Confessions of Love: The Ambiguities of Greek ¿Eros¿ and Latin ¿Caritas¿ includes a collection of essays by internationally renowned scholars such as Phillip Cary, Roland Teske, and Leonid Rudnytzky, tackling some historic, controversial «confessions» of love. Inspired by the Augustinian tradition, this volume focuses on the ambiguous nature of love, especially with regard to some of the conflicting aspects of Greek eros and its ancient Latin rival, caritas, in great thinkers like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Marsilio Ficino, Freud, and Max Scheler. This volume will be of interest to humanities, philosophy, theology, history, and classics departments seeking a new way to approach the Western tradition through the historic controversy in the West over eros and caritas. Finally, its focus on the retrieval and disclosure of sensuality and eroticism in these great texts will also be of special interest to postmodernism and hermeneutics.

Craig J. N. de Paulo is a distinguished scholar in Augustine and the Augustinian tradition. Some of his books include The Influence of Augustine on Heidegger: The Emergence of an Augustinian Phenomenology, Ambiguity in the Western Mind, Being and Conversion as well as a forthcoming book titled Augustinian Just War Theory and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: Confessions, Contentions and the Lust for Power.
Bernhardt Blumenthal is Professor of German at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Catherine Conroy de Paulo is Lecturer in English Composition at Pennsylvania State University.
Patrick A. Messina is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gwynedd-Mercy College in Pennsylvania.
Leonid Rudnytzky is Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Contents: Craig J. N. de Paulo: Foreword - Craig J. N. de Paulo/Leonid Rudnytzky: Introduction - Roland J. Teske, S.J: The Ambiguity of Love in Augustine of Hippo - Phillip Cary: Love and Tears: Augustine's Project of Loving without Losing - Patrick A. Messina: Love Lost and Found: The Ambiguities of Amor, Caritas and Concupiscentia in St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae - Catherine Conroy de Paulo: Marsilio Ficino's Neoplatonic Ascent of the Soul in Relation to his Augustinian Notion of Friendship - Luis Gomez: Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas: How Laughter Replaces Eros in «Apolo siguidendo a Dafne» - Bernhardt Blumenthal: The Ambiguity of Eros in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Other Writings - Leonid Rudnytzky: Eros and Ambiguity in Ukrainian Literature: The Case of Ivan Franko (1856-1916) - Bruce Lapenson: Divided Loyalties: Eros and Ambiguity in Freud; Attempts at Resolution and their Discontents - Thomas Carroll: A Deceptive Ambiguity: Revisiting Scheler's Philosophy of Love and Religious Activity - Craig J. N. de Paulo: A Mystagogical Ascent of Love: A Spiritual Reflection on the Sensuality of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy - Pieter Adriaens: Eros' Ambiguity: A Philosophical History of Male Love.