"baggage on his bookshelf."

     Taken together, the Confessions and the Enchiridion give us 
two very important vantage points from which to view the 
Augustinian perspective as a whole, since they represent both his 
early and his mature formulation.  From them, we can gain a 
competent -- though by no means complete -- introduction to the 
heart and mind of this great Christian saint and sage.  There are 
important differences between the two works, and these ought to be 
noted by the careful reader.  But all the main themes of 
Augustinian Christianity appear in them, and through them we can 
penetrate to its inner dynamic core.

     There is no need to justify a new English translation of 
these books, even though many good ones already exist.  Every 
translation is, at best, only an approximation -- and an 
interpretation too.  There is small hope for a translation to end 
all translations.  Augustine's Latin is, for the most part, 
comparatively easy to read.  One feels directly the force of his 
constant wordplay, the artful balancing of his clauses, his 
laconic use of parataxis, and his deliberate involutions of 
thought and word order.  He was always a Latin rhetor; artifice of 
style had come to be second nature with him -- even though the 
Latin scriptures were powerful modifiers of his classical literary 
patterns.  But it is a very tricky business to convey such a Latin 
style into anything like modern English without considerable 
violence one way or the other.  A literal rendering of the text is 
simply not readable English.  And this falsifies the text in 
another way, for Augustine's Latin is eminently readable!  On the 
other side, when one resorts to the unavoidable paraphrase there 
is always the open question as to the point beyond which the 
thought itself is being recast.  It has been my aim and hope that 
these translations will give the reader an accurate medium of 
contact with Augustine's temper and mode of argumentation.  There 
has been no thought of trying to contrive an English equivalent 
for his style.  If Augustine's ideas come through this translation 
with positive force and clarity, there can be no serious reproach 
if it is neither as eloquent nor as elegant as Augustine in his 
own language.  In any case, those who will compare this 
translation with the others will get at least a faint notion of 
how complex and truly brilliant the original is!

     The sensitive reader soon recognizes that Augustine will not 
willingly be inspected from a distance or by a neutral observer.  
In all his writings there is a strong concern and moving power to 
involve his reader in his own process of inquiry and perplexity.  
There is a manifest eagerness to have him share in his own flashes 
of insight and his sudden glimpses of God's glory.  Augustine's 
style is deeply personal; it is therefore idiomatic, and often 
colloquial.  Even in his knottiest arguments, or in the 
labyrinthine mazes of his allegorizing (e.g., Confessions, Bk. 
XIII, or Enchiridion, XVIII), he seeks to maintain contact with 
his reader in genuine respect and openness.  He is never content 
to seek and find the truth in solitude.  He must enlist his 
fellows in seeing and applying the truth as given.  He is never 
the blind fideist; even in the face of mystery, there is a 
constant reliance on the limited but real powers of human reason, 
and a constant striving for clarity and intelligibility.  In this 
sense, he was a consistent follower of his own principle of 
"Christian Socratism," developed in the De Magistro and the De 
catechezandis rudibus.  

     Even the best of Augustine's writing bears the marks of his 
own time and there is much in these old books that is of little 
interest to any but the specialist.  There are many stones of 
stumbling in them for the modern secularist -- and even for the 
modern Christian!  Despite all this, it is impossible to read him 
with any attention at all without recognizing how his genius and 
his piety burst through the limitations of his times and his 
language -- and even his English translations!  He grips our 
hearts and minds and enlists us in the great enterprise to which 
his whole life was devoted: the search for and the celebration of 
God's grace and glory by which his faithful children are sustained 
and guided in their pilgrimage toward the true Light of us all.

     The most useful critical text of the Confessions is that of 
Pierre de Labriolle (fifth edition, Paris, 1950).  I have collated 
this with the other major critical editions: Martin Skutella, S.  
Aureli Augustini Confessionum Libri Tredecim (Leipzig, 1934) -- 
itself a recension of the Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum 
Latinorum XXXIII text of Pius Knoll (Vienna, 1896) -- and the 
second edition of John Gibb and William Montgomery (Cambridge, 
1927).

     There are two good critical texts of the Enchiridion and I 
have collated them: Otto Scheel, Augustins Enchiridion (zweite 
Auflage, Tubingen, 1930), and Jean Riviere, Enchiridion in the 
Bibliotheque Augustinienne, Oeuvres de S.  Augustin, premiere 
serie: Opuscules, IX: Exposes generaux de la foi (Paris, 1947).

     It remains for me to express my appreciation to the General 
Editors of this Library for their constructive help; to Professor 
Hollis W.  Huston, who read the entire manuscript and made many 
valuable suggestions; and to Professor William A.  Irwin, who 
greatly aided with parts of the Enchiridion.   These men share the 
credit for preventing many flaws, but naturally no responsibility 
for those remaining.  Professors Raymond P.  Morris, of the Yale 
Divinity School Library; Robert Beach, of the Union Theological 
Seminary Library; and Decherd Turner, of our Bridwell Library here 
at Southern Methodist University, were especially generous in