101 pages • 3 hours read
Saint AugustineConfessions
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 400A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
BOOK I
Reading Check
1. Who was the only non-Christian in Augustine’s home?
2. Where did Augustine grow up?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why did Augustine not enjoy his studies as a schoolboy?
BOOK II
Reading Check
1. Where did Augustine’s father send the teenaged Augustine to continue his studies?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why were Augustine’s parents not in a rush to marry him off?
2. Why does Augustine say he and his friends stole pears from a neighbor’s orchard?
BOOK III
Reading Check
1. Which book inspired Augustine to pursue philosophy?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is pure sorrow and how is it different from impure sorrow?
2. Why did Augustine turn to Manicheism?
Paired Resource
Augustine, the Manichaean, and the Problem of Evil
- This essay by Hector M. Scerri articulates the logical conundrum Augustine faced in attempting to understand the nature of evil and explains why the Manichaean religion at first drew Augustine in before ultimately leaving him dissatisfied.
- This source connects to the theme of Sin and Redemption.
- What drew Augustine to Manichean teachings?
BOOK IV
Reading Check
1. What did Augustine do after completing his schooling?
2. What event in Augustine’s life drove him to return to Carthage?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What must one remember when one admires the beauty of the material world?
Paired Resource
- This source from the World History Encyclopedia provides a readable introduction to the education system in the Roman world.
- This entry connects to the theme of The Role of Human Relations for the Devout.
- What role did education play in Augustine’s life? How did education shape Augustine’s faith?
BOOK V
Reading Check
1. What is the main reason Augustine claims he moved to Rome?
2. Where did Augustine meet Ambrose?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Who is Faustus? What are Augustine’s impressions of him?
BOOK VI
Reading Check
1. Why did Monica move to Milan?
2. What was the name of Augustine’s son?
Paired Resource
Seneca’s Letter Describing Gladiators
- This excerpt from one of Seneca’s letters to Lucilius describes his reaction to the moral depravity of gladiator games.
- This primary source connects to the theme of The Role of Human Relations for the Devout.
- What were gladiator games? Why was it seen as sinful to enjoy watching them?
BOOK VII
Reading Check
1. What does Augustine say he experienced in his vision?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How did Firminus convince Augustine to abandon astrology for good?
2. How does Augustine explain the existence of evil and sin?
BOOK VIII
Reading Check
1. Who is Simplicianus?
2. What did the voice in the garden instruct Augustine to do?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is the story of Victorinus? How does Augustine say this story inspired him to convert to Christianity?
BOOK IX
Reading Check
1. Which two people were baptized alongside Augustine?
2. Who died at Ostia?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Augustine describe as Monica’s main vice in her early years? How did she overcome this vice?
BOOKS X-XIII
Reading Check
1. How does one achieve pure happiness, according to Augustine?
2. What Biblical story does Augustine explore in the final books of his Confessions?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Augustine understand memory?
2. Why does Augustine insist it is illogical to ask what God was doing before the creation?
Paired Resource
The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation
- This section from the Catechism of the Catholic Church outlines how the Catholic Church approaches confession and sin today.
- This source connects to the themes of Confessions as a Fundamental Act of Faith and Sin and Redemption.
- How does Augustine view the purpose of confession? Compare and contrast Augustine’s view with the view of the modern Catholic Church.
Recommended Next Reads
The City of God by Saint Augustine
- This text is Augustine’s major theological survey of Christianity and its relationship to history and humanity and is one of Western philosophy’s most important works.
- Shared themes include Sin and Redemption and The Role of Human Relations for the Devout.
- Shared topics include Christianity, God, good and evil, and theology.
- The City of God on SuperSummary
The Republic by Plato
- Plato’s Republic is one of Western civilization’s founding philosophical texts. Book VI establishes the notion of the forms, including the Form of the Good, a major influence on Platonism, which then helped shape Augustine’s theology.
- Shared themes include Sin and Redemption and The Role of Human Relations for the Devout.
- Shared topics include the soul, good and evil, and philosophy.
- The Republic on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
BOOK I
Reading Check
1. His father (Book I, Chapters 6-12)
2. Thagaste, a village in Roman Africa (Book I, Chapters 13-30)
Short Answer
1. Augustine describes the vicious beatings he received from his teachers as a schoolboy, citing these beatings as the chief reason he did not enjoy his studies (especially Greek). (Book I, Chapters 6-12)
BOOK II
Reading Check
1. Carthage (Book II, Chapters 1-3)
Short Answer
1. Augustine claims that his parents were overly concerned about his career, and for this reason they were not in a rush to find him a suitable wife. (Book II, Chapters 2-3)
2. Augustine emphasizes that he and his friends stole the pears not because they were hungry or even because the pears were particularly good, but simply because they wanted to do something sinful. (Book II, Chapters 4-10)
BOOK III
Reading Check
1. Cicero’s Hortensius (Book III, Chapters 1-9)
Short Answer
1. According to Augustine, pure, worthwhile sorrow arises from the compassion one feels for somebody who is struggling with sin. Impure sorrow, on the other hand, is the selfish impulse toward the kind of passive pity one experiences while watching the sufferings of others (such as the sufferings of characters in tragedies). (Book III, Chapters 1-9)
2. When Augustine found the Bible wanting in the kind of guidance he was seeking, he turned to the religion of Manicheism, which provided a critique of many Biblical teachings and narratives. (Book III, Chapters 10-12)
BOOK IV
Reading Check
1. He taught rhetoric at Thagaste (Book IV, Chapters 1-9)
2. The death of his closest friend (Book IV, Chapters 1-9)
Short Answer
1. Augustine writes that it is acceptable and even good to admire the beauty of the material world, but only as long as one remembers that the material world is transient and exists only because of the eternity of God. (Book IV, Chapters 10-16)
BOOK V
Reading Check
1. His desire for better students (Book V, Chapters 8-14)
2. Milan (Book V, Chapters 8-14)
Short Answer
1. Faustus is an important Manichean bishop who visited Carthage when Augustine was there. Augustine describes being disappointed by Faustus’s inability to resolve his doubts about Manicheism. (Book V, Chapters 1-7)
BOOK VI
Reading Check
1. To be closer to Augustine (Book VI, Chapters 1-6)
2. Adeodatus (Book VI, Chapters 7-16)
BOOK VII
Reading Check
1. An otherworldly light (Book VII, Chapters 9-17)
Short Answer
1. Augustine describes how his friend Firminus told him an anecdote that proved to him that astrology was ridiculous: Firminus had been born at exactly the same time as the child of a neighboring slave, but though both had identical horoscopes, they led very different lives. (Book VII, Chapters 1-8)
2. Augustine writes that sin and evil arise from an unbalanced appreciation of the material world over the eternity of God, and that though God himself is perfectly good, the world he created must inevitably be imperfect because of its removal from him. (Book VII, Chapters 9-17)
BOOK VIII
Reading Check
1. A bishop in Milan (Book VIII, Chapters 1-5)
2. “Pick it up and read, pick it up and read.” (156)
Short Answer
1. Augustine recounts the story of Victorinus, which he heard from Simplicianus. Victorinus was a pagan scholar who became interested in the Bible and finally overcame his fear of social ostracism and converted to Christianity. This story inspires Augustine to do the same thing as Victorinus did and convert. (Book VIII, Chapters 1-5)
BOOK IX
Reading Check
1. Alypius and Adeodatus (Book IX, Chapters 1-6)
2. Monica (Book IX, Chapters 7-9)
Short Answer
1. According to Augustine, his mother Monica developed a weakness for wine when she was young. After being caught drinking by a maid, however, Monica abandoned the habit. (Book IX, Chapters 7-9)
BOOKS X-XIII
Reading Check
1. By knowing or “remembering” God (Book X, Chapters 18-27)
2. The creation narrative from Genesis (Books XII-XIII)
Short Answer
1. Augustine writes extensively on memory, concluding that material things exist as sensory images in the mind while skills and ideas have an independent existence. For Augustine, this implies that thinking is just a process of recollecting forgotten memories. (Book X, Chapters 1-17)
2. According to Augustine, it is illogical to ask what God was doing before the creation because time is a part of God’s creation and God does not experience time at all. (Book XI, Chapters 1-13)
