St. Augustine, *Confessions* [1929]

Title: Confessions.

Author: St. Augustine (354–430) [Bishop of Hippo, philosopher and theologian, Father and Doctor of the Church, one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers].

Translation: Fr. Jan Czuj (translation, introduction, and notes).

Publisher: Poznań, Fiszer and Majewski, University Bookstore. Series: Writings of the Church Fathers, vol. IX.

Year of publication: 1929.

Format: 21 cm.

Volume: [XXIX], 420 pp.

Binding: Period half-leather binding.

St. Augustine’s *Confessions*, written around 397–400, are among the most important books in the history of European culture. It is the West’s first great spiritual autobiography. The Latin title “Confessiones” has a dual meaning: it signifies both a confession of sins and a profession of faith, as well as the praise given to God. The work consists of thirteen books. The first nine are autobiographical in nature; the tenth book is an analysis of memory and the human psyche; and the last three constitute a commentary on the account of creation from the Book of Genesis. Addressing God directly, Augustine recounts his journey from a restless youth, his fascination with rhetoric, Manichaeism, and Neoplatonic philosophy. This journey leads all the way to his conversion in the garden of Milan, sealed by the famous “Tolle, lege” (“Take, read”), and to his baptism at the hands of St. Ambrose. The analysis of the nature of time in Book XI became particularly renowned and remains part of the philosophical canon to this day. The work had an enormous influence on theology, philosophy, and literature. It set a standard for introspection to which writers from the Middle Ages through the modern era have referred.

The present volume is a translation by Fr. Jan Czuja, accompanied by his introduction and commentary. It was published in 1929 as Volume IX of the series “Writings of the Church Fathers,” published in Poznań by the Fiszera and Majewski University Bookstore. The series was launched in 1924 by Fr. Józef Sajdak. It was the first such large-scale undertaking to make the works of the Church Fathers available to Polish readers in new, scholarly translations, and it has left a lasting mark on the history of Polish patristics.

Aurelius Augustine was born in 354 in Tagaste, in Roman North Africa, the son of the pagan Patricius and the Christian Monica, who was later canonized as a saint. He was educated in Madaura and Carthage, and taught rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, and Milan. In 387, he was baptized, and in 396, he became bishop of Hippo. He left behind a vast body of work, most notably *The City of God* and the treatise *On the Holy Trinity*, and shaped the thought of Western Christianity for centuries to come. He died in Hippo in 430, during the Vandal siege of the city.

Provenance: a piece without any ownership marks or seals.

This is a classic pre-war translation of *The Confessions* from an important Poznań patristic series, in a period half-leather binding in very good condition, with a gilt spine. A beautiful piece suitable for both reading and collecting. A must-have for lovers of Christian literature and philosophy, scholars of patristics, and collectors of interwar publications from Poznań.

The pieces are clean. The half-leather binding is in very good condition. The spine is gilded with clear gilded lettering. The text block is intact. The paper has natural specks, discoloration, and stains.

Catalog ID: 7229-21-A-Z