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  • Chapter 5 - Reading Augustine Reading Scripture in the Confessions

  • Edited by Thomas Williams, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book:
    Augustine's ‘Confessions'
    Published online:
    16 December 2025
    Print publication:
    22 January 2026, pp 82-108

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the many uses of Scripture in the Confessions. Augustine draws words, images, and themes from Scripture; he tells the story of his own successive (and sometimes unsuccessful) encounters with Scripture; he invites his readers into a lively relationship with Scripture. Augustine presents himself as living out the stories of Biblical characters – Adam, the prodigal son, Moses, the Apostle Paul – and as speaking the words of Scripture in his own voice, as his own words. Augustine’s extensive appropriation of the Psalms is of particular importance: “The Psalms do more than stage or frame Augustine’s narrative; they shape its presentation and supply its substance.” Scripture proves to be central both for Augustine’s self-dispossession, his casting away of the old life, and for his self-conception, his understanding and inhabiting of the new.