St. Augustine’s Confessions and the Intellectual Foundations of the Christian World

I. St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430

1. Augustine’s World
2. The End of the Roman World
3. The Beginnings of Christianity and Christendom
4. Heretics
5. Schisms

II. Literary and Religious Precedents: New Testament Conversion Stories

1. The Gospels
2. Acts of the Apostles
3. St. Paul: Blindness and Insight
4. The Spread of Christianity
5. The Power of the Word

III. Ancient and Modern: Platonism and Christianity

1. Exegesis
2. Rhetoric
3. Knowledge
4. The Neoplatonic Tradition

IV. Augustine’s Achievement

1. Autobiographical Narrative
2. The Scene of Reading
3. The Poetics of Conversion
4. The Heavenly City
5. The Medieval World