of mind, above pointed out, it will readily be anticipated, that so devotional a mind as St. Augustine's, would not be wanting in delicacy in alluding to the worst sins of his unregenerate state. And so it in fact is; he specifies only two periods of sin, sin, which, alas! under a softened name, is familiarly spoken of, by those who would be esteemed refined and “delicate women." St. Augustine, on the contrary, uses strong terms; he speaks of his sin in language which will be plain to those, who, in Heathen antiquity, have been accustomed to the like, but which is there made subservient to sin and vanity. But to those, who, themselves pure, have skimmed lightly over these subjects in Heathen antiquity or Christian heathenism, these passages will convey no notion, except that he was guilty of sin, which to himself afterwards was disgusting and revolting. These two periods of sin alluded to he is compelled to speak of, not merely as sources of sorrow and degradation, but as the chief impediments to his conversion, the latter, also, as a proof of his own exceeding weakness and slavery to sin, in that, though separated from his former mistress, and with the prospect of marriage after two years, he still relapsed into his former habits, and took to him a new concubine. There is then no gratuitous mention of sin; nor will any one here learn any thing of sin; and while modern descriptions of penitence, veiled in language, are calculated to produce an unhealthy excitement, and may rather prepare people to imitate the sin, with the hope that they may afterwards imitate the repentance, St. Augustine, in unveiled language, creates the loathing which himself felt at the sin. Moderns have an outward purity of language; the ancient Church, with the Bible, a fearless plainness of speech which belongs to inward purity. This has been here and there modified in the translation, in consequence of our present condition; yet it must be, with the protest, that the purity of modern times is not the purity of the Gospel; it is the purity of those who know and have delighted in evil as well as good; it is often the hypocritical purity, which would willingly dwell upon "things which ought not to be named," so that it does but not name them: it is a veiled impurity; and, what is in itself pure and speaks purely of things impure, it associates with its own impurity and calls impure, because itself thinks impurely. And so the very Bible has become to them, what they call "improper," i. e. "unbefitting them," verifying herein the awful Apostolic saying, "unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled"." Thus much must be said, because it is easy to foresee that an age of spurious delicacy, i. e. of real indelicacy, will raise charges of indelicacy against passages in the Fathers, (as it does, though in a lower murmuring tone, against the Bible,) when the fault is in itself. And would that there were not occasion for the warnings of St. Augustine, and that many in Christian England did not imitate the unbaptized Carthaginians, or require his earnest language against being ashamed of being innocent*. For it must never be lost sight of, in reference to this whole story of St. Augustine, that he himself was, during the whole period, not a Christian, for he was not baptized; his mother had been given in marriage to one, who was altogether a heathen, until long after Augustine's birth, (for in his sixteenth year his father was but recently a Catechumen, b. ii. §. 6.) and, as a heathen, lived in heathenish sin; and himself, although in infancy made a Catechumen, had fallen into a sect, which could in no way be called Christian. Christianity, as now in India,was then every where surrounded by Heathenism, which it was gradually leavening, and there was consequently a mixed race, born of intermarriages with the heathen, or of parents who had not made up their minds to become wholly Christians, (like the "mixed multitude," which went up with Israel out of Egypt',) and who were in a sort of twilight state, seeing Christianity but = Tit. 1, 15. y Ex. 12, 38. Num. 11, 4. very imperfectly, although the grossness of their own darkness was much mitigated. This should be borne in mind, lest any should think that St. Augustine's descriptions of himself and his comrades furnish any representation of the then state of the Christian Church, and that consequently it even then partook of the state of degradation, in which it is at this day. It also accounts for St. Augustine's mode of speaking of his past sins in terms of strong condemnation, yet, personally, of unconcern; as shocking and loathsome in themselves, but as what he had no more to do with, in that he had condemned them, and they had been washed away by Baptism2. It now remains only to add a few words upon this and former translations of the Confessions. Into our own language they have been three times translated in whole or in part. The first was by a Romanist, T. M. (Sir Tobias Matthews,) 1624. The object of this was, apparently, to make the Confessions (by aid of notes) to subserve the cause of Romanism. It was also very inaccurately done'; many of the errors were pointed out in the second translation by Rev. W. Watts, D.D. 1650. This, however, which frequently retained the former translation, retained also a good many faults; and, with some energy, it had many vulgarisms, so that, though it was adopted as the basis of the present, the work has in fact been retranslated. The third was a translation of the biographical portions only, with a continuation from Possidius and notices of St. Augustine's life derived from his own writings by Abr. Woodhead of University College, "a most pious, learned, and retired person." The former translation was used as its basis, but it is more diffuse. Copious extracts of the Confessions have also been given in Milner's Church History. The former translations, however, were become scarce; and the work seemed no inappropriate commencement of the translations z Comp. his frequent reference to his Baptism, B. i. c. 11. B. ii. c. 7. B. v. §. 15, 16. B. vi. c. 13. A saying of the time, indicative of its badness, is given in the Biogr. Brit., from St. Augustine, in that it gives the main outlines of the first thirty-four years of his life, until a little after his conversion and baptism. It has been the object of the present translation to leave the Confessions to tell their own tale; a few of the notes of the former edition have been retained, which seemed to convey useful information; most have been omitted, as being employed in censuring the translation or notes of his predecessor, and that often in undesirable language. The present translation has been illustrated with notes, beyond what was contemplated for this undertaking generally, partly on account of the miscellaneous character of the work, in that it contained allusions to many things, which had been spoken of more expressly elsewhere; partly as being the first work of this remarkable man, made accessible to ordinary readers; partly also because this plan of illustrating St. Augustine out of himself, had been already adopted by M. Dubois in his Latin edition, though not in his translation, of the Confessions (Paris 1776); and it seemed a pity not to use valuable materials ready collected to one's hand. The far greater part of these illustrations are taken from that edition. Reference has, of course, been every where made to the context in the original work. With regard to the principles of translation, the object of all translation must be to present the ideas of the author as clearly as may be, with as little sacrifice as may be of what is peculiar to him; the greatest clearness with the greatest faithfulness. The combination or due adjustment of these two is a work of no slight difficulty, since in that re-production, which is essential to good translation, it is very difficult to avoid introducing some slight shade of meaning, which may not be contained in the original. The very variation in the collocation of words may produce this. In the present work the translator desired both to preserve as much as possible the condensed style of St. Augustine, and to make the translation as little as might be of a commentary; that so the reader might be put, as far as possible, in the position of a student of the Fathers, unmodified and undiluted by the intervention of any foreign notions. The circumstances of the times, moreover, render even a somewhat rigid adherence to the original, (even though purchased by some stiffness,) the safer side, as it is that which most recommended itself to the translator. This common object of a strict faithfulness, must, of course, in a variety of hands, be attained in different degrees; and different ways will be taken to obtain the same result. If, in parts of the present work, a more rigid style has been adopted, than will perhaps generally occur in this "Library," it was still hoped, that the additional pains, which might be requisite to understand it, would be rewarded by the greater insight into the author's uncommented meaning which that very pains would procure, and by the greater impression made by what has required some thought to understand; and it was an object to let St. Augustine speak as much as possible for himself, without bringing out by the translation, truths which he wrapped up in the words, for those who wish to find them. With the same view, the plan adopted by the Benedictine editors and others, of marking out for observation the golden sayings, with which the Confessions abound, has not been followed; it was thought that they would be read better in the context; that they would be even more impressive, if attention were not called to them, but rather left to be called out by them, by being read, as St. Augustine himself thought them, and as they arose; for florilegia do not make the impression, which is expected from them; the mind is put in an unnatural position by being called upon to admire, from without, rather than from within. But, chiefly, holy and solemn thoughts are not to be exhibited for admiration, like a gallery of pictures, which the eyes wander over, but whereby the heart is distracted and unsatisfied; rather they are to be gazed at, and to be copied; and they shine most brightly, when most naturally, amid the relief of thoughts on ordinary subjects, which they illumine. So also |