by Saint Augustine
translated by Maria Boulding
This is the edition and translation used by Kansas Dad in his Catholic Studies courses.
First Son will read this in tenth grade, near the end of the year. I've only asked him to read the first ten chapters. The last four, while interesting and worthwhile, are more philosophical than autobiographical. I believe he won't find them compelling at sixteen, though I hope he will return to them when he is older.
Saint Augustine read himself into the Church. He explored nearly every other philosophy available to him before ending up exactly where he had begun as an infant in his mother's arms. In conversation after conversation, he asked the philosophers and leaders in every movement about the core of their beliefs and found each lacking. His Confessions, therefore, contain many ideas that continue to resurface throughout history and in our own times as well as his responses to them. I hope a high school or college student today would be able to make the connections between St. Augustine's revelations and what our own culture says. As one example, St. Augustine acknowledges how much truth there is in the "philosophers" of his day, as we might those of scientists today, while still understanding that they are incapable of connecting their scientific discoveries with a God they do not know.
They do not know him who is the Way, your Word through whom you made those very things they are reckoning, together with themselves who do the reckoning, and the sense with which they perceive the things they reckon, and the mind with which they reckon; yet your wisdom is beyond reckoning.In all his explorations, he was always attracted to the truths each philosophy had discovered in the world. In the end, though, he was able to discern how each was incomplete. Only Christianity was able to provide a thorough philosophy, encompassing all of Creation.
I had come to understand that just as wholesome and rubbishy food may both be served equally well in sophisticated dishes or in others of rustic quality, so too can wisdom and foolishness be proffered in language elegant or plain.As a mother, I was particularly drawn to the parts of the book in which St. Augustine shared his mother's hopes, dreams, and prayers for him.
And what was she begging of you, my God, with such abundant tears? Surely, that you would not allow me to sail away. But in your deep wisdom you acted in her truest interests: you listened to the real nub of her longing and took no heed of what she was asking at this particular moment, for you meant to make me into what she was asking for all the time.So while St. Monica's immediate prayers were not answered (as St. Augustine left her protection and wandered even farther from his Christian childhood), God answered the prayer of her heart, that Augustine would become a true Christian. This journey would eventually lead him back to God and her more completely than he would ever have done so if he had stayed by her side.
All the while, Lord, as I pondered these things you stood by me; I sighed and you heard me; I was tossed to and fro and you steered me aright. I wandered down the wide road of the world, but you did not desert me.In Book IX, St. Augustine discusses his mother's relationship with his father. I was a little shocked to see the descriptions of the common abuses between husbands and wives in Augustine's times and his mother's meek acceptance of the situation, which he defends because she was able to convert her husband before his death. I think it would be important to remind a student that such behavior is unacceptable. A man should never be physically or verbally abusive to a woman and a women suffering such abuse should not accept it but should seek immediate escape and assistance.
If anyone were to give you an account of his real merits, what else would that be but a list of your gifts?I don't know other translations, but this one was both lovely and relatively easy to follow. I thin First Son should manage without any difficulties. The ten autobiographical books provide amazing insight into St. Augustine's life and the kind of searching so many students do in high school and college. It's an excellent choice.
I have received nothing in exchange for this honest post. Our copy of this book was provided to Kansas Dad for use with his class. Links to Amazon are affiliate links.
