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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What must one avoid in interpreting the scriptures?
(a) Slothful thinking.
(b) Satan's insidious whispers.
(c) Heresy.
(d) Pride.

2. Why does Augustine publish his Confessions?
(a) To convert pagans.
(b) To earn some money.
(c) To see if there were others out there like him.
(d) So the public to know what he once was and what he is now after his Christian conversion.

3. From what does Augustine decide to withdraw?
(a) From the Catholic church.
(b) From his teaching position.
(c) From his reading of philosophy.
(d) From his mistress.

4. What differs for each individual and even at different periods of a person's life?
(a) God.
(b) The happy life.
(c) Memory.
(d) Faith.

5. With what word in the scriptures is Augustine particularly fascinated?
(a) Formlessness.
(b) Creation.
(c) Time.
(d) Heaven.

6. What happens to Verecundus before his death?
(a) He has a vision of angels hovering around him.
(b) He is ex-communicated.
(c) He converts to Manicheanism.
(d) He is baptized.

7. What does the study of the Platonist do for his study of Christian scripture?
(a) Intensifies it.
(b) Compliments it.
(c) Agrees in some places and is diametrically different in others.
(d) Refutes it.

8. What concept does Augustine have difficult understanding?
(a) That God has no body but loves man who does.
(b) That God has emotions.
(c) That Christ is the same as others but more enlightened.
(d) That Christ is God and has a body.

9. What does the story of Victorinus's conversion indicate to Augustine?
(a) That it is never to late to change.
(b) The deep compatibility between Platonic philosophy and Catholic Christianity.
(c) The lengths Christians will go to to save a soul.
(d) That a man wiser than Augustine chose it, so it would be right for Augustine.

10. What does Simplicianus tell Augustine Victorinus does before his recent passing?
(a) Converted to Christianity.
(b) Prophesizes that Augustine will be a lion of God.
(c) Converts to the Manichean sect.
(d) Prophesizes that Augustine will die in sin.

11. What tempts Augustine in this part of his life?
(a) Vanity.
(b) Drink.
(c) Music.
(d) Women.

12. To what does Augustine come to think the predictions of astrologists are due?
(a) A weakness of the brain.
(b) Making the predictions so general, they can apply to almost anyone.
(c) Purely a matter of chance, plus taking into account a person's condition, wealth, and circumstances.
(d) A misunderstanding of astronomy.

13. What does not signal the end of Augustine's struggles?
(a) His acceptance of the existence of both good and evil.
(b) His Christian faith.
(c) His study of the Old Testament.
(d) Giving up his materialistic desires.

14. What books bring a change to Augustine's thinking?
(a) Books of the disciples of Socrates.
(b) Books of the Platonists.
(c) Grendal and the Four Horsemen.
(d) The Illiad and Odyssey.

15. Who accompanies Augustine for the holiday?
(a) His wife.
(b) His friend Alypius and his mother Monica.
(c) Septimus.
(d) No one.

Short Answer Questions

1. To what does Augustine compare the recitation of a psalm?

2. Into what can the devil make himself?

3. What does scripture not discuss?

4. What can the mind remember though it doesn't exist anymore?

5. Who is Simplicianus?

(see the answer keys)

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