3. On the recent renumbering of these "post-Maurist" sermons, see Chapter 4. (continued)
chapter 1
Confessions
Confessions is one of the uncontested classics of world literature. Even if Augustine had written no other work, this alone would have insured his lasting fame. Confessions is sometimes described as autobiography.1 Calling it autobiography is at once true and untrue. It is true inasmuch as it narrates pivotal episodes from his life, from childhood through his dramatic conversion and baptism and ending with his mother's death in 387. But it is untrue in other ways. Augustine records only a handful of events within each of its first nine books, and few facts are given. Even attentive readers lose track of how old Augustine might be at different points or where certain scenes take place. There are also puzzling silences. In Book Four Augustine meditates on his deep sorrow over a friend's death, but he never bothers to give us the friend's name.
Confessions may be thin on facts, but it is long on meditation. Augustine offers detailed psychological self-analyses, and these often intrigue modern readers. Confessions is a history of Augustine's heart, a story told from the inside: how things felt to him, what they mean to him as he writes. We as readers get drawn in by the way Augustine reveals himself, by the way he invites us into his inner circle, making us his confidants as he explores the deep recesses of his memory. Psychological analysis, however, forms but one thread. Augustine's deepest concern is theological. Confessions is Augustine's attempt to read his life through biblical lenses, to trace out the way God's under-thesurface promptings subtly shaped the twisting and twisted coursings of his life. In Confessions, Augustine charts his personal salvation history.
1. The scholarly literature on Confessions is vast. See especially Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 7–124, 151– 75; also Serge Lancel, Saint Augustine, trans. Antonia Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002), 204–20; A. Solignac, Les Confessions, BA 13, 2nd ed. (1992). Essential is the paragraph-by-paragraph commentary by James O'Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 2–3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Other sources are listed in the "Suggestions for Further Reading."