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Abstract

Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo wrote several works during his life, the registration and the reading of which meant a real challenge for his contemporaries. When he was old between 427 and 430 AD, he spent a great part of his time on re-reading his works created so far, recording them into a list and correcting them. In this big project his friars helped him in the monastery of Hippo and a body of secretaries supported him as well as, consisting of notaries and church scribes, which was operated as „an information environment„ and it provided a background for performing this task, and also for the copying and distribution of Augustine’s works. While this project was progressing, he was writing and more precisely dictating a work entitled Retractationes (Reconsiderations in English) that he created a new genre with in the same way as his work, Confessions. In this work the bishop of Hippo brought together his earlier works which were written and published since his conversion with the exception of Sermons and Letters. In the case of each work he began the chapter with its title and named the person whom he dedicated his work to, then he briefly described the conditions under which his work was written and its objective. This listis not only interesting for the researchers of his life-work because it revealed which works of the bishop of Hippo were not been left for us, but here Augustine criticized himself severely to preserve and present the coherence of his views and writings. This register was not prepared only for self-examination, but also for later church use, since using it, the works created by Augustine could be well distinguished from those ones which were distributed under his name and referring to his prestige. The other source of the list of his works was his biographer, Possidius’ Indiculum (i.e. an indiculus means list or catalogue of works) that he placed at the end of Augustine of Hippo’s biography. This catalogue categorized the works according to the aspect whose heresies they were written against, involving works against pagans, Pelagians and Donatists, etc. This categorization had a great impact on the way how the succeeding generations approach and interprete Augustine’s activity.