New: "The Confessions" (Ignatius Critical Editions)

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Confessions: Saint Augustine of Hippo (Ignatius Critical Editions)

• Also available in e-book format

The Confessions of Saint Augustine is considered one of the greatest Christian classics of all time. It is an extended poetic, passionate, intimate prayer that Augustine wrote as an autobiography sometime after his conversion, to confess his sins and proclaim God's goodness. Just as his first hearers were captivated by his powerful conversion story, so also have many millions been over the following sixteen centuries. His experience of God speaks to us across time with little need of transpositions.

This acclaimed new translation by Sister Maria Boulding, O.S.B., masterfully captures his experience, and is written in an elegant and flowing style. Her beautiful contemporary translation of the ancient Confessions makes the classic work more accessible to modern readers. Her translation combines the linguistic accuracy demanded by 4th-century Latin with the poetic power aimed at by Augustine, not as discernable in previous translations.

Featuring the following critical and introductory essays:

• "The Confessions: Augustine's First Treatise on Grace" – Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.
• "Creation in the Confessions" – Jared Ortiz
• "Confession, Prayer, Transformation" – Allan Fitzgerald, O.S.A.
• "Augustine's Confessions and the Source of Christian Character" – Christopher J. Thompson

David Vincent Meconi, S.J. situates the reader with the introductory essay.

Sr. Maria Boulding, O.S.B. (1929 - 2009), born in Liverpool, was linguistically gifted and theologically astute. Turning down a full scholarship to Oxford, she joined the cloistered Benedictine Nuns at Stanbrook Abbey in September of 1947 where she unceasingly labored for 62 years. She spent much of her later life translating the writings of St. Augustine.

Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J., editor of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, is a professor of patristic theology at St. Louis University where he teaches courses on Trinitarian theology, Christology and soteriology in the early Church, with a special interest in the life and thought of St. Augustine of Hippo. He is also the co-editor of the Cambridge University Companion to Augustine.

Comments

[Gail Finke]

Maria Boulding's translation is FANTASTIC. I tell everyone to get that one. The description given above EXACTLY fits. I am a very poor Latin scholar, but reading this book made me want to read the original and so, after failing to find a copy in Latin, I downloaded book one from the internet and struggled through most of it before giving up due to lack of time and skill. I am terrible at Latin grammar but good with context and style, and to me her translation really captures the feel of St. Augustine's original text, which is not at all the dry, dull tome one might expect but a exciting, pell-mell, love letter to God. I am so glad Ignatius Press has used this translation and I can't wait to read the introduction! The rotten introductions to classic works in most editions really wear you down after a while, and lately I don't bother to read any. I hope you sell a million copies. If you have never read The Confessions, if you have read another translation, if you have read this translation but don't own it -- buy it!!!!!