Augustine: Conversions and Confessions

Follows Augustine on a brilliantly-described journey, combining the latest scholarship with recently-found letters and sermons by Augustine himself, to give a portrait of his subject which is subtly different from older biographies. Augustine's heretical years as a Manichaean, his relation to non-Christian philosophy, his mystical aspirations and the nature of his conversion are among the aspects of his life which stand out in a sharper light. The author compares him with two contemporaries, an older pagan and a younger Christian, each of whom also wrote about themselves, and who illumine Augustine's life and writings by their different choices. More than a decade passed between Augustine's conversion and his beginning the Confessions. The author argues that the Confessions and their thinking were the results of a long gestation over these years, not a sudden change of perspective.