Analysis Of Saint Augustine's Confessions

In Saint Augustine, Confessions, he writes about his journey of finding God and Christianity. Opening each book with a prayer to God, he start off with the sin of being an infant. He then moves on to his school years and what he refers to as his sinful youth. Afterwards he writes of his adult years and the moments leading up to his conversion. He ends the autobiographical part of the book with the years after his conversion.

Saint Augustine converted to Christianity in 386, thirty-two years after his birth. It was not in till 410, that he wrote Confession. Throughout Confessions he uses biblical references and other books to tell his story. Saint Augustine uses the different readings and book in Confessions to convey his message and show

He tells about reading the poem of the wandering of Aeneas and dido who took her own life from love (p. 150). Augustine could easily relate to this poem because it was written in Latin and it takes place in Carthage. Another reason that he can relate to this is he was still on his journey to find himself and was wondering. He writes that he wept over the Dido love, but not over God. Something that he regrets looking back on.

Another important part of Saint Augustine youth but one he later regret is stealing pears of a neighboring farm. In the book he writes, “My desire was to enjoy not what I sought by stealing, but merely the excitement of thieving and the doing of what was wrong. There was a pear tree near our vineyard laden with fruit... (p.29).” There was a lack of motivation, only a desire to do wrong. They were not stolen for their beauty, taste or nourishment. He had better pears of his own at home to eat.

Although this is not directly from a book it can be seen as a biblical reference of Adam and Eve story of stealing fruit of the tree. They know it was wrong to steal from the tree but were tempted by evil and stole form the

Throughout the book he quotes passages and phases from the bible. One of the most important spot is the moment right before he makes the decision to convert. Here he thought he heard a child voice chanting, ‘pick up and read.’ He took this as a command to pick up the book he had and read the first chapter he opened up to. The passage he came to was from Roman 13:13-14, it read “Not in riot and drunken parties, not in eroticism and in decencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and no provision for the flesh in its lust.” After reading this passage from the bible, it instantly made all his double disappear about converting and decide to convert over into the Christian faith (p. 152-153).

Another major biblical reference that is in Confession in this part of the book is the story of Paul conversion into Christianity. Before his conversion Paul, name was Saul. Before he converted he heard a voice asking him “why do you persecute me?”, he was blinded for three days where he did not eat or drink either. He went into Damascus where he told that he was chosen to spread the gospel by a guy name Ananias. Ananias was instructed by God to tell Saul this. Afterwards Saul sight was restored and was fill with Holy