St. Augustine's Character as Revealed in His Confessions
This essay examines the character of St. Augustine (354–430) as reflected in his Confessions, written around 397 CE as a personal epistle to God. Drawing on key passages from Books I, II, III, and VIII, the paper traces Augustine's spiritual journey from a pleasure-seeking youth to a devout Christian convert. The analysis highlights personality traits including honesty, humility, sincerity, piety, and a capacity for self-reflection. The essay also considers the influence of Augustine's mother's death on his conversion and explores how the Confessions reinforced the Catholic doctrine that repentance and redemption are always possible, regardless of one's past.
- Introduction: Augustine's Midlife Turning Point: Biography, conversion context, and essay thesis
- The Confessions as Self-Revelation and Catholic Cornerstone: Confessions as repentance and Catholic doctrine
- The Individual Soul and Humility Before God: Augustine's humility and God's plan for him
- Confessions of Carnal Sin and Stolen Pears: Augustine admits sexual sin and petty theft
- The Struggle Between Earthly Pleasure and Divine Service: Inner battle between pleasure and spiritual devotion
- Conclusion: Augustine's Character in His Own Words: Character traits attributed to surrender to God
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its character analysis in direct textual evidence, quoting specific passages from multiple books of the Confessions to support each claim about Augustine's personality traits.
- It connects Augustine's personal story to broader Catholic doctrine — particularly the principle that repentance is never too late — giving the literary analysis a theological dimension.
- The essay maintains a clear through-line: it opens by identifying Augustine's core traits, tracks them through the narrative arc of the Confessions, and closes by reaffirming them, creating a well-rounded argument.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective close reading: rather than summarizing the Confessions broadly, it isolates specific quoted passages from Books I, II, III, and VIII and explains what each reveals about Augustine's inner character. This technique allows the author to build a trait-by-trait portrait supported by primary source evidence rather than general assertion.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with biographical context and a thesis identifying Augustine's key character traits. It then proceeds chronologically through the Confessions, analyzing each book in sequence: childhood and education (Book I), sexual sin and petty theft (Book II), student life in Carthage (Book III), and finally conversion (Book VIII). The conclusion returns to the thesis, reinforcing that Augustine attributes his character transformation entirely to God's plan rather than to his own will.
Introduction: Augustine's Midlife Turning Point
The character of St. Augustine (354–430), as seen within his Confessions (begun 397 CE) — which he wrote as a long epistle to God in midlife — marks a distinct turning point in his life, attitudes, and values. The content of the Confessions itself points to several defining personality traits: honesty, sincerity, humility, piety, a capacity for self-reflection, and a desire for self-improvement. Augustine spent his youth licentiously, and up to the midpoint of his life remained far more interested in hedonistic pursuits than in being of service to God. All of that changed, however, precipitated by what we might today call a "midlife crisis." At around the age of 43, Augustine realized that none of the activities from which he had derived temporary pleasure were genuinely fulfilling, and that genuine fulfillment came to him only from service to God.
Augustine was also strongly affected, in a spiritual sense, by his mother's death at around this time. His mother had been a devout Christian — far more so than his father — and she had always hoped that her son would follow her own spiritual path. St. Augustine's own Christian beliefs were not especially strong until after her death, at which point he converted to Christianity, taking the core value of his beloved mother into himself.
The Confessions as Self-Revelation and Catholic Cornerstone
Augustine's Confessions is, first and foremost, a work of self-revelation. As such, it shows the vulnerability of its author and, in particular, Augustine's strong and sincere desire to repent of and learn from his sins. The Confessions in fact forms the cornerstone of the Catholic belief that, whatever one's stage in life or past sins, it is never too late to repent and to seek forgiveness and redemption. This cornerstone belief likely indicates that Augustine was, himself, a forgiving individual — since one must first possess the capacity to forgive oneself in order to truly forgive others.
Works Cited
Augustine, Aurelius. Confessions. In The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Vol. B (Pkg. 1), 2nd ed. Sarah Lawall et al. (Eds.). New York: Norton, 2002. 1222–1249.
Lawall, Sarah, et al. "Augustine 354–430." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Vol. B (Pkg. 1), 2nd ed. Sarah Lawall et al. (Eds.). New York: Norton, 2002. 1221–1222.
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