Books October 2018
Choking the word
A review of Confessions: A New Translation by Augustine. and Confessions (Modern Library) by Augustine.
“Follow the Lord if you want to be perfect, and associate yourself with those among whom He speaks wisdom, He Who knows what to apportion to the day and what to the night, so that you will also know it and so that there will be lights for you too in the firmament of heaven. But this will not come to be if your heart will not be there, nor if your treasure will not be there, as you have heard from the good Teacher; what will be there instead is a barren and saddened earth, with thorns choking the word.”
These are not the final words of Augustine’s Confessions; they are, however, the final words of Peter Constantine’s new translation of Augustine’s Confessions, as it has been printed by Liveright. The last twenty-nine chapters of the thirteen-book classic are missing. Yes, missing. A barren and saddened earth,...
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