Contents – Book IV

Contents – Book IV Book IV Chapter I Concerning that Most Unhappy Time in Which He, Being Deceived, Deceived Others; and Concerning the Mockers of...

Chapter I – Concerning That Most Unhappy Time In Which He, Being Deceived, Deceived Others; And Concerning The Mockers Of His Confession.

BOOK FOUR This is the story of his years among the Manicheans. It includes the account of his teaching at Tagaste, his taking a mistress,...

Chapter II – He Teaches Rhetoric, The Only Thing He Loved, And Scorns The Soothsayer, Who Promised Him Victory.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER II 2. During those years I taught the art of rhetoric. Conquered by the desire for gain, I offered for sale speaking...

Chapter III – Not Even The Most Experienced Men Could Persuade Him Of The Vanity Of Astrology, To Which He Was Devoted.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER III 4. And yet, without scruple, I consulted those other impostors, whom they call “astrologers” [mathematicos], because they used no sacrifices and...

Chapter IV – Sorely Distressed By Weeping At The Death Of His Friend, He Provides Consolation For Himself.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER IV 7. In those years, when I first began to teach rhetoric in my native town, I had gained a very dear...

Chapter V – Why Weeping Is Pleasant To The Wretched.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER V 10. But now, O Lord, these things are past and time has healed my wound. Let me learn from thee, who...

Chapter VI – His Friend Being Snatched Away By Death, He Imagines That He Remains Only As Half.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER VI 11. But why do I speak of these things? Now is not the time to ask such questions, but rather to...

Chapter VII – Troubled By Restlessness And Grief, He Leaves His Country A Second Time For Carthage.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER VII 12. O madness that knows not how to love men as they should be loved! O foolish man that I was...

Chapter VIII – That His Grief Ceased By Time, And The Consolation Of Friends.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER VIII 13. Time never lapses, nor does it glide at leisure through our sense perceptions. It does strange things in the mind....

Chapter IX – That The Love of A Human Being, However Constant In Loving And Returning Love, Perishes; While He Who Loves God Never Loses A Friend

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER IX 14. This is what we love in our friends, and we love it so much that a man’s conscience accuses itself...

Chapter X – That All Things Exist That They May Perish, And That We Are Not Safe Unless God Watches Over Us.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER X 15. “Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.”[101] For wherever the...

Chapter XI – That Portions Of The World Are Not To Be Loved; But That God, Their Author, Is Immutable, And His Word Eternal.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER XI 16. Be not foolish, O my soul, and do not let the tumult of your vanity deafen the ear of your...

Chapter XII – Love Is Not Condemned, But Love In God, In Whom There Is Rest Through Jesus Christ, Is To Be Preferred.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER XII 18. If physical objects please you, praise God for them, but turn back your love to their Creator, lest, in those...

Chapter XIII – Love Originates From Grace, And Beauty Enticing Us.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER XIII 20. These things I did not understand at that time, and I loved those inferior beauties, and I was sinking down...

Chapter XIV – Concerning The Books Which He Wrote “On The Fair And Fit,” Dedicated To Hierius.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER XIV 21. What was it, O Lord my God, that prompted me to dedicate these books to Hierius, an orator of Rome,...

Chapter XV – While Writing, Being Blinded By Corporeal Images, He Failed To Recognise The Spiritual Nature Of God.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER XV 24. But I had not seen how the main point in these great issues [concerning the nature of beauty] lay really...

Chapter XVI – He Very Easily Understood The Liberal Arts And The Categories Of Aristotle, But Without True Fruit.

BOOK FOUR CHAPTER XVI 28. And what did it profit me that, when I was scarcely twenty years old, a book of Aristotle’s entitled The Ten...

Book Four

BOOK FOUR This is the story of his years among the Manicheans. It includes the account of his teaching at Tagaste, his taking a mistress,...

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