- 01Praise of God and the restless heart
- 02God's presence beyond heaven and earth
- 03Divine attributes and the limits of speech
- 04Confession of infancy and early dependence
- 01Learning to speak and the first lessons
- 02Boyhood discipline, play, and deferred baptism
- 03Greek, Latin, and the vanity of grammar-school learning
- 01Boyhood studies and the value of learning
- 02The torrent of human custom
- 01Pagan eloquence and theatrical fictions
- 02Boyhood declamation and wasted talent
- 01Darkened affections and distance from God
- 02Grammar, eloquence, and moral blindness
- 03Boyhood sins and confessions
Confessions
Selfhood, memory, conversion, and time.
13Chapters
95Lessons
257Topics
Certificate of completion included
This course was produced by Cavua from a public-domain text.
Skills this course leaves you with.
- Analyze Augustine's reflections on selfhood, memory, and identity
- Explain the role of conversion and divided will in the narrative
- Interpret Augustine's critique of sin, evil, and worldly ambition
- Summarize the influence of Ambrose, Monica, and the Platonists on Augustine's thought
- Trace Augustine's intellectual and spiritual development across the early books
- Discuss how time, creation, and the Word are presented in the text
Curriculum
The full table of contents.
Every chapter, every lesson, every topic — laid out before you enroll. Click any chapter to expand it.
- Chapters
- 13
- Lessons
- 95
- Topics
- 257
- 01Boyhood as God’s gifts and the danger of seeking creatures
- 02Carnal desires, lust, and the loss of true love
- 03Sixteenth-year studies, family hopes, and parental warnings
- 01The pear tree theft and love of sin
- 02Lower goods as motives for crime
- 01The stolen pears and the delight of sin
- 02False imitations of divine qualities
- 03Corrupt freedom and rebellion against the law
- 01Confession of forgiven sins and divine mercy
- 02The theft of the pears and the love of wrongdoing
- 03Friendship, shame, and the mystery of sin
- 01Carthage and the sickness of disordered love
- 02Stage-plays and the pleasure of sorrow
- 01Love of grief in the theatre
- 02Mercy without delight in sorrow
- 03Pursuit of litigation and rhetoric
- 01Cicero's Hortensius and the love of wisdom
- 02Turning to the holy Scriptures
- 01False teachers and empty truth
- 02Sensory error and the nature of God
- 03Evil as privation and true righteousness
- 01Righteousness as a unified law
- 02Offences against nature and custom
- 03Violence, envy, and the lusts of the flesh
- 01Moral judgment, divine commands, and Manichaean error
- 01Monica’s vision of Augustine’s return
- 02The bishop’s refusal and prophecy
- 01Nine years of wandering and rhetorical teaching
- 02The theatrical prize, astrologers, and the physician's warning
- 01Friendship and the death of the baptized friend
- 02Grief, tears, and the misery of attachment
- 03Earthly friendships versus love in God
- 04Created things pass away and succeed one another
- 05The soul’s true rest in God
- 06Love bodies and souls in their Maker
- 01Return to the heart and the true life
- 02The beauty of bodies and the fair and fit
- 03Hierius, praise, and the instability of human approval
- 04Misunderstanding spiritual truth through bodily examples
- 01False notions of evil and changeable substance
- 02Aristotle's ten Predicaments
- 01The limits of the predicaments
- 02The liberal arts and misused learning
- 03Pride, piety, and divine protection
- 01Confession as praise and mercy
- 02The restless flee from God
- 01Faustus's reputation and Augustine's first judgments
- 02Astronomical knowledge versus Manichean teaching
- 03Faustus's eloquence and limited learning
- 04Faustus's ignorance and Augustine's disappointment
- 05Turning from Manichaean writings to rhetoric teaching
- 06Providence in Augustine's move to Rome
- 01Departure from Carthage and Monica's grief
- 02Arrival in Rome and recovery from sickness
- 03Continuing error among the Manichees
- 01Turning from Manichaean certainty
- 02The Academics and doubt
- 03Material images of God and evil
- 04Misconceptions about Christ's incarnation
- 01Manichean objections and Scripture
- 02Rome's corrupt students and moral disgust
- 03Arrival in Milan and first hearing Ambrose
- 01Why the Catholic faith seemed defensible
- 02Abandoning the Manichees while remaining a catechumen
- 01Monica’s journey and prayers for Augustine
- 02Monica’s obedience to Ambrose’s liturgical reform
- 03Augustine’s view of Ambrose and his preaching
- 01Renouncing false certainties about God
- 02Scripture, Ambrose, and the authority of faith
- 01Authority of Scripture and the limits of reason
- 02Ambition, false praise, and the beggar's joy
- 03Alypius and the Circus
- 01Alypius turns from the Circensian races
- 02Theatre and gladiatorial spectacle
- 03The false theft accusation and vindication
- 01Alypius's integrity in office
- 02Nebridius joins the search for truth
- 03Augustine's delay in choosing wisdom
- 01Marriage, continence, and the divided will
- 02Alypius and the plan for a shared philosophical household
- 01Abandoned plan for a shared household
- 02Concubine separated for marriage plans
- 03Continued bondage to carnal pleasure
- 04Friendship, Epicurean debate, and divine deliverance
- 01Early misconceptions about God’s nature
- 02Nebridius’s refutation of the Manichean opposing mass
- 03Free will, punishment, and the search for evil’s origin
- 04Why corruption cannot belong to God
- 05The problem of evil and the goodness of creation
- 06Rejection of astrology through Firminus's birth story
- 07Twins, hidden judgment, and the failure of astrological prediction
- 01Augustine's search for the origin of evil
- 02Platonist books and the missing doctrine of Christ's humility
- 03What the Platonists taught and omitted
- 01The Unchangeable Light and the Voice of Truth
- 02Created Things, Goodness, and the Nonexistence of Evil Substance
- 01Creation's harmony and ordered goodness
- 02From dualism to God's infinity
- 03Temporal order and the perversion of the will
- 01Ascent from mutable things to unchangeable truth
- 02Christ the Mediator and the Word made flesh
- 03Mistaken view of Christ's humility
- 01Christ's true humanity in the Incarnation
- 02Platonist insight and the limits of pride
- 01Paul's grace-filled teaching
- 01Augustine’s struggle and visit to Simplicianus
- 02Victorinus’s conversion and public profession
- 03Joy over the recovered sinner
- 04Augustine’s longing to imitate Victorinus
- 01The struggle of the two wills
- 02Deliverance from desire and worldly bondage
- 01Pontitianus recounts Antony and the monks
- 02Augustine’s inward rebuke and shame
- 01The divided will in the garden
- 02Why the mind resists itself
- 03Refuting the Manichean two-natures theory
- 04Good and bad wills within one soul
- 05The final struggle with habit and continency
- 01Continence's persuasive rebuke
- 02Augustine's tears under the fig tree
- 03The voice and the opened Apostle
- 01Alypius joins the conversion
- 02Augustine's thanksgiving for deliverance
- 01Withdrawal from rhetoric teaching
- 02Verecundus and Nebridius
- 03Release from the professorship
- 01Confession of inward transformation
- 02Reading the Psalms of David
- 03Conviction by Psalm 4 and the Spirit of truth
- 01Inner awakening through Scripture
- 02Healing of the toothache
- 03Leaving the professorship and returning to Milan
- 04Baptism, hymns, and Ambrose's church
- 01Monica’s childhood discipline and sobriety
- 02Monica’s marriage and patient conduct
- 01Monica as peacemaker and faithful wife
- 02Ostia conversation on eternal life
- 03Monica's readiness for death
- 01Monica's final instructions and death
- 02Augustine's grief and the burial rites
- 01Prayer for Monica's sins and forgiveness
- 01Prayer for Monnica and Patricius
- 02Confession before God
- 01Why Augustine confesses to others
- 02The fruit of public confession
- 01Confession before God and the brethren
- 02What is loved in loving God
- 01Creation's witness: earth, sea, heavens, and the body
- 02The inner self and the search for God
- 01The fields and palaces of memory
- 02Images stored by the senses
- 03Memory as a vast inner court
- 01Memory as a vast inner chamber
- 02Learning truths without bodily images
- 03Recollection, cogitation, and remembered understanding
- 01Memory of emotions and mental states
- 02Images, notions, and remembered things
- 01Memory and forgetfulness
- 02The vastness of memory
- 03Seeking and recovering lost things
- 01The happy life remembered in the soul
- 02Joy in the truth as true happiness
- 01Truth loved and hated by the deceitful mind
- 02God found in memory and the indwelling Truth
- 03Too late loved I Thee
- 01Human life as trial and the gift of continence
- 02Continence from lust and concupiscence in sleep
- 03Fasting, eating, and the temptation of gratification
- 01The threefold concupiscence
- 01Seductions of the eyes and outward beauty
- 02The lust of the eyes as curiosity
- 01The daily temptation of human praise
- 02Inner vanity and self-pleasing
- 03Memory, truth, and the burden of bad custom
- 01The false mediator of pride and deception
- 02Christ the true Mediator between God and man
- 03Christ's saving love, sacrifice, and intercession
- 01Confession of sin and plea for healing
- 02Why the author recounts his prayers
- 03Exhortations, terrors, comforts, and ministry
- 01Prayer for understanding Scripture
- 02Creation of heaven and earth through the Word
- 03The eternal Beginning and divine Wisdom
- 01God as Creator before creation
- 01God as creator of time
- 02The nature of time and the present
- 03Measuring passing time
- 01Memory of past things and foretelling future things
- 02Threefold present in the soul
- 01Measuring time as it passes
- 02The soul's prayer for understanding
- 03Time beyond the motions of the heavens
- 01Why the sun’s motion does not define time
- 02Time as the measure of bodily motion
- 01Time is not bodily motion
- 02Measuring time through speech and sound
- 03Time as the mind's protraction
- 01Measuring time through memory
- 02Expectation, attention, and memory in the mind
- 01Memory, expectation, and present consideration
- 02Recollection in God and the eternal Creator
- 01God's incomprehensible knowledge and creation
- 02The heaven of heavens and invisible earth
- 03Formless matter and creation out of nothing
- 01The heaven of heavens and the invisible earth
- 02The eternity of God and the mutable will
- 03The house of God and the citizens of heaven
- 01Created wisdom and the eternal house of God
- 02Interpretations of heaven and earth in Genesis
- 01Interpretations of heaven and earth
- 02The earth invisible and without form
- 03Truth of the text versus Moses' intent
- 01Moses' meaning and the truth shared by all
- 02God's gift of expressive breadth in Genesis
- 03The nest and the fruit-bowers of interpretation
- 01Diversity of true interpretations of Genesis
- 02Truth, charity, and Moses's intended meaning
- 01Prayer for a true interpretation
- 02God's goodness in creation
- 03The Trinity in creation and the Spirit over the waters
- 04Love as the soul's weight
- 05Being, knowing, and willing
- 01Human self-knowledge and divine incomprehensibility
- 02Baptism, creation, and the light of repentance
- 03Faith, hope, and the groaning soul
- 01The soul’s longing and hope in God
- 02The firmament of authority in Scripture
- 03Scripture’s testimony against pride
- 01Heavenly waters and the angels above the firmament
- 02The sea of human wills and the dry land that thirsts for God
- 03Mercy, works of charity, and fruitfulness from the earth
- 04Lights in the firmament and the gifts of the Spirit
- 01Moral cleansing and the fruitful earth
- 02Lights in the firmament and apostolic witness
- 03Waters, sacraments, and the sea's creatures
- 04The earth separated from the waters
- 01The living soul through imitation and restraint
- 02Renewing the mind in God's image
- 03Spiritual judgment and dominion over creation
- 01Increase and multiply
- 01Gift and fruit
- 01The things of God knoweth no one, but the Spirit of God
- 01The peace of rest, the peace of the Sabbath
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