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Confessions (World's Classics)

by Augustine of Hippo, Henry Chadwick (Translator)

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 15,283 ratings · 774 reviews

Augustine's Confessions is one of the most influential and most innovative works of Latin literature. Written in the author's early forties in the last years of the fourth century A.D. and during his first years as a bishop, they reflect on his life and on the activity of remembering and interpreting a life. Books I-IV are concerned with infancy and learning to talk, schoo...more

paper, 352 pages

Published June 25th 1998 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 397)

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Jul 15, 2012 Giorgi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

how is it able that one can discover whole his past life as totality of mistakes he did it. very dramatic destiny of life, but his memories can told us a lot of about our life everyone have that kind of experiences in his or her life, but if someones want to judge it he must have desire to know what is truth and as i have seen in this book every ages have their mistakes and reason for it is that when someone are making choase he believe that he is right, but after ages or minutes you will remind...more

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Sep 25, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books (Memoirs)

Shelves: 501, religion

I never dreamed that one day I would finished reading a 300-page memoir written by a ancient Catholic saint. See, how many saints who lived during the first millennium have written himself a memoir?

I twice tried to read The Holy Bible (once in English and once in Tagalog) from cover to cover but failed. I just got distracted by too many details and hard-to-remember names and ancient places and I could not appreciate what were all those characters are doing. Excuses, excuses. They say that readin...more I never dreamed that one day I would finished reading a 300-page memoir written by a ancient Catholic saint. See, how many saints who lived during the first millennium have written himself a memoir?

I twice tried to read The Holy Bible (once in English and once in Tagalog) from cover to cover but failed. I just got distracted by too many details and hard-to-remember names and ancient places and I could not appreciate what were all those characters are doing. Excuses, excuses. They say that reading The Holy Bible needs the Holy Spirit to come to you so that it will be the spirit who will whisper the words to your ears so that you will understand the word of God. Maybe the spirit is still contemplating whether a sinner like me is worth his time and effort.

Until I came to this memoir. Written by a self-confessed sinner who is now considered one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity: Saint Augustine (latin word for church father)of Hippo (354-430)

It took me more than 4 weeks to finish this book. Not a straight read. It is impossible to do that. The memoir is like a letter of St. Augustine to God and in the letter, he is conversing and confessing. He pours out his thoughts, his doubts, his questions. Some of those are funny (based on what we all know now with the advances in science and technology). He tells Him his weaknesses, what wrongs he has done to others. His sins in thoughts, in words, in actions.

Reading it is like uttering a prayer. Read a page or two and you get that feeling that you have achieve your daily quota of prayers. St. Augustine poured his heart out in each page of his memoir. Something that is inspiring for me to ask myself those questions he threw out to God and reflect on those thoughts that he put on the pages.

There are so many quotes that I would like to capture here but if I do that, I think I will be quoting half of the book. Most of them are in long and winding sentences but this first paragraph of Book 11 is my favorite:

Is it possible, lord, that, since you are in eternity, you are ignorant of what I am saying to you? Or, do you see in time an event at the time it occurs? If not, then why am I recounting such a tale of things to you? Certainly not in order to acquiant you with them through me; but, instead, that through them I may stir up my own love and the love of my readers toward you, so that all may say, "Great is the lord and greatly to be praised." I have said this before and will say it again. For love of your love I do it. So also we pray - and yet truth tells us, "Your father knows want things you need before you ask him." Consequently, we lay bare our feelings before you, so that, through our confessing to you our plight and your mercies towards us, you may go on to free us altogether, as you have already begun; and so that we may cease to be wretched in ourselves and blessed in you - since you have called us to be poor in spirit, meek, mourners, hungering and athirst for righteousness, merciful and pure in heart."

Now, I have to give The Holy Bible another try. I could not have finished this whole book and pointed that beautiful part if there was no Holy Spirit upon me.

Oh ye of little faith.(less)

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Aug 21, 2009 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Sarah by: Dr. Harmon

Shelves: theology

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...more 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.

(less)

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Mar 07, 2009 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, study-group, u-of-chicago, autobiography, classics, spiritual

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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Sep 03, 2011 Jerome Peterson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Confessions" is the type of book with a heavy dynamic caliber that it should be read slow, thoughtfully, and with a highlighter. Saint Augustine doe not hold back in his shortcomings. He paints a black, very personal, wicked youth. He confesses all and bares his soul. The passages about his mother were extremely soulful revealing the man as an affectionate son. He writes with hopeful authority; yet in a humble voice and always in a way that I could relate with it in today's hectic pace. His sty...more

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Oct 06, 2011 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography, religion, philosophy, non-fiction, history

It was slow, it was dense, and it was militantly Christian. So why is that The Confessions is such an unavoidably fascinating work? Augustine appears here as a fully realized person, with all the good and the bad that that implies; it's as if the book was a conversation with God and a fly-on-the-wall was taking dictation. Since God obviously would have known Augustine's transgressions before they even occurred, Augustine thus has nothing to hide in this personal narrative, or at least makes it a...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, memoir, religion, philosophy, autobiography, medieval, spirituality

Written during the waning of the Roman Empire around 400AD, this account of the early life of a seminal theologian of the Catholic church is a personal perspective on what he regards as his sinful life leading up to his conversion. His writing is surprisingly accessible, almost modern in its approach to weighing the factors that contribute to growing up. His mother was a Christian, but he took a long time to come around. He excelled in school and hungered to elucidate abstract knowledge, eventua...more Written during the waning of the Roman Empire around 400AD, this account of the early life of a seminal theologian of the Catholic church is a personal perspective on what he regards as his sinful life leading up to his conversion. His writing is surprisingly accessible, almost modern in its approach to weighing the factors that contribute to growing up. His mother was a Christian, but he took a long time to come around. He excelled in school and hungered to elucidate abstract knowledge, eventually becoming a master of rhetoric, like his hero Cicero. Yet from his youth, he cherished sexual and other worldly pleasures while paradoxically aligning himself with the Manicheeism theology that condemned the Christian tenet of a human Christ for not being spiritual enough.

His explorations of how he worked his way toward conversion represents an early advance in psychology. He covers well how his character was shaped by maternal nurturing, paternal discipline, peer relations, early loves, positive role models, and personal tragedies. His reflections on the relationship of sensory perception to knowledge, the relativity of perception and emotions, the prime role of memory to consciousness, and constructive capacity of language are refreshing precursors to current perspective. He tries to make sense of the issue of human free will vs. God being part of everything, but doesn't have a compelling solution to me. I enjoyed his musings on the nature of time, logically concluding past, present, and future are all meaningful only from a present perspective (with "now" ultimately infinitesimally short). His struggle to account for creation having a beginning with God existing outside time (and the meaning of the pre-creation "ithout form and void"version of matter) resembles to me the challenge for modern physics of what existed before the Big Bang.

On the downside for a non-religious person reading this book today is that he obviously couldn't escape the worldview of dualism between matter/body and spirit/mind/soul. Yet he doesn't come to cast worldly experiences and pleasures as meaningless or evil or speak much of the devil or Hell. For him, the origin of evil lies in being out of God's light or in willful ignorance, not from a separate source. It's a shame that this worldly Christian thinker didn't evolve more to the mystical view of God really being in the world, following the example of Christ for the "Word made flesh". (less)

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Feb 14, 2013 Kendra rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: faith-christianity, mfa-recommendations, classics

BOOK ONE*

In search of God’s presence, and at one in the morning with a cup of cold tea at her elbow, the reader undertakes to set forth and analyze her uneasy relationship with the words of Augustine. In a mood of sustained disquiet, she relates her first exposure to the Confessions in college, her subsequent struggle to reconcile Platonic thought and her own faith, and her ultimate rejection of Christian bookstores. She concludes with confusion.

[I] 1. “If you stumble in safe country, how will...more BOOK ONE*

In search of God’s presence, and at one in the morning with a cup of cold tea at her elbow, the reader undertakes to set forth and analyze her uneasy relationship with the words of Augustine. In a mood of sustained disquiet, she relates her first exposure to the Confessions in college, her subsequent struggle to reconcile Platonic thought and her own faith, and her ultimate rejection of Christian bookstores. She concludes with confusion.

[I] 1. “If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets of the Jordan?”**
And, oh Lord of Christian history, the words of Augustine are supposed to be the safest of safe countries. Man, and this (wo)man in particular, longs to reconcile the beauty of tradition with the passion and conviction of personal experience; for we recognize the richness of shared legacy, but you have instilled in us a deepening yearning for personal encounter and, save perhaps those psychopaths who carry assault weapons into movie theaters and elementary schools, a desire for peaceful belonging. Sometimes these desires are at odds with each other, and so I find myself wishing I could enjoy the words of your Saint and self-abasing servant, one Augustine, so that I could better belong to this community I was born into and have elected to return to--that is, the assembly of believers who profess Jesus Christ as one part Trinity and all parts savior. If I cannot embrace Augustine, and thus keep my footing in safe country, into what thickets might I stumble? “Who is wise?” I beg of thee. “Who is distressing? The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.”*** I can only hope to walk in your right ways by accident.
[II] 2. And behold, I lost my footing in Augustine before I knew my own bearings. For you saw fit in your unsearchable and yet calculating ways to place me in a course of studies where his words were required reading. I am not speaking of graduate school--not yet--but of Evangelical Theology, and later, Integrated Theology. There were five of us sophomores, then, who braved the difficult course load together, and treated it with a levity inspired not by contempt but by that joyous abandon that you sometimes distribute amongst young men and women.
[III] 3. I give thanks to you, Lord, that you gave me teachers of great wisdom, greater patience, and unflagging tempers of kind humor. Who else would have allowed us to sit on the floor at his feet three times a week except Cary Balzer, and not treated us as immature college students? Who else would have let us invade her home every week to retread the obfuscations of dead theologians except Robbie Castleman? Who else in the conservative Christian South would have forgiven me four years of doubt, impertinence, and general tomfoolery--except the professors of John Brown University? And yet, in all your good grace, you gave me teachers as gracious as I was graceless, and wise.
[IV] 4. So it was not some failure on the parts of my college teachers, then, that kept me from liking Augustine the first time he crossed my academic studies. Rather, it was Plato and his cave that drove me to distraction. The separation of lower earth from higher heaven, of broken body from fractured soul, of creator from the creation--in short, the separation of everything into polarities--struck me as a false formula for clarity, an artificial construct that allowed Plato, and the Neoplatonists, Augustine himself, and finally and most problematically, the Church throughout history, to create a dialogue of black and whites on topics left grey in the Scriptures themselves. These ideological descendants of Plato altered language itself, so that I was left speechless, robbed of a rhetorical middle ground that had dissolved into the us versus them and this versus that debates that have dominated Christian history ever since. “A house divided against itself will fall,”**** and yet Augustine and the others have made a surgical cut between my animal body and my spiritual soul, and I cannot endure the inner division.
[V] 5. When you appeared to your disciples after dying and coming back, you were hungry. You stood among them and asked them, “Do you have anything to eat?”***** You broke bread, ate fish, and sat by a fire. Imperishable, resurrected, you made no distinctions between bodies and souls. You did not instruct your servants to revile their bodies, or to follow a prescribed spiritual diet, or to otherwise torture the human frame into submission to some higher, spiritual calling. You did not stock the shelves of the local Christian bookstore with self-help books for managing the human condition--that is, the dirtiness and limitations of the human frame--Plato and Augustine did. And in your goodness and wisdom, you showed me a more wholesome picture, even while leaving me annoyed and confused by the artifice of Augustine’s Confessions. Perhaps it is your will that I someday encounter him again, and perhaps it is also your will that I remain divorced from the majority of Christian scholars who uphold your servant Augustine as the pinnacle of orthodoxy. For love of others who love his words, I will not burn my copy of Confessions as I burned my copy of Masterpieces of Literature in my senior year of college. If you have broken through the fog of the intervening years, it has been with the knowledge that this struggle is not yet over.

---

NOTES:

* = And only.
** = Jer.12:5b.
*** = Hosea 14:9.
**** = Luke 11:17b
***** = Luke 24:41(less)

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Apr 03, 2012 Greg Garrett rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 h...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Bryan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone interested in Christianity, spirituality, philosophy, and theology

Recommended to Bryan by: Mrs. King, my high school English teacher

Shelves: read-multiple-times, christianity, highly-recommend, theology, religion, to-read-again

I went into this book with wary expectations, but by the end of it was fully enthusiastic about Augustine's account of his conversion.

There were two things that always kept me from reading this book: the first was that I read only part of his quote "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet," when I was younger and so it didn't settle with me. I mistakenly thought that "The Confessions" were Augustine's attempts to confess a sin in order that he could keep doing it, and that seemed like a waste of tim...more

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Apr 18, 2010 Nathaniel rated it 2 of 5 stars

I hated this book when I read it in ninth grade. I'm somewhat more tolerant of it now, which still isn't saying a lot. This is an important book to read once to understand how Church dogma developed in the period between Rome and the early Middle Ages, but that doesn't mean it's the least bit interesting outside of an academic context, at least not unless you're a die-hard apologist for the Catholic Church. In fact, most of it is self-righteous dogmatic crap with a majorly and stupidly overdevel...more

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Mar 08, 2010 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

The first half of the book is primarily autobiographical. St. Augustine writes about life as the tormented seeker. He moves from aesthetics to Manicheanism to Christianity, reckoning with questions as to what is the ultimate reality. Augustine eventually finds comfort in the Christian God of his mother Monica, a God that he previously felt was far too mythological, before having the scriptures explicated by St. Ambrose of Milan (This story should be familiar to anyone who has struggled against p...more

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May 21, 2012 Daniel Toker rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

My only criticism is that the book sometimes lagged - but this is true of almost all philosophical and theological works, especially classical ones.

Otherwise, it was very illuminating as to the nature of Christianity (I'm Jewish, so a lot of this stuff is new to me). What was most impressive was Augustine's razor-sharp self-awareness. I couldn't believe that a classical author could have written with what I had previously taken to be uniquely modern Angst (in Existentialist terms). He was very...more

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May 06, 2008 booklady rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Any Christian adult

Shelves: hagiography, literature, classic, spiritual, scripture, 2004, worth-reading-over-and-over, prayer, non-fiction

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 excellent introduct...more

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Mar 28, 2008 Frank rated it 4 of 5 stars

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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May 18, 2013 JP rated it 5 of 5 stars

What makes this such a popular testimonial and classic of Christian writing is the profound thinking he shares about the depth of his own spiritual life and his contemplation about creation and God. Most of the early chapters are about the wretchedness of his life and those of anyone before they find God. He starts at infancy and works his way through boyhood to the point where he was a young man of 30. Book 8, #13 includes a great description of his friend going to the gladiator events, intendi...more What makes this such a popular testimonial and classic of Christian writing is the profound thinking he shares about the depth of his own spiritual life and his contemplation about creation and God. Most of the early chapters are about the wretchedness of his life and those of anyone before they find God. He starts at infancy and works his way through boyhood to the point where he was a young man of 30. Book 8, #13 includes a great description of his friend going to the gladiator events, intending not to watch but looking out of curiosity and becoming another bloodthirsty member of the crowd. St. Augustine's life was not that of a typical saint. After this passage: "my concubine being torn from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding," he took on another mistress and kept with him the son by the first. He refers to Epicurus, remarking that he would have believed were it not for the tenet that there is nothing after death. This metaphysical debate shows the type of thought process that Augustine had to endure to reconcile current philosophy with early Christian beliefs: " that the body of an elephant should contain more of Thee than that of a sparrow, by how much larger it is, and takes up more room." In Book 7 #7, Augustine begins contemplating the nature of evil and how it "crept" into being. Did God create it? Again, we see reason guiding his spiritual thinking. He talks about the astrologers and how he rejected them based on a story of two men born at the exact same time, one a slave and the other a prince. Despite identical stars, they led very different lives. Hee first encountered John 1:1 by acquiring it among some books recorded by the Platonists. The Platonic concept of duality is entwined through much of Augustine's thinking. He considers the passage "and the word was made flesh" and appreciates the implication. He thinks about the meaning of an "incorruptible substance" and the effect on that which it touches. Book IX, #20 relates the strength and admonishment of women Christians at the time, and how they placed value in hearing the scripture in the home as a way of controlling abusive husbands. Book IX, #33 is the moving passage about how he came to understand his mother's death and how it brought him closer to God. Book X is the single most important and profound part of the Confessions. Having in the former books spoken of himself before his receiving the grace of baptism, in this section he admits what he then was. First, he inquires by what faculty we can know God at all, reasoning on the mystery of memory, wherein God, being made known, dwells undiscovered. Then he examines his own trials under the triple division of temptation, 'lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride.' The sins of the eyes is actually "curiosity." The sins of the flesh are all of those bodily pleasures and desires that take us away from the spiritual. Book X, #47: "Placed then amid these temptations, I strive daily against concupiscence in eating and drinking. For it is not of such nature, that I can settle on cutting it off once for all, and never touching it afterward, as I could of concubinage." Like many other great thinkers, Augustine considered the wonder of creation; in fact, just the nature of it alone to be proof of something greater than, i.e. God. There is much discussion about the nature of time, memory, the soul, and the how of God and man. In the closing books, he considers the immutable and eternal nature of God and the logical implication on creation, God's will, the past, the future, and the human frame of reference about these concepts.(less)

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Aug 06, 2011 David Boyce added it

This is one of those books that you always see on college reading lists and fill with you dread. Not only is the translation I in archaic English it is also a really long discourse. Don't get me wrong, it is not boring. Far from it! It is very interesting to follow St Augustine through a retelling of his own childhood and especially those events that lead to him being a Christian Bishop in a Roman outpost. The bits that really captured my imagination were the descriptions of the everyday which s...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Jared Henderson rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone and everyone

This is the most amazing book I have ever read. It, more than any other book has had a significant impact on my life. This autobiography chronicles the life and religious struggles of Augustine of Hippo from his childhood to his young adult days as a Gnostic, all the way to his final acceptance of Christianity as an older adult. The amazing thing about this books is the intelligent and articulate arguments Augustine conveys both in favor of and against different religious/philosophical ideologie...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Alex rated it 2 of 5 stars

Took me a long time to read this one; I think I've been too heavy on the classics-side of my reading list, and I'm getting burned on classics.

Hmm... first of all, "of Hippo"... how awesome! I want that as a last name.

Okay, on the whole, an interesting conversion story to read. Augustine is a thinker, he was classically educated with lots of Plato and Aristotle et.al., so ol' Auggy thinks big picture, philosophical-like. That's quite unlike how I think. For some reason, I don't spend much of my m...more Took me a long time to read this one; I think I've been too heavy on the classics-side of my reading list, and I'm getting burned on classics.

Hmm... first of all, "of Hippo"... how awesome! I want that as a last name.

Okay, on the whole, an interesting conversion story to read. Augustine is a thinker, he was classically educated with lots of Plato and Aristotle et.al., so ol' Auggy thinks big picture, philosophical-like. That's quite unlike how I think. For some reason, I don't spend much of my mental energy on the notion of ultimate good or ultimate evil when there's plenty of local good and evil to be observed.

Auggy gets starts off on a really rough foot, though. He frames the Confessions as the story of his life, and the first chapter involves what a sinful kid he was. I mean, when he was a baby, he CRIED. How shameful. When he was a kid, he liked to play GAMES. What a sinner! The plot thickens from there--when he was sixteen, he STOLE SOME PEARS FROM A PEAR TREE. You can tell he still feels guilty about it. Man, if that's the worst thing he did when he was 16, he got through his teenage years pretty easy.

Luckily, the tone of the book gets better after the first two chapters, and we don't hear him whine so much (at least until the end). From there, it's his adventures as a traveling student and teacher of rhetoric, his long stay with the Manichean faith (look it up), and his very slow and eventual conversion to christianity.

At the end, it gets weird. The last thing holding him back from being a christian is that he somehow gets the weird idea that to be christian (catholic, I guess) you need to be celibate.... if that was EVER the case, the catholic church would've died out in a generation. So he goes through this (understandable) personal anguish about never being able to do the nasty again, and then has an epiphany... end scene.

To be fair, my version is abridged to books I-VIII and doesn't include the last two books where he is baptized, and wraps up the story, but it's all over but the shouting by the end of book VIII.

I feel like I'm being unnecessarily harsh on ol' Augustine, but I'm sick, and wish I was reading something more interesting. The book is not without its merits, and I really liked the following passage:

[Augustine, at the brink of an epiphany, asking his best friend]
"What is wrong with us? ... The unlearned arise and take heaven by force, and here are we with all our learning, stuck fast in flesh and blood! Is there any shame in following because they have gone before us, would it not be worse a shame not to follow at once?"

I feel like that sometimes-- like it's easier to be faithful if you aren't learned/smart/intelligent, but part of the journey to faith is humbling yourself to realize it doesn't matter in God's eyes, we are all his children.

OK, now on to some adventures...(less)

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Apr 20, 2012 McKinley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own, historical, man-vs-self, nonfiction

I did not pick this book up of my own accord, and never would have, except for the fact that it was assigned for my Liberal Studies class on Medieval Europe. Now, I have had my share of tough reads, but just opening this book was intimidating. This is not an easy book to read. The language is often obscure and there are constant biblical references, which was difficult for me as a non-religious person. But this is a beautifully well written and well translated text. I was lucky enough to have a...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Keith added it

Augustine, one of the world's great solitary thinkers.

A diary record, written by him as Bishop of Hippo. With the Roman Empire crumbling around him, Augustine battles with such questions as the Problem of Evil; from where does it emanate? If God knows of Evil and wont do anything about it, he is a malevolent God, If God knows of Evil and can't do anything about it, he is an Impotent God, and if God did not Create Evil, is there another Creator ?

How WAS God Created ? , if God created himself,...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review is specifically about this new Penguin translation by Garry Wills. It is very up-to-date, in reasonably contemporary English, unlike many of the other translations out there. I would quibble with some of his word choices, but he makes a valiant effort to make sure actual echoes from section to section of Augustine's work are still there. My real problem with this edition is that, apart from a four page introduction largely about the translation, there is no other critical matter. No...more

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Nov 08, 2011 Todd Dow rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: favorites

This is one of my favourite books. Augustine is a cornerstone figure in Christianity. He transformed the Christian church from a rebellious faith in tension with Judaism and pagan beliefs into the official church of the Roman Empire.

Augustine was far from saintly in his life: he chased plenty of skirts and he had a child out of wedlock prior to his religious transformation I read this book at a critical point in my journey of faith and learning that Augustine's ability to lead the Christian chur...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Juan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was not an easy read. There's a lot to chew on, on just about every page. A chapter will take you two hours if you give it the attention it deserves. Much of the second half of the book is rather circular-- he goes around and around and I must admit he lost me in several places. He spends a lot of time making a point by proving that its opposite is untrue by showing what it would mean if it were true. Then he builds the case for the point he is making by comparing it back to the thing he ha...more

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Jun 29, 2011 Mrs. C. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read the Rex Warner translation of *The Confessions of St. Augustine*, not this particular translation, so my comment is about the content of the book, not the translation or edition. The first part of the book is Augustine's autobiography of his childhood, his education, his paganism, his immorality, and his conversion to Christ. It is as fresh as if you were reading the words of a person today. What always stands out to my students (eighth-graders at a classical Christian school) is the stor...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Jared rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The translation is not bad, but definitely has a Roman Catholic spin to it. I am sure a protestant would translate a few passages a little bit differently. By no means am I saying this is an inaccurate translation (I am unable to judge that). I just happen to remember the word penitence in the book which a protestant would not put down. As far the Confessions themselves go, it is quite an amazing read all the way through book 9. After that Augustine makes a switch from autobiography to philosoph...more

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May 20, 2011 Bojan Tunguz rated it 5 of 5 stars

I first came across St. Augustine's "Confessions" when I was a freshman in college. It was a monumental experience in terms of both the content of his writing and the freshness and relevance of his writing style. After re-reading them again recently, I am still struck with how contemporary the book feels. Aside from many of its 4th century particularities, the concerns that St. Augustine had and the way he frankly and honestly dealt with them could be lifted from almost any contemporary tell-all...more

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Mar 10, 2011 John Foley rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who want to make faith their own

Recommended to John by: Undergraduate Teacher

This is one of my personal favorite books. I have read this book every year for the last three years. Only ten books make that list for me.
The Confessions is one of the most important books written for western society. Not only does St. Augustine speak to his time but he also connects Greek philosophy with Christian praxis; thus connecting the past to the future. He takes the notion of the hero, and places himself at the center of the drama, therein communicating to future generations about th...more This is one of my personal favorite books. I have read this book every year for the last three years. Only ten books make that list for me.
The Confessions is one of the most important books written for western society. Not only does St. Augustine speak to his time but he also connects Greek philosophy with Christian praxis; thus connecting the past to the future. He takes the notion of the hero, and places himself at the center of the drama, therein communicating to future generations about their hero. Do not get me wrong Augustine does not believe himself to be the hero for western civilization but the reader who participates in his book, or in the Christian religion. There is no more Troy to take, no more suitors to out wit, only mastery of concupiscences. Now the Christian becomes the hero and the victory becomes that over sin.
This idea was not novel. People had been reading Homer allegorically for centuries. But as i stated before it was defining. Augustine gave a voice to his times. This book does not define western society but he speaks to it. He does not create a trajectory by which the west follows but he captures the spirit of the west that will remain until the advent of globalization.
This book should also be read in the context of a prayer. Note the first sentence, 'You are Great, O Lord..." This book is written as a prayer. Furthermore, these confessions of his are not mere confessions of sin as one might understand confession in a twentieth-century context. They are confessions of God's greatness, confessions of praise, confessions of Scripture, confessions of life and confession of sorrow. Thus, my hope is that as any person reads this book one would enter into dialogue with Augustine, push against his 'confessions' and see what pushes back.

Note on Translation: I have read countless versions of this book even parts in the Latin (with some help for a friend) but this is one of the best. I always recommend to read it along side another translations to really understand what the author intended. But, what the hell! Reauthor this text. Make it alive to you, in your time and in your situation. For only then can one true experience a book.(less)

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Feb 28, 2011 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow, if you're ever struggling to give up something bad for something better (who isn't)- this book is inspiring! It is full of beautiful imagery about coming closer to God and giving up things to know Him.

I have to many favorite quotes to write, but here are a few of my favorite parts.

St. Augustine was a bit of a sex-addict, from what I read, and he tried to give it up time and time again. He was coming closer to God from his studies, and he felt like two different people. He said, "I, no doubt...more

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Sep 26, 2010 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-reading-list, university-reading

Augustine tells the story of his life up until his conversion to Catholicism (from Manachee beliefs) in this book which is considered by many to be one of the first true autobiographies of the western world.

We read this book for an English literature class in University, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by it. What I expected to be a slow, sluggish read weighed down by too many old religious references was... well, it was that. But in between the bible quotes you could get a gli...more

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About Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo, also known as St. Augustine, St. Austin, was bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from the Africa Province of the Roman Empire and is generally considered as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all times. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity. According to his contemporary J...more

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“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” — 123 people liked it

“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.” — 67 people liked it

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