Summary of St Augustine’s Confessions of Faith and Repentance
Morality

Summary of St Augustine’s Confessions of Faith and Repentance

The Confessions are both a testimonial and a prayer. St Augustine tells us how he embraced Christianity after he was active in the Manichean sect, a New Age dualistic system where good and evil competed more or less evenly, and where Jesus was totally divine without a trace of mortality. St Augustine had many of the same questions that we hear atheists and agnostics raise today, such as: How can intelligent and sophisticated men believe in superstitions about an Almighty God? How can God be Almighty when sin has such a hold in the world? What is the nature of evil? […]

Confessions Genesis Books 11 - 13
Morality

St Augustine’s Confessions, Creation in Genesis, Manicheism, and Pagan Myths, Books 11 Through 13

How can the light shine in our lives? St Augustine prays, “since your Spirit moved over the waters, your mercy did not abandon us in our misery. You said, ‘Let there be light.’ You also said, ‘Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ You told us to repent. You commanded light to be made.” So, to St Augustine, repentance is light. […]

St Augustine Confessions Book 10
Morality

St Augustine’s Confessions: On Soul, Mind, Memory, Stoicism, Salvation, and True Happiness, Book 10

St Augustine is my favorite Catholic saint because in every major work he explicitly states that the foundation of the Christian faith is the two-fold Love of God, and love of neighbor, where we love our neighbors as ourselves. In Book 10 St Augustine prays to God that “you want us not only to Love you, but also to love our neighbor,” and he repeats this in other books of the Confessions. St Augustine prays to God: “Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do as you will!” […]

St Augustine’s Confessions, His Conversion, Baptism, St Monica’s Death, and Philosophy, Books 8 & 9
Morality

St Augustine’s Confessions, His Conversion, Baptism, St Monica’s Death, and Philosophy, Books 8 & 9

Baptism and confession in ancient Rome were very viewed much more seriously in the ancient world than they are today, as the Christian persecutions were in living memory. St Augustine was baptized in the year 387 while the former Emperor Constantine the Great started favoring Christianity in the year 312, putting to an end the vicious persecution of Christians under the preceding Emperor Diocletian, which was only seventy-five years ago.

Although the severe Diocletian persecutions were fading into history, many Christians had parents or grandparents who suffered and martyred for their Christian faith. There was a strong feeling among the Christians that they needed to be serious about baptism, that committing mortal sins after baptism could endanger their immortal soul. Constantine was baptized on his deathbed since he feared damnation for those enemies that were killed on the battlefield. Monica had delayed her son’s baptism because she was not sure he could repent of the inevitable sins teenagers with raging hormones would commit, and he declined to be baptized until he left the Manichean heresy in his middle age. Many Christians in the time of St Augustine desired to be as serious about their faith as the martyrs were about the faith that they sacrificed their life for.

This explains Augustine’s anxieties as he prepares himself for the challenge of living as perfect a Christian life as possible after his baptism. His anxiety was that he could not control his passions, a common concern in a Roman world so deeply influenced by Stoic philosophy. St Augustine tells us several conversion stories that were shared with him before his own conversion story. […]

Morality

St Augustine’s Confessions: Mother Monica, Concubine, Marriage, and Philosophy, Books 6 & 7

The Confessions were written soon after St Augustine was drafted to be the co-bishop of Hippo, near Carthage. The Confessions are not only a confession of faith and a confession of sin and sinful longings, but also a mirror into his soul, exploring his innermost motivations. The style is unique, Bishop Augustine addresses his Confessions as a prayer to God, addressing God directly, imbedding verses of Scripture and the Psalms directly into his Confessions as he writes these words on his soul. […]

St Augustine Confessions Books 345
Morality

St Augustine’s Confessions: Manichaeism, NeoPlatonic Philosophy, and Monica’s Prayers, Books 3, 4, and 5

The Confessions were written soon after St Augustine was drafted to be the co-bishop of Hippo, near Carthage. The Confessions are not only a confession of faith and a confession of sin and sinful longings, but also a mirror into his soul, exploring his innermost motivations, and thus are included in many introductory psychology courses as one of the first explorations of our subconscious drives. The style is unique, Bishop Augustine addresses his Confessions as a prayer to God, addressing God directly, imbedding verses of Scripture and the Psalms directly into his Confessions as he writes these words on his soul. […]

Command 9&10 Do Not Envy

St Augustine on Catechizing the Uninstructed, Blog 2

If you seek to become a Christian for social or temporal reasons you may backslide from the faith when you see “wicked and impious men” who are more prosperous than you are.  You may ask yourself, How is this faith helping me?  This is the wrong question, for the true Christian seeks “everlasting blessedness and the perpetual rest of the saints so he may not pass into eternal fire with the devil but rather enter into the Eternal Kingdom together with Christ.  He will be on his guard in every temptation, so we will neither be corrupted by prosperity nor be utterly broken in spirit by adversity, but remain modest and temperate during good times, and be brave and patient during times of tribulation.”  Then this Christian will “Love God more than he fears hell,” and he will recoil from evil thoughts and temptations. […]

Command 9&10 Do Not Envy

St Augustine on Catechizing the Uninstructed, Blog 1

In all his writings St Augustine reminds us that the core of our faith is the commands to Love God with all of our heart and with all of our soul and with all of our mind and with all of our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  In this work on catechesis St Augustine teaches that the vice that ruins love, the vice that is the enemy of love is envy, and that the mother of envy is pride.  This section is referenced in the Catholic Catechism teaching on the Commandment, Do Not Covet. […]