Includes bibliographical references (p. [323]-333) and index.

Introduction: Expressionist semiotics and the powerlessness of the external -- Inadequate platonist signs -- Downward causality -- Mother and child -- Why lectures get boring -- Shared vision -- Words from which we learn nothing -- Before words were signs : semiotics in Greek philosophy -- Semiotics and semantics -- Words written on platonic souls -- The logic of Aristotle's signs -- Physiognomic inferences -- Body affecting soul -- The semiotics of On interpretation -- Stoic semiotics without depth -- Empirical inference and "common signs" -- The sceptics' reminding signs -- Reminders of deeper things -- From scepticism to platonism : the concept of sign in Augustine's earliest writings -- Plato's sceptical successors -- The grasping appearance -- Zeno's definition -- The point of academic scepticism -- The wise man needs depth -- The status of the truthlike -- The two kinds of similarity -- How words became signs : the development of Augustine's expressionist semiotics -- Signifying reason -- Words that signify -- A Latin orator's signs -- Giving signs -- The ontological ground of convention -- Fallen language -- Signs moving souls -- Why we learn nothing from words : the epistemology of Augustine's semiotics -- A socratic dialogue about teaching -- The on the teacher thesis -- Christ the inner teacher -- Learning nothing from Scripture and proof -- Admonitions to look inside -- Authority and reason -- Christian mysteries and platonist philosophy -- The great shift in Augustine's teaching -- Believing persons : theological implications of Augustine's semiotics -- Secondhand knowledge -- Belief in things not seen -- Testimony about temporal things -- Witnesses to Christ -- Moses and truth -- Seeing trinitarian love -- Outward voice and inner word -- Words forming persons? -- Powerless sacraments -- Sacred signs of inner unity : Augustine and medieval sacramental theology -- Election and sacraments -- The meaning of "Sacrament" -- Signs of grace? -- The invisible sacrifice -- Taking victorinus to heart -- Puzzles in confessions -- Public inner wisdom -- Shared insight and love's union -- Words and common inquiry -- The efficacy of the church's baptism : against donatists and pelagians -- Validity without efficacy -- The efficacy of unity -- The immediate return of sins -- Unity in adam -- Unity in Christ -- Conversion and perseverance -- The soul of Christ -- New Testament sacraments and the flesh of Christ -- Sacraments old and new -- When promising is giving -- The education of the human race -- Fewer and less burdensome -- The virtue of the sacraments -- Sacraments promising Christ -- Powerless blood -- Spiritual eating.

Description based on print version record.

Cary's thesis is indicated in the subtitle - that Augustine's thought has no room for a concept of efficacious external means of grace, i.e., that neither word nor sacrament (both of which are outward signs) can convey to us the divine inner gift of grace. Therefore nothing external has the power to save us.