Customer Reviews

Confessions (Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This Christian classic has touched me deeply. I read it the first time right after college, but recently picked it up again (thirty years later). I didn't remember a thing from the first reading.... I've been a Christian for many years, but find that this book is so fresh, with insights that are truly amazing. For this new read, I bought two different translations so that I could read both and compare when the meaning seemed obscure. I highly recommend the translation by Maria Boulding. It does a great job of staying true to his meaning, while expressing things in a way that speaks to the modern mind.

This is a fresh and wonderful translation of this Christian classic. Sr Boulding is herself a fine poet capable of touching turns of phrase such as, [Book I,5]

"Who will grant me to find peace in you? Who will grant me this grace, that you would come into my heart and inebriate it, enabling me to forget the evils that beset me and embrace me my only good?"

Albert Outler (no mean wroughter of words himself) translates this passage in this way,

"Who shall bring me to rest in thee? Who will send thee into my heart so to overwhelm it that my sins shall be blotted out and I may embrace thee, my only good?"

The loss of the "thees" are of course helpful to the modern reader, but the use of "that you would come into my heart and inebriate it," is just, well, stunning.

One final comparison with Outler in the well-known passage in book ten:

Outler: "Belatedly I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, belatedly I loved thee. For see, thou wast within and I was without, and I sought thee out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but I was not with thee."

Boulding: "Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new. Late have I loved you! Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made, I rushed headlong. I, mishappen."

Both use Augustine's marvelous play on the words "formosa" and "deformis" But Sr. Boulding's choice of shapely and misshapen retains Augustine's intentions and poetic voice, it seems to me.

This is a lovely work.

This translation is used as the basis for the excellent teaching company course on St Augustine. I first read the confessions from my Harvard Classics. The reviewed translation was far better and every page has footnote references to scriptures quoted by St. Augustine. I was very pleased!

I first came across St. Augustine's "Confessions" when I was a freshman in college. It was a monumental experience in terms of both the content of his writing and the freshness and relevance of his writing style. After re-reading them again recently, I am still struck with how contemporary the book feels. Aside from many of its 4th century particularities, the concerns that St. Augustine had and the way he frankly and honestly dealt with them could be lifted from almost any contemporary tell-all autobiography. The biggest exception is the fact that "Confessions" is a quintessentially and irreducibly a religious text, and in an age when religious considerations are largely pushed towards the margins of their life stories, it is refreshing and uplifting to see what would a life look like for someone who took them very seriously and committed himself to reorganizing one's whole life around the idea of serving God wholly and uncompromisingly. "Confessions" is a very accessible text, and for the most part it does not deal with theological and philosophical issues. The exception is the latter part of the book, which are almost exclusively dedicated to those topics. You may want to skip those at the first reading, but I would encourage you to read them nevertheless. Maybe the very inspiring and uplifting story of St. Augustine's conversion to Christianity can lead you into deeper considerations about your faith or the meaning of life in general. I cannot think of a better introduction to those topics than "Confessions," nor of a better guide than St. Augustine.

This book has opened up a whole new avenue on interest for me.I have read this book several times and it has a potent affect on me. There is a dvd series (by The Teaching Co) 24 lectures on this series that I also recommend. After reading this book a whole world of other books opens before you,but you come to the understanding that you will not live long enough to read them all....unless

This is a great translation of this masterpiece by St. Augustine. I have read several other translations and this is by far the one I perfer. Everyone should find the time at some point to read this book.

Five stars for this translation. The languague is still stately but not pointlessly so, and generally it is pretty smooth and readable. I couldn't get more than ten pages in with the other translations I looked at.

The book itself is also five stars. Humility is probably the most notable quality I get from Augustine, and in most traditions that seems to be the highest of virtues. Sometimes his abstractions are a chore to get through, but rather than attempting to understand them, simply looking into his deeply inquiring mind I believe gives the reader the most value, and I hope it would encourage readers to deeply inquire as did the great saint himself.

This is indeed one of the more important books to read, and we are given a great account of how Augustine observed and revealed his human nature and his own wretchedness. The honesty of the account is remarkable, and should hopefully inspire his readers to be just as sincere.

Okay, all fun aside, this literally is one of the best translations of Augustine's Confessions available to the modern english reader. This was the first translation I read years ago, and profited immensely, that I have downloaded it on kindle as well.
Aside from the fact, that Augustine's Confessions is one of the most revolutionary works of Western Literature, and one of the first psychological-autobriographies we have seen.
It is beautifully written, almost lyrical, and this translation captures it.
You can easily download another edition of the Confessions, with a weaker, and older translation for a tenth the price. I think it is definitely worth paying more for a quality translation.

It's hard to review a book that's been vetted as a classic for hundreds of years. This is an excellent translation with a good historical background

I bought the book as part of a study program. GBWW (great book of the western world) type of program.