I suspect most people today would not imagine that they have much in common with a Christian saint who lived over 1500 years ago. Remarkably enough however if they read this book I think they'd find much to relate to, just as I did. The Confessions is the famous autobiography of St. Augustine of Hippo, a North African saint. It is in part his life story, but to me it is really his spiritual biography. It is in effect a long letter from himself directed towards God, explaining his path towards the divine. It is the story of how Augustine went from a sinner — someone who in his own words had a restless soul and disordered mind — into the realm of divine knowledge and awareness. It is a familiar story to anyone who has read Ibn Arabi, al-Ghazali or any other individuals who have counseled taking what is often referred to as the spiritual path.

What was most notable to me about the book were how "normal" St. Augustine and his thoughts seem by today's standards. He did not want to surrender his bad habits and he did not want to be ridiculed for believing something that he'd (incorrectly) assumed was ridiculous. He wanted real knowledge and the company of his beloved friends and family. He loved his mother and he wanted to do what was right in his life, a life that he knew was inherently transient. The book describes the process of his spiritual awakening, likening it at one part to the resistance one feels to waking up in the morning and the efforts we take to remain asleep even when we know we must get up. He describes the components of existence as being like the words of a sentence, with one dying so the other can live and none but the highest intellect able to see the meaning of the entire sentence. His heart desires to come to a place of rest, rather than being in endless search for a thing that our minds cannot name. The prose is beautiful.

This is a book that deserves to be described as timeless, because it deals with the core issues of the human condition: who we are, why we are here and what we must do to be enlightened, peaceful and successful. It is also an advised read for those who incorrectly believe that Christianity is a superficial or intellectually unstimulating religion. This could not be further from the truth. To me St. Augustine was another Ibn Arabi, an earnest seeker of the truth who found his riches by looking within. As long as human beings still exist, this book has something very important to say to them.

Há muito que queria ler as Confissões de Agostinho de Hipona. Achava curioso que um «santo» tivesse exposto a sua vida numa altura em que os intelectuais e os religiosos se debatiam ainda com o legado platónico e aristotélico, por um lado, e por outro com a legitimação do cristianismo trinitário (ou catolicismo), resultante do primeiro concílio de Niceia (325), face às múltiplas «heresias» que vinham grassando por todo o espaço do Império Romano. Agostinho (n. 354-m. 430), refere-o aqui, aderiu à heresia maniqueísta até aos 28 anos, altura em que se dirige a Roma e depois a Milão. Aí, através das conversações com Ambrósio, bispo daquela cidade, abraçará o catolicismo e dedicar-se-á a combater as correntes doutrinárias que em Niceia haviam sido consideradas heréticas. Muito do que escreverá ao longo da sua vida, de carácter teológico-filosófico-psicológico, é movido pela vontade de arrasar os sofismas dos arianos, maniqueus, donatistas e pelagianos, mas também contra os académicos (dualistas) e neo-platónicos.

Formado em retórica durante a juventude em Tagaste, cidade onde nasce, e em Cartago depois, será mais tarde professor em Roma. Toda essa informação nos é dada nos primeiros 8 livros deste livro (composto por 13 no total), juntamente com uma proclamação dos dogmas da Trindade. Agostinho expõe os seus pecados da carne, o seu concubinato até aos anos de Milão, as travessuras de criança, a sua relação com a escola (onde pelos vistos não gostava de estar) e com a família. É, se quisermos, um santo a mostrar-se homem. Santo ou não (prefiro chamar-lhe só Agostinho), é um dos grandes génios da humanidade a contar-nos a sua vida e a lamentar os seus erros. Vai, por isso, muito para além dos faits divers: o conhecimento da Bíblia e dos autores gregos e latinos atravessa todo o livro, assim como as disputas teológicas da época, o que nem sempre é fácil de acompanhar. É, no entanto, um documento histórico impressionante e de grande valor, sobretudo para o conhecimento dos sécs. IV-V.

Agostinho nasce entre a promulgação do Édito de Milão (313), que terminava com as perseguições aos hereges (cristãos e judeus) e outorgava uma liberdade de culto, e o Édito de Tessalónica (380), que estabelecia o cristianismo como culto oficial do Imperador e do Império. (Os restantes cultos, de acordo com aquele édito, eram doravante julgados «dementes e loucos sobre os quais pesará a infâmia da heresia» [reliquos vero dementes vesanosque iudicantes haeretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere], curiosamente). Assiste, em 395, à morte do imperador Teodósio I e à consequente divisão do Império Romano entre Ocidente (cuja queda acontece em 476, embora Carlos Magno volte a reivindicar o título imperial no ano de 800, sob a designação de Sacro Império Romano-Germânico, e que perduraria até 1806) e Oriente (que subsistirá com a designação de Império Bizantino até 1453). Não viveu o suficiente para assistir à presúria de Roma pelos povos germânicos, mas os seus 75 anos de vida serviram-lhe para sintetizar muito do pensamento anterior e projectar o pensamento medieval. Não é pouca coisa.

De facto, os pensamentos de Agostinho influenciaram muito do que se escreveu ao longo da Idade Média. Desde a adopção do estilo de vida monástico do bispo de Hipona, preconizada pelos cónegos regrantes de Santo Agostinho (que se fixam em Santa Cruz de Coimbra por outorga de Afonso Henriques, por exemplo, de onde emanariam uma forte influência espiritual e cultural, produzindo várias hagiografias, anais e crónicas entre o séc. XII e XV, mas também posteriormente) e outros ramos da chamada família agostiniana regrante, à influência intelectual. Nesse domínio são exemplos a Autobiografia de Guibert de Nogent, confessional ao estilo agostiniano, os Contra de Tomás de Aquino ou o De planctu eclesiae de Álvaro Pais (um ilustre desconhecido que em boa verdade devíamos conhecer, ou ouvir falar, tanto quanto Aquino ou Agostinho). Na realidade a influência de Agostinho ainda não cessou de se exercer. O que escreve aqui sobre o tempo, sobre a memória ou sobre a verdade pode ainda hoje servir para iniciar uma profunda e séria reflexão. Noutros casos, entrega-se a dogmas de que ainda hoje a Igreja se alimenta. São por isso as confissões e o pensar de um homem de fé. Essencialmente, um homem.

After reading the full 1100 pages of City of God, I picked up Confessions. Admittedly, this was a breath of fresh air, after reading a long winded, and at times arcane, tome on theology... Still, I decided to put down Confessions after reaching chapter 11. The book simply fails to impress me in any significant way. But before I explain why, let me briefly give a sketch of the book itself.

The word 'confession' can be interpreted in either of two ways: a confession of sins and a confession of faith. And actually, Augustine's Confessions is both at the same time. In the first 9 chapters of the book he explains how he lived his earlier life. The main aim is twofold: to explain how much he sinned and how he gradually steered towards becoming a true Christian. Basically, Augustine was too greedy for milk at his mother's teat; he stole apples because his friends would like him because of it; he believed in the Manichean doctrine of Good and Evil being the two guiding principles of the world; and he was obsessed with sexual intercourse.

Luckily, Augustine's mother Monica was a devout Christian who prayed to God almost continuously to show her son the true path of Good. When he went from Carthage - where he studied rhetoric and became a professional teacher (others would say sophist, or rather, a swindler) - to Rome his world gradually started to shift. He became more frustrated by his obsession with sex and he started to doubt the truth of the Manichean worldview (everthing is composed of Good and Evil) more and more. Now, when he started reading books on Neo-platonism, he became convinced, for the first time in his life, that God is not material but immaterial. This opened him up to the notion of the Christian God - who is, supposedly, a transcendent, immaterial, perfect Being - and finally convinced him of the falsity of Manichaeism.

After he went from Rome to Milan, and met the Milanise priest and saint to-be Ambrose, he started to delve ever deeper into Christianity. Augustine read the epistles of Paul and felt he became a true Christian. Yet, he also became more and more frustrated because now he had two 'wills' inside him. He really wanted to become a true Christian, if only he could stop thinking about/desiring sex. This cognitive dissonance leads to such a nervous breakdown that at some point he runs into a garden, falls to the ground and starts to weep. One can almost hear some modern-day movie music when reading this supposedly dramatic scene. After this epiphany, Augustine decides forever to leave sex alone, instantly doesn't desire it anymore and becomes a Christian.

At this moment in the autobiography - just when Augustine, his mother and his friends are on their way back to Africa (after years of living in Italy) - his devout mother Monica dies and the internal struggles are allowed one last piece in the stage play of Augustine's life. He wants to weep for his mother but he doesn't want to allow it - in the end he still weeps. End of story.

After this, the 9 chapters of the book are over. 4 chapters still remain: chapter 10 is an introspective evaluation of sins and confessions - something like the theological and psychological principles of the first 9 chapters (his life). After this strange chapter, chapters 11-13 are analyses of Genesis. I haven't read these chapters, since I have had enough theology after recently struggling through his immense City of God. I read some summaries on internet and it seems to be the exact same method: reading the Bible (Genesis in this case) and then allegorically interpreting the words to explain theological propositions. Thanks, but no thanks.

So what to think of Confessions? As a historical document it is interesting. Even though Augustine's goal is to describe his life, one learns a lot about the contemporary world he lived in. The importance of stage plays in peoples lives; the workings of the Roman state; the means of travel; the relationships between different classes and sexes; etc. In this regard, Confessions has satisfied me. But the story itself I find rather pitiful and empty. We witness a person grovelling before some sky-daddy, and resenting himself because of his desires. It cannot really become more pitiful than this. Yet I do recognize some strange quirks in Augustine - a fact that rather makes me uncomfortable. Especially his need for intellectual closure and the high importance he places on the mind, as opposed to the body (meant in a metaphorical way - there's such a thing as dualism); at the same time feeling intense bodily desires for all things material; and the cognitive dissonance (i.e. stress) that results from this inner struggle. All this sounds too familiar for my taste - but then again, don't most humans feel this way?

Anyway, I did like the book but I didn't find it really that interesting. At least it's much shorter, and easier to digest, than his 'magnum opus' City of God.

It keeps getting better

Reading the Confessions I feel like I am encountering Augustine face to face, his voice has such passion and immediacy.

“Why then should I be concerned for human readers to hear my confessions? It is not they who are going to ‘heal my sicknesses’. The human race is inquisitive about other people’s lives, but negligent to correct their own.”

I was very excited to read this book; Confessions by St Augustine. Having been an inspiration to so many including John Calvin, Martin Luther and so many others. It is a memoir like few others. One of the first of its kind. In that fact alone my curiosity was peaked. To read of a life from so long ago pulled me. It is so much more than that. It is indeed a confession. I laying out of all his early life filled with doubt and various ideas of the age he grew up in. It is also a great study of philosophy and theology. The result of this work laid out much of the thought of the reformation leading to the protestant faith.

It is broken in to thirteen books. Starting with a pouring out of his self and leading us through his earliest memories growing up in North Africa in the 300’s. His relationship with his parents and particularly to his mother’s faith as an early Christian is a big part of his growth. His sins and reflective disgust with his youthful dalliances are not white washed. Including his wanting of woman’s company in his bed.

“How stupid man is to be unable to restrain feelings in suffering the human lot! That was my state at that time. So I boiled with anger, sighed, wept, and was at my wits’ end. I found no calmness, no capacity for deliberation. I carried my lacerated and bloody soul when it was unwilling to be carried by me. I found no place where I could put it down. There was no rest in pleasant groves, nor in games or songs, nor in sweet-scented places, nor in exquisite feasts, nor in the pleasures of the bedroom and bed, nor, finally, in books and poetry.”

The first half of the book is more or less a memory of his early life into his late 20’s and early 30’s. His relationships with woman and birth of his son out of wedlock, his friends, mentors, and his mother Monica leading to his conversion. The second part of the book get more into philosophical discussions.

His discussion on time is both interesting and honestly confusing to me. I found many of his discussions long and winding roads that lead us to his understanding of time. It was at times difficult to follow yet fascinating.

His argument for the existence of God who is good and how evil can exist simultaneously is here and all of it is written beautifully. The entire novel is readable and enjoyable regardless if you are a believer or not. There is much here to mine. It is a novel that could be read several times and probably should be to fully grasp all that is in it.

I have no doubt most would read and be startled to know how relatable it is to our own individual doubts on the existence of God. The fact that this Saint could have many of the same doubts in his life as me gave me pause. As he lays out many streams of thought I caught myself wondering why I had not thought of that myself. And then there were times I read his thoughts and was lost and found myself rereading parts to try to grasp it all.

The entire confession is eye opening and revealing that we are all human. The titles of Bishop and Saint matter not. We all struggle with the same issues.

“Give me chastity and continence, but not just yet”

I gave it 4 stars only because I enjoyed the first part far more than the second. I struggled with many of the concepts but the writing was beautiful. However I think many would read the second half or the last three of four books and enjoy these pieces more than I.
There is much in here to enjoy and think about.

I tried this book once before in the Great Books series and found it extremely difficult. I wondered, if one was going to bother to translate it from Augustine's Latin, why leave it so difficult to read? Whether from a few years maturity or the clarity of Henry Chadwick's translation, I really enjoyed Confessions this time. The warmth of the author's passion and remorse really came across as though he were not dressing it up for a scholarly presentation to impress people. For a deep thinking Latin father, he is actually a master of the sound bite as demonstrated by some of the quotes I picked up. Yes, at times he seems to wander onto a trail that only he is following or at least is passionate about, as when he spent an entire book talking about the passage of time. But most of the time, the things Augustine grapples with our things that we have grappled with for many centuries since. With so many good books to read, I seldom think about rereading one regularly, but this is one that could merit that consideration.

Not my favorite, but I can appreciate it!

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

Books 1-9 are great, and every Christian should read and know Augustine's own story of conversion. Books 10-13 are Augustine's musings on various subjects: memory, time, philosophy, and a lot about the creation account in Genesis. On the latter, he seems to ask more questions than he answers, and often his allegorical hermeneutic is revealed. These four chapters did not benefit me as greatly as the first 9 did. Chadwick's translation is very readable for the modern English reader, yet maintains the seriousness and respect needed in a translation of such an important work.

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.

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! :-)