Confessions (Nelson's Royal Classics)

by Augustine of Hippo

Confessions (Nelson's Royal Classics)

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1949 ratings, 3.78 average rating, 191 reviews (more data...)

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published

August 15th 1999 (first published 398) by Thomas Nelson Publishers

binding

Hardcover

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

isbn

0785242481 (isbn13: 9780785242482)

description

The premier line of Classic literature from the greatest Christian authors. The finest in quality and value.

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All ratings | 5 stars (593) | 4 stars (634) | 3 stars (489) | 2 stars (169) | 1 star (66) | avg 3.78

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booklady

booklady rated it:

(review of isbn 0385029551)

05/06/08

bookshelves: 2004, classic, hagiography, literature, scripture, spiritual

Read in August, 2004

recommends it for: Any Christian adult

Second reading 12-30 August 2004

I wish I could remember the first time I read Confessions but it was sometime back in the mid-90s and that is the closest I can narrow it down. If I had several hours to kill, I could go digging in my old book logs, and find the exact date. Since I don't have that kind of time at the moment, I'll just settle for the second time I read the book which was when I took a class in Spiritual Classics. It was the first book we read in the class and an e...more

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Frank

Frank rated it:

(review of isbn 0192833723)

03/28/08

Certainly a classic that has withstood the test of times for 1,700 years and is still just as valid, maybe more so. I think there are more quotes still used from this book than from any other this old other than the bible. I think this is the type of book that is best appreciated by just reading a little at a time, not trying to get through the book but just making it a constant companion. I find the sections with his mother (St. Monica - she became a saint just praying and working on the conver...more

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Tiffany

Tiffany rated it:

(review of isbn 0800787242)

09/17/07

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in September, 2007

"Oh Lord, I am working hard in this field, and the field of my labours is my own self. I have become a problem to myself, like land which a farmer works only with difficulty and at the cost of much sweat. For I am not now investigating the tracts of the heavens, or measuring the distance of the stars, or trying to discover how the earth hangs in space. I am investigating myself, my memory, my mind." -Book X, Ch. XVI

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Patricia

Patricia is currently reading it (review of isbn 0192833723)

11/28/08

bookshelves: ancient-classics, church-history, currently-reading, inspirational--devotional

recommends it for: any honest seeker

Saint Augustine was born on November 13, 354 AD.

There is a bounteous supply of beautiful words, excellent to read and beautiful to any honest seeker.
There is no game playing left in his confession, he has no interest in hiding any elephants in his heart and life, he with beautiful words, exposes the truth of his own condition to himself and to God.

This is a first real example in living words that i have encountered such an honest soul. His point is to relate to his Maker in all truth...more

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Justin

Justin is currently reading it (review of isbn 0192833723)

11/17/08

bookshelves: currently-reading, q12008

In an account written to share his life with the people, Confessions, written by Augustine (4th century AD), is Augustine's own account of what he has done wrong to a God which he believed in as well as an expression of his own passion and love for the God that he believed was the cause and the reason for his happiness. These two aims come together in the Confessions in an elegant but complex sense: Augustine narrates his ascent from sinfulness to faithfulness not simply for the practical edific...more In an account written to share his life with the people, Confessions, written by Augustine (4th century AD), is Augustine's own account of what he has done wrong to a God which he believed in as well as an expression of his own passion and love for the God that he believed was the cause and the reason for his happiness. These two aims come together in the Confessions in an elegant but complex sense: Augustine narrates his ascent from sinfulness to faithfulness not simply for the practical edification of his readers, but also because he believes that narrative to be itself a story of God's greatness and of the fundamental love all things have for Him. Obviously Augustine is the main character, for he is writing an autobiography, and details in great emmense his life up to his mother's death. After reaching that point, Augustine then hammers upon his ideals and philosophies. Reading Neoplatan books before writing, it was very evident to see Neoplatanic ideas in his philosophy and theology. The Bible, his greatest and biggest influence, was also established into his philosophy which resulted in influencing people throughout periods of time. Loving, self-englightment seeking, God oriented, and well mannered, Augustine expresses and upholds religious truth and value and extends his invitation to search for what you believe and seek God in it. Questioning the power and diety that God is portrayed to be, Augustine really angered the more conservative base, but greatly inspired others to follow the same challenge. Augustine's text is remarkably and complexly coherent, despite its apparent eccentricities and shifts in content. He is laying out the story of his life, opening himself as completely as possible to God and to his readers. In so doing, he is praising God for his salvation. Further, he is illustrating, with a temporal example, a specific view of the universe as unified across all time in an unchanging God.

Semptember 29th

Text to Self: As a young adult I completely can relate to what Augustine went through. You grow up taught to believe what your parents tell you to, but there comes that day and time when you have to choose and examine what you believe and why you believe it. I had to do this with my religious beliefs. You must examine every detail and decide if you wish to further your belief or change what you believe. Augustine examined his position on God and what he believed his ties with God were...as did I.

Text to Text: Confessions reminds me of the Bible. Both compare God and man, especially examines the role of sin, God, and man, and how each effects the other and what roles each establish in the other. Augustine compares his life, his sin, and his belief to the Bible so I also know its a very easy connection to establish.

Text to World: Augustine did what many people do and will always do...he questioned everything. Everyone asks that same question "why am i here" "what is my purpose", key things that Augustine himself asked. He broke down everything; not only religion, but politics, philosophy, religion, and everything that every human must ponder upon....less

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Suzi

Suzi rated it:

(review of isbn 0192833723)

09/04/08

Read in January, 2007

recommended to Suzi by: I borrowed it from my son
recommends it for: anybody with half a lick of sense

I learned from this book, that people way back in the old days when they wore robes and had flies in their food and were making and tearing down columns, ionic, doric and dorkey... that they were just like us... inside. Societies and norms and slavery and science all change... but inside, we are human beings, and even saints fall prey to their own weaknesses and grow from their strengths. Confessions tells us in St. Augustine's own reflections on himself and those around him, how one lives one...more

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James

James rated it:

(review of isbn 0192817795)

08/29/08

bookshelves: memoir, philosophy, plauchestudygroup, universityofchicago

Read in May, 2004

I have read this book several times, both as part of the Basic Program of Liberal Education at the University of Chicago and most recently as one of the monthly selections of a reading group in which I participate. Like all classics it bears rereading and yields new insights each time I read it. But it also is unchanging in ways that struck me when I first read it; for Augustine's Confessions seem almost modern in the telling with a psychological perspective that brings his emotional growth aliv...more

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D-t

D-t rated it:

(review of isbn 0451527801)

08/17/08

Read in August, 2008

saints are boring writers. augustine had a pretty frolicsome youth, by saintly standards, but his confessions are short on juicy details. and his love for god can be a little nauseating in the same way that slobbery couples are:

"O highest and best, most powerful, most all-powerful, most merciful and most just, most deeply hidden and most nearly present, most beautiful and most strong, constant yet incomprehensible... You love, but with no storm of passion; you are jealous, but with no anxious fear... And in all this what have I said, my God, my Life, my holy sweetness? What does any man succeed in saying when he attempts to speak of you?" ...more saints are boring writers. augustine had a pretty frolicsome youth, by saintly standards, but his confessions are short on juicy details. and his love for god can be a little nauseating in the same way that slobbery couples are:

"O highest and best, most powerful, most all-powerful, most merciful and most just, most deeply hidden and most nearly present, most beautiful and most strong, constant yet incomprehensible... You love, but with no storm of passion; you are jealous, but with no anxious fear... And in all this what have I said, my God, my Life, my holy sweetness? What does any man succeed in saying when he attempts to speak of you?"

"holy sweetness"? gross. get a room.

in fact the only thing augustine loves almost as much as he loves god is his mother, with whom he also might have been well advised to get a room.

in the end, though, it was a pretty interesting read as a look into the mind of a brilliant philosopher and a man who did as much as anyone to shape the early church. it's interesting to see that as early as 400 AD augustine was passionately arguing against a literal interpretation of the bible. in book XII, chapter 27, augustine singles out the story of the creation of the world from Genesis, writing:

"Some people, for example, when they read or hear the words which we are discussing think of God as though He were a kind of man or else like some great force... and they imagine that by some new and sudden decision He made heaven and earth...and there are other such notions too, all due to the fact that some people are used to thinking in material terms. Such people are still feeble little creatures, but by this humble kind of language... is built up in them a healthy faith..."

it's strange to see that 1600 years after augustine there are still people who insist on interpreting the text narrowly in support of notions like Creationism. i very much doubt that augustine would have much sympathy for feeble little creatures who continue to take the bible at its literal word when God has given us so much empirical evidence that the true meaning of the text is deeper and allegorical.

religions all seem to run the same course. tools meant to help novices understand the basic tenets (idols, allegory, deities, customs, mythology) assume a central role that i (not that i know anything, admittedly) doubt they were ever originally meant to play. so we get the hindu pantheon of 16,000 gods with 147,989 arms and legs between them, or the orthodox jewish ban on tearing toilet paper on the sabbath, or the extensive buddhist iconography, or the fringe christian insistence that evolution is a hoax.

augustine also did quite a remarkable job of anticipating the debate among religious scholars and literary critics about authorial intent. augustine argues in book XII, chapter 31, that the intent of the bible's authors (he takes moses to be the author of Genesis and argues in particular about moses's intent there) is unknowable and that the beauty and wisdom of the bible comes from the fact that there are so many correct ("true") interpretations. i tend to agree with him here, and i find it difficult to believe that this is still a subject of so much dispute a millennium and a half after augustine settled this question to his satisfaction. in fact, augustine goes so far as to argue in book XIII, chapter 24, that one of the "true" meanings of the Genesis directive that man "increase and multiply and replenish the earth" is that man find and create these multiple meanings:

"And for this reason we believe, Lord, that you said... Increase and Multiply. For I take it that in this blessing you have granted us the faculty and the power both to express in many ways what we have grasped intellectually in only one way, and to understand in many ways what we find obscurely expressed in only one way."

pretty dry, but all in all very interesting and well worth reading. i read the rex warner translation....less

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Jeremy

Jeremy rated it:

(review of isbn 0192833723)

08/17/08

Read in August, 2008

This book is about three things: 1) Augustine's life (decadent youth and his reaction to it as he looks back as a Christian years later), 2) his reasoning about the world's mysteries (nature of time, sin, suffering, evil, physical sensations, etc.) and 3) what #2 tells him about God.

I'm glad I read this, but it was a bit of a bear to get through. Augustine definitely comes across as a guy who searched long and hard for truth, stopping along the way to consider some interesting questions tha...more This book is about three things: 1) Augustine's life (decadent youth and his reaction to it as he looks back as a Christian years later), 2) his reasoning about the world's mysteries (nature of time, sin, suffering, evil, physical sensations, etc.) and 3) what #2 tells him about God.

I'm glad I read this, but it was a bit of a bear to get through. Augustine definitely comes across as a guy who searched long and hard for truth, stopping along the way to consider some interesting questions that still ring true in the modern world. Augustine's thoughts on the origin of evil were insightful, thought-provoking to modern readers. Also he delves deep into the psychology of sin, arriving at some pretty amazing (and ugly) truths that I still see in my life and in the world around me on a daily basis.

Sometimes Augustine comes off a little melodramatic. I don't agree completely with some of his conclusions. Sometimes he seems to ascribe to the "if it makes you happy, it's probably bad" school of thought. Perhaps it's his response to the decadence of his youth. Maybe he's trying to overcompensate later in life. I agree with his premise (i.e. certain things can draw us away from God), but not as a generality (anything that makes us happy draws us away from God).

It's interesting to hear a major Christian figure talk about his struggle with "earthly pleasures" (as he would call them) and admit his fundamental human weakness. What are the chances you'd get a televangelist these days to speak so openly about his own failings?

Augustine should be read by everyone interested in learning about Christianity without all the B.S. fundamentalist pseudo-philosophy of the modern era. Augustine isn't perfect, but his Confessions are rather disarming. You feel like you know the guy. He expounds questions of faith and the mysteries of the world (ruminating at length on the nature of time, for example) with an intellectual, critical voice that so many modern people don't believe can co-exist with a Christian worldview. I find him inspiring for that very reason. ...less

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erik graff

erik rated it:

(review of isbn 014044114X)

05/10/08

bookshelves: biography

Read in January, 1976

recommended to erik by: Cyril Richardson
recommends it for: everyone

I've read this book twice now, once in seminary in New York for myself and once in graduate school in Chicago for a class on Augustine taught by F. David Hassel. Eight years had intervened, so the rereading was not unpleasant.

Most of the books of the Confessions are surprisingly accessible. The jaring elements for most moderns would probably be, one, the lengthy excurses about theology in the later books; two, the callous disregard he displays towards the mother of his son (her name is nev...more

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Velcro

Velcro is currently reading it (review of isbn 0192833723)

03/20/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

"...He was far and away the best--if not the very first--psychologist in the ancient world. His observations and descriptions of human motives and emotions, his depth analyses of will and thought in their interaction, and his exploration of the inner nature of the human self--these have established one of the main traditions in European conceptions of human nature, even down to our own time. Augustine is an essential source for both contemporary depth psychology and existentialist philosoph...more

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Mickey

Mickey rated it:

(review of isbn 0192833723)

11/02/07

Read in June, 2007

So I really liked this book here.

One time at a family dinner I told my fussing niece, at the time a mere year and a half old, that even though she was'nt able to understand that her behavior was wrong she was still sinning and would have to pay for it later. I learned that fact from the Confessions of Saint Augustine. My sister didn't like that I said that.

This book also poses what I consider a pretty good theory, that theory essentially being "God Is". He also says "...more

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Russell

Russell rated it:

(review of isbn 0800787242)

10/18/07

Read in November, 2006

The edition I got was a mixed blessing.

It's a Modern English translation, which made it a lot easier to read and understand. The rendering of Thou as You, I'll admit, was a bit annoying since I am familiar with the King James Bible and so archaic words aren't scary, but archaic sentence structures do slow me down ...more

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Emily

Emily rated it:

(review of isbn 0143039512)

10/25/07

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: the philosophically or theologically inclined

One of my professors said that everybody interested in Western thought should read The Confessions. He was totally right. It's one of those books that makes an entire tradition of other writing and thinking suddenly make sense. That doesn't make it an exactly gripping read, although Willis's translation is great and there is actually a plot in the first half, tracing Augustine's wayward youth leading up to his conversion. It's all incredibly dense, though, especially the last half where he s...more

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Nikki

Nikki rated it:

(review of isbn 1591094003)

06/07/07

bookshelves: philosophical

This book is what put into my mind the idea of majoring in Philosophy. Saint Augustine writes so beautifully, it literally brought tears to my eyes. It isn't the words he uses, but the way he organizes his thoughts so precisely, powerfully, and passionately. I knew that majoring in philosophy would take me on a path to being able to see more beauty and truth in everything around me.

St. Augustine's purpose was twofold when he wrote Confessions: 1) to explain to himself the significance of hi...more

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P rated it:

(review of isbn 0192833723)

07/21/08

bookshelves: philosophy-theology-life

St Augustine of Hippo was a passionate, intelligent youth whose journey to Christianity is detailed in this vivid autobiography. Some 1600 years old, it is still a work of psychological intensity and of sublime passages:

"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with...more

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Kris

Kris rated it:

(review of isbn 0192833723)

11/25/08

bookshelves: biographies, favorites

Read in January, 2001

recommends it for: everyone

One of my all-time favorite books. Augustine gets me! It's refreshing to read such an ancient work that still speaks to my very own situation. This has to be the greatest autobiography in literary history. He writes with such transparent humility, yet never lets go of deeply-rooted convictions about God, sin, and himself. Anyone, the faithful and the faithless, ought to be able to identify with Augustine of Hippo's timeless work.

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bill

bill rated it:

(review of isbn 1591094003)

05/01/07

Read in January, 2006

lots to like here. first, augustine's writing is striking and insightful. he describes states of the heart with accuracy and wisdom. most of his metaphors are borrowed from scripture or neoplatonic writers, and he's able to bring them together in memorable ways. second, many parts of it can be read as a devotional - most sections begin with a psalm reference and then jump into his own prayers, thoughts on god. third, in tracing his conversion from dualist to sceptic to neoplatonist to christian,...more

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Eric

Eric rated it:

(review of isbn 0800787625)

10/24/08

bookshelves: christian

Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: people who know how the story ends and don't mind missing the ending.

This is an abridged version. The first 3/4 of it were wonderful selections. Translation was smooth, good stuff. He wondered aimlessly for the last 1/4 - not his fault, he wasn't writing disembodied text at the time.

What really irks me though...how do you make a version of St Augustine's Confessions without the conversion account?! It's all the news other than the Good News. We go straight from our wayward hero fumbling through life to the sainted Augustine bewailing his mother's death. ...more

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Charles

Charles rated it:

(review of isbn 0883683822)

08/14/08

bookshelves: biography, theology

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in July, 2008

recommended to Charles by: Saw it on sale at a book fair
recommends it for: anybody

A great book, but it was written in Old English and slightly hard to understand. Also Austine seems to rant a little and talks about some cultural subjects I'm completely lost on. Was well worth the read though. St. Augustine's story is pretty rough and he had a difficult life. Through these hard times he developed a great relationship with God. I think the moment where he runs away from his mother was a highlighted moment of mine in the book, that and when he quotes another St. that was asked &...more

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