Confessions of Saint Augustin

The Confessions is an autobiographical work of Augustin d' Hippone, where he tells his search of God. He thus has a double goal: to acknowledge its sins and its faults directly with God (confession with the Christian direction) but also to proclaim the glory of God. Work is made up of thirteen books. “ the thirteen books of my Confessions rent God right and good of my evils and my goods, they raise towards God the intelligence and the heart of the Man. ” It is a fundamental work, so much by the depth of the analyzes which are made there than by the quality of the style of the writing. The full text of the Confessions , translated into French by Mr. Moreau in 1864 is available on WikiSource:

Historical and literary context

Historical context

Before Théodose, two emperors share the capacity: Dioclétien and Constantin. They organize the Roman Empire against the revolutions and the invasions. The person of the emperor is regarded as crowned and they confer a total absolutism to him. The Roman Empire is divided into two parts: occident and the East. Each one is directed by an emperor and a leader. One speaks then about Tétrarchie (two Auguste and two César ). There are also two capitals (Constantinople and Ravenne, then Milan). One at that time witnesses a vice of luxuries and refinements Eastern around the emperor. Rome remains a symbol, a reference.

With died of Théodose, into 395 after JC, a faintness settles in the Empire, by fear of the invasions.

In 410, Alaric the Visigoth devastates Rome.
In 456, Genséric the Vandal devastates to him also Rome.
In 476, Odoacre takes Rome, one arrives then at the fall of Rome, the end of the Empire.

There had been in the past of Rome many other “bags”, but which this one had been always concerned.

Literary context

At the 4th century, one attends a return to the taste of traditional, the authors taking for example Cicéron for model.

One can quote some authors of the time:

Historians: Amien Marcellin
Poets: Ausone and Prudence
Christian Authors: Holy Ambroise, Holy Jerome, holy Augustin

Development of work

This work was written in three years. Augustin is then 45 years old, he has been baptized for ten years and is bishop of Hippone for two years.

In 394, it understands that the human being is unable to turn to the good without the divine grace, after a second reading of the verse of holy Paul: “That do you have that you did not receive it? ”.

Thirteen books

In books I to IX, Augustin tells in a chronological way his life of his birth with died of his mother. Books X to XIII, them, contain a meditation, a celebration of God.

I - Childhood : Augustin evokes there his first fished years, his first, his rejection of the school, and his taste for the play.
II - Sixteenth year : The author speaks about his disorders and vices at this age, as well as flight of pears.
III - Mislayings of the heart and the spirit: One reads the impure loves of Augustin there, his discovery of philosophy manichéenne, the prayers of his mother as well as the prophetic words of a bishop.
IV - Genius and heart of Augustin : Augustin speaks about his new years of error (philosophy manichéenne from 15 to 24 years), of his taste for astrology, of died of his friend who made it suffer, and of his intelligence.
V - 29e year : The autobiographer tells us his new dislike for the Manicheans, his voyage towards Rome then towards Milan, and finally his conversation with Ambroise, who moves away it still more of the Manicheans.
VI - 30e year :
VII - 31e year : Discovered neoplatonism (all emanates from the single principle which is the good)
VIII - conversion :
IX - the death of his/her mother : sadness
X - the search of God :
XI - creation and time :
XII - sky and the ground :
XIII - mystical Direction of creation:

The first autobiographical work

This work is often regarded as the inauguratrice of the autobiographical kind. It corresponds indeed to the definition which Philippe Lejeune gives, Critique arts person, of the autobiography: “retrospective account that a real person makes her own existence when it stresses her individual life, in particular on the history of its personality”.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, at the 18th century, will take holy Augustin for model, during the drafting of its Confessions .

Many authors will take again thereafter topics approached by Augustin, in particular:

importance of childhood in the constitution of the personality;
adolescence like one period of disorders;
friendship and loves;
the influence of passed over the present;
the concern of the man like a component of this one;
the memory and the time which pass.

Characteristics of the writing

One can distinguish the following characteristics in work from Augustin:

a psychological analysis deep;
the Introspection;
failures and the Progress;
the influence of the biblical readings, in particular through:

repetitions, Anaphora S, Parataxis S, Asyndeton S;
use of the structure " here que" ;
incantations, close to poetry.

Notable extracts

Flight of pears

This passage is at book II, chapter IV: Augustin shows himself there to have, at sixteen years, stolen pears in company of a band of bad lots. But it worries less about the larceny itself than of its causes: it did not act by need, nor even by desire of these fruits, but by “plenitude of iniquity”: “And it is not object coveted by my larceny, but of the larceny even and the sin which I wanted to enjoy. ” Indeed, in this passage of the Confessions, St Augustin tells a flight which it made: first of all he Speaks directly with God, showing well that he did not fly because he needed some but well because he wanted to enjoy the defended act: “I stole what I had”. In the paragraph which follows, St Augustin tells his history: “a band of bad lots”, “the night”, “in the vicinity” who from there will steal themselves of pears for then throwing them to the pigs, their only pleasure being of enjoying to have stolen something… Lastly, in the last paragraph of the passage, St Augustin shows with God (to which he speaks directly): “Here is my heart, O God”, which he liked to steal, and which, if he fell into “the infamy” it is to be able to be pleased to have made a defended act. It finishes by a sentence with moral range for all the men: the man can make the evil to only enjoy to make the evil: “Oh ugliness of the heart which gave up your (God) supports for its ruin, and in the infamy only the infamy itself coveted”. In this passage, the expression of one “I” is very present, that reveals a true personal experience and the expression of personal feelings. August 1st

See too

Other works

the City of God
the Trinity (Augustin)

External bonds

Full text of Latin work.

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