Created to Confess: St. Augustine on Being Material Joshua Nunziato Modern Theology 32, no. 3 (2016): 361-83. Author’s Note: The version archived here under the terms of the Copyright Transfer Agreement with John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. is the submitted version of the article manuscript. It contains neither the changes and corrections incorporated into the accepted version of the article nor the proofing and formatting updates incorporated into the published version of the article. Please cite this article by referring to the published version. Abstract: In his Confessions, Augustine treats matter as the name for the intimate distinction between the creation and its creator. Matter makes creatures creatures—and not simply God. Therefore, to confess is to acknowledge one’s matter. To sin, by contrast, is to ape the immaterial. In Confessions 12, Augustine juxtaposes Genesis and the Psalms in order to identify the spiritual creation—the heaven of heaven—as timeless wisdom, whose material receptivity to divine beauty centers the confession of mortal creatures. While exploring Augustine’s thought on these topics, I critically engage several of his contemporary interpreters, including Jean-Luc Marion and Catherine Keller.