How Confessions drew on Romans
A documented line of influence: Augustine of Hippo demonstrably engaged Paul’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
Relevance
9/10
On Confessions’s page
- The Confessions turn on a single open page of Paul
- Augustine's whole conversion narrative builds toward Book 8, where Romans 13:13-14 sweeps away his last resistance — he names his discovery of Paul as the decisive moment
- Read the verse Augustine read, and the most famous conversion in Western literature lands with its full force
On Romans’s page
- The single text that converted Augustine — and through him, much of Western Christianity
- In the garden at Milan, he hears a child chanting tolle lege, opens Paul's codex at random, and lands on Romans 13:13-14: "put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ"
- He read that one verse as God speaking directly to him, and his doubt fell away — the Confessions hinge on it