Augustine and Spiritual Autobiography, Part 1

Abstract

This is the first of two articles investigating the extent to which an appreciation of St. Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions as literature can morph into an appreciation of them as Christian apologetics. I begin by acknowledging the value of saying that the Confessions should primarily be understood historically and philologically as a key document in the emergence of Christian orthodoxy in late antiquity. But I then look to what we might recover from them of unmediated spiritual truth. I argue that the back story to the book may be its plain virtuosity and inspiration, rather than the factionalisms of North African Christianity and the projection of one man’s view.