Saint Augustine’s Confessions: Book Review

        The Confessions Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is one of the world’s greatest and most beloved books. Though written at the end of the 4^th century C.E., “Augustine’s Confessions is a book of timeless, the work speaks of the human condition, thus making it relevant fare beyond its original context and audience.”[1] The Confessions was written in Latin but today there are many fine translations of Augustin’s Confessions. For this review, we use Maria Boulding’s translation, published by New City Press. Augustine’s confessions are more “poetry than prose, requiring a different path than is sometimes taken. Boulding is commended for capturing the emotion, humility, and sincerity in Augustine’s writing.”[2] The translator’s introduction is somewhat helpful, especially for those unfamiliar with the Confessions. Boulding rightly sees the work as an “intimate prayer” of a sincere, devoted follower of Christ.[3] Also, the Confessions is a very early example of a literary genre we know as “autobiography,” it is deeply personal and St. Augustine lets us into his deepest thoughts, prayers, and agonies.[4] The Confessions is also “one of the great classics of Christian spirituality, and it holds up a mirror to all of us.”[5]    

        Saint Augustine was born in 354 in Thagaste, a Roman city in North Africa in what is now Algeria. It is important to note that the Roman Empire was a Mediterranean-centered, not a European-centered, empire. St. Augustine lives closer to the heart of the Roman Empire than someone born in Paris or London. Hence he was thoroughly Roman in his culture and spoken Latin as his native language, and he grew to adulthood and converted to Christianity in the most dynamic century of Church history.[6] Furthermore, Confessions is a rich narrative, but one that is not particularly easy to Characterize. One unusual element of the form in the Confessions is that the entire work is a prayer addressed to God. Hence the audience “overhears” the work, rather than listens to it directly. So to discover what kind of work we are reading is the title itself. What did Augustine mean by the word confession? What are the various levels of the word confession that help us understand the kind of work we are dealing with?[7] The Confessions is written in the form of a prayer to God. Augustine writes the Confessions in 397 after he became bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Thus, the events he describes in his earlier life are told from two points of view, namely, where he was at the time of his writing, as well as where he was when the events occurred.[8] Besides, Confessions is more than its autobiographical elements. He was a middle-aged man (43), looking back on the first 31years of his life. Augustine’s Confessions consists of 13 books (chapters) divides as follows.[9]

        The first nine books outline a narrative of Augustine’s life from his birth until just after his conversion to Christianity and baptism. The first two books are about this youth and the failure of his schoolteachers and parents to turn him toward God. Books III through VII explains Augustine’s struggle to understand and to have faith. Book VIII presents Augustine struggling to embrace what he knows to be the truth. Book IX tells of Augustine’s baptism and contains a moving description of his mother, Monica, and her death.[10] The last four books are not narrative. Book X deals with Augustine’s present when he wrote the book and explores the nature of memory. Book XI is a discussion of time and its relationship to eternity. Book XII presents principles of biblical interpretation. The last book, XIII, is a meditation on creation according to Genesis. The Confessions is not merely an autobiography in the modern sense.[11] Readers may, however, have the impression that the Confessions ends with Book IX  and a new kind of work begins with Book X. Gary Wills notes that some scholars have been convinced that books X-XIII were added later. One reason for this is the fact that Books XI - XIII does not deal with Augustine’s life at all. Rather, they are an exegetical exercise on the opening of Genesis.[12] Ruden  put well: “In these [final four] books, he gleefully displays the treasures that his conversion and his resolute adherence to it have given him in the decade and a half since it occurred”[13]

        Having made our way through Augustine's conversion in the garden in Book VIII, his tribute to his mother in Book IX, his searching of memory and identity in Book X, and his meditations on Genesis in Books XI and XII, we see Augustine beginning to grapple with the mystery of the Trinity in Book XIII.[14] As we have journeyed with Augustine through the timeline of his life, he calls us to rest – he prays that we rest – in the work of God who rests outside of time and in Christ who has journeyed into time with us.[15] There is both strangeness and familiarity in the Confessions. Augustine's ancient world is strange, but the language of guilt, desire, yearning, and conversion resonates with the reader in every age... we recognize in his life our restlessness, and he leads us in prayer before God to search for rest... Augustine acts as both Virgil and Beatrice in Dante’s Divine Comedy, leading us through hell, purgatory, and into God’s paradise... but unlike Dante, we are led as a group... while the Confessions is the story of an individual’s journey toward God, it is also the story of the entire church. So, Augustine is traveling companions who help us to understand better who God is and who we are.[16]

        Augustine was a prolific writer who has left us multiple works in a variety of forms and genres. As evidence, in modern times, Confessions is certainly the most read of Augustine’s numerous books. However, in the context of Augustine’s thought, we need to become acquainted with the corpus of his works, namely: Autobiographical works (2 volumes), This category includes the Confessions. Philosophical and dogmatic works (6 volumes). The most famous works in this category include the Trinity and the City of God.  Pastoral works (18 volumes). Among the most important works in this category is Teaching Christianity, sometimes known by the title On Christian Doctrine or On Christian Teaching. The letters (3 volumes). Homilies (19 volumes), This section includes Augustine’s vitally important expositions on all 150 psalms in 5 volumes.[17]                          

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[1] Professors William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman. St. Augustine’s Confessions: Course Guidebook, ( Chantilly, Virginia: The Great Courses, 2004), p. 2.

[2] Steven, A. McKinion. “The Confessions.” Faith and Mission 16, no. 3 (Sum 1999): 126. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0000352655&authtype=cookie,cpid&custid=s9245834&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

[3] Ibid., 126.

[4] Robert, Jeffery. “Book Review: A New Translation of Augustine’s Confessions: Benignus O’Rourke OSA (Trans.), Confessions of StAugustine.” ExpositoryTimes 126, no.8

(May2015):413.doi:10.1177/0014524615573695o.https://booksc.org/book/44144693/ 21e5c7

[5] Ibid., 413.

[6] Professors William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman. St. Augustine’s Confessions: Course Guidebook, ( Chantilly, Virginia: The Great Courses, 2004), p. 6-8.

[7] Ibid., 12.

[8] Ibid., 12-13.

[9] Ibid., 13.

[10] Ibid., 13.

[11] Ibid., 13.

[12] Andrew, C. Stout. “Undertaken in Company: A Journey through Augustine’s Confessions.” Presbyterion 46 (1) (2020.): 112. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAn4790524&authtype=cookie,cpid&custid=s9245834&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

[13] Ibid., 113.

[14] Ibid., 116.

[15] Ibid., 116.

[16] Ibid., 121.

[17] Professors William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman. St. Augustine’s Confessions: Course Guidebook, ( Chantilly, Virginia: The Great Courses, 2004), p. 9. 

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