Confessions (Penguin Classics)
by Augustine

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Book Reviews of Confessions (Penguin Classics)

Book Review: A Christian Classic
Summary: 5 Stars

Ostensibly, the religious meditations of a fourth century Christian seem quite far removed from our lives. After all, what use would anyone outside of the Religious Studies department at a university have for Augustine's musings on the nature of God and the Christian church? A fair question and one that has likely kept many readers from enjoying the pleasure that is "Confessions." Often pigeonholed as an obscure religious document Augustine's "Confessions" is part memoir, part philosophy, and part doctrine.

At its most basic level, "Confessions" is Augustine's life story with a twist: he is telling it to none other than God. As one might expect from a story told to God, the plot of "Confessions" centers around Augustine's discovery of the Christian church. Like many stories it starts out far from where it ends up; before becoming a Christian Augustine spent many years as part of a vegetarian cult in which initiates spent their time harvesting food for elders whom then "purified" the food by eating it. Besides overcoming his allegiance to this cult, Augustine also had to conquer another, more familiar temptation, his mistress.

From the very first page it is starkly obvious that Augustine feels a great deal of contrition for these transgressions of Christian law. In fact, the depth of emotion that Augustine puts into his writing is one of the most interesting and most endearing parts of "Confessions." Through Augustine's unyielding honesty (even in the face of embarrassing, even scandalous, wrongs) we immediately understand that he has become the forthright, quietly confident person he aspired to be. It is clear that Augustine's detail and openness in "Confessions" does not stem from sensationalism, but rather from a desire to be as honest and instructive as he can be. Although Augustine was aware that "Confessions" would be published and made available to anyone who could get a copy (in the fourth century book distribution wasn't quite up to today's levels) it is quite clear that this book is for only one audience, God.

Yet while Augustine was sure that "Confessions" was written for God, he wasn't nearly as sure as to what God is, and a sizable chunk of "Confessions" is devoted to discovering just that. Augustine does make it clear what God is not; he spends some time ridiculing those who believed that God is nothing more than a huge spirit in heaven shaped like a man. One soon discovers that Augustine's concept of God is slippery, but that it involves some idea that God is everywhere at once, yet in a way that transcends common sense ideas of a three dimensional world. Augustine also spends some time on the nature of God's infallibility, specifically explaining why this is so, and even addresses the question (although, in my opinion, unsatisfactorily) of what came before God. More familiarly, Augustine also sees God as an entity that teaches people by letting them make mistakes, and as an entity that is always prepared to accept a believer once she finds her way to Christianity.

In addition to the nature of God Augustine's book covers several other areas of Christian belief. "Confessions" is liberally peppered with quotes from the Bible and these quotes are used to examine and interpret portions of Augustine's own life. For example, when describing the long and arduous path that brought Augustine to Christianity he quotes from the Bible that though "the ground should yield me thorns and thistles" he should "earn his bread with the sweat of his brow." These frequent quotations serve two functions. First, they describe and analyze events from Augustine's life (presumably in far more exact and aesthetic ways that Augustine's own words could). Second, the use and interpretation of these quotes brings to the reader an idea of Christian belief at this time. In this way "Confessions" serves as an important historical document, one that fuses man and religion through the electricity of the Bible.

The last three "books" of "Confessions" are devoted to an allegorical understanding of Genesis. The first of these three books deals with the nature of time and what separates past, present and future. I found this discussion the be a quite interesting digression from Augustine's book ad well worth my time. The next two books, however, are not nearly a interesting on a philosophical level and at times verge on tedium. There has been considerable debate over just why Augustine included this interpretation of Genesis in "Confessions"; some believe it was part of an unfinished interpretation of the entire Bible (which, given the space Augustine commits to Genesis would have been quite lengthy) while others see it as an appendix to "Confessions." Regardless of one's belief on the reason for these last three books, most seem to agree that they are superfluous and at best make for an awkward ending. As such they constitute the only major flaw I can find in "Confessions."

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