Well, after Augustine's conversion, he resigned his post as teacher of rhetoric in Milan,

and he left for several months to Avila in the area of Lake Como right at the foot of

the Alps.

You should look it up.

It's a beautiful place.

And here Augustine is going to write his first books as a Christian.

He was writing books since 380, all of those early books.

His pre-conversion books are lost to us.

But now in 386, he began a whole new writing career.

First a quick word on his writing, he would dictate to a note-taker who used a system of

note-taking called Tyronian notes.

This was named for Tullius Tiro.

He was the scribe for Cicero, and these Tyronian or shorthand notes would then be written

out into long-hand, and they would be edited and they would become a book.

There were not commercial publishers in those days, but there were networks of scribes

and networks of scholars and friends, and you would make a few copies of a book and you

would distribute it to these associates, to these friends, and they would make more copies,

and then from those copies would come even more copies.

And it was just a case of supply and demand, and there was a great demand for books from

Augustine, and there was a steady supply.

So what were these first books that Augustine wrote as a Christian?

What were they all about?

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