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The Confessions

St Augustine · Translated by E. B. Pusey, 1838

St Augustine

The Confessions

Translated by E. B. Pusey, 1838

What this is

The first autobiography in the European tradition, written around 400 and addressed throughout to God rather than to a reader. Nine books of a life, one on memory, and three on the opening of Genesis — which the first readers found as odd an ending as readers do now.

How it is set

One leaf per book, with the sections numbered inside it as Long numbers them. A section of Marcus is often three lines, and a page holding three lines is not a page.

What is not here

Notes. These books have the text and nothing else at present — no map, no lives, no commentary. The Gospel of St Luke shows what an annotated book looks like on this shelf, and these will follow it. An empty heading is better than invented filler.

The 13 books

  1. I Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite.… 1 sections
  2. II I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul; not because I… 1 sections
  3. III To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I… 1 sections
  4. IV For this space of nine years (from my nineteenth year to my eight-and-twentieth) we lived… 1 sections
  5. V Accept the sacrifice of my confessions from the ministry of my tongue, which Thou hast formed… 1 sections
  6. VI O Thou, my hope from my youth, where wert Thou to me, and whither wert Thou gone? Hadst not… 1 sections
  7. VII Deceased was now that my evil and abominable youth, and I was passing into early manhood; the… 1 sections
  8. VIII O my God, let me, with thanksgiving, remember, and confess unto Thee Thy mercies on me. Let my… 1 sections
  9. IX O Lord, I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thy handmaid: Thou hast broken my… 1 sections
  10. X Let me know Thee, O Lord, who knowest me: let me know Thee, as I am known. Power of my soul,… 1 sections
  11. XI Lord, since eternity is Thine, art Thou ignorant of what I say to Thee? or dost Thou see in… 1 sections
  12. XII My heart, O Lord, touched with the words of Thy Holy Scripture, is much busied, amid this… 1 sections
  13. XIII I call upon Thee, O my God, my mercy, Who createdst me, and forgottest not me, forgetting Thee.… 1 sections
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Text: St Augustine, The Confessions — E. B. Pusey’s translation, 1838, public domain, from Project Gutenberg ebook 3296, set unaltered. Augustine also wrote on this gospel shelf: his 124 tractates on St John are at /fathers/augustine-on-john/.