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Augustine’s Testimony Concerning the Confessions

I. The Retractations, II, 6 (A.D. 427)

1. My Confessions, in thirteen books, praise the righteous and good God as they speak either of my evil or good, and they are meant to excite men’s minds and affections toward him. At least as far as I am concerned, this is what they did for me when I was writing them and they still do this when read. What some people think of them is their own affair [ipse viderint]; but I do know that they have given pleasure to many of my brothers and sisters in Christ — and still do. I wrote the first through the tenth books about myself; the other three are about Holy Scripture, from what is written there, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gn 1:1), even as far as the reference to the Sabbath rest (Gn 2:2).

2. In Book IV, when I confessed my soul’s misery over the death of a friend and said that our soul had somehow been made one out of two souls — “But it may have been that I was afraid to die, lest he should then die wholly whom I had so greatly loved” (Ch. VI, 11) — this now seems to be more a trivial declamation than a serious confession, although this inept expression may be tempered somewhat by the “may have been” [forte] that I added. And in Book XIII, my statement that the firmament of heaven was made between the higher (and superior) waters and the lower (and inferior) waters — was said without sufficient thought. In any case, the matter is very obscure.

This work begins thus: “Great are you, O Lord.”

II. De Dono Perseverantiae, XX, 53 (A.D. 428)

Which of my shorter works has been more widely known or given greater pleasure than the [thirteen] books of my Confessions? And, although I published them long before the Pelagian heresy had even begun to be, it is plain that in them I said to my God, again and again, “Give what you command and command what you will.” When these words of mine were repeated in Pelagius’ presence in Rome by a certain brother of mine (an episcopal colleague), Pelagius could not bear them and contradicted my brother so excitedly that the two nearly came to a quarrel. Now what, indeed, does God command, first and foremost, except that we believe in him? This faith, therefore, he himself gives; so that it is well said to him, “Give what you command.” Moreover, in those same books, concerning my account of my conversion when God turned me to that faith (which I was laying waste with a very wretched and wild verbal assault),¹ do you not remember how the narration shows that I was given as a gift to the faithful and daily tears of my mother, who had been promised that I should not perish? I certainly declared there that God by his grace turns men’s wills to the true faith when they are not only averse to it, but actually adverse. As for the other ways in which I sought God’s aid in my growth in perseverance, you either know or can review them as you wish (PL, 45, c. 1025).

III. Letter to Darius (A.D. 429)

Thus, my son, take the books of my Confessions and use them as a good man should — not superficially, but as a Christian in Christian charity. Here see me as I am and do not praise me for more than I am. Here believe nothing else about me than my own testimony. Here observe what I have been in myself and through myself. And if something in me pleases you, here praise him with me — him whom I desire to be praised on my account and not myself. “It is he that made us, and we are his” (Ps 100:3). Indeed, we were ourselves quite lost; but he who made us, remade us [sed qui fecit, refecit]. As, then, you find me in these pages, pray for me that I shall not fail but that I may go on to be perfected. Pray for me, my son, pray for me! (Epist. CCXXXI, PL, 33, c. 1025).