Tuesday, May 12, 2009

ST. AUGUSTINE, The Confessions of


The Confessions by Saint Augustine

St Augustine wrote:
…Whom for black Thou hast made bright, and for dead, alive, being piled together in the receptacle of our thoughts, kindled and burned up that our heavy torpor, that we should not sink down to the abyss…
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 2 pg. 62 (#3)


St Augustine wrote:
And yet, as they handmade told me her son, there had crept upon her a love of wine … For this she did not out of any desire of drink, but out of the exuberance of youth … which in youthful spirits are won't to be kept under by the gravity of their elders. … How did Thou cure her?
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 8 pg. 66 (#18)


St Augustine wrote:
… For a maid servant with who she used to go to the cellar … when alone with her taunted her with this taunt, with most bitter insult, calling her “wine bibber” with which taunt she, stung to the quick, saw the foulness of her fault.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 8 pg. 66 (#18)


St Augustine wrote:
(speaking of her abusive husband)
… For she looked for Thy mercy upon him, that, believing in Thee, he might be made chaste.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 9 pg. 67 (#19)


St Augustine wrote:
…while many matron, who had milder husbands, yet bore eve in their faces marks of shame, would in familiar talk blame their husbands’ lives, she would blame their tongues, giving them, as in jest, earnest advice…
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 9 pg. 67 (#19)


St Augustine wrote:
… they, knowing what a choleric husband she endured, marvelled, that it had never been heard, nor by any token perceived, that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic difference between them, even for one day… Those wives who observed it found the good, and returned thanks; those who observed it not, found no relief and suffered.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 9 pg. 67 (#19)


St Augustine wrote:
… she of her own accord discovered to her son the meddling tongues whereby the domestic peace betwixt her and her daughter-in-law had been disturbed, asking him to correct them. Then, when in compliance with his mother and for the well-ordering of the family and the harmony of its members, he had with stripes corrected those discovered them, she promises the like reward to any who, to please her, should speak ill of her daughter-in-law to her; and non now venturing, they lived together with a remarkable sweetness of mutual kindness.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 9 pg. 67 (#20)
St Augustine wrote:
This good gift also Thou bestowedst, O my God, … upon that good handmaid …, that between any disagreeing and discordant parties, where she was able, she shewed herself such a peacemaker, that hearing on both sides most bitter things, such as swelling and indigested choler uses to break out into when the crudities of enmities are breathed out in sour discourses to a present friend against an absent enemy, she never would disclose aught of the one unto the other, but what might tend to their reconcilement. … did I not to my grief know numberless persons who, through some horrible and wide-spreading contagion of sin, not only disclose to persons mutually angered things said in anger, but add withal things never spoken; … it ought to seem a light thing not to foment or increase ill will by ill words, unless one study withal by good words to quench it. Such was she, Thyself, her most inward Instructor teaching her in the school of the heart.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 9 pg. 67 (#21)


St Augustine wrote:
Finally, her own husband, towards the very end of his earthly life, did she gain unto Thee; nor had she to complain of that in him as a believe which before he was a believe she had borne from him.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 9 pg. 67 (#22)


St Augustine wrote:
“Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before” (Phil 3:13)
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 9, Ch 10 pg. 68 (#23)


St Augustine wrote:
A race curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own. Why seek they to hear from me what I am, who will not hear from Thee what themselves are?
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 10, Ch 3 pg. 72 (#3)


St Augustine wrote:
In this so vast wilderness, full of snares and dangers, behold many of them have I cut off, and thrust out of my heart… since so many things of the kinds buzz on all sides about our daily life … nothing of this sort engages any attention, or causes me an idle interest? … theaters do not now carry me away … nor care I to know the course of the stars nor did my soul ever consult ghosts departed … all sacrilegious mysteries I detest.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 10, Ch 35 pg. 85 (#56)


St Augustine wrote:
… and so by the agreement of their heart drew unto themselves the princes of the air, the fellow conspirators of their pride, by whom, through magical influences, they were deceived … [Eph 2:2 – princes of the air = Satan]
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 10, Ch 42 pg. 88 (#67)


St Augustine wrote:
Let me confess unto Thee whatsoever I shall find in Thy books, and hear the voice of praise and drink-in Thee, and meditate on the wonderful things out of They law, even from the beginning, wherein Thou madest the heaven and the earth,
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 11, Ch 2 pg. 90 (#3)


St Augustine wrote:
Moses wrote this… For if he were, I would hold him and ask him and beseech him by Thee to open these things unto me, and would lay the ears of my body to the sounds bursting out of his mouth. And should he speak Hebrew, in vain will it strike on my senses, nor would aught of it touch my mind; but if Latin, I should know what he said.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 11, Ch 3 pg. 90 (#5)


St Augustine wrote:
But how didst thou make the heavens and the earth? … How, O God, didst Thou make heaven and earth? … Therefore Thou spakest and they were made, (Psalm 33:9) and in Thy Word (Psalm 33: 6) Though madest them.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 11, Ch 5 pg. 90 (#7)


St Augustine wrote:
But how didst Thou speak?
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 11, Ch 6 pg. 91 (#8)


St Augustine wrote:
Let no man then tell me that the motions of the heavenly bodies constitute times because, when at the prayer of one, the sun stood still, till he could achieve his victorious battle, the sun stood still, but time went on.
Saint Augustine, The Confessions, Book 11, Ch 23 pg. 96 (#30)

Vocabulary: Saint Augustine, The Confessions
Pg. 62 – torpor
A torpid or dormant state; sluggishness, apathy
Torpid – to be nub, having lost temporarily all or part of the power of sensation or motion, as a hibernating animal, dormant, dull sluggish apathetic

Pg. 63 – pernicious
Causing injury, destruction, fatal, wicked, evil.

Pg. 67 – fervent
Hot, burning, flowing; having or showing great warmth of feeling; intensely earnest.

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