ABSTRACT
Augustine’s memoir both secured his authority as a bishop and developed a Christian account of the soul’s ascent to God. Using a narrative to confess his sins and praise God helps present Augustine as a genuine Christian, but it also provides evidence for how the soul ascends to God. While Augustine draws on Platonic ideas, his account of ascent is fully Christian. The ascents that Augustine reports throughout Confessions are only tastes of the ultimate beatific vision of God. While Confessions is extraordinarily important to theology, religious philosophy, and other disciplines, it is also subject to charges of naivety, bigotry, and repression, especially from a psychological or sociological perspective. Augustine often bears the weight of criticisms that might be generally applied to Western Christianity. The most obviously problematic aspect of Augustine’s text is the way he portrays women.
