I have personally watched and studied a jealous baby. He could not yet speak and, pale with jealousy and bitterness, glared at his brother sharing his mother's milk it can hardly be innocence, when the source of milk is flowing richly and abundantly, not to endure a share going to one's blood-brother, who is in profound need, dependent for life exclusively on that one food.""[1] Most of Augustine's contemporary audience would find it hard to accept these words without any misgivings. Today most of us see children as nave and guileless, and picture them as little angels, not as little devils. Thus with his shocking depiction of infant selfishness, Augustine succeeds in capturing our attention more that he may have hoped to with his medieval audience, who often mistook a child's mischievousness for wickedness. .
The Confessions is an autobiographical account and a litany, but above all it is an evangelical work. Augustine seeks to influence his audience just as he was influenced by the life of Anthony. There are two reasons why he presents the imagery of the selfish infant at the very beginning of his narration. First, it fits into the schema of the Confessions, in which Augustine relates his journey through life, both in physical and spiritual terms. The first part of the Confessions coincides with his spiritual wandering. In the second half, he searches for God, and gradually finds him. Since both his physical and spiritual journeys start at infanthood, Augustine places this simile in the first book of the Confessions. .
The second reason forms one of the central themes of the Confessions. Augustine believes that human beings and are inherently sinful. Life is nothing but a spiritual journey, a quest to find satisfaction for one's soul, to find God. Whereas we may view mankind with Rousseau's optimism, Augustine subscribes to a more Hobbesean approach. It is his conclusion that since even as infants we are sinful, we can only get worse, not better, unless we turn to God and Christ as our spiritual guide and savior.