The Confessions — Book 9

St. Augustine of Hippo

1. 0. Greeting
2. 1. He Praises God, the Author of Safety, and Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, Acknowledging His Own Wickedness.
3. 2. As His Lungs Were Affected, He Meditates Withdrawing Himself from Public Favour.
4. 3. He Retires to the Villa of His Friend Verecundus, Who Was Not Yet a Christian, and Refers to His Conversion and Death, as Well as that of Nebridius.
5. 4. In the Country He Gives His Attention to Literature, and Explains the Fourth Psalm in Connection with the Happy Conversion of Alypius. He is Troubled with Toothache.
6. 5. At the Recommendation of Ambrose, He Reads the Prophecies of Isaiah, But Does Not Understand Them.
7. 6. He is Baptized at Milan with Alypius and His Son Adeodatus. The Book De Magistro.
8. 7. Of the Church Hymns Instituted at Milan; Of the Ambrosian Persecution Raised by Justina; And of the Discovery of the Bodies of Two Martyrs.
9. 8. Of the Conversion of Evodius, and the Death of His Mother When Returning with Him to Africa; And Whose Education He Tenderly Relates.
10. 9. He Describes the Praiseworthy Habits of His Mother; Her Kindness Towards Her Husband and Her Sons.
11. 10. A Conversation He Had with His Mother Concerning the Kingdom of Heaven.
12. 11. His Mother, Attacked by Fever, Dies at Ostia.
13. 12. How He Mourned His Dead Mother.
14. 13. He Entreats God for Her Sins, and Admonishes His Readers to Remember Her Piously.

He speaks of his design of forsaking the profession of rhetoric; of the death of his friends, Nebridius and Verecundus; of having received baptism in the thirty-third year of his age; and of the virtues and death of his mother, Monica.