Title: Confessions Author: Augustine of Hippo Creation Date: c. 397–400 CE Location: North Africa (Roman province of Africa, present-day Algeria)
Summary
Augustine tells the story of his own life — from his childhood in Thagaste (North Africa) through his restless youth, his intellectual wanderings through Manicheism and Neo-Platonism, his tormented struggle with sexual desire, and his eventual conversion to Christianity in a Milan garden at the age of thirty-one. The famous scene: weeping under a fig tree, he hears a child's voice chanting "Tolle lege" — take up and read — opens the letters of Paul at random, and is transformed. But the narrative is only half the work. The final books abandon autobiography entirely and plunge into philosophical investigations of memory (Book X), time (Book XI), and the opening verses of Genesis (Books XII–XIII). The whole text is cast as a prayer — an extended address to God — making it simultaneously autobiography, philosophy, and liturgy.
Why This Book Matters
The Confessions did not invent self-writing, but it transformed autobiography. Few earlier works had offered such a sustained, introspective account of inner life — the movements of desire, the texture of memory, the experience of time passing. The Greeks wrote biographies (lives of great men); the Romans wrote political memoirs. Augustine turned the gaze inward and discovered a self of terrifying complexity: divided against itself, unable to will what it wills, opaque to its own motives. This discovery — that the self is a problem, not a given — is foundational for the tradition of Western interiority that runs through Montaigne, Rousseau, Proust, and Freud. Beyond autobiography, Book XI's meditation on time (what is time? if no one asks me, I know; if I try to explain it, I do not know) remains one of the most penetrating philosophical analyses ever written, engaging questions that Husserl and Heidegger would still be wrestling with fifteen centuries later.
Historical Context
Augustine wrote the Confessions in the 390s CE, as Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa. The Roman Empire was in its final century; Christianity had been the official religion for barely two decades; rival theological factions — especially Donatists and Manichaeans — competed for doctrinal authority. Augustine himself had been a Manichaean and a rhetorician before his conversion, and the Confessions functions partly as a public account of his intellectual credentials and theological journey. North Africa was one of the most vibrant centres of Latin literary culture — Apuleius, Tertullian, and Cyprian all came from this region. Augustine wrote as a colonial subject of Rome, a Berber by ancestry, a Latin speaker by education, and a Christian by conversion — a man at the intersection of multiple civilisations.
Literary Significance
The Confessions is one of the few works that genuinely changed what literature could do. Its formal innovation — sustained first-person introspection addressed to God, blending narrative, philosophical argument, and prayer — had very few precedents. The prose style oscillates between rhetorical brilliance (Augustine was a trained orator) and raw emotional confession, creating a voice that feels simultaneously public and intimate. The famous pear-theft episode (Book II), in which Augustine obsesses over a trivial childhood theft not for its consequences but for the mystery of why he enjoyed doing wrong, is a landmark in psychological literature — a small act analysed with the intensity that Dostoevsky would bring to crime. The meditation on memory in Book X, where Augustine wanders through the "vast court" of his own mind, is literary phenomenology before the term existed. As prose, the Confessions helped set the template for later spiritual autobiography, from Teresa of Avila to Thomas Merton.
Research Notes
Flagged by the philosophy-spirituality analyst because Augustine is typically classified as "theology" and therefore missed by literary scholars, while civilisation scholars covering Rome or medieval Europe may regard him as too Christian-specific to include. This is a mistake. The Confessions is one of the foundational texts of Western literature — not just Western Christianity — and its influence on the autobiography, the novel, and the philosophical essay is immense. Its North African origin also complicates neat civilisational categories; it belongs to Africa, to Rome, and to Christianity simultaneously. Sarah Ruden's 2017 translation is recommended for recovering the surprising informality and emotional directness of Augustine's Latin, which centuries of churchy translation had obscured.
The Reading
Books I–II: Infancy and the Stolen Pears
Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised. Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rest in Thee. Yet how shall I call upon Thee, my God? And how, before I knew Thee, did I, an infant at the breast, already call upon Thee? Thou knowest, I do not.
I have watched other babes at the nurse's bosom livid with rage against the foster-brother who shared the milk that was meant for them both, and pale with jealousy though they had had their fill. If this be innocence, it is only the weakness of the limbs that is innocent, not the will within. So I make my beginning where Thou madest mine: in the darkness of a creature crying for what it cannot name.
I was born in Thagaste, a small town in the African province, of my father Patricius, a man of modest estate and quick temper who knew Thee not, and of my mother Monnica, whose tears for me were already gathering against the day I should sin in earnest. I was sent to school, where they beat me for preferring play to lessons; and they who beat me had themselves been beaten for the same offence with no more profit. I learnt to read, and to love what I read. I wept for Dido who slew herself for love, and did not weep for myself, who by loving such fables was dying to Thee. Greek I hated, for they forced it on me; Latin I loved, because I had drunk it in with my mother's milk. Even then I bent toward what was beautiful and recoiled from what was commanded.
There was a pear tree near our vineyard, laden with fruit that tempted neither by colour nor by taste. I had pears in abundance at home, and better. Yet one night a band of us young scoundrels went and shook the tree and bore away great loads of pears, not to eat, but to fling to the swine. We tasted a few, only that it might be said we had tasted them. The pleasure was not in the pears; the pleasure was in the deed, because it was forbidden. Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart. Let it tell Thee what it sought there: that I should be gratuitously evil, having no temptation to ill but the ill itself. Foul was the evil, and I loved it; I loved my own undoing; I loved my fault, not that for which I was at fault, but my fault itself.
I would not have done it alone. There was a brotherhood in the wickedness, a laughing of voices in the dark, and that laughter was sweeter to me than any pear. O friendship too unfriendly, unfathomable seducer of the mind — when it is said, "Let us go, let us do it," one is ashamed not to be shameless.
Books III–V: Carthage, the Concubine, and the Manichees
To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want I hated myself for wanting less. I took a woman — not one whom marriage had given me, but one whom restless passion had picked up — and to her I was faithful in my fashion, and by her I had a son, whom we named Adeodatus, "Given by God," for Thou gavest him, though I had not yet learned to call upon Thee for any gift.
In my study of rhetoric I came upon a book of one Cicero, called Hortensius, which doth exhort to philosophy. That book altered my affections and turned my prayers to Thee. Every vain hope at once became worthless to me; and with an incredible warmth of heart I yearned for the immortality of wisdom. Only one thing checked me: that the name of Christ was not there. Whatever was without that name, however learned, could not altogether take me to itself.
So I fell among the followers of Mani, who promised me truth, truth, ever truth, and who taught that there are two principles eternally at war: a kingdom of Light and a kingdom of Darkness, the soul a fragment of the one, the body the prison-work of the other. This pleased me, my God, for it acquitted me of all guilt. When I sinned, it was not I that sinned, but some alien nature dwelling in me. It flattered my pride to be above reproach.
Nine years I lived as a Hearer among them, the lower rank that does not yet wear the white robe. Yet my doubts mounted. I had read the books of the philosophers and astronomers, and what these men taught of the heavens did not stand. They told me to wait for a certain Faustus, a bishop of theirs, who would resolve everything. He came. He was charming, well-spoken — and shallow as a courtyard puddle. He could not answer me. From that hour the rope that held me to them began to slacken.
I left Carthage for Rome, and Rome for Milan, ostensibly to take up a chair of rhetoric, but in truth because I was running from myself and toward I knew not what, though Thou, who didst draw me, knewest.
Books V–VII: Ambrose, Plotinus, and the Light of the Soul
At Milan I came to Ambrose, the bishop, a devout servant of Thine, whose eloquent discourse dispensed to Thy people the flour of Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober inebriation of Thy wine. I came to him as one studying the manner of his speech, not the matter; and slowly, without my marking it, the matter entered. He showed me that the Old Testament, which the Manichees had mocked as crude and contradictory, hath a spiritual sense beneath the carnal letter: that what the simple read as fable, the wise may read as figure. The veil began to lift.
There fell into my hands at this time certain books of the Platonists, translated out of the Greek into Latin by one Victorinus — works of Plotinus and his disciples, in which I read, not indeed in these words, but to this same effect, that in the beginning was the Word. From them I learnt that evil is no substance: it is rather a privation, the absence of good, as darkness is the absence of light. Thus was I delivered from the Manichaean snare. Everything that is, insofar as it is, is good, because it hath its being from Thee.
Being admonished by these books to return into myself, I entered into my inward parts, Thou being my guide; and I beheld with the eye of my soul, above that eye, above my mind, an unchangeable light: not this common light which all flesh may look upon, but other, yea, far other. He that knoweth the truth, knoweth what that light is, and he that knoweth it, knoweth eternity.
But I was not able to fix my gaze thereon. My weakness was beaten back, and I was thrown again upon my wonted habits, bearing with me only a loving memory, as the fragrance of meats which I could not yet eat. Then I knew that to know Thee and to do Thy will were two things: the mind commandeth the body, and is straightway obeyed; the mind commandeth itself, and is resisted. Whence this monstrous thing?
Book VIII: The Voice in the Garden
I was held back by the chain of mine own will. The enemy had hold of my will, and out of it he had made a chain, and bound me. For of a froward will was a lust made, and a lust served became custom, and custom not resisted became necessity. By which links a hard bondage held me enthralled.
Then came one Ponticianus, a countryman of mine, an African in the imperial service. He told me of the monk Antony of Egypt, of whom I had not heard, and of two imperial officers who, walking in a garden at Treves, had found a copy of his Life, and had on the instant given up their careers and their betrothed brides to follow Christ. While he spake, Thou didst set me face to face with myself, that I might see how foul I was, how crooked and defiled. Others rose and went; I stayed, and would not rise.
I withdrew with my friend Alypius into the garden of the house where we lodged. There the storm broke. I tore my hair, I beat my forehead, I locked my knees together with my hands. I felt that I was held by mere trifles — old toys plucking at the garment of my flesh, murmuring, "Dost thou cast us off? From this moment shall we no more be with thee for ever?" And on the other side, the chaste dignity of Continence stood, serenely beckoning, stretching forth her holy hands full of good examples, and saying, "Canst not thou what these youths and maidens can?"
I flung myself down under a certain fig-tree, and gave free course to my tears. And I was twisting and turning in my chain. And lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting and oft repeating: "Tolle lege; tolle lege." Take up and read; take up and read. I began to think most intently whether children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words: nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose, interpreting it as a command from heaven to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find. For I had heard how Antony, coming in during the reading of the Gospel, had received the admonition as if it were spoken to him.
I seized, opened, and in silence read the passage on which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." No further would I read, nor needed I; for instantly, by a light as of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.
I went in to Monnica; we told her; she rejoiced. She had borne me twice — once into this world, and now, after thirty years of tears, into Thine. At Easter, by the hands of Ambrose, I was baptised, together with Adeodatus, my son according to the flesh and now my brother in Thee, and with Alypius, my friend.
Book IX: At the Window in Ostia
We set out for Africa together, my mother and I, and were detained at Ostia by the Tiber, awaiting our passage. There, leaning at a window which looked into the garden of the house we lodged in, we two alone, with great sweetness conferred together. We were enquiring between ourselves, in the presence of the Truth which Thou art, of what sort the eternal life of the saints was to be, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard. And we ascended yet higher by inward thought, and came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might arrive at that region of unfailing plenty, where Thou feedest Israel for ever with the food of truth.
A few days after, my mother fell into a fever, and within nine days she was gone. She had told me that nothing in this life now delighted her, since the one thing for which she had desired to linger had been granted: that she should see me a Catholic Christian before she died. I closed her eyes. There flowed in upon my heart so deep a sorrow that it would have overflowed in tears, but my eyes by the violent will of my mind drank up the fountain dry. I forbade Adeodatus to weep, lest the louder grief of so young a soul should burst from him. Yet within me I was bleeding.
Then in the bath I wept, and was not ashamed; and at last I lay upon the bed, and remembered Thy servant Monnica, and at last let go my tears. And then I wept because I had wept, accusing my mind of weakness; and again, for that accusing, I wept the more. Behold me, O Lord, even in mourning unable to mourn simply, but watching the mourner, judging the judge.
Book X: The Wide Fields of Memory
How then do I seek Thee, O Lord? If God is truth, and we know truth when we find it, we must already in some sort know what we seek. And how do I seek it? By memory, as though I had forgotten it, knowing still that I had forgotten? Or as a thing unknown, so forgotten as not even to remember that I had forgotten?
Great is this force of memory, excessive great, O my God: a large and boundless chamber. Who ever sounded the bottom thereof? I come into the fields and spacious palaces of memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses. There also are stored the thoughts I have framed by enlarging or diminishing what the senses have brought. And there I meet with myself, and recall myself — what, when, where I did a thing, and how I was affected when I did it.
There also lurk forgotten things, that yet can be recalled; and the memory of having forgotten; and the very forgetfulness itself, which I could not hold in mind unless somehow I remembered it. Where in my memory dwellest Thou, O Lord? What manner of lodging hast Thou framed for Thyself, what manner of sanctuary builded? Thou hast given this honour to my memory, to reside in it; but in what quarter thereof Thou residest, that am I now considering.
And I, a bishop set over Thy flock, must yet confess that I am not safe. The pleasures of the palate still beset me; the sweetness of song in the church, when it carrieth me away by the melody more than by the words, accuseth me; the lust of the eyes goeth roving among colours and shapes; the curiosity of the mind would pry into matters that concern me not; and the love of praise from other men is a snare from which I do not know that I have yet escaped. The converted soul is not the purified soul, but the soul which knoweth its impurity and casteth itself upon Thy grace.
Book XI: What Then Is Time?
The men of vanity ask: What was God doing before He made heaven and earth? I answer not, as one is said to have answered jestingly, "He was preparing hell for those who pry into mysteries." That is to mock the question, not to answer it. I answer rather: there was no "before." For Thou madest all times, and time itself is among the things Thou madest. Before all times, Thou art. There is therefore no "then" in which Thou wert not yet doing anything.
What then is time? If no one asks of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say boldly that if nothing passed away, time past were not; and if nothing were coming, time future were not; and if nothing were, time present were not. Those two times, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not, and the future is not as yet? And the present, should it always be present, and never pass into time past, would not be time, but eternity. So that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tendeth not to be.
Whence and by what way and whither passeth it, while it is being measured? Whence, but from the future? By what way, but through the present? Whither, but into the past? From that which as yet is not, through that which hath no space, into that which now is not. Yet what is it that we measure, if not time in some space? Of times to come we do not say, They are long, but, They will be long; of times past, They were long. They are not; and that which is not, hath no length.
It is in thee, O my mind, that I measure my times. The expectation of things to come, the consideration of things present, the memory of things past — these are the three. Thou measurest not the things that pass, but somewhat in thyself, which abideth when they have passed. The mind is stretched out — distentio animi — reaching forward unto the things to come and back unto the things past, and the present is the attention by which what shall be passeth into what hath been. There, in the soul, is the measure; nowhere else.
And I, what am I, when I am at my best? A question I have become to myself; a soil of difficulty and of much sweat. Yet I have spoken these things, even such as I have been able, before Thee — Thou who hast made me, and remade me, and to whom my heart, having wandered far, doth at length return, as a stream to the sea from which it came forth.
This post is part of Civilisations, a 149-book chronological journey through world literature. See the full collection →
Sarah Ruden's Modern Library translation (2017) recovers the surprising informality and emotional directness of Augustine's Latin that centuries of churchy translation had obscured. Henry Chadwick's Oxford World's Classics edition (1991) remains the standard scholarly rendering.
Translated by Sarah Ruden. A revolutionary modern translation that restores the colloquial energy of Augustine's Latin.
Translated by Henry Chadwick. The standard scholarly edition — comprehensive notes and introduction from one of the great authorities on early Christianity.
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