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    The Confessions of Saint Augustine
    The Confessions of Saint Augustine
    The Confessions of Saint Augustine
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Confessions of Saint Augustine

    Written by Saint Augustine

    Narrated by Mel Foster

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    About this audiobook

    The Confessions of Saint Augustine is one of the most moving diaries ever recorded of a man's journey to the fountain of God's grace. Writing as a sinner, not a saint, Augustine shares his innermost thoughts and conversion experiences, and wrestles with the spiritual questions that have stirred the hearts of the thoughtful since time began.

    Starting with his childhood in Numidia and continuing through his youth and early adulthood in Carthage, Rome, and Milan, this book shows Augustine as a human being, a fellow traveler on the road to salvation. If you are fighting changes in your life, struggling to know God more, or staggering around roadblocks in your faith, Augustine's confessions will stretch your mind and enrich your soul.

    This version of The Confessions is the classic translation by Edward Bouverie Pusey.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 24, 2010
    ISBN9781400186129
    Author

    Saint Augustine

    Saint Augustine (354–430 CE), also known as Augustine of Hippo, was a Latin philosopher and theologian born on the northern coast of Africa in what is now Algeria. In 386, he had a conversion experience that led him to renounce his career and marital prospects and devote his life to God. His Confessions of Saint Augustine is perhaps the most famous spiritual autobiography of all time. 

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    Reviews for The Confessions of Saint Augustine

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    • 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.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Mel Foster is a male narrator lol, not a female, so go nuts…

      “If I go down into hell, Thou art there” - lol I don’t think so Augustine mate since hell is by definition a separation from God which God cannot do, so it’s an inherent contradiction.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      Gorgeously written, though I suppose Latin generally translates into very lovely prose. I loved the introspective wanderings into the human consciousness, and recommend the book to anyone, especially one who puts the saints on an unattainable pedestal--the holy have never seemed so human.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. I am reading it again. A chapter a night. The sincerity and passion and earnest curiousity of the narrative is only slightly undercut by an intelligence that sometimes overcomes the rigid reading of Biblical texts that litter his writing.

      In other words, Augustine works (right from the beginning of Chapter I) at manipulating the Biblical text to fit the constraints of his religious doctrine. He transforms both the Biblical texts and the doctrine creating a personal rubric for his spirituality.

      Also, he makes me giggle.
    • 3/5
      Essential medieval/Christian philosophy.
    • 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!
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      St. Augustine is one of the most significant authors of the early Roman Catholic Church. This autobiography is stunning in its frankness and its passion. Augustine of Hippo documents his transition from childhood to adulthood; also his path from Paganism to Christianity. He is not a perfect human being, he is seeking something profound, but is also admittedly weak and tempted by pride and pleasure. While many books have been written after, none before had been written like it.
    • 5/5
      One of the great works in philosophy and religion.
    • 5/5
      The peril with reading classics is my insufficiency to write a proper review. As with The Imitation and Revelations of Divine Love, you'll have to be content with my amateurish reflections instead.When I first sat down to begin Book One of The Confessions, I was prepared for a war. I figured if I could get through five or ten pages, I'd be doing well. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how readable and compelling this spiritual autobiography is. The work is divided into thirteen separate "books", and it's no problem to lose yourself in one book per sitting—even if you're not trained in history or theology. I'm sure much of this is due to Philip Burton's fine translation.Speaking of the translator, he did the reader a favour by setting all scriptural quotations in italics. Augustine was pickled in scripture—especially the Psalms. He can't praise God without the Psalmist's phrases springing to his pen. While with some this style could seem cumbersome (little more than parachuting in proof-texts), it's endearing with Augustine. There's no wonder why his name is prefixed with Saint.Augustine's heart was tender. When he sinned, he grieved over it. Not just so-called big sins, either. In one section he delves into his motives for steeling some fruit he didn't even need from a neighbour's tree. It's encouraging to read someone who takes their spiritual life so seriously, and who admits their faults so freely. (Where else on the spiritual best-seller list can you find a chapter entitled, "Farewell My Concubine"?)I have to admit that I was frustrated by the last three chapters. They were a reminder that ancient writers don't follow the same conventions that we moderns do. After ten books of beautiful and gripping autobiography he spent the last three explaining his philosophical and allegorical understanding of Genesis 1. I know his break with Manichean philosophy runs through both biography and commentary but it doesn't make it any less frustrating to read. Even so, endure the last three books. There are still gems to be found.With a work so classic as The Confessions, you can find any number of editions. I choose the cloth-bound Everyman's Edition from Knopf, published in 2001. The binding is solid and the typesetting is elegant. More importantly, the translator was clear and authentic and Robin Lane Fox's substantial introduction helped to put the entire work into perspective.Don't fear the "classic" moniker. This work is a gem any thinking Christian would do well to read.
    • 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."
    • 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
      I really felt my soul physically grow as I read this book.
    • 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
      Fabulous feast. Who are you? God only knows, says Augustine reverently.
    • 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
      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
      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.
    • 5/5
      Timeless autobiography showing how the Spirit of Christ drew this Church father to Himself.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      What makes this such a popular testimonial and classic of Christian writing is the profound thinking he shares about the depth of his own spiritual life and his contemplation about creation and God. Most of the early chapters are about the wretchedness of his life and those of anyone before they find God. He starts at infancy and works his way through boyhood to the point where he was a young man of 30. Book 8, #13 includes a great description of his friend going to the gladiator events, intending not to watch but looking out of curiosity and becoming another bloodthirsty member of the crowd. St. Augustine's life was not that of a typical saint. After this passage: "my concubine being torn from my side as a hindrance to my marriage, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding," he took on another mistress and kept with him the son by the first. He refers to Epicurus, remarking that he would have believed were it not for the tenet that there is nothing after death. This metaphysical debate shows the type of thought process that Augustine had to endure to reconcile current philosophy with early Christian beliefs: " that the body of an elephant should contain more of Thee than that of a sparrow, by how much larger it is, and takes up more room." In Book 7 #7, Augustine begins contemplating the nature of evil and how it "crept" into being. Did God create it? Again, we see reason guiding his spiritual thinking. He talks about the astrologers and how he rejected them based on a story of two men born at the exact same time, one a slave and the other a prince. Despite identical stars, they led very different lives. Hee first encountered John 1:1 by acquiring it among some books recorded by the Platonists. The Platonic concept of duality is entwined through much of Augustine's thinking. He considers the passage "and the word was made flesh" and appreciates the implication. He thinks about the meaning of an "incorruptible substance" and the effect on that which it touches. Book IX, #20 relates the strength and admonishment of women Christians at the time, and how they placed value in hearing the scripture in the home as a way of controlling abusive husbands. Book IX, #33 is the moving passage about how he came to understand his mother's death and how it brought him closer to God. Book X is the single most important and profound part of the Confessions. Having in the former books spoken of himself before his receiving the grace of baptism, in this section he admits what he then was. First, he inquires by what faculty we can know God at all, reasoning on the mystery of memory, wherein God, being made known, dwells undiscovered. Then he examines his own trials under the triple division of temptation, 'lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride.' The sins of the eyes is actually "curiosity." The sins of the flesh are all of those bodily pleasures and desires that take us away from the spiritual. Book X, #47: "Placed then amid these temptations, I strive daily against concupiscence in eating and drinking. For it is not of such nature, that I can settle on cutting it off once for all, and never touching it afterward, as I could of concubinage." Like many other great thinkers, Augustine considered the wonder of creation; in fact, just the nature of it alone to be proof of something greater than, i.e. God. There is much discussion about the nature of time, memory, the soul, and the how of God and man. In the closing books, he considers the immutable and eternal nature of God and the logical implication on creation, God's will, the past, the future, and the human frame of reference about these concepts.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely fantastic. I've read it several times and will wear it out eventually.l
    • 3/5
      A mixed collection of autobiography, spiritual reflection, prayers, allegorical interpretation. Confessions was not at all what I expected it to be — an autobiography through and through. Had I read this with a class or a guide it might have been better, but I wasn't particularly enthralled.
    • 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.