Augustine: The Confessions

Augustine’s Confessions, written at the close of the fourth century AD, is a deeply significant text in the history of European culture. In it he explains just how and why he came to abandon a successful career and the racy lifestyle of a largely secular existence to follow a life of prayer and study. His highly personal account finds echoes in contemporary trends towards confessional biography. Clark’s approach in this book is to ‘historicise’ - to set Augustine’s own experiences of religion, philosophy and the Christian faith against the long-standing political, cultural and religious traditions of the classical world. The world in which Augustine lived, the structure, style and purpose of the Confessions, and the problems of rhetoric and truth posed by its author’s personal search for himself are all scrutinised in this lucid introductory account.