Author Guide · Early Christian Philosophy and Theology
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In a garden in Milan in late August 386, a 31-year-old professor of rhetoric from North Africa heard a child’s voice chanting “take up and read”, opened a book of Paul’s letters at random, and decided to give up his career and become a Christian. Augustine was baptised by Bishop Ambrose the following Easter, went home to Africa, and spent the rest of his life as a priest and then bishop of Hippo Regius, a port in what is now Algeria. He dictated more than a hundred separate works there, alongside hundreds of surviving sermons and letters, and wrote about that morning in Milan in the Confessions. Thomas Aquinas cited him more than any other author in the Summa Theologiae, and both Catholics and the Protestant reformers claimed him. This guide covers his 12 key works, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key works · 386–426-427 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Augustine wrote more than a hundred separate works, and also left hundreds of sermons and letters. The best known are the Confessions (c. 397–400), the story of his life up to his conversion, and The City of God (c. 413–426), written after the sack of Rome in 410. Start with the Confessions, Books 1–9. Below are his 12 key works in order of writing, the translations most readers use, and how they fit together.
Where to Start with Augustine of Hippo
If you want his life story
→ Confessions (c. 397-400) — read Books 1–9 first, the conversion is in Book 8.
If you want his big book on history and politics
→ The City of God (c. 413-426) — the two cities, written after the sack of Rome.
If you want a short summary of what he believed
→ Enchiridion (c. 421) — a handbook written for a layman who asked for one.
If you want his philosophy in dialogue form
→ On Free Choice of the Will (388-395) — where evil comes from, if God is good.
12 Augustine of Hippo Works, in Order
Against the Academicians
Written in the autumn after his conversion, at a country villa at Cassiciacum near Milan, where Augustine retired with his mother, his son and a few friends and pupils. The dialogue, in three books, takes on the Academic sceptics, who held that nothing can be known for certain, and argues that knowledge and the search for wisdom are possible. It is the first of his works to survive.
Soliloquies
Also from the Cassiciacum months: a dialogue between Augustine and Reason, in two books, about what he most wants to know, which turns out to be God and the soul, and about whether the soul is immortal. Augustine coined the Latin word soliloquia for it. An Old English version is associated with King Alfred the Great.
On Free Choice of the Will
A dialogue in three books with his friend Evodius, begun in Rome and finished in Africa, on where evil comes from if God is good. Augustine places its source in the free choice of the will, and argues that a will able to choose is still a good thing to have. The Pelagians later quoted it against him, and he answered them in the Retractations.
On the Teacher
A conversation between Augustine and his teenage son Adeodatus about signs: what words point to, and whether anyone can actually teach another person anything by speaking. They conclude that words only prompt learners to look for themselves, and that the real teacher is Christ, the truth within. Adeodatus died young, soon after their return to Africa.
Expositions of the Psalms
Commentaries on all 150 psalms, written and preached over some thirty years; many were delivered as sermons to his congregation and taken down as he spoke. It is among his longest works, and the place where his preaching voice is easiest to hear.
On Christian Teaching
A handbook in four books on how to understand Scripture and how to teach and preach it. Augustine stopped in the middle of Book 3 soon after becoming bishop and finished it some thirty years later. It argues that Christians may take what is true and useful from pagan learning, as the Israelites took the gold of the Egyptians, and its last book is a guide to Christian rhetoric.
Confessions
Thirteen books addressed to God from start to finish. Books 1–9 tell his life up to the age of 33: a childhood in Thagaste, the theft of pears from a neighbour’s tree, student years in Carthage, nine years among the Manichaeans, a career in Rome and Milan, the conversion in a Milan garden, and the death of his mother Monica at Ostia. Book 10 turns to memory, Book 11 to time, and Books 12–13 to the opening of Genesis. It is often called the first Western autobiography. Widely read translations include Henry Chadwick’s (Oxford World’s Classics, 1991), Maria Boulding’s (1997) and Sarah Ruden’s (2017).
On the Trinity
Fifteen books, written over some twenty years, on how one God can be Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The first half works through Scripture; the second looks for images of the Trinity in the human mind, in triads such as memory, understanding and will. Part of the unfinished draft was copied and circulated before he was ready, which he complained about.
The Literal Meaning of Genesis
Twelve books on the first three chapters of Genesis, his third and longest attempt at them. He argues that God created everything at once, with the six days as an order of understanding rather than of time, and warns Christians against making claims about the natural world that well-informed non-Christians know to be wrong.
The City of God
Twenty-two books begun after the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, when many Romans blamed the disaster on the abandonment of the old gods. Books 1–10 answer that charge and criticise Roman religion and philosophy; Books 11–22 tell the history of two cities, the earthly city and the City of God, from their origins to their ends. Translations include Henry Bettenson’s (Penguin, 1972) and R. W. Dyson’s (Cambridge, 1998).
Enchiridion
A short handbook for a layman, Laurentius, who had asked for a summary of Christian belief he could keep at hand. Augustine organises it around faith, hope and love, following the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and covers sin, grace and the last things in compact form.
Retractations
Near the end of his life Augustine went back through his writings in the order he had written them and commented on each, correcting what he now thought wrong and explaining the circumstances of writing. It reviews 93 works, and is the main reason his works can be dated at all.
In What Order to Read Augustine of Hippo
Augustine wrote most of his works over years, often several at once, so the dates on this page are the usual scholarly estimates, not exact years. Nothing needs to be read in sequence, but writing order does show a change: the early dialogues are philosophical and close to Plato, written by a new convert with time on his hands; the later works are a bishop’s, written in answer to controversies, questions and letters.
Most readers start with the Confessions, and many stop after Book 9, where the story of his life ends. Books 10–13, on memory, time and creation, are harder but are the part philosophers read most. The City of God is very long; many readers choose an abridged edition or read Books 1, 11–14 and 19 first.
A reading path
1. Confessions, Books 1–9, then Books 10–11 on memory and time
2. On Free Choice of the Will
3. Enchiridion
4. The City of God
5. On the Trinity
More Works, and the Main Translations
Beyond the 12 key works: 16 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other early dialogues and treatises
3
3 books · 386–390
- 386On the Happy Lifea birthday conversation at Cassiciacum on what makes a life happy
- 386On Ordera dialogue on providence and the order of things
- 390On True Religionan early account of Christianity as the true philosophy
Pastoral and controversial works
7
7 books · 395–424
- 395On Lyingwhether a lie is ever permitted; he says no
- 399On Catechising the Uninstructedhow to teach the faith to beginners
- 401On the Good of Marriagemarriage defended against those who ranked it far below virginity
- 406Tractates on the Gospel of Johnsermons on John’s gospel, preached over many years
- 412On the Spirit and the Letterone of the first works against the Pelagians, on grace
- 413On Nature and Gracea reply to Pelagius’s book On Nature
- 424On Grace and Free Choicewritten for monks troubled by his teaching on grace
English translations
6
6 books · 1610–2017
- 1610Of the Citie of Godthe first English translation of The City of God
- 1871The City of Godthe Victorian version later reissued by the Modern Library
- 1972Concerning the City of God against the Pagansthe Penguin Classics translation
- 1991ConfessionsOxford World’s Classics
- 1997The Confessionsa translation by a Benedictine nun
- 2017Confessionsa new version for the Modern Library
The years · 354–430
Quick facts about Augustine of Hippo
- Known for
- Writing the Confessions and The City of God, and shaping Western Christian teaching on grace, original sin and the Church more than any other writer after the apostles.
- 354
- Born in Thagaste, Roman North Africa
- 386
- Converted in a garden in Milan
- 397
- Confessions begun
- 413
- Begins The City of God
- 430
- Dies during the Vandal siege of Hippo
- Born
- 13 November 354, Thagaste, Numidia, now Souk Ahras in Algeria; his mother Monica was a Christian, his father Patricius a pagan baptised late in life
- Died
- 28 August 430, Hippo Regius, now Annaba in Algeria, aged 75, while the Vandals besieged the city
- Career
- Taught rhetoric in Thagaste and Carthage, opened a school in Rome in 383, and became professor of rhetoric in Milan in 384
- Church
- Baptised by Ambrose in Milan at Easter 387; priest at Hippo in 391; bishop of Hippo from 395 until his death
- Family
- A son, Adeodatus, born about 372 to a partner whose name he never gave
- Works
- More than a hundred separate titles; the Retractations review 93 of them; more than 350 sermons are accepted as authentic
- Recognition
- Named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298
The red mark is 397, when Augustine, by then bishop of Hippo, began the Confessions.
How Augustine Wrote: Prayer, Argument and Controversy
The Confessions is written in the second person, to God, from the first line to the last. Augustine had been a professional rhetorician, and the book shows it: questions piled on questions, balanced phrases, and quotations from Scripture, above all the Psalms, woven into his own sentences. It is both a story and a prayer, and he often stops the story to ask what an episode, such as the theft of the pears, actually meant.
Most of his later works were written for an occasion. He argued for decades against three groups: the Manichaeans, whom he had once belonged to; the Donatists, a rival church in Africa; and the Pelagians, who held that people could avoid sin by their own effort. Many books began as answers to a letter or a question, and he dictated to stenographers, which is how so much survives, including sermons taken down as he preached.
He was also a philosopher who started from questions rather than systems. Book 11 of the Confessions asks what time is and finds he can no longer say once someone asks him; The City of God (Book 11) argues that if he is mistaken, he must exist to be mistaken, an argument often compared with Descartes’s. Ludwig Wittgenstein opened his Philosophical Investigations with a passage from the Confessions about learning words as a child. And at the end of his life he reread all of it, in the Retractations, to say where he had been wrong.
Frequently asked questions about Augustine of Hippo’s books
How many books has Augustine of Hippo written?
More than a hundred separate works survive, many in several books, along with more than 350 sermons accepted as authentic and hundreds of letters. In the Retractations, written in 426–427, he reviewed 93 of his works himself. This page lists 12 key works and the main translations.
What are Augustine of Hippo’s books in order?
In order of writing, with the usual approximate dates: Against the Academicians (386), Soliloquies (c. 387), On Free Choice of the Will (388–395), On the Teacher (c. 389), Expositions of the Psalms (392–422), On Christian Teaching (396–427), Confessions (c. 397–400), On the Trinity (c. 400–420), The Literal Meaning of Genesis (401–416), The City of God (c. 413–426), Enchiridion (c. 421) and Retractations (426–427).
Where should I start with Augustine of Hippo?
With the Confessions, Books 1–9, which tell his life from childhood to his conversion in Milan in 386 and the death of his mother. Then try Books 10–11, on memory and time, or the short Enchiridion for an overview of what he believed.
What is Augustine of Hippo’s most famous book?
The Confessions (c. 397–400), often called the first Western autobiography. His other famous book is The City of God (c. 413–426), his response to the sack of Rome in 410.
Which translation of the Confessions should I read?
Several are widely used. Henry Chadwick’s (Oxford World’s Classics, 1991) is close to the Latin with helpful notes; R. S. Pine-Coffin’s is the long-standing Penguin Classics version; Maria Boulding’s (1997), Garry Wills’s (2008), Sarah Ruden’s (2017) and Thomas Williams’s (2019) are more recent. E. B. Pusey’s 19th-century translation is free online. For The City of God, the main choices are Henry Bettenson’s (Penguin, 1972), R. W. Dyson’s (Cambridge, 1998) and William Babcock’s (New City Press, 2012).
Why did Augustine write The City of God?
After the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, many Romans blamed the disaster on the city’s turn from its old gods to Christianity. Augustine began The City of God to answer that charge, and it grew into 22 books on the whole of history as the story of two cities, one living for itself and one for God.
Was Augustine African?
Yes. He was born in Thagaste in the Roman province of Numidia, now Souk Ahras in Algeria, and apart from about five years in Rome and Milan he lived his whole life in North Africa. He wrote in Latin and was a Roman citizen; his family’s precise ethnic background is not recorded.
Did Augustine have a son?
Yes. For about fifteen years he lived with a woman whose name he never gives, and with her had a son, Adeodatus, born about 372. When a marriage was arranged for him in Milan she was sent back to Africa, an episode he describes in the Confessions. Adeodatus was baptised with his father in 387, appears in On the Teacher, and died young.
Why is Augustine controversial?
Several of his teachings remain disputed. Against the Pelagians he developed the doctrine of original sin, the view that the guilt of Adam is passed on to all humans, and an account of grace and predestination that the Protestant reformers later took up and that critics have called fatalistic. His view of sexual desire as a wound of the Fall has been blamed for shaping Western Christian attitudes to sex. He also came to support the use of Roman imperial law to force the Donatists back into the Catholic Church, a position his modern defenders and critics both find uncomfortable.
Is Augustine a saint?
Yes. He is venerated as a saint, his feast day is 28 August, the day he died, and Pope Boniface VIII named him one of the original Doctors of the Church in 1298. He is also honoured in Anglican and Lutheran traditions, and Luther and Calvin both drew heavily on his work.
Footnotes
- Augustine of Hippo — Wikipedia
- Bibliography of Augustine of Hippo — Wikipedia
- The City of God — Wikipedia
- The Confessions of Saint Augustine, translated by E. B. Pusey — Project Gutenberg
- What translation of Augustine’s Confessions should I read? — Catholic World Report, 2021
- Saint Augustine: The Retractations — Logos (Fathers of the Church series)
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.”
— Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 1 (c. 397–400), in E. B. Pusey’s translation
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