Christian theology but on the psychology and political philosophy of the West since the Dark Ages. He died in 430 as invading Vandals were besieging Hippo.