Tag Archives: St. Augustine

Augustine acknowledges his sins of youth, his excesses and preoccupation with lustful sex.  He also admits to the stealing of fruit, pears that he neither needed or wanted but along with a group of friends, stole for the pure reason … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Still wearing his hairshirt as he recalls his adolescence and youth, Augustine again brings to mind the pursuit and meaning of Boethius’ aspirations of the mind and spirit and their potential danger from the body.  Here he stresses the difference … Continue reading → Continue reading →

In winding up Book I, Augustine gives thanks to God for the goodness in man’s nature, in his own, despite the temptations of folly that steered him off in directions other than what his elders and academic teaching tried to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Picking up Confessions once again, hopeful of going onward with a mind at peace and open to understanding.  I find that place again where I had hovered, halted.  It wasn’t clear and yet the thoughts of Augustine’s words were close … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I’m at a point of being stuck for a wee bit as Augustine appears to deride formal education for the more natural method of observation.  But there are a few things that seem necessary to take into account, such as … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Being aware of the language use as I read, I’m also aware that unless there’s a copy of the original around to read in the language written by Augustine, the text is subject to the choice of the translator, and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

There has evidently always been the question of whether the egg or the chicken came first, and Augustine, in this epistle of faith includes science in the form of empirical consideration of infants–thereby acknowledging ignorance of his own infancy and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While it is not with thought of critique here, for story or narrative style, I can’t help but allow that to enter into the reading despite my best efforts to alone enjoy Augustine for the wisdom and philosophical theory he … Continue reading → Continue reading →

There is a palpable difference when reading a few pages of Saul Bellow and switching to Augustine.  In both cases we have a first person narrator, and the centuries separating the language is not the only difference in voice that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Oh yeah, oh yeah, I really can’t wait to read what this guy Augustine has to say after this in the intro: Augustine came to find his own mother Monica possessed of great wisdom, but she spoke in a demotic … Continue reading → Continue reading →