St. Augustine Confessions (Oxford World's Classics) | 
| Author: Saint Augustine
Creator: Henry Chadwick
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  46 reviews
Sales Rank: 3863
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0192833723
Dewey Decimal Number: 230
EAN: 9780192833723
Publication Date: June 25, 1998
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Product Description
In his own day the dominant personality of the Western Church, Augustine of Hippo today stands as perhaps the greatest thinker of Christian antiquity, and his Confessions is one of the great works of Western literature. In this intensely personal narrative, Augustine relates his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of power at the imperial court in Milan, his struggle against the domination of his sexual nature, his renunciation of secular ambition and marriage, and the recovery of the faith his mother Monica had taught him during his childhood.
Now, Henry Chadwick, an eminent scholar of early Christianity, has given us the first new English translation in thirty years of this classic spiritual journey. Chadwick renders the details of Augustine's conversion in clear, modern English. We witness the future saint's fascination with astrology and with the Manichees, and then follow him through scepticism and disillusion with pagan myths until he finally reaches Christian faith. There are brilliant philosophical musings about Platonism and the nature of God, and touching portraits of Augustine's beloved mother, of St. Ambrose of Milan, and of other early Christians like Victorinus, who gave up a distinguished career as a rhetorician to adopt the orthodox faith. Augustine's concerns are often strikingly contemporary, yet his work contains many references and allusions that are easily understood only with background information about the ancient social and intellectual setting. To make The Confessions accessible to contemporary readers, Chadwick provides the most complete and informative notes of any recent translation, and includes an introduction to establish the context.
The religious and philosophical value of The Confessions is unquestionable--now modern readers will have easier access to St. Augustine's deeply personal meditations. Chadwick's lucid translation and helpful introduction clear the way for a new experience of this classic.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 41 more reviews...
 Tolle, lege October 6, 2008
I've long since lost the religious fervor that led me to read Augustine's Confessions for the first time some 40 years ago. But I've never tired of re-reading it, which I do every five years or so. For in addition to being an exquisitely written prayer, it's also a penetrating analysis of the human psyche. In reading the Confessions, one is invited to reflect on what it means to be a human being who longs for transcendence in a world that too often seems exclusively mundane. Reading the Confessions, one recognizes that a human life is fraught with moments of great meaning and joy but also ones of intense forlornness and self-loathing. Reading the Confessions, one gains insight into the psychology of religious conversion, mystical experience, parental-child relations, and guilt. Finally, Augustine's reflections on memory in Book X (and to a certain extent in XI) are some of the most insightful comments on the phenomenology of consciousness to be written until the twentieth century. Truly, this is a book to "tolle, lege."
Henry Chadwick's translation is, in my judgment, the best English one going. Moreover, his Introduction nicely situates Augustine's Confessions against the backdrops of the neo-Platonism and Manicheanism that claimed him as a youth. The explanatory footnotes with which he sprinkles Augustine's texts are also very helpful. I would recommend his translation before all others for a first-time reader of the Confessions.
 Void of Philosophical Reasoning September 29, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Had the displeasure of reading this as one of the five required texts for a course on early medieval philosophy.
Here's a summary for chapters 1-10:
God is great. My empty life of sin sucked, because nothing is good without God, but now I found God and he's fantastic.
Every 3 lines is an appraisal of God. The rest of the lines are obfuscated means of conveying simple ideas. An entire chapter is devoted to Augustine's story of stealing pears with company whose admiration he was trying to win. But at the same time he says he did it purely for its wickedness. Some scholars claim that it's a paradox open to multiple interpretations; I say it's a contradiction made by some one trying to shove God in every life experience he had.
Finally after the main course of the book is done with, he makes a somewhat acceptable discourse on the nature of time and the eternal concept, but the legitimate philosophical content can be summarized in about 1% of the text printed in this book. As for the insight to the personal nature of a person's prayers and relationship with God, I truly hope this is not how most theists go about it. It's naught more than incoherent praising at every turn.
Augie and his MONSTER SIZE mommie complex July 29, 2008
2 out of 18 found this review helpful
All you one and 2 star commentators will like what I have to say on this alleged *saint*.
Look its one thing to havea mother complex, most men do, a few succumb til death, Augie was one of these who never got over his complex.
Monica, his mother was the typical type that drowns the son , a power monger.
She was the one who advised her son to dump his *wife* of 17 years (was a forced marriage as the girl was a concubine he got pregnant when he 17 yrs old!!!) Augie was 34 and seekinga high position in Milanese government. His *wife* was illiterate street girl , thus *extra baggage*. Augie sent her back to north africa, their hometown.
Plot gets juicier.
Mommie Monica (the catholic church titles her *the great devote saint*) sets up a new potential mate, but the girl is only 10, roman law allows marriage for girls not until 12 yrs old. So he has to wait.
In these 2 yrs, he gets depressed and calls off the marriage.
His life then is nothing but turmoil, driven by his monster size mother complex. Monica dies during this time, however the complex is in full force. The physical mother is gone, but the dominate complex is in his blood in full force.
Augie was schooled as a master of rhetoric, thus as a new christian he realize *fancy talk* is cheap, and contrary to christian ideals. But too late, his mind was hard wired to function in this mindless rhetorical mannerism.
Worse than actually helping the soul his writings lead the soul no where but in senseless out-of-touch-with-reality circles.
His beliefs do much harm to those who wish to finda child like faith, which Christ himself says is the only way to the kingdom of God. Augie's babbling and empty chatter leads us away from the plain truth, which Christ came to reveal to *those who will receive* (the few)
The catholic church wants us to look beyond all these glaring issues and say *what a great man to turn from his sins and go on to defend the faith*
Augie like EVERY SINGLE CHURCH FATHER, was constantly embroiled in fighting the *heretics*. Where in the New Testament do we find a command to FIGHT the heretics?
BTW we should also be aware that anti-semiticism was fervent throughout the history of the catholic church.
Read B Natanyahu's masterly book The Origins of the Inquisition/Random House, 1995.
Its no wonder the catholic church has become what she now is, a business , based upon misguided writings from Augustine. Priests actually have to study this fermented long-winded bunk!!!
To sum up, Augustine's mind offers no understanding of the soul, life, man, woman, and certainly sheds no insight into the mysteries which we call God.
AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.
Paul Best
New Orleans
July 30,2008
An amazing look at the life of a spiritual giant July 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a very powerful, memorable spiritual autobiography and Augustine tells his story like none other. He is transparent and honest at every turn, holding nothing back. He tells of his faith struggles, his sins and his temptations very candidly. The story of his conversion is truly beautiful and will stay with you. He has written in such a way that you truly see the hand of God at work in his life. A phenomenal read that will touch you. Highly recommended.
Wonderful June 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Augustine is one of these characthers from antiquity who illustrates that humanity is always an everywhere the same - we share the same form, namely the soul and we thirst always and everywhere for the same thing, namely the infinite, which is God. Augustine is poetic in his treatment of God, he addresses him as a bride to her husband. Let him speak for himself:
"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 you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace."
His own struggle is the struggle of every man and woman to find God. And, yet, not only was Augustine the master of the inner life, he was a great philosopher - witness the chapter on time, which is wonderful. Miss not also his shared ecstatic vision with his mother, Monica.
This is a great work - but, there are bits that are not easy (his exegesis of Genesis, for example) but persevere, its worth it!.
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