A reading notebook on Augustine’s Confessionsthirteen books read slowly, with the people, places and passages you want to keep

Recipe No. 38 · Faith and study

For: A first-time reader of Augustine’s Confessions

You get: Outlines, people, places, a timeline and the passages you keep

Time: An evening to set up, then a winter

See it in know.sh

Augustine’s life on a timeline, from Thagaste in 354 to Hippo in 430, each date with the book of the Confessions that tells it.

Reading AugustinePeople and places

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Timeline of Augustine’s life, 354–430

Evidence, key section, 4 sources, 402 words

Augustine tells his life up to his mother’s death in 387; the rest comes from his letters, his other books and the life written by his friend Possidius. Each event below names the book and chapter of the Confessions that tells it, in Pusey’s numbering.

```element timeline
{
  "caption": "Augustine’s life, 354–430, with where the *Confessions* tells it",
  "events": [
    {
      "date": "354-11-13",
      "title": "Born at Thagaste, in Numidia",
      "body": "To Patricius and Monnica. His infancy and schooling are Book I.",
      "section": "Told in the Confessions"
    },
    {
      "date": "c. 371",
      "title": "To Carthage to study",
      "body": "“To Carthage I came” (III, 1). Some scholars date the move to 370.",
      "section": "Told in the Confessions"
    },
    {
      "date": "373",
      "title": "Reads Cicero’s *Hortensius*",
      "body": "The book that turned him to philosophy (III, 4), read in his nineteenth year (VIII, 7); then nine years among the Manichees (IV, 1).",
      "section": "Told in the Confessions"
    },
    {
      "date": "383",
      "title": "Sails for Rome",
      "body": "Slipping away by night while Monnica prays at the shrine of Cyprian by the shore (V, 8).",
      "section": "Told in the Confessions"
    },
    {
      "date": "384",
      "title": "Professor of rhetoric at Milan",
      "body": "Where he hears Ambrose preach (V, 13).",
      "section": "Told in the Confessions"
    },
    {
      "date": "386",
      "title": "The garden in Milan",
      "body": "“Take up and read”, in the late summer (VIII, 12).",
      "section": "Told in the Confessions"
    },
    {
      "date": "387",
      "title": "Baptised by Ambrose at Easter",
      "body": "With Alypius and Adeodatus (IX, 6).",
      "more": [
        {
          "title": "Monnica dies at Ostia",
          "body": "In the autumn, aged fifty-six, as they wait to sail for Africa (IX, 10–11). The story of the *Confessions* ends here."
        }
      ],
      "section": "Told in the Confessions"
    },
    {
      "date": "391",
      "title": "Ordained priest at Hippo",
      "body": "Made bishop there c. 395; scholars differ between 395 and 396.",
      "section": "After Book IX"
    },
    {
      "date": "c. 397",
      "end": "c. 401",
      "title": "Writes the *Confessions*",
      "body": "Begun soon after he became bishop; when it was finished is argued over.",
      "section": "After Book IX"
    },
    {
      "date": "430-08-28",
      "title": "Dies at Hippo",
      "body": "In the third month of the Vandal siege of the city, as Possidius records.",
      "section": "After Book IX"
    }
  ]
}
```

Sources. Pusey’s translation for the book and chapter of each event; Possidius, Life of Augustine, for his death; Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (1967, revised 2000), for the dates the Confessions does not give.

One kept passage from Pusey’s translation, the reader’s own reflection beneath it, and a proposed note from the assistant linking it back to Book I.

Reading AugustineBook X — memory

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Book X — too late loved I Thee

Observation, key section, 1 highlight, 1 note, 1 source, 286 words

Here Augustine turns from the vast halls of memory to the one he was looking for all along.

Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days, yet ever new! too late I loved Thee! (X, 27, Pusey’s translation)

Where it sits. After pages on how memory holds places, faces and even forgotten things, he stops describing and speaks directly, as he did on the first page.

What I think. The senses come back one by one, hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch, but now as ways of being called rather than ways of being distracted. A line earlier he was “plunging amid those fair forms”; the same senses that pulled him away are how he is found.

What I still do not understand. Why “ancient” and “new” together?

ChatGPT, connected to know.sh, builds the shelf, the four documents and the people and places in one request, and leaves the reflections to you.

ChatGPT, connected to know.sh

You

Using know.sh, set up a reading notebook for Augustine’s Confessions (Pusey’s translation). Make a shelf “Reading Augustine”, four documents for Books I–IV, V–IX, X and XI–XIII with an outline of each book in the overview, and a document “People and places” with a section for each person and city and the books they appear in. Outlines only; do not quote the text.

shelf_create Created the shelf Reading Augustine

document_create Created Books I–IV — Thagaste, Carthage and the Manichees on Reading Augustine

document_create Created Books V–IX — Rome, Milan and the garden on Reading Augustine

document_create Created People and places on Reading Augustine

section_add Added “Monnica, his mother” to People and places, 1

section_add Added “Alypius, his friend from Thagaste” to People and places, 4

ChatGPT

Your notebook is set up: five documents on Reading Augustine, and 14 sections in People and places, from Monnica to Ostia, each listing the books where they appear.

The outlines are summaries in my words, book by book. Please check each one against your copy as you read; I may have placed an event in the wrong chapter. I have not quoted the text, and I have left every reflection to you.

How it works

Augustine’s Confessions is hard going: a prayer threaded with the Psalms, crowded with friends you have never met, turning to memory and time where many readers stop. Your assistant outlines each book, sorts out Monnica, Ambrose and Alypius, and dates his life from Thagaste to Hippo. You keep the passages that stop you, and write what they mean.

Ask for the scaffolding
Ask your assistant for a shelf, four documents following the books, each with a chapter-by-chapter outline, and a People and places document with a section for Monnica, Ambrose, Alypius and the rest.
Put his life on a timeline
Ask for a timeline element of Augustine’s life, from Thagaste in 354 to Hippo in 430, each date naming the book that tells it, and c. wherever scholars differ.
Keep the passages that stop you
After each reading, file the passage as a section titled with its book and a phrase, then write where it sits, what you think and what you still do not understand.
Quiz yourself on who is who
When the names start to blur around Book VI, ask your assistant for a quiz on People and places, and take it in know.sh or the iOS app.

Try this prompt

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Using know.sh, set up a reading notebook for Augustine’s Confessions on a shelf called “Reading Augustine”: four documents for Books I–IV, V–IX, X and XI–XIII, each with a chapter-by-chapter outline in its overview, and a document “People and places” with a section for each person and city, saying which books they appear in. Outlines in your own words; do not quote the text.

Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model):

Search the web and add a section to “People and places” on my Reading Augustine shelf with a timeline element of Augustine’s life, from his birth at Thagaste to his death at Hippo. Group the events as “Told in the Confessions” and “After Book IX”, name the book and chapter that tells each one, write c. before any disputed date, and list your sources.

Made with

Shelf Document Your AI assistant Elements The A–Z index Quiz

See it in know.sh

Timeline of Augustine’s life, 354–430

Book X — too late loved I Thee

How it works

Ask for the scaffolding

Put his life on a timeline

Keep the passages that stop you

Quiz yourself on who is who

Try this prompt

Made with

See also