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Summary: A sweeping in depth look at the life of Augustine of Hippo.
Review: An in depth look at the nature of evil through the personal struggle of the great Augustine of Hippo. The book, written in a prayerful, confessional style (hence the name), reaches to the heights and depths of human emotion and question. A highly recommended read for those searching for clues to some life's endless questions
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Summary: Worst book I have ever read
Review: This has got to be by far the worst book I have ever read. There is no way to follow a continum to the story. It is merely a collection of religous philosophies that I will never again refer to and absolutley refuse to reccomend
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Summary: Still powerful after 1600 years
Review: After Sacred Scripture itself, perhaps no other book has brought more people to a deeper understanding of the truths of the Christian faith than "Confessions." Simply put, it's the story of one well-educated, intelligent man who led a profligate life in a sophisticated pagan society. It took his mother, prayer, and the grace of Almighty God to make him a saint--and indeed one of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church.What is most striking about Augustine's story is how easily it relates to our own lives and our own times. It is impossible to read "Confessions" without seeing a little bit of yourself in his tales of his early life. The book is perfect for anyone struggling with their Christian faith. Indeed, it helped bring me back to the Catholic Church. This translation is well-written and highly readable. I own it and highly recommend it.
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Summary: Saint Augustine's spiritual journey
Review: Saint Augustine's "Confessions" is a very beautiful and fascinant book that narrates, as his title suggests, in a sincere and humble way, the spiritual journey and conversion of the author from darkness to light, vice to virtue, and error to the truth of the catholic faith, proving that saints, even the greatest and wisest as Augustine, are also simple and common men (sinners) ruled by an imperfect human nature. Really, after the read of this book, it is impossible to deny that each one of us have something of Augustine in his own character, and this is one of the greats merits of the "Confessions". A real classic, essentially an intimate and personal work, it simultaneously develops some of the major concepts that influenced decisively western civilization for fifteen centuries (the essence of God and His role on creation, the universality of moral law, the decayed human nature or the notion of free wiil, for example), which is one more reason to recommend that book to every person interested in west's religion, moral,philosophy and law. Five stars!
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Summary: Take and read!
Review: Augustine's 'Confessions' is among the most important books ever written. One of the first autobiographical works in the modern sense, it also represents the first time a psychological and theological enterprise were combined. It also helps to bridge the gap between the Classical world and the Medieval world, exhibiting strong elements identifying with each of those major historical periods.
Most undergraduates in the liberal arts encounter the book at some point; all seminarians do (or should!). Many adults find (or rediscover) the book later, after school. For many in these categories, there are concepts, narrative strands and historical data new and unusual for them. However, Augustine's 'Confessions' is still generally more accessible in many ways that truly classical pieces; it has interior description as well as external reporting that we are familiar with in modern writing.
The 'Confessions' shows Augustine's personality well - he was a passionate person, but his focus wavered for much of his life until finally settling upon Christianity and the Neoplatonic synthesis with this faith. Even while remaining a passionate Christian and rejecting the sort of dualism present in the Manichee teachings, he varied between various positions within these systems. Augustine's varied thought reaches through many denominational and scholarly paradigms.
The 'Confessions' are divided into thirteen chapters, termed 'Books' - the first ten of the books are autobiographical, with Augustine describing both events in his life as well as his philosophical and religious wanderings during the course of his life. The text is somewhat difficult to take at times, as this is writing with a purpose, as indeed most autobiographies are. The purpose here at times seems to be to paint Augustine in the worst possible light (the worse his condition, the better his conversion/salvation ends up being); at other times, one gets a sense (as one might get when reading the Pauline epistles) that there is some significant degree of ego at work here (Paul boasts of being among the better students, and so does Augustine, etc.).
Augustine also uses his Confessions as a tract against the Manichean system - once a faithful adherent, Augustine later rejects the Manichean beliefs as heretical; however, one cannot get past the idea that Augustine retained certain of their intellectual aspects in his own constructions even while denouncing them in his official life story.
The whole of the conversion turns on two primary books - Book Seven, his conversion to the Neoplatonic view of the world, including the metaphysics and the ethics that come along with this system; and Book 8, which describes his conversion to Christianity proper. This is where perhaps the most famous directive, 'Tolle! Lege!' ('Take and read!') comes from - Augustine heard a voice, and he picked up the nearest book, which happened to be a portion of the Pauline epistles, arguing against the undisciplined lifestyle Augustine lived. Scholars continue to debate whether Augustine's conversion to Christianity was more profound or more important than his conversion to Neoplatonism; in any event, Christianity interpreted through a Platonic framework became the norm for centuries, and remains a strong current within the Christian world view; Protestant reformers as they went back to the 'original bible' in distinction from the Catholic interpretations of the day also went back to the 'original Augustine' for much of their theology.
The final three books are Augustine's dealing with the creation of the world via narrative stories in Genesis 1 exegetically and hermeneutically. This is very different from what is done in modern biblical scholarship, but is significant in many respects, not the least of which as it gives a model of the way Augustine dealt with biblical texts; given Augustine's towering presence over the development of Western Christianity in both Catholic and Protestant strands, understanding his methods and interpretative framework can lead to significant insights into the ideas of medieval and later church figures.
This translation by Henry Chadwick is one of the standard editions of the book available. Chadwick, a noted scholar of early Christianity, provides a good introduction that gives synopses of the books as well as background and contextual information. This is a book that will be of interest to novice readers of Augustine as well as scholars, to students, clergy and laypersons, and anyone else who might have an historical, literary, philosophical, theological or other interest in Augustine - something for everyone, perhaps?
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Summary: A Spiritual Autobiography - written by a Saint.
Review: This is a beautiful book even if you aren't familiar with the Saints. It opens like a flower as you read. It is completely about this wonderful man's own thoughtful analysis of his own emotional experiences. He reflects on his early life when he was actually a pagan worshipper, and then focuses on his conversion to the Christian faith. Once he converted Saint Augustine returned to Africa and set up a monastic community. What makes this book so special is that is told with the utmost candor and he holds nothing back. It is also a beautiful book in praise of God and how he changed Saint Augustine's life. Although religious in tenure, this is not a totally religious work. So many observations and thoughts that this man had in his lifetime (354 AD is when he was born). It is a book about friendships (both true and false), faith, celibacy and love.
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Summary: Spiritual autobiography
Review: To talk directly to God , my guess is Augustine learned from the Psalms. To tell his life story to God including the story of his own inner life and struggles in such a prolonged and detailed way he apparently learned only from himself. In any case in inner intensity, in moving description of human relationships, to his mother and friends, in reflection on Time and its meaning, and in his relation to God Augustine writes the work that will set the standard for all spiritual autobiography before and after.
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Summary: Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)
Review: Confessions (Oxford World's Classics) by Saint Augustine is the most important Christian autobiography ever written. Augustine was a pagan and a sinner whom saw the light of Jesus Christ and converted to the faith of Christianity. His soul searching is breathtaking and his writing style is clear and concise.
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Summary: A timeless relgious classic
Review: 'Confessions' is exactly what the title implies - the frank, open and heart-rending confessions of a troubled soul. The 'Confessions' rightly occupies a central place in Western Literature because of the breadth and depth of Augustine's thinking, his incredible theological, philosophical and psychological insight (he was admired by Wittgenstein, Husserl, Schopenhauer, and other great thinkers), his amazingly beautiful and elegant style of expression, and his remarkable power to move you to the very soul with every word, sentence and chapter. This book is a theological treatise, autobiography, series of love letters, polemics, philosophical work, and hymn to God in one. Augustine's profound and searching intellect examines his own life, from its very first memories, to his agonies and sins as a student to his tears as he hears the song of children in the street which seem to urge him to read the Bible.
Like all true 'Great Books', this work is never exhausted and without new meaning, whether you have read it once or a dozen times. Like Conrad, Plato, Shakespeare, Dickens, Melville, Woolf and other great writers Augustine is able to capture the most profound and uplifting along with the most horrible and denigrating of this mystery we call life, from the profound heights of God to the melancholy depths of selfishness and sin. Whether you are an atheist seeking to understand what makes religious believers tick, or a Philosopher trying to understand memory and the nature of experience, or a Christian struggling with your faith, or even just a literary 'dabbler', 'The Confessions' is well worth buying and keeping very close to your bed, your coffee table, your pulpit and your bookshelf. This is a book whose beauty will not fade, and unlike a trashy pop novel whose meaning is exhausted with one reading and soon forgotten, 'Confessions' is a book that will keep giving you new strength, hope and insight with each new day that comes.
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Summary: For the patient reader with plenty of time
Review: This book is a Roman Empire era classic, but not for the reader in a hurry. The translation appears to attempt to faithfully follow the original Latin long sentences and has therefore had to deploy advanced literary English to deal with the frequent multiple midsentence clauses. This is one of the reasons I found it slow going from a time perspective, but worth persisting with. One really good addition to the book is the notes section with all the Bible references; this is where having a cleric as the translator is clearly a bonus.
As other reviewers have pointed out, the book is a combination of St Augustine's personal life and his discussion of theology and philosophy. His personal life details include petty theft of fruit from an orchard, sitting around unemployed, youthful indiscretions, living a few years with his girlfriend until they split up, and his personal spiritual realignment from a heretical sect to the Catholic tradition. The Biblical references are mainly letters from the Apostle Paul, the Genesis story of the creation, and the Psalms, and there is nothing much from the Gospels or the Prophets. The philosophy component includes a review of his personal experiences with sense of time and memory which was no doubt drawn from his experience as a professional teacher of rhetoric and philosophy.
What one gains from all this is a great snapshot of what someone of religious conviction in the fading days of the Roman Empire saw and thought, including the experience of just scraping by to make a living. Overall, recommended for the patient reader!
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