{282} Appendix D
Reconsiderations, Book 2, Chapter 6

Near the end of his career, Augustine undertook to review all his works, establish their chronology, and reexamine them in the light of his views at the time. He called this survey Retractationes, from the Latin retractare, to rehandle or take up again. It is a mistake to call them Retractions, since often Augustine is perfectly satisfied with what he finds in his earlier writings. A better English title would be Reconsiderations.

Augustine treats the Confessions only briefly in his Reconsiderations. I translate the full text here.

 

6.1 My thirteen books of Confessions praise God, who is just and good, concerning both the bad and the good things in my life, and they lift the human mind and heart to God. At least, that is the effect they had on me when I wrote them, and that is the effect they have when I read them now. Others will have to see for themselves what they think of them, though I know that many of my brothers and sisters have enjoyed them and still do enjoy them. Books 1 through 10 are about me. The remaining three books are about Holy Scripture, from the words “In the Beginning God created heaven and earth” through God’s sabbath rest.

 

6.2 In Book 4, when I confessed the wretchedness of my mind over the death of my friend, I spoke of how from two souls we had become, in a way, one soul. “And perhaps I feared death,” I said, “because I did not want the one I had loved so much to die altogether.” That strikes me as a frivolous declaration rather than a serious confession, though this silliness is mitigated somewhat by the fact that I added “perhaps.” In Book 13 I said that the firmament was established between the higher spiritual waters and the lower bodily waters. That was said without sufficient thought; the subject is, however, quite obscure.

This work begins with the words, “Great are you, Lord.”