Confessions: Saint Augustine

Confessions: (Latin: Confessiones) is the name of an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books, by St. Augustine of Hippo, written in Latin between 397 and 400 AD. The work outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. (Wikipedia)

Book 1: Early Years

In the first chapter, Saint Augustine writes about the period from his infancy to his boyhood.

He questions his existence prior to birth and wonders if he existed in some form before he was in his mother's womb. Was he a part of the infinity of God?

Then he proceeds to examine his earliest years and since he has no memory of them, he relies on the information passed to him by his seniors and likens his behavior to that of other infants he has seen (a thought echoed much later at the start of Charles Dickens: David Copperfield ). From this he observes that even an infant of a day old can be considered a sinner, because it greedily sucks milk, showing much jealousy if it has a sibling to compete with for the milk.

This leads Saint Augustine to echo the idea of original sin, and he says that as humans, we are born sinners, and rightly behave so from infancy (greedy baby example). In fact as we grow older, this behavior is reinforced in us, ironically by those who are responsible for our moral uprightness - our parents and our preceptors - by teaching children to desire fame, to pursue wealth and to act for gaining the honor of men. Thus we continue to grow in sin.

He then sums up the sins of his early years as jealously, prevarication and deception. He says he sought pleasure, sublimity, and truth not in God but in his creatures - both in himself and in other created beings. Only study and meditation later showed him that such pursuits were useless and only served to alienate him from God.

Throughout the chapter, we find Augustine eternally grateful for the gifts bestowed on him as an infant and a child: his mother's milk, his nurses care, his memory, his intelligence and his oratory skill. He considers them as God's gifts and desires to develop them.

He concludes this section by acknowledging the presence of a driving force within him, an inner instinct (which again was a gift of God) that guided him in the right direction and eventually helped him become who he was.