Every person on this earth wrestles with sin and makes mistakes, but many have a hard time dealing with it. This is why in his book The Confessions, Saint Augustine shares his life with us, filled with mistakes and failure, so that we can relate with him. St. Augustine wrote this book to teach future generations to avoid the mistakes he made and to persuade the readers to turn to God.
Augustine began writing this book in 397 A.D, as a mature man reflecting on his younger years, in order to influence readers his age. “Augustine took up his pen to write this book in 397, when he was aged 43”(7). Augustine shares his spiritual journey throughout his book. He shows many experiences that he had, mostly bad ones that had impacted him the most
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Most of them were about the wrong, regretful choices he made that shaped him into who he was. One of his first deceitful acts was his example of stealing from a pear tree, for no good reason. He stole pears with his friends nearly for the pure joy of doing something bad. “We took enormous quantities, not to feast on ourselves but perhaps to throw to the pigs; we did eat a few, but that was not our motive: we derived pleasure from the deed of simply because it was forbidden”(37). He knew that he would have never committed the theft if he were by himself. As he grew older, he experienced lust and dealt with inappropriate relationships. “Loving and being loved were so sweet to me, the more so if I could also enjoy a lovers body; so I polluted the stream of friendship with my filthy desires and clouded its purity with my hellish lusts”(43). Augustine felt the need for love but did not satisfy that urge with God’s great love. He longed to be loved by something that he could see and feel. “I sought an object for my love"(43). He made it clear that he had an unhealthy sexual love that consumed him. Augustine shares these experiences with the reader to show his vulnerable side, allowing the reader to connect and