A Review of St. Augustine’s Confessions

A Review of St. Augustine’s Confessions

by Derek Ekwall

In the Gospel of St. Luke (Luke 15), Jesus gives the parable of the prodigal son and his brother, where we read about the son of a wealthy man who chooses to live a life away from the family, who had chosen to spend the fortune, and ended up tending to fields of swine. When he decided to return to his father, he was warmly welcomed. 

Confessions by St. Augustin is a story similar to this parable. Born in the fourth century to a pagan father and a Christian mother, St. Monica, Augustine chose to run away from the faith of his mother which he was sure to inherit. He chose to live a life of debauchery and sin, a fact which Augustin goes through no pains to hide. What is most striking about this autobiography is the willingness with Augustine has to share even his worst of sins, detailing not just his actions, but also his thoughts that went into those actions. The raw honesty of Augustine is one of the many facets of this book that makes it so intriguing. 

The book was written primarily as a response to critics of his time that were calling into question his past and his fittingness to be ordained as Bishop of Hippo. “Confessions took some of its impetus from a wish to answer critics both inside and outside the Catholic community.”^1^ It is commonly said that when one enters the confessional for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, one says “bless me Father, for I have sinned; I accuse myself of…”, after which time the penitent confesses all sins honestly so that upon exiting the confessional, they can say to Satan (the great accuser), “there is nothing you can accuse me of which I have not already accused myself.” This autobiography can be seen in a similar light. It is a confession of his past sins to the critics inside and outside the Church so that, ultimately, he can bring glory to God for saving such a one as he. 

The life of St. Augustine is fairly well-known among the Catholic faithful, so I will not spend too much time on the specifics of his life. It is well known that in his early life, Augustine was inclined to various types of sin, such as stealing simply for the sake and game of stealing, not because he was wanting the object which he had stolen. He writes, “I stole something which I had in plenty and of much better quality. My desire was to enjoy not what I sought by stealing but merely the excitement of thieving and the doing of what was wrong. […] I had not motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself.” ^2^

He also described how he followed “the driving forces of my impulses, abandoning [God]”; that is, he gave in to the temptation of the flesh. ^3^ He impulses toward the sins of the flesh was something that continued on into adulthood when he chose to live with a concubine. Though he describes this relationship as “the only girls for me, and i was faithful to her,” nevertheless, he never married her. ^4^ The eventually bore a child out of wedlock, and when she was sent away from him, the child stayed with him. Augustine writs: “The woman with whom I habitually slept was torn away from my side because she was a hindrance to my marriage.” Though he felt pain at her leaving, this did not prevent him from “[procuring] another woman,” by which “the disease of my soul would be sustained and kept active, either in full vigor or even increased[.] ^5^

It is also well-known among the Catholic faithful today that in his earlier years, Augustine subscribed to the Manichean heresy, a dualist cult which believed that the Spirit realm was good, the material realm bad, as well as various other myths and legends. Simply put, despite his Christian upbringing, he adopted Manicheanism which was directly opposed to the established doctrines of the Catholic Church. 

One of the beautiful things about Confessions is its timelessness in that, despite certain details which allow one to know the approximate time period in which his life took place, many of the themes, difficulties, and lessons have just as much applicability in the fourth century as they do today.

It is a minor section, written almost in passing, but considering the crisis of modern day masculinity and the overall attack on fatherhood, this particular wording stood out like a red herring. Augustine discusses the differences between his father’s view of his coming of age. Augustine writes, “…when at the bathhouse my father saw that I was showing signs of virility and the stirrings of adolescence, he was overjoyed to suppose that he would now be having grandchildren, and told my mother so.” Conversely, St. Monica’s concern was that Augustine “should not fall into fornication, and above all that [he] should not commit adultery with someone else’s wife.” Augustine recalls that “these warnings seem to me womanish advice which i would have blushed to take the least notice of.” Any good and practicing Catholic man would tell his son the same thing and yet, because these were the words uttered only by his mother, St. Augustine took them as “womanish.” ^6^ The thought does present itself as to what his reaction if they had come from his father instead.

Another frequently recurring theme is our unwillingness to do that which we know to be right and good. When writing about coming towards his conversion, St. Augustine writes that the weight that was on his shoulders was like “the efforts of those who would like to get up but are overcome by deep sleep and sink back again.” His difficulty was that of overcoming the comfort which he had so thoroughly enjoyed throughout his life, though he recognized that the comfort was that of sin. Augustine writes - so very succinctly - that “the law of sin is the violence of habit by which even the unwilling mind is dragged down and held, as it deserves to be, since by its own choice it slipped into the habit.” ^7^

One of the greatest themes that is addressed throughout the book is God’s divine providence and his benevolence, specifically with regards to how God allows things to happen yet still brings about His ultimate will. This ultimately culminates in Augustine’s conversion to Christ in a garden in Milan, a very powerful episode filled with profound personal insight and regret of his past actions. Throughout the book, St. Monica had been ceaselessly praying for Augustine to convert to the faith, a prayer which is ultimately answered.

Confessions is amazing, powerful, moving and timeless treasure which all Christians ought to read. It is the story of conversion, and how God can bring about the salvation of one who chose a life a sin and “became to myself a region of destitution” ^8^ but through the providence of God and the continuous prayer of his mother, came to enjoy the love of God that is “a sweetness serene and content.” ^9^

^1^ Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), xii. 

^2^ Augustine, Confessions, 29. 

^3^ Augustine, Confessions, 25. 

^4^ Augustine, Confessions, 53. 

^5^ Augustine, Confessions, 109. 

^6^ Augustine, Confessions, 27. 

^7^ Augustine, Confessions, 141. 

^8^ Augustine, Confessions, 34.

^9^ Augustine, Confessions, 25.