The Routledge Guidebook to Augustine's Confessions is an engaging introduction to this spiritually creative and intellectually original work. Written for readers approaching the Confessions for the first time, this guidebook addresses the literary, philosophical, historical and theological complexities of the work in a clear and accessible way.

Table of Contents

• Series editor's preface
• Acknowledgements
• Map of key places in the Confessions
• Timeline
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 1 The title Confessions
• 2 The circumstances of composition of the Confessions
• 3 The meaning of conversio
• 4 The content of the Confessions
• 5 The structure of the Confessions
• Excerpt 1: part of the opening prayer of the Confessions (1.2.2)
• 2 Language
• 1 The Confessions as a conversation with God
• 2 The importance of questioning
• 3 Coming into language
• 4 Rhetoric and the Latin classics
• 5 Withdrawal from rhetoric
• 6 The language of the bible
• 7 The biblical language of the Confessions
• Excerpt 2: the firmament as bible (13.15.16;18)
• 3 Creation and the sensible world
• 1 Language and sound
• 2 Sense perception and the perversion of the senses
• 3 Manicheism and materiality
• 4 Platonism and immateriality
• 5 The problem of Christ
• 6 Creation as an intimation of God
• Excerpt 3: the ascent at Ostia (9.10.25)
• 4 Memory, time and the self
• 1 Love and death
• 2 Friendship
• 3 The self in time
• 4 Memory and forgetfulness
• 5 The problem of time
• 6 Time and the Trinity
• 7 The self before God
• Excerpt 4: the end of the Confessions (13.38.53)
• 5 Afterword
• 1 The continuation of the Confessions
• 2 Afterlife of the Confessions
• 3 Autobiographies and the self
• 4 Derrida's Confessions
• Bibliography
• Index Locorum