St. Augustine Confessions

1. St. Augustine wrote "Confessions" out of a desire to share the mysteries and circumstances through which he received and sustained his faith, and his sustained battles against earthly temptation. Furthermore, he chooses at various points to point out the fallacies of learned people as they "observe the covenanted rules of letters and syllables," while at the same time ignoring what the author perceives as the true gift of faith in action (11). In many ways, Confessions is a symbol of St. Augustine's own spiritual journey. He recounts his early years in Book Two as "past foulness, and the carnal corruption of [his] soul" (13).

2. From the tone and direction of his writing, St. Augustine clearly intended his target audience to be skeptics of Christianity or unconverted pagans in the latter days of the Roman empire. Early Christianity especially was a highly messianic and evangelical religion which sought to gain conversions in local populations through
the recounting of miracles and testaments of faith such as this book. "Confessions" is an example of breaking down the individual in favor of the symbols of greater faith, to show the worthlessness of humans without guidance from religion and the powerlessness of individual people without religion against forces such as the temptations illustrated in Books Two and Three.

3.
St. Augustine came from a humble background and lived with his parents until his 16th year and in his adolescence had "unclean desires" (14). Later, he turned to thievery out of the thrill of it: "for I stole that, of which I had enough" (15). Eventually, you came to Carthage to study (details on book 3) and began to, in his "unsettled age," study and turn his mind to religion and spirituality. He turned away from what he regarded is unclean practices and faceless people, "proudly doting" (21). Eventually, St. Augustine began to be more aware of his spiritual being and at the age of 29, in book 5, rejected "Faustus" and other agents of the devil and began to work for the church itself. Realizing the poetic power of his own journey, eventually he wrote "Confessions." St. Augustine is continuously attacked by his temptations, and this journey forms a centerpoint for this work. In Book 10, he speaks of the "foul boastfulness" of learned men who seek only power without the grounding of religion
(113).

4. It can be inferred that much of the original spirit of Christianity (in terms of the powerlessness of people without religion and the unclean or vile practices of those who practice no religion) has been retained through the years. The fact that much of the language itself can be understood in terms of modern Christianity is particularly interesting. St. Augustine's interpretation of his own spiritual journey and of the church itself can be seen in both magical terms (speaking about agents of the devil and the path of the fallen versus the righteous) as well as melodramatic, absolutist terms – everything is black-and-white with St. Augustine and his own spiritual journey.