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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
In the year 427, when Saint Augustine was seventy-two years of age, he began to work on a treatise which he called the Retractationes. This was a task he had been wanting to accomplish since 412, when the idea first occurred to him, as he confessed to Marcellinus,1 “to gather together and point out, in a work devoted to this express purpose, all the things which most justly displease me in my books.” He states in the Prologue to the Retractationes that he finally felt forced to begin the work. “For a long time I have been thinking over and planning a task which, with the help of the Lord, I am now beginning, because I think it should be postponed no longer: namely, to review my writings, whether books, letters, or tractates, with a kind of judicial severity, and to indicate, as if with a censor's pen, what displeases me.”2
1 Epistulae CXLIII, 2. English translation by Pilkington, J. G. in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (First Series), I, 490.Google Scholar
2 Retractaliones. Prologue, 1.
3 Portalie, Eugene, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, II, 89Google Scholar, says that the Confessiones contains the history of Augustine's heart; the Retratationes, of his mind.
4 Epistulae CCXXIV, 2. Translation by Pope, Hugh, Saint Augustine of Hippo (London, 1937), 365.Google Scholar
5 Vita Augustini, xxviii, Translation by Weiskotten, Herbert T. in his edition of the Sancti Augustini Uita scripta a Possidio (Princeton, 1919).Google Scholar
6 Retractationes, Prologue 3.
7 Epistulae, CXLIII, 2.
8 Harnack's essay before the Royal Prussian Academy on December 21, 1905, entitled Die Retractionen Augustins, has the only complete catalogue of all of Augustine's 219 retractations. It is the one indispensable work in this field.
9 Augustine began to write De Libero Arbitrio in 388 in Rome for the purpose of confuting the Manichaeans, who denied that sin originated in man's free will and contended that God was the origin of evil. This did not seem to call for a treatment of the doctrine of the grace of God, Augustine thought.
10 Retractationes, I, viii, 3.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., I, viii, 4.
12 De Libero Arbitrio, II, xx, 54Google Scholar. Obviously the Pelagians had overlooked these passages in De Libero Arbitrio when they said that Augustine had not dealt with the doctrine of grace.
13 De Genesi Adversos Manicheos, I, iii, 6.Google Scholar
14 Proverbs 8:35 (Septuagint).
15 Retractationes, I, ix, 2.Google Scholar
16 Ibid., I, xiv, 3.
17 The Nicene and Post-Niceine Fathers, IV, 102, n. 1.Google Scholar
18 Retractationes, I, xvi, 2.Google Scholar
19 Romans 9: 16, quoted in Expositio Quarundam Pro positionurn ex Epistula Apostoli ad Romanos, 62.
20 Romans 9:11.
21 Retractationes, I, xxii, 6.Google Scholar
22 De Vera Religione, x, 19.Google Scholar
23 I John 4:2; II John 7.
24 Retractationes, I, xii, 3.Google Scholar
25 De Inmortalite Animae, xv, 24.Google Scholar
26 Retractationes, I, v, 4.Google Scholar
27 Soliloquia, I, vii, 14.Google Scholar
28 Retractationes, I, iv, 5.Google Scholar
29 De Utilitate Credendi, xi, 25.Google Scholar
30 Matthew 7:7, 8; Luke 11:9, 10.
31 Cicero, , Academica, II, 59, 66, 76.Google Scholar
32 Retractationes, I, xiii, 3.Google Scholar
33 I, xvi, 2; xxi, 4; xxv, 10; II, xxix, 2.
34 Retractationes, I, xxii.Google Scholar
35 De Civitate Dei, XXI, xxvii.Google Scholar
36 Matthew 5:22.
37 Retractationes, I, xviii, 7.Google Scholar
38 Of the agreement of the Old and New Testaments, in opposition to the Manichaean view that parts of the Scripture should be rejected.
39 Psalm 44:22, quoted by Paul in Romans 8:36 and referred to by Augustine, in De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae et De Moribus Manicheorum, I, ix, 14, 15.Google Scholar
40 Retractationes, I, vi, 2.Google Scholar
41 Romans 13:1, which Augustine, quotes in De Vera Re1igine, xli, 77.Google Scholar
42 Retractationes, I, xii, 10Google Scholar. Other corrections Augustine makes on the basis of a better knowledge of the Bible text may be found in Retractationes, I, vi, 3, 4Google Scholar; ix, 6; xx, 5; II, xxxviii, 2; 1, 2 (cf.. also II, xliii, 2, and I, xxiii, 4; in the latter Augustine makes an interesting change in the punctuation of a passage of Scripture in the light of new textual knowledge).
43 Contra Adimantum Manichei Disciputum, v, 1.Google Scholar
44 Matthew 23:13.
45 Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5.
46 John 8:37.
47 I Corinthians 4:14, 15.
48 Galatians 3:7.
49 Hebrews 13:7. The section is Retractationes, I, xxi, 3.Google Scholar
50 Luke 23:43, which appears in Augustine's, Quaestionuin, III, lxxxivGoogle Scholar; De Diversis Quaestionibus Octaginta Tribus, lxii; and De Baptismo, IV, xxii, 29.Google Scholar
51 Retractationes, I, xxv, 63Google Scholar; II, xliv, 3; lxxxi, 5.
52 Retractationes, II, xxx, 2.Google Scholar
53 II, xxxiii, 2; xxxviii, 3; xlii, 3; lxxxi, 6.
54 Deuteronomy 25:5, 6, quoted in Matthew 22:24, Mark 12:19, and Luke 20:28. The first to use this idea in reconciling the discrepancies between the genealogies of Matthew and Luke was Julius Africanus, a Christian historian of the third century; he gives the name of the mother of Jacob and Hell.
55 Retractationes, II, xxxiii, 2Google Scholar, where Augustine, is reviewing Contra Faustum Manicheum, III, 3.Google Scholar
56 I, ii, 1; II, i, I; iii, 9; III, ii, 2, 3, 4.
57 Retraetaticmes, I, i, 2Google Scholar. Other places where Augustine repudiates his use of the word “fortune” are in Retractationes, I, ii, 3Google Scholar, iii, 2 (cf. his De Ordine, II, ix, 27).Google Scholar
58 Retractationes, I, i, 6Google Scholar. Augustine says when he used this word in his De Academicis, I, iv, 11, he was only joking, but he admits he should not have used such a word, because he could not recall having read it in any of the Christian writings.
59 Retractationes, I, i, 12.Google Scholar
60 Retractationes, I, iii, 8.Google Scholar
61 De Ordine, II, xx, 53, 54.Google Scholar
62 Retractationes, I, ii, 10Google Scholar. (cf. De Civitate Dei, VI, vGoogle Scholar; VII, xxxv).
63 Retractationes, I, iv, 8Google Scholar. (cf. De Trinitate, IX, vi, 11Google Scholar; vii, 12; XII, xv).
64 De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae et Dc Moribus Manicheorum, II, vii, 9.Google Scholar
65 Retractationes, I, vi, 8.Google Scholar
66 Ibid., I, vii, 2. Cf. Augustine, , De Trinitate, XII, iv, 24Google Scholar; Plato, Phaedo, Meno, Phaedrus, passim.
67 Retractationes, I, vi. 9.Google Scholar
68 Ibid., II, xxxii, 3, which revises the passage in Confessiones, XIII, xxxii, 47.Google Scholar
69 Retractationes, I, xii, 9Google Scholar; xiii, 7 (vide Harnack, , Die itetractionen Augustins, 1121, n. 1).Google Scholar
70 II, liii, 2; liv, 2; lx, 2.
71 Probationum et Testinoniorum Contra Donatistas, Contra Donatistarn Nescia Quem, and De Unico Baptismo, xvi, 28Google Scholar. Of these three treatises, only the last is now extant.
72 Felix and two other bishops ordained Caeeffian as bishop of Carthage when Mensurius died (311). The Donatists suspected all of them of being “traditores” and ordained Majorinus; this was the start of the Donatist schism. They claimed Felix had surrendered copies of the Scriptures in the Diocletian persecution (303). Augustine now says Felix was absolved of his suspected “surrender” before he ordained Caecilian.
73 This was one of four of Augustine's Treatises which were published without his knowledge.
74 Retractationes, I, v, 1Google Scholar. Augustine speaks of his treatise De Genesi ad Litteram Liber Unus Inperfectus as very troublesome and very difficult (Retraetationes, I, xvli, 1)Google Scholar; his De Mendacio he regards as “obscurus, anfractuosus et omnino molestus” (Retractationes, I, xxvi, 1).Google Scholar
75 Retractationes, I xvii, 1.Google Scholar
76 “lubentibus fratribus.” Notably Contra Hilarum, De Unico Baptismo, and Enchiridion.
77 Ten of the ninety-three treatises reviewed in the Retractationes are not now extant. Of these ten, eight were anti-Donatist writings. All we have of these ten lost treatises are the brief quotations given in the Retractationes.
78 Retractationes, I. v. 6Google Scholar. Augustine still thinks that some people must have these in their possession.
79 Ibid., I, xxi, 1.
80 Ibid., I, ii, 4.
