Augustine's "Confessions": A Biography

by Garry Wills

In this brief and incisive book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills tells the story of the "Confessions"—what motivated Augustine to dictate it, how it asks to be read, and the many ways it has been misread in the one-and-a-half millennia since it was composed. Following Wills's biography of Augustine and his translation of the "Confessions," this is an unparalleled introduction to one of the most important books in the Christian and Western traditions.

Understandably fascinated by the story of Augustine's life, modern readers have largely succumbed to the temptation to read the "Confessions" as autobiography. But, Wills argues, this is a mistake. The book is not autobiography but rather a long prayer, suffused with the language of Scripture and addressed to God, not man. Augustine tells the story of his life not for its own significance but in order to discern how, as a drama of sin and salvation leading to God, it fits into sacred history. "We have to read Augustine as we do Dante," Wills writes, "alert to rich layer upon layer of Scriptural and theological symbolism." Wills also addresses the long afterlife of the book, from controversy in its own time and relative neglect during the Middle Ages to a renewed prominence beginning in the fourteenth century and persisting to today, when the "Confessions" has become an object of interest not just for Christians but also historians, philosophers, psychiatrists, and literary critics.

With unmatched clarity and skill, Wills strips away the centuries of misunderstanding that have accumulated around Augustine's spiritual classic.

Genres: History, Religion, Biography, Theology, Christianity, Nonfiction, Medieval History

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Garry Wills is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1993.
Wills has written over fifty books and, since 1973, has been a frequent reviewer for The New York Review of Books. He became a faculty member of the history department at Northwestern University in 1980, where he is an Emeritus Professor of History.

Reviews

[Brother Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended by my seminary prof (church history).

Gary Wills sheds a lot of light on Augustine's Confessions while also and interacting with a lot of the scholarship around it. Now it seems pretty obvious, but I appreciated having been shown how Augustine writes himself into the biblical narrative (temptation at the tree, the agony in the garden during his "conversion", being "clothed" at different points in his spiritual journey, baptism, etc.). I also think Wills gives a satisfying argument for why there seems to be a disconnect between the autobiographical part of the first ten books and the Genesis exposition of the last three. He argues that its not an autobiography, but a prayer of spiritual cleansing and reflection in God's presence before Augustine excitedly takes on the enormous task of mining the depths of meaning in Genesis.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty fascinating to see how Wills interprets certain aspects of the Confessions that are overlooked by modern eyes. That being the case, with books like the Confessions I’m always interested in their wirkungsgeschichte, which, unfortunately, is really only one chapter (which was highly fascinating!). That being the case, there are lots of fascinating nuggets that make this worth the read.

[Relstuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a biography of Augustine's book, Confessions, not a biography of Augustine. Though, there is some crossover with a fair amount of biographical detail from Augustine's life.

It was short.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. If this book were placed between two covers with Wills' full translation of the Confessions, together they would comprise the best thing on Augustine since Peter Brown's biography of nearly 50 years ago. Clear, detailed, readable, well-argued and plausible. Exactly what was missing from Wills' bare-bones Penguin translation. An enormous help in trying to understand what is now a fairly remote and difficult book.

[William Lay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I certainly enjoyed portions of this book, and learned from it. From the very beginning learning how Augustine dictated his writings to scribes who made notations in wax tablets. It was not a solitary Augustine ruminating with a quill pen and writing on a scroll.
I also learned quite a bit about Augustine's life and milieu.

[Ashlyn Gayk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. Highly recommend this book!

[Miles Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven; Wills is a better biographer than theological historian.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wills spends the vast majority of this book commenting on and clarifying the content of Confessions. His commentary is helpful, but it also felt like mere clear summary for long stretches. So if you’ve read Confessions, much of Wills’ book won’t be new for you. He weaves some refutation of influential readings of Confessions in with his own summary and commentary, but I was hoping for more than a mere 15 page very high-level chapter on the book’s reception history. Wills seems pretty confident that if you just read Confessions you’ll realize that the majority of influential takes on it are bad… Fine, but why not go into more depth on what those takes were? And how is the book read outside of the academy?

Summary: I’d read this again for Wills’ own commentary and clarification of Augustine’s text. But it’s only a teaser of a reception history.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a biography in the normal sense, but rather a portion of one man's life as he seeks to discover "the truth". Augustine's work is written 10 years after his baptism in 387 AD and in it, Augustine retells how he came to know God in the years leading up to his baptism. A very "deep" and philosophical work that was addressed to God, but includes introspective questions a reader in the twenty-first century can use to examine oneself and his or her beliefs. Wills' translation is very readable. The one drawback I wish he had addressed was to include the actual Biblical references to which Augustine refers. Wills takes the time to denote a quote from the Bible with single quotations marks but makes no inclusion of where to find the quote - not necessarily a difficult task to find a quote's location in the Bible given the advent of the internet, but with so many quotes one could spend an incredible amount of time trying to locate all the references if one wished to do so.

[Paul Heidebrecht · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far, best commentary on Augustine's Confessions you will find. Wills has a knack for finding the real Augustine and showing us why we are all in debt to the Bishop of Hippo. I like to point out that the first and maybe most influential theologian of the Church was North African. So fitting that the African Church is once again moving into leadership of the Church worldwide.

[Jon Balserak · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a superb book - Wills analyzes the Confessions with care and insight. He is an extremely clear writer and one who is not afraid of setting out potentially provocative lines of inquiry. A thoroughly stimulating read!

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garry Wills' set of books on Augustine's Confessions are better than this book. Even so, there is different material in this book. Wills' insights into Augustine are always of interest.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a worthwhile read, this wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. Wills’ biography of Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ acts more like an extended introduction or commentary on the text (and its historicity) rather than a history of the text’s vast influence across the generations, which is what Alan Jacobs did so well with the Book of Common Prayer (in the same series as this book). Wills only performs an analysis of Confessions’ “afterlife” in the final, fleeting chapter, but it narrowly focuses on scholarly receptions and discourse and not wider influence on culture or church history.

This book is still worth reading for those interested. The chapter on genre is especially brilliant, and Wills’ overall argument - that the oft-overlooked, final books in Confessions (abstract theological meditations on Genesis) are key to understanding the whole - is sound advice for general and academic audiences.

The way Wills joins in with his peers to question the historicity of some (or all) events described by Augustine does take part of the shine off the impression Confessions made on me, and some may be offended by that questioning. The spirit of the text, however, cannot be shaken, and I will continue to reflect on this stranger’s life and experience of God’s grace and glory.

[Ben Crosby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is rather different than most of the books in "Lives of Great Religious Books," insofar as it isn't a reception history but is rather a guide to the Confessions.

That said, it is a good one; in particular, the author has a very intriguing suggestion that much of what Augustine is up to in the Confessions, and especially in some of the episodes that have attracted the most scholarly attention (the pear-stealing, mourning the death of his friend, and of course the scene in the garden) is referencing, and in a sense recapitulating in himself, various Scriptural episodes, especially from the Book of Genesis.

Although I'd still love to learn more about the reception history of the Confessions, this book did leave me hungering for a re-read of Augustine's Confessions -- and I believe I will embark on that a better reader of Augustine than I was before reading this book.

[applesaucevictim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good and helpful introduction to the famous work of Augustine. Wells’ commentary briefly surveys past interpretations while arguing for a more nuanced and symbolic reading of Confessions. Wells has proven himself to be a classicist in the fullest sense of the word: drawing on his own interpretations of the text from its original Latin while taking into account the whole of Augustine’s work and philosophical past. Although brief and mostly introductory, Wells gives a convincing reading if Augustine’s Confessions by emphasizing its deeply rich symbolic layers (a la Dante’s Divine Comedy) 3.5 stars

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am sorry I did not read the Mary Boulding version - I received it after I was well into Garry Wills translation. I thought Ms. Boulding did a far better job.

It was an interesting read/reflection on sin and grace, evil, the journey. However, it also was an interesting reflection on attitudes towards women. So much of our theology is based on Augustine who had so much trouble with his sexual desires, it is not surprising that sexual sin is thought of as top of the list and women (bodies - of the flesh) are given less dignity.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garry Wills (b. 1934), a fine stylist and long a student of Augustine, has written this slim book with verve and confidence, arguing that Confessions is not a spiritual biography but rather a book-length meditation on the nature of the Trinity as displayed in Genesis 1-3. Though much of Wills’ commentary on Confessions is apt, the quotations from Augustine (and their explication) often seem overlong, while Wills' reception history of Confessions is largely restricted to a final chapter.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wills' main thesis is that Augustine structures the Confessions according to the creation account and fall narratives in Genesis. He highlights the Genesis motifs throughout as he traces the main contours of Augustine's life as recorded in the Confessions. Thus, the book is more about the content of the Confessions than its reception history (the final chapter, although brief, relays the book's reception up to the present).

[NuevoBereano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buena introducción a la historia del libro. De hecho, no sería mala idea que aquellas personas que quieran leer las confesiones estudien antes este pequeño librito. El gran problema que tiene la obra de Agustín es que tienta al lector despistado a cerrar el libro antes de que empiece el rapto extatico-exegetico, es decir, los últimos capítulos.

Leer este estudio te ayudará a mantenerte firme y llegar al final.

Benedíctum Nomen Iesu!

[Daniel Silliman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely little book on the history of a great, but complicated and sometimes hard to understand book. Occasionally Wills' own interests seem to lead him away from Augustine's, but this is an excellent secondary source for anyone interested in Confessions.

[Deryk Rumbold]

I thought it would be more like a "pre-requisite" reading for Confessions but it definitely feels like it is very reliant on the reader having read Confessions itself beforehand, which I have not as of now.

[Ben Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

My takeaway from this extended essay is that describing Confessions as an autobiographical work is reductive as both the historicity and theology present in the work tend to be passed over by this description of genre.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easily readable, generally well-written and entirely useful introduction to the context, structure and themes of the Confessions.

[PJ Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

A conversion story through self-reflection. A true and honest glimpse into Augustine's heart.
I've read this in several translations.

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved this book a lot more than i thought i would.

[Fitz V Fright · Rating 5 out of 5]

really accessible, and the material is wonderful as well and clarified very well by the author. i found the tone very unbiased but at the same time, respectful of the faith.

[Matt Pitts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wills, who has translated the Confessions, has written a book that is part guided tour, part commentary, and part reception history of Augustine's most accessible work. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it made me want to read the Confessions again.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed a number of the titles in Princeton’s Live of Great Religious Books series, and, having read a number of St. Augustine’s works since college, I looked forward to reading Garry Wills’s “life” of the Confessions. With one or two caveats, I was not disappointed. Wills’s biography of the Confessions is a brisk, well-written, and informative guide to the life and times of Augustine’s book.

One of the strengths of Wills’s book is the attention he gives to the historical context in which Augustine wrote. Or dictated, as Wills points out all important people of Augustine’s time and place—and volume of output—did. Wills lays out the way people of the time wrote, what assumptions they brought to the writing process, and how writing was duplicated and disseminated. Where modern people are accustomed to read a book like Confessions as the private journal of a man’s intimate thoughts with God, in reality it was dictated to a roomful of scribes while yet other writing projects and ecclesial duties were underway.

Over the course of recounting both the story of Confessions and how Augustine came to write it, Wills also exposes the centrality of Genesis to Augustine’s story. The parallels are myriad but often overlooked, and Wills does a wonderful job highlighting them. Augustine, in telling his own story, consciously invoked the imagery and message of Genesis—his fall and redemption were Adam’s. The result, for me, was a renewed appreciation of the Confessions as a literary work.

Two things keep me from giving the book five stars. The first is that the latter third or so of the book becomes very quotation-heavy. Wills falls into a rhythm—explaining a passage of Augustine, quoting at length from it, sometimes as much as a page and a half, and then rehearsing again the passage’s meaning and tying it to the next such passage to be quoted. It becomes repetitious and even tedious after a while, all the more so because it is unnecessary.

Second, the book, unlike the others in the Lives of Great Religious Books, severely truncates the section of the biography dealing with the Confessions’ “life” since Augustine. Wills runs through the history of the Confessions’ reception and interpretation in a single chapter, gliding over points like Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin in a single paragraph. This section has offered some of the most interesting and rewarding material in the other Lives in the series (especially my two favorites, Alan Jacobs’s life of The Book of Common Prayer and Mark Larrimore’s life of The Book of Job), but Wills all but skips it. And as short as the book is, the shortest of the series by far, it could have stood expansion.

Despite those two weaknesses, Augustine’s Confessions: A Biography is an excellent read. Wills takes a great work of literature, meditation, and devotion and, by unpacking the literary and theological features of Augustine’s narrative and setting the book in its historical context, makes it fresh, vivid, and helps the reader understand just what gave the book its lasting power.

Recommended.

[Jeff Zell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wills, Garry. Augustine's Confessions: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.

This book is part of Princeton University Press’ Lives of Great Religious Books series. I expected more explanation of how the Confessions impacted people throughout the ages. This explanation was relegated to the last chapter. According to Wills, the Confessions was received as autobiography until relatively recently. And, while it continued to be read through the Middle Ages and Reformation era, it did not have the same kind of impact as Augustine’s works such as On the Trinity or On Teaching the Christian Faith. During the Romantic period in the late 18th century, there is renewed attention to the Confessions. However, different aspects of the story receive more attention than others. For example, there is the emphasis on Augustine as the “great sinner,” and later, the usage of Freudian psycho-analysis to put Augustine “on the couch.”

In the first eight chapters Wills informs us on how to properly read the Confessions. Wills argues that Augustine may talk about himself, but this is not an autobiography as we know it today. The Confessions is an extended prayer that includes an extended engagement with Holy Scripture. Wills argues that the pattern of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, provides the structure by which Augustine tells the stories of his life. Wills points out that what Augustine says in the Confessions does not line up with what he writes in his letters, other writings, or what others recall of details.

Wills also argues that the famous scene in the garden that is labeled as a conversion experience for Augustine is not the final step to fully receiving Christ, but is really the moment when he gives us sex.

Wills argues that the final three chapters in the Confessions is an extended reflection on the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I found Wills’ short book (148 pages of text) an enjoyable and challenging read. When I go back to read the Confessions this summer I will be looking at what Augustine writes there with a more critical eye than the first time I read it more than two decades ago.

Wills relies on his own skills as a historian and classics scholar, but he quotes the Augustinian scholars James O’Donnell and Peter Brown with regularity.

[The American Conservative]

' Wills clearly loves his subject—as his earlier short biography of Augustine demonstrated—and that admiration is tied to a clear-headed examination of the many ways Augustine’s critics have gone astray over time, beginning with a radical misinterpretation of what sort of text the Confessions is in the first instance. One cannot compare it to an autobiography like Rousseau’s endlessly self-referential Confessions; instead, Augustine’s work is best read as a prayer. Wills is not the first to make this observation, but it is one worth noting many times over.'

Read the full review, "Remembrance of Things Blessed," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...