The Confessions of St. Augustine: Modern English Version

by Augustine of Hippo

[gmcgregor]

In Saint Augustine's Confessions, he recounts his journey from being a young atheist living large and looking for answers with his intellect, to his eventual conversion to Christianity through the efforts of his mother, and the peace and security he found in his faith.

I found this book interesting more theoretically than in actuality. Although I'm not a believer, stories about faith (particularly people who came to faith rather than just continuing to believe what they have been taught since they were children) are intriguing...what makes a person decide to believe or renew a belief they had drifted away from? I suspect most of them would describe it the way that Augustine does, as a realization of a truth that they'd been looking for, consciously or unconsciously, throughout their lives. But the environment that produces that realization can vary...sometimes friends and family are involved, sometimes it's an intensely personal experience, sometimes it comes out of the blue, and sometimes right after a major life event that shifted perspective in a significant way.

I didn't realize until I'd already started it that the Kindle copy of the book that I was working with was an abridged edition. I'm not sure if that was a positive or a negative, honestly. While the book never really engaged me until the end, when Augustine gets more analytical about his beliefs, and I was therefore rather happy that there wasn't more of it to get through, perhaps that's because a more developed narrative would have been more compelling all along? I can't honestly say. I didn't personally enjoy reading this particular edition and wouldn't recommend it for a general audience, but for an audience curious and inclined to enjoy books about religion, this would be a worthwhile read.