ABSTRACT
Confessions represents the middle of Augustine’s career: it draws on his earlier, more speculative work, and anticipates his later focus on theological controversies. Since Confessions is an account of Augustine’s conversion as well as a dramatization of the intellectual and spiritual revelations that led to conversion, the question of where in his development it falls is important for understanding the work itself. Augustine had always been interested in how one could know God. By the time he wrote Confessions, his ideas had matured thanks to his reflections on the letters of the Apostle Paul and his new understandings of sin and grace. Confessions, Augustine’s best-known work, has powerfully influenced Christian theology and Western literature. In addition to its influence on Western literature, Confessions anticipates Augustine’s later work in scriptural commentary, polemical tracts, and speculative doctrine.
