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    The Confessions of Saint Augustine
    The Confessions of Saint Augustine
    The Confessions of Saint Augustine
    Ebook350 pages8 hours

    The Confessions of Saint Augustine

    By Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine

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    The Confessions of Saint Augustine outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is considered the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers for the next 1000 years. While it is not a complete autobiography it does provide the most complete record of any single individual from the 4th and 5th centuries. Augustine writes about how much he regrets having led a sinful and immoral life. He discusses his regrets for following the Manichaean religion and believing in astrology. He writes about Nebridius's role in helping to persuade him that astrology was not only incorrect but evil, and St. Ambrose's role in his conversion to Christianity. He shows intense sorrow for his sexual sins, and writes on the importance of sexual morality.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilder Publications, Inc.
    Release dateJun 10, 2015
    ISBN9781627552059

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    Reviews for The Confessions of Saint Augustine

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    • 4/5
      Confessions. Saint Augustine. 2d Translated by Frank Sheed. 1992. And I Burned for your Peace; Augustine’s Confessions Unpacked. Peter Kreeft. 2016. Confessions was a fall sections for our great books club, and I just finished it! Not that I it should have taken me this long; I just read most of the books listed above as I read a few pages in Confessions two or three times a week until I finished it. It is a beautiful book, and I am so glad that I read it. To be honest, I am not sure I would have finished it had I not read Kreeft’s book along with it. He certainly did a good job of explaining St. Augustine. It was sort of like reading the Bible. I really enjoyed most of it, but Augustine does belabor the points he makes! He takes a long time to say anything. This is a spiritual autobiography, not a typical autobiography. Anyone interested in early Christian thought would do well to read this. I expect I will return to read some of the many parts I underlined
    • 3/5
      Essential medieval/Christian philosophy.
    • 5/5
      One of the great works in philosophy and religion.
    • 5/5
      This is a master work of religious philosophy. This was one of the first things I read which made me understand religion in the deeper sense.
    • 3/5
      I know this is a "great" work of Christianity because I was told it was. But it did nothing for me. It seemed jumbled and erratic and hard to understand, despite the use of simple, easy language. It was more stream-of-consciousness that I excepted. I didn't enjoy reading about Augustine's life and struggles with sin. He was honest and that's rare from someone who because famous for their faith. I think this book can make a huge difference in many people's hearts - but for me, it was just not what I prefer to read. It was a bit too sentimental and full of angst for my rational tastes.
    • 5/5
      If anyone struggles with desires within themselves and wonders why the struggle and if it can be overcome they need to read Confessions. The struggle has never changed and Augustine had to fight through his passions and his intellect to find trust and relief in Christ.
    • 4/5
      Considering that the style of Augie's work is completely and utterly impenetrable, this is actually a pretty decent read. Just come to it expecting circularity, meditation, rapturous theology and self-flagellation, and you'll come away impressed.
      Don't expect anything linear, and you'll be all the more impressed when he ends up, every now and then, out-Aristotling Aristotle with arguments of the (x-->y)&(y-->z)&(z-->p)&(p-->q); ~x is absurd; therefore q variety.
      Don't expect any modern 'you are a unique and special snowflake and your desires are good it's just that your parents/society/upbringing/schoolfriends/economic earning power have stunted you' self-help guff. It'd be nice to read someone more contemporary who's willing to admit that people do things wrong, all the time, and should feel really shitty for doing wrong things.
      Don't expect Aquinas. This is the hardest bit for me; if someone's going to talk about God I prefer that they be coldly logical about it. Augie goes more for the erotic allegory, self-abasement in the face of the overwhelming eternal kind of thing. No thanks.
      Finally, be aware that you'll need to think long and hard about what he says and why he says it when he does. Books I-IX are the ones you'll read as autobiography, and books X-XIII will seem like a slog. But it's all autobiography. Sadly for Augie, he doesn't make it easy for us to value the stuff he wants to convince us to value, which is the philosophy and theology of the later books. The structure, as far as I can tell, is to show us first how he got to believing that it was possible for him to even begin thinking about God (that's I-IX). X-XIII shows us how he goes about thinking about God, moving from the external world, to the human self in X and a bit of XI, to the whole of creation in XI and XII, to God himself in XIII. I have no idea if this is what he had in mind, but it roughly works out. That's all very intellectually stimulating, but it's still way more fun to read about his peccadilloes and everyday life in the fourth century.
    • 2/5
      Written in the 4th century by an early intellectual christian who is famous (to me anyway) for his prayer - "Lord grant me chastity, but not yet"!. The book is in the form of an autobiography, interspersed with lots and lots of beseeching of the lord. The biography is interesting, and all the beseeching has a strong echo in the formulaic rants of the TV preachers. The book ends with some ponderings - on memory, and on the creation. Augustine believes god made the world, but he has some interesting questions about exactly how this was done. I couldn't help wondering, if Augustine was alive now, when there are much better explanations, whether he wouldn't be in the Richard Dawkins' camp. Read February 2009
    • 5/5
      Actually brings up the idea that some parts of the bible are to be understood metaphorically, rather than literally. Including Genesis. I always have big trouble with the way Augustine just "sent away" his mistress when he converted. Lots of agonizing over how much it hurt him, but not much on how it affected her. Seems to me he should have married her.
    • 5/5
      Fabulous feast. Who are you? God only knows, says Augustine reverently.
    • 5/5
      I really felt my soul physically grow as I read this book.
    • 3/5
      Well, I'm finished with this book at last!I originally became interested in reading Confessions when I saw a special twelve years ago about the beginnings of Christianity, because I thought "Confessions" sounded like a juicy book. It's really not juicy at all, so it's a good thing I approached it interested in theology and not scandal by the time I finally got around to reading it. This time around, I mainly felt like it was important for me to read firsthand the philosophy that is so much a basis of Catholic thought.Like most books written in the middle ages, St. Augustine's would have benefited from a good editor. There were a lot of times where I felt he repeated himself, which is fine for a spiritual seeker's personal musings, but a bit annoying for an outside reader hundreds of years later. And even though he wrote his Confessions both to strengthen his understanding/relationship with God and to further the same for others, a lot of it really did feel like naval-gazing. Still, I found myself appreciating a LOT of Augustine's theology, such as his insistence that people could come to diverse interpretations of Scripture without any of them being "wrong" (take that, fundamentalists!). Indeed, Augustine's perception of Christianity seems a lot more open than the Catholic Church of today would lead you to believe, although the hierarchy HAS kept his puritan perceptions of sexuality fully intact. Thank God for that.
    • 4/5
      The "Confessions" of Saint Augustine is a hard work to pin down--part conversion story, part apologetics text, part philosophical treatise, part Bible commentary. It is also a hard work to read. There are many points of interest within the text, but it is not something you just read straight through without a lot of stopping and thinking, and preferably some supplemental research. There were many times reading the book that I felt that my time would be better spent just reading hours of the Bible, and that I was trying to force myself to grapple with a seminary-level text without the prerequisite educational background. This is a vitally significant work in Christian history, to be sure; it lays out fundamental arguments against the Manichaeans, has been looked to by the Roman Catholic church in support of purgatory, and even influenced the philosophical writings of Descartes. However, this wide-ranging history is far beyond the scope of the book itself, and it almost needs its own commentary to be understood by the layperson. The Barnes and Noble edition contains a historical timeline, an introduction, endnotes, a brief essay on the Confessions' influence on later works (which I found to be the most helpful supplemental piece in the book and wish I had read it before the text), a selection of famous quotes responding to the text, and a few critical questions to consider in thinking about the work.
    • 4/5
      A marvelous autobiography of a Church Father. How he coped with avoiding the "call" to God. He sought the truth in pganism, then Aristotelian philosophy, then Manichaeism. All the while relishing a sinner's life. Then he visited Milan, called upon Ambrose and began his conversion to Christianity. He portrays himself, warts and all, living with a mistress, his quest for easy living and money, only to be confronted by a voice telling him to read the Bible. It changes his life. He converts. He pursues Catholicism with devotion and eventually finds himself the Bishop of Hippo, ministering to the poor of all faiths. Quite a man.
    • 5/5
      Every time I start to get a little down on St. Augustine -- what with his invention of some pretty deplorable doctrines (ie original sin) -- I need to reread his Confessions. In fact, everybody should read his Confessions. It is an absolutely beautiful book! St. Augustine pours out his soul before God and all the world -- confessing his sins and telling the story of how he came to Christ, watching for the subtle movement of the Holy Spirit in all things and seeing God's guiding hand behind every event in his life. It's not often that you get to watch a sinner become a saint (literally!) -- read it!
    • 5/5
      Confessions of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (free). Some books are best listened to, particularly ones translated into Elizabethan English from Latin. By listening, I'm able to cover more ground and not get bogged down in word choice, and I'm able to connect the streams of thought more seamlessly.

      I'd not read this classic, even though I long intended to "get around to it." Had it not been mentioned by Dallas Willard and Richard Foster as a great source for meditation and devotional (along with City of God which I will now read expediently), then I might not have gotten it done this year. Confessions is one of the first "Western" autobiographies and I was fascinated that it could have been written in the 1800s just as well as 398. Has the same raw quality of pre-20th-century memoirs that haven't been edited for their PC content and revisionism.

      Augustine lives somewhat of a privileged boyhood with good schooling, discipline, and a devout mother. He loves to sin, particularly struggling with lust and theft just for the sake of theft. As a teenager, Augustine joins a cult of Manicheans for 9 years. Like any cult, he finds it intellectually stifling-- he's discouraged from asking questions, or trying to use science or reason. The leaders he is under are not as well-educated as himself, and this makes it difficult. Many of the Manichee, like Mormons or JW's today, were devotees to the writings of Mani, but had not read all of his thoughts or understood them. There appear to be some appeals to astrology in Mani's writings, and the people Augustine is around don't really understand all of what they speak of. Among these were Faustus who was supposed to have all the answers, but Augustine finds generally disappointing. Nonetheless, Augustine finds their message liberating-- "it is not I who sin." Manicheans were dualists--Gnostics -- who believed that Jesus did not inhabit a physical body, and that our souls cannot be corrupted by what is done by our flesh. Even after Augustine rejects their teachings, he does not want to choose Scripture as Truth.

      So, Augustine remains fairly closely associated with Manichees while himself a professor of rhetoric both in Carthage and in Rome. Meanwhile, his mother is a devout Christian who prays earnestly for his salvation and implores him to repent.

      She follows him to Milan, where Augustine encounters Bishop Ambrose (whose own life seems fascinating), who Augustine respects; he attends every Sunday service. (I found some of the description of church life interesting, there appears to have been some struggles with what role wine should play in the life of the believer-- Ambrose apparently being opposed to Augustine's mother's use of wine in an act of worship.) Augustine is a philanderer, has a child by a "concubine" who he loves, but rejects in order to marry at his mother's behest. He generally hates married life and continues a life of adultery.

      Augustine converses with Simplicanius, spiritual father of Ambrose, who tells Augustine of Victorinus, a Roman philosopher and respected teacher of rhetoric in Rome, who toward the end of his life forsakes his career (it was illegal for Christians to teach rhetoric) to become a Christian. Augustine had read books translated by Victorinus, and this makes an impression on him.

      "But when that man of Thine, Simplicianus, related to me this of Victorinus, I was on fire to imitate him; for for this very end had he related it. But when he had subjoined also, how in the days of the Emperor Julian a law was made, whereby Christians were forbidden to teach the liberal sciences or oratory; and how he, obeying this law, chose rather to give over the wordy school than Thy Word, by which Thou makest eloquent the tongues of the dumb; he seemed to me not more resolute than blessed, in having thus found opportunity to wait on Thee only."



      Augustine also hears of Antony Eventually, Augustine has a conversion experience and repents.

      "I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: 'Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, in concupiscence.' No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away."



      His son is baptised with him. His mother is jubilant, and dies some time afterwards.

      Modernly, Augustine's book is also seen as literature, with and it appears from reading around that modern scholars maintain that looking at his work from our modern lenses misses the overall purpose and meaning. Augustine's book is not some confession and testimony of a sinner, but rather his work was intended to convert Manicheans. After all, the biographical part ends in Book 9 and Augustine launches on a range of topics, including memory and the meaning of time. (Physics tells us that all moments in time already exists, and this is what I hear Augustine saying in Book 11.) It's plausible to me that his intended audience are Manichees since they were interested in times, planets, and creation as Augustine spends a great deal of time on these. He engaged in a lifelong battle against the Manichees in Hippo, and this work certainly seems part of his larger writings to that end. Augustine's philosophical musings are still of great interest today. I would like to read Brian Greene's take on his philosophy of time.

      Confessions really drives home the importance of Scripture to me; Augustine was 40 when he wrote it and knew the Scriptures well. Augustine took part in important church councils, and my understanding is that by the time of his ascension to Bishop, the accepted Western canon of scripture was already considered closed. I really enjoy how he writes/prays Scriptures when pouring his thoughts out. He prays the prayers of David, Jesus, Paul, etc. in relation to his own life and salvation. Opens every book with a heartfelt prayer/confession. I would like to read books on the theology of Augustine.

      It also inspires me to read more church history. People like Simplicanius could probably trace their spiritual lineage back to the Apostles. Christians like Antony were well-known in Augustine's circles, having also published works (Dallas Willard has a nice critique of Antony and the secular-sacred dichotomy that was probably popularized by Augustine's mention). What can we today learn from these and the controversies faced by the authors? Why aren't we Christians today more scholarly about our ancient heritage?

      5 stars out of 5, of course.
    • 5/5
      Chadwick's notes that accompany this version of Augustine's Confessions do the best job of understanding the deep Manichaean context of not only the book but Augustine's early (and, some would say, entire) intellectual life.
    • 4/5
      The first two thirds of Confessions are largely autobiographical. There is a tendency to think of saints as having been not quite human. Readers who have that impression about Augustine will find themselves mistaken. Among his youthful indiscretions, Augustine recalls playing games with his schoolmates when they were supposed to be studying, disliking his Greek studies, and having a live-in girlfriend with whom he had a child. As a young man, Augustine raised many of the same questions about God and Christianity that are still raised today, such as the nature of God in the Old Testament and inconsistencies between science and the Bible. He describes his surroundings and his daily activities in enough detail that it provides a window into daily life in the Mediterranean world of the 4th century. After an account of his mother's death, the last third of the book shifts from autobiography to a blend of philosophy and theology. Augustine ponders the nature of memory and time, the mysteries of creation from the Genesis account, and an interpretation of the church through the lens of creation. This is heavy going. Readers more interested in history and biography than in philosophy and theology may choose to stop with chapter 9.
    • 3/5
      Read the whole thing as part of my church history course. It probably meant more to me reading it as an adult than it would have if I read it all the way through when I bought it in high school. A reminder that God's love is deeper than anything we can imagine.
    • 5/5
      Timeless autobiography showing how the Spirit of Christ drew this Church father to Himself.
    • 3/5
      Veelvormig: gedeeltelijk autobiografie, gedeeltelijk getuigenisliteratuur.Soms zeer moeilijk leesbaar, soms gewoon storend door zijn pathetiek en door het kinderachtige zondebesef.Geen regeling voor het probleem van het kwaad.Qua intellectueel is hij wel de eerste die in de buurt van Plato en Aristoteles komt, maar om een heel andere manier. Vooral literair wel onderdoend.
    • 4/5
      This book has been one of the slowest reads so far this year and took around 41 days to finish. My main struggle was with the language the book was written it. The underlying story was interesting, but there were so many extra words around everything. Especially in the first books, Augustine is constantly referencing back and forward between the past and the present and the relationship between his past actions and God. He regrets choices and actions that he took, but acknowledges that God was present in them and worked through them.
      The more I read, the more the underlying story of Augustine's journey became clear. It showed that his was a slow meandering journey to finding God.
      His mother, Monnica, is one of the main characters in the book, who is constantly praying to God to save her son. And her prayer is answered before her death, albeit not by many years.
      The last chapter ended by tying up the experience with an honest look at how Augustine was living in the present. He struggled with wanting to follow God in his heart, but also wanting to follow his own wills/passions. It is an encouraging insight into the life of such a well-known, influential Christian theologian and philosopher showing that he never attained perfection, but was reassuringly human.
    • 5/5
      This book is very dear to me. I read "Confessions" in a very difficult personal time and quickly became overwhelmed by Augustines sincerity, intellect, and love for The Immutable Light. Augustine presents us with a very interesting time period in as where Christianity and Roman Paganism lie in juxtaposition. Besides Augustine's personal confessions, I enjoyed his examination of Genesis and his hefty discourse on time, or perhaps I should say the lack of the past and future. Rather than prattle on in the present, which has become past, I will urge you, reader, to introduce yourself to an author you most assuredly will hold very close to your heart.
    • 5/5
      Has been called the greatest autobiography of all time.Exceedingly eloquent; the entire book is a prayer which reflects on the author's life and the work of God's grace within it.
    • 3/5
      Powerful in its honesty, but also hard for me as a nonbeliever to read. The constant reference to God occurs not on the scale of once every page, but more like every other sentence. The effect is to make me skeptical of even the best parts, such as the brilliant discussion of the nature of time and the excruciatingly honest effort to understand the theft of the pears, when they end up being folded into Augustine's religious narrative. Yet the passion of Augustine's thought and the force of his writing is impossible to deny and those insights that do hold relevance beyond the Christian are presented powerfully here.
    • 4/5
      Augustine's Confessions are his biography, and they contain a lot of his theological and philosophical thoughts, as well details of his surprisingly interesting life. He didn't become a Christian until later in life, first being a Manichean, an interesting gnostic religion which died out in the middle ages. He writes about the bad things he did, how he regrets them, and speculates on psychological reasons for human behavior.Augustine was fairly well educated, and the chapters where he muses over problems of time and memory are quite thought provoking. The book is notable for the frankness of the author, his perceptiveness, and his variety of internal struggles. The literary impact of this book has also been huge; as the reader progresses numerous phrases will stand out, either because they have entered the common idiom, or because there is something very poetical captured in them. This book is notable for so many reasons.
    • 4/5
      The son of a pagan father, who insisted on his education, and a Christian mother, who continued to pray for his salvation, Saint Augustine spent his early years torn between the conflicting religions and philosophical world views of his time. His Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recount how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from the licentious lifestyle and vagaries of his youth, to become a staunch advocate of Christianity and one of its most influential thinkers, writers and advocates. A remarkably honest and revealing spiritual autobiography, the Confessions also address fundamental issues of Christian doctrine, and many of the prayers and meditations it includes are still an integral part of the practice of Christianity today.
    • 4/5

      I began reading this once years ago, but it failed to engage me and I put it aside. When I started again I couldn't understand my previous lack of interest. The work ranges from philosophical speculation to personal memoir, and each kind has it's appeal. I was surprised by how must variety of belief and opinion late antiquity held on so many topics. Some of the debates and issues Augustine describes sound shockingly contemporary, though put in different terms. The passages covering Augustine's personal life can be poignant, especially those concerning death.

      The scholarly consensus is that the Confessions was meant to be a preamble to a longer work: a detailed exegesis of the entirety of Christian scripture. The last three books cover the first chapter of Genesis, with careful attention given to an allegorical interpretation of the creation story. This is apparently as far Augustine ever got, thus adding to the long tradition of great, unfinished masterpieces.

    • 5/5
      What can I even say about this book? I am standing too close to say anything sensible. Fortunately other people have written plenty of actual reviews.Memo to future me: the quote you're (I'm) usually looking for is book 10, chapter 36, first paragraph. "You know how greatly you have already changed me, you who first healed me from the passion for self-vindication, [...] you who subdued my pride by your fear and tamed my neck to your yoke? Now I bear that yoke, and it is light upon me, for this you have promised, and thus have you made it be. Truly, it was this but I did not know it when I was afraid to submit to it."
    • 5/5
      One of the most excellent books I've every read. From start to finish I was captivated letter by letter, word by word and so on.You do not have to be a catholic, or even a christian to enjoy this mans tail of finding faith.

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    The Confessions of Saint Augustine - Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine

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