Retractations

Augustine of Hippoc. AD 426–427

Augustine’s review of his own books, written near the end of his life. He lists ninety-three works in order, says when and why each was written, and corrects what he no longer holds. It is the main evidence for the dates and occasions of his writings.

In the Retractationes (“reconsiderations”) Augustine goes through his works one by one, in the order in which he wrote them: those composed before his ordination, those written as a presbyter, and those written as a bishop. For each he gives the occasion, notes passages he would now put differently, and quotes the opening words so that the book can be identified.

It is his own testimony, given some decades after many of the events, and it is the reason so much of his writing can be dated. Three entries are cited in this wiki: that he spoke on the creed, as a presbyter, before the African bishops in council at Hippo (1.17); that he began the City of God because pagans blamed the Christian religion for the fall of Rome to Alaric’s Goths (2.43); and that he wrote on the acquittal of Pelagius by fourteen bishops in Palestine once the record reached him (2.47).

Cited in