110 - Life and Time: Augustine's Confessions

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Augustine’s life story is related in the Confessions, a work that combines autobiography, theology, and metaphysical discussions of the nature of time.

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Themes:

Further Reading

• Augustine, Confessions, trans. H. Chadwick (Oxford: 1991).

• Augustine, Confessions, trans. F.J. Sheed (Indianapolis: 1993).

 

• P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley: 1969).

• H. Chadwick, Augustine (New York: 1986).

• C. Kirwan, Augustine (London: 1989).

• R.A. Markus (ed.), Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City NY: 1972).

• J.J. O’Donnell, Augustine: a New Biography (New York: 2005).

• J.M. Rist, Augustine (Cambridge: 1994).

• E. Stump and N. Kretzmann (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge: 2001).

• R. Teske, Paradoxes of Time in St Augustine (Milwaukee: 1996).

• M. Vessey (ed.), A Companion to Augustine (London: 2012).

Comments

Thomas Mirus on 25 February 2015

I enjoyed all the Miles Davis

I enjoyed all the Miles Davis puns in this one... also, I've been working on my funk rhythms and an earlier episode reminded me to pick up In the Jungle Groove, which I've been listening to for the past few days.

In reply to by Thomas Mirus

Peter Adamson on 25 February 2015

In the Jungle Groove

What a great album! And you have to (perversely) admire James' brass in presenting himself as someone oppressed by women in the opening track.

In reply to by Peter Adamson

Thomas Mirus on 1 March 2015

Right, but it does go both

Right, but it does go both ways, since in the lyrics he warns women:

Sister, when you love your man, be careful how you tell him that
He will put you back in a corner and use you like a Sunday hat

(Probably my favorite James Brown lyric so far, just because I like the Sunday hat metaphor.)

Matěj Cepl on 12 April 2024

Augustin and marriage

(also posted on my blog):


   Sister, when you love your man, be careful how you tell him that
   He will put you back in a corner and use you like a Sunday hat

OK, this quotation pushed me over the edge, so I have to write it here. I have read Augustine’s Confessions many times, actually it was one of the books which are most “guilty” of my own conversion to Christianity. And yet, I have completely missed the story of Augustine’s wife and family (my study of the Roman Law would lead me to believe that actually they were married, but that’s another issue). So, when I stumbled upon the “Vita Brevis” by Jostein Gaarder I was completely shocked how much I managed to ignore while reading my beloved book. So, no, Augustine didn’t divorce his wife and didn’t take her child because of the holy quest of His Conversion. It was a way worse. Read the Confessions again, or better yet, read the Gaarder’s book as well. Highly recommended. Yes, the latter is a fiction book. I know.

In reply to by Matěj Cepl

Peter Adamson on 13 April 2024

The hardest working man in ancient Christianity

Yes it is a grim story. I know where that quote is from by the way!

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