TTC Video – St Augustines Confessions

In St. Augustine’s Confessions , Professors William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman lead a chapter-by-chapter—or, in Augustine’s terms, “book-by-book”—analysis of one of history’s most significant literary works. Written in the 4th century C.E., the Confessions is an opportunity to explore, in one book, questions that have been addressed in many books—by the likes of Plato, Cicero, Freud, and Einstein—for more than a millennium.

How should parents raise children, and how should schools educate children? Why are we attracted to things that are forbidden, and how do we develop addictions? What is time? What is memory and what can it tell us? How can we understand God, or the nature of evil? How should we interpret scripture? What is true friendship? How should we deal with the death of a loved one? Augustine addresses each of these issues, and many more, in a way that few thinkers have been able to equal.

The Confessions has had a staggering influence on Western civilization. It provided the framework through which the Judeo-Christian world accepted the thinking of Plato and other classical pagan philosophers. It served as the blueprint for Dante’s Divine Comedy and inspired Martin Luther.

Lectures:
01. Augustine and the Confessions
02. Augustine and the World of Classical Antiquity
03. The Corpus of Augustine’s Writings
04. Form and Genre
05. Book I—Sin and Confession
06. Book I—Augustine’s Childhood
07. Book II—Augustine Grows Up
08. Book II—Stealing Pears: So What?
09. Book III—The Journey Begins
10. Book IV—The Problem of Friendship
11. Book V—From Carthage to Rome
12. Book VI—A New Look at Christianity
13. Book VII—Neo-Platonism and Truth
14. Book VII—Faith and Reason
15. Book VIII—Converging Conversions
16. Book VIII—”Pick It Up and Read”
17. Book IX—The New Man
18. Book IX—The Death of Monica
19. Book X—Augustine the Bishop
20. Book X—Augustine on Memory
21. Book XI—Augustine on Time
22. Book XII—Augustine on Biblical Interpretation
23. Book XIII—Augustine on Creation
24. The Confessions Through the Ages