Confessions is the name of an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books, by St. Augustine of Hippo, written in Latin between AD 397 and AD 398 - This Book includes Prayers of Saint Augustine. The Confessions, spiritual self-examination by Saint Augustine, written in Latin as Confessiones. The book tells of Augustine's restless youth and of the stormy spiritual voyage that had ended some 12 years before the writing in the haven of the Roman Catholic church. In reality, the work is not so much autobiography as an exploration of the philosophical and emotional development of an individual soul. The Confessions broke entirely fresh ground as literature, and the genre of autobiography owes many of its characteristics to Augustine.