Book contents
- Augustine’s ‘Confessions’
- Augustine’s ‘Confessions’
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Theological Predecessors to the Confessions of Augustine
- Chapter 2 Trinitarian Metaphysics in the Confessions
- Chapter 3 Augustine’s Therapy of Emotions
- Chapter 4 Augustine’s Confessions and Earlier Exegesis
- Chapter 5 Reading Augustine Reading Scripture in the Confessions
- Chapter 6 Augustine on the Tasks of Reading Scripture
- Chapter 7 The Sacramental Structure and Imagination of Augustine’s Confessions
- Chapter 8 How Great a Debtor
- Chapter 9 Augustine’s Second-Personal Account of the Virtues
- Chapter 10 The Nobility of Sight in the Confessions
- Chapter 11 First Words
- Chapter 12 Augustine on Time, Eternity, and Temporal Experience
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2025
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Book contents
- Augustine’s ‘Confessions’
- Augustine’s ‘Confessions’
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Theological Predecessors to the Confessions of Augustine
- Chapter 2 Trinitarian Metaphysics in the Confessions
- Chapter 3 Augustine’s Therapy of Emotions
- Chapter 4 Augustine’s Confessions and Earlier Exegesis
- Chapter 5 Reading Augustine Reading Scripture in the Confessions
- Chapter 6 Augustine on the Tasks of Reading Scripture
- Chapter 7 The Sacramental Structure and Imagination of Augustine’s Confessions
- Chapter 8 How Great a Debtor
- Chapter 9 Augustine’s Second-Personal Account of the Virtues
- Chapter 10 The Nobility of Sight in the Confessions
- Chapter 11 First Words
- Chapter 12 Augustine on Time, Eternity, and Temporal Experience
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The present volume offers twelve new essays by leading scholars working from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives: theology, both systematic and historical; ancient history and early Christian history; and ancient and medieval philosophy. It is a fitting variety of approaches for a work that emphatically – and sometimes bewilderingly – is not just one thing. The Confessions is an autobiography, a prayer, a song; it is a treatise on God and his providential governance, both of one life and of the whole sweep of history; it is a meditation on Scripture. It is meant to inform, to perplex, but above all to “lift the human heart and mind to God” (retr. 2.6.1). Even the word confessio has multiple meanings: solemn avowal or acknowledgment, the offering of praise and thanksgiving, and the admitting of one’s own sins.
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- Augustine's ‘Confessions'A Critical Guide, pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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