Confessions

Confessions

by Augustine

Augustine's ConfessionsConfessions 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 A.D. and during his first years as a bishop, 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, schooldays, 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 volume, 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. The edition is intended for use by students and scholars of Latin literature, theology and Church history.

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Paperback, Oxford World's Classics, 341 pages

Published June 25th 1998 by Oxford University Press (first published 400)

tags: theology, spirituality, philosophy, christianity, classics, religion, biography, nonfiction, history, christian

Book Quotes

“Mas era necesario que el Mediador entre Dios y los hombres tuviese algo de común con Dios y algo de común con los hombres, no fuese que, siendo semejante en ambos extremos a los hombres, estuviese alejado de Dios; o, siendo semejante en ambos extremos a Dios, estuviese alejado de los hombres, y así no pudiera ser mediador.”

“See, heaven and earth exist, they cry aloud that they are made, for they suffer change and variation.”

“Y se arrojan a tus brazos y lloran en tu regazo después de sus caminos inaccesibles19. Y Tú, accesible, enjugarás sus lágrimas20. Y lloran más y gozan con los llantos porque Tú, Señor, no una persona sin más, carne y sangre21, sino Tú, Señor, que los has hecho, los rehaces y consuelas. ¿Y dónde estaba yo cuando te buscaba? Y Tú estabas ante mí. Yo, en cambio, también me había apartado de mí, y no me encontraba: ¡cuánto menos a ti!”

“let it be a brotherly mind which when it approves of me will rejoice over me, and when it disapproves will be saddened on my account, because whether it approves or disapproves it still loves me.”

“Be not conformed to the world. Contain yourselves from it: the soul lives by avoiding what it dies by affecting.”

“Thus I was sick and tormented, reproaching myself more bitterly than ever, rolling and writhing in my chain till it should be utterly broken. By now I was held but slightly, but still was held. And thou, O Lord, didst press upon me in my inmost heart with a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame; lest I should again give way and that same slender remaining tie not be broken off, but recover strength and enchain me yet more securely. I kept saying to myself, "See, let it be done now; let it be done now." And as I said this I all but came to a firm decision. I all but did it -- yet I did not quite. Still I did not fall back to my old condition, but stood aside for a moment and drew breath. And I tried again, and lacked only a very little of reaching the resolve -- and then somewhat less, and then all but touched and grasped it. Yet I still did not quite reach or touch or grasp the goal, because I hesitated to die to death and to live to life. And the worse way, to which I was habituated, was stronger in me than the better, which I had not tried. And up to the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer the moment approached, the greater horror did it strike in me. But it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but held me in suspense. It was, in fact, my old mistresses, trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities, who still enthralled me. They tugged at my fleshly garments and softly whispered: "Are you going to part with us? And from that moment will we never be with you any more? And from that moment will not this and that be forbidden you forever?" What were they suggesting to me in those words "this or that"? What is it they suggested, O my God? Let thy mercy guard the soul of thy servant from the vileness and the shame they did suggest! And now I scarcely heard them, for they were not openly showing themselves and opposing me face to face; but muttering, as it were, behind my back; and furtively plucking at me as I was leaving, trying to make me look back at them. Still they delayed me, so that I hesitated to break loose and shake myself free of them and leap over to the place to which I was being called -- for unruly habit kept saying to me, "Do you think you can live without them?" But now it said this very faintly; for in the direction I had set my face, and yet toward which I still trembled to go ... for I still heard the muttering of those "trifles" and hung suspended ... This struggle raging in my heart was nothing but the contest of self against self.”

“There is a joy that brings true happiness, but it is not given to the ungodly. It is only for those who love You for Your own sake. That joy is to know You as You are. This is the happy life, to rejoice in You, of You, and for You.”

“el sonido no es el artífice del canto, antes está sujeto al alma que canta por el cuerpo,”

“Have I not confessed against myself my transgressions unto Thee, and Thou, my God, hast forgiven the iniquity of my heart?”

“a living soul; that is, a soul made continent in Thy Word, by Thy Evangelists, by following the followers of Thy Christ.”

“You, my soul’s excellent mate, go into her and make her suitable to yourself, so that you can keep her and possess her without her having a spot or wrinkle.* 3 This is my hope: it is why I speak,* 4 and in this hope I feel whatever wholesome joy I feel.”

“But the idling of men is called business; 47 the idling of boys, though exactly like, is punished by those same men: and no one pities either boys or men. Perhaps an unbiased observer would hold that I was rightly punished as a boy for playing with a ball: because this hindered my progress in studies—studies which would give me the opportunity as a man to play at things more degraded.”

“The promise of satisfaction in worldly loves is an enduring lie that moves the soul to unfaithfulness from its proper lover. We”

“Through the entertainment of the ears, a weaker mind can rise up to devotional feeling. Yet when in my own case it happens that the song moves me more than the subject, I confess I've committed a punishable sin, and then I'd rather not hear someone singing.”

topics: Christianity, Religion, Sin, Worship, Worship Music

“Why do you perversely follow your flesh? Turn back, and let your flesh follow you. Whatever you perceive through her, you perceive in part. You do not know the whole, of which these are the parts; nevertheless, the parts give you pleasure. But if your fleshly sense were capable of comprehending the whole, and had not, being itself a part of the whole, been confined within its right and proper limit - that being a punishment proportionate to your crime - you would wish all that exists in the present to pass away, so that you could derive still more pleasure from the totality of things. The very words we speak you hear by means of the same carnal sense, and you do not wish the syllables to stand still but to pass away swiftly, so that others may come and you may hear the whole. Likewise all the constituent parts that make up one thing (even though they do not all simultaneously constitute it) give more pleasure as a totality than they do individually, if it is possible to perceive them as a totality. But he who made them is better by far than them all, and it is he that is our God, who does not pass away, nor does anything take his place.”

topics: Carnal, Flesh, Pleasure, Spiritual

“for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full, and to be hungry; both to abound, and to suffer need. I can do all things through Him which strengtheneth me.”

“Go on, O Lord, and act: stir us up and call us back; inflame us and draw us to thee; stir us up and grow sweet to us; let us now love thee, let us run to thee.”

“Algunos hombres de ciencia, llenos de complacencia y engreimiento, con impía soberbia se retiran de tu luz; prevén los oscurecimientos del sol pero no ven la oscuridad en que ellos mismos están, ya que no buscan con espíritu de piedad de dónde les viene el ingenio que ponen en sus investigaciones. Convierten pues tu verdad en mentira y dan culto y servicio no al Creador, sino a la criatura. Pobre del hombre que sabiendo todo esto no te sabe a ti; y dichoso del que a ti te conoce aunque tales cosas ignore. Pero el que las sepa y a ti te conozca no es más feliz por saberlas, sino solamente por ti. No veo en qué pueda perjudicarle su ignorancia sobre las cosas del mundo si no piensa de ti cosas indignas.”

topics: Ateísmo, Ciencia, Cientificismo, Conocimiento, Cristianismo, Dios, Humildad, Ignorancia, Sabiduría, Teología

“Claramente tú respondes, pero no todos oyen claramente. Todos te consultan sobre lo que quieren, mas no todos oyen siempre lo que quieren. Optimo ministro tuyo es el que no atiende tanto a oír de ti lo que él quisiera cuanto a querer aquello que de ti oyere.”

“Y de cosas así está mi vida llena. Y mi única esperanza es tu misericordia enormemente grande207. En efecto, cuando nuestro corazón se convierte en recipiente de cosas de este tipo y transporta catervas de desbordantes vanidades, a menudo sucede que, desde ahí, nuestras oraciones son interrumpidas y obstaculizadas y, mientras dirigimos la voz del corazón hacia tus oídos, queda truncada ante tu mirada una cosa tan importante por pensamientos estúpidos que me asaltan no sé de dónde.”

Augustine

Aurelius Augustinus - more commonly "St. Augustine of Hippo," or simply "Augustine" - was a philosopher and theologian, and one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. He framed the concepts of original sin and just war. Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors in terms of surviving works, and the list of his works consists of more than a hundred separate titles.

Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider him to be one of the theological fathers of Reformation teaching on salvation and divine grace.
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