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Augustine in His Own Words
This volume offers a comprehensive portrait of St. Augustine (354-430) drawn from the breadth of his writings and from the long course of his career. One chapter is devoted to each of his masterpieces (Confessions, On the Trinity, and City of God) and one to each of his best-known controversies (against Manichees, Donatists, and Pelagians). It also explores his everyday work as a bishop, preacher and interpreter of the Bible.
- GenresTheologyPhilosophy
496 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2010
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About the author
Augustine of Hippo
3,339 books2,010 followersEarly church father and philosopher Saint Augustine served from 396 as the bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria and through such writings as the autobiographical
Confessions
in 397 and the voluminous
City of God
from 413 to 426 profoundly influenced Christianity, argued against Manichaeism and Donatism, and helped to establish the doctrine of original sin.
An Augustinian follows the principles and doctrines of Saint Augustine.
People also know Aurelius Augustinus in English of Regius (Annaba). From the Africa province of the Roman Empire, people generally consider this Latin theologian of the greatest thinkers of all times. He very developed the west. According to Jerome, a contemporary, Augustine renewed "the ancient Faith."
The Neo-Platonism of Plotinus afterward heavily weighed his years. After conversion and his baptism in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to theology and accommodated a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed in the indispensable grace to human freedom and framed the concept of just war. When the Western Roman Empire started to disintegrate from the material earth, Augustine developed the concept of the distinct Catholic spirituality in a book of the same name. He thought the medieval worldview. Augustine closely identified with the community that worshiped the Trinity. The Catholics and the Anglican communion revere this preeminent doctor. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider his due teaching on salvation and divine grace of the theology of the Reformation. The Eastern Orthodox also consider him. He carries the additional title of blessed. The Orthodox call him "Blessed Augustine" or "Saint Augustine the Blessed."
Santo Agostinho
An Augustinian follows the principles and doctrines of Saint Augustine.
People also know Aurelius Augustinus in English of Regius (Annaba). From the Africa province of the Roman Empire, people generally consider this Latin theologian of the greatest thinkers of all times. He very developed the west. According to Jerome, a contemporary, Augustine renewed "the ancient Faith."
The Neo-Platonism of Plotinus afterward heavily weighed his years. After conversion and his baptism in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to theology and accommodated a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed in the indispensable grace to human freedom and framed the concept of just war. When the Western Roman Empire started to disintegrate from the material earth, Augustine developed the concept of the distinct Catholic spirituality in a book of the same name. He thought the medieval worldview. Augustine closely identified with the community that worshiped the Trinity. The Catholics and the Anglican communion revere this preeminent doctor. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider his due teaching on salvation and divine grace of the theology of the Reformation. The Eastern Orthodox also consider him. He carries the additional title of blessed. The Orthodox call him "Blessed Augustine" or "Saint Augustine the Blessed."
Santo Agostinho
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 14, 2016
This tour of Augustine's life through his own words is expertly guided by William Harmless (WH). As someone who has been inspired, helped and educated by Augustine--I am thankful for this work. WH's translation is as beautiful as it is readable. His objectivity is seen throughout. We do not have a presentation with an agenda--other than to get to know the man through superbly selected portions of his work. We see the real Augustine here. For someone who will never read all of "City of God" let alone works in their entirety across the span of his life, I am indebted to the author. I understand Augustine to be neither _Roman_ Catholic nor protestant nor orthodox. Augustine is catholic but has no understanding of a papacy or of the Bishop of Rome as above other bishops. One comes away seeing the Augustine who loves God & neighbor, His Word, His church. He goes to great lengths to defend the veracity of Scripture against those who assault it, especially Pelagius and company.
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QUOTES:
Parts of a tiny flea are marvelously framed and fitted together, while human life, meanwhile, gets spun around, utterly unstable, and surges up and down amid waves of innumerable troubles. But given this, if one had such a nearsighted view of an inlaid mosaic that one's eye was not able to take in anything bigger than a single tessera, one might accuse the artisan of lacking any sense of artistic order or composition. What from very close range one presumes to be a haphazard scatter of various tiny colored stones can hinder one from discerning and contemplating in a lucid light how this mosaic emblem comes together as a single integral face of beauty. Something very similar to this is found in the case of people poorly instructed, who are unable, because of weakness of their spirit, to grasp and to examine the universal coherence and universal harmony of things. They think that the whole universe is disarranged when something displeases them and that one thing becomes magnified by their perception. (56) ("On Order" Book I)
In eternity there is nothing past and nothing future, because what is past has ceased to be and what is future has not yet begun to be. Eternity, however, simply is. Neither did it used to be, as if it no longer is, nor will it be, as if it is not yet. That is why Eternity alone was able to say to the human mind in the truest sense: "I am who I am." (Exodus 3:14) [76]
It is human to get angry. Would that we did not have this power! It is human to get angry; but your anger ought not, like a tender young twig, to be watered by suspicions and finally grow into a tree of hatred . . [95]
Do not let [the sacrament] seem of little value to you just because you can see it. What you see passes away, but the invisible reality it is a sign of does not pass away, but endures. (155)
From what I feast on, from that I feed you. I am a table servant, not the master of the house. From what I set before you, from that I too draw my life. (156)
Now just because I speak to you from this elevated place, that does not mean that I am your teacher. That One – – Christ – – is the teacher of us all, the One whose professorial chair sits above all the heavens. Under that One we come together, convening as a single school. And you and I – – we are fellow students. But I'm here to advise you, just the way older students tend to do. (Sermon 301A; p. 162)
So whoever, in his own view, thinks he has understood the divine Scriptures, or some part of them, and yet does not, by his interpretation, build up the twofold love of God and neighbor, then that person has not yet understood the text. (170)
When good and bad suffer alike, they are not for that reason indistinguishable because what they suffer is similar. The sufferers are different even though the sufferings are the same trials. Though what they endure is the same, their virtue and vice are different. For in the same fire, gold gleams and straw smokes; under the same flail the stock is crushed and the grain thrashed; the dregs are not mistaken for olive oil because they have issued from the press. So, too, the tide of trouble will test, purify, and improve the good, but will beat, crush, and wash away the wicked. So it is that, under the weight of the same affliction, the wicked deny and blaspheme God while the good pray to Him and praise him. The difference is not in what people suffer but in the way they suffer.
==============
QUOTES:
Parts of a tiny flea are marvelously framed and fitted together, while human life, meanwhile, gets spun around, utterly unstable, and surges up and down amid waves of innumerable troubles. But given this, if one had such a nearsighted view of an inlaid mosaic that one's eye was not able to take in anything bigger than a single tessera, one might accuse the artisan of lacking any sense of artistic order or composition. What from very close range one presumes to be a haphazard scatter of various tiny colored stones can hinder one from discerning and contemplating in a lucid light how this mosaic emblem comes together as a single integral face of beauty. Something very similar to this is found in the case of people poorly instructed, who are unable, because of weakness of their spirit, to grasp and to examine the universal coherence and universal harmony of things. They think that the whole universe is disarranged when something displeases them and that one thing becomes magnified by their perception. (56) ("On Order" Book I)
In eternity there is nothing past and nothing future, because what is past has ceased to be and what is future has not yet begun to be. Eternity, however, simply is. Neither did it used to be, as if it no longer is, nor will it be, as if it is not yet. That is why Eternity alone was able to say to the human mind in the truest sense: "I am who I am." (Exodus 3:14) [76]
It is human to get angry. Would that we did not have this power! It is human to get angry; but your anger ought not, like a tender young twig, to be watered by suspicions and finally grow into a tree of hatred . . [95]
Do not let [the sacrament] seem of little value to you just because you can see it. What you see passes away, but the invisible reality it is a sign of does not pass away, but endures. (155)
From what I feast on, from that I feed you. I am a table servant, not the master of the house. From what I set before you, from that I too draw my life. (156)
Now just because I speak to you from this elevated place, that does not mean that I am your teacher. That One – – Christ – – is the teacher of us all, the One whose professorial chair sits above all the heavens. Under that One we come together, convening as a single school. And you and I – – we are fellow students. But I'm here to advise you, just the way older students tend to do. (Sermon 301A; p. 162)
So whoever, in his own view, thinks he has understood the divine Scriptures, or some part of them, and yet does not, by his interpretation, build up the twofold love of God and neighbor, then that person has not yet understood the text. (170)
When good and bad suffer alike, they are not for that reason indistinguishable because what they suffer is similar. The sufferers are different even though the sufferings are the same trials. Though what they endure is the same, their virtue and vice are different. For in the same fire, gold gleams and straw smokes; under the same flail the stock is crushed and the grain thrashed; the dregs are not mistaken for olive oil because they have issued from the press. So, too, the tide of trouble will test, purify, and improve the good, but will beat, crush, and wash away the wicked. So it is that, under the weight of the same affliction, the wicked deny and blaspheme God while the good pray to Him and praise him. The difference is not in what people suffer but in the way they suffer.
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April 10, 2020Thank you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much, Augustine! You have changed my life! <3
February 13, 2015
In the book, what Augustine had said inspired me most was his concept on the choice. The church is just like a roof of a house which has covered us with safety and this has provided us with fecundity. The church is the House of God that its metaphor is referred as the cosmology of the universe. The cosmology is referred as the concept of the architecture that has built the realm of consciousness to the realm of materialism. The wholeness is referred as a kind of pattern that involves hidden functions of Million in numerology, which in fact, manipulating all the materiality in its pertained position. The House of God is the right position pertaining architecture that provides us with fecundity and security.
Moreover, God and Man, mutually make choices. God have chosen Man and Man has chosen God. The mutual relationship is dependent upon the choice. Choice is always a challenge to Man in life span so brief but important to make the right choice to reach the realm of God. There is a function of impossibility that is opposing to possibility, for us to make choice by transcending through the condition of lacking and because we are of lacking, there is an impossibility being placed between the possibility that is granting us with what we need but because of lacking that is crucial for survival of determination, we have to fall into the opportunity of angst to make choice in the worldliness in order to make a perfection through lacking.
The church mean to be the grandiose and we are the minors. Making choice, in fact, involves God's decision upon our fate. Nothing can escape God's determination and reason is the ultimate, maybe, the most ultimate manipulation of choice.
Reason involves into our intelligence and survival that are manifestations of uniqueness in the creation. All situations involve reason that leads to the truth. Reason makes things and nothingness happen which involves the processing of True or False gating to divert a matter to its right condition. Choice here is making the wholeness seem to be perfect out of the impossibility through lacking.
So that God mutually connect with Man through Choice.
Moreover, God and Man, mutually make choices. God have chosen Man and Man has chosen God. The mutual relationship is dependent upon the choice. Choice is always a challenge to Man in life span so brief but important to make the right choice to reach the realm of God. There is a function of impossibility that is opposing to possibility, for us to make choice by transcending through the condition of lacking and because we are of lacking, there is an impossibility being placed between the possibility that is granting us with what we need but because of lacking that is crucial for survival of determination, we have to fall into the opportunity of angst to make choice in the worldliness in order to make a perfection through lacking.
The church mean to be the grandiose and we are the minors. Making choice, in fact, involves God's decision upon our fate. Nothing can escape God's determination and reason is the ultimate, maybe, the most ultimate manipulation of choice.
Reason involves into our intelligence and survival that are manifestations of uniqueness in the creation. All situations involve reason that leads to the truth. Reason makes things and nothingness happen which involves the processing of True or False gating to divert a matter to its right condition. Choice here is making the wholeness seem to be perfect out of the impossibility through lacking.
So that God mutually connect with Man through Choice.
February 1, 2018
As someone who has read and thought a fair amount about Augustine, most of what I have seen has confirmed a mixed to positive view of the man [1]. What this book does particularly well is allow Augustine to speak in his own voice (at least through able translation) to a reader who is willing and able to commit a fair amount of time to reading 400 pages of varied and complicated material. As far as how popular of a book this would be, I am not qualified to say, but for those who want to get an understanding of the complexities of Christian thinking and the Hellenistic influence of Augustine and his contemporaries at a key point in history, this book does a good job at allowing the man to speak for himself, which is of critical importance in giving a fair assessment to his influence on the Catholic Church (as well as Protestant churches) in the following centuries. Over and over again the editor returns to the idea of the mosaic, by which seemingly random and disparate pieces show a coherent and attractive picture, and this book is definitely such a mosaic of selections from Augustine that appear rather motley and random in isolation but together make for compelling and intriguing reading.
This book is divided into ten chapters of about 40 pages or so apiece, followed by an epilogue that puts Augustine's life into a context and encourages further reading--although the editor's suggestions appear difficult to find for those not well connected to a Catholic University. It should be pointed out that this book is clearly interested in the Catholic perspective and as such it is rather harsh on the Donatists and rather gentle on the Pelagians and on the French clerics who found asceticism and earning merit therein highly appealing. The book begins, as many books on Augustine do, by looking at the Confessions and its structure and contents. After this the editor spends four chapters looking at Augustine in the roles of philosopher, bishop, preacher, and biblical exegete. A fair-minded reader will likely see a fair amount of eisegesis, though, in the Augustine's Hellenistic approach that was all the more ironic for not being accompanied by a great degree of learning in Greek, to say nothing of Hebrew. The editor then closes the book by looking at Augustine's controversies against the Manichees, Donatists, Pagans (through the City of God), and the Pelagians, as well as an entire chapter on his views on the Trinity.
Even where--and this is especially true with Augustine's views on the nature of God and on questions of predestination--one has a great deal to disagree with, this book reminds us that Augustine was such an important figure and such a prolific writer that the language he used and the worldview he presented to succeeding generations had a great deal of influence on both Catholic and Protestant thought. Any philosophically-inclined Christian, especially one with an interest in Christian mysticism, will of necessity be drawn into a wrestling with Augustine's view of the world and of its maker. One can note, for example, that Augustine's desire for a synthesis between Neoplatonic thought and Christianity was important for the Catholic culture of the Middle Ages and that his view of the Trinity was later picked up and dusted off by, of all people, C.S. Lewis. And that is to say nothing of his importance for Luther or of the way that his rules for monastic life would be carried on by later Augustinians. Any fair critique of Augustine's thinking and his ideas must be balanced by a recognition that his way of thinking has been massively influential even for those who would likely count themselves his opponents, although this thought is made easier to take by recognizing that Augustine too was certainly quite capable of being influenced by those whom he opposed for one reason or another. If Augustine seems a particularly Nathanish person in many aspects of his life and thinking and writing, perhaps it is because this reader at least is a philosophical person who loves debates and a wide range of reading, all of which might make me more than a little bit Augustinian as well.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
This book is divided into ten chapters of about 40 pages or so apiece, followed by an epilogue that puts Augustine's life into a context and encourages further reading--although the editor's suggestions appear difficult to find for those not well connected to a Catholic University. It should be pointed out that this book is clearly interested in the Catholic perspective and as such it is rather harsh on the Donatists and rather gentle on the Pelagians and on the French clerics who found asceticism and earning merit therein highly appealing. The book begins, as many books on Augustine do, by looking at the Confessions and its structure and contents. After this the editor spends four chapters looking at Augustine in the roles of philosopher, bishop, preacher, and biblical exegete. A fair-minded reader will likely see a fair amount of eisegesis, though, in the Augustine's Hellenistic approach that was all the more ironic for not being accompanied by a great degree of learning in Greek, to say nothing of Hebrew. The editor then closes the book by looking at Augustine's controversies against the Manichees, Donatists, Pagans (through the City of God), and the Pelagians, as well as an entire chapter on his views on the Trinity.
Even where--and this is especially true with Augustine's views on the nature of God and on questions of predestination--one has a great deal to disagree with, this book reminds us that Augustine was such an important figure and such a prolific writer that the language he used and the worldview he presented to succeeding generations had a great deal of influence on both Catholic and Protestant thought. Any philosophically-inclined Christian, especially one with an interest in Christian mysticism, will of necessity be drawn into a wrestling with Augustine's view of the world and of its maker. One can note, for example, that Augustine's desire for a synthesis between Neoplatonic thought and Christianity was important for the Catholic culture of the Middle Ages and that his view of the Trinity was later picked up and dusted off by, of all people, C.S. Lewis. And that is to say nothing of his importance for Luther or of the way that his rules for monastic life would be carried on by later Augustinians. Any fair critique of Augustine's thinking and his ideas must be balanced by a recognition that his way of thinking has been massively influential even for those who would likely count themselves his opponents, although this thought is made easier to take by recognizing that Augustine too was certainly quite capable of being influenced by those whom he opposed for one reason or another. If Augustine seems a particularly Nathanish person in many aspects of his life and thinking and writing, perhaps it is because this reader at least is a philosophical person who loves debates and a wide range of reading, all of which might make me more than a little bit Augustinian as well.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
September 6, 2025
Reading this in its entirety is a must if you're looking where to turn to next in your interest of Augustine. This lovely book will make you feel like you're listening to a podcast interview with Augustine. Harmless has served readers so well by offering a chronology of Augustine's life along with excerpts with added context to help you feel the moment Augustine penned his thoughts. The "further reading" and "texts and translation" sections themselves are phenomenal resources for your further studies of Augustine.
Favorite quotes:
"Isidore of Seville put it more bluntly: that anyone who claimed to have read the entire corpus of Augustine was a liar" (xiii). This quote inspired me to read this handbook in its entirety since it may be impossible to read all of Augustine's writings even in a lifetime.
"Beginners are the best of teachers, and what we do, we do for love" (xix).
"To have God within the soul is this: it is to enjoy God" (On the Happy Life, 4.34, quoted on p. 54).
"I was grabbed and made a presbyter" (Sermon 335 quoted on p. 82).
"In praying for for himself and for those he is about to address, the preacher should be a person of prayer before he is a speaker of words" (On Christian Teaching, 4.15.32, quoted on p. 126).
"The Holy Spirit has thus wonderfully–for our good health– planned the Holy Scriptures in such a way that in the more open passages He relieves our hunger and that in the more obscure ones He drives away our distaste" (On Christian Teaching, 2.6.8, quoted on p. 174).
"We believe that all things in existence are from the one God, though He is not the author of sin" (On Free Will, 1.2.4, quoted on p. 216).
"Love, and do what you will" (Tractate on the First Epistle of John 7 quoted on p. 271).
"What we love in the Trinity, therefore, is that it is God" (On the Trinity, 8.5.8, quoted on p. 294).
"God often shows His intervention more clearly by the way He apportions the sweet and the bitter. For if He visited every sin here below with manifest penalty, it might be thought that no score remained to be settled at the Last Judgment. On the other hand, if God did not plainly enough punish sin on earth, people might conclude that there is no such thing as Divine Providence" (On the City of God, 1.8, quoted on p. 333).
"... Grace, therefore, is from the One who calls; the good works that result are from the one who receives that grace. These good works do not produce grace; they are produced by grace. Fire, after all, does not heat in order to burn, but because it burns; a wheel does not roll well in order to be round, but because it is round. So no one does good works in order that one may receive grace, but only because one has received grace" (On Simplicianus, Book 1.2.3, quoted on p. 385).
Favorite quotes:
"Isidore of Seville put it more bluntly: that anyone who claimed to have read the entire corpus of Augustine was a liar" (xiii). This quote inspired me to read this handbook in its entirety since it may be impossible to read all of Augustine's writings even in a lifetime.
"Beginners are the best of teachers, and what we do, we do for love" (xix).
"To have God within the soul is this: it is to enjoy God" (On the Happy Life, 4.34, quoted on p. 54).
"I was grabbed and made a presbyter" (Sermon 335 quoted on p. 82).
"In praying for for himself and for those he is about to address, the preacher should be a person of prayer before he is a speaker of words" (On Christian Teaching, 4.15.32, quoted on p. 126).
"The Holy Spirit has thus wonderfully–for our good health– planned the Holy Scriptures in such a way that in the more open passages He relieves our hunger and that in the more obscure ones He drives away our distaste" (On Christian Teaching, 2.6.8, quoted on p. 174).
"We believe that all things in existence are from the one God, though He is not the author of sin" (On Free Will, 1.2.4, quoted on p. 216).
"Love, and do what you will" (Tractate on the First Epistle of John 7 quoted on p. 271).
"What we love in the Trinity, therefore, is that it is God" (On the Trinity, 8.5.8, quoted on p. 294).
"God often shows His intervention more clearly by the way He apportions the sweet and the bitter. For if He visited every sin here below with manifest penalty, it might be thought that no score remained to be settled at the Last Judgment. On the other hand, if God did not plainly enough punish sin on earth, people might conclude that there is no such thing as Divine Providence" (On the City of God, 1.8, quoted on p. 333).
"... Grace, therefore, is from the One who calls; the good works that result are from the one who receives that grace. These good works do not produce grace; they are produced by grace. Fire, after all, does not heat in order to burn, but because it burns; a wheel does not roll well in order to be round, but because it is round. So no one does good works in order that one may receive grace, but only because one has received grace" (On Simplicianus, Book 1.2.3, quoted on p. 385).
August 1, 2024
This work by William Harmless, S.J, is an excellent introduction to Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. I had to read and write critical reviews on this book for a class I took in June/July. I found it very informative, covering many aspects of Augustin's life: his Confessions and early life, his time following Manicheism and as a philosopher, his conversion, his life as a a presbyter and then as a bishop, as a preacher and as an apologist. I was enlightened and motivated to delve more deeply into his writings.
July 27, 2024
It felt like Harmless was personally introducing me to Augustine and at the same time letting Augustine's works speak for themselves. The translations for Augustine's excerpts captured Augustine's voice true to his style yet made them easy to understand for readers like myself who don't have a background in the Patristics. Looking forward to using this as a reference when I'm brave enough to read Confessions & City of God 😅
June 12, 2020
Excellent, widesweeping anthology of his works.
November 30, 2025
4.5 great work to look at all the important aspects of Augustine’s life with many classic excerpts. Highly recommend.
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