We have left Christ out of this discussion, largely because the most challenging aspects of Augustine's thought often concern his use of the Neoplatonic system. Nonetheless, Christ is crucial to Augustine, although he has no place in Neoplatonism. Christ is the mechanism by which the return to God is effected. It is through Christ that a human can come to know his or her existence in God, since Christ is God made human. Augustine suggests that Christ is also wisdom itself, since wisdom too is a kind of intermediary between God and the lower levels of creation. It is in this wisdom, in the context of this 'Christ,' that God created the universe, and it is through this wisdom, Christ, that the universe can return to Him.
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THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE
Not one whit more easily are the words learnt for all this vileness but by their means the vileness is committed with less shame. Not that I blame the words, being, as it were, choice and precious vessels but that wine of error which is drunk to us in them by intoxicated teachers and if we, too, drink not, we are beaten, and have no sober judge to whom we may appeal. Yet, O my God (in whose presence I now without hurt may remember this), all this unhappily I learnt willingly with great delight, and for this was pronounced a hopeful boy.
The Confessions of Saint Augustine: Book I
This acclaimed new translation by Sister Maria Boulding, ., masterfully captures his experience, and is written in an elegant and flowing style. Her beautiful contemporary translation of the ancient Confessions makes the classic work more accessible to modern readers. Her translation combines the linguistic accuracy demanded by 9th-century Latin with the poetic power aimed at by Augustine, not as discernable in previous translations.
Born and raised in Thagaste, in eastern Algeria (then part of the Roman empire), Augustine enters a social world that he now sees as sinful to the point of utter folly. Grade school teaches questionable pursuits with misguided aims, and everywhere boys like Augustine are trained to devote themselves to transient, material pursuits rather than to the pursuit of God. As a student in Thagaste and then Carthage, Augustine runs amok in sexual adventures and false philosophies (most notably Manicheism). He sees this period of his life primarily as a lesson in how immersion in the material world is its own punishment of disorder, confusion, and grief.
The young Augustine does, however, catch a passion for the pursuit of Philosophical truth, learning the doctrines of Manicheism, skepticism, and Neoplatonism. This last philosophy will have a profound influence on him-- the Confessions are perhaps the most masterful expression of his intricate fusion of Catholic theology with Neoplatonic ideas.
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The form of the work corresponds closely to its aim and its content the work is about the return of creation to God, it aims to inspire others to actively seek this return, and it takes the highly original form of a direct address to God from one being in his creation. In this context, it is also noteworthy that, for Augustine, "confession" carried the dual meanings of an admission of guilt and an act of praise.
The book was in old English and asked so many questions about god and toward god, which could not be answered. It's meaningless to write Book 6 because he only praised the god rather than the ordinary people who gave him knowledge to write and learn. Without human beings, how could he get over all this obstacles on his way communicating toward god. He is nothing special, and he cannot be too complacent saying that he knows too much about the god.
Thus, again, Augustine's text is remarkably and complexly coherent, despite its apparent eccentricities and shifts in content. He is laying out the story of his life, opening himself as completely as possible to God and to his readers. In so doing, he is praising God for his salvation. Further, he is illustrating, with a temporal example, a specific view of the universe as unified across all time in an unchanging God.
"The confessions of st. augustine take and read" in pictures. More images "The confessions of st. augustine take and read".
