St. Augustine's Confessions In The History Of Christianity

In the Confessions by Saint Augustine, this great philosopher experiences many problems and emotions related to sin and evil. As a boy, he often felt darkness, blindness, and confusion while attempting to find rest in God. Augustine started out in childhood with a restless heart because he had to live in two different worlds. These worlds consisted of his mother’s Christian faith, and the world of everything else. These two worlds confused and disturbed Augustine as a child. Augustine’s father was pagan and his mother was Christian, and they both wanted him to be very successful in the world. As he became confused, he began asking questions that could not be answered such as, “Humans often feel restless, but what is it they need to feel at

Augustine’s literary style in Confessions was very effective in relaying his thoughts on evil, redemption, Genesis, and his personal dichotomy between the bible and Neoplatonism. . Though the first nine books are a reflection of his life they are filled with the relationship between his thoughts and actions and his path to redemption and salvation, connecting these with his deep philosophical thoughts in the final books. It was interesting to see how his perspective changed over the course of his life as he began to combine Neoplatonic thought with metaphorical analysis of the bible.

Aurelius Augustinius, St. Augustine, was born in 354 A.D. in Tagaste, a town in North Africa. Born just over a century before the fall of Rome, Augustine would live his entire life within the Roman empire. Augustine was a great Christian thinker and wrote numerous works which survive today, and offer us a vivid glimpse into the period. His works and thoughts on Christ, the nature of God, the role of the Church, and myriad other topics, shaped much of medieval thought. He would remain a major influence for 1000 years after he died. Two of his works stand out as possibly the most important of his writings: City of God, and Confessions. Augustine's Confessions is the first ever

In Augustine’s Confessions, he confesses many things of which we are all guilty; the greatest of which is his sadness of not having a relationship with God earlier in his life. He expressed to us that to neglect a relationship with God is far worse than the pity he felt for Dido. In reviewing his life, he had come to examine life and how there are temptations in this world that can keep us distracted. He tells to us how he became aware of this fact; everything is negligible except love for God, and his own guilt at not having found this truth sooner.

In The Confessions, Augustine goes on a journey to discover the truth, and purses the ideals of how he should live and what he finds value in. In his pursuit for the truth and his journey through life, Augustine is faced with obstacles that significantly shaped who he is, forming his very thoughts contained in the novel. The obstacles Augustine had to face through his life was the confrontation of sin and why humans perform sinful actions, the passing of his friend, and the passing of his own mother.

The theological issue that most perplexed Augustine in his youth was that his mother Monica was Christian. He had turned his back on Christianity in his days as a youth and always tried to hide his views about Christianity. His mother never give up and always prayed that one day he would return Christian. I believed his Mother prayers had a lot to with him converting to

I was tossed and spilled, floundering in the broiling sea of my fornication, and you said no word” (Conf. II.1). Augustine acted just as the prodigal son did by straying from God and being taken over by worldly pleasures. As in the story, Augustine does come back to God and devotes himself to Him more than ever. It can be reasonably inferred that God rejoices more in the people who were lost and then found their salvation than to always be faithful towards Him. This suggests that God wants people to try and do it on their own, making mistakes after mistakes, and then hitting rock bottom to perhaps humble one in order to get their full attention to be placed on Him; this is what a responsible self looks like. In this section, the theme

It is obvious from The Confession that Augustine was a man who struggled endlessly to extricate himself from the bondage of sin, but the more he tried, the more he failed and sinks deeper into its abyss. And with every failure, comes a sense of disappointment and despondency, until he had a strange experience. In AD 386, while sitting in his garden, Augustine heard a voice from some children playing not far away urging “him” to pick the book—the Bible, and read. What he read from Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Christian in Chapter 13 transformed, not only his understanding of the hopelessness and despair man encounters in trying to solve the problem of sin on his own, but he saw the provision that God has made to remedy the consequences of sin and the grace he has graciously provided to live a life that is acceptable to God. That moment was the turning point in Augustine’s life and how he developed his sotoriological

St. Augustine was a theologian and philosopher born in Africa to St. Monica. Although he is now known as a an incredibly influential Christian writer and thinker, his early years were defined by rebellion and discord that did not, in the least, reflect Christianity or the values that he is now known for supporting. His early years were freckled with mindless disobedience, wretched behavior, and characterized godlessness that makes his conversion to the faith incredibly remarkable and one that is worth defining in Saint Augustine 's Confessions. His incredible turnaround from a faithless man to a devout supporter of Christianity is significant and is freckled with many major milestones that truly demonstrate his spiritual and internal growth into one of the biggest spiritual icons of the fifth century. These major milestones include his realization that his boyhood was defined by pointless rebellious behavior, even though he grew up in a Christian home, his new found appreciation for philosophy as well as God and his incredible mercy during his years as a student at Carthage,

Augustine begins his autobiography with a prayer and meditation. This is fitting because the main theme of The Confessions is to praise and thank God. He begins by saying that God has, “made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.” This is a very good point because it is a reflection of Augustine’s struggle to find piece with himself. Throughout the rest of the book Augustine is constantly changing his beliefs and looking for the truth, his heart is restless. And it is not until he finds the Catholic faith and has his conversion that he finds piece. Augustine like all philosophers is a lover of truth.

Before submitting himself to God, Augustine lived a life controlled by various sinful tendencies such as theft and lust. Surrounded by strong believers of Catholicism, such as his mother, St. Monica, Augustine grew up questioning Christ and the faith and rather explored other religions. Two religions that Augustine devoted himself to were Manichaeism and Neoplatonism. While both religions had strengths and flaws, neither truly satisfied Augustine’s spiritual emptiness. Before devoting himself fully to the Catholic faith, Augustine is seen as an honorable saint because of the significance of his works and teachings. Augustine’s conversion from Manichaeism to Neoplatonism to Catholicism as noted through Confessions, transformed his life from being powered by sin and immortality to a life dominated by rectitude and devotion.

At this point in his life, Augustine is recognized for doing many things for the Church as a priest, author, and defender of faith. As an author he wrote Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, and City of God, his great work describing the Christian philosophy throughout history. In this magnificent work,

An essential part of Confessions is Augustine’s conversion to Christianity and his evolving understanding of good and evil. In book seven of Confessions, Augustine describes his perception of God before his conversion to Christianity. He explains that he

Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was one of the greatest philosophers of the roman period. He was raised in a religiously divided home, but through time he found his own truth. He was always an excellent student. He fully mastered the Latin language, however, he never did well with Greek. Saint Augustine was also a man who had a way with words. After his teenage rebellious stage, he found an unorthodox religious group that he decided to become involved with for a while. He traveled the area and ended up staying in Milan for a while. This is where he met Bishop Ambrose and began to listen to his teachings. This caused for Augustine think about his life and ultimately converted him to Christianity. After converting, he wrote books such as: Confessions, The City of God, and De Doctrinia (On Christian Doctrine), along with many others. Saint Augustine was and still is a great Christian influence in the world today.

In 383 Augustine left Carthage for Rome where he found refuge with Bishop Ambrose of Milan. A year later he became a teacher of rhetoric. Having visited Bishop Ambrose, the fascination of that saint's kindness induced him to become a regular attendant at his preaching’s. Augustine presently was attracted again to Christianity. At last one day, according to his own account, he seemed to