Bøger af Augustine

This volume presents the Latin text of one of the great classics of Christian literature, concerned with one human life as an example of what it is to be human and in search of God. The commentary, which can be used by those new to Augustine and his world, concentrates on his brilliant Latin and on his theology and philosophy.

One of the great works of Western literature, from perhaps the most important thinker of Christian antiquity, in a revolutionary new translation by one of today’s leading classicists Sarah Ruden’s fresh, dynamic translation of Confessions brings us closer to Augustine’s intent than any previous version. It puts a glaring spotlight on the life of one individual to show how all lives have meaning that is universal and eternal. In this intensely personal narrative, Augustine tells the story of his sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. He describes his ascent from a humble farm in North Africa to a prestigious post in the Roman Imperial capital of Milan, his struggle against his own overpowering sexuality, his renunciation of secular ambition and marriage, and the recovery of the faith his mother had taught him during his earliest years. Augustine’s concerns are often strikingly contemporary, and the confessional mode he invented can be seen everywhere in writing today.  Grounded in her command of Latin as it was written and spoken in the ancient world, Sarah Ruden’s translation is a bold departure from its predecessors—and the most historically accurate translation ever. Stylistically beautiful, with no concessions made to suit later theology and ritual, Ruden’s rendition will give readers a startling and illuminating new perspective on one of the central texts of Christianity.Praise for Confessions“[Ruden] has clearly thought deeply about what Augustine was trying to say.”—The Wall Street Journal“A translation of [Augustine’s] masterwork that does justice both to him and to his God . . . Repeated small acts of attention to the humble, human roots of Augustine’s imagery of his relations to God enable Ruden to convey a living sense of the Being before Whom we find him transfixed in prayer: ‘Silent, long-suffering and with so much mercy in your heart.’”—The New York Review of Books “Delightfully readable . . . In this lively translation filled with vivid, personal prose, Ruden introduces readers to a saint whom many will realize they only thought they knew. . . . Approaching her subject with deep religious and historical knowledge, [Ruden] chooses to translate Augustine as a performative, engaging storyteller rather than a systematic theologian.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Ruden’s translation makes Augustine’s ancient text accessible to a new generation of readers with a real taste of the original Latin.”—Library Journal “[Ruden’s] record as a translator of ancient texts . . . clearly establishes her considerable talent.”—Christianity Today

Letters of Augustine (354-430CE) are important for the study of ecclesiastical history and Augustine's relations with other theologians.

On the City of God by Augustine (354-430 CE) unfolds God's action in the progress of the world's history, and propounds the superiority of Christian beliefs over pagan in adversity.

This translation of Confessions enlivens the beguiling world of late antiquity.

Although the eighty-two Letters in this volume do not themselves specifically state when they were written, the research of modern scholars leads to a fairly firm conclusion that they were composed over a span of approximately ten years, 386-405. On a basis of internal evidence, it seems that the first twenty letters date from a period prior to Augustine's priestly ordination. The addressees represent a fair cross section of society in the late fourth and early fifth centuries of our era. Bishops and priests, however, outnumber other contemporaries. Widely varied in subject matter, some of the letters deal with theological, polemical, exegetical and ecclesiastical topics, other offer moral and spiritual guidance, while still others discuss philosophical questions and touch on historical events. A surprising amount of information pertains to the life, customs, and abuses in the Church in northern Africa at this period. As one would suspect at this period in Augustine's life, the errors of the Pelagians and Donatists do not escape notice. In these Letters the modern reader can acquaint himself with some of the interests and thoughts of two towering figures that have influenced western civilization: St. Jerome and St. Augustine.

The volume continues P. G. Walsh's admired translation with commentary of Augustine's City of God. Books I-XIV have been published in eight earlier volumes between 2003 and 2016, and this ninth volume in the collection looks at books XV and XVI.

This is the only English edition of The City of God with Latin text and facing-page translation as well as a detailed introduction and commentary. In Books XIII- XIV, Augustine turns to the problem of death as punishment for the sin of disobedience, resumes his attack on the Platonists and pursues topics emerging from consideration of Adam's sin.

The Catholic and Manichaean Ways of Life is, like the Contra academicos (386) and the works of St. Augustine's later life against the Donatists and other heretics, the refutation of a redoubtable adversary whom he is determined to overthrow for the protection of his fellow Christians. Even a rapid glance at its contents is sufficient to show its character as a polemical work in which he contrasts one religious view of God, man and the world with another. In the first book, we are provided with a treatise on Christian morality, written, we must always bear in mind, by one received into the Church not two years before. It establishes that God is the Supreme Good. It shows the meaning of unions with him in charity. It explains the four cardinal virtues in terms of love, and particularly in terms of the love of God. Finally, it holds up for our admiration and emulation the Christian virtues of the religious, clergy, and laity. The way of life of the Catholic Church thus portrayed by Augustine embodies in his view a lofty ideal, but one that is livable by individuals in all states of life and in various stages of progress in virtue. The second book describes and refutes the teaching of the Manichaeans on the nature and origin of evil, their false ascetical practices, and their doctrines concerning the three symbols of the mouth, the hands, and the breast. In conclusion, Augustine denounces, on the basis of personal knowledge of first-hand reports, the scandalous conduct of the members of the Manichaean elect. Throughout this book, he is concerned, nor merely to expose the errors and excesses of the sect, including the shameful behavior and hypocrisy of certain of its leaders, but the absurdities and even depravity to which men are led by a way of life that is essentially unlivable. Whatever may be claimed for the austerities of the more sincere and ascetic members of the Manichaean sect, a religion that corrodes human nature and castigates its natural functioning as evil, cannot be good. Such is St. Augustine's ultimate judgment upon Manichaeanism, and he expresses it with eloquence and invective.

In the autumn of A.D. 388, St. Augustine returned from Italy to northern Africa. Here in his native Thagaste he assembled a monastic community. When the brethren found their leader Augustine in a rare moment of leisure, they had no misgivings about putting questions to him on a variety of topics which he answered from the store of his vast knowledge. These questions together with the answers were later collected and assembled in a random order (ractions ). The English translation presented here affords the reader a rare opportunity to glimpse some of the topics that interested members of a community that eventually gave the early Church four bishops: Alypius of Thagaste, Severus of Milevis, Profuturus of Citra, and Possidius of Calama. Even though St. Augustine intended no specific sequence in this collection, four broad categories in the question and answer literary form are discernible. One category serves as Christian apologetic, e.g., against Arian and Manichaean errors. The second presents Augustine in the role of exegete of selected passages from both the Old and New Testaments. The third and fourth categories, containing the greater number of questions and answers, show Augustine the philosopher and theologian, a person of towering intellectual stature in western Christianity and one of the important "Founders of the Middle Ages." Though formulated between the years A.D. 388 and 395/97 and presented from the viewpoint of Neoplatonists, many topics, e.g., the cause of evil, sin and freewill, still have great relevance for the modern reader.

Confessions is a spiritual autobiography of Augustine's early life, family, associations, and explorations of alternative religious and theological viewpoints as he moved toward his conversion. Cast as a prayer addressed to God, it offers a gripping personal story and a philosophical exploration destined to have broad and lasting impact.

Augustine's Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees and On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book represent the first two of five explanations of the beginning of the Book of Genesis that he undertook between 388 and 418. In the first, a commentary on Genesis 1-3, Augustine counters the ignorant and impious attacks against Scripture by the Manichees, with whom he was a "hearer" for nine years. The second would have been a hexaemeron, a commentary on the six days of creation, but, as Augustine admits, his inexperience in scriptural exegesis collapsed under the weight of the burden, "and before I finished one book, I gave up the labor that I could not sustain."Although Augustine agrees that many things in Scripture may seem absurd to the unlearned, he holds that they can produce great pleasures once they have been explained. It was this tenet, realized in his spiritual rather than corporeal interpretation of Scripture, that led him to counter the impious attacks the Manichees used to attract those who sought a more intellectual understanding of God over and against an anthropomorphic view. Augustine's brilliant assimilation of Christian revelation and the intellectual faith of the Neoplatonic circle around Ambrose in Milan gave rise to his "spiritual" interpretation of Genesis 1-3 in the Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees. In On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book, Augustine succeeds in presenting an ad litteram interpretation for twenty-five verses before arriving at the difficult verse on man's having been made to God's image and likeness. At this point he breaks off because, in the words of John O'Meara, "it either tended to blasphemy or could not be reconciled with the Catholic faith." Perhaps because he later writes that he considers his literal attempt to interpret Genesis a failure, the texts herein translated have become today, in light of modern scriptural studies, fascinating and invaluable examples of Augustine's developing thought on significant philosophical and theological issues in the interpretation of Genesis.

St. Augustine (354-430), greatest of the Church Fathers, continues to exercise a unique and profound influence upon the intellectual history of the West after more than fifteen hundred years. Pioneer in the theology of Grace and in a psychological understanding of the Trinity, his impact upon subsequent theological speculation, Protestant as well as Catholic, has been unrivaled. The timeless and timely character of his teaching is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the documents of the Second Vatican Council where the African Bishop is cited more frequently than any other Father or Doctor of the Church. "Founder of Christian philosophy", his principles and method have largely inspired the rise of such diversified currents of contemporary thought as existentialism, philosophic spiritualism, and personalism. The three works included in the present volume range over a period of some forty years, from Augustine's days as a neo-convert and priest to the closing years of his life as Bishop, and offer representative examples of his rich and versatile genius as Christian pedagogue, philosopher, and theologian.

This volume contains the translation of the six concluding books of The City of God. Book 17 briefly reviews significant events in the history of the chosen people down to the birth of Christ and calls attention to the prophecies that are fulfilled in Christ In summarizing the contents of the first 17 books Augustine shows in book 18 that there is a unifying theme running through the voluminous work: a comparison in the origin, development and progress of the earthly city and the city of God. A synchronizing of events in Jewish history with those in secular history brings this book to a close. Book 19 begins with a discussion of philosophical questions, e.g., the definition of the supreme good and the conditions for a just war, and concludes with an explanation of the differences between the earthly city and God's city and refutation of Porphyry's attacks on Christianity. Augustine himself says that he plans to discuss in book 20 the day of final judgment and to defend its reality against those who deliberately disbelieve in it. This purpose involves a consideration of Antichrist, the coming of Elias before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the millennium mentioned in the book of Revelations, the new heaven and the new earth. The second last book discusses in some detail the kind of punishment that the Devil and those belonging to the earthly city are to endure. Reflections on hell, the nature of eternal torments and the unquenchable fire where the worm does not die bring this book to a close. The last book, book 22, treats the eternal blessedness of the city of God

Augustine wrote his famous Confessiones during the early years of his episcopate, specifically, between 397 and 400. This work, ground-breaking in its time, is a piece of introspection and personal reminiscence aimed at glorifying God in gratitude for Augustine's conversion to Christianity. Augustine lays bare his personal journey, which took him from youthful carousal through phases of Manichaean dualism, Stoic speculation, skepticism, and Neo-Platonism, to the discovery of salvation in Jesus Christ. The final three "books" of this work offer Augustine's exegesis of the creation narratives in the Book of Genesis.

During the brief period between 412 and 414, Augustine's many theological and pastoral concerns produced an abundant correspondence (Letters 131-164) on issues ranging from the Pelagian views of grace and the soul's origin to the need for assimilating former Donatists into Catholic society with compassion and a conciliatory spirit, as well as questions of theology, social mores, and physical versus spiritual knowledge.

Augustine's Letters 83-130 were written between 408 and 412, during a time when North Africa was in an uproar over the necessity to resolve the Donatist schism and the imperial government's role in this process. Augustine exchanged correspondence with clergymen and laity, both Catholic and Donatist; in addition, he responded to requests for pastoral advice from ascetically minded men and women, as well as pleas for social justice.

This volume continues the translation of St. Augustine's monumental work The City of God, a product of his vast erudition. Three books in particular, viz. 8, 9, and 10, reveal Augustine's grasp of the tenets of the Platonists, Peripatetics and Cynics. The greater part of this continuation, however, is concerned with Augustine's treatment of theological and scriptural topics. There is no strictly logical sequence, however, and numerous digressions intervene. In the course of books 11 and 16, he finds occasion to discuss, among many other topics, the creation of angels and their nature, demons and evils, the age of the earth and of the human race, death and dying, and the purpose of marriage. From the discussion of such topics, he passes easily to comments on the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible, the accuracy of the Septuagint and Latin translations, the discrepancies among various texts. As a product of his times, Augustine shares the opinion that Hebrew may be the oldest, and perhaps most common, language before the Tower of Babel incident recorded in Scripture. Most of Augustine's treatment of scriptural passages is concerned with allegorical interpretation. In book 14, however, the former professor of rhetoric at milan comes through again in his discussion of the semantics of the words caritas, amor, dilago, and amo

Written during the time when the Roman Empire was crumbling, Augustine's De civitate Dei tackles the questions raised by the decline of the political and social order. Here, in Books One through Seven (of the total of twenty-two books in this monumental work), Augustine examines the history of the Roman Republic and Empire. Though based on a false religion and a lust for domination, the rise of Rome was nevertheless ordained by God's providence.

This volume contains translations of four of Augustine's earliest works: De beata vita, Contra Academicos, De ordine, and Soliloquia. His embrace of Platonic certitude regarding the primacy of the unseen world of perfection and eternal truth is at the forefront of these philosophical works, which were composed in the genre of the dialogue. Writing at Cassiciacum in the year 386, the young Augustine grapples with questions of epistemology, theodicy, morality, and the soul's quest for God.

Most of the works of St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) have been extant and studied for centuries by Christians throughout the world. Since this Doctor of the Western Church has long been the best known and most widely read of the Latin Fathers, it is so much more unexpected that a previously unknown work should be found. Johannes Divjak found not only a single work but in fact a whole collection of letters, which he published in a critical Latin edition in 1980.This volume contains the first English translation of these newly discovered letters. The letters range in size from short memoranda to long treatises on various subjects. In addition, there are three other previously unknown letters: two written to Augustine by Consentius, a North African rhetorician, and one written by Saint Jerome to Aurelius of Carthage.These letters, taken as a whole, present a vivid and fascinating view of life in North Africa at the beginning of the fifth century. In addition to the comments about ecclesiastical and episcopal affairs, there are also letters on various threats to peace and security common in this period of the late empire, on slavery and the growth of the slave trade, and on Roman involvement in African affairs, both ecclesiastical and civil.There are letters dealing with moral questions and pastoral problems, in both marriage and the family, as well as in larger areas of doctrine and discipline in the Church. The conflict resulting from the end of the Donatist schism becomes clearer, as does the refrain of desperation stemming from an inadequate supply of clergy for parishes needing to be served. A large number of these letters illustrate the day-to-day worries of a fifth century North African bishop: clerical scandals, Church finances, people seeking sanctuary in a church (and the ensuing problems with the civil authorities), and disputed episcopal succession.Until the time as scholars agree on a numbering system that will integrate these letters into a previously known corpus of Augustinian letters, they are numbered 1*-29*, with the asterick added to distinguish them from letters 1-29 of the traditional body of letters.

During the years between Augustine's ordination to the priesthood (391) and his consecration as the Bishop of Hippo (395 or 396), he took an intense interest in biblical exegesis. One of the fruits of his penetrating investigations is his two-volume Commentary on the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, of which a lucid English translation is presented in this volume. Also included are Augustine's subsequent, self-critical remarks (Retractationes 1.19) on this commentary, as well as seventeen selected sermons on topics relevant to the commentary.