The Confessions
by Augustine (translated by Maria Boulding)
Recommendations from our site
“It is an endlessly capacious, inventive, stimulating book. I won’t say it has something for everyone but it has, for its sheer blend of different approaches, a great deal for a great number of people. The fact that the whole thing is presented as a conversation with God, for a start. And Augustine is remarkably self-exposing and self-disclosing. It’s an extraordinary book for someone who’s just been ordained as a bishop to write. The Confessions had to be on this list and it is most people’s way into Augustine. It is this unbelievably pliant and fruitful work. Every time you read it, you notice new things.” Read more...
Catherine Conybeare, Classicist
“St Augustine is, in some ways, misunderstood and misappropriated in modern scholarship and popular perception. I can understand why, because reading him can be a bit of a hard slog to begin with. His Confessions can seem unfashionably self-hating, and the drama that’s being played out, the way he makes a first-person address towards this God figure, feels a bit artificial and it can put people off. But if you work out what’s going on, what his motivation is, and what the context is, what he’s making is an incredibly modern, intimate, psychological diagnosis of the human condition.” Read more...
Simon Yarrow, Historian
“A lot of people think becoming a Christian is a decision you make. St Augustine doesn’t really think that.” Read more...
A N Wilson recommends the best Christian Books
A N Wilson, Biographer
“The Confessions is a book that everybody should read. It is seminal, if you can excuse the expression.” Read more...
Susan Jacoby, Journalist
“The author is a man in early middle age who looks back on his life and narrates his story to God – who, of course, knows all about it already. For the reader it’s somewhat like crashing a session of classic psychoanalytic therapy: Augustine speaks, God just listens, and we overhear. Augustine brilliantly describes the dynamics of hindsight. When he was young he thought he was doing one thing, now that he looks back he realises that something else entirely was actually at stake. At the time he thought he knew what he was doing, but now he is baffled by his own lack of understanding.” Read more...
Paula Fredriksen, Theologians & Historians of Religion
“He was a wonderful, wonderful writer and a deeply passionate man. He was very sensual.” Read more...
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Richard Harries, Theologians & Historians of Religion
“Augustine is such a patient archaeologist of his own mind, and he’s so deeply engaged with trying to understand how we can be so opaque even to ourselves – how we can be wrong about our own inner universe.” Read more...
Kathryn Schulz, Journalist
“It is a wonderfully personal book, but not in a lurid sense like a modern confession. You get an insight into a passionate mind on a spiritual journey.” Read more...
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Carlos Eire, Historian
