Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi! et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam, et in ista formosa quae fecisti deformis inruebam. mecum eras, et tecum non eram. ea me tenebant longe a te, quae si in te non essent, non essent. vocasti et clamasti et rupisti surditatem meam; coruscasti, splenduisti et fugasti caecitatem meam; fragrasti, et duxi spiritum et anhelo tibi; gustavi et esurio et sitio; tetigisti me, et exarsi in pacem tuam. Confessiones x.27.38. For the curious Beauty is, for Augustine, one of our names for the divine, and all the beauty we see comes from Beauty. Our error is to fail to see and hear and smell and feel and taste the source of all the beauty around us. For more on this, the commentary of O'Donnell is a good place to look. Just click the link to the passage at the end of the frustulum. Imagine writing a work and losing it. This is what happened to Augustine's earliest work, of which he speaks in the Confe...
Muta cor et mutabitur opus. Exstirpa cupiditatem, planta caritatem. Sicut enim radix omnium malorum cupiditas ( I Tim. 6.10 ), sic et radix omnium bonorum caritas. Sermo LXXII.3.4 .
Idibus novembris... I published this on Facebook last year, but never posted it here. It is the date of Augustine's birth. How do we know that his birth occurred on Nov. 13, or rather on the Ides of November? He tells us himself in his preface, addressed to Flavius Manlius Theodorus, of his De Beata Vita, written in 386-87. For Theodorus, you can read Claudian's Panegyricus dictus Theodoro (if you like late antique panegyric). Augustine, within a decade, ended up regretting his admiration of Theodorus (see Conf. vii.9.13). I've introduced this frustulum in Eng lish since, like most quotations taken from prefaces addressed to one person, I found it did not stand well on its own. Now that you know the context, it's clearer how he is being a good Ciceronian by establishing the time (natalis dies), the place (balneae), and the participants (Monica mater, Navigius frater, Trygetius et Licentius discipuli, Lastidianus et Rusticus consobrini, Adeodatus filius) of his...
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