Blessed Augustine of Hippo

The Confessions

Name: The Confessions
Author: Blessed Augustine of Hippo

5th c.

Classic translation

Asceticism & Spirituality · English translation, 1890

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The Confessions
Translator’s Preface
The Opinion of St. Augustin Concerning His Confessions
Commencing with the invocation of God, Augustin relates in detail the beginning…
Introduction
He Proclaims the Greatness of God, Whom He Desires to Seek and Invoke, Being…
That the God Whom We Invoke is in Us, and We in Him
Everywhere God Wholly Filleth All Things, But Neither Heaven Nor Earth…
The Majesty of God is Supreme, and His Virtues Inexplicable
He Seeks Rest in God, and Pardon of His Sins
He Describes His Infancy, and Lauds the Protection and Eternal Providence of God
He Shows by Example That Even Infancy is Prone to Sin
That When a Boy He Learned to Speak, Not by Any Set Method, But From the Acts…
Concerning the Hatred of Learning, the Love of Play, and the Fear of Being…
Through a Love of Ball-Playing and Shows, He Neglects His Studies and the…
Seized by Disease, His Mother Being Troubled, He Earnestly Demands Baptism…
Being Compelled, He Gave His Attention to Learning; But Fully Acknowledges That…
He Delighted in Latin Studies and the Empty Fables of the Poets, But Hated the…
Why He Despised Greek Literature, and Easily Learned Latin
He Entreats God, That Whatever Useful Things He Learned as a Boy May Be…
He Disapproves of the Mode of Educating Youth, and He Points Out Why Wickedness…
He Continues on the Unhappy Method of Training Youth in Literary Subjects
Men Desire to Observe the Rules of Learning, But Neglect the Eternal Rules of…
He advances to puberty, and indeed to the early part of the sixteenth year of…
Introduction (i)
He Deplores the Wickedness of His Youth
Stricken With Exceeding Grief, He Remembers the Dissolute Passions in Which, in…
Concerning His Father, a Freeman of Thagaste, the Assister of His Son’s…
He Commits Theft With His Companions, Not Urged on by Poverty, But From a…
Concerning the Motives to Sin, Which Are Not in the Love of Evil, But in the…
Why He Delighted in That Theft, When All Things Which Under the Appearance of…
He Gives Thanks to God for the Remission of His Sins, and Reminds Every One…
In His Theft He Loved the Company of His Fellow-Sinners
It Was a Pleasure to Him Also to Laugh When Seriously Deceiving Others
With God There is True Rest and Life Unchanging
Of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth years of his age, passed at…
Introduction (i, 2)
Deluded by an Insane Love, He, Though Foul and Dishonourable, Desires to Be…
In Public Spectacles He is Moved by an Empty Compassion. He is Attacked by a…
Not Even When at Church Does He Suppress His Desires. In the School of Rhetoric…
In the Nineteenth Year of His Age (His Father Having Died Two Years Before) He…
He Rejects the Sacred Scriptures as Too Simple, and as Not to Be Compared With…
Deceived by His Own Fault, He Falls Into the Errors of the Manichæans, Who…
He Attacks the Doctrine of the Manichæans Concerning Evil, God, and the…
He Argues Against the Same as to the Reason of Offences
That the Judgment of God and Men as to Human Acts of Violence, is Different
He Reproves the Triflings of the Manichæans as to the Fruits of the Earth
He Refers to the Tears, and the Memorable Dream Concerning Her Son, Granted by…
The Excellent Answer of the Bishop When Referred to by His Mother as to the…
Then follows a period of nine years from the nineteenth year of his age, during…
Introduction (i, 3)
Concerning That Most Unhappy Time in Which He, Being Deceived, Deceived Others…
He Teaches Rhetoric, the Only Thing He Loved, and Scorns the Soothsayer, Who…
Not Even the Most Experienced Men Could Persuade Him of the Vanity of Astrology…
Sorely Distressed by Weeping at the Death of His Friend, He Provides…
Why Weeping is Pleasant to the Wretched
His Friend Being Snatched Away by Death, He Imagines That He Remains Only as…
Troubled by Restlessness and Grief, He Leaves His Country a Second Time for…
That His Grief Ceased by Time, and the Consolation of Friends
That the Love of a Human Being, However Constant in Loving and Returning Love…
That All Things Exist That They May Perish, and That We Are Not Safe Unless God…
That Portions of the World Are Not to Be Loved; But That God, Their Author, is…
Love is Not Condemned, But Love in God, in Whom There is Rest Through Jesus…
Love Originates From Grace and Beauty Enticing Us
Concerning the Books Which He Wrote ‘On the Fair and Fit,’ Dedicated to Hierius
While Writing, Being Blinded by Corporeal Images, He Failed to Recognise the…
He Very Easily Understood the Liberal Arts and the Categories of Aristotle, But…
He describes the twenty-ninth year of his age, in which, having discovered the…
Introduction (i, 4)
That It Becomes the Soul to Praise God, and to Confess Unto Him
On the Vanity of Those Who Wished to Escape the Omnipotent God
Having Heard Faustus, the Most Learned Bishop of the Manichæans, He Discerns…
That the Knowledge of Terrestrial and Celestial Things Does Not Give Happiness…
Of Manichæus Pertinaciously Teaching False Doctrines, and Proudly Arrogating to…
Faustus Was Indeed an Elegant Speaker, But Knew Nothing of the Liberal Sciences
Clearly Seeing the Fallacies of the Manichæans, He Retires From Them, Being…
He Sets Out for Rome, His Mother in Vain Lamenting It
Being Attacked by Fever, He is in Great Danger
When He Had Left the Manichæans, He Retained His Depraved Opinions Concerning…
Helpidius Disputed Well Against the Manichæans as to the Authenticity of the…
Professing Rhetoric at Rome, He Discovers the Fraud of His Scholars
He is Sent to Milan, That He, About to Teach Rhetoric, May Be Known by Ambrose
Having Heard the Bishop, He Perceives the Force of the Catholic Faith, Yet…
Attaining his thirtieth year, he, under the admonition of the discourses of…
Introduction (i, 5)
His Mother Having Followed Him to Milan, Declares That She Will Not Die Before…
She, on the Prohibition of Ambrose, Abstains From Honouring the Memory of the…
As Ambrose Was Occupied With Business and Study, Augustin Could Seldom Consult…
He Recognises the Falsity of His Own Opinions, and Commits to Memory the Saying…
Faith is the Basis of Human Life; Man Cannot Discover That Truth Which Holy…
On the Source and Cause of True Joy,—The Example of the Joyous Beggar Being…
He Leads to Reformation His Friend Alypius, Seized With Madness for the…
The Same When at Rome, Being Led by Others Into the Amphitheatre, is Delighted…
Innocent Alypius, Being Apprehended as a Thief, is Set at Liberty by the…
The Wonderful Integrity of Alypius in Judgment. The Lasting Friendship of…
Being Troubled by His Grievous Errors, He Meditates Entering on a New Life
Discussion With Alypius Concerning a Life of Celibacy
Being Urged by His Mother to Take a Wife, He Sought a Maiden That Was Pleasing…
The Design of Establishing a Common Household With His Friends is Speedily…
He Dismisses One Mistress, and Chooses Another
The Fear of Death and Judgment Called Him, Believing in the Immortality of the…
He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age…
Introduction (i, 6)
He Regarded Not God Indeed Under the Form of a Human Body, But as a Corporeal…
The Disputation of Nebridius Against the Manichæans, on the Question ‘Whether…
That the Cause of Evil is the Free Judgment of the Will
That God is Not Corruptible, Who, If He Were, Would Not Be God at All
Questions Concerning the Origin of Evil in Regard to God, Who, Since He is the…
He Refutes the Divinations of the Astrologers, Deduced From the Constellations
He is Severely Exercised as to the Origin of Evil
By God’s Assistance He by Degrees Arrives at the Truth
He Compares the Doctrine of the Platonists Concerning the Λόγος With the Much…
Divine Things Are the More Clearly Manifested to Him Who Withdraws Into the…
That Creatures Are Mutable and God Alone Immutable
Whatever Things the Good God Has Created Are Very Good
It is Meet to Praise the Creator for the Good Things Which Are Made in Heaven…
Being Displeased With Some Part Of God’s Creation, He Conceives of Two Original…
Whatever Is, Owes Its Being to God
Evil Arises Not From a Substance, But From the Perversion of the Will
Above His Changeable Mind, He Discovers the Unchangeable Author of Truth
Jesus Christ, the Mediator, is the Only Way of Safety
He Does Not Yet Fully Understand the Saying of John, That ‘The Word Was Made…
He Rejoices That He Proceeded From Plato to the Holy Scriptures, and Not the…
What He Found in the Sacred Books Which Are Not to Be Found in Plato
He finally describes the thirty-second year of his age, the most memorable of…
Introduction (i, 7)
He, Now Given to Divine Things, and Yet Entangled by the Lusts of Love…
The Pious Old Man Rejoices That He Read Plato and the Scriptures, and Tells Him…
That God and the Angels Rejoice More on the Return of One Sinner Than of Many…
He Shows by the Example of Victorinus That There is More Joy in the Conversion…
Of the Causes Which Alienate Us From God
Pontitianus’ Account of Antony, the Founder of Monachism, and of Some Who…
He Deplores His Wretchedness, That Having Been Born Thirty-Two Years, He Had…
The Conversation With Alypius Being Ended, He Retires to the Garden, Whither…
That the Mind Commandeth the Mind, But It Willeth Not Entirely
He Refutes the Opinion of the Manichæans as to Two Kinds of Minds,—One Good and…
In What Manner the Spirit Struggled With the Flesh, That It Might Be Freed From…
Having Prayed to God, He Pours Forth a Shower of Tears, And, Admonished by a…
He speaks of his design of forsaking the profession of rhetoric; of the death…
Introduction (i, 8)
He Praises God, the Author of Safety, and Jesus Christ, the Redeemer…
As His Lungs Were Affected, He Meditates Withdrawing Himself From Public Favour
He Retires to the Villa of His Friend Verecundus, Who Was Not Yet a Christian…
In the Country He Gives His Attention to Literature, and Explains the Fourth…
At the Recommendation of Ambrose, He Reads the Prophecies of Isaiah, But Does…
He is Baptized at Milan With Alypius and His Son Adeodatus. The Book ‘De…
Of the Church Hymns Instituted at Milan; Of the Ambrosian Persecution Raised by…
Of the Conversion of Evodius, and the Death of His Mother When Returning With…
He Describes the Praiseworthy Habits of His Mother; Her Kindness Towards Her…
A Conversation He Had With His Mother Concerning the Kingdom of Heaven
His Mother, Attacked by Fever, Dies at Ostia
How He Mourned His Dead Mother
He Entreats God for Her Sins, and Admonishes His Readers to Remember Her Piously
Having manifested what he was and what he is, he shows the great fruit of his…
Introduction (i, 9)
In God Alone is the Hope and Joy of Man
That All Things Are Manifest to God. That Confession Unto Him is Not Made by…
He Who Confesseth Rightly Unto God Best Knoweth Himself
That in His Confessions He May Do Good, He Considers Others
That Man Knoweth Not Himself Wholly
The Love of God, in His Nature Superior to All Creatures, is Acquired by the…
That God is to Be Found Neither From the Powers of the Body Nor of the Soul
Of the Nature and the Amazing Power of Memory
Not Only Things, But Also Literature and Images, Are Taken From the Memory, and…
Literature is Not Introduced to the Memory Through the Senses, But is Brought…
What It is to Learn and to Think
On the Recollection of Things Mathematical
Memory Retains All Things
Concerning the Manner in Which Joy and Sadness May Be Brought Back to the Mind…
In Memory There Are Also Images of Things Which Are Absent
The Privation of Memory is Forgetfulness
God Cannot Be Attained Unto by the Power of Memory, Which Beasts and Birds…
A Thing When Lost Could Not Be Found Unless It Were Retained in the Memory
What It is to Remember
We Should Not Seek for God and the Happy Life Unless We Had Known It
How a Happy Life May Be Retained in the Memory
A Happy Life is to Rejoice in God, and for God
All Wish to Rejoice in the Truth
He Who Finds Truth, Finds God
He is Glad That God Dwells in His Memory
God Everywhere Answers Those Who Take Counsel of Him
He Grieves That He Was So Long Without God
On the Misery of Human Life
All Hope is in the Mercy of God
Of the Perverse Images of Dreams, Which He Wishes to Have Taken Away
About to Speak of the Temptations of the Lust of the Flesh, He First Complains…
Of the Charms of Perfumes Which Are More Easily Overcome
He Overcame the Pleasures of the Ear, Although in the Church He Frequently…
Of the Very Dangerous Allurements of the Eyes; On Account of Beauty of Form…
Another Kind of Temptation is Curiosity, Which is Stimulated by the Lust of the…
A Third Kind is ‘Pride’ Which is Pleasing to Man, Not to God
He is Forcibly Goaded on by the Love of Praise
Vain-Glory is the Highest Danger
Of the Vice of Those Who, While Pleasing Themselves, Displease God
The Only Safe Resting-Place for the Soul is to Be Found in God
Having Conquered His Triple Desire, He Arrives at Salvation
In What Manner Many Sought the Mediator
That Jesus Christ, at the Same Time God and Man, is the True and Most…
The design of his confessions being declared, he seeks from God the knowledge…
Introduction (i, 10)
By Confession He Desires to Stimulate Towards God His Own Love and That of His…
He Begs of God That Through the Holy Scriptures He May Be Led to Truth
He Begins From the Creation of the World—Not Understanding the Hebrew Text
Heaven and Earth Cry Out That They Have Been Created by God
God Created the World Not From Any Certain Matter, But in His Own Word
He Did Not, However, Create It by a Sounding and Passing Word
By His Co-Eternal Word He Speaks, and All Things Are Done
That Word Itself is the Beginning of All Things, in the Which We Are Instructed…
Wisdom and the Beginning
The Rashness of Those Who Inquire What God Did Before He Created Heaven and…
They Who Ask This Have Not as Yet Known the Eternity of God, Which is Exempt…
What God Did Before the Creation of the World
Before the Times Created by God, Times Were Not
Neither Time Past Nor Future, But the Present Only, Really Is
There is Only a Moment of Present Time
Time Can Only Be Perceived or Measured While It is Passing
Nevertheless There is Time Past and Future
Past and Future Times Cannot Be Thought of But as Present
We Are Ignorant in What Manner God Teaches Future Things
In What Manner Time May Properly Be Designated
How Time May Be Measured
He Prays God That He Would Explain This Most Entangled Enigma
That Time is a Certain Extension
That Time is Not a Motion of a Body Which We Measure by Time
He Calls on God to Enlighten His Mind
We Measure Longer Events by Shorter in Time
Times Are Measured in Proportion as They Pass By
Time in the Human Mind, Which Expects, Considers, and Remembers
That Human Life is a Distraction But That Through the Mercy of God He Was…
Again He Refutes the Empty Question, ‘What Did God Before the Creation of the…
How the Knowledge of God Differs From That of Man
He continues his explanation of the first Chapter of Genesis according to the…
Introduction (i, 11)
The Discovery of Truth is Difficult, But God Has Promised That He Who Seeks…
Of the Double Heaven,—The Visible, and the Heaven of Heavens
Of the Darkness Upon the Deep, and of the Invisible and Formless Earth
From the Formlessness of Matter, the Beautiful World Has Arisen
What May Have Been the Form of Matter
He Confesses That at One Time He Himself Thought Erroneously of Matter
Out of Nothing God Made Heaven and Earth
Heaven and Earth Were Made ‘In the Beginning;’ Afterwards the World, During Six…
That the Heaven of Heavens Was an Intellectual Creature, But That the Earth Was…
He Begs of God That He May Live in the True Light, and May Be Instructed as to…
What May Be Discovered to Him by God
From the Formless Earth God Created Another Heaven and a Visible and Formed…
Of the Intellectual Heaven and Formless Earth, Out of Which, on Another Day…
Of the Depth of the Sacred Scripture, and Its Enemies
He Argues Against Adversaries Concerning the Heaven of Heavens
He Wishes to Have No Intercourse With Those Who Deny Divine Truth
He Mentions Five Explanations of the Words of Genesis I. I
What Error is Harmless in Sacred Scripture
He Enumerates the Things Concerning Which All Agree
Of the Words, ‘In the Beginning,’ Variously Understood
Of the Explanation of the Words, ‘The Earth Was Invisible.’
He Discusses Whether Matter Was From Eternity, or Was Made by God
Two Kinds of Disagreements in the Books to Be Explained
Out of the Many True Things, It is Not Asserted Confidently That Moses…
It Behoves Interpreters, When Disagreeing Concerning Obscure Places, to Regard…
What He Might Have Asked of God Had He Been Enjoined to Write the Book of…
The Style of Speaking in the Book of Genesis is Simple and Clear
The Words, ‘In the Beginning,’ And, ‘The Heaven and the Earth,’ Are Differently…
Concerning the Opinion of Those Who Explain It ‘At First He Made.’
In the Great Diversity of Opinions, It Becomes All to Unite Charity and Divine…
Moses is Supposed to Have Perceived Whatever of Truth Can Be Discovered in His…
First, the Sense of the Writer is to Be Discovered, Then That is to Be Brought…
Of the goodness of God explained in the creation of things, and of the Trinity…
Introduction (i, 12)
He Calls Upon God, and Proposes to Himself to Worship Him
All Creatures Subsist From the Plenitude of Divine Goodness
Genesis I. 3,—Of ‘Light,’—He Understands as It is Seen in the Spiritual Creature
All Things Have Been Created by the Grace of God, and Are Not of Him as…
He Recognises the Trinity in the First Two Verses of Genesis
Why the Holy Ghost Should Have Been Mentioned After the Mention of Heaven and…
That the Holy Spirit Brings Us to God
That Nothing Whatever, Short of God, Can Yield to the Rational Creature a Happy…
Why the Holy Spirit Was Only ‘Borne Over’ The Waters
That Nothing Arose Save by the Gift of God
That the Symbols of the Trinity in Man, to Be, to Know, and to Will, Are Never…
Allegorical Explanation of Genesis, Chap. I., Concerning the Origin of the…
That the Renewal of Man is Not Completed in This World
That Out of the Children of the Night and of the Darkness, Children of the…
Allegorical Explanation of the Firmament and Upper Works, Ver. 6
That No One But the Unchangeable Light Knows Himself
Allegorical Explanation of the Sea and the Fruit-Bearing Earth—Verses 9 and 11
Of the Lights and Stars of Heaven—Of Day and Night, Ver. 14
All Men Should Become Lights in the Firmament of Heaven
Concerning Reptiles and Flying Creatures (Ver. 20),—The Sacrament of Baptism…
Concerning the Living Soul, Birds, and Fishes (Ver. 24)—The Sacrament of the…
He Explains the Divine Image (Ver. 26) of the Renewal of the Mind
That to Have Power Over All Things (Ver. 26) is to Judge Spiritually of All
Why God Has Blessed Men, Fishes, Flying Creatures, and Not Herbs and the Other…
He Explains the Fruits of the Earth (Ver. 29) of Works of Mercy
In the Confessing of Benefits, Computation is Made Not as to The ‘Gift,’ But as…
Many Are Ignorant as to This, and Ask for Miracles, Which Are Signified Under…
He Proceeds to the Last Verse, ‘All Things Are Very Good,’—That Is, the Work…
Although It is Said Eight Times That ‘God Saw That It Was Good,’ Yet Time Has…
He Refutes the Opinions of the Manichæans and the Gnostics Concerning the…
We Do Not See ‘That It Was Good’ But Through the Spirit of God Which is in Us
Of the Particular Works of God, More Especially of Man
The World Was Created by God Out of Nothing
He Briefly Repeats the Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis (Ch. I.), and…
He Prays God for That Peace of Rest Which Hath No Evening
The Seventh Day, Without Evening and Setting, the Image of Eternal Life and…
Of Rest in God Who Ever Worketh, and Yet is Ever at Rest
Of the Difference Between the Knowledge of God and of Men, and of the Repose…

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