Augustine: Confessions Books I–IV

This volume presents the Latin text of one of the great classics of Christian literature, accompanied by a useful commentary.

Augustine (Author), Gillian Clark (Edited by)

9780521497633, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 2 November 1995

212 pages
18.3 x 12.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.22 kg

"It is an excellent addition to the resources available for students and teachers of the Confessions and of Christian Latin generally." John C. Cavadini, Anglican Theological Review

Augustine's Confessions is one of the most influential and most innovative works of Latin literature. Written in the author's early forties in the last years of the fourth century AD, they reflect on his life and on the activity of remembering and interpreting a life. Books I–IV are concerned with infancy and learning to talk, school days, sexual desire and adolescent rebellion, intense friendships and intellectual exploration. Augustine evolves and analyses his past with all the resources of the reading which shaped his mind: Virgil and Cicero, Neoplatonism and the Bible. This edition, which aims to be usable by students who are new to Augustine, alerts readers to the verbal echoes and allusions of Augustine's brilliant and varied Latin, and explains his theological and philosophical questioning of what God is and what it is to be human.

Introduction: 1. The Confessions in Augustine's life
2. Genre and style
3. Philosophy and theology
4. Text and commentary
Avgvstini Confessionvm LibriI I–IV
Commentary
Bibliography
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Christian theology [HRCM], Christianity [HRC], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA]