 "An amazing look at the life of a spiritual giant" | 2008-07-06 |
| - Reviewed By not_a_jedi_yet |
| 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 stay with you. Highly recommended. |
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| "Wonderful" | 2008-06-09 |
| - Reviewed By tonyfoley2 |
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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| "Augustine is great!" | 2008-02-29 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2XB7KSWQVEB24 |
Saint Augustine is spiritual, philosophical and always profound.
Warning: Likely to blow your mind. |
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| "Confession as prayer" | 2007-12-29 |
| - Reviewed By oxonian95 |
Augustine's confessions are confessions to God, and thus, prayer. Augustine bares his soul--his doubt, fear, guilt, as well as his joy, peace, and love. All this is addressed to God as prayer. Like the Psalms, these prayers are shockingly intimate--you can't read these properly from a comfortable distance.
I am grateful to Augustine for sharing his personal relationship with God in a way that leads me closer, too. |
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 "Interesting historically, bad theology/philosophy" | 2007-09-10 |
| - Reviewed By ashryan |
As a non-believer, some of the more entertaining bits were Augustine pining that he wishes he'd been made a eunuch as a boy, and describing at length the sensual dreams that aroused and tormented after he gave up his lecherous ways and escaped the lesser torment of marriage.
Interesting historically as a document of how Platonism was explicitly wedded with Christianity, but some of the theology is a bit strained, i.e., his exposition of Genesis chapter one in which he attempts to explain how God created everything outside of time and without any effort, and yet this took six days and he rested on the seventh. His attempts to solve the problem of evil also do more to confuse the issue than to clarify it, but that is to be expected.
But it is definitely far better in terms of both literary style and quality of thought than the efforts of today's believers, and it is worth reading for anyone interested in intellectual or religious history. |
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 "The problem with evil is that it is good" | 2007-08-02 |
| - Reviewed By stratiotes_doxha_theon |
| It is said that St. Augustine invented the autobiographical genre and that is significant. But more significant seems to be his great insight into the problem of temptation and evil. With deep conviction and personal examination, he studies the motivations toward sin and sees the paradox that we choose evil not for evil sake but because it seems good. Of all the actions in Augustine's life he could have examined as sinful acts, he chose the most simple on which to concentrate - a boyhood prank of stealing fruit captures the microscope of his self-examining eye. Bit by bit he takes apart the incident conveying how it relates to other incidents in his life and what it tells us about the human condition in general. It is the genius of Augustine to use an apparently innocuous event to convey some of the most profound thinking on human nature and the problem of evil. A groundbreaking work of its kind and content. |
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| "Peeping into the soul of a man" | 2007-03-24 |
| - Reviewed By quilmiense |
Translation by Rex Warner (in Signet Classics)
This one is a very good translation, especially for the modern reader. It conveys the immediacy and vividness of a text written more than 1500 years ago. One feels almost as a voyeur peeping into the private confession of a man to his God. The honesty and unembarrassed disclosure of his sins, and fruitless search for worldly wisdom, is something we can personally identify with, even today. It is amazing how vivid the description of life in late 4th century is in this Confessions. What a wonderful way to approach History, places like Carthage, Rome or Milan, thru the eyes of a skilled and intelligent man who pours his heart on these pages for us to benefit from.
St. Augustine's life, however distant in time, is filled with events, desires, and troubles, as common today as in the year 400. We can identify fully with him, and in his longing and weakness we can see our own soul portrayed. He talks about his childhood, his family, his studies and his lifelong pursuit of wisdom and truth, specially since the age of 19. We get immersed in the daily life of people in the 4th Century under the Roman Empire, their daily worries, their intellectual debates, their religious confrontations. We see the social conditions of all classes of people, from the wealthy and idle to the slaves who fight in the Circus. We see people living, talking, traveling, dreaming, and going about their business as if we were present with them. No wonder this book is an authentic classic, one that I should have read long ago.
There are many reasons to read this book. Those interested in History are certainly going to find plenty of information from eye-witness perspective; those who like to read personal memories and autobiographies won't have it easy to find a better one. For those interested in the history of religion and Catholicism, this is a must, a landmark in Christian literature. Whatever you are looking for, this book is certainly one that will satisfy your intellectual curiosity as well as fill you spiritually.
One thing to bear in mind is that the Confessions are not addressed to us, readers, that is why certain things about the author's behavior seem inexplicable: certain things that would seem to us to merit more explaining, being only mentioned briefly (his behavior toward the woman he had a child with, for example), while other issues are given a lot more space. Of course the Lord knew his heart well, but still, one is intrigued at this man. |
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| "the best translation I've found" | 2007-02-08 |
| - Reviewed By truffles16 |
| This Christian classic has touched me deeply. I read it the first time right after college, but recently picked it up again (thirty years later). I didn't remember a thing from the first reading.... I've been a Christian for many years, but find that this book is so fresh, with insights that are truly amazing. For this new read, I bought two different translations so that I could read both and compare when the meaning seemed obscure. I highly recommend the translation by Maria Boulding. It does a great job of staying true to his meaning, while expressing things in a way that speaks to the modern mind. |
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| "Essential classic of world literature" | 2006-10-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3DXVAI08P00HD |
This is a good translation of St Augustine's 'Confessions', one of the most important works of Christian and also world religious and philosophical thought.
St Augustine's genius needs no advertisment. His brilliant intellect is more or less the founder of Western Christianity as we know it. Between St Paul and Aquinas, he is the most brilliant theological and philosophical mind the medieval period managed to produce. If Western philosphy is a cathedral, then Augustine is one of its capstones.
The Confessions is a personal narrative of Augustine's life, which describes his spiritual and intellectual journey from childhood to adulthood. Augustine is such a brilliant writer he manages to capture countless facets of experience in a book which itself is only about 340 pages long (thirteen books in total) and this work also has immense range and depth, from the strange nature of free will and sin to the inner quest for the indwelling image of the Trinity, to Augustine's mystical experiences, to his dramatic conversion, to his allegorical commentary on Genesis to his ceaseless praise of God's goodness and the beauty of creation.
Augustine is clearly influenced by several sources, especially Neo-Platonic Philosophy. Augustine read the Enneads of Plotinus in translation into Latin (thanks to Marcus Victorius, a Christian convert from Neo-Platonism) and found its concepts of God made more sense to him than that of the sect he was a member of, the Manicheans. The Manicheans, a syncretic sect who blended Buddhism, elements of Christianity, Zorastrianism and Gnosticism, and Platonism captivated Augustine for several years, seeming to provide a satisfying explanation for the baffling problem of evil. Yet Augustine, after reading Plotinus, thought the explanation of evil in terms of non-being made more sense than God making an evil world, or being ruled by an evil principle. In this sense Augustine made a crucial breakthrough in theology, not only by finding God 'within' the depths of his own soul, but also in associating God with the Platonic Good.
Yet Augustine's strongest influence is the Bible. References to the Bible abound far more than references to Plotinus, and for Augustine, pagan thought is mostly useful for articulating truths already main plain by the Word of God. However, Augustine is always too brilliant and original thinker to merely fall into a rigid pattern of dogma he never leaves (in contrast to many more mediocre minds in the Christian tradition) and reworks his theology consistently and constantly in a creative manner.
However the Confessions is too brilliant and profound a work to summarise in one review, and it is best if readers avail themselves to a copy of this work as soon as they can. |
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| "Great Masterpiece" | 2006-04-10 |
| - Reviewed By cab94 |
Augustine's _Confessions_ have really had no parallel in the history of biographical writing. This account of his life stands as one of the most beautifully written Latin texts ever. Augustine was a master of prose writing and even in translations his work comes very powerfully forth.
There are many of these translations around but the best so far, in my opinion, is Henry Chadwicks. This translation speaks to the comtemporary reader in a way that is unpretentious and readable.
The content of the book itself is masterfully done. This laying bare of one's soul before God achieves an unimaginable amount of self knowledge and self mastery. Augustine is able to capture the need to find meaning in his life.
The first part of the book is what is most interesting for the general reader since it deals with the biographical part of Augustine's life. The second part is more theological and philosophical in scope. It is readable but it takes more work to get at the meaning Augustine intended.
This book is great for those who are searching for the truth about themselves, if ultimately there is any. |
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