§ 179. THE WORKS OF AUGUSTINE. 1007
metaphysical questions oftlie possibility of knowing God, and the nature of time and space; and they give an inter] rotation of the Mosaic cosmogony in the style of tlie typical allegorical exegesis usual with the fathers, hut foreign to our age ; they are therefore of little value to the general reader, except aa showing that even abstfact metaphysical subjects may be devotionally treated.
The Retractations were produced in the evening of his life (427), when, mindful of the proverb: "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin," ' and remembering that we must give account for every idle word," he judged liimself, that he might not be judged.' He revised in clironological order the numerous works he liad written before and during his episcopate, and retracted or corrected whatever in tliem seemed to his riper knowledge false or obscure. In all essential points, nevertheless, his theological system remained the same from his conversion to this time. The Retractations give beautiful evidence of his love of truth, his conscientiousness, and his humility.*
To this same class should be added the Letters of Aus-ustine, of which the Benedictine editors, in their second volume, give two hundred and seventy (including letters to Augustine) in chronological order from a. d. 386 to a. d. 429. These letters treat, sometimes very minutely, of all the important questions of his time, and give us an insight of his cares, his official fidelity, his large heart, and his effort to become, like Paul, all things to all men.
When the questions of friends and pupils accunmlated, he answered tliem in special works; and in this way he produced various collections of Quaestiones and Responsiones, dogmatical, exegetical, and miscellaneous (a. d. 390, 397, &c.).
' Prov. X. 19. This verse (ex multiloquio non effugies peccatum) the Semi Pelagian Gennadius (De viris illustr. sub Aug.) applies against Augustine in excuse for his erroneous doctrines of freedom and predestination.
' Matt. xii. 36.
' 1 Cor. xi. 31. Comp. his Prologus to the two books of Retractationes.
* J. MoRELL "Mackenzie (in W. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biog* faphy and Mythology, vol. i. p. 422) happily calls the Retractations of Augustine
1008 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
II. PniLOSOPHicAL treatisev^;, in dialogue; almost all com posed in his earlier lite ; either during his residence on the (•oun try-seat Cassiciacnni in the vicinity of Milan, where he spent half a year before hia baptism in instructive and stimulating conversation in a sort of academy or Christian Platonic Ijanquet with Monica, his son Adeodatus, his brother Navigins, his friend Alypins, and some cousins and pu])ils ; or during his second residence in Rome ; or soon after his return to Africa.'
To this class belong the works : Contra Academicos libri tres (386), in which he combats the skepticism and probabilism of the New Academy, — the doctrine that man can never reach the truth, but can at best attain only probability ; De vita beata (386), in which he makes true blessedness to consist in the perfect knowledge of God ; De ordine, — on the relation of evil to the divine order of the world ° (386) ; Soliloqnia (387), communings with his own soul concerning God, the highest good, the knowledge of truth, and immortality ; De immortalitate animse (387), a continuation of the Soliloquies ; De quantitate aninifB (387), discussing sundry questions of the size, the origin, the incorporeity of the soul ; De musica libri vi (387- 389) ; De magistro (389), in which, in a dialogue with his son Adeodatus, a pious and promismg, but precocious youth, who died soon after his return to Africa (389), he treats on the importance and virtue of the word of God, and on Christ as the infallible Master,' To these may be added the later work, De
" one of the noblest aacrifices ever laid upon the altar of truth by a majestic intellect acting in obedience lo the purest conscientiousness."
' In torn. i. of the od. Bened., immediately after the Retractationes and Confessiones, and at the close of the volume. On these philosophical writinpp, see Bru cker: Ilistoria critica philoaophiaj, Lips. 1766, tom. iii. pp. 485-507; H. Ritter (ieschichtc der Philosophie, vol. vi. p. 153 fl". ; Bindkmann, 1. c. p. 282 sqq. ; ITunER, 1. c. p. 242 sqq.; Gangauk, I. c. p. 25 sqq., and Nouruison, 1. c. ch. i. and il Nourrison makes the just remark (i. p. 53): "Si la [)hilosophie est la recherche de la Terit6, jamais sans doute il ne s'ost rcncontr6 une ame plus philosophe que oelle de .saint Augustin. Oar jamais kme n'a support6 avec plus d'impatienco Ics anxict<^a du doute et n'a fart plus d'offorts pour dissiper les fantomes de I'errcur."
' Or on the question : " Utnim omnia bona et mala divinre providential ordo contineat?" Comp. Retract, i. 3.
' Augustine, in his Confessions (1. ix. c. 6), expresses himself in this touching