Confessions (la)
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~170,000 words · 791 passages
Cite this work
- APAAugustine. (n.d.). Confessiones [Confessions (la)]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/augustine/confessiones-latin
- MLAAugustine. Confessiones [Confessions (la)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/augustine/confessiones-latin.
- ChicagoAugustine. Confessiones [Confessions (la)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/augustine/confessiones-latin.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Augustine's account of his own life, told to God: his youth in Carthage, the years of doubt, the conversion in a Milan garden, and the questions of what time is and what memory is.
Context and history
Written around 397-400, when Augustine was already bishop of Hippo in Roman Africa. It is the first great introspective book of Western literature: no one before had examined their own inner life at this depth, or written it down addressing God directly. The conversion it recounts — the summer of 386, a child's voice singing 'take up and read' — is among the most influential scenes ever written, and the whole genre of modern autobiography owes it its existence.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
mentis oculos reducit. Narrat se argumento quodam Nebridii valde perculsum, crassis tamen adhuc tenebris obvolvi, cum de Deo non nisi corporaliter sentire potuerit; Manichæos ergo impie sentire probe cernit, Ecclesiæ vero fidem omnino amplecti nequit; a Mathematicorum erroribus revocatur; quæstione tamen, unde malum? misere torquetur; plurimum e Platonicorum libris proficit, neque tamen sufficiunt, cum de Christi incarnatione prave senserit; arreptis vero S. Scripturis, et præsertim Apostolo Paulo, dubitationes ejus omnes concidunt. 103 LIBER OCTAVUS. Vitæ ipsius partem attingit celeberrimam, annum ætatis trigesimum secundum, quo nempe cum Simplicianum consuluisset, audita ab eo Victorini conversione, ad imitandum exarsit. Tum vero, iis quæ de Antonio Ægyptio monacho et duorum aulicorum conversione a Pontitiano didicit, magis magisque accensus, post vehementem luctam inter carnem et spiritum, codicem Apostoli coelesti admonitus oraculo inspexit; lectoque qui ipsi primus occurrit versiculo, omnino immutatur, et diruptis cupiditatum vinculis totus ad Deum convertitur. 125 {xv} LIBER NONUS. Uni jam Deo vivere studens, Rhetoricæ professionem, sed non ante transactas vindemiales ferias quæ proxime instabant, abjicere statuit. Interim rure Cassiciaco apud amicum ejus Verecundum ad percipiendam Baptismi gratiam se parat; ac tandem cum Alypio, et filio suo Adeodato baptizatur. Nec multo post, Africam repetens, Ostiam venit, cum amicis et matre Monnica, cujus vitam et sanctos mores brevi compendio exhibet, quæque ibidem defungitur, anno ætatis suæ 56, Augustini 33. 145 LIBER DECIMUS. Quemadmodum prioribus Libris aperuit, qualis ante perceptam baptismi gratiam fuerit, in hoc scrutatur, qualis esset quo tempore hæc scribebat. Ac primum se Deum amare profitetur.…