Augustine’s Conversion: A Guide to the Argument of Confessions I-IX

320 Pages·1991·21.31 MB·English

by  Colin Starnes

Augustine's
Conversion
A Guide to the Argument
of Confessions I-IX
COLIN STARNES
From the time of its composition (approximately A.D.
400) to the present day St. Augustine's Confessions has
been regarded as one of the greatest classics of Western
spirituality.
Augustine's Conversion presents Augustine's argument
in the first part of the Confessions. As a whole, the Confes-
sions is composed of three confessions (hence the plural
title) concerning three different aspects of Augustine's
life. Augustine's Conversion's main claim on the reader's
attention, and what has not been shown before, is that the
first part of the Confessions is composed of a single con-
nected argument in addition to its more obvious historical
and autobiographical character.
This guide, like all others, should be read in conjunction
with the original. However, the author has also wanted to
create a work accessible to the interested student, and in so
doing uses direct quotations, enabling the reader to see the
argument without having to flip back and forth between
commentary and Confessions.
Colin Starnes teaches Patristics in the Classics Depart-
ment at Dalhousie University in Halifax. In addition to
publishing numerous articles on the transition from antiq-
uity to the medieval period, he is the author of The New
Republic: A Commentary on Book I of More's Utopia
Showing Its Relation to Plato's Republic (WLU Press,
1990).
This page intentionally left blank
Augustine's
Conversion
A Guide to the Argument
of Confessions I-IX
s
This page intentionally left blank
Augustine's
Conversion
A Guide to the Argument
of Confessions I-IX
s
COLIN STARNES
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Starnes, Colin.
Augustine's conversion
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-88920-991-X
1. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Confessiones.
Book 1-9. 2. Conversion. 3. Christian saints -
Algeria - Hippo - Biography. 4. Hippo (Ancient city) -
Biography. I. Title.
BR65.A62S8 1990 242 C90-095340-3
@)
Copyright © 1990
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
N2L 3C5
Cover design by Leslie Macredie
Printed in Canada
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights
hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means —
graphic, electronic or mechanical — without the prior written permis-
sion of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, tap-
ing, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of
any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian
Reprography Collective, 379 Adelaide Street West, Suite Ml,
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1S5.
Cover illustration after an illuminated initial from Plate XII of
Courcelle's Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin (Paris:
E. de Boccard, 1968),
CONTENTS
Abbreviations ix
Preface xi
Notes xiv
Chapter One
Commentary on Book I 1
Notes 24
Chapter Two
Commentary on Book II 33
Notes 46
Chapter Three
Commentary on Book III 53
Notes 76
Chapter Four
Commentary on Book IV 89
Notes 106
Chapter Five
Commentary on Book V 113
Notes 135
Chapter Six
Commentary on Book VI 145
Notes 162
Chapter Seven
Commentary on Book VII 169
Notes 199
Chapter Eight
Commentary on Book VIII 213
Notes 237
Chapter Nine
Commentary on Book IX 247
Notes 267
Appendix
An Essay on the Historicity Debate 277
Notes 285
Bibliography 291
Index 297
vii
This page intentionally left blank
ABBREVIATIONS
s
References to the Confessions only are normally given without any title: thus, I,i,l
= Confessions I,i,l. Quotations without references come from the book, chapter,
and section of the Confessions as indicated in the heading of the commentary. In
the notes the page and line numbers of Skutella's text (as reproduced in the
Bibliotheque Augustinienne [=BA] edition of the Confessions s— Oeuvres de saint
Augustin, Paris, Desclee de Brouwer, 1962, volumes 13 and 14 with the Introduc-
tion and Notes of A. Solignac and the French translation of E. Trehorel and G.
Bouissou) are given along with the first and last words. The titles of other works
and series are abbreviated as follows.
Augustine
CEF Contra epistulam Manichaei quam vacant Fundamenti
CFM Contra Faustum Manichaeum
CFeM Contra Felicem Manichaeum
CJI Opus imperfectum contra secundam Juliani responsionem
DEC De bono conjugali
DBV De beata vita
DCD De civitate Dei
DCM De cura pro mortuis gerenda
DDA De duabus animabus contra Manichaeos
DDC De doctrina Christiana
DD7 De diversis quaestionibus VII ad Simplicianum
DD83 De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII
DGC De gratia Christi etpeccato originali
DGL De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus
DM De magistro
DMM De moribus ecclesiae Catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum
DO De ordine
DT De Trinitate
DUC De utilitate credendi
EP Ennarationes in Psalmos
LDH Liber de haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum
Letter Epistulae
Retr Retractationes
Ser Sermones
Sol Soliliquia
TJ In Joannis Evangelium tractatus
IX