528p $19.75 It might come as a surprise to inheritors of the Western tradition that Augustine is in trouble. Pursuing joy is what drives the Christian life, according to Augustine, and this joy is found only in the truth and peace that stills our restless wanderings: “The happy life is, after all, joy in the truth. The striking language Augustine employs to describe his adolescent lusts make the passage especially illuminating in comparing translation approaches: Pilkington: “Out of the dark concupiscence of the flesh and the effervescence of youth exhalations came forth which obscured and overcast my heart, so that I was unable to discern pure affection from unholy desire.”, Outler: “Instead, the mists of passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh, and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and overcast my heart that I was unable to distinguish pure affection from unholy desire.”, Chadwick: “Clouds of muddy carnal concupiscence filled the air. I leave you with this—my favorite section of this book: “I took too long to fall in love with you, beauty so ancient and so new. The Confessions constitutes perhaps the most moving diary ever recorded of of a soul's journey to grace. Glimpses of God’s beauty precede Augustine’s crashing back onto the shores of his sin: “I didn’t stand still to enjoy my God. eloquently and passionately to the enduring spiritual questions that Confessions is generally I was ravished into your presence by your beauty, yet soon torn away from you by the weight of myself, and I smashed down with a groan into those lower things I’ve been writing of.” (194). Pusey I am very grateful to Gerald W. Schlabach of the University of Notre Dame for correcting these files and adding … Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Augustine the Lover Confessions is the story of one man’s love affair with God. explanation of the Mosaic account of Creation. The most widely used translation of the ‘Confessions’ is the one by a Mr. Pine-Coffin, and it is worthy of his name. After a few pages, I was impressed with Augustine. Professor Henry Chadwick wrote that Confessions will "always rank among the great masterpieces of western literature.". The first ten books of the work relate the story of Augustine's Augustine’s Confessions: A Translation Comparison, https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/07/05/augustine-gets-makeover-new-translation-he-hardly-needed-it. Confessions is the story of one man’s love affair with God. If you haven’t read Augustine’s Confessions, do yourself a favor and pick up this new translation. Here is an Augustine as subtle, lively and challenging in the English of our time.” Dr. Mark Vessey, Professor, Department of English, The University of British Columbia “So old and yet so new! That was Frank Sheed’s translation of Augustine’s Confessions, which I found to be as living as molten lava. The volume includes the full text of the Confessions along with an introduction by Bishop Barron. He throws himself headlong into his passions, his education, his reputation, his promiscuity, and then, finally and forever, he surveys the depths of the God who has captivated him with joy. Copyright © 2020 The Gospel Coalition, INC. All Rights Reserved. Augustine immersed himself in Scripture until it poured out of him in his prose. Looking back on this time, Augustine sees the beauty he missed in such a selfish pursuit: “The self-restraint of a mind that testifies to its own weakness is more beautiful than the things I was hot to know.” (117).