Book I Summary and Analysis

The Confessions of St. Augustine is the story of Augustine's transformation from a young man driven by ambition and lust to the famous Christian monk, leader, and philosopher. Augustine comes from a humble background, and through his intellectual gifts, becomes a leading teacher of rhetoric. As he becomes more learned, he wonders how one knows what the truth about God and the world is. Augustine asks questions such as, "whether I had any knowledge of myself when I was in the womb?" and, "where did I come from?" Augustine asks all these questions, but they do not shake his faith as they would modern skeptics, but rather strengthen his feeling about the mystery and all-knowingness of God. They let him explore his long journey from being a sinful youth to becoming a great investigator of the truth and of...