Confessions by Augustine — BOOK III: Student at Carthage

1. 1. Augustine came to Carthage and was consumed by a desire to love and be loved, which led him into lustful relationships.
2. 2. Augustine reflects on why people enjoy watching tragic theatrical shows, finding pleasure in the pain of fictional suffering.
3. 3. Augustine admits he loved to suffer and sought occasions for suffering through theatrical performances.
4. 4. Augustine engaged in sacrilegious quests for knowledge and lustful affairs, even daring to lust after a girl during church solemn rites.
5. 5. Augustine studied rhetoric to become a distinguished advocate, but he was quieter than other students and avoided the vandalism of the 'Wreckers'.
6. 6. Reading Cicero's Hortensius changed Augustine's feelings, making him long for the immortality of wisdom and altering his prayers toward God.
7. 7. Augustine initially found the Bible unworthy compared to Cicero's dignity, due to its humble style and his own pride.
8. 8. Augustine fell in with the Manichees, who spoke of truth and Christ but taught false doctrines about God and the world.
9. 9. Augustine was disturbed by Manichee questions about the origin of evil and God's form, not yet understanding that evil is a privation of good.
10. 10. Augustine did not understand that true inward justice judges by God's eternal law, which adapts to different times and places while remaining unaltered.
11. 11. Augustine mocked the Manichee belief that figs weep when picked and that the Elect digest bits of God from fruit.
12. 12. Augustine's mother Monica had a dream assuring her that Augustine would return to the faith, and a bishop told her that the son of her tears could not perish.