Augustine: Confessions Books V–IX

The only commentary in English that interprets Augustine's language and thought in Confessions V-IX, for students and teachers of Latin.

Augustine (Author), Peter White (Edited by)

9780521253512, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 September 2019

368 pages
21.6 x 13.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.53 kg

Books V-IX of the Confessions trace five crucial years in the life of Augustine, from his debut as a teacher of rhetoric in North Africa to his baptism as a Christian and the renunciation of a worldly career in Milan. This commentary will be invaluable for those wishing to read his story in the original Latin. Through careful glosses and notes, Augustine's Latin is made accessible to students of patristics and of classics. His extensive quotations from Scripture are translated and explained in light of the variant Bible texts and the interpretative assumptions through which he came to understand them. The unfolding of his career is set against the background of political, cultural, and religious change in the fourth century, and the art with which he created a form of narrative without precedent in earlier Latin literature is illustrated in close detail.

Introduction
1. Confessions in the life and literary career of Augustine
2. The latinity of Confessions
3. Rhetoric and style in Confessions
4. Book divisions and narrative structure in Confessions
5. Books 5-9 of Confessions
6. This text and commentary
Avgustini Confessionvm Libri V-IX
Commentary.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]