The Confession - Book XIII

St. Augustine - Tiffany Window - Lightner Museum

It's taken me over 7 months to both read and finally write this post on Book XIII.  It's the most prayerful and praising book in the entire Confessions, so sometimes it is hard to focus on the line of argument.  However, for Augustine, prayer and praise is part and parcel of a confession.  So he begins Book I this way, and ends Book XIII, the last book, this way.

And yet, in the midst of all this prayer and praise, Augustine addresses some of the most important doctrines in Christianity in Book XIII.  For example, he addresses The Trinity; the utter dependency of all mankind, both individually and corporately, upon God, including faith (and any inclination toward faith); the importance and sacredness of the Sabbath.  He reviews the opening chapters of Genesis which deal with the creation, and allows for a broad range of interpretation from its language (showing the influence of Ambrose upon him), so that he uses much of the language as a metaphor for the sinfulness of man as well as a metaphor for the Church.

Augustine also briefly reviews the story of his own conversion (told elsewhere in The Confessions in more detail) in order to emphasize his point of man's tendency to turn away from God, but also of how God can draw even the most perverse person to himself - so that even while the weight of inappropriate sexual desire can can keep a soul down in material things, God can transform it into love which, like a flame, reaches upwards closer to God.

I will list here all (with links) of my postings on the Books within The Confessions:

• Introduction
• Book I
• Book II
• Book III
• Book IV
• Book V
• Book VI
• Book VII
• Book VIII
• Book IX
• Book X
• Book XI
• Book XII

I hope you have enjoyed my summary of Augustine's Confessions.