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The Orthodox Library

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The Confessions

Book XIII, Chapter XXVIII: He Proceeds to the Last Verse, ‘All Things are Very Good,’—That Is, the Work Being Altogether Good.

Saint Augustine of Hippo · Historical English edition; series volume first published 1886 · 180 words
Historical English translation. Original wording is not automatically translated.

Chapter XXVIII.—He Proceeds to the Last Verse, “All Things are Very Good,”—That Is, the Work Being Altogether Good.

43. And Thou, O God, sawest everything that Thou hadst made, and behold it was very good. So we also see the same, and behold all are very good. In each particular kind of Thy works, when Thou hadst said, “Let them be made,” and they were made, Thou sawest that it was good. Seven times have I counted it written that Thou sawest that that which Thou madest was “good;” and this is the eighth, that Thou sawest all things that Thou hadst made, and behold they are not only good, but also “very good,” as being now taken together. For individually they were only good, but all taken together they were both good and very good. All beautiful bodies also express this; for a body which consists of members, all of which are beautiful, is by far more beautiful than the several members individually are by whose well-ordered union the whole is completed, though these members also be severally beautiful.

Edition and rights

NPNF1-01. The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine, with a Sketch of his Life and Work. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1886.

J. G. Pilkington, translator of the Confessions

Ancient work and historical English translation: public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Copyright rules vary by country. This is a historical source transcription, not an official Church edition. Modern website material is not reproduced.

Historical footnotes and publisher introductions are omitted. Author-written openings are retained. Paragraph whitespace is normalized. Transcriptions can contain errors; this is not a critical edition. Attribution follows the historical edition, not universal scholarly agreement.

Digitization provenance (not an external reading link): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/npnf101.xml

Source section: vi.XIII.XXVIII · Text SHA-256: 1ae242734fb018f5b77f3e74778396e83dd73b8d1cd15b164ee410ef9134a07c