I am going to take my time with this book. It'd be the first time I read this sort of thing just for the joy of it. I'm just a bit familiar with St. Augustine and while I know this can be a hard read due to my personal beliefs, it is always great to read what other people's take on religion, love, hate and the human meaning.

“I have become a question to myself” - declares Saint Augustine here. There is a lot of soul-searching, love, and passion in this book – as Augustine changes from an orator, a Manichaeist, and an inveterate lover of women - into one of the founding fathers of Christianity. Decisive to him are his Christian, devoted, loving, and praying mother, the encounter with Neoplatonism, and his passion for God. But then there is his integrity, honesty, sharp mind, and the relentless quest to pose and answer basic philosophical questions about the nature of man, time, matter and forms, language, truth, memory, interpretation, numbers, and so on.

My review: n  A Restless Heart - Augustine's Confessionsn

Are you there God? It's me, St. Augustine.

I'll be honest, I rage-quit this book. The book is considered a must read for Christians, so I figured I'd get out of Christian literary purgatory and dive in.

What a slog. I can see why it's a classic, but Augustine's writing style is just not for me. He'll talk about a small situation in his life like stealing a pear as a child, and then spend five pages fluffing out why that action was so bad. It was a chore to read- I fell asleep every time I started it, and I love classic books and theology. There were a few points that stood out well, though, and I enjoyed the parts of the book where Augustine described common criticisms of Christianity of the day. Questions like The Problem of Evil, the veracity of the historical account of Christ, and the nature of sin were being asked just as often as they are now.

I quit the book with about 90 pages left to go. I just wasn't enjoying it, and I had tried and tried for a few months to get through it. One day I'll go back and finish it because I hate leaving books unfinished.

I used to hate Augustine of Hippo. I found him too anxious, too focused on the sexual sins he was sure he was committing, and too sure about the fallen nature of human beings. The Confessions changed all that for me. It's like how when you meet someone you can't judge them in the same way any more; The Confessions helped me understand that Augustine--like everyone--was trying to understand his life, his place in the world, and his motivations for doing things. Most importantly, The Confessions helped me understand my own yearning for something bigger than myself, and why placing myself front and center had always been disastrous, and always would be. Augustine has made me a wiser person, surely--I understand God, people, politics, art, and beauty better thanks to him--but he's also made me a better writer and critic, and this is the best place to make his acquaintance (and for some, to finish. Augustine was trained as a classical orator, and he is not an easy read, even in a good translation like this).

It is often (and rightly) said that we reread great books, not because the books change but because we do. This is my third reading of the Confessions. I read them as a young man; then again several years ago; and now once more. At each of these stages of my life, God has used the words of Augustine to speak different truths to me. On this reading, some things that struck me more profoundly than in earlier readings are these:

(1)tAugustine’s unbridled honesty about his prior sexual weakness. When we consider that he is writing this while a prominent leader in the church, reflecting back on his life before conversion, I cannot but admire his transparency.
(2)tHis deep friendships also struck me as noteworthy. He has fun with his friends, jokes with them, lives with them, debates with them. They struggle over philosophical and theological questions. And eventually they become Christians together.
(3)tHis relationship with his mother, too, is so personal and moving. We know the name Augustine today because God answered the long-lasting, fervent prayers of Monica.

There is much more, of course, but these are three aspects of the Confessions that hit me in a new and fresh way in this reading. If you have never read the book, make 2025 the year when you do.

Confessions ~ Saint Augustine
In the opinion of some highly respected friends, Augustine’s Confessions is the greatest book ever written, though it is difficult to see how the book could have come to be without the Bible standing before it. Nor could Augustine have been the same A1, the protagonist of the biography, or A2, the author of The Confessions whom we have come to know, without Cicero’s Hortensius or Vergil’s Aeneid, books that were influential in his life, books which in turn, could not have been written without The Annals of Quintus Ennius or The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer. Everything in the tradition is connected, and in the tradition the story of man is always a quest to get back home.

Homer’s Odyssey is the story of an exile attempting to return home. Vergil’s Aeneid is the story of an exile seeking the fated place upon which to establish a new home (and this journey too emerges as a return, for the Trojans are originally Ausonians). There are beautiful parallels between the journeys of Aeneas and Augustine: both of them stop in Carthage on their way to Rome. Augustine’s Confessions, like the parable of the prodigal son, is also the story of a journey home, a journey that can only end in the Kingdom of Heaven; this he reveals in the first paragraph of his address to God: Tu excitas, ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.“You move us to delight in praising you, because you made us for yourself, and our heart is restless, until it rests in you” (I. i (1).

Whereas Odysseus and Aeneas make their journies on the physical and horizontal earthly plane, Augustine’s (and every man’s) homeward journey is the vertical ascent of the soul in its return to God. In his Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle had already discovered that all men desire to be happy, and Cicero in his Hortensius had connected happiness to the love and pursuit of wisdom: Philosophy. “Seek Wisdom” is also the message of the Biblical Book of Proverbs. God is that wisdom that offers permanent, enduring, eternal happiness, not merely some temporal passing image of the thing (of which a drunken beggar on the streets of Milan offers one illustration, for that beggar will thirst again), but the water welling up to eternal life that quenches thirst forever (Jn. 4:13-15). Our heart is restless, until it rests in you.

Indeed, all men are restless; all are pursuing happiness. Some spend their lives in the pursuit of things that they believe will make them happy: sex, opium, wine, fame, money, professional ambitions, political power. Augustine discovers that his weight is his love, that wherever he is carried, his love is carrying him (XIII.ix (1). The proper home of man is ultimately where the Father dwells in the Heaven of Heaven, but to arrive there one must be lifted up by placing one’s love in the Father. Otherwise, our love for earthly things––even beautiful earthly things––pulls us downwards and away and we are lost in a sea of woes; the only thing that will heal man’s restlessness is a return to the father. This is the human condition: God is often referred to as the Great Physician, man is the patient, sin is the sickness. Augustine reflects that we must have some memory of happiness, some idea of what the thing is, for otherwise, without any recollection of it, we would not even know to be looking for it. Where has this memory come from, if it is not some genetic memory of Eden lost?

The Confessions are revealed across thirteen books, all of which are biographical, but of which the last four show us Augustine, already a converted Christian, in contemplation of deep wonders, relying on God and scripture to help him understand memory, time and eternity, formless matter, and an interpretation of the account of creation in Genesis, that is as beautiful as it is deep. He discusses the Trinity as well, and says that the unity of the Trinity is obvious to anyone through introspection, and this invites comparison of man with God through the tripartite organization of the Platonic soul. Earlier in the book there are sections delving into the problem of evil in the world, the possible coexistence of absolute and relative ethics, friendship. True friendship, is only possible between those who share the holy spirit.

Throughout all twelve books there are beautiful passages. Augustine is a professional rhetorician––though he abandons this carreer eventually. He is also the most intelligent man in the Roman Empire of his day, and he likely knows this––in his Confessions he gives an account of time and eternity in AD 400 that physicists today continue to agree with––and yet he is completely incapable of overcoming his own lust, but he continues to pursue wisdom, and eventually discovers its Source, receives the necessary grace finally to let go of his passions, reaches out instead to accept Lady Chastity in a vision, and is healed forever.

This is the seventh time that I have read this book; I always finish it at a time of year when I am so busy with other things, that I have never had time for an adequate review. The same is now the case, and I can do no justice to the beauty, depth, and richness of The Confessions (perhaps it is not even possible for me) but I shall briefly collect here and point out some of the beautiful passages in the book that I have found moving:

n  On his mothern
But I shall not pass over whatever my soul may bring to birth concerning your servant [Monica], who brought me to birth both in her body so that I was born into the light of time, and in her heart so that I was born into the light of eternity (IX. viii (17).

n  On his first encounter with holy scripturen
I therefore decided to give attention to the holy scriptures and to find out what they were like. And this is what met me: something neither open to the proud nor laid bare to mere children; a text lowly to the beginner but, on further reading, of mountainous difficulty and enveloped in mysteries. I was not in any state to be able to enter into that, or to bow my head to climb its steps. What I am now saying did not then enter my mind when I gave my attention to the scripture. It seemed to me unworthy in comparison with the dignity of Cicero. My inflated conceit shunned the Bible’s restraint, and my gaze never penetrated to its inwardness. Yet the Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them. I disdained to be a little beginner. Puffed up with pride, I considered myself a mature adult (III. v. (9).

n  Of his hope of return to the Father and of the beauty of Heavenn
O house full of light and beauty! ‘I have loved your beauty and the place of the habitation of the glory of my Lord’ (Ps. 25: 7-9), who built you and owns you. During my wandering may my longing be for you! I ask him who made you that he will also make me his property in you, since he also made me. ‘I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost’ (Ps. 118: 176). But on the shoulders of my shepherd, who built you, I hope to be carried back to you (Luke 15: 4 f.) (XII. xv (21).

n  Of memoryn
I come to the fields and vast palaces of memory (X. viii (12). . . Memory’s huge cavern, with its mysterious, secret, and indescribable nooks and crannies (X. viii (13). . . The vast hall of my memory (X. viii (14).

This power of memory is great, very great, my God. It is a vast and infinite profundity. Who has plumbed its bottom? This power is that of my mind and is a natural endowment, but I myself cannot grasp the totality of what I am. Is the mind, then, too restricted to compass itself, so that we have to ask what is that element of itself which it fails to grasp? Surely that cannot be external to itself; it must be within the mind. How then can it fail to grasp it? This question moves me to great astonishment. Amazement grips me. People are moved to wonder by mountain peaks, by vast waves of the sea, by broad waterfalls on rivers, by the all-embracing extent of the ocean, by the revolutions of the stars. But in themselves they are uninterested. They experience no surprise that when I was speaking of all these things, I was not seeing them with my eyes (X. ix (15).

_________________

Of memory Augustine elsewhere discovers that it is full of the images of things, and not the true objects themselves, but there are other things in memory which turn out to be the true things themselves, of which in the external world we contemplate the mere images through our sense-perception, e.g. a mathematical form. Is God as well like this within our memory? Augustine has his visions, by looking within, and making the climb upwards into the citadel of his mind, from where with his mind’s eye he looks upward to encounter the light that is life and wisdom, the light that has created him. (These things invite comparison with the analogy of the cave in Plato’s Republic.

And here is one final extended passage from the eleventh book where Augustine speaks to God in prayer, before embarking upon an exploration of time and eternity. There is no incompatibility between faith and science:

(3)tLord my God, ‘hear my prayer’ (Ps. 60: 2), may your mercy attend to my longing which burns not for my personal advantage but desires to be of use in love to the brethren. You see in my heart that this is the case. Let me offer you in sacrifice the service of my thinking and my tongue, and grant that which I am to offer, ‘for I am poor and needy’ (Ps. 65: 15; 85: 1). You are ‘rich to all who call upon you’ (Rom. 10: 12). You have no cares but take care of us. Circumcise my lips (cf. Exod. 6: 12), inwardly and outwardly, from all rashness and falsehood. May your scriptures be my pure delight, so that I am not deceived in them and do not lead others astray in interpreting them. ‘Lord, listen and have mercy’ (Ps. 26: 7; 85: 3), Lord my God, light of the blind and strength of the weak––and constantly also light of those who can see and strength of the mighty. Listen to my soul and hear it crying from the depth. For if your ears are not present also in the depth, where shall we go? To whom shall we cry? ‘The day is yours and the night is yours’ (Ps. 73: 16). At your nod the moments fly by. From them grant us space for our meditations on the secret recesses of your law, and do not close the gate to us as we knock. It is not for nothing that by your will so many pages of scripture are opaque and obscure. These forests are not without deer which recover their strength in them and restore themselves by walking and feeding, by resting and ruminating (Ps. 28: 9). O Lord, bring me to perfection (Ps. 16: 5) and reveal to me the meaning of these pages. See, your voice is my joy, your voice is better than a wealth of pleasures (Ps. 118: 22). Grant what I love; for I love it, and that love was your gift. Do not desert your gifts, and do not despise your plant as it thirsts. Let me confess to you what I find in your books. ‘Let me hear the voice of praise’ (Ps. 25:7) and drink you, and let me consider ‘wonderful things out of your law’ (Ps. 118:18)––from the beginning in which you made heaven and earth until the perpetual reign with you in your heavenly city (Rev. 5: 10; 21: 2).

(4) t‘Lord have mercy upon me and listen to my desire’ (Ps. 26: 7). For I do not think my longing is concerned with earthly things, with gold and silver and precious stones, or with fine clothes or honours and positions of power or fleshly pleasures or even with the body’s necessities in this life of our pilgrimage. They are all things added to us as we seek your kingdom and your righteousness (Matt. 6: 33). My God, look upon the object of my desire (cf. Ps. 9: 14). ‘The wicked have told me of delights, but they are not allowed by your law, Lord’ (Ps. 118: 85). See Father: look and see and give your approval. May it please you that in the sight of your mercy (Ps. 18: 15) I may find grace before you, so that to me as I knock (Matt. 7: 7) may be opened the hidden meaning of your words. I make my prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, ‘the man of your right hand, the Son of man whom you have strengthened’ (Ps. 79: 18) to be mediator between yourself and us. By him you sought us when we were not seeking you (Rom. 10: 20). But you sought us that we should seek you, your Word by whom you made all things including myself, your only Son by whom you have called to adoption the people who believe (Gal. 4: 5), myself among them. I make my prayer to you through him ‘who sits at your right hand and intercedes to you for us’ (Rom. 8: 34). ‘In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Col. 2: 3). For those treasures I search in your books. Moses wrote of him (John 5: 46). He himself said this; this is the declaration of the Truth. (XI.ii (3-4).

_________________

So, what is real treasure? Are the Kingdoms of Latinus or of Croesus the more beautiful, or is it the Kingdom of Evander, or the Kingdom of the man who remains silent when Pontius Pilate asks, “What is truth?”

In Jerome’s Vulgate, the question is put thus: Quid est veritas? Jesus does not speak, but if we jumble all the letters about, we may anagrammatically construct, with perfect economy, the following response: Est vir qui adest––“It is the man standing here before you.”

If you are lost or struggling to find your way back home. He is the way, and Augustine will be a good friend and companion on the journey home. Read this book! :-)

Nisam siguran koliko je skraćeno izdanje koje sam čitao, ali kamo sreće da je skraćeno još više.

Na kraju sam zbunjen i nisam siguran šta je čudnije - i tužnije. Avgustina smatraju za velikog mislioca, na trenutke ga porede sa Platonom (?!). Da li to više govori o onima koji izriču takva poređenja ili o periodu u kom se pojavio? Ako je ovaj bio veliki mislilac, šta reći... Nakon onakvih 1,000 godina.

"Filozof"? Svašta.

I saw reflections of myself in Augustine's Confessions, and I was encouraged by it.

Augustine's Confessions beckons us to venture into the depths of his life, witnessing the transformative path that led to his conversion. Within the initial nine books, he intertwines the tale of his existence with a philosophical exploration. Amidst his contemplations on time, Augustine unravels its paradoxical nature—a realm where the past dissolves, becoming nonexistent, and the future lingers, elusively waiting to be grasped. Time, like Aristotle's notion of motion, gravitates toward a state of non-being. Yet, in contrast, God transcends this temporality, dwelling in eternal realms where the past and future blend into an ever-present "now."
The dichotomy between the temporal and the eternal finds its most striking manifestation in the present moment, which, were it not for its inevitable transition into the past, would transcend the confines of time, attaining a state of timeless eternity. God, the timeless source of all existence, embodies the very essence of perpetual being. In the midst of this paradoxical division of time—past, present, and future—language itself assumes an enigmatic character. Augustine delves into the measurement of time, unraveling its elusive essence. Slippery and evasive, time eludes our grasp as the past retreats into the depths of memory, and the future hovers unfulfilled. We are left to grapple solely with the present, which, in its fleeting nature, defies notions of durability. Centuries dissolve into millennia, months into mere moments. Memory safeguards the past, while anticipation breathes life into the unrealized possibilities of the future.
Augustine draws a connection between time and motion, recognizing the pitfalls of measuring time with time itself—a path that would only entangle us in an endless loop of circularity. Aurelius, in his philosophical ruminations, contemplates the paradoxical expansion of the nonexistent future and the gradual fading of the vanished past. It is through the spirit that we measure time, preserving the past, attentively observing the fleeting present, and anticipating the mysteries yet to unfold. In his departure from the notion of time solely derived from celestial motion, Augustine acknowledges the divine creation of time, woven into the very fabric of all existence, birthed alongside creation itself.

n  "Day after day I postponed living in you, but I never put off the death which I died each day in myself. I longed for a life of happiness but I was frightened to approach it in its own domain; and yet, while I fled from it, I still searched for it."n

Reading Augustine of Hippo's Confessions is like plunging into a deep, dark abyss and seeing a slither of light at the far side of the endless tunnel, unaware of whether you reach it or not; for Confessions is a proto-existentialist work of a man attempting to achieve inner perfection in a world of material greed and spiritual emptiness. Sound familiar? Because these themes are universal and timeless in the eternal consciousness of man.

Augustine of Hippo is no stranger to this recurring trait of our species, and in the first part of the poetic masterpiece, he bears his fragile soul to all who dare to truly enlighten themselves. This book was his attempt at addressing the painful sins of his aesthetically dangerous past, and trying to rid of them through tortured prayers to God.

n  "But the time had now come when I stood naked before my own eyes, while my conscience upbraided me."n

It is obvious right from the start that Augustine refuses to give the reader an easy going reading experience. For a religious text, it is heart wrenching at times and, while offering a continually fresh perspective on Christianity and philosophy, he retains a strong hold on the reader as he deconstructs his flawed nature, for his suffering was also his redemption, his enlightenment, his forgiveness. One feels his morally destructive pain in each emotional page; for how can a man attempting to achieve inner perfection and a connection with God live with sorrowful reflections of sleeping with prostitutes—even living with one? He tears himself apart passionately describing a scene from his childhood when he stole some fruit, not out of desperation, but simply because it was wrong.

n  "It is in my own mind, then, that I measure time. I must not allow my mind to insist that time is something objective. I must not let it thwart me because of all the different notions and impressions that are lodged in it."n

These confessions continue well after his memoir. In part two, he confesses his theological and philosophical beliefs with extended theoretical examinations on the nature of man, the mind, the senses, time, Creation and its relation to God. Augustine delves deep into the mind, in an attempt to understand what gave Moses and Christ such inherently profound knowledge. His dissections into the memory of the rational mind is examined extensively and, upon reflection, his agonizing search for the Truth still provides acute psychological penetration into the human soul over 1,500 years on. His experiments still explain some deep truths in the vast network of human thought.

Ironically, however, there was an everlastingly warm presence throughout the book, for Augustine is not only talking to God, he is also talking to us, the reader. Part memoir, part philosophical and theological investigation into the nature of existence, Augustine of Hippo's Confessions is an honest and beautiful work of non-fiction, where the unexplained might not be explained, but the door is opened slightly more to the Truth.


That sleep may wearied limbs restore,
And fit for toil and use once more...
Saint Ambrose