![]() ![]() Alypius wrote to Paulinus and sent him some of Augustine's works. One purpose of the Confessions, then, was to defend himself against this kind of criticism, by explaining how he had arrived at his Christian faith and demonstrating that his beliefs were truly Christian.Īnother motivation may have been a bit of correspondence between Augustine's close friend Alypius and a notable Christian convert, Paulinus of Nola, a Roman aristocrat who had renounced the world and his immense family fortune upon converting to Christianity. ![]() In the midst of Augustine's prominent role in the Donatist controversies, he was suspected both by his Donatist enemies and by wary Catholic allies. Augustine's precise motivation for writing his life story at that point is not clear, but there are at least two possible causes.įirst, his contemporaries were suspicious of him because of his Classical, pagan-influenced education his brilliant public career as a rhetor and his status as an ex-Manichee. Augustine probably began work on the Confessions around the year 397, when he was 43 years old. ![]()
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