Augustine's Confessions

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Augustine of Hippo's account of his conversion to Christianity and his life up to that point. Written c397AD, it has many elements of autobiography with his scrutiny of his earlier life, his long relationship with a concubine, his theft of pears as a child, his work as an orator and his embrace of other philosophies and Manichaeism. Significantly for the development of Christianity, he explores the idea of original sin in the context of his own experience. The work is often seen as an argument for his Roman Catholicism, a less powerful force where he was living in North Africa where another form of Christianity was dominant, Donatism. While Augustine retells many episodes from his own life, the greater strength of his Confessions has come to be seen as his examination of his own emotional development, and the growth of his soul. With Kate Cooper Professor of History at the University of London and Head of History at Royal Holloway Morwenna Ludlow Professor of Christian History and Theology at the University of Exeter and Martin Palmer Visiting Professor in Religion, History and Nature at the University of Winchester Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:02.0	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:05.0	There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC in our time.
0:12.0	I hope you enjoy the programs.
0:14.0	Hello in 400 AD or thereabouts when St Augustine was Bishop of Hippo in the Roman
0:19.4	province of Africa he wrote one of the most influential works in Western Christianity, his confessions,
0:25.1	his reputation has flourished ever since.
0:28.0	These are confessions about his past life, his youth besotted by sex, his years of living
0:32.4	with a woman unmarried and their son,
0:34.4	his embrace of the Manician religion and other philosophies,
0:37.3	and famously the time he stole pairs as a child,
0:40.1	not because he wanted to eat them,
0:41.6	but because he wanted to steal.
0:43.0	These are also confessions of his faith in the God of the Catholic Church,
0:47.0	just one of the competing Christian churches at that time.
0:50.0	They were a demonstration of how his soul developed, showing a way that others might follow.
0:55.0	And it's argued that his experience of life influenced his ideas on marriage and original
0:59.1	sin.
1:00.1	With me to discuss Augustine's confessions are Kate Cooper, Professor of History at the University of
1:05.0	London and Head of History at Royal Holloway.
1:07.8	Mo Wenner Lodlow, Professor of Christian History and Theology at the University of Exeter, Martin Palmer visiting professor in religion history and nature at the University of Winchester. Kate Cooper.
1:19.0	We place Augustine in Hippo, then part of the Roman Empire. What state was the empire in when he was a young man when he was a boy?
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