Confessions

The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, Saint Augustine spent his early years torn between conflicting faiths and world views. His Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recount how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from his youthful ideas and licentious lifestyle, to become instead a staunch advocate of Christianity and one of its most influential thinkers. A remarkably honest and revealing spiritual autobiography, the Confessions also address fundamental issues of Christian doctrine, and many of the prayers and meditations it includes are still an integral part of the practice of Christianity today.

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Auteur

St Augustine of Hippo, the great Doctor of the Latin Church, was born at Thagaste in North Africa, in 354 CE. He was brought up as a Christian but he was soon converted to the Manichean religion. He also came under the influence of Neoplatonism. However, in 387 he renounced all his unorthodox beliefs and was baptised into Christianity. His surviving works have profoundly influenced Christian theology and the psychology and political theology of the West.

R. S. Pine-Coffin was born in 1917. He was educated at Ampleforth and Peterhouse, Cambridge. He died in 1992.