Chadwick's translation of Augustine's Confessions (note that this is a confession to God, while read by men) is one of the best. It is not costly in a monetary sense; new it is a mere 6.95. However, it is deceptively short. A chapter will take you two hours if you give it the attention it deserves. Augustine is a circular writer. He is not a bad writer - he was known to be a merciless editor, in fact. But he goes around and around, especially later on in the last chapters of the book when he is wondering aloud, in a sense, about more neo-platonic and loftier, metaphysical questions he is asking of God and thinking aloud/reasoning as best he can with his brilliant mind on paper; recognizing that that mind is a gift from God and he is to steward it. It gets hairy. It gets *hard* to stick with.

If you can, and you do, you will find yourself perhaps having some of the same reactions I did:
a)I always wondered the same thing!, or
b)I am not even smart enough to have even thought to have wondered that
or possibly even
c)I have no idea what he's even talking about anymore.

Had I not taken a course solely on The Confessions, when I had to read De Trinitate in a later theology class I most likely would have had a crisis of faith and quit. Because I was used to his style of writing and knew who the Manichees were, what the background was and the Neo-Platonic, socio-historical setting Augustine was situated in, I could confront De Trinitate and later, "for fun," I was brazen enough to take on The City of God.

There was nothing Augustine didn't talk about or no issue he didn't confront as Bishop when he was alive, because he was a very prolific writer. He spent his time not in fancy robes as one may imagine, but answering questions of the people - he was an ad hoc theologian. We are still reaping the benefits of that today, for his answers were good ones and are still relevant. Before he became bishop, though, he lived the life he spells out on the pages of the Confessions, which are not tales of endless days skipping carelessly along smooth paths by any stretch of the imagination. He reveals facets of himself not very becoming of a bishop; facets that are human. He was the first to admit to having such personality traits and publish a book about it and turn it back into praise to God when it was previously just material for gossip.
Remaining human all the while, he points steadfastly to God, which is why this book is so crucial to know intimately. He speaks of heartbreak and loss in a way that you want to turn to it when you go through it (I did). He speaks of those who will naysay you when you have changed, speaking of who you were and not who you are, and you will again want to turn to his words. It is invaluable.

Feels rather like reading the Psalms. That should tell you it's good.

The good portions were transcendent. The other portions ranged from dragging to dry. There are selections I will refer back to regularly and other portions that are entirely forgettable (to me). I can see, however, why so many people feel it is a seminal, classic work.

Note, Oct. 20, 2024: I've just edited one sentence below to incorporate a point made by another reader who commented.

As a first-semester college freshman needing an elective, I signed up for a speed-reading class. I never adopted any of the techniques the course touted, although I got an A in it; but the classroom had a paperback rack with various donated books we could practice on, and this was one I read. It turned out to be the most lasting educational benefit of the class, and did make a genuine intellectual impression on me. (Other than Lightfoot's translation of the Apostolic Fathers, which I read a few years later, this is the only reading in Patristics that I've ever done.)

Augustine (354-430 A.D.) was, of course, one of the major theologians in Christian history, and probably the most influential of the Latin Fathers, at least on the development of the church in the West. This is far from his only writing, and not his most important one; most scholars would give that accolade to The City Of God (which is on my to-read shelf). These two, though, are probably the two most widely read of his works. This one is not extremely long (a bit over 300 pages), and is divided into 13 “books,” each divided in turn into short, numbered chapters with numbered paragraphs. (The chapter numbers were added to the early printed editions of the 1400s and 1500s, and the paragraph numbers in the 17th century.) As the title implies, it's partially autobiographical; the first nine books telling the story of his early life, leading up to his Christian conversion at the age of 31, and continuing through his mother Monica's death a couple of years later, in 388. (By the time he wrote, he had already entered the priesthood and become a bishop, but this book doesn't continue his story that far.) Rather than being autobiographical, the last four books are mostly theological reflections, and so seem somewhat disconnected from the preceding nine.

Of course, I read this in English translation, but I no longer remember anything about the edition or the translator. (The copy I'm referring to now is of the 1991 translation by British scholar Henry Chadwick, a well-recognized authority on Augustine, published by Oxford Univ. Press. Besides a short bibliographical note, brief list of important dates in Augustine's life, and a bit over four-page index, it has a 16-page introduction, which would have been very helpful to me if the copy I read had included it.) It should be admitted that at the time of my life that I read this, I wasn't at the optimum place for appreciating it, either intellectually or spiritually (I'd become a Christian in high school, but still had no serious conception of discipleship and wasn't very familiar with the Bible). Also, as an intellectual who both studied and subsequently taught in the schools of that day, where teens and young men learned rhetoric and philosophy, Augustine was well versed in the classical Latin literary style, which can often come across as dry and ponderous, especially in the later “books.” (Then too, a particularly odd stylistic feature here is that the whole book is ostensibly addressed to God, not the reader, as though it were a 300+-page prayer. Though his attitude no doubt was prayerful in places, the fact that he's obviously writing this to be read by others makes the strictly God-ward address seem somewhat dishonest and gimmicky.) Although I did engage with the text, there's a good deal that didn't brand itself on my memory. And the reactions to various parts of the book that I do remember were both positive and negative.

One important aspect of the book that struck me is that this is very much a window into the mindset of ancient Platonic philosophy in the Hellenistic world, and its influence in shaping post-apostolic Gentile Christianity in its early centuries. (As I was learning in my early college years, this is a strand of philosophy which has pre-Platonic roots in the thought of Pythagoras, and ultimately in the Hindu worldview of the sages of India, with whom Pythagoras studied as a young man.) This was basically a worldview that glorified the non-corporeal (“spiritual”) and disparaged the physical world and the body. It reached its most extreme form in the Gnostic and Manichean heresies of Augustine's time (though these had precursors already in New Testament times, which Paul and other NT writers warn against), with the idea that the physical world is evil and not of Divine origin at all, and that salvation consists of the soul ridding itself of the evil body. As Augustine frankly discusses here, he was a committed Manichean as a young man; and he explains the reasoning and influences that led him eventually to reject that system, and to embrace Christianity with its belief in God as creator of the world and of Christ as truly incarnate in a human body. But despite his conversion, he didn't wholly jettison all of his Manichean attitudes. In one revealing passage here (chapter 31, paragraph 44 in Book 10), which had me rolling my eyes big-time, he speaks of God teaching him that food should only be taken like medicine, in the quantity just necessary for the sustenance of the body, which is always less than the quantity which would actually give “dangerous” pleasure in eating, which he seriously speaks of as “an insidious trap of uncontrolled desire,”and which he speaks of as a daily struggle against temptation. The contrast of this attitude with Scripture texts like Ecclesiastes 9:7 (“Go, eat your food with gladness....”) couldn't be more marked; we see here a glorification of asceticism that would express itself in things like monasticism, and the whole tradition of the “if you enjoy it, it's a sin!” school of pseudo-spirituality. (Augustine himself would become the founder of a monastic order, the Augustinians.) We can also see Platonic and Manichean roots for the penchant he displays here in a number of places for adopting allegorical interpretations of the Bible rather than straightforward readings of the text.

Despite his theoretical deploring of bodily impulses, Augustine is also frank (though never titillating) in his admission that, in his teens, he indulged in quite a bit of promiscuous sex. At the age of 17, he settled down to faithful cohabitation with a lower-class “concubine” (whom he never names, which struck me at the time I read this as sort of dehumanizing; but it's been credibly, and more charitably, suggested that suppressing her name was actually simply a way of protecting her reputation from disrespect), with whom he lived for about 13 years. (She bore him a son, Adeodatus, though sadly the boy died in his teens.) The year before his conversion, he dumped her in order to get engaged to an upper-class woman who could provide a dowry –though that marriage never took place, since he subsequently broke the engagement when he decided to enter the priesthood. (He kept custody of his son, though it's not explicit in the book whether or not that arrangement was what the boy's mother wanted.) Even granting that the long illicit union wasn't based on love (at least on his part), and that he was not yet at that time a Christian, his treatment of his partner impressed me then, and still does, as shabby. He deplores his own behavior in indulging in unmarried sex, but he never evinces much feeling of guilt about unkindness to a fellow human; and I'm inclined to see that blind spot as also related to his Manichean attitudes.

On a more positive note, a major take-away from this book was the insight into the nature of eternity: that God, as the eternal creator, created time itself along with the universe, but Himself exists outside of time, and experiences all time as something like an infinite, omniconscious present, rather than sequentially, the way that we do. As I've recently learned, this idea wasn't original with Augustine; he derived it from Plato (a more constructive contribution than some of the latter's other ideas!). But nonetheless, it makes considerable sense to me and explains some Biblical concepts in a way that I've found immensely helpful. I'm glad to have read the book on that account, even if it hadn't been illuminating in other ways. (There are some other deep philosophical concepts dealt with here as well.)

Although Augustine is perhaps best known as the first Christian theologian to explicitly advocate the doctrine (with which I personally disagree vehemently) of unconditional double predestination of humans to either salvation or damnation, with no volition on their part, a view which later greatly influenced John Calvin, he doesn't go into that at all here (at least, not that I can recall). He describes his own conversion and the lead-up to it in considerable detail (and his was a fairly dramatic conversion experience); but as he tells it here, there's no indication that its climax was anything other than a voluntary turning to God through Christ.

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

Poderia chamar-se A Conversão, porque mais do que confessar os seus pecados, ainda que o faça, Agostinho traça a história da sua própria personagem, em jeito de autobiografia, dando conta do lugar comum de onde veio, igual ao de tantos outros, pejado dos mesmos dilemas, dos mesmos pecados, a partir do qual conseguiu, por meio de uma escolha profundamente refletida e munida de vontade, transformar-se, libertar-se, para chegar a Deus.

“Assim, meu Deus, a confissão que faço em tua presença, é e não é silenciosa; a boca se cala, mas meu coração clama. Tudo o que digo aos homens de verdadeiro já tinhas ouvido de mim, e nem ouves nada de mim que antes não me tivesses dito.”

Mas “Confissões” não é apenas mais uma autobiografia, nem tão pouco se tornou relevante por ser uma, ou mesmo a primeira autobiografia da nossa história escrita, o seu valor reside antes no impacto, no lastro produzido ao longo de séculos e séculos. “Confissões” é central na caracterização de toda a sociedade ocidental, embrenhada nos valores do cristianismo, e mesmo para quem deles se tenha afastado, tem de com eles conviver todos os dias, já que eles são a raiz e os pilares da nossa moral. São 16 séculos de permanência na cultura formativa de uma sociedade, num discurso direto de grande proximidade interior, completamente distinto daquilo que se encontra na Bíblia, que faz com que a mensagem passe, não apenas de modo fácil, mas de modo efetivo.

"Confissões" foi escrito entre 397 e 400

Agostinho, mestre da retórica, começa por se apresentar como apenas mais um ser humano, comum, vulgar, cheio de defeitos, tal como todos nós, e ao longo de 13 livros conduz-nos, pela mão, até à possível “salvação”. O seu discurso carregado de honestidade e humildade, intenso na análise psicológica que faz de si, da mente humana, torna-se próximo, empático, impossibilitando a nossa fuga. Agostinho mantém-nos atrelados a si, lendo-o, sentindo-o, mas sentindo-nos a nós mesmos. Não é de transcendência, nem de invisível, ou forças inimagináveis que se fala aqui, mas apenas de humanidade, de questionar o nosso eu, o que somos, porque somos, como somos, questões que todos nós, cedo ou tarde, nos colocamos. Fala do desejo, da perda, da busca, dissecando em profundidade o modo como se vai concebendo aquilo que somos, ou que parecemos ser.

Uma dos dilemas centrais desta confissão assenta no sexo, o “pecado original”, que para alguns soa exagerado, ou até obsessivo. Senti também isso no primeiro confronto, mas aos poucos fui compreendendo a sua centralidade na construção do caminho, tendo-se tornado mais claro quando li a análise de Mark Lilla ao livro de Robin Lane Fox “Augustine: Conversions to Confessions” (2015), um livro que disseca em profundidade as Confissões e todo o seu contexto. Lilla critica Lane, por se ter centrado ele próprio no sexo, chegando ao ponto de afirmar que a conversão de S. Agostinho “não foi uma conversão à fé cristão… mas antes uma fuga ao sexo e à ambição”. Lilla explica então:

“não é desta forma que Agostinho conta a sua história. O problema do sexo é apenas uma concha à volta de um mistério mais profundo, o funcionamento da vontade humana. É um assunto ao qual Agostinho retornou uma e outra vez nos seus sermões e livros. A mente comanda o corpo, mas não pode comandar a si mesma. Por que não podemos desejar o nosso desejo? Ou, muitas vezes decidimos fazer alguma coisa, mas a vontade é mais fraca para seguir adiante. Como, se a vontade é uma coisa, é que isso pode ser possível? Para explicar estes enigmas, Agostinho teve uma ideia que moldaria a consciência ocidental durante séculos: a noção de que os seres humanos têm duas vontades em si, uma desafiante que quer autonomia e uma disciplinada que quer servir a Deus. A única maneira de alcançar a felicidade, Agostinho acreditava, era subordinar a primeira à segunda." (fonte)

Ou seja, a consciência boa e a consciência má, o certinho e o diabinho. Algo que se veio a converter mais tarde numa dualidade entre mente e corpo, pela mão de Descartes. A mente pura, a única capaz de chegar à verdade, e o corpo, resquício de nós, tal concha impeditiva de aceder à verdade, que por meio dos seus sentidos biológicos distorce o real. Algo que Platão já concebia, na sua oposição entre representação e real, e que perdura até aos nossos dias. Mesmo hoje, depois de amplamente demonstrado, o quão orgânicos somos, da ausência e impossibilidade de qualquer dualidade, o modelo abstracto dessa dualidade, satisfaz as nossas ânsias sobre os porquês das nossas dúvidas. Porque aquilo que somos não é uno, não é igual todos os dias, nem em todos os lugares, nem com todas as pessoas, e quando nos questionamos porquê, fica mais fácil ter um bode expiatório, de preferência algo que possamos dizer, com satisfação, que não podemos controlar, seja o desejo, a carne, ou a emoção.

“Vi tua Igreja cheia de fiéis que, por um caminho ou por outro, progrediam. Quanto a mim, aborrecia-me a vida que levava no mundo, e era para mim fardo pesadíssimo, agora que os apetites mundanos, como a esperança de honras e riquezas, já não me animavam para suportar tão pesada servidão. Essas paixões haviam perdido para mim o encanto, diante de tua doçura e da beleza de tua casa, que já amava. Mas sentia-me ainda fortemente amarrado à mulher. Sem dúvida o Apóstolo não me proibia de casar, embora em seu ardente desejo de ver todos os homens semelhantes a ele, exortasse a um estado mais elevado. Mas eu, ainda muito fraco, escolhia a condição mais fácil; por isso, vivia hesitando em tudo o mais, e me desgastava com preocupações enervantes, pois a vida conjugal, a que me julgava destinado e obrigado, ter-me-ia obrigado a novas incumbências, que eu não queria suportar.”

Sendo uma boa leitura, não deixa de apresentar problemas, muitos até, não apenas no seu conteúdo, tendo em conta a data em que foi escrito e o grau de assertividade, próprio à retórica, que Agostinho imprime ao discurso, mas também em parte pelo método, ou talvez ausência deste, na busca do interior. Não tínhamos ainda método científico, nem tão pouco aqui serviria muito, mas tinhamos Sócrates, e Agostinho conhecia o seu trabalho, por isso métodos de argumentação existiam, não é um problema de ter de se começar do zero. O maior problema de Agostinho surge na circularidade reducionista do seu discurso, que ao embrenhar-se na busca e definição de um conceito, se centra neste apenas, analisando todas as perspectivas que nele desembocam, esquecendo contudo tudo o que dele impacta o contexto circundante. O modo como tenta definir o tempo e a memória, nos últimos livros são totalmente demonstrativos deste processo de aprofundamento, em que objetivamente Agostinho se afasta, ou impede outros elementos de serem chamados à argumentação, mantendo a mesma fechada sobre si, em círculo, tornando impossível emergir qualquer ideia nova. Muito provavelmente porque imbuído do mesmo método que definiu na sua busca por Deus, no seu questionamento sobre a sua possibilidade, e na impossibilidade de chegar a qualquer evidência, foi construindo e desenhando um sistema de argumentação, que funciona na base da amplificação da abstração conceptual, ou seja, na construção de camada sobre camada de ideias, sem suporte, na ânsia de que elas acabem por se suportar umas às outras.

“Então veria que a sucessão dos tempos não é feita senão de uma seqüência infindável de instantes, que não podem ser simultâneos; que, pelo contrário, na eternidade, nada é sucessivo, tudo é presente, enquanto o tempo não pode ser de todo presente. Veria que todo o passado é repelido pelo futuro, que todo futuro segue o passado, que tanto o passado como o futuro tiram seu ser e seu curso daquele que é sempre presente. Quem poderá deter a inteligência do homem para que pare e veja como a eternidade imóvel, que não é futura nem passada, determina o futuro e o passado?”

Não conheço a obra de Agostinho, para além deste livro, mas li algures que este trabalho não terá sido tão espontâneo como se quer apresentar. Que este terá sido um trabalho escrito não para se encontrar a si próprio, mas antes para conduzir os seus leitores à conversão. Não tenho qualquer dado que suporte esta teoria, que pode não passar de mera conspiração, contudo tendo ou não sido assim, o mais relevante está no texto que temos na nossa frente que demonstra uma mestria profunda da retórica, do uso da narração, do storytelling, para envolver e persuadir. Todo o livro se apresenta como uma jornada — em três atos, com introdução, desenvolvimento e conclusão — em que se parte da ignorância da dúvida de si; para se entrar num novo reino, o do conflito existencial; para o qual se encontra no final uma resposta, a conversão, capaz de fechar todas as pontas, libertando-nos do peso da inconsciência, garantindo a total satisfação do leitor da narrativa.

“No princípio criou Deus o céu e a terra. A terra era invisível e informe, e as trevas se estendiam sobre o abismo.” Ouço estas palavras, meu Deus, e não encontrando menção do dia em que criaste essas coisas, concluo dessa omissão que se trata do céu do céu, do céu intelectual, onde a inteligência conhece simultaneamente e não por partes; não por enigma, ou como um espelho, mas por inteiro, em plena luz, face a face; conhece não ora isto, ora aquilo, mas, como disse, simultaneamente, sem a sequência temporal. Concluo também que se trata da terra invisível, informe, estranha às vicissitudes do tempo, que ora causam isto, ora aquilo, pois onde não há forma não pode haver isto ou aquilo.”

Ler completo, com imagens e links em: http://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2...

n  Entrust to the Truth all that you have from the Truth, and you shall lose nothing. The parts of you that are withered shall bloom again, and all your illnesses shall be healed. (4.11.16)

Seek what you seek, but it is not where you seek it. You seek a life of blessedness in the land of death; it is not there. How can there be a blessed life in a place where there is not even life itself? (4.12.18)

As for those who think there is another life, they are chasing after another joy, and not the true one. (10.22.32)n

___________
Going in with most works 'blind' (so to speak) as I like to do, I had no idea that Augustine’s Confessions was so suffused with the former's religious experience. The work is strongly interwoven with Scripture, but apart from this, Augustine muses on many topics such as Beauty, Memory, and Metaphysics.

A nice work, and great translation.
__________
For as we grow up, we weed such habits out of ourselves and throw them away; but I have never known any wise farmer, when weeding his plot, to throw good plants out with the bad. (1.7.11)

And yet we did sin . . . We paid less attention to our books than was expected of us. (1.9.15)

Adults have their games, which they dignify by the name of 'business'. (1.9.15)

It is but vanity to make a profession of these earthly things . . . (5.5.8)

They think they are radiant and exalted as the stars of heaven, when all the while they have fallen headlong to earth, and their heart is darkened in its folly. (5.3.5)

The daily ruin of our body is called ‘pleasure’. (10.31.43)

As for the reason why I hated the Greek literature in which I was steeped as a boy—for that I have still found no satisfactory explanation. I had fallen in love with Latin literature . . . (1.13.20)

I confess I was eager to learn these books, for they were the joy of my wretched life. (1.16.26)

But it was not surprising that I was drifting off towards these vanities . . . considering what sort of men were held up to me as examples to imitate. (1.18.28)

Around me lay the quagmire of carnal desire, bubbling with the springs of pubescence, and breathing a mist that left my heart fog-bound and benighted; I could no longer tell the clear skies of love from the dark clouds of lust. The two swirled around me in confusion; and in my youthful ignorance I was quickly drawn over the cliffs of desire and sucked down by the eddying currents of vice. (2.2.2)

My vanity was so excessive that I longed to be smart and sophisticated. (3.1.1)

My studies, too—'The Liberal Arts', as they were called—were leading me in a direction of their own. (3.3.6)

In the regular course of study I came to a book by a certain Cicero . . . this book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy; it is called the Hortensius. It was this book that changed my outlook . . . Suddenly all my vain hopes seemed cheap, and I began to lust with a passion scarcely to be believed after the immortality conferred by philosophy . . . It was not in order to hone my tongue that I took it up, nor was it Cicero's manner of speech that swayed me, but what he was saying. (3.4.7)

. . . in Cicero's exhortation to philosophy there was one thing that I loved especially, namely that his words aroused me and set me on fire not to be a lover of this or that sect, but of wisdom itself, whatever it may be; to love it and seek it and gain it and keep it, to embrace it with all my strength. (3.4.)8

He will find out for himself from his reading the nature of his mistake . . . (3.12.21)

'What is it that we love except what is beautiful? What, then, is "beautiful"? And what is beauty? What is there in the things we love that charms and attracts us? They could not draw us to themselves unless there were some internal harmony and beauty of form about them.' I looked around and saw that within physical objects there is one sort of beauty that comes, so to speak, from the totality, and another which gives a sense of harmony through the congruence with which it fits in without another object, as part of a body fits in with the whole, or as a shoe fits a foot, and so forth. This thought welled up in the depths of my heart and filled my mind . . . (4.13.20)

I sought to know why I thought good the beauty of physical objects, whether in the heavens or on earth, and what it was that helped me judge correctly when I said of mutable objects, 'This thing ought to be such and such, but that thing so and so.' As I asked the question of why I judged thus (seeing that I did judge thus) I had found an eternity of truth, unchangeable and true . . . (7.17.23)

From that Beauty these craftsmen that pursue outward beauties take the yardstick by which they perceive what is good, but not the yardstick by which they should use it. (10.34.53)

I read by myself all the books on the so-called liberal arts, and understood all that I read . . . (4.16.30)

. . . I discovered that this erstwhile master of the liberal arts knew only literature—and had no special knowledge even of that. He had read some of Cicero's speeches, a few books by Seneca, some odds and ends of poetry, and the more literate of the Latin works of his own sect. (5.6.11)

I had not yet attained the truth, but had now been rescued from falsehood.(6.1.1)

As I passed through a street in Milan, I noticed a pauper begging. I suppose he had already had a skinful, and was now in a happy mood, full of jokes. I groaned, and observed to the friends who were with me how many were the sufferings of our own madness inflicted upon us. In all our strivings, such as those under which I was then labouring as I dragged my burden of unhappiness, driven by the lash of my own desires, making it heavier as I dragged it, we had but one wish: to arrive at a state of happiness and confidence. But that beggar, I said, had beaten us to it, and we would perhaps never reach it. What he had attained with the aid of a few small coins, and begged ones at that, I was approaching by a circuitous route, with many painful twists and turns: namely, the happiness that comes from earthly felicity. It was no true jot that he had; but the joy that I was seeking through my ambitions was far falser. He, at any rate, was cheerful, while I was anxious he was carefree, while I was full of trepidation. If someone had asked me whether I would rather be happy or fearful, I would have said, ‘Happy’. If they had asked again, whether I would rather be like the beggar, or as I then was, I would have chosen to be myself, exhausted though I was with worries and fears. But this is a perverse choice; what of the truth? I should not have regarded my condition as preferable to his because I was more educated, for I had no joy of my education. Instead, I sought to please men with it; not to teach them, but only to please them . . . It does matter, I know, why one is happy; the happiness that comes from faithful hope is incomparably different from my vanity. But even then, there was a difference between us: he was the rapper, not only in that he was drenched with high spirits, whearas I was even up inside with anxieties, but also in that he had got his wine by wishing people good day, whearas I sought to get my vain glory by lying. (6.6.9, 6.6.10)

I was not now in that state of vanity; I had transcended it . . . (8.1.2)

My will was perverted, and became a lust; I obeyed my lust as a slave, and it became a habit; I failed to resist my habit, and it became a need. (8.5.10)

I was in both the flesh and the spirit, but I was more myself in that which I approved in myself, than that which I disapproved in myself. (8.5.11)

He was capable of far greater literary activity, if he wished . . . (8.6.13)

. . . avoiding in his teaching all that might disturb the quiet of his mind; for that he wished to keep free and unoccupied for as many hours of the day as possible, while he sought to read or hear something concerning wisdom. (8.6.13)

All these tasks we endure—where are they taking us? (8.6.15)

He read, and was changed within . . . and his mind began to put off the world. For as he read . . . he pondered the shifting tides of his heart . . . he discerned the better course, and resolved upon it. (8.6.15)

Merely to seek this wisdom, even if I did not find it, now seemed preferable to difficult treasure houses or kingships of the nations, or an abundance of bodily pleasures that surpasses all my wishes. (8.7.17)

To progress toward it—indeed to attain it—was nothing other than the will to progress, but with a will that was strong and whole throughout. (8.8.19)

They did not block my path and speak out openly against me, but whispered behind my back and punched furtively at me as I left them behind, to make me look back. Nevertheless, they did delay my progress, and I was slow to tear myself away from them, shake them off, and hasten where I was summoned, as long as Habit, with all its force, said to me, 'Do you think you can do without these?' (8.11.26)

For those whose with it is to rejoice in outward things, soon waste away and spend themselves on things visible and temporal, and feed their famished mind by licking at illusions. (9.4.10)

. . . honeyed with the honey of heaven, radiant with your radiance. (9.4.11)

The scent of your ointments was heavy in the air . . . (9.7.16)

. . . scented with costly perfumes. (9.13.36)

You cast your fragrance, and I drew breath, yet pant for you; I tasted, yet hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I was on fire for your peace. (10.27.38)

The allurements of scents, however, does not bother me too much. When they are absent, I do not feel the need of them; when they are present, I do not reject them. I would even be ready to do without them for ever. Or so I think I would, I may be deceived. (10.32.48)

When our conversation reached the point at which no pleasure derived from carnal senses, however great, however illumined by bodily light, seemed in respect of the sweetness of that Life was worthy not only of comparison, but even of mention, then we raised ourselves up in a more ardent longing for the Same, moving step by step through all things corporeal, even the sky itself, from which sun and moon and stars shine upon the earth. Still higher we went, through inward contemplation and discussion and admiration . . . We came to our own minds, and passed beyond them to attain the land of richness unfailing where you feed Israel forever with the food of truth. There, life is the Wisdom through which all things that were and that are to be come into being . . . (9.10.24)

I shall therefore, transcend even that innate strength of mine, spending by degrees to him that made me. I shall come to the plains and broad palaces of memory, where there are boards of countless images brought in from the things of all kind that the senses perceive. There is the storehouse of all that we ever contemplate, whether by increasing or by diminishing or by altering in some way the objects that our senses have encountered, and of everything else which is entrusted for safekeeping there and has not yet been swallowed up and buried in oblivion . . . Some things come to hand easily and in unbroken sequence, just as they are requested; those that come first give way to those that follow on from them, and having given way, are stored up , to come forth the net time I want them. All this happens when I relate something from memory. (10.8.12)

All these things I do within, in the great hall of my memory. There heaven and earth stand ready for me, with everything in them that I have been able to perceive . . . (10.8.14)

Great is the strength of Memory, great indeed, my God; an inner chamber vast and infinite. Who has ever sounded its depths? This strength belongs to my mind and to my nature, yet I myself cannot comprehend all that I am. Is mind, then, too narrow to hold itself? And if so, what is the part of itself that it does not contain? How, then, can it be outside itself rather than inside itself? How, then, can it not contain itself? Great wonder arises within me over this question; bewilderment overwhelms me. (10.8.15)

But these are not the only things borne by my memory, with its innumerable capaciousness. In it also are all the elements of the liberal arts that I have acquired and not yet forgotten, as if kept apart in some placeless inner place. (10.9.16)

In the countless fields and grots and caverns of my memory, full beyond counting with countless kinds of thing, I range through images, as with all physical objects, through presences, as with the liberal arts, through mental concepts and records, as with my states of mind, which memory retains even when the mind is not undergoing them, though whatever is in the memory is also in the mind. Through all these things I range, flitting this way and that. I go as deep in as I can, and nowhere is there an end . . . (10.17.26)

And although I eat and drink for my health’s sake, a dangerous sweetness tags along at our heels and often attempts to go first, to make me do for pleasure’s sake what I say or wish to do for my health’s sake . . . My wretched soul is full of flee at this very uncertainty, and uses it in preparing the case for its defence, rejoicing that it is not clear what is the due amount of food to maintain one’s physical wellbeing, and covering the work of pleasure with the pretext of health. (10.31.44)

If I were given the choice of being on the one hand mad or mistaken on all matters and still praised by all men, or on the other hand of being firm in my wits, firmly convinced of the truth, and reviled by all, I know what I would choose. (10.37.61)

This is the profit I have of my confessions: that I should confess not what I was, but what I am, and confess it not only before you with secret exultation and trembling, and secret grief and hope, but also in the ears of those children of men who believe. These are my companions in my fellow-pilgrims; those that have gone before me, those that will come after me, those that come with me. (10.4.6)
___________
To Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears . . . (Virtue Chastises Folly: Allergory of Lust; 3.1.1)
___________
. . . each drop off time is precious to me. (11.2.2)

‘My son, for my part, I no longer take any pleasure in this life. What I am now doing here still, and why I am here, I do not know; my hope in this world is spent. There was one thing for which I used to long to remain a while longer in this life . . . (9.10.26)

For a whole month, I spent time learning from St. Augustine. I was not a very good student and some days I threw a hissy fit and refused to read any more. I almost wanted to bail out because the spiritual concepts were difficult to fathom. I was glad, therefore, to buddy-read this important work with Ebba Simone. This gave me the extra impetus to persevere and finish reading it.

Even though this book was rather weighty in issues raised for contemplation, I was very impressed and encouraged by Augustine’s love for God and his desire to seek after Him. I was also humbled by his sincerity and honesty in sharing his spiritual journey. Augustine’s conversion story was fascinating. His confessions took the form of conversations with God, which revealed a closeness I covet. It is no small gift that Augustine was willing to grant us access to his private thoughts and struggles as well as his insights, gratitude, and comfort.

Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. Confessions was written sixteen centuries ago. An autobiographical work, it outlined his wayward youth and his conversion to Christianity.

Augustine was a very bright student at Carthage where he won prizes for poetry composition. He loved the theatre where he could vicariously taste eroticism. He had an illustrious liberal education and became a professor of rhetoric. He claimed that he taught his students skills that could save the life of guilty rather than innocent people. From his late teens to young adulthood, Augustine believed in the myths of Manichee. The Manichees were a cult that taught a version of the doctrine of the Trinity, a Christology which excluded the reality of the humanity of Christ. Augustine also dabbled with astrology for a time. A very important influence was Monica, Augustine’s mother who prayed and wept over his waywardness. A bishop she consulted and begged to talk to Augustine but declined, said to her, “Go away from me: as you live, it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish.” I found this moving.

There are thirteen books in this autobiography. The first four books and Book VIII, which chronicled Augustine’s life, were to me the most interesting. The other books contained Augustine’s exploration of evil and its origin, memory, time and eternity, and creation (how the world came to exist). He pursued these topics with an intensity that I was unequal to. What held me was his deep devotion to God that found expression in prayer and praise, which were often touching and beautiful.

I believe that the ictus to Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ can be summed up in this thought which he articulated and is often quoted:

n  “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”n

This was exemplified in Augustine’s own life. It is also a theme expressed in varied ways throughout this work. Rest was a fitting conclusion to this autobiography where we are directed to the final sabbath rest of eternity.

I have penned a gist of my thoughts and summary to each of the thirteen books. Consider it a spoiler of sorts if you wish to read this book.

Book I. Early Years
I must say that the prose style is a bit formal (for want of a better word) and takes some getting used to. But what struck me was Augustine's desire for closeness to God - a desire to know God and to be known. That is admirable. I like learning about his childhood and what irked him about school. I was touched by his humility and how he ascribed his gifts to God.

Book II. Adolescence
Augustine confessed to the atrocities he committed as a wayward youth whose prime motivation was social approval. He admitted to a perversity that took pleasure in doing evil: “I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself.” There is wise reflection too that friendship can be a dangerous enemy especially for young and vulnerable youth.

Book III. Student at Carthage
Augustine’s awareness of grace shone in this book that recounted his waywardness in his adolescent years when he strayed from his faith. He was sexually promiscuous and impregnated a young girl. Yet, he knew God chastised him but not as he deserved. He had a godly mother who grieved over his sinful ways and prayed for him. Augustine recalled visions of assurance his mother shared with him that his prodigal self would find its way home one day.

Book IV. Manichee and Astrologer
Augustine took pride in his liberal education that was the mark of a cultivated gentleman. He also prided himself on his intelligence and ability to access difficulty learning on his own without the need for instructors. He believed in astrology and religion (Manichee, a weird cult) for him was mere superstition with no knowledge of the true God. However, he felt led each step of his ‘mistaken life’ by an invisible hand through various individuals such as the wise doctor, Helvius Vindicianus, who persuaded him that astrology was utterly bogus. His thoughts about the good life in God as our true home are beautifully expressed and comforting. This was a difficult book to read and I did not understand some things I read.

Book V. Carthage, Rome and Milan
Book V was written like a conversation with God about his seduction and deception by the Manichees and how God in answer to his mother’s tearful prayers and His grace led him to see through the vacuousness of the cult. He wrote about his disappointment with Faustus, the eloquent Manichee Bishop, who was unable to answer his questions and dodged them by his charm and smooth-talk. At this time, he did not consider himself a sinner. His conceived of sin merely as an alien nature within human beings. He also had a mistaken notion that God has mass and is not a spirit. He also mentioned moving from Carthage to Rome and finally to Milan to find more satisfying teaching positions in rhetoric. What was moving was Augustine’s awareness of God’s pursuit of him in all his wandering and his mother’s constant love for him and prayers, which God honored.

Chapter VI. Secular Ambitions and Conflicts
This marked a period in Augustine’s life when he no longer believed in the Manichees and was also not a Catholic Christian. He spoke of friendships he made which were significant in shaping his future life and beliefs. One notable friend was Alypius who later became Bishop of Thagaste. Augustine also revealed his erotic indulgence and his fear of being without a woman’s embrace. Again, we read about his awareness of divine guidance in his journey toward the truth. Rest is a key theme. Augustine said of God, “You alone are repose.”

Book VII A Neoplatonic Quest
A period of seeking and searching to understand the problem of evil. He acknowledged the immutability of God and even professed to love God. But his soul was weighed down by his sexual weakness. He was puffed up with knowledge. He could not enjoy God.

Book VIII The Birthpangs of Conversion
This interesting book described the turning point of Augustine’s life. It detailed his titanic struggles to give up his carnal habits and surrender his will to serve God. It recounted the events and people that directed his path towards giving up eroticism and earthly ambition. What an amazing encounter with God!

Book IX. Cassiciacum: to Monica’s death
This book described Augustine’s life post-conversion: his gratitude, his resignation from public work as a rhetoric professor, and how he loved reading and praying the Psalms. I read Psalm 4 and was moved by his response to it. It described the conversations he had with his mother, Monica, prior to her death. Monica was a significant influence upon Augustine’s life. What a devout and God-fearing woman!

Book X. Memory
Augustine confessed to a range of temptations of the flesh (the lust of the eye in various forms) that he continued to struggle with. I admired his honesty. He prayed for God’s mercy to help him fulfill his desire to love and please God. He wrote about the power of memory. “It is a vast and infinite profundity.” Is memory independent of the mind? He wrote about joy, too. Joy is the happy life. In his words, “That is the authentic happy life, to set one’s joy on you, grounded in you and caused by you. That is the real thing, and there is no other.”

Book XI. Time and Eternity
In this book, Augustine asked a question: Why pray when God our Father knows what we need before we ask him? His answer: “Therefore I lay bare my feelings towards you, by confessing to you my miseries and your mercies to us (Ps 32:22) so that the deliverance you have begun may be complete. So I may cease to be wretched in myself and may find happiness in you.” Another key idea in this book is that God created time. There ls a lengthy discussion on when and how time is measured and what time means relative to eternity. Augustine had a curious mind that was very tenacious in seeking answers to his obscure questions. I was much less interested and became impatient and irritated as his deliberations grew more and more intense.

Book XII Platonic and Christian Creation
Augustine acknowledged that God granted him insight into creation. This was a very intricate exploration of what is meant by “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Here is an example of an insight he gained: “Again you said to me, in a loud voice to my inner ear, that not even that created realm, ‘the heaven of heaven’, is co-eternal with you. Its delight is exclusively in you.” From what seems to me the murky depths of his confessions, his sincerity, indefatigable curiosity, and hunger for the truth rose to prominence. He was so earnest I felt ashamed to be impatient with his confessions. In all his wrangling about truth, he was certain that God made all things visible and invisible with His immutable word.

Book XIII. Finding the Church in Genesis 1.
Book XIII is a beautifully written book. Augustine spoke eloquently of a Good God and how he put His goodness in us that we may do good. “Be fruitful and multiply’ which was told Adam and Eve was extended to the church. Interestingly, “these fruits of the earth are to be allegorically interpreted as meaning works of mercy.” In his role as a Bishop, Augustine was committed to how the church could help the poor and needy. In a separate vein, he also talked how men should not sit in judgement of God’s Word even when it seemed obscure to us. A man can only know and love God by asking that He renews our mind and quickens our understanding. Finally, he concluded by describing the sabbath rest of eternal life when our journey on earth comes to an end.

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).

The Confessions of St. Augustine: Modern English Version

Just finished the Modern English Version.

First let me say that this is an amazing work that modern Christians would greatly benifit from reading.

Regardless of your faith you will appreciate the insight into Augustine's worldview and logical mind.

I enjoyed this version but will go back to Chadwick for the next read.

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

Sometimes I provide lengthy reviews. It is impossible to really provide any type of review of the Confessions which will actually be helpful. This is one of the most important books of human history. Written by a North African Christian theologian who taught in Carthage, Rome, Milan, and finished his life as bishop of Hippo. This book is a book length prayer to God in which Augustine publicly confesses his life, his wanderings, his ups and downs, and so on. It is, at once, a work containing both deep theological and philosophical reflection (i.e. - the nature of evil, the nature and human experience of time, the nature and wonder of memory, how even pagan philosophers are able to know something of God through nature, and so on), and touching reminders that nobody is perfect (Augustine tells us both of his many evil actions before becoming a Christian and of his many struggles and moral failures as even a mature Christian.) or always right (Augustine, the most important theologian of Christian history, tells us of his many errors, of the lies and errors he accepted as true, and even of many things that he is just unsure about.).
If you haven't read this book yet, or recently, you need to read it again.