The Confessions: The History Of St. Augustine Of Hippo

The history of St. Augustine of Hippo is often limited to his profoundly popular work, the Confessions. This is precisely why James J. O’Donnell wrote his biography on the life of Saint Augustine. The thesis of this work is to delve beyond the legend, and expounds upon the daily life and public actions of Augustine. James J. O’Donnell surely has the credentials to write on this topic, given that he based this book on the corse that he taught at Yale University, which is also the university from which he received his P.H. D. His biography, which he subtitles A New Biography, hopes to delve deeper than any ever has before, expounding upon the man Augustine painted himself to be versus the actual life Augustine lived. He does this through an extensive …show more content…
I, like many others, began reading this book the the confessions in the back of my mind. Therefore, hearing of some of the self seeking behaviors of Augustine was a completely new field of thought for me. Yet, the author used Augustine’s own words and well documented actions to expound upon the strong accusations he uses. It is for this very reason that this biography well establishes his point. In doing this he paints a picture of Augustine as a man and not as Augustine often portrayed himself. However, in an effort to expound upon the personal life of Augustine some of the possible personal biases of the author become …show more content…
This becomes clear when he discusses the very convictions of Augustine. He uses language like referring to Augustines god and often treats his religious convictions with jest. In passing he is quoted saying things like, “Christianity insisted on pulling many diverse texts together into one body of scripture and the on arguing that every text of scripture is in agreement with every other text, an endless supply of such contradictions presented themselves (157).” He clearly does not believe in the same religious convictions of the saint. It is because of this that when dealing with the miraculous reported in Augustines life, the author treats it as myth. However, this bias is not an entirely bad thing. Seeing as the reader disagrees with Augustine he has no issues at putting not so flattering terminology to the saint. He thought Augustine was a self serving, greedy, man who was far more worried about his own career than he could ever be about his church and the people he was shepherding. This bias causes him to not see many positive attributes of Augustine other then his impressive documentations of his personal