Books with title THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

Written between 397 and 400 A.D., “The Confessions of Saint Augustine” is thought to be the first autobiography in Western civilization and is considered by many to be one of the most important religious works of all time. While not a complete account of Augustine’s life, for Augustine wrote “Confessions” in his early forties and would live well into his seventies, it is one of the most complete first-hand accounts of anyone’s life from the fourth or fifth century, in which the author outlines the sins of his youth and conversion to Christianity. “The Confessions” tells of its author’s upbringing in Algeria, his place at the Imperial court of Milan, his struggle to overcome his sexual desires, and the ultimate dedication of his life to Christ and Christian ways. “The Confessions” are not simply a recount of the author’s life but a true exploration of what it is to be Christian and the struggles that one must overcome in order to find Christ and live a more pious life. A pioneering work of autobiography, “The Confessions” remains one of the most important works of spiritual devotion ever written. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper, follows the translation of Edward Bouverie Pusey, and includes an introduction by Arthur Symons.

Heartfelt, incisive, and timeless, The Confessions of Saint Augustine has captivated readers for more than fifteen hundred years. Retelling the story of his long struggle with faith and ultimate conversion -- the first such spiritual memoir ever recorded -- Saint Augustine traces a story of sin, regret, and redemption that is both deeply personal and, at the same time, universal.Starting with his early life, education, and youthful indiscretions, and following his ascent to influence as a teacher of rhetoric in Hippo, Rome, and Milan, Augustine is brutally honest about his proud and amibitious youth. In time, his early loves grow cold and the luster of wordly success fades, leaving him filled with a sense of inner absence, until a movement toward Christian faith takes hold, eventually leading to conversion and the flourishing of a new life. Philosophically and theologically brilliant, sincere in its feeling, and both grounded in history and strikingly contemporary in its resonance, The Confessions of Saint Augustine is a timeless classic that will persist as long as humanity continues to long for meaning in life and peace of soul.

Confessions is the name of an autobiographical work, consisting of 13 books (what moderns call chapters, by Saint Augustine of Hippo, written in Latin between AD 397 and 400. The work outlines Saint Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. Modern English translations of it are sometimes published under the title The Confessions of Saint Augustine in order to distinguish the book from other books with similar titles. Its original title was Confessions in Thirteen Books, and it was composed to be read out loud with each book being a complete unit.Confessions is generally considered one of Augustine's most important texts. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages. Professor Henry Chadwick wrote that Confessions will "always rank among the great masterpieces of western literature".

This ebook is complete with linked Table of Content making navigation quicker and easier.St. Augustine of Hippo lived a life of sin until his conversion to Christianity at the age of 32. Twelve years later he gave a personal account of his search for truth in The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Augustine of Hippo (pronounced /ˈɔːɡəstiːn/ or /ɒˈɡʌstɨn/; Latin: Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis;) (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), Bishop of Hippo Regius, also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, or St. Austin was a Romanized Berber philosopher and theologian.Augustine, a Latin church father, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. He "established anew the ancient faith" (conditor antiquae rursum fidei), according to his contemporary, Jerome. In his early years he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism and afterwards by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus, but after his conversion and baptism (387), he developed his own approach to philosophy and theology accommodating a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom and framed the concepts of original sin and just war. When the Roman Empire in the West was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name) distinct from the material Earthly City. His thought profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the church, and was the community which worshipped God.Augustine was born in the city of Thagaste, the present day Souk Ahras, Algeria, to a pagan father named Patricius and a Catholic mother named Monica. He was educated in North Africa and resisted his mother's pleas to become Christian. Living as a pagan intellectual, he took a concubine, with whom he had a son, Adeodatus, and became a Manichean. Later he converted to Catholicism, became a bishop, and opposed heresies, such as the belief that people can have the ability to choose to be good to such a degree as to merit salvation without divine aid (Pelagianism).In the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order; his memorial is celebrated 28 August. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation teaching on salvation and divine grace. In the Eastern Orthodox Church he is blessed, and his feast day is celebrated on 15 June. Among the Orthodox he is called Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed. ---From Wikipedia

Written between 397 and 398 CE, the Confessions of St. Augustine describes the author's spiritual journey to Christianity. It is the first Western autobiography, and has influenced Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages. Augustine tells of his youthful sexual improprieties, and tells why he rejected Manichaenism and Astrology, leading to his conversion to Christianity at age 32. The book also includes some important theological discussions, particularly the later chapters.--J.B. Hare

This Halcyon Classics ebook contains Augustine of Hippo's 'Confessions.' One of the early church fathers, Augustine's 'Confessions' charts his journey from his sinful youth and Manichaeism to Christianity. Includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.This unexpurgated edition contains the complete text with errors and omissions corrected.

It would not be right to overlook a charge that has been brought against the book by Lord Byron. He says, “Augustin in his fine Confessions makes the reader envy his transgressions.” Nothing could be more reckless or further from the truth than this charge. There is here no dwelling on his sin, or painting it so as to satisfy a prurient imagination. As we have already remarked, Augustin’s manner is not to go into detail further than to find a position from which to “edify” the reader, and he treats this episode in his life with his characteristic delicacy and reticence. His sin was dead; and he had carried it to its burial with tears of repentance. And when, ten years after his baptism, he sets himself, at the request of some, to a consideration of what he then was at the moment of making his confessions, he refers hardly at all to this sin of his youth; and such allusions as he does make are of the most casual kind. Instead of enlarging upon it, he treats it as past, and only speaks of temptation and sin as they are common to all men. Many of the French writers on the Confessions institute a comparison in this matter between the confessions of Augustin and those of Rousseau. Pressensé draws attention to the delicacy and reserve which characterise the one, and the arrogant defiance of God and man manifested in the other. The confessions of the one he speaks of as “un grand acte de repentir et d’amour;” and eloquently says, “In it he seems, like the Magdalen, to have spread his box of perfumes at the foot of the Saviour; from his stricken heart there exhales the incense most agreeable to God—the homage of true penitence.” The other he truly describes as uttering “a cry of triumph in the very midst of his sin, and robing his shame in a royal purple.” Well may Desjardins express surprise at a book of such foulness coming from a genius so great; and perhaps his solution of the enigma is not far from the truth, when he attributes it to an overweening vanity and egotism.The Soliloquies introduce us to the converted man at the very moment of his conversion. The Confessions give us the Bishop of Hippo’s recollection of that man after years of absorption in the exacting duties of ecclesiastical function and doctrinal debate. Who, seeking to confront the real self of early years, would accept for such his own random recollections at a much later period, recalled of necessity piecemeal, amid the distractions of professional routine, in exchange for the diary into which was poured at the crucial moment the inmost self of those very days and hours? Harnack says: “The foundations of Augustine’s religious characteristics can be best studied in the writings that are read least, namely in the tractates and letters written immediately after his conversion, and forming an extremely necessary supplement to the Confessions.” “What was written earlier was, undoubtedly, in many respects less complete, less churchly, more Neoplatonic; but, on the other hand, it was more direct, more personal.

Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, or Blessed Augustine, was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. The Confessions of St. Augustine The work outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1,000 years, through the Middle Ages. Translation: Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882)

This Halcyon Classics ebook contains Augustine of Hippo's 'Confessions.' One of the early church fathers, Augustine's 'Confessions' charts his journey from his sinful youth and Manichaeism to Christianity. Includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.This unexpurgated edition contains the complete text with errors and omissions corrected.

Saint Augustine's contributions to Christian theology are second to no other post-apostolic author in the whole sweep of church history. Yet along side his doctrinal treatises, Augustine tells a story of his life devoted to Christ as his only satisfaction. The Confessions is at once the Autobiographical account of Augustine's life of Christian faith and at the same time a compelling theology of Christian spirituality for everyone. Among the most important classics in Western literature, it continues to engage modern readers through Augustine's timeless illustrations and beautiful prose. Augustine's Confessions is a book to relish the first time through and then profoundly enjoy over a lifetime of revisiting. // This accessible and accurate translation of The Confessions comes alive with Simon Vance’s narration. Vance is an award-winning audiobook narrator with hundreds of titles to his credit, including classics by Charles Dickens, H. G. Wells, and Robert Louis Stevenson.