Contents
Table of Contents
Prolegomena: St. Augustin’s Life and Work
A Sketch of the Life of St. Augustin
The Influence of St. Augustin on Posterity, and His Relation to Catholicism and Protestantism
Chief Events in the Life of St. Augustin
The Opinion of St. Augustin Concerning His Confessions
He Proclaims the Greatness of God, Whom He Desires to Seek and Invoke, Being Awakened by Him.
That the God Whom We Invoke is in Us, and We in Him.
Everywhere God Wholly Filleth All Things, But Neither Heaven Nor Earth Containeth Him.
The Majesty of God is Supreme, and His Virtues Inexplicable.
He Seeks Rest in God, and Pardon of His Sins.
He Describes His Infancy, and Lauds the Protection and Eternal Providence of God.
He Shows by Example that Even Infancy is Prone to Sin.
Why He Despised Greek Literature, and Easily Learned Latin.
He Entreats God, that Whatever Useful Things He Learned as a Boy May Be Dedicated to Him.
He Continues on the Unhappy Method of Training Youth in Literary Subjects.
Men Desire to Observe the Rules of Learning, But Neglect the Eternal Rules of Everlasting Safety.
He Deplores the Wickedness of His Youth.
In His Theft He Loved the Company of His Fellow-Sinners.
It Was a Pleasure to Him Also to Laugh When Seriously Deceiving Others.
He Rejects the Sacred Scriptures as Too Simple, and as Not to Be Compared with the Dignity of Tully.
He Argues Against the Same as to the Reason of Offences.
That the Judgment of God and Men as to Human Acts of Violence, is Different.
He Reproves the Triflings of the Manichæans as to the Fruits of the Earth.
He Refers to the Tears, and the Memorable Dream Concerning Her Son, Granted by God to His Mother.
The Excellent Answer of the Bishop When Referred to by His Mother as to the Conversion of Her Son.
He Teaches Rhetoric, the Only Thing He Loved, and Scorns the Soothsayer, Who Promised Him Victory.
Sorely Distressed by Weeping at the Death of His Friend, He Provides Consolation for Himself.
Why Weeping is Pleasant to the Wretched.
His Friend Being Snatched Away by Death, He Imagines that He Remains Only as Half.
Troubled by Restlessness and Grief, He Leaves His Country a Second Time for Carthage.
That His Grief Ceased by Time, and the Consolation of Friends.
That All Things Exist that They May Perish, and that We are Not Safe Unless God Watches Over Us.
Love Originates from Grace and Beauty Enticing Us.
Concerning the Books Which He Wrote ‘On the Fair and Fit,’ Dedicated to Hierius.
He Very Easily Understood the Liberal Arts and the Categories of Aristotle, But Without True Fruit.
That It Becomes the Soul to Praise God, and to Confess Unto Him.
On the Vanity of Those Who Wished to Escape the Omnipotent God.
Faustus Was Indeed an Elegant Speaker, But Knew Nothing of the Liberal Sciences.
Clearly Seeing the Fallacies of the Manichæans, He Retires from Them, Being Remarkably Aided by God.
He Sets Out for Rome, His Mother in Vain Lamenting It.
Being Attacked by Fever, He is in Great Danger.
Helpidius Disputed Well Against the Manichæans as to the Authenticity of the New Testament.
Professing Rhetoric at Rome, He Discovers the Fraud of His Scholars.
He is Sent to Milan, that He, About to Teach Rhetoric, May Be Known by Ambrose.
She, on the Prohibition of Ambrose, Abstains from Honouring the Memory of the Martyrs.
He Recognises the Falsity of His Own Opinions, and Commits to Memory the Saying of Ambrose.
Faith is the Basis of Human Life; Man Cannot Discover that Truth Which Holy Scripture Has Disclosed.
On the Source and Cause of True Joy,—The Example of the Joyous Beggar Being Adduced.
He Leads to Reformation His Friend Alypius, Seized with Madness for the Circensian Games.
Innocent Alypius, Being Apprehended as a Thief, is Set at Liberty by the Cleverness of an Architect.
The Wonderful Integrity of Alypius in Judgment. The Lasting Friendship of Nebridius with Augustin.
Being Troubled by His Grievous Errors, He Meditates Entering on a New Life.
Discussion with Alypius Concerning a Life of Celibacy.
Being Urged by His Mother to Take a Wife, He Sought a Maiden that Was Pleasing Unto Him.
The Design of Establishing a Common Household with His Friends is Speedily Hindered.
That the Cause of Evil is the Free Judgment of the Will.
That God is Not Corruptible, Who, If He Were, Would Not Be God at All.
He Refutes the Divinations of the Astrologers, Deduced from the Constellations.
He is Severely Exercised as to the Origin of Evil.
By God’s Assistance He by Degrees Arrives at the Truth.
Divine Things are the More Clearly Manifested to Him Who Withdraws into the Recesses of His Heart.
That Creatures are Mutable and God Alone Immutable.
Whatever Things the Good God Has Created are Very Good.
It is Meet to Praise the Creator for the Good Things Which are Made in Heaven and Earth.
Being Displeased with Some Part Of God’s Creation, He Conceives of Two Original Substances.
Whatever Is, Owes Its Being to God.
Evil Arises Not from a Substance, But from the Perversion of the Will.
Above His Changeable Mind, He Discovers the Unchangeable Author of Truth.
Jesus Christ, the Mediator, is the Only Way of Safety.
He Does Not Yet Fully Understand the Saying of John, that ‘The Word Was Made Flesh.’
He Rejoices that He Proceeded from Plato to the Holy Scriptures, and Not the Reverse.
What He Found in the Sacred Books Which are Not to Be Found in Plato.
That God and the Angels Rejoice More on the Return of One Sinner Than of Many Just Persons.
He Shows by the Example of Victorinus that There is More Joy in the Conversion of Nobles.
Of the Causes Which Alienate Us from God.
Pontitianus’ Account of Antony, the Founder of Monachism, and of Some Who Imitated Him.
The Conversation with Alypius Being Ended, He Retires to the Garden, Whither His Friend Follows Him.
That the Mind Commandeth the Mind, But It Willeth Not Entirely.
He Refutes the Opinion of the Manichæans as to Two Kinds of Minds,—One Good and the Other Evil.
As His Lungs Were Affected, He Meditates Withdrawing Himself from Public Favour.
At the Recommendation of Ambrose, He Reads the Prophecies of Isaiah, But Does Not Understand Them.
He is Baptized at Milan with Alypius and His Son Adeodatus. The Book ‘De Magistro.’
He Describes the Praiseworthy Habits of His Mother; Her Kindness Towards Her Husband and Her Sons.
A Conversation He Had with His Mother Concerning the Kingdom of Heaven.
His Mother, Attacked by Fever, Dies at Ostia.
How He Mourned His Dead Mother.
He Entreats God for Her Sins, and Admonishes His Readers to Remember Her Piously.
In God Alone is the Hope and Joy of Man.
He Who Confesseth Rightly Unto God Best Knoweth Himself.
That in His Confessions He May Do Good, He Considers Others.
That Man Knoweth Not Himself Wholly.
That God is to Be Found Neither from the Powers of the Body Nor of the Soul.
Of the Nature and the Amazing Power of Memory.
What It is to Learn and to Think.
On the Recollection of Things Mathematical.
Concerning the Manner in Which Joy and Sadness May Be Brought Back to the Mind and Memory.
In Memory There are Also Images of Things Which are Absent.
The Privation of Memory is Forgetfulness.
God Cannot Be Attained Unto by the Power of Memory, Which Beasts and Birds Possess.
A Thing When Lost Could Not Be Found Unless It Were Retained in the Memory.
We Should Not Seek for God and the Happy Life Unless We Had Known It.
How a Happy Life May Be Retained in the Memory.
A Happy Life is to Rejoice in God, and for God.
All Wish to Rejoice in the Truth.
He Who Finds Truth, Finds God.
He is Glad that God Dwells in His Memory.
God Everywhere Answers Those Who Take Counsel of Him.
He Grieves that He Was So Long Without God.
All Hope is in the Mercy of God.
Of the Perverse Images of Dreams, Which He Wishes to Have Taken Away.
Of the Charms of Perfumes Which are More Easily Overcome.
Another Kind of Temptation is Curiosity, Which is Stimulated by the Lust of the Eyes.
A Third Kind is ‘Pride’ Which is Pleasing to Man, Not to God.
He is Forcibly Goaded on by the Love of Praise.
Vain-Glory is the Highest Danger.
Of the Vice of Those Who, While Pleasing Themselves, Displease God.
The Only Safe Resting-Place for the Soul is to Be Found in God.
Having Conquered His Triple Desire, He Arrives at Salvation.
In What Manner Many Sought the Mediator.
That Jesus Christ, at the Same Time God and Man, is the True and Most Efficacious Mediator.
By Confession He Desires to Stimulate Towards God His Own Love and That of His Readers.
He Begs of God that Through the Holy Scriptures He May Be Led to Truth.
He Begins from the Creation of the World—Not Understanding the Hebrew Text.
Heaven and Earth Cry Out that They Have Been Created by God.
God Created the World Not from Any Certain Matter, But in His Own Word.
He Did Not, However, Create It by a Sounding and Passing Word.
By His Co-Eternal Word He Speaks, and All Things are Done.
The Rashness of Those Who Inquire What God Did Before He Created Heaven and Earth.
What God Did Before the Creation of the World.
Before the Times Created by God, Times Were Not.
Neither Time Past Nor Future, But the Present Only, Really is.
There is Only a Moment of Present Time.
Time Can Only Be Perceived or Measured While It is Passing.
Nevertheless There is Time Past and Future.
Past and Future Times Cannot Be Thought of But as Present.
We are Ignorant in What Manner God Teaches Future Things.
In What Manner Time May Properly Be Designated.
He Prays God that He Would Explain This Most Entangled Enigma.
That Time is a Certain Extension.
That Time is Not a Motion of a Body Which We Measure by Time.
He Calls on God to Enlighten His Mind.
We Measure Longer Events by Shorter in Time.
Times are Measured in Proportion as They Pass by.
Time in the Human Mind, Which Expects, Considers, and Remembers.
Again He Refutes the Empty Question, ‘What Did God Before the Creation of the World?’
The Discovery of Truth is Difficult, But God Has Promised that He Who Seeks Shall Find.
Of the Double Heaven,—The Visible, and the Heaven of Heavens.
Of the Darkness Upon the Deep, and of the Invisible and Formless Earth.
From the Formlessness of Matter, the Beautiful World Has Arisen.
What May Have Been the Form of Matter.
He Confesses that at One Time He Himself Thought Erroneously of Matter.
Out of Nothing God Made Heaven and Earth.
What May Be Discovered to Him by God.
From the Formless Earth God Created Another Heaven and a Visible and Formed Earth.
Of the Depth of the Sacred Scripture, and Its Enemies.
He Argues Against Adversaries Concerning the Heaven of Heavens.
He Wishes to Have No Intercourse with Those Who Deny Divine Truth.
He Mentions Five Explanations of the Words of Genesis I. I.
What Error is Harmless in Sacred Scripture.
He Enumerates the Things Concerning Which All Agree.
Of the Words, ‘In the Beginning,’ Variously Understood.
Of the Explanation of the Words, ‘The Earth Was Invisible.’
He Discusses Whether Matter Was from Eternity, or Was Made by God.
Two Kinds of Disagreements in the Books to Be Explained.
Out of the Many True Things, It is Not Asserted Confidently that Moses Understood This or That.
What He Might Have Asked of God Had He Been Enjoined to Write the Book of Genesis.
The Style of Speaking in the Book of Genesis is Simple and Clear.
The Words, ‘In the Beginning,’ And, ‘The Heaven and the Earth,’ Are Differently Understood.
Concerning the Opinion of Those Who Explain It ‘At First He Made.’
In the Great Diversity of Opinions, It Becomes All to Unite Charity and Divine Truth.
Moses is Supposed to Have Perceived Whatever of Truth Can Be Discovered in His Words.
He Calls Upon God, and Proposes to Himself to Worship Him.
All Creatures Subsist from the Plenitude of Divine Goodness.
Genesis I. 3,—Of ‘Light,’—He Understands as It is Seen in the Spiritual Creature
He Recognises the Trinity in the First Two Verses of Genesis.
Why the Holy Ghost Should Have Been Mentioned After the Mention of Heaven and Earth.
That the Holy Spirit Brings Us to God.
That Nothing Whatever, Short of God, Can Yield to the Rational Creature a Happy Rest.
Why the Holy Spirit Was Only ‘Borne Over’ The Waters.
That Nothing Arose Save by the Gift of God.
That the Symbols of the Trinity in Man, to Be, to Know, and to Will, are Never Thoroughly Examined.
Allegorical Explanation of Genesis, Chap. I., Concerning the Origin of the Church and Its Worship.
That the Renewal of Man is Not Completed in This World.
Allegorical Explanation of the Firmament and Upper Works, Ver. 6.
That No One But the Unchangeable Light Knows Himself.
Allegorical Explanation of the Sea and the Fruit-Bearing Earth—Verses 9 and 11.
Of the Lights and Stars of Heaven—Of Day and Night, Ver. 14.
All Men Should Become Lights in the Firmament of Heaven.
Concerning Reptiles and Flying Creatures (Ver. 20),—The Sacrament of Baptism Being Regarded.
He Explains the Divine Image (Ver. 26) of the Renewal of the Mind.
That to Have Power Over All Things (Ver. 26) is to Judge Spiritually of All.
Why God Has Blessed Men, Fishes, Flying Creatures, and Not Herbs and the Other Animals (Ver. 28).
He Explains the Fruits of the Earth (Ver. 29) of Works of Mercy.
He Proceeds to the Last Verse, ‘All Things are Very Good,’—That Is, the Work Being Altogether Good.
He Refutes the Opinions of the Manichæans and the Gnostics Concerning the Origin of the World.
We Do Not See ‘That It Was Good’ But Through the Spirit of God Which is in Us.
Of the Particular Works of God, More Especially of Man.
The World Was Created by God Out of Nothing.
He Prays God for that Peace of Rest Which Hath No Evening.
The Seventh Day, Without Evening and Setting, the Image of Eternal Life and Rest in God.
From Paulinus to Romanianus and Licentius
To Eleusius, Glorius, and the Two Felixes
To the Magistrates of Suffectum
To the Clergy, etc., of the Church of Hippo
A Challenge to a Manichæan Teacher
To His Well-Beloved Brethren the Clergy, etc.
To Albina, Pinianus, and Melania
Honorius Augustus and Theodosius Augustus to Bishop Aurelius
Jerome to Alypius and Augustin
The Confessions of St. Augustin: Index of Subjects