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A review by wwatts1734
Confessions by Saint Augustine
5.0
You can learn a lot about an author by the type of autobiography that he writes. Many authors write odes to themselves that serve the purpose of exalting the author's achievements. And then there are those autobiographies that treat the author like any other man, with failures and faults and lessons to be learned about his life. The "Confessions" of St. Augustine is perhaps the very best of the second type of autobiography.
Although Augustine was one of the very brightest thinkers in the history of Western civilization, in this book he lays out his faults and failings for the reader. He gives plenty of credit for his virtues to the many friends and relatives who prayed endlessly for him; his friend Alypius, his mother Monica and Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who suffered through Augustine's criticism in the final years before his conversion. Augustine analyzes his own failings and selfishness, from the moment of his birth until the time of his writing his memoirs. This book was actually written while Augustine was a monk in a religious community in Africa where this kind of confession was expected of new postulants as a sign of their repentance. Augustine's confession was so good that the community allowed him to publish it. Here it is, 1700 years later, and the confessions still speak to us.
My only caveat here is to be careful about what translations you read. I just finished reading the free version of the "Confessions" on Kindle, and boy did I get what I paid for. This had to be the worst translation of any classic text I have ever encountered. The translator took the text phrase by phrase and translated without regard as to whether the resulting English sentences made any sense at all. Some of the sentences in this translation were pages in length, and he went back and forth in Elizabethan English to the point where you could not make sense of who the subject and who the object of the sentence is. Honestly, it is precisely this kind of translation that turns people off of the classics, and that is a shame. So if you read "The Confessions", DO NOT read the free version on Kindle. Spend a couple of bucks and buy a decent translation.
I would recommend this book for everyone, and especially for Christians who want to grow in the spiritual life.
Although Augustine was one of the very brightest thinkers in the history of Western civilization, in this book he lays out his faults and failings for the reader. He gives plenty of credit for his virtues to the many friends and relatives who prayed endlessly for him; his friend Alypius, his mother Monica and Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who suffered through Augustine's criticism in the final years before his conversion. Augustine analyzes his own failings and selfishness, from the moment of his birth until the time of his writing his memoirs. This book was actually written while Augustine was a monk in a religious community in Africa where this kind of confession was expected of new postulants as a sign of their repentance. Augustine's confession was so good that the community allowed him to publish it. Here it is, 1700 years later, and the confessions still speak to us.
My only caveat here is to be careful about what translations you read. I just finished reading the free version of the "Confessions" on Kindle, and boy did I get what I paid for. This had to be the worst translation of any classic text I have ever encountered. The translator took the text phrase by phrase and translated without regard as to whether the resulting English sentences made any sense at all. Some of the sentences in this translation were pages in length, and he went back and forth in Elizabethan English to the point where you could not make sense of who the subject and who the object of the sentence is. Honestly, it is precisely this kind of translation that turns people off of the classics, and that is a shame. So if you read "The Confessions", DO NOT read the free version on Kindle. Spend a couple of bucks and buy a decent translation.
I would recommend this book for everyone, and especially for Christians who want to grow in the spiritual life.