Which Catholic saint wrote the autobiographical work Confessions around 397–400?

Augustine of Hippo wrote the autobiographical work Confessions around 397–400.

The book recounts Augustine’s childhood, education, moral struggles, conversion to Christianity, and baptism by Ambrose of Milan in 387. It is addressed as a prayer to God rather than written as a modern autobiography, making it both a personal narrative and a theological meditation.

Augustine was born in 354 at Thagaste in Roman North Africa. He later became bishop of Hippo Regius and one of the most influential Christian thinkers of late antiquity. Confessions includes the famous account of his mother Monica’s prayers and his own conversion in Milan.

Confessions is sometimes confused with Augustine’s later work The City of God, which is a broad theological and historical argument rather than an account of his own life. The title also means an acknowledgment or declaration, reflecting the book’s religious purpose.