The second was the
development of an adequate understanding of the Christian faith
itself and his baptismal confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and
Saviour. The former was achieved in the Milanese garden. The
latter came more slowly and had no "dramatic moment." The
dialogues that Augustine wrote at Cassiciacum the year following
his conversion show few substantial signs of a theological
understanding, decisively or distinctively Christian. But by the
time of his ordination to the presbyterate we can see the basic
lines of a comprehensive and orthodox theology firmly laid out.
Augustine neglects to tell us (in 398) what had happened in his
thought between 385 and 391. He had other questions, more
interesting to him, with which to wrestle.
One does not read far in the Confessions before he recognizes
that the term "confess" has a double range of meaning. On the one
hand, it obviously refers to the free acknowledgment, before God,
of the truth one knows about oneself -- and this obviously meant,
for Augustine, the "confession of sins." But, at the same time,
and more importantly, confiteri means to acknowledge, to God, the
truth one knows about God.
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