Augustine: Confessions Books I-IV

Augustine’s Confessions is one of the most influential and most innovative works of Latin literature. Written in the author’s early forties in the last years of the fourth century AD, they reflect on his life and on the activity of remembering and interpreting a life. Books I–IV are concerned with infancy and learning to talk, school days, sexual desire and adolescent rebellion, intense friendships and intellectual exploration. Augustine evolves and analyses his past with all the resources of the reading which shaped his mind: Virgil and Cicero, Neoplatonism and the Bible. This edition, which aims to be usable by students who are new to Augustine, alerts readers to the verbal echoes and allusions of Augustine’s brilliant and varied Latin, and explains his theological and philosophical questioning of what God is and what it is to be human.

• Accessible and affordable commentary on a very important text • Written with the needs of today’s students in mind and does not assume a knowledge of the Bible or Christian theology • Focuses on Augustine’s Latin style as well as his theology

Introduction: 1. The Confessions in Augustine’s life; 2. Genre and style; 3. Philosophy and theology; 4. Text and commentary; Avgvstini Confessionvm LibriI I–IV; Commentary; Bibliography; Indexes.