Augustine’s review of his own writings, made near the end of his life, taking each work in the order he wrote it and correcting what he had come to think mistaken. Book I covers the works written before he became a bishop.
Prologue
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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. For only an inconsiderate person will dare to censure me because I am refuting my own errors. But if he says I should not have said things afterwards unsatisfactory even to myself, he is speaking the truth and he is on my side, for he is censuring the very things which I am censuring. For if I had said what I should, I shouldn’t have to censure it.
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But every one may interpret what I am doing as he wishes; nevertheless, I ought to give attention to that apostolic saying in this matter: “If we judged ourselves, we would not be judged by the Lord, That other passage also frightens me very much, where it was written: “You do not avoid sin on account of a multitude of words, not because I have written much nor because many of the things which I have said were written down without having been dictated— for God forbid that the saying of necessary things should be considered superfluous, however prolix the discourse might be”—but I am afraid of that passage of sacred scripture, because much, without doubt, could be gathered from my numerous discussions which, if not false, yet certainly appears or is even clearly shown to be unnecessary. Now which of his followers does Christ not terrify when he says: “Every idle word which men have spoken, they shall give account of it in the day of judgment ”? And his apostle James has said: “Let each man be quick to hear, but slow to speak; and in another place he says: “Let not many be willing to be made teachers, my brethren, because you will be incurring a greater judgment. For in many things we all make mistakes. If there is anyone who does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, ” I do not now claim this perfection for myself, since I am an old men; how much less did I have it when I began to write as: a young man and to speak in public and when so much responsibility was given to me that, wherever public speaking was necessary, if I were present, I would very rarely be permitted to keep quiet and listen to others and to be “quick to hear and slow to speak, ” Therefore there remains the task of pronouncing judgment on myself, subject to one master whose judgment of my mistakes I wish to escape. But I suppose there are many masters because they think different and self-contradictory things. But when all say the same thing and speak the truth, they do not withdraw from the mastery of the one true master. However, they make a mistake, not when they say the many things derived from that mastery, but when they add their own. They thus become involved in. false utterances arising because they say so much.
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Now I resolved to write this work in order to put it into the hands of the men from whom I can not call back those writings which I had already published and which I cannot correct, Nor do I altogether pass over what I wrote when I was a catechumen, when I had abandoned the earthly hope which I once cherished, but was still influenced by the character of secular writings, because these writings became famous, they were copied and read, and they were read profitably, if some things are overlooked that are wrong, or, if they are not overlooked, at least not followed. Wherefore whoever reads these writings should not imitate me in the mistakes but rather in the progress I made. For whoever reads my works in the order in which they were written will probably discover that I did make progress as 1 Wrote. For that reason I shall take care that in this work, as much as possible, the same order may be recognized.
Chapter I. On the Academicians, in Three Books
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Accordingly, when I had given up the ambitions of this world, which I either had attained or wished to attain, and had devoted myself to the repose of the Christian life, though I was not yet baptized, I wrote first of all against the Academicians or concerning the Academicians, in order that the ir arguments might be removed from mind by as many reasons as I might be able to secure, because they were disturbing me. Their arguments force upon many people a feeling of hopelessness or discovering the truth and prevent the wise man from agreeing with anything and approving anything at all, as evident and fixed, since all things seem to them unintelligible and uncertain. This was done by the mercy and aid of the Lord.
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But in these three books of mine I am not pleased that I mentioned the word “fortune” sO many times, although ‘I did not want this word to mean some goddess, but the accidental consequence of events, whether bodily or external to the body, whether good or bad, All those words which no religion prevents us from mentioning: Dy chanced perhaps, peradventure, probably, accidentally, ought to be referred to the divine providence. Furthermore, I was not silent in respect to this, saying: “For probably what is generally called fortune is controlled by a certain hidden order and we call it nothing else but chance in events the reason and motive of which are hidden, ” I certainly did say this; nevertheless, I am sorry that I mentioned the word “fortune” in that way in that passage, since I see that men have a very bad practice of saying: “Fortune willed this,” when they ought to say: “God willed this,”
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Now in regard to what I said in a certain place: “It has been so ordained, either in accordance with our merits or the necessities of nature, that the mind, of divine origin, inherent in human beings, will by no means be received into the harbor of philosophy” and so forth either these two statements ought not to have been made at all, because without them the meaning would be complete, or it was enough to say: “In accordance with our merits;” it is true that misfortune was inherited from Adam, without adding: “Or in accordance with the necessi-: ties of nature,” since the unyielding necessity of our nature took its origin in the blame of the sin preceding TT Th
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And also in that section in which I said: “Nothing at all should be cherished and everything should be abandoned which is perceived by human eyes and which relates to no sense, ” words should be added so that it would read: “Which relates to no sense of the human body;” for there is also a sense of the mind. But I was then speaking in the manner of those who mention the word “sense” only as referring to that of the body and “sensible” only in reference to corporeal things. And so whenever I spoke in this way, not enough effort was made to avoid ambiguity except with those whose custom it is to speak this.
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Likewise I said: “What do you think? Is to live happily anything else except to live according to what is best in man? And I explained a little bit later what I declared $10 be “best in man:” “Is there any doubt,” I said, “that the best in man is that part of the soul which should appropriately govern all other things in man and to which everything else should be subordinated? Now, unless you demand another definition, this can be called the mind or reason. This is certainly true—for in so far as the nature of man is concerned, there is nothing in him better than mind and reason—but he who wishes to live happily ought not to live only in accordance with reason. For then he lives according to man, whereas he ought to live according to God, in order that he may be able to attain felicity; for this attainment the mind is not adequate, but it ought to be made subject to God.
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Moreover, in replying to him with whom I was arguing, I said: “You are not entirely in error in this; because I desired willingly that you should have an omen for the remaining arguments. ” Although this was not said seriously, but as a joke, nevertheless I do not want to use that word. For, in fact, I do not recall having reed the word “omen” in our sacred literature or in the sermon of any ecclesiastical disputant, although it is asserted as “abomination,” a word which is discovered frequently in the sacred books,:
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Now in the second book there is that utterly absurd and silly near-fable concerning philocalia and philosophy, that “they are sisters end begotten by the same parent, ” For either that which is called philocalia exists only in idle speeches and accordingly is in no respect a sister of philosophy, or, if it is a name to be honored, because in its Latin interpretation it means love of beauty; and because it is the true and supreme beauty of wisdom, philocalia in the immaterial and best things is the same as philosophy, and they are not in any way like two sisters,
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In another place, when I was discussing the soul, I said: “It will return more securely in heaven,” However, I should have said “will go” instead of “will return” more securely because of those who think that human souls have fallen from heaven as a punishment for their sins, or, having been driven out, are thrust down into those bodies, But I did not hesitate to say it, because I said “in heaven” in such a way as I would say “to God,” who is its author and maker, as Saint Cyprian did not hesitate to say: “For since we have our body from the earth and our soul from heaven, we ourselves are earth and heaven, ” And in the Book of Ecclesiastes it is written: “The spirit returns to God who gave ig, At any rate this ought to be so understood as not to be contradictory to the apostle who says: “Those (children) not yet born had done nothing good nor bad. Therefore without question God himself is a kind of original province of felicity for the soul; he certainly did not beget it from himself, but he made it from no other substance as he made the body from the earth. For that which relates to the origin of the soul, how it happens that it is in the body, whether it comes from that one which was first created when “man was made into a living soul, ” or whether they are made similarly one Dy one, I did not know then nor do I know as yet.
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In the third book I said: “Ii you ask what seems right to me, I believe that the highest good of man is in his love of reason, ” I should have said more properly: “In God;” for the mind enjoys him, in order that it may be happy, as it highest good,
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And I am not pleased by this statement: “I am sure enough to swear by all that is divine,
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Likewise what I said about the Academicians, that they knew the truth whose likeness they used to call “verisimilitude” (and that same verisimilitude which they approved I called false) was wrongly said for two reasons: first, that anything should be false which was in any way like something true, because after its own kind it too is true; second, that they approved these false things which they considered as having the likeness of truth, although they would approve of nothing and maintain that the wise man does not give his assent to anything. But because they also call this same likeness of truth “probable” I happened to say this concerning them,
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Also the very praise which I bestowed upon Plato and the Platonists (or the Academicians philosophers), so much more than was due ungodly men, displeased me not without cause. Christian doctrine has to be particularly defended against their errors,
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Furthermore, those things which I said were my jests in dealing with the arguments Cicero used in his Academia, with which I refuted those arguments by a most cogent process of reasoning, I still ought not to have uttered, although I spoke jokingly and rather in irony.
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This work begins with these words: “O would to heaven that a suitable person for himself, Romanianus. “