Confessions

Description

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) was one of the outstanding figures of the declining Roman Empire. From his own account he lived a life of sin until his conversion to Christianity at the age of 32. Twelve years later he gave a personal account of his search for truth in "The Confessions", where his analysis of the emotional side of Christian experience in the face of sin remains unsurpassed. They are also intensely revealing of the man himself.

St Augustine of Hippo, the great Doctor of the Latin Church, was born at Thagaste in North Africa, in A.D. 354. He was brought up as a Christian but he was soon converted to the Manichean religion. He also came under the influence of Neoplatonism. However, in 387 he renounced all his unorthodox beliefs and was baptised. His surviving works had a great influence on Christian theology and the psychology and political theology of the West. R.S. Pine-Coffin is a Roman Catholic and was born in 1917.

"[Wills] renders Augustine's famous and influential text in direct language with all the spirited wordplay and poetic strength intact." -Los Angeles Times "[Wills's] translations . . . are meant to bring Augustine straight into our own minds; and they succeed. Well-known passages, over which my eyes have often gazed, spring to life again from Wills's pages." -Peter Brown, The New York Review of Books "Augustine flourishes in Wills's hand." -James Wood "A masterful synthesis of classical philosophy and scriptural erudition." -Chicago Tribune