內容簡介
《懺悔錄》聖奧古斯丁
《懺悔錄》記述了奧古斯丁在中年時對過去的罪惡生活所做出的懺悔，及其改信基督教的過程。書的後半則為思想上的論述、對聖經的解讀與自聖經的角度出發所看到的世界。
《懺悔錄》普遍被認為是西方基督教世界第一部自傳。在此之前自傳體裁便以存在，但奧古斯丁對於自我精神世界的剖析和對於聖經的解讀皆不曾出現。而其影響力不僅作用於歷史上的諸多人物，也擴及當今社會的人們。
Peter Constantine為奧古斯丁所引用的聖經內容下了詳細的註腳，並附上語意較為相近的近代英文聖經版本作為對照，讓現代讀者能更加完整得認識這部作品。
“There are times when Augustine seems all too self-consciously in control of his performance, but there are moments when the role of penitent sinner turned ecstatic worshipper ceases to be a role and becomes simply the naked truth of the man himself. The deep strength of Peter Constantine’s translation is that he has matched Augustine’s sincerity with his own.”
―JACK MILES, author of God: A Biography
作者介紹
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430), better known as Saint Augustine, was born to poor parents, Patricius and Monnica, in the small town of Tagaste in Numidia, North Africa. Despite his mother’s pious influence, Augustine embarked on several years of wild living when he began his education at the University of Carthage. During this time he fathered a child and adopted the Manichean faith, a sect whose followers professed to have received from their founder a higher truth than from Christ. After years of seeking and eventual disillusionment with the Manichean ways, Augustine acknowledged Jesus as Lord during a dramatic garden conversion. He was baptized the following year and became an ascetic—studying the foundations of faith, writing (chiefly against his former sect), and conversing with a group of disciples, first at Rome and then in his native town. During a visit to Hippo near his hometown he entered the priesthood and in 395 he became Bishop of Hippo, an office he held until his death. He is known for his literary accomplishments, chiefly The City of God and The Confessions of St. Augustine, as well as his patient pastoral leadership in the Catholic Church.
Peter Constantine is the director of the Program in Literary Translation at the University of Connecticut, the publisher of World Poetry Books, and editor-in-chief of the magazine New Poetry in Translation. A prolific translator from several modern and classical languages, Constantine was awarded the PEN Translation Prize for Six Early Stories by Thomas Mann, the National Translation Award for The Undiscovered Chekhov, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his translation of The Bird Is a Raven by Benjamin Lebert, and the Koret Jewish Book Award and a National Jewish Book Award citation for The Complete Works of Isaac Babel.
