Product Description

Maria Bouldings version is of a different level of excellence from practically anything else on the market. She has perfected an elegant and flowing style.

Rowan Williams

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Confessions of Saint Augustine is considered the all time number one Christian classic. It is an extended poetic, passionate, intimate prayer. Augustine was probably forty-three when he began this endeavor. He had been a baptized Catholic for ten years, a priest for six, and a bishop for only two. His pre-baptismal life raised questions in the community. Was his conversion genuine? The first hearers were captivated, as many millions have been over the following sixteen centuries. His experience of God speaks to us across time with little need of transpositions. This new translation masterfully captures his experience.

So old and yet so new! This contemporary translation of Augustine's Confessions was like meeting an old friend and touching perennial truth, despite the passing years. Augustine was surely larger than life--and this translation matches it.

Richard Rohr, o.f.m.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78469 in Books
• Published on: 1996-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.com Review
Augustine's Confessions is arguably the first, and unequivocally the most influential, religious autobiography in the Christian tradition. Augustine (who was a hard-core hedonist before his sudden conversion) writes about faith with the reckless abandon of a lover; his descriptions of friendship are so beautiful they'll bring tears to your eyes; and his tributes to his mother, Monica, cast eternally fresh light on the unofficial authority of women in the early Church. --Michael Joseph Gross

From Library Journal
The latest volume in the series "Augustine for the Twenty-First Century," which will offer the first complete translation of all of Augustine's works into English, adds yet another vision of the Confessions to the many already available. The fourth-century bishop of Hippo in North Africa wrote this extended prayer, the first true autobiography, to confess his sins and God's goodness. It has been a standard of spiritual literature ever since. Boulding (Marked for Life, Abingdon, 1996), a Benedictine nun of Stanbrook Abbey, England, offers us a fine, smooth translation that is a pleasure to read. Hers is also the first English translation to use inclusive language. There is a complete index, which greatly enhances the usefulness of this particular volume. For all readers.?Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, N.J.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
There is certainly no shortage of English translations of Augustine's Confessions; but given its undeniable place as a classic of Christian literature, there is perhaps room for one more. Boulding's translation brings Augustine's extended prayer to life with a sensitivity to his passion and poetry that should make the text more accessible to contemporary English readers. Boulding includes an introduction and a chronology that place Augustine in context and guide readers through the sometimes perplexing structure of the book. There is no doubt that Augustine continues to reach contemporary readers across the 16 centuries that separate them from his writing and its context. This new translation should contribute to the clarity with which that reach is extended. Steve Schroeder

Customer Reviews

the best translation I've found
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.

For All Who Seek
Let me begin by saying that this book should be read by anyone seeking to live a better life, whether you are Christian or not, St. Augustine's representation of himself and his personal struggles are so human that they are easily accesible to people's of all faiths. That being said, don't expect to come to this book and not be challenged. This book is also the best introduction to St. Augustine and his theology so if you wish to read any of his other works, start with this one.

In my opinion, this book is really two books in one, and should be treated as such. The first book is composed of the first nine chapters and forms the autobiographical portion of the Confessioons, and the tenth through thirteenth chapters make up a concise overview of St. Augustine's basic theological views.

The first part is by far the easier to read, and depend on you are searching for by reading this book, this may be all you really need to read. St. Augustine sets out candidly for his readers the story of his life; the faith of his mother that initially so disgusted him and eventually aided in his conversion, his lusts and youthful errors, and his final dramatic conversion in the garden. Some claim that many of St. Augustine's gruelling criticisms of himself are exagerations ment as examples to his parishioners (he was the Bishop of Hippo) but irregardless the cincerity and spiritual earnestness of St. Augustine's writing shines through every page. It is amazing to think that someone who lived over 1500 years ago is so much the same as men today.

The second part is the most intellectual of the two and this is the one that contains most of the theology of the work, and while I will say that this section may not be for everyone (but after reading his autobiography I hope you will feel compelled to read this) this section should NOT be read without first reading the more spiritual autobiography. St. Augustine here provides an outline for such celebrated principles as the everlasting now, and such difficult questions as was God compelled to create the world. While he does not mention much of one of his other very famous an important theological principles here (i.e. predestination) this is still the best introduction his entire cannon of theology that is available.

I'd like to say a few words on the Vintage Spiritual Classic s edition. This is a handsome well-priced paperback volume that offers a good easily readable modern english translation. I shopped around when looking for an edition of this book, and while there are some editions that offer more notes, this is the only edition that offers refferences to the scriptual passages St. Augustine is referring to. It also contains an invaluable concise introduction and timeline to St. Augustine's life and the environment in which he lived.

If you liked this, and you have good reading stamina, chack out his other major work "City of God".

good translation--but poor edition
This is one of Augustine's best-known works, for all the right reasons. Sometimes comic, sometimes haunting, sometimes moving, this is the original autobiography. The narrative starts in early childhood and attempts to find an even earlier stage of existence, goes through adolescent error, until death (his mother's) and rebirth (Augustine's baptism). The last sections of the Confessions are explorations of memory and a reading of Genesis.

This translation, by Maria Boulding, is very adequate: Augustine's relatively straightforward style is rendered into highly legible English. The introduction (by Patricia Hampl, not by the translator) is solid too, and introduces the book by way of the faculty of memory, an essential structuring device of autobiography.

However, I can only give this three stars because the edition itself totally lacks apparatus. For starters, the index is somewhat meagre (no references to 'language,' 'rhetoric,' 'Virgil,' 'Dido,' for instance). Even less helpful are the notes. This book is part of the 'Vintage Spiritual Classics,' and 'spiritual' here means 'exclusively Christian.' This is a somewhat misleading choice of words (not to mention colonialist), and results in notes only giving biblical references. Thus, there are no notes explaining, for instance, Manichaeism (very relevant to the discussion in 3.7) or Neoplatonism. A few general observations in the Chronology, which precedes the Confessions, hardly suffice for a modern reader, and those remarks are not contextualized.

In all, for its price this is a decent book (although overpriced in Amsterdam, unfortunately), but I had hoped for and expected a slightly more expansive editorial philosophy from Random House.