Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Series 1. In 14 vols. Volume 01. The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine, with a Sketch of his Life and Work

1348 Pages·2016·9.51 MB·English

by  Schaff Philip (Ed.)

NPNF1-01. The Confessions and Letters of St. Au-
gustine, with a Sketch of his Life and Work
i
Author(s): Schaff, Philip (1819-1893) (Editor)
Publisher: Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Description: With over twenty volumes, the Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers is a momentous achievement. Originally gathered
by Philip Schaff, the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers is a
collection of writings by classical and medieval Christian
theologians.The purpose of such a collection is to make their
writings readily available.The entire work is divided into two
series.The first series focuses on two classical Christian
theologians--St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom. St.
Augustine is one of the most influential and important Chris-
tian thinkers of all time. In addition to reprinting his most
popular two works--the Confessions and the City of
God--these volumes also contain other noteworthy and im-
portant works of St. Augustine, such as On the Holy Trinity,
Christian Doctrine, and others. St. John Chrysostom was an
eloquent speaker and well-loved Christian clergyman. St.
John took a more literal interpretation of Scripture, and much
of his work focused on practical aspects of Christianity, par-
ticularly what is now called social justice. He advocated for
the poor, and challenged abuses of authority.This particular
volume in the series contains the Confessions and letters of
St. Augustine.The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers is com-
prehensive in scope, and provide keen translations of instruct-
ive and illuminating texts from some of the greatest theolo-
gians of the Christian church.These spiritually enlightening
texts have aided Christians for over a thousand years, and
remain instructive and fruitful even today!
Tim Perrine
CCEL Staff Writer
Subjects: Christianity
Early Christian Literature. Fathers of the Church, etc.
Contents
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Title Page 1
Preface 2
Contents 5
Prolegomena: St. Augustin’s Life and Work 6
Literature 7
Sources 8
Biographies 10
Special Treatises on the System of Augustin 11
A Sketch of the Life of St. Augustin 13
Estimate of St. Augustin 19
The Writings of St. Augustin 26
The Influence of St. Augustin on Posterity, and His Relation to Catholicism and 39
Protestantism
Chief Events in the Life of St. Augustin 49
The Confessions 51
Translator’s Preface 52
The Opinion of St. Augustin Concerning His Confessions 60
Commencing with the invocation of God, Augustin relates in detail the beginning 62
of his life, his infancy and boyhood, up to his fifteenth year; at which age he
acknowledges that he was more inclined to all youthful pleasures and vices than
to the study of letters.
He Proclaims the Greatness of God, Whom He Desires to Seek and Invoke, 63
Being Awakened by Him.
That the God Whom We Invoke is in Us, and We in Him. 64
Everywhere God Wholly Filleth All Things, But Neither Heaven Nor Earth 65
Containeth Him.
The Majesty of God is Supreme, and His Virtues Inexplicable. 66
He Seeks Rest in God, and Pardon of His Sins. 67
He Describes His Infancy, and Lauds the Protection and Eternal Providence of 68
God.
He Shows by Example that Even Infancy is Prone to Sin. 70
That When a Boy He Learned to Speak, Not by Any Set Method, But from the 72
Acts and Words of His Parents.
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Concerning the Hatred of Learning, the Love of Play, and the Fear of Being 73
Whipped Noticeable in Boys: and of the Folly of Our Elders and Masters.
Through a Love of Ball-Playing and Shows, He Neglects His Studies and the 75
Injunctions of His Parents.
Seized by Disease, His Mother Being Troubled, He Earnestly Demands Baptism, 76
Which on Recovery is Postponed—His Father Not as Yet Believing in Christ.
Being Compelled, He Gave His Attention to Learning; But Fully Acknowledges 78
that This Was the Work of God.
He Delighted in Latin Studies and the Empty Fables of the Poets, But Hated the 79
Elements of Literature and the Greek Language.
Why He Despised Greek Literature, and Easily Learned Latin. 81
He Entreats God, that Whatever Useful Things He Learned as a Boy May Be 82
Dedicated to Him.
He Disapproves of the Mode of Educating Youth, and He Points Out Why 83
Wickedness is Attributed to the Gods by the Poets.
He Continues on the Unhappy Method of Training Youth in Literary Subjects. 85
Men Desire to Observe the Rules of Learning, But Neglect the Eternal Rules of 86
Everlasting Safety.
He advances to puberty, and indeed to the early part of the sixteenth year of his 89
age, in which, having abandoned his studies, he indulged in lustful pleasures, and,
with his companions, committed theft.
He Deplores the Wickedness of His Youth. 90
Stricken with Exceeding Grief, He Remembers the Dissolute Passions in Which, 91
in His Sixteenth Year, He Used to Indulge.
Concerning His Father, a Freeman of Thagaste, the Assister of His Son’s Studies, 93
and on the Admonitions of His Mother on the Preservation of Chastity.
He Commits Theft with His Companions, Not Urged on by Poverty, But from 95
a Certain Distaste of Well-Doing.
Concerning the Motives to Sin, Which are Not in the Love of Evil, But in the 96
Desire of Obtaining the Property of Others.
Why He Delighted in that Theft, When All Things Which Under the Appearance 97
of Good Invite to Vice are True and Perfect in God Alone.
He Gives Thanks to God for the Remission of His Sins, and Reminds Every One 99
that the Supreme God May Have Preserved Us from Greater Sins.
In His Theft He Loved the Company of His Fellow-Sinners. 100
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It Was a Pleasure to Him Also to Laugh When Seriously Deceiving Others. 101
With God There is True Rest and Life Unchanging. 102
Of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth years of his age, passed at Carthage, 103
when, having completed his course of studies, he is caught in the snares of a
licentious passion, and falls into the errors of the Manichæans.
Deluded by an Insane Love, He, Though Foul and Dishonourable, Desires to 104
Be Thought Elegant and Urbane.
In Public Spectacles He is Moved by an Empty Compassion. He is Attacked by 105
a Troublesome Spiritual Disease.
Not Even When at Church Does He Suppress His Desires. In the School of 107
Rhetoric He Abhors the Acts of the Subverters.
In the Nineteenth Year of His Age (His Father Having Died Two Years Before) 108
He is Led by the ‘Hortensius’ Of Cicero to ‘Philosophy,’ To God, and a Better
Mode of Thinking.
He Rejects the Sacred Scriptures as Too Simple, and as Not to Be Compared 110
with the Dignity of Tully.
Deceived by His Own Fault, He Falls into the Errors of the Manichæans, Who 111
Gloried in the True Knowledge of God and in a Thorough Examination of
Things.
He Attacks the Doctrine of the Manichæans Concerning Evil, God, and the 114
Righteousness of the Patriarchs.
He Argues Against the Same as to the Reason of Offences. 117
That the Judgment of God and Men as to Human Acts of Violence, is Different. 119
He Reproves the Triflings of the Manichæans as to the Fruits of the Earth. 120
He Refers to the Tears, and the Memorable Dream Concerning Her Son, Granted 121
by God to His Mother.
The Excellent Answer of the Bishop When Referred to by His Mother as to the 123
Conversion of Her Son.
Then follows a period of nine years from the nineteenth year of his age, during 124
which having lost a friend, he followed the Manichæans—and wrote books on
the fair and fit, and published a work on the liberal arts, and the categories of
Aristotle.
Concerning that Most Unhappy Time in Which He, Being Deceived, Deceived 125
Others; And Concerning the Mockers of His Confession.
He Teaches Rhetoric, the Only Thing He Loved, and Scorns the Soothsayer, 126
Who Promised Him Victory.
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Not Even the Most Experienced Men Could Persuade Him of the Vanity of 128
Astrology to Which He Was Devoted.
Sorely Distressed by Weeping at the Death of His Friend, He Provides 131
Consolation for Himself.
Why Weeping is Pleasant to the Wretched. 133
His Friend Being Snatched Away by Death, He Imagines that He Remains Only 134
as Half.
Troubled by Restlessness and Grief, He Leaves His Country a Second Time for 135
Carthage.
That His Grief Ceased by Time, and the Consolation of Friends. 136
That the Love of a Human Being, However Constant in Loving and Returning 137
Love, Perishes; While He Who Loves God Never Loses a Friend.
That All Things Exist that They May Perish, and that We are Not Safe Unless 138
God Watches Over Us.
That Portions of the World are Not to Be Loved; But that God, Their Author, 140
is Immutable, and His Word Eternal.
Love is Not Condemned, But Love in God, in Whom There is Rest Through 141
Jesus Christ, is to Be Preferred.
Love Originates from Grace and Beauty Enticing Us. 143
Concerning the Books Which He Wrote ‘On the Fair and Fit,’ Dedicated to 144
Hierius.
While Writing, Being Blinded by Corporeal Images, He Failed to Recognise the 146
Spiritual Nature of God.
He Very Easily Understood the Liberal Arts and the Categories of Aristotle, But 150
Without True Fruit.
He describes the twenty-ninth year of his age, in which, having discovered the 153
fallacies of the Manichæans, he professed rhetoric at Rome and Milan. Having
heard Ambrose, he begins to come to himself.
That It Becomes the Soul to Praise God, and to Confess Unto Him. 154
On the Vanity of Those Who Wished to Escape the Omnipotent God. 155
Having Heard Faustus, the Most Learned Bishop of the Manichæans, He Discerns 157
that God, the Author Both of Things Animate and Inanimate, Chiefly Has Care
for the Humble.
That the Knowledge of Terrestrial and Celestial Things Does Not Give Happiness, 160
But the Knowledge of God Only.
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Of Manichæus Pertinaciously Teaching False Doctrines, and Proudly Arrogating 161
to Himself the Holy Spirit.
Faustus Was Indeed an Elegant Speaker, But Knew Nothing of the Liberal 163
Sciences.
Clearly Seeing the Fallacies of the Manichæans, He Retires from Them, Being 165
Remarkably Aided by God.
He Sets Out for Rome, His Mother in Vain Lamenting It. 167
Being Attacked by Fever, He is in Great Danger. 169
When He Had Left the Manichæans, He Retained His Depraved Opinions 172
Concerning Sin and the Origin of the Saviour.
Helpidius Disputed Well Against the Manichæans as to the Authenticity of the 175
New Testament.
Professing Rhetoric at Rome, He Discovers the Fraud of His Scholars. 176
He is Sent to Milan, that He, About to Teach Rhetoric, May Be Known by 177
Ambrose.
Having Heard the Bishop, He Perceives the Force of the Catholic Faith, Yet 178
Doubts, After the Manner of the Modern Academics.
Attaining his thirtieth year, he, under the admonition of the discourses of Ambrose, 180
discovered more and more the truth of the Catholic doctrine, and deliberates as
to the better regulation of his life.
His Mother Having Followed Him to Milan, Declares that She Will Not Die 181
Before Her Son Shall Have Embraced the Catholic Faith.
She, on the Prohibition of Ambrose, Abstains from Honouring the Memory of 183
the Martyrs.
As Ambrose Was Occupied with Business and Study, Augustin Could Seldom 186
Consult Him Concerning the Holy Scriptures.
He Recognises the Falsity of His Own Opinions, and Commits to Memory the 188
Saying of Ambrose.
Faith is the Basis of Human Life; Man Cannot Discover that Truth Which Holy 191
Scripture Has Disclosed.
On the Source and Cause of True Joy,—The Example of the Joyous Beggar Being 193
Adduced.
He Leads to Reformation His Friend Alypius, Seized with Madness for the 195
Circensian Games.
The Same When at Rome, Being Led by Others into the Amphitheatre, is 198
Delighted with the Gladiatorial Games.
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Innocent Alypius, Being Apprehended as a Thief, is Set at Liberty by the 201
Cleverness of an Architect.
The Wonderful Integrity of Alypius in Judgment. The Lasting Friendship of 203
Nebridius with Augustin.
Being Troubled by His Grievous Errors, He Meditates Entering on a New Life. 205
Discussion with Alypius Concerning a Life of Celibacy. 207
Being Urged by His Mother to Take a Wife, He Sought a Maiden that Was 209
Pleasing Unto Him.
The Design of Establishing a Common Household with His Friends is Speedily 210
Hindered.
He Dismisses One Mistress, and Chooses Another. 212
The Fear of Death and Judgment Called Him, Believing in the Immortality of 213
the Soul, Back from His Wickedness, Him Who Aforetime Believed in the
Opinions of Epicurus.
He recalls the beginning of his youth, i.e. the thirty-first year of his age, in which 215
very grave errors as to the nature of God and the origin of evil being distinguished,
and the Sacred Books more accurately known, he at length arrives at a clear
knowledge of God, not yet rightly apprehending Jesus Christ.
He Regarded Not God Indeed Under the Form of a Human Body, But as a 216
Corporeal Substance Diffused Through Space.
The Disputation of Nebridius Against the Manichæans, on the Question 218
‘Whether God Be Corruptible or Incorruptible.’
That the Cause of Evil is the Free Judgment of the Will. 220
That God is Not Corruptible, Who, If He Were, Would Not Be God at All. 221
Questions Concerning the Origin of Evil in Regard to God, Who, Since He is 222
the Chief Good, Cannot Be the Cause of Evil.
He Refutes the Divinations of the Astrologers, Deduced from the Constellations. 224
He is Severely Exercised as to the Origin of Evil. 227
By God’s Assistance He by Degrees Arrives at the Truth. 229
He Compares the Doctrine of the Platonists Concerning the Λόγος With the 230
Much More Excellent Doctrine of Christianity.
Divine Things are the More Clearly Manifested to Him Who Withdraws into 236
the Recesses of His Heart.
That Creatures are Mutable and God Alone Immutable. 238
Whatever Things the Good God Has Created are Very Good. 239
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It is Meet to Praise the Creator for the Good Things Which are Made in Heaven 240
and Earth.
Being Displeased with Some Part Of God’s Creation, He Conceives of Two 241
Original Substances.
Whatever Is, Owes Its Being to God. 242
Evil Arises Not from a Substance, But from the Perversion of the Will. 243
Above His Changeable Mind, He Discovers the Unchangeable Author of Truth. 244
Jesus Christ, the Mediator, is the Only Way of Safety. 247
He Does Not Yet Fully Understand the Saying of John, that ‘The Word Was 248
Made Flesh.’
He Rejoices that He Proceeded from Plato to the Holy Scriptures, and Not the 251
Reverse.
What He Found in the Sacred Books Which are Not to Be Found in Plato. 253
He finally describes the thirty-second year of his age, the most memorable of his 256
whole life, in which, being instructed by Simplicianus concerning the conversion
of others, and the manner of acting, he is, after a severe struggle, renewed in his
whole mind, and is converted unto God.
He, Now Given to Divine Things, and Yet Entangled by the Lusts of Love, 257
Consults Simplicianus in Reference to the Renewing of His Mind.
The Pious Old Man Rejoices that He Read Plato and the Scriptures, and Tells 259
Him of the Rhetorician Victorinus Having Been Converted to the Faith Through
the Reading of the Sacred Books.
That God and the Angels Rejoice More on the Return of One Sinner Than of 264
Many Just Persons.
He Shows by the Example of Victorinus that There is More Joy in the Conversion 266
of Nobles.
Of the Causes Which Alienate Us from God. 268
Pontitianus’ Account of Antony, the Founder of Monachism, and of Some Who 271
Imitated Him.
He Deplores His Wretchedness, that Having Been Born Thirty-Two Years, He 275
Had Not Yet Found Out the Truth.
The Conversation with Alypius Being Ended, He Retires to the Garden, Whither 277
His Friend Follows Him.
That the Mind Commandeth the Mind, But It Willeth Not Entirely. 279
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