The Confessions — Book 4

St. Augustine of Hippo

1. 0. Greeting
2. 1. Concerning that Most Unhappy Time in Which He, Being Deceived, Deceived Others; And Concerning the Mockers of His Confession.
3. 2. He Teaches Rhetoric, the Only Thing He Loved, and Scorns the Soothsayer, Who Promised Him Victory.
4. 3. Not Even the Most Experienced Men Could Persuade Him of the Vanity of Astrology to Which He Was Devoted.
5. 4. Sorely Distressed by Weeping at the Death of His Friend, He Provides Consolation for Himself.
6. 5. Why Weeping is Pleasant to the Wretched.
7. 6. His Friend Being Snatched Away by Death, He Imagines that He Remains Only as Half.
8. 7. Troubled by Restlessness and Grief, He Leaves His Country a Second Time for Carthage.
9. 8. That His Grief Ceased by Time, and the Consolation of Friends.
10. 9. That the Love of a Human Being, However Constant in Loving and Returning Love, Perishes; While He Who Loves God Never Loses a Friend.
11. 10. That All Things Exist that They May Perish, and that We are Not Safe Unless God Watches Over Us.
12. 11. That Portions of the World are Not to Be Loved; But that God, Their Author, is Immutable, and His Word Eternal.
13. 12. Love is Not Condemned, But Love in God, in Whom There is Rest Through Jesus Christ, is to Be Preferred.
14. 13. Love Originates from Grace and Beauty Enticing Us.
15. 14. Concerning the Books Which He Wrote On the Fair and Fit, Dedicated to Hierius.
16. 15. While Writing, Being Blinded by Corporeal Images, He Failed to Recognise the Spiritual Nature of God.
17. 16. He Very Easily Understood the Liberal Arts and the Categories of Aristotle, But Without True Fruit.

Then follows a period of nine years from the nineteenth year of his age, during which having lost a friend, he followed the Manichæans — and wrote books on the fair and fit, and published a work on the liberal arts, and the categories of Aristotle.