The Confessions of Saint Augustine Audio CD – Unabridged, May 1, 2006

Confession, it is said, is good for the soul; and the "Confessions" of Saint Augustine of Hippo are good for any person’s soul, regardless of his or her religious or philosophical beliefs. There is something profoundly compelling in the rigorous, uncompromising manner in which Augustine describes the way he consciously, by an ongoing act of will, worked to bring his magnificent intellect into conformity with the dictates of Christianity – and gave God all the credit for the outcome.Some scholars have referred to the "Confessions" as the first true autobiography, or at least the first spiritual autobiography; and as with other masterpieces of autobiography in later years – Richard Wright’s "American Hunger," Annie Dillard’s "An American Childhood," the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Malcolm X – Augustine’s "Confessions" benefits from the author’s unflinching, warts-and-all portrayal of his life.Among its other benefits, the "Confessions" does much to put one back in the time of the Roman Empire’s early Christian years – a time when Western Christianity grappled with a great many other strains of thought. Augustine is frank, for example, in setting forth what he once found seductive about Manichaean philosophy, with its belief that, because evil is so different from good, it had to be the subject of a completely different creation, the work of some being other and lesser than God Himself:“Since I still had enough reverence, of some sort, to make it impossible for me to believe that the good God created an evil nature, I posited two masses at odds with each other, both infinite, the bad with limited, the good with broader scope. From this pestiferous origin there followed other blasphemies. If my mind tried to recur to the Catholic faith, I was made to recoil, since the Catholic faith was not what I made it out to be” (pp. 100-01).Here, as elsewhere, I thought that Augustine was being awfully hard on himself; but his conclusions follow logically from his premises. Evil actions proceed from the imperfections of human nature as stained by original sin. For good actions, the glory belongs to God, who is all good and inspires all good action.Augustine is comparably unsparing in condemning himself for the sinful ways of his youth. A chapter on the theft of pears, written perhaps with an eye toward Adam and Eve’s own theft of fruit from the tree of knowledge in Chapter 3 of Genesis, becomes for Augustine a parable for the nature of sin generally; the fruit of the pear tree was “not enticing either in appearance or in taste”, but Augustine and his friends continued to steal, because “Simply what was not allowed allured us” (p. 32). Augustine is comparably tough on himself when it comes to sexual behavior – though he admits that his sins did not go as far as those of his fellows. Moreover, a large part of his sexual life seems to have involved a long-term, monogamous, mutually faithful relationship with a woman who eventually bore Augustine a son. This is not exactly fleshpots-of-Egypt stuff; but nonetheless, Augustine looks back at this part of his life in terms of how it took him away from God.Augustine, who loves God so, nonetheless reserves some of his fondest words of love for his mother Monnica – a devout Christian who never gave up hope while encouraging her son to leave his secular ways and embrace the Christian faith: “Her flesh brought me forth to live in this daylight, as her heart brought me forth to live in eternal light” (p. 196). That process of conversion involved Augustine going from North Africa to Milan, making friends with fellow converts, and eventually receiving baptism and holy orders; and his early training as a rhetorician (he praises Cicero’s "Hortensius" as a book that “changed my life”) made him a most eloquent, tenacious defender of the Christian faith.Along with describing the process by which he became a Christian – much of it in the second person, addressing God directly – Augustine of Hippo includes some thoughtful theological reflections of the kind that he would eventually build upon further in "The City of God." Readers who enjoy close reading and exegesis of Scriptural passages will enjoy those passages of the Confessions in which Augustine looks at the opening passages of Genesis, speculating on the manner in which time came out of God’s timeless eternity, and working to reconcile seeming paradoxes in Genesis regarding references to God alternately in the singular and the plural. Augustine reconciles that seeming contradiction thus:“For you make [humankind] capable of understanding the Trinity of your unity and the unity of your Trinity, from its being said in the plural ‘Let us make,’ followed by the singular ‘and God made man,’ and from its being said in the plural ‘to our pattern,’ followed by the singular ‘to God’s pattern.’” (pp. 337-38)This edition of the "Confessions" of Saint Augustine is noteworthy in that it was translated by the noted scholar and author Garry Wills, a renowned classicist and devout Catholic who nonetheless has been willing to criticize his beloved church whenever he has felt that, as a human institution, it has erred in its mission of bringing humankind closer to God. Wills also provides a perceptive and helpful introduction, though I can’t help thinking that footnotes of the kind that grace other Penguin Classics books might have helped further.By the time Augustine wrote the "Confessions," between 397 and 400 A.D., Christianity had already been made the official religion of the Roman Empire, in accordance with the emperor Theodosius I’s promulgation of the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 A.D. Yet it was still a world in which believers in Christian and pre-Christian religions competed for adherents, proselytes, converts. No one of his time worked on behalf of, or defended, the Christian faith with greater consistency or strength of heart than Saint Augustine of Hippo. His "Confessions" are inspiring, for that reason alone, to anyone who has ever cared enough about an idea to fight for it.

I was struggling with some of the archaic nature of Pusey’s translation, so I thought I would give this version a try and go back to the “classic” one after I had some firmer understanding. I’m grateful that I did, because this expressed Augustine’s ideas in a much more digestible form. It is an abridged version, so I will probably wind up going back to another translation soon. But I’m happy to have picked this one up.Better to understand a work then half comprehending plow through it for the self congratulation of doing so.

Quoting Sacred Scripture - "Faith cometh through hearing"

This book was recommended by the President of a seminary. Now I know why it was recommended so strongly by him.

I am surprised that the reviews here appear to be for another edition, particularly an English translation.This is not an English translation!!! This is the Latin text of books 1-4 of Confessions, with some notes and commentary.What kept me from giving this 5 stars is the text reflects classical orthography, "u" in place of "v" and other things. In the 4th century the spoken language had already changed to reflect what today is often called "ecclesiastical pronunciation" or more correctly, "later latin pronunciation". If one is good with classical orthography it is not too much of a challenge, nevertheless it is not accurate to how Augustine would have spoken in the 4th century AD.Apart from that, the text is very readable and the notes are very helpful in breaking down complex constructions that Augustine uses as well as explaining obscure vocabula. This is great to fill in a gap for Latin students, namely moving from classical Latin to ecclesiastical writers. Augustine's Latin is very important for reading medieval and scholastic Latin, since apart from the Vulgate, Augustine is the writer, more than any other, around whom later writers would base their composition and style. Augustine is the last gasp of major intellectual thought in the Roman Empire, and his rhetoric and argument is as strong for us today as it was in his own day.There are a few drawbacks, depending on one's level of Latin. There is no facing vocabulary or a vocabulary in the back, which is not a handicap for someone who knows Latin well but can be for an intermediate student looking to move to better reading fluency. The pain of having to look up certain words can affect the enjoyment of the work, but on the other hand the student should be doing/already have done this work. For an instructor it merely creates the headache of having to make a worksheet or emphasize vocabulary based on what kind of instruction the student has received in the past. My attitude to facing vocabulary is that it is basically like training wheels and may even make the student lazy rather than force him to appropriate necessary vocabulary. Be that as it may, another shortcoming is the fact that the notes are not next to the text but are in the back. This means that you have to keep your finger in two places, or after reading a bit you must flip to the back for certain explanations which interrupts the flow of the reading, rather than glancing quickly to the next page before continuing. Again, for someone at an advanced or instructional level, this is not so difficult, but again, for an intermediate student it can become a handicap.On the whole, however, this text is very good for filling the gap of reading early and medieval Church Latin. The primacy on classics is unfortunate given that Latin continued as a language for 2 thousand years after the age of Augustus, and a lot of texts and instruction would leave one at a loss to read for example, legal Latin of the middle ages and early modern period, theological Latin whether of the Church Fathers or medieval scholastic theologians, or early Latin writings of protestant writers like Calvin and Luther, etc. Given that at the least 1/3rd of those studying Latin are doing so out of an interest in the tradition of the Latin Church, this is a major gap that eventually needs to be filled.

While written for a “King James” reader, the content is wholly sacred. Again, the text is seriously difficult to navigate, but evidence of a God-seeker.

A challenging but good read. Admittedly, I did not fully understand with the first read. I still recommend to anyone interested in religion and philosophy.

This is about the version called the "modern English version". Amazon in their wisdom have not made it clear that this is the abbreviated version of the text. They also put all the reviews of the Confessions together so that it is generally impossible to work out which version reviewers are talking about. I bought this a Kindle book and feel that it is missold. It is useless to me in its present form as it omits the most important parts that I need it for. Be aware.

Saint Augustine is the most human of Saints. Some of his youthful activities would be shocking even in the present day, and his conversion to Christianity and subsequent ordination were very slow in coming. But it is precisely this, detailed in his book Confessions which makes his story so relevant to us all. His path from debauchery and larceny to Priest- and Sainthood, described in self-critical and painfully honest detail, should be a comfort to us all. It is never too late to become a good person.

The content of the book and the heart of the author is very good and motivating. However, it is a bit of a struggle to read and understand the old English. At times, I soon get accustom and enjoy it, and other times, I find it difficult to concentrate and find out exactly what the author is saying. But I don't regret buying it and it is helping me spiritually. 20% read, 80 to go.

This is a classic piece of literature written originally in Latin - but this particular translation uses the very archaic language of the Authorised Version of the Bible. this makes it less than riveting reading! I am sure that it is possible to get hold of a translation into modern English - but this seems to be the only version available free of charge on Kindle.

Good: quick delivery and CheepBad : the size of book is too big (A4 size), too much and tiny letter in a page.I wonder who want to read this book.Consequently this book doesn’t look smart and not easy to read. I cannot recommend this book anyone.