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book397–400 CE

Confessions

Disciplines:
theology
christianity
theology/augustine
autobiography

Summary

Augustine's 397–400 CE autobiographical prayer — the first autobiography in the Western tradition — following his intellectual wanderings through Manichaeism and Neo-Platonism to Christian conversion, and exploring the psychology of sin, grace, and the restless heart.

Core Contribution

Created the first sustained first-person psychological narrative in Western literature — 'our heart is restless until it rests in Thee' — and provided the model for confessional, self-examining writing that runs from Rousseau to contemporary memoir.

Historical Influences

Augustine

Intellectual Lineage

Augustine Research Thagaste North Africa Milan Cassiciacum

Allied Works

City of God Reveries of the Solitary Walker

Contemporaries & Peers

City of God Jerome

Minds Influenced

Christian mysticism Rousseau's Confessions Jonathan Bi

Intellectual Posterity

Confessions Restless heartAutobiography Augustine's conversion

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