Of all the saints of the early Christian church, Saint Augustine of Hippo possesses, for the modern reader at least, the most interesting mind. His ideas on language, time, and the mysteries of personality, humanity, and divinity are still provocative—after sixteen centuries!—and his genius for expression remains vivid, even startling. On time, for example, Augustine wrote, “What is time? If nobody’s asking me, I know. If I try to explain it to somebody who asks me, I don’t know.” And it’s unlikely there has ever been a more telling embodiment of the desires that drive us to distraction from the straight and narrow than his youthful prayer: “Give me chastity and self-restraint, but don’t do it just yet.” The Confessions, in its pulsing orchestration of metaphysical chords and personal melodies, is both a religious meditation and a cracking good read. At once an autobiography and a work of biblical exegesis, a philosophical text and a guide to living, it remains one of the most influential books ever published.