Editor’s note: An earlier version of this essay was posted at CWR on January 25, 2021. The author has now added two recent translations—Peter Constantine (2018) and Anthony Esolen (2023)—and has lightly edited some of […]
In the comments to my CWR article on different translations of the Confessions, a reader related the common experience of trying to read Augustine and giving up. “The time to read and digest the Confessions […]
There is a somewhat hot debate today about whether the Bible teaches there is only one God (monotheism) or whether God is the chief god among many gods (henotheism) but who alone should be worshiped […]
Editor’s note: The following address was given to the Hope College graduating class of 2020 on May 22, 2021, one year after their Commencement ceremony was canceled due to COVID. Dear Class of 2020, I […]
As I was reading Augustine’s discussion of true worship in the City of God this past week, I was struck by how naturally Augustine holds together things that contemporary Catholic culture has divided. Let me […]
Augustine’s views on sex have generally fallen on hard times. They are (supposedly) too rigid, too full of guilt, too pro-natal, too dismissive of pleasure, and generally understood to be the source of most of […]
Dr. Jared Ortiz is Associate Professor of Religion at Hope College, author of You Made Us for Yourself: Creation in St Augustine’s Confessions (Fortress Press, 2016), founder and executive director of the Saint Benedict Institute, […]
In Book 1 of the City of God, Augustine does something rather strange: after setting out to defend the city of God and dismantle the claims of its pagan critics via a vigorous disputatio, he […]
When it comes to attitudes about suicide, we Americans are Janus-faced. We are shocked and grieved when loved ones or famous people take their lives, and yet we show high approval ratings for euthanasia (72% […]
In the ancient Lavinium, a port city thirty miles south of Rome, the people celebrated the festival of the god Liber for a whole month. The main festivity was a parade which included a large […]
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