What Is Augustine's Confessions?

As he recalls his life story, Augustine is repenting to God. He details his sins and takes responsibility for his wrongdoings. Augustine is trying to find closure within himself and his relationship with God, as his “heart is restless until it rests in (God)” (I,i). He’s trying to find his way back home. In this way, Confessions functions as an apology to God and illustrates Augustine’s inner growth. He details how his confusion “seized hold of my youthful weakness sweeping me through the precipitous rocks of desire to submerge me in a whirlpool of vice” (II,ii). As he unearths his past acts

However, Augustine has another agenda- his confessions are also meant to show his praise and love for God. He says this in the fifth book with: "Accept the sacrifice of my confessions by the agency of my tongue, which Thou has formed and quickened, that it may confess to Thy name... But let my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess Thine own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee." This is a clear declaration of his praise to God, and ​almost another underlying message of the text to the audience. So as he is writing about his life, he is trying also to set an example to the audience about how his choices were not always the best and use this as a guide to their own lives. And finally through his story, use his conversion and change as a way to praise God to show that even someone who "strayed off" the path was able to redeem themselves and how merciful and good God is to accept someone even as sinful as he was.

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

     Augustine on his own view stole the fruit for the mere enjoyment of the sin and theft that the stealing involved. He says in (II,4)

In Augustine 's Confessions, Augustine tells his entire life story leading up to his conversion to Christianity. Throughout his life, he experiences a vast amount of events, both that had major impacts and minor impacts. In the Confessions, Augustine called these events “episodes". The episodes supported his transformation of who he was into who he wanted to be after his conversion to Christianity. Certain episodes in Augustine’s life led to inspiring moments, while others lead to grief and pain. One of the most significant episodes that helped transform him both in the immediate future and long term future was the meeting of the Catholic Bishop Ambrose. Through Augustine explaining each of his episodes in great detail, he made a point of

Augustine is our exemplar to human nature, as well as the guideline to what it means to be human. He demonstrates both the good and bad qualities that humans obtain and show that not everything can always be all-good. In the Confessions Augustine talks about how he knows about his own imperfections. He states “At one time in adolescence I was burning to find satisfaction in hellish pleasures” (Augustine, Confessions, pg. 24). Many of his imperfections have brought a new way of thinking about the human being. In the Confessions, Augustine focuses on his autobiography and how sin comes from inside us humans. From this we have learned about the term introspective conscience and how it depicts when someone is constantly looking at him or herself and looking at the motivation to sin.

Saint Augustine was one of the most important and well-known theologians in the history of the Christian religion. He was born and raised in Thagaste and died in Hippo. He was a brilliant minded person, until later when he sought for truth and virtue. The book, Confessions tells a story in the form of a long translation with God. Throughout the book, Augustine often experiences darkness, blindness, and confusion while attempting to find rest in God, but he knows that when he eventually finds him, his restless heart will be saved. Since Augustine did not believe any of the philosophical tendencies or Biblical Scriptures, he spent most of his life searching for other types of truths that would resolve his doubts. He went through a dark period

Augustine, author of Confessions, an autobiography, was officially canonized in 1298 by Pope Boniface VII after popular demand. In Confessions, Augustine details his spiritual journey from a juvenile, who enjoyed stealing, to an adult when he finally turns himself to God and becomes a catholic. He discusses, in great detail, his thoughts and reflections during each period of his life, which opens our eyes to his qualities as a human being and a saint. Saints are role models, even to today’s standards, who we can still look up to and learn from. Saint Augustine is no different, two important qualities he possessed can still be used today to teach us how to become closer to God. Being a risk taker, and overcoming

St. Augustine states that there was a pear tree near a vineyard, and that moment he and his group of friends shake the tree to acquire a lot of pears (29). Then they went to threw it to the pigs (29). Then here it gets really confusing when he states, “I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself” (29). So, what was the reason that he stole the pears? The reason was for evil itself! He confesses,

In his confessions, Augustine demonstrates humans’ unending conflict with sinful nature, and the desire to be good clearly through his personal endeavors. Augustine was a critical thinker in his era. Uncontent with his current circumstances, and unwilling to accept his sins as all he would ever know, he desired to change. He desired to be closer to God, but his conflicting wills prevented him from doing so. His one will desired to leave all sin behind, becoming like God; however, we see that his second will often overpowers the first, as it desires to continue sinning.

Augustine’s Confessions is a humble life story of a Christian, which I think most Christians have a hard time doing. Even though this story is centuries old, this autobiography shows how much Augustine changed, acknowledging his mistakes and sins as boy to joyous celebration of conversion to Christ. It reminded me a lot about my own life where I looked back on how God changed my life as well. When I read this book, I felt that this story came from the heart of a Christian who struggled with sin all his life.

Augustine of Hippo's biography The Confession reveals a transformation of a youthful sinner to a religious adult. Augustine provides multiple events throughout his life that reveals his belief in God strengthen as he aged. In Book I Augustine looks back to the point where he is a young boy who commits the act of stealing a pear. Augustine states when the pear passed his lips it was “the sin that gave it flavor” He mentions how he did not steal the pear because he was hungry, but it was for the thrill of performing a vice. Augustine's decision to incorporate his experiences from his life in The Confession strengthen the main point in his writing, which was to demonstrate how God did not create evil, but it was man's action that created evil in the world. Augustine purposely chose to tell this story, so readers may see that he is a flawed human like the rest of society.

Within the book Confessions Augustine recalls his struggles in trying to find the ultimate “truth”. Within this lifetime he encounters multiple religions and converts several times. However, Augustine is not converting to just a religion but to a culture. Augustine converts to a culture and a religion due to the fact that religion can be defined as a culture. Like a religion culture is widely shared, influences behavior and is passed down from person to person. Throughout the text we are able to see all of these concepts take place.

Augustine of Hippo’s biography The Confession reveals a transformation of a youthful sinner to a religious adult. Augustine provides multiple events throughout his life that shows his belief in God strengthen as he aged. In Book I Augustine looks back to the point where he is an eleven year old boy who commits the act of stealing a pear. He mentions how he did not steal the pear because he was hungry, however he stole it for the thrill of performing a vice. Augustine purposely chose to tell this story so readers may see that he is a flawed human like everyone else. Readers of The Confession would be able to relate to Augustine story since everyone has committed some sort of a sin. When Augustine becomes an adult he begins to have relations

The overall objective of the autobiography is “…to turn the reader inward, away from the individual journey of Augustine and toward the collective journey of humanity toward the divine” (Norton, 1178). Augustine lived in the early medieval times in which there was a religious unrest and an increase of secular interest. Augustine himself struggled with religion. Augustine’s main goal throughout his life was to be in touch with God once again as he coped with many things including his mother’s death and his lust. Augustine is “Caught between his love for human beings and his longing for the divine” (Norton, 1179) and this is displayed especially when he loves a woman he cannot be with for he has a wife. Augustine turned away from God at a young age and continually had some remorse for this as he called on God quite frequently as he “…cries out to God, ‘Make me chaste—but not yet” (Norton, 1179). Augustine moved to many lands and went to many schools and describes his coping mechanisms in the Confessions. The Confessions is a story of Augustine’s life and his ultimate attainment of coherence through God. This allows the reader to understand examples of how one may reach coherence through God and religion and gives the reader ideas on how to reach coherence themselves and cope with such events as Augustine