As part of the mission to promote learning through technology tools, AUGUSTINUS VOX also presents these audiobooks. You can find them on YouTube. I am trying to target works not found anywhere else in audiobook form for which I think there is not a big enough demand to prompt someone to make a audiobook with a human doing manual narration.
Typically each audiobook is an A.I. prompted translation from a public domain original language edition. I say typically because Plotinus is unique in being from a public domain English translation by Stephen MacKenna which I felt was pretty readable. Many older translations of Augustine in English either don’t cover all works or are a bit more old timey in use of English and more literal so harder for modern readers to approach. Regardless for Latin based works, once I get them prompt translated, I then use a digital version of my own voice to create the audiobook using a paid tool called ElevenLabs.
The plan is to do a batch of these each month as I gain more audio generation credits through ElevenLabs. So far it seems I am able to do one to three books a month. You can subscribe on YouTube to find out when more drop.
The audiobooks are not intended to replace scholarly translations or professional audiobooks. They are intended to provide an easy on-ramp into the thought of these ancient writers. If you like the music and found the ideas expressed in the lyrics interesting then this is the next logical place to go.
A note about translation method for those who geek on such things. It is a dynamic equivalent style and undeded as a reading level of 8th grade. Parts are condensed to help with understanding.
Feel free to read more about my workflow at the bottom of the page if you’re interested.
Saint Augustine – On the Happy Life – One Book
1 of 1 uploaded
Yay! A complete work. This has a special place both as first complete audiobook, as having a passage that inspired one of my favorite songs Fove Precantes, Trinitas, and as inspiring my Sapientiae Lux band. The album which is based on this work also provided me a bit of comfort in the recent passing of a friend and inspired the subsequent Satyrus album. Lots of connections here.
Saint Augustine – Against the Skeptics – Three Books
3 of 3 uploaded
The work that started all the music! Hear Augustine and his friends debate whether truth can be known.
Saint Ambrose – On the Death of Satyrus – Two Books
2 of 2 uploaded
This work is what stands behind our album of the same name. It is an ancient Christian litrugy by Saint Ambrose regarding his brother Satyrus on the occasion of his untimely death.
Saint Augustine – On Music – Six Books
1 of 6 uploaded
Experience a Augustine’s technical discussion of ancient meter and rhythm as a teacher and a student have a discussion.
Saint Ambrose – Hexameron – Six Sermons
1 of 6 uploaded
This one inspired the Catechesis albums. Listen to Ambrose preach on the six days of creation.
Plotinus – The First Ennead – Nine Tractates
2 of 9 uploaded
This one was done at the request of a good friend. Listen to Plotinus and confuse him with Plato.
The workflow for each audiobook is like this:
(1) I locate a public domain original language edition of the text I wish to create an audiobook for. Usually I am using Migne’s Patrologia Latina. If I can find a readable public domain English translation I will use that instead such as with Plotinus.
(2) I copy and paste that text into a helpful A.I. model.
(3) I request that the A.I. model translate the work and remove all scholarly citations and chapter headings. This part is actually harder than it sounds though now my own A.I. is a bit trained with instructions in memory to make it easier and more consistent in how it approaches the task.
(4) I take the translated text and do a cursory review reading portions and comparing word count of original to word count of the translation to ensure it’s at least close to the length of the original. The model likes to do paraphrases and so low word count is a sign this happened. I get it of course…translation is hard work and so it maybe gets lazy. Ha!
(5) I take the translation and import it into ElevenLabs where I have a model of my own voice stored.
(6) I add the intro and outro for the work. These parts are evolving a bit.
(7) Then comes the work of exporting audio, getting image and making the video and uploading to Youtube.
This all is very reproducible so if you had ideas for audiobooks yourself I would encourage you to give it a try and reach out if you have questions.