Augustine establishes confessional literature in his thirteen…
June 401 CE
Augustine establishes confessional literature in his thirteen books of Confessions, written between 397 and 398.
Completed in 401, the first ten books recount the author’s spiritual journey from paganism through Manichaeism to Christianity; the final three books are meditations on the Book of Genesis and other books of the Bible.
In writing about how much he regrets having led a sinful and immoral life, Augustine discusses his regrets for following the Manichaean religion and believing in astrology.
He writes of Nebridius's role in helping to persuade him that astrology was not only incorrect but evil, and of Bishop Ambrose's role in his conversion to Christianity.
Displaying intense sorrow for his sexual sins, he writes on the importance of sexual morality.
He also mentions that his favorite subject in school was mathematics because it was concrete and more rigorously defined than other subjects.
The book is thought to be divisible into chapters which symbolize various aspects of the Trinity and trinitarian belief.
Widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, Augustine’s Confessions is to be an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following thousand years up to the dawn of the Renaissance.