The Space of

The Space of Time
Supplements to the Study of Time
VOLUME 6
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sst

The Space of Time
A Sensualist Interpretation of Time in
Augustine, Confessions X to XII
By
David van Dusen
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Emblem for the month of November, 354 a.d.—Augustine’s natal month and year—in
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duced with permission from the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique/Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België.
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Van Dusen, David.

The Space of time : a sensualist interpretation of time in Augustine, Confessions X to XII / by David van
Dusen.
pages cm. — (Supplements to The study of time, ISSN 1873-7463 ; VOLUME 6)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-26686-5 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-26931-6 (e-book)
1. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Confessiones. Liber 10–12. 2. Time. I. Title.
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for Davin Lloyd
naturali ex illa filio meo
∵
Χρόνος, i.e. the space of time.
Cicero, De Natura Deorum II.25
One ‘time,’ i.e. the space of one short syllable.

Augustine, De Rhythmo VI.1
Present-time has no dimension, no space. Where then is the time we call

‘long’?
Augustine, Confessions XI.15
∵
Contents
Acknowledgements xi
List of Abbreviations xii
Note on Citations xvi
Synopsis: Dilation and the Question of Time 1
Introduction
To Recover Augustine’s Time-Question 5
Proem 7
1 Augustine and the Temporal Intrigue 11

1.1 Against a Truncated Interpretation of Confessions XI 16
1.2 Preliminary Remarks on the Term ‘Sensualist’ 19
1.3 Axiology and Temporality in Augustine’s Confessions 24
1.4 Time in Augustine’s Triplex Division of Philosophy 34
2 Augustine and the Physical Question of Time 38
2.1 Time and Augustine’s Rerum Natura 40
2.2 Time in the Confessions: A Typology of the Received
Interpretations 44
2.3 Confessions XI and Typologies of Time in Antiquity 57
part I
Anticipations and Clarifications 65
3 Remarks on the Genre and Sources of Augustine’s Confessions 67

3.1 Preliminary Remarks on Genre 67
3.2 Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline: A Source for the Confessions? 71
3.3 Confessio Ignorantiae: Cicero and Augustine’s Confessions 73
3.4 Confessio Scientiae: Epicurus and Lucretius in Augustine’s
Confessions 80
3.5 Confessions X to XII: Dialectics and Song 96
3.6 Concluding Remarks on Genre 99
viii Contents
4 Towards a Lexical Clarification of ‘Time’ (Conf. XI.22–24) 102

4.1 A Distribution of Augustine’s Time-Investigation
(Conf. XI.14–29) 105
4.2 “We Say ‘Time,’ We Say ‘Times’ ” (Conf. XI.22–24) 108
4.3 Towards Augustine’s “Power and Nature of Time” (Conf. X.6–7,
XI.23–24) 113
5 Towards the Speculative Terrain of Confessions XII
(Conf. XI.30–31) 117
5.1 Temporal Presence: Varieties of ‘Impresence’ 119
5.2 Temporal Dilation: A Preliminary Characterization 126
5.3 Expectatio Is Never Praescientia (Conf. XI.31) 131
5.4 A Discarnate Mind and a Dilation of the Senses (Conf. XI.31) 137
part II
Time Is Illuminated by Timelessness 143
6 What Is and Is Not in Question in Confessions XII 145

6.1 Time and the Prophetic ‘Letter’ 146
6.2 How Timelessness Will Illuminate Time 149
7 Cohesion to God, Inhesion of the Flesh: Augustine’s Caelum
Intellectuale 152
7.1 Axiology and Temporality Revisited 154
7.2 Augustine’s Hyper-Heavenly (Caelum Caeli) 157
7.3 Timelessness and the Root-Verb Haerere 164
7.4 More on Augustine’s Root-Verb Haerere 166
8 Corpus et Anima: The Duplicity of Praesens from Confessions X 171
8.1 “A Body and a Soul Are Present in Me” (Conf. X.6.9) 174
8.2 The Sense of Anima, the Sense of Animus (Conf. X.7) 175
8.3 “Cattle and Birds Possess Memory” (Conf. X.17) 180
8.4 Excursus: Time Is in the Beasts 184
8.5 The Root-Sense of Anima and Animus (Conf. X–XII) 193
9 Physical Movement and Mutive Times: Augustine’s Materia
Informis 196
9.1 Informitas and Timelessness (Conf. XII.6) 197
9.2 “Times are Produced by the Movements of Things”
(Conf. XII.8) 200
9.3 The Register of ‘Mutive Times’ in Confessions XII 204
9.4 The Evidence for ‘Mutive Times’ in Confessions XII 205
Contents ix
9.5 Excursus on Logical Precedence (Conf. XII.29) 210

9.6 Excursus on Sensual ‘Outness’ (Epist. 137) 214
part III
A Sensualist Interpretation of Confessions XI 223
10 Intimacy with the Flesh Is Intimacy with Time (Conf. XI–XII) 225

10.1 “Words Begun and Ended, Sounding in Times” (Conf. XII.27) 227
10.2 Familiaritas Carnis and Familiaritas Temporis (Conf. XI.14) 229
11 Times and Time from Augustine’s Eternity-Meditation
(Conf. XI.3–13) 234
11.1 Time, Times, and a Proto-Distentio (Conf. XI.11–13) 236
11.2 Imago, Affectio and Distentio in the Confessions 238
11.3 “Sense Roves” and “Sense Dilates” (Conf. XI.13, XI.31) 244
12 A Preparation of Augustine’s Time-Investigation
(Conf. XI.11–29) 246
12.1 The Soul’s Capacity to Sense Time (Conf. XI.15–16) 247
12.2 “A Long Time Cannot Become Long . . .” (Conf. XI.11) 249
12.3 The Production of Times as a Condition for Time (Conf. XI.11,
XII.8) 251
13 From a Sense of Passing Time to a Dilation of the Senses
(Conf. XI.14–29) 254
13.1 Praesens Tempus and a Sense of Temporal Intervals
(Conf. XI.15–16) 256
13.2 Times Are Not ‘Times’ and Presence Is Not ‘Presence’
(Conf. XI.20) 264
13.3 “As I Just Said, We Measure Times as They Pass” (Conf. XI.21) 269
13.4 Vagaries of Motion and the Introduction of Dilation
(Conf. XI.24–26) 271
13.5 Sensation and Originary Temporal Mensuration
(Conf. XI.27–28) 277
13.6 “The Verse Is Sensed by a Clear Sensation” (Conf. XI.27) 285
13.7 “Something Remains Infixed in My Memory” (Conf. XI.27) 297
13.8 “These Are ‘Times,’ or I Do Not Measure Times” (Conf. XI.27) 300
13.9 “Songs and the Dimensions of Movements” (Conf. XI.27–28) 306
x Contents
ENVOI: Time Exceeds Us because Time Is in Us 312
Appendices 314
1 Remarks on Plotinus, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus and
Augustine 314
2 Augustine and the Paris Condemnations of 1277 320
3 Pierre Gassendi’s Metaphysical Confession of Time 324
4 Thomas Hobbes’s Physical Confession of Time 328
Select Bibliography 334
Index 356
Acknowledgements
I am greatly indebted to professors Robert J. Dodaro, Johannes Hoff, Mathijs Lamberigts,

James Luchte, Gerard J.P. O’Daly, James J. O’Donnell and Gerd Van Riel, for patronage
in the old style.
It is thanks to the singular generosity of the Paters Augustijnen of Thomas van
Villanovaklooster that I revised The Space of Time while in residence at the Augustijns
Historisch Instituut in Louvain. The work has benefited from their holdings, and I from
their camaraderie.
My editors in Leiden, Joed Elich and Nicolette van der Hoek, were supremely help-
ful, and Brill’s reviewers were generous and perceptive. Rebecca Mahay went over the
typescript with a keen eye and a light hand.
And finally I thank my kin, who have seen past fortune and misfortune with the
inconcussible evenness of love.
Louvain, 2013
D.D.
List of Abbreviations
Ael. Nat.anim. Aelian, De Natura Animalium

Alb. Phys. Albertus Magnus, Physica
Amb. Hymn. Ambrose of Milan, Hymnae
Amm. R.gest. Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae
Anon. C.Phil. Anonymous 6th-century composite, Contra Philosophos
Aq. S.Th. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Ar. Rhyth. Aristoxenus, Elementa Rhythmica
Arist. Anim. Aristotle, De Anima
Arist. Aud. Aristotle, De Audibilibus
Arist. Cat. Aristotle, Categoriae
Arist. Gen.corr. Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione
Arist. Mem. Aristotle, De Memoria et Reminiscentia
Arist. Met. Aristotle, Metaphysica
Arist. Phys. Aristotle, Physica
Arist. Poet. Aristotle, Poetica
Arist. Post. Aristotle, Analytica Posteriora
Arist. Prob. Aristotle, Problemata
Arist. Rhet. Aristotle, Rhetorica
Arist. Sens. Aristotle, De Sensu et Sensato
Arist.Lat. Phys. Aristoteles Latinus, Physica
Arist.Lat. Rhet. Aristoteles Latinus, Rhetorica
Arr. Ind. Arrian, Indica
Aug. 83 quaest. Augustine, De Diversis Quaestionibus Octoginta Tribus
Aug. An.orig. Augustine, De Anima et eius Origine
Aug. Annot. Augustine, Annotationes in Iob
Aug. Beat. Augustine, De Beata Vita
Aug. C.Acad. Augustine, Contra Academicos
Aug. C.Faust. Augustine, Contra Faustum
Aug. C.Parm. Augustine, Contra Epistulam Parminiani
Aug. C.Petil. Augustine, Contra Litteras Petiliani
Aug. Civ. Augustine, De Civitate Dei contra Paganos
Aug. Conf. Augustine, Confessiones
Aug. Cons. Augustine, De Consensu Evangelistarum
Aug. Div.daem. Augustine, De Divinatione Daemonum
Aug. Doctr. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana
Aug. Enarr. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos
Aug. Epist. Augustine, Epistulae
List of Abbreviations xiii
Aug. Fid. Augustine, De Fide Rerum quae non Videntur

Aug. Fid.simb. Augustine, De Fide et Simbolo
Aug. Gen.c.Man. Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos
Aug. Gen.lib.imp. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram imperfectus liber
Aug. Gen.litt. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram
Aug. Gramm.reg. Augustine or Pseudo-Augustine, De Grammatica
Aug. Imm.anim. Augustine, De Immortalitate Animae
Aug. Lib.arb. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio
Aug. Mag. Augustine, De Magistro
Aug. Mor. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae
Aug. Nat.bon. Augustine, De Natura Boni
Aug. Ord. Augustine, De Ordine
Aug. Orig.anim. Augustine, De Origine Animae Hominis = Epist. 166
Aug. Quant.anim. Augustine, De Quantitate Animae
Aug. Retr. Augustine, Retractationes
Aug. Rhyth. Augustine, De Rhythmo = De Musica
Aug. Serm. Augustine, Sermones
Aug. Sol. Augustine, Soliloquorum
Aug. Tract. Augustine, In Evangelium Ioannis Tractatus
Aug. Trin. Augustine, De Trinitate
Aug. Util. Augustine, De Utilitate Credendi
Aug. Vera rel. Augustine, De Vera Religione
Aver.Lat. Phys. Averroes Latinus, De Physico Auditu . . .
Bed. Temp. Bede, De Temporibus
Boeth. In Cat. Boethius, In Categorias Aristotelis
Calc. Epist. Calcidius, Calcidii ad Osium Epistula
Can. Quaest. John the Canon, Quaestiones super . . . Physicorum
Cens. D.nat. Censorinus, De Die Natali
Cic. Acad. Cicero, Academica
Cic. Div. Cicero, De Divinatione
Cic. Fin. Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum
Cic. Inv. Cicero, De Inventione
Cic. Nat.deor. Cicero, De Natura Deorum
Cic. Off. Cicero, De Officiis
Cic. Or. Cicero, Orator
Cic. Orat. Cicero, De Oratore
Cic. Part. Cicero, Partitiones Oratoriae
Cic. Rep. Cicero, De Re Publica
Cic. Tusc. Cicero, Disputationes Tusculanae
Conc. Glos. William of Conches, Glosae in Timaeum
xiv List of Abbreviations
Dam. Hist. Damascius, Historia Philosophica

Dant. Inf. Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Epic. Epist. Epicurus, Epistulae
Eug. Exc. Eugippius, Excerpta ex Operibus S. Augustini
Gand. Quodl. Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones Quodlibetales
Gross. In Phys. Robert Grosseteste, Commentarius in Physicorum
Harc. Q.Ord. Henry of Harclay, Quaestiones Ordinariae
Herac. Fr. Heraclitus, Fragments
Hipp. Prog. Hippocrates, Prognosticon
Hom. Il. Homer, Iliad
Hom. Od. Homer, Odyssey
Hon. Imag. Honorius of Autun, De Imagine Mundi
Hon. Lum. Honorius of Autun, De Luminaribus Ecclesiae
Isid. Etym. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum
Jer. Epist. Jerome, Epistulae
Kil. Quaest. Robert Kilwardby, Quaestiones in . . . Sententiarum
Kil. Temp. Robert Kilwardby, Tractatus de Tempore
Long. Subl. Pseudo-Longinus, De Sublimitate
Luci. Auct. Lucian, Vitarum Auctio
Lucr. Rer.nat. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
Macr. Sat. Macrobius, Saturnalia
Man. Astr. Manilius, Astronomica
Map Nug.cur. Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium
Mar. Gramm. Marius Victorinus, Ars Grammatica
Ov. Fas. Ovid, Fasti
Pius Comm. Pope Pius II, Commentariorum Pii Secundi
Pl. Crat. Plato, Cratylus
Pl. Ion Plato, Ion
Pl. Leg. Plato, Leges
Pl. Ph. Plato, Phaedrus
Pl. Phil. Plato, Philebus
Pl. Theaet. Plato, Theaetetus
Pl. Tim. Plato, Timaeus
Plin. Hist.nat. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis
Plot. Enn. Plotinus, Enneades
Plut. Ad.Stoic. Plutarch, De Communibus Notitiis Adversus Stoicos
Plut. Delph. Plutarch, De E apud Delphos
Plut. Is.Os. Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride
Plut. Plat.Q. Plutarch, Platonicae Quaestiones
Poss. Vita Possidius, Vita Sancti Aurelii Augustini
List of Abbreviations xv
Proc. Tim. Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria

Prosp. Chron. Prosper of Aquitaine, Chronicon
Quint. Inst.orat. Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria
Sall. Catil. Sallust, De Coniuratione Catilinae = Bellum Catilinae
Sall. Jug. Sallust, Bellum Iugurthinum
Scot. Q.Disp. Duns Scotus, Quaestiones Disputatae
Sen. Brev. Seneca, De Brevitate Vitae
Sen. Nat.quaest. Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones
Sext. Ad.Gramm. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Grammaticos
Sext. Ad.Mus. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Musicos
Sext. Ad.Phys. Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Physicos
Simpl. Anim. Pseudo-Simplicius, De Anima Commentaria
Soph. El. Sophocles, Electra
Stras. S.Ph. Nicolas of Strasbourg, Summa Philosophiae
Temp. Coll. Stephen Tempier, Collectio Errorum . . .
Ter. Met. Terentianus Maurus, De Metris
Tert. Anim. Tertullian, De Testimonio Animae adversus Gentes
Var. Ling. Varro, De Lingua Latina
Virg. Aen. Virgil, Aeneis
Virg. Ecl. Virgil, Eclogae
Virg. Georg. Virgil, Georgica
Vit. Quodl. James of Viterbo, Disputatio Tertia de Quolibet
Note on Citations
Wherever a work is cited taking the form I.1 or I.1.1 without a title being given,
the reference is to Augustine’s Confessions.
I quote the Confessions from J.J. O’Donnell’s Latin text, and at places have
silently modified punctuation. I have leaned heavily on J.G. Pilkington’s work-
manlike 19th-century translation, The Confessions of St. Augustin.
Translations from pre-modern works are rarely my own, but have generally
been modified. All the translations that I have used, and at places taken into
the text unchanged, appear at the back of the volume.
Synopsis: Dilation and the Question of Time
Aurelius Augustinus was born on 13 November 3541 to the small-landowning

Aurelii of Thagaste,2 an “obscure provincial city” in the uplands of Roman
Numidia;3 and in the year of his birth the Christian emperor in Milan devised
this new imperial epithet: “Eternity.”4 He died as Augustinus Hipponiensis,5 in
the Vandal-besieged city of Hippo Regius6—fronting the Numidian coast, not
far from Thagaste—on 28 August 430.7
1 It is curious that the sole surviving 4th-century Latin calendar—the strikingly illuminated
Chronograph of 354 (Stern 1953; Salzman 1990)—was prepared by the calligrapher Furius
Dionysius Filocalus for an aristocratic Christian in Rome, in Augustine’s natal year. Similarly,
the first extant book of Ammianus Marcellinus’ chronicle—which is book XIV of the original
work—opens in the year 354 (Amm. R.gest. XIV.2).
2 On “les modestes Aurelii de Thagaste”: Lepelley 2001, 332–34, 344. ‘Aurelius’ appears to have
been a common surname in late antiquity (Lepelley 2001, 332–34), and fairly common as a
cognomen (Mandouze 1982, 105–31). Lepelley remarks, however, “la rareté, presque la singu-
larité des cognomina” of our Augustinus and his father Patricius (Lepelley 2001, 333). It is our
Augustinus who himself preserves the name of one other Augustinus—a Donatist bishop—
at Aug. C.Parm. I.12.19: . . . quendam Augustinum episcopum eorum.
3 Lepelley 2001, 329: “Thagaste, en Numidie Proconsulaire . . . une obscure cité provinciale.”
Merdinger (1997, 68) describes “the Numidian highlands” in the late 4th century as being
“a region of pine forests and scrubby canyons” that benefited from a network of Roman
roads.
4 Amm. R.gest. XV.1.3: . . . “Aeternitatem meam” aliquotiens subsereret ipse dictando.
The emperor is Constantius II (317–361), and for Ammianus Marcellinus’ critique of this
outrageous personal epithet, though he takes no exception to clichés like “the eternal city”:
Amm. R.gest. XV.1.3–4.
5 Lepelley 2001, 333: “L’abandon du gentilice exprimait une rupture avec les vanités du
monde . . . peut-être aussi une rupture avec la famille humaine, au profit de l’église dont
l’évêque devenait le ‘père.’ ”
6 Merdinger 1997, 68: “Hippo was the second largest port of North Africa, overshadowed
only by Carthage . . . It was also an ancient community, founded centuries earlier by the
Phoenicians [cf. Sall. Jug. 19.2], who bequeathed it their characteristic . . . irregular streets;
but after three centuries as a Roman municipality, it also featured the requisite forum, the-
ater, baths, temples,” etc.
7 For a crisp survey of Augustine’s dates and environs: Drecoll 2007, 20–27, 36–49.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi ��.��63/9789004269316_�02

2 synopsis
As of this writing, then, Augustine is ‘long dead.’8 And this expression,

however banal, is suggestive,9 since Augustine asked when he was still
living: “Where is the time we call ‘long’?”10 Or said differently: What is the
condition of possibility of a Greek poet’s trope like “the long years of time”
(τῷ πολλῷ χρόνῳ),11 or a hackneyed Latinism12 like “the space of time” (spatium
temporis)?13
8 Augustine’s pre-modern biographical notices provide the clearest sense of his distance
from us, for instance: Bed. Temp. 22: Arcadius annis XIII cum fratre Honorio. Joannes
Chysostomus et Augustini episcopi prædicantur. Honorius annis XV cum Theodosio
minore; Hon. Imag. I.32: Inde Numidia, in qua regnavit Jugurtha. In hac est civitas
Hippone, in qua fuit Augustinus episcopus; Hon. Imag. III “Sexta Ætas”: Augustinus tunc
obiit. Gildo tyrannus occiditur. Valentinianus filius Constantii comitis, annos duodecim.
Atiila rex Hunnorum; Hon. Lum. II.38: Augustinus, Afer, Hipponensis oppidi episcopus, vir
eruditione divina et humana orbi clarus, fide integer, et vita purus, scripsit tanta quanta
nec inveniri possunt; Prosp. Chron. 737: Augustinus, beati Ambrosii discipulus, multa
facundia doctrinaque excellens, Hyppone regio in Africa episcopus ordinatur. Hoc tempore
Claudianus poeta insignis habetur. Theodosius imperator Mediolani moritur; Prosp.
Chron. 744: Augustinus episcopus per omnia excellentissimus moritur v kal. Septembris,
libris Juliani inter impetum obsidentium Vandalorum, in ipso dierum suorum fine
respondens, et gloriose in confessione Christianæ gratiæ perseverans.
9 Cf. Arist. Phys. IV.13 (222a): “[We say] ‘He has come now’ if he came today. But we do not
speak in the same way of the Trojan War . . . for time is continuous between us and those
events, but they are not near to us (οὐκ ἐγγύς).”
10 See the volume’s third epigraph, Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: ubi est . . . tempus quod longum
dicamus?
Augustine’s question is importantly distinct from a similar one at Cic. Tusc. I.39.94:
Quae vero aetas longa est aut quid omnino homini longum?
11 Plut. Is.Os. 23 (359f): “ ‘the long years of time,’ as Simonides said.” The same expression,
τῷ πολλῷ χρόνῳ—which is difficult to render—appears at Plut. Delph. 17 (391f), without
the attribution to Simonides.
Cf. πολὺν χρόνον to describe the Achaeans’ wall, at Hom. Il. XII.9; πολὺν χρόνον for
Odysseus’ misfortunes, at Hom. Od. XI.161; and more casually, ἐν πολλῷ χρόνῳ for Lysias’
speechwriting, at Pl. Ph. 228a.
Cf. also Lucr. Rer.nat. II.1174: spatio aetatis . . . vetusto; Ov. Fas. II.443: nomen longis
intercidit annis.
12 In the Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, Forcellini glosses the temporal sense of spatium, simply,
as “tempus, seu intervallum & longitudinem temporis, tempo, intervallo o estensione di
tempo” (1771, IV:179), citing Cicero, Julius Caesar, Livy, Ovid, Pliny, Propertius, Terence and
Valerius Flaccus—inter alia—for this sense of spatium.
13 Aug. Conf. XI.23.30, XI.27.34, XI.27.36, etc.
synopsis 3
For Augustine in Confessions XI—as for Aristotle in the Categories14 and

Physics,15 or Cicero in De Natura Deorum16—the Greek χρόνος and Latin tem-
pus signify,17 in the first instance, a space of time.18 Thus, to ask with Augustine,
in Confessions XI, “What is time?”19 is also necessarily to ask this: What is time’s
dimension or space?20
14 Cf. for instance, Arist. Cat. 6 (5b): “An action is called ‘long’ (πρᾶξις μακρὰ) or a movement
‘long’ (κίνησις πολλή) since it occupies a long time (χρόνον πολὺν)”; 12 (14a): “Whenever we
use the term ‘prior’ (πρότερον) in its proper and primary sense, that sense is determined
by time (κατὰ χρόνον), as when we call a thing ‘older’ or ‘more ancient’ than some other
thing, signifying that its time has been longer (τὸν χρόνον πλείω εἶναι).”
In 9.5 and 13.6, I advert to the relevance of Aristotle’s Categories to time in Augustine’s
Confessions.
15 Cf. time as a φορά or ‘dimension’ of motion at Arist. Phys. IV.11 (220a); time as τὸ μέγεθος,
a ‘distance’ or ‘space,’ relative to motion at IV.12 (220b); Aristotle’s appeal to the ποσός, a
‘space’ or ‘magnitude’ or ‘quantum,’ of time at IV.13 (222a); and the use of ἀρόστασις for an
‘interval’ or ‘distance’ of time at IV.14 (223a).
And of course, Aristotle’s conception of tragedy is defined by a ‘space of time’—
namely, “one revolution, one periodic-cycle of the sun” (μίαν περίοδον ἡλίου)—at Arist.
Poet. 5.7–9 (1449b), cf. 7.8–12 (1450b–1451a), 23.3 (1459a), 24.4–7 (1459b), etc.
16 Cic. Nat.deor. II.25.64: χρόνος, id est spatium temporis.
Cf. Cic. Inv. I.26.39: in tempore perspiciendo longinquitas . . . est consideranda; I.27.40:
in tempore spatium quodam modo declaratur quod in annis aut in anno aut in aliqua anni
parte spectatur, in occasione ad spatium temporis faciendi quaedam opportunitas intel-
legitur adiuncta.
17 Aug. Epist. 197.2–3: χρόνους autem ipsa spatia temporum vocant . . . tempora ergo com-
putare, hoc est χρόνους.
Divjak (2002, 1033) dates Epist. 197 to 418–420. Regarding Augustine’s late acquisition
of Greek—a vexed question—cf. for instance, Courcelle 1969, 149–65; Marrou 1983, 31–37.
Cf. also Isid. Etym. IV.7.1: χρόνος enim, apud Graecos tempus dicitur; V.39.1: χρόνος
enim Graece, Latine tempus interpretatur.
18 At Macr. Sat. I.8.6–7, the Greek χρόνος = the Latin tempus, while: Tempus est certa dimen-
sio quae ex caeli conversione colligitur.
Cf. also, for instance, Var. Ling. V.12: . . . neque unquam tempus, quin fuerit motus: eius
enim intervallum tempus; VI.2.3: Tempus esse dicunt in<ter>vallum mundi motus.
19 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: quid est enim tempus?
A related question in Greek—“What is perpetual time? What is the limitless space
of time?” (τί γὰρ ὁ αἰών ἐστι;)—appears at Luci. Auct. 14, and Lucian presumably works
up Heraclitus’ response to it from Herac. Fr. 52 (Diels): perpetual time, writes Lucian,
is “a child at play, backgammoning, tossing dice and collecting them (διαφερόμενος,
συμφερόμενος).” This image goes back, at least, to Hom. Il. XV.362–64, and is criticized at
Plut. Delph. 21 (393e–f).
20 Lampey (1960, 35) poses the question well: “Gibt es ein Dauern der Zeit, und was ist dieses
Dauern?” Heidegger (2012, 58) is singularly forceful in his response: “Zeit: spatium, distentio!”
4 synopsis
In the Eighty-Three Questions, Augustine alludes to star-clocks that could

subdivide hours into “sixty minutes” (sexaginta minutas), minutes into
“seconds” (minutas minutarum).21 In Confessions XI, he then speculates
that seconds could be subdivided into “hyper-minimal instants” (minutissimas
momentorum).22 Only such a ‘microsecond,’ only a “hyper-minimal point of
time” is ever present.23
This is why Augustine asks in Confessions XI, ‘Where is the time we call
long?’ He responds, “in the soul.”24 And what is the space of time? In the last
pages of Confessions XI, Augustine suggests that it is “some dilation” (quan-
dam . . . distentionem),25 and apparently, “a dilation . . . of the soul-itself”
(distentionem . . . ipsius animi).26
The formula has outlived him. From the late-antique excerpter Eugippius27
to the late-modern philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, Augustine’s time-
investigation in Confessions XI and the ‘dilation’ it evokes have been taken up
as seminal contributions to the concept of time.28
In The Space of Time, I first indicate how the canonical interpretations of
Augustine’s ‘dilation’—and more generally, of his time-concepts in Confessions
X to XII—are in crucial respects misinterpretations; and then demonstrate
that a sensualist interpretation of time in the Confessions is not only philologi-
cally valid but philosophically acute. For times have changed since Augustine’s
death, but time-itself—ipsum tempus—is not changed.
21 Aug. 83 Quaest. 45.2: In constellationibus autem notari partes, quales trecentas sexaginta
dicunt habere signiferum circulum. Motum autem caeli per unam horam fieri in quinde-
cim partibus, ut tanta mora quindecim partes oriantur, quantam tenet una hora. Quae
partes singulae sexaginta minutas habere dicuntur. Minutas autem minutarum iam in con-
stellationibus, de quibus futura praedicere se dicunt, non inveniunt.
22 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: si quid intellegitur temporis, quod in nullas iam vel minutissimas
momentorum partes dividi possit, id solum est quod ‘praesens’ dicatur.
23 Aug. 83 Quaest. 45.2: . . . tam parvo puncto temporis contingit, ut in duas minutas minuta-
rum non tendatur.
24 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.20.26, XI.28.37.
25 Aug. Conf. XI.23.30: video igitur tempus quandam esse distentionem.
Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 2: “The Late [Latin] fondness for abstract nouns, especially for those
ending in -tio (-sio) and -tas is very evident in the Confessions.”
26 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: . . . mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem; sed
cuius rei, nescio, et mirum, si non ipsius animi.
27 Colish 1985, 235: “[Augustine’s] writings had already begun to be rifled and anthologized
by excerpters within a decade or so after his death.”
For Eugippius (c. 482–c. 533) specifically: Pietri and Pietri 1999, 676–79; Dolbeau 2005,
201–202.
28 Augustine’s distentio has antecedents in the Greek terms διάστασις and διάστημα, which are
commonplace in Stoic, Pyrrhonian and Neoplatonic discussions of time: see Appendix 1.
Introduction
To Recover Augustine’s Time-Question
∵
Proem
Seven centuries before Augustine writes that there is “a presence of past-things,

memory, a presence of present-things, observation, a presence of future-
things, expectation,”1 Aristotle writes that it is “in present-time” or “within
the now” (ἐν τῷ νῦν) that “sensation (αἴσθησις) refers to what is present, hope
(ἐλπίς) to what is future, memory (μνήμη) to what is past,” and that without
such refraction, there can be no “sense of time” (χρόνου αἰσθάνεται).2 Or again:
Aristotle takes it to be axiomatic that all objects of pleasure “must necessarily
be present in sensation or past in recollection or future in hope: for one senses
present-things, recollects past-things, hopes for future-things.”3
The purpose of opening this way is not to diminish the force of Confessions
XI, or to suggest that Augustine takes his phrasing from Aristotle. It is conceiv-
able that Augustine possessed Latinized excerpts of Aristotle’s De Memoria
or Rhetoric, but this is indemonstrable, and perhaps uninteresting. Rather,
these fore-echoes serve to underscore that—as Augustine confesses—
time is “hyper-manifest and hyper-common.”4 Before it is recondite: time is
common.
1 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: sunt enim haec in anima tria quaedam et alibi ea non video, praesens de
praeteritis memoria, praesens de praesentibus contuitus, praesens de futuris expectatio.
2 Arist. Mem. I (449b).
And noting an intellectivist shift, cf. for instance, Cic. Inv. II.53.160–61: ‘Memoria’ est
per quam animus repetit illa quae fuerint; ‘intellegentia,’ per quam ea perspicit quae sunt;
‘providentia,’ per quam futurum aliquid videtur ante quam factum est . . . ‘veritas,’ per quam
immutata ea quae sunt aut quae ante fuerunt aut futura sunt dicuntur; Tusc. I.10.22: ‘mens’
cogitare enim et providere . . . et meminisse; Rep. IV.1 (fr.): . . . atque ipsa mens ea, quae futura
videt, praeterita meminit.
Augustine transcribes the first of these Ciceronian passages, at Aug. 83 quaest. 31 (≈ Cic.
Inv. II.53–55); and he later takes issue, specifically, with the lines I have quoted from Cic. Inv.
II.53, at Aug. Trin. XIV.11.14.
3 Cf. Arist. Rhet. I.11.7 (1370a), Arist.Lat. Rhet. I.11: ἐν τῷ αἰσθάνεσθαι εἶναι παρόντα = in sen-
tiendo presentia; ἐν τῷ μεμνῆσθαι γεγενημένα = in memorando facta; ἐν τῷ ἐλπίζειν μέλλοντα =
in sperando futura; αἰσθάνονται μὲν γὰρ τὰ παρόντα, μέμνηνται δὲ τὰ γεγενημένα, ἐλπίζουσι δὲ τὰ
μέλλοντα = sentiunt quidem enim presentia, reminiscuntur factorum, sperant vero futura.
Cf. also Aug. Imm.anim. 3.3: Et exspectatio futurarum rerum est, praeteritarum vero memo-
ria. At intentio ad agendum praesentis est temporis, per quod futurum in praeteritum transit . . .
4 Aug. Conf. XI.22.28: dicimus ‘tempus’ et ‘tempus,’ ‘tempora’ et ‘tempora’ . . . dicimus haec et
audimus haec et intellegimur et intellegimus. manifestissima et usitatissima sunt, et eadem
rursus nimis latent et nova est inventio eorum.

8 proem
Thus, whatever conceptual refinements Augustine may introduce in the

Confessions, his time-concept will not only echo Aristotle, but will redeploy
a triplex distribution of ‘times’ that we see in the first lines of Homer’s Iliad,
where it is a pagan auger’s prerogative to disclose whatever “had been, is, or
should hereafter be.”5 Later, in the first lines of Hippocrates’ Prognosticon,6 it
is a pagan physician’s prerogative to decipher the “things that are, and were
before, and will be,”7 but note this: Hippocrates’ empiricist schema, his primi-
tive division of ‘times,’ is still the Iliad’s. And later yet, in the Confessions,
Augustine’s primitive division of ‘times’ is still the Iliad’s.8 For before time is
obscure: it is manifest.
This is a preliminary, but not a negligible point. Augustine believes in
time, and what is more, he insists that—in a pre-reflective sense—he
knows time.9 In his early collected work,10 the Eighty-Three Questions, Augustine
writes:
5 In Thomas Hobbes’s translation. Cf. Hobbes 2008, 6; Hom. Il. I.70: τά τ᾽ ἐόντα τά τ᾽
ἐσσόμενα πρό τ᾽ ἐόντα.
Cf. also Virg. Georg. IV.392–3: novit . . . omnia vates, | quae sint, quae fuerint, quae mox
ventura trahantur; Cic. Div. I.30.63: Cum ergo est somno sevocatus animus a societate et
a contagione corporis, tum meminit praeteritorum, praesentia cernit, futura praevidet.
And for a study of Homeric ‘time,’ specifically in the Iliad: Garcia 2013.
6 Cf. a similar reference to Hippocrates at Aug. Conf. IV.3.4 (Hippocraten intellexisset),
where Hippocrates’ medicine is contrasted with astrology—rather than, as here, with
augury.
7 Hipp. Prog. I: τά τε παρεόντα καὶ τά προγεγονότα καὶ τά μέλλοντα ἔσεσθαι.
8 At Macr. Sat. I.20.5, Macrobius also cites Hippocrates, Virgil and Homer on the triplicity
of time. Then, after a number of dense, hermetic paragraphs, he rationalizes a Sarapis
statue—“the statue of a three-headed creature (tricipitis animantis)”—so as to glimpse
the form of time:
Its central head, which is largest, has the aspect of a lion; on the right, the head of a
dog rears up, tame and fawning; the left part of the neck ends in the head of a rapa-
cious wolf. . . . Thus, the lion’s head indicates present time (praesens tempus), poised to
move, impetuous and strong, due to its situation between past and future (inter praet-
eritum futurumque); but the wolf’s head signifies time past (praeteritum tempus), since
the memory of finished things (memoria rerum transactarum) is dragged away and
destroyed; and similarly, the image of the fawning dog designates the events of future
time (futuri temporis), which hope (spes)—though manifestly uncertain—presents to
us with a harmless aspect. (Macr. Sat. I.20.13–15.)
9 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: si nemo ex me quaerat, scio . . . fidenter tamen dico scire me quod, si
nihil praeteriret, non esset praeteritum tempus, et si nihil adveniret, non esset futurum
tempus, et si nihil esset, non esset praesens tempus.
10 Zarb (1934, 37–38) takes the period of composition to be 388–395, while Mutzenbecher
(1984, xviii) suggests 388–397.
proem 9
All that the corporeal sense touches, and which is called ‘the sensible,’ is
being altered without any respite or gap of time whatever.11
This is a sensualist, near-Heraclitean12 formulation of temporal flux.13 This is

also a near-duplicate of the opening sentence of Augustine’s second surviving
letter, composed in the last months of 386,14 where:
All those things the corporeal sense touches15 can by no means remain
unaltered—no, not even for some point of time—but they glide away,16
flow on (effluere),17 and retain nothing of ‘presence’ so that—to stay with
Latin terms18—they are inexistent (non esse).19
11 Aug. 83 quaest. 9: Omne quod corporeus sensus adtingit, quod et ‘sensibile’ dicitur, sine
ulla intermissione temporis commutatur.
Cf. Aug. 83 quaest. 9: sine ulla intermissione temporis commutatur; Conf. XIII.33.48:
eius informitatem sine ulla temporis interpositione formasti.
12 Pl. Crat. 402a: “Heraclitus says, you know, that all things rush on and nothing holds fast
(πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει), and he likens all things to the flux of a river (ποταμοῦ ῥοῇ
ἀπεικάζων τὰ ὄντα).”
13 Augustine refers to temporal ‘flux’ (fluxus), at Aug. Conf. IX.8.18: at tu, domine, rector
caelitum et terrenorum, ad usus tuos contorquens profunda torrentis, fluxum saeculorum
ordinate turbulentum . . .
Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 70: “fluxus, flow, tide (of time): [Conf.] 9, 8, 18, . . . fluxum saeculorum
ordinate turbulentum;—a flowing, flow (of liquids) (Plin mai., Late).”
14 Divjak 2002, 1028: “Epistula 2 . . . Ende 386.”
15 Cf. Aug. Epist. 2.1: Omnia, quae corporeus sensus adtingit . . .; 83 quaest. 9: Omne quod
corporeus sensus adtingit . . .
16 Cf. Aug. Conf. IX.3.6: “. . . when, look: those days had glided away” (cum ecce evoluti sunt
dies illi).
Thus Hrdlicka 1931, 76: “evolui, to roll away . . . glide away (Verg., Silver).”
17 Cf. also Aug. Enarr. 38.7: “All things are swept on, carried off by rolling instants of time:
the torrent of all things rushes and flows” (Momentis transvolantibus cuncta rapiuntur,
torrens rerum fluit).
18 Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 7: “St. Augustine is very restrained in his employment of foreign loan-
words”; Schieman 1938, 75: “In the use of Greek loan words . . . St. Augustine is very
conservative.”
This reticence to use Greek terms is addressed—as at many places in Cicero’s
dialogues—at, for instance, Aug. Util. 3.5. And I must include this philological pearl-
of-great-price, which we owe to Clement Louis Hrdlicka (1931, 7): “The Greek adjective
theatricus is the only one in the Confessions of which it can be definitely stated that it was
introduced into Latin literature by St. Augustine.”
19 Aug. Epist. 2.1: Omnia, quae corporeus sensus adtingit, ne puncto quidem temporis
eodem modo manere posse, sed labi, effluere et praesens nihil obtinere, id est, ut latine
loquar, non esse.
10 proem
Yet this ‘inexistence’ of temporalia never implies the inexistence of tempus. To

the contrary, in Augustine’s late counter-history,20 The City of God against the
Pagans, he maintains that time
Not only is (non solum est), but is so real and so harassing that no dis-
course can express it and no sophism can evade it.21
There is no Eleatic or finally sceptical tendency in Augustine, apropos of time.

Against the “anti-physicists” (ἀφυσίκους) or “arresters” (στασιώτας),22 such
as Parmenides; and against the radical sceptics,23 such as Sextus Empiricus:
time—in Augustine’s corpus—is, and is common, and is manifest. Therefore,
Augustine’s time-concept will take its rise from—at very least—a sensual
manifestness of time that ‘no discourse can express and no sophism can evade.’
And accordingly, in Sextus Empiricus’ phrase, Augustine will follow on from
those philosophers who—like the masses, and unlike Parmenides—“attend to
phenomena” (τοῖς φαινομένοις προσέχων).24
20 Zarb (1934, 88) gives 413–426 as the date-range, while Mutzenbecher (1984, xx) has
412–426/7.
21 Aug. Civ. XIII.11: Nunc autem non solum est, verum etiam tam molesta est, ut nec ulla
explicari locutione possit nec ulla ratione vitari.
Admittedly, Augustine’s most immediate reference here is ‘death,’ not ‘time.’ However,
in the same paragraph he suggests a strict parallelism of ‘death’ and ‘time’ that justifies my
use of the sentence here. Cf. Civ. XIII.11: Ita etiam in transcursu temporum quaeritur prae-
sens, nec invenitur, quia sine ullo spatio est, per quod transitur ex futuro in praeteritum.
I would also suggest that Augustine may very well here—with his reference to a ‘soph-
ism’ regarding death, and with his structural linkage of time-modalities and the ‘point’ of
death—be conversing with, and criticizing, Lucretius at Lucr. Rer.nat. III.824–42, a pas-
sage that hinges on the Epicurean claim (‘sophism’?): “Therefore death is nothing to us”
(Nil igitur mors est ad nos). This ‘sophism’ is flanked by stanzas on expectation and mem-
ory, and the inexistence of past and future in the absence of expectation and memory.
22 The terms here are Aristotle’s (via Sext. Ad.Phys. II.45–46), but for the epithet στασιώτας,
cf. Pl. Theaet. 180d–181a, where the Eleatics are “partisans of the unmoving whole” (τοῦ
ὅλου στασιῶται).
23 Cf. Sext. Ad.Phys. II.45–49. And though Sextus Empiricus is here addressing ‘motion,’ the
interlinkage of ‘motion’ and ‘time’ is so close and so essential as to permit a transposition.
Sextus turns to the question of time in the next chapter of Ad.Phys. II.
24 Sext. Ad.Phys. II.45: “That [motion] exists is affirmed both by the masses, who attend to
appearances, and by the greater part of the physicists (φυσικῶν), such as Pythagoras and
Empedocles and Anaxagoras and Democritus and Epicurus . . . but its non-existence is
affirmed by Parmenides and Melissus.”
chapter 1
Augustine and the Temporal Intrigue
“From book XI of the Confessions,” writes Jean-François Lyotard, “Husserl reads

off the phenomenology of the internal consciousness of time. In this book
Augustine sketches out from below a libidinal-ontological constitution of
temporality.”1
Lyotard’s first observation is not contentious. Edmund Husserl opens his
1905 time-consciousness lectures—in manuscript, as in Martin Heidegger’s
edition—with unmixed praise for Confessions XI.2 Nor is it contentious when
Lyotard, later in his Confession of Augustine, traces Heidegger’s thematic of
temporality to Augustine.3 Heidegger states in 1925 that he first encountered
his Ur-phenomenon of concern (Sorge) in Augustine,4 and repeats in 1941 that
“the sole question” of Sein und Zeit is indebted to him.5 Work on Heidegger’s
published, and as yet unpublished,6 lectures and seminars continues to i dentify
links between the Confessions and Heidegger’s 1920s phenomenology.7 And in
1 Lyotard 1998, 37–38/2000, 19.

2 Husserl 1966, 3; 1971, 21; cf. von Herrmann 1992, 145–57.
And of course, Husserl (1960, 157; 1964, 39) closes his Paris Lectures and Cartesian
Meditations with this injunction from Aug. Vera rel. 39.72: Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi. In
interiore homine habitat veritas.
3 Lyotard 2000, 73–74: “The whole of modern, existential thought on temporality ensues from
this meditation [sc. Conf. XI]: Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre.”
Cf. Ricœur 1983, 34: “[Distentio animi est] le trait de génie du livre XI des Confessions
d’Augustin, dans le sillage duquel s’engageront Husserl, Heidegger et Merleau-Ponty”;
Corradini 1997, 37: “An diesen genialen Gedanken [i.e. distentio animi] schließen
Husserl, Heidegger und Ricoeur an.”
4 Heidegger (1979, 418/1985, 302) recalls that he first noticed “the phenomenon of care” (das
Phänomen der Sorge), circa 1918, in his “attempts to arrive at the ontological foundations of
Augustinian anthropology.”
5 Heidegger 1991, 48; where Heidegger also cites Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel and
Kierkegaard.
6 Heidegger’s “Augustinus und der Neuplatonismus (SS 1921)” appeared in 1995 in the Heidegger
Gesamtausgabe 60, and in English translation in 2004. His “Augustinus, Confessiones XI (De
Tempore). Übungen im Wintersemester 1930/31” appeared in 2012 in Gesamtausgabe 83,
which is titled Seminare: Platon—Aristoteles—Augustinus. Heidegger’s 26 October 1930 lec-
ture at the Beuron Monastery, “Des hl. Augustinus Betrachtungen über Zeit. Confessiones
Liber XI,” is scheduled to appear in Gesamtausgabe 80.
7 For instance: Barizza 2005; Brachtendorf 2007; Capelle 2005; Falque 2012, 2013; Fischer
2007; Sommer 2005, 2013; Van Fleteren 2005; von Herrmann and Fischer 2007.

12 chapter 1
the wake of phenomenology, not only Lyotard but Jacques Derrida and Paul
Ricœur, Rainer Schürmann and Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann have taken
Augustine as a difficult, yet essential, interlocutor.8
More arresting than Lyotard’s doxographic claim, however, is the hermeneu-
tic claim that follows it, without conjunction or disjunction. In Confessions XI,
‘Augustine sketches out from below a libidinal-ontological constitution of tem-
porality.’ The suggestion is oblique, and Lyotard does not return to it in The
Confession of Augustine. Yet it could also be said that Lyotard’s Confession is in
its entirety a lyrical, conflicted, but lucid gloss on this sentence.
“From below” (par en-dessous),9 that is: Augustine writes under a specula-
tive canopy of eternity, but without recourse to eternity. Several preliminary
contrasts help to establish this point.
When Cicero confesses how difficult it is “to define time-itself and in

generic terms (generaliter),”10 he blithely proceeds to define it—for
a rhetorician’s purposes, at least—as “some part of eternity (pars
quaedam aeternitatis) which is indicated by a determinate space (spati
certa),” such as year or month, day or night.11
8 Lyotard 1998, 2000; Derrida 1991, 1998, 2001; Ricœur 1983, 1985; Schürmann 1993, 2003;
von Herrmann 1992, 2008.
9 Lyotard 1998, 37.
10 It is presumably on the basis of Cicero’s demur here that, when William of Conches quotes
Cicero’s definition of ‘time’ in his 12th-century Glosae in Timaeum—relative to Conches’
triplex division of the senses of ‘time’ into the generalis, the totalis and the partialis—
he takes it to be a definition of ‘partial,’ not ‘general time.’ Cf. Conc. Glos. cap. XCIV:
Partialis vero talis est data a Tullio: Tempus est quedam pars eternitatis, id est illius magni
spacii, cum certa significatione alicuius spacii diurni, nocturni mensurnive: certa significa-
tione, id est determinata certa quantitate et nomine. Que partialis est quia convenit parti
et non toti.
Unlike Conches, Pierre Gassendi (1658, I:220) later sets this Ciceronian caveat along-
side Augustine’s much-cited, opening confession at Conf. XI.14.17: “Profectò verò haud
abs re in ore eſt omnium, quod D. habet Auguſtinus, Si nemo, inquit, ex me quærat, quid
sit Tempus, scio; si quærenti explicare velim, nescio. . . . Cúmque proinde Cicero dicat, dif-
ficile esse Tempus definire generaliter; parùm abeſt, quin pronunciemus eſſe id impoſſibile;
adeò non licet definitionem, quæ ſatisfaciat reperire.” Gassendi (1658, I:226) completes
Cicero’s provisional definition some pages later: “Cicero, Tempus eſt, inquit, pars quædam
Æternitatis, cum alicuius annui, menstrui, diurni, nocturnive spaty certa significatione.”
11 Cic. Inv. I.26.39: Tempus autem est—id quo nunc utimur, nam ipsum quidem generali-
ter definire difficile est—pars quaedam aeternitatis cum alicuius annui, menstrui, diurni,
nocturnive spati certa significatione.
augustine and the temporal intrigue 13
When Macrobius hails Saturn as “the inaugurator of times” (auctor est

temporum)—by which he means that the sun institutes “an order of
the elements [that] is passed down [and] delimited by intrinsically
numbered times (temporum numerositate)”—he posits an “eternal
bond” (nexus aeternitate) that sustains this diurnal order of times.12
When Calcidius glosses the infinite alterations that constitute—in his
Latinized Timaeus—the very “rudiment and sequence of time,”13
he depicts these alterations as a “labile and irresistible”14 image of
eternity;15 or as a numinous and periodized imitation of eternity (vices
temporis imitantis aevum).16
12 Macr. Sat. I.22.8: Saturnus ipse, qui auctor est temporum et ideo a Graecis immutata
littera Κρόνος quasi Χρόνος vocatur, quid aliud nisi sol intellegendus est cum tradatur ordo
elementorum temporum numerositate distinctus, luce patefactus, nexus aeternitate con-
ductus, visione discretus, quae omnia actum solis ostendunt?
Apropos of Macrobius’ Κρόνος–Χρόνος manoeuvre here, vid. Plut. Is.Os. 32 (363d),
which Panofsky (1972, 73 n. 8) cites as “the earliest [appearance of] this identity in writ-
ing.” Of signal importance for us is the identification of Κρόνος with χρόνος, and then a
translation as spatium temporis, at Cic. Nat.deor. II.25.64: Κρόνος enim dicitur, qui est
idem χρόνος id est spatium temporis.
And of course, cf. also Aug. Cons. I.23.34: . . . nos tamen [say the pagans] Saturnum
interpretamur ‘universum tempus,’ quod Graecum etiam vocabulum eius ostendit; voca-
tur enim Cronos, quod adspiratione addita etiam temporis nomen est, unde et Latine
Saturnus appellatur, quasi saturetur anni.
Pépin (1976, 515) concludes his pages on “Le temps et le mythe” in this way: “Si les
Anciens n’ont cessé de recourir au mythe pour se défendre contre le temps, ils mettaient
volontiers le temps au nombre des enseignements qu’ils découvraient dans les myths;
en particulier, il leur arrivait constamment d’ajouter au dieu Cronos l’aspiration qui lui
manque pour figurer adéquatement le chronos.”
13 Calc. Epist. 105: . . . vices, elementa seriesque temporis ex quibus menses et anni, partes
eius ratione ac supputatione dividuae.
14 Calc. Epist. 106: praesentia vero neque plane esse neque omnino non esse propter insta-
bile atque inrefrenabile momentorum agmen.
15 Calc. Epist. 105: . . . mundus intellegibilis exemplum est mundi sensilis . . . Imago quoque
eius hic sensilis simulacro aevi facto atque instituto iungetur; imago enim demum aevi
tempus est manentis in suo statu, tempus porro minime manens, immo progrediens sem-
per et replicabile.
16 Calc. Epist. 105: . . . sunt haec omnia vices temporis imitantis aevum. . . . archetypus
quippe omni aevo semper existens est, hic sensibilis imagoque eius is est qui per omne
tempus fuerit, quippe et futurus sit.
14 chapter 1
And when Proclus recalls that “the most eminent theurgists”17 had rever-
enced time-itself “as god” (θεὸν);18 and that, as an “image of eternity,”
time is at very least the “image of a god” (εἰκὼν θεοῦ); he concludes—in
a Parmenidean vein—that “time is eternal (χρόνος αἰώνίος ἐστιν) . . .
in regard to its essence (οὐσίᾳ).”19
In Confessions XI, to the contrary, time is neither part nor nexus nor image20
nor hypostasis21 of Augustine’s ‘eternity,’22 and accordingly, the word
itself—aeternitas—disappears after the first sentences of Augustine’s time-
investigation in Confessions XI.14.17, and only reappears in the penultimate
sentence of XI.29.39.23 Augustine’s doctrine of ‘time’ is, indeed, resolutely
17 And I would add ‘poets’ to ‘theurgists’ here. Cf. for instance, Soph. El. 178: “Time is a mild
god” (χρόνος . . . εὐμαρὴς θεός); Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007b): “No mean intuition (οὐ φαύλως
ὑπονοῶν) seems to have been expressed by Pindar in the words, ‘The lord, the lofty, Time,
who excels all the beatific gods’ (ἄνακτα τὸν πάντων ὑπερβάλλοντα χρόνον μακάρων).”
18 For the ‘Neoplatonists’ (philosophi . . . recentiores Platonici) on divinity and time: Aug.
Cons. I.23.35.
19 Proc. Tim. III.26–27 (exc. Sambursky and Pines 1987, 50–53).
20 Pace O’Donnell’s (1992, III:279) numerological template for Conf. XI: “Aeternitas
[1] belongs in a triad with veritas [2] and caritas [3] . . . hence tempus [in Conf. XI] is the
quality of human experience that corresponds to (reflects? presents an image of?) divine
eternity.”
21 Pace Milbank’s (2008, 198 n. 60) strictly useless formulation, “Christ is time,” in his recent
glance at “Augustine on time.” Milbank’s sibylline synthesis has no grounding in Conf.
X–XII or, to my awareness, in any Augustinian text.
22 Thus O’Daly 1987, 152: “Perhaps uniquely among ancient Platonists, Augustine does not
attempt to understand time with reference to its supposed paradeigma or model, eternity.
Elsewhere, indeed, he will refer to time as a ‘trace (vestigium)’ or ‘copy (imitatio)’ of eter-
nity, but in conf. 11 it is rather the total contrast between God’s transcendence of time and
man’s anguished experience of dispersion . . . in time that he wishes to emphasize.”
And cf. Gross 1999, 134: “Augustine’s ontology of time is noteworthy for its depar-
ture from Plotinus. If in earlier writings he sees time as an ‘image’ or ‘vestige’ of eter-
nity . . . from the Confessions forward, he will stress the radical contrast . . . the opposition
between time and eternity”; 136: “For Augustine time and eternity are opposed and ‘not
comparable’ (incomparabilem; Conf. 11.11).”
23 This is why Marion (2012, 193) is forced to invoke Conf. XI.30.40—which reprises the eter-
nity-meditation of Conf. XI.3–13, not the time-investigation of Conf. XI.14–29 (see 5.1)—
when he writes that “book XI of the Confessions is not about a definition of time . . . [but]
aims rather to conceive how time is not closed to eternity any more than it is abolished
in it—in short, how [time] could be articulated . . . with [eternity], without confusion
or separation. And in fact, book XI will conclude”—as we will see in 5.3, this is simply
incorrect—“with a recognition of this almost unthinkable articulation: . . . ‘Let them
e laborated from within what Lyotard calls “this transitivity of finite being.”24
And within the space that his time-investigation occupies, Augustine not
only proceeds ‘in time’—as he himself confesses (XI.25.32)—but also, method-
ologically, ‘from below.’
And what of Lyotard’s bid for a “libidinal-ontological (libidinale-ontologique)
constitution of temporality” in Confessions XI?25 What Lyotard conveys with
this compound term is the idea (α) that in Augustine’s time-investigation,
it is “desire that bears three times the mourning of its things,” and (β) that
Augustine’s time-itself (ipsum tempus) is “measured by affectio, in the singular
mode in which things touch us (la chose nous touche) in their eclipse.”26 In the
present work, I seek to clarify (β): Augustine’s ‘ontological constitution of tem-
porality’ in Confessions X to XII. A necessary sequel to this research would be to
elaborate, in light of the interpretation I develop here, (α): Augustine’s indissev-
erably ‘libidinal constitution of temporality.’ That is to say, the sense-affective
rôles of desire (desiderium), concern (cura), lust (libido) and indigence (indi-
gentia) in the ‘time’ of Augustine’s Confessions.27
But again—in Lyotard’s terms—my concern in this work is with the things
that ‘touch us in their eclipse,’ with the things that a desirous soul ‘three times’
illuminates, measures, and mourns in time. And for Augustine, in Confessions
X to XII, these things-themselves (res ipsa) that co-constitute time as affectio
are corpora: bodies, in movement and at rest (XI.24.31). And for Augustine,
in Confessions X to XII, a further condition of time-itself as ‘measured by
affectio’ is sensus: sensation. And more specifically, sensus carnis: the sensa-
tion of the flesh.28 It is for this reason that I will refer to ‘sense-affective’ or
‘sense-imaginal’ time in Augustine. This formula is adumbrated in the last
comprehend you as the eternal creator of all times and with whom no time or any crea-
ture is coeternal’ ([Conf.] XI, 30, 40).”
24 Lyotard 2000, 72.
25 Lyotard 1998, 38.
26 Lyotard 1998, 53/2000, 32. Lyotard’s reference here is explicitly to Conf. XI.27.36: he fin-
ishes this sentence, “affectio quam res praetereuntes in nos faciunt.”
27 Cf. for instance, Aug. Enarr. 6.13.
28 Aug. Conf. IV.10.15: illis . . . non stant: fugiunt . . . tardus est enim sensus carnis, quoniam
sensus carnis est: ipse est modus eius. sufficit ad aliud, ad quod factus est . . .
In her meticulous short work on The Syntax of the Confessions of Saint Augustine,
Sister Mary Raphael Arts (1927, 15–16) lists sensus carnis as an instance of a later Latin
“descriptive or qualitative genitive,” a genitive that appears with Apuleius, is “also used
by Symmachus, Sulpicius Severus, Sidonius Apolloniarus, etc.,” and is “due chiefly to the
Hebraic influence.” That is to say: “This genitive has its origins in a Hebrew idiom which
was preserved in the Greek text of the Bible and thence transferred to the Latin.”
16 chapter 1
sentences of Confessions XI,29 and the arc of The Space of Time is devoted to,
and determined by, the task of recovering Augustine’s much-cited (and mis-
cited) ‘distentio animi’ in the Confessions as most originarily signifying a
‘distentio sensuum’: a dilation of the senses.30
1.1 Against a Truncated Interpretation of Confessions XI
While the interpretation I develop here is decisively influenced by phe-

nomenological and post-phenomenological interpretations of Augustine—
foremost by von Herrmann’s and Lyotard’s—it yet represents a fundamental
departure. For even Lyotard sees distentio as a refraction or elongation of the
‘mind’ (intellectus, mens): “Waiting, attention, and memory [are] the presence
to the mind (esprit) of the future, of the present, and of the past.”31 Or again:
von Herrmann articulates distentio as “the flowing of time in the interiority
(Innerlichkeit) of the time-attuned mind (Geistes),”32 while Ricœur insists that
29 Aug. Conf. XI.31.41: variatur affectus sensusque distenditur.

30 While he has in no way influenced my decision to render Augustine’s distentio with ‘dila-
tion,’ J.-L. Chrétien (2007, 33–63) surveys Augustine’s use of dilatare in several sermons,
and one appearance in the Confessions (dilatetur abs te, I.5.6), in his Essai sur la dilatation.
There is a very interesting temporal use of dilatio at Sen. Brev. 16.4: Omnis illis spe-
ratae rei longa dilatio est; at illud tempus quod amant breve est et praeceps breviusque
multo, suo vitio.
31 Lyotard 1998, 68/2000, 45: “Il nomme respectivement attente, attention, mémoire la
présence à l’esprit du futur, du présent, du passé.”
Esprit in this formulation should be taken as Augustine’s animus since Lyotard him-
self equates the terms in his section, “Temporize”: “the mind itself . . . animus” (l’esprit
meme . . . animus) (1998, 51/2000, 30). And in a later passage, Lyotard explicitly re-ren-
ders Augustine’s animus with ‘intellect’: “Indeed the intellect (l’intellect), animus, takes
up the hand again for the final four lengthy books [of the Conf.], the thinker multiplies
analyses, explanations, allegorical interpretations . . .” (1998, 80/2000, 56; tr. mod.). In
short: Lyotard’s esprit = Augustine’s animus, while Augustine’s animus = Lyotard’s intel-
lect. Thus, Lyotard’s esprit = Lyotard’s intellect.
It is strange, however, that Lyotard (1998, 68) also writes of Augustine’s co-presence of
‘times’ to the spiritus—“Augustin dit: à l’esprit, spiritu”—since the term spiritus is nota-
bly absent in Confessions XI, apart from Aug. Conf. XI.1.1: vocasti nos, ut simus pauperes
spiritu et mites et lugentes et esurientes ac sitientes iustitiam . . .
32 Von Herrmann 1992, 151/2008, 155 (tr. mod.): “Was dagegen Augustinus als Zeitfluß in der
Innerlichkeit des zeitverstehenden Geistes in den Blick nimmt, ist die objektive Zeit, und
zwar so, wie sie innerlich verstanden wird. Die innerlich verstandene fließende Zeit ist
auch die Zeit der äußeren dinglichen Welt.”
temporizing affectio is “in the soul (âme) only inasmuch as the mind (esprit)
acts, that is, expects, attends, and remembers.”33
I will suggest, to the contrary, that for Augustine ‘the mind . . . expects,
attends, and remembers’ (Ricœur) only because, and as long as, the soul
(anima-animus) vivifies its flesh (caro)34 and thus ignites sensation (sensus).
That is, ‘the soul’ that is dilated in Augustine’s time-investigation is essen-
tially and incommutably the life of a body (vita corporis)—not intellectus, not
mens.35 I will also suggest that Augustine’s identification of tempus with a ‘dis-
tentio animi’ does not resolve into an ‘interiority of the mind’ (von Herrmann),
but rather, into an outness of the soul. This ‘outness’ is, indeed, co-given in and
indicated by Augustine’s selection of the term distentio, which depicts not a
contraction, intension or recoil, but a dilation, refraction and spatialization of
the soul. And lastly, I will seek to demonstrate that distentio in Confessions XI is
less originarily and decisively a ‘presence to the mind of the future, of the pres-
ent, and of the past’ (Lyotard), than it is a refractive presence-of (praesens de)
past and future things which is incommutably linked to, and trebly articulated
by, sensation (sensus-contuitus).36 In Confessions XI, on my interpretation here,
Cf. von Herrmann 1992, 120: “die distentio der Zeit die distentio des zeitverstehenden
Geistes ist.”
33 Ricœur 1983, 38/1984, 19: “C’est dans l’âme, donc à titre d’impression, que l’attente et
la mémoire ont de l’extension. Mais l’impression n’est dans l’âme que pour autant que
l’esprit agit, c’est-à-dire attend, fait attention et se souvient.”
Cf. Ricœur 1983, 37: “Il ne faudrait pas croire que ce recours à l’impression [in Conf.
XI.37] termine l’enquête. La notion de distentio animi n’a pas reçu son dû tant qu’on n’a
pas contrasté la passivité de l’impression avec l’activité d’un esprit tendu en des directions
opposées, entre l’attente, la mémoire et l’attention. Seul un esprit ainsi diversement tendu
peut être distendu.”
And cf. also, for instance, Guitton 1955, 187: “Elle est vraiment une extension, c’est-
à-dire qu’elle implique une activité de l’esprit . . . l’esprit attend, l’esprit fait attention et
l’esprit se souvient”; Jordan 1955, 398: “There are not three times, strictly speaking, but
three modes of present time—a present of things past, a present of things present, and
a present of things future, each with its corresponding act of the mind—memory, sight
(contuitus), and expectation.”
34 Cf. Aug. Fid.simb. 10.24: Omnis enim caro etiam corpus est, non autem omne corpus etiam
caro est: primo in istis terrestribus, quoniam lignum corpus est, sed non caro; hominis
autem vel pecoris et corpus et caro est; in caelestibus vero nulla caro, sed corpora simplicia
et lucida, quae appellat Apostolus ‘spiritalia’; nonnulli autem vocant ‘aetherea.’
35 Cf. Aug. Conf. III.6.10: vita corporum; X.6.10: tibi dico, anima, quoniam tu vegetas molem
corporis tui praebens ei vitam, quod nullum corpus praestat corpori.
36 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.15.18: “The expectation of future things becomes sight when they have
arrived, and this same sight becomes memory when they have passed by” (expectatio
18 chapter 1
the privileged and incommutable crux of Augustine’s distentio, the hyper-

transitive point (punctum) from which time-itself is veraciously refracted, is
what Augustine calls a praesens de praesentibus: a presence-of-present-things
in sensation.37
But all of this will only come into clarity, and to validity, in Part III. And
the route to Part III will not be direct, since a basic result of my research
is the conviction that the time-investigation in Confessions XI.14–29 should
not be interpreted, and cannot be adequately interpreted, as a discrete or free-
standing investigation. (Goulven Madec is entirely in the right when he says
that this sort of truncated interpretation is a “bad habit” of the philosophers.)38
As a single indication of this: Augustine is variously praised or dispraised for
seeing time-itself at first “in the soul” (anima);39 and then, indistinctly, as
“some dilation” (distentio);40 and finally—most likely41—as a dilation “of the
soul” (animus).42 But what is anima, here? And what is animus? And are they
different?43
There is nothing in Confessions XI.14–29 that approaches a definition
of anima-animus, nor is there any concrete indication in book XI of what
Augustine means by anima in XI.20 (etc.), and then by animus in XI.26 (etc.).44
Localizing time in anima, and identifying time with a dilation of animus,
thus remain—within the limits of Augustine’s time-investigation—radically
rerum venturarum fit contuitus, cum venerint, idemque contuitus fit memoria, cum
praeterierint).
37 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: praesens de praeteritis memoria, praesens de praesentibus contuitus,
praesens de futuris expectatio.
38 Madec 2001, 189: “Les philosophes, eux, ont la mauvaise habitude d’isoler dans le livre XI
des Confessions le développement sur le temps et de s’y enfermer.”
39 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: sunt enim haec in anima tria quaedam et alibi ea non video.
40 Aug. Conf. XI.23.30: video igitur tempus quandam esse distentionem. sed video? an videre
mihi videor?
Cf. Arist. Phys. IV.4 (212a), albeit of ‘place’ (ὁ τόπος): “for there appears to be some
dimension, some extension” (γὰρ φαίνεται εἶναι διάστημα). Διάστημα later becomes a ter-
minus technicus in discussions of time: see Appendix 1.
41 That is to say, Academicorum more.
Cf. Cic. Nat.deor. III.29.72: Academicorum more contra communem opinionem . . . pug-
nare ratione; Aug. Conf. V.14.25: itaque Academicorum more, sicut existimantur . . .
42 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: inde mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem; sed
43 Cf. Arts 1927, 4: “Augustine, in his Confessions, often seems to make no distinction at all in
his use of anima and animus for the Christian conception of ‘soul.’ ”
44 Cf. for instance, Aug. 83 quaest. 7.
and necessarily indeterminate findings.45 What generally occurs could be

predicted: a pre-decided concept of ‘soul,’ ‘mind,’ ‘consciousness’ or ‘subject’
is imported.46 It is precisely this that my interpretation cuts against, while
admittedly foregrounding and valorizing certain of Augustine’s motivations
and aspects of his text.
1.2 Preliminary Remarks on the Term ‘Sensualist’
It is necessary to address the basic tendency of my interpretation, which is

indeed a sensualist interpretation, before proceeding. (For the sceptical or
impatient: the descriptor ‘sensual,’ apropos of the rhythmic enunciation of
Ambrose’s line, Deus creator omnium, is originally Augustine’s: see 13.6.)
In the first place, the term ‘sensualist’ is of course not chosen to insinu-
ate that the bishop of Hippo Regius was a languorous type, a sybarite—since
he was not. For a glimpse of time-analysis from a real Roman ‘sensualist,’ in
the vulgar sense,47 we should rather turn to a passage from Seneca’s De
Brevititate Vitae:
I hear that one of these delicious types—if you can call it ‘delicious’ to
deconstruct (dediscere) the habits of a human life—when he had been
lifted from a bath by his unhappy slave-boys’ hands48 and placed in his
sedan-chair, said curiously, “Am I now seated?” (Iam sedeo?)
45 Nota bene: the same holds for sensus within the time-investigation of Conf. XI, and indeed,
for sensus carnis within the Conf. as a whole. For incisive surveys of Augustine’s theory
of sensus, in which the survival, in Augustine, of a Stoic notion of corporeal pneuma is of
special interest: Colish 1985, 169–79; O’Daly 1987, 21–31, 80–105.
O’Daly (1987, 80 n. 1), with characteristic modesty, cites Kälin 1920, 8–40 (non vidi) as
being “the clearest account of Augustine’s theory of sense-perception.”
46 Cf. Corradini 1997, 32: “Anima ist hier als Bewußtsein zu verstehen.”
47 For ‘sensualist’ in the vulgar sense, cf. for instance, Sen. Brev. 12.7: Audio quendam ex deli-
catis . . .; Cic. Fin. II.7.21–22: Idque si ita dicit, non esse reprendendos luxuriosos si sapien-
tes sint . . . Sed tamen nonne reprenderes, Epicure, luxuriosos . . . Unum nescio, quomodo
possit, si luxuriosus sit, finitas cupiditates habere.
48 I have transposed ‘unhappy slave-boys’ from Sen. Brev. 12.5: “How carefully these unhappy
little slave-boys (infelices pueruli) wipe the spittle off the rich drunks’ chins!”
20 chapter 1
Now, could you say that a man who doesn’t know whether he is seated
knows (scire) whether he is alive, or whether he sees, or whether he is
indeed ‘at leisure’?49
Note the time-word here, iam, which means ‘now,’ ‘already’ or ‘so soon.’ This
nameless connoisseur of self-indulgence—despite Seneca’s over-reaching
questions—still evidently ‘knows’ what time is in the most basic sense that
Augustine opens his time-investigation with, at Confessions XI.14.17: “If no one
asks me what time is, I know (scio).”50 Seneca’s “jellyfish”51 clearly knows that
he was recently not seated; knows that time has passed; knows that he has now
49 Sen. Brev. 12.7: Audio quendam ex delicatis (si modo deliciae vocandae sunt vitam et con-
suetudinem humanam dediscere), cum ex balneo inter manus elatus et in sella p ositus
esset, dixisse interrogando: “Iam sedeo?” Hunc tu ignorantem an sedeat putas scire an
vivat, an videat, an otiosus sit?
50 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.
51 ‘Jellyfish’ is one possible translation of Plato’s πλεύμων (‘sea-lung,’ ‘jellyfish’) in a passage
of the Philebus which—I am convinced—directly or indirectly, but in any event decisively
influences the passage I have just quoted from Seneca’s De Brevititate Vitae. What follows
is a late-Platonic ‘Socrates,’ at Pl. Phil. 21b–d:
Living thus, would you be enjoying the very intensest pleasures (μεγίσταις ἡδοναῖς) all
your life? . . . But if you did not possess mind (νοῦν) or memory (μνήμην) or knowledge
(ἐπιστήμην) or true opinion (δόξαν . . . ἀληθῆ), in the first place, you would not know
whether you were enjoying your pleasures or not. . . . If you had no memory you could
not even remember that you ever did enjoy pleasure, and no recollection whatever of
present pleasure (παραχρῆμα ἡδονῆς) could remain with you; if you had no true opin-
ion you could not think (δόξάζειν) you were enjoying pleasure at the time you were
enjoying it, and if you were without the power of calculation you would not be able
to calculate (λογίζεσθαι) that you would enjoy it in the future. Your life would not be a
human life (ζῆν δὲ οὐκ ἀνθρώπου βίον), but that of a jellyfish (πλεύμονος) or some other
sea-creature . . .
This is a hugely important Platonic glance at ‘time-consciousness,’ and the intimate
link of time-consciousness to intense pleasure is still evident, obliquely, in the Epicureans’
apology at Cic. Fin. I.17.55–57:
We can sense nothing by the body, but what is present [in time] and present to it [in
space], whereas by the soul we can sense past-things and future-things. . . . [And] just
as we are elated by the expectation of good things, so we are delighted by their rec-
ollection. . . . [And] when the things of the past are perceived by the force of the soul’s
attention, then sorrow or gladness ensues, according as these things were unpleasant,
or pleasant.
Nam corpore nihil nisi praesens et quod adest sentire possumus, animo autem praet-
erita et futura. . . . [Et] ut iis bonis erigimur quae expectamus, sic laetamur iis quae
(perhaps) been deposited in his balneal sedan-chair; or if not, knows that he

will in future be ‘lifted from the bath,’ and so on. All of this indicates a primi-
tive, sense-affective, yet formally unimpugnable grasp of ‘time’—which is by no
means to say, a reflective grasp of ‘time.’52
But regardless, Augustine is no “soft-skinned, preening voluptuary,” as per
the Epicureans’ undeserved yet enduring reputation.53 The bishop of Hippo
Regius is no Lucullus. And while he confesses a predilection for Epicurus’
doctrines (plus a post-mortem life of “perpetual bodily pleasure”)54 as late
as Milan, in Confessions VI,55 it is the idea of a demon-baited anchorite
in the desert—and not the ideals of Epicurus’ Garden—that finally con-
quers Augustine’s will in a Milanese garden, in Confessions VIII.56 By the
time Augustine writes Confessions X to XII (c. 400),57 he espouses a tempered
recordamur. . . . [Et] cum ea quae praeterierunt acri animo et attento intuemur, tum fit
ut aegritudo sequatur si illa mala sint, si bona laetitia.
52 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: quis hoc ad verbum de illo proferendum vel cogitatione comprehenderit?
53 Cic. Fin. I.11.37: . . . voluptuaria, delicata, mollis.
54 Aug. Conf. VI.16.26: si essemus immortales et in perpetua corporis voluptate sine ullo
amissionis terrore viveremus.
55 Aug. Conf. VI.16.26: Epicurum accepturum fuisse palmam in animo meo . . .
While Augustine himself inclines, “in late 385 or early in 386” (O’Donnell 1992, II:386),
to the Epicurean doctrine, he writes in 410 that “the ashes” of the Stoic and Epicurean
systems are so cold that not even “the slightest spark (scintilla) could be struck out from
them against the Christian faith” (Epist. 118.2.12). Also note that, bizarrely, it is Augustine’s
“fear of death” (metus mortis) in Conf. VI.16.26 that steels him against Epicurus’ cure for
the fear of death. Cf. also Augustine’s acute “fear of dying” (moriendi metus) at Conf.
IV.6.11.
56 Cf. Aug. Conf. VIII.6.14: Antonio Aegyptio monacho, cuius nomen excellenter clarebat
apud servos tuos; X.43.70: agitaveram corde meditatusque fueram fugam in solitudinem,
sed prohibuisti me.
57 Zarb (1934, 43–45), Mutzenbecher (1984, xviii) and several others date Conf. I–IX to a.d.
397, Conf. X–XIII to “ante annum 401.”
More recently, Hombert (2000, 8–23) has assigned the composition of books I–IX to
the years 397–400, and attempted to fix the composition of books X–XIII, quite firmly, in
403. Hombert’s efforts are impressive, but not conclusive.
Indeed, the disjunct dating of Conf. I–IX/X–XIII is itself contested. O’Donnell (1992,
I:xxxii) still writes—with his unsurpassed knowledge of the Conf. and its chronological
literature, and without any ‘pious’ prejudice whatever—that “The Confessions are a single
work in thirteen books, written in ad 397.” Even if a disjunct dating is accepted, O’Donnell
(1992, I:xli) is still entirely correct in this: “Rhetorical and stylistic unity . . . [run] through
the book like an electric current.” It is only whether this unity makes the Conf. “easiest to
read as a work written entirely in 397,” as per O’Donnell, that remains a question.
22 chapter 1
asceticism and a sublimated hedonism—or said differently, and with Friedrich

Nietzsche, a Platonism for the common people.58 (And incidentally, the
mass-Platonism that Nietzsche derides is precisely what Augustine vaunts in
De Vera Religione.)59
Though Augustine is no epicure, then, it is nevertheless the Epicureans’
doctrine of time60—a doctrine that Augustine was acquainted with, already
in Milan—which can be used to preliminarily fix the sense of my term, ‘sen-
sualist.’ Or rather, a single tercet can be lifted from book I of Lucretius’ broad-
backed Epicurean epic, where he writes:
Time has no existence in-itself, but from the things-themselves a sensation

results of what has occurred in the past, of what is present, and of what
will occur later as a result.
58 This polemical line appears in Nietzsche’s preface to Beyond Good and Evil.
It seems that a serious interpretation of Augustine and Nietzsche has yet to be writ-
ten. It would presumably begin with Nietzsche’s reading of the Confessions in 1885, in the
months prior to commencing work on Beyond Good and Evil.
See letter 589 in the Nietzsche Briefwechsel (Nietzsche 1982, 33–35), where Nietzsche’s
high-spirited—and not always perceptive—‘psychological’ critique of the Confessions
agrees at one point with Augustine’s retrospective critique of that work, at Aug. Retr.
II.6.2. This is an extraordinary convergence: it testifies, at once, to Nietzsche’s acuity as a
reader and Augustine’s integrity as a writer.
Also: in the first pages of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche describes all p hilosophy
as ‘confession’; and though Augustine is only named several times in the work, an atten-
tive reading of part 3, on the ‘religious neurosis,’ reveals that Nietzsche’s concern with
Augustine is deeper and more diffuse than his direct references suggest.
59 Aug. Vera rel. 1.1–5.8, esp. 4.6: “If those men [Socrates, Plato, etc.] in whose names men
glory were to be raised to life again to discover . . . that the human race (humanum genus)
is being called away from a desire for temporal and transient goods to the hope of eternal
life and spiritual and intelligible goods, perhaps they would say . . . These are the things we
did not dare to urge the common people to do (nos persuadere populis non ausi sumus).”
60 Bailey 1947, II:675–76: “Epicurus (Ep. ad Hdt., 72, 73 and, as the scholiast tells us, in the
Μεγάλη Ἐπιτομή and the second book of the Περὶ Φύσεως) dealt with the question of
time. . . . Lucr. [is] simplifying and abbreviating Epicurus, as he does all through this para-
graph. . . . But the following lines 464–82 make it exceedingly probable that Lucr. here
is not merely following Epicurus, but combating his natural opponents, the Stoics, who
held, according to Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. x. 218, that time was ἀσώματον, but also καθ᾽ αὑτό
τι νοούμενον πρᾶγμα (215), like the void.”
Tempus . . . per se non est,61 sed rebus ab ipsis

consequitur sensus,62 transactum quid sit in aevo,
tum quae res instet, quid porro deinde sequatur.63
It is this formula that fixes the Epicureans’ doctrine of time as ‘sensual-

ist,’ in De Rerum Natura I. And it is this formula that can help, preliminarily,
to fix Augustine’s doctrine of time as ‘sensualist’ in Confessions X to XII,64 in
which he nowhere confesses the notion of time that Lucretius then warns
against:
Nor should we confess that anyone senses time in-itself or far-removed

from the motion and untroubled rest of bodies.
nec per se quemquam tempus sentire fatendumst

semotum ab rerum motu placidatque quiete.65
Rather, as I will lay out in Part II, Augustine’s idea of a discarnate,

yper-heavenly mind in Confessions XII—namely, a “heaven of heaven” (cae-
h
lum caeli)66 which is, in Lucretius’ terms, ‘far-removed from the motion of
61 Bailey 1947, II:675: “Servius on [Virg.] Aen. iii. 587 says, referring to this passage in
[Lucretius], per se tempus non intelligitur, nisi per actus humanos, and again on [Virg.
Aen.] vii. 37 tempora, nisi ex rebus colligantur, per se nulla sunt.”
Cf. Arts 1927, 25: “Such prepositional phrases as per se are uncommon in Cicero
and Caesar, but very frequent in Livy. These phrases have their origin in popular
speech . . . Examples of the expression per se in St. Augustine’s Confessions are as follows:
per se ipsa intus cernimus, Conf. 10, 11. num et ipsa per imaginem suam sibi adest ac
non per se ipsam, Conf. 10, 15. per se ipsam sibi praesto est ipsa memoria, Conf. 10, 16.”
62 Bailey 1947, II:676: “consequitur sensus: ‘there follows a sensation,’ not . . . ‘the sense
perceives.’ ”
63 Lucr. Rer.nat. I.459–61.
64 Cf. Hagendahl 1967, 382: “There is no doubt that Augustine knew Lucretius and used him
without intermediary. . . . Augustine never quotes a [full] line, but he hints, several times,
unmistakably at the Epicurean poet when he deals with questions of Nature.” And I will
argue in chapter 2 that Augustine’s time-question is a ‘question of Nature.’
65 Lucr. Rer.nat. I.462–63. Cf. Munro 1920, II:11: “. . . no one feels time by itself abstracted
from the motion and calm rest of things.”
66 This expression, ‘caelum caeli,’ is a later Latin appositional genitive that Augustine lifts
from the Psalms. Cf. Arts 1927, 16: “In Ecclesiastical Latin, under the tendency to widen
the uses of the genitive case, we find little if any restriction in the employment of the
appositional genitive. This extension of the appositional genitive, including a noun with
24 chapter 1
b odies’—cannot be conceived as “dilated in times”67 or as having “time in it.”68

For Augustine, a discarnate soul is an insensate soul,69 which is not to say a
speculatively inconscient soul.70 And for Augustine—as for Lucretius—an
insensate soul is eo ipso a timeless soul.71
1.3 Axiology and Temporality in Augustine’s Confessions
This is why it is necessary at the outset—and will be necessary throughout—to

rigorously distinguish the question of temporality in the Confessions from the
question of superiority in the Confessions.72 I will refer to the latter as a ques-
tion of ‘axiology,’ with Augustine’s axiology being a mystico-logical, graded
a genitive of a synonym of that noun, marks an exceptional . . . element in the works of

late Latin writers. . . . Striking examples of this late type of appositional genitive are the
following, taken from Scripture: . . . super caelum caeli, Ps. 67, 34; in saeculum saeculi,
Ps. 9, 6; in generationes generationum, Is. 51.8. . . . Augustine makes a lavish use of the late
appositional genitive, which is indeed characteristic of African writers. . . . aetate anno-
rum, Conf. 4, 15; . . . per spatia locorum, Conf. 7, 1; . . . nugae nugarum, Conf. 8, 11; . . . abys-
sus aquarum, Conf. 12, 8.”
67 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: non habens futurum quod expectet nec in praeteritum traiciens
quod meminerit, nulla vice variatur nec in tempora ulla distenditur.
68 Aug. Conf. XII.15.21: etsi non solum ante illam sed nec in illa invenimus tempus.
69 Cf. Aug. Epist. 137.2.5: neque sentire est nisi viventis, quod ab anima est corpora . . . certe
sentire homo non potest, nisi vivat; vivit autem in carne, antequam morte utrumque
dirimatur.
70 As we will see in Part II, Augustine’s caelum caeli is fused to god—the immutable god—in
some wondrous mode of static ‘contemplation,’ but not as ‘sensation.’
For the Epicureans, on the other hand—per Cicero’s ‘Velleius’—an insensate soul is
a speculatively inconscient soul. Cf. Cic. Nat.deor. I.12.30: “The inconsistencies of Plato
(Platonis inconstantia) take a long time to relate. . . . He holds that god is totally incor-
poreal (sine corpore ullo), as the Greeks express it, ἀσώματον; but such a god . . . would
necessarily be insensate (careat . . . sensu necesse est), would also lack foresight and
be devoid of pleasure (careat voluptate); all of which we include within our concept of
gods.”
71 ‘Timeless’ is very precise here, since Augustine writes (before god) of a hyper-terrestrial
materia informis, as of a hyper-heavenly caelum caeli, at Conf. XII.12.15: duo reperio quae
fecisti carentia temporibus.
72 Cf. Solignac 1962, 297 n. 1: “La transcendance de l’éternité divine par rapport au temps
n’est pas selon le mode de l’antériorité mais selon le mode de l’excellence.”
ordering of natures73 according to their participation in being (esse) as perdur-

ance (in quantum manet) and as unicity (in quantum unum est).74
Augustine’s god is being, unicity, immutability.75 Such is his unvarying inter-
pretation of the vetus Latina proclamation, Ego sum qui sum (Exodus 3.14).76 It
is as immutability that god is ipseity,77 unicity, purity and beauty: ipsa beatitas.78
This unconditioned and immutable god is Augustine’s “arch-substance,”79 his
summum and verum, while all conditioned and mutive natures are scaled
73 Cf. Aug. Epist. 18.2: distributione naturarum; Civ. XI.16: naturae ordine.
In Civ. XI.16, Augustine contrasts the axiology of the ordo naturae—which I discuss
here—with a commercial-libidinal modus aestimationis. He also characterizes this as a
difference between axiology as determined by the rerum gradibus, and axiology as deter-
mined by libidinal necessitas. According to the ordo naturae, a jewel is inferior to a slave-
girl; but according to the modus aestimationis, the slave-girl is inferior to the jewel. Despite
the innate dignitas of the slave-girl, the jewel takes a higher price in Roman markets.
74 The Latin in parentheses here is taken from Aug. Epist. 18.2 (c. 390).
75 Cf. Aug. Epist. 18.2: est natura quae nec per locus, nec per tempora mutari potest; hoc
deus est.
The abstract noun incommutabilitas and the abverb incommutabiliter appear to be
Augustine’s coinages: Hrdlicka 1931, 11, 14.
76 Cf. Aug. Doctr. I.32.35: Ille enim summe ac primitus est, qui omnino incommutabilis est
et qui plenissime dicere potuit: Ego sum qui sum; Enarr. 121.5: Quid est ergo idipsum,
nisi, quod est? Quid est quod est? Quod aeternum est. . . . nomen suum noluit aliud dicere
quam: Ego sum qui sum; Gen.litt. V.16.34: Illa aeterna incommutabilisque natura, quod
deus est, habens in se, ut sit, sicut Moysi dictum est: Ego sum qui sum; Serm. 6.4: Ergo
incommutabilitas dei isto vocabulo se dignata est intimare: Ego sum qui sum; Tract.
38.10: Ego sum qui sum . . . Discute rerum mutationes, invenies fuit et erit: cogita deum,
invenies est, ubi fuit et erit esse non possit; Vera rel. 49.97: Aeternitas . . . tantummodo est,
nec fuit, quasi iam non sit, nec erit, quasi adhuc non sit. Quare sola ipsa verissime dicere
potuit humanae menti: Ego sum qui sum.
Cf. also Brunn 1978, for a survey of Augustine’s interpretation of this verse; and Runia
1995, for evidence of a direct Philonic influence on Augustine’s exegesis of Exodus 3.14–15.
And note, finally, that Pierre Gassendi (1658, I:227) objects to this Latin translation in
his chapter, “Quid Tempus ſit,” in which Augustine is several times cited: “Obiicitur tamen
Scriptura, in qua Præſens tribuatur Deo, ut quid maximè proprium, exempli gratiâ, verbis
illis, Ego sum, qui sum: &, Qui est, misit me ad vos. Verùm, ut præteream Hebraïcum eo loci
exprimere non Præſens ſanè, ſed Futurum Tempus . . . Ero, qui ero; &, . . . Ero (ſeu mavis,
qui erit) misit me ad vos . . . ”
77 Cf. Aug. Conf. IX.4.11: o in idipsum! . . . tu [domine] es idipsum valde, qui non mutaris;
XII.7.7: tu, domine, qui non es alias aliud et alias aliter, sed idipsum et idipsum et idipsum,
sanctus, sanctus, sanctus . . .
78 Aug. Epist. 18.2: summum illud est ipsa beatitas.
79 Aug. Conf. VII.16.22: summa substantia.
26 chapter 1
according to (necessarily) more elusive analyses,80 which are frequently sig-

naled in the Confessions by the word melior. For instance: “A totality gives more
pleasure than singularities . . . but far superior (melior)81 is he that conditioned
the totality”;82 or, “The life of bodies is superior (melior) to and more-certain
(certior) than bodies.”83
This last sentence is suggestive since Augustine indicates here an inner relat-
edness of the melior and the certior. The ‘superior’ is the ‘more-certain,’ and
thus it is that immutability—which is formally most-certain—is Augustine’s
summum. A fundamental relation emerges: Augustine’s graded ordering of
natura reflects a graded ordering of scientia. Axiology is his quasi-logical valu-
ation of being—as perdurance, as unicity—according to a perdurance and
unicity which are co-given in the concept. But this results in a difficulty that
is glaring in the Confessions: the formally most-certain, namely Augustine’s
god, is also less-present than a lizard in Augustine’s chambers.84 Analysis of the
melior-certior in the Confessions is, in such instances, wholly irrelative to analy-
sis of the praesentior—the ‘more-present’—as Augustine very precisely con-
fesses at Confessions X.5.7.85 Augustine’s melior is not necessarily praesentior,
80 For instance: in Epist. 18 it is clear that the category, corpus, comprises beasts’ and
humans’ bodies; whereas anima, as its decisive potentiality in this letter is ‘conversion’
(conversione ad summum), is strictly identified with the human soul. In contrast to
this, Augustine decisively attributes anima and animus to the beasts in Conf. X (see
chapter 8), which necessitates, then, his apostrophe to the “human soul” (anima humana)
in Conf. XI.15.
81 Cf. Aug. Conf. IV.11.17: longe . . . melior; Arts 1927, 45: “. . . longe melior, longe magis are first
found in Sallust.”
82 Cf. Aug. Conf. IV.11.17: plus delectant omnia quam singula ... sed longe his melior qui fecit
omnia; Cic. Nat.deor. II.6.16: . . . est igitur id quo illa conficiuntur homine melius; id autem
quid potius dixeris quam ‘deum’? . . . esse autem hominem qui nihil in omni mundo
melius esse quam se putet desipientis adrogantiae est; ergo est aliquid melius; est igitur
profecto deus.
83 Aug. Conf. III.6.10: melior vita corporum certiorque quam corpora.
84 Aug. Conf. X.35.57: quid cum me domi sedentem stelio muscas captans vel aranea retibus
suis inruentes implicans saepe intentum facit?
85 Aug. Conf. X.5.7: et ideo, quamdiu peregrinor abs te, mihi sum praesentior quam tibi et
tamen te novi nullo modo posse violari; ego vero quibus temptationibus resistere valem
quibusve non valeam, nescio. . . . confitear ergo quid de me sciam, confitear et quid de me
nesciam, quoniam et quod de me scio, te mihi lucente scio, et quod de me nescio, tamdiu
nescio, donec fiant tenebrae meae sicut meridies in vultu tuo.
while his praesentior is not necessarily certior—whence, of course, the leaden

and relentless temporality of “temptation.”86
I will return to this conflicted register of the melior-certior and the prae-
sentior at a number of places, but it is essential to observe, here at the outset,
that Augustine’s rhetoric in Confessions X to XII has a pre-decided tendency
towards his melior and certior—after all, he addresses himself to god87—while
my interpretation has a pre-decided tendency towards the praesentior in his
text.88 For Augustine’s philosophic vitality consists in a striking perdurance of
this praesentior—the ‘more-present’—in his analyses. Thus, Augustine’s sud-
den foregrounding of affectio (which Lyotard cites) at the end of Confessions XI;
and with it—which is decisive for my interpretation—a foregrounding of
res and of sensus in Conf. XI.27.35, i.e. precisely where Augustine could be
tempted, axiologically, to rarefy and de-sensualize his time-analysis.89
It is thus in no sense ‘revisionistic’—in the modish sense of that word—to
propose a sensualist interpretation of time in the Confessions. This sensualist
Augustine is, as I have said, no epicure. He remains a Platonist (sensu lato), axi-
ologically; and he remains a Christian (sensu stricto), theologically. Or to again
put Nietzsche’s terminology to use: the sensualist Augustine who is r ecovered
86 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.28.39: numquid non temptatio est vita humana super terram sine ullo
interstitio?; X.32.48: nemo securus esse debet in ista vita, quae tota temptatio nominatur,
utrum qui fieri potuit ex deteriore melior non fiat etiam ex meliore deterior.
The first sentence of Conf. X.28.39 is especially interesting since Augustine uses a very
similar expression for ‘temptation’ (sine ullo interstitio) and for ‘sensuality’ at 83 quaest.
9: “All that the corporeal sense touches, and which is called ‘the sensible,’ is being altered
without any respite or gap of time whatever (sine ulla intermissione temporis).”
87 For this novel mode of address: Herzog 2002.
88 Augustine’s various ‘ascents’ in the Confessions are structurally pre-decided by his ‘axi-
ology,’ in this fourfold sense: commencing with his surroundings (foris), Augustine
(i) surveys and then turns from the world’s mutable parts, which are (qua ‘being’) good,
(ii) to the totality of the world, which is mutable but (qua ‘totality’) very good, then
turns (iii) from the corporeal tout court (i.e. foris), to the incorporeal yet mutable soul (i.e.
intus), and finally turns (iv) from this mutable intus—the human soul—to that immu-
table intus to which (once a human soul is converted) all the foris also testifies, and which
is Augustine’s highest good (i.e. god).
89 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.18.23: quamquam praeterita cum vera narrantur, ex memoria profer-
untur non res ipsae quae praeterierunt, sed verba concepta ex imaginibus earum quae
in animo velut vestigia per sensus praetereundo fixerunt; XI.27.35: pronuntio et renuntio,
et ita est quantum sentitur sensu manifesto. quantum sensus manifestus est, brevi syllaba
longam metior eamque sentio habere bis tantum . . . et ego metior fidenterque respondeo,
quantum exercitato sensu fiditur, illam simplam esse, illam duplam, in spatio scilicet
temporis.
28 chapter 1
here is still militantly,90 unremittingly91 ‘Platonic-Christian.’ (I will iden-

tify, in 3.3, which vein of antique Platonism is most relevant to Augustine’s
time-investigation, and to anticipate: it is not Neoplatonism.)92 Yet it is this
Augustine who deploys and re-deploys sensus in decisive ways in his time-
investigation (XI.14–29);93 it is this Augustine who identifies sensus as the “sen-
sation of the body” (sensus corporis) in the eternity-meditation that precedes it
90 Cf. Aug. Vera rel. 6.10: Haec enim ecclesia catholica . . . utitur enim gentibus ad mate-
riam operationis suae; 5.9: . . . neque in confusione paganorum, neque in purgamentis
haereticorum, neque in languore schismaticorum, neque in caecitate Iudaeorum quae
renda est religio, sed apud eos solos qui christiani catholici, vel orthodoxi nominantur, id
est integritatis custodes, et recta sectantes; Serm. 71.2: Paganus hostis Christi et Iudaeus
hostis Christi, divisi sunt adversum se; et ambo ad regnum pertinent diaboli. Arianus et
Photinianus ambo haeretici, et adversum se ambo divisi; Donatista et Maximianista ambo
haeretici, et adversum se ambo divisi; omnia vitia erroresque mortalium inter se contra-
rii, divisi sunt adversum se; et omnes ad regnum pertinent diaboli.
91 Augustine is less bloody-minded than Jerome, who writes at Jer. Epist. 109.3 (cit. and tr.
Gaddis 2005, 183): “There is no cruelty in regard for God’s honor” (non est crudelitas pro
deo pietas). Nevertheless, Augustine relishes a destruction of the old order by Christians,
for which cf. Aug. Civ. VI.1: deos gentium, quos christiana religio destruit; Cons. I.21.29:
quis est deus iste, qui omnes deos gentium sic persequitur, qui omnia eorum sacra sic
prodit, sic extinguit?; Fid. 7.10: videmus relictis diis falsis, et eorum confractis usquequaque
simulacris, templis subversis, sive in usus alios commutates; etc.
92 For the term itself, ‘Neoplatonist,’ cf. Aug. Cons. I.23.35: philosophi eorum recentiores
Platonici, qui iam christianis temporibus fuerunt . . .
Apropos of Augustine’s Neoplatonists, O’Donnell (1992, II:416) is over-corrective but
highly refreshing: “The platonicorum libri [which are given to Augustine in Milan] enjoy
unparalleled prestige among scholars, to whom they have become a talisman . . . With the
hope of restoring perspective, even at the risk of tarnishing their prestige, we may con-
sider a few of the things that [Augustine] did not do with them. He does not identify the
books he read; he does not quote them at Cassiciacum (where he quotes scriptural texts
and Virgil explicitly); he does not make them the objects of explicit discussion with quo-
tation; he does not write commentary upon them (the way he comments upon scripture);
they never become part of his explicit, spontaneously quoted literary life; there is no sign
of continuous contact with them . . . The intellectual movement of his recorded writings,
beginning at Cassiciacum and lasting until his death, is consistently and continuously
away from neo-Platonism.”
93 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.18.23: quamquam praeterita cum vera narrantur, ex memoria profer-
untur non res ipsae quae praeterierunt, sed verba concepta ex imaginibus earum quae
in animo velut vestigia per sensus praetereundo fixerunt; XI.27.35: pronuntio et renuntio,
et ita est quantum sentitur sensu manifesto. quantum sensus manifestus est, brevi syllaba
longam metior eamque sentio habere bis tantum . . . et ego metior fidenterque respondeo,
quantum exercitato sensu fiditur, illam simplam esse, illam duplam, in spatio scilicet
temporis.
(XI.3–13);94 and it is this Augustine who evokes a ‘dilation of the senses’ in the
last sentences of the book (XI.30–31).95 Ratio and mens are indisputably ‘supe-
rior’ to sensus and corpus,96 for Augustine—just as a timeless, hyper-angelic
contemplatio in book XII is ‘superior’ to a hyper-temporized, sensual contuitus
in book XI. Thus, in the conversion-narrative of Confessions VIII, the descrip-
tors temporalis and inferius are substitutable.97 But again—Augustine’s melior
is not his praesentior,98 and ‘time’ is manifestly for him a question of prae-
sens, namely: “a presence of past-things, memory, a presence of present-things,
observation, a presence of future-things, expectation” (XI.20.26).
Axiology is thus analytically (if not rhetorically or theologically) irrelevant
to Augustine’s time-investigation,99 precisely because he is concerned with
94 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.3.5: nam si esset, tenerem eum et rogarem eum et per te obsecrarem
ut mihi ista panderet, et praeberem aures corporis mei sonis erumpentibus ex ore eius,
et si hebraea voce loqueretur, frustra pulsaret sensum meum nec inde mentem meam
quicquam tangeret; XI.5.7: tu [fabro] sensum corporis quo interprete traiciat ab animo
ad materiam id quod facit et renuntiet animo quid factum sit; XI.13.15: at si cuiusquam
volatilis sensus vagatur per imagines retro temporum.
95 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.31.41: variatur affectus sensusque distenditur.
96 Cf. Aug. Epist. 3.4: Unde constamus? ex animo et corpore. quid horum melius? videlicet
animus. . . . animus igitur magis amandus quam corpus. sed in qua parte animi est ista
veritas? in mente atque intellegentia. quid huic adversatur? sensus; 140.2.3: Inest quippe
homini anima rationalis, sed interest eiusdem rationis usum quonam potius voluntate
convertat; utrum ad bona exterioris et inferioris, an ad bona interioris superiorisque natu-
rae; id est, utrum ut fruatur corpore et tempore, an ut fruatur divinitate atque aeternitate.
In quadam quippe medietate posita est, infra se habens corporalem creaturam, supra se
autem sui et corporis creatorem; 140.2.4: Sicut enim bona sunt omnia quae creavit deus,
ab ipsa rationali creatura usque ad infimum corpus: ita bene agit in his anima rationalis,
si ordinem servet, et distinguendo, eligendo, pendendo subdat minora maioribus, corpo-
ralia spiritalibus, inferiora superioribus, temporalia sempiternis; ne superiorum neglectu et
appetitu inferiorum (quoniam hinc fit ipsa deterior) et se et corpus suum mittat in peius,
sed potius ordinata caritate se et corpus suum convertat in melius.
97 Aug. Conf. VIII.10.24: ita etiam cum aeternitas delectat superius et temporalis boni volup-
tas retentat inferius, eadem anima est non tota voluntate illud aut hoc volens et ideo dis-
cerpitur gravi molestia, dum illud veritate praeponit, hoc familiaritate non ponit.
98 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. XI.9.11: spe enim salvi facti sumus et promissa tua per patien-
tiam expectamus; Enarr. 91.1: christiani non sumus, nisi propter futurum saeculum: nemo
praesentia bona speret, nemo sibi promittat felicitatem mundi, quia christianus est;
Civ. XIX.4: beatitudinem non iam tenemus praesentem, sed exspectamus futuram, et hoc
per patientiam.
99 For those who would insist on assigning ‘time’ an axiological position in Augustine: it
pertains to the lowly second “grade of the soul” (animae gradus, Quant.anim. 33.76)—of
seven such ‘grades’—that Augustine introduces at Aug. Quant.anim. 33.
30 chapter 1
this sweaty, intricate and slippery question of sense-temporal praesens,100 in

which what I call ‘impresence’ (memoria-expectatio) is a duplex condition of
‘presence’ (contuitus) in a distinctly temporal mode—which is also to say, in
an incommutably sensual mode. And while eternity is Augustine’s melior and
certior in Confessions X to XII, time is his praesentior, and he is capable of
pursuing a question of presence as such. Augustine demonstrates this in
Confessions X, by articulating a decision (and a distinction) that is typically
overlooked,101 but whose significance cannot be overstated. In his sole, oblique
reference to the lapse of Adam in books X and XI, Augustine explicitly refuses
to take this figure (and attendant doctrines)102 into consideration.103 To the
question of whether “the life of bliss” (beata vita)104 is a generic Ur-memory—
all humans having tasted it, obscurely, “in that man who first sinned [sc. Adam],
in whom also we all died”105—Augustine says, “I do not now ask: but I ask
whether a life of bliss is in memory.”106 This is a methodological exclusion that
is decisive in book X,107 much as Augustine’s exclusion of ‘prophetic’ phenom-
ena, possibly under the influence of Cicero’s De Divinatione,108 is decisive in
100 Lacey 1968, 230: “Part of the trouble here is that the word ‘present’ has several different
uses.”
101 Heidegger (2004, 142) remarks this: “Augustine does not want to determine how all of us
received [an idea of and will to beata vita], or how we lost it; he only wants to determine
whether it is in the memoria.”
102 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. V.8.15: . . . reliquiarium Evae; V.9.16: . . . originalis peccati vincu-
lum quo omnes in Adam morimur.
103 Whereas Adam figures prominently in Augustine’s allegorical interpretation of the
Hexaemeron, at Conf. XIII.20.28: si non esset lapsus Adam, non diffunderetur ex utero eius
salsugo maris, genus humanum profunde curiosum et procellose tumidum et instabiliter
fluvidum . . .
104 It is the idea of this impossible bliss of desire (beata vita), and not sheer morbid-
ity, that drives Augustine to speak of “this life” as being, “as it were, some sort of hell”
(huius . . . quasi quibusdam inferis vitae, Aug. Civ. XXII.22).
105 Cf. Aug. Civ. XIII.14.
106 Aug. Conf. X.20.29: utrum singillatim omnes, an in illo homine qui primus peccavit,
in quo et omnes mortui sumus . . . non quaero nunc, sed quaero utrum in memoria sit
beata vita.
107 O’Donnell (1992, III:208) also notes an absence of demonology in Conf. X: “The discussion
of temptation here is completely without mention of the devil as temptation’s agent (the
closest we come in this book is the allusion to demonic influence on theurgic practices at
10.42.67).” I glance in chapter 7 at “the devil” in Conf. X.42.
108 Meijering (1979, 71) refers us to Cic. Div. in his pages on Conf. XI.18.24, but not to the
most suggestive passage; O’Donnell (1992, III:282) limits comparisons to other works by
book XI.109 For herewith, Augustine decides that his investigations of memory
and time in the Confessions will not be pre-decided by facile appeals to the sur-
face of his scriptures, but rather investigated on the terrain of presence.
And that the temporal, for Augustine, is originarily a question of sense-
presence is already suggested by his reference in Confessions IX to “those
things which are seen and temporal (videntur et temporalia),” with ‘sight’—in
the same passage—being expressly attributed to “the eyes of the flesh” (ocu-
lis carneis).110 This visible-temporal link (visibilia et temporalia) recurs in
Augustine. Hagendahl (1967, 70–72) registers no testimony here, though the below is a
more convincing citation of Cic. Div. than most that Hagendahl’s proposes.
More to the point: Testard (1958, II:27, cf. 135) only proposes one citation of Cic. Div. in
the Conf., and it is an indirect one: Ennius’ phrase caeli scrutantur plagas, which Augustine
recollects at Conf. X.16.25 (neque enim nunc scrutamur plagas caeli, aut siderum inter-
valla demetimur . . .), may have been mediated by Cic. Div. II.13.30 (quod est ante pedes,
nemo spectat, caeli scutantur plagas). That Augustine quotes Ennius’ Iphigenia at Conf.
X.16 is not in doubt, since the allusion is not only lexical but thematic; that his source
is Cic. Div. II is only probable, however, since these Ennian lines were a commonplace.
The links below, from Cic. Div. I to Aug. Conf. XI, are lexical and thematic, though
space will not permit me to detail the thematic parallels:
(i) Cic. Div. I.56.127: . . . reliquendum est homini, ut signis quibusdam consequen-
tia declarantibus futura praesentiat.
Non enim illa, quae futura sunt, subito existunt, sed . . . qui etsi causas ipsas
non cernunt, signa tamen causarum et notas cernunt.
(ii) Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: Quoquo modo se itaque habeat arcana praesensio futuro-
rum, videri nisi quod est non potest. . . . cum ergo videri dicuntur futura,
non ipsa quae nondum sunt, id est quae futura sunt, sed eorum causae vel
signa forsitan videntur, quae iam sunt.
Cf. also Aug. Civ. V.9 (cit. Hagendahl 1967, 71), where Augustine cites Cic. Div.: In libris
vero de divinatione ex se ipso apertissime praescientiam futurorum. Crucially, however,
Augustine writes several sentences previously that this opposition to ‘foreknowledge of
future-things’ in De Divinatione is absolute: . . . neget esse scientiam futurorum . . . vel in
homine vel in deo, nullamque rerum praedictionem. It is Cicero’s denial of prescience
in god that Augustine attacks in Civ. V.9, whereas in Conf. XI.17–19, he confesses his igno-
rance regarding prescience in man.
109 Aug. Conf. XI.19.25: tu itaque, regnator creaturae tuae, quis est modus quo doces animas
ea quae futura sunt? . . . nimis longe est modus iste ab acie mea: invaluit.
110 Aug. Conf. IX.4.10: nec iam bona mea foris erant nec oculis carneis in isto sole quaereban-
tur. volentes enim gaudere forinsecus facile vanescunt et effunduntur in ea quae videntur
et temporalia sunt, et imagines eorum famelica cogitatione lambiunt.
32 chapter 1
Augustine’s late texts,111 and in a significant compilation of his pre-episcopal

notes,112 the Eighty-Three Questions (c. 396),113 he categorically links temporalia
and sensibilia in this way:
All that the corporeal sense touches, and which is called ‘the sensible,’ is
being altered without any respite or gap of time whatever.
Omne quod corporeus sensus adtingit, quod et ‘sensibile’ dicitur, sine ulla
intermissione temporis commutatur.114
In a still earlier work, the De Quantitate Animae (387/8)115—and in the first

passage where Augustine speaks of a being-‘dilated’ in time (per tempus dis-
tendebatur . . . distenta per tempus)116—the temporal is assimilated to the sen-
sual, and vice versa:
Because all the things that are sensed are contained in time and
space . . . all we sense with the eyes is divided through space, and all we
sense with the ears is divided through time.
Cum . . . locus et tempus sit, quibus omnia quae sentiuntur occupan-

tur . . . quod oculis sentimus, per locum; quod auribus, per tempus
dividitur.117
111 For instance, Aug. Civ. VIII.6: Ita quod notum est dei, manifestavit eis ipse, cum ab eis
invisibilia eius per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspecta sunt; sempiterna quoque
virtus eius et divinitas; a quo etiam visibilia et temporalia cuncta creata sunt [≈ Romans
1.19–20]. Haec de illa parte, quam physicam, id est naturalem, nuncupant, dicta sint.
112 Cf. Aug. Retr. I.26.
113 Vid. Zarb 1934, 37–38.
114 Aug. 83 quaest. 9.
115 Both Zarb (1934, 87) and Mutzenbecher (1984, xvii) date the Quant.anim. to 387/8.
116 Aug. Quant.anim. 32.68: . . . ita maiorem temporis moram tenet, cum ‘Lucifer’ dicitur,
quam si ‘Luci’ tantummodo diceretur. Quare si hoc significatione vivit in ea diminutione
temporis, quae diviso illo sono facta est, cum eadem significatio divisa non sit (non enim
ipsa per tempus distendebatur, sed sonus) . . . sicut illa significatio non distenta per tem-
pus, omnes tamen nominis litteras suas moras ac tempora possidentes, velut animaverat
atque compleverat.
117 Aug. Quant.anim. 32.68.
It should thus come as no shock that it is sensus, as Augustine’s decisive con-

dition for the presence of bodies tout court in this life,118 that illuminates and
articulates the “power and nature of time, by which we measure the movements
of bodies” (XI.23.30).119 Similarly, it should come as no shock that Augustine’s
analysis of this modality of the ‘more-present’ in Confessions XI ends, not with
the rare and “inexplicable sweetness” of his mystico-logical ‘ascents,’120 as in
Confessions VII, IX and X, but rather with an outbreak of self-imprecation and
lament: “Look! My life is dilation, my life is time” (XI.29.39).121 Nor is it insignifi-
cant that a state of ‘dilation’ and ‘time’ (distentio est vita mea)—i.e. Augustine’s
praesentior—is immediately contrasted, in these last sentences of his time-
investigation, with a divine mercy that is “superior to” (melior) his life qua life
and time qua time (XI.29.39).122
118 As indeed, for any premonition of the presence of bodies after death, at Aug. Gen.litt.
VIII.16.34: Nos enim quomodo intellegimus, cum dicitur resurrectio, quam nunquam
experti sumus? Nonne quia sentimus quid sit vivere, et eius rei privationem vocamus mor-
tem, unde reditum ad id quod sentimus, resurrectionem appellamus?
Augustine also stresses in this passage that it is our “sense of life” (sensus vitae) that
inspires our ‘sense’ of death, which is the “privation of life” (vitae privationem)—but
which, of course, none of the living has experienced.
119 Aug. Conf. XI.23.30: ego scire cupio vim naturamque temporis, quo metimur corporum
motus.
120 Aug. Conf. X.40.65: et aliquando intromittis me in affectum multum inusitatum intror-
sus, ad nescio quam dulcedinem, quae si perficiatur in me, nescio quid erit quod vita ista
non erit.
121 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: ecce distentio est vita mea.
Hrdlicka (1931, 81–82) and most commentators take distentio in Conf. XI.29.39 to
mark one of the “miscellaneous changes of [a Latin term’s] meaning” in the Conf., a type
of lexical shift that arises from “the fact that this new meaning was attached to [a] word
by the early translators of the Bible.” I do not object to a scriptural inflection of the sense
of the term distentio in Conf. XI.29.39 as ‘distraction’ or ‘affliction.’ Yet I insist that its
duplex sense in Conf. XI.28.38 (distenditur vita huius actionis meae in memoriam prop-
ter quod dixi et in expectationem . . . expectatione prolongatur memoria)—and again, in
Conf. XI.31.41 (expectatione vocum futurarum et memoria praeteritarum variatur affec-
tus sensusque distenditur)—is its more certain and more provocative sense. Augustine’s
distentio, here, most essentially signifies (i) ‘dilation’ or ‘elongation,’ and (ii) ‘time.’ His
life, Augustine confesses here, is ‘dilation.’ This is a condition which only death, and no
moralistic injunction, can liberate him from. Yet he can be ‘extended’ (extentus) in desire,
in this life, towards eternity—which, because of death, is his absolute future (in ea quae
ante sunt non distentus sed extentus, XI.29.39).
122 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: melior est misericordia tua super vitas.
34 chapter 1
Augustine’s intent in the time-investigation is simply not to clarify the for-

mal, prophetical or sacramental contours of this melior, this superior, this
“mercy” (melior est misericordia tua).123 To peg Augustine’s rigorous analytic of
temporal presence to his registers of axiological and speculative perfection—
i.e. to aeternitas, to the melior and certior—is thus to do him an injustice.
1.4 Time in Augustine’s Triplex Division of Philosophy
The bishop of Hippo Regius recognizes that his time-question is a question of

the ‘more-present,’ of “this life” (hac vita),124 and of “this temporal light” (hanc
123 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.1.1–2.4, Augustine’s proem to book XI, in which misericordia is a recur-
ring term. In the time-investigation, misericordia only re-surfaces at XI.22.28 (noli
claudere desiderio meo ista et usitata et abdita, quominus in ea penetret et dilucescant
allucente misericordia tua, domine)—incidentally, this is the section of the book where
I see a re-calibration and renewal of Augustine’s time-question (see chapter 4)—and as
noted, in XI.29.39 (sed quoniam melior est misericordia tua super vitas), which I regard as
the last section of the time-investigation (XI.14–29).
124 For the thematic of hac vita, cf. Aug. Conf. I. 6.7: nescio unde venerim huc, in istam dico
vitam mortalem an mortem vitalem?; I.7.11: quis me commemorat peccatum infantiae
meae, quoniam nemo mundus a peccato coram te, nec infans cuius est unius diei vita
super terram?; I.7.12: . . . huic vitae meae quam vivo in hoc saeculo; II.5.20: et vita quam hic
vivimus habet inlecebram suam propter quendam modum decoris sui et convenientiam
cum his omnibus infimis pulchris; III.7.13: homines autem, quorum vita super terram bre-
vis est, quia sensu non valent causas conexere saeculorum priorum; IV.4.7: ecce abstu-
listi hominem de hac vita . . .; VI.1.1: . . . placidissime et pectore pleno fiduciae respondit
mihi credere se in Christo quod priusquam de hac vita emigraret me visura esset fidelem
catholicum; VI.5.7: . . . omnino in hac vita nihil ageremus, postremo quam inconcusse
fixum fide retinerem de quibus parentibus ortus essem; IX.3.5: cum Romae iam essemus,
corporali aegritudine correptus et in ea christianus et fidelis factus ex hac vita emigra-
vit; IX.6.14: cito de terra abstulisti vitam eius . . .; IX.8.17: sed non praeteribo quidquid mihi
anima parturit de illa famula tua, quae me parturivit et carne, ut in hanc temporalem, et
corde, ut in aeternam lucem nascerer; IX.10.26: “fili, quantum ad me attinet, nulla re iam
delector in hac vita. quid hic faciam adhuc et cur hic sim, nescio, iam consumpta spe
huius saeculi. unum erat propter quod in hac vita aliquantum immorari cupiebam, ut te
christianum catholicum viderem priusquam morerer”; IX.13.37: Monnicae, famulae tuae,
cum Patricio, quondam eius coniuge, per quorum carnem introduxisti me in hanc vitam,
quemadmodum nescio. . . . parentum meorum in hac luce transitoria; etc.
Cf. also, for instance, Lucr. Rer.nat. II.54: omnis cum in tenebris praesertim vita
laboret?
temporalem . . . lucem, IX.8.17).125 And what is more, he recognizes that this

question of presence is a rigorously catholic,126 i.e. a universal one.127
‘Time,’ that is to say, conditions Seneca’s epicure at the Roman baths just as
it conditions Augustine and his mother, Monnica, standing in a window that
gives out over a garden in Ostia and discursively flaming upwards towards—
until they glimpse or seemingly “touch,” in a single “time-beat” (ictus), in
their minds (in mentes nostras)—the hyper-exalted, ageless and indifferent
god that they love.128 Our epicure’s question, ‘Am I now seated?’ sounds out
on the air and in time with all the same sense-temporal determinations as
Augustine’s question to Monnica, regarding their delectable cipher129 of a vita
aeterna sanctorum: “And when will that be?”130 (The answer is, of course: post
mortem.)131 Or to press it further yet, as Augustine himself will not hesitate to
do (see 10.2), our epicure’s question, ‘Am I now seated?’ is formally identical—
in terms of its originary sense-temporal determinations—to that “voice out of
Thus Solignac 1962, 357 n. 1: “Iste désigne souvent chez Augustin les choses présentes,
les choses d’ici-bas, les choses personnelles, avec une nuance dépréciative très classique
(cf. iste mundus . . . par opposition à ille).”
125 Aug. Conf. IX.8.17: . . . in hanc temporalem . . . lucem nascerer.
But this ‘temporal light’ is not, of course, unshadowed. Cf. for instance, Enarr. 22.4: in
medio vitae huius, quae umbra mortis est; 43.18: . . . haec enim mortalitas umbra mortis est;
Vera rel. 45.84: in rerum temporalium principatu . . . omnia transeunt tamquam umbra.
126 Courcelle (1969, 154) notes that Augustine is “barely able to give the etymology of . . . the
term Catholic” circa 400, citing Aug. C.Petil. II.46.108.
127 Cf. Aug. Serm. 43.4: Intellegi omnis homo vult; intellegere nemo est qui nolit; credere non
omnes volunt.
128 Aug. Conf. IX.10.24: et venimus in mentes nostras et transcendimus eas, ut attingere-
mus regionem ubertatis indeficientis . . . et ibi vita sapientia est, per quam fiunt omnia
ista . . . quin potius fuisse et futurum esse non est in ea, sed esse solum, quoniam aeterna est:
nam fuisse et futurum esse non est aeternum. et dum loquimur et inhiamus illi, attingimus
eam modice toto ictu cordis.
129 For ‘cipher’ here, see where the stress falls in Conf. IX.10.23: conloquebamur ergo soli
valde dulciter et, praeterita obliviscentes in ea quae ante sunt extenti, quaerebamus inter
nos apud praesentem veritatem, quod tu es, qualis futura esset vita aeterna sanctorum,
quam nec oculus vidit nec auris audivit nec in cor hominis ascendit.
130 Aug. Conf. IX.10.25: et istud quando?
This question—with its “that” (istud)—takes its sense from the Augustine’s character-
istic expression, “this life” (hac vita), in the first sentence of Conf. IX.10.23.
131 Regarding which ‘life,’ Augustine writes with admirable candour, at Aug. Civ. XXII.29:
“If I wish to speak the truth”—and note well: ‘If I wish to speak the truth’—“I do not know
[what immortal life will be like], for I have seen nothing of it by means of the bodily senses”
(. . . si verum velim dicere, nescio. Non enim hoc umquam per sensus corporis vidi).
36 chapter 1
a cloud” in the evangel, which pronounced over Jesus of Nazareth: “This is my

beloved son.”132
This is why the time-investigation in Confessions XI crests—namely, where
“the voice of a body begins to sound (incipit sonare) . . . and look: it ceases
(desinit)”133—very precisely where Augustine’s mystico-logical rapture in
Confessions IX, beside his mother, collapses: “We returned to the noise of our
mouths, where a word that is uttered begins and ends (ubi verbum et incipitur et
finitur).”134 It is no less indicative that Augustine refers to time, in the last para-
graph of his time-investigation, as a condition in which “the inmost viscera
of [his] soul are torn apart by tumultuous changes (tumultuosis varietatibus)”
(XI.29.39).135 For this is the sole appearance of ‘tumult’ in Confessions X to XII,
and Augustine has not selected the word since his Ostia-ascent, at Confessions
IX.10.25, where ‘tumult’ is precisely a “tumult of the flesh” (tumultus carnis).136
This, for Augustine, is the level at which “the temporal intrigue”137 unfurls
and is to be investigated: ‘from below.’138 With this much established,
then, and recalling the triplex division of philosophy (philosophandi ratio
132 Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: sed quomodo dixisti? numquid illo modo quo facta est vox de nube
dicens, ‘hic est filius meus dilectus’? illa enim vox acta atque transacta est, coepta et
finita. sonuerunt syllabae atque transierunt, secunda post primam, tertia post secundam
atque inde ex ordine, donec ultima post ceteras silentiumque post ultimam. unde
claret atque eminet quod creaturae motus expressit eam.
Cf. Augustine’s vetus Latina variant—dilectissimus—for ‘hic est filius meus dilectus,’ at
Milne 1926, 3 (= Matthew 3.15), 79 (= Mark 9.7), 99 (= Luke 9.35).
133 Aug. Conf. XI.27.34: ecce puta vox corporis incipit sonare et sonat et adhuc sonat, et ecce
desinit, iamque silentium est, et vox illa praeterita est et non est iam vox.
134 Aug. Conf. IX.10.24: et suspiravimus et reliquimus ibi religatas primitias spiritus et
remeavimus ad strepitum oris nostri, ubi verbum et incipitur et finitur.
135 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: ego in tempora dissilui quorum ordinem nescio, et tumultuosis vari-
etatibus dilaniantur cogitationes meae, intima viscera animae meae, donec in te confluam
purgatus et liquidus igne amoris tui.
136 Aug. Conf. IX.10.25: dicebamus ergo, “si cui sileat tumultus carnis, sileant phantasiae
terrae et aquarum et aeris, sileant et poli, et ipsa sibi anima sileat et transeat se non se
cogitando, sileant somnia et imaginariae revelationes . . .”
Cf. Conf. IV.11.16: in aure cordis tumultu vanitatis; VI.9.15: audivit omnesque tumul-
tuantes; VII.7.11: numquid totus tumultus animae meae, cui nec tempora nec os meum
sufficiebat, sonabat eis?; VIII.8.19: me abstulerat tumultus pectoris; IX.7.16: tumultuante
laetitia.
137 Lyotard 1998, 97/2000, 71: “l’intrigue temporelle.”
138 Cf. Madec 2001, 190: “Le moindre battement verbal, le moindre ictus prend du temps.
La syllabe ‘e-s-t,’ en trois lettres: e, s, t, prend du temps. . . . C’est la contrainte du langage, la
contrainte de la vie ici-bas!”
triplex) that Augustine inherits from Cicero139—i.e. ‘physical,’ ‘logical’ and

‘ethical’ philosophy140—it could be predicted that Augustine would regard
the question of ‘time’ to be a physical question,141 a question of physical phi-
losophy.142 And it is this taxonomic question of the placement of Augustine’s
time-question that will permit us, in chapter 2, to fundamentally resituate
his time-concepts in Confessions XI and XII; and to work up a crude but ser-
viceable typology of the canonical interpretations of time in those books,
while indicating—preliminarily—how these interpretations are, at root,
misinterpretations.
139 Cic. Acad. I.5.19: Fuit ergo iam accepta a Platone philosophandi ratio triplex, una de vita et
moribus, altera de natura et rebus occultis, tertia de disserendo et quid verum, quid falsum.
140 Cf. for instance, Aug. Civ. VIII.3: Socrates ergo, primus universam philosophiam ad cor-
rigendos componendosque mores flexisse memoratur, cum ante illum omnes magis
physicis, id est naturalibus, rebus perscrutandis operam maximam impenderent; VIII.4:
Plato . . . philosophiam perfecisse laudatur, quam in tres partes distribuit: unam moralem,
quae maxime in actione versatur; alteram naturalem, quae contemplationi deputata est;
tertiam rationalem, qua verum disterminatur a falso; VIII.10: . . . . vel naturalem Latine vel
physicam Graece appellet eam partem, in qua de naturae inquisitione tractatur, et ratio-
nalem sive logicam, in qua quaeritur quonam modo veritas percipi possit, et moralem
vel ethicam, in qua de moribus agitur bonorumque finibus appetendis malorumque
vitandis . . .
141 Pace Jordan 1955, 394: “St. Augustine’s understanding of time is such that it makes time a
problem not of physics nor of cosmology . . . but of moral philosophy.”
142 Augustine later observes that his natura translates the Greek’s φύσις (‘physicon,’ id est . . .
naturale, Aug. Civ. VI.5), and that ‘physical theology’ is the domain of philosophers
(in hoc genere . . . quod ‘physicon’ vocant et ad philosophos pertinent, Civ. VI.5). This in
no way complicates his praise or his censure of the philosophers of ‘this world’ in Conf. V.
In the Conf., as in the Civ., what Augustine rejects is this: “In the opinion of the philoso-
phers, the world is the most excellent of all things” (Hanc enim pertinere testatur ad mun-
dum, quo isti nihil esse excellentius opinantur in rebus, Civ. VI.5).
On the genre of ‘physical’ or ‘natural questions’ in late antiquity, cf. Marrou 1983, 143–
44: “. . . la φυσική proprement dite ou, comme disaient les Latins, les naturales quaestiones:
même amputé de l’histoire naturelle, de la géographie et de la médecine, c’était encore
un domaine très vaste . . . Au temps d’Augustin, coexistaient deux manières d’étudier ces
problèmes; il y avait deux physiques: celle des philosophes, celle des érudits. L’une était
faite des théories, l’autre rassemblait des faits. Les deux se trouvent représentées dans la
culture d’Augustin.”
chapter 2
Augustine and the Physical Question of Time
In the first paragraphs of his 13th-century Tractatus de Tempore,1 Robert

Kilwardby, later Archbishop of Canterbury,2 opposes a “metaphysical” time-
concept in Augustine’s Confessions to a “physical” consideration of time in
Aristotle’s Physics.3 Kilwardby’s contemporary and confrater, Albertus Magnus,
is less evasive in his commentary on Physics IV: Augustine “wrote badly” on
physical topics (naturas rerum), and specifically on time.4
In cause of brevity, I limit the scholastic reception of Confessions XI5—a
sophisticated and conflicted reception-history which has yet to be written6—
to this set of appraisals.7 In the decades during which the European masters
1 Silva (2012, 6) dates the Tractatus de Tempore, non-dogmatically, to 1245–50.

2 Vid. Silva 2012, 2–5.
Kilwardby served as Regent Master of Oxford in 1256–61; was one of the three
Dominicans—the others being Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas—who were con-
sulted by the Master General of the Order, John of Vercelli, on (as yet) undetermined theo-
logical questions in 1271; and was consecrated as the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1273.
3 Kil. Temp. 10: Si est tempus, quid est? Quid sit secundum Augustinum dictum est [cf. Temp. 4];
set quia hec consideratio quoniam secundum Augustinum magis metaphysica videtur, vide-
amus quid sit secundum phisicam considerationem Aristotilis, quid dicit in 4 Phisicorum,
“tempus est numerus motus secundum prius et posterius.”
4 Alb. Phys. IV, tr. 3, cap. 4: . . . nec Galienus nec Augustinus scriverunt bene naturas
rerum.
5 Though I proceed independently here, I am preceded in this by Kurt Flasch (1993, 160–95).
6 There is, however, much fine work on the concept of time in this period: Duhem 1959, VII;
Flasch 1993; Fox 2006; Maier 1955; Mansion 1934; Porro 1987, 1996; Steel 2001; Trifogli 2000,
2001.
The most commanding work is doubtless Jeck 1993, which—regrettably—only came to
my notice once the manuscript was in press. Jeck’s work, Aristoteles contra Augustinum, would
have refined my very brief remarks on Augustine, Aristotle and Averroes (see Appendix 2).
7 The most accurate scholastic Augustine-interpretation may be Robert Grosseteste’s, at
Gross. In Phys. IV: Quidam autem, ut invenirent tempus esse aliquod, putaverunt quod tem
pus esset affeccio relicta in anima ex transitu rerum mobilium. Et sic videtur velle Augustinus, ut
memoria de preteritis et continuacio de presentibus et expectatio de futuris putantur ab ipso
esse tria tempora; ibi sunt tria presencia et ibi sunt longa aut brevia.
But I must also include what is—to my eyes—the single most ingenious medieval varia-
tion on Confessions XI, which is dated to the 1180s, and with which a Plantagenet courtier,
Walter Map, introduces his De Nugis Curialium:

augustine and the physical question of time 39
were assimilating Aristotle’s newly recovered Physics and Averroes’ Physics

commentaries,8 Augustine is perceived as writing ‘metaphysically’ on time
(per the Oxford Dominican), or as writing ‘badly’ on the physical question of
time (per the Paris Dominican). Accordingly, there is a scholastic precedent
for resisting—and even, for reprobating—Augustine’s time-concept (see
Appendix 2).
But note well: in the 13th century—i.e. prior to the recovery of Lucretius in
1417, the publication of Cicero’s Opera Philosophica in 1471,9 the appearance
of Marsilio Ficino’s Plotini Opera in 1492, the circulation of Gentian Hervet’s
“I live in time and I speak of time,” said Augustine, adding this: “I do not know
what time is.” I can say with similar astonishment that I live in court and speak of a
court, and I do not know—god knows—what this court is. And though I know that
the court is not itself time, it is something temporal: mutable and variable, positioned
yet erratic, never staying in one state.
“In tempore sum et de tempore loquor,” ait Augustinus, et adiecit: “nescio quid sit tem-
pus.” Ego simili possum admiracione dicere quod in curia sum, et de curia loquor,
et nescio, deus scit, quid sit curia. Scio tamen quod curia non est tempus; temporalis
quidem est, mutabilis et varia, localis et erratica, nunquam in eodem statu permanens.
(Map Nug.cur. dist. 1, cap. 1.)
I have consulted the translation of this passage by Alexander Murray (1985, 85), and owe the
reference to him.
8 Note that this is, confessedly, a very crude characterization. What we find in Nicolas of
Strasbourg’s Summa Philosophiae is no less representative of the period. Here, “Augustine,
the Philosopher and the Commentator”—i.e. Averroes, “he who made the great Comment”
(Averoìs che ’l gran comento feo, Dant. Inf. IV.144)—are not opposed, but assimilated.
Vid. Stras. S.Ph. II, tr. 9, q. 5.13–21: Hoc idem probant auctoritatibus et sunt speciali-
ter tres et trium auctorum, scilicet Augustini, Philosophi et Commentatoris. Prima igitur est
Augustini XI Confessionum, ubi tractat istam materiam et ostendit, quod tempus non est nisi
in anima et ab anima. Dicit enim ibi: “Video tempus esse quandam distentionem et miror
si non animi.” . . . Secunda autem est Philosophi IV Physicorum quaerentis et determinantis
propositam quaestionem. Dicit enim, ex quo tempus non est nisi numerus et numerus non
est, nisi sit numerans, et numerans non est nisi anima, concludit tempus non esse, nisi anima
sit. . . . Tertia autem est Commentatoris, qui idipsum dicit plane et specialiter super illo verbo,
quod inquantum numerabilia tempus est in potentia, in quantum actu numerata sunt, tem-
pus est in actu. . . . Ergo adhuc tempus non erit in actu, nisi anima actu numeret. Ergo tempus
in actu est ab anima . . .
Cf. also Arist. Phys. IV.14 (223a), Arist.Lat. Phys. IV.14: ἀδύνατον εἶναι χρόνον ψυχῆς μὴ
οὔσης = inpossibile est esse tempus anima si non sit.
9 For Cicero’s impact on the Renaissance: Schmitt 1972.
40 chapter 2
edition of Sextus Empiricus after 1569,10 and Pierre Gassendi’s valorization

of Epicurus from 1647—Augustine’s time-investigation in Confessions XI was
associated with Aristotle’s time-investigation in Physics IV as a matter of course.
It is in large part due to the 13th-century transmission-history that the scholas-
tic reception of Confessions XI results in a facile opposition of Aristotle’s ‘physi-
cal’ time-investigation and Augustine’s ‘metaphysical’ time-investigation, and
a precipitous conclusion that Augustine, with his distentio animi, ‘writes badly’
on the physical question of time.
In light of this scholastic reception, it will be useful to pick out several pre-
liminary indications in Augustine’s corpus that he regards his time-question as
a question of physical philosophy.
2.1 Time and Augustine’s Rerum Natura
Augustine is no stranger to the periodicity and predictability of celestial and

terrestrial phenomena. In De Trinitate III (c. 400),11 Augustine selects the word
‘hyper-common’ (usitatissimo)—the same descriptor he gives to ‘time’ in
Confessions XI12—to describe a host of periodicities
which are produced physically (corporaliter) in the order of the nature

of things (in rerum naturae ordine) by a hyper-common lapse of times
(transcursu temporum), such as the rising and setting of stars, the births
and deaths of living things, the innumerable diversities of seed and bud,
the vapours and clouds . . . lightning and thunder . . . winds and fires, cold
and heat, and all such things.13
Augustine is also no stranger to phenomena which are not ‘hyper-common,’

but which may yet be periodic; and which—in any event—are ‘produced
physically in the order of the nature of things.’ Thus, in the same paragraph of
De Trinitate III, he writes of phenomena
10 For the complicated transmission-history of Sextus Empiricus: Floridi 2002.

11 Cf. Zarb 1934, 48–49.
12 Cf. Aug. Trin. III.9.19: . . . illis quae usitatissimo transcursu temporum in rerum natu-
rae ordine corporaliter fiunt; Conf. XI.22.28: dicimus ‘tempus’ et ‘tempus,’ ‘tempora’ et
‘tempora’ . . . dicimus haec et audimus haec et intellegimur et intellegimus. manifestis-
sima et usitatissima sunt, et eadem rursus nimis latent et nova est inventio eorum.
13 Aug. Trin. III.9.19: illis quae usitatissimo transcursu temporum in rerum naturae ordine
corporaliter fiunt, sicuti sunt ortus occasusque siderum, generationes et mortes anima-
lium, seminum et germinum innumerabiles diversitates, nebulae et nubes . . . fulgura et
tonitrua . . . venti et ignes, frigus et aestus, et omnia talia.
which in the same [physical] order (in eodem ordine) occur infrequently,
such as eclipses, unusual appearances of stars, monstrous births, earth-
quakes, and other such things.14
It is not unlikely that Augustine’s phrasing here in De Trinitate III, i.e. ‘in
the order of the nature of things’ (in rerum naturae ordine),15 carries an echo of
Lucretius.16 This is not only indicated by Augustine’s thematic material in the
sentences just quoted from De Trinitate III;17 and by his inclusion of a Lucretian
tag, “the walls of the world” (mundi moenia), in the proem to De Trinitate IV;18
but also by this clarification:
[Of] all these things . . . the first and highest cause (prima et summa
causa) is nothing but the will of god (voluntas dei), which is why in one of
the Psalms, when certain physical phenomena (quaedam huius generis)
have been called to mind—“fire, hail, snow, vapour, heavy wind”—it is
immediately added, “which fulfil his word,” so that no one will believe
they were produced by chance, or by solely physical causes . . . outside the
will of god.19
14 Aug. Trin. III.9.19: illis quae in eodem ordine rara sunt, sicut defectus luminum et species
inusitatae siderum et monstra et terrae motus et similia.
15 Cf. Aug. Conf. IV.3.5: . . . vim sortis hoc facere in rerum natura usquequaque diffusam . . .;
VII.6.10: . . . quorum plerique ita post invicem funduntur ex utero ut parvum ipsum tem-
poris intervallum, quantamlibet vim in rerum natura habere contendant . . .
16 Cf. similar expressions in a similar context, at Aug. Gen.litt. VIII.1.3: Sed alia est, inquiunt,
narratio factorum mirabilium, alia institutarum creaturarum. Illic enim ea ipsa insolita
ostendunt alios esse tamquam naturales modos rerum, alios miraculorum, quae ‘mag-
nalia’ nominantur; hic autem ipsa insinuatur institutio naturarum. Quibus respondetur:
Sed ideo insolita et ipsa, quia prima. Nam quid tam sine exemplo, et sine pari facto in
rerum mundanarum constitutione quam mundus?; VIII.8.16: Quod enim maius mirabili-
usque spectaculum est, aut ubi magis cum rerum natura humana ratio quodammodo
loqui potest, quam cum positis seminibus, plantatis surculis, translatis arbusculis, insitis
malleolis, tamquam interrogatur quaeque vis radicis et germinis quid possit, quidve non
possit; unde possit, unde non possit; quid in ea valeat numerorum invisibilis interiorque
potentia, quid extrinsecus adhibita diligentia . . .
17 Cf. for instance, Lucr. Rer.nat. I.174–214.
18 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. I.73–74: processit longe flammantia moenia mundi | atque omne
immensum peragravit mente animoque; Aug. Trin. IV.1: . . . praeposuit scire infirmitatem
suam magis quam scire mundi moenia, fundamentum terrarum et fastigia coelorum . . .
The Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (Turnhout 1968) edition of the De Trinitate
mis-cites Lucretius, giving Lucr. Rer.nat. II.73 for I.73.
19 Aug. Trin. III.9.19: istis omnibus quorum quidem prima et summa causa non est nisi vol-
untas dei—unde et in psalmo cum quaedam huius generis commemorata essent: Ignis,
42 chapter 2
In the De Rerum Natura, Lucretius is relentless in his insistence that all phe-
nomena are produced by physical causes ‘outside the will of the gods,’20 so
that Augustine’s defence here confronts, if it is not raised against, Lucretius’
metaphysics.
But regardless of Lucretius’ presence or absence in this passage, let it be
said that Augustine has a metaphysics of time. In Confessions XI, it is stated
thus: “The moments pass [o lord] at your will and pleasure.”21 And in the
Confessions, this—Augustine’s metaphysics of time—is never in question. He
relinquishes time to god’s ‘will and pleasure’ before he broaches the question,
‘What is time?’; and he falls back on the same ‘will and pleasure’ of god after
his time-investigation, praising “the eternal creator of all times.”22 This “will
and pleasure” (nutum) of god, in Confessions XI, is identical to the “will of god”
(voluntas dei) in De Trinitate III.23 And this will and pleasure of god in
Confessions XI is, like the will of god in De Trinitate III, precisely “the first and
highest cause” (prima et summa causa) of time and all temporal phenomena.24
Therefore, Augustine has no metaphysical question of time.
When, however, he writes in De Trinitate III of a swarm of “things which are
produced physically (corporaliter fiunt) in the order of the nature of things”;25
and when he deploys the same root-verb, fieri, in Confessions XII to assert that
“the movements of things produce times (fiunt tempora)”;26 we could infer
that Augustine does have a physical question of time. That is to say, when
Augustine asks, ‘What is time?’ we could infer that he is asking: What is this
condition that ‘the movement of things produces’? And ‘the will and plea-
sure of god’ is impotent to resolve this question for a very simple reason: this
will and pleasure of god, as Augustine’s first and highest cause, also produces
‘vapours and clouds, lightning and thunder, winds and fires . . .’ This divine will
and pleasure is, precisely, Augustine’s indifferent cause.
Thus, to respond to the question, ‘What is time?’ with the line: ‘The moments
that pass at the lord’s will and pleasure’; is no subtler than to respond to the
grando, nix, glacies, spiritus tempestatis, ne quis ea vel fortuitu, vel causis tantummodo
corporalibus . . . praeter voluntatem dei exsistentibus agi crederet, continuo subiecit:
Quae faciunt verbum eius [= Psalms 148.8].
20 Cf. for instance, Lucr. Rer.nat. I.146–158: “No thing is ever produced by divine power from
nothing (e nilo gigni divinitus) . . . [and] everything is done without the working of gods
(opera sine divom).”
21 Aug. Conf. XI.2.3: ad nutum tuum momenta transvolant.
22 Aug. Conf. XI.30.40: aeternum creatorem omnium temporum.
23 Aug. Trin. III.9.19.
26 Aug. Conf. XII.8.8: rerum mutationibus fiunt tempora.
question, ‘What is fire?’ with the line: ‘The flames that burn at the lord’s will
and pleasure.’ Indeed, in this mode, one could indifferently respond to the
question, ‘What is time?’ with: ‘The flames that burn at the lord’s will and plea-
sure’; and to ‘What is fire?’ with: ‘The moments that pass at the lord’s will and
pleasure.’ For precisely nothing is resolved, nothing is elucidated by this mode
of reasoning at the level at which time and fire and thunder and vapour differ—
which is to say, at the level at which time and fire and thunder and vapour are
‘physically produced,’ are ‘produced by the movements of things.’ And there is
no indication, in Confessions XI, that Augustine intends to resolve his time-
question in this murky vein of first philosophy or metaphysics, while there is—
to my mind—a very elegant and conclusive indication in his corpus that this
time-question is conceived, and will be elaborated, as a question of physical
philosophy.
This indication is provided by the first sentences of Augustine’s Unfinished
Literal Commentary on Genesis (c. 394),27 sentences that are of singular
relevance—so I suggest—to his philosophical commentary on Genesis 1.1 in
Confessions XI. For in that later commentary, Augustine writes—regarding his
question of the essence of time—“I seek (quaero), father, I do not dogmatize,
I do not assert (non adfirmo).”28 I will identify the source of this statement in
3.3; but here, it is Augustine’s Unfinished Literal Commentary that helps to fix
its sense. And this is how Augustine opens his unfinished Genesis commentary:
It is not by dogmatizing or asserting (adfirmando) but by seeking (quae

rendo) that we have to treat obscure questions concerning natural things
(de obscuris naturalium rerum)—all of which we hold to have been made
by the omnipotent architect: god. Especially in the books that divine
authority commends to us, rashness in asserting an inconclusive, doubt-
ful opinion (temeritas adserendae incertae dubiaeque opinionis) is hard
to distinguish from the crime of sacrilege (sacrilegii crimen)—yet still,
doubt in seeking (quaerendi dubitatio) should not transgress the limits of
the Catholic faith.29
27 Mutzenbecher (1984, xvii) dates this commentary to 393/4, but Zarb (1934, 87) has 393/4
plus a late, minor addition in 426: “Excepta igitur parva additione finali, quae poni debet
anno 426, cetera conscripta fuere anno 393/4.”
28 Aug. Conf. XI.17.22: quaero, pater, non adfirmo.
29 Aug. Gen.lib.imp. 1.1: De obscuris naturalium rerum, quae omnipotente deo artifice facta
sentimus, non adfirmando, sed quaerendo tractandum est in libris maxime quos nobis
divina commendat auctoritas, in quibus temeritas adserendae incertae dubiaeque opini-
onis difficile sacrilegii crimen evitat: ea tamen quaerendi dubitatio catholicae fidei metas
non debet excedere.
44 chapter 2
As I have said, Augustine has no metaphysical question of time whatever,

since the creation of time by god is a limit that is set by his faith. Yet there
is no need to labour the point that Augustine seeks in Confessions XI, and
does not dogmatize regarding the essence of time, precisely because—to use
his phrasing in the Unfinished Commentary—his time-question is a question
“concerning natural things” (de . . . naturalium rerum).30 That is to say, his
time-question pertains to physical philosophy, and proceeds at the level of
physical causality. This inference is solidified when we compare Augustine’s
phrasing here—i.e. “obscure questions concerning natural things” (de obscuris
naturalium rerum)31—with Cicero’s delimitation of ‘physical philosophy’ in
the Academica. Physical philosophy, writes Cicero, is “concerned with nature
and with obscure things” (de natura et rebus occultis).32 For over seven hun-
dred years, Augustine’s interpreters have failed to discern this link; and as a
result, the received interpretations of time in the Confessions have failed to sit-
uate Augustine’s concept of ‘dilation’ within the physical—or more precisely,
sensual—problematic that gave rise to it.
2.2 Time in the Confessions: A Typology of the Received

Interpretations
We will recall that in the first paragraphs Kilwardby’s Tractatus de Tempore, he

opposes Augustine’s ‘metaphysical’ time-concept to Aristotle’s ‘physical’ defini-
tion of time.33 For Kilwardby,34 as indeed for Albertus Magnus35 and Henry of
30 Aug. Gen.lib.imp. 1.1.

31 Aug. Gen.lib.imp. 1.1.
32 Cic. Acad. I.5.19: Fuit ergo iam accepta a Platone philosophandi ratio triplex, una de vita
et moribus, altera de natura et rebus occultis, tertia de disserendo et quid verum, quid
falsum.
33 Kil. Temp. 10.
34 Kil. Temp. 4: Propter has et consimiles rationes posuit Augustinus quod tempus non est
nisi in anima, sicut patet libro 13 Confessionum, et sicut patet ibidem, capitulo 30 [sic],
tempus secundum ipsum est quedam distensio non alicuius existentis extra animam
set affectionis animi presentis eidem et derelicte in eo ex rebus transeuntibus, in qua
scilicet affectione intentio animi presens trahicit expectationem futurorum in memo-
riam preteritorum.
35 Alb. Phys. IV, tr. 3, cap. 3: Augustinus etiam disputans, an tempus sit in anima, quaerit,
si tempus sit extra animam, ubi sit . . . ergo ratione illius non erit tempus extra animam;
cap. 4: . . . et alia multa inconvenientia ex hoc sequi videntur, quae Galienus et
Augustinus evadere non possunt, qui dicunt his de causis in anima esse tempus.
Ghent,36 Augustine’s time-concept is ‘metaphysical’ since it posits time in the

soul (in anima) and denies time outside the soul (extra animam).37 Kilwardby
objects that time is per se “the cause of corruption” (causa corruptionis), as in
Physics IV,38 which is impossible if time is isolated in or restricted to the soul;39
and that “motion is something outside the soul” (motum esse aliquid extra ani
mam), as no one disputes, so that time—logically and concurrently—has its
“being outside the soul” (ens extra animam).40
The Tractatus de Tempore is dated to 1250.41 In different ways, Carl
Fortlage’s 1836 treatise, Aurelii Augustini Doctrina de Tempore,42 and Martin
36 Gand. Quodl. III, q. 11 (my transcription): Ecce plane quid de proposita quaestione sensit
Augustinus, videlicet quod [tempus] non esset nisi in anima: et nihil aliud quam affectio
seu conceptus transitus rerum pertranseuntium, manens in anima: ut quod tempus futu-
rum nihil aliud sit quam conceptus secundum expectationem praetereundi: Preteritum
nihil aliud quam conceptus secundum recordatione iam pertansiti.
37 Again: for aspects of the scholastic reception of Conf. XI in the 13th and 14th centuries, vid.
Duhem 1959, VII; Flasch 1993; Fox 2006; Maier 1955; Mansion 1934; Porro 1987, 1996; Steel
2001; Trifogli 2000, 2001. And again: I regret that Jeck 1993 only came to my notice once
the manuscript was in press.
38 Cf. Arist. Phys. IV.12 (221a–b); Kil. Temp. 5: tempus secundum Aristotilem, in 4
Phisicorum, est per se causa corruptionis.
39 Kil. Temp. 5: Set contra, tempus secundum Aristotilem, in 4 Phisicorum, est per se causa
corruptionis . . . quod non posset esse si solum esset in anima.
Pace Arist. Phys. IV.13 (222b): “But yet it is not actually time itself (οὐδὲ ταύτην ὁ
χρόνος) that destroys things in this way, but it is incidental that this change also occurs in
time (συμβαίνει ἐν χρόνῷ).”
40 Kil. Temp. 5: Cum tamen nemo ambigit motum esse aliquid extra animam, propterea
dicendum tempus esse aliquod verum ens extra animam.
Cf. Alb. Phys. IV, tr. 3, cap. 3: Cum ergo videamus motum esse ad sensum in rerum
natura, extra animam erit et tempus aliquid extra animam . . .
41 Silva (2012, 6) dates the Tractatus de Tempore to the years 1245–50.
42 Fortlage (1836) seeks to render Augustine’s time-concept ‘metaphysical,’ but in a post-
Spinozist, post-Kantian sense. Fortlage’s systematic-deductive method still holds promise.
I have not taken Fortlage as an interlocutor because I first obtained a copy of his Aurelii
Augustini Doctrina de tempore—which has been digitized—weeks before The Space of
Time went to press. Fortlage’s opuscule is of real interest for those reconstructing the
concept of time in a post-Hegelian and pre-phenomenological milieu, no less than for
those interpreting Augustine’s time-concept in Confessions XI. And however ‘uncriti-
cal’ it may seem, it is bracing—and illuminating—to see Fortlage range sentences from
Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Physics, Cicero’s De Inventione, Sextus Empiricus’ Adversus
Mathematicos, Plotinus’ Enneads, Boethius’ Consolations, Wolff’s Ontology, Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason, Hegel’s Encyclopedia and J.J. Wagner’s Organon der menschlichen
Erkenntniss (Erlangen 1830), beside ‘theses’ he extracts from Augustine’s Confessions.
46 chapter 2
Heidegger’s 1931 seminar, “Augustinus, Confessiones XI,”43 break decisively

with the Tractatus’ problematic. Yet Kilwardby’s notion that Augustine’s time-
concept is ‘metaphysical’ is still much in evidence in the Augustine-literature.
Kilwardby’s facile Physics-Confessions opposition is still a commonplace.
And Kilwardby’s duplex concern that if ‘time’ (tempus) is restricted to the soul
then there will be no ‘time’ posited in bodies per se, and there will be no ‘time’
produced by motion per se, is still very much with us. Witness, for instance, the
title of Ricœur’s first chapter in Temps et récit III: “Temps de l’âme et temps du
monde. Le débat entre Augustin et Aristote.”44
In late-modern terms, Kilwardby takes the time-concept in Confessions XI to
be subjectivistic;45 and Augustine’s late-modern interpreters still take the time-
concept in Confessions XI to be subjectivistic.46 (Ludwig Wittgenstein’s chronic
misapprehension of the Confessions’ time-question, in his 1930s typescripts47
and 1940s lectures,48 amounts to what is less than a misinterpretation.)49 What
43 I have not incorporated this Heidegger (2012) seminar since I only obtained a copy in the
weeks before The Space of Time went to press.
44 Ricœur 1985, ch. 1.
45 Cf. for instance, Alb. Phys. IV, tr. 3, cap. 3: Augustinus etiam disputans, an tempus sit in
anima, quaerit, si tempus extra animam, ubi sit. Praeteritum enim cum non sit, nusquam
est in rerum natura; futurum etiam cum nondum sit, non habet esse in rerum natura; ergo
si tempus est in rerum natura extra animam, hoc erit praesens; Gand. Quodl. III, q. 11
(cit. Porro 1996, 6): Revera necesse est ponere instans sive praesens esse in natura rei extra
animam, si transitum vel translationem aliquam ponamus extra animam . . . Et si conce-
datur nunc instans esse in re extra animam [etc.] . . . Nec plus possunt concludere persua-
siones Augustini ad probandum tempus non esse in rebus sed solum in anima; III, q. 11 (my
transcription): Ecce plane quid de proposita quaestione sensit Augustinus, videlicet quod
[tempus] non esset nisi in anima: et nihil aliud quam affectio seu conceptus transitus rerum
pertranseuntium, manens in anima: ut quod tempus futurum nihil aliud sit quam con-
ceptus secundum expectationem praetereundi: Preteritum nihil aliud quam conceptus
secundum recordatione iam pertansiti.
46 Out of the hundreds of such formulations, cf. Lacey 1968, 220: “Augustine’s . . . chapter on
time in the Confessions contains a quite coherent argument for time as subjective”; 225:
“What we measure as time is a mental impression—past time, a memory; future time, an
expectation. Measured time is . . . thoroughly subjective.”
47 Wittgenstein 1969, 26–27.
48 Wittgenstein repeats Augustine’s inaugural time-confession offhand—in English, and
with characteristic incomprehension—during his last Cambridge seminar, in 1946. Vid.
Wittgenstein 1988, 6 (Geach’s notes): “St Augustine on time. ‘If you don’t ask me, I know;
if you ask me, I don’t know.’ He knew the [illocutionary] technique, but not how to
describe it.”
49 Brinkley (1973) evaluates Wittgenstein’s use of and sympathies for Augustine, and specifi-
cally, the Confessions.
follows is a typology of late-modern interpretations of time in Confessions XI,

all of which still take their rise from the scholastic question of Augustine’s
subjectivism. In this fundamental regard,50 all the received, late-modern
interpretations of time in Confessions X to XII are alike—and as a rule,
unwittingly51—scholastic.52
Subjectivist Interpretations, via Éric Alliez

Éric Alliez’s treatment of Confessions XI exemplifies the blunt, unrepentantly
subjectivist type of interpretation. Alliez holds that time in Confessions XI is
wholly irrelative to “physical movement” (mouvement physique),53 and it is this
irrelativity of time to movement that constitutes, for him, the “autonomization/
subjectivation of time” in the Confessions.54 Alliez’s interpretation is issued
“in defiance of any cosmological temptation that would inscribe time [in the
Confessions] as dependent on physical movement.”55 And as a result—since
time is most clearly ‘inscribed as dependent on physical movement’ in book
XII of the Confessions—Alliez confines his interpretation to books X and XI.
Confessions XII is never cited, and is only referred to in a polemical note in
which Alliez dismisses the question of mouvement physique in book XII.56
This question of time’s ‘dependence’ (dépendance) on physical movement
is decisive for Alliez’s ‘subjectivation of time’ in Confessions XI, and indeed, for
any subjectivist interpretation of time in Confessions X to XII. Thus, to dem-
onstrate a logical precedence of motion to time in Confessions XI and XII—as
50 There are of course exceptions; but they are not, as yet, influential exceptions.
A. Bardon (2007), for instance, recognizes that Augustine’s time-concept is basically,
in a later terminology, ‘empiricist.’ Where I have related Augustine to Thomas Hobbes in
the 17th century (see Appendix 4), Bardon relates him to David Hume in the 18th.
51 The salient exception to this is Kurt Flasch (1993).
52 In my judgement this holds good as it is written, but it is not meant to deprecate advances
made in the literature. Several impressive works have appeared in English since The
Space of Time was written in 2010, while I have obtained copies of a number of German
works at the eleventh hour, as The Space of Time was being sent to press. All of these works
appear in the bibliography, though I have preferred not to catalogue the points on which
my interpretation converges, or nearly converges with them—and finally diverges from
them—since they have neither influenced nor, to my mind, outstripped the interpreta-
tion I present here.
53 Alliez 1996, 124/1991, 187.
54 Alliez 1996, 89/1991, 144.
55 Alliez 1996, 124/1991, 187 (tr. mod.): “. . . contre toute tentation cosmologique qui inscrirait
le temps dans la dépendance du mouvement physique.”
56 Alliez 1996, 273 n. 148.
48 chapter 2
I will—is also to negatively and conclusively resolve the question: Is Augustine’s

concept of time in the Confessions subjectivistic?
Intellectivist Interpretations, via Paul Ricœur

Paul Ricœur’s is a subjectivist interpretation57 of the intellectivist type. Like
Alliez, Ricœur is silent on Confessions XII. But unlike Alliez, Ricœur makes
his interpretation hinge on this specification: Augustine’s distentio animi is
in the first instance a dilation, not of the soul, but of the mind.58 Thus, even
when Ricœur momentarily (pour l’instant) treats ‘soul’ (âme), ‘mind’ (esprit)
and ‘consciousness’ (conscience) as substitutable terms, in Temps et récit III,
he in the same sentence betrays his preference for ‘mind’: Augustine’s disten
tio, he writes there, is a “distention of the mind” (distension de l’esprit).59 What
is more, Ricœur identifies precisely this intellective distention as marking the
failure or miscarriage of Augustine’s time-concept: “l’échec d’Augustin.”60
However, it is precisely the importation of ‘mind’ that marks the miscar-
riage of Ricœur’s—or any intellectivist—interpretation of Augustine’s dis
tentio animi. For as I will demonstrate, Augustine’s animus in the Confessions
is ascribed to beasts no less than to humans, and by no means refers to the
57 Cf. Ricœur 1983, 29/1984, 12 (tr. mod.): “The quasi-spatial language . . . remains in sus-
pense so long as this extension of the human soul (cette extension de l’âme humaine),
the ground of all measurement of time, has not been stripped of any cosmological basis
(privé . . . de tout support cosmologique). The inherence of time in the soul (l’inhérence du
temps à l’âme) takes on its full meaning only when every thesis that would put time in
dependence on physical movement (toute thèse qui mettrait le temps dans la dépendence
du movement physique) has been eliminated”; 1983, 32/1984, 15 (tr. mod.): “The notion
of distentio animi will serve, precisely, as a substitute for [every] cosmological basis for the
space of time (de substitut à [tout] support cosmologique de l’espace de temps).”
58 Ricœur 1983, 38: “C’est dans l’âme, donc à titre d’impression, que l’attente et la mémoire
ont de l’extension. Mais l’impression n’est dans l’âme que pour autant que l’esprit agit,
c’est-à-dire attend, fait attention et se souvient.”
59 Ricœur 1985, 22: “L’échec d’Augustin à dériver le principe de la mesure du temps de la
seule distension de l’esprit nous invite à aborder le problème du temps par son autre
extrémité, la nature, l’univers, le monde (expressions que nous tenons provisoirement
comme synonymes, quitte à les distinguer ultérieurement, comme nous le ferons
pour leurs antonymes, que, pour l’instant, nous nommons indifféremment âme, esprit,
conscience).”
Cf. for instance, Jordan 1955, 400: “Time is some kind of extension. In fact, it is,
as [Augustine] says, probably an extension of the mind itself ”; Nightingale 2011, 57:
“The vocalization of words and sounds over a specific temporal period allows [Augustine]
to measure the passing of time and to analyze the distention of his mind ”; etc.
60 Vid. Ricœur 1985, 22.
human ‘mind’ (mens, ratio, intellectus) in Confessions X to XII.61 In fine

Hellenistic fashion,62 Augustine’s mens is not the rudimentary stratum of soul
(anima-animus) which is dilated in times;63 and in a distinctly Christian fash-
ion, Augustine’s mens designates the seat of the human imago dei in the soul.64
Mens is that inborn force in us which can—periodically, and transiently—
transpierce the confines of flux, i.e. the ‘dilation of the senses’ that is time.
Disjunctivist Interpretations, via Carlos Castoriadis

Carlos Castoriadis represents the disjunctivist type of interpretation of time
in Confessions XI and XII. This is a strain of interpretation that has lingered
on since it was first introduced, and unsuccessfully dealt with, in the mid-
20th century.65 In Castoriadis, it develops in this way. Having interpreted
Confessions XI in a subjectivist66 and intellectivist67 vein, Castoriadis then pro-
ceeds to Confessions XII and reports “a flagrant contradiction,”68 which is that
Augustine writes in book XII:
Without variance of motion there are no times (sine varietate motionum

non sunt tempora), and there is no variance of motion where there is no
determination (species). (XII.11.14)69
61 Cf. Arts 1927, 4: “Mens signifies ‘soul,’ ‘spirit,’ ‘consciousness,’ ‘reason.’ It differs from animus
in that it means the ‘thinking spirit,’ the ‘understanding,’ while animus means the ‘feeling,’
‘desiring spirit.’ . . . Intellectus is not a Classical word, and first occurs in Quintillian, mean-
ing ‘understanding,’ ‘comprehension.’ It is synonymous with the Classical terms, intelle
gentia, ratio, cognitio, etc.”
62 As laid out very clearly at—for instance—Aug. Quant.anim. 30.58.
63 Pace Gross 1999, 130: “As [Augustine] concludes, time is a distension or extension of mind
(distentio animi), a sort of temporal ‘stretching’ of the rational soul produced by the men
tal operations of remembering, attending, and anticipating.”
64 Cf. for instance, Aug. Quant.anim. 28.54: Sensu enim nos bestiae multae superant, cuius
rei causam non hic locus est ut quaeramus; mente autem, ratione, scientia, nos illis deus
praeposuit; Serm. 43.3: Mentem, rationem, consilium, quod non habent bestiae . . . in eo
facti sumus ad imaginem dei; etc.
65 Vid. Jordan 1955.
66 Castoriadis 1991, 45: “Augustine’s referents are purely subjective . . . expectation, atten-
tion, memory.”
67 Castoriadis 1991, 44: “Distentio animi—a stretching of the mind.”
68 Castoriadis 1991, 45.
Lacey (1968, 231), for instance, is more restrained: “[Augustine] does not sort out this
apparent incompatibility.”
69 Cf. Castoriadis 1991, 48: “But he had already written (XI, XI, 4–10 [sic]): ‘whoever would say
to me that, if all appearances were suppressed and annihilated and if only the i nformitas
50 chapter 2
To Castoriadis, it appears that “Augustine . . . contradicts himself openly and

naively,”70 so Castoriadis then states the ‘contradiction’ at the root of any dis-
junctivist interpretation:
Time here [in Confessions XII] has ceased to be just the distentio animi [of
Confessions XI], the stretching of my mind; it is that in which the forms
vertuntur, are changing into one another, and it is produced by this muta-
tion of forms, strictly dependent on it.71
As with Alliez, observe that ‘dependence’ on motion is critical. And this depen-
dence is—as disjunctivists recognize—variously stated in Confessions XII,
where Augustine maintains that “the forms of [material] things give rise to
times” (XII.29.40). But of course, this is only ‘a flagrant contradiction’ of
Confessions XI if such a dependence on motion is not stated in Confessions XI—
which it is;72 and if the time-concept in Confessions XI is subjectivistic—which
it is not.
But there is something further to be observed here. When Augustine writes
in Confessions XII, “without variance of motion there are no times (tempora)”
(XII.11.14), Castoriadis glosses the sentence with reference to time: “Time
here . . . is produced by this mutation of forms.”73 It would be boorish to fault
Castoriadis for this imprecision, since none of Augustine’s interpreters—from
Robert Kilwardby in 1250 to Jean-Luc Marion in 2010—has registered the fact
that the oscillation from ‘time’ (tempus) to ‘times’ (tempora) in Confessions XI
and XII signals a difference with a distinction.74 Nevertheless, the interpretation
(form-lessness) were to remain, through which everything changes and varies from one
form to another, this form-lessness would exhibit the vicissitudes of time? This is abso-
lutely impossible, for there are no times without the variety of motions and where there
is no form, there is no variety.’”
72 Pace Jordan 1955, 402–403: “Augustine has suggested, in his definition of time, a relational
conception of time. . . . But a relation must have a foundation, and we are not told in the
eleventh Book of the Confessions what this foundation could be.”
74 Caveat lector! I let this sentence stand, despite having seen—in the last days before the
manuscript went to press—that Roland Jurgeleit registered this distinction in the 1980s.
Jurgeleit’s “Der Zeitbegriff bei Augustinus” remains, to my knowledge, the sole exception
to my bold statement—and of course, this is salutary.
What follows is Jurgeleit’s (1988, 227–28) discussion of tempus and tempora: “Aufgrund
der Aufnahme und bewußten Verbindung von zwei Aspekten eignet dem Augustinischen
Zeitbegriff ein subjektiv-objektiver Doppelcharakter: Sowohl die Wahnehmung objektiver
I will present takes its rise from the conviction that Augustine’s deployments
of tempus and tempora are conceptually significant, and that it is—in large
part—this hitherto unnoticed lexical distinction that renders subjectivist,
intellectivist, and disjunctivist interpretations of Confessions XI and XII null
and void.
Neoplatonist Interpretations, via Roland Teske

Roland Teske introduces a Neoplatonist type of interpretation.75 Teske accepts
the intellectivist interpretation of animus in Augustine’s time-investigation,
Veränderung als auch die überspannende Kraft des Subjekts sind konstitutive Elemente
desjenigen Phänomens, das in der alltäglichen Rede mit dem Begriff ‘Zeit’ vorgegeben
ist. Sobald aber die ursprünglich vereint vorliegenden Aspekte . . . in der phänomenolo-
gischen Reflexion explizit erkannt worden sind, muß auch die Verwendung der Begriffe
tempus und tempora im Kontext der Zeitabhandlung unter dieser Hinsicht untersucht
werden. Dabei ergibt sich, daß tempus entweder die Zeit im allgemeinen oder insbe-
sondere unter ihrem zweiten Aspekt der meßbaren, kontinuierlichen Dauer bezeich-
net, während der Plural, wenn der nähere Zusammenhang nichts anderes erfordert,
für gewöhnlich die zeitlich bestimmten Sachverhalte in ihrer jeweiligen Modalität
meint. Diese Verwendungsweise von tempora bedeutet aber nicht, daß der Zeit damit
zugleich eine vom wahrnehmenden Subjekt unabhängige, objektive Existenz durch
Augustinus zugebilligt würde. Denn dieser . . . orientierte Zeitbegriff erfaßt die zeitlichen
Sachverhalte nur als statische Gehalte derjenigen Zeitdimensionen, die in der Sprache
durch die Modi Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft vorgegeben sind. Zeit is dadu-
rch zwar gekoppelt an den Weltprozeß, aber dieser ist nicht identisch mit ihr; vielmehr
stellt er sich der phänomenologischen Betrachtung lediglich als Abfolge eines objek-
tiven Nacheinanders dar, das Augustinus deswegen als tempora ansprechen kann, weil
der Mensch von diesem Prozeß nur als Ablauf zeitlich strukturierter und interpretierter
Ereignisse . . . Eine eigenständige, vom menschlichen Erleben in ihrem Ablauf unabhän-
gige Zeit, die der objektiven Welt als ihr Charakteristikum zugeordnet werden könnte,
muß demnach als Ergänzung zu Augustins Zeitbegriff nicht postuliert werden. Im
Gegenteil: Der Text der ‘Confessiones’ läßt vielmehr erkennen, daß es die Intention des
Autors war, das Phänomen ‘Zeit’ in seiner Gesamtheit auf den Begriff zu bringen, wobei
ihm jedenfalls zugestanden werden muß, dessen objektive Dimension ausreichend
berücksichtigt zu haben.”
But cf. also Suarez 1861, 950: “. . . dixerunt multi philosophi, tempus non esse unum
tantum, sed plura. Cui sententiæ consonat D. August., lib. 11 Confess., c. 23, dicens: Audivi
a quodam homine docto, quod solis et lunæ, ac siderum motus, ipsa sint tempora et anni.
Cur enim non potius omnium corporum motus sint tempora? An vero si cessarent cœli
lumina, et meveretur rota figuli, non esset tempus? ”
75 Cf. Teske 2008a, 216: “The basic thesis of [my 1983] article met with approval by Kurt
Flasch in his [1993] study of time in Augustine, Was ist Zeit? Augustinus von Hippo, Das XI.
Buch der Confessiones.”
52 chapter 2
i.e. “time as a distension of mind-soul,” but seeks to defang subjectivist and

disjunctivist interpretations76 by means of this manoeuvre:
[Augustine’s] definition of time as distentio animi can escape charges of

inconsistency with what he says elsewhere about time as well as charges
that such a definition of time is purely subjective and hopelessly idealis-
tic. For, time . . . is for Augustine, as it was for Plotinus, primarily a disten-
sion of that soul by which form is given to the world.77
While Teske recognizes that there is “no explicit doctrine in the [Confessions]
of a soul of the world,”78 Augustine’s ‘dilation’ is still taken to be a dilation of
that ‘soul.’79 That is to say, ‘dilation’ in Confessions XI is ascribed (i) to a
soul that can only tendentiously be called ‘Plotinian,’80 since Augustine would
have originally associated it with Plato and the Stoics (via Cicero or philosophi-
cal florilegia); (ii) to a soul that is only fleetingly and obscurely referenced in
Augustine’s pre-ordination texts;81 (iii) to a soul that is never openly posited
or characterized—as Teske admits—in the Confessions; and (iv) to a soul that
is repeatedly disavowed in Augustine’s Recensions.82
Objections to the Neoplatonist interpretation are legion, but I will limit
them to the following. Firstly, Teske places it “beyond doubt that Augustine
was quite familiar with [Plotinus’] Ennead 3, 7,” and while this acquaintance
is not precisely ‘beyond doubt,’ regardless: the structural and dialectical
elements that link Confessions XI to Aristotle’s Categories and Cicero’s rhetori-
cal treatises (see 13.6)—or even to Sextus Empiricus’ Adversus Physicos (see
Appendix 1)—outnumber and outweigh the possible links to Enneads III.7.
Secondly, Teske imports a sense of anima-animus for which there is no clear
76 Cf. Teske 2008a, 226: “If what Augustine says about the heaven of heavens is open to
his holding that there is a world-soul with which individual souls are one, then his defi
nition of time as a distension of mind-soul [= intellectivist interpretation] not merely is
open to this idea, but requires such a doctrine both in order to avoid inconsistency with
what Augustine says about time elsewhere [= disjunctivist interpretation] and to avoid the
claim that his view of time is utterly subjective [= subjectivist interpretation].”
77 Teske 2008a, 237.
78 Teske 2008a, 223.
79 Vid. Teske 2008a, 228.
80 Cf. Aug. Retr. I.11.4: Sed animal esse istum mundum, sicut Plato sensit aliique philosophi
plurimi, nec ratione certa indagare potui, nec divinarum scripturarum auctoritate persua-
deri posse cognovi.
81 Cf. Aug. Imm.anim. 15.24; Ord. II.11.30; Rhyth. VI.14.44 (cit. Teske 2008a, 219, 220).
82 Cf. Aug. Retr. I.5.3, I.11.4 (cit. Teske 2008a, 219, 221).
evidence in the Confessions—namely, that of a quasi-Plotinian ‘all-soul’—even

as, and because, he abandons the sense of anima-animus that Augustine delin-
eates in Confessions X, where anima and animus alike designate ‘soul’ insofar
as it is the life of a body (see 4.3, 8.2–4). Thirdly, Teske cedes that “time [begins]
with the motion of a creature” in the Confessions, but then adds, “no matter
whether that creature [is] spiritual or corporeal.”83 However, in Confessions
XI as in Confessions XII, it is specifically “the movement of . . . bodies” (corpo
rum motus, XI.23.29) that produces ‘times’ (see 4.2, 9.4, 10.2). There is no more
evidence for angelic intellection producing ‘times’ in the Confessions84 than
there is for a quasi-Plotinian ‘all-soul’ in the Confessions. And finally, Teske’s
Plotinian hypothesis85 leads him to grossly mischaracterize, not only the tem-
porized anima-animus of Augustine’s time-investigation, but the preter-tempo-
ral animus-mens of Confessions XI.30–31 and Confessions XII, i.e. Augustine’s
caelum intellectuale (see chapters 5 and 7). Whereas Augustine concludes his
time-investigation by confessing that he lives “in times” (in tempora, XI.29.39),
and introduces a heavenly animus-mens as perduring “beyond times” (supra
tempora, XI.30.40), Teske drags Augustine’s heavenly creature into times. He
even posits a bizarre, quasi-intellective ‘dilation of the senses’ in this hyper-
exalted creature.86
In short, the Neoplatonist type of interpretation ‘reconciles’ Confessions XI
and XII—and thereby, ‘overcomes’ the subjectivist and disjunctivist types of
interpretation—by modulating the intellectivist type of interpretation in such
a way that Confessions XI and XII are alike rendered unrecognizable, while the
time-concept of Confessions XI is rendered philosophically inviable.
Diversionist Interpretations, via Goulven Madec

Goulven Madec advances what could be called the diversionist type of interpre-
tation, which is a theological type of interpretation. Madec has an incompara-
bly subtler knowledge of Augustine’s corpus than Alliez, Ricœur or Castoriadis,
83 Teske 2008a, 230.

84 Sorabji (1983, 31–32) remarks that whereas Augustine discusses ‘angelic time’—i.e. some
mode of transitivity or succession produced in and by the angels’ intellection—in “works
straddling the Confessions: de Genesi ad Litteram Liber Imperfectus III.8 and de Genesi ad
Litteram V.5.12,” there is “no hint of this theory in Confessions XII.”
85 Teske 2008a, 237 n. 48: “I have repeatedly said that I regard . . . [this] as a very tentative
hypothesis.”
86 Teske 2008a, 236: “In the context [of Conf. XI.30–31,] sensus distenditur seems to refer to
the awareness of iste animus.”
This is nonsense. Cf. Pépin 1953, 219: “. . . caelum intellectuale, est celui que voit
l’intelligence totalement séparée de toute activité sensorielle, et où elle contemple, sans
pouvoir en parler, la substance même de Dieu.”
54 chapter 2
and is unconstrained by Teske’s hyper-Plotinian optic. As a result, Madec dis-

misses the subjectivist, intellectivist,87 disjunctivist and Neoplatonist88 types
of interpretation, more or less out of hand.89 (“Il n’est pas besoin d’être un
augustinien inconditionnel pour juger ces explications invraisemblables,
et inexplicables de la part d’un excellent connaisseur.”)90 Insofar as Madec’s
interpretation is a negative one, then, it marks a break with the question of
subjectivism that skews the other types of late-modern interpretation. But
despite making certain positive contributions,91 Madec’s is a diversionist
interpretation—like Jean-Luc Marion’s92—because, in the first place, he assigns
87 There is nevertheless an intellectivist taint when Madec (2001, 193) writes this: “Les hom-
mes aussi naissent, vivent et meurent. Mais, étant des esprits, créés par Dieu, ils ont la
faculté, dans le temps qui leur est imparti, de mesurer le temps qui passe . . .”
88 Still, Madec (2001, 193) overstates the Neoplatonic influence, and limits counter-
influences—prematurely, and ill-advisedly—to Augustine’s scriptures: “L’inspiration
néoplatonicienne a pu être très important; elle est pourtant secondaire, subsidiaire; car
la réflexion qu’elle provoque s’entretient dans un autre site, un autre monde, le monde
de la Bible.”
89 Cf. Madec 2001, 189: “Les philosophes, eux, ont la mauvaise habitude d’isoler dans le livre XI
des Confessions le développement sur le temps et de s’y enfermer. Paul Ricœur [= subjec
tivist, intellectivist interpretation] le fait, tout en reconnaissant d’emblée qu’il fait ainsi
‘au texte une certaine violence.’ Kurt Flasch [= Neoplatonist interpretation] est plus radi-
cal . . . En 1966, Ulrich Dochrow estimait illégitime de séparer l’analsye psychologique du
temps des problèmes du temps physique et du temps historique. Il avait raison; mais il
croyait devoir dénoncer une énorme incohérence chez Augustin [= disjunctivist inter-
pretation]. . . . [Cette] ‘théorie psychologique’ [est] incompatible avec les doctrines chré-
tiennes et augustiniennes de la création et de l’histoire du salut.”
90 Madec 2001, 189: “Il n’est pas besoin d’être un augustinien inconditionnel pour juger cette
explication [sc. Ulrich Duchrow’s] invraisemblable, et inexplicable de la part d’un excel-
lent connaisseur.”
Madec is specifically referring back, here, to Dochrow’s disjunctivist interpretation;
but he has listed—on the same page—Ricœur’s subjectivist and intellectivist interpreta-
tion, and Flasch’s Neoplatonist interpretation, no less dismissively. Thus, it is justifiable to
emend his remark—as I have—to take in Ricœur’s and Flasch’s interpretations, as well as
Dochrow’s. I have silently emended, here, only to simplify this aside.
91 Cf. for instance, Madec 2001, 190: “Si je me mettais à chanter, par exemple, l’hymne
d’Ambroise: ‘Deus creator omnium’ . . . je le ferais de corps; et cela prendrait du temps, pas
seulement du ‘temps subjectif,’ du ‘temps-mesure,’ mais de la durée, du ‘temps objectif,’ du
‘temps mesuré.’ ”
92 Marion (2012, 195) posits a “liturgical intention of Saint Augustine” in the time-investigation
of Confessions XI, whereas I contend—to the contrary—that Augustine’s intention here
is not only philosophical, but ‘physical,’ relative to the triplex division of late-antique phi-
losophy into physical, logical and ethical questions. Marion can of course pretend that
Augustine’s time-investigation to the ill-defined but manifestly theologistic

genre of exercitatio animi.93 The time-investigation of Confessions XI, writes
Madec, “ce n’est pas une dissertation objective sur le temps, mais un exercice
spirituel.”94 And because, in the second place, Madec—unlike Augustine—
seems to believe that the category of ‘creature’ elucidates Augustine’s concept of
time, writing: “Le temps est créature, il est le mouvement de la créature . . . selon
l’ordonnancement de Dieu.”95
Now, Augustine’s time-investigation is indeed not a ‘dissertation . . . sur
le temps’ as regards its genre (see chapter 3), but neither is it less than an
‘objective’ philosophical enquiry, in the terms that Augustine imposed on a
Manichaean bishop, Faustus, at Carthage (see 3.3): a ‘pious’ time-concept
must, at very least, accord with whatever is convincing “in the works of secu-
lar philosophy” (in libris saecularis sapientiae, V.3.6). And if Madec’s theologi-
cal exercitatio animi-genre is designed to lead a devotee up towards his god,
then Augustine’s time-investigation is a wretched specimen. It peaks, as I have
said (see 1.4), precisely at the point that Augustine’s ‘ascent’ to god plunges
to, in Confessions IX, once his vision of god has faltered. Even on its surface:
Augustine’s time-investigation only leads him deeper into time.
And even on its surface, Augustine’s time-investigation at no point suggests
that the prelate—like Madec—relies on the category of ‘creature’ to resolve
his time-question. For before and after Augustine asks, ‘What is time?’ he is
Augustine’s ‘liturgical intention’ in the time-investigation is a pre-modern one; yet this

sort of post-modern, ‘liturgical’ optic for the time-investigation in Confessions XI must
first justify itself by stating why it is that there is no pre-modern trace of ‘liturgy’ in the
late 5th or early 6th century, when Eugippius extracts and redacts Confessions XI.23.29–
31.41 under this head, at Eug. Exc. VIII: “De Tempore, quod cum homo metiri videatur
non tamen potest comprehendere quid sit tempus . . .” (pace Marion, this is very much
the language of ‘definition’—and note, of a definition of time without reference to eter-
nity); or why there is no trace of ‘liturgy’ in the first half of the 13th century, when Robert
Grosseteste comments (and he is one of the first, if not the first, to do so) on Aristotle’s
Latinized Physics, writing at Gross. In Phys. IV: “Et Augustinus cum quaesivit essenciam
temporis . . . sic videtur velle Augustinus, ut memoria de preteritis et continuacio de pre-
sentibus et expectatio de futuris putantur ab ibso esse tria tempora; ibi sunt tria presencia
et ibi sunt longa aut brevia”; and so on.
93 Cf. Madec 2002, 1183: “. . . de même l’investigation des divers trésors de la mémoire, en
conf. 10,37, pour trouver Dieu: ‘in te supra me’; de même la mise en énigme du temps
en conf. 11, pour tâcher de comprendre que la transcendance éternelle de Dieu par rap-
port à la création est toute autre que la maîtrise relative que l’esprit crée exerce sur le
temps qui passe.”
94 Madec 2001, 190.
95 Madec 2001, 193.
56 chapter 2
persuaded that time is a ‘creature’; yet after Augustine asks, ‘What is time?’ he
nevertheless knows that he does not know what time is (see 3.3). And more-
over, in the last paragraphs of Confessions XI (see 5.1), Augustine alludes to
some creature that may perdure “beyond times.”96 Now, if there can be a time
less creature—such as Augustine’s materia informis and caelum intellectuale
are timeless, in Confessions XII (see Part II)—then the category of ‘creature’
cannot promise to resolve his time-question.
And here—apropos of Madec’s appeal to the ‘creature’—Augustine’s tempo-
rally regulated enunciation of Ambrose’s verse, Deus creator omnium, is devas-
tating. For it is not at all the sense of the word ‘deus’ or ‘creator’ that illuminates,
for Augustine, the condition of possibility of a space of time—namely, disten
tio animi. Augustine himself makes the point: it is the enunciation of “songs or
verses or any discourses”—or indeed, the observation of any “dimensions of
movements”—with perfect indifference, that exhibits the condition of possibil-
ity of “spaces of times” (XI.27.36).97 The liturgical line that Augustine recites at
the height of his time-investigation is, of course, ‘pious.’ But it remains a pious
flourish since any pagan phrase—say, Virgil’s Arma virumque cano . . ., which
Augustine recites in De Rhythmo II98—could replace Ambrose’s line without
in the slightest affecting the sense, or the persuasiveness, of Augustine’s analy-
sis. Ambrose’s hymn merely happens to be Augustine’s canticum notissimum
in Confessions XI, for Virgil’s epic is his carmen notissimum in De Rhythmo III,99
and this changes nothing.
Again: it is by no means the sense of Ambrose’s term, ‘creator’—within which,
of course, the idea of ‘creature’ is contained100—that resolves Augustine’s time-
question, as his theological interpreters might hope. Rather, it is the ‘dilation’
96 Aug. Conf. XI.30.40: . . . et intellegant te ante omnia tempora aeternum creatorem omnium
temporum neque ulla tempora tibi esse coaeterna nec ullam creaturam, etiamsi est aliqua
supra tempora.
97 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: carmina et versus et quemque sermonem motionumque dimensio-
nes quaslibet et de spatiis temporum.
98 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. II.2.2: utrum dicam: “Arma virumque cano . . .”; II.2.2: sic enim pronun-
tiem: “Arma virumque cano . . .”; III.2.3: Attende ergo etiam in ista pervulgatissima: “Arma
virumque cano . . .”
99 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. III.2.3: Attende ergo etiam in ista pervulgatissima: “Arma virumque cano,
Troiae qui primus ab oris.” Et ne longum faciamus, quia carmen notissimum est, ab hoc
versu usque ad quem volueris explora singulos . . .; Aug. Conf. XI.31.41: . . . sicut mihi unum
canticum notissimum . . .
100 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.12.14: sed dico te, deus noster, omnis creaturae creatorem et, si . . . enim
faciebat, quid nisi creaturam faciebat?
that any uttered term or phrase illuminates, which leads Augustine past the
purely philosophical analytics of present-time that he rehearses in Confessions
XI.15 (see Appendix 1). What theological interpreters of time in Confessions X
to XII must bear in mind is this: it is not of time but of eternity that Augustine
says, “Love knows it” (caritas novit eam, VII.10.16). Augustine’s love, in itself—
for his god, his holy writ, or his church—elucidates nothing when his question
is that eminently Hellenic one, ‘What is time?’ Any interpellation of theologis-
tic reasoning—as opposed to rhetoric—in Augustine’s time-investigation, is a
diversion. For even Augustine’s appeal to a miraculous arrest of the sun, in the
book of Joshua—which is invariably cited by the scholastics—is anticipated
by a strictly philosophical caveat in the Soliloquies (see 5.3).
But if the foregoing typology helps to situate Augustine relative to his late-
modern interpreters, a further typology is needed to situate him relative to
his predecessors in antiquity. For Augustine’s late-modern interpreters typi-
cally assume—and note well: this is an assumption—that his time-concept is
‘Platonic,’ but the evidence for this is lacking.
2.3 Confessions XI and Typologies of Time in Antiquity
While Augustine is a ‘Platonist,’ albeit a Latin Platonist101—i.e. originally and

lastingly influenced by the Academic Platonism102 of Cicero—it cannot be
assumed that his time-concept is ‘Platonic,’ for it is only in matters of sacred
doctrine that he renounces the libertas philosophandi.103 Thus, it should be
asked, in doxographic terms: Would Augustine’s time-concept have been per-
ceived as ‘Platonic’ in antiquity? Or for that matter, as ‘metaphysical’?
101 It is worth recalling here that Plotinus’ translator, Marius Victorinus, also penned a com-
mentary on Cicero’s De Inventione. For remarks on “le scepticisme de Victorinus,” stem-
ming from Cicero: Bouton-Toubloulic 2012; Hadot 1971, 47–58.
102 As Augustine himself states with exemplary clarity in the first paragraph of his first sur-
viving letter, at Aug. Epist. 1.1 (386/7)—which is to say, precisely in the months when, per
his hyper-Plotinian interpreters, he is most freshly and absolutely under the influence “of
Plato and of Plotinus” (illae Platonem, illae Plotinum), to use a much-touted phrase of his
from Epist. 6.1 (387/8).
103 Cf. Aug. Civ. X.23: Liberis enim verbis loquuntur philosophi, nec in rebus ad intellegen-
dum difficillimis offensionem religiosarum aurium pertimescunt. Nobis autem ad certam
regulam loqui fas est, ne verborum licentia etiam de rebus, quae his significantur, impiam
gignat opinionem; Conf. XII.24.33: ecce enim, deus meus, ego servus tuus.
58 chapter 2
Plutarch’s Typology of Time-Concepts

Question VIII of Plutarch’s Platonic Questions is concerned with time, and
his typology of time-concepts—i.e. his doxography—is not elaborate.104 He
seems to identify only three objectionable conceptions of time:
(i) Time is “a measure or number of motion (μέτρον . . . κινήσεως καὶ

ἀριθμὸν) according to antecedent and subsequent, as Aristotle said.”
(ii) Time is “what in motion is quantitative (τὸ ἐν κινήσει ποσόν), as
Speusippus said.”
(iii) Time is the “extension of motion (διάστεμα κινήσεως) and nothing
else, as some of the Stoics said, defining it by an accident and not
comprehending its essence (οὐσίαν) and power (δύναμιν).”105
Plutarch is more impressed with Pindar than with Plato’s direct heirs—
Speusippus in the Academy, and Aristotle at the Lyceum:106
No mean intuition (οὐ φαύλως ὑπονοῶν) seems to have been expressed by

Pindar in the words, “The lord, the lofty, Time, who excels all the beatific
gods.”107
And Plutarch approvingly relates a testimony in which Pythagoras, when he

is asked “what time is” (τί χρόνος ἐστί), replies: “The soul of the heavens” (τὴν
τοὐρανοῦ ψυχὴ).108 But what does all this indicate, and lead to?
104 Plutarch has a more intricate and, in some ways, more interesting discussion of ancient
time-concepts—Stoic, and Epicurean—at Plut. Ad.Stoic. 41 (1081c) et pass. But again:
my purpose here is strictly typological, and for this purpose, Plut. Plat.Q. VIII is the more
useful text.
105 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007a–b).
106 Cf. Aug. Civ. VIII.12: . . . in tantum aliis praelati iudicio posterorum, ut, cum Aristoteles
Platonis discipulus, vir excellentis ingenii et eloquio Platoni quidem impar, sed multos
facile superans, cum sectam Peripateticam condidisset, quod deambulans disputare con-
sueverat, plurimosque discipulos praeclara fama excellens vivo adhuc praeceptore in
suam haeresim congregasset, post mortem vero Platonis Speusippus, sororis eius filius,
et Xenocrates, dilectus eius discipulus, in scholam eius, quae Academia vocabatur, eidem
successissent atque ob hoc et ipsi et eorum successores Academici appellarentur . . .
107 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007b). Pindar’s line, here, is: ἄνακτα τὸν πάντων ὑπερβάλλοντα χρόνον
μακάρων.
108 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007b).
In Platonic Questions VIII, the Stoics, Speusippus and Aristotle are alike
faulted for identifying time with some “affection” (πάθος) or “accident”
(συμβεβηκὸς) of “chance motion” (ἔτυχε κινήσεως).109 The identity of the pro-
posed affection or accident of motion—be it number (per Aristotle), quan-
tity (per Speusippus), or extension (per the Stoics)—is, in Plutarch’s eyes,
irrelevant. It is rather the conditioning of time ‘from below’—i.e. from physi
cal motion110—that Plutarch resists. Pindar and Pythagoras, to the contrary,
condition time ‘from above.’ And again, the identity of this ‘lofty’ condition—
be it Pindar’s ‘lord’ or Pythagoras’ ‘soul of heaven’—is inconsequential. What
Plutarch lauds is not a notion, but a direction of causality; and this ‘direction’ of
causality is, incontestably, a Platonic one. For without turning to the Timaeus,
we can observe something of this ‘direction’ in book X of Plato’s Laws:
All things that share in soul (ψυχῆς) change, since they possess within
themselves (ἐν ἑαυτοῖς) the cause of change (μεταβολῆς αἰτίαν), and in
changing they move according to the law and order of destiny (κατὰ τὴν
τῆς εἱμαρμένης τάξιν καὶ νόμον).111
Plutarch remains faithful to this Platonic etiology of time.

For Plutarch as for Plato: the cause of change is not in physical motion (‘from
below’), but in the motion of soul (‘from above’). Thus, for Plutarch, ‘time’ is the
“order-itself and symmetry”112 of the motion of an “ensouled (ἔμψυχος) totality
of generated being”113—and foremost, of the ensouled heavens.114 It is as such
spiritually ordered motion that ‘time’ (χρόνος) and ‘the totality of generated
being’ (κόσμος) constitute “images of god” (εἰκόνες . . . τοῦ θεοῦ).115 And since
Plutarch’s ‘time’—like Plato’s in the Timaeus—is “a mutive image of [god’s]
eternity,”116 he carries the craze for imaging or imitating the divine to great
lengths, writing:

110 Cf. for instance, Arist. Gen.corr. 2.10 (336a): “[Physical] movement is prior to
coming-to-be.”
111 Pl. Leg. X 904c.
112 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007c).
114 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007d): “Thus time, since it is necessarily implicated and connected
with the heaven, is not simply motion but, as has been said, orderly motion in that
involves measure (κίνησις ἐν τάξει μέτρον) . . .”
115 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007c).
116 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.4 (1007d).
60 chapter 2
The pins of sundials (τῶν ὡρολογίων γνώμονες) have also come to be

instruments and measures of time, not by changing their position with
the shadows, but rather by remaining fixed and imitating (μιμούμενοι) the
earth’s occultation of the sun . . .117
With this much in view, we can determine a couple of things regarding

Plutarch’s typology of time-concepts in antiquity. (i) For Plutarch, there are
two essential types of time-concepts in antiquity: those that condition time
‘from below,’ and trace its origin to physical motion as such (e.g. Aristotle,
Speusippus); and those that condition time ‘from above,’ and trace its origin
to the motion of soul as such (e.g. Pythagoras, Plato). Recalling Kilwardby’s
scholastic terminology, it is not difficult to categorize the first type of time-
concept as ‘physical,’ and the second—i.e. the Platonic—as ‘metaphysical.’ As
a Platonist, then: Plutarch’s time-concept is metaphysical. Furthermore, (ii)
for Plutarch, time—as the motion of the all-soul—is conditioned or produced
‘from above’ in imitation of that which is ‘above’ this all-soul, i.e. the very heights
of divinity. The order and periodicity of time do not, for Plutarch, derive from
and reflect the character of physical motion per se, but rather derive from and
reflect the character of an all-soul’s intrinsic motion—and more remotely, of
god’s eternity.
Relative to Plutarch’s typology, it could thus be said that Augustine’s is by
no means a ‘Platonic’ time-concept. For (i) Augustine holds that “the forms
of [material] things give rise to times”;118 while (ii) Augustine never refers to
the motion of soul, to the myth of an all-soul, or to the soul’s imitation of eter-
nity in Confessions XI or XII. That is to say, according to Plutarch’s division of
ancient time-concepts, Augustine’s is a ‘physical’ time-concept, and not—with
the Platonists—a ‘metaphysical’ one.
Sextus Empiricus’ Typology of Time-Concepts

Sextus Empiricus presents a slightly more comprehensive typology of time-
concepts in Adversus Physicos II, and the reasons for this are not hard to
surmise: as a sceptic, Sextus’ task is to undermine all the dogmatic time-con-
cepts then current; and moreover, the sheer diversity of time-concepts tends
to imply the impossibility of knowledge. (“As there is so much dissension
regarding the essence of time, one can already infer . . .”)119 But my purpose
here, importantly, is only to determine the contours of Sextus’ typology. This is
117 Plut. Plat.Q. VIII.3 (1006e).

118 Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: formae rerum exserunt tempora.
119 Sext. Ad.Phys. II.229.
not the place to report on, and much less to discuss, how Sextus handles—or
mishandles—the various time-concepts he relates.
At the outset of Sextus’ time-investigation (περὶ χρόνου ζητεῖν), he intro-
duces a twofold division: “the physicists” (φυσικοῖς) hold that the world is eter-
nal; others, i.e. the Platonists, assert a creation of the world “at some point of
time” (ἀπό τινος χρόνου).120 As regards the creation of the world—though not
its creation ‘at some point of time’—there can be no doubt that Augustine
is Platonic, or again, Platonic-Christian. The affirmation of creation is super-
abundantly clear in Confessions XI and XII, while in his City of God against the
Pagans, Augustine expressly links this Christian doctrine to Platonic philoso-
phy.121 It is not at all clear, however, that this opening division affects Sextus’
typology of time-concepts; and hereafter, in Adversus Physicos II, Augustine’s
link to the Platonists is broken.
In his intricate—and frankly, difficult—treatment of time, Sextus distin-
guishes (Α) a series of philosophical doctrines that proceed from a “concept” of
time (ἀπὸ τῆς ἐννοίας), and (Β) a series of philosophical doctrines that propose
an ‘‘essence” of time (ἀπὸ τῆς οὐσίας). Sextus sees three types of time-doctrines
as proceeding from a concept:
(Α/i) A first type—Platonic and Stoic—identifies time with celestial

motion,122 although superficially, it appears to identify time
with universal motion (τοῦ κόσμου κίνησις).123 (This assimilation
of ‘universal motion’ to ‘celestial motion’ can also be observed
in Cicero and Varro.)
(Α/ii) A second type—Aristotelian124 and Stoic—identifies time with
“ ‘the number of the prior and posterior in motion.’ ”125

121 Cf. for instance, Aug. Civ. XII.13 (noting Augustine’s caveat, based in the late-antique
reception-history of the Timaeus): Quod autem respondimus, cum de mundi origine
quaestio verteretur, eis, qui nolunt credere non eum semper fuisse, sed esse coepisse, sicut
etiam Plato apertissime confitetur, quamvis a nonnullis contra quam loquitur sensisse
credatur . . .
122 That ‘universal motion’ is to be taken as ‘celestial motion,’ vid. Sext. Ad.Phys. II.175.
123 Sext. Ad.Phys. II.170–75.
124 But cf. Sext. Ad.Phys. II.176: “Aristotle declared that time is ‘the number of the prior and
posterior in motion’ ”; II.228: “Plato—and as some say, Aristotle—declared that ‘time is
the number of the prior and posterior in motion.’ ”
62 chapter 2
(Α/iii) A third type—Democritean and Epicurean—describes time as

“ ‘a day-like and night-like phantasm (φάντασμα).’ ”126
Similarly, Sextus sees three types of time-doctrines as positing an essence

of time:
(Β/i) A first type—reputedly Heraclitean127—holds that “time is a

body (σῶμα εἶναι).”128
(Β/ii) A second type—that of “the Stoic philosophers”129—takes time
to be an “incorporeal” (ἀσώματον) and “self-existent thing” (καθ᾿
αὑτό . . . πρᾶγμα).130
(Β/iii) A third type—ascribed to Epicurus131—depicts time as “incor-
poreal, but not,” Sextus interjects, “in the same sense as the
Stoics.”132 For whereas the Stoics take time to be an incorporeal,
self-existent thing,133 Epicurus holds that time is an incorporeal
“ ‘symptom . . . accompanying days and nights and hours, affec-
tions and apathies, motions and rests.’ ”134
Now, this is not the place for finesse, so let it be rudely stated: of the three
types of time-concept in series (Α), type (Α/iii) bears the closest resem-
blance to Augustine’s; while in series (Β), it is type (Β/iii) that most resembles
Augustine’s.
Augustine rejects type (Α/i)—a ‘Platonic’ doctrine—when he dis-identifies
celestial motion and times in Confessions XI.23; and type (Β/ii)—a Stoic
doctrine—when he states the dependence of times on a “variance of motion” in
Confessions XII.11. (It is also the Stoics’ (Β/ii) position that Lucretius staves off
in De Rerum Natura I, when he says: “Time has no existence in-itself. ” The Stoics’
καθ᾿ αὑτό is Lucretius’ per se.)135 Then, the only definite resemblances to be
observed from Confessions XI and XII to Sextus’ typology are those with (Α/iii)
and (Β/iii), i.e. with the Epicurean type of time-concept. For where Epicurus

127 Sext. Ad.Phys. II.216: “Aenesidemus, ‘according to Heraclitus,’ stated . . .”
129 Sext. Ad.Phys. II.218: ἀπὸ τῆς στοᾶς φιλόσοφοι.
131 Sext. Ad.Phys. II.219: “Epicurus, as Demetrius the Laconian interprets him . . .”
135 Lucr. Rer.nat. I.459: Tempus . . . per se non est.
invokes a ‘phantasm’ (φάντασμα) in (Α/iii), Augustine invokes a sense-memorial

‘image’ (imago) in Confessions XI;136 while in Epistle 7 (387/8),137 Augustine
identifies sense-memorial ‘images’ (imagines) as being the first and most
veracious class of what the Greeks—and many Romans—call ‘phantasms’
(phantasias).138 Augustine’s imago in the time-investigation is, thus, a lexical
equivalent of Epicurus’ φάντασμα. Moreover, where Epicurus has phantasms
accompany ‘days and nights and hours, affections and apathies, motions and
rests’ in (Β/iii), Augustine has images trace into days, nights and hours (XI.15,
XI.28), and motions and rests (XI.24)—while he finally calls such images
“affections” (XI.27),139 as I will establish in 11.2.
Thus, relative to Sextus’ typology in Adversus Physicos II, it could be said that
Augustine’s is not a ‘Platonic’ time-concept. Yet Sextus’ typology can take us
beyond this negative judgement, which Plutarch’s had already afforded us. For it
can now be inferred that Augustine’s time-concept is both a non-‘Platonic’ and
an ‘Epicurean’ one. As the inverted commas here signal, such a ssignations—
negative and positive alike—are only typological. They imply no great preci-
sion. But in doxographic terms, at least: Augustine’s time-concept reproduces
none of the distinctively ‘Platonic’ descriptors, tendencies and doctrines;
while it modulates—if it does not, with φάντασμα, simply translate140—the
136 In Conf. III and IX, however, Augustine refers to temporized sense-images of bodies as
‘phantasms.’ Cf. Aug. Conf. III.6.10: . . . phantasiae corporum, quae sunt; IX.10.25: si cui
sileat tumultus carnis, sileant phantasiae terrae et aquarum et aeris . . .
Cf. also Hrdlicka 1931, 63: “phantasia, a mental image, a sense-image produced by
actual sense-impressions.”
137 Divjak (2002, 1029) dates Epistle 7 to 387/8.
138 Aug. Epist. 7.4: Omnes has imagines, quas ‘phantasias’ cum multis vocas, in tria genera
commodissime ac verissime distribui video, quorum est unum sensis rebus impressum,
alterum putatis, tertium ratis. primi generis exempla sunt, cum mihi tuam faciem vel
Carthaginem vel familiarem quondam nostrum Verecundum et si quid aliud manentium
vel mortuarum rerum, quas tamen vidi atque sensi, in se animus format.
Note that at Epist. 3.2 (386)—which, like Epis. 7, is addressed to Nebridius—Augustine
refers to Epicurus’ physical theory: . . . ubi est ista beata vita? ubi? ubinam? o si ipsa esset
repellere atomos Epicuri!
139 Cf. also, for instance, Cic. Inv. II.58.176: “ ‘Affection’ is some change of things due to time”
(‘Affectio’ est quaedam ex tempore . . . commutatio rerum).
140 Cf. Aug. Epist. 7.4: Omnes has imagines, quas ‘phantasias’ cum multis vocas . . .
Again note that at Epist. 3.2, Augustine refers to Epicurus’ atomic theory (. . . atomos
Epicuri!), while Epist. 3.2–3 appear to be, in their entirety, a ‘Platonic’—yet aporetic—
engagement with Epicurean physical theory. In Epist. 3.4, Augustine recollects the
Epicurean doctrine of the mortality of the soul (quid si moritur animus?). Thus, Epicurus’
physical theories had by no means been lost sight of at the end of 386.
64 chapter 2
‘Epicurean’ descriptors, tendency and doctrine. And whatever caveats might

be introduced, this duplex conclusion has originated in a return to time-
concepts as they were reported and attributed in antiquity—while it also serves
to clarify how Thomas Hobbes’s neo-Epicurean time-doctrine, in the 17th cen
tury, appears to converge with Augustine’s in the Confessions (see Appendix 4).
It is only now, with this preliminary suspicion—namely, that Augustine’s
time-concept is not ‘Platonic,’ and is in generic terms ‘Epicurean’—that we
should proceed. It must be said, however, that while it is demonstrable that
Augustine’s time-question pertains to ‘physical’ philosophy; and while this
assignation permits his time-concept to be ‘Epicurean’ in a typological sense;
yet the specifically Epicurean or Lucretian source of his time-concept will
not—and to my mind, cannot—be established. That Augustine’s time-concept
is ‘Epicurean’ will thus remain a strictly provisional and typological conclu-
sion, while a direct Epicurean influence on Augustine’s time-investigation will
remain a suspicion. That question will not be pursued (but see 3.4), and
will not affect the interpretation that I set out here.
For regardless of his sources: Augustine’s time-question—like Aristotle’s—
is physical; while his time-concept—like Epicurus’ and Lucretius’—is sensual.
Part one
Anticipations and Clarifications
∵
chapter 3
Remarks on the Genre and Sources of

Augustine’s Confessions
Lyotard writes that Augustine “excels in the desire of philosophy (le désir de
la philosophie), pagan or not; in the appetite to restore the diverse to the unity
of the true through . . . logical articulation.” Nevertheless, he continues, “the
Confessions are not of this vein.” Augustine’s confession is not “a treatise of phi-
losophy in which the way would be traced through a conceptual discrimina-
tion between . . . the sensible/intelligible, soul/body.”1
I want to stress the sensitivity and perspicuity of this last statement. And
as will become apparent, sensibile/intelligibile is a distinction that Augustine
employs in book XII for the first time, in this precise terminology, in the
Confessions,2 so it is useful to recall Lyotard’s caution here. Yet if the Confessions
are not, like Augustine’s debut work,3 ‘a treatise of philosophy,’ or like his pre-
ordination works a dialogue, then what is the genre of the Confessions?
3.1 Preliminary Remarks on Genre
Very crudely: while Augustine anticipates the biographia literaria,4 he inaugu-

rates the confessive genre.
What is so singular in Confessions I to X is that Augustine’s narratio is deliv-
ered in a forensic mode of address that Cicero calls concessio,5 and more
1 Lyotard 2000, 48–49/1998, 71–72 (tr. mod.).

2 Aug. Conf. XII.5.5: non est intellegibilis forma . . . neque sensibilis; cf. C.Acad. III.17.37: Sat est
enim ad id, quod volo, Platonem sensisse duos esse mundos, unum intellegibilem, in quo ipsa
veritas habitaret, istum autem sensibilem, quem manifestum est nos visu tactuque sentire.
3 On Augustine’s De Pulchro et Apto, cf. Aug. Conf. IV.13.20–15.27; Testard 1958, I:49–70;
and O’Donnell 1992, II:246–62, here 256: “It must be emphasized that the intentions of
[Augustine] at the time he wrote the [De Pulchro et Apto] are beyond recapture: we only see
the work as he presents it later.”
4 Stock (1996) is most perceptive in this regard.
5 Cic. Inv. II.31.94: Concessio est per quam non factum ipsum probatur ab reo, sed ut ignosca-
tur, id petitur.
Quintilian’s remarks on confessio and concessio—which he links—at Quint. Inst.orat.
IX.2.51, are also of interest.

68 chapter 3
specifically, deprecatio.6 Cicero writes this in the De Inventione,7 in a passage

that Augustine would have lectured on as a rhetor: “Deprecatio is when the
accused confesses (confitetur) that he has given offence (peccasse) . . . and still
asks to be forgiven.”8 Cicero then immediately cautions: “This type (genus) of
defence can only occur very rarely.”9 He later states why:
This type (genus) of defence can hardly be recommended . . . because

once the offence is conceded (concesso peccato) it is difficult to demand a
pardon from the one whose duty it is to punish offences (qui peccatorum
vindex esse debet).10
At the very close of book X, Augustine justifies his audacity in the

Confessions—and it is precisely the audacity of guilt that is the differentia
specifica of his new, confessive genre11—by appealing to the duplicity12 of
his judge: Augustine’s divine judge is also a human-divine advocate.13 And
6 At Cic. Inv. II.31–36, Cicero reviews the subdivisions of concessio—namely, purgatio and
deprecatio—at some length. Deprecatio is the more hopeless ‘defence,’ since in purgatio,
“the intent (voluntas) of the accused is defended, but not his act (non factum ipsum)”
(II.31.94); in deprecatio, “the accused confesses that he has given offense and has done so
intentionally (et consulto peccasse reus se confitetur), and still asks to be forgiven” (I.11.15).
7 That Aug. 83 Quaest. 31 is nothing but an 85-line extract from Cic. Inv. II.53.159–55.167 is
telling. Cf. Aug. Retr. I.26.32: Tricesima prima nec ipsa mea est sed Ciceronis . . .
Cf. also Marrou 1983, 50: “Les milieux scolaires du temps d’Augustin leur préfèrent le
de Inventione [to Cic. Orat. and Or.], œuvre de jeunesse dont Cicéron rougissait, mais qui
plaisait précisément parce qu’elle était moins personnelle, plus technique, plus conforme
à ce qu’on attendait de la rhétorique.”
8 Cic. Inv. I.11.15: Deprecatio est cum et peccasse et consulto peccasse reus se confitetur et
tamen ut ignoscatur postulat.
Far more accurately, Conf. X oscillates between deprecatio and purgatio: the types of
concessio that Cicero examines in the De Inventione, and that Augustine would have lec-
tured on as a rhetor.
9 Cic. Inv. I.11.15: Deprecatio est cum et peccasse et consulto peccasse reus se confitetur et
tamen ut ignoscatur postulat; quod genus perraro potest accidere.
10 Cic. Inv. II.34.104.
11 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. IV.3.4: bonum est enim confiteri tibi, domine, et dicere, “miser-
ere mei: cura animam meam, quoniam peccavi tibi ” [≈ Psalms 41.4].
12 Cf. Aug. Conf. IV.4.7: “. . . .at once the avenging god and the fount of mercies” (deus ultio-
num et fons misericordiarum simul).
13 Aug. Conf. X.43.68: . . . mediator ille dei et hominum, homo Christus Iesus, inter mortales
peccatores et immortalem iustum apparuit, mortalis cum hominibus, iustus cum deo,
ut . . . per iustitiam coniunctam deo evacuaret mortem iustificatorum impiorum, quam cum
Remarks on the Genre and Sources of Augustine ’ s Confessions 69
whatever pagan sources for Augustine’s new, confessive genre can be sug-
gested—Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Seneca’s Oedipus, Virgil’s Aeneid, Sallust’s
Conspiracy of Catiline (see 3.2), Cicero’s Academica (see 3.3), Lucretius’ De
Rerum Natura (see 3.4)—the peculiarity of Augustine’s numen, foremost in
the figure of Christ, should not be lost sight of.
It is originally the duplicity of Christ that permits deprecatio, a perilous
rhetorical genus, to be worked up into a genre,14 albeit one that peaks—not,
say, with the polished memoirs of Pope Pius II,15 which are modelled on Julius
Caesar’s Commentaries—but rather with the self-absolved sinners, Jean-
Jacques Rousseau and Jacques Casanova;16 or with Friedrich Nietzsche, in the
illis voluit habere commune; X.43.69: merito mihi spes valida in illo est, quod sanabis
omnes languores meos per eum qui sedet ad dexteram tuam et te interpellat pro nobis;
alioquin desperarem.
Cf. also II.7.15: diligam te, domine, et gratias agam et confitear nomini tuo, quoniam
tanta dimisisti mihi mala et nefaria opera mea. gratiae tuae deputo et misericordiae tuae
quod peccata mea tanquam glaciem solvisti.
14 Cf. Aug. Conf. I.1.1: invocat te, domine, fides mea, quam dedisti mihi, quam inspirasti
mihi per humanitatem filii tui, per ministerium praedicatoris tui; I.11.17: . . . iam curaret
festinabunda ut sacramentis salutaribus initiarer et abluerer, te, domine Iesu, confitens
in remissionem peccatorum, nisi statim recreatus essem; I.15.24: . . . et in eis vanis peccata
delectationum mearum dimisisti mihi; II.7.15: quid retribuam domino quod recolit haec
memoria mea et anima mea non metuit inde? diligam te, domine, et gratias agam et con-
fitear nomini tuo, quoniam tanta dimisisti mihi mala et nefaria opera mea; etc.
15 A.k.a. “Aeneas the poet,” cf. Pius Comm. I.11.6: Aeneam poetam. This ‘Aeneas’ is Aeneas
Silvius Piccolomini, enthroned as Pius II in 1458. Before this, as he charmingly puts it in
his Commentaries: “I do not know whether anyone else has ever had the singular good for-
tune . . . to serve as secretary to two popes, one emperor, and an antipope (duos Romanos
pontifices, unum imperatorem et unum antipapam).”
16 Much has been written on Augustine and Rousseau’s Confessions, but nothing—to my
knowledge—on Augustine and Casanova’s Histoire de ma vie jusqu’à l’an 1797.
Casanova writes in a preface to one of his other books that the only thing that barred
him from titling his Histoire, rather, Confessions, was that “un extravagant [sc. Rousseau]
had sullied the glory of the title” (cit. Casanova 1902, I:xv–xvi). And this is how Casanova
(1902, I:1–2) prefaces his Histoire (or Confessions):
I am not an atheist, but a monotheist, and a Christian. My Christianity, however, is for-
tified by philosophy. . . . Despair kills, but . . . fervent prayer restores confidence and the
power of action. . . . I have all my life been victim of my senses. I enjoyed going astray,
knowing that I was astray. You must not, reader, set me down as an empty boaster, but
as one who is making a full and general confession. Do not expect me to put on the airs
of a penitent, or affect to blush . . .
70 chapter 3
last weeks before his collapse;17 or with Augustine’s 20th-century avant-garde

glossator,18 Miklós Szentkuthy.19
What follows the astonishing deprecatio of Confessions I to X is itself a
work in distinct phases,20 in the long-established—and originally pagan21—
17 Nietzsche’s frenetic—but perhaps, at places, ironic—Ecce Homo, written in October

and November of 1888, arguably shows signs of his imminent collapse in January 1889.
This work falls, in some sense, within the line of ‘confession’ that Augustine inaugurates,
though it no less notably resembles—in purely formal terms—Augustine’s Recensions.
18 Cf. Szentkuthy’s (1996) raucous but penetrating marginalia on Aug. Civ. and Aug. Trin.,
translated into French as En lisant Augustin. In 1939, with Hitler and Stalin in the ascen-
dant, Szentkuthy (1996, 19) writes this:
Augustine’s adolescence coincides with Julian’s apostasy. This is the grand European
skin-game, opposing paganism and Christianism. . . . The one is reality, and the other
is unreal. These are the so-called ‘coarse generalizations.’ So be it. I find the ‘precisions’
to be coarser, more sterile. . . . Paganism speaks of ‘the real’—this is what leaves us dis-
satisfied; Christianism speaks of the ‘trans-real’—and leaves us no less dissatisfied.
In point of fact: Augustine was seven when Julianus Augustus effected his brief ‘pagan’
reversal from Constantinople. And for Julian’s epithet (‘the apostate’), cf. Aug. C.Parm.
I.12.19: apostata Iulianus, cui pax et unitas christiana nimium displiceret.
19 For a spit-and-blood-flecked appropriation of Augustine’s conversion (“Augustine got up
from the hetæras’ table the way a blackbird will suddenly fly out of a bush . . . I shall also
get up that way one day”): Szentkuthy 2013, 179–82.
And for the significance of Augustine’s practice of ‘confession’ in Szentkuthy’s œuvre:
Szentkuthy 1999, 22–25, 522.
20 But this is in no way intended to diminish the unity of the work. O’Donnell (1992, I:xli)
cannot be gainsaid when he writes that “rhetorical and stylistic unity . . . [run] through
the book like an electric current”; yet Augustine himself (Retr. II.6.1), as O’Donnell of
course knows, treats the Conf. as formally bipartite. This formal division, then, does not
imply any rhetorical or—necessarily—any structural disjunction. That is to say, the divi-
sion I observe here does not render Conf. X–XIII or XI–XIII a mere ‘addendum,’ regardless
of the dating that is adopted.
21 For Augustine on the Greek de-mythologizer Euhemerus (via Ennius via Cicero) and the
ingenuities of pagan commentary—also touching on χρόνος/tempus—vid. Aug. Cons.
I.23.31–36, here 32–33: “Cicero the Academic . . . boldly recalled the sepulchres of the gods
and committed the statement to writing” (Cicero Academicus . . . qui sepulchra deorum
commemorare ausus est litterisque mandare).
Pépin (1976, 371–72) is of course correct: “Le réponse d’Augustin [to Rome’s ‘civil’
and ‘fabulous’ theologies], comme celle de Tertullien, est franchement evhémériste:
‘L’explication la plus vraisemblable de tout cela (credibilior redditur ratio), c’est que les
dieux ont été des hommes’ [Aug. Civ. VII.18].”
It should also be recalled, here, that late-antique pagans produced rigorous, anti-
Christian commentaries on the Christians’ scriptures (Berchman 2005; Courcelle 1959),
while late-antique Christians also produced ‘exegeses’ of pagan texts, such as Virg. Ecl. IV
(Courcelle 1957).
commentary genre: a speculative interpretation of Genesis 1.1–3,22 in books XI

and XII; and an allegorical interpretation of Genesis 1.1–2.2,23 in book XIII.24
In his Recensions, therefore, Augustine proposes this bipartite division of the
work as a whole: Confessions I to X treat his person (de me scripti sunt), while
Confessions XI to XIII treat holy writ (de scripturis sanctis).25
3.2 Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline: A Source for the Confessions?
The simplicity of this division is admirable, and could suggest a secular,26

Latin source for the Confessions which has not—that I have seen27—been reg-
istered in the literature: Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline.
Augustine’s praise for Sallust, from first to last, is lavish,28 and Harald
Hagendahl computes that “among [the] Latin prosaists” cited by Augustine,
“Sallust comes next to Cicero and Varro, or even before them, if the differ-
ent size of the works is taken into consideration.”29 Hagendahl identifies a
free quotation of Sallust’s War with Jugurtha in Confessions IV,30 while The
22 Vid. Pépin 1953; Solignac 1973, 153–55, 158–60; Van Riel 2007.
23 Augustine refers back to this allegorical commentary, at Aug. Gen.litt. II.9.22.
24 For the pagan, and later Christian, backcloth to Augustine’s allegorical commentary in
Conf. XIII, vid. Pépin 1976, here 495–96: “Allégoristes chrétiens et allégoristes païens
s’affrontent: Origène contre Celse, Porphyre contre Origène, Augustin contre Varron.”
25 Aug. Retr. II.6.1.
26 Cf. Aug. Civ. VI.2: “All the erudition that we call ‘secular,’ they [sc. the pagans] . . . call
‘free’ ” (omni eruditione, quam nos ‘saecularem,’ illi . . . ‘liberalem’ vocant).
27 Cf. for instance, Kotzé’s (2004, 66–85) survey of the literature on the Confessions’ anteced-
ents, in which there is no mention of Sallust.
28 Hagendahl 1967, 636: “When Sallust is named for the first time in a Cassiciacum dialogue
[at Aug. Beat. 31], he is called lectissimus pensator verborum. Admiration for his style is
expressed, thirty years afterwards, in still stronger terms: he is Romanae linguae disertis-
simus [at Aug. Epist. 167.6, cf. Civ. VII.3], who leaves all others behind in eloquence.” Cf.
also Marrou 1983, 19, 19 n. 5.
29 Hagendahl 1967, 631.
30 Hagendahl 1967, 647: “Sallust likes to make a show of general reflections on human life
and morals, and Augustine does not disdain to make them his own. The much quoted
maxim ‘omnia orta occidunt et aucta senescunt’ appears in letters dating from 412 and 415
and is hinted at in [Augustine’s] conf. and civ.”
Cf. Sall. Jug. 2.3: omnia orta occidunt et aucta senescunt; Aug. Conf. IV.10.15 (in
Hagendahl, test. 574a): quae oriuntur et occidunt et oriendo quasi esse incipiunt, et
crescunt ut perficiantur, et perfecta senescunt et intereunt; Epist. 143.6 (in Hagendahl,
test. 574b): sicut leges universitatis sinunt, per quas constitutum est, ut corpora orta
occidant et aucta senescant.
72 chapter 3
Conspiracy of Catiline is quoted more than once, verbatim, in Confessions II.31

Sallust’s Catiline serves,32 in effect, as a structuring element of Confes-
sions II.33 And it is noteworthy that the second of these Catiline quotes in
Confessions II is lifted from “the introductory chapters” of Sallust’s work.34 For
according to Hagendahl, Augustine’s corpus contains twenty-eight identifiable
extracts from those same pages, with the result that “no less than a quarter” of
the Catiline’s introduction is transcribed in Augustine.35
The significance of that, for us, is this: The Conspiracy of Catiline is a bipar-
tite work in which Sallust’s history (res gestae),36 i.e. the bulk of the Catiline, is
preceded by a succinct narratio of Sallust’s passage from youth37 and the temp-
tations of youth38 to a relatively dispassionate manhood.39 It is only because
31 Compare the following:

(i) Sall. Catil. 16.3: ne per otium torpescerent manus aut animus, gratuito potius
malus atque crudelis erat; Aug. Conf. II.5.11: nam et de quo dictum est, vaecordi
et nimis crudeli homine, quod gratuito potius malus atque crudelis erat, prae-
dicta est tamen causa: “ne per otium,” inquit, “torpesceret manus aut animus.”
(ii) Sall. Catil. 5.7: Agitabatur magis magisque in dies animus ferox inopia rei
familiaris et conscientia scelerum . . .; Aug. Conf. II.5.11: quaere id quoque, “cur
ita?” ut scilicet illa exercitatione scelerum capta urbe honores, imperia, divitias
adsequeretur et careret metu legum et difficultate rerum propter inopiam rei
familiaris et conscientiam scelerum. nec ipse igitur Catilina amavit facinora sua,
sed utique aliud cuius causa illa faciebat.
32 Courcelle (1971) demonstrates that Cicero’s Catiline is also present in Conf. II.
33 O’Donnell (1992, II:133–34) sees the import of this Sallustian reference in accurate, but
unduly limited terms: “Why Catiline? And why the explicit quotation [of Sallust] repeat-
edly in [the] space of a few lines? He offered an entirely ‘pagan’ exemplum of evil, wicked
among the wicked.”
The same could be said of Hagendahl (1967, 646): “Catiline is represented as the very
prototype of a scoundrel. Every kind of crime: homicide, parricide, sacrilege, can be justi-
fied, Augustine remarks [at] c. acad. III. 16, 36, by alleging the principle of the Academics
that we have to follow what seems probable. ‘If anyone thinks that such arguments can-
not be made to seem probably conclusive, let him read the speech of Catiline . . .’ ”
34 Hagendahl 1967, 637: “There are but few quotations [in Augustine’s corpus] from the nar-
rative parts which represent the bulk of Sallust’s three works. Augustine’s interest was
centred in the reflective thoughts to be found in the introductory chapters [to Sallust’s
histories].”
35 Hagendahl 1967, 638: “The 28 quotations [in Augustine’s corpus from] the introduction to
[Sallust’s] Catil. reproduce, word for word, no less than a quarter of the text.”
36 Sall. Catil. 3.2: . . . tamen in primis arduum videtur res gestas scribere; 4.2: res gestas
populi Romani; etc.
37 Sall. Catil. 3.3: . . . ego adulescentulus.
38 Sall. Catil. 3.4: . . . inter tanta vitia imbecilla aetas ambitione corrupta tenebatur.
39 Sall. Catil. 4.1: . . . ubi animus ex multis miseriis atque periculis requievit.
Sallust has ‘returned’ to his original calling, after a period of vain and vicious
ambition,40 that he can be trusted—or indeed, can trust himself—to write a
disinterested history.41
Now, because Augustine turns so frequently to the first pages of The
Conspiracy of Catiline; because Augustine also quotes from these pages in
Confessions II;42 and because—to my eyes—the Catiline’s preliminary narra-
tio functions similarly to Augustine’s deprecatio in Confessions I to X: the pos-
sibility of direct influence should not be excluded. Regardless of influence,
however, what we see in Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline is also what we see in
Augustine’s Confessions, though the proportions are incomparable: the work
of the man—for Sallust, a Roman history; for Augustine, a Platonic-Christian
commentary (see 6.1)—is preceded by a narratio of temptation, delay and a
‘return’ from the toils of secular ambition.43 It is this narratio that pre-validates
Sallust’s history, and Augustine’s commentary; yet this narratio can itself only
be validated by Sallust’s history, by Augustine’s commentary. Or turned differ-
ently: for the Confessions as for the Catiline, the effect of the bipartite whole is
to validate to the truth of its parts, and not the reverse.
3.3 Confessio Ignorantiae: Cicero and Augustine’s Confessions
In any event, Augustine’s Confessions are not conceived or forged ex nihilo.44 His
text45 is charged by a hyperbolic tone he likely derives from Paul,46 and is made
40 Sall. Catil. 4.2: . . . a quo incepto studioque me ambitio mala detinuerat, eodem regressus
statui.
41 Sall. Catil. 4.2: . . . a spe, metu, partibus rei publicae animus liber erat.
42 While Courcelle (1971) succinctly documents and reflects on the Catiline-Augustine par-
allels that structure Conf. II, he largely bypasses Sallust’s introduction to the Catil., and
he at no point admits the question of a Sallust-Augustine parallel which may, in part,
structure the Conf.
43 Cf. Sall. Catil. 3.5: . . . nihilo minus honoris cupido eadem qua ceteros fama atque invidia
vexabat; Aug. Conf. VI.6.9: inhiabam honoribus, lucris, coniugio . . . patiebar in eis cupidi-
tatibus amarissimas difficultates; etc.
44 Hrdlicka 1931, 8: “The Late vocabulary of the Confessions is ample proof that Augustine
was thoroughly acquainted with all the most recent developments in the Latin language,
in the secular sphere as well as in the religious.”
45 Cf. Burton 2007, 112–32, here 115: “The boundary between biblical citation and free com-
position [in Aug. Conf.] is often fluid.”
46 As Lyotard (2000, 82/1998, 107) observes: “From the exergue [sc. Conf. I.1.1] onward he
discovers in Paul’s letter to the Romans the tone of anxiety.”
74 chapter 3
dense by a use of antithesis47 that characterizes late-antique rhetoric48 and

the Pauline epistles alike.49 What is most essential for us, however, is the fact
that the Confessions are inflected, throughout, by the terminology50 and tone51
of Cicero’s Academic Platonism,52 and specifically, by the Socratic-Academic
practice of confessio ignorantiae.53 For our purposes—and in Confessions X
47 Cf. Finaert 1939a, 101: “L’antithèse marque toute l’œuvre littéraire de saint Augustin. Sans
remonter à Gorgias ni à la Bible, observons seulement que le jeune rhéteur la trouvait à
toutes les pages de Cicéron et qu’il y voyait l’ornement obligé non seulement du grec et du
latin, mais de toute litterature”; Mohrmann 1961a, 264: “En ce qui concerne la structure
de la phrase [in the Confessions], il reprend le style antithétique et coupé de l’Asianisme,
tout en l’enrichissant de certains éléments bibliques.”
48 Cf. Finaert 1939a, 101–12; Finaert 1939b, 35–36; Mohrmann 1961a, 257–61.
49 Aug. Civ. XI.18: ‘Antitheta’ enim quae appellantur in ornamentis elocutionis sunt decentis-
sima, quae Latine ut appellentur ‘opposita,’ vel, quod expressius dicitur, ‘contraposita,’
non est apud nos huius vocabuli consuetudo, cum tamen eisdem ornamentis locutio-
nis etiam sermo Latinus utatur, immo linguae omnium gentium. His antithetis et Paulus
apostolus in secunda ad Corinthios epistula illum locum suaviter explicat, ubi dicit . . . “ut
seductores et veraces; . . . quasi morientes, et ecce vivimus; . . . ut tristes, semper autem
gaudentes . . .” [II Corinthians 6.7–10].
50 Cf. Schieman 1938, 55: “As compared with his contemporaries, we may say that the influ-
ence of Cicero’s vocabulary on that of Saint Augustine was unusually great”; Hrdlicka 1931, 7:
“With the exception of the Scriptures, the writings that seem to have influenced the vocab-
ulary of the Confessions in the highest degree are those of Cicero, Vergil, and Apuleius.”
51 Finaert 1939a, 2: “Cicéron est son maître incontesté.”
52 For a deeper horizon within which Academic scepticism and a quasi-dogmatic Platonism
interpenetrated: Tarrant 1985.
And for Augustine’s self-avowed debt to the ‘Academics’ (Academicos), see his first
surviving letter, Aug. Epist. 1, composed in 386/7 (per Divjak 2001, 1028)—i.e. precisely
when Augustine is typically depicted as being abjectly under the influence “of Plato and
of Plotinus” (illae Platonem, illae Plotinum), whose names he invokes, alongside Christ’s
(illae . . . Christum), at Epist. 6.1 (387/8).
53 In Aug. Civ. VIII (cf. Cic. Tusc. V.3.7–9), Pythagoras is the first to identify himself as a
‘philosopher,’ i.e. a devotee or lover of wisdom (studiosum vel amatorem sapientiae,
Civ. VIII.2), whereas it is Socrates who, with the “shrewdest urbanity” (acutissima urbani-
tate), adopts a method of “confessing his ignorance or concealing his knowledge” (vel con-
fessa ignorantia sua vel dissimulata scientia, VIII.3).
Augustine surely lifts this Socratic motif of ‘confessing ignorance’ from Cicero, and
likely from Cic. Acad. I.12.44, where Socrates’ habitual “confession of ignorance” (confes-
sionem ignorationis) is remarked. As I merely sketch out here: this is a mode of confession
that can be traced up the Conf., and thus Augustine’s ‘confession’ as a mode of discourse—
as a practice—is decisively inspired by this Socratic-Academic mode of ‘confession.’
to XII—this mode of philosophical confessio is far more important than

Augustine’s adaptation of forensic deprecatio (see 3.1).
While Augustine’s first confession in the work (proprie dictum) is a dep-
recatio at Confessions I.5.6,54 it is followed by a repetitive, anti-Platonic con-
fession of ignorance at Confessions I.6.7: “I do not know . . . I do not know”
(nescio . . . nescio).55 Much later, in the eternity-meditation of Confessions XI,
Augustine will state that it is methodologically imperative for him to confess,
“I do not know what I do not know” (nescio quod nescio, XI.12.14),56 even when
contending with enemies of the faith (see 3.4). Apart from a brief discussion in
F.-W. von Herrmann’s Augustine and the Phenomenological Question of Time,57
it is rarely if ever noted that confessio ignorantiae is a distinct mode of con-
fession in the Confessions;58 and von Herrmann makes no attempt to deter-
mine its source. Thus, in the present section, I will rapidly survey Augustine’s
use of confessio ignorantiae in his time-investigation and elsewhere in the
Confessions, and establish Cicero as its source.
This mode of confession is variously phrased in Confessions XI, but perhaps
most categorically when Augustine says this, regarding the essence of time:
“I seek (quaero), father, I do not dogmatize, I do not assert (non adfirmo).”59 This
sentence generalizes what is most certainly a philosophical mode of confession
in Augustine’s time-investigation, and it is certainly not a mode of con-
fession that Augustine takes over from the Neoplatonists (that is to say, from
whatever of their texts Augustine had managed to obtain ante 400). Rather,
Augustine’s negatived term in this declaration, adfirmare,60 is a technical
54 As at Aug. Conf. I.5.6: angusta est domus animae meae quo venias ad eam: dilatetur abs
te. ruinosa est: refice eam. habet quae offendant oculos tuos: fateor et scio.
55 Aug. Conf. I.6.7: quid enim est quod volo dicere, domine, nisi quia nescio unde venerim
huc, in istam dico vitam mortalem an mortem vitalem? nescio.
56 Aug. Conf. XI.12.14: . . . libentius enim responderim, “nescio quod nescio.”
Cf. Cic. Acad. I.4.16: . . . haec esset una omnis sapientia, non arbitrari se scire quod nesciat.
57 Von Herrmann 2008, 30–31.
58 Cf. Aug. Serm. 117.3.5: . . . pia confessio ignorantiae magis, quam temeraria professio
scientiae.
59 Aug. Conf. XI.17.22: quaero, pater, non adfirmo.
60 Cf. Aug. C.Acad. II.5.11: Et omnia incerta esse non dicebant solum verum etiam copio-
sissimis rationibus adfirmabant; III.4.10: . . . illi sapientem nihil scire adfirmarunt;
III.11.25: . . . id me scire non impudenter affirmo; III.14.32: Nec isti quemquam non debere
assentiri nisi rebus, quae non possunt percipi, affirmant; Mag. V.16: . . . id est illam senten-
tiam, quae affirmari et negari potest.
76 chapter 3
term in Cicero that serves to link the Socratic practice of confessio with the
Academic or New Academic61 vein of Platonism.
For Cicero, Socrates’ method is distilled in this phrase: “to assert (adfirmet)
nothing.”62 And for Cicero, the duplex effect of Socrates’ resolve to “profess”
(profiteri)63 or “assert” (adfirmare)64 nothing, is:
(i) a Socratic “confession of ignorance” (confessionem ignorationis),65

and
(ii) a Socratic-Academic resolve “to seek or enquire (quaeritur) into all
things.”66
61 Cic. Acad. I.12.46: Hanc Academiam ‘novam’ appellant, quae mihi vetus videtur, siquidem
Platonem ex illa vetere numeramus, cuius in libris nihil adfirmatur . . .
Cf. Aug. Civ. VIII.4: . . . etiam ipsius Platonis de rebus magnis sententiae non facile per-
spici possint.
62 Cic. Acad. I.4.16: . . . ut nihil adfirmet ipse, refellat alios, nihil se scire dicat nisi id ipsum . . .;
cf. I.4.17: . . . illam autem Socraticam dubitanter de omnibus rebus et nulla adfirmatione
adhibita consuetudinem disserendi reliquerunt; Tusc. I.52.99: . . . sed suum illud, nihil ut
adfirmet, tenet ad extremum.
Cf. Aug. Civ. VIII.4: Quid autem in his vel de his singulis partibus Plato senserit . . . dis-
serendo explicare et longum esse arbitror et temere adfirmandum esse non arbitror. Cum
enim magistri sui Socratis, quem facit in suis voluminibus disputantem, notissimum
morem dissimulandae scientiae vel opinionis suae servare adfectat . . .
63 Augustine also opposes ‘profession’ and ‘confession,’ at Aug. Conf. IV.16.31: sed sic eram
nec erubesco, deus meus, confiteri tibi in me misericordias tuas et invocare te, qui non
erubui tunc profiteri hominibus blasphemias meas et latrare adversum te.
64 Cic. Acad. I.12.45: . . . nihil oportere neque profiteri neque adfirmare quemquam neque
adsensione approbare; cf. II.5.14: maiorem autem partem mihi quidem omnes isti viden-
tur nimis etiam quaedam adfirmare, plusque profiteri se scire quam sciant; Tusc. II.9.17:
Certa dicent ii, qui et percipi ea posse dicunt et se sapientes esse profitentur.
65 Cf. Cic. Acad. I.12.44: . . . sed earum rerum obscuritate quae ad confessionem ignoratio-
nis aduxerant Socratem et iam ante Socratem Democritum, Anaxagoram, Empedoclem,
omnes paene veteres . . .; Aug. Civ. VIII.3: Socrates ergo, primus universam philosophiam
ad corrigendos componendosque mores flexisse memoratur, cum ante illum omnes
magis physicis, id est naturalibus, rebus perscrutandis operam maximam impend-
erent. . . . Constat eum tamen imperitorum stultitiam scire se aliquid opinantium etiam
in ipsis moralibus quaestionibus, quo totum animum intendisse videbatur, vel confessa
ignorantia sua vel dissimulata scientia lepore mirabili disserendi et acutissima urbanitate
agitasse atque versasse.
66 Cic. Acad. I.12.46: . . . Platonem ex illa vetere numeramus, cuius in libris nihil adfirmatur
et . . . de omnibus quaeritur, nihil certi dicitur.
Augustine echoes (ii) when he writes, at Confessions XI.17.22: “I seek

(quaero), father, I do not assert (adfirmo).”67 The echoes of (i) practically beat
time in Confessions 14–29:
“I confess (confiteor), o my god, I do not know (nescio)”;68

“I confess my ignorance” (confitebor imperitiam meam);69
“I confess (confiteor) to you, o lord, I still do not know what time is (igno-
rare me adhuc quid sit tempus).”70
It is Socrates via Cicero,71 and not Porphyry or Plotinus,72 that Augustine keeps
faith with when, in this way, he pursues his time-question in the mode of a
query, and when he punctuates that query with confessions of ignorance and
admissions of uncertainty.73
And it is not a Neoplatonist, but the Academic Platonist, Cicero,74 who
berates an Epicurean—in a passage that Augustine knew “from the very begin-
ning of his literary activity”75—in this way:
67 Herzog (2002, 239) is also correct to notice a formal co-relation of laudare-invenire-

quaerere in the first paragraphs of the Confessions (quaerentes enim inveniunt eum
et invenientes laudabunt eum, I.1.1); while of course, a similar quaerere-constellation
structures the last paragraph of the Confessions (a te petatur, in te quaeratur, ad te
pulsetur: sic, sic accipietur, sic invenietur, sic aperietur, XIII.38.53).
To urge, as I do here, that the Ciceronian echo is distinct, and even dominant—par-
ticularly in Augustine’s time-investigation—is not to deny a range of other, peculiarly
Christian echoes in the bishop’s polysemic quaerere. Cf. for instance, Aug. Civ. XIX.4:
neque bonum nostrum iam videmus, unde oportet ut credendo quaeramus.
68 Aug. Conf. XI.18.23: confiteor, deus meus, nescio.
69 Aug. Conf. XI.22.28: exarsit animus meus nosse istuc implicatissimum aenigma. . . . noli
claudere desiderio meo ista et usitata et abdita . . . et cui fructuosius confitebor imperi-
tiam meam nisi tibi?
70 Aug. Conf. XI.25.32: et confiteor tibi, domine, ignorare me adhuc quid sit tempus,
et rursus confiteor tibi, domine, scire me in tempore ista dicere . . .
71 Cf. Courcelle 1974, 11–38.
72 Cf. Courcelle 1974, 83–95.
73 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.23.30: video igitur tempus quandam esse distentionem. sed video? an
videre mihi videor?; XI.25.32: quomodo igitur hoc scio, quando quid sit tempus nescio?
an forte nescio quemadmodum dicam quod scio? ei mihi, qui nescio saltem quid nesciam!;
XI.26.33: inde mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem; sed cuius rei,
nescio, et mirum, si non ipsius animi.
74 Augustine describes Cicero as an Academic philosopher at, for instance, Aug.
Cons. I.23.33: Cicero Academicus incertior quam poetae . . .; Civ. IV.30: Cicero . . . iste
Academicus, qui omnia esse contendit incerta.
75 Hagendahl 1967, 517.
78 chapter 3
How delightful it would be, Velleius, if you would confess (confiteri) not
knowing what you do not know (nescire quod nescires), rather than utter-
ing this drivel . . .76
This is the Latin philosophical backcloth against which Augustine then

praises a Manichaean bishop, Faustus of Milevis,77 in Confessions V, when—
after cataloguing Faustus’ shabby secular attainments (he knew “some of
Cicero’s speeches,” i.e. not the philosophical dialogues;78 “a pathetic selec-
tion of Seneca’s books, several poets . . .”; and so on)79—Augustine recalls that
Faustus nevertheless
knew that he did not know these things (noverat . . . se ista non nosse),
and was not ashamed to confess it (confiteri). . . . He was not altogether
ignorant of his own ignorance (non . . . imperitus erat imperitiae suae).80
Even in a bishop who serves “the devil,”81 then, Augustine admits that the
Socratic-Academic practice of confessio ignorantiae is virtuous.82
76 Cic. Nat.deor. I.30.84: Quam bellum erat, Vellei, confiteri potius nescire quod nescires,
quam ista effutientem nauseare atque ipsum tibi displicere!; cf. Tusc. III.28.69: Quid? ex
ceteris philosophis nonne optimus et gravissimus quisque confitetur multa se ignorare et
multa sibi etiam atque etiam esse discenda?
77 Lieu 1985, 119: “Faustus of Milevis (now Mila) in Numidia . . . epitomised the combat-
ive and critical spirit of the Manichaeans. A convert from paganism . . . his reputation
extended well beyond North Africa”; 137: “The empire-wide network of Manichaean
cells stood Augustine in good stead when he arrived in Rome . . . [and] his acquaintance
with Faustus . . . made sure of a warm reception from the co-religionists in the capital
city. . . . When the chair of rhetoric at Milan fell vacant, [Augustine’s] Manichaean friends
secured an interview for him with Q. Aurelius Symmachus, the prefect of the city who
duly recommended him for the post.”
78 I have seen this import of Augustine’s phrasing (aliquas tullianas orationes, V.6.11) noted
in the literature, but have not managed to re-locate the reference.
79 Aug. Conf. V.6.11: legerat aliquas tullianas orationes et paucissimos Senecae libros et non-
nulla poetarum et suae sectae si qua volumina latine atque composite conscripta errant . . .
80 Aug. Conf. V.7.12: noverat enim se ista non nosse nec eum puduit confiteri. . . . non
usquequaque imperitus erat imperitiae suae, et noluit se temere disputando in ea coartare
unde nec exitus ei ullus nec facilis esset reditus: etiam hinc mihi amplius placuit.
81 Aug. Conf. V.3.3: venerat Carthaginem quidam manichaeorum episcopus, Faustus nomine,
magnus laqueus diaboli, et multi implicabantur in eo per inlecebram suaviloquentiae.
82 As neither Testard (1958, II:25) nor Hagendahl (1967, 37) registers, Augustine’s praise of
Faustus in Conf. V is a near-duplicate of a Ciceronian ‘confession’ in Tusc. I:
(i) Cic. Tusc. I.25.60: nescio, nec me pudet, ut istos, fateri nescire quod nesciam.
(ii) Aug. Conf. V.7.12: noverat enim se ista non nosse nec eum puduit confiteri.
And as a Catholic bishop, Augustine sets his own, present-temporal ‘confes-

sion’ in Confessions X under the rubric of this modulation on Socrates’ practice:
“I will confess therefore what I know of myself (quid de me sciam), and I will
confess what I do not know of myself (quid de me nesciam).”83 In book XI it
is this same, modulated form of confessio ignorantiae—namely, scio/nescio—
that Augustine’s preliminary time-confession takes: “What . . . is time? If no
one asks the question, I know (scio): if I wish to state what it is when asked, I do
not know (nescio).”84 I will interpret this inaugural confession of Augustine’s
time-investigation in Part III, but here, a brief clarification is in order.
It is typically the first sentences of Plotinus, Enneads III.7,85 that are cited in
the literature as an antecedent to—if not the source for—Augustine’s duplex
time-confession (scio/nescio) in Confessions XI.14.17. We could add the similar
first sentences of Aristotle, Physics IV,86 apropos of space. Yet there is a for-
mal element that Aristotle and Plotinus have in common, and that Augustine
breaks with: Physics IV and Enneads III.7 open with generalized observations;
whereas Confessions XI.14, and Augustine’s time-investigation, opens with a
confessive observation—‘I know . . . I do not know’—that signals a Socratic-
Academic influence. This is a confessio ignorantiae. And setting Aristotle
aside: Plotinus’ tractate on eternity and time commences with a generalized
knowing/unknowing, apropos of time, and concludes with a Plotinian deci-
sion regarding the essence of time; Augustine’s time-investigation commences
with a confessed knowing/unknowing, apropos of time, and concludes with
no decision regarding the essence of time. To the end of Confessions XI—as
Augustine’s late-antique excerpter, Eugippius, had already discerned87—the
bishop of Hippo Regius enquires, he does not dogmatize (XI.17.22).
83 Aug. Conf. X.5.7: confitear ergo quid de me sciam, confitear et quid de me nesciam.
84 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: quid est ergo tempus? si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti expli-
care velim, nescio.
85 Vid. Plot. Enn. III.7.1.
86 Vid. Arist. Phys. IV.1 (208a).
87 In the late 5th or early 6th century, Eugippius compresses Conf. XI.23.29–31.41 under this
head, at Eug. Exc. VIII: “De Tempore, quod cum homo metiri videatur non tamen potest
comprehendere quid sit tempus.”
Dolbeau (2005, 201) reminds us that Eugippius’ Excerpta “constituent le plus volu-
mineux—au moins jusqu’au xive siècle—des florilèges consacrés à l’évêque d’Hippone,”
and that “ces Excerpta reposent sur une lecture directe et un dépouillement intelligent
des textes originaux.”
Alexanderson (2003, 100) underscores the Eugippius’ importance for improving the
text of the Confessions: “Théoriquement, parmi les manuscrits des Confessions et des
Extraits d’Eugippius dont on connaît les leçons, aucun ne doit être exclu. Dans la pra-
tique, les manuscrits des éditions modernes contiennent probablement tout ce dont
80 chapter 3
And finally, this slight emendation of the Quellenforschung bears heavily

on the question of genre, since in Confessions XII, Augustine writes this—
definitively, and categorically:
These discourses would not be my confessions if I did not confess to you,

“I do not know.”
Non sunt hi sermones confessionum mearum si tibi non confiteor, “nescio.”

(XII.30.41)
In short: without Cicero’s Socrates, there could be no Confessions.88
3.4 Confessio Scientiae: Epicurus and Lucretius in Augustine’s

Confessions
The foregoing is only a first gesture in terms of tracking the significance and
range of confessio ignorantiae in Cicero and Augustine, but it establishes the
connection and sets Confessions X to XII in a new—and of course, “so old”89—
light. My intent in the present section is less to establish than to suggest that
while the Confessions, as has long been recognized, contains structuring remi-
niscences of Virgil’s odyssean epic, the Aeneid;90 it likely also contains structur-
ing reminiscences of Lucretius’ philosophical epic, the De Rerum Natura—and
more generally, of Epicurean physics via Cicero. Before proceeding to Cicero’s
‘Epicurus’ and to Lucretius, however, it is advisable to offer some further
remarks on Augustine’s concept of ‘confession.’
on a besoin pour la tradition directe. Le grand défaut est qu’on connaît mal la tradition
d’Eugippius. Une meilleure connaissance de cette tradition est nécessaire pour une nou-
velle édition des Confessions.”
88 Mugerauer (2007, I:295–328) completely misses this Socratic survival in Augustine. He
is by no means alone in this, of course, but it is peculiarly damaging to his argument
regarding “das Vergessen des sokratischen Nichtwissens” from Plotinus to the Protestant
scholastics.
89 Aug. Conf. X.27.38: tam antiqua et tam nova.
90 Cf. Bennett 1988; Burton 2007, 48–62.
Bennett (1988, 48 n. 3) cites Wolfgang Hübner, in 1981, referring to Conf. I–IX as the
“odysseische Hälfte” of the work and to Conf. X as something like its “iliadische Hälfte.”
As Bennett says, the second half of this construction is ‘hopeful.’
In the 1950s, Christine Mohrmann identified three modes of confession in

Augustine’s work: confession of praise (confessio laudis),91 confession of faith
(confessio fidei), and confession of sin (confessio peccatis).92 She is followed in
this by James O’Donnell,93 though more recently—and ill-advisedly—Volker
Drecoll has sheared confessio fidei off of Mohrmann’s list.94 Whereas Drecoll
wishes to reduce Augustine’s concept of ‘confession’ to confessio peccatis and
confessio laudis, I have identified confessio ignorantiae as a distinct mode of
confession that can now be appended to Mohrmann’s list, thereby doubling
Drecoll’s. Of these four modes of confessio, it is only confessio ignorantiae that
is essentially philosophical—which is to say, Hellenistic. Pagan antecedents for
the other modes of confessio could be catalogued ad infinitum,95 though in his
monumental Confessions commentary, O’Donnell—at least—has preferred to
capture the scriptural resonances in Augustine’s confessions of praise, faith
and sin. This is methodologically sound, since it is undoubtedly—and most
visibly—Augustine’s post-ordination practice of scriptural exegesis that comes
to distinguish his confessive prose at Hippo Regius from his dialectical prose
at Cassiciacum, Milan, Rome and Thagaste.96 The eloquence of his god’s book
and the signs of that new firmament97 suffuse Augustine’s Confessions,98 and
91 Cf. Arts 1927, 9–10: “The dative is often found in the Confessions after confiteri in the
sense of ‘give praise to God.’ This construction occurs frequently in the Scriptures and in
Ecclesiastical writers in general.”
92 Mohrmann 1961b, 280: “ . . . il triplice significato che confessio prende nel latino dei
Cristiani, confessio laudis e peccati e fidei . . .”
93 O’Donnell 1992, II:4: “Confiteri is a verb of speaking . . . God is ordinarily the addressee
of this speech, but not exclusively . . . the effect may be that of praise (confessio laudis),
self-blame (confessio peccatorum), or (least common in [Augustine] and the conf.) deter-
mined avowal (confessio fidei).”
94 Drecoll 1999, 256: “Der Begriff confiteri hat demnach eine doppelte Funktion, die sich
einerseits auf die eigene Schlechtigkeit [confessio peccatorum], andererseits auf Gottes
Frömmigkeit herstellendes Handeln bezieht [confessio laudis].”
95 Cf. for instance, Lucr. Rer.nat. II.1116–17: . . . donique ad extremum crescendi perfica
finem | omnia perduxit rerum natura creatrix; Aug. Conf. I.10.16: domine deus, ordinator
et creator rerum omnium naturalium.
96 Vid. Finaert 1939a, esp. 39–56.
97 Cf. Aug. Conf. XIII.18.23: haec nobiscum disputas sapientissime, deus noster, in libro tuo,
firmamento tuo, ut discernamus omnia contemplatione mirabili, quamvis adhuc in signis
et in temporibus et in diebus et in annis.
98 Hrdlicka 1931, 7: “The Confessions are strongly permeated with Scriptural terminol-
ogy. . . . It is remarkable that a man to whom the Scriptures had once seemed ‘unworthy to
be compared to the stateliness of Tully’ (Conf. 3, 5, 9) should a few years later become so
82 chapter 3
without the book of Psalms, in particular—it should be said—there would be

no Confessions.99
Augustine’s scriptures, however, are not a decisive source for his con-
fessio ignorantiae. This is, again, a philosophical mode of confession. But,
Augustine is no sceptic, and I have already registered the fact that in
Confessions X and XI he modulates the strict Socratic-Ciceronian mode of
confessio ignorantiae, with the result that Augustine’s confessio ignorantiae
not infrequently takes the duplex form, scio/nescio: ‘I know’/‘I do not know.’
Coupled with confessio ignorantiae, then, is a related but distinct mode of
confession—or at least, of confessive rhetoric: confessio scientiae. And that
this mode of confessive rhetoric—like confessio ignorantiae, unlike confes-
sio fidei—is philosophical, can be inferred from the passage in Augustine’s
eternity-meditation which I cited in the preceding section, where Augustine
says that he prefers to confess, “I do not know what I do not know” (nescio quod
nescio, XI.12.14).
In this passage, Augustine is not primarily—as per Annemaré Kotzé—
responding to a “Manichaean (and neo-Platonic) polemical question,”100
namely: “What did god make before he made heaven and earth?”101 This
question is a ‘Manichaean polemical question,’ but only in a parasitic sense,102
and Augustine is cognizant of the fact that it is originally—or at least, most
thoroughly imbued with their language as to recognize it as the most apt vehicle for the
expression of his own ideas.”
99 Mohrmann 1961a, 261: “Dans ce livre des Confessions . . . saint Augustin est en tout pre-
mier lieu inspiré par les psaumes. Non seulement sa langue et son style sont d’une saveur
psalmique, mais les citations des psaumes s’échelonnent à travers l’œuvre, depuis le
début jusqu’à la fin, en déterminant et en marquant le cours de la pensée.”
100 Cf. Kotzé 2004, 225: “Augustine, it is important to note . . . introduces the first section of
his . . . contemplation on time [sic] by reference to the Manichaean (and neo-Platonic)
polemical question quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram? Moreover,
the recapitulating closing section of book 11 (11.29.39–11.31.41) unmistakeably moves the
focus back to the Manichaean reader . . .”
101 Aug. Conf. XI.12.14: quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?
Cf. an Epicurean’s wry remark on this post-Timaeus use of facere, at Cic. Nat.deor.
I.8.19–20: “Plato [in the Timaeus] . . . represented the world as not merely having had
an origin (non modo natum mundum), but as even being nearly hand-made (sed etiam
manu paene factum).”
102 Meijering (1979, 40, 51), citing Aug. Gen.c.Man. I.2.3 (. . . dicunt: Si in principio aliquo
temporis fecit deus coelum et terram, quid agebat antequam faceret coelum et terram?),
registers the derivatively Manichaean provenance of this question, which he correctly
refers back to Epicurus, and to Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21.
forcefully—a Ciceronian and Lucretian question103 with roots in Epicurean

physical philosophy.104 Thus—a fact that has yet to be seriously reckoned with
in the literature—Augustine’s repetition of this question in Confessions XI.10
and XI.12105 signals a presence of Epicurean physical doctrine at the heart of
Confessions XI, and at the height of Augustine’s eternity-meditation. It is not
Lucretius that Augustine seems to lift his Epicurean-style question from, how-
ever, since there is a dense, structuring, and conceptually decisive concentra-
tion of Ciceronian reminiscences in Augustine’s eternity-meditation, which
merely culminate in that question.106
103 Cic. Nat.deor. I.8.20–9.22; Lucr. Rer.nat. V.156–94.

And cf. Lucretius’ derisive anticipation of the phrase, creatio ex nihilo, at Lucr. Rer.
nat. I.669: . . . e nilo fient quaecumque creantur . . .
104 Cf. Meijering 1979, 40, 51; Peters 1984, 62–67.
Given Peters’ superb article on the philosophical—and specifically, Epicurean—ori-
gins of Augustine’s question in Conf. XI.10.12 and XI.12.14, it is perplexing that there is no
mention of Conf. XI—or for that matter, of Peters’ research—in Michael Erler’s (2002)
Augustinus-Lexikon article on “Epicurei, Epicurus.”
105 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.10.12: quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?; XI.12.14:
quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?
106 Resemblances include, but are not limited to, the following:
(i) Cic. Nat.deor. I.8.19: Quibus enim oculis animi intueri potuit vester Plato fabri-
cam illam tanti operis . . .; Aug. Conf. XI.5.7: quomodo autem fecisti caelum et
terram? . . . non enim sicut homo artifex . . . quam cernit in semet ipsa interno
oculo . . .
(ii) Cic. Nat.deor. I.8.19–20: quae molitio, quae ferramenta, qui vectes, quae machi-
nae, qui ministri tanti muneris fuerunt? . . . requiro quae paulo ante, ministros
machinas omnem totius operis dissignationem atque apparatum; Aug. Conf.
XI.5.7: quomodo autem fecisti caelum et terram? et quae machina tam grandis
operationis tuae?
(iii) Cic. Nat.deor. I.8.19: quem ad modum autem oboedire et parere voluntati archi-
tecti aër ignis aqua terra potuerunt?; Aug. Conf. XI.5.7: quomodo fecisti, deus,
caelum et terram? non utique in caelo neque in terra fecisti caelum et terram
neque in aere aut in aquis, quoniam et haec pertinent ad caelum et terram.
(iv) Cic. Nat.deor. I.8.19: quem ad modum autem oboedire et parere voluntati archi-
tecti aër ignis aqua terra potuerunt?; Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: creaturae motus expres-
sit eam, serviens aeternae voluntati tuae ipse temporalis . . .
(v) Cic. Nat.deor. I.8.20: . . . sed etiam manu paene factum; Aug. Conf. XI.5.7: nec
manu tenebas aliquid unde faceres caelum et terram.
(vi) Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21–22: . . . cur mundi aedificatores repente exstiterint, innu-
merabilia saecla dormierint . . . Laboremne fugiebat?; Aug. Conf. XI.10.12: “quid
faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram? si enim vacabat,” inquiunt,
84 chapter 3
Cicero’s ‘Epicurus’ in Augustine’s Confessions

It can judiciously be said that Augustine’s eternity-meditation in Confessions XI
is, in toto, a tacit retort to Cicero’s Epicurean, Velleius, in book I of the De Natura
Deorum. This is missed by Maurice Testard and Harald Hagendahl,107 and later,
by E.P. Meijering.108 But consider, for instance, these lexical-philosophical
counterpoints in De Natura Deorum I and Confessions XI:
Velleius—“What method of engineering was used [by Plato’s demi-

urge]? What instruments, what levers, what machines (quae machi-
nae) were used? What agents carried out so vast an undertaking (tanti
muneris)? . . . I repeat my previous questions, what were its agents and
machines, how was the whole universal operation (machinas omnem
totius operis) conceived and effected?”
Augustine—“But how did you make heaven and earth [o god]? And
what was the machine of your so-vast operation (quae machina tam
grandis operationis tuae)?”109
Velleius—“Why did these deities suddenly awake into activity as world-
architects (mundi aedificatores) after countless ages (innumerabilia
“et non operabatur aliquid, cur non sic semper et deinceps, quemadmodum
retro semper cessavit ab opere?”
(vii) Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21–22: . . . cur mundi aedificatores repente exstiterint, innu-
merabilia saecla dormierint . . .? . . . isto igitur tam inmenso spatio quaero, Balbe,
cur Pronea vestra cessaverit; Aug. Conf. XI.13.15: . . . caeli et terrae artificem, ab
opere tanto, antequam id faceres, per innumerabilia saecula cessasse miratur,
evigilet atque attendat, quia falsa miratur. nam unde poterant innumerabilia
saecula praeterire quae ipse non feceras, cum sis omnium saeculorum auctor et
conditor? . . . cum ergo sis operator omnium temporum, si fuit aliquod tempus
antequam faceres caelum et terram, cur dicitur quod ab opere cessabas?
(viii) Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21: . . . ne in cogitationem quidem cadit ut fuerit tempus ali-
quod nullum cum tempus esset; Aug. Conf. XI.13.15–16: . . . non enim erat tunc, ubi
non erat tempus. . . . omnia tempora tu fecisti et ante omnia tempora tu es, nec
aliquo tempore non erat tempus.
(ix) Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21: . . . ne in cogitationem quidem cadit ut fuerit tempus ali-
quod nullum cum tempus esset; Aug. Conf. XI.30.40: . . . non dicitur numquam
ubi non est tempus.
107 Cf. Testard 1958, II:134; Hagendahl 1967, 752.
108 Cf. Meijering 1979, 40, 51, 54.
109 Cic. Nat.deor. I.8.19–20: quae molitio, quae ferramenta, qui vectes, quae machinae, qui
ministri tanti muneris fuerunt? . . . requiro quae paulo ante, ministros machinas omnem
totius operis dissignationem atque apparatum; Aug. Conf. XI.5.7: quomodo autem fecisti
caelum et terram? et quae machina tam grandis operationis tuae?
saecla) of sleep? . . . What I ask you [Stoics], therefore, is why did your

Providence remain idle (cessaverit) through such a vast space of time?”
Augustine—“But if anyone’s weightless sense roves over the images of
past times, and he marvels that you, god almighty . . . architect of heaven
and earth (caeli et terrae artificem), remained idle for countless ages
(per innumerabilia saecula cessasse) and refrained from so vast a work,
let him awake110 and consider that he marvels falsely. For how could
countless ages (innumerabilia saecula) pass which you did not make,
since you are the inaugurator and creator of all the ages? . . . When,
therefore, you are he who produces all times, if there were any time
before you made heaven and earth, why is it said that you remained
idle (ab opere cessabas)?”111
Velleius—“It is inconceivable that there was ever a time when time did
not exist ( fuerit tempus aliquod nullum cum tempus esset).”
Augustine—“But there was no ‘then,’ when there was no time (non
enim erat tunc, ubi non erat tempus). . . . And you [o god] are before all
times, nor in any time was there no time (nec aliquo tempore non erat
tempus). . . . Where there was no time, they cannot say ‘never’ (nec ali-
quo tempore non erat tempus).”112
The ramifications of this interface with Cicero’s Epicurean, in Confessions

XI, cannot detain us, since it only affects Augustine’s eternity-meditation—not
his investigation of time; but that there is such an interface seems to be incon-
trovertible. What is relevant for us, here, is rather the formality or analyticity of
110 This is of course directed at Velleius, who asks: ‘Why were the divine world-architects
sleeping?’ Augustine says to him: ‘And why are you sleeping? It is you who must awake,
and see . . .’
111 Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21–22: . . . cur mundi aedificatores repente exstiterint, innumerabilia
saecla dormierint . . .? . . . isto igitur tam inmenso spatio quaero, Balbe, cur Pronea vestra
cessaverit; Aug. Conf. XI.13.15: at si cuiusquam volatilis sensus vagatur per imagines retro
temporum et te, deum omnipotentem . . . caeli et terrae artificem, ab opere tanto, ante-
quam id faceres, per innumerabilia saecula cessasse miratur, evigilet atque attendat, quia
falsa miratur. nam unde poterant innumerabilia saecula praeterire quae ipse non feceras,
cum sis omnium saeculorum auctor et conditor? . . . cum ergo sis operator omnium tem-
porum, si fuit aliquod tempus antequam faceres caelum et terram, cur dicitur quod ab
opere cessabas?
112 Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21: . . . ne in cogitationem quidem cadit ut fuerit tempus aliquod nul-
lum cum tempus esset; Aug. Conf. XI.13.15–16: . . . non enim erat tunc, ubi non erat tem-
pus. . . . omnia tempora tu fecisti et ante omnia tempora tu es, nec aliquo tempore non erat
tempus; XI.30.40: . . . non dicitur numquam ubi non est tempus.
86 chapter 3
Velleius’ final statement in this brief table: ‘It is inconceivable that there was
ever a time when time did not exist’; and Augustine’s acceptance of it: ‘. . . nor in
any time was there no time.’ It is this that returns us to confessio scientiae, and
carries us forward to Lucretius. For before Augustine avers the analytic state-
ment, “. . . in no time was there no time” (XI.13.16), he writes this:
It would be useful to know whatever I . . . desire to know in the way I know

that no creature was made before any creature was made.113
et utinam sic sciam quidquid . . . scire cupio, quemadmodum scio quod

nulla fiebat creatura antequam fieret ulla creatura. (XI.12.14)
Now, Augustine writes this immediately after he declines to “evade the

force” (eludens . . . violentiam)114 of the Epicureans’ question—i.e. ‘What did
god make before he made heaven and earth?’—by stooping to a brutal, brain-
dead clerical joke then115 in currency: “Preparing hell-fire for those who gaze
too high.”116 Augustine prefers to counter the Epicureans’ question with a
duplex manoeuvre, rather than such abortive117 humour:
(i) Augustine frankly confesses, in the Academic Platonist vein of con-

fessio ignorantiae: “I do not know” (nescio, XI.12.14).
(ii) Augustine then avers—with Cicero’s Epicurean, Velleius—in some
vein of confessio scientiae: “I know (scio) that no creature was made
before any creature was made” (XI.12.14).
The second half of Augustine’s rejoinder is made, as I say, with Velleius—

albeit in a qualified sense. It is Velleius, in De Natura Deorum I, who insists
that ‘it is inconceivable that there was ever a time when time did not exist’;
and Augustine concurs with this in Confessions XI, as in book XII of his City of
God against the Pagans.118 Still, he ‘evades the force’ of Velleius’ proposition by
113 Cf. Aug. Conf. VI.4.6: “For I wanted to become no less certain of those things I did not see
as I was that seven and three make ten.”
114 Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 76: “eludere, to evade . . . to elude or parry an enemy’s blow.”
115 But not only then in currency: Peters (1984) shows that Luther and Calvin later resort to
this bloody-minded quip.
116 Aug. Conf. XI.12.14: respondeo non illud quod quidam respondisse perhibetur, ioculariter
eludens quaestionis violentiam: “alta,” inquit, “scrutantibus gehennas parabat.” . . . haec
non respondeo.
117 Aug. Conf. XI.12.14: aliud est videre, aliud ridere.
118 Cf. Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21: . . . ne in cogitationem quidem cadit ut fuerit tempus aliquod nul-
lum cum tempus esset; Aug. Civ. XII.15: . . . erat ergo tempus, quandum nullum erat tem-
declaring time a creature—and note well: this is done in defence of Augustine’s

notion of eternity, not time—as a result of which, by saying ‘no creature was
made before any creature was made’ (XI.12.14), Augustine is also saying ‘there
was never a time when time did not exist’ (≈ XI.13.16).119
This type of formalistic, analytic or quasi-analytic asseveration may not
comprise a mode of confession as such, since unlike with confessio ignoran-
tiae, Augustine seems to prefer locutions120 such as “I boldly say” (audenter
dico, XI.12.14)121 and “I unreservedly say” ( fidenter . . . dico scire me, XI.14.17)122
when he introduces it. Nevertheless, this is a mode of confessive rhetoric in
Augustine, and it is one that can be profitably referred back to Lucretius.
Lucretius’ Confessions in Augustine’s Confessions

It should be noted—as to my awareness, it has not—that the language of
‘confession’ ( fateri, confiteri) appears more frequently in Lucretius’ De Rerum
Natura I and II than in Augustine’s Confessions I and II. The opening books of
the Confessions include three appearances of fateri and nine of confiteri, total-
ling twelve references to ‘confession’;123 whereas the opening (and still lacunar)
books of the De Rerum Natura include, on my reckoning, eleven appearances
of fateri and five of confiteri, totalling sixteen references to ‘confession.’124
pus. Quis hoc stultissimus dixerit? . . . Erat tempus, quando nullum erat tempus, quis vel
insipientissimus dixerit?
Cf. also Sext. Ad.Phys. II.189: “It is absurd (ἄτοπον) to say . . . that there was once a time
when time did not exist.”
119 Aug. Conf. XI.13.16: . . . nec aliquo tempore non erat tempus.
This is made perfectly clear at Aug. Gen.litt. V.5.12: ante creaturam frustra tempora
requiruntur, quasi possint inveniri ante tempora.
120 Arts 1927, 105: “Like all late Latin writers, Augustine very frequently uses direct statements
after dico.”
121 Aug. Conf. XI.12.14: audenter dico, “antequam faceret deus caelum et terram, non faciebat
aliquid.”
122 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: fidenter tamen dico scire me quod, si nihil praeteriret, non esset praet-
eritum tempus, et si nihil adveniret, non esset futurum tempus, et si nihil esset, non esset
praesens tempus.
123 Aug. Conf. I.5.6: fateor et scio; I.6.9: et confiteri me tibi; I.6.10: confiteor tibi; I.7.12: et con-
fiteri tibi; I.11.17: confitens in remissionem peccatorum; I.13.22: dum confiteor tibi; I.15.24:
in confitendo tibi; I.19.30: et confiteor tibi; II.3.5: si cor confitens; II.7.15: et confitear nomini
tuo . . . et omnia mihi dimissa esse fateor . . . recordantem et fatentem legit.
124 Lucr. Rer.nat. I.205: nil igitur fieri de nilo posse fatendumst; I.269–70: . . . tute necessest |
confiteare esse in rebus nec posse videri; I.399: esse in rebus inane tamen fateare necessest;
I.462–66: nec per se quemquam tempus sentire fatendumst | semotum ab rerum motu pla-
cidaque quiete. | . . . videndumst | ne forte haec per se cogant nos esse fateri; I.624–27: vic-
tus fateare necessest | esse ea quae nullis iam praedita partibus extent | et minima constent
88 chapter 3
I have not rigorously computed such appearances in De Rerum Natura III to

VI, but there can be no doubt that ‘confession’ is a structuring element in the
Epicurean’s epic. A cursory review will suffice to establish this.
Already at line 205 of his first book, Lucretius writes: “Therefore we must
confess ( fatendumst) that nothing can possibly arise from nothing.”125 In book
II, where Lucretius mounts his defence of “free will” (libera . . . voluntas)126 and
the “will of the mind” (animique voluntate)127—a matter of grave concern to
Augustine in Italy, and one that he resolves prior to his Platonic illumination in
Milan128—Lucretius reprises his opening confession in this way:
Thus you must confess ( fateare necessest) that the same [arbitrium]129 also
exists in the seeds [of all bodies] . . . from which the power [of free will] is
inborn in us, since we see that nothing can possibly arise from nothing.130
In De Rerum Natura III, it is the mortality of the soul131—a doctrine against

which Augustine composed his post-baptismal work, De Immortalitate Animae,
in Rome132—that Lucretius urges his epic’s addressee, Memmius, to confess:
natura. quae quoniam sunt, | illa quoque esse tibi solida atque aeterna fatendum; I.825–
26: cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest | confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti;
I.963–64: nunc extra summum quoniam nil esse fatendum, | non habet extremum, caret
ergo fine modoque; I.973: alterutrum fatearis enim sumasque necessest; II.284: Quare in
seminibus quoque idem fateare necessest; II.513–14: fateare necessest | materiem quoque
finitis differre figuris; II.690–91: cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necesse est | con-
fiteare alia ex aliis constare elementis; II.865–67: Nunc ea quae sentire videmus cumque
necessest | ex insensilibus tamen omnia confiteare | principiis constare; II.1074–76: necesse
est confiteare | esse alios aliis terrarum in partibus orbis | et varias hominum gentis et
saecla ferarum; II.1084–86: quapropter caelum simile ratione fatendumst | terramque
et solem lunam mare, cetera quae sunt, | non esse unica, sed numero magis innumerali.
125 Lucr. Rer.nat. I.205
126 Vid. Lucr. Rer.nat. II.251–62, here 255–56.
127 Vid. Lucr. Rer.nat. II.265–71, here 270.
128 Cf. Aug. Conf. VII.3.5: et intendebam ut cernerem quod audiebam, liberum voluntatis
arbitrium causam esse ut male faceremus . . . tam sciebam me habere voluntatem quam
me vivere. itaque cum aliquid vellem aut nollem, non alium quam me velle ac nolle certis-
simus eram.
129 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. II. 281–82: cuius ad arbitrium quoque copia materiai | cogitur . . .
130 Lucr. Rer.nat. II.284–87; cf. I.205: nil igitur fieri de nilo posse fatendumst; II.287: de nilo
quoniam fieri nil posse videmus.
131 Cf. Aug. Util. 4.10.
132 But cf. rather, Aug. Mag. 13.41: . . . si quisquam Epicureis credens et mortalem animam
putans, eas rationes quae de immortalitate eius a prudentioribus tractatae sunt, eloqua-
tur, illo audiente qui spiritalia contueri potest . . .
When the body (corpus) has perished, you must confess (necessest confite-
are) that the soul (animam) has passed away, torn to pieces throughout
the body.133
Book IV of De Rerum Natura then contains this appeal to Memmius to confess

the corporeity of voice (vox),134 which is—needless to say—a question of sig-
nal importance in Confessions XI (see chapter 10):
Every sound and voice (sonus et vox omnis) is heard when it has been
insinuated into the ears and has struck with its body upon the sense (cor-
pore sensum). For we must confess ( fatendumst) that voice and sound are
also corporeal, since they can strike upon the sense (possunt inpellere
sensus).135
And finally, in De Rerum Natura V, Epicurus’ physical eschatology is to be con-

fessed: “So much the more must you . . . confess ( fateare necessest) a future
destruction of earth and sea.”136
Many other passages could be adduced,137 but this much is clear: when Pierre
Gassendi and Thomas Hobbes ‘confess’ time in the 1650s (see Appendices
3–4), demonstrably harking back to the time-‘confessions’ in De Rerum Natura
I,138 the rhetoric of confession that they retrieve from Lucretius is by no means
confined to his stanzas on time.139 To the contrary, Lucretius’ epic is shot through
with the rhetoric of confession, and the De Rerum Natura in its entirety is a
work which is designed to give rise to a catalogue of Epicurean confessions
regarding ‘the nature of things.’ It is because of this that Lucretius’ rhetoric
of confession often takes the tone of a second-person imperative, “you must
confess” ( fateare necessest, necessest confiteare).140 This ‘you’ is the epic’s
133 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.798–99.

134 This is by no means a novel, or a peculiarly Epicurean doctrine. Cf. for instance, Arist.
Aud. (800a): “All voices (φωνὰς) and in fact all sounds (ψόφους) arise either from bodies
(σωμάτον) falling on bodies, or from air falling on bodies (πρὸς τὰ σώματα). . . . We all breathe
the same air, but we emit different sounds owing to the difference of the organs involved,
through which the breath (πνεῦμα) passes out to the region outside (πρὸς τὸν ἔξω τόπον).”
135 Lucr. Rer.nat. IV.524 –27.
136 Lucr. Rer.nat. V.343–44.
137 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. III.470, III.578–79, III.677, III.766–67, IV.216, V.376–77, etc.
138 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. I.459–68.
139 Lucr. Rer.nat. I.449–82.
140 As at Lucr. Rer.nat. I.825–26: necessest confiteare; II.513: fateare necessest; II.865–66:
necessest . . . confiteare; III.470: fateare necessest; III.578: fateare necessest; III.677:
fateare necessest; III.798–99: necessest confiteare; etc.
90 chapter 3
non-Epicurean addressee, Memmius (likely the poet Catullus’ patron, Gaius

Memmius).141 Of course, Augustine’s practice of confession—since his epic’s
addressee is god (and the servi dei)—reverses this imperative from the outset
of Confessions I:
The house of my soul . . . is in ruins . . . I confess and I know . . . and I myself

have no will to deceive myself.
domus animae meae . . . ruinosa est . . . fateor et scio . . . et ego nolo fallere

me ipsum. (I.5.6)
It is Augustine who must confess, and he confesses because he has converted—

first to the idea of philosophy,142 under the influence of Cicero,143 and later to
a god and the regimen of a church. Lucretius similarly writes as one who has
converted, yet he writes differently—namely, in the hope that Memmius will
also convert, having felt the force of Epicurus’ certa ratio,144 and thereupon
will confess Epicurus’ doctrines.
If Lucretius’ confession-thematic in the De Rerum Natura is to have influ-
enced Augustine’s practice of confession, then, it is likely via Lucretius’ stress
on ‘confessing’ the deliverances of certa ratio, as in the type of confessio scien-
tiae that Augustine lifts—albeit revised—from Velleius in Cicero’s De Natura
Deorum I. But if it is as much the fact as the precise character of Lucretius’
confession-thematic that could suggest an influence on Augustine, there is
nevertheless lexical and thematic evidence in the first pages of the Confessions
that Augustine recollects and transects with a Lucretian confession in De
Rerum Natura III. This is Lucretius, urging the ‘confession’ that Augustine
could not make in Milan145—namely, that the soul is mortal—by way of urg-
ing a ‘confession’ that Augustine later opens his narratio with, in Hippo Regius:
Moreover, if the nature of the soul is immortal and is insinuated into the
body as we are born, why can we not also remember the age that has
passed before, and why do we possess no memory-traces whatever of the
141 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. I.26, 42.

142 That Augustine’s ‘conversion’ in Conf. III is to the idea of philosophy, and not to philoso-
phy, is borne out by any number of passages in Conf. VI and VIII—or for that matter, in
Dam. Hist.
143 Vid. Aug. Conf. III.4.7; VIII.7.17.
144 Cf. for instance, Lucr. Rer.nat. II.95: . . . et certa ratione probatumst.
145 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. III.576–79; Aug. Conf. VI.16.26.
things we have done? For if the power of the soul has been so greatly
altered that it retains no memory of those things—that, I reckon, is a
state not far removed from death. Therefore you must confess that the
soul that was before has perished, and that the soul which is now has
been created.
Praeterea si inmortalis natura animai

constat et in corpus nascentibus insinuatur,
cur super anteactam aetatem meminisse nequimus
nec vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus?
nam si tanto operest animi mutata potestas,
omnis ut actarum exciderit retinentia rerum,
non, ut opinor, id ab leto iam longiter errat;
quapropter fateare necessest quae fuit ante
interiisse et quae nunc est nunc esse creatam.146
However laborious, the only way to indicate the apparent precision and
extent of parallels here is to set up—as with Velleius and Augustine—a sort of
counterpoint of Lucretius’ text and Augustine’s, particularly since I have never
seen these texts set in relation in the Augustine-literature:
Lucretius—“Moreover, if the nature of the soul is immortal . . .”147

Augustine—“But what is it that I wish to say, o lord, if not that I do not
know where I have come here from, into this—shall I call it a mortal
life148 or a vital death?” (I.6.7).149
Lucretius—“And if the soul is insinuated into the body as we are
born . . .”

147 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. III.775: “There are no dangers whatever for the immortal ” (non sunt
inmortali ulla pericula); Lucr. Rer.nat. III.800–805: “Indeed, to yoke mortal with immortal
(mortale aeterno iungere) and to suppose that they can be partners in sensation (consen-
tire), and can act upon each other (et fungi mutual posse), is folly . . .”
148 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. III.867–89: . . . neque hilum | differre an nullo fuerit iam tempore natus, |
mortalem vitam mors cum inmortalis ademit; Aug. Conf. I.6.7: . . . nescio unde venerim
huc, in istam dico vitam mortalem an mortem vitalem?
149 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.670: Praeterea si inmortalis natura animai; Aug. Conf. I.6.7: quid enim
est quod volo dicere, domine, nisi quia nescio unde venerim huc, in istam dico vitam
mortalem an mortem vitalem? nescio.
92 chapter 3
Augustine – “Therefore you, o lord my god, who gave life to the infant
and a body . . . [also] insinuated all the drives of its soul . . .” (I.7.12).150
Lucretius—“Why can we not also remember the age that has passed
before?”
Augustine—“I do not know where I have come here from. . . . I do not
know . . . for I myself cannot remember. . . . Tell me [o god] whether my
infancy succeeded another age of mine . . . Was it that age I passed
in my mother’s womb? . . . And what—o my god, my delight—was
before that age? Was I anywhere, or anyone? . . . I confess to you, lord
of heaven and earth, and give praise to you for my origins and infancy,
which I cannot remember” (I.6.7–10).151
Lucretius—“And why do we possess no memory-traces whatever of the
things we have done?”
Augustine—“Therefore this age, o lord, which I have lived I cannot
remember . . . inasmuch as, in the darkness of my forgetting, [my
infancy] is like the time I passed in my mother’s womb. . . . Look, I will
pass over that time—for what can I have to do with it, when I can
recall no memory-traces whatever of it?” (I.7.12)152
Lucretius—“For if the power of the soul has been so greatly altered
that it retains no memory of those things—that, I reckon, is a state not
far removed from death.153 Therefore you must confess that the soul
that was before has perished . . .”
Augustine—“And look, my infancy has long since died yet I myself
live. . . . Tell me [o god] whether my infancy succeeded another age of
150 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.671: constat et in corpus nascentibus insinuatur; Aug. Conf. I.7.12:
tu itaque, domine deus meus, qui dedisti vitam infanti et corpus, quod ita, ut videmus,
instruxisti sensibus, compegisti membris, figura decorasti proque eius universitate
atque incolumitate omnes conatus animantis insinuasti, iubes me laudare te in istis et
confiteri tibi.
151 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.672: cur super anteactam aetatem meminisse nequimus; Aug. Conf.
I.6.7–10: nescio unde venerim huc . . . nescio . . . non enim ego memini. . . . dic mihi, utrum
alicui iam aetati meae mortuae successerit infantia mea. an illa est quam egi intra
viscera matris meae? . . . quid ante hanc etiam, dulcedo mea, deus meus? fuine alicubi
aut aliquis? . . . confiteor tibi, domine caeli et terrae, laudem dicens tibi de primordiis et
infantia mea, quae non memini.
152 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.673: nec vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus?; Aug. Conf. I.7.12: hanc
ergo aetatem, domine, quam me vixisse non memini . . . quantum enim attinet ad oblivi-
onis meae tenebras, par illi est quam vixi in matris utero. . . . sed ecce omitto illud tempus:
et quid mihi iam cum eo est, cuius nulla vestigia recolo?
153 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. III.754–59, III.847–61.
mine which had perished. . . . Therefore this age, o lord, which I have

lived I cannot remember . . . [and] it vexes me to reckon it in this life of
mine which I live in this world” (I.6.9, I.7.12).154
Lucretius—“Therefore you must confess that . . . the soul which is now
has been created.”
Augustine—“And man, some part of your creation, desires to praise
you—man, who bears about with him his mortality. . . . You [o god]
created man . . . Thus you, o lord my god, who gave life to the infant and
a body which is such as we see, you have endowed it with senses, com-
pacted it with limbs, beautified it with form . . . [and] insinuated all the
drives of its soul—you command me to praise you for these things and
to confess to you” (I.1.1, I.7.11–12).155
There is, certainly, some lexical mirroring to be observed here, and it is not
without interest to mark the transitions, for instance:
from Lucretius’ ‘nec vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus,’ to Augustine’s

‘et quid mihi iam cum eo est, cuius nulla vestigia recolo’;156
from Lucretius’ ‘in corpus nascentibus insinuatur’—where insinuare,
be it noted, is a Lucretian technical term157—to Augustine’s ‘dedisti
154 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.674–78: nam si tanto operest animi mutata potestas, | omnis ut acta-
rum exciderit retinentia rerum, | non, ut opinor, id ab leto iam longiter errat; quaprop-
ter fateare necessest quae fuit ante | interiisse; Aug. Conf. I.6.9–7.12: et ecce infantia mea
olim mortua est et ego vivo. . . . dic mihi, utrum alicui iam aetati meae mortuae successerit
infantia mea. . . . hanc ergo aetatem, domine, quam me vixisse non memini . . . piget me
adnumerare huic vitae meae quam vivo in hoc saeculo.
155 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.677–78: quapropter fateare necessest . . . | . . . quae nunc est nunc esse
creatam; Aug. Conf. I.1.1: et laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae, et homo
circumferens mortalitatem suam; I.7.11–12: et homo dicit haec, et misereris eius, quoniam
tu fecisti eum . . . tu itaque, domine deus meus, qui dedisti vitam infanti et corpus, quod
ita, ut videmus, instruxisti sensibus, compegisti membris, figura decorasti . . . [et] omnes
conatus animantis insinuasti, iubes me laudare te in istis et confiteri tibi; XI.31.41: . . . tu,
conditor universitatis, conditor animarum et corporum.
156 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.673; Aug. Conf. I.7.12.
157 Cf. for instance, Lucr. Rer.nat. III.688–89: nam neque tanto opere adnecti potuisse
putandumst | corporibus nostras extrinsecus insinuatas; III.698–99: Quod si forte putas
extrinsecus insinuatam | permanare animam nobis per membram solere . . .; III.722–24:
quod si forte animas extrinsecus insinuari | vermibus et privas in corpora posse venire |
credis . . .; III.738–39: nec tamen est utqui perfectis insinuentur | corporibus; III.776–
83: . . . inter se quae prima potissimaque insinuetur | . . . ut quae prima volans advenerit
insinuetur . . .
94 chapter 3
vitam infanti et corpus . . . atque incolumitate omnes conatus animan-

tis insinuasti’;158 or
from Lucretius’ ‘quapropter fateare necessest . . . quae nunc est nunc
esse creatam,’ to Augustine’s ‘et homo dicit haec . . . quoniam tu fecisti
eum . . . iubes me laudare te in istis et confiteri tibi.’159
Moreover, I have never seen it noted that Augustine’s expression “mortal

life” (vitam mortalem, I.6.7) in his infancy meditation160 recollects Lucretius’
expression—“mortal life” (mortalem vitam)—at De Rerum Natura III.869.161
Yet what is most impressive is a parallel arc in the thematic material. These
passages have numerous other elements in common, but at its most minimal,
this is the common arc in De Rerum Natura III.670–678 and Confessions I.6–
7: Lucretius insists that nothing before this life-age is recollected, and that is
Augustine’s opening confession; Lucretius infers from this that the soul is ‘cre-
ated,’ and this Augustine ascribes to his god; Lucretius then urges the necessity
of ‘confession’ upon Memmius, and Augustine—predictably—‘confesses’ to
his god. My question, here, is not whether all of this establishes dependence—
or better, an interface. But my suggestion is that the possibility of a decisive
Lucretian echo in the first pages of Confessions I is credible. It is incomparably
more credible than the influence of a doctrinaire ‘fall of souls’ myth that hyper-
Plotinian interpreters have insinuated into—or more accurately, fathered
upon—those first pages of the Confessions.
And it becomes all the more persuasive when we consider that Augustine
appears to use the immediately preceding stanza of De Rerum Natura III162 in
one of his Roman dialogues, De Quantitate Animae (387/8),163 including what
is likely a reference to the Epicureans164—if not obliquely, to Lucretius.165 For
158 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.671; Aug. Conf. I.7.12.

159 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.677–78; Aug. Conf. I.7.11–12.
160 Cf. also Aug. Conf. V.8.14: . . . homines qui diligunt vitam mortuam.
161 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. III.867–89: . . . neque hilum | differre an nullo fuerit iam tempore natus, |
mortalem vitam mors cum inmortalis ademit.
162 Namely, Lucr. Rer.nat. III.657–69, while I have here compared Lucr. Rer.nat. III.670–78
with Aug. Conf. I.6–7.
163 For dating this dialogue, cf. Zarb 1934, 31.
164 For Epicurus or the Epicureans—perhaps—cf. Aug. Quant.anim. 31.63: Sed quae illis
discedentibus cum Alypio sermocinatus sum . . . ad dandam palmam iis, qui corpus esse ani-
mam dicunt, declinarem; Conf. VI.16.26: et disputabam cum amicis meis Alypio et Nebridio
de finibus bonorum et malorum: Epicurum accepturum fuisse palmam in animo meo . . .
165 For Lucretius—perhaps—vid. Aug. Quant.anim. 31.63: . . . ad dandam palmam iis, qui
corpus esse animam dicunt, declinarem. Quapropter te, ut possum, etiam atque etiam
moneo, ne temere aut in libros aut in disputationes loquacissimorum hominum . . .
before Lucretius urges the mortality of the soul from the soul’s oblivion of past
life-ages, in De Rerum Natura III.670–678, he argues the corporeality and mor-
tality of the soul from the sight of a snake (serpens) being hacked to pieces with
a sword, in De Rerum Natura III.657–669. These grisly pieces seem to survive,
for a brief time, “writhing separately while the wound is still fresh (recenti vol-
nere), bespattering the earth with gore.”166 And in the De Quantitate Animae,167
Augustine similarly—if less colourfully—recalls having seen a worm (vermicu-
lus) sliced up by a young man’s stilus. Like Lucretius’ snake, Augustine’s worm
appeared to live—i.e. to be ensouled—in all its oozing parts, while its wounds
were still fresh (vulnera recentia).168
In neither text is Lucretius named,169 and in neither text is Lucretius’ con-
clusion followed (if we accept that Augustine is using him). Yet in both texts,
what appears to be a Lucretian phenomenon is taken over by Augustine; and
in both texts, a Lucretian phenomenon appears to be taken over for the same
reason: Augustine has verified it. In the De Quantitate Animae, Augustine has
seen a worm—like Lucretius’ snake—cut apart, but with its parts still coiling.
In the Confessions, Augustine repeatedly states that he himself—as Lucretius
asserts—can access ‘no memory-traces whatever’ of a pre-natal state, or even
of his infancy.
This should suffice to establish the possibility—or indeed, the probability—
of a pointed and distributed, structuring presence of Cicero’s ‘Epicurus’ and
Lucretius in Augustine’s Confessions, and of Augustine’s willingness to absorb
and modify distinctly Epicurean elements, particularly as regards physical phi-
losophy. As stated in 2.3, it is not my intent to pursue the question of a direct
Epicurean influence on Augustine’s time-concept; but if Augustine’s time-con-
cept could be shown to be Epicurean in a direct sense, this influence would not
be an isolated one.

167 Aug. Quant.anim. 31.62–64.
168 Aug. Quant.anim. 31.62: ita omnes movebantur, ut nisi a nobis illud factum esset, et
comparerent vulnera recentia, totidem illos separatim natos, ac sibi quemque vixisse
crederemus.
169 Cf. Hagendahl 1967, 382: “There is no doubt that Augustine knew Lucretius and used him
without intermediary. . . . Augustine never quotes a [full] line, but he hints, several times,
unmistakably at the Epicurean poet.”
Augustine only names Lucretius at Aug. Util. 4.10.
96 chapter 3
3.5 Confessions X to XII: Dialectics and Song
Returning from sources to genre, however, Lyotard is correct: the Confessions

are nothing like “a treatise of philosophy.”170
It is no less important, however, to stress Lyotard’s positive characteriza-
tion of the Confessions: as song.171 Lyotard writes that Augustine “chants . . . in a
recitative, a Sprechgesang,”172 and writes of when the soul “lets itself be swept
along by song and the thousands-year-old . . . poetics of love, the blazon.”173 And
a half-century before Lyotard writes this, Joseph Finaert similarly observes that
“les Confessions recourent . . . à tous les jeux de sonorité: répétitions, refrains,
allitérations, assonances.”174
Numerous passages from the Confessions could be adduced to justify such
descriptions, but to limit ourselves to books X and XI: Augustine’s sero te amavi
at X.27.38,175 and at a lower pitch the noli claudere desiderio meo at XI.22.28,
reflect something of his lyricism. The former passage (X.27) attracts Lyotard’s
attention from the first pages of The Confession of Augustine,176 and inspires
his—limited and limiting—characterization of Augustine’s ‘dilation’ (dis-
tentio) in book XI as a “laxity, procrastination,” and thus, of the work-itself of
confession as “delay” (le retard).177 Ricœur glosses the latter passage (XI.22)
170 Lyotard 2000, 49/1998, 72.

171 See in particular Lyotard’s sections titled “Praise” and “Psalmody” (2000, 83–86/1998,
109–12): “Throughout the thirteen books he lifts whole verses from the psalmist . . . a
whole life astray comes with the psalmody to beat (battre) the holy meditation, wise argu-
mentation, the upright narrative, to interrupt the clear string of thoughts and tie it to the
other, the red and black fiber of flesh (la fibre rouge et noire de la chair). . . . The fabric of
the Confessions is closely knitted, thread upon thread . . . sometimes with thought follow-
ing the carnal rhythm (rythme charnel) of call and abandonment . . . and sometimes . . .
with the stilus passing into the firm hand of discourse that reasons.”
And cf. Marramao (2007, 55), who writes of “the Lied that springs from Augustine’s
soul” in the Conf., and suggests: “In Augustine’s scheme . . . self-awareness is grounded on
rhythmic-temporal elements: music, with its durée réelle, offers a field of research to inner
senses.”
172 Lyotard 2000, 3/1998, 19.
173 Lyotard 2000, 51–52/1998, 75.
174 Finaert 1939a, 91.
175 Bouissou (1961) versifies and analyzes this passage as being “un des meilleurs examples
du lyrisme de saint Augustin dans les Confessions.”
176 Lyotard 2000, 2/1998, 17–18.
177 Lyotard 2000, 55–56/1998, 79–80 (tr. mod.): “This delay (ce retard) from which I suf-
fer . . . [and] which I confess to you, which I attempt, writing my confession, to make
up . . . this delay is but further drawn out (allonger) by the time of confession, of writing
relative to a distinctly “hymnic aspect” in Confessions XI,178 of which he—

incautiously—writes: “Speculation is inseparable . . . from the hymn.”179
Lyotard’s and Ricœur’s rhetoric of song or hymn is by no means extrinsic
to the Confessions, and indeed—as they do not remark—it has particular
relevance to Confessions XII. For having presented his analysis of Ambrose’s
hymn, Deus creator omnium, in XI.27, and any memorized song in XI.28 (a
trope he returns to in the final sentences of book XI),180 Augustine then calls
Confessions XII a “canticle of praise (canticum laudis) for those things which
[my heart] cannot dictate,” and numbers it among his “songs of love” to the
lord.181 Immediately prior to calling Confessions XII a canticle of praise, however,
Augustine insists: “But I desired to know, not to conjecture . . . the mutability-
and proclaiming”; 2000, 17/1998, 35–36: “The delay that throws the confessing I (le confes-
sant) into despair is not due to a failure in its chronology; no, chronos, at once and in its
entirety, consists in delay (retarde).”
Derrida (2001, 32–33) offers a series of similar—enervated and enervating—reflections
in his first essay in Veils, under that essay’s epigraph, “Sero te amavi”:
A “so late, too late, sero” (life will have been so short), a delay I am complaining
about . . . But to whom do I make this complaint? . . . Is it to god? Was it even to Christ
that my poor old incorrigible Augustine finally addressed his “too late,” “so late” when
he was speaking to beauty, sero te amavi . . . ? “So late have I loved thee, beauty so
ancient and so new,” or rather, because it is already late, “late will I have loved thee . . .”
A future perfect is wrapped up in the past, once ‘late’ means (as it always does,
it’s a tautology) ‘so late’ and ‘too late.’ You were with me and I was not with you: Sero te
amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi! . . . Mecum eras, et tecum non
eram. You were with me and I was not with you.
178 Ricœur 1984, 13.
179 Ricœur 1984, 26; cf. 234 n. 27: “we cannot consider the great prayer of [Conf. XI.]2.3 to be
a mere rhetorical ornament. . . . It contains the melodic line that speculation, along with
the hymn, will develop.”
180 Aug. Conf. XI.31.41: discussed in chapter 5. This is confirmed by the narrative/thematic
motif of song in the Conf., for which: Burton 2007, 137–51.
Song first figures positively at Conf. VIII.12.29 (cantu dicentis) in the garden in Milan.
It rapidly reappears in book IX, with psalms and sacred songs appearing at Conf. IX.2.2,
IX.4.8, IX.6.14–16 and IX.12.31; while sacred song is again discussed at X.33.50 (see
chapter 7).
But most importantly—and I have never seen this linked to, or interrogated relative
to, a decisive passage in the time-investigation (XI.27.36)—Augustine refers to a silent
‘singing’ at Conf. X.8.13 in his discussion of sense-imaginal memoria. I discuss this in 13.5.
In 9.1 it will also be seen how Augustine’s analysis of ‘song’ in Conf. XII helps to clarify
the logical precedence of motus-mutatio to tempus.
181 Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: canticum laudis de his quae dictare non sufficit; XII.16.23: et cantem
tibi amatoria.
98 chapter 3
itself of mutable things.”182 This is not the love, or the praise, of an unreflective
devotee. It suggests something of the specific love that initiated philosophy.183
Platonic–Socratic ἔρος,184 mediated to Augustine by Cicero’s lost protreptic,185
has become longing; Aristotelian θαῦμα has become laud.186 And this striving
and counter-striving of Augustine’s longing and awe with his fierce will-to-
clarity, in book XII, is no less decisive in books X and XI.
So Confessions X to XII, insofar as they constitute a song or a series of
songs, are not less than a hybrid, late-antique species of philosophic song.
Their “fusion of argument and hymn” is rarely a confusion,187 and throughout,
Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 69: “amatorium, a hymn of love: [Conf.] 12, 16, 23, cantem tibi
amatoria;—an amatory song (Cypr., Isid.).”
Cf. also O’Donnell (1992, III:322), at cantem tibi amatoria:
At [Conf.] 7.17.23, “amantem memoriam” breathes a Platonic atmosphere. . . . At util.
cred. 7.17 [Augustine] is aware of secular traditions of allegorical interpretation of
indiscreet poetry, as of the “carmen amatorium” that Plato is said to have written to a
boy named Alexis.
On this last point, cf. Aug. Util. 6.13 and 7.16–17, where Augustine addresses the need for
sympathetic and sophisticated interpreters of secular poetry and philosophy (as of the
canonical scriptures). He ends with a passage on the allegorical sense of the Platonic love
songs (libidinosas cantiunculas) for a boy-child, Alexis (Alexim puerum), with Augustine
writing: cum sine ullo sacrilegio poeta uberrimus videri possit libidinosas cantiunculas
edidisse . . .
182 Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: sed nosse cupiebam, non suspicari.
183 Aug. Conf. III.4.8.
184 Cf. Aug. Civ. VIII.8 on Plato: non dubitat hoc esse philosophari, amare deum, cuius natura
sit incorporalis.
185 On Augustine’s first ‘conversion’ and Cicero’s Hortensius: Burton 2007, 95–99; Hagendahl
1967, 486–97; Stock 1996, 37–42; Testard 1958, I:11–49.
Aug. Conf. III.4.7–8 intentionally signals the first tremor of Augustine’s ‘conversion’
or ‘reversion’ (redire ad te) in the narratio of Conf. I–IX, which is why he re-introduces
Cicero’s text in the conversion narrative at VIII.7.17: lecto Ciceronis Hortensio, excitatus
eram studio sapientiae.
186 Cf. Arist. Met. I.2 (982b): διὰ γὰρ τὸ θαυμάζειν οἱ ἄνθρωποι καὶ νῦν καὶ τὸ πρῶτον ἤρξαντο
φιλοσοφεῖν; but also Aug. Conf. X.35.54: inest animae per eosdem sensus corporis
quaedam non se oblectandi in carne, sed experiendi per carnem vana et curiosa cupiditas
nomine cognitionis; XII.21.30: ignorantia mater admirationis.
Geroux (2008, 127) suggests that with Augustine—and in this he is “importantly dis-
tinct from Aristotle”—there emerges a “reconceptualization of mental wonder (thau-
mazein) as a kind of distress.”
187 Ricœur 1984, 6. Ricœur writes later that Augustine conjoins, “indivisibly, the praise of the
psalmist with a type of speculation that is . . . Platonic and Neoplatonic” (1983, 23)—and
I would stress, at the deepest stratum, Ciceronian.
Augustine’s stilus traces up—as Lyotard has it—“the precarious, reciprocal

balance of enigma and demonstration.”188
3.6 Concluding Remarks on Genre
One result of this—i.e. that Confessions X to XII are not ‘a treatise of philoso-
phy,’ while they are yet philosophical—is that their form is freer, less methodi-
cal and accretive, than that of Augustine’s dialectical works.189 Augustine
proceeds, here, by way of indication more often than by definition, even when
a ‘definition’ is what he seeks.
Augustine’s terminology in the Confessions is also less rigorously delimited
within a given book—or indeed, within the Confessions as a whole—than in
certain other of his works. And accordingly, the interpreter faces a couple of
temptations during the work of reconstructing Augustine’s time-concepts
in Confessions X to XII: first, to detect slipshod ‘contradictions’ from one
book of the Confessions to the next; and second, to uncritically incorporate
formulations from the breadth of Augustine’s corpus so as to fix the sense of
his terms in the Confessions. I will argue, throughout, that those who have
identified Augustine’s ‘contradictions’ in Confessions X to XII, apropos of time,
are themselves slipshod; but I have also been wary of levelling off Augustine’s
corpus,190 which appears to be a special temptation for his theological inter-
preters.191 Augustine’s later works, in particular, must be cited with caution;
188 Lyotard 2000, 50/1998, 73.

189 But cf. Stock 1996, 210: “A mixture of [dialectical] discussion and reminiscence is
characteristic of many [of Augustine’s] works written between 386 and 401. We learn
more about his everyday life at Cassiciacum from the ‘philosophical dialogues’ than from
the brief account of Confessions 9.4.”
190 Cf. Aug. Epist. 143.3–4; Trin. III.pref.1–2.
191 For instance, Milbank (2008, 198 n. 60) and his set espouse “a hermeneutic assumption
of coherence” across Augustine’s oeuvre. Augustine, to the contrary, insists that this
assumption is “no good” (non bonam) and will involve his interpreters in a “futile
endeavour” (frustra laboratis), since “the words I have spoken which I would, if I could,
revoke, are not—as my dearest friends suppose—few or none, but perhaps even more
than my detractors imagine” (non sicut quidam carissimi mei putant, nulla vel pauca,
sed potius plura fortasse quam etiam maledici opinantur verba dixerim, quae mallem
revocare, si possem, Epist. 143.3–4).
100 chapter 3
and this includes works—e.g. the De Trinitate and De Genesi ad Litteram—that

he began to compose around the time that he wrote Confessions X to XII.192
Despite the Confessions’ generic liberties, I maintain that an interpreter’s
first recourse should be to the Confessions—as, for instance, I rely on
Confessions X and XII for the sense of anima, animus and other fundamen-
tal terms in Confessions XI. Secondarily, to a work such as the Eighty-Three
Questions—which we know was circulating as a sort of compendium of
positions, with Augustine’s approval, in the years in which he wrote the
Confessions.193 Thirdly, to works that predate the Confessions—and foremost,
to his De Rhythmo194—but in light of the fact that Augustine commences his
work of public ‘recension’ in Confessions IX.195 And lastly—most critically—
interpreters can turn to Augustine’s later works.
Thus far, then, in keeping with a hymnic-rhapsodic element in the
Confessions: several warnings. But my basic intent in this section is not negative.
In suggesting a new line of interpretation of the time-question in Confessions X
to XII, a patient, heightened and sustained sensitivity to Augustine’s language
will be necessary; and this is not only necessary, it proves to be elucidatory.
For despite the relatively free hand Augustine has towards his conceptual ter-
minology, particularly in the Confessions; and despite the glut of critical and
philosophical literature on the Confessions over the last century and a half:
Augustine makes a number of lexical decisions in Confessions X to XII which
have not, to my knowledge, been previously remarked or seriously pursued,
and which indicate a philosophical-terminological integrity of the question of
‘time’ in these books, and of Augustine’s position on it, even as they mark deci-
sive shifts within that question.
192 Zarb (1934, 48–49, 53) dates Aug. Trin. to the years 399–419 and Gen.litt. to the years
401–14; Mutzenbecher (1984, xix) proposes 399–422 for Trin. and 401–16 for Gen.litt.
193 Aug. Retr. I.26.
194 Augustine’s De Rhythmo is commonly called De Musica, and this is not without rea-
son: Augustine refers to his De Musica at, for instance, Aug. Retr. I.6: et De musica sex
volumina; I.11.1: sex libros de musica scripsi, quorum ipse sextus maxime innotuit . . .
Nevertheless, at Aug. Epist. 101.3, he states the actual character of the work, and his
original intent: “I then wrote six books on rhythm alone, and proposed, I confess, to write,
perhaps, six other books on song since I hoped to have the leisure, in future, to do so”
(conscripsi de solo rhythmo sex libros, et de melo scribere alios forsitan sex, fateor, dis-
ponebam, cum mihi otium futurum sperabam). Augustine then remarks (c. 409) that his
“ecclesiastical cares” (curarum ecclesiasticarum) had rendered it impossible for him to
compose his projected six books, De Melo.
Thus, the work that he wrote, and the work that survives, is Augustine’s De Rhythmo.
195 Aug. Conf. IX.4.7, IX.6.14.
Thus, for instance: when Castoriadis posits a critical disjunction between

Augustine’s concept of time as “a stretching of the mind” in book XI,196 and
time as “produced by [the] mutation of forms” in book XII,197 I will reject
this disjunction. And my reasons for this have nothing to do with ‘pious’ feel-
ings towards Augustine.198 A perfectly impious researcher—such as I am—
may suspect a failure of interpretation when it is a question of such a radical
incongruence, with regard to such a driving question, in such a consummately
executed text, within the space of several paragraphs (i.e. XI.28–XII.8).199 But
this is, of course, only a suspicion. Every text has feet of clay, and the confes-
sive discourse that Augustine initiates is in part devoted to this instability, as
it is sung “in this continuing uncertainty of human knowledge” (in isto adhuc
incerto humanae notitiae, XIII.14.15).200
Notwithstanding that, I reject the idea of a critical disjunction between
time as dilation in Confessions XI and time as conditioned by physical motion
in Confessions XII because—at least, initially—Augustine lexically signals
a shift from his direct question of ‘time-itself’ (ipsum tempus), at the end of
Confessions XI, to his indirect question of ‘times’ (tempora) in Confessions XII,
where he elaborates his speculative conceptions of a caelum intellectuale and a
materia informis. It is to this ‘time’/‘times’ distinction that I will first turn.

198 Cf. Aug. Annot. 8: genus piorum, id est christianorum.
199 Yet even O’Donnell (1992, III:310) remarks at Conf. XII.8.8—rerum mutationibus fiunt
tempora—that this phrase seems to “retreat slightly from the achievement of Bk. 11, the
view that time exists as distension of consciousness.”
200 Aug. Conf. XIII.14.15: cum effundo . . . animam meam in voce exultationis et confessio-
nis . . . in isto adhuc incerto humanae notitiae.
chapter 4
Towards a Lexical Clarification of ‘Time’

(Conf. XI.22–24)
Though time has concerned Augustine from the first words of Confessions XI,1
and indeed, from the first words of the Confessions,2 it is at XI.14 that he first
asks: “What is time?”3 One of the decisive modulations in book XI, to which
F.-W. von Herrmann is particularly attentive,4 is that of his time-question from
the ‘what’ or essence (quid) to the ‘where’ or locus (ubi) of time. And this shift
is adumbrated from very early in the time-investigation.5 Augustine already
asks at XI.15.20: “Where is the time we call ‘long’?”6 I will argue that, and clarify
why this is the basic articulation of his time-question, in Part III. Augustine’s
time-question is most fundamentally a question of the condition of possibility
of a space of time (spatium temporis), i.e. of dimensive time, and it is the ques-
tion of time’s locus that leads him to ‘dilation.’
From his first, provisional insight into the locus of a space of time at
Confessions XI.20.26,7 to the end of the time-investigation at XI.29.39,
Augustine has been taken to locate time “in the soul” (in anima, XI.20.26),
1 Aug. Conf. XI.1.1: numquid, domine, cum tua sit aeternitas, ignoras quae tibi dico, aut ad
tempus vides quod fit in tempore?
2 Thus Lyotard (1998, 56/2000, 36): “Subject of the confessive work, the first person author
is . . . the work of time (l’œuvre du temps).”
Apropos of which, cf. Aug. Conf. I.1.1: da mihi, domine, scire et intellegere utrum sit prius
invocare te an laudare te, et scire te prius sit an invocare te; I.6.7: quid enim est quod volo
dicere, domine, nisi quia nescio unde venerim huc, in istam dico vitam mortalem an mor-
tem vitalem? nescio. et susceperunt me consolationes miserationum tuarum, sicut audivi a
parentibus carnis meae, ex quo et in qua me formasti in tempore: non enim ego memini.
3 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: quid est enim tempus?
4 Von Herrmann 2008, 86–107, here 88: “It now becomes clear that the question ‘where’ con-
tains the questions concerning the essence and existence of time. . . . The question of where
inquires about the place in which time has its essence and existence.”
5 O’Daly 1981, 172: “His initial question is modified and re-formulated from the start. He notes
[at Conf. XI.15.18] that we speak of long and short time periods . . . how can a time-period
have length, and how do we know its length?”
6 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: ubi est ergo tempus quod longum dicamus?
7 Aug. Conf. XI.20 addresses the nominative plural of ‘time’ (tempora), and not the singular
(tempus): there is a duplicity of ‘tempora’ in XI.20 and XI.27 that I disentagle in 13.2. But

Towards a Lexical Clarification of ‘ Time ’ 103
or no less frequently, “in the mind.”8 As Ricœur underscores, this is taken to

mean “in the soul alone,”9 before he repeatedly sharpens this formulation from
time being in the soul (âme) to time being in the mind (esprit).10 On this still-
dominant interpretation, time in the Confessions is not located ‘in’ the space
of physical movement and rest, and by extension time, for Augustine, is not ‘in
the world.’11 Or stated differently: time is ‘in the soul’ (or mind), but the soul (or
mind)—in whatever sense it may be ‘in the world’—is not ‘in time.’
And yet, from the first paragraphs of Confessions I, Augustine insists that he
was conceived and came into this life “in time” (in tempore, I.6.7),12 and that his
life is lived “in this world-age” (in hoc saeculo, I.7.12).13 In the first paragraphs of
Confessions XI, Augustine similarly confesses that he lives “in time” (in tempore,
XI.1.1) and ‘in the world.’14 At Confessions XI.24–25, still confessing his igno-
rance of what time is (quid sit tempus nescio, XI.25.32), he is yet certain that all
bodies move “in time” (in tempore, XI.24.31), and that his time-investigation is
itself proceeding “in time” (in tempore ista dicere, XI.25.32). And most acutely,
in the last paragraph of the time-investigation, Augustine laments that he lives
“in times” (in tempora, XI.29.39).15
here, note how the use of tempora in XI.20—where Augustine locates tempora ‘in the
soul’—serves to heighten the difficult sense of his lament at XI.29 that he lives in tempora.
8 Most recently, Wilcoxen 2013, 2: “Time exists ‘in the mind’—that is, in memory, percep-
tion, and expectation (conf. 11.20.26).”
9 Ricœur 1983, 31/1984, 14: “dans l’âme seule.”
10 Cf. Ricœur 1983, 37: “Seul un esprit ainsi diversement tendu peut être distendu . . .”; 38:
“C’est dans l’âme, donc à titre d’impression, que l’attente et la mémoire ont de l’extension.
Mais l’impression n’est dans l’âme que pour autant que l’esprit agit, c’est-à-dire attend, fait
attention et se souvient.”
11 Cf. Arist. Phys. IV.14 (223a): “The relation of time to the soul (ὁ χρόνος πρὸς τὴν ψυχήν)
deserves investigation, as does the question of why we conceive of time as immanent in all
things (ἐν παντὶ δοκεῖ εἶναι ὁ χρόνος), i.e. in earth and sea and sky.”
12 Aug. Conf. I.6.7: me formasti in tempore; cf. IX.13.37: introduxisti me in hanc vitam . . . in
hac luce transitoria.
13 Aug. Conf. I.7.12: . . . huic vitae meae quam vivo in hoc saeculo.
14 Aug. Conf. XI.1.1: domine, cum tua sit aeternitas, ignoras quae tibi dico, aut ad tempus
vides quod fit in tempore?; XI.2.4: . . . fecisti omnia, in quibus et me.
15 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: ego in tempora.
The phrase in tempora has not appeared previously in the Conf., and is repeated only
once: at Conf. XII.11.12, Augustine denies that the hyper-heavenly is “dilated in any times”
(nec in tempora ulla distenditur). As I elaborate in Part II, the basic sense of Augustine’s
phrase in tempora is in “this mutive world” (XII.8.8).
104 chapter 4
This last statement must be stressed since, because of it, the possibility
of Augustine’s incoherence with regard to time could be asserted without
any reference to Confessions XII—as when Castoriadis, for instance, detects
“a flagrant contradiction” in the transition from book XI to book XII (see 2.2).16
For limiting ourselves to Confessions XI for a moment: at XI.20.26, Augustine
provisionally locates ‘times’ (tempora)—not ‘time’ (tempus)—“in the soul” and
“in no other place” (in anima . . . et alibi ea non video); yet at XI.29.39 he explic-
itly confesses himself to be living “in times” (in tempora).17 When Augustine
later asserts, in book XII, that “times are produced by the movements of things,”18
is he merely deepening the inner incoherency of his time-investigation in
book XI?
I have already stated that I reject a disjunction between Confessions XI
and XII, and I also reject the incoherency of Confession XI. But what then?
Is time in the soul only because the soul is in the world? Or when “we say ‘time’
and ‘time,’ ‘times’ and ‘times’ ” (dicimus tempus et tempus, tempora et tempora,
XI.22.28), is there a distinction to be observed between Augustine’s words
‘time’ (tempus) and ‘times’ (tempora)? My interpretation answers both ques-
tions in the affirmative. In this chapter I will begin to address the second of
these questions: Augustine’s stipulative distinction, in Confessions XI and XII
(as anticipated in his De Rhythmo),19 between ‘time’ (tempus) and ‘times’
(tempora).20 This distinction is not only necessary to reconcile—or rather, to
interpret—Augustine’s work on the time-question in Confessions XI and XII,
but also—as we have just seen—to establish the integrity of book XI. And

17 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: sunt enim haec in anima tria quaedam et alibi ea non video, praesens
de praeteritis memoria, praesens de praesentibus contuitus, praesens de futuris expec-
tatio. si haec permittimur dicere, tria tempora video fateorque, tria sunt; XI.29.39: ego in
tempora dissilui quorum ordinem nescio.
18 Aug. Conf. XII.8.8: rerum mutationibus fiunt tempora.
I will later justify ‘movement’ as a primary sense of mutatio in Conf. XII: see chapter 9.
19 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. II.3.3: . . . ita in syllabis, qua scilicet a brevi ad longam progredimur, lon-
gam duplum temporis habere debere: ac per hoc si spatium quod brevis occupat, recte
unum tempus vocatur; spatium item quod longa occupat, recte duo tempora nominari;
II.4.4: . . . siquidem in ea simplum ad duplum collatum esse video, id est unum tempus
brevis syllabae ad duo tempora longae syllabae.
20 Cf. also Aug. Civ. XII.16: si tempus non a caelo, verum et ante caelum fuit; non quidem
in horis et diebus et mensibus et annis—nam istae dimensiones temporalium spatiorum,
quae usitate ac proprie dicuntur ‘tempora’ . . .
However—as I remark in note 35, below—a number of Augustine’s time-formulations
in Aug. Civ. XII.16 appear to conflict with his time-concept in Conf. XI and XII.
despite the hymnic-rhapsodic character of these books, which may at places

result in terminological imprecisions (see 3.5–6), the received interpretive
mis-directions have arisen from an insufficient sensitivity to the subtle oscil-
lations (and consistencies) of Augustine’s language in books XI and XII. One
decisive oscillation is that between ‘time’ (tempus) and ‘times’ (tempora).21
4.1 A Distribution of Augustine’s Time-Investigation (Conf. XI.14–29)
At the end of chapter 3, I suggested a shift in Confessions XI and XII from the
question of ‘time’ (tempus) or ‘time-itself’ (ipsum tempus) in book XI to the
question of ‘times’ (tempora) in book XII. But it could immediately—and prop-
erly—be objected that this description is quite crude.
The Latin tempora (‘times’), which is merely the nominative plural of tem-
pus (‘time’), is by no means reserved for Confessions XII. This plural and its
several declensions can be traced up Augustine’s time-investigation in book XI,
and this plural is of critical importance in his penultimate temporal analysis
in book XI.22 Moreover, Augustine’s inaugural time-question at Confessions
XI.14.17 sets ‘times,’ ‘time’ and ‘time-itself’ in seemingly indiscriminate relation:
You [o god] had conditioned time-itself . . . [yet] if these endured, they

would not be times.23 What then is time?
ipsum tempus tu feceras . . . si permanerent, non essent tempora. quid est

enim tempus? (XI.14.17)
21 Schmidt (1985, 54–63) anticipates aspects of my interpretation, with his succinct identi-
fication of a “Zeit der Kreatur” (≈ Ulrich Duchrow’s ‘physikalische Zeit’) and a “personale
Zeit” (≈ Duchrow’s ‘psychologische Zeit’) in Confessions XI–XIII, yet fails to relate this to
Augustine’s lexical distinction: tempora, tempus.
22 Tempora appears 8× in Conf. XI.27 alone, and 28× in the time-investigation proper (XI.14–
29). In Part III, I will revisit the sense of ‘tempora’ in XI.27 and a specific duplicity of the
sense of ‘tempora’—and with it, of ‘praesens’—in XI.20 and XI.27.
23 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.13.15: nam unde poterant innumerabilia saecula praeterire quae ipse
non feceras, cum sis omnium saeculorum auctor et conditor? aut quae tempora fuissent
quae abs te condita non essent? aut quomodo praeterirent, si numquam fuissent? cum
ergo sis operator omnium temporum, si fuit aliquod tempus antequam faceres caelum et
terram, cur dicitur quod ab opere cessabas? idipsum enim tempus tu feceras, nec praeterire
potuerunt tempora antequam faceres tempora. si autem ante caelum et terram nullum erat
tempus, cur quaeritur quid tunc faciebas? non enim erat tunc, ubi non erat tempus.
106 chapter 4
Or rather: What then of a putative distinction between tempus/ipsum tempus

and tempus’ plural form, tempora? A preliminary approach to Confessions
XI will be necessary simply to establish the validity of this distinction, with-
out which all the time-statements in book XII would remain obscure. And
this approach to book XI first hinges on identifying a heuristic structure for
Augustine’s time-investigation.24
Von Herrmann describes a broad interpretive consensus in this way:
The first part of Augustine’s time-investigation [sc. XI.14–20] puts the

being or non-being of time in question, and as a rule, this has been seen in
the Augustine literature. But now chapter 21, with which the second part
begins, deals with the measurement of time, and throughout the follow-
ing chapters [sc. XI.21–28] Augustine asks repeatedly how it is possible
to measure time-spans (Zeitdauern). Thus, commentators on Augustine
have taken this question concerning the measurement of time as their
lead (Leitfaden) in the second part of the time-investigation.25
Von Herrmann contests aspects of this consensus, as will I. But here I want to
suggest that this received distribution of the time-investigation—first phase:
XI.14–20; second phase: XI.21–28—is imprecise.
In Confessions XI, the investigation of ‘time’ is announced at XI.14.17 and
concluded at XI.29.39,26 while the last paragraphs of the book (XI.30–31)
reprise the total arc of book XI and prepare a shift to book XII (see chapter 5).
But the first phase of Augustine’s enquiry comprises XI.15–22, while the sec-
ond phase comprises XI.23–28. Within this second phase, there is a no less
significant transition from XI.23–26, in which Augustine discusses temporal
mensuration relative to the motion of the celestial bodies (solis et lunae ac
siderum motus, XI.23.29), then any solitary body (corporis motus, XI.24.31),
and then metricized enunciation (cum voces pronuntiando, XI.26.33); and
24 It is a common mistake to separate Conf. XI.29 from the time-investigation proper. Von
Herrmann, for instance, follows Husserl in this regard. Cf. Von Herrmann 2008, 26:
“Augustine’s investigation of time as time begins at Confessiones XI,14 and concludes
with Confessiones XI,28.” Ricœur (1984, 22) accepts the same division, but unlike von
Herrmann, Ricœur (1984, 25–30) later integrates Conf. XI.29–31 into a succinct discus-
sion of time and eternity. Strangely, Heidegger (2012, 41) cites “[Conf.] XI.14–30” for the
time-investigation.
25 Von Herrmann 1992, 50/2008, 55 (tr. mod.).
26 Jordan (1955, 401–402) takes Conf. XI.29—that “rushing and wonderful passage”—to be
the peak, and not the denouement, of the time-investigation; O’Daly (1977) recognizes
and develops the significance of the section.
XI.27–28, in which he analyzes temporal mensuration relative to the voice of a

body (vox corporis, XI.27.34), then syllabic time-quanta per se (simpla vel dupla
vel quid aliud, XI.27.34), and finally intended time-quanta (donec ad proposi-
tum terminum perducatur, XI.27.36).
Schematically, then, I suggest that the time-investigation in Confessions XI
is distributed in this way:
XI.14 Inauguration of the time-question

First phase XI.15–22 Acquisition of a trine-‘presence’ in anima
XI.15–20: analytics and aporias of ‘presence’
XI.21–22: renewal of the time-question
Second phase XI.23–28 Motion and the possibility of mensuration
XI.23–26: mensuration and motus-vox
XI.27–28: mensuration and vox-intentio
XI.29 Climax and transition: distentio est vita mea
Recall that in Confessions XI.14 Augustine introduces, without apparent order

or distinction, a series of terms: ‘times,’ ‘time’ and ‘time-itself’ (tempora, tem-
pus, ipsum tempus). Then recall (from the beginning of this chapter) that it is
at Confessions XI.20.26—where von Herrmann cuts off the first phase of the
enquiry—that Augustine locates tempora ‘in the soul.’ And finally, recall that at
Confessions XI.22.28—where I suggest the close of the first phase of the time-
investigation—Augustine remarks that “we say ‘time’ and ‘time’ (tempus),
‘times’ and ‘times’ (tempora).”27
This last comment is deceptively banal, and its repetitions are deceptively
rhetorical; and because of this, Augustine’s observation is generally overlooked.28
But the sentences that follow and refer back to it should alert us to its significance:
We say these words and we hear these words, and we are understood
and we understand. They are hyper-manifest and hyper-common—and
again, they are endlessly obscure and their discovery is new.
dicimus haec et audimus haec et intellegimur et intellegimus. manifestis-

sima et usitatissima sunt, et eadem rursus nimis latent et nova est inven-
tio eorum. (XI.22.28)
27 Aug. Conf. XI.22.28: dicimus tempus et tempus, tempora et tempora.

28 For instance: von Herrmann (2008, 112–15), perhaps because of his faulty division of
book XI, does not remark much less interrogate this phrase in his interpretation of the
section; Ricœur (1984, 13–14) elides the phrases I stress here, in his quotation from Conf.
XI.22.28; O’Donnell (1992, III:285–87) provides no gloss.
108 chapter 4
Augustine has criticized the use of the word ‘tempora’ specifically, in ordinary
language, at XI.20.26, but it is with these sentences that Augustine closes the
first phase of his time-investigation and initiates the second,29 at XI.22.28.
Despite the vagueness of his gesture here towards the word ‘time’ (tempus) and
its plural, ‘times’ (tempora), it yet suggests that the sense-character of these
lexical forms may not be identical in Confessions XI. And the second phase of
Augustine’s time-investigation confirms this.
We will hold ourselves, at present, to a partial review of the first division
(XI.23–26) of this second phase (XI.23–28) of the time-investigation. There is
sufficient evidence in Confessions XI.23–24 for us to provisionally establish a
distinction between Augustine’s deployment of ‘time’ and ‘times’ in Confessions
XI, and thus to proceed towards Confessions XII (see chapter 5), in which ‘times’
will predominate over ‘time.’ Why this is so will become increasingly clear.
4.2 “We Say ‘Time,’ We Say ‘Times’ ” (Conf. XI.22–24)
It is in Confessions XI.23–26 that Augustine addresses several possible identifi-

cations of ‘time’ with physical movement, and note well: the question of iden-
tity is distinct from a question of dependency.
Augustine opens Confessions XI.23.29 with a doctrine he has heard.30
This is what Alliez describes as the Platonic “thesis of the identification of
time with the movement of the heavens,”31 though this thesis is no less
29 As some confirmation of this, compare the following sentences from Conf. XI.14.17 (noting
here the repetition, only, of tempus):
quid autem familiarius et notius in loquendo commemoramus quam tempus? et intel-
legimus utique cum id loquimur, intellegimus etiam cum alio loquente id audimus.
quid est ergo tempus? (XI.14.17)
with Augustine’s later observation:
dicimus haec et audimus haec et intellegimur et intellegimus. manifestissima et usitatis-
sima sunt, et eadem rursus nimis latent et nova est inventio eorum. (XI.22.28)
These sentences which close Conf. XI.22.28 are the most precise echo of XI.14.17 in the
time-investigation, i.e. these sentences renew and re-inaugurate the time-question of
XI.14.17 relative, hereafter, to a subtle (and stipulative) dis-identity of tempus and its plu-
ral form, tempora.
30 Cf. O’Donnell 1992, III:287: “The strict sense of the text is that this theory was presented to
[Augustine] viva voce by a learned contemporary. The way the scriptural text is brought in
leaves open the possibility that the homo doctus was a real person known to [Augustine]
from the Platonizing days in Milan—perhaps not unrelated to the homo immanissimo
typho turgidus of [Conf.] 7.9.13.”
31 Alliez 1996, 125/1991, 188.
Aristotelian32 than Platonic. Yet Augustine does not address this doctrine rela-
tive to ‘time’ (tempus);33 it is rather, for him, a question of the identity of ‘times’
(tempora). Augustine writes this:
I have heard . . . that the movement-itself of the sun, moon and stars are
times, and I did not assent. For why should not ‘times’ rather be the move-
ment of all bodies?
audivi . . . quod solis et lunae ac siderum motus ipsa sint tempora, et non

adnui. cur enim non potius omnium corporum motus sint ‘tempora’?
(XI.23.29)
Augustine reiterates his rejection of this celestial-movement thesis towards

the end of XI.23.30, and this is the only other place in Confessions XI.23–25
where he employs tempora rather than tempus:
Let no one therefore tell me that the movement of the heavenly bodies
are ‘times.’
nemo ergo mihi dicat caelestium corporum motus esse ‘tempora.’

(XI.23.30)
Augustine thus clearly rejects the identification of celestial movement-itself

with ‘times’ (tempora) in Confessions XI;34 and in this regard there is no conflict,
however superficial, between books XI and XII.35 In the passages in book XII
32 Cf. for instance, Arist. Gen.corr. 2.11 (338a–b).

O’Donnell (1992, III:286) also alerts us to a Stoic tag in this paragraph—namely, com-
munes notitias (XI.23.29)—on which, he writes: “a centerpiece of Stoic logic (attacked
long before in a Platonic vein by Plutarch’s ‘de communibus notitiis,’ for example).”
33 Pace Lacey 1968, 231: “The motion of the heavenly bodies constitutes neither time nor the
measure of time.”
34 Cf. for instance, Cic. Nat.deor. I.9.21: saecla nunc dico non ea quae dierum noctiumque
numero annuis cursibus conficiuntur, nam fateor ea sine mundi conversione effici non
potuisse; II.7.19: una totius caeli conversione.
35 There is, however, a conflict with what Augustine writes at Aug. Civ. XII.16, where he
also specifically deploys the term ‘times’ (tempora): “And if time did not originate with
the heavens, but indeed originated before the heavens—not, indeed, the time marked
in hours and days and months and years, for these dimensions of temporal spaces, which
are commonly and properly called ‘times,’ did manifestly begin with and from the motion
of heavenly bodies, for which reason god said, when he appointed them: ‘Let these be for
110 chapter 4
where Augustine insists on the production of ‘times’ by physical movement

(see chapter 9), there is no identification of such movement with celestial
movement.
But more importantly, note what Augustine does not reject in Confessions
XI.23.29–30. He refines (potius) and generalizes the celestial thesis,36 such
that “the movement of all bodies” (omnium corporum motus)—hereafter
referred to as motus omnis37—may constitute, and indeed, “be times” (esse
tempora, XI.23.30). Unlike the celestial thesis—and this is overlooked in the
literature38—Augustine here permits a refined thesis of terrestrial-celestial
movement, or motus omnis, to produce tempora:
Why should not times rather be the movement of all bodies?
cur enim non potius omnium corporum motus sint tempora? (XI.23.29)
It is precisely this generalized thesis, which identifies motus omnis with

‘times’—but never, as we will see, with ‘time’—that Augustine assumes in
book XII and repeatedly affirms there.
So times, in XI.23.29–30, may be produced by ‘the movement of all bodies.’
And Augustine’s motivation for not developing this thesis in Confessions
signs and seasons, for days and for years’—if, I say, time originated in some other mutable
motion, whose parts were one prior, the other succeeding and posterior, such as cannot
possibly exist at one and the same time . . .” (At si tempus non a caelo, verum et ante
caelum fuit; non quidem in horis et diebus et mensibus et annis—nam istae dimensiones
temporalium spatiorum, quae usitate ac proprie dicuntur ‘tempora,’ manifestum est quod a
motu siderum coeperint; unde et deus, cum haec institueret, dixit: “Et sint in signa et in
tempora et in dies et in annos” [= Genesis 1.14], sed in aliquo mutabili motu, cuius aliud
prius, aliud posterius praeterit, eo quod simul esse non possunt . . .).
And that Augustine also—albeit aporetically—refers to angelic motion (angeli-
cis motibus) as involving ‘times,’ at Civ. XII.16, suggests that the disjunctivist type of
interpretation—wrongly espoused by Castoriadis et al. within the Conf. (see 2.2)—could
rather be pursued from Aug. Conf. XI–XII to Aug. Civ. XII.
36 Cf. Arts 1927, 64: “The actual meaning of potius is ‘rather,’ ‘preferably.’ It indicates one
thing to be preferred, and the other to be replaced or excluded, e. g. Callistratus postula-
bat, ut potius amicitiam sequerentur Atticorum . . .”
37 Cf. the phrase motus universi at Aug. Rhyth. VI.7.19: uniquique animanti in genere pro-
prio, proportione universitatis, sensus locorum temporumque tributus est . . . ita sensus
ejus actioni ejus congruat, quam proportione agit universi motus.
38 But Callahan (1967, 86–87) remarks, in passing: “While he is dismissing this [celestial]
definition of time . . . [Augustine] comes to realize that time has something to do with
motion even if it does not depend on a particular motion.”
XI.23—or indeed, in the time-investigation of Confessions XI—is stated very

clearly in XI.23:
I desire to know the power and nature of time, by which we measure the
movements of [all] bodies.
ego scire cupio vim naturamque temporis, quo metimur corporum motus.
(XI.23.30)
This question of the conditioning ‘power’ (vis) and ‘nature’ (natura)39 of tem-
pus (→ dimensive time, temporal mensuration) is distinct, for Augustine, from
the question of the generalized production of tempora (→ mutive times, blank
succession).
The fact that both of Augustine’s qualifying terms in this statement—vis
and natura—appear nowhere else in Confessions XI immediately raises the
question of their sense, and I will turn to that question momentarily (see 4.3).
But first, it is necessary to recapitulate, here, and then to extend a lexical pro-
gression which first comes to clarity in Confessions XI.23–24.
(i) At XI.20.26, Augustine reflects very specifically on a pre-reflective

use of the word ‘times’ (tempora) in Latin.
(ii) At XI.22.28, he pauses over the fact that late-antique Latin speakers
“say ‘time’ and ‘time’ (tempus), ‘times’ and ‘times’ (tempora).”
(iii) At XI.23.29, he rejects a strict identity of celestial motion and ‘times’
(tempora), asking: “Why should not times rather (potius) be the
movement of all bodies?”
(iv) At XI.23.30, as just quoted, he then declares: “I desire to know the
power and nature of time (tempus), by which we measure the move-
ments of [all] bodies.”
39 For the conjunction of these Latin terms, cf. for instance Cic. Or. 31.112: “Let us . . . discuss
the power and nature (vim et naturam) of eloquence itself”; 32.115: “He [sc. the orator]
should know first the power, nature (vim, naturam) and classes of words.” (But also, Cic.
Inv. I.24.34: Naturam ipsam definire difficile est.)
Or apropos of time—albeit in Greek—cf. Plut. Plat.quaest. VIII.4 (1007A–B): “It must
be stated, then, that because of ignorance . . . [some] imagine time to be . . . the extension
of motion (διάστημα κινήσεως) and nothing else, as did some of the Stoics, defining it by
an accident and not comprehending its very essence and power (τὴν δ᾽ οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ καὶ
τὴν δύναμιν).”
112 chapter 4
Where is it, then, that we find ourselves early on in the second phase of
Augustine’s time-investigation? ‘Times’ are preferably to be identified with
motus omnis, yet Augustine is not interested in ‘times’; rather, he is pursuing
the question of ‘time.’ Thus, he proceeds to this crucial, terminological clarifi-
cation which has never been developed in the literature:
(v) At XI.24.31, Augustine again employs the preferential term, ‘rather’

(potius),40 but now to specify what he means by ‘time’:
Since, then, the motion of any single body is distinct from that
by which we measure how long such a motion lasts, who cannot
see which of these is rather (potius) to be called ‘time’?41
cum itaque aliud sit motus corporis, aliud quo metimur quamdiu sit,
quis non sentiat quid horum potius ‘tempus’ dicendum sit?
Having closed the first phase of his inquiry with a vague—and, to us, super-
ficially meaningless—repetition of the words ‘time’ and ‘times’ (XI.22.28),
Augustine then opens the second phase of his time-investigation by establish-
ing what is meant by ‘times’ (XI.23.29) and ‘time’ (XI.24.31) respectively, and
proprie dicta.
By ‘times’ (tempora), Augustine most fundamentally denotes a mutivity

that is produced by and can be identified with “the movement of all
bodies” (XI.23.29).
By ‘time’ (tempus), Augustine restrictively denotes that dimension—that
condition of possibility of a space of time—“by which we measure the
movements of [all] bodies” (XI.23.30, XI.24.31).
Registering this duplex terminological clarification is a sine qua non for inter-
preting the remainder of Augustine’s time-investigation, and strangely—to
my knowledge—it has never been noted.42 Augustine refines the denota-
tion of ‘times’ to a condition of mutivity that is produced by motus omnis
40 The word only appears 3× in Conf. XI, and its first appearance helps Augustine to close
off the ‘prophetic’ digression, at XI.19.25: vel potius de futuris doces praesentia?
If this brief excursus on ‘prophecy’ is bracketed, then Augustine’s use of potius is
strictly limited to his clarification of the sense of ‘times’ (tempora) at XI.23.29, and then
of ‘time’ (tempus) at XI.24.31.
41 Cf. Plot. Enn. III.7.8: “. . . which would more correctly (ὀρθότερον) be called ‘time’.”
42 However, cf. Jurgeleit 1988, 227–28.
(potius . . . tempora, XI.23.29), and then refines the denotation of ‘time’ to a

condition of possibility of the measure of such motus (potius tempus, XI.24.31).
When Augustine pursues, hereafter, his question of ‘time,’ he is solely and
stipulatively concerned with the condition of possibility of temporal mensu-
ration—and that ‘the soul’ (anima-animus) is this condition of possibility,
in Confessions XI, is a perfectly Aristotelian and Epicurean conclusion. The
question of the condition of possibility of temporal succession—which is for
Augustine, as for Lucretius, ‘the movement of all bodies’—is hereafter, for
Augustine, a question of ‘times.’
4.3 Towards Augustine’s “Power and Nature of Time”

(Conf. X.6–7, XI.23–24)
When Augustine writes at Confessions XI.23.30 that he desires to know “the

power and nature of time,” this is not merely to prepare his lexical clarification
of ‘time’ at XI.24.31. Rather, with this reference to ‘power’ (vis)43 and ‘nature’
(natura), Augustine is also foreshadowing the second division (XI.27–28) of
the second phase (XI.23–28) of his time-investigation. Without clarifying what
he evokes by these terms vis and natura, then, it also cannot be determined
what he later means by anima-animus, and thus, by ‘time’—i.e. “that by which
we measure how long [any] motion lasts” (XI.24.31).
A very brief, schematic review of these terms will suffice to give them a defi-
nite lexical range:
(α) The only appearance of the term ‘power’ (vis) in Confessions XI is at

XI.23.30, apropos of ‘time.’ In Confessions X, at the first appearance
of vis, it has this duplex sense: the soul (anima) is a ‘power’ (vis)
that inheres in a body (corpus), suffusing it with life (vita); and that
sensitizes a body (sensificare), so that it is a living flesh (caro).44
43 Cf. O’Daly 1985, 531–32: “In . . . treatises written in the same period as De libero arbitrio
[Augustine] characteristically emphasizes the sensitive soul’s activity or ‘attention.’ In De
quantitate animae he describes the power of the soul (vis animae) in sense-perception,
which occurs through this attention (‘intendit se anima in tactum’). The same sensitive
soul engages in other activities—of avoidance or appetition, association of impressions,
habitual memory. This soul is common to animals and men [Aug. Quant.anim. 33.71].”
44 Aug. Conf. X.7.11: vim meam qua haereo corpori et vitaliter compagem eius repleo . . . est
alia vis, non solum qua vivifico sed etiam qua sensifico carnem meam . . . istam vim
meam . . . hanc habet equus et mulus: sentiunt enim etiam ipsi per corpus.
I return to Conf. X.7.11 in chapters 7 and 8: it is an essential passage in the arc of the
book.
114 chapter 4
The second appearance of ‘power’ (vis) in Confessions X strongly

identifies it, at once, with Augustine’s soul (animus), memory
(memoria) and nature (natura).45
Of the fourteen times that ‘power’ (vis) appears in book X, it is
exclusively linked to anima-animus as the life of a body (vita corpo-
ris), or to memory (memoria).46
(β) The only appearance of the term ‘nature’ (natura) in Confessions XI
is at XI.23.30, apropos of ‘time.’ In Confessions X, the first and sec-
ond appearances of natura identify it with bodies (corpora) as such,
and with the soul (anima) as the life of a body (vita corporis).47
Of the five times that ‘nature’ (natura) appears in book X, it is
exclusively linked to bodies as such (corpora), to anima-animus as
the life of a body (vita corporis), or to memory (memoria).48
Augustine’s question of the “power and nature of time” in XI.23.30 is therefore

lexically signalled as a question of the soul (anima-animus) as the life of a body
(vita corporis), as activating the sense of the flesh (sensus carnis), and as pos-
sibilizing memory (memoria). Without having recourse to Confessions X—that
is, within the horizon of the time-investigation itself—this decisive formula-
tion of ‘time’ remains essentially indeterminate.
Also note that Augustine’s desire to know the vis and natura of ‘time’ is by
no means divorced from “the movement of bodies” (corporum motus, XI.23.30).
45 Aug. Conf. X.8.15: magna ista vis est memoriae, magna nimis, deus meus, penetrale
amplum et infinitum. quis ad fundum eius pervenit? et vis est haec animi mei atque ad
meam naturam pertinet.
46 Aug. Conf. X.13.20: per vim memoriae recordabor; X.14.21: affectiones quoque animi mei
eadem memoria continet . . . sese habet vis memoriae; X.15.23: vi memoriae; X.16.25:
memoriae meae vis; X.17.26: magna vis est memoriae, nescio quid horrendum, deus meus,
profunda et infinita multiplicitas. et hoc animus est, et hoc ego ipse sum. quid ergo sum,
deus meus? quae natura sum? varia, multimoda vita et immensa vehementer . . . tanta vis
est memoriae, tanta vitae vis est in homine vivente mortaliter! . . . hanc vim meam quae
memoria vocatur . . . istam vim meam quae memoria vocatur; X.40.65: in memoriae . . .
vis mea.
47 Aug. Conf. X.6.10: hoc dicit eorum natura. viden? moles est, minor in parte quam in toto.
iam tu melior es, tibi dico, anima, quoniam tu vegetas molem corporis tui praebens ei
vitam; X.8.12: transibo ergo et istam naturae meae . . . et venio in campos et lata praetoria
memoriae.
48 Aug. Conf. X.8.15: magna ista vis est memoriae, magna nimis . . . quis ad fundum eius per-
venit? et vis est haec animi mei atque ad meam naturam pertinet; X.17.26: quid ergo sum,
deus meus? quae natura sum? varia, multimoda vita et immensa vehementer. ecce in
memoriae meae; X.35.55: hinc ad perscrutanda naturae, quae praeter nos est.
In Confessions XI.23–24, Augustine’s term ‘time’ (tempus) emerges, quite

explicitly, as the ‘by-which’ of the mensuration of all corporeal motion.49 Thus,
in Confessions XI.24.31, Augustine addresses a new time-question: that of the
identification of ‘time’ (tempus) with “the movement of a [single] body”
(motum corporis). Once again, note that this is not—as per Alliez—a ques-
tion of dependency, but of identity;50 and note that Augustine’s plural, ‘times’
(tempora), is absent from the discussion in XI.24 (since he has shifted from
the question of tempora in XI.23.29 to the question of tempus, in pursuit of the
strong desire he has stated at XI.23.30):
Do you [o lord] command me to agree with someone who says that

time is the movement of a [single] body? You do not command this. For
I hear [in the process of my reflection] that a body is never moved except
in time: you have said it. But I do not hear that the movement-itself of a
[single] body is time: you have not said it. . . . Therefore time is not the
movement of a [single] body.
iubes ut approbem, si quis dicat tempus esse motum corporis?

non iubes. nam corpus nullum nisi in tempore moveri audio: tu dicis.
ipsum autem corporis motum tempus esse non audio: non tu dicis. . . . non
ergo tempus corporis motus. (XI.24.31)
As with Confessions XI.23, it is necessary to delimit precisely what Augustine

rejects here: there will be no identification of the ‘movement-itself of a [sin-
gle] body’ with ‘time’ (tempus) in Confessions XI or XII. The movement of any
discrete body in space is itself not the originary by which of temporal men-
suration as such; and thus, in the wake of Augustine’s restrictive definition
of ‘time’ (tempus) in the preceding paragraph—namely, as that “by which we
measure the movements of bodies” (XI.23.30)—such movement is not itself
‘time’ (tempus). But Augustine’s resolute denial that motus corporis = tem-
pus, in Confessions XI.24.31, in no way impinges on his generalized thesis in
Confessions XI.23.29, according to which motus omnis = tempora. That ‘the
movement of a single body’ (motus corporis) ≠ ‘the movement of all bodies’
49 The other essential potius-formulation in Conf. XI appears at XI.24.31: cum itaque aliud
sit motus corporis, aliud quo metimur quamdiu sit, quis non sentiat quid horum potius
‘tempus’ dicendum sit?
50 It must be noted that the discussion in Conf. XI.24.31 of “the movement of a body” (motum
corporis) is a drastically restricted one, relative to Augustine’s revised thesis in XI.23.29
regarding “the movement of all bodies” (omnium corporum motus).
116 chapter 4
(motus omnis) is self-evident;51 and I have also tried to establish, here, the sub-
tler point that Augustine’s ‘time’ (tempus) ≠ ‘times’ (tempora).
Augustine’s ostinato-phrase in Confessions XI.27.36—“I measure times”
(tempora metior)—will shore up this conceptual dis-identity, and this lexi-
cal distinction, in Part III. For at the end of his time-investigation, the ‘times’
(tempora) of motus omnis are by no means, simpliciter, the ‘by-which’ of origi-
nary temporal mensuration. That is to say, by Confessions XI.27–28, tempora
are not at all the power (vis) and nature (natura) that measures motion—i.e.
tempus—but rather “what-itself is measured” (ipsam metior, XI.27.36) in origi-
nary temporal mensuration.52 And while Confessions XI.27–28 are devoted to
a proto-phenomenological (yet in certain regards, anti-phenomenological)
analysis of this mensural power (i.e. ‘time’)53 and its problematic space (i.e.
‘times’); in Confessions XII, Augustine is much concerned, albeit indirectly,
with the logical-primordial constitution of tempora: the condition of possibil-
ity of succession.
It is because of this that Augustine returns, in book XII, to the motus omnis
that he refers to—in passing—in Confessions XI.23.29: in book XII, he is con-
cerned with mutive ‘times’ over dimensive ‘time.’ And it is because Augustine’s
stipulative distinction in Confessions XI between ‘times’ (motus omnis → suc-
cession) and ‘time’ (distentio → dimension) has never been registered, that a
‘contradiction’ or a ‘retreat’ has been suggested, when Augustine writes in book
XII: “Times (tempora) are produced by the movements of things” (XII.8.8). Far
from being a contradiction, this is a repetition of book XI, where Augustine sug-
gests that “times (tempora) [would] be the movement of all bodies” (XI.23.29).
51 Lacey (1968, 231) senses this—“Time is not definable as the motion of any body. . . . The
passage of time is compatible with any specified body standing still (not necessarily with
all bodies standing still)”—but still misses it: “It is this strand of thought . . . that I see as
leading to absolute time. Time is distinct from any motion.”
52 In Part III, I will clarify a difficult, duplex sense of ‘tempora’ in Conf. XI.20 and XI.27.
53 And note: it is very clear in Conf. XI that dimensive time (i.e. spatium temporis) is the logi-
cal and phenomenal condition for temporal mensuration. Augustine is as concerned with
identifying the condition for dimensive time as he is with originary temporal mensura-
tion; it is this condition that he calls distentio.
chapter 5
Towards the Speculative Terrain of Confessions XII

(Conf. XI.30–31)
In Confessions X and XI there is an intensive involution of the temporal and the

ideal that is absent in book XII. Or rather, more precisely, this involution—as
Lyotard has it, “what is relative is agitated by the absolute”1—is far less acute in
Confessions XII, where Augustine’s speculative terrain will require a strenuous,
periodic exclusion of all sense-affective categories: a discursive suspension of
immanence.
This (impossible) suspension is not only necessitated by Augustine’s
desire to achieve the concept of a transcendent creature: the hyper-heavenly,
or “intellectual heaven” (caelum intellectuale). Augustine insists on an even
more difficult suspension of immanence in order to cognize a radically sub-
tendent creature: the hyper-terrestrial, or “indeterminate matter” (materia
informis). The initial speculative condition of Augustine’s transcendence and
subtendence in Confessions XII is yet identical: the hyper-heavenly and the
hyper-terrestrial are constitutively inexperienced. That is to say, the specula-
tive pre-delineation of Augustine’s concepts is that the hyper-heavenly and
the hyper-terrestrial are constitutively inapparent in this life.2 To conceive of
Augustine’s hyper-heavenly or hyper-terrestrial as conceivably apparent is to
fail to attain his concept—while to conceive of the hyper-heavenly or the
hyper-terrestrial as inexistent is also to fail to attain his concept. Thus whereas,
in Confessions XI, it is a question of reflectively clarifying the sense-appearance
of temporal inexistences (i.e. ‘impresence’), in book XII it is a question of specu-
latively delineating several constitutively inexperienced and inapparent, time-
less existents.
Nevertheless, the terminological, conceptual and rhetorical linkages
between Confessions XI and XII—of which the ‘time’/‘times’ distinction is
1 Lyotard 2000, 68/1998, 94.

The latter half of Lyotard’s Confession of Augustine (2000, 37–57/1998, 59–81) and several
of his “Notebook” and “Fragments” sections draw heavily on Conf. XII and XIII.
2 ‘In this life’ here refers, dis-symmetrically, to the hyper-heavenly and not to the hyper-
terrestrial; this distinction should be assumed hereafter. As will become clear, Augustine
hopes to behold and inhabit the hyper-heavenly post mortem; there is no such possibility
(or hope) with the hyper-terrestrial.

118 chapter 5
only one—are strong.3 And this renders any interpretation that posits a dis-
junction here less credible prima facie. Part II will open my interpretation of
book XII with the caelum intellectuale (see chapters 7 and 8), since it is there
that Augustine reintroduces certain terms from his analyses of ipsum tempus
in XI.27–28, and their reprise in XI.31. This redeployment in book XII of several
‘time’-expressions from the last sections of book XI serves to demonstrate that
when Augustine insists on motus omnis as producing ‘times,’ in Confessions
XII (see chapter 9), he has neither forgotten nor abandoned the results of his
time-investigation in Confessions XI. On the contrary, when Augustine’s specu-
lative procedure in book XII requires, for its precision, reviving his distentio-
terminology from book XI, he does so very carefully. And that Augustine also
uses his distentio-terminology in Confession XI.31 should prepare us—as it pre-
pares my interpretation—for the relevance of Confessions XI in interpreting
book XII, and for adumbrations of book XII in book XI.4
The first adumbration to concern us occurs when Augustine lifts his
gaze, at Confessions XI.30–31, from time towards a preter-temporal animus
that he prefers to leave unnamed at the end of book XI. In book XII it will
become the “hyper-heavenly” (caelum caeli, XII.2.2), which is perhaps a sub-
lime creature, perhaps a “gorgeous phantasm”5 (Augustine does not decide the
question here).6 But regardless, this is confessedly a creature of Augustine’s
3 Augustine’s echoic prose in the Conf. teems with and breeds inner-textual references. On his
meta-interpretive context for this strategy: Conf. XII.26–28, XIII.24.
4 In Ricœur’s (1984, 25–30) discussion of Conf. XI.29–31, his only anticipation of Conf. XII
is where he sees in XI.30–31 the “possibility” of “a temporal dimension peculiar to angelic
beings.” This is manifestly not what Augustine asserts, however problematically, of the
caelum intellectuale in book XII. My discussions in Part II will clarify.
5 Cf. Aug. Conf. III.6.10: phantasmata splendida; IV.7.12: non enim tu eras, sed vanum phan-
tasma et error meus erat deus meus.
Or again, perhaps, a gorgeous anti-phantasm. Cf. Aug. Vera rel. 10.18: phantasmata porro
nihil sunt aliud quam de specie corporis corporeo sensu attracta figmenta: quae memoriae
mandare ut accepta sunt, vel partiri, vel multiplicare, vel contrahere, vel distendere, vel ordi-
nare, vel perturbare, vel quolibet modo figurare cogitando facillimum est.
6 Aug. Conf. XI.30.40: etiamsi est aliqua supra tempora; XI.31.41: si est . . .; XII.11.12: o beata,
si qua ista est.
Teske (1983, 90 n. 47) mistakenly writes on Augustine’s caveats at Conf. XI.30 and XII.11:
“The hypothetical mode of expression is . . . more a matter of gently insinuating a Plotinian
idea into the mind of an audience not entirely receptive to such intellectualizing than
an expression of doubt upon Augustine’s part.” O’Connell (1989, 152) simply deflects the
question.
Unlike hyper-Plotinian interpreters of the Conf., whose ‘optic’ similarly constrains them
to dismiss the first, philosophically vital confessio ignorantiae in the Conf., at Conf. I.6.7
Towards the Speculative Terrain of Confessions XII 119
desire.7 And indeed, it is the allure of this creature that determines one inflec-
tion of distentio in Augustine’s resolution-cum-lament at Confessions XI.29.39:
“My life is elongation” (distentio est vita mea). This elongation is, in part, a
sign of Augustine’s desire to inhabit the hyper-heavenly, post mortem.8 Thus
Lyotard: “The Confessions are written under the temporal sign of waiting.
Waiting (l’attente) is the name of the consciousness of the future.”9
But this desirousness for a timeless heaven—and with Confessions XI.30–31
and throughout book XII, significantly, Augustine’s concept of the ‘time-
less’ ceases to coincide with his concept of ‘eternity’—fails to extricate the
Confessions from the question of time. As with ‘eternity’ in Confessions XI, so
a negative operation on the concept of time in book XII is Augustine’s sole
mode of access to his concepts of the ‘timeless.’ And as in book XI, where this
initial, negative operation (XI.3–13) results in an intensification of his concept
of time (XI.14–29), so in book XII: Augustine’s speculative delineation of a sin-
gularly intellectual, i.e. discarnate creature,10 in book XII results in a progres-
sive (albeit negative) fixation on the sensuous (or more properly, duplicitous)
essence of time in book XI.
But first, it is advisable to pause in the last sections of book XI, as is rarely
done,11 to observe the various ways in which Augustine revisits book XI in its
entirety and prepares his speculative terrain in book XII.
5.1 Temporal Presence: Varieties of ‘Impresence’
In Confessions XI.30.40, Augustine reiterates his desire to remain, in his

desire, stretched-out towards and stabilized by the cipher of an absolute
future in which he will “flow-into,” be washed and immersed in, divine love.12
(cf. O’Connell 1989, 41–43), I stress Augustine’s sceptical restraint here. He clearly believes
in the hyper-heavenly and longs attain it, yet he repeatedly writes: “this is the sense I have
in the mean time” (hoc interim sentio, XII.13.16).
7 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.15.21, XII.16.23.
8 Cf. Aug. Conf. VI.16.26: post mortem . . . animae vitam.
9 Lyotard 2000, 70/1998, 96.
Cf. Schürmann 1993, 236: “Henceforth the wait defers pleasure . . . [and futurity]
comes through the postponement of delight.”
10 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: mentem puram; XII.13.16: caelum intellectuale.
11 Perhaps only by R.J. Teske (1983, 2008), who is the bête noir of the whole of chapter 5.
12 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39–30.40: donec in te confluam purgatus et liquidus igne amoris tui.
et stabo atque solidabor in te; cf. VII.17.23: et mirabar quod iam te amabam, non pro te
120 chapter 5
In hope, Augustine’s desire is a “restlessness [which] holds in advance its

rest.”13
The liquid imagery here, which is not pronounced in book XI,14 reverses
an image of spatial-temporal dispersion at XI.2.2, where Augustine speaks of
a “flowing-out” of times (see 13.1).15 And as a sign of his desiderative stabil-
ity or rectitude, still living in a violent flux of ‘times’ (ego in tempora dissilui,
XI.29.39), Augustine here refuses to tolerate the impious questions he has
tolerated (and insisted on addressing) in Confessions XI.10–13, and which he
here repeats.16 The immediate relevance of this redux from the last several
sections of his eternity-meditation (XI.3–13) is that Augustine advances, here,
on his reasoning in Confessions XI.12–13.17 There, he proceeded by way of the
separate, analytic assertions (for the Ciceronian-Epicurean provenance of
which, see 3.4):
(α) “No creature was produced before any creature was produced” =
nulla fiebat creatura antequam fieret ulla creatura (XI.12.14), and
(β) “Nor in any time was there no time” = nec aliquo tempore non erat
tempus (XI.13.16).18
In Confessions XI.30.40, Augustine reprises (β),19 but not (α). Rather, he here
insists on a new, synthetic assertion that underlies his time-questions in
book XII:
phantasma, et non stabam frui deo meo; VIII.1.1: nec certior de te sed stabilior in te esse
cupiebam.
13 Lyotard 2000, 70.
Cf. Schürmann 1993, 265: “The will . . . institutes the [post-mortem] future and thus is
temporalized as hope.”
14 Aquinas is right to trace the notion of a “flowing now” (nunc fluens) back to Boethius, and
not Augustine, at Aq. S.Th. I, q. 10, a. 2: Dicit enim Boetius (lib. De Trinitate, cap. 4) quod
nunc fluens facit tempus: nunc stans acit aeternitatem.
15 Aug. Conf. XI.2.2: nolo in aliud horae diffluant.
16 Cf. Augustine’s parallel manoeuvre at Conf. II.1.1: recordari volo transactas foeditates
meas; II.10.18: . . . foeda est; nolo in eam intendere, nolo eam videre.
17 O’Donnell (1992, III:297) observes that the impious questions here are “repeated verbatim
from [Conf.] 11.10.12 and 11.12.14,” but not that Augustine sharpens his response to those
questions.
18 Cf. Aug. Civ. XII.15: erat ergo tempus, quandum nullum erat tempus. Quis hoc stultissimus
dixerit? . . . Erat tempus, quando nullum erat tempus, quis vel insipientissimus dixerit?
19 Aug. Conf. XI.30.40: “Where there is no time they cannot say ‘never’ ” (non dicitur
‘numquam’ ubi non est tempus).
(γ) “No time is possible without a creature” = nullum tempus esse posse
sine creatura (XI.30.40).20
While with (γ) Augustine anticipates his investigation of the speculative condi-
tions for time in book XII, he also anticipates a way in which (γ)—the most
precise speculative formulation to come out of his eternity-meditation in
book XI—will underlie his speculative problems in book XII.
In the last sentence of Confessions XI.30.40, Augustine introduces—as
I have noted—the indistinct idea of some creature that exists “beyond times”
(aliqua supra tempora). This is a gesture towards the caelum intellectuale in
book XII. Yet with his idea of the hyper-heavenly in book XII, which is nega-
tively mirrored by his idea of indeterminate matter (materia informis)—i.e.
of a sub-temporal creature—the category of ‘creature’ in (γ) ceases to serve
Augustine as a sufficient condition for ‘time.’ Augustine’s speculative interpre-
tation of Genesis 1.1–2 in Confessions XII posits a hyper-heavenly and a hyper-
terrestrial species of timeless creature.21 It is thus the very precision of (γ), in
the penultimate section of Confessions XI, which will determine the acuteness
of Augustine’s temporal-condition questions in book XII, namely:
(i) Since the caelum intellectuale, a singularly intellectual creature,22 is

preter-temporal—what is the intellectual condition for time?
(ii) Since the materia informis, a singularly material creature,23 is
preter-temporal—what is the corporeal condition for time?
20 Aug. Civ. XI.5: “There is no time before the world” (tempus nullum sit ante mundum).
Cf. also Aug. Gen.litt. V.5.12: factae itaque creaturae motibus coeperunt currere tem-
pora: unde ante creaturam frustra tempora requiruntur, quasi possint inveniri ante
tempora. motus enim si nullus esset vel spiritalis vel corporalis creaturae, quo per praesens
praeteritis futura succederent, nullum esset tempus omnino.
21 Aug. Conf. XII.12.15: duo reperio quae fecisti carentia temporibus.
O’Connell (1989, 148) writes that “the highest and lowest ranks in the hierarchy of
being are, in [Plotinus’] term, ‘impassible’—not subject to change—and, significantly,
for reasons very like those Augustine gives [in Conf. XII]”; yet in Augustine’s exposition,
neither the timeless hyper-terrestrial nor the timeless hyper-heavenly is ‘impassible.’
Augustine’s materia informis is conceived as a sheer capacity for determination, and thus
for motus and tempora (ipsa capax est formarum omnium in quas mutantur res mutabiles,
XII.6.6), while Augustine’s caelum intellectuale is repeatedly posited as mutable (muta-
bile tamen non mutatum, XII.12.15). Pace O’Connell (1989, 149), then, Augustine is by no
means concerned with “immutables,” in a Plotinian sense, in Conf. XII.
22 Aug. Conf. XII.9.9: creatura est aliqua intellectualis; XII.15.20: intellectualis natura . . . mens
rationalis et intellectualis; cf. Gen.lib.imp. 3.7: angeli et omnes intellectuales potestates.
23 Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: inter formam et nihil, nec formatum nec nihil, informe prope nihil.
122 chapter 5
Unlike Augustine’s time-question in Confessions XI, this duplex question of

temporal conditions is never articulated, as such, in book XII. Perhaps this
accounts, in part, for the general neglect of book XII in philosophical inter-
pretations of time in the Confessions. Yet it is this speculative terrain that
Augustine begins to transition towards in Confessions XI.30–31.
In Confessions XII.2–15, Augustine will strive—symmetrically and
inversely—to demarcate his ‘intellectual heaven’ from a divine eternity
(XII.9.9, XII.11.11), and to insulate his ‘indeterminate matter’ from an absolute
nihility (XII.3.3, XII.6.6). Nevertheless, the decisive conceptual determinations
of Augustine’s rarefied (and conceptually refractory) ‘creatures’ in book XII
are—symmetrically and inversely—temporal. The hyper-heavenly will be
repeatedly delineated as supra-temporal, just as the hyper-terrestrial will
be sub-temporal. It is this process of a counter-temporal speculative determi-
nation of the hyper-heavenly and hyper-terrestrial, in Confessions XII; and the
insufficiency of (γ) to provide Augustine—with its logical-axiological category
of ‘creature,’ i.e. conditioned existence24—with the conditions for ‘time’ on the
speculative terrain in book XII; that results in Augustine’s shift from the imma-
nent time-question of Confessions XI.14–29, to his question of the speculative
conditions of time in Confessions XII.
This said, Augustine’s question of temporal and counter-temporal condi-
tions in Confessions XII is only speculatively plural, i.e. (i) and (ii). The very
strangeness of the terminology and split register of (i) and (ii), relative to for-
mulations of the time-question in Confessions XI, indicates a philosophical
distinction that obtains between books XI and XII. Unlike Augustine’s rational-
izing exegesis in Confessions XII, his time-investigation in Confessions XI is not
oriented to a sensible/intelligible divide, since time per se and in toto appears
this side of the intelligible. Nevertheless, it is this ‘Platonic’ duplicity of the time-
question in book XII, which is required by Augustine’s new, anti-phenomenal
concepts of a timeless, purely ‘intellectual’ creature (caelum intellectuale) and
a timeless, purely ‘material’ creature (materia informis), that forces Augustine’s
speculative question of temporal conditions to converge, in book XII—
symmetrically and inversely—on the physical-mutive and sense-affective condi-
tions of time that are indicated in Confessions XI.
24 I generally prefer the terms ‘facture’ or ‘condition,’ rather than ‘make’ or ‘create,’ to avoid
the anthropomorphism that is associated with the last terms, and that Augustine (like
Plotinus) takes his distance from in Conf. XI and XII. For the substitutability of these sev-
eral terms, cf. Aug. Gen.litt. V.5.14: appellantur creata vel facta vel condita; V.14.31: sua
natura, qua factum est ut conditio creaturaque sit.
Whereas Augustine’s concept of indeterminate matter will not be intro-

duced until Confessions XII.3.3, with a spatializing pressure on the question
of temporal conditions in book XII, a certain sensualizing of Augustine’s time-
analyses in XI.27–28 is already apparent in XI.31.41,25 immediately following
his second allusion in book XI to a hyper-heavenly creature. And it is primarily
because of this sensualizing effect on distentio that Confessions XI.31.41 consti-
tutes a structural parallel to, and unit with, Confessions XI.30.40.26
Just as Augustine recapitulates and refines his assertions in Confessions
XI.12–13, the last sections of the eternity-meditation, in XI.30.40; so he recapit-
ulates and refines his analyses in XI.27–28, the last sections of the time-inves-
tigation, in XI.31.41. And in this final section of Confessions XI, the temporal
is logically and axiologically contrasted, for the first time in the book, to the
eternal god and a preter-temporal mind. Augustine writes this:
Surely if there is a mind27 of such vast knowledge and foreknowledge that

it knows all past-things and all future-things as one song is well-known
to me—that mind is very marvellous and reduces me to a shuddering
silence! Because whatever is past and whatever is to come in future world-
ages is no more concealed from it than it was from me when singing that
song—what and how much of it had been sung from its beginning, what
and how much remained to the end. . . . [Yet for] one singing well-known
songs or hearing a well-known song, his affections28 are varied and his
senses dilated in expectation of future sounds and memoration of past
sounds.
25 Sensus here as specifically sensus carnis or sensus corporis derives from time-formulations
in Conf. IV.10.15: see 5.4.
26 In a similar way, Conf. X.40–41 reprise the memoria and temptatio divisions of book X,
respectively.
27 What follows determines the sense of animus in this passage as ‘mind’ for the first time
in Conf. XI, yet this ‘mind’ is clearly not the anima-animus to which the time-question
is addressed (videamus ergo, anima humana, XI.15.19; exarsit animus meus nosse istuc
implicatissimum aenigma, XI.22.28; insiste, anime meus, et attende, XI.27.34) and rela-
tive to which it is explicated (in te, anime meus, tempora metior, XI.26.36).
And in Conf. XII, the caelum caeli is referred to as creatura and mens, but never as
anima or animus. Thus, the use of animus at Conf. XI.31 for the caelum caeli as ‘mind’ is
transitional, and Augustine’s formulations in Conf. XI.31 confirm, rather than disconfirm,
that anima-animus ≠ mens in the time-investigation proper (XI.14–29).
28 Moreau (1955, 245) renders affectio as “état d’âme.”
124 chapter 5
certe si est tam grandi scientia et praescientia pollens animus, cui cuncta
praeterita et futura ita nota sint, sicut mihi unum canticum notissimum,
nimium mirabilis est animus iste atque ad horrorem stupendus, quippe
quem ita non lateat quidquid peractum et quidquid reliquum saeculo-
rum est, quemadmodum me non latet cantantem illud canticum, quid et
quantum eius abierit ab exordio, quid et quantum restet ad finem . . . sicut
nota cantantis notumve canticum audientis expectatione vocum futura-
rum et memoria praeteritarum variatur affectus sensusque distenditur.
(XI.31.41)
The idea of this mind’s intention is horrific—and vaster, more vertiginous than
Augustine could admit.29 A cascade of ‘world-ages’ would be subsumed, in its
preter-temporal gaze, within that “total age”—as yet indefinite—in which “all
the lives of men are parts.”30 (Augustine will later refer to this, totum tempus,
as the “marvelous song of all things.”31)
There is certainly an element of crude infinitizing here, which will be elimi-
nated in Augustine’s concept of the caelum intellectuale in book XII. But it is
important to observe that Augustine is not merely, and not essentially, con-
trasting the quantum of his recently analyzed temporal intentions—eight
syllables (XI.27.35), a pre-quantified vocal sound (XI.27.36), a memorized can-
ticle (XI.28.38)—with the inconceivable quantum of such a preter-temporal
29 Cf. for instance, Aug. Enarr. 104.6: “A thousand generations do not appear to signify any-
thing eternal, since they involve an end; and yet they are still too numerous for this hyper-
temporal state. . . . For who would dare to say that this world-age should last for 15.000
years?” (mille vero generationes, nec aeternum videntur aliquid significare; quia utique
finem habent, et ad ipsa temporalia nimis multae sunt. . . . quis enim audeat dicere quin-
decim annorum millibus hoc saeculum extendi?).
On the age of the world, see his unfortunate remarks at Aug. Civ. XIII.10–11, 13.
But prior to his conversion, significantly, Augustine countenanced “infinite spaces of
times in the past” (infinita retro spatia temporum, VII.5.7) and “infinite tracts of space”
(infinita spatia locorum, VII.14.20)—expressions that reflect Epicurean, and not Platonic,
physical theory.
30 Aug. Conf. XI.28.38: toto saeculo . . . cuius partes sunt omnes vitae hominum.
Cf. Conf. IV.10.15: “They are parts of things, which do not all exist at the same time but
by disappearing and succeeding they all advance the totality of which they are parts”
(partes sunt rerum, quae non sunt omnes simul, sed decedendo ac succedendo agunt
omnes universum, cuius partes sunt).
31 Aug. Serm. 198.2: totum tempus; Orig.anim. V.13: hoc labentium rerum tamquam mirabili
cantico.
intention. In his repeated phrase “what and how much” (quid et quantum),32
a phrase that does not appear in Confessions XI.27–28, this mind’s sublimity
derives more from a subtle accent on the quid than on the quantum. It is not
the incalculable span, but the essential condition of such a mind that is alien.
According to the ancient rhetorical schema that Augustine reprises in
Confessions X,33 in which “there are three types (genera) of question: whether
a thing is (an sit), what it is (quid sit), and how it is constituted (quale sit),”34 a
subtle difference in the quid of this mind’s ‘intention’ in XI.31.41, and Augustine’s
‘intention’ in the time-investigation, indicates a radical difference in the qualis—
roughly, its mode of constitution. Whereas, to this celestial mind “past-things
and future-things” (praeterita et futura, XI.31.41) are disclosed simpliciter or
(in Lyotard’s phrase) sans médiation,35 Augustine’s intentions are disclosed in
and through the “memoration of past-things” (memoria praeteritorum) and the
“expectation of future-things” (expectatio futurorum).36 That is, temporal inten-
tio involves a certain, constitutive refraction in Augustine’s time-investigation.
Or differently stated, whereas this celestial mind’s intellection of temporalia is
immediate (nosse simul),37 Augustine’s analyses of temporal intentio cannot be
resolved into ‘immediacy’ or ‘mediacy.’ Temporal presence (praesens ≈ ‘imme-
diacy’) is co-constituted by temporal impresence (praesens de ≈ ‘mediacy’).38
A provisional characterization of distentio in Confessions XI is developed
below specifically to clarify this subtle divide, which is introduced with
Augustine’s preter-temporal animus in Confessions XI.31. This characterization
is directed no less at Augustine’s ‘intellectual heaven’ in book XII than at his
32 Aug. Conf. XI.31.41: quid et quantum eius abierit ab exordio, quid et quantum restet ad
finem . . .
33 Cf. for instance, Arist. Post. II.1 (89b).
34 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.10.17: tria genera esse quaestionum, an sit, quid sit, quale sit; Cic. Or.
14.45: quicquid est in controversia . . . in eo aut sitne aut quid sit aut quale sit quaeritur;
Cic. Part. 18.62: . . . genera sunt tria: sit necne, quid sit, quale sit.
35 Lyotard 1998, 64.
36 Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: expectatio futurorum . . . memoria praeteritorum; cf. XI.31.41: expec-
tatio futurarum et memoria praeteritarum.
37 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.13.16: nosse simul sine ulla vicissitudine temporum.
38 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.15.18: “The expectation of future things becomes sight when they
have arrived, and this same sight becomes memory when they have passed by” (expecta-
tio rerum venturarum fit contuitus, cum venerint, idemque contuitus fit memoria, cum
praeterierint).
126 chapter 5
notion of ‘time-itself’ in book XI.39 A more conclusive interpretation will be

given in Part III.
5.2 Temporal Dilation: A Preliminary Characterization
Augustine’s distentio is a trine-presence in which what is not present in the

strictest sense (praesens de praesentibus) is signaled by the distinct impresences
of memory (praesens de praeteritis) and expectation (praesens de futuris).40
The presence-character of ‘presence,’ sensu stricto, is signaled by a constitu-
tive tendency to pass into the impresence of memory, which is to say, by hyper-
transitivity.41 Transitivity inflects memory and expectation as well as sensation,
while the transitivity of sensation is itself co-constituted by the impresences of
memory and expectation. Thus the ‘modalities’ of temporal presence are not
temporally divisible, partes extra partes, but rather temporal presence is trine.
That is, temporal ‘presence’ is co-constituted by impresence as memoration,
impresence as expectation, and by sense-affective impression—i.e. ‘presence’
in the purest sense—as a resistless tendency-to-impresence.
Impresence has its varieties. The “presence of past-things”42 in a transpar-
ent recollection—as in Augustine’s recollection of a song in Confessions XI.28
(revisited in XI.31)—is not only phenomenally distinct from the “presence
of future-things,” i.e. from the impresence of expectation.43 A transparent
recollection (praesens de praeteritis) is also phenomenally distinct from the
clouded or occluded recollection (which is still praesens de praeteritis) that
gives rise to seeking in memory—and which Augustine discusses, aporetically,
in Confessions X.16–20.44 Similarly, the ‘presence of future-things’ that is ana-
39 Contrast the following interpretation of Conf. XI.31 with that presented in Teske 1983,
80–92.
40 I use the neologism ‘impresence’ to describe the problematic praesens-characters of
memoria as praesens de praeteritis, and expectatio as praesens de futuris, both for its echo
of ‘impression,’ which links memoria and expectatio to sensus-contuitus as praesens de
praesentibus, and since the Latinesque prefix ‘im-’ can at once carry the sense of the
English prefixes ‘in-’ and ‘un-,’ for instance: ‘inmixed,’ ‘unmixed.’ ‘Impresence’ signifies
a temporal experience of temporal inexistences on the analytics of praesens tempus in
XI.15.18–20. This will be elaborated upon and clarified on my return to the time-investiga-
tion, in Part III.
41 Per Moreau 1955, 240: “un espace de temps mobile.”
42 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: praesens de praeteritis.
43 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: praesens de futuris.
44 Cf. O’Daly 1993, 36–39.
lyzed in Confessions XI.27–28 (and revisited in XI.31) is a specific modality of

futural impresence. Such impresence in an enactive expectation (praesens de
futuris), as in Augustine’s pre-iteration of a memorized song,45 is phenomenally
distinct not only from recollection, but from a predictive expectation (which
is still praesens de futuris), and which Augustine discusses in Confessions
XI.18.24. It is by way of this last distinction, between enactive and predictive
expectation,46 that the radical difference in qualis between Augustine’s tem-
poral intentio in XI.28.37, and a preter-temporal mind’s praescientia in XI.31.41,
will become clear.
In Confessions XI.31.41, Augustine conjures “vast knowledge and fore-
knowledge” (grandi scientia et praescientia) in some sublime mind. While
a difference is suggested between such a mind’s shiftless comprehension of
‘past-things and future-things’ simpliciter, and Augustine’s co-transitive ‘pres-
ence of past-things’ and ‘presence of future-things’ in his recitation of a song,
the phrase “knowledge and foreknowledge” (scientia et praescientia) itself
signals a break in the qualis or ‘mode of constitution’ of a terrestrial, sense-
temporized animus and this cipher of a celestial, preter-temporized animus.
(‘Preter-temporized’ because, we will recall, this animus is introduced as
some creature “beyond times” (aliqua supra tempora), already in Confessions
XI.30.40.) Apart from the scio/nescio dialectic that activates and punctu-
ates the time-investigation in Confessions XI (see chapter 10), ‘knowledge’
(scientia) disappears from the book between Confessions XI.4.6 and XI.31.41.
Neither enactive nor predictive expectation is praescientia in the time-
investigation,47 and neither sensation nor memoration is scientia in the
time-investigation. Why is this?48
Augustine confesses to god at Confessions XI.4.6, still in his exordium to the
eternity-meditation: “Our knowledge (scientia nostra) is ignorance relative to
your knowledge.”49 Our scientia is here characterized against the static and
45 Aug. Conf. XI.28.38: canticum quod novi.

46 Augustine remarks a parallel distinction in memoria at Aug. Lib.arb. III.4.11: “You remem-
ber your past acts, but all that you remember were not your acts” (quae fecisti meministi,
nec tamen quae meministi omnia fecisti).
47 Cf. for instance Ov. Fas. I.537–8, where praescius signals ‘prophecy’: talibus ut dictis nos-
tros descendit in annos, | substitit in medio praescia lingua sono.
48 Cf. Rist 1994, 73: “As an adherent of the Platonic notion that what ‘really is’ is eternal
and unchanging, Augustine holds that there is something . . . unknowable about physical
objects in so far as they are changing.”
49 Aug. Conf. XI.4.6: scientia nostra scientiae tuae comparata ignorantia est.
128 chapter 5
absolute unicity of a divine eternity,50 but a previous reference to scientia in

book XI suggests a more immanent sense of all temporal scientia as ‘ignorance.’
Augustine writes at Confessions XI.2.2:
A long while now I have burned to meditate on your law [o god] and to
confess, in it, my knowledge and my inexperience . . . until [my] weakness
is consumed by [your] strength.
olim inardesco meditari in lege tua et in ea tibi confiteri scientiam et

imperitiam meam . . . quousque devoretur a fortitudine infirmitas. (XI.2.2)
The ‘until’ (quousque) here parallels the ‘until’ (donec)51 of formulations in, for
instance, Confessions I, X and XI;52 and in the Confessions, our ‘ignorance’ is
fundamentally characterized as imperitia, ‘inexperience,’ until death annihi-
lates the varieties of impresence and tendencies to impresence that co-consti-
tute sense-temporal presence.53
The most acute formulation of a temporal ‘inexperience’ in the Confessions
is perhaps this, which appears in a temptation-section of Confessions X:
So I appear to myself—perhaps I am wrong! For it is also a lamentable

darkness in which my capacity that is in me is unknown . . . and that
which is in [my soul] is for the most part concealed unless experience dis-
closes it—and no one should feel secure in this life.
50 Aug. Conf. XI.11.13: non . . . praeterire quicquam in aeterno, sed totum esse praesens;
XII.7.7: tu, domine . . . non es alias aliud et alias aliter, sed idipsum et idipsum et idipsum.
51 Cf. Arts 1927, 60–61: “The adverb quousque ‘how long,’ ‘to what time,’ is not found often
in Classical Latin. . . . In late Latin the word is used as a conjunction for dum or quoad, ‘so
long as,’ ‘until’ ”; 101: “In Augustine donec in the sense of ‘until’ by far surpasses dum and
quoad in frequency.”
52 Aug. Conf. I.1.1: inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te; X.5.7: et quod de me
nescio, tamdiu nescio, donec fiant tenebrae meae sicut meridies in vultu tuo; XI.29.39:
donec in te confluam purgatus et liquidus igne amoris tui.
53 Cf. Aug. Annot. 14: donec transeat ista mortalitas, et ad resurrectionem veniatur; Trin.
IV.18.24 (cit. O’Donnell 1992, III:301–302): promittitur autem nobis vita aeterna per veri-
tatem, a cuius perspicuitate rursus tantum distat fides nostra quantum ab aeternitate
mortalitas. . . . cum fides nostra videndo fiet veritas, tunc mortalitatem nostram commuta-
tam tenebit aeternitas.
ita mihi videor; forsitan fallar! sunt enim et istae plangendae tenebrae in
quibus me latet facultas mea quae in me est . . . et quod inest plerumque
occultum est, nisi experientia manifestetur, et nemo securus esse debet in
ista vita. (X.32.48)54
The insecurity that Augustine insists upon here, which is grounded—or rather,
ungrounded—by a temporal inexperience of the self (sum) as self-present (ego),
is futural. The self-obscurity or reflexive impresence that Augustine articulates
in this passage is forged in and calibrated to his problematic of temptation,
which is decisively futural.55 A certain, reflexive inexperience is a condition for
the experience of temptation—as, incidentally, for indecision.
But such inexperience, such reflexive impresence not only characterizes
futurity, though in expectation our sense of inexperience (and thus ‘igno-
rance’) is most acute. Oblivion also effects a sort of inexperience within
the immanent-infinite ‘space’ of memory;56 and more radically, memory is
grounded—or rather, again, ungrounded—by an original inexperience of our
life in utero and infancy.57 It is to this original inexperience that Augustine
devotes the first sections of the Confessions, sections which he closes by saying:
Thus this period of my life, o lord, of which I have no remembrance . . . it

vexes me to number it as a period in this life that I live in this world-age,
inasmuch as it is, in the darkness of my oblivion, like the months I passed
in my mother’s womb . . . I recall no trace of it.
54 Vid. Heidegger 1995, 216–17/2004, 160–61.

55 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.5.7: ego vero quibus temptationibus resistere valem quibusve non
valeam, nescio.
56 Oblivion is only one sense in which preterity or ‘past time’ is yet imperfect. For instance,
see Augustine’s remarks on the affectiones in recollection, at Conf. X.14. On which pas-
sage, Lyotard (2000, 30) writes: “The memory of a joy is not joyous, emotion is something
actual, nothing is retained from it but the tasteless occurrence. That the affective qual-
ity is lost is at least not lost.” And similarly, Heidegger (1995, 186–87/2004, 136) remarks:
“The manner in which the affections are had in the memoria is very different from the
manner in which they are had in current experience (aktuellen Erfahren), ‘cum patitur
eas’ . . . when I have them like this, I am not perturbed (‘perturbatur’) by their presence.”
57 O’Daly (1993, 39–41) also links up, as I do here, “the recitation or singing of a known
poem or hymn”—as at Conf. XI.28—with memoria and oblivio in book X and the infancy-
meditation in book I.
130 chapter 5
hanc ergo aetatem, domine, quam me vixisse non memini . . . piget me

adnumerare huic vitae meae quam vivo in hoc saeculo. quantum enim
attinet ad oblivionis meae tenebras, par illi est quam vixi in matris
utero . . . cuius nulla vestigia recolo. (I.6–7)
Thus, the presence-character of past-things (praesens de praeteritis) originates,

for us, in a lived ‘inexperience,’58 while oblivion later (and incessantly) inflects
memory with new loci of lived ‘inexperience’;59 the presence-character of
present-things (praesens de praesentibus) has in (or as) its depths a present-
reflexive ‘inexperience’ of drives, of desires, that affect sensation itself;60 and
‘inexperience’ per se is the formal condition for the presence-character of
future-things (praesens de futuris).61
Yet this transitive collocation of inexperiences and impresences conditions,
for Augustine, not a phenomenal void or darkness, but temporal praesens
and “this temporal light,”62 a praesens and a light which are yet not scientia as
memoration, and certainly not praescientia as expectation.63 It is precisely the
luminous co-presence of temporal impresences,64 and the acute experience of
58 Aug. Conf. I.6.10: eram enim et vivebam etiam tunc.

59 Aug. Conf. X.14.21: “When we forget a thing, we say ‘It did not enter my mind’ and
‘It slipped from my mind’ ” (cum obliviscimur, dicimus, ‘non fuit in animo’ et ‘elapsum
est animo’).
Thus Lyotard (2000, 17/1998, 35): “To go blank (avoir une absence) is what we say for a
lapse of memory, but what falls out into the three temporal instances (ce qui se détriple en
les instances temporelles) is the oblivion inherent to existence itself.”
60 Augustine links memorial and present-reflexive ‘inexperience’ at Aug. An.orig. IV.8.12:
vide igitur quam multa non praeterita, sed praesentia de natura nostra, nec tantum quod
ad corpus, verum etiam quod ad interiorem hominem pertinet ignoremus.
61 Cf. Aug. Fid. 8: Quia et praeterita quae iam non possunt videri, et futura quae adhuc non
possunt videri, et praesentia quae nunc possunt videri, omnia futura errant cum prae-
nuntiarentur, et nihil horum poterat tunc videri.
62 Aug. Conf. IX.8.17: hanc temporalem . . . lucem.
The connection in this passage between ‘flesh’ and ‘temporal light’ should be remarked:
Augustine writes that Monnica, his mother, “delivered me in her flesh so that I would
be born into this temporal light” (me parturivit et carne, ut in hanc temporalem . . . lucem
nascerer, IX.8.17).
63 Thus Lyotard (2000, 17/1998, 35), stressing the inversion of life/death valences he sees in
the Conf.: “Time itself, the time of living (temps des créatures), the time he calls created,
is . . . this permanent self-absence. . . . Past, present, future—as many modes of presence
(modes de présence) in which the lack of presence (manque de présence) is projected.”
64 Cf. Heidegger (1995, 188/2004, 138) on the aporia of oblivio in Conf. X: “This being-
absent (Abwesendsein) is grasped—and indeed, enactmentally—as non-presence
(Nichtdasein) . . . but for this, the being-absent has to be itself seen.”
temporal inexperiences, that inspires and drives the question of time in the
Confessions, because—to anticipate—the space of time is impresence.
5.3 Expectatio Is Never Praescientia (Conf. XI.31)
What then is the status of the “expectation of future-things” (expectatio futuro-

rum, XI.28.37)65 in the time-investigation, when ‘inexperience’ is the formal
condition for futurity?66 The enactive mode of expectatio that Augustine ana-
lyzes in Confessions XI.27–28 is cast into relief by his lament in XI.29.39: “I am
torn apart in times whose succession I do not know (quorum ordinem nescio).”67
This radical opacity of future-things is articulated immediately after
Augustine’s valorization of expectatio in XI.28.37–38, and this is because—to
again anticipate—future-times are constituted by motus omnis. For Augustine,
expectation promises an enactive mode of succession—the temporally pre-
quantifiable recitation of a song, and so forth—yet it is a radically dependent
mode of succession (see 13.5). It is thus by no means the form of succession, of
which Augustine says here—in the last paragraph of the time-investigation—
‘I do not know’ (nescio); for in the first paragraph of the time-investigation he
boldly states, ‘I know’ (scio), regarding this form of succession.68 It is rather the
succession of ‘future-things’ of which he says, nescio.
This dependency of expectatio in the time-investigation—and with it, the
sense of praescientia in Confessions XI.31.41—is further clarified by Augustine’s
analysis of expectatio in XI.18.23–24,69 where the presence-character of expec-
tatio is duplex:
(i) “I of course know this (scio), that we commonly premeditate (prae-

meditari) our future actions and that such premeditation is present,
but that the act we premeditate is-not-yet because it is future.”70
65 Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: sed tamen iam est in animo expectatio futurorum.
66 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: futura ergo nondum sunt, et si nondum sunt, non sunt, et si non
sunt, videri omnino non possunt.
67 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: ego in tempora dissilui quorum ordinem nescio.
68 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: fidenter tamen dico scire me quod, si nihil praeteriret, non esset
praeteritum tempus, et si nihil adveniret, non esset futurum tempus, et si nihil esset, non
esset praesens tempus.
69 And cf. Aug. Conf. X.8.13–14.
70 Aug. Conf. XI.18.23: illud sane scio, nos plerumque praemeditari futuras actiones nos-
tras eamque praemeditationem esse praesentem, actionem autem quam praemeditamur
nondum esse, quia futura est.
132 chapter 5
(ii) “In whatever mode [our] arcane presentiment of future-things

(arcana praesensio futurorum) may exist, nothing can be seen but
what is. But what is now is not future, but present. Thus when they
say that future-things are ‘seen,’ it is not the future-things, which are
not yet—that is, which are future-things—but perhaps it is their
causes or signs (causae vel signa) which are seen, and which already
are. To those who already see [such causes or signs], then, they are
not future-things but present-things, from which are predicted the
future-things that are imaged in the soul (animo concepta).”71
The presence-character of expectation, here, is thus either (i) praemeditatio

or (ii) praesensio (where Augustine may betray a Ciceronian influence).72
(i) Praemeditatio is a sense-imaginal or phantasmatic relation to what

is not-yet, and may never be, (desideratively) enacted, and
(ii) praesensio is a sense-imaginal or phantasmatic relation to what is
not-yet, and may never be, (mutively) effected.
71 Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: quoquo modo se itaque habeat arcana praesensio futurorum, videri
nisi quod est non potest. quod autem iam est, non futurum sed praesens est. cum ergo
videri dicuntur futura, non ipsa quae nondum sunt, id est quae futura sunt, sed eorum
causae vel signa forsitan videntur, quae iam sunt. ideo non futura sed praesentia sunt iam
videntibus, ex quibus futura praedicantur animo concepta.
Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: . . . ex quibus futura praedicantur animo concepta; XI.18.23: . . .
verba concepta ex imaginibus earum quae in animo velut vestigia per sensus praetereundo
fixerunt.
As I observe below, Augustine is still entangled in the ‘prophetic’ digression that com-
mences in Conf. XI.17.22 and closes—resolutely—in XI.19.25. The passage on praesensio,
and indeed, the word itself echoes with and is implicated in this momentary problematic:
I yet suggest that the enactive/predictive expectatio that Augustine discusses here is not
vitiated by this question of ‘prophecy.’ He insists on the praesens of what is ‘seen,’ for
enactive and predictive expectatio—and this eliminates praescientia as a possibility
for praemeditatio or praesensio in the time-investigation.
72 Neither Meijering (1979, 71) nor O’Donnell (1992, III:282) compares the below passages,
yet the links are not only lexical but thematic:
(i) Cic. Div. I.56.127: . . . reliquendum est homini, ut signis quibusdam consequen-
tia declarantibus futura praesentiat.
Non enim illa, quae futura sunt, subito existunt, sed . . . qui etsi causas ipsas
non cernunt, signa tamen causarum et notas cernunt.
(ii) Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: Quoquo modo se itaque habeat arcana praesensio futuro-
rum, videri nisi quod est non potest. . . . cum ergo videri dicuntur futura,
non ipsa quae nondum sunt, id est quae futura sunt, sed eorum causae vel
signa forsitan videntur, quae iam sunt.
These distinct modes of expectatio are alike imaginal, but their anticipation-
characters are not identical—and neither mode is characterized as praescien-
tia. To the contrary: Augustine is, in Confessions XI.17.22–18.24, in the process
of excluding the idea of a prophetic praescientia from the time-investigation
(see XI.19.25). And here,
(i) praemeditatio is not praescientia because our desires, wills and acts
cannot be fore-seen,73 and
(ii) praesensio is not praescientia because the contingencies of bodies
per se cannot be fore-seen.
That is to say, categorically:
Nothing can be seen but what is; but what is now is not future, but present.
videri nisi quod est non potest.74 quod autem iam est, non futurum sed
praesens est. (XI.18.24)
Thus, the very word praescientia in Confessions XI.31.41 subtly but sharply
dissevers Augustine’s cipher of a preter-temporal animus from the animus in
his time-investigation, for which neither enactive nor predictive expectatio is
praescientia.
In 13.5, I will clarify why Augustine’s mensural analyses in Confessions
XI.27–28 are devoted to enactive expectatio.75 But predictive expectatio is
no less relevant to Augustine’s time-concept as such, or to the interpreta-
tion of Confessions XI.31.41. And Augustine discusses predictive expectatio (≈
73 Cf. Aug. Enarr. 38.19: “You know what you are today—what you will be tomorrow, you do
not know . . . Wherever you turn, all is uncertain—only death is certain” (quid sis hodie,
scis; quid futurus sis crastino, nescis. . . . quocumque te verteris, incerta omnia: sola mors
certa).
74 Cf. Arts 1927, 79: “In Classical Latin videri is generally used in the sense of ‘seem.’
Sometimes it is found in the sense of ‘to be seen,’ often so in Lucretius, occasionally in
Cicero, Caesar, and Tacitus, but more often in late Latin. Videri appears frequently in the
sense of ‘to be seen’ in the Confessions: neque enim potest videri id quod non est, Conf. 11,
17. sed eorum causae vel signa forsitan videntur, quae iam sunt, Conf. (11, 18) four times.”
75 O’Daly (1981, 175–76) remarks that expectatio in Conf. XI.27–28 is enactive, but does not
develop it: “Augustine’s examples here in [XI.]27.36 and 28.37–8 are limited to anticipa-
tion of pre-meditated utterances or known songs: presumably, however, he would say that
we can likewise calculate the time of other future processes where anticipation is based
on . . . similar processes [which] have occurred in our past experience.”
134 chapter 5
p raesensio) in XI.18.24 by way of this exemplum: a sunrise.76 Not even this can
be foreseen, sensu stricto, at first light.77 Again, ‘nothing can be seen but what
is,’ and while the sun is, at first light—yet the sun’s rise is not-yet, at first light. It
is not the sun that “is future,” but its rise that “is future” (non sol futurus . . . sed
ortus eius, XI.18.24);78 that is to say, in this instance it is not the body, but its
position that is futural, that is a ‘future-thing.’ (This is a distinction of no mean
importance, since ‘time’—we will recall from 4.2—is that “by which we meas-
ure the movements of bodies” (XI.23.30).) Yet there is a skeptical implication
here, which Augustine does not elaborate on in Confessions XI.18.24, and which
echoes one of his earliest texts in an interesting way. This Cassiciacum text
helps to clarify, at once, the philosophical provenance of Augustine’s exem-
plum of a sunrise in Confessions XI.18.24,79 his appeal to a miraculous occur-
rence in XI.23.30, and the contrast between sensual expectatio in XI.28.37 and
insensate praescientia in XI.31.41.
In Confessions XI.23.30, Augustine cites a divine suspension of the sun in its
‘circuit’ at the request of an Israelite: “The sun halted, but time went on” (sol
stabat, sed tempus ibat, XI.23.30).80 This incident from Augustine’s scriptures,
which serves—“if the rumour is true”81—to exclude our foreseeing a sunrise,82
is obliquely anticipated by a purely philosophical trope in the Soliloquies.83
76 Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: loquatur mihi aliquod exemplum tanta rerum numerositas. intueor
auroram, oriturum solem praenuntio.
77 Cf. Cens. D.nat. 24 (in marg.): ante lucem, et sic diluculum, cum sole nondum orto iam
lucet.
78 Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: quod intueor, praesens est, quod praenuntio, futurum. non sol futu-
rus, qui iam est, sed ortus eius, qui nondum est.
79 Vid. Kahnert 2007.
80 Cf. the etymology of ‘solstice’ (solstitium) at Var. Ling. VI.2.8: “The solstitium,” Varro
opines, is so-called “because on that day the ‘sun’ appears ‘to halt’ ” (solstitium, quod
sol eo die sistere videbatur). There is also a suggestion of the sun ‘halting’ at Macr. Sat.
I.17.61: “When the sun reaches its summer stopping-point (solstitium facit), marking the
year’s longest day (longissimi diei) . . .”
81 Cf. Virg. Aen. III.551: si vera est fama; Aug. Conf. IV.6.11: si non fingitur.
82 Though in Conf. XI.23 it is made to serve, most immediately, to preclude an identification
of celestial motion with tempora.
83 For the substitution of a sacred for a secular reference, note that the phrase canti-
cum notissimum at Conf. XI.31.41 refers back to Ambrose’s hymn, Deus creator omnium
(XI.27.35), or to any “memorized song” (canticum quod novi, XI.28.38); but it also echoes
back to Augustine’s phrase, carmen notissimum, in reference to Virg. Aen. I.1, at Aug.
Rhyth. III.2.3: Attende ergo etiam in ista pervulgatissima: Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui
primus ab oris. Et ne longum faciamus, quia carmen notissimum est, ab hoc versu usque
ad quem volueris explora singulos.
Augustine opens his Soliloquies with a long hymn of praise84 in which it is god
by whom
the poles revolve, the stars fulfill their courses, the sun vivifies the day, the
moon tempers the night . . . through the months . . . through the years by
orderly successions . . . cycle after cycle by accomplished concurrences of
the course of the sun, and through the mighty orbs of times, as the stars
still recur to their first conjunctions, [so god] maintains, insofar as sen-
sible matter permits it, the mighty constancy of things . . . the thronging
course of circling world-ages!
rotantur poli, cursus suos sidera peragunt, sol exercet diem, luna tem-
perat noctem . . . per menses . . . per annos . . . et hiemis successionibus;
per lustra, perfectione cursus solaris; per magnos orbes, recursu in ortus
suos siderum, magnam rerum constantiam, quantum sensibilis materia
patitur, temporum ordinibus replicationibusque custodit . . . frenisque
circumeuntium saeculorum.85
Here the glory of ‘times’ is in their sublime order: succession manifests itself,
in the heavens, as repetition. Yet within several paragraphs, Augustine prob-
lematizes our most quotidian premeditations and presentiments, as well as a
late-antique science of the heavens he admired.86 Here in the Soliloquies, enac-
tive and predictive expectatio are alike rejected as modalities of praescientia:
Hagendahl (1967, 714–16) addresses Augustine’s “hostility” to secular erudition in the

Conf., and his use of poets (1967, 377–478), in some detail. Hagendahl (1967, 387) writes
that “Cicero’s practice in the dialogues of introducing literal quotations from poetry first
reappears in Seneca and then on a large scale in Lactantius, Jerome and Augustine. How
bold and new this attitude was in Christian prose, will be seen if we [observe that] . . . no
such quotations are to be found in Tertullian, Cyprian and Arnobius.”
84 Cf. Finaert 1939, 30: “Ses prédécesseurs, même païens, nous ont laissé des exemples de
lyrisme dans leurs hymnes: Lucrèce fait sur ce ton l’éloge d’Épicure (III, 3, etc.); Apulée
compose une invocation à Isis (Métam. 11, 25), dont un passage concernant l’ordre des
corps célestes semble avoir inspiré un développment des Soliloques, mais le rhéteur con-
verti met plus d’ampleur dans l’accumulation . . .”
85 Aug. Sol. I.1.4.
86 Cf. Aug. Conf. V.3–6: mente sua enim quaerunt ista et ingenio quod tu dedisti eis et multa
invenerunt et praenuntiaverunt ante multos annos defectus luminarium solis et lunae,
quo die, qua hora, quanta ex parte futuri essent, et non eos fefellit numerus. et ita factum
est ut praenuntiaverunt, et scripserunt regulas indagatas, et leguntur hodie atque ex eis
136 chapter 5
Aug. In view of the stars, what is less impressive than my supper?

Nevertheless, I do not know what I will later have for supper, but it is
not rash for me to profess that I know what sign [of the zodiac] the
moon will be in. . . . Still, I do not know whether god or some obscure
natural cause will suddenly alter the moon’s regular course—which, if
it occurs, will render all my anticipations false.
Ratio. And do you believe this could happen?
Aug. I do not believe it—but I am seeking what I can know, not what
I can believe. For all that we know we may perhaps validly be said
to ‘believe’—yet we can’t be said to ‘know’ all that we believe. . . . For
I have not spoken [in my opening hymn of] things I intellectively
grasped, but rather things I have collected from various places and
committed to memory and to which I yield as much faith as I can—but
it is different to know.
Aug. Nam in comparatione siderum, quid est mea coena vilius? et tamen
cras quid sim coenaturus ignoro; quo autem signo luna futura sit, non
impudenter me scire profiteer. . . . Ignoro autem utrum vel deus vel ali-
qua naturae occulta causa subito lunae ordinem cursumque commu-
tet: quod si acciderit, totum illud quod praesumpseram, falsum erit.
Ratio. Et credis hoc fieri posse?
Aug. Non credo. Sed ego quid sciam quaero, non quid credam. Omne
autem quod scimus, recte fortasse etiam credere dicimur; at non
omne quod credimus, etiam scire. . . . Dixi enim non quae intellectu
comprehendi, sed quae undecumque collecta memoriae mandavi, et
quibus accommodavi quantam potui fidem: scire autem aliud est.87
Augustine refers here to a derangement of the lunar circuit,88 and in

Confessions XI to a suspension of the solar circuit. Moreover, the contingency
of ‘some obscure natural cause’ (aliqua naturae occulta causa) altering the
sun’s circuit is not referred to in the Confessions. In the later text a canoni-
cal myth, unknown to Augustine when he composed the Soliloquies, serves
raenuntiatur quo anno et quo mense anni et quo die mensis et qua hora diei et quota
p
parte luminis sui defectura sit luna vel sol: et ita fiet ut praenuntiatur.
87 Aug. Sol. I.3.8–4.9.
88 This is a possibility that Seneca appears to reject, at Sen. Nat.quaest. VII.10.2: “The lunar
orbit (lunaris . . . orbita), and the movements of the other bodies travelling above the
moon (supra lunam), is invariable (irrevocabilis est).” The moon in its orbit, Seneca con-
tinues, never “hesitates or halts, nor does it give us any indication of an obstacle delaying
it (nec dat ullam nobis suspicionem obiectae sibi morae).”
to dis-identify celestial movement and ‘times,’ and (indirectly) to dis-identify

predictive expectatio and praescientia.89 Yet in both texts, neither enactive
expectatio (what I will have for supper, which song I will recite) nor predictive
expectatio (whether orbits will proceed as calculated, that the sun will rise)
is praescientia.90 Expectatio in the time-investigation is never praescientia, for
nothing can be seen but what is praesens in the most rigorous sense of praesens
tempus (see 13.1).
To return, with this finding, to Confessions XI.31.41: Augustine here ascribes
to some animus a scientia and praescientia of “whatever is past and whatever
is to come in future world-ages” seemingly in the same manner (sicut) in which
he has recollected and recited a song in the time-investigation. But the very
unicity or immediacy of presence in this mind of ‘whatever is past and whatever
is to come,’ and the characterization of this unicity as scientia, and even more
as praescientia, suggest—and this is insisted on in Confessions XII—that this
mind’s intention is not dilation, that is to say, is essentially extrinsic to the time-
analyses in Confessions XI.14–29.
And in sum: what Augustine appears to conjure as a sublime, meta-temporal
intention in Confessions XI.31.41 is neither temporal nor an intention. Intentio is,
per definitionem, co-constituted by ‘impresence,’ and in such a sublime mind
impresence has been (speculatively) negated. Most decisively, the inexperience
that is the formal condition of futurity—in enactive and predictive expectation
alike—is subtly negated in Confessions XI.31.41. While appearing to infinitize
his analyses in Confessions XI.27–28, then, Augustine has rather initiated the
process of counter-temporal speculation that he elaborates in book XII.
5.4 A Discarnate Mind and a Dilation of the Senses (Conf. XI.31)
Because Confessions XI.31.41 introduces the type of counter-temporal specula-

tion that dominates in book XII, it should not be considered part of the time-
investigation proper in book XI. Yet as I have previously indicated, it is because
of Augustine’s speculative, counter-temporal gesture here that a certain
sensualizing of distentio is discernible in Confessions XI.31.41. Unlike god, as
89 Here I take issue with the estimable Pierre Duhem (1965 VII:366/1985, 297 tr. mod.),
who overreaches Augustine’s exemplum: “Saint Augustine . . . derived from the miracle of
Joshua a reason to deny the whole Peripatetic theory of time (pour rejeter entièrement la
théorie péripatéticienne du temps) and to deny that time has any existence outside our
soul (pour nier que le temps existât hors de notre esprit).”
90 What the enactive analyses in Conf. XI.27–28 seek to establish is not at all that expectatio
is praescientia, but that distentio is capable of demarcating a veracious space of time.
138 chapter 5
Augustine states here, but also unlike the sublime animus he has introduced
in XI.30–31,91 for “one singing well-known songs or hearing a well-known
song, his affections are varied and his senses dilated”—variatur affectus sen-
susque distenditur—“in expectation of future sounds and memoration of past
sounds.”92 What is Augustine’s much-cited ‘distentio animi’ in this sentence?
The distentio that has appeared, in all previous interpretations, to localize
time ‘in the soul’—or on most interpretations, ‘in the mind’—is here intro-
duced to the sensus of a vivified flesh. Distentio here is an ‘outness,’ a dilation
of the senses.93 Thus, the last formulation of ‘distentio animi’ in Confessions XI
delivers, very precisely, a ‘distentio sensuum.’94 And note the intimate link-
age of this dilation of the senses to retention-memoria and protention-
expectatio—and thus to the vocative acts that concern Augustine in Confessions
91 Here and hereafter I write in radical opposition to R.J. Teske on the ‘distentio sensuum’ in
Conf. XI.31. Teske (1983, 91) suggests this: “In the context ‘sensus distenditur’ seems to refer
to the awareness of ‘iste animus’ . . . Hence, this wondrous creaturely mind [sc. the caelum
intellectuale], if there is such, is one whose sensory awareness is distended by memory of
the past and expectation of the future.” This suggestion—as Parts I and II should demon-
strate—is breathtakingly misdirected.
92 For a similar constellation of variare-affectio-distentio, cf. Aug. Tract. 2.2: “Not only do
bodies vary as to their qualities—by being born, by increasing, by weakening, by dying—
but . . . souls themselves through the feelings of different wills are dilated and divided”
(non solum corpora variari per qualitates, nascendo, crescendo, deficiendo, moriendo,
sed . . . ipsas animas per affectum diversarum voluntatum distendi atque discindi).
93 Pace a “very tentative hypothesis” of Teske’s (1983, 83–84) wherein the caelum intellec-
tuale—to prevent Augustine’s time-concept in Conf. XI from becoming “utterly subjec-
tive”—is interpreted as a “world-soul with which individual souls are identical,” and thus:
“when [Augustine] speaks of time as a distentio animi, as a distention of the mind-soul, he
is . . . still thinking . . . of individual souls being one with the world-soul . . . If this hypoth-
esis is correct”—which it is not—“then . . . time as a distention of mind-soul is ‘un temps
des choses,’ an objective and not merely a subjective time.”
I concur with Teske that Augustine’s distentio is ‘un temps de choses,’ but could not
more strongly contest the drift of his other suggestions: they at once introduce into
Conf. XI and XII much that is not there, and obscure all that is most illuminating in what
is there.
94 Thus all willed bodily movements have the same originary structure as the recitation of a
(enunciatively pre-quantifiable) song in Conf. XI.27–28. As some indication of this, cf. for
instance Aug. Gen.litt. VII.17.23–18.24: . . . vel sentiendi [≈ sensus-contuitus], vel movendi
membra [≈ expectatio], vel motus corporis reminiscendi [≈ memoria]. This phrase—and
indeed, these paragraphs as a whole—establish the sensualist conditions of enactive dis-
tentio outside of recitation. We see the same at any number of points, in Aug. Rhyth.
XI.27–28.95 It is because of this dilation of the senses that one can transpose
the impresence of protention-expectatio to retention-memoria; it is because of
this dilation of the senses that the sense-imagistic ‘affections’ Augustine intro-
duces in XI.27.35–36 possibilize veracious temporal mensuration.96
All references to distentio, memoria and expectatio in Confessions XI.14–29
should be interpreted, in part, in the light of this final, sensualized distentio
in book XI. Thus, in future, it should be impossible to refer to temporal dis-
tentio in Augustine as solely a dilation ‘of the mind.’ Rather, as a dilation of
the soul, the distentio of Confessions XI is manifestly (and incommutably) a
dilation of the senses. That is, the originary ‘lapse’ or ‘space of time’ (mora tem-
poris, spatium temporis) that Augustine investigates in Confessions XI is itself a
quasi-spatialization of sensus,97 where sensus—here, as in City of God against
the Pagans XI98—has a duplicitous valence with the present-temporal sensu-
ous and the present-temporal intellective potencies of the soul, since temporal
intellectus is, for Augustine, incommutably linked to temporizing sensus.
It is thus with a ‘distentio sensuum’—and a concomitant variance of sense-
imagistic ‘affections’—that Augustine closes Confessions XI. But this seemingly
revisionist formulation of his term distentio—i.e. ‘distentio sensuum’—has
not only been anticipated by a sudden prominence of sensus in XI.27.35–3699
(and with it, of sense-imagistic affections). The ‘distentio sensuum’ of XI.31.41
is also anticipated by these sentences in Confessions IV:
95 Cf. Aug. Serm. 198.2: Vos certe cantavistis, et adhuc divini cantici sonus recens est in auri-
bus vestris: “salva nos, domine deus noster.”
96 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: in te, inquam, tempora metior. affectionem quam res praetereuntes
in te faciunt et, cum illae praeterierint, manet, ipsam metior praesentem, non ea quae
praeterierunt ut fieret; ipsam metior, cum tempora metior.
97 This quasi-spatiality can be traced up Conf. X.8–27, of which O’Daly (1993, 155–56) writes:
“All of [Augustine’s] metaphors are spatial, for a place that is ‘no place.’ ” The same could
be said of the time-investigation, in which a spatium temporis is at issue.
98 Aug. Civ. XI.3: nam si ea sciri possunt testibus nobis, quae remota non sunt a sensibus
nostris, sive interioribus sive etiam exterioribus (unde et praesentia nuncupantur, quod ita
ea dicimus esse prae sensibus, sicut prae oculis quae praesto sunt oculis): profecto ea, quae
remota sunt a sensibus nostris, quoniam nostro testimonio scire non possumus, de his
alios testes requirimus eisque credimus, a quorum sensibus remota esse vel fuisse non
credimus. sicut ergo de visibilibus, quae non vidimus, eis credimus, qui viderunt, atque
ita de ceteris, quae ad suum quemque sensum corporis pertinent: ita de his, quae animo
ac mente sentiuntur (quia et ipse rectissime dicitur sensus, unde et sententia vocabulum
accepit), hoc est de invisibilibus quae a nostro sensu interiore remota sunt, his nos oportet
credere.
99 Sensus-sentire appears 4× in Conf. XI.27.35, and only 5× in XI.14–26 (of 8× in XI.1–26).
140 chapter 5
Times are not vacant or indifferent in their rolling successions through our
senses: they effect singular operations in the soul. Look: times appeared
and passed from day to day, and by appearing and passing they dissemi-
nated in me other hopes, and other memories.
non vacant tempora nec otiose volvuntur per sensus nostros: faciunt
in animo mira opera. ecce veniebant et praeteribant de die in diem, et
veniendo et praetereundo inserebant mihi spes alias et alias memorias.
(IV.8.13)
Non vacant tempora: this is a basic observation. It verges on tautology: times

effect changes.100 (Augustine simply writes in Confessions III: “Times are not
alike . . . because they are times.”)101 Yet in the context of a sublime animus
in Confessions XI.31.41, and against the backcloth of seven centuries of subjec-
tivist interpretations of Augustine’s time-concept, it is not senseless to ask:
Why are ‘times not vacant’? Why are ‘times not indifferent’? And why are there
‘times’?
There is nothing in Confessions IV.8.13 that conflicts with, or cannot be dis-
cerned in, the time-investigation in book XI. The works (opera) of times are in
the soul (in animo), and are not indifferent (nec otiose), because the transit from
futurity to preterity is through our senses (per sensus nostros). The r evolutions of
times work changes in us because things constitute these revolutions, and things
are sensed. It is per sensus in Confessions IV.8.13—and in XI.31.41, through a
‘distentio sensuum’—that memory and hope (spes ≈ expectatio), as transitive
impresences, illuminate the incessant dis-identity of praesens tempus and prae-
sens tempus (i.e. succession). And it is per sensus that the distinct and transi-
tive impresences of memory and hope are altered. For Augustine, there is no
memoria divorced from sensus, and there is no spes-expectatio divorced from
sensus. In Confessions XI.29.39, Augustine laments that he lives “in times” (in
tempora); and in Confessions IV.8.13, “times (tempora) are not vacant” because
times are sensed.
Thus, with the introduction of a preter-temporal scientia and praescientia in
the fantastical animus of Confessions XI.31.41, Augustine has subtly introduced
100 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. V.1276: “So rolling time alters the seasons of things . . .” (sic volvenda
aetas commutat tempora rerum); Virg. Aen. III.415: “Such vast change can length of time
effect . . .” (tantum aevi longinqua valet mutare vetustas).
But cf. also Aug. Conf. VI.11.20: “Times [or ‘seasons’] passed and I delayed to convert to
the lord . . .” (transibant tempora et tardabam converti ad dominum).
101 Aug. Conf. III.7.13: sed tempora . . . non pariter eunt; tempora enim sunt.
an insensate animus, and with it, a discarnate scientia and praescientia at the
last horizon of book XI. Yet because of this process, he has also sensualized
the technical term distentio that he forged in the time-investigation. This recoil
is decisive for my interpretation of Confessions XII. It is Augustine’s cipher of
a discarnate mind (mens) that will lead us back, in Part II—quite rigorously—
from a hyper-heavenly creature to the fundamental sense of anima-animus
as the life of a body (vitam corporis, X.40.65) in Confessions X, and thereafter,
in the time-investigation of Confessions XI.
While axiologically and speculatively, the preter-temporal caelum intellec-
tuale of book XII shares with the hyper-temporal anima humana of book XI a
condition of original mutability—it is a creatura, it has originated102—what it
shares with the divine aeternitas, in contradistinction to the anima humana, is
its fleshlessness. In his ultimate description of distentio in Confessions XI, varia-
tur affectus sensusque distenditur (XI.31.41), Augustine has anticipated not only
the speculative condition of time which the caelum intellectuale will indirectly
clarify in book XII—i.e. a dilation of the sensation of the flesh (sensu carnis,
IV.10.15); but the speculative condition of time which the materia informis will
indirectly clarify—i.e. a variance of affections (variatur affectus, XI.31.41) that
is logically dependent upon a variance of motions in space (varietate motio-
num, XII.11.14). All such variance—and as a result, all dilation—is negated of
god in XI.31.41, to whom Augustine lifts up this praise:
Thus as you, in the commencement, knew heaven and earth without any
variance in your knowledge, so consequently, in the commencement, you
conditioned heaven and earth without any dilation of your act.
sicut ergo nosti in principio caelum et terram sine varietate notitiae

tuae, ita fecisti in principio caelum et terram sine distentione actionis tuae.
(XI.31.41)103
In Part II, as we proceed through Confessions XII (with recourse to Confessions

X), we will see the human soul’s inhesion or inherence in the flesh as a condi-
tion for dimensive time (tempus) that emerges relative to Augustine’s caelum
102 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.15.19, where the hyper-heavenly “is not without origin, for it was fac-
tured” (non sine initio, facta est).
103 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.15.18: deus . . . noster aeternus est. item quod mihi dicit in aurem inte-
riorem, expectatio rerum venturarum fit contuitus, cum venerint, idemque contuitus fit
memoria, cum praeterierint. omnis porro intentio quae ita variatur mutabilis est, et omne
mutabile aeternum non est: deus autem noster aeternus est.
142 chapter 5
caeli, and then see a variance of corporeal ‘forms’ and ‘motions’ as the condi-
tion of mutive times (tempora) that emerges relative to Augustine’s materia
informis. Because this caelum intellectuale is discarnate, and—as Augustine
stresses in book XII—devotes all its love to, and receives all its pleasure
from, a static contemplation of the eternal god, this creature—and in this,104
it is identical to the eternal god—suffers no variance in its knowledge and no
dilation of its act.105
104 This is the sense of Augustine’s difficult question at Conf. XII.15.22: “Is not this house of
god indeed not co-eternal with god, and yet according to its own mode or measure eternal
in the heavens?” (estne ista domus dei, non quidem deo coaeterna sed tamen secundum
modum suum aeterna in caelis?).
105 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. XII.11.12 on the caelum intellectuale (nulla vice variatur nec
in tempora ulla distenditur), which echoes the just-quoted formulation of god at Conf.
XI.31.41 (sine varietate notitiae tuae . . . sine distentione actionis tuae).
Part two
Time Is Illuminated by Timelessness
∵
chapter 6
What Is and Is Not in Question in Confessions XII
“This vault of heaven which I see (video),” writes Augustine, is the luminous
upper tract of a “corporeal totality”—namely, this “gorgeous world”1—which is
“not in every place a totality.”2 But it is not the sky’s “vast body,”3 nor indeed the
world, that concerns him when he takes up the figure of a caelum intellectuale.4
To the contrary, Augustine asks in the proem to Confessions XII: “Where is the
heaven we do not perceive (non cernimus)?”5
The cernere that Augustine negatives here, apropos of the hyper-heavenly
(‘the heaven we do not perceive’), is importantly broader than the videre that
precedes it (‘this heaven which I see’). This videre denotes a single, determinate
sense, namely vision;6 whereas Augustine’s negatived cernere indicates not
only our constellation of carnal senses (vision, audition, taction, etc.)—prae-
sens as sensus-contuitus—but the ‘inward’ senses of memorial discrimination
1 Aug. Conf. XII.4.4: speciosum mundum.

But Augustine here, and generally in Conf. XII, intends a duplex sense of ‘gorgeous’ and
‘determinate’ or ‘intricate’ with speciosus, since the world originated from a materiality that
lacked all determination or shape (sine specie feceras, XII.4.4) as well as all beauty. Solignac
(1962, 598–99) also notes this bivalence.
Cf. Conf. XII.2.2: hoc . . . totum corporeum . . . cepit speciem pulchram in novissimis, cuius
fundus est terra nostra; XII.4.4: minus . . . speciosa sunt pro suo gradu infimo quam cetera
superiora perlucida et luculenta omnia; XII.12.15: aqua speciosa et quidquid deinceps in con-
stitutione huius mundi.
And see, for instance, Sen. Nat.quaest. VII.24.3: “in this most-vast and most-beautiful
body” (in hoc maximo et pulcherrimo corpore).
2 I.e., is partes extra partes. Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.2.2: hoc caelum quod video . . . hoc enim totum
corporeum non ubique totum.
3 Aug. Conf. XII.2.2: magnum corpus.
But also cf. Conf. XII.8.8: “this corporeal heaven is very marvelous” (valde . . . mirabile hoc
caelum corporeum).
4 Cf. Pépin 1953, 217–20.
5 Aug. Conf. XII.2.2: ubi est caelum quod non cernimus?
The following cernere-videre distinction is, I believe, valid; but admittedly, in his first clear
reference to the caelum caeli in the Conf. (cf. O’Donnell 1992, II:402–403), Augustine uses
the terms indistinctly. At Conf. VII.5.7, he writes of that “totality of creation . . . we can per-
ceive” (universam creaturam . . . cernere possumus) and then of a “firmament of heaven, all
the angels” (firmamentum caeli . . . et omnes angelos) that “we do not see” (non videmus).
6 Recall, here, Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: “Nothing can be seen (videri) but what is . . . present.”

146 chapter 6
and imaginal expectation.7 I have previously referred to the problematic sus-

pension of immanence that Augustine’s concept of the hyper-heavenly will
require (see chapter 5); he introduces its difficulty, here, by referring to his new
confessive desideratum8 as “I do not know what mode of heaven” (nescio quale
caelum, XII.2.2).9
6.1 Time and the Prophetic ‘Letter’
Augustine appeals to scripture10 for his question in a way that he did not when
he asked, ‘What is time?’ in Confessions XI. This is because, unlike time, he
derives the justification for his cipher of a caelum intellectuale—i.e. his topic—
from a phrase in the Psalms.11 Similarly, Augustine’s materia informis—or as
he observes in another Genesis commentary, what “the Greeks call Chaos,”12 a
concept that echoes back to Hesiod—is suggested to him by an abyssal image
7 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: quis deinde sic acutum cernat animo, ut sine labore magno
dinoscere valeat quomodo sit prior sonus quam cantus; X.11.18: quocirca invenimus nihil
esse aliud discere ista quorum non per sensus haurimus imagines, sed sine imaginibus,
sicuti sunt, per se ipsa intus cernimus.
8 As at Aug. Conf. XI.1–2 (affectum meum excito in te; vide . . . unde sit desiderium meum),
the indigence of desire opens Conf. XII.1.1: “My heart, o lord, is highly anxious in this indi-
gence of my life” (multa satagit cor meum, domine, in hac inopia vitae meae).
9 Cf. Aug. Serm. 319.3: in quod coelum coeli? quis comprehendit?
10 And, it should be recalled, to a vetus Latina translation of scripture—not the Septuagint,
much less a Hebrew text. It is instructive to follow M. Alexandre’s (1988, 65–92) review of
textual and exegetical modulations on Genesis 1.1–3, from the Septuagint to vetus Latina
translations (and Jerome’s Vulgate), including a number of references to Augustine.
11 Aug. Conf. XII.2.2: “But where is that heaven of heavens, o lord, of which we hear in the
words of the psalm, ‘The heaven of heavens are the lord’s, but the earth he has given to
the children of men’? Where is the heaven we do not perceive, relative to which all this
that we perceive is but ‘earth’?” (sed ubi est caelum caeli, domine, de quo audivimus in
voce psalmi: “caelum caeli domino, terram autem dedit filiis hominum”? ubi est caelum
quod non cernimus, cui ‘terra’ est hoc omne quod cernimus?).
Similarly in Conf. XII.3.3, Augustine’s question of the materia informis—which, like
the caelum intellectualis, has its Greco-Roman philosophical and poetic precedents—
is directly occasioned by Genesis 1.2: “And surely this earth was invisible and formless”
(et nimirum haec terra erat invisibilis et incomposita).
12 Aug. Gen.c.Man. I.5.9: Primo ergo materia facta est confusa et informis, unde omnia fie-
rent quae distincta atque formata sunt, quod credo a Graecis χάος appellari.
What Is and Is Not in Question in Confessions XII 147
(or anti-image) in Genesis 1.13 Augustine is nevertheless unconcerned with the

surface of his scriptures,14 his church’s “old writings,”15 and it is by way of a new
analysis of the quasi-hermeneutical, essentially philosophical speculations16
in book XII—with recourse to book X—that Augustine’s sensualist time-con-
cept in Confessions XI can be recovered in Part III.
This is the basis of all that follows in Part II: Augustine’s concern in
Confessions XII is with “what may be true with regard to the [original] con-
ditioning of creatures,” and not with “what Moses . . . intended” in Genesis.17
This is a deep-cutting methodological caveat, and its effect is to marginalize—
in book XII, as in books X and XI18—the prophetic-dogmatic ‘letter’ of
Augustine’s scriptures. And recall: it is the bishop Faustus’ inability to suspend
or subtlize (subtiliter explicare, V.7.12) the ‘letter’ of the Manichaeans’ scrip-
tures in Carthage, that disabuses Augustine of the notion of Mani’s inspiration
in Confessions V;19 while it is precisely a suspension of the ‘letter’ of Catholic
13 Aug. Conf. XII.3.3: et nimirum haec terra erat invisibilis et incomposita, et nescio qua
profunditas abyssi, super quam non erat lux quia nulla species erat illi, unde iussisti ut
scriberetur quod “tenebrae erant super abyssum.”
14 Aug. Conf. XII.10.10: credidi libris tuis, et verba eorum arcana valde; XII.14.17: mira
profunditas eloquiorum tuorum, quorum ecce ante nos superficies.
Cf. Solignac 1973, 158–59: “ ‘Audiam et intellegam quomodo in principio fecisti caelum
et terram’ ([Conf.] XI, 3, 5) . . . ces deux verbs, à l’optatif, expriment toute la démarche dia-
lectique de l’intellectus fidei. Augustin veut écouter l’Écriture et la comprendre. Le terme
de la compréhension n’est pas cependant le texte mais la vérité qu’il exprime . . .”
15 Aug. Conf. VI.4.6: gaudebam etiam quod vetera scripta legis et prophetarum iam non illo
oculo mihi legenda proponerentur quo antea videbantur absurda.
16 Cf. O’Donnell 1992, III:315, on Augustine’s caveat lector at Conf. XII.13.16, “this is the sense
I have in the mean time” (hoc interim sentio); for which, cf. Conf. XI.17.22: “I seek . . . I do
not assert” (quaero . . . non adfirmo).
17 Aug. Conf. XII.23.32: aliter enim quaerimus de creaturae conditione quid verum sit, aliter
autem quid in his verbis Moyses . . . intellegere lectorem auditoremque voluerit.
18 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.20.29, apropos of Adam’s lapse and our reminiscence of a “life of bliss”
(beata vita); XI.19.25, apropos of the prophets’ mode of foresight into “things which are
future” (quae futura sunt).
19 Aug. Conf. V.7.12: . . . quae mihi eum, quod utique cupiebam, conlatis numerorum rationi-
bus quas alibi ego legeram, utrum potius ita essent ut Manichaei libris continebantur, an
certe vel par etiam inde ratio redderetur, subtiliter explicare posse iam non arbitrabar.
The decisive contrast is between Faustus’ failure to subtlize (i.e. rationalize) the
Manichaeans’ scriptures at Conf. V.7.12, and the commanding effect of Ambrose’s spiritual
(i.e. philosophical) interpretation of the Catholics’ scriptures at Conf. V.14.24 (et pass.),
though this is infrequently—if ever—noted in the literature. O’Donnell (1992, II:302–
148 chapter 6
scripture that attracts Augustine to the Church in Milan, once he becomes an

auditor of the bishop Ambrose.20
It is also this suspension of the prophetic ‘letter’ that helps to resolve—
so I suggest—the vexed question of the unity of the Confessions. For in the
Recensions, Augustine writes that Confessions I to X treat his person, his life,
while Confessions XI to XIII treat holy writ (see 3.1–2).21 And so it is, in fact.
And it is the technique of ‘spiritual’ or philosophical exegesis in books XI and
XII, and ‘figural’ or allegorical exegesis in book XIII, that constitutes the link—
and that perfects the arc—from Augustine’s concessions in books I to X, to
his commentaries in books XI to XIII. For Augustine, philosophical exegesis
is the noblest possible result of his baptism, in Confessions IX, at the hands
of Ambrose;22 and then of his instalment, alluded to in Confessions X, as a
dispenser of the sacred word and sacraments.23 Likewise, for Augustine—for
whom ‘conversion’ is, per definitionem, a return to the static and effulgent,
divine “commencement” (principium, XI.8.10)24—this work, the Confessions,
that opens with his meditation on the immemorial primordia of a boy-child
in Numidia, is perfected by his meditation on the immemorial primordia of
all things.
303) is unconcerned with, or unaware of, this progression from Faustus’ (Manichaean)
literalism to Ambrose’s (Catholic) allegorism; yet the Conf. hinge no less essentially upon
this than upon the (long-overworked) Neoplatonic translations in Conf. VII. In short: if
Ambrose had interpreted the Catholic scriptures with the same unstudied literalism as
Faustus interpreted the Manichaean scriptures, there is no narrative reason whatever
to imagine that Augustine would have submitted to a Catholic baptism and the rule of
Ambrose’s church.
20 Cf. Aug. Conf. V.14.24; VI.4.6; VI.5.8.
21 Aug. Retr. II.6.1: A primo usque ad decimum de me scripsi sunt, in tribus ceteris de scrip-
turis sanctis.
22 Cf. O’Donnell 1992, I:xxviii: “The central decision [Augustine] makes in the period nar-
rated in the Confessions is, not to believe the doctrines of the Catholic Christians (that
is important, but preliminary), but to present himself for cult initiation . . . His decision to
seek that initiation, taken provisionally in August 386, [was] carried out on the night of
24–5 April 387 [i.e. with his baptism in Milan].”
23 Cf. Aug. Conf. IX.5.13–6.14; X.43.70; XI.2.2.
24 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.8.10: ipsum est verbum tuum, quod et principium est, quia et loquitur
nobis. . . . et ideo principium, quia, nisi maneret cum erraremus, non esset quo rediremus.
cum autem redimus ab errore, cognoscendo utique redimus; ut autem cognoscamus,
docet nos, quia principium est et loquitur nobis.
6.2 How Timelessness Will Illuminate Time
Augustine’s ‘spiritual’ exegesis in Confessions XI and XII is, as song (see 3.5), an
instance of philosophical exegesis—i.e. ‘rational’ exegesis—that puts him in
line with Platonic and Stoic interpreters of the pagan poets, with Philo Judaeus’
interpretations of the Hebrew scriptures,25 and so on.26 (Immanuel Kant will
reactivate this mode of scriptural exegesis—much altered, of course—in his
1786 opuscule, “Conjectural Beginning of Human History.”)27 Thus, predict-
ably, Augustine’s caelum intellectuale echoes Middle Platonic and Neoplatonic
motifs,28 while his delineation of a materia informis echoes Aristotle and
Cicero (inter alia),29 and likely also the Neoplatonists.30
All this notwithstanding, an introductory comment from Heidegger’s 1921
lecture-course on Confessions X serves well to introduce Part II, since I will, on
the whole, exclude questions of philosophical influence from consideration:
The Christianity into which Augustine emerges is already . . . permeated

by what is Greek, and . . . what is Greek in Neo-Platonism has already
been subjected to a ‘Hellenization’ and Orientalization, if not also—as
seems very likely to me—to a Christianization. We want to gain access
25 Cf. Aug. C.Faust. XII.39 (cit. Runia 1993, 322): vidit hoc Philo quidam, vir liberaliter erudi-
tissimus unus illorum, cuius eloquium Graeci Platoni aequare non dubitant, et conatus est
aliqua interpretari non ad Christum intellegendum, in quem non crediderat . . .
D.T. Runia (1993, 320–30; 1995, 1–7) concurs with Altaner, and argues that Augustine
knew Philo in Latin translation, discrediting Courcelle’s counter-proposal, which puts
Ambrose between Philo and Augustine. What is more, Runia (1993, 325–26) argues
that the Philonic influence is particularly strong in Conf. XI–XIII: “In books 11–13 of the
Confessions . . . Philonic themes are unquestionably brought forward. . . . This evidence
proves beyond doubt that Augustine had read the first chapters of [Philo’s Quaestiones et
Solutiones in Genesim], no doubt in the Old Latin translation. . . . The most significant debt
that Augustine has to Philo in his interpretation of the creation account lies in the theory
of the double creation, of which the theme of the caelum caeli is a special part.”
26 For a compact table of interpretations of the ‘heaven and earth’ in Genesis 1.2, from Philo
Judaeus to Augustine: Alexandre 1988, 75–76.
27 Vid. Kant 2007.
28 Cf. Pépin 1953; Van Riel 2007.
29 Cf. for instance, Cic. Nat.deor. III.39.92.
30 Duhem 1959, II:447: “La notion péripatéticienne de matière première, éternelle et néces-
saire, profondément altérée par Plotin, a dépouillé, entre les mains de Saint Augustin, ses
caractères essentiellement païens; elle a changé au point de ressembler à ce chaos, à ce
bohou que Dieu, selon la Genèse, créa au commencement.”
150 chapter 6
to sense-complexes (Sinnzusammenhängen) which are precisely covered

over by such formulations of the problem.31
And the initial ‘sense-complex’ that concerns us in Part II, is this: how
Augustine’s development of his concept of the caelum intellectuale, and specif-
ically, how the (speculative) fleshlessness of this hyper-heavenly, derives from
and elucidates the sensuous character of distentio animi in book XI.
This involves and will lead us into the further questions: What is the duplici-
tous concept of praesens for what Lyotard aptly calls a “soul-flesh” (âme-chair)
or “soul-body” (âme-corps) in Augustine’s Confessions?32 And how is this duplic-
ity of praesens at the root of Augustine’s time-investigation in book XI? In clari-
fying these questions, we will turn repeatedly to Confessions X, taking another
comment of Heidegger’s as a guide-word into ‘duplicity’ in the Confessions:
Augustine’s notion of the in me or intus (‘within’) is not discarnate,33 i.e. is in
no sense a proto-Cartesian res cogitans,34 and indeed, is not strictly a ‘within’
(intus).35 To establish this last point, I also provide a brief analysis of spatial
distentio—an ‘outness’ of the ‘soul-flesh’ in Augustine’s Epistle 137—at the end
31 Heidegger 1995, 171–72/2004, 123 (tr. mod.).

For some indication, relative to Conf. XII, of the hybridization and confusion that
Heidegger indicates here, cf. O’Donnell’s comment on Augustine’s phrase at Conf.
XII.15.20, quod inluminat et quod inluminatur. O’Donnell (1992, III:319) writes this:
[The formulation is] Plotinian ([cf. Enn.] 5.3.8.21–23, the One seen by the Nous, while
[Gibb and Montgomery] think of Enn. 4.3.17.13–14, φῶς ἐκ φωτός,—which of course is
also the exact wording of the Nicene Creed).
32 Lyotard 2000, 9, 50/1998, 26, 74.
Cf. Aug. Enarr. 37.8.11: Ubi ergo est totus homo, anima et caro est.
33 Pace, for instance, Moreau 1955, 239: “La ‘mémoire’ est une puissance de l’âme admirable,
parce qu’elle transcende et spiritualise l’espace, en conférant aux corps qu’ell connaît ou
qu’elle imagine, une existence incorporelle; mais elle est une puissance de l’âme encore
plus admirable, parce qu’elle transcende et spiritualise le temps et fait participer les
images à sa durée intérieure.” Nevertheless, Moreau’s article is excellent.
34 Heidegger (2004, 226) is correct: Augustine’s analytics of vita suggests a “structural com-
plex” that radically differs from the Cartesian ego, and moreover, “Descartes blurred (ver-
wässert) Augustine’s thoughts.”
35 Apropos of ‘duplicity’: Augustine invariably insists on an axiological and ontological dis-
identity of corpus and anima-animus. It is this disidentity which leads him to criticize
Tertullian’s use of the term dupliciter, at Aug. Gen.litt. X.25.41:
item cum animae etiam colorem daret aerium ac lucidum [cf. Tert. Anim. 9.5], ven-
tum est ad sensus quibus eam membratim quasi corpus instruere conatus est, et ait:
“hic erit homo interior, alius exterior, dupliciter unus, habens et ille oculos et aures
suas, quibus populus dominum audire et videre debuerat; habens et caeteros artus,
per quos et in cogitationibus utitur, et in somnis fungitur.”
of Part II (see 9.6). This Epistle makes clear that, for Augustine (c. 411),36 the sense
of the phrase ‘in the soul’ in this life—which is so crucial in Confessions XI—
is not only rendered determinate by a soul’s sensing ‘in the flesh.’ The phrase
‘in the soul’ also signifies a soul’s sensing ‘outside the flesh,’ yet in space. That is
to say, spatial intentio constitutes a (Stoic-inspired)37 mode of ‘dilation of the
senses.’
Having transitioned to an analysis of the flesh from the cipher of a flesh-
less (and thus timeless) heaven in chapters 7 and 8, in chapter 9 I will take
up Augustine’s concept of materia informis and demonstrate that time in
Confessions XII is incontrovertibly “dependent on physical movement.”38 This
is where the ‘time’/ ‘times’ distinction established in chapter 4 is critical:
Augustine’s statements concerning corporeal motus and mutatio in book XII
invariably identify them as producing, not ‘time’ (tempus), but ‘times’ (tem-
pora). All of Augustine’s statements in book XII regarding physical movement
and time thus harmonize with his refined thesis, in Confessions XI.23.29,
wherein ‘the movement of all bodies’ (motus omnis) = ‘times’ (tempora). The
‘time’/‘times’ distinction therefore permits a clear, if still provisional, recon-
ciliation of Confessions XI and XII, while Augustine’s ‘times’-statements under-
mine the still-dominant, subjectivistic, late-modern interpretive tendency. It
is perfectly evident in Confessions XII that without celestial-terrestrial motion,
‘times’ are inconceivable (no motus omnis = no tempora); and thus that time
in the Confessions is ‘dependent on physical movement.’
The question then becomes, of course—and this can only be elucidated
with any finality in Part III—what is the nature of time’s dependence on times,
and thus, on ‘the movement of all bodies’ (motus omnis)? A brief excursus on
a section towards the end of Confessions XII (see 9.5) goes some way towards
clarifying, on a quasi-phenomenal register, the modality of this dependence.
But whereas Augustine, under the influence of Milanese Neoplatonism, definitively

rejects Tertullian’s Stoic-inflected, Christian materialism; ‘duplicity’ in the present work
suggests, not an axiological or a formally ontological, but rather a proto-phenomenological
aspect of Augustine’s reflection.
While caro et anima are, for Augustine, material and immaterial respectively, nev-
ertheless in praesens (in this life) they are involuted and irrecusably co-constitutive of
a vita. Thus, in praesens—and as vita—caro and anima-animus are also invariably, in
Augustine (to use Tertullian’s phrase) dupliciter unus, or (to use his own phrase) totus
homo (vid. Aug. Enarr. 37.8.11).
36 Divjak (2002, 1032) dates Epist. 137 to 411/12.
37 Cf. Colish 1985, 170–77.
38 Alliez 1996, 124/1991, 187.
chapter 7
Cohesion to God, Inhesion of the Flesh:

Augustine’s Caelum Intellectuale
My concern in Confessions XII, as just stated, is not with Augustine’s sources,

but rather with his speculations. I should yet return, quite briefly, to the ques-
tion of axiology since my interpretation increasingly thematizes the flesh
(caro)—which is, admittedly, not thematized in Confessions XII—and will later
privilege Augustine’s epistle on the incarnation (see 9.6).
It is obvious that Augustine—post-Milan, that is—valorizes the fleshless,
the incorporeal. His deity, the “arch-substance,”1 is conceived as incorporeal;
the hyper-heavenly in Confessions XII is also fleshless. And more concretely,
humans’ corpus and anima are ontologically distinct—“the soul is soul, but
the hand is body” (VIII.9.21)2—and axiologically unequal.3 Anima-animus
“is the life of bodies,” while “the life of bodies is superior to . . . the bodies they
vivify” (III.6.10).4 Nevertheless, my interpretation of time in the Confessions
is sensualist: Augustine’s hyper-heavenly is timeless because it is discarnate,
while temporal distentio is—as a ‘distentio animi’—a ‘distentio sensuum.’
A superficial interpretation of certain ascent-motifs in Confessions VII,
IX and X could lead one to reject the tendency of this interpretation out
of hand, since it is graded to the (praesentior but) axiologically inferior.
Nevertheless, this interpretive ‘decline’ is necessary. For despite the recollec-
tions of mystico-logical ascent in Confessions VII and IX, and his pleasure in
1 Aug. Conf. VII.16.22: summa substantia.

2 Aug. Conf. VIII.9.21: imperat animus ut moveatur manus, et tanta est facilitas ut vix a servitio
discernatur imperium: et animus animus est, manus autem corpus est.
3 Cf. Aug. Epist. 3.4: Unde constamus? ex animo et corpore. quid horum melius? videlicet ani-
mus. . . . animus igitur magis amandus quam corpus. sed in qua parte animi est ista veritas? in
mente atque intellegentia. quid huic adversatur? sensus.
4 Aug. Conf. III.6.10: anima . . . vita est corporum (ideo melior vita corporum certiorque quam
corpora); X.6.10: iam tu melior es, tibi dico, anima, quoniam tu vegetas molem corporis tui
praebens ei vitam, quod nullum corpus praestat corpori; cf. X.20.29: vivit enim corpus meum
de anima.
Cf. Aug. Epist. 238.2 (cit. Sciacca 1956, 32): Et cum corpus et anima sit unus homo quamvis
corpus et anima non sit unum . . .

Cohesion to God, Inhesion of the Flesh 153
recalling the memoria-ascent in book X,5 it is not such ascent but a tenacity of
the inferior in, and in the wake of,6 this procedure that drives Augustine and
intensifies his questioning. Augustine reflects in impasse, in tension. And it
is precisely this tenacity—a tenacity of the flesh in reflection—that subjectiv-
izing and Neoplatonizing interpreters of time in the Confessions have alike
covered up, despite the fact that the latter half of Confessions X is strictly
devoted to this problematic. (As Lyotard insinuates,7 a man who has lived for
the “pleasures of the bed” will not be deaf to the flesh.)8
But attentiveness to the flesh is also necessary because the flesh (caro) is
not solely inferior in Augustine: his axiology, like his logico-mystical ascents,
has flesh at its core.9 This axiology crystallizes in Confessions VII as a result of
Augustine’s encounter with the libri Platonicorum in Milan. It is anticipated by
a proto-Platonic constellation10 of the (speculative) virtues of incorruptibility,
inviolability and immutability,11 and is activated by a specifically Neoplatonic
5 Aug. Conf. X.40.65: hoc me delectat, et ab actionibus necessitatis . . . ad istam volupta-

tem refugio . . . et aliquando intromittis me in affectum multum inusitatum introrsus, ad
nescio quam dulcedinem.
Augustine speaks of voluptas in Conf. X.40, but in the memoria-ascent itself? “I toil
in myself, I have become to myself a hard soil!” (laboro in me ipso, factus sum mihi terra
difficultatis, X.16.25).
6 Aug. Conf. X.40.65: sed recido in haec aerumnosis ponderibus et resorbeor solitis et
teneor . . . sed multum teneor.
This instantaneous regress has clear parallels in Conf. VII and IX.
7 Lyotard 2000, 14–15.
8 ‘Pleasures of the bed’ is Augustine’s phrase (voluptate cubilis, IV.7.12). And cf. VI.11.20:
“I would be endlessly wretched if I had to forego the embraces of a woman” (me miserum
fore nimis si feminae privarer amplexibus); VI.12.22: “I could not possibly live without a
woman . . . without [that pleasure] my life . . . would have seemed to me not life but
a torment” (caelibem vitam nullo modo posse . . . illud sine quo vita mea . . . non mihi vita
sed poena videretur).
And cf. Conf. X.30.41: “Yet there still live in my memory . . . the images of such things
as my [sexual] habitus had fixed there . . . not only so as to arouse pleasure [in sleep] but
even resulting in my consent to a likeness of the [sexual] act itself” (sed adhuc vivunt
in memoria mea . . . talium rerum imagines, quas ibi consuetudo mea fixit . . . non solum
usque ad delectationem sed etiam usque ad consensionem factumque simillimum)—the
only place in book X where Augustine attributes life to sense-imaginal traces.
9 And for the place of the flesh in his eschatology: Foubert 1992.
10 Since Augustine stresses in Conf. VII that he held this trine-concept prior to his introduc-
tion to Neoplatonist texts; cf. Callahan 1967, 20–29.
11 Aug. Conf. VII.1.1: incorruptibilem et inviolabilem et incommutabilem . . . incorruptibile
et inviolabile et incommutabile.
154 chapter 7
concept of incorporeality: a god that is incorruptible, inviolable and immu-

table is necessarily incorporeal and discarnate.12 As a corollary: a human soul
that conceptualizes this god is incorporeal. Yet this incorporeal soul (i.e. the
anima humana of XI.15.19) is mutable, corruptible, and is not discarnate. As
I have suggested, vita for Augustine is a ‘soul-flesh,’ is duplicitous: in this life,
the soul is only vita insofar as it is a vita corporis.13 (The concrete sense of this,
its validity, and its significance for elucidating temporal and spatial dilation
in Augustine, will become clear in what follows.) But it is essential to observe,
prior to interpreting sense-affective or sense-imaginal time by way of the
timelessness of a ‘heaven,’ how this axiology is internally conflicted in a way
that is alien—or so Augustine contends in Confessions VII—to Neoplatonic
philosophy.14
7.1 Axiology and Temporality Revisited
Fleshlessness cannot, for Augustine, have a strictly positive axiological valence:

“the devil” is fleshless.15 And similarly, the flesh cannot have a strictly negative
valence: his incorrupt deity has been “made flesh.”16 Furthermore, immortality
12 Aug. Conf. VII.1, 3–5, 11–17.

This rehearsed by one of Augustine’s 6th-century exerptors, Anon. C.Phil. III.1075–79
≈ Aug. Civ. VII.19 (with ‘Augustine’ here rebuking ‘Varro’ in conversation): . . . has inter-
pretationes tuas non referri ad deum verum, vivam, incorpoream incommutabilemque
naturam, a quo vita in aeternam poscenda est; sed earum esse fines in rebus corporalibus,
temporalibus, mutabilibus atque mortalibus.
13 Cf. Aug. Civ. XIII.9: in vita, quia inest anima corpori . . . quamdiu quippe anima in corpore
est, non possumus negare viventem; XIII.11: quamdiu . . . est anima in corpore, maxime si
etiam sensus adsit, procul dubio vivit homo, qui constat ex anima et corpore, ac per hoc
adhuc ante mortem, non in morte esse dicendus est.
14 I am not concerned here—as indicated in chapter 6—with the subtlety or accuracy of
Augustine’s polemics in Conf. VII. For recent contributions on the figure of the Λόγος/
Christ and the Trinity in Porphyry—and in Augustine’s use of Porphyry: Brisson 2011;
Clark 2011; Kany 2007, 50–65.
15 Aug. Conf. X.42.67: “the devil . . . much allured proud flesh, in that he had no fleshly body”
(diabolus . . . multum inlexit superbam carnem, quod carneo corpore ipse non esset). The
reference to ‘proud flesh’ here is directed back at Neoplatonists: cf. the charges of superbia
in Conf. VII.9 and VII.18–21, while at VII.21.27 Augustine refers to the devil as the philoso-
phers’ sovereign or prince (principe suo).
16 At Conf. VII.18.24, the pious see “before their feet the divinity . . . taking on our ‘coats
of skin’ ” (videntes ante pedes suos . . . divinitatem ex participatione tunicae pelliciae
nostrae). And cf. for instance VII.9.14: “But I did not read [in the Neoplatonists] that ‘the
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ ” (sed quia verbum caro factum est et habitavit
(≈ timelessness)17 cannot have a solely positive charge for Augustine: because

he is fleshless, the devil vaunts his immortality,18 whereas divinity has
“appeared . . . mortal with men.”19 Temporality cannot have a solely negative
charge: while Neoplatonists insulate the divine hypostases “before all times
and above all times,”20 the incarnation manifests21 a hypostasis in “mutability
of soul and mind (animae et mentis),” a numen that “in due time . . . died.”22
in nobis, non ibi legi); X.43.69: “We might assume that your Word was remote from union
with humanity and despair . . . had he not been ‘made flesh and dwelt among us’ ” (potui-
mus putare verbum tuum remotum esse a coniunctione hominis et desperare . . . nisi caro
fieret et habitaret in nobis).
The incarnation is salient in Conf. VII, and the veracity of this thematic in Augustine’s
retrospective critique of philosophy—a question, incidentally, that VII.19.25 validates—
has been much discussed.
17 Aug. Conf. XII.11.11: tu aeternus es, solus habens immortalitatem, quoniam ex nulla specie
motuve mutaris nec temporibus variatur voluntas tua, quia non est immortalis voluntas
quae alia et alia est.
The timelessness of the materia informis in Conf. XII confirms that timelessness could
not have a strictly positive charge for Augustine.
And cf. Suarez 1861, 924: “. . . si Deus creasset Angelum vel cœlum ab æterno, non esset
in eo durationis principium, et nihilominus duratio ejus creata esset, et essentialiter
differens ab æternitate . . . sic etiam dixit Augustinus, lib. 83 Quæstionum, 19, licet omne
æternum sit immortale, non tamen omne immortale satis subtiliter æternum dici; quia etsi
semper aliquid vivat, tamen si mutabilitatem patiatur, non proprie æternum appellatur.”
18 Aug. Conf. X.42.67: “He would appear to [share one thing] with god, and, not being clothed
with the mortality of the flesh, would boast that he was immortal” (diabolus . . . videri vult
habere cum deo, ut, quia carnis mortalitate non tegitur, pro immortali se ostentet).
Cf. also, Enarr. 38.18: Ecce mortales estis, ecce carnem putrescentem portatis . . .
Superbus diabolus, tamquam angelus non habens carnem mortalem . . .
19 Aug. Conf. X.43.68: homo Christus Iesus . . . apparuit, mortalis cum hominibus; cf. Doctr.
I.14.13: . . . per feminam natus, homo homines, mortalis mortales, morte mortuos liberavit.
20 Aug. Conf. VII.9.14: ante omnia tempora et supra omnia tempora incommutabiliter
manet.
Augustine sees this as laudable—the divine word is, for him, immutable—but radi-
cally incomplete. Cf. Doctr. I.13.12: ita “verbum dei” non commutatum, caro tamen factum
est ut habitaret in nobis; Serm. 117.4.6: Itaque “verbum dei,” fratres carissimi, incorporali-
ter, inviolabiliter, incommutabiliter, sine temporali nativitate, natum tamen intellegamus a
Deo; etc.
21 Aug. Serm. 203.1: ‘Epiphania’ graecae linguae vocabulo, latine ‘manifestatio’ dici
potest; 204.1: Epiphaniam hodie celebramus, quod graeco vocabulo significatur
‘manifestatio’ . . . In illo quippe natus est homo ex homine matre, qui sine initio deus erat
apud patrem; sed carni est manifestatus in carne . . .
22 Aug. Conf. VII.19.25: mutabilitatis animae et mentis; VII.9.14: secundum tempus . . . mor-
tuus est.
156 chapter 7
The Catholic myth of incarnation23 thus radically disrupts the surface-

clarity of Augustine’s Platonic axiology.24 Yet this axiological scandal25—
that his ‘arch-substance’ drank, wept and died “in time,”26 was “wed to . . .
mortal flesh”27—permits Augustine, in reflection, and requires of him a certain
“intimacy with the flesh”28 which is methodologically decisive.29 I could also
observe that Augustine’s incarnate god figures in the last section of Confessions
X, as in the eternity-meditation of Confessions XI,30 so that this axiology of caro
is not at all far removed from Augustine’s treatment of time.
Cf. Serm. 198.2: Iesus Christus dei filius, qui propter nos homo factus est; Serm. 160.3:
stulte huius mundi philosophe . . . contemnis humilitatem, quia non intellegis maies-
tatem . . . in quem credamus? in Christum crucifixum. quod non vult audire superbia,
hoc audiat sapientia. mandatum eius est, ut credamus in eum. in quem? in Christum
crucifixum.
23 Cf. Cic. Nat.deor. III.18: “Are we then to hold these to be gods, the sons of mortal mothers
(mortalibus nati matribus)?”
24 For this axiological surface-clarity, cf. O’Daly 1991, despite his hesitation: “I know of no
specifically Christian (or purely Christian) influence on Augustine’s hierarchical schemes”
(1991, 150).
25 Cf. Aug. Conf. V.10.20: talem itaque naturam eius nasci non posse de Maria virgine arbi-
trabar, nisi carni concerneretur. . . . metuebam itaque credere in carne natum, ne credere
cogerer ex carne inquinatum.
26 Though Augustine confesses, in a passage of Conf. VII, his Photinian Christology in Milan,
he rehearses there “what had come down in writing concerning” Jesus (his quae de illo
scripta traderentur), i.e. in the Gospels: Jesus exemplified a derision of temporal things
(contemnendorum temporalium), and yet “he ate and drank, slept, walked, rejoiced, was
sad, preached” (manducavit et bibit, dormivit, ambulavit, exhilaratus est, contristatus est,
sermocinatus est, VII.19.25).
Varro, incidentally, lists “sitting, walking, talking” (sedetur, ambulatur, loquontur) as
prime instances of things which “are said with some time-factor” (dicuntur cum tempore
aliquot), in book VI of De Lingua Latina, “on times” (de temporibus), at Var. Ling. VI.1.1.
And for the strong link from ‘eating and drinking’ to time and mortality, cf. Aug. Conf.
X.31.43: reficimus enim cotidianas ruinas corporis edendo et bibendo; Enarr. 122.11: man-
ducamus et bibimus: medicamenta ipsa sunt, quae nobis apponuntur. Fratres, si vultis
videre qualis morbus nos habeat; qui ieiunat septem diebus, fame consumitur.
For Augustine contra Porphyry on the incarnation: O’Meara 1958, 109.
27 Aug. Conf. IV.12.19: et descendit huc ipsa vita nostra, et tulit mortem nostram . . . processit
ad nos, in ipsum primum virginalem uterum ubi ei nupsit humana creatura, caro mortalis.
28 Aug. Conf. XII.27.37: cogitant . . . ex familiaritate carnis.
This phrase will reappear and figure large in chapter 10.
29 Cf. Aug. Enarr. 43.16: dominus in carne erat, et apparebat homo hominibus. qualis
apparebat? iam dixi, homo hominibus. quid magnum apparebat? caro carni.
30 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.43.68–69, XI.8.10.
7.2 Augustine’s Hyper-Heavenly (Caelum Caeli)
Regardless, in Confessions XII the axiology of timelessness is differently con-

flicted: the godlike timelessness of the caelum caeli is mirrored by the inert
timelessness of the materia informis. The hyper-heavenly is posited sine ulla
vicissitudine temporum, and the hyper-terrestrial is also posited sine ulla vicissi-
tudine temporum (XII.13.16). And though here the mirroring is less precise, the
fleshlessness of the hyper-heavenly is reflected in the formlessness of the hyper-
terrestrial (XII.12.15), which includes fleshlessness in its concept.31 On a formal
register, this is why we could expect—as suggested in 5.1—that the specula-
tive question of temporal conditions in book XII will converge, symmetrically
and inversely, on the sense-affective conditions of ‘time.’ It is flesh—or more
precisely, a ‘soul-flesh’—that formally mediates the base indifference of the
hyper-terrestrial and the sublime indifference of the hyper-heavenly.32
And what is Augustine’s hyper-heavenly?
The caelum intellectuale is posited as living,33 but is not characterized as
a life (vita). The sublime animus of Confessions XI.31.41 is in Confessions XII
explicitly mens, a “pure mind” (mentem puram, XII.11.12) that is never referred
to as anima, animus or vita.34 But what does Augustine’s mens pura signify
here? He later glosses the phrase thus: the hyper-heavenly is a “rational and
31 Aug. Conf. XII.3.3: priusquam istam informem materiam formares atque distingueres, non
erat aliquid, non color, non figura, non corpus, non spiritus.
The sense of figura here is broad, but that the term has specific links to a vivified body
(= caro) cf. Conf. VII.1.1: figura corporis humani; I.7.12: tu itaque, domine deus meus, qui
dedisti vitam infanti et corpus, quod ita, ut videmus, instruxisti sensibus, compegisti mem-
bris, figura decorasti proque eius universitate atque incolumitate omnes conatus animan-
tis insinuasti.
32 And incidentally: it is not solely a human soul-flesh that mediates the base indifference
of the hyper-terrestrial and the sublime indifference of the hyper-heavenly. Augustine
concedes that the beasts also have time. I discuss this in chapter 8.
33 Implicitly in Conf. XII, explicitly in the proem of book XIII. Cf. Aug. Conf. XIII.2.3–3.4:
erat iam qualiscumque vita . . . et quod utcumque vivit et quod beate vivit non deberet nisi
gratiae tuae.
34 In book XII, animus-animans is used for living things generally, as at Aug. Conf. XII.6.6:
numquid animus? numquid corpus? numquid species animi vel corporis?; XII.8.8: in suo
fundo animantibus.
Anima-animus is used for humans specifically, as at Conf. XII.3.3: docuisti hanc ani-
mam quae tibi confitetur; XII.6.6: foedas et horribiles formas perturbatis ordinibus
volvebat animus; XII.11.13: unde intellegat anima, cuius peregrinatio longinqua facta
est; XII.17.25: anima hominis et corpus; XII.25.34: aequo animo ferre deberem; XII.25.35:
diligamus dominum deum nostrum ex toto corde, ex tota anima, ex tota mente nostra;
158 chapter 7
intellectual mind” (mens rationalis et intellectualis, XII.15.20),35 and this is not

a senseless accumulation of terms. To the contrary, its sense becomes clear
when one recalls a sentence from Confessions XII.6.6 (to which I return in
chapter 9), where Augustine writes: “So my mind (mens) ceased to question
my spirit (spiritum), which was replete with the images of determinate bodies
(plenum imaginibus formatorum corporum) . . .”36 This sentence suggests, not a
(terminological) indistinction, but a co-immanence37 of sensus carnis and spiri-
tus38 that inflects all of Augustine’s temporal, speculative intentions. Spiritus
is suffused with, and mens is sustained, captivated, illuminated by sensus car-
nis and, here, by a swarm of memorial trace-images of (the forms of) sensed
bodies. That is to say: the temporal mens that elaborates, in Confessions XII,
its conception of the hyper-heavenly is not a “rational and intellectual mind.”39
While it is not senseless, Augustine’s phrase mens rationalis et intellectualis
is yet a static accumulation of terms, since unicity is the speculative condition
of this mens pura: “a pure mind” is “hyper-harmoniously one” (concordissime
XII.29.40: quis deinde sic acutum cernat animo. (Also note a metaphorical use of animal
at XII.27.37: in quibus adhuc parvulis animalibus . . .)
The caelum caeli is referred to as creatura and mens—as at Conf. XII.9.9: creatura
est . . . intellectualis; XII.15.20: mens rationalis—but never as anima or animus.
35 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.9.9: creatura est aliqua intellectualis; IV.15.24: . . . inque illa unitate mens
rationalis et natura veritatis ac summi boni mihi esse videbatur; IV.15.25: . . . si rationalis
mens ipsa vitiosa est.
Cf. also Aug. Gen.lib.imp. III.6.4: prima creatura intellectualis; III.7.1: angeli et omnes
intellectuales potestates.
36 Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: cessavit mens mea interrogare hinc spiritum meum plenum imagini-
bus formatorum corporum.
37 Which, again, is not to say axiological co-eminence.
38 Because of this co-immanence of sensus-spiritus and mens, I will not refer to the hyper-
heavenly mens as ‘spiritual.’ However, for the hyper-heavenly as ‘spiritual,’ cf. Aug. Conf.
XII.15.19: domus dei non terrena neque ulla caelesti mole corporea, sed spiritalis; XII.17.24:
caeli nomine spiritalem vel intellectualem.
And for the divine spiritus, cf. Verbeke 1945, 492–97; Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: sanctorum
spirituum; XII.14.17: spiritus dei; XII.15.22: sancti spiritus.
39 Or more precisely, it cannot be—and will not be—so characterized in the context of Conf.
XII. In his axiological schema at Aug. Serm. 43.4 (c. 400), for instance, Augustine says
that we share “sensation with beasts and intellection with angels” (sentire cum bestiis,
intellegere cum angelis). While this hierarchy is never, to my awareness, rejected outright
or in toto, we will see a certain failure in Conf. X to distinguish human memoria (and thus,
cogitatio) from that of the beasts, and a radical distinction in Conf. XII between human
and angelic ‘intellection.’
unam, XII.11.12).40 Purity is here rigourously identified with unicity, while

unicity—as will become apparent—is the speculative condition for a “stability
of peace” (stabilimento pacis, XII.11.12) that insulates the caelum intellectuale
from mutatio, and thus from ‘times.’41 In its tranquillity, the hyper-heavenly is
thus delineated as a mens that is never swayed by or deflected towards bodies:
“Without any defection in passing-out-of-itself towards another (egrediendi in
aliud), [it is] a pure mind, hyper-harmoniously one.”42
This last formulation must be contrasted, for its sense, with several sen-
tences from Confessions X:
Memory is a spacious power,43 o god, a sublime thing—I do not know

what—a deep and infinite multiplicity. And this is my soul,44 and this
I myself am. What then am I, o god? What nature am I? A various and
multiplex life, and exceedingly vast . . . So intense is the power of memory!
So intense the power of life in humans—whose life is mortal!
40 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: mentem puram concordissime unam.

41 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: mentem puram concordissime unam stabilimento pacis.
42 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: sine ullo defectu egrediendi in aliud, mentem puram concordissime
unam.
The term egredior, which I here render ‘passing-out-of-itself,’ could simultaneously be
rendered ‘passing-out-of-god.’ This will become clearer as I elaborate on the caelum intel-
lectualis’s speculative haerere.
And Augustine’s phrase, sine ullo defectu, also speculatively insulates Augustine’s heav-
enly creatures against the jeopardies of ‘temptation.’ Cf. Aug. C.Faust. XXII.28: angelica
sublimis natura non peccat, quia ita particeps est legis aeternae, ut solus eam delectet
deus, cuius voluntati sine ullo experimento temptationis obtemperat.
43 For the inflection of magnus here as ‘spacious,’ see the lines that immediately follow (ecce
in memoriae meae campis et antris et cavernis innumerabilibus atque innumerabiliter
plenis innumerabilium rerum generibus, X.17.26), where O’Daly (1993, 45) identifies a
Ciceronian influence, and notes the parallel formulation at Conf. X.8.15 (magna ista vis
est memoriae, magna nimis, deus meus, penetrale amplum et infinitum. quis ad fundum
eius pervenit? . . . in memoria mea viderem, spatiis tam ingentibus quasi foris viderem).
This spatial thematic in Augustine’s memoria-ascent is reprised and crystallized at Conf.
X.24.35: ecce quantum spatiatus sum in memoria mea quaerens te, domine.
44 For animus as ‘soul’ here, rather than ‘mind’ (which has relevance to animus as ‘soul’ in
Conf. XI.14–29), cf. later in this passage: “for even cattle and birds have memoria” (habent
enim memoriam et pecora et aves, X.17.26). It is also significant that Augustine immedi-
ately proceeds—in the text extracted here—to identify animus with vita, not with mens.
160 chapter 7
magna vis est memoriae, nescio quid horrendum, deus meus, profunda
et infinita multiplicitas. et hoc animus est, et hoc ego ipse sum. quid ergo
sum, deus meus? quae natura sum? varia, multimoda vita et immensa
vehementer . . . tanta vis est memoriae, tanta vitae vis est in homine
vivente mortaliter! (X.17.26)
The timeless unicity of Augustine’s caelum intellectuale is essentially, and not

incidentally, preceded in the Confessions by this radical, constitutively ramified
temporality of a multimoda vita.45 (Recall the discussion of natura and vis, here
linked to vita, in 4.3.) It is this vita—i.e. the ‘this life’ (hac vita) of Confessions
XII.1.146—that delivers, and is reflected in, Augustine’s formulations of a hyper-
heavenly creature.
And it is, saliently, the pleasure of ‘a life’ that is reflected in this mens pura. As
a spectral formalization of temporal fruitio or delectatio, Augustine’s concept
of the caelum intellectuale is achieved by a negation of the constitutive impres-
ences of (spatial) intentio and (temporal) distentio: the sole mode of praesens
that is proper to this mens is not sensus or contuitus (and thus distentio), but
contemplatio.47 In its contemplation, as Lyotard writes, “knowing knowledge
45 Cf. Lyotard 1998, 51: “vie changeante, multiforme.”

46 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.1.1: multa satagit cor meum, domine, in hac inopia vitae meae.
47 Contemplatio is a technical term in Conf. XII, and signifies (α) incorporeal and (β) intransi-
tive scientia, i.e. nosse simul. For Augustine, contemplatio signifies the ideal elimination
of spatial intentio and temporal distentio. Of the 10× contemplare-contemplatio appears in
Conf. I–XII, 6× are in book XII, where it is exclusively ascribed to the caelum intellectuale;
while the 2× the term appears in book XI subtly anticipate the caelum caeli (at XI.30–31),
and starkly contrast temporal contuitus with preter-temporal contemplatio.
Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.22.28, the last section—on my analysis—of the first phase of the
time-investigation (see chapter 4): haec est spes mea, ad hanc vivo, ut contempler delec-
tationem domini. ecce veteres posuisti dies meos et transeunt, et quomodo, nescio; and
XI.29.39, the last section—on my analysis—of the time-investigation: . . . non in ea quae
futura et transitura sunt, sed in ea quae ante sunt non distentus sed extentus, non secun-
dum distentionem sed secundum intentionem . . . ubi audiam vocem laudis et contempler
delectationem tuam nec venientem nec praetereuntem.
Of the 2× where contemplatio is used in Conf. I–IX, one appears to be ironic (IV.14.23),
though in the following section (IV.15.24), Augustine uses this irony to stress the incorpo-
reality of contemplatio. The second instance prepares and confirms the special sense of
contemplatio in book XII: at VII.20.26, Augustine fails to sustain a contemplatio of “[you, o
god, who] are infinite, yet not diffused through finite or infinite spaces . . . and you [who]
are always the same, with no distinct parts or varying movements” (infinitum esse nec
tamen per locos finitos infinitosve diffundi . . . semper idem ipse esses, ex nulla parte
nulloque motu alter aut aliter).
unfolds as known knowledge,” and thus “exempt from becoming” (exempte du

devenir),48 the hyper-heavenly’s intellection is a chaste voluptas.49 (Augustine’s
ideal of sexual castitas-continentia is itself an ideal of unicity.)50 And it is nec-
essary to stress that Augustine’s conceptualization of this delectatio or voluptas
is achieved, i.e. derived.
The negative or remotive procedure51 without which Augustine could not
elaborate his concept of the caelum intellectuale is tacit in Confessions XII,
but in book X—in a passage that is also highly relevant to the eternity-
meditation in book XI—Augustine indicates a via remotionis from sense-
affective presence which will result, in book XII, in his cipher of the hyper-
heavenly’s discarnate voluptas.52 It is very clear in this passage that the con-
dition of sense-affective voluptas, which Augustine relies on to predelineate
his concept of a discarnate voluptas, is duplex: (α) dissipation, separation,
delimitation in space (locus); (β) transitivity, satiety, loss in time (tempus). This
duplex condition of impresence—for it is this, impresence, that spatial intentio
and temporal distentio co-constitute—without which the word ‘voluptas’ risks
ceasing to signify,53 yet signals a radical imperfection of voluptas as praesens
48 Lyotard 2000, 42/1998, 65–66.

49 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: cuius voluptas tu solus es . . . domum tuam contemplantem
delectationem tuam sine ullo defectu egrediendi in aliud, mentem puram concordissime
unam; XII.9.9: creatura est aliqua intellectualis. quam . . . particeps tamen aeternitatis
tuae, valde mutabilitatem suam prae dulcedine felicissimae contemplationis tuae cohibet.
50 Aug. Conf. X.29.40: per continentiam quippe conligimur et redigimur in unum, a quo in
multa defluximus.
And for a glimpse of the pagan backcloth of Augustine’s decision for celibacy in Conf.
VI–VIII, cf. for instance—and though it post-dates Augustine by a century—Dam. Hist.
91b: “Pursuing philosophy but at the same time devoting his life to the pleasures below
the belly (τὰς ὑπογαστρίους ἡδονάς), Hilarius [of Syria] was not accepted by Proclus as a
disciple (διδασκάλου).”
51 I take ‘remotive’ and ‘via remotionis,’ throughout, from von Herrmann.
Cf. von Herrmann 1992, 27/2008, 33 (tr. mod.): “Uncreated being is such that it can
be conceived only at a distance (im denkenden Entfernen). . . . In Latin, removere means
‘to be distant,’ so that with Heidegger . . . we can term such a conceptual distance [in
Augustine] as the remote way of conception (die remotive Betrachtungsweise).”
52 My stress falls on the per animam—the procedure indicated in what follows—and not
on Augustine’s logico-mystical ‘ascents.’ Cf. Aug. Conf. X.7.11: per ipsam animam meam
ascendam ad illum; X.17.26: ecce ego ascendens per animum meum ad te.
53 Cf. Cic. Fin. II.3.8: Omnes enim iucundum motum quo sensus hilaretur Graece ἡδονήν,
Latine ‘voluptatem’ vocant; II.4.13: Huic verbo [sc. ‘voluptas’] omnes qui ubique sunt
qui Latine sciunt duas res subiciunt, laetitiam in animo, commotionem suavem iucundi-
tatis in corpore.
162 chapter 7
(i.e. in hac vita). And it is this imperfection which, in deploying a temporized

contuitus to limn the contours of a timeless contemplatio, Augustine seeks to
speculatively eliminate in Confessions XII.54 He writes of god in Confessions X:
I love you, o lord . . . but what is it that I love, when I love you? Not
the beauty of bodies, not the splendour of time;55 nor the radiance of
light . . . nor the charm of melodies . . . nor the fragrance of blossoms,
unguents and spices; not manna and honey, not the limbs that carnal
love embraces. I do not love these when I love my god. And yet I love some
light, some voice, some fragrance and some food, some embrace when
I love my god—a light, voice, fragrance, food and embrace of my “inte-
rior man”—where what irradiates my soul no space can delimit, where time
does not drive-off what sounds, where there is a fragrance that no wind
scatters, where there is a savor that indulgence does not lessen, and where
that holds-close which satedness never disrupts—this is what I love, when
I love my god. And what is this?
domine, amo te . . . quid autem amo, cum te amo? non speciem corporis nec
decus temporis, non candorem lucis . . . non dulces melodias cantilena-
rum . . . non florum et unguentorum et aromatum suaviolentiam, non
manna et mella, non membra acceptabilia carnis amplexibus: non haec
amo, cum amo deum meum, et tamen amo quandam lucem et quandam
vocem et quendam odorem et quendam cibum et quendam amplexum,
cum amo deum meum, lucem, vocem, odorem, cibum, amplexum inte-
rioris hominis mei, ubi fulget animae meae quod non capit locus, et ubi
sonat quod non rapit tempus, et ubi olet quod non spargit flatus, et ubi
sapit quod non minuit edacitas, et ubi haeret quod non divellit satietas.
hoc est quod amo, cum deum meum amo. et quid est hoc? (X.6.8–9)
Augustine will effectively return to his final question here, ‘And what is
this?’ in his eternity-meditation (XI.3–13); and in Confessions XI, Augustine’s
54 Yet this ‘imperfection’ is relative. Cf. for instance, Aug. Lib.arb. III.15.42: omnia temporalia,
quae in hoc rerum ordine ita locata sunt, ut nisi deficiant, non possint praeteritis futura
succedere, ut tota temporum in suo genere pulchritudo peragatur, absurdissime dicimus
non debere deficere . . . qui enim dolet ea deficere, sermonem suum oportet attendat . . . si
quis unam particulam diligat, nec eam velit caeteris deficiendo locum dare . . . mirabilis
dementiae iudicabitur.
55 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. II.2.3: et novissimarum rerum fugaces pulchritudines in usum
verteret . . .
h oc-quod-amo is eternity.56 There are also terminological and thematic fore-

echoes of the time-investigation (XI.14–29) in this passage. For instance, the
phrase rapit tempus, here in book X, is echoed where Augustine first asserts
that praesens tempus is inextended;57 and the situation of that phrase here—
“where time does not drive-off what sounds” (ubi sonat quod non rapit tempus,
X.6.8)—anticipates his proto-phenomenological analyses of vox corporis and
the sonare in the last pages of book XI.58 The intimate linkage, and sensuous
constitution (and destitution) of locus and tempus in Confessions X.6 are, thus,
relevant to Confessions XI.
The passage’s most immediate relevance, however, is to Augustine’s con-
ceptual determination of the caelum intellectuale in book XII, for which the
decisive phrase is this: “. . . where that holds-close (haeret) which satedness
never disrupts” (X.6.8). The polysemous root-verb haerere becomes,59 in
Confessions XII, a technical term.60 In book XII, inhaerere and cohaerere exclu-
sively refer to the caelum intellectuale, invariably (and hyper-intimately) link
the hyper-heavenly to god,61 and as a result, invariably signal its timelessness.
On my interpretation—which in this regard is, I believe, new—this root-verb
haerere is a crux for elucidating anima-animus and tempus in Confessions XI,
56 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.2.4: exaudi desiderium meum. puto enim quod non sit de terra, non de
auro et argento et lapidibus aut decoris vestibus aut honoribus et potestatibus aut volup-
tatibus carnis, neque de necessariis corpori et huic vitae peregrinationis nostrae . . . vide,
deus meus, unde sit desiderium meum.
In Conf. X the hoc-quod-amo—which is aeternitas in book XI and a caelum intellec-
tuale in book XII—is interrogated by way of Augustine’s concept of beata vita. Thus, for
instance, Conf. X.20.29: cum enim te, deum meum, quaero, vitam beatam quaero.
57 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: si quid intellegitur temporis, quod in nullas iam vel minutissimas
momentorum partes dividi possit, id solum est quod ‘praesens’ dicatur; quod tamen ita
raptim a futuro in praeteritum transvolat, ut nulla morula extendatur. . . . praesens autem
nullum habet spatium.
This is a decisive passage in the time-investigation, as will become clear in Part III.
58 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.26.33–27.36.
59 Cf. Arts 1927, 13: “Haerere (cleave, cling, be fixed)”; 14: “Cohaerere (cling together, cohere).”
60 Haerere and derivatives appear 35× in the Conf., of which 6× in Conf. X, 0× in Conf. XI, 7×
in Conf. XII.
61 Aug. Conf. XII.9.9: inhaerendo tibi; XII.11.12: inhaerendo beatitudini tuae; XII.11.13: tibi
cohaerendo; XII.15.19: cohaerentem deo; XII.15.21: tibi cohaerens; XII.15.22: inhaerere deo;
XII.19.28: cohaeret formae incommutabili.
And haerere is re-deployed for the caelum intellectuale in book XIII. Cf. Conf. XIII.3.4:
non existendo sed intuendo inluminantem lucem eique cohaerendo; XIII.8.9: et inhaer-
eret tibi omnis oboediens intellegentia caelestis civitatis tuae et requiesceret in spiritu
tuo, qui superfertur incommutabiliter super omne mutabile.
164 chapter 7
for recognizing contemplatio in book XII as a negative formalization of sensus-

contuitus in book XI, and thus for delineating the timelessness of the caelum
intellectuale.62
7.3 Timelessness and the Root-Verb Haerere
Below I give every appearance of the root-verb haerere in Confessions XII,

which demonstrates the strong linkage between haerere and the hyper-
heavenly’s timelessness in the book:
“And without any lapse from its primordial condition, cohering to you
[o god], it surpasses all the revolving63 changes-of-times” = sine ullo
lapsu ex quo facta est inhaerendo tibi excedit omnem volubilem vicis-
situdinem temporum (XII.9.9);
“It is varied by no change nor dilated into any times . . . cohering to your
blessedness [o lord]” = nulla vice variatur nec in tempora ulla distendi-
tur . . . inhaerendo beatitudini tuae (XII.11.12);
“[The hyper-heavenly] is not co-eternal with you [o god], yet by cease-
lessly and tirelessly cohering to you it suffers no changes-of-times” =
non sit tibi coaeterna, tamen indesinenter et indeficienter tibi cohaer-
endo nullam patitur vicissitudinem temporum (XII.11.13);
“A certain sublime creature, cohering to god—the true and truly eternal
[god]—with such a chaste love that . . . it does not detach from him
nor flow-out into any variances and changes-of-times . . . but rests in a
most-veracious contemplation of him-alone” = sublimem quandam
esse creaturam tam casto amore cohaerentem deo vero et vere aeterno
ut . . . in nullam tamen temporum varietatem et vicissitudinem ab illo
se resolvat . . . sed in eius solius veracissima contemplatione requiescat
(XII.15.19);
“Not only do we discover no time before [the hyper-heavenly,] but we
discover no time in it, since it is adapted always to behold your face
[o lord] . . . Yet there is mutability-itself in it, from which it would
62 The subterranean or ‘destructive’ interpretation I lay out here, connecting the human
haerere as vita corporis to the sublime haerere of the caelum intellectuale is anticipated
by Augustine’s speculative procedure, relative to the divine trinity, at Conf. XIII.11.12, and
later, in Aug. Trin.
63 Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 74: “volubilis, rolling, fleeting (of time) . . . perishable: [Conf.] 5, 7, 19,
aliquod nutabile aut volubile bonum.”
become dark and cold unless it cohered to you with a potent love” =
non solum ante illam sed nec in illa invenimus tempus, quia est idonea
faciem tuam semper videre . . . inest ei tamen ipsa mutabilitas, unde
tenebresceret et frigesceret nisi amore grandi tibi cohaerens (XII.15.21);
“[The hyper-heavenly], whose good is always to cohere to god, surpasses
all dilation and all revolving space of times” = supergreditur . . . omnem
distentionem et omne spatium aetatis volubile, cui semper inhaerere deo
bonum est (XII.15.22);
“That [sublime creature] which so coheres to the immutable form suffers
no times and, though itself mutable, is not moved” = nulla tempora per-
peti quod ita cohaeret formae incommutabili ut, quamvis sit mutabile,
non mutetur (XII.19.28).
Tabulated in this way the connection is obvious;64 the sense of this connection
is not, however, obvious—and to my awareness, has never been investigated.
Augustine posits an intransitive coherence of the caelum intellectuale to
or with god. This unvarying (i.e. indifferent) intimacy with a divine immu-
tability is characterized, as previously indicated, as (i) contemplatio and
(ii) voluptas. In book XII, Augustine’s distentio-formulations of the time-
investigation find an echo—the hyper-heavenly is not “dilated (distenditur)
into any times” (XII.11.12); it “surpasses all dilation (distentionem)” (XII.15.22)—
yet this is a strictly negative echo. The hyper-heavenly’s contemplatio is not con-
tuitus, and thus, its delectatio is not distentio. (Recall the extended discussion
of Confessions XI.31.41 in chapter 5.) The inexplicit justification for this nega-
tion in book XII is itself duplex, yet converges—I contend—on the flesh:
(α) unlike human cogitatio, which is rooted in and incommut-

ably directed towards the radical mutivity of contuitus (≈ sense-
perception), and thus is distentio—‘distentio sensuum’ as a ‘dis-
tentio animi’—the hyper-heavenly’s contemplatio is speculatively
rooted in and immutably directed towards a senseless and static
eternity; and
64 And cf. Aug. Conf. XIII.3.4: . . . non existendo sed intuendo inluminantem lucem eique
cohaerendo, ut et quod utcumque vivit et quod beate vivit non deberet nisi gratiae tuae,
conversa per commutationem meliorem ad id quod neque in melius neque in deterius
mutari potest.
166 chapter 7
(β) unlike human voluptas, which is originarily involved in and derived

from the flesh (≈ sensation, acquisition),65 and thus has spatial
intentio and temporal distentio as its co-conditions,66 the hyper-
heavenly’s rapture at the divine unicity is speculatively conceived
as indifferent.
In essence: the speculative haerere of the caelum intellectuale to Augustine’s

deity, which results in its timelessness, is negatively derived from and mirrors a
sub-phenomenal haerere of anima-animus to the flesh, which haerere (≈ vita)
in Confessions X is the precondition for temporal distentio in Confessions XI.
That is, the contemplatio and delectatio of the caelum intellectuale—its ‘cohe-
sion’ to the deity—negatively formalize, by way of the procedure I have indi-
cated in this chapter, the sense-affective constitution of spatial intention and
temporal dilation by way of what I call an ‘inhesion of the flesh.’ For Augustine,
it is this ‘inhesion of the flesh’ by a soul which possibilizes a sense-affective
‘dilation’ in spaces and times. But this, of course, must be demonstrated.
7.4 More on Augustine’s Root-Verb Haerere
It suffices to observe, initially, that a human, temporal haerere is oriented to

god at Confessions X.6.8—the passage quoted above—and that this mystico-
logical ‘clinging’ has precedents in Confessions I to IX.67 That is, the haerere
which becomes a technical term in book XII, and is essentially linked to
65 Aug. Conf. I.6.7: nam tunc sugere noram et adquiescere delectationibus, flere autem
offensiones carnis meae, nihil amplius.
66 Aug. Conf. I.6.8: et ecce paulatim sentiebam ubi essem, et voluntates meas volebam
ostendere eis per quos implerentur, et non poteram, quia illae intus erant, foris autem illi,
nec ullo suo sensu valebant introire in animam meam.
67 Augustine will gloss Conf. X.6.8 at X.17.26: ecce ego ascendens per animum meum ad
te . . . volens te attingere unde attingi potes, et inhaerere tibi unde inhaereri tibi potest.
Cf. also Conf. I.9.15: estne quisquam, domine, tam magnus animus, praegrandi affectu
tibi cohaerens, estne, inquam, quisquam (facit enim hoc quaedam etiam stoliditas: est
ergo), qui tibi pie cohaerendo ita sit affectus granditer; IV.12.18: redite, praevaricatores, ad
cor et inhaerete illi qui fecit vos; IV.14.23: ecce ubi iacet anima infirma nondum haerens
soliditati veritatis; V.4.7: et quasi nihil habens omnia possidet inhaerendo tibi; VI.6.9: nunc
tibi inhaereat anima mea; VII.5.7: haerebat in corde meo in catholica ecclesia fides Christi;
VII.11.17: mihi autem inhaerere deo bonum est.
timelessness, has previously described a temporal ‘clinging’ of the heart to the

cipher of eternity in this life, i.e. a converted desire (the extentio of Confessions
XI.29–30).68 Variations of the haerere are also employed, in Confessions I to IX,
to describe social bonds and intimacy.69
In Confessions VI, the term haerere describes Augustine’s sex-drive and sex-
ual habitus,70 and significantly—recall the formulation at X.6.8: “where that
holds-close (haeret) which satedness never disrupts”—his final separation
from the mother of his son, Adeodatus:
And she being torn from my side . . . my heart, where I was attached to her,
was lacerated and wounded and shed blood.
et avulsa a latere meo . . . cor, ubi adhaerebat, concisum et vulneratum

mihi erat et trahebat sanguinem. (VI.15.25)
To dismiss the significance of this haerere—this incident, this sense of ‘the

heart’—in the Confessions would be a mistake.71 Prior to Confessions X.6.8
(the lyrical passage recently quoted), this sentence from Confessions VI is
perhaps the clearest indication of the rudiment of a passional haerere in the
Confessions.72 It is Augustine’s text—structurally, lexically, repeatedly73—and
not a psychologistic interpretive tendency, that suggests a deep relatedness
68 Also post-mortem, cf. Aug. Conf. X.28.39: cum inhaesero tibi ex omni me, nusquam erit
mihi dolor et labor, et viva erit vita mea tota plena te; XI.29.39: donec in te confluam pur-
gatus et liquidus igne amoris tui.
69 Aug. Conf. II.3.8: ecce cum quibus comitibus iter agebam platearum Babyloniae . . . et
in umbilico eius quo tenacius haererem, calcabat me inimicus invisibilis et seducebat
me, quia ego seductilis eram; IV.3.5: quia enim factus ei eram familiarior et eius
sermonibus . . . adsiduus et fixus inhaerebam; IV.4.7: amicitia . . . non est vera nisi cum eam
tu agglutinas inter haerentes tibi caritate diffusa in cordibus nostris; VI.10.16: hunc ergo
Romae inveneram, et adhaesit mihi fortissimo vinculo mecumque Mediolanium profectus
est . . . talis ille tunc inhaerebat mihi mecumque nutabat in consilio; VIII.6.15: respondit
ille adhaerere se socium tantae mercedis tantaeque militiae; IX.4.8: matre adhaerente
nobis muliebri habitu, virili fide . . . materna caritate.
70 Aug. Conf. VI.12.22: . . . ita haerere visco illius voluptatis ut me adfirmarem . . . caelibem
vitam nullo modo posse degere.
71 Cf., for instance, Virg. Aen. I.715–16: “With her eyes, with all her heart she clings to him”
(haec oculis, haec pectore toto haeret).
72 The other relevant passage here is Aug. Conf. IV.12.18: ecce ubi est, ubi sapit veritas: inti-
mus cordi est . . . redite, praevaricatores, ad cor et inhaerete illi qui fecit vos.
73 Cf. Aug. Conf. VIII.10.24: ita etiam cum aeternitas delectat superius et temporalis boni
voluptas retentat inferius, eadem anima est non tota voluntate illud aut hoc volens et
168 chapter 7
between Augustine’s ‘woman’ and ‘god,’ which could also (albeit distantly) be
seen as a Platonic motif.
However, the timeless haerere of the caelum intellectuale in Confessions
XII, despite sexual-libidinal echoes,74 is constitutive: this haerere is its condi-
tion (conditionis suae, XII.15.20).75 And in this, the root-word haerere as a ter-
minus technicus in book XII differs radically from its sense in Confessions I
to IX, and indeed, in Confessions X.6.8. So what is the constitutive haerere in
the Confessions that precedes, pre-delineates and renders (negatively)
determinate the haerere in Confessions XII—thus elucidating, indirectly,
sense-affective time in Confessions XI?
Several sentences in Confessions X.33.49 provide an initial indication. In
rehearsing the temptations that attend voluptates aurium in general—this is
Cicero’s term of art, before it is Augustine’s76—and the voluptates aurium of
liturgical song in particular,77 Augustine observes:
ideo discerpitur gravi molestia, dum illud veritate praeponit, hoc familiaritate non ponit;
VIII.11.27: narrant tibi delectationes, sed non sicut lex domini dei tui; etc.
Cf. also the ascent-section in book VII, prior to Augustine’s renunciation of his sexual
consuetudo, at Conf. VII.17.23: . . . et pondus hoc consuetudo carnalis . . . neque ullo modo
dubitabam esse cui cohaererem, sed nondum me esse qui cohaererem . . .
74 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: cuius voluptas tu solus es, teque perseverantissima castitate hauriens
mutabilitatem suam nusquam et numquam exerit, et te sibi semper praesente, ad quem
toto affectu se tenet; XII.15.19: tam casto amore cohaerentem deo vero et vere aeterno;
XII.15.20: mens rationalis et intellectualis castae civitatis tuae, matris nostrae.
And for Conf. XII.11.12, voluptas . . . solus, cf. Virg. Aen. III.660, where the monstrous
Polyphemus’ “sole pleasure” (sola voluptas) is in his flocks of sheep.
75 Aug. Conf. XII.15.19–21: . . . creaturam tam casto amore cohaerentem deo . . . in eius solius
veracissima contemplatione requiescat . . . sumpsit exordium, quamvis non temporis, quia
nondum erat tempus, ipsius tamen conditionis suae . . . etsi non solum ante illam sed
nec in illa invenimus tempus . . . amore grandi tibi cohaerens tamquam semper meridies
luceret.
76 Cf. for instance, Cic. Or. 12.38: voluptatem aurium; 18.58: aurium voluptatem; 48.159:
voluptati . . . aurium morigerari debet oratio; 60.203: aurium voluptate; 71.237: aurium
voluptatem.
For Augustine’s acquaintance with and use of Cic. Or.: Hagendahl 1967, 553–69;
Testard 1958, I:189–92. Testard (1958, II:120) identifies 7 citations of the Or. in Aug. Doctr.,
but none in the Conf.; similarly, Hagendahl (1967, 554 n. 2) writes that Cic. Or. provides
“the leading theme of Augustine’s exposition” in Doctr. IV, but sees no citations or testi-
monies in the Conf. Against Testard and Hagendahl, then, I would suggest that the entire
motif of voluptates aurium in Conf. X is, in fact, derived from Cic. Or.; and thereby—as
one could predict—relates back to Augustine’s years as a rhetor, and his withdrawal from
the profession. Cf. Aug. Conf. IX.4.7: et venit dies quo etiam actu solverer a professione
rhetorica . . .; etc.
77 Vid. Heidegger 1995, 217–18/2004, 161–62.
The pleasures of the ear had more tenaciously . . . subjugated me, but you
unbound and liberated me [o god]. Yet still in those sounds which your
eloquence breathes life into, when they are sung with a sweet and well-
tempered voice,78 I confess, that at times I take delight in them79—yet
not so as to cling to these sounds, for I can depart when I will.
voluptates aurium tenacius me . . . subiugaverant, sed resolvisti et liber-

asti me. nunc in sonis quos animant eloquia tua cum suavi et artificiosa
voce cantantur, fateor, aliquantulum adquiesco, non quidem ut haeream,
sed ut surgam cum volo. (X.33.49)
The haerere here is suggestive precisely because it is not constitutive: ‘I can

depart when I will.’ Since the caelum intellectuale is explicitly conceived—for
only in this is it distinct from the deity80—as mutable, it could, per Augustine’s
exposition, ‘depart’ from its ageless contemplatio and shiftless voluptas. It is
(speculatively) capable of a lapse into times but, for Augustine, it will not so
lapse—it will never lapse.81
And yet, to trace out Augustine’s theologically motivated caveat here82 (i.e.
the mutability of the hyper-heavenly as an originated existence): “There is
mutability-itself in it, from which it would become dark and cold unless it
cohered to you with a potent love” (XII.15.21). The imagery here is intention-
ally cadaverous;83 in a lapse from its timeless haerere, the caelum intellectuale
would die. Its haerere is, while speculatively assured, speculatively passable.
Despite initial appearances, however, this passable haerere is still constitutive:
78 Cf. Cic. Or. 27.55–28.58 on rhetorical ‘delivery’ as “some mode of bodily eloquence”
(quasi corporis quaedam eloquentia), and on that wondrous “quality of the voice”
(mira . . . natura vocis) whereby there exists, “even in speech, some type of singing” (in
dicendo quidam cantus), culminating in this rhetorical maxim: “Let art (industria) follow
the lead of nature (natura) in the pleasures of the ear (ad aurium voluptatem).”
79 At Cic. Orat. III.45.177 there is a strong link from “the pleasures of the ear” (aurium volup-
tatem) to the “motions” of auditors’ souls (animorum motum).
80 Aug. Conf. XII.15.19: nec tamen tibi coaeterna, quoniam non sine initio, facta est enim.
81 Armstrong’s (1954, 282) reference to “the unrealised possibility of its falling away” is insuf-
ficiently strong. Porro (1996, 82–83) is more perceptive: “Di fatto, la durata del caelum
caeli è assolutamente stabile, sottratta anch’essa, al pari dell’eternità divina (ma solo in
virtù di quest’ultima), alla mutabilità del tempo.”
82 Aug. Conf. XII.18.27: omnes quidem qui legimus nitimur hoc indagare atque comprehen-
dere, quod voluit ille quem legimus.
83 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.15.21: tenebresceret et frigesceret nisi amore grandi tibi cohaerens;
X.36.59 (cit. Crouse 1981, 183): ut te perversa et distorta via imitanti tenebrosi frigidique
servirent.
170 chapter 7
it is not the (speculative) impossibility of its lapse, but the result of its lapse
that renders this haerere constitutive. And this ‘constitutiveness’ is duplex:
(α) a failure of this haerere would result in the ‘death’ of the hyper-
heavenly (tenebresceret et frigesceret, XII.15.21); and
(β) such a failure would result in the end of its timelessness (sine ullo
lapsu . . . excedit omnem volubilem vicissitudinem temporum, XII.9.9).
In Confessions X there is a haerere which is similarly constitutive, but in this

instance of ‘a life,’ of vita temporalis:
(α) the cessation of this haerere is death; and

(β) such a cessation is, necessarily, the end of a vita temporalis.
And incidentally, with this originary haerere as with the (speculative) passibil-
ity of Augustine’s caelum intellectuale, there is also the possibility of a willed
death—‘I can depart when I will’—which is suicide.84 It could thus be, at once,
that the intelligibility of this sublime creature derives from a negative delinea-
tion of the conditions for sensibility, while the speculative condition for this
creature’s timelessness would illuminate the sensual conditions for time.
84 Cf. for instance, Girard 1992, 110: “L’évocation du suicide revient constamment tout au
long des œuvres antidonatistes [d’Augustin].”
chapter 8
Corpus et Anima: The Duplicity of

Praesens from Confessions X
I opened chapter 3 with a sentence from Lyotard, to the effect that the
Confessions do not promise a “conceptual discrimination between . . . the sen-
sible/intelligible, soul/body.”1 And I praised this sentence. Yet it appears, prima
facie, to betray a serious—if not a willful—ignorance of Augustine, and par-
ticularly of Confessions XII.
This book explicitly discriminates according to the sensibile and the intelli-
gibile, and this terminology is—as I have observed—first deployed in book
XII.2 Furthermore, this axiological division—the (conditioned) limits of which
are here marked by the materia informis and the caelum intellectuale—
pervades the Confessions. This has not escaped Lyotard’s notice, but what he
indicates here is that Augustine’s rigour—and the fecundity of his ‘confessive’
discourse in particular—derive in part from a willingness to insist upon the
repeated problematization of this distinction in his process of reflection.3
And so it is here: a speculative haerere in Confessions XII which is conceived
and elaborated strictly, obsessively on the order of the intelligibile,4 is driving
us towards a sub-phenomenal haerere in Confessions X that eludes the s ensibile/
intelligibile divide. Without this prior haerere, I contend, neither the c aelum
1 Lyotard 2000, 49/1998, 72 (tr. mod.).

2 Aug. Conf. XII.5.5: non est intellegibilis forma . . . neque sensibilis; XII.20.29: intellegibilem
atque sensibilem vel spiritalem corporalemque creaturam; XII.28.39: intellegibilis sensibil-
isque creatura; XII.29.40: universae, id est intellegibilis corporalisque, creaturae.
3 Cf. Schürmann 1993, 266–67: “Augustine pursued with equal vehemence both the flash
of the suddenly occurring singular and [the] arrested presence [of eternity, of the intelligi-
bile]. The sudden occurrence bursts in advance such arrests . . . [and thus] the hierarchizing
disjunctions in Augustine . . . are only his penultimate word on the question of conditions.
His final word adds to the exalted terms (heaven, truth, high, . . .) disparate and nevertheless
co-originary terms: tender love, monstration, irruption, intervention, singularization . . . This
is how Augustine remains faithful.”
4 Cf. Pépin 1953, 270: “Augustin connaît parfaitement l’usage respectif, dans la langue latine
tardive, de intellectualis et de intellegibilis, dont il faut rapprocher celui de νοερός et de νοητός
en grec, spécialement à l’époque hellénistique . . . intellectualis (ou νοερός) doit qualifier le
sujet qui connaît, intellegibilis (ou νοητός) l’objet qui est connu.”
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172 chapter 8
intellectuale in book XII nor the anima humana in book XI5 can be properly
interpreted, and the time-question and decisive time-concepts in the
Confessions will necessarily, as a result, remain obscure.
I have previously quoted the passage in Confessions X in which Augustine
asks, “What nature am I?” (X.17.26). This question of nature is subtly echoed in
book XII, where Augustine refers to the caelum caeli as a natura intellectualis.6
And later in book XII, the caelum caeli—that singular ‘nature’—is denomi-
nated a caelum intelligibile, in contradistinction to a totality of “corporeal
nature” (omnis natura corporea) within which bodies are apprehended—by
humans and beasts—through the “bodily senses” (corporeis sensibus nota,
XII.21.30).7 The sensibile/intelligibile divide thus appears to be acute in
Confessions XII. But, it could be asked, where is life (vita) on this split register
of the sensibile/intelligibile? For Augustine is a ‘vita,’ in Confessions X, and vita
is radically, vehemently spacious; and vita is not simplex. Augustine’s vita is
certainly not a natura intellectualis; yet neither is it a natura corporalis.8 At
Confessions XII.5.5, Augustine gestures towards ‘vita’ as a forma intellegibilis,9
and there is a formal, i.e. an ‘intelligible’ sense of ‘vita.’ Nevertheless, this ‘form’
is manifestly not Augustine’s vita immensa as memoria, nor his vita mea as ego
sum, nor is it, precisely, hac vita as conditio—that is to say, the forma of vita is
itself not a vita.10 And in a section of Confessions X that Augustine intentionally
5 Aug. Conf. XI.15.19: videamus ergo, anima humana, utrum praesens tempus possit esse
longum.
6 Aug. Conf. XII.15.20: intellectualis natura.
7 Aug. Conf. XII.21.30: id est hoc totum . . . unde fieret caelum corporeum et terra corporea
cum omnibus quae in eis sunt corporeis sensibus nota . . . id est hoc totum . . . unde fieret
caelum intelligibile (quod alibi dicitur ‘caelum caeli’) et terra, scilicet omnis natura
corporea.
Here Augustine is rehearsing various interpretations of the Hexaemeron he could
accept, and though these interpretations diverge from his own in Conf. XII, the terminol-
ogy does not.
And cf. Conf. XII.28.39: unde sensibilis moles ista corporea sinu grandi continens per-
spicuas promptasque naturas.
8 Aug. Conf. X.6.10: tibi dico, anima, quoniam tu vegetas molem corporis tui praebens ei
vitam, quod nullum corpus praestat corpori.
9 Aug. Conf. XII.5.5: intellegibilis forma sicut vita, sicut iustitia; cf. Civ. VIII.6: quidquid est,
vel corpus esse vel vitam, meliusque aliquid vitam esse quam corpus, speciemque corporis
esse sensibilem, intellegibilem vitae.
10 Cf. Aug. Epist. 3.1: “. . . we say ‘human’ as it were, i.e. human when compared to that [idea
of ] man which Plato knew, or we say—as it were—‘round’ or ‘square’ of things we see,
though they differ radically from those [ideas] which are seen by the minds of very few”
(. . . dicimus ‘hominem’ quasi hominem in comparatione hominis illius, quem Plato noverat,
Corpus et Anima 173
reverses in book XII, citing I Corinthians 13.12,11 Augustine’s vita is identified

with—and by—an ineliminable resistance to the clarity that attends formal-
intelligible concepts such as eternity or, for that matter, the intelligible itself.12
It is thus not incidental that vita is obscured in Confessions XII. The vita
immensa/vita cotidiana of book X,13 or the vita temporalis of book XI (which
still opens Confessions XII.1.1), is glimpsed in rare and disjunct allusions to
corpus/spiritus or corpus/animus in book XII.14 The salient exception to this, in
book XII,15 which relates to the hyper-heavenly’s mutabilitas at the close of the
last chapter, and leads in this chapter to a constitutive haerere in book X, is this
aside:
Since all things have been conditioned . . . out of nothing . . . there is in

them all a certain mutability whether they remain in their [timeless]
condition, as does the eternal house of god [sc. caelum intellectuale], or
are mutive like the human soul and body.
quia . . . ex nihilo cuncta facta sunt . . . et inest quaedam mutabilitas omni-

bus, sive maneant, sicut aeterna domus dei, sive mutentur, sicut anima
hominis et corpus. (XII.17.25)
While Augustine’s caelum intellectuale/natura intellectualis is formally or dog-

matically ‘mutable,’ since it has originated, its condition is yet ‘eternal’:
the hyper-heavenly is not mutive.16 As established in the last chapter, it is the
aut quasi rotunda et quasi quadra ea, quae videmus, cum longe ab eis absint, quae pauco-
rum animus videt).
11 Aug. Conf. X.5.7: et certe videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate, nondum facie ad
faciem; XII.13.16: . . . caelum intellectuale, ubi est intellectus nosse simul, non ex parte, non
in aenigmate, non per speculum, sed ex toto, in manifestatione, facie ad faciem.
12 Specifically, here, as ‘inviolability.’ Cf. Aug. Conf. X.5.7: tamen est aliquid hominis quod nec
ipse scit spiritus hominis qui in ipso est. . . . aliquid de te scio quod de me nescio. . . . et
ideo . . . mihi sum praesentior quam tibi et tamen te novi nullo modo posse violari; X.2.2:
domine, cuius oculis nuda est abyssus humanae conscientiae, quid occultum esset in me.
13 Aug. Conf. X.35.36: circumquaque cotidianam vitam nostram tam multa huius generis
rerum circumstrepant.
14 Aug. Conf. XII.3.3: non corpus, non spiritus; XII.6.6: numquid animus? numquid corpus?
numquid species animi vel corporis?
15 Prior to Conf. XII.29, which I review in 9.1.
Cf. here, Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: neque enim sonus est cantandi artifex, sed cantanti ani-
mae subiacet ex corpore, de quo cantum faciat.
16 Aug. Conf. XII.15.22: secundum modum suum ‘aeterna.’
174 chapter 8
hyper-heavenly’s haerere—its singular cohesion to god—that ‘restrains’ or

‘represses’ its mutability, i.e. that constitutes its timelessness. And I have
stressed the Latin ‘inest’ in the above passage (‘. . . there is in them all . . .’)
because, while the hyper-heavenly has mutabilitas ‘in it,’ Augustine also speci-
fies that there is no tempus “in it” (nec in illa invenimus tempus, XII.15.21).17 By
contrast, vita not only has mutabilitas ‘in it,’ but its “soul and body” (anima . . . et
corpus, XII.17.25) are mutive—which is to say that, for Augustine, vita is situ-
ated “in times,”18 and that vita has time and mutivity “in it.”19
The haerere that constitutes this condition—i.e. temporality, mutivity,
mortality—is weakly indicated, here in book XII, by the conjunctive in the
phrase quoted above: “the human soul and body” (anima hominis et corpus,
XII.17.25). In Confessions X, this conjunctive ‘et’ is interrogated relative to the
phenomenon of the ‘within’ (intus)—and in one place, the conjunctive appears
to be eliminated.20 Because of this ‘et,’ Augustine’s concept of the ‘within’
remains proto-phenomenological, and the sensibile/intelligibile divide is prob-
lematized. And it is finally this haerere in Confessions X, I suggest, that consti-
tutes the possibility of the ‘locus’ of tempus in Confessions XI; and this
‘locus’—in beasts as in humans—is duplicitous.
8.1 “A Body and a Soul Are Present in Me” (Conf. X.6.9)
From Augustine’s distant indication of the ‘inness’ of mutabilitas in “the human

soul and body” at Confessions XII.17, we should return to Confessions X.6
17 Aug. Conf. XII.15.21: non solum ante illam sed nec in illa invenimus tempus.
18 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: distentio est vita mea . . . ego in tempora.
19 Aug. Conf. XII.17.25: inest quaedam mutabilitas . . . sicut anima hominis et corpus.
Cf. Aug. Serm. 337.4–5: conquadramini, dolamini, in laboribus, in necessitatibus, in
vigiliis, in negotiis . . . ut in aeterna vita velut compage societatis angelorum requiescere
mereamini. Iste enim locus temporaliter aedificatus est, nec in aeternum durabit: sicut et
ipsa nostra corpora . . . non sunt utique sempiterna, sed temporalia atque mortalia.
Habitationem autem habemus ex deo, domum non manufactam, aeternam in coelis: ubi
et ipsa nostra corpora conversione resurrectionis coelestia et sempiterna futura sunt.
20 Aug. Conf. X.30.41: et tantum valet imaginis inlusio in anima mea in carne mea, ut
dormienti falsa visa persuadeant quod vigilanti vera non possunt.
O’Donnell (1992, III:209) remarks: “in anima mea in carne mea: CDG Maur. insert et
between the two phrases, missing the point; the first phrase goes with ‘inlusio,’ the second
with ‘valet.’ ” I suggest that ‘the point’ of this seeming omission could rather be, as the
context (Conf. X.30.41–42) confirms, that in certain of his concrete analyses the axiologi-
cal and quasi-phenomenal distinction caro-anima wholly disappears.
Corpus et Anima 175
(see 7.2). This is where Augustine anticipates his question, at X.17, ‘What nature
am I?’ and after initially surveying his surroundings (omnibus his quae circum-
stant fores carnis meae, X.6.9), vainly seeking his god, he writes:
I turned to myself and said to myself: “And you, who are you?” And I
answered: “A human.” And look: a body and a soul are present in me, one
outward, the other inward.21
direxi me ad me et dixi mihi, “tu quis es?” et respondi, “homo.” et ecce

corpus et anima in me mihi praesto sunt, unum exterius et alterum inte-
rius. (X.6.9)
It is Martin Heidegger who first fixed my attention on these sentences, with

a stress on Augustine’s Latin, at ‘in me,’ that he does not explicate or return to
in his 1921 lecture-course on Confessions X.22 The remainder of this chapter is
devoted to what Heidegger and Augustine alike recognize as very difficult
terrain—vita as constitutively ‘interior’ and ‘exterior.’ I will address this terrain
by way of the sub-phenomenal haerere in Confessions X which is (negatively)
reflected in the hyper-heavenly’s haerere in book XII, and which (indirectly)
elucidates the duplicitous character of temporal distentio—for humans, and
tacitly for beasts—in book XI.
8.2 The Sense of Anima, the Sense of Animus (Conf. X.7)
The memoria-ascent of Confessions X.8–27 is clearly relevant to the time-

investigation in book XI, since memoria co-constitutes Augustine’s distentio
animi.23 But in Confessions X.6–7, Augustine has not yet ‘come to’ memoria in
his process of reflection.24 It is thus tempting to neglect the several paragraphs
that lead him into his memoria-ascent, and to assume that it is strictly the
21 Remark the language: exterius-exterior and interius-interior are comparative forms. The
phrase could thus be precisely translated, ‘one more-outer, the other more-inner,’ but this
is a hopeless construction; it should not, however, be translated ‘one outside, the other
inside.’ I have chosen ‘outward’ and ‘inward,’ both of which are appropriate lexically, to
indicate this relativity—which is specifically one of directionality.
22 Heidegger 1995, 179–80/2004, 131: “ ‘Corpus et anima in me mihi praesto sunt.’ (Das ist
nicht einfach eine objektive Charakteristik, eine ‘Synthese.’)”
23 Moreau (1955, 250) says of memoria, “elle est créatrice de durée.”
24 This occurs at Aug. Conf. X.8.12: et venio in campos et lata praetoria memoriae.
Cf. Cic. Orat. III.31.124: . . . in hoc igitur tanto tam immensoque campo [sc. memoria].
176 chapter 8
memorial intus or ‘within’ that is relevant to distentio in book XI. This is a

mistake.25 For it is in Confessions X.6–7 that Augustine delimits his concept of
anima-animus in Confessions X to XII, and unless this root-sense of anima-
animus in book X is noted, there can be no serious interpretation of the ‘time’
that is distentio animi in book XI, or of the ‘timelessness’ of Augustine’s caelum
intellectuale in book XII.
But initially: What is the root-sense of ‘presence’ (praesens) in Confessions X?
Augustine writes: “a body and a soul are present in me” (corpus et anima in
me mihi praesto sunt, X.6.9). This ‘et’ in Confessions X.6.9 provides the precise
inflection that should be heard in Augustine’s later reference to the mutivity of
“the human soul and body” (anima hominis et corpus, XII.17.25). The locus
of mutabilitas in Confessions XII, which is also the locus of trine-praesens in
Confessions XI.20.26, is originarily and necessarily duplicitous: praesens intri-
cates corpus-anima, and praesens intricates interior-exterior. The condition of
possibility of the ‘in me’ in the Confessions is not, originarily or isolatedly,
anima, but rather: corpus-anima.26 My body, Augustine writes here, is ‘in
me.’ And despite the valorization of ‘interiority’ in a host of Augustine-
interpretations, this ‘in me’ of Confessions X is not, originarily or isolatedly,
interior, but rather: interior-exterior. An outness of the flesh is present ‘in me.’27
It is this originary (and constitutive) duplicity of praesens that Augustine
will negate of the hyper-heavenly when he writes, in Confessions XII, that
“without any defection in passing-out-of-itself . . . [it is] a pure mind, hyper-
harmoniously one”;28 it is this duplicity of praesens that Augustine will
reproduce in Confessions X, once he ‘ascends’ into memoria; and it is this
duplicity of praesens that Augustine will echo in Confessions XI, at the end
of the time-investigation.29 In Confessions X to XII: presence defies u nicity.30
And it is this ‘defiance’—not at all, as Alliez suggests, a “defiance . . . of
25 Recall the prominence of vis and natura in Conf. X.6–7, which anticipates the vim
naturamque temporis at XI.23: see chapter 4.
26 Cf. Aug. Mor. I.4.6 (cit. Courcelle 1974, 35): Quid ergo ‘hominem’ dicimus? Animam et
corpus tanquam bigas vel Centaurum?
27 Cf. Isid. Etym. XI.1.6: Duplex est autem homo: interior et exterior. Interior homo anima,
exterior homo corpus.
28 Aug. Conf. XII.11.12: sine ullo defectu egrediendi in aliud, mentem puram concordissime
unam.
29 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: ecce distentio est vita mea.
30 Cf. Augustine’s fecund indication at Conf. XIII.11.12: dico autem haec tria: esse, nosse,
velle. sum enim et scio et volo. sum sciens et volens, et scio esse me et velle, et volo esse et
scire. in his igitur tribus quam sit inseparabilis vita et una vita et una mens et una essentia,
quam denique inseparabilis distinctio et tamen distinctio, videat qui potest. certe coram se
est; attendat in se et videat et dicat mihi.
Corpus et Anima 177
physical movement”31—that activates Augustine’s question of self-praesens in

Confessions X (in memory and temptation alike), and his question of praesens
tempus in Confessions XI. Augustine’s sum (≈ vita) exceeds his ego,32 as tempo-
ral praesens (spatium temporis) exceeds praesens tempus (punctum temporis).
The space of ‘life,’ like the space of time, is fissured: impresence is implicated in
presence. Or as indicated in 7.2, apropos of pleasure (voluptas) in Confessions
X: presence is constitutively imperfect.
But how does Augustine refer, in Confessions X, to his root-conjunctive in
the phrase, ‘corpus et anima,’ which signals the duplicity of the ‘in me’ and the
duplicity of praesens? Augustine’s (sub-phenomenal) condition for this ‘et,’
which is itself the condition for praesens as such, in this life, is a haerere—a
constitutive haerere, i.e. a haerere that constitutes the ‘life’ of humans and of
beasts. Having very recently written of a mystico-logical homo interior which
may, post mortem, cohere to god (at X.6.8), Augustine now writes of anima as a
vita corporis that inheres in its flesh:
But what is it that I love when I love my god? . . . By my soul-itself I will

ascend to him. I will mount beyond the power by which I inhere in the body
and suffuse its structure with life. Not by that power do I encounter my
god, for then the horse and the mule, since they likewise sense through the
body . . . might encounter him, since it is the same power by which their
bodies also live.
quid ergo amo, cum deum meum amo? . . . per ipsam animam meam
ascendam ad illum. transibo vim meam qua haereo corpori et vitaliter
compagem eius repleo. non ea vi reperio deum meum, nam reperiret et
equus et mulus, sentiunt enim etiam ipsi per corpus . . . et est eadem vis
qua vivunt etiam eorum corpora. (X.7.11)
The axiology here not only threatens to distract, but to deceive. Augustine
immediately ‘ascends’ from this vivifying power (haerere-replere) of the soul to
a sensitizing power (vivificare-sensificare), still in Confessions X.7.11. He lexi-
cally marks this ‘ascent’ with a shift from anima to animus: anima vivifies,
while animus sensitizes a corpus.33 (There is a similar transition in the
31 Alliez 1996, 124/1991, 187.

32 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.8.15: . . . nec ego ipse capio totum quod sum.
33 Aug. Conf. X.7.11: est alia vis, non solum qua vivifico sed etiam qua sensifico carnem
meam . . . iubens oculo ut non audiat, et auri ut non videat, sed illi per quem videam, huic
per quam audiam, et propria singillatim ceteris sensibus sedibus suis et officiis suis: quae
diversa per eos ago unus ego animus.
178 chapter 8
time-investigation from anima to animus,34 which could appear to support

rendering animus as ‘mind’ in Confessions XI. Most interpreters’ confusion of
animus with intellectus-mens in the time-investigation is, nevertheless, just
that: a confusion.) Augustine could perhaps seem to ‘ascend’ past the level of
beasts with his shift from anima to animus,35 yet he immediately attributes
this sensitizing power—and thus, animus—to beasts as well,36 since “they like-
wise sense through the body” (sentiunt enim etiam ipsi per corpus, X.7.11).37
Contrast this with the more precise and elaborate taxonomy we encounter at, for
instance, Isid. Etym. XI.1.13: Dum ergo vivificat corpus, anima est: dum vult, animus est:
dum scit, mens est: dum recolit, memoria est: dum rectum iudicat, ratio est: dum spirat,
spiritus est: dum aliquid sensit, sensus est.
34 Anima at Conf. XI.15.19, XI.19.25, XI.20.26, XI.26.33, and XI.29.39. Animus at Conf. XI.17.22,
XI.18.23–24 (4×), XI.22.28, XI.26.33, XI.27.34, XI.27.36, XI.28.38 (3×).
Rather than a ‘transition,’ it is perhaps an increasing concentration; but in the time-
investigation, as in Conf. X.7.11, the shift from anima to animus indicates no distancing
from sensus.
35 Cf. Arts 1927, 4: “Augustine, in his Confessions, often seems to make no distinction at all in
his use of anima and animus for the Christian conception of ‘soul.’ ”
36 This is important, since O’Daly (1987, 7)—who is cited by O’Donnell (1992, III:292) on this
point, apropos of animus in Conf. XI—correctly writes that “Anima can refer to the soul of
both animals and men. Anima, as well as animus, can apply without distinction of mean-
ing to the human soul in general . . . Animus can, however, also mean ‘mind’.” O’Daly then,
however (and with him, O’Donnell), mis-states that “Animus [in Augustine] . . . is not used
with reference to the souls of non-rational beings.” (Cf. also O’Donnell 1992, II:259:
“Animus is the human soul as opposed to the animal, a spiritual substance, source of intel-
lectual and rational knowledge, but it is also the locus of memory and imagination.”)
This holds true as a generalization (vid. Arts 1927, 4–5)—which is, of course, how
O’Daly intends it to be taken. That Conf. X.7.11 marks an exception to this lexical-
philosophical rule nevertheless has consequences for any interpretation of Conf. XI.
Since—as argued in 1.1—Augustine provides no definitions of anima or animus in Conf.
XI; since—as elaborated in Part III—Augustine locates ‘time,’ alternately, ‘in the anima’
and as a ‘dilation of animus’; and since—as presented in 4.3—the constellation of anima-
animus with vis, in Conf. X.7.11, is of utmost importance for establishing the sense of vis in
a crucial time-statement in Conf. XI.23.20 (ego scire cupio vim naturamque temporis); it is
worth insisting on Augustine’s distinctly ‘non-rational’ use of animus in the passage under
discussion.
Moerover, I could note that it is this ‘non-rational’ use of animus in Conf. X.7.11 that
allows Augustine to proceed—without contradiction—to write in book X: (α) that memo-
ria is a power of animus, and not anima (magna ista vis est memoriae . . . et vis est haec
animi mei atque ad meam naturam pertinent, X.8.15; cf. cum in animo sit quidquid est
in memoria, X.17.26); and (β) that “cattle and birds” also possess memoria (habent enim
memoriam et pecora et aves, X.17.26).
37 Aug. Conf. X.7.11: transibo et istam vim meam, nam et hanc habet equus et mulus: senti-
unt enim etiam ipsi per corpus.
Corpus et Anima 179
That beasts “live and move”38 by the presence of the same sensitizing power
as Augustine (eadem vis, X.7.11)39 must be underscored. It should also be
underscored that the lexical force of Augustine’s haerere is pronounced.
Lucretius, a materialist, uses the same term to depict the vital congress of
anima-animus with a human corpus, while it is similarly this congress which
constitutes ‘a life’ in the De Rerum Natura. Lucretius writes:
Therefore this nature [sc. anima-animus]40 is upheld by the whole body

and is itself the preserver of the body and source of its vitality, for they
cohere41 and fuse with common roots, and it is evident that this bond
cannot be dissolved without death.
Haec igitur natura tenetur corpore ab omni,

ipsaque corporis est custos et causa salutis;
nam communibus inter se radicibus haerent
nec sine pernicie divelli posse videntur.42
The poet then observes that it is sensus, specifically, that is “set alight by the
both”—i.e. anima-animus and corpus—in “our internal organs.”43 And thus,
when Lucretius likens the body to a ‘vessel’ (vas) for the soul,44 in one
38 To perhaps echo Epimenides’ Cretica, by way of Paul the Apostle (Acts 17.28); cf. Sabatier
1743, III:560–61: “In ipſo . . . vivimus, & movemur.”
Cf. also Aug. Civ. VIII.10: . . . et ubi Atheniensibus loquens, cum rem magnam de deo
dixisset et quae a paucis possit intellegi, quod “in illo vivimus et movemur et sumus,”
adiecit et ait: “Sicut et vestri quidam dixerunt.”
39 Aug. Conf. X.7.11: non ea vi reperio deum meum, nam reperiret et equus et mulus, quibus
non est intellectus, et est eadem vis qua vivunt etiam eorum corpora.
Cf. Aug. Quant.anim. 33.70–71.
40 As specified in the following sentence, Lucr. Rer.nat. III.329–30: sic animi atque animae
naturam corpore toto | extrahere haud facile est, quin omnia dissoluantur.
Here extrahere is a counter-concept to Lucretius’ haerere in III.323–26.
41 Cf. Aug. Civ. X.29: Corpus vero animae cohaerere, ut homo totus et plenus est, natura ipsa
nostra teste cognoscimus.
43 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.335–36: communibus inter eas conflatur utrimque | motibus accensus
nobis per viscera sensus.
44 Courcelle 1974, 35: “Mais nous trouvions aussi mentionnée . . . en rapport avec cette
notion de la personne humaine qui est l’âme, la doctrine selon laquelle le corps n’est
qu’un récipient pour l’âme; Augustin, dans le De moribus, dit d’après Varron poculum;
Cicéron . . . écrit [at Cic. Tusc. I.22.52]: ‘Corpus quidem vas est aut aliquod animi recep-
taculum.’ . . . Cette métaphore eut d’ailleurs une vogue considérable; elle apparaît tant
180 chapter 8
aside,45 and later returns to this vessel-image, he expressly sets it in the light of
his original haerere. Again, this is Lucretius:
The body appears to be a vessel, as it were, for the soul [animus]46—or

contrive whatever other image you like to intensify this congress, since
the body coheres by such an intimate link to the soul.
illius quasi quod vas esse videtur,

sive aliud quid vis potius coniunctius ei
fingere, quandoquidem conexu corpus adhaeret.47
Augustine is of course nothing like a Lucretian as regards the materiality

and mortality of the soul, and so forth. But lexically, as Augustine’s use of
haerere indicates, and as regards the vascular link of anima-animus and corpus
in this life, and as constituting ‘a life’—for beasts, as for humans—Augustine’s
rudiment in Confessions X.7.11 is identical to Lucretius’. In this life, soul and
flesh are closer than dust on a man’s skin48 or sweat on a beast’s skin,49 closer
than fire to its fuel50 or an oyster to its shell.51 And it is from this rudiment, this
relation—this intervolution—that Augustine then ‘ascends’ into his vast inland
of memoria in Confessions X.8.12.
8.3 “Cattle and Birds Possess Memory” (Conf. X.17)
From a quasi-bestial immediacy of praesens in sensus, in Confessions X.7.11,

Augustine could seem to retreat, in X.8.12, to a peculiarly human interiority of
dans la tradition platonisante et aristotélisante que chez les Stoïciens, les Épicureans et
les Chrétiens, et suscita toutes sortes de controverses.”
45 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.440: quippe etenim corpus, quod vas quasi constitit eius . . .
46 Most immediately, animus, at Lucr. Rer.nat. III.554; but cf. mens at III.548.
48 Lucr. Rer.nat. III.381–82: nam neque pulveris interdum sentimus adhaesum | corpore.
And cf. Lucretius’ use of haerere to describe honey, at Lucr. Rer.nat. III.193: haeret
enim inter se.
49 Cf. Virg. Georg. III.443–44: . . . cum tonsis inlotus adhaesit sudor.
50 At Sen. Nat.quaest. VII.22.2, fire “clings to its fuel” (alimento suo haereret).
51 At Cic. Nat.deor. II.39.100, certain shellfish are described as “clinging in their shells to the
rocks” (ad saxa nativis testis inhaerentium); and Cicero returns to the image—now meta-
phorically—at Cic. Acad. II.2.8 (ad saxum adhaerescunt).
Corpus et Anima 181
praesens (or quasi-praesentia),52 i.e. praesens in memory. That is to say,

Augustine could seem to retreat from ‘the flesh,’ to a homo interior. This is the
surface-logic of his ascents and the surface of his rhetoric, as we have just seen
in Confessions X.7.11.
But the vehemence of life and the duplicity of presence resist this logic, and
at Confessions X.17.26—transitioning out of his most concrete and celebrated
sections in the memory-ascent, into the aporias of the “life of bliss” (beata
vita)—Augustine also attributes memory to beasts:
So intense is the power of memory!53 So intense the power of life in

humans—whose life is mortal! What am I to do now, o god my true life,
my god? I shall mount beyond this power of mine that is called ‘memory,’
I will pass beyond it so that I may stretch-out towards you . . . Look: I am
ascending through my soul towards you . . . I will also pass beyond this
power of mine called ‘memory,’ intending to touch you where you can
be touched and to cohere to you where it is possible to cohere to you. For
cattle and birds possess memory,54 or they could not rediscover their
resting-places and nests or the many other things they are accustomed
to—nor indeed could they become accustomed to anything if not by
memory.
tanta vis est memoriae, tanta vitae vis est in homine vivente mortaliter!
quid igitur agam, tu vera mea vita, deus meus? transibo et hanc vim
meam quae ‘memoria’ vocatur, transibo eam ut pertendam ad te . . . ecce
ego ascendens per animum meum ad te, qui desuper mihi manes, trans-
ibo et istam vim meam quae ‘memoria’ vocatur, volens te attingere unde
attingi potes, et inhaerere tibi unde inhaereri tibi potest. habent enim
52 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.8.14: . . . et ipse contexo praeteritis atque ex his etiam futuras actiones et
eventa et spes, et haec omnia rursus quasi praesentia meditor; X.8.15: . . . intus in memoria
mea viderem, spatiis tam ingentibus quasi foris viderem.
53 Augustine uses the expression, magna vis est, for bestial memory in De Quantitate Animae,
much as he says here of human memory, tanta vis est memoriae!
Cf. Aug. Quant.anim. 28.54: Sed ille sensus ea quibus tales animae delectantur, acce-
dente consuetudine cuius magna vis est, potest discernere; atque eo facilius, quod anima
belluarum magis corpori affixa est, cuius illi sunt sensus quibus utitur ad victum volup-
tatemque, quam ex eodem illo corpore capit; Conf. X.17.26: tanta vis est memoriae, tanta
vitae vis est in homine vivente mortaliter!
54 Augustine refers—not to ‘cattle and birds’—but to birds and goats (quoting Virgil), at
Aug. Rhyth. I.4.8: nidos post annum revisunt hirundines, et de capellis verissime dictum
est: “Atque ipsae memores redeunt in tecta” [Virg. Georg. III.316].
182 chapter 8
memoriam et pecora et aves, alioquin non cubilia nidosve repeterent,

non alia multa quibus adsuescunt; neque enim et adsuescere valerent
ullis rebus nisi per memoriam. (X.17.26)
The ego ascendens here recommences and repeats Augustine’s ‘ascent’ in X.7.11
past the vivifying power (haerere) of his anima, but the rhetoric of ascent here
(as in X.7.11) tends to obscure the real state of his investigation. Augustine has
analyzed the plateaux of human memory, has plunged ‘within,’ and yet—the
beasts also have memory.55
This is only logical, of course. Since Augustine cedes animus to “the horse
and the mule,” because “they sense . . . through the body” (X.7.11);56 and since
Augustine (unlike Varro)57 identifies animus (and not mens) with memoria
(X.14.21);58 it could be predicted that “cattle and birds” would “possess mem-
ory” (X.17.26). Augustine’s grounds for this assertion are empirical, however—
and irrefragable. Beasts “could not rediscover their resting-places,” and so on,
“if not by memory” (X.17.26). And though he does not make the inference him-
self in Confessions X.17.26, since he is strictly concerned with memory in this
paragraph, the behaviours that Augustine cites as testimony to the beasts’
memory also testify to expectation: beasts could not seek ‘their resting-places,’59
and so on, ‘if not by expectation.’60 Thus, in Confessions X, the beasts possess
anima, and exhibit sensus (X.7.11); because the beasts also possess animus
(X.7.11), they exhibit memoria (X.17.26); and because beasts can seek their
55 Cf. for instance, Aug. Rhyth. I.4.8: puto te negare non posse, bestias habere memoriam . . .
neque in sensu eam, neque in memoria (nam illud non est sine corpore, et utrumque
etiam in bestia est).
56 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.6.9: ego interior cognovi haec, ego, ego animus per sensum corporis mei,
interrogavi mundi molem . . .
57 Cf. Var. Ling. VI.44: Sic ‘reminisci,’ cu ea quae tenuit mens ac memoria, cogitando repetun-
tur. Hinc etiam ‘comminisci’ dictum, a ‘con’ et ‘mente,’ cum finguntur in mente quae non
sunt . . . Ab eadem mente meminisse dictum et amens, qui a mente sua discedit; VI.49:
‘Meminisse’ a ‘memoria,’ cum <in> id quod remanisit in mente rursus movetur.
58 Aug. Conf. X.14.21: animus sit etiam ipsa memoria . . . ipsam memoriam vocantes
‘animum.’
59 Cf. Cic. Tusc. I.24.56: si nihil haberet animus hominis, nisi ut appeteret aut fugeret, id quo-
que esset ei commune cum bestiis.
60 This is laid out at Aug. Imm.anim. 3.3: Corpus autem non nisi secundum tempus move-
tur . . . quod sic agitur, et exspectatione opus est ut peragi, et memoria ut comprehendi queat
quantum potest. Et exspectatio futurarum rerum est, praeteritarum vero memoria. At
intentio ad agendum praesentis est temporis, per quod futurum in praeteritum transit,
nec coepti motus corporis exspectari finis potest sine ulla memoria. Quomodo enim exspec-
tatur ut desinat, quod aut coepisse excidit, aut omnino motum esse?
Corpus et Anima 183
f ormer ‘resting-places,’ they exhibit some power of expectatio. Note well: this is
the full constellation of powers of ‘the soul’ (anima-animus) that gives rise to
distentio—i.e. dimensive time—in Confessions XI.
Augustine’s concessions in Confessions X.7 and X.17, that the beasts possess
animus and memoria, are certainly incidental; but they are by no means
minimal. To the contrary, they drastically alter the complexion of his time-
investigation in Confessions XI. For now, when Augustine writes memoria in
Confessions XI, no interpreter can take him to be referring to a capacity that is
solely human. And now, when Augustine writes animus in Confessions XI—
even, and most essentially, when he writes ‘distentio animi’—no interpreter
can take him to be referring to a dilation that is solely human. Augustine is
undoubtedly, in the first instance, referring to human memoria and the human
animus; in the first instance—but not exclusively. And this is perhaps a prime
instance of Augustine’s confessive genre itself misleading his interpreters. For
it is Augustine’s genre, and not his philosophical commitments, which lead
him—without further ado—to address himself to the human anima in the
first paragraphs of his time-investigation (anima humana, XI.15.19), and then
to the human animus in its last paragraphs (anime meus, XI.27.36). But what is
this generic imperative to address the human anima-animus, even when what
is observed in a human anima-animus could also be posited in a beast’s anima-
animus? As when—for instance—Augustine writes in book XII that the
“human soul and body” (anima hominis et corpus, XII.17.25) are mutive, when
this is no less true of beasts?
To clarify this, we should turn to one of Augustine’s Roman dialogues,61 the
De Quantitate Animae (387/8),62 where Augustine cautions his interlocutor,
Evodius,63 that his concluding disquisition ‘on the soul’ will be circumscribed
by this post-conversion concern:
Do not suppose that I will speak of all souls (de omni anima), but only of
the human soul (tantum de humana), which should be our sole concern
(solam curare debemus) if our concern is indeed with ourselves
(nobismetipsis).64
61 Vid. Aug. Retr. I.8.1.

62 Zarb (1934, 31, 87) and Mutzenbecher (1984, XVII) both date the Quant.anim. to 387/8.
63 For Evodius, later the Catholic bishop of Uzali: Mandouze 1982, 366–73.
64 Aug. Quant.anim. 33.70: . . . ne me de omni anima dicturum putes, sed tantum de
humana, quam solam curare debemus, si nobismetipsis curae sumus.
184 chapter 8
Needless to say, this ‘concern with ourselves’—and specifically, with the soul—
echoes Apollo’s injunction, “Know yourself” (Nosce te),65 which Cicero reinter-
prets, on one occasion, in this way: “Know your soul” (Nosce animum tuum).66
Augustine will decisively, if polemically, disavow this unconcern with the body
in one of his late works,67 although ‘concern with our soul’ is certainly the
vein in which Augustine writes his Confessions.68
But it is imperative to hear precisely what Augustine says in the De Quantitate
Animae: “Do not suppose that I will speak (dicturum) of all souls . . .”69 This is a
rhetorical, not a philosophical, decision that influences the last paragraphs
of the De Quantitate Animae. And this is also—so I contend—a rhetorical
decision, a generic limitation that affects Confessions XI. For in his time-
investigation, Augustine does not speak of the souls of beasts. Nevertheless,
when he writes that it is “given” to the “human soul” (anima humana) to “sense
and measure intervals” of time (sentire moras atque metiri, XI.15.19),70 his
silence is the sole indicator that it is only given to the human soul to ‘sense and
measure intervals’ of time. Interpreters of Augustine’s time-concept in
Confessions X to XII should not be misdirected by or satisfied with this silence
in Confessions XI, since it is possible to reconstruct his admission that ‘time’—
i.e. ‘distentio animi’—is manifested in beasts, as in humans.
8.4 Excursus: Time Is in the Beasts
We have seen that Augustine, in Confessions X—by ceding memory to beasts—

has ceded to beasts a capacity to ‘sense intervals of time,’ and this is more force-
fully stated in the De Quantitate Animae:
65 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.5.7: confitear ergo quid de me sciam, confitear et quid de me nesciam.
66 Cf. Cic. Tusc. I.22.52: Cum igitur, Nosce te, dicit, hoc dicit: Nosce animum tuum; Aug. Sol.
1.7: Deum et animam scire cupio.
67 Cf. Aug. An.orig. IV.2.3: Natura certe tota hominis est spiritus, anima et corpus: quisquis
ergo a natura humana corpus alienare vult, desipit.
68 Aristotle criticizes this trend in the first pages of his De Anima, at Arist. Anim. I.1 (402b):
“At present (νῦν), speakers and inquirers about the soul seem to limit their inquiries to the
human soul (ἀνθρωπίνης μόνης . . . ἐπισκοπεῖν).”
69 Aug. Quant.anim. 33.70: . . . ne me de omni anima dicturum putes, sed tantum de humana.
70 Aug. Conf. XI.15.19: anima humana . . . datum enim tibi est sentire moras atque metiri.
Corpus et Anima 185
This power of habituation is called ‘memory’ when separation [in space]

and the lapse of time have not cut the soul’s link to things themselves. But
no one denies that even in beasts the soul is capable of all these things.
. . . quae consuetudinis vis etiam seiunctione rerum ipsarum atque inter-

vallo temporis non discissa, ‘memoria’ vocatur. Sed haec rursus omnia
posse animam etiam in bestiis nemo negat.71
In the same period72—but in one of his Thagaste dialogues, De Rhythmo

(c. 388/9)73—Augustine appeals to Odysseus’ dog74 to establish the depth
of bestial memory, though the proofs he could cite, he says, are legion
(innumerabilia).75 A beast’s memory-traces, like Odysseus’ dog’s, can outlast
decades of ‘separation and the lapse of time.’ Very well then, a beast can “sense
intervals” of time; but can it “measure intervals” of time (sentire moras atque
metiri, XI.15.19)? Or is this capacity for originary—i.e. non-formalized, pre-
mechanistic—temporal mensuration restricted to the anima humana?
In the Confessions, Augustine has no interest in this question—thus his
silence in Confessions XI. Nevertheless, he addresses it in the De Rhythmo, and
71 Aug. Quant.anim. 33.71.

Augustine’s nemo negat here should be compared with Aug. Rhyth. I.4.8: puto te
negare non posse, bestias habere memoriam; and contrasted with Cicero’s intellectivist
formulations (ratio, mens), at Cic. Off. I.4.11: Inter hominem et beluam hoc maxime
interest, quod haec tantum, quantum sensu movetur, ad id solum, quod adest quoque
praesens est, se accommodat paulum admodum sentiens praeteritum et futurum; homo
autem, quod rationis est particeps, per quam consequentia cernit . . . similitudines com-
parat rebusque praesentibus adiungit atque annectit futuras, facile totius vitae cursum
videt . . .; Cic. Rep. IV.1: . . . ipsa mens ea, quae futura videt, praeterita meminit.
72 And in fact, even in the same dialogue, at Aug. Quant.anim. 26.50: Sciebat enim, ut
opinor, dominum suum canis, quem post viginti annos recognovisse perhibetur, ut taceam
de caeteris innumerabilibus.
73 Zarb (1934, 32–33, 87) suggests the date-range of 387–390, Mutzenbecher (1984, xvii) of
388–390.
74 Cf. Hom. Od. XVII.290–327, here 300–302: “There lay the hound Argos . . . yet even now,
when he marked (ἐνόησεν) Odysseus standing near, he wagged his tail.”
For Augustine’s acquaintance with and citations of Homer: Courcelle 1948, 153–54.
75 Aug. Rhyth. I.4.8: . . . nidos post annum revisunt hirundines, et de capellis verissime dic-
tum est: “Atque ipsae memores redeunt in tecta” [Virg. Georg. III.316]. Et canis heroem
dominum, iam suis hominibus oblitum recognovisse praedicatur. Et innumerabilia, si veli-
mus, animadvertere possumus, quibus id quod dico manifestum est.
186 chapter 8
in that text it is clear that beasts can measure intervals of time—and rhythmi-
cally. In De Rhythmo I, Augustine says to his protégé:
Aug. – A song-bird appears to metricize its voice well76 . . . for its song is

at once rhythmically numbered and pleasing. . . . Therefore tell me, I ask
you: don’t they all appear to be like the song-bird, all those who sing well
under the guidance of some sense, that is to say, who make their song in
a rhythmical and pleasing way but who, if they were questioned about
rhythm-numbers themselves, or the intervals of high and low pitches,
could not respond?
Prot. – I think they are most similar.
Aug. – And what of those without such formal knowledge who choose to
listen to songs? [Are they not also like the beasts?]77 For we see that ele-
phants, bears, and many other types of beasts are moved by song, and
birds are themselves charmed by their own voices . . .
M. – Responde igitur, utrum tibi videatur bene modulari vocem lus-

cinia . . . nam et numerosus est et suavissimus ille cantus . . . Dic mihi
ergo, quaeso te; nonne tales tibi omnes videntur, qualis illa luscinia est,
qui sensu quodam ducti bene canunt, hoc est numerose id faciunt ac sua-
viter, quamvis interrogati de ipsis numeris, vel de intervallis acutarum
graviumque vocum, respondere non possint?
D. – Simillimos eos puto.
M. – Quid? ii qui illos sine ista scientia libenter audiunt; cum videamus
elephantos, ursos, aliaque nonnulla genera bestiarum ad cantus moveri,
avesque ipsas delectari suis vocibus . . .78
I will turn to the implications of this passage momentarily, but Augustine’s—

perhaps, to us, unexpected—mention of elephants being responsive to song,79
is an occasion to glance at a couple of the reports circulating in late antiquity
which bear on beasts’ capacities to sense and measure time-intervals. In book
76 Aug. Rhyth. I.2.2: Musica est scientia bene modulandi; I.4.5: Responde igitur, utrum tibi
videatur bene modulari vocem luscinia verna parte anni . . .
77 In his translation of the work, R.C. Taliaferro follows the logic of this question over the
letter, at Aug. Rhyth. I.4.5: “And what’s more, aren’t those who like to listen to them with-
out this science to be compared to the beasts?”
78 Aug. Rhyth. I.4.5.
79 At Aug. Civ. VIII.15, elephants exemplify strength: Quis multum valendo leonibus et
elephantis?
Corpus et Anima 187
VIII of Pliny the Elder’s Historia Naturalis—a not-infrequently cited work in

Augustine’s City of God against the Pagans80—Pliny recalls this:
In the gladiatorial display that was provided by Germanicus Caesar, the

elephants performed a sort of dance (saltantium modo). . . . It was a com-
mon thing (vulgare erat) to see them . . . sway through the steps of the
Pyrrhic dance (lascivienti pyrriche conludere).81
All dance (saltatio) is a manifestation of rhythm, in the first pages of the De

Rhythmo.82 That is to say, for Augustine, dance is a metric behaviour—and in
1st-century Rome, the elephants’ Pyrrhic was a common sight. Augustine
seems to suggest—“When we see . . .” (videamus)83—that he had witnessed a
similar display towards the end of the 4th century.
But there is a still more striking passage in Arrian’s Indica, which has paral-
lels in Aelian’s De Natura Animalium,84 and which fits more closely with
Augustine’s comment: “We see elephants . . . moved by song (ad cantus
moveri).”85 Arrian testifies, in his mimetic or piratic first-person voice:
I myself have seen (εἶδον δὲ ἐγὼ) an elephant clanging cymbals, and oth-
ers dancing in time. Two cymbals were fastened to this cymbalist’s
(κυμβαλίζοντι) forelegs and one on his trunk, and he rhythmically (ἐν
ῥυθμῷ) beat the cymbal on either leg, in turn, with his trunk. The ele-
phant dancers (ὀρχεόμενοι) danced in a circle, and raising and bending
80 Hagendahl (1967, 670–73) disputes a number of ‘Pliny’ citations in Aug. Civ., and wants to
limit Augustine’s readings to Plin. Hist.nat. VII.
81 Plin. Hist.nat. VIII.2.2.
82 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. I.3.4: . . . si quis suavissime canens, et pulchre saltans . . . ; I.13.27: Quid, si
quispiam numerose plaudat, ita ut unus sonitus simplum, alter dumplum temporis
teneat, quos iambos pedes vocant, eosque continuet atque contexat; alius autem ad eum-
dem sonum saltet, secundum ea scilicet tempora movens membra? nonne aut etiam dicas
ipsum modulum temporum, id est quod simplum ad duplum spatia in motibus alternent,
sive in illo plausu qui auditur, sive in illa saltatione quæ cernitur; aut saltem delecteris
numerositate quam sentias, tametsi non possis numeros ejus dimensionis edicere? . . . illi
qui hos numeros noverunt, sentiunt eos in plausu atque saltatione; VI.9.24: . . . et ‘sonan-
tium’ nomen mutandum putem, quoniam si ‘corporales’ vocentur, manifestius signific-
abunt etiam illos qui sunt in saltatione, et in cætero motu visibili.
84 Cf. Ael. Nat.anim. II.11.
188 chapter 8
their forelegs in turn, also moved rhythmically (ἐν ῥυθμῷ) as the one with
the cymbals led them on.86
Here in Arrian, beasts thrill to and produce rhythmic intervals—that is to say,

sense and measure intervals of time. And this scene from the Indica, with its
elephantine cymbalist and chorus, prepares us for the decisive ‘scene’ in De
Rhythmo I.
For having said that “many types of beasts are moved by song,”87 Augustine
transitions to the spectacle of rational beasts88 being ‘moved by song,’ saying
this to his protégé:
Aug. – Why is it, do you think, that the ignorant multitude hisses off
a third-rate flute-player but then applauds one who sings well? . . . For
it isn’t possible to believe that the masses do this by the art of music,
is it?
Prot. – No.
Aug. – What then?
Prot. – I think it is done by nature, which gives a sense of hearing to all,
by which such things are judged.
Aug. – You are correct.
M. – Unde fieri putas, ut imperita multitudo explodat saepe tibicinem

nugatorios sonos efferentem; rursumque plaudat bene canenti? . . .
Numquidnam id a vulgo per artem musicam fieri credendum est?
D. – Non.
M. – Quid igitur?
D. – Natura id fieri puto, quae omnibus dedit sensum audiendi, quo ista
iudicantur.
M. – Recte putas.89
Since mimicry (imitatio) is a crucial concept in these first, fundamental

pages of the De Rhythmo, it is worth interjecting here that Augustine and his
protégé are alike mimicking the end of a paragraph in Cicero’s Orator, in the
86 Arr. Ind. 14.5–6.

87 Aug. Rhyth. I.3.4: nonnulla genera bestiarum ad cantus moveri.
88 Cf. Aug. Mag. 5.16: Si homo est, animal est; 8.24: . . . tota definitio diceretur, id est animal
rationale mortale . . .
Corpus et Anima 189
foregoing exchange.90 Maurice Testard91 and Harald Hagendahl92 have not fac-
tored this into their still-indispensable mid-century works, but when Augustine
says to his protégé, ‘You are correct,’ he is himself in fact a protégé who is
approving—while mimicking—Rome’s arch-orator, Cicero.93 But to continue:
Aug. – You are correct. But now also consider this, whether the [third-
rate] flute-player is himself endowed with this sense. And if that is so,
then he can, by following his own judgement, move his fingers when he
blows into his flute, and can note and commit to memory what he decides
sounds agreeable; and by repeating it he can accustom his fingers to being
carried on without hesitation or error . . . led on and affirmed (as he is) by
the nature we have spoken of. And so, when memory follows sense, and
joints follow memory . . . this flute-player can sing as he wishes, the more
admirably and pleasingly the more he excels in all those things which
reason has just taught us we have in common with the beasts—namely,
[i] an appetite for mimicry or imitation, [ii] sensation and [iii] memory.
Do you have any objections to this?
Prot. – I have none. But I already want to hear what sort of discipline
this is [sc. musica] which, I now see, is so subtly laid claim to by a cogni-
tion that belongs to the lowest of beasts.
90 Cf. Cic. Or. 51.173: “Will they [the ‘modern’ rhetors] not yield to their own senses (suis
sensibus)? Does it never appear to them that something in a sentence is lacking, or harsh,
or mutilated, lame and redundant? In the case of poetry (in versu), the whole theatre will
cry out (theatra tota exclamant) if the time-quantity of a single syllable is false (se fuit una
syllaba aut brevior aut longior). Not that the multitude knows anything of metric feet, or
has any grasp of the rules of rhythmic-intervals (nec vero multitudo pedes novit nec ullos
numeros tenet); and when displeased they do not comprehend why or with what they are
displeased (nec illud quod offendit aut cur aut in quo offendat ingellegit). And yet nature
itself (ipsa natura) has implanted in our ears (in auribus nostris) the power of judging
(iudicium) all length and brevity in sounds, as well as high and low pitches of the voice.”
91 Cf. Testard 1958, II:138–39.
92 Cf. Hagendahl 1967, 752–53.
93 For it is in the protégé’s response here, which Augustine approves, that the lexical parallels
are sharpest—though even here, the ‘recollection’ is more substantive than semantic:
(i) Cic. Or. 51.173: . . . iudicium ipsa natura in auribus nostris collocavit.
(ii) Aug. Rhyth. I.5.10: Natura id fieri puto, quae omnibus dedit sensum audiendi,
quo ista iudicantur.
In 13.6, I briefly document the Ciceronian provenance of iudicium sensus in the De
Rhythmo, and no less briefly state its significance for Augustine’s time-investigation in
Conf. XI.
190 chapter 8
M. – Recte putas. Sed iam etiam illud vide, utrum et tibicen ipse hoc sensu
praeditus sit. Quod si ita est, potest eius sequens iudicium movere digitos
cum tibias inflaverit, et quod satis commode pro arbitrio sonuerit, id
notare ac mandare memoriae, atque id repetendo consuefacere digitos eo
ferri sine ulla trepidatione et errore . . . illa de qua dictum est ducente
atque approbante natura. Itaque cum sensum memoria, et articuli memo-
riam sequuntur . . . canit cum vult tanto melius atque iucundius, quanto
illis omnibus praestat quae superius ratio docuit cum bestiis nos habere
communia, [i] appetitum scilicet imitandi, [ii] sensum atque [iii] memo-
riam. Numquid habes adversum ista quod dicas?
D. – Ego vero nihil habeo. Iam audire cupio cuiusmodi sit illa disciplina,
quam profecto a cognitione vilissimorum animorum94 video subtilissime
vindicatam.95
Much could be said here that will not. Augustine is erecting an ars/imitatio
opposition whose roots strike deep—to Aristotle’s Poetics,96 and Plato’s Ion.97
Augustine’s opposition is more Aristotelian than Platonic, and more Ciceronian
than Aristotelian; but it is the upshot of this opposition, in the first pages of the
De Rhythmo, that is important. When a late-antique flute-player, orator or
94 Note the genitive plural of animus here, referring to non-rational (bestial) and rational
(human) souls.
96 Cf. Arist. Poet. 4.1–7 (1448b): “Poetic composition seems to owe its origin to two particu-
lar causes, both natural (φυσικαί). From childhood humans have an instinct for imitation
(μιμεῖσθαι σύμφυτον), and in this regard man differs from the other living things (τῶν ἄλλων
ζῴων) since he is the most imitative (μιμητικώτατόν) . . . And then there is the pleasure
humans take from all imitations. . . . We have then a natural-born (κατὰ φύσιν) instinct for
imitation and for song and rhythm (καὶ τῆς ἁρμονίας καὶ τοῦ ῥυθμοῦ)—since the metres are
manifestly parts or sections of rhythms (τὰ γὰρ μέτρα ὅτι μόρια τῶν ῥυθμῶν ἐστι φανερὸν)—
and from these original instincts, very gradually humans developed them until they pro-
duced poetic composition.”
97 Cf. Pl. Ion, where the opposition is framed by “art and knowledge” (τέχνῃ καὶ ἐπιστήμῃ,
532c)—which are denied to the Homeric rhapsode Ion, much as Augustine denies ars
and scientia to his ‘third-rate flute-player’ in the passages I have quoted—and Hellenic
modes of ‘possession’ and ‘dispensation’: “I can tell you [says Socrates to Ion] . . . your clev-
erness in praising Homer comes not by art, but by divine dispensation (οὐ τέχνῃ ἀλλὰ θείᾳ
μοίρᾳ)” (536d); “You are no artist (οὖν τεχνικὸς), but speak . . . without any systematic
insight (τεχνικὸς), and by a divine dispensation which causes you to be possessed by
Homer (θείᾳ μοίρᾳ κατεχόμενος ἐξ Ὁμήρου)” (542a).
Corpus et Anima 191
ecclesiastical cantor98 exhibits his human capacity to ‘sense and measure

intervals’ of time (sings, etc.); and when the multitude in a late-antique the-
atre, law-court or Catholic basilica99 is then moved by the rhythmic quality of
such an exhibition (dances, etc.): all of this is assigned to a mode of cognition
(says the protégé) ‘that belongs to the lowest of beasts.’ All that this displays
of the human anima-animus (says Augustine) is what ‘we have in common with
the beasts’—namely, sensation (= contuitus), memory (= memoria), and an
appetite for mimicry (≈ expectatio).100 That is to say, insofar as the Catholic
liturgy in Thagaste or Hippo Regius is an affair of sense-affective time-rhythm
as time-rhythm,101 it can be likened to elephants cutting steps in Rome or beat-
ing time in India—for there is nothing distinctly human in a sensual capacity
to ‘sense and measure intervals’ of time. Neither anima nor animus, in
Confessions X; nor memoria in Confessions X; nor metricizing or beating time
in the De Rhythmo—such as is required to utter the phrase, Dĕūs crĕātŏr
ōmnĭūm,102 for instance—is restricted to humans.
And to press this to its proper limits, a further divagation is in order. For
while Augustine stresses imitatio in beasts’ vocalizations generally, and refers
to birds specifically in Confessions X, as in De Rhythmo I;103 and while Augustine
98 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.33.49–50: voluptates aurium tenacius me implicaverant et subiugaver-

ant . . . nunc in sonis quos animant eloquia tua cum suavi et artificiosa voce cantantur,
fateor, aliquantulum adquiesco . . . aliquando autem hanc ipsam fallaciam immoderatius
cavens erro nimia severitate, sed valde interdum, ut melos omne cantilenarum suavium
quibus daviticum psalterium frequentatur ab auribus meis removeri velim atque ipsius
ecclesiae . . . tamen cum mihi accidit ut me amplius cantus quam res quae canitur moveat,
poenaliter me peccare confiteor et tunc mallem non audire cantantem.
99 Cf. Aug. Conf. V.13.23: et veni Mediolanium ad Ambrosium episcopum, in optimis notum
orbi terrae . . . et studiose audiebam disputantem in populo, non intentione qua debui, sed
quasi explorans eius facundiam, utrum conveniret famae suae an maior minorve proflu-
eret quam praedicabatur, et verbis eius suspendebar intentus, rerum autem incuriosus et
contemptor adstabam. et delectabar suavitate sermonis, quamquam eruditioris.
100 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. I.5.10: cum bestiis nos habere communia, appetitum scilicet imitandi, sen-
sum atque memoriam; Conf. XI.20.26: sunt enim haec in anima tria quaedam . . . praesens
de praeteritis memoria, praesens de praesentibus contuitus, praesens de futuris
expectatio.
101 It is crucial to note that already at Aug. Epist. 3.2, Augustine has a concept of “sensible
number” (sensibilis numerus): “For what else is sensible number but the quantity of bodies
or of parts of bodies?” (nam quid est aliud sensibilis numerus nisi corporeorum vel corpo-
rum quantitas?).
102 Diacritics here per O’Donnell 1992, III:293.
103 Aug. Conf. X.17.26: habent enim memoriam et pecora et aves; Rhyth. I.4.5: . . . avesque
ipsas delectari suis vocibus.
192 chapter 8
likens birdsong (aves cantant) to that of flutes (tibiis . . . cantatur)104 in the first

lines of the De Magistro (c. 389),105 as in De Rhythmo I; Augustine never—that
I can recall—refers to birds speaking. Indeed, he explicitly contrasts birdsong
(cantus) with speech (locutio) in the De Magistro,106 even as he strongly links
birdsong, in the same sentences, to a type of wordless human song107 that fig-
ures at the conclusion of Augustine’s time-investigation in Confessions XI.108
But if Augustine is silent on the matter, birds were nevertheless known to
‘speak’ in antiquity.
If we turn back to Pliny’s Historia, for instance, we see the following—one
of a number of such reports109 in book X:
As I write this, there is in the city of Rome a crow that belongs to a Roman
of equestrian rank and was brought from the south of Spain (Baetica). . . .
It is able to imitate and enunciate110 a number of syntactically connected
words (plura contexta verba exprimens), and it is rapidly acquiring more
and more new words (alia atque alia crebro addiscens).111
And what is the significance of this crow, for us? In Confessions XI, it is not the
sense but the utterance of those ‘syntactically connected words,’ Dĕūs crĕātŏr
ōmnĭūm, that discloses, for Augustine, the condition of possibility of a space of
time—namely, a ‘dilation’ of anima-animus. But if it is this temporally r egulated
enunciation that discloses Augustine’s ‘distentio animi,’ then surely a mimetic
104 Aug. Mag. 1.1: Nam et tibiis et cithara cantatur, et aves cantant, et nos interdum sine ver-
bis musicum aliquid sonamus . . .
105 Zarb (1934, 33, 87) gives 389, Mutzenbecher (1984, xvii) gives 388–390.
106 Aug. Mag. 1.1: Nam et tibiis et cithara cantatur, et aves cantant, et nos interdum sine ver-
bis musicum aliquid sonamus, qui sonus ‘cantus’ dici potest, ‘locutio’ non potest.
107 Aug. Mag. 1.1: . . . et aves cantant, et nos interdum sine verbis musicum aliquid sonamus, qui
sonus ‘cantus’ dici potest . . .
108 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: voluerit aliquis edere longuisculam vocem, et constituerit prae-
meditando quam longa futura sit, egit utique iste spatium temporis in silentio memoriae-
que commendans coepit edere illam vocem quae sonat, donec ad propositum terminum
perducatur. immo sonuit et sonabit; nam quod eius iam peractum est, utique sonuit, quod
autem restat, sonabit atque ita peragitur, dum praesens intentio futurum in praeteritum
traicit, deminutione futuri crescente praeterito, donec consumptione futuri sit totum
praeteritum.
109 Cf. Plin. Hist.nat. X.58–59.
110 Exprimere denotes both ‘imitate’ and ‘enunciate,’ both of which are obviously pertinent
here, but for ‘imitate,’ cf. Plin. Hist.nat. X.59, where other types of birds can “mimic
human discourse” (sermonem imitantur humanum).
111 Plin. Hist.nat. X.60.
Corpus et Anima 193
enunciation of the same line—Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm—by Pliny’s crow should

also exhibit a ‘distentio animi.’ (Augustine’s imaginal manipulation of the
“image of a crow” (corvi . . . imago) in Epistle 7 could validate this—quite seri-
ous—conceit.)112 Without a dilation of this crow’s anima-animus, that is to say,
it could not possibly enunciate Ambrose’s contexta verba.
And an inversion of this hypothetical is no less illuminating—though again,
it will not originate in Augustine’s corpus. Aristotle reports in his opuscule, De
Audibilibus, that “we see . . . humans imitating (μιμουμένους) the voices of
horses . . . song-birds, cranes, and nearly every other type of living thing.”113
Now, in Confessions XI, “if anyone (aliquis) decides to utter a slightly elongated
sound (longuisculam vocem),”114 its condition of possibility is distentio animi.
Thus, if this ‘slightly elongated sound,’ emitted by a human, should happen to
be the mimicked cry of Aristotle’s crane, then its condition of possibility would
still be distentio animi. But surely, if Augustine cannot emit the cry of a crane
without a dilation of his soul, then a crane cannot emit its cry without a dila-
tion of its soul. This is precisely the mode and level of inference which per-
suades Augustine that the beasts possess memory, and inhabit time.
8.5 The Root-Sense of Anima and Animus (Conf. X–XII)
But to return to Confessions X, and to conclude: Augustine has not, by interro-

gating memory, surpassed the (axiological) level of the vivifying power (haer-
ere) of his soul, nor has he surpassed the duplicity of presence that this
sub-phenomenal haerere conditions. Augustine’s ‘within’ is replete with tem-
poralia and sensibilia: his intus is a quasi-foris. That is to say, his ‘within’ is by
no means discarnate or even, strictly, ‘interior.’ Praesens for the confessive
intus—as for the beasts—is interius-exterius; and praesens for this intus still
intricates—as with the beasts—corpus-anima.
112 Cf. Aug. Epist. 7.3.6: “ ‘Whence comes our capacity to conceive of things we have never
seen (quae non videmus, cogitemus)?’ From what—do you reckon—if not some additive
and subtractive power of the soul (vim quondam minuendi et augendi animae)? . . . By
means of this power, if the image of a crow, for instance—whose appearance is a common
enough sight—is constituted as if it were being seen (ut verbi gratia corvi quasi ob oculos
imago constituta, quae videlicet aspectibus nota est), it can be traduced, by subtracting
some of its features and adding others, into nearly any image that has never been seen . . .”
113 Arist. Aud. (800a).
114 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: voluerit aliquis edere longuisculam vocem . . .
194 chapter 8
Is this a sign of failure, or a sign of rigour? And could this echo of Confessions
X.7.11 (hanc habet equus et mulus) in X.17.26 (habent . . . memoriam et pecora et
aves) signal Augustine’s recognition that the various powers of human memo-
ria, including the peculiar recollection of formal-linguistic and mathematical
concepts (X.9–13), are yet intricated in the soul as vita corporis?115 Augustine’s
plangent review of his memory-ascent at Confessions X.24–25 appears to con-
firm this: it is not in memory, “the very seat of [his] soul” (ipsius animi mei
sedem, X.25.36),116 that he can ‘touch’ or ‘cohere to’ god, because in memory
“all these things are radically changed” (commutantur haec omnia, X.25.36).117
The anima humana, for Augustine, is incommutably mutive in Confessions X
to XII because its constitutive haerere—the haerere that sustains it, like the
beasts, as ‘a life’—is a hyper-intimate link to corpus and to the foris. And con-
versely, Augustine’s caelum intellectuale is incommutably restive118 in
Confessions XII because its speculative haerere is a hyper-intimate link to deity.
The speculative haerere that conditions contemplatio, in book XII, results in
timelessness; the sub-phenomenal haerere that conditions contuitus, in book
X, results in sensation119 and memorial sense-images,120 and in Confessions XI:
tempus.
This is why I stated that the axiology here threatens to deceive. Augustine
rapidly proceeds ‘beyond’ that “power (vim meam) by which I inhere in the body
(haereo corpori)” in Confessions X.7.11, due to its axiological identity (eadem vis)
with the vital force in beasts. Yet there are several reasons to pause here:
(i) It is this root-sense of anima-animus in Confessions X.7.11, i.e. as

vita corporis, that clarifies why Augustine never refers—as I have
remarked—to the caelum intellectuale in book XII as anima, ani-
mus or vita.121
115 Cf. Aug. Epist. 7.2.4–5.

116 Aug. Conf. X.25.36: et intravi ad ipsius animi mei sedem, quae illi est in memoria mea,
quoniam sui quoque meminit animus, nec ibi tu eras.
117 Cf. perhaps, and solely for effect, Lucr. Rer.nat. V.830–31: omnia migrant, | omnia com-
mutat natura et vertere cogit; Aug. Conf. X.25.36: et commutantur haec omnia, tu autem
incommutabilis manes super omnia.
118 ‘Restive’ here in an older sense: ‘stationary.’
119 Aug. Conf. X.7.11: . . . vis, non solum qua vivifico sed etiam qua sensifico carnem meam.
120 Aug. Conf. X.8.12: venio in campos et lata praetoria memoriae, ubi sunt thesauri innu-
merabilium imaginum de cuiuscemodi rebus sensis invectarum; X.8.13: . . . sed rerum sen-
sarum imagines illic praesto sunt cogitationi reminiscenti eas; etc.
121 Recall that in Conf. X.7.11, Augustine constellates animus—and not only anima—with
vita corporis and sensus carnis, and thus, with memoria.
Corpus et Anima 195
(ii) It is this root-sense of anima-animus in Confessions X.7.11, i.e. as

vita corporis, that (negatively) clarifies the speculative haerere of
the caelum intellectuale in book XII—and thus its timelessness—
as I have argued.
(iii) It is this root-sense of anima-animus in Confessions X.7.11, i.e. as
vita corporis, that initiates and permeates Augustine’s memory-
investigation in book X, an investigation that has clear relevance
for the locus of trine-presence and the site of dilation in book XI
(no memory = no dilation). And finally:
(iv) It is this root-sense of anima-animus in Confessions X.7.11, i.e. as
vita corporis, that introduces Augustine’s constellation of the
terms anima, vis and natura in book X: a decisive constellation
for the sense of distentio in the time-investigation in book XI, as
signalled by Augustine’s statement, “I desire to know the power
and nature of time, by which we measure the movements of bod-
ies” (ego scire cupio vim naturamque temporis, quo metimur cor-
porum motus, XI.23.30).
Points (i)–(iii) in the preceding list have been addressed in Part II, while I
introduced point (iv) in Part I, specifying that vis and natura only appear in
Confessions XI at XI.23.30 (see chapter 4). It is point (iv) that promises to
finally elucidate how the sense of anima-animus in Confessions X.7.11—as vita
corporis, as suffusing a body and activating sensus carnis—is the crux of tem-
poral distentio in Confessions XI. It is also anima-animus as a vita corporis that
will finally clarify the ‘time’/‘times’ distinction that was introduced in Part I,
and the logical dependence of ‘time’ upon motus omnis. But first, it is necessary
to shift from the subtly linked questions of vita corporis/temporalis and a time-
less hyper-heavenly, to Augustine’s concept of a timeless materia informis in
Confessions XII, and to the conditions for ‘mutive times’—note well: ‘times’
(tempora), not ‘time’ (tempus)—that will emerge from this concept.
chapter 9
Physical Movement and Mutive Times:

Augustine’s Materia Informis
“I desire to know the power and nature of time, by-which we measure the move-
ments of bodies.”1 This sentence, with which I closed the preceding chapter
and to which I will return, signals—as I observed in chapter 4—a shift within
the time-investigation in Confessions XI. Having rejected a specific identity of
‘times’ (tempora) with the celestial revolutions in XI.23.29, yet having also sug-
gested a thesis in which motus omnis constitutes ‘times’ (tempora), Augustine
then sharpens his question: hereafter, his question of ‘time’ (tempus) is a ques-
tion of that “by-which we measure the movements of [all] bodies” (XI.23.30). As
Augustine specifies in XI.24.31,2 it is solely this ‘by-which’ of temporal mensura-
tion that provides the most originary sense of his word ‘time’ (tempus), and
this ‘by-which’ he comes to describe as a ‘dilation’ (distentio).
The preceding chapters sought to identify the speculative condition for the
timelessness of the caelum intellectuale in Confessions XII, and in so doing, to
clarify a sub-phenomenal condition for ‘time’ (i.e. dilation)—for beasts as
for humans—in Confessions XI. Augustine’s natura intellectualis is timeless
because it is fleshless; sensual contuitus and the duplicity of praesens that
characterizes it are rather the condition of a vita temporalis. In short: ‘no
sensation = no dilation = no time (tempus).’ But sensus carnis (i.e. anima-ani-
mus as vita corporis) is not the sole condition of time in the Confessions, as we
will see after briefly reconstructing Augustine’s concept of “indeterminate
matter” (materia informis) in Confessions XII, which is also timeless. If the hae-
rere is Augustine’s intellectual condition for (dimensive) time—and thus,
remotively, for the timelessness of the hyper-heavenly—what is his corporeal
condition for (mutive) times?
Unlike the fleshlessness of the caelum intellectuale, which is never explicitly
stated in Confessions XII (and which thus required the analysis of subterranean
links between books X and XII), Augustine repeatedly articulates (i) the abso-
lute indeterminacy of his materia informis, and (ii) the speculative conditions
motus.
2 Aug. Conf. XI.24.31: cum itaque aliud sit motus corporis, aliud quo metimur quamdiu sit, quis
non sentiat quid horum potius tempus dicendum sit?

Physical Movement and Mutive Times 197
for this material’s timelessness (and thereby, obliquely, for ‘times’) in book XII.
The most significant aspect of this condition can be stated, for the purposes of
the present exposition, as ‘no motus omnis = no tempora.’ This formula captures
the logical dependence of tempus upon motus that Alliez and Castoriadis deny in
Confessions XI. Yet neither Alliez nor Castoriadis contests that this dependence is
stated in Confessions XII, though only disjunctivists—such as Castoriadis—take
this into consideration (see 2.3).3 Indeed, it is precisely the clarity of this condi-
tion in Confessions XII that provokes the question of a critical disjunction
between Augustine’s time-statements in books XI and XII—a question to which
the present work is, in part, devoted. Let us recall Castoriadis’ verdict:
Augustine contradicts himself openly and naively. . . . Time here [in

Confessions XII] has ceased to be just the distentio animi [of book XI], the
stretching of my mind; it is that in which the forms vertuntur, are chang-
ing into one another, and it is produced by this mutation of forms, strictly
dependent on it.4
Pace Castoriadis, it is not ‘time’ but ‘times’ which are ‘produced by [a] mutation
of forms’ in Confessions XII (as in XI.23.29); and pace Castoriadis, there is no
‘contradiction’ to be observed here.
But to begin: What is Augustine’s concept of the materia informis?
9.1 Informitas and Timelessness (Conf. XII.6)
In chapters 7 and 8, I sought to demonstrate that, and how—albeit tacitly—a

similar remotive or reductive procedure on time that issues (as von Herrmann
suggests)5 in Augustine’s conception of eternity in Confessions XI, also oper-
ates on sense-temporal presence and pleasure to issue in his conception of the
caelum intellectuale in book XII. The difficulty of this hyper-heavenly is, as I
have observed, that it is conceived as living but not as a life.
3 Alliez (1996, 273 n. 148) dismisses the force of Augustine’s statements in Conf. XII for obscure,
putatively methodological reasons.
5 Cf. von Herrmann 1992, 49/2008, 54: “Augustine acquired a concept of eternity as a ‘standing
present’ [note that this is, in fact, Boethius’ formula] with reference to the phenomenal
understanding of time via remotionis (in remotiver Vorgehensweise)”; 1992, 39/2008, 44: “Only
in the actual moment of a conceptual stimulus from the nature of time does even a partial
enlightenment concerning eternity come about.”
198 chapter 9
With the concept of a materia informis, Augustine’s reductive procedure

is explicitly stated in Confessions XII.6.6, but the difficulty is distinct: here it is
not a question of conceptualizing the human, duplicitous anima-corpus
according to a sublime and totally speculative haerere (i.e. not a haerere of
anima-animus to corpus and foris, but of a discarnate mens to deus). Here it is
a question of conceptualizing a materiality so abyssal that it lacks all determi-
nation. Whereas Augustine’s hyper-heavenly is a natura intellectualis—how-
ever problematic this cipher has proved—his hyper-terrestrial is a still more
severely disnatured creature. However spectral a reflection of sensus-contuitus
the hyper-heavenly’s contemplatio may be, it is yet a reflection of human intel-
lect and pleasure. The abyss of the hyper-terrestrial promises no such reflec-
tion. Here is “neither colour, nor shape, nor body, nor spirit” (non color, non
figura, non corpus, non spiritus, XII.3.3). Here, “when cogitatio seeks what sen-
sus may touch upon” (cum in ea quaerit cogitatio quid sensus attingat, XII.5.5),6
it encounters a nihil.
Augustine’s hyper-terrestrial thus evades the sensibile/intelligibile distinc-
tion that appears to govern Confessions XII, but not (as with praesens) by a con-
stitutive duplicity. This is a materiality that is sub-corporeal, and thus is no more
‘sensible’ than it is ‘intelligible’ (XII.5.5). While it is the unicity of the caelum
intellectuale that speculatively secures it a quasi-divine timelessness, it is also
a unicity of the materia informis that speculatively delineates, for it, a nihilis-
tic timelessness.7 This unicity is sheer indeterminacy (informitas). Augustine’s
hyper-terrestrial is a sea or a deep of counter-disclosure (XII.4.4, XII.6.6).8
Axiologically, it is Augustine’s basest unicity; yet in this unicity it still resem-
bles—the word is necessarily imprecise—his god and the hyper-heavenly.9
6 Aug. Conf. XII.5.5: cum in ea quaerit cogitatio quid sensus attingat.

7 ‘Nihilistic’ in the sense of a perilous, conceptual verging on or tending towards nihility.
Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: quiddam inter formam et nihil, nec formatum nec nihil, informe
prope nihil; XII.7.7: prope nihil . . . quo inferius nihil esset; XII.8.8: prope nihil erat, quoniam
adhuc omnino informe erat; etc.
8 Thus Augustine contrasts it with the deepest abysses of our oceans, which yet have varieties
of light, at Conf. XII.8.8: ista quippe abyssus aquarum iam visibilium etiam in profundis suis
habet speciei suae lucem utcumque sensibilem piscibus et repentibus in suo fundo animantibus.
illud autem totum prope nihil erat, quoniam adhuc omnino informe erat.
9 While in Conf. XII.7.7, Augustine stresses a hyper-dissimilarity of the materia informis to god
(tanto a te longius, quanto dissimilius) and to the caelum intellectuale (duo quaedam, unum
prope te, alterum prope nihil, unum quo superior tu esses, alterum quo inferius nihil esset),
this very triplex schematism, which can be traced up Conf. XII.2–22, indicates a certain, for-
mal linkage (and ‘resemblance’) which is, precisely, unicity—and thus, timelessness.
Augustine confesses his reflective impotence with regard to this base mate-
riality, when vera ratio urges him, futilely, to “utterly strip away all [imaginal]
remainders of all [sensible] forms” in the process of reflection, so as to cognize
pure informitas.10 This is because, as I observed in chapter 7, Augustine’s spiri-
tus is replete with sensuous and quasi-sensuous traces, relics, fabrications.11
Human cogitatio in this life, however deranged, is incommutably linked (by its
constitutive haerere) to sensus-contuitus. Thus, in Confessions XII.6.6 Augustine
shifts his gaze, as it were, from the speculative concept of informitas or consti-
tutive inapparence,12 to a quasi-phenomenal concept of mutabilitas.
Recall here the conjunctive ‘et’ that I stressed in chapter 8, where Augustine
remarks that “there is in all [creatures] a certain mutabilitas,” and that all
mutive things “are moved, like the human soul and body.”13 Whereas Augustine
addresses himself to the human anima-animus when his question is time, in
Confessions XI; and while here in book XII, since ‘the human soul and body’ are
mutive, he could address the question of ipsa mutabilitas to soul or body, indif-
ferently; Augustine yet selects corpus, in Confessions XII.6.6, to elucidate his
question of ipsa mutabilitas. The significance of this decision will become
increasingly clear. Augustine writes this:
I fixed my intention on bodies-themselves and gazed deeper into their

mutability, by-which they cease to be what they were and begin to be what
they were not, and this same transit from determination to determination
I suspected as occurring through something formless, and not through
There is a similar resemblance of the beasts and sublime angels—which are alike
incapable of ‘sin,’ on the register of the lex aeterna—at Aug. C.Faust. XXII.28: bestialis
enim natura non peccat, quia nihil facit contra aeternam legem, cui sic subdita est, ut eius
particeps esse non possit. rursus angelica sublimis natura non peccat, quia ita particeps
est legis aeternae, ut solus eam delectet deus, cuius voluntati sine ullo experimento temp-
tationis obtemperat.
10 Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: omnis formae qualescumque reliquias omnino detraherem.
Cf. Augustine’s reliquias formae here and Lucr. Rer.Nat. IV.87: sunt igitur iam for-
marum vestigia certa.
11 Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: spiritum meum plenum imaginibus formatorum corporum.
12 Augustine recognizes his failure to cognize informitas with the phrase, si appararet, in the
following sentence—and thus my phrase ‘constitutive inapparence,’ here; Conf. XII.6.6:
foedas et horribiles formas perturbatis ordinibus volvebat animus, sed formas tamen, et
informe appellabam non quod careret forma, sed quod talem haberet ut, si appareret,
insolitum et incongruum aversaretur sensus meus et conturbaretur infirmitas hominis.
13 Aug. Conf. XII.17.25: inest quaedam mutabilitas omnibus . . . sive mutentur, sicut anima
hominis et corpus mutentur.
200 chapter 9
sheer nihility. . . . And what is this? Is it soul? Is it body? Is it any determi-

nation of soul or body? If it were possible to say “nothing something” and
“is is not,” this is what I would say.
intendi in ipsa corpora eorumque mutabilitatem altius inspexi, qua desi-

nunt esse quod fuerant et incipiunt esse quod non erant, eundemque tran-
situm de forma in formam per informe quiddam fieri suspicatus sum,
non per omnino nihil . . . et haec quid est? numquid animus? numquid
corpus? numquid species animi vel corporis? si dici posset “nihil aliquid”
et “est non est,” hoc eam dicerem. (XII.6.6)
The significance of this passage, for our present purposes, is not in what it
says regarding mutabilitas, but rather in what Augustine’s aporetic question of
ipsa mutabilitas clarifies regarding mutatio, a term and a concept that Augustine
only directly takes up in this passage, and in the eternity-meditation of
Confessions XI.14
9.2 “Times are Produced by the Movements of Things” (Conf. XII.8)
Augustine’s formulation here, “they cease to be what they were and begin to
be what they were not” (XII.6.6), echoes a formulation at Confessions XI.4.6
where “what it is to mutate and vary,” is this: “There is in [a thing] something
that was not there before.”15 Similarly, in his De Natura Boni (c. 399),16 Augustine
writes: “All mutation renders non-existent that which was.”17
However blunt these formulations of mutatio,18 they suggest a decisive con-
tinuity and discontinuity in Confessions XI and XII, namely:
14 But cf. Aug. Conf. IV.10.15: quae oriuntur et occidunt et oriendo quasi esse incipiunt, et
crescunt ut perficiantur, et perfecta senescunt et intereunt: et non omnia senescunt,
et omnia intereunt . . . sic est modus eorum.
15 Aug. Conf. XI.4.6: est in eo quicquam quod ante non erat: quod est mutari atque variari.
Von Herrmann (1992, 26–27/2008, 32–33) glosses this passage: “Change and variation
are in fact the phenomenal character of heaven and earth . . . All that is subject to change
and variation is such, that what it previously was it is not, and what it will no longer be in
the future it now is.”
16 Zarb (1934, 45, 87) dates this opuscule to 399; Mutzenbecher (1984, xix) to 398.
17 Aug. Nat.bon. 19: omnis . . . mutatio facit non esse quod erat.
18 But cf. Aug. Conf. XI.7.9: in quantum quidque non est quod erat et est quod non erat, in
tantum moritur et oritur.
Augustine’s mutatio is the condition of sheer transitivity or mutivity

(≈ succession), a condition that he signals with the terms ‘times’ (tempora),
‘varies’ (variare)19 and ‘alters’ (vertere),20 and in Confessions XII, with a
new phrase, ‘change of times’ (vicis temporum/vicissitudo temporum);
Augustine’s distentio is the condition of a transitive durativity (≈ dimen-

sion), a condition that he comes to denote in Confessions XI, and denotes
in book XII, with the terms ‘time’ (tempus), ‘time-itself’ (ipsum tempus)
and ‘dilation’ (distentio), and with the phrases ‘long time’ (longum tem-
pus) and ‘space of time’ (spatium temporis).
It is for this reason that Augustine fixes his gaze on “bodies-themselves”

(ipsa corpora) when he introduces the question of ipsa mutabilitas in
Confessions XII.6.6: dilation (distentio) or a space of time (spatium temporis) is
the originary temporal phenomenon of a soul-flesh, of vita; whereas altera-
tions (mutatio) or changes of times (vices temporum) designate the originary
temporal condition of bodies as such. Of course, alteration and the changes of
times are co-originary to the phenomenality of the soul-flesh, of vita tempora-
lis—but as dimension, as dilation. This is why I have previously argued that for
Augustine, (α) the structural articulation of distentio as trine-praesens is not
partes extra partes (see 5.2), and (β) that not only self-praesens but temporal
praesens is duplicitous (see chapter 8). For a vita temporalis, apprehension of
And particularly, Aug. Tract. 38.10: quidquid enim mutari potest, mutatum non est quod
erat: si non est quod erat, mors quaedam ibi facta est; peremptum est aliquid ibi quod erat,
et non est. nigredo mortua est in capite albescentis senis, pulchritudo mortua est in cor-
pore fessi et incurvi senis, mortuae sunt vires in corpore languentis, mortua est statio in
corpore ambulantis, mortua est ambulatio in corpore stantis, mortua est ambulatio et
statio in corpore iacentis, mortua est locutio in lingua tacentis: quidquid mutatur et est
quod non erat, video ibi quamdam vitam in eo quod est, et mortem in eo quod fuit. denique
de mortuo cum dicitur: “ubi est homo ille?” respondetur: “fuit.”
19 Cf. Cic. Fin. II.3.10: ‘Varietas’ enim Latinum verbum est, idque proprie quidem in dispari-
bus coloribus dicitur, sed transfertur in multa disparia.
20 Augustine links mutare and variare 2× (Conf. XI.4.6: mutantur enim atque variantur . . .
quod est mutari atque variari) of the 3× that that he deploys mutare-mutatio in Conf. XI.
The other appearance of mutatio, which I briefly discuss in Part III, is at Conf. XI.7.9:
alioquin iam tempus et mutatio et non vera aeternitas nec vera immortalitas.
Of the 14× that Augustine uses mutare in Conf. XII it is directly linked 4× to variare,
while variare is linked 7× to tempora (XII.8.8, XII.11.11, XII.11.12, XII.11.14, XII.15.18, XII.15.19)
and 1× to mutabilitas (omnis porro intentio quae ita variatur mutabilis est, XII.15.18).
Vertere appears 4× in Conf. XII (and 0× in Conf. XI), linked 1× to variare, 3× to mutare,
and 4× to tempora (XII.8.8, XII.11.14, XII.19.28, XII.29.40).
202 chapter 9
the traceless and punctiform—or as I prefer it, punctile—praesens,21 or of the

pure alteration that (speculatively) characterizes mutatio, is impossible, even
though vita is essentially and incommutably mutive.22 Augustine’s turn to
corpora reflects this.
But what then is the fundamental sense of the term mutatio in Confessions
XII, for our purposes in the present chapter? I will utilize the compound term
motus-mutatio in what follows, though the term mutatio is importantly broader
than physical movement—and indeed, though the term motus is broader than
physical movement23—because mutatio as such, in Confessions XI and XII,
explicitly contains this sense: “whether of motion or of rest” (vel motionis vel
stationis mutaretur, XII.12.15).24 This distinction—and inclusion—of the
‘motion’ and ‘rest’ of discrete bodies within the comprehensive, uninterrupted
and seemingly indiscriminate mutatio of motus omnis is of critical importance
for elucidating the relation of ‘times’ (tempora) to ‘time’ (tempus) in books XI
and XII. In Confessions XI.24.31, where Augustine concludes that “time is not
the movement of a [single] body” (non ergo tempus corporis motus), he con-
cludes this on the grounds that the ‘motion’ and ‘rest’ of discrete bodies is sus-
ceptible to measure, which is to say, to ‘time.’25 And he concludes this
immediately after having proposed, in Confessions XI.23.29, that it is “the
movement of all bodies” that produces ‘times.’26 In Confessions XII, it is still
“the commutations of [physical] movement and forms” (commutationes motio-
num atque formarum, XII.12.15) that produce ‘times’; and here, as in book XI,
Augustine’s categorical motus-mutatio (i.e. motus omnis) is not threatened by
the phenomenon of ‘rest.’ Rather, Augustine’s motus omnis—i.e. his specula-
tive condition for the production of ‘times’—includes the ‘rest’ of discrete bod-
ies. Mutatio is Augustine’s condition of alteration and succession, “whether of
motion or of rest” (XII.12.15).
21 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: praesens autem nullum habet spatium.

22 Which is why praesens has only a formal-logical or preter-phenomenal unicity in Conf.
XI.15, and the time-investigation as a whole. For Augustine, temporal praesens is phenom-
enally trine, and as trine is co-constituted by the sense of passing time that I will trace up
the time-investigation in Part III; see chapter 13.
23 For instance, Aug. Conf. IV.14.22: grande profundum est ipse homo, cuius etiam capillos
tu, domine, numeratos habes et non minuuntur in te: et tamen capilli eius magis numera-
biles quam affectus eius et motus cordis eius.
Cf. also the six species of ‘motion’ at Arist. Cat. 14 (15a–b).
24 Aug. Conf. XII.12.15: vel motionis vel stationis mutaretur.
25 Aug. Conf. XI.24.31: et varie corpus aliquando movetur, aliquando stat, non solum motum
eius sed etiam statum tempore metimur et dicimus, “tantum stetit, quantum motum est.”
26 Aug. Conf. XI.23.29: cur enim non potius omnium corporum motus sint ‘tempora’?
Yet neither the word tempus nor its plural form tempora—nor, significantly,
Augustine’s new phrase vicis temporum/vicissitudo temporum—appears in
Confessions XII.1–7, where he is largely concerned with a primal informitas and
ipsa mutabilitas. As constitutively inapparent, the materia informis is tacitly
timeless. It is not until Confessions XII.8.8 that Augustine writes:
Of this invisible and indeterminate earth . . . you [o god] have condi-

tioned all these things of which this mutive world consists and does not
consist, in which mutivity-itself appears,27 in which times can be felt and
enumerated: because times are produced by the movements of things.28
de qua terra invisibili et incomposita . . . faceres haec omnia quibus iste

mutabilis mundus constat et non constat, in quo ipsa mutabilitas apparet,
in qua sentiri et dinumerari possunt tempora, quia rerum mutationibus
fiunt tempora. (XII.8.8)
This is Augustine’s fiat lux in Confessions XII, and the ‘light’ that is here
announced is a “temporal light.”29 More precisely, it is the light of times.
27 The strict rendering here of ipsa mutabilitas and mutabilis mundus would be ‘mutability-
itself’ and ‘mutable world’ respectively. Nevertheless, Augustine is at pains throughout
Conf. XII to distinguish ‘mutability’ from ‘mutivity’—i.e. a speculative capacity, as crea-
tura, for alteration-succession from a condition of alteration-succession. This should be
abundantly clear from my interpretation thus far, though I only introduce the terms
‘mutive’/’mutivity’ in this chapter.
Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: mutabilitas [= mutability] enim rerum mutabilium ipsa capax
est formarum omnium in quas mutantur [= mutivity] res mutabiles; XII.12.15: mutabile
[= mutable] tamen non mutatum [= mutive]; etc.
It is precisely because of this distinction between mutability and mutivity that I here
and hereafter use the terms ‘mutivity’ and ‘mutive.’ In the context of a mutable yet not
mutive species of ‘matter,’ and a mutable yet not mutive mode of ‘heaven,’ Augustine also
speaks of this mutable and mutive ‘world,’ in which time appears. It is thus most essential
here, and relative to tempora, to hear the condition of mutivity that is announced in Conf.
XII.8.8.
28 While the lexical-philosophical sense of mutatio, as just noted, is importantly broader
than ‘movement,’ the original sense of the root-verb mutare is ‘to move, move away,’ and
at several places in Conf. XI and XII—particularly since Augustine, as in this passage,
repeatedly links mutare with vertere and variare in a way that could appear to be mere
flourish (XI.4.6; XII.6.6, XII.11.14, XII.15.21, XII.19.28)—hearing ‘movement’ in mutatio not
only sharpens the formulation in question, but harmonizes with Augustine’s tempora-
statements on the whole in Conf. XII. Again: mutatio explicitly contains the sense of motus
in the passages under consideration in this chapter.
29 Aug. Conf. IX.8.17: hanc temporalem . . . lucem.
204 chapter 9
Augustine’s repetition here of ‘times’ (tempora . . . tempora) is not inciden-

tal, and is persistent in Confessions XII. It is not tempus that is ‘produced,’
simpliciter, ‘by the movements of things’—it is tempora. It is not tempus that
can be ‘felt and enumerated’—it is tempora.30 This aligns precisely with his
generalized thesis of motus omnis in XI.23.29, and with the ‘proper’ sense of
tempora in XI.27.36. Moreover, it is not in a “transcendent subjectivity of the
homo interior”31 that ‘mutivity-itself appears’ in Confessions XII.8.8, but rather
in “this mutive world” (iste mutabilis mundus . . . in quo . . . in qua). Still,
Augustine posits no “cosmological interpretation” of tempora,32 in Alliez’s
sense, since the wheeling succession of motus-mutatio here unfounds time as
precisely, symmetrically and incessantly as it ‘founds’ it: “this mutive world
consists and does not consist (constat et non-constat)” (XII.8.8). This ceaseless
displacement of praesens tempus is, indeed, the most basic speculative func-
tion and phenomenal condition of mutatio in Confessions XI and XII. To adapt
a phrase of Lyotard’s, Augustine’s rerum mutationibus is the “uncanny anchor-
ing” of time in the Confessions.33
9.3 The Register of ‘Mutive Times’ in Confessions XII
Our concern in this chapter is not directly with ‘time,’ however, but with ‘times.’
Augustine severally restates the dependence of ‘times’ on motus-mutatio and
indeed, the identity of ‘times’ (not ‘time’) with motus-mutatio and its interre-
lated conditions, in Confessions XII—and never with the aporetic tone that
inflects his formulations of distentio in Confessions XI.34
These statements, which I will quote momentarily, could be summarized in
this way: alteration (mutatio/varietas) and succession (ordo) are the logical
conditions of any ‘change of times’ (vicis temporum/vicissitudo temporum); a
logical condition for alteration-succession is physical movement (motus),35
30 Cf. Virg. Aen. VI.690–91: sic equidem ducebam animo rebarque futurum, | tempora dinu-
merans, nec me mea cura fefellit; Aug. Conf. XII.8.8: in qua sentiri et dinumerari possunt
tempora.
31 Alliez 1996, 108/1991, 167.
32 Alliez 1996, 129.
33 Lyotard 2000, 73.
34 Aug. Conf. XI.23.31: video igitur tempus quandam esse distentionem. sed video? an videre
mihi videor?; XI.26.33: inde mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem;
sed cuius rei, nescio, et mirum, si non ipsius animi.
35 Recall: this is the motus omnis of Conf. XI.23.29, and not the corporis motus of XI.24.31.
while corporeal determination (species/forma)36 is a logical condition for any

such movement or indeed, rest; and finally, a logical condition for corporeal
determination is materiality per se (materia/materies).37 A conception of what
I call ‘mutive times’ thus emerges: tempora are co-constituted as alteration
(mutatio/varietas) and as succession (ordo); the most immediate condition for
alteration is physical movement or rest (motus/status),38 while the remoter
(logical) conditions for motus (and thus alteration, and thus ‘times’) are corpo-
real determination (species) and matter as such (materies).
In Confessions XII, Augustine is as concerned with mutatio/varietas, ordo
and species/forma as co-conditions for time as he is with motus, given that his
concern is with an absolutely indeterminate matter (materia informis). In this
context, physical movement (and rest) is neither the sole nor the most imme-
diate condition for the emergence of ‘times’ (tempora). But since Alliez and
Ricœur, for instance, insist on the irrelativity of Augustine’s tempora (which
they do not distinguish from tempus) to motus in Confessions XI, and as a result
must accept (with Castoriadis) a critical disjunction of books XI and XII, it is
motus that remains a driving question: Alliez’s and Ricœur’s subjectivizing
interpretations of Augustine hinge on the putative irrelativity of ‘time’ to
“physical movement” (mouvement physique).39 The next section will establish
the incontestable, logical dependence of tempora upon motus omnis in
Confessions XII, while Part III will finally elucidate the sense in which tempus
(as distentio) is dependent upon tempora, and thus, upon physical movement.
9.4 The Evidence for ‘Mutive Times’ in Confessions XII
The sole sentence in Confessions XII in which Augustine immediately links

generalized motus (rather than mutatio)40 to tempora is at XII.11.14: “Without
36 In the context of the materia informis, and thus of the tempora-formulations I list below,
species and forma refer to corporeal determination.
37 O’Donnell (1992, III:324–25) comments on materia/materies: “The two forms occur about
equally often in conf. . . . and seem interchangeable in substance (modified by informis:
materia, 13×, materies, 7×) . . . There are various late etymological attempts to find a dis-
tinction, but there is no such distinction in [Augustine’s] usage.”
38 This condition is, intriguingly, no less clearly stated in Conf. XI.11.13 than in book XII:
see chapter 11.
39 Alliez 1991, 187/1996, 124.
40 Here I limit myself to the term motus specifically, which Augustine deploys (over mutatio)
in the time-investigation in Conf. XI.
206 chapter 9
variance of motions (varietate motionum) there are no times (tempora), and

there is no variance where there is no determination (species).”41
Augustine’s basic contention here—the motivation for which is obvious, in
the setting of Confessions XII—is this: ‘no determination = no succession (tem-
pora.)’ Since the decisive conceptual determination of his materia informis is
its absolute corporeal indetermination, i.e. lack of species, he hereby (specula-
tively) establishes the timelessness of his indeterminate matter. But that motus
is a logical condition for tempora—i.e. ‘no motion = no times (tempora)’—is
unequivocally stated here, and this condition is reflected throughout
Confessions XII. It is this logical condition for ‘times’ that announces what I will
call Augustine’s concept of ‘mutive times.’ Yet how are we to situate this con-
cept of ‘mutive times,’ which Augustine delineates in Confessions XII, but does
not elaborate? In Confessions XII, he insinuates this concept through substitu-
tions in and variations on his terminology in Confessions XI, but never states
his ‘mutive times’ as a distinct concept. Before proceeding through Confessions
XII, then, we can glance back at Augustine’s time-problematic in book XI.
The aporia of tempus in Confessions XI is, reductively, that temporal pres-
ence manifestly is and is-not a space of time (XI.15–16), i.e. time is and is-not
dimensive. (Echoes here of the ‘est non est’ of mutivity-itself, in Confessions
XII.6.6, and the ‘constat non constat’ of this mutive world, at XII.8.8, are far
from superficial.) Augustine comes to identify the ‘is’ of dimensive time—i.e.
the space of time—as a ‘dilation’; but the ‘is-not’ of dimensive time—i.e. that
present-time is inextended and instantaneously passing—is itself the acute
condition that brings ‘dilation,’ the condition of possibility of such a space of
time, to light in Confessions XI. For Augustine, “our intention lasts” (attentio
perdurat) only because “present-time has no dimension, no space” (praesens
tempus carere spatio, XI.28.37).42 The question of my ‘mutive times’ or
Augustine’s ‘changes of times’ (vices temporum) in book XII could thus be
stated as: Why the co-originary ‘is-not’ of the space of time (spatium temporis)?
Or: Why is present-time (praesens tempus) instantaneously passing? What is
it that attentio ‘outlasts’ in even the minutest space of time? Or even: Why is it
that “no time (tempus) is present all-at-once”?43
41 Aug. Conf. XI.11.14: sine varietate motionum non sunt tempora, et nulla varietas ubi nulla
species.
42 Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: “And who denies that present-time has no space, because it passes
away at the same instant? But yet our intention lasts . . .” (et quis negat praesens tempus
carere spatio, quia in puncto praeterit? sed tamen perdurat attentio).
43 Aug. Conf. XI.11.13: nullum . . . tempus totum esse praesens.
It is with these questions in view that we can catalogue Augustine’s state-

ments in Confessions XII regarding the production of ‘times’:
“Times are produced by the movements of things when their determina-

tions are varied and altered” = rerum mutationibus fiunt tempora dum
variantur et vertuntur species (XII.8.8);44
“For where there is no determination, no succession, nothing appears
and nothing passes away—and where this is not, surely there are no
‘days’45 nor any change of spaces of times” = ubi enim nulla species,
nullus ordo, nec venit quicquam nec praeterit, et ubi hoc non fit, non
sunt utique ‘dies’ nec vicissitudo spatiorum temporalium (XII.9.9);46
“Who . . . would tell me that, with all determination being diminished
and annihilated, if only that ‘indeterminacy’ remained by-which things
are moved and altered from determination to determination, that that
could cause changes of times? But this is utterly impossible: because
without variance of motions there are no times, and there is no variance
where there is no determination” = quis . . . dicet mihi quod, deminuta
atque consumpta omni specie, si sola remaneat ‘informitas’ per quam
de specie in speciem res mutabatur et vertebatur, possit exhibere vices
temporum? omnino enim non potest, quia sine varietate motionum
non sunt tempora, et nulla varietas ubi nulla species (XII.11.14);
“[This] visible and interconnected earth, and these gorgeous waters,47
and whatever else there is in the constitution of this world . . . such
44 O’Donnell (1992, III:304) remarks on species in Conf. XII: “The denotation of species/forma
differs from imago as the external fact of ‘shape’ differs from its internal correlative in the
mind ([Conf.] 7.1.2, ‘per quales enim formas ire solent oculi mei, per tales imagines ibat
cor meum’)”; and he justly cautions against insisting on a “Plotinian ancestry (and not
merely cousinage)” for the term.
I have previously commented on the polysemousness of species in Conf. XII, but sug-
gest that ‘determination’ clarifies its primary sense in the context of Augustine’s “invisible
and indeterminate earth” (terra invisibilis et incomposita, XII.4.4, XII.9.9, etc.).
45 Despite the immediate context of ‘days’ in the Hexaemeron, this formulation also has rel-
evance for the discussions of ‘days’ at Conf. XI.15.18–20, XI.23.29–30.
46 ‘Succession’ or ‘series’ are lexically valid renderings for ordo, and ‘succession’ is most pre-
cise, I believe, in the context of Conf. XI–XII.
Von Herrmann (1992, 32) sees this in his chapter on Augustine’s eternity-meditation in
Conf. XI: “. . . ex ordine, after the order of time (nach der Ordnung der Zeit), succession as
the fundamental character of time (des Nacheinander als des Grundcharakters der Zeit).”
47 And ‘determinate’: I have previously remarked the duplex sense of speciosus in Conf. XII.
208 chapter 9
things are such that in them changes of times occur through the succes-
sive48 alterations of movements and forms” = terra visibilis atque com-
posita et aqua speciosa et quidquid deinceps in constitutione huius
mundi . . . talia sunt ut in eis agantur vicissitudines temporum propter
ordinatas commutationes motionum atque formarum (XII.12.15);
“The invisible and indeterminate earth [sc. the hyper-terrestrial, is neces-
sarily conceptualized] without any change of times, which ‘change’ is
typically said of ‘now this [determination], now that,’ because where
there is no determination there is no ‘this and that’ ” = invisibilem
atque incompositam terram sine ulla vicissitudine temporum, quae
solet habere ‘modo hoc et modo illud,’ quia ubi nulla species, nusquam
est ‘hoc et illud’ (XII.13.16);
“That material was formless, [and] where . . . there was no form there
was no succession . . . but where there was no succession there could
be no change of times” = erat informis materies, ubi . . . nullam formam
nullus ordo erat . . . ubi autem nullus ordo erat, nulla esse vicissitudo
temporum poterat (XII.15.22);
“It is impossible for that indeterminacy that verges on nihility to have
changes of times” = informitatem, quae prope nihil est, vices temporum
habere non posse (XII.19.28).
I previously anticipated a ‘spatializing pressure’ of the materia informis, par-

alleled by a ‘sensualizing effect’ of the caelum intellectuale, on the conditions
for time in the Confessions (see 5.1). This spatializing of ‘time’ (tempus)—which
to reiterate, Augustine exclusively articulates in terms of ‘times’ (tempora)—
should be evident from the foregoing catalogue. But it is essential that ‘spatial-
ity’ here refers not at all to ‘dilation’ as a space of time (spatium temporis).
To the contrary, Augustine’s conditions for ‘mutive times’ in Confessions XII
all (indirectly) relate to the conditioning of present-time as inextended,
i.e. to ‘times’ as having no space, as hyper-transitivity.49 Augustine’s mutatio,
in effect—which is logically dependent upon physical movement (motus
48 But ordinatus also has the definite sense here of divinely ‘ordained.’ Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.2.3:
tuus est dies et tua est nox; ad nutum tuum momenta transvolant.
Thus Watts closes this sentence, in his 17th-century translation: “. . . they are of such a
nature that the successive changes of times may take place in them, by reason of their
appointed alterations of motions and of forms.”
49 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: si quid intellegitur temporis, quod in nullas iam vel minutissimas
momentorum partes dividi possit, id solum est quod praesens dicatur; quod tamen ita
raptim a futuro in praeteritum transvolat, ut nulla morula extendatur.
omnis)—is an irrecusable counter-concept to his ‘space of time’ (spatium tem-

poris), while it is also his fundamental condition for ‘times’ (tempora). As a
condition for tempora, in Confessions XII, it is spatial and corporeal alteration
(motus-mutatio) which conditions the resistless phenomenality of ‘changes of
times’ (vices temporum). Thus, the ‘times’ in the foregoing catalogue by no
means signify ‘time,’ in Confessions XI, but rather the co-originary ‘is-not’ to the
‘is’ of any space of time, in Confessions XI. Thus, it is the ‘mutive times’ of
Confessions XII which provoke the reflective problem of the space of time in
Confessions XI, without in any way contradicting, or conflicting with,
Augustine’s problematic or findings in that book.
Yet while Augustine’s concept of ‘mutive times’ is counter-subjectivizing, so
to say, it is also not objectivizing. For recall Augustine’s decisive formulation at
XII.8.8: “This mutive world consists and does not consist, in-which mutivity-
itself appears (apparet), in-which times can be felt and enumerated: because
times are produced by the movements of things.” A vita temporalis—as ‘soul-
flesh,’ as corpus-anima—is of course originarily (α) in-this mutive world, i.e. in
the world in-which mutivity appears; is (β) the in-which of this mutabilitas
apparet; is (γ) the natura-vis by-which times are ‘felt and enumerated’; but also,
is (δ) itself a mutive-thing (corpus et anima) by-which times, in their depen-
dence upon motus omnis, are co-conditioned (rerum mutationibus fiunt tem-
pora, XII.8.8).
And finally, remark again that in this passage in which tempus and its singu-
lar declensions do not appear—namely, Confessions XII.8.8—Augustine speci-
fies that “in [this mutive world] tempora can be felt and enumerated.” His
phrasing here—in qua sentiri et dinumerari possunt tempora—echoes several
formulations in Confessions XI.50 (It also recalls Aristotle’s preference for enu-
meration: see 13.6.) It is the task of Part III to return to Confessions XI with this
newly acquired concept of ‘mutive times’ in Confessions XII, and trace up the
inner connections and distinctions of tempus and tempora—and specifically,
the duplex dependence of ‘time’ on (α) sensus carnis and (β) motus omnis—in
Augustine’s time-investigation. ‘Times,’ on the contrary, have a simplex depen-
dence upon—and indeed, are identified with—motus omnis. It is precisely
this simplex dependence and identity that distinguishes ‘times’ from ‘time,’
50 Aug. Conf. XI.15.19: anima humana . . . datum enim tibi est sentire moras atque metiri;
XI.16.21: sentimus intervalla temporum et comparamus sibimet et dicimus alia longiora et
alia breviora . . . praetereuntia metimur tempora cum sentiendo metimur . . . sentiri et metiri
potest; XI.27.35: ita est quantum sentitur sensu manifesto. quantum sensus manifestus est,
brevi syllaba longam metior eamque sentio habere bis tantum.
210 chapter 9
and ‘changes of times’ from a ‘space of time,’ in Confessions XI as in Confessions

XII.
Prior to this return, however, it will be useful to glance, in a pair of excur-
suses, at Confessions XII.29 and Augustine’s Epistle 137. The first of these texts
provides some indication of the difficult mode of logical dependence of tem-
pus upon motus in the Confessions. And while Epistle 137 (c. 411) was composed
a decade or so after Confessions X to XII,51 and addresses an importantly differ-
ent, dogmatically inspired set of questions, this epistle yet illuminates and
elaborates—I suggest—a radical duplicity of anima as the vita corporis which
is intimated in Confessions X and XI and which, on our return to it, should be
discerned in the time-investigation, in Part III. It is here that Augustine posits
a spatial ‘outness’ of sensus that parallels the temporal ‘outness’ of sensus—i.e.
distentio animi—in Confessions XI.
9.5 Excursus on Logical Precedence (Conf. XII.29)
Augustine’s problem in Confessions XII.29.40 has plagued and inspired him

since Confessions I.4.4,52 and most acutely since the eternity-meditation of
book XI.53 It is that “all past and future times [o god] are over-towered by your
immutable remaining,”54 and yet, “in the commencement [you] made” a
world.55 To clarify this and related problems in book XII, Augustine differentiates
several modes of precedence which are sketched in Aristotle’s Categories—
51 Divjak (2002, 1032) dates Epist. 137 to 411/12.

52 Aug. Conf. I.4.4: quid es ergo, deus meus? . . . stabilis et incomprehensibilis, immutabilis
mutans omnia, numquam novus numquam vetus . . . semper agens semper qui-
etus . . . opera mutas nec mutas consilium; XII.29.40: namque rara visio est et nimis ardua
conspicere, domine, aeternitatem tuam incommutabiliter mutabilia facientem ac per hoc
priorem.
53 Aug. Conf. XI.3–13; cf. XI.7.9: verbo tibi coaeterno simul et sempiterne dicis omnia quae
dicis, et fit quidquid dicis ut fiat. nec aliter quam dicendo facis, nec tamen simul et sem-
piterna fiunt omnia quae dicendo facis; XI.9.11: in hoc principio, deus, fecisti caelum et
terram in verbo tuo . . . miro modo dicens et miro modo faciens. quis comprehendet? quis
enarrabit? . . . et inhorresco et inardesco: inhorresco, in quantum dissimilis ei sum,
inardesco, in quantum similis ei sum.
This is the deepest problem in Conf. XII.29; space will not permit an elaboration of the
‘interlocutors’ that situate this section of book XII.
54 Aug. Conf. XII.28.38: stabili permansione cuncta praeterita et futura tempora superari.
55 Aug. XII.29.40: “in principio fecit.”
Cf. Alexandre 1988, 72: “Le verbe utilisé par les LXX est ici ποιεῖν (vielles latines: ‘fecit,’
Vulg.: ‘creavit’).”
from which work, presumably, Augustine lifts them—and elaborated upon in

Aristotle’s Metaphysics.56 (For the significance of this echo of the Categories:
see 13.6.) Here in Confessions XII, Augustine finds it necessary to differentiate
What precedes by eternity, what by time, what by choice, what by

origin:
[i] by eternity, as god precedes all things;

[ii] by time, as flower precedes fruit;
[iii] by choice, as fruit precedes flower;
[iv] by origin, as sound precedes song.
Of these four [modes of precedence], the first and last . . . are very diffi-
cult to apprehend, [but] the two middle [modes] present no difficulties.
quid praecedat aeternitate, quid tempore, quid electione, quid origine:

aeternitate, sicut deus omnia; tempore, sicut flos fructum; electione, sicut
fructus florem; origine, sicut sonus cantum. in his quattuor primum et
ultimum . . . difficillime intelleguntur, duo media facillime. (XII.29.40)
Reverently eliminating (i) from consideration, Augustine proceeds to analyze

the concrete instance (exemplum) he has pre-selected for (iv)—precedence
‘by origin’—namely, the precedence of sound (sonus) to song (cantus).
56 Arist. Cat. 12 (14a–b); cf. Met. V.11 (1018b–1019a), IX.8 (1049b–1051a).

At Oxford, circa 1310, Henry of Harclay links Aristotle’s distinctions of ‘priority’
in Metaphysics IX.8 to Augustine’s in Confessions XII.29, at Harc. Q.Ord. XII.4–6: Et ista
distinctio potest haberi a Philosopho [sc. Aristotle] 9 Metaphysicae . . . Unde quod mate-
ria sit prior origine forma et simul tempore habetur ab Augustino in fine primi Super
Genesim [Aug. Gen.litt. I.15] et 12 Confessionum et 13 [Aug. Conf. 13.33.48] sub hiis eis-
dem verbis . . .
Note that a half-century earlier—“shortly after 1256” (Silva 2012, 6)—Robert
Kilwardby, also at Oxford, cites Augustine’s modes of ‘priority’ without referring back to
Aristotle, at Kil. Quaest. II: Sed prioritatis sunt quatuor modi secundum Augustinum lib.
Confessionum XII, scilicet aeternitatis, originis, electionis et temporis; IV: Augustinus
lib. XII Confessionum cap. 28 [sic] distinguit ‘prius’ quadrupliciter, scilicet aeternitate ut
Deus omnibus, origine ut sonus cantu, tempore sicut flos fructu, electione sicut fructus
flore.
I am grateful to Henry of Harclay—an early Chancellor of the University of Oxford—
for directing me to Metaphysics IX; and to Mareike Hauer—a colleague at Louvain—for
alerting me to the relevant discussions in Categories 12 and Metaphysics V.
Neither Solignac (1962, 611–12) nor O’Donnell (1992, III:339) registers the Aristotelian
source, or sources, for this passage in Conf. XII.
212 chapter 9
But the materia informis is still at issue in Confessions XII.29.40, and

Augustine’s analysis of sonus/cantus is linked throughout to the materia/forma
register that figures in his earlier ‘times’-formulations in book XII. Because of
this, the last ‘times’-formulation in Confessions XII appears at the close of this
section:
The forms of [material] things give rise to times—but that [sc. materia
informis] was formless, yet now it is observed in times simul with [such]
forms.
formae rerum exserunt tempora, illa autem erat informis iamque in tem-
poribus simul animadvertitur. (XII.29.40)
That tempora (not tempus) and its declension are used here should require
no comment. It is rather this simul, which I leave untranslated, that is the
crux of Augustine’s mode of precedence ‘by origin,’ and indirectly, of the logi-
cal dependence of tempus upon tempora—and thus, of tempus upon motus
omnis, species and materia (or materies). Let me clarify, though space will not
permit the subtle interpretation of Augustine’s sonus/cantus instance that it
deserves, particularly in light of his sonus/cantus analyses in Confessions
XI.27–28.
In the conception of ‘mutive times’ set out in the preceding sections, tem-
pora are logically constituted by (and identified with) motus omnis, while the
remoter conditions for motus (and thus motus omnis, and thus tempora) are
species/forma and, ultimately, materia/materies. In the sentence I have just
quoted, Augustine elides—as several times previously in Confessions XII—
motus as a condition of ‘times,’ though this condition is nevertheless included
in his statement. Here it is (the motus-mutatio of) ‘the forms of material things’
which give rise to tempora. And in ‘times,’ there is an absolute temporal
indistinction between our perception or observation of form ( forma) and of
matter (materia/materies). As co-conditions for ‘perception’ (contuitus) and
‘times’ (tempora) alike, determinate matter is never perceived absolutely
stripped of form. (As we have seen: absolutely amorphous or indeterminate
matter is constitutively inapparent.) In Confessions XII.29.40, Augustine
holds that matter is sensed simul with form, and that form is sensed simul
with matter. Throughout XII.29.40, Augustine insists on the dependence of
form (species/forma) upon matter (materia/materies), yet the temporal depen-
dence of form upon matter is indemonstrable. Mode (ii) of precedence—i.e.
“by time (tempore), as flower precedes fruit” (XII.29.40)—is ineffectual here,
since the precedence of matter to form is never observed as a temporal

precedence.57
Moreover—and recall certain of my previous comments on axiology—
mode (iii) of precedence—“by choice (electione), as fruit precedes flower”
(XII.29.40)—threatens to mislead, and Augustine addresses this, here in
Confessions XII.29. Song (cantus) is superior to sound (sonus) precisely, he
writes, as form is superior to matter.58 This could tempt Augustine to deny that
song is dependent upon sound; but here, song is nevertheless dependent upon
sound—not ‘by time’ or ‘by choice,’ but rather, ‘by origin.’ This is because song
is “formed sound” ( formatus sonus), and while ‘unformed’ sound can exist,
song cannot exist without sound.59 Thus, Augustine argues, cantus is not
formed “so that” sonus may exist, but rather sonus is formed—“out of the sing-
er’s body and subject to their intention” (animae subiacet ex corpore)60 is the
formula here—“so that” cantus may exist.61
On Augustine’s analysis in this passage, as song is (logically) dependent
upon sound ‘by origin,’ so form is logically dependent upon matter—while
‘times’ (tempora), he reiterates here, are logically dependent upon “the forms
of things” ( formae rerum, XII.29.40). My suggestion is this: that precisely the
mode of precedence that Augustine gestures towards here—which is, as he
admits, a difficult one (difficillime intelleguntur, XII.29.40)—helps to illumi-
nate his time-concept in Confessions XI and XII and the ‘time’/‘times’ distinc-
tion without which it cannot be clarified. In, or as, the illocalizable simul
of present-time, there is manifestly no temporal precedence of ‘times’
(← materia, motus omnis, mutatio) to ‘time’ (← memoria, contuitus, expectatio).
57 Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: sic est prior materies quam id quod ex ea fit, non ea prior quia ipsa
efficit . . . nec prior intervallo temporis. . . . nec tempore prior: simul enim cum cantu editur.
And cf. Aug. Gen.litt. I.15.29.
58 Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: et ideo cantus in sono suo vertitur, qui sonus eius materies eius est.
idem quippe formatur, ut cantus sit. et ideo, sicut dicebam, prior materies sonandi quam
forma cantandi. . . . nec prior electione: non enim potior sonus quam cantus, quandoqui-
dem cantus est non tantum sonus verum etiam speciosus sonus.
Cf. Isid. Etym. III.19.1: sonum, quae materies cantilenarum est.
59 Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: cantus est formatus sonus et esse utique aliquid non formatum
potest, formari autem quod non est non potest.
60 Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: cantanti animae subiacet ex corpore, de quo cantum faciat.
Cf. Isid. Etym. III.20.1: Prima divisio Musicae, quae harmonica dicitur, id est, modula-
tio vocis . . . Haec ex animo et corpore motum facit, et ex motu sonum, ex quo colligitur
Musica, quae in homine vox appellatur.
61 Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: non cantus formatur ut sonus sit, sed sonus formatur ut cantus sit.
214 chapter 9
As with form and matter, so with ‘time’ and ‘times’: as co-conditions for pres-
ence as such, they are necessarily sensed simul, or rather, that sense necessar-
ily is the simul. And furthermore, should time (tempus) be conceptualized—as
yet, very crudely—as the ‘form’ of times (tempora), or a space of time (spatium
temporis) as the ‘form’ of changes of times (vices temporum), there would
clearly be no axiological precedence of ‘times’ (← materia, motus omnis, muta-
tio) to ‘time’ (← memoria, contuitus, expectatio). To the contrary: time would
be superior to times, or a space of time to changes of times, precisely as form is
superior to matter in Confessions XII.29.40.
Yet Augustine insists here, as in the ‘times’-formulations I surveyed in 9.3,
that times are logically dependent upon physical movement and corporeal
determination respectively, while the latter are logically dependent upon mat-
ter per se. That is to say, Augustine adheres to a logic of precedence over a logic
of ‘perfection.’ And while Alliez decries every “temptation” to inscribe “time
[in Augustine] as dependent on physical movement,”62 it would appear—to
the contrary—that Augustine resists an axiological temptation not to inscribe
time as logically dependent upon motus, species and materies. It is clear that he
repeatedly inscribes tempora, in Confessions XII, as dependent upon motus,
species, materies—and the inner connection of tempus and tempora will be
taken up in Part III.
9.6 Excursus on Sensual ‘Outness’ (Epist. 137)
What does it mean to say that time is in the soul? . . .

As long as we do not have an adequate concept of the soul . . .
it remains difficult to say what ‘time is in the soul’ means.
Nothing is gained by saying that time is subjective.
— M. Heidegger 63
Heidegger’s question in 1927 still rings out—‘What does it mean to say that
time is in the soul?’—and I make no pretence to resolve it. It has rung out since
Aristotle formulated his time-question, rigorously and aporetically, in Physics
IV.64 But in this brief excursus I intend to follow a line of enquiry that Heidegger
re-initiates here—that of recovering ‘an adequate concept of the soul’—and
62 Alliez 1996, 124/1991, 187.

63 Heidegger 1982, 237, and cf. 256: “The assignment of time to the soul . . . occurs in Aristotle
and then in a much more emphatic sense in Augustine.”
64 Cf. Aug. Phys. IV.14 (223a).
which I pursued towards anima-animus as vita corporis in chapter 8. That is,

prior to returning to the time-question in Confessions XI, I will ask this: If time
is ‘in the soul,’ for Augustine, then where is the soul?65
In Epistle 137, Augustine problematizes the locus of the soul in a radical
manner, though his immediate concern is with divine incarnation, rather than
the ontological status of sensus or tempus. The axiological scandal I glanced at
in chapter 7 here provokes difficult, but immanentist and proto-phenomeno-
logical formulations.66 And these formulations, though they surpass—in
extremity and focus—anything in the Confessions, yet develop certain axiolog-
ically inflected phrases in the Confessions which, in this epistle, are cut loose
from the rhetoric of depravity that accompanies them in his earlier work.
I have discussed the duplicitous phenomenality of the ‘in me’ in Confessions
X.7.11, which derives from a constitutive haerere of anima to corpus in this
life (see chapters 7 and 8). This haerere is a sub-phenomenal inhesion of the
flesh that Augustine radicalizes and purports to phenomenalize in Epistle 137.
“The human person,” he writes here, “is an intermixture (mixtura) of soul and
body . . . [and] we experience this in ourselves (hoc in nobis ipsis experimur).”67
This is a statement of ontological duplicity that verges on—and risks confu-
sion with—a unicity.68 As he elaborates on this ‘intermixture’ in Epistle 137,69
Augustine articulates, however problematically, a duplicity of the soul’s locus
that effects what I will call a sensual ‘outness’ in space.70 This outness is
65 Cf. Sen. Nat.quaest. VII.25.1–2: “All will confess (omnes fatebuntur) that we have a
soul . . . but what soul is (quid . . . sit animus) . . . no one can explain to you any more than
where it is (ubi sit).”
66 Cf. Aug. Epist. 137.2.8–9, where Augustine rehearses this scandal: the verbum dei took on
“a human body” (corpus humanum) and “sensed all the affections of humanity” (omnes
humanos sentit affectus).
67 Aug. Epist. 137.3.11: persona hominis mixtura est animae et corporis . . . hoc in nobis ipsis
experimur.
68 Cf. Augustine’s use of mixtura here and Lucretius’ use of the same term at Lucr. Rer.nat.
III.266–81: “heat and air and the unseen force of wind intermixed produce a single nature
(mixta creant unam naturam) . . . and there is nothing in our body (in corpore nostro) that
is more-interior than this nature (haec natura), which is itself the soul of the entire soul
(anima est animae).”
69 E. Fortin (1954; 1959, 119–23) situates Augustine’s discussion of the soul in Epist. 137 rela-
tive to Neoplatonism—most notably, to Porphyry—and argues that Augustine reprises
here “une doctrine spécifiquement néoplatonicienne des rapports de l’âme et du corps”
(1954, 372). Given the ‘specifically’ Stoic elements of this letter and a series of Ciceronian
quotes and allusions in it, Fortin’s position is untenable.
70 Thomas Aquinas later detects a threat, in Aug. Epist. 137, that this ‘outness’ could imply a
sort of omnipresence of the soul (anima est ubique)—a position that Aquinas, of course,
216 chapter 9
eaningless without Augustine’s proto-phenomenological (yet axiologically

m
inflected) distinction, which can be traced up the Confessions, between intus
and foris.71 I have previously referred to this distinction without providing
much analysis. Crudely put, intus in the Confessions can be characterized as a
within of the flesh—i.e. the originary locus (a localizing locus)72 of sensations,
desires, wills and memories; while foris in the Confessions can be characterized
as a space of the senses—i.e. the co-originary surround of sensed-things, inten-
tions, acts and obstructions.73
I have already indicated how Augustine’s intus, in Confessions X, phenome-
nalizes as a quasi-foris, i.e. the duplicity of praesens reproduces itself for
Augustine’s ‘within.’ Moreover, the duplicity of praesens also reproduces itself
for the ‘without.’ Augustine restates this strikingly in Confessions III, VII and
X—always to condemn his past, and always in the context of the visible.74
by no means attributes to Augustine. Cf. Aq. S.Th. I, q. 8, art. 4, obj. 6: “As Augustine also
says [at Epist. 137.2], ‘wherever the soul sees it senses, and it lives wherever it senses, and
it exists wherever it lives.’ But the soul, in a sense, sees everywhere, for it progressively sees
the whole arc of heaven (anima videt quasi ubique, quia successive videt etiam totum
caelum). Therefore, the soul is everywhere (anima est ubique).”
71 Aug. Conf. I.6.7: intus et foris.
72 This is the sense of Augustine’s first description of the intus-foris distinction, at Conf. I.6.8:
et ecce paulatim sentiebam ubi essem . . .
73 Aug. Conf. I.6.8: et ecce paulatim sentiebam ubi essem, et voluntates meas volebam
ostendere eis per quos implerentur, et non poteram, quia illae intus erant, foris autem illi,
nec ullo suo sensu valebant introire in animam meam. itaque iactabam membra et voces,
signa similia voluntatibus meis, pauca quae poteram, qualia poteram.
III.7.14: et feriebant undique ista oculos meos, et non videbam.
VII.7.11: ante te erat desiderium meum . . . intus enim erat.
IX.4.10: nec iam bona mea foris erant nec oculis carneis.
X.6.9: omnibus his quae circumstant fores carnis meae; X.9.16: sic est in memoria mea
ut non retenta imagine rem foris reliquerim, aut sonuerit et praeterierit sicut vox impressa
per aures vestigio quo recoleretur, quasi sonaret cum iam non sonaret, aut sicut odor, dum
transit et vanescit in ventos, olfactum afficit, unde traicit in memoriam imaginem sui
quam reminiscendo repetamus; X.40.65: lustravi mundum foris sensu quo potui, et
attendi vitam corporis mei de me sensusque ipsos meos.
XI.5.7: tu fabro corpus, tu animum membris imperitantem fecisti, tu materiam unde
facit aliquid, tu ingenium quo artem capiat et videat intus quid faciat foris, tu sensum cor-
poris quo interprete traiciat ab animo ad materiam id quod facit et renuntiet animo quid
factum sit; XI.8.10: sic in evangelio per carnem ait, et hoc insonuit foris auribus hominum.
74 Cf. Aug. Conf. III.6.11: . . . quae me seduxit, quia invenit foris habitantem in oculo carnis
meae; VII.7.11: . . . et lumen oculorum meorum non erat mecum; X.27.38: et ecce intus eras
et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam, et in ista formosa quae fecisti deformis inruebam.
In book III, he writes that he was “living outside (foris habitantem), in the eye
of [his] flesh.”75 In Confessions X, where I have stressed the duplicity of prae-
sens, Augustine repeats a formulation that he first introduced in book VII: ego
autem foris, “but I was outside.”76 In Confessions VII, the intus that constitutes
this ‘outside’ is a locus of Augustine’s desire (desiderium meum . . . intus enim
erat, VII.7.11); while in book X, the intus that constitutes this ‘outside’ is the
locus of his god (intus eras, X.27.38).
This is curious: ego autem foris. ‘But I was outside’—outside my flesh, out-
side my desire, outside my god?
In Epistle 137 this formulation is rendered more determinate and freed of
the preterite for which it is reserved in the Confessions. In 411/12, Augustine
writes this: extra carnem nostram vivimus, “we live outside our flesh.”77 And
what could this signify? He admits the seeming “absurdity” (absurditate) of the
formulation, while yet suggesting its validity.78 The difficulty of the phrase is
heightened still further by the fact that Augustine states, several sentences pre-
viously, that the soul “lives in the flesh” (vivit autem in carne), and that the soul
“lives nowhere else than in its flesh” (nonnisi in carne sua vivit).79 And lastly, on
a seemingly different register, Augustine refers to “the whole fivefold system
of the nerves” (sensus omnes quinaria distributione) which ramify and sensitize
the flesh from, “as it were, a centre in the brain,”80 and then to the heart which
75 Aug. Conf. III.6.11: quae me seduxit, quia invenit foris habitantem in oculo carnis meae.
While the most natural rendering of foris habitantem is perhaps ‘dwelling outside,’
‘living’ is also a primary lexical sense of habitare, and this accents a fore-echo in the Conf.
of Epist. 137.2.5 (extra carnem nostram vivimus), where vivere can only be rendered as
‘living.’
76 Cf. Aug. Conf. VII.7.11: et ante te erat desiderium meum, et lumen oculorum meorum non
erat mecum. intus enim erat, ego autem foris, nec in loco illud. at ego intendebam in ea quae
locis continentur, et non ibi inveniebam locum ad requiescendum; X.27.38: et ecce intus
eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam, et in ista formosa quae fecisti deformis inruebam.
77 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5.
78 Aug. Epist. 137.2.6: haec omnia mira sunt; nihil horum affirmari sine quadam velut absur-
ditate potest: et de sensu loquimur morticino.
79 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5.
80 O’Daly 1987, 80–81: “Augustine accepted that it is the sensory nerves which transmit stim-
uli, and that they transmit these to the brain, to which they are attached and where they
originate. Fine, pipe-like passages (tenues fistulae) lead from the central part of the brain
to the outer surface of the body and the various sense-organs: in the case of touch, espe-
cially fine channels (tenuissimi . . . rivuli) run through the cervical and spinal marrow to all
parts of the body (Gn. litt. 7.13.30). . . . Augustine is precise concerning which part of the
brain is the source and terminus of sensation: it is the foremost of the three ventricles in
218 chapter 9
suffuses “vital motion through the whole body (per corporis cuncta).”81 So this
‘outness’ of the soul is not intended as word-mysticism, but what is the sense
of this phrase, ‘we live outside our flesh (extra carnem)’?
Augustine introduces his reflection with a strict and distinct set of axiological
determinations. All bodies (corpora)—even the air,82 and “light-itself” (ipsa
lux)83—swell, distend or occupy space (occupet spatium . . . locum sic impleat)
and are partes extra partes, while the nature of soul (anima) is different.84
Augustine thus intends to “draw the mind away from the senses” (sevocare
mentem a sensibus), i.e. to estrange cogitatio from sensuous c onsuetudo.85 This
estrangement is necessary, says Augustine (quoting Cicero),86 not to medi-
tate upon god, but to interrogate sensus carnis (ipsos ergo corporis sensus) in a
peculiar but immanentist fashion.87 To reflect upon or intend sensus qua sen-
sus is itself a strange and ascetic procedure, and involves some type of proto-
phenomenological ‘reduction’ that consuetudo resists.88
In Epistle 137.2 and Confessions X.7.11, Augustine’s initial reflections on
anima as vita corporis are identical: anima vivifies corpus, and it is this inhes-
ion of the flesh that activates sensus. There is no sensus without vita, and anima
is the vita of a corpus; thus, the duplex condition of sensus is, precisely: anima-
corpus (Lyotard’s ‘soul-flesh’). “The bodily senses (corporis sensus),” Augustine
the cerebrum. The other two function as the seat of memory and the source of the motor
nerves (Gn. litt. 7.18.24).”
81 Aug. Epist. 137.2.8: quasi centro cerebri, sensus omnes quinaria distributione . . . corde,
membro tam exiguo, vitalem motum per corporis cuncta.
82 Cf. Aug. Conf. VII.1.2: . . . sicut autem luci solis non obsisteret aeris corpus.
83 Apropos the extramissive ‘side’ of Augustine’s theory of vision, Colish (1985, 174) writes
that “a visual ray (acies, radius) . . . mixes with the pure air and traverses the distance
between eye and object. The ray itself, Augustine acknowledges, is material: Et certe iste
corporeae lucis est radius, emicans ex oculis nostris (‘And certainly this ray emitted from
our eyes is a ray of corporeal light’).” Colish’s reference here is Aug. Gen.litt. IV.34.54.
84 Aug. Epist. 137.2.4.
85 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5: . . . sevocare mentem a sensibus, et cogitationem a consuetudine abdu-
cere. ipsos ergo corporis sensus aliquanto insuetius, et vigilantius perscrutetur.
86 As Testard (1958, II:107) first noticed:
(i) Cic. Tusc. I.16.38: Magni autem est ingenii sevocare mentem a sensibus et cogitatio-
nem ab consuetudine abducere.
(ii) Aug. Epist. 137.2.5: Magni quippe ingenii est, ut ait quidam, sevocare mentem a
sensibus, et cogitationem a consuetudine abducere.
87 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5: . . . sevocare mentem a sensibus, et cogitationem a consuetudine
abducere. ipsos ergo corporis sensus aliquanto insuetius, et vigilantius perscrutetur.
88 Cf. O’Daly 1987, 83: “For Augustine, the senses are, in general, not reflexive (lib. arb. 2.9).”
writes in this epistle, “cannot exist in the absence of body or soul.”89 He also
appears to treat it as strictly analytic that anima, insofar as it is involved in a
vita temporalis, is also a vita corporis.90 Augustine then proceeds:
It is clearly impossible for a man to sense unless he lives, but he lives in the
flesh before death dissolves this [soul-flesh]. How then does his soul,
which lives nowhere else than in his flesh, sense things that are outside
his flesh?
certe sentire homo non potest, nisi vivat; vivit autem in carne, antequam
morte utrumque dirimatur. quomodo igitur anima quae sunt extra car-
nem suam sentit, quae nonnisi in carne sua vivit? (Epist. 137.2.5)
A preliminary answer to our question here, ‘Where is the soul?’ is manifestly

and unequivocally—‘in the flesh’ (in carne). Precisely this locus is, for
Augustine, the sub-phenomenal condition for vita as such (= haerere), and the
flesh simply is for him the locus of sensus. A soulless-flesh is a senseless flesh—
a corpse; a soul-flesh is a sensitive flesh—‘a life.’ And as the locus of the soul in
this life is manifestly ‘in the flesh,’ so—presumably—the locus of what is ‘in the
soul,’ in this life, is also ‘in the flesh.’ In the present context, then—if ‘time is in
the soul,’ then it appears to follow that ‘time is in the flesh.’
But to appreciate the subtlety of Augustine’s question, ‘How do I sense outside
my flesh?’ it is imperative to recall his references to heart, brain and nervature.
Augustine is neither foreclosing nor seeking a physiological resolution to, or
description of, his question regarding sensus. He is reflecting on sensation. And
immediately, the terrain of sensus is seen to be diverse. Though it is possible to
doubt whether olfaction is solely conditioned by contact, taction and gustation
manifestly are,91 and thus: “Whatever we taste and touch, we sense nowhere
89 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5: sunt certe quinque partiti corporis sensus, qui nec sine corpore, nec sine
anima esse possunt.
Cf. Aug. Rhyth. I.4.8: puto te negare non posse, bestias habere memoriam . . . neque in
sensu eam, neque in memoria (nam illud non est sine corpore, et utrumque etiam in bestia
est); Lucr. Rer.nat. III.333–34: nec sibi quaeque sine alterius vi posse videtur | corporis
atque animi seorsum sentire postestas.
90 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5: neque sentire est nisi viventis, quod ab anima est corpora . . . certe sen-
tire homo non potest, nisi vivat; vivit autem in carne, antequam morte utrumque
dirimatur.
91 It should be noted that olfaction also occupies a central (μέσον)—and equivocal—
position in Aristotle’s schematism of the senses, at Arist. Sens. 5 (445a). While vision
and audition, for Aristotle, are distinguished as modes of sensation “through a medium”
220 chapter 9
but in our flesh (non alibi quam in carne nostra sentimus).”92 Augustine’s initial
localization of the soul as living ‘in the flesh’ (in carne) is not problematized
by these modalities of sensation. It is rather with vision and audition—the
senses, observe, which figure in the Confessions’ time-investigation93—that
sensus begins to problematize the locus of the soul.94 Here the problematic
of sensation (as with time) becomes one of duplicitous presence, or more pre-
cisely, of ‘impresence.’
Augustine opens Confessions XI.27.34 in this way: “The voice of a body (vox
corporis) begins to sound, and sounds, and still sounds, and now it ceases—
and already there is silence and that voice is past and is no longer a voice.”95
It is this hyper-minimal phenomenon—a transitive presence of vox corporis to
sensus corporis—which leads Augustine, through several ensuing analyses,
to formulate a ‘dilation’ of animus that is originarily a ‘dilation’ of sensus (see
chapter 13). And in Epistle 137, Augustine writes this:
Consider hearing, in which sense spreads-itself-out in some way from the

flesh. How is it that we say, ‘There is noise outside,’ unless we sense where
there is noise? Here also, therefore, we live outside our flesh. Or can
we sense where we are not living—when sense is impossible without life?
attende et auditum. nam et ipse se foras quodammodo diffundit a carne.

unde enim dicimus, ‘foris sonat,’ nisi ibi sentiamus ubi sonat? ergo et illic
extra carnem nostram vivimus. an sentire possumus et ubi non vivimus,
cum sensus sine vita esse non possit?96
(τῶν δι᾿ ἄλλου αἰσθητικῶν), and for Augustine, suggest an ‘outness’ of sensation (sentit
autem etiam praeter carnem suam, Aug. Epist. 137.2.6): Aristotle is doubtless a source of
Epist. 137, whatever intermediaries may be suggested.
92 Aug. Epist. 137.2.6: caeteri tres sensus apud seipsos sentiunt, quamvis de olfactu utcumque
possit dubitari. de gustu autem atque tactu nulla controversia est, quod ea quae gustamus
et tangimus, non alibi quam in carne nostra sentimus. proinde isti tres sensus ab hac con-
sideratione semoveantur.
93 Namely, vision in Conf. XI.24, audition in XI.26–28.
Cf. Aug. Quant.anim. 32.68: Cum autem locus et tempus sit, quibus omnia quae senti-
untur occupantur, vel potius quae occupant; quod oculis sentimus, per locum; quod auri-
bus, per tempus dividitur.
94 Aug. Epist. 137.2.6: visus auditusque afferunt mirabilem quaestionem.
95 Aug. Conf. XI.27.34: puta vox corporis incipit sonare et sonat et adhuc sonat, et ecce
desinit, iamque silentium est, et vox illa praeterita est et non est iam vox.
96 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5.
The phenomenon here is also hyper-minimal—a noise in the streets,

through the walls, at the door. (“A voice like a boy-child’s or girl-child’s, I do not
know, coming from a neighbouring house . . .”)97 And what this phenomenon
suggests, to Augustine, is an ‘outness’ of sensus: what is present to the ear, in
hearing, is impresence.
But Augustine proceeds to caution his correspondent: it is not that the ear
or the eye is not “as it were, a vessel or instrument” (quasi vasis atque organis)
of sensus.98 This can be effortlessly, endlessly confirmed:
Light impinges on the eyes of the sighted and the blind—but this is pres-
ent for the sighted and absent, in fact, for the blind.99 So also voice
impinges on the ears of those with hearing and also those who are deaf—
but it is disclosed for the hearing and undisclosed for the deaf.
lux adest oculis et videntis, et caeci: sed videnti adest praesens, caeco
vero absens. adest et vox audientibus auribus, adest etiam surdis: sed illis
patet, istas latet.100
Yet when I hear—where is it that I am? Or more specifically, where is it that

I am living when I hear? It is the latter question that leads Augustine into a
series of apparently sophistical oppositions—and then into aporia.101
97 Aug. Conf. VIII.12.29: ecce audio vocem de vicina domo cum cantu dicentis et crebro repe-
tentis, quasi pueri an puellae, nescio: “tolle lege, tolle lege.”
For de vicina domo, cf. Courcelle 1968, 299: “Et le fameux ‘Tolle, lege’? Selon que l’on
adopte la leçon commune: ‘de uicina domo,’ ou la leçon du seul manuscrit précarolingien,
le Sessorianus: ‘de diuina domo,’ l’on sera porté à considérer qu’il s’agit d’une voix exté
riure, humaine, ou d’une voix intérieure, d’origine divine.” Adopting Courcelle’s pre-
Carolingian variant would of course render this incident in Conf. VIII irrelevant in the
present context; but there is, in my estimation, every reason to regard de diuina domo as a
‘pious’ revision—i.e. a corruption—of Augustine’s text.
98 Aug. Epist. 137.2.5.
99 Augustine uses the eye of a corpse to very similar effect, at Aug. Quant.anim. 30.60: et
tamen talia pati oculus posset etiam in exanimo corpore, quamvis deesset anima, quam
passio non lateret; illud autem quod pati non potest oculus, nisi adsit anima, id est quod
videndo patitur, hoc solum ibi patitur, ubi non est?
100 Aug. Epist. 137.2.7.
101 Aug. Epist. 137.2.6: visus auditusque afferunt mirabilem quaestionem; aut quomodo
anima sentiat ubi non vivit, aut quomodo vivat ubi non est. neque enim nisi in carne sua
est; sentit autem etiam praeter carnem suam. ibi quippe sentit ubi videt; quia et videre
sentire est: ibi sentit ubi audit; quia et audire, sentire est. aut ergo et ibi vivit, ac per hoc
222 chapter 9
Still, Augustine’s ‘finding’ in Epistle 137 is this: while the constitutive haerere
of anima as vita corporis clearly localizes the soul ‘in the flesh’ (in carne), and
while several divisions of sensus (recall the sensificare at Confessions X.7.11)
delimit caro by the modality of contact, yet vision and audition suggest an out-
ness of sensus in space, which is to say, suggest that the soul also lives ‘outside
the flesh’ (extra carnem). The locus of sensus is duplicitous, and Augustine
(aporetically) formulates this duplicity—as with his ‘distentio animi’—not as
an interiorization of the foris but rather as the exteriorization of the intus.102
Anima as sensus phenomenalizes in and extra the limits of the flesh. Anima is
constitutively localized in the flesh (in this life), but with certain divisions of
sensus, Augustine insists that anima must also be localized outside the flesh
(in this life).
That is to say, when I hear—Augustine’s very question at Confessions
XI.27.34—I am living where I hear what I hear. Or such is the suggestion in
Epistle 137. When I hear, sensation “diffuses itself in some way from the flesh”:
ipse se foras quodammodo diffundit a carne.103 And we will now turn for the last
time to Confessions XI, in the last sentences of which Augustine writes that, for
one who sings, “his affections are varied and his senses dilated”: variatur affec-
tus sensusque distenditur (XI.31.41).
etiam et ibi est; aut sentit et ubi non vivit; aut vivit et ubi non est. haec omnia mira sunt;
nihil horum affirmari sine quadam velut absurditate potest.
102 Cf. Aug. Imm.anim. 3.4: Potest enim in hac intentione simul et memoriam praeteritorum
et expectationem futurorum habere, quae omnia sine vita esse non possunt.
103 Cf. Aug. Conf. VII.1.2 on corpus—but not, here, intentio—as necessarily being “spread out
in some space, whether diffused or massed together or swelling or having some such quali-
ties or at least capable of having them” (per aliquanta spatia tenderetur vel diffunderetur
vel conglobaretur vel tumeret vel tale aliquid caperet aut capere posset).
And the same term, diffundere, that Augustine gives to sensus in Ep. 137, Lucretius
selects for a soul pouring out of the body in death—like “mist and smoke”—at Lucr. Rer.
nat. III.436–38: crede animam quoque diffundi multoque perire | ocius et citius dissolvi in
corpora prima; and cf. the repetition at III.538–39: ut diximus ante, | dilaniata foras dis-
pargitur, interit ergo.
PART three
A Sensualist Interpretation of Confessions XI
∵
To each living thing in its own species (unicuique animanti in genere pro-
prio), in its proportion to the totality, is given a sense of positions and
times (sensus locorum temporumque), so that just as its body is deter-
mined in proportion to the totality of body (universi corporis), whose part
it is; and its age is determined in proportion to the totality of age (universi
saeculi), whose part it is; so its sense (sensus) harmonizes with its act in
proportion to the totality of motion (universi motus), whose part it is.
Augustine, De Rhythmo VI.7
In all the movements of things (in omnibus rerum motibus), the potencies
of number are most easily analyzed by way of voices (in vocibus).
Augustine, Epistle 101.3
chapter 10
Intimacy with the Flesh Is Intimacy with Time

(Conf. XI–XII)
Confessions XI.3–13 are an eternity-meditation, several aspects of which were

provisionally clarified in 3.4 and 5.1. In what follows, as previously, the formal
concept (and desiderative cipher) of eternity is not itself at issue or in
question. Yet in undertaking a sensualist interpretation of Augustine’s time-
investigation in Confessions XI, it will be necessary to look first to his eternity-
meditation. For despite the essential methodological independence of
Augustine’s time-investigation in Confessions XI.14–29, his time-question is yet
prepared by several decisive formulations in the eternity-meditation. And no
less decisively: so is the ‘time’/‘times’ distinction that only emerges as a distinct
question in the second phase of the time-investigation, after Augustine
observes that “we say ‘time’ and ‘time’, ‘times’ and ‘times’ ” (dicimus tempus et
tempus, tempora et tempora, XI.22.28).
In the distribution of the time-investigation I sketched in 4.1, it is clear that
the second division of the second phase of the time-investigation—i.e. its con-
clusion, in which Augustine’s analyses of temporal mensuration deliver a dis-
tentio—unfolds relative to the phenomenon of vox corporis, “the voice of a
body” (XI.27.34). Augustine’s specific characterization of this vox is rarely fore-
grounded in philosophical interpretations of the Confessions,1 but that this
vox is a vox corporis is by no means incidental. The vox corporis of the time-
investigation has been previously characterized as a vox temporalis in
Augustine’s eternity-meditation, at Confessions XI.6.8,2 where vox tempo-
ralis is essentially—not incidentally—conditioned by corporeity (creatura
1 For instance, von Herrmann (1992, 32–34/2008, 37–39) and Ricœur (1983, 44/1984, 24) gloss
Conf. XI.6.8, yet gloss over corporeity and motus as a clear, duplex condition for vox tempora-
lis; they also fail to see a connection to vox corporis in Conf. XI.27.34.
2 Vox temporalis is my composite term. Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: . . . haec verba temporaliter sonan-
tia . . . erat iam creatura corporalis . . . cuius motibus temporalibus temporaliter vox illa per-
curreret. . . . id certe sine transitoria voce feceras, unde transitoriam vocem faceres, qua diceres
ut fieret caelum et terra.

226 chapter 10
corporalis), “temporal movements” (motibus temporalibus), and thus, by transi-

tivity (≈ percursatio).3
Vox is intimately linked—previously in the Confessions,4 and thematically
in Augustine’s corpus5—to the phenomenality of time. For Augustine, speech
is a privileged instance of hyper-transitivity, as well as of a specific, manifest
accretiveness—namely, syntax—that illuminates distentio.6 It would thus be a
mistake to refer the vox-analyses in Augustine’s time-investigation solely, or
even primarily, back to the eternity-meditation in Confessions XI or its herme-
neutic occasion, namely, Genesis 1.3.7 That being said, vox first emerges in the
eternity-meditation (at XI.5.7), and is salient in it (at XI.6–9), because in
Genesis,8 as in the sublime proem to the Gospel of John,9 it is a divine utterance
or word that creates heaven and earth in the principium.
Augustine’s repeated delineation of this utterance or word as eternal—or
indeed, as eternity (at XI.8.10)—is not my concern. But the remotive proce-
dure that is necessary to achieve this concept requires Augustine, since eter-
nity is meditated upon in Confessions XI.6–9 as utterance, to characterize
temporal utterance per se, i.e. vox temporalis. It is these characterizations that
cannot be ignored in our approach to the time-investigation. To indicate yet
again the deep continuities that obtain between Confessions XI and XII, how-
ever, I will open with several sentences from the end of book XII which echo—
and will lead us into—the rhetoric and thematics of book XI.
3 Percursatio from percurreret at Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: cuius motibus temporalibus temporaliter
vox illa percurreret.
4 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. IV.11.17: nam et quod loquimur per eundem sensum carnis audis,
et non vis utique stare syllabas sed transvolare, ut aliae veniant et totum audias. ita semper
omnia, quibus unum aliquid constat (et non sunt omnia simul ea quibus constat): plus delec-
tant omnia quam singula, si possint sentiri omnia.
5 Gersh (1996, 35–38) provides a number of references that span Augustine’s corpus.
6 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. IV.10.15; Gen.litt. VI.3.4; Lib.arb. III.15.42.
7 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.5.7: ergo dixisti et facta sunt atque in verbo tuo fecisti ea.
8 Of course, cf. Long. Subl. 9.9 (182v).
9 Aug. Conf. XI.3.5 ≈ Genesis 1.1: audiam et intellegam quomodo in principio fecisti caelum et
terram; XI.5.7 ≈ Psalms 33.9, 6: ergo dixisti et facta sunt atque in verbo tuo fecisti ea.
For Johannine echoes, cf. Conf. XI.7.9 ≈ John 1.1: verbum, deum apud te deum; VII.9.13 =
John 1.1–3: in principio erat verbum et verbum erat apud deum et deus erat verbum. hoc erat
in principio apud deum. omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil.
Intimacy with the Flesh Is Intimacy with Time 227
10.1 “Words Begun and Ended, Sounding in Times” (Conf. XII.27)
In Confessions XII.27 Augustine reflects, as a bishop of Hippo Regius10 and a

preacher ad plebem, on the spiritual infantilism11 of those who could not hear
the incorporeal unicity of eternity in the “hyper-colloquial mode of speech”
used in scripture.12 Referring to these simple believers, Augustine says:
When they hear, “god said: Let it be made, and it was made” [Genesis 1.3],
they think of words begun and ended, sounding in times and passing away,
after the departure of which that came into existence which was comman
ded to exist—and whatever else of the sort they may imagine out of inti-
macy with the flesh . . . by which they hold and take it as certain that god
made all the natures which . . . their senses observe surrounding them.
cum audiunt, “dixit deus: fiat illud, et factum est illud,” cogitant verba
coepta et finita, sonantia temporibus atque transeuntia, post quorum tran-
situm statim existere quod iussum est ut existeret, et si quid forte aliud
hoc modo ex familiaritate carnis opinantur . . . qua certum habeant et
teneant deum fecisse omnes naturas quas eorum sensus . . . circumspicit.
(XII.27.37)
“They think . . . out of intimacy with the flesh” (cogitant . . . ex familiaritate

carnis); the description is, of course, barbed. Yet it is not this cognition-from-
10 When Augustine composed the Conf. he was not the sole bishop of Hippo Regius, but a
recently installed Caecilianist or Catholic bishop (catholicus episcopus). “Hippo boasted
rival Christian churches. Donatists and Catholics lived cheek by jowl here” (Merdinger
1997, 68).
Donatists still held highly influential bishoprics across North Africa in the late 4th and
early 5th centuries, and Proculeianus was the Donatist bishop of Hippo Regius, circa 400
(cf. Aug. Epist. 33–35; Lepelley 2001, 350–51; Mandouze 1982, 924–26). Thus, Possidius’
vita specifies that Augustine was ordained “in the catholic church in Hippo” (in ecclesia
Hipponiensi catholica, Poss. Vita 4.1); refers to Augustine’s later dealings with Donatist,
Manichaean and Arian bishops (Poss. Vita 6.2, 9.1, 17.7); and recalls that the ecclesia
catholica in Africa was less numerous than the Donatist church for much of Augustine’s
episcopacy (rebaptizante Donati parte maiore multitudine Afrorum, Poss. Vita 7.2).
11 Aug. Conf. XII.27.37: parvulis animalibus.
12 Aug. Conf. XII.27.37: humillimo genere verborum; cf. VI.5.8: verbis apertissimis et humil-
limo genere loquendi.
Augustine despised this ineloquence in his youth: Conf. III.5.9.
228 chapter 10
carnal-intimacy which itself signals the infantilism, when Augustine writes

that most of his auditors ‘think of words begun and ended, sounding in times
and passing away.’ For the Latin here, at Confessions XII.27.37—
[i] verba coepta et finita,

[ii] sonantia temporibus atque transeuntia,
[iii] post quorum transitum statim existere,
—unmistakeably echoes13 Augustine’s own characterization of vox temporalis

in the eternity-meditation, at Confessions XI.6.8:
[i] vox acta atque transacta est, coepta et finita.

[ii] sonuerunt syllabae atque transierunt,
[iii] secunda post primam, tertia post secundam atque inde ex ordine.
In the eternity-meditation itself Augustine, therefore, cognizes ‘out of inti-

macy with the flesh’ in his reflection on temporal utterances.
The infantilism that Augustine criticizes in Confessions XII.27.37 consists,
not at all in an imperfect apprehension of basic temporal phenomena—indeed,
his rhetorical transposition here suggests that this apprehension is very
precise—but rather in an incapacity to seek to cognize divine utterance via
remotionis.14 To cognize ‘out of intimacy with the flesh’ is the originary cogni-
tion for proceeding towards any formal concept of eternity—yet this originary
mode of cognition, i.e. intimacy with our sense-temporal condition, must then
be remotively manipulated. That is, intellected according to the mode
of ‘precedence by eternity’ that Augustine refers to in Confessions XII.29.40
(see 9.5). Initially, then: we must be alert to signals of Augustine’s ‘intimacy
with the flesh’ in the eternity-meditation of Confessions XI, as in the time-
investigation that follows.
13 This is not only a definite echo but the sole such echo in books XI and XII (though the
phrase coepta et finita at Conf. XI.6.8 perhaps inflects gesta atque finita at Conf. XI.23.30).
14 Cf. Aug. Enarr. 121.5: Iam ergo, fraters, quisquis erigit aciem mentis, quisquis deponit
caliginem carnis, quisquis mundat oculum cordis, elevet, et videat idipsum. Quid est idip-
sum? . . . Fratres, si potestis, intellegite idipsum. Nam et ego quidquid aliud dixero, non
dico idipsum. Conemur tamen quibusdam vicinitatibus verborum et significationum per-
ducere infirmitatem mentis ad cogitandum idipsum. Quid est idipsum? Quod semper
eodem modo est; quod non modo aliud, et modo aliud est. Quid est ergo idipsum, nisi,
quod est? Quid est quod est? Quod aeternum est.
10.2 Familiaritas Carnis and Familiaritas Temporis (Conf. XI.14)
It is suggestive how Augustine concludes the sentence in Confessions XI.6.8

that he basically reproduces in XII.27.37. Here, the voice in question is that
“voice out of a cloud” (vox de nube) that pronounces over Jesus, at Matthew 17.5:
“This is my beloved son.”15 Augustine says of this voice (and it is a more elegant
formulation in the original than in translation):
But that voice was [i] uttered and uttered-through,16 begun and ended.
The syllables sounded and passed-away, [ii] the second after the first, the
third after the second and so on in succession, until the last after the rest,
and silence after the last. From which [iii] it is eminently clear that the
motion of a creature expressed this utterance.
illa enim vox acta atque transacta est, coepta et finita. sonuerunt syllabae
atque transierunt, secunda post primam, tertia post secundam atque
inde ex ordine,17 donec ultima post ceteras silentiumque post ultimam.
unde claret atque eminet quod creaturae motus expressit eam. (XI.6.8)
Augustine indicates a series of co-originary temporal phenomena here:

(i) temporal delimitation as a passing: transitivity; (ii) transitivity as an order:
succession;18 and (iii) physical motus19 as an ‘eminently clear’ condition for
transitivity and succession.20
15 Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: sed quomodo dixisti? numquid illo modo quo facta est vox de nube
dicens, “hic est filius meus dilectus”?
16 Von Herrmann (1992, 32/2008, 37) has here: “The word has moved itself (acta est) and has
moved beyond itself (transacta est).”
17 The definite sense of ex ordine here as ‘in succession’ not only influences the rendering of
ordo as ‘succession’ in Conf. XII, but harmonizes with the only previous appearance of the
phrase in book XI, at XI.2.2 (et si sufficio haec enuntiare ex ordine, caro mihi valent stillae
temporum), and fixes the sense of Augustine’s otherwise obscure lament at the end of
XI.29.39 (ego in tempora dissilui quorum ordinem nescio).
18 Von Herrmann (1992, 32–33/2008, 37–38) incisively formulates (α) and (β), but (γ)—
predictably—goes unremarked in his strictly phenomenological interpretation.
19 ‘Physical’ here for motus creaturae since Augustine proceeds to render creatura determi-
nate in this way in the same paragraph and regard, at Conf. XI.6.8: creatura corporalis . . .
cuius motibus temporalibus temporaliter vox illa percurreret.
20 Cf. Arist. Sens. 6 (447a): “Sound is held to be something that is borne upon movement
(φερομένου τινὸς κίνησις).”
230 chapter 10
As demonstrated in 10.1, Augustine repeats (i) and (ii) from this series—i.e.
the phenomena ‘from which it is eminently clear that the motion of a creature
expressed this utterance’—when he characterizes cognition ‘out of intimacy
with the flesh’ at Confessions XII.27.37. It is thus (indirectly) assured that he
regards (iii) as implicated in this ‘intimacy with the flesh’: physical motus is
originarily implicated in and manifest as a condition for transitivity and succes-
sion.21 The question of a ‘dependence’ of transitivity/succession upon physical
motus is thus not, for Augustine, an originary question. This dependence is itself
an originary temporal phenomenon—which is not to say an ‘idea.’22 Cognition
out of intimacy with the flesh (ex familiaritate carnis, XII.27.37) involves—as
we have seen in chapter 9, with informitas and ipsa mutabilitas23—a consti-
tutive resistance to the imperatives of vera ratio. This resistance is neverthe-
less a sign of our constitutive intimacy with the conditions of appearance,
which intimacy consists, for Augustine, in the soul’s inhesion of the flesh
(see chapter 7).
This should suffice to indicate that it is this resistance to cognizing eternity
(or formlessness, etc.)—namely, the familiaritas carnis—which also provides
Augustine with his initial temporal characterizations in the eternity-meditation
of Confessions XI, and by which, remotively, he achieves a formal concept of
eternity. This constitutive resistance to the cognition of eternity is itself, and at
once, a constitutive clarity, i.e. a certain originary cognition of time. As inti-
mate with the flesh, we are intimate with time. This is why Augustine employs
21 It could well be argued that (γ) in Conf. XI.6.8 finds its echo in XII.27.37 in the phrase “all
the natures which . . . their senses observe surrounding them” (omnes naturas quas eorum
sensus . . . circumspicit).
22 Cf. Aug. Gen.lib.imp. III.8.3: An in temporibus istis dictus est ut essent luminaria, quae
tempora homines intervallis morarum in corporis motione metiuntur? Haec enim tempora,
si nullus motus corporum esset, nulla essent: et ipsa sunt hominibus manifestiora.
And note—since this is not always noted—that in the following sentences, where
Augustine introduces a notion of ‘time’ in discarnate, angelic minds prior to motus omnis,
this is a highly speculative notion and a question, not a position he takes, at Gen.lib.imp.
III.8.4: quarendum est utrum praeter motum corporum possit esse in motu incorporeae
creaturae, veluti est anima vel ipsa mens: quae utique in cogitationibus movetur et in ipso
motu aliud habet prius, aliud posterius, quod sine intervallo temporis intellegi non potest.
Quod si accipimus . . .
23 Aug. Conf. XII.6.6: ista materia [informis] . . . cum speciebus innumeris et variis cogitabam
et ideo non eam cogitabam. foedas et horribiles formas perturbatis ordinibus volvebat ani-
mus, sed formas tamen, et . . . si appareret, insolitum et incongruum aversaretur sensus
meus . . . verum autem illud quod cogitabam non privatione omnis formae sed compara-
tione formosiorum erat informe, et suadebat vera ratio ut omnis formae qualescumque
reliquias omnino detraherem, si vellem prorsus informe cogitare et non poteram.
the same terminology in Confessions XI.14.17 ( familiarius) and in Confessions

XII.27.37 (familiaritas)24—the only appearances of these closely related terms
in Confessions XI and XII,25 respectively. It is with this ‘intimacy,’ then, that
Augustine inaugurates his time-investigation:
Who can express time in words or grasp it in thought? But what do we

more commonly and more intimately keep in mind when we are speaking,
than time?
quis hoc ad verbum de illo proferendum vel cogitatione comprehenderit?

quid autem familiarius et notius in loquendo commemoramus quam tem-
pus? (XI.14.17)
This set of questions should serve as a preliminary indication that, while inti-
macy with the flesh is the precondition for Augustine’s initial t ime-formulations
in Confessions XI, this intimacy will not itself resolve his time-question. To
the contrary: in Confessions XI with tempus—as in Epistle 137, with sensus
(see 9.6)—a certain ‘estrangement’ from our familiaritas carnis is necessary to
conceptualize, not only aeternitas, but the duplicitous constitution of
tempus.26
Indeed, I would suggest that it is this that gives sense to the scio/nescio dia-
lectic that activates Augustine’s time-investigation. For he proceeds, in this
much-quoted27 passage:
24 ‘Intimacy’ and ‘intimately’ are primary lexical senses for familiaritas and familiarius
respectively.
25 Cf. the strong association of tempus-familiaritas at Aug. Conf. VIII.10.24: ita etiam cum
aeternitas delectat superius et temporalis boni voluptas retentat inferius, eadem anima est
non tota voluntate illud aut hoc volens et ideo discerpitur gravi molestia, dum illud veri-
tate praeponit, hoc familiaritate non ponit.
26 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: in te, anime meus, tempora metior. noli mihi obstrepere, quod est;
noli tibi obstrepere turbis affectionum tuarum. in te, inquam, tempora metior. affectionem
quam res praetereuntes in te faciunt.
27 For a scholastic citation, vid. Gand. Quodl. III, q. 11, fol. 63r: Et eſt intētio Auguſtini ut
dictum eſt . . . xi.confeſſionum . . . Quid eſt ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quęrat: ſcio. Si
quęrenti explicare velim, neſcio.
Much later, the original of Augustine’s confession can be lifted from Pierre Gassendi’s
Syntagma Philosophicum, vid. Gassendi 1658, I:220: “Profectò verò haud abs re in ore eſt
omnium, quod D. habet Auguſtinus, Si nemo, inquit, ex me quærat, quid sit Tempus, scio; si
quærenti explicare velim, nescio.”
232 chapter 10
We definitely understand when we speak of time, and we also under-

stand when we hear others speak of it. What then is time? If no one asks
the question, I know: if I wish to explicate what it is when asked, I do
not know.
intellegimus utique cum id loquimur, intellegimus etiam cum alio

loquente id audimus. quid est ergo tempus? si nemo ex me quaerat, scio;
si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio. (XI.14.17)
Similarly, Augustine’s confession appears in mangled Latin in Gottfried Klinger’s 1678

letter to Leibniz, vid. Leibniz 1972, 439 (no. 193): “Augustinus, nach dem er lange speculirt
hatte, was doch die Zeit sen, sagt zwar, si non cogito scio, si cogito, nescio.”
Kant renders it in transparent German in his 1764 essay, Inquiry concerning the
Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality. Vid. Kant 1968, 283–84/
2003, 256–57: “In metaphysics I have a concept which is already given to me (der mir
schon gegeben worden), although it is a confused one (verworren). My task is to search
for the distinct, complete and determinate concept. How them am I to begin? Augustine
said: ‘I know perfectly well what time is, but if someone asks me what it is I do not know’
(Ich weiß wohl, was die Zeit sei, aber wenn mich jemand frägt, weiß ichs nicht). Here
many operations have to be performed in unfolding obscure ideas (viel handlungen der
Entwicklung dunkler Ideen), in comparing them with each other, in subordinating them
to each other and in limiting them by each other. I would go so far as to say that, although
much that is true and penetrating (Wahres und Scharssinniges) has been said about time,
nevertheless no real definition of time-itself has ever been given (die Realerklärung der-
selben niemals gegeben worden). As far as the nominal definition (die Namenerklärung)
is concerned, it is of little or no use to us, for even without it the word is understood well
enough not to be misused. If we had as many correct definitions (richtige Definitionen)
of time as appear in books under that title, with what certainty could inferences be made
and conclusions derived! But experience teaches the opposite.”
In a neo-Kantian milieu, circa 1900, Franz Brentano alludes to it on the first page of a
manuscript on “time and time-consciousness”; and for Brentano—as for Augustine—it is
still “time-itself (die Zeit selbst) which is primarily in need of conceptual clarification”
(Brentano 1976, 18/1988, 13). Vid. Brentano 1976, 60/1988, 49: “What is time? There is no
other name that is more familiar to us (der uns geläufiger), and none that is at the same
time so obscure (der zugleich uns dunkler wäre). Whenever we use it in speech, no diffi-
culty accrues to our understanding (Verständnis) and we are also able to say—readily and
reliably—whether or not a particular determination is temporal. And yet many will hesi-
tate to answer our question and will perhaps in the end admit, like Augustine in a cele-
brated passage (einer berühmten Stelle) of his Confessions, that they do not know what
time is.”
Husserl, one of Brentano’s protégés, then quotes the Latin in his 1905 lectures on
“internal time-consciousness.” Vid. Husserl 1966, 3: “Noch heute mag man mit Augustinus
sagen: si nemo ex me quaerat, scio, si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.”
When I cognize within and out of intimacy-with-the-flesh, I am perfectly

intimate-with-time; that is to say, I ceaselessly cognize ex familiaritate t emporis.
Augustine’s cogito itself is such a familiaritas temporis. (See, for instance,
Confessions X.11.18, where Augustine’s cogito is highly temporized.) And it is
because of this constitutive, co-originary intimacy—namely, familiaritas car-
nis as a familiaritas temporis—that we all understand what ‘time’ is when we
hear it spoken of, and when we speak of it. It is also because of this intimacy
that I immediately recognize myself in Augustine’s scio: I also know what time
is. But it is a different thing to cognize ex familiaritate temporis—which is to
say, “in time,”28 pre-reflectively—and to “grasp time in thought” (cogitatione
comprehenderit, XI.14.17).
We could recall, here, Augustine’s shock in Confessions X: “I myself cannot
grasp all I am” (nec ego ipse capio totum quod sum, X.8.15). It is a similar ego
capio/ego sum fissure that introduces a nescio into, and alongside, Augustine’s
scio at Confessions XI.14.17: in our familiaritas carnis, a familiaritas temporis is
ours. A self-estrangement that occurs with the time-question yet requires, if
this question is to be pursued, an insistence upon this estrangement of the ego
capio (→ nescio) from the ego sum (→ scio).29 To the ‘I am’ (ego sum), in this life,
belongs an originary ‘intimacy with time’ (familiaritas temporis), which is to
say, an ‘I know’ (scio) apropos of time. But this is not to say that a reflective
control of tempus—an ‘I grasp’ (ego capio)—pertains to the ego’s constitu-
tive ‘intimacy with time’ (apropos of ipsum tempus), or indeed, to its
constitutive ‘intimacy with the flesh’ (apropos of sensus carnis).
28 Aug. Conf. XI.1.1: vides quod fit in tempore? cur ergo tibi tot rerum narrationes digero?;
XI.25.32: scire me in tempore ista dicere, et diu me iam loqui de tempore, atque ipsum diu
non esse diu nisi mora temporis. quomodo igitur hoc scio, quando quid sit tempus nescio?
29 For ego sum here, cf. Aug. Conf. X.3.4: auris eorum non est ad cor meum, ubi ego sum
quicumque sum; X.16.25: ego sum qui memini, ego animus.
chapter 11
Times and Time from Augustine’s

Eternity-Meditation (Conf. XI.3–13)
Augustine anticipates his time-question subtly but very precisely in his

eternity-meditation, and the specific character of this anticipation has not, to my
awareness, previously been observed. Moreover, it is anticipated in terms of the
‘time’/‘times’ distinction he evokes in Confessions XI.22, establishes in XI.23–24
(see chapter 4), and adheres to thereafter—as we have seen, in Confessions XII
no less than in book XI. It is also in the eternity-meditation that Augustine
foregrounds the phenomenality of mutatio, which resurfaces in book XII
(see chapter 9).
In Confessions XI.4.6, Augustine announces mutatio as the originary and
manifest condition of all temporal existence,1 as indeed, it is the originary con-
dition of all manifest existence (at XII.8.8). As succession, and as variation,
mutatio testifies to a vertiginous order of precedence.2 Mutive existence is pre-
ceded existence; preceded existence is originated existence; originated exis-
tence is conditioned existence (sumus, quia facta sumus, XI.4.6). For Augustine,
the phenomenality of mutatio—again recall that he commences his confes-
sion, ex familiaritate carnis, with the oblivion that shrouds his life in utero and
his infancy (at I.6–7)3—is implicated in ontology: all mutive existence has its
prius in its inexistence.
And for Augustine, the clamorous phenomenality of mutatio,4 while it is a
clear-manifestness (evidentia),5 is not solely or originarily phenomenal: the
phenomenality of mutatio in Confessions XI is originarily and manifestly
1 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.7.9: quoniam in quantum quidque non est quod erat et est quod non erat,
in tantum moritur et oritur; XI.8.10: omne quod esse incipit et esse desinit.
2 Aug. Conf. XI.4.6: est in eo quicquam quod ante non erat: quod est mutari atque variari . . . non
ergo eramus antequam essemus, ut fieri possemus a nobis.
3 This oblivion is co-conditioned by ‘flesh’ and ‘time,’ from the outset. Vid. Aug. Conf. I.6.7: . . .
nescio unde venerim huc, in istam dico vitam mortalem an mortem vitalem? nescio. et sus-
ceperunt me consolationes miserationum tuarum, sicut audivi a parentibus carnis meae, ex
quo et in qua me formasti in tempore: non enim ego memini.
4 Aug. Conf. XI.4.6: ecce sunt caelum et terra! clamant quod facta sint; mutantur enim atque
variantur. . . . clamant etiam quod se ipsa non fecerint.
5 Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 69: “evidentia, appearance: [Conf.] 11, 4, 6, vox dicentium est ipsa
evidentia;—perspicuity, clearness (rhet.) (Cic., Quint.).”

Times and Time from Augustine ’ s Eternity-Meditation 235
corporeal.6 Augustine’s “heaven and earth” (caelum et terra) are bodies, and the
phenomenality of their mutivity is (again, ex familiaritate carnis) conditioned
by their various corporeal determinations and the vast order of corporeal
mutatio whose phenomenal (and logical) condition is motus omnis.7 For
Augustine, the prius of motus is corpus, and motus is the prius of mutatio.
This is indicated in Confessions XI.6.8, where Augustine passes from the
analysis of vox temporalis that have I already quoted (see 10.2)—which he
strongly links to motus—to a reprise of the same analysis in the same para-
graph. Augustine is still concerned with the divine, eternal prius as an
utterance:
If then [o lord] you spoke sounding and passing words to produce heaven
and earth . . . there was already a corporeal creature before heaven and
earth by whose temporal motions that temporal voice passed-in-succession.
si ergo verbis sonantibus et praetereuntibus dixisti, ut fieret caelum et

terra . . . erat iam creatura corporalis ante caelum et terram, cuius motibus
temporalibus temporaliter vox illa percurreret. (XI.6.8)
Here Augustine’s vox temporalis or vox transitoria,8 precisely like sonus in

Confessions XII.29.40 (see 9.5), has corporeity (materies/species) and motion
(motus) as its phenomenal and logical conditions.9 That this condition for vox
temporalis is phenomenal as well as logical is indicated at Confessions XI.8.10,
where Augustine represents Jesus in the gospels as speaking “through the flesh
(per carnem), and this speech sounded out (insonuit foris) in the ears of men.”10
Thus, again: corporeity and motus are conditions of vox, of sonus, in books XI
and XII of the Confessions. And in XI.6.8, apropos of the phenomenality of vox,
6 There is no question of bracketing mutive or “Objective time” in Conf. XI, as at Husserl

1971, 21–29.
7 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.23.29: omnium corporum motus; XII.8.8: rerum mutationibus; XII.11.14:
varietate motionum; etc.
8 Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: transitoria voce . . . transitoriam vocem.
9 Cf. Aug. Tract. 37.4: verbum quod est apud te, ut transeat ad me, sonum quasi vehiculum
quaerit. assumit ergo sonum, imponit se quodammodo in vehiculum, transcurrit aerem,
venit ad me, nec recedit a te. sonus autem ut veniret ad me, recessit a te, nec perstitit
apud me.
10 Aug. Conf. XI.8.10: in evangelio per carnem ait, et hoc insonuit foris auribus hominum; cf.
XI.3.5: praeberem aures corporis mei sonis erumpentibus ex ore eius, et si hebraea voce
loqueretur, frustra pulsaret sensum meum.
236 chapter 11
Augustine uses motus temporalis and motus creaturae—where creatura is,

moreover, expressly a creatura corporalis—as substitutable phrases.11
In the first paragraphs of Confessions XI, then: physical movement is tempo-
ral movement, and vice versa. This is not an insignificant gain, but the
very substitutability of Augustine’s phrases is opaque: What is the relation of
physical movement to temporal movement? And is there a dependence to be
observed here?
11.1 Time, Times, and a Proto-Distentio (Conf. XI.11–13)
Augustine’s problematic of tempus and tempora, which leads into his time-
investigation and can be traced up it, is first indicated (sotto voce) at Confessions
XI.7.9. Here, Augustine remarks that the counter-condition to eternity is “time
and mutivity”: tempus et mutatio.12
In Confessions XI, as in book XII, motus is a condition for mutatio, mutatio is
a condition for tempora (mutive times), while vita—in “this mutive world” (iste
mutabilis mundis, XII.8.8), and thus, “in times” (in tempora, XI.29.39)—is the
decisive condition for tempus (dimensive time). Though it is not evident here,
in Augustine’s phrase ‘tempus et mutatio’ it is mutatio (≈ tempora) that pre-
cedes tempus—“by origin,” not “by time” (XII.29.40)—and thus, it is time that
depends upon mutivity and times (← motus omnis). The reverse, for Augustine,
cannot be said.
This is adumbrated in Confessions XI.11.13, where Augustine laments that
some are not yet ravished by the splendour of eternity and are still incapable
of comparing the incomparable,13 and where he gestures at once towards
the fundamental character of his time-question (at XI.15–16) and towards his
conclusion of the time-investigation (at XI.27–28). This set of anticipations
has been overlooked in the literature.14 But as at Confessions XII.29.40, in
which the familiaritas carnis is deplored for its resistance to Augustine’s con-
cept of eternity—even as that familiaritas reproduces time-formulations from
11 Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: unde claret atque eminet quod creaturae motus expressit eam . . . erat
iam creatura corporalis . . . cuius motibus temporalibus temporaliter vox illa percurreret.
12 Aug. Conf. XI.7.9: neque enim finitur quod dicebatur et dicitur aliud, ut possint dici
omnia, sed simul ac sempiterne omnia; alioquin iam tempus et mutatio et non vera
aeternitas.
13 Aug. Conf. XI.11.13: et paululum rapiat splendorem semper stantis aeternitatis, et compa-
ret cum temporibus numquam stantibus, et videat esse incomparabilem.
14 For instance: von Herrmann 1992, 40–47; but cf. Schmidt 1985, 41–47.
book XI—so here, it is imperative to identify the object and delimit the force
of Augustine’s polemics. For in Confessions XI.11.13, this ‘intimacy with the
flesh’ anticipates Augustine’s time-investigation, yet impedes his eternity-
meditation. It is likely because of the polemical edge of this paragraph15 that
the significance of XI.11.13 has been missed.
The ostensive purpose of this paragraph in Confessions XI is to seduce us
away from conceiving eternity as an extensive, rather than a remotive, stimu-
lus from time.16 Thus, Augustine’s characterizations of temporalia and tempo-
ral phenomena—including his first adumbrations here of temporal ‘dilation’
(distentio)—are negative in tone. But this does not mean that they are incor-
rect. Indeed, Augustine’s negative characterization of a p roto-distentio, here in
XI.11.13, is less severe than his characterization of distentio itself in XI.29.39, the
climax of the time-investigation. And it is the climax of Augustine’s eternity-
meditation that occurs here, with this formula:
Nothing at all passes in eternity, but all is presence and present all-at-
once.
non . . . praeterire quicquam in aeterno, sed totum esse praesens. (XI.11.13)17
Augustine then fixes the originary sense of this statement by way of this ante-
rior and antithetical, triple-characterization of ‘times’ in (α), and ‘time’ in (β)
and (γ):
(α) “Times never stand” = temporibus numquam stantibus;

(β) “No time is present all-at-once” = nullum . . . tempus totum esse
praesens;18 and
15 Augustine presents it as a lament, and this tone—i.e. lamentation cum polemic—is

echoed in Conf. XI.30.40, where he reprises the eternity-meditation.
16 I owe much to von Herrmann here, who is excellent in this regard; cf. von Herrmann 1992,
23–40/2008, 28–51.
Simplicius also puts the extensive/remotive contrast with exemplary clarity (exc.
Sambursky and Pines 1987, 68–69): “If we speak of the everlastingly flowing time, we
mean ‘everlasting’ (τὸ ἀεὶ) not in the sense of an infinite reality (ἄπειρον) existing at once,
but in the sense of something tending towards infinity (ἄπειρον). . . . For the ‘everlasting’
(τὸ ἀεὶ) has two meanings, either being whole at once, as eternity (τὸ αἰώνιον), or having
its being in becoming through never ending time (τὸν ἀνέκλειπτον χρόνον).”
17 The fulminous phrase totum esse praesens invites and deserves successive renderings.
18 Ricœur 1984, 25: “Negativity reaches its highest pitch here.”
238 chapter 11
(γ) “A long time cannot become long except out of a multitude of

motions, still passing-on, which cannot be elongated all-at-once” =
longum tempus, nisi ex multis praetereuntibus motibus qui simul
extendi non possunt, longum non fieri (XI.11.13).
It is this same, triple-characterization of ‘times’ and ‘time’ that is reflected in,

and sharpened by, Augustine’s depictions of “one” (cuiusquam) who conceptu-
alizes his deity ‘out of intimacy with the flesh’:
(δ) “Their heart flicks between the past and future movements of
things” = in praeteritis et futuris rerum motibus cor eorum volitat
(XI.11.13);19
(ε) “[Their] weightless sense roves over the images of past times” = vol-
atilis sensus vagatur per imagines retro temporum (XI.13.15).20
Once these last descriptions, (δ)–(ε), are set against the “tumultuous
changes” that rend Augustine’s “inmost viscera” as long as he is living “in times”
(XI.29.39);21 and then against the ‘distentio sensuum’ that he evokes in the last
sentences of the book (XI.31.41);22 it is not difficult to detect fore-echoes of
his temporal distentio, and indeed, of a ‘distentio sensuum,’ at the height of his
eternity-meditation. The occasion that (δ) and (ε) afford us to reconstruct
something of dimensive time from the eternity-meditation should not be
passed by.
11.2 Imago, Affectio and Distentio in the Confessions
Augustine’s use of ‘heart’ (cor) in (δ) and ‘sense’ (sensus) in (ε) accord with his
choice of viscera at Confessions XI.29.39 and sensus at XI.31.41 respectively,
19 Cf. Aug. Conf. VII.1.2: per quales enim formas ire solent oculi mei, per tales imagines ibat
cor meum.
20 Cf. Aug. Conf. IV.15.27: volvens apud me corporalia figmenta obstrepentia cordis mei auri-
bus, quas intendebam.
And more specifically, cf. also Conf. XI.13.15: . . . volatilis sensus; V.12.22: certe tamen
turpes sunt tales et fornicantur abs te amando volatica ludibria temporum et lucrum
luteum, quod cum apprehenditur manum inquinat, et amplectendo mundum fugientem.
21 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: ego in tempora dissilui quorum ordinem nescio, et tumultuosis vari-
etatibus dilaniantur cogitationes meae, intima viscera animae meae.
22 Aug. Conf. XI.31.41: sicut nota cantantis notumve canticum audientis expectatione
vocum futurarum et memoria praeteritarum variatur affectus sensusque distenditur . . .
while ‘heart’ also echoes sharply off of Augustine’s first use of ‘dilation’ in the
Confessions:
What . . . if [several, irreconcilable prospects] all lure us equally and all at

once, in a single point of time?23 Will not several diverse ‘wills’ dilate and
divide up24 the heart of man, while we deliberate over which we would
most prefer to lay hold of?
quid si . . . pariter delectent omnia simulque uno tempore, nonne diversae

‘voluntates’ distendunt cor hominis, dum deliberatur quid potissimum
arripiamus? (VIII.10.24)
It is important that the several desiderata—and thus, the several ‘wills’—

envisioned in this sentence from book VIII converge upon and are co-present
in “a single point of time” (in unum articulum temporis, VIII.10.24), and that this
is what occasions Augustine’s only use of distendere-distentio in the Confessions,
outside of the time-investigation in book XI.25 It is also suggestive that these
several desiderata—and their corresponding ‘wills’—are temporally irrecon-
cilable, with Augustine specifying that they cannot all be effected or laid-hold
of simultaneously or “at once” (simul agi nequeunt, VIII.10.24).
The structural affinity of this passional-volitional distentio in Confessions
VIII to Augustine’s temporal distentio in book XI is pronounced. In the time-
investigation of Confessions XI, it is of course a co-presence of ‘times’ within
‘a single point of time’—i.e. a variegated co-presence of past, present and
future things within a single and punctile praesens tempus (at XI.20.26)—
that constitutes temporal distentio. And moreover, temporal distentio is marked
by a co-presence, ‘in a single point of time,’ of ‘times’ which are temporally
irreconcilable. The “presence of past things” in memory, the “presence of pres-
ent things” in observation, and the “presence of future things” in expectation
(XI.20.26) are co-present, in temporal distentio, as ‘presences’ which cannot all
23 I am rendering Augustine’s expression here, viz. uno tempore, in light of his stronger word-
ing several sentences previously, in a strictly parallel formulation, at Aug. Conf. VIII.10.24:
si omnia concurrant in unum articulum temporis pariterque cupiantur omnia quae simul
agi nequeunt . . .
24 The sense of ‘division’ here is shored up in the following sentence, at Aug. Conf. VIII.10.24:
et omnes bonae sunt et certant secum, donec eligatur unum quo feratur tota voluntas
una, quae in plures dividebatur.
25 O’Donnell (1992, III:289) notes that this is the only appearance of distendere-distentio in
the Conf. outside of the time-investigation in book XI, and that here “at [Conf.] 8.10.24 . . .
its adverse qualities are evident.”
240 chapter 11
be effected or laid-hold of ‘at once’ and in the most crystalline sense of pres-
ence. Were it otherwise—i.e. were ‘past things,’ ‘present things’ and ‘future
things’ not temporally irreconcilable as modes of presence—then this
co-presence, and therefore distentio, “would by no means be time, but eternity”
(XI.14.17).26 As Augustine writes in Confessions III, “Times are not alike . . .
because they are times” (III.7.13).27
It is also notable that Augustine’s use of distendere-distentio in Confessions
VIII refers, not to ‘the mind’ (mens) but to ‘the heart’ (cor),28 and as distentio
is a spatial and spatializing descriptor,29 this accords nicely with what
Augustine says in the Enarrationes in Psalmos (ante 395)30: “Affection (affectio)
is the space (locus) of the soul.”31 This term affectio first appears in the time-
investigation (and indeed, in Confessions XI) at the very crest of Augustine’s
reflection, where ‘dilation’ is an expanse of “affections that passing-things
produce” in the soul (affectionem quam res praetereuntes in [animo] faciunt,
XI.27.36).32 In (δ), at Confessions XI.11.13, affectio is surely, albeit tacitly included
when Augustine anticipates this later formulation, writing of a “heart” that
“flicks between the past and future movements of things” (in praeteritis et
futuris rerum motibus cor eorum volitat, XI.11.13). And importantly, before we
come to “the movements of all bodies” (XI.23.29) or to “passing-things”
(XI.27.36) in the time-investigation, it is “the past and future movements of
things” (XI.11.13), in the eternity-meditation, which dilate ‘the heart.’ It will also
become significant—and we will establish here, in light of the ‘heart’ in (δ)—
that the term ‘affection’ (affectio) appears to be simply substituted, in
Confessions XI.27.36, for the prior term ‘image’ (imago),33 which Augustine
introduces into the time-investigation at XI.18.23.
26 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: . . . non iam esset tempus, sed aeternitas.

27 Aug. Conf. III.7.13: sed tempora . . . non pariter eunt; tempora enim sunt.
28 Hrdlicka sees Augustine’s use of ‘heart’ in the Conf. as an extension of ‘soul.’ Cf. Hrdlicka
1931, 69: “cor, the soul, anima.”
29 Cf. Aug. Conf. VII.1.2: . . . per aliquanta spatia tenderetur vel diffunderetur vel conglobare-
tur vel tumeret . . . per quales enim formas ire solent oculi mei, per tales imagines ibat cor
meum.
30 Cf. Zarb 1948, 5–26, here 16: “. . . igitur iure concludere posse credimus hanc primam
Enarrationum collectionem [sc. Enarr. 1–32] conscriptam fuisse ante annum 395.”
31 Aug. Enarr. 6.9: Nam locis corpora continentur, animo autem locus est affectio sua.
32 Though sense and context differ, cf. Cic. Inv. II.176: ‘Affectio’ est quaedam ex tempore . . .
commutatio rerum.
33 Schmidt (1985, 33) recognizes, but does not pursue this: “Ohne die Erinnerung, d. h. ohne
die ‘imagines’ in der Seele und die ‘affectio’ (conf. 11, 27, 36), welche die Ereignisse als sich
There can be no real objection to this idea of the substitutability of imago

and affectio in the time-investigation,34 since Augustine’s description of
affectiones at Confessions XI.27.35–36 is a close doublet of his description
of imagines at XI.18.23. Moreover, because imagines are introduced in the
eternity-meditation, with Augustine’s proto-distentio in (ε); because this sub-
stitutability of imagines and affectiones is not developed in the literature on
Confessions XI; and because affectiones are evoked as a conditio sine qua non of
distentio, it is reasonable to take (ε)— which is again, “[their] weightless sense
roves over the images (per imagines) of past times” (XI.13.15)—as the occasion
to establish this point.
In the time-investigation, this is how Augustine introduces sense-‘images’:
(i) “When past things are veraciously narrated, they are brought out
of memory (ex memoria)—not the things themselves, which have
passed by (non res ipsae quae praeterierunt)—but
(ii) “words conceived from the images (ex imaginibus) of these things,
(iii) “which the things have impressed or infixed ( fixerunt) in the soul
(in animo), as traces, by passing through the senses (per sensus
praetereundo).” (XI.18.23)
And this is how he later introduces ‘affections’ in the time-investigation:
(i) “It is not the things themselves, which no-longer-are (non ergo ipsas
quae iam non sunt), that I measure, but something that remains
infixed in my memory (aliquid in memoria mea . . . quod infixum
manet) . . .
(ii) “the affections (affectionem)
(iii) “that passing things condition (res praetereuntes . . . faciunt) [in the
soul] when the things themselves have passed by (praeterierint).”
(XI.27.35–36)35
ereignende in der Seele hinterlassen, wäre Zeitmessung nicht möglich und Ausdehnung
der Seele nicht vorstellbar.”
34 This is so despite the fact that imago and affectio are sharply—if problematically—
distinguished at, for instance, Aug. Conf. X.15.23.
35 Cf. for instance, Simpl. Anim. 273.1 (431b2–5): “As Aristotle often said and will say again,
it is not sensible things themselves (οὐκὶ αὐτὰ τὰ αἰσθητά) but their forms (εἴδη) that come
to be present in sensation and imagination: in the former as sense-objects (αἰσθητὰ), in
the latter as image-objects (φαντάσματα).”
242 chapter 11
Augustine’s reference to ‘infixion’ in the soul is limited, in Confessions XI,36

to the foregoing sentences: the first concerning the infixion ( fixerunt) of
‘images,’ an operation which is accomplished “through the senses” (per sensus,
XI.18.23); the second concerning the infixion (infixum) of ‘affections,’ in a set of
paragraphs in which sensus is also prominent (XI.27.35–36). This terminologi-
cal parallel, with ‘infixion,’ signals a link from sense-impressed ‘images’ at
Confessions XI.18.23 to sense-produced ‘affections’ at XI.27.35–36. And inci-
dentally, we could recall here that Aristotle also substitutes ‘image’ (φάντασμα,
τύποσ) for ‘affection’ (πάθος)37 in his treatise on memory in “living things which
have a sense of time (χρόνου αἰσθάνεται).”38
But if this infixion of images per sensus at Confessions XI.18.23 anticipates
the infixion of affections (implicitly, per sensus) at XI.27.35–36, we should also
recall (from 5.4) that this imagistic infixion, per sensus, at XI.18.23 has been
anticipated by a crucial sentence in Confessions IV:
Times are not vacant or indifferent in their rolling successions through

our senses: they effect singular operations in the soul.39
non vacant tempora nec otiose volvuntur per sensus nostros: faciunt in
animo mira opera. (IV.8.13)
And what is more, there is a very strong indication, from Confessions X, that the
mira opera Augustine refers to in book IV are very precisely sense-impressed
‘images.’ For in Confessions X, it is a trebly mira operatio by which ‘images’ are
infixed in the soul:40
36 Augustine uses this term only once in Conf. X, and suggestively, it is to describe his most
vivid and tenacious memorial images (rerum imagines)—namely, those ‘infixed’ (fixit) in
him by his pre-conversion sexual habitus. Vid. Aug. Conf. X.30.41: sed adhuc vivunt
in memoria mea, de qua multa locutus sum, talium rerum imagines, quas ibi consuetudo
mea fixit, et occursantur mihi vigilanti quidem carentes viribus, in somnis autem non
solum usque ad delectationem sed etiam usque ad consensionem factumque
simillimum.
37 Arist. Mem. I (450a): “[When] we cognize time . . . the [memorial] image (φάντασμα) is
an affection of the common sense-faculty (τῆς κοινῆς αἰσθήσεως πάθος). . . . [And that]
affection (πάθος), the lasting state of which we call memory . . . [results from] a sort of
likeness (τύπον) of the sensation.”
38 Arist. Mem. I (449b).
39 Cf. Aug. Conf. IV.8.13: tempora . . . faciunt in animo mira opera; XI.27.36: in te, [anime
meus], tempora metior. affectionem quam res praetereuntes in te faciunt.
40 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.8.13: quae quomodo fabricatae sint, quis dicit, cum appareat quibus sen-
sibus raptae sint interiusque reconditae?
For it is not the things themselves that are introduced into memory, but
only their images [which] are taken up with such singular rapidity and
laid down, as it were, in singular chambers, and then singularly brought
up41 when we recollect them.42
istae quippe res non intromittuntur ad eam [sc. memoriam], sed earum
solae imagines mira celeritate capiuntur et miris tamquam cellis repo-
nuntur et mirabiliter recordando proferuntur. (X.9.16)
And while there is no express reference to sensus in this rapid characterization

of the mira operatio by which images are laid down in memory, in Confessions
X.9, this is only because such a reference would be superfluous. In the preced-
ing section of Confessions X, where Augustine first introduces the words imago
and memoria in that book, he twice repeats that imaginal memory is pre-
constituted by sensus.43 And in the Confessions—as already in Augustine’s
pre-episcopal Epistle 744—a memorial ‘image’ is simply understood to have
been originally “imported by the senses.”45
41 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.9.16: et mirabiliter recordando proferuntur; XI.18.23: ex memoria proferun-
tur non res ipsae quae praeterierunt.
42 Expressions such as the mira at Aug. Conf. IV.8.13, or the quick-march through mira, miris
and mirabiliter at X.9.16, of course typically and primarily carry a sense of the ‘wondrous,’
‘marvelous,’ ‘stunning’ or ‘incomprehensible.’ Nevertheless, ‘singular’ is included within
the lexical range of related terms such as mirificus, mirandus and mirabiliter—the last of
which, Augustine uses at X.9.16 (et mirabiliter recordando). I have selected ‘singular’ for
these passages since praesens tempus is ‘singular,’ in its necessary and formal distinction
from past and future times; and since the ‘singular rapidity’ with which images are ‘laid
up’ in memory, at X.9.16, is manifestly linked to praesens tempus.
43 Aug. Conf. X.8.12: transibo ergo et istam naturae meae, gradibus ascendens ad eum qui
fecit me, et venio in campos et lata praetoria memoriae, ubi sunt thesauri innumerabilium
imaginum de cuiuscemodi rebus sensis invectarum. ibi reconditum est quidquid etiam
cogitamus, vel augendo vel minuendo vel utcumque variando ea quae sensus attigerit, et
si quid aliud commendatum et repositum est quod nondum absorbuit et sepelivit oblivio.
44 Cf. Aug. Epist. 7.4–5: Omnes has imagines, quas ‘phantasias’ cum multis vocas, in tria
genera commodissime ac verissime distribui video, quorum est unum sensis rebus impres-
sum . . . quas tamen vidi atque sensi, in se animus format. . . . In hac tota imaginum silva
credo tibi non videri primum illud genus ad animam, priusquam inhaereat sensibus, per-
tinere; neque hinc diutius disserendum.
45 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. X.9.16: . . . sic est in memoria mea ut . . . retenta imagine rem
foris reliquerim, aut sonuerit et praeterierit sicut vox impressa per aures vestigio quo
recoleretur.
244 chapter 11
11.3 “Sense Roves” and “Sense Dilates” (Conf. XI.13, XI.31)
This returns us to (ε), which includes the first appearance of the term imago in
Confessions XI, when Augustine—still within his eternity-meditation—depicts
one whose “sense roves over the images of past times” (sensus vagatur per
imagines retro temporum, XI.13.15).
Now, we have seen in 5.4 that ‘times are not indifferent,’ in Confessions IV,
because they revolve ‘through our senses’; and we have seen in 11.2, that in
Confessions X and XI alike,46 it is simply axiomatic that imaginal memory—i.e.
‘the images of past times’ in (ε)—devolves from sensus. A memorial image—
or, towards the end of the time-investigation, a memorial affection—is ‘infixed’
in the soul by means of sensus. But there is an expression in (ε) whose magni-
tude cannot be overstated, and whose magnitude has never been noted: “sense
roves” (sensus vagatur, XI.13.15). It is this expression that essentially prepares,
and elucidates, Augustine’s parallel expression in the last sentences of the
time-investigation: “sense dilates,” or “the senses are dilated” (sensus distendi-
tur, XI.31.41).
Precisely this is the crux of ‘distentio sensuum’ in Confessions XI: that with
sensus vagatur at XI.13.15, as with sensus distenditur at XI.31.41,47 Augustine not
only countenances but relies upon—lets his time-concept arise from—a
denotation of sensus that is originarily and decisively, yet not absolutely, iden-
tified with praesens tempus. It is sensus in the strict, present-temporal sense—
i.e. as contuitus, as possibilizing a ‘presence of present things’—that memorial
images and affections depend from. Nevertheless, for Augustine, it is precisely
memory’s dependence upon sensus which permits—indeed, constrains—him
to speak of sensus’ access to memorial images, i.e. to a ‘presence of past things.’
Again, Augustine says: “sense roves over the images of past times” (XI.13.15);
which is already to say: “sense dilates” (XI.31.41). And if the sensus vagatur in
(ε) is taken to be a sharper formulation than, but a parallel formulation to,
Augustine’s cor volitat in (δ)—where a “heart flicks between the past and
future movements of things” (XI.11.13)—then within the eternity-meditation
itself, sensus’ access to ‘a presence of future things,’ i.e. in expectation, is also
assured. (This is later suggested by Augustine’s use of praesensio in the time-
46 Aug. Conf. X.8.12: . . . innumerabilium imaginum de cuiuscemodi rebus sensis invectarum;

XI.18.23: . . . imaginibus earum quae in animo velut vestigia per sensus praetereundo
fixerunt.
47 For the construction alone—sensus vagatur, sensus distenditur—cf. for instance, Cic.
Fin. II.3.8: Omnes enim iucundum motum quo sensus hilaretur Graece ἡδονήν, Latine
‘voluptatem’ vocant.
investigation: see 5.4.) That such access is imaginal, is anticipated in (ε): “sense
roves by, through and over images” (XI.13.15); and that such images are origi-
narily dependent upon, and articulated by, motus omnis, is anticipated in (δ):
sense dilates “between the past and future movements of things” (XI.11.13).
In effect, the sensualist, duplex time-concept that is elaborated in
Augustine’s time-investigation—in which motus omnis produces mutive times
(tempora), and a ‘distentio sensuum’ constitutes dimensive time (tempus)—
can be reconstructed, in nuce, from his eternity-meditation, where a proto-
distentio is already depicted. Nevertheless, Augustine’s triple-characterization
of tempora/tempus in (α)–(γ) will prove to be no less essential than his proto-
distentio in (δ)–(ε) for interpreting the time-investigation. And rather than
explicate (α)–(γ) in the context of the eternity-meditation, I will now turn to
the time-investigation, which will be interpreted with periodic reference back
to these significant and neglected sentences in Augustine’s eternity-medita-
tion, at Confessions XI.11.13:
(α) “Times (temporibus) never stand.”

(β) “No time (tempus) is present all-at-once.”
(γ) “A long time (longum tempus) cannot become long except out of a
multitude of motions, still passing-on (ex multis praetereuntibus
motibus), which cannot be elongated (extendi) all-at-once.”
chapter 12
A Preparation of Augustine’s Time-Investigation

(Conf. XI.11–29)
Augustine’s time-question in Confessions XI.14–29 can be stated in a way

that is acute, but not complex: How is it that temporal presence is dimensive
(spatium temporis) when present-time has no space (punctum temporis)?1
It is hyper-transitivity that comes to be signalled by the term tempora
in Confessions XI, while dimensivity comes to be signalled by the term
tempus. But in the wake of this manoeuvre in Confessions XI.23–24 (see 4.2),
Augustine’s question, Quid est tempus? ceases to address the logical and
ontological condition for hyper-transitivity (tempora), which condition for
him—as for Lucretius—is not celestial movement, but rather motus omnis.
Augustine’s time-question becomes, thereafter, the question of (a hyper-tran-
sitive) durativity, i.e. tempus becomes that “by-which we measure the move-
ments of bodies” (XI.24.31). This is not because motus is eliminated from
Augustine’s enquiry, or repressed; and it cannot be eliminated or repressed.
To the contrary: as the manifest condition for ‘times’ (tempora), motus omnis
remains a manifest condition for ‘time’ (tempus) or ‘the space of time’ (spatium
temporis). Yet ‘time’ as conditioned solely by motus omnis—i.e. ‘times’
(tempora)—only yields us present-time: temporal presence as a pure, hyper-
punctile, inextended transitivity; the presence of a sensation which is denuded
of memory and expectation; a presence which, as shorn of impresence, has no
‘space.’2 Such a contraction of the notion of ‘time’ reduces it to a blind and
1 Cf. Fortlage 1836, 13: “In tempore historico praesentia nullo spatio tenditur, et est ulla exten-
sione minor, dum sumitur tanquam praesentia pura, carens omni praeterito et futuro . . . In
tempore vivo praesentia est supra omnem extensionem et est ulla extensione major, dum
sumitur tanquam praesentia pura, carens omni praeterito et futuro.”
Cf. also Damascius’ question in the 6th-century Dubitationes et Solutiones (exc. Sambursky
and Pines 1987, 86–91): “If time is an extension (διάστημα), how could the unextended
(τὸ ἀδιάστατον) constitute it?” Unlike Augustine, Damascius resolves his question by positing
an “extension of time” (διάστημα . . . τοῦ χρόνου) in present-time. Time is “not composed of
indivisible parts (μερῶν ἀμερῶν),” he writes, “but of discrete and extended (διαστατῶν) parts.”
Accordingly, present-time is redefined: “The Now (τὸ νῦν) is a temporal extension (διάστημα)
and time consists of such extensions.”
2 Cf. Lyotard 1998, 97–98/2000, 72: “Chronology reduced to itself is pure . . . appearance and
disappearance, passing away. The past is what is no longer, the future is what is not yet,

A Preparation of Augustine ’ s Time-Investigation 247
untrackable succession, to a strictly incalculable fugitivity;3 and this, Augustine

insists, is not the originary sense of ‘time’; and thus, already in his eternity-
meditation, “no ‘time’ (tempus) is present all-at-once” (XI.11.13).4
It is precisely impresence—the vexing dis-identity of temporal praesens and
praesens tempus—that comes to light in sensus, anima-animus and disten-
tio (and which also provides the light in which Augustine’s time-question is
asked). The pristine but inextended, hyper-transitive praesens of praesens tem-
pus comes to be called ‘times’ (tempora), and ‘times’ remain the phenomeno-
logical condition for ‘time’ (tempus) in Augustine’s time-investigation. As
durativity is dependent upon hyper-transitivity, as dimensive time is depen-
dent upon mutive times: so tempus is dependent upon tempora—and there-
with, upon motus omnis. Still, the word ‘tempus’ comes to be reserved for
the dimensive impresence of temporal presence: this is refractive praesens as
memoria-contuitus-expectatio; this is praesens as a ‘dimension’ (dimensio) or
‘quantum’ (quantum) or ‘space’ (spatium) of time; or in a word, ‘tempus’ is tem-
poral presence as ‘dilation’ (distentio).
12.1 The Soul’s Capacity to Sense Time (Conf. XI.15–16)
Augustine variously signals the basic conditions for a space of time in the time-
investigation, referring first to a capacity to sense time, and then to a sensation.
The soul’s capacity “to sense” (sentire)5 time is first characterized as opening
up a mora, in Confessions XI.15.19—a ‘span’ or ‘lapse of time,’ an ‘interval,’6 can
and the now has no other being than the becoming past of the future. The chase after the
future through the past that drives and troubles (anime et agite) the Confessions is only pos-
sible if, in the evanescence of these times, something withholds (quelque chose se tient).”
3 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: si quid intellegitur temporis, quod in nullas iam vel minutissimas momen-
torum partes dividi possit, id solum est quod praesens dicatur; quod tamen ita raptim a futuro
in praeteritum transvolat, ut nulla morula extendatur.
5 Aug. Conf. XI.15.19: sentire moras.
6 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: morula extendatur; XI.23.29: morulis; XI.23.30: mora (3×); XI.25.32:
mora temporis; XI.27.34: mora extenduntur.
O’Donnell (1992, III:279) cites Aug. Serm. 187.2.2 (verbum dei . . . quod nec locis concludi-
tur, nec temporibus tenditur, nec morulis brevibus longisque variatur, nec vocibus texitur, nec
silentio terminator) and Aug. Civ. X.15 (persona ipsius dei . . . visibiliter appareret et syllaba-
tim per transitorias temporum morulas humanae linguae vocibus loqueretur) for morula at
Conf. XI.15.20.
248 chapter 12
be sensed. Then in XI.16.21, Augustine’s “we sense” (sentimus)7 refers to an inter-

vallum—a ‘distance’ or ‘intermediate space,’ an ‘interval’ of time.8
I stress that this duplex introduction of ‘time’ is sensuous, and that
‘time’ is originarily indeterminate; for despite the prominence of tempo-
ral mensuration in the time-investigation, a space of time is not originarily
quantified. Prior even to introducing the term mora at XI.15.19—which
is constituted as and by sensus and which, though immediately linked to
mensuration, is yet distinct from and precedes mensuration (sentire moras
atque metiri, XI.15.19)—Augustine introduces the space of time as “long and
short” (longum tempus et breve tempus, XI.15.18). (I say ‘introduces,’ but the
phrase longum tempus is not introduced here: see 12.2.) That a ‘long time’ is
necessarily comparative is already indicated at Confessions XI.16.21, where the
problem of a transition from a sensuous longum to an achieved temporal quan-
tum is raised: and as soon as this problem surfaces, Augustine refers to the Latin
“quantitative metrics” that much later intrigue Nietzsche,9 and that remain
7 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: sentimus intervalla temporum.

It is this sentimus intervalla that must be heard when Augustine later writes, at Conf.
XI.27.36: quid cum metimur silentia, et dicimus illud silentium tantum tenuisse temporis
quantum illa vox tenuit, nonne cogitationem tendimus ad mensuram vocis, quasi sonaret, ut
aliquid de intervallis silentiorum in spatio temporis renuntiare possimus?
The precondition and originary sense of the ‘cogitationem tendimus . . . intervallis’ in Conf.
XI.27.36 is with the ‘sentimus intervalla’ in XI.16.21, which Augustine immediately and inti-
mately links with mensuration, in XI.16.21: sentimus intervalla temporum et comparamus
sibimet et dicimus alia longiora et alia breviora. metimur etiam quanto sit longius aut brevius
illud tempus quam illud . . . sed praetereuntia metimur tempora cum sentiendo metimur.
8 Aug. Conf. XI.27.34: ipsum quippe intervallum; XI.27.36: intervallis.
9 Cf. Nietzsche 1989, 1993; Porter 2000, 127–66. Porter’s treatment is excellent, but he does not
mention Augustine. There are highly suggestive references to Augustine in Nietzsche’s early
“Zur Theorie der quantitirenden Rhythmik,” while Nietzsche (1969, 235) writes much later to
Carl Fuchs, in the winter of 1884/5: “Read, I ask you, a book that few people know—St.
Augustine’s De musica—to see how people in those days understood and enjoyed Horace’s
meters, how they heard them ‘beat time,’ where they put the pauses, and so on (arsis and
thesis are mere signs for the beats).”
The ‘philological’ Nietzsche of the quantitative rhythm/metrics notebooks promises to
illuminate Conf. XI.26–28 in ways that have yet to be realized. This is Porter (2000, 135): “Takt,
which covers ‘time,’ ‘measure,’ or ‘beat’ [in Nietzsche’s notebooks], derives from the Latin
tangere, ‘to touch,’ and Nietzsche never loses sight of this sensuous connotation either. Nor
did the ancient musicologists . . .”
In this vein: I have previously remarked a prominence of sensus and affectio in Conf.
XI.27.35–36. Relative to quantitative metrics and song, however, Augustine’s manoeuvre
should not be unexpected. Cf. for instance, Aug. Rhyth. VI.2.3: ut autem breviore tempore
the privileged instance of temporal mensuration in the time-investigation

(see 13.6).10
It is in Confessions XI.24 that Augustine most clearly insists on the indeter-
minacy of a longum tempus—the originary phenomenon of any space of time:
If I gaze a while [at a moving body,] all I can say is that the time is long, but
not how long it may be [once that body will have come to rest], because
when we say ‘how long’ we speak by [definite] comparison,11 for instance:
“This is as long as that,” or “This is twice as long as that.”
si diu video, tantummodo longum tempus esse renuntio, non autem quan-
tum sit, quia et quantum cum dicimus, conlatione dicimus, velut:
“tantum hoc, quantum illud” aut: “duplum hoc ad illud.” (XI.24.31)
That conlatio or comparatio is the condition for originary temporal mensura-

tion is not insignificant: in contradistinction to spatial mensuration,12 the
peculiar condition of temporal mensuration is that neither of the comparanda
can be ‘present’ in the sense of present-time as sensation (XI.27.34–35). It is
impresence as the condition for temporal mensuration which finally illumi-
nates ‘dilation’ (distentio), and Augustine anticipates this elucidatory rôle as
early as Confessions XI.16.21. Yet this rôle of mensuration originates in the phe-
nomenality of, and signals the condition of possibility for—longum tempus.
12.2 “A Long Time Cannot Become Long . . .” (Conf. XI.11)
Longum tempus and relevant derivatives of longus appear sixty-four times in

Confessions XI.14–29, and twenty-seven times in XI.26–28 alone; while spatium
temporis or related, temporal senses of ‘space’ appear thirty-four times in
sentiatur cum celerius, quam cum tardius promitur, non interest aliquid nisi quamdiu
aures tangantur sono. affectio ergo haec aurium cum tanguntur sono, nullo modo talis est
ac si non tangantur; and later, Isid. Etym. III.17.1: musica movet affectus, provocat in diver-
sum habitum sensus.
10 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: sentimus intervalla temporum et comparamus sibimet et dicimus alia
longiora et alia breviora. metimur etiam quanto sit longius aut brevius illud tempus quam
illud, et respondemus duplum esse hoc vel triplum, illud autem simplum aut tantum hoc
esse quantum illud.
11 ‘Definite’ here per Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: dico aut indefinite, “longius est hoc tempus quam
illud” aut etiam definite, “duplum est hoc ad illud.”
12 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: eo modo loca metimur, non tempora.
250 chapter 12
Augustine’s time-investigation,13 and nineteen times in Confessions XI.26–28

alone. Augustine’s distentio is most fundamentally a precondition for, and a
sense of, longum tempus or any spatium temporis.14
Yet the appearance of the phrase longum tempus at Confessions XI.15 is not
the first in book XI—for recall (from 11.1):
A long time cannot become long except out of a multitude of motions, still
passing-on, which cannot be elongated all-at-once.
longum tempus, nisi ex multis praetereuntibus motibus qui simul extendi

non possunt, longum non fieri. (XI.11.13)15
Unless this sentence is heard when Augustine opens Confessions XI.15.18 with
his first concrete observation—“and yet we say ‘a long time’ ”16—any interpre-
tation of the time-investigation will be misdirected from the first word. And
similarly, this sentence from the eternity-meditation, in XI.11.13, must be heard
when Augustine closes the time-investigation, harking back to his analytics of
praesens tempus in XI.15.18–20:17
13 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.2.3: tuus est dies et tua est nox; ad nutum tuum momenta transvolant.
largire inde spatium meditationibus nostris in abdita legis tuae, neque adversus pulsantes
claudas eam.
14 This despite Augustine’s problematization of this mode of speaking in Conf. XI.15, which
he intentionally reprises and refines in XI.28. The salience of the question of longinquitas
in the time-investigation belies its introduction, in XI.15, solely as a misdirected mode of
speaking.
15 With motibus qui, O’Donnell (1992, III:275) prefers Knöll (and the codices) to Verheijen,
who inserts morulis as a conjectural substitute for motibus, “in order to read quae [i.e.
morulis, quae] in the next line.” (Unlike Verheijen’s morulis, his quae has some support in
the manuscript tradition.)
I would observe that motibus here follows on logically from Augustine’s rerum motibus
earlier in this paragraph (praeteritis et futuris rerum motibus, XI.11.13), and from a the-
matic of motus earlier in the eternity-meditation (creaturae motus expressit eam . . . moti-
bus temporalibus, XI.6.8); whereas mora-morula are no less logically introduced in the
time-investigation, at XI.15.19 (sentire moras atque metiri) and XI.15.20 (ut nulla morula
extendatur).
16 Aug. Conf. XI.15.18: et tamen dicimus longum tempus.
17 Aug. Conf. XI.15.18: praeteritum enim iam non est et futurum nondum est. non itaque
dicamus, “longum est,” sed dicamus de praeterito, “longum fuit,” et de futuro, “longum
erit.”
Who denies that present-time lacks space, because it instantly passes-by?

But yet an intention18 lasts through which that which may be present may
proceed to become absent. Future-time, which is-not, is not therefore
long—but ‘a long future’ is a long expectation of the future. Nor is past-
time, which is-not, long—but ‘a long past’ is a long memory of the past.
quis negat praesens tempus carere spatio, quia in puncto praeterit? sed
tamen perdurat attentio, per quam pergat abesse quod aderit. non igitur
longum tempus futurum, quod non est, sed longum futurum longa expec-
tatio futuri est, neque longum praeteritum tempus, quod non est, sed
longum praeteritum longa memoria praeteriti est. (XI.28.37)
This climactic formulation of the time-investigation at XI.28.37 is not a

retreat from Augustine’s time-characterization in the eternity-meditation, at
XI.11.13, where ‘a long time cannot become long except out of a multitude of
motions.’ Rather, his ‘long expectation of the future’ and ‘long memory of the
past’ represent an advance. But it is first necessary to elucidate a condition for
this advance.
12.3 The Production of Times as a Condition for Time (Conf. XI.11, XII.8)
Augustine’s formulation of longum tempus in Confessions XI.11.13 is precisely

worded. He states a positive condition for longum tempus—i.e. “a multitude of
motions” (multis . . . motibus)—negatively: without “a multitude of motions,”
he writes, longum tempus “cannot become long.”
I have previously stressed a distinction, in my remarks on Confessions XI.23
(see 4.2–3), between questions of dependency and questions of identity. This
distinction is a sine qua non for tracing out Augustine’s ‘times’/‘time’ distinc-
tion in Confessions XI and XII, and in XI.23.29, Augustine’s denial and his defer-
ral alike occur on the register of identity: “Let no one therefore tell me that the
movements of the heavenly bodies are times (esse tempora)—for why should
not times rather be (sint tempora) the movements of all bodies?” Here the iden-
tity of celestial motus and ‘times’ is unflinchingly denied, while the question of
the identity of motus omnis and ‘times’ is implied, if deferred. (This latter iden-
tity is yet assumed in Confessions XI, and repeatedly affirmed in Confessions
18 Cf. von Herrmann 1992, 134/2008, 138–39: “What Augustine now terms adtendere means
the same thing as praesens intentio in Chapter 27. Adtendere and intendere mean ‘self-
direction to’ (das Sichrichten auf) . . .”
252 chapter 12
XII.) Similarly, in Confessions XI.11.13, a dependency/identity distinction must

be observed: here it is not the identity of ‘a multitude of motions’ with longum
tempus that is asserted, but merely the dependency of longum tempus upon ‘a
multitude of motions.’ That is to say, here in the eternity-meditation, ‘no motus
= no longum tempus’; yet Augustine’s formulation by no means implies that
‘motus = longum tempus,’ or that ‘no longum tempus = no motus.’
An explicit condition for the originary phenomenon of the time-investiga-
tion, namely longum tempus, is thus—motus. Or more precisely, “a multitude
of motions” (multis . . . motibus). And more precisely yet, “a multitude of
motions still passing-on” (multis praetereuntibus motibus, XI.11.13).19 And it is
Augustine’s deployment of praeterire in this last phrase, and not the appear-
ance of motus itself, which decisively anticipates his time-investigation and
will lead us back to it (see chapter 13). For if longum tempus is immediately
characterized as the sensation of a mora or intervallum, a ‘lapse’ or ‘space’ of
time, in the time-investigation; we will see that it is no less immediately char-
acterized as a sense of time passing. Prior to proceeding through the time-
investigation, however, there is one further preparatory observation to be
made regarding Augustine’s ex multis motibus-longum tempus formulation in
Confessions XI.11.13.
‘A multitude of motions’ is not here identified with longum tempus, while
it is yet a condition for longum tempus. The crucial term here is the (passive)
present infinitive, fieri, in the phrase I have as “cannot become long”: longum
non fieri (XI.11.13). The negative formulation of this statement which links ‘a
multitude of motions’ to ‘time’ in XI.11.13 is not only decisive for the sense of
longum tempus in Augustine’s time-investigation, but for the integrity of his
time-question in Confessions XI and XII. Tempus here—‘time,’ not ‘times’—
without ‘a multitude of motions,’ “cannot become long” (longum non fieri,
XI.11.13); while in book XII, Augustine redeploys (the active) fieri to assert ‘a
multitude of motions’ as the positive and simplex condition for ‘times’ (tem-
pora): “The movements of things produce times” (rerum mutationibus fiunt
tempora, XII.8.8). There is nothing in the time-investigation to contradict
this—to the contrary, Augustine’s use of and statements concerning tempora
in the time-investigation confirm this. But this simplex assertion of motus
omnis as a condition for tempora, in Confessions XII.8.8, would contradict the
results of the time-investigation were it stated of tempus, since motus omnis is
not a simplex condition of tempus, which is duplicitous. Without ‘a multitude
19 Aug. Conf. XI.11.13: . . . longum tempus, nisi ex multis praetereuntibus motibus qui simul
extendi non possunt, longum non fieri.
of motions’ (motus omnis → tempora) and ‘a dilation of the soul’ (← sensus car-
nis ← tempora ← motus omnis), ‘times’ cannot become ‘time’ (tempus).
Thus, the significance of Augustine’s negative formulation of the multis
motibus-longum tempus condition in Confessions XI.11.13 is not only that he
observes and subtly enacts a dependency/identity distinction, but that ‘a mul-
titude of motions’ as one condition for longum tempus is not asserted as a sim-
plex condition. Motus omnis or “the movement of all bodies” (omnium
corporum motus, XI.23.30) is a simplex condition for ‘times’ in Confessions XI
and XII; and motus omnis is one condition for ‘time’ in books XI and XII; but
motus omnis is never a simplex condition for ‘time’ in the Confessions—not in
Augustine’s eternity-mediation (XI.3–13), nor in his time-investigation (XI.14–
29), nor indeed, in his speculative delineations of timelessness in book XII
(see Part II).
chapter 13
From a Sense of Passing Time to a Dilation of the

Senses (Conf. XI.14–29)
It is impossible here to give an exhaustive interpretation of Augustine’s time-

investigation in light of, and relative to, all of the findings presented in Parts I
and II. Thus, I will take the sense (sensus) of passing time (tempus praeteriens)
as my lead in Confessions XI.14–29.
Foregrounding this sense of passing time will not only serve to demonstrate
that, and elucidate how, distentio in Augustine’s time-investigation is sense-
affective or ‘sensualist,’ i.e. duplicitous and conditioned by motus omnis. That is
to say, this sense of passing time does not only serve my purposes here. For the
sense of passing time is also what drives Augustine to, and provides him with,
what is perhaps the most succinct articulation of his time-question: “In what
space, then, do we measure passing time?” (XI.21.27).1 Furthermore, this sensus
is also a distinct—and neglected—structuring element of the time-investiga-
tion in Confessions XI.2
Augustine introduces a sense of passing time in XI.16.21,3 immediately
following his phenomeno-logical “restriction” (contractio) of the “space”
(spatium)4 of present-time to a punctile, illocalizable, hyper-transitive instant
1 Aug. Conf. XI.21.27: in quo ergo spatio metimur tempus praeteriens?

2 O’Donnell (1992, III:280, 285, 292) is strangely laconic on this.
3 But cf. Aug. Conf. XI.6.8: “haec longe infra me sunt nec sunt, quia fugiunt et praetereunt; ver-
bum autem dei mei supra me manet in aeternum.” si ergo verbis sonantibus et praetereunti-
bus dixisti, ut fieret caelum et terra, atque ita fecisti caelum et terram, erat iam creatura
corporalis ante caelum et terram, cuius motibus temporalibus temporaliter vox illa percur-
reret; XI.11.13: longum tempus, nisi ex multis praetereuntibus motibus qui simul extendi non
possunt, longum non fieri; XI.13.15: aut quomodo praeterirent, si numquam fuissent? . . . idip-
sum enim tempus tu feceras, nec praeterire potuerunt tempora antequam faceres tempora;
XI.15.18: nondum enim praeterierat ut non esset, et ideo erat quod longum esse posset; postea
vero quam praeteriit, simul et longum esse destitit quod esse destitit.
4 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: ecce praesens tempus, quod solum inveniebamus longum appellandum,
vix ad unius diei spatium contractum est.
Augustine proceeds in this section to ‘restrict’ praesens tempus from day to hour, hour to
“fugitive particles” (fugitivis particulis), and logically to a strictly indivisible, hyper-transitive
point.

From a Sense of Passing Time to a Dilation of the Senses 255
in XI.15.20—a restriction that he never retreats from.5 (Incidentally, Augustine

has anticipated this ‘restriction’ in XI.11.13 with the phrase, “times never stand”;
the numquam here is absolute.)6 And “it is impossible,” Augustine now con-
fesses, “for present-time to be long (longum . . . non posse)” (XI.15.20).7 Thus,
having situated ‘passing’ (transit), and not ‘presence’ (praesens),8 at the vertex
of his non-aporetic, anti-Eleatic formalization of ‘time’ in XI.14.17;9 and having
restricted this ‘passing’ to the most-infinitesimal (minutissimas) flick of an ictus
in XI.15.18–20;10 it is a sense of passing time that not only serves, in XI.16.21, as
Augustine’s first resolution to his time-question—which is, recall, that tempo-
ral presence is spacious while present-time has no space—but that is also
introduced as an originary condition for the phenomenon of temporal mensu-
ration.11 Later, in XI.21.27, where Augustine recapitulates his question in the
first phase of the time-investigation (see 4.1), he explicitly refers back to this
sense of passing time: “As I just said.”12 Then again, in the last sentence of
XI.26.33, where he initiates the last division of the time-investigation, Augustine
directs us back to this sense of passing time, writing: “So I have said.”13
5 Augustine reprises this at Conf. XI.28.37, in the question I quoted above: “Who denies that
praesens tempus lacks space, because it instantly passes-by?” (quis negat praesens tempus
carere spatio, quia in puncto praeterit?).
6 Aug. Conf. XI.11.13: temporibus numquam stantibus.
7 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: praesens tempus longum se esse non posse.
8 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: praesens, ut tempus sit, ideo fit, quia in praeteritum transit.
9 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: fidenter tamen dico scire me quod, si nihil praeteriret, non esset
praeteritum tempus, et si nihil adveniret, non esset futurum tempus, et si nihil esset, non
esset praesens tempus. . . . praesens autem si semper esset praesens nec in praeteritum
transiret, non iam esset tempus, sed aeternitas. si ergo praesens, ut tempus sit, ideo fit, quia
in praeteritum transit, quomodo et hoc esse dicimus, cui causa, ut sit, illa est, quia non
erit, ut scilicet non vere dicamus tempus esse, nisi quia tendit non esse?
10 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: . . . ita raptim a futuro in praeteritum transvolat, ut nulla morula
extendatur.
Cf. Suarez 1861, 956: “Sic Seneca, libro 6 Natural. quæst., fere in ultimis verbis: Fluit
(inquit) tempus et avidissimos sui deserit, nec quod futurum est, meum est, nec quod fuit. In
puncto fugientis temporis pendeo. Et D. Augustinus, 11 Confess., cap. 15: Si quid intelligitur
temporis, quod in nullas jam vel in minutissimas momentorum partes dividi possit, id solum
est quod præsens dicatur, quod tamen ita raptim a futuro in præteritum transvolat . . .”
11 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: praetereuntia metimur tempora cum sentiendo metimur . . . cum ergo
praeterit tempus, sentiri et metiri potest.
12 Aug. Conf. XI.21.27: dixi ergo paulo ante quod “praetereuntia tempora metimur” . . . quo-
circa, ut dicebam, “praetereuntia metimur tempora.”
13 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: quid ergo metior? an praetereuntia tempora, non praeterita? sic enim
dixeram.
256 chapter 13
While there is significant continuity and repetition in the time-investiga-

tion, no other element is insistently foregrounded in this way.14 It is the sense
of passing time that Augustine himself presents as a leitfaden, and taking it as
our lead will afford a clarity and brevity that are called for—though the terrain
is still formidable. And to present it for the last time—the basic aporia of tem-
pus, for Augustine, is this: “It is impossible for present-time to be long. And
yet . . . we sense intervals of times.”15 An originary and irrecusable sensation
conflicts with a reflective—and rigorous—analytics of tempus as praesens
tempus. We sense as long (temporal praesens, ‘intervals of times’) that which
cannot be long (praesens tempus).
13.1 Praesens Tempus and a Sense of Temporal Intervals (Conf. XI.15–16)
In the first sentences of Confessions XI, as in De Rhythmo I,16 Augustine alludes

to the most precise instrument for mechanized time-division in antiquity: the
water-clock, or clepsydra.17
14 And recalling that Augustine may have dictated the Conf., and that its mode of publica-
tion certainly involved its being sounded-out to auditors by lectors, these references to
‘saying’ address the original hearers of the Conf. in a direct way. (That such expressions are
commonplace in Latin literature does not alter this fact.)
This sounding-out of Augustine’s text should also be held in mind at Conf. XI.27.35
when the line Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm is introduced and analyzed, and sensus is fore-
grounded. Despite the variability of enunciation that Augustine addresses in Conf.
XI.26.33, the opening line of XI.27.35 was temporally quantifiable for his hearers, and this
act of hearing the line would have disclosed—in a way that silent reading obscures—the
transitivity (and thus impresence) that Augustine stresses in that section: the ‘dĕūs’ is
past (i.e. is in memoria) before Ambrose’s ‘ōmnĭūm’ is heard (i.e. is in contuitus).
Augustine speaks this line, Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm, to a notarius or notarii, and hears
himself speak this line as he composes the last sections of the time-investigation, while his
original auditors hear this line being enunciated by a lector, while Augustine elaborates
‘distentio animi’ as a ‘distentio sensuum.’
15 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20–16.21: praesens tempus longum se esse non posse. et tamen, domine,
sentimus intervalla temporum.
16 Aug. Rhyth. I.13.27: . . . utrum si quisquam mora unius horæ currat, et alius deinceps
duarum, possis non inspecto horologio vel clepsydra, vel aliqua hujuscemodi temporum
notatione sentire illos duos motus, quod unus simplus, alius duplus sit.
17 To my awareness, no philosophical interpretation of Conf. XI has developed this allusion
to water-clocks at Conf. XI.2.2, and no interpretation has linked this allusion to Augustine’s
analysis of praesens tempus in XI.15.18–20.
Anaxagoras and Empedocles already refer to a crude clepsydra18—then little

more than a “pail-shaped vessel with flat heavy bottom, high slightly flaring
sides, and simple thickened rim”19—that was refined, over several centuries,20
to mark mechanized hours by means of a finely controlled flow of water.
References to the clepsydra appear—for instance—in Plato’s Theaetetus,21
Aristotle’s Poetics22 and Problems,23 and Cicero’s De Natura Deorum.24 And cen-
turies later, Augustine’s hours are still signaled and sub-divided by “drops of
time” (stillae temporum, XI.2.2), while the hour remains his basic unit of mech-
anistic time-division.25 Augustine also remarks in Confessions XI.15.20 that a
day is “comprised of twenty-four hours: night-hours and day-hours.”26 This is
18 For Anaxagoras: Arist. Prob. 16.8 (914b); for Empedocles: Furley 1957.
And according to G. Dohrn-van Rossum (2003, 457–58), an Egyptian clepsydra-type
instrument antedates Anaxagoras and Empedocles by nearly a millennium: “Instrument[s]
for measuring time based on water flowing from a container have been found in Egypt,
the oldest one being from the period of Amenophis (1392–1355 bc). . . . No devices of this
type are preserved from Mesopotamia.”
19 Young 1939, 274.
20 Pasco-Pranger 2010, 74: “Various means were devised during the Hellenistic period to regu-
late the flow of the water to improve accuracy.”
21 Pl. Theaet. 172c–173b, 201a–b.
And since Plato’s references to the clepsydra typically occur in the context of Athenian
law-courts (and thus, of forensic rhetoric), cf. Dohrn-van Rossum 2003, 462: “From the
5th cent. this simple device with a narrow outlet is repeatedly mentioned in the context
of limiting court speeches (first in Aristophanes, Acharnenses 693). . . . Speech limitations
‘according to water’ . . . remained part of trial procedure until late antiquity.”
22 Cf. Arist. Poet. 7.11 (1451a): “. . . the agonic performance [of tragedies] would have been
regulated by the water-clock (πρὸς κλεψύδρας), as it is said they once did in other days.”
23 There is a sustained discussion, with descriptions, at Arist. Prob. 16.8 (914b–915a).
24 Cic. Nat.deor. II.34.87: . . . cum solarium vel descriptum vel ex aqua contemplere, intel-
legere horas arte non casu.
25 Aug. Conf. XI.2.2: caro mihi valent stillae temporum . . . et nolo in aliud horae diffluant
quas invenio liberas.
O’Donnell (1992, III:256) cites Aug. Epist. 110.5 (paucissimae guttae temporis stillan-
tur) and Epist. 261.1 (pauculae temporum stillae).
26 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: unus dies . . . nocturnis enim et diurnis horis omnibus viginti quat-
tuor expletur.
O’Donnell (1992, III:279) does not gloss this phrase.
Cf. Cens. D.nat. 23 (in marg.): qui a media nocte ad proximam mediam noctem in his
horis quattuor et viginti nascuntur eundem diem habent natalem. in horas xii diem divi-
sum esse noctemque in totidem vulgo notum est: sed hoc credo Romae post reperta
solaria observatum; Macr. Sat. I.21.13: . . . horae viginti quattuor quibus dies noxque
conficitur.
258 chapter 13
perfectly banal, but still, it may signal a difference between Aristotle’s Physics
and Augustine’s Confessions, since the water-clock was the first technic to punc-
tuate mechanistic hours at night.27 From what I have been able to determine, at
least,28 Aristotle had no mechanistic ‘night-hours’ (nocturnis horis).29
27 Irby-Massie 2010, 73: “The nocturnal inadequacy of sundials stimulated the development
of water clocks (clepsydra) to measure constant lengths of time.”
Pliny surveys time-division (horarum observatione) in Roman antiquity, at Plin. Hist.
nat. VII.86–87: “Scipio Nasica . . . was the first to use a water-clock to mark the equal hourly
divisions of night as well as day. He dedicated this clock . . . in 159 bc” (tunc scipio nasica
collega laenati primus aqua divisit horas aeque noctium ac dierum idque horologium sub
tecto dicavit anno urbis dxcv).
Cf. also Cens. D.nat. 23 (in marg.): deinde aliquanto post P. Cornelius Nasica censor ex
aqua fecit horarium, quod et ipsum ex consuetudine noscendi a sole horas solarium coep-
tum vocari. horarum nomen non minus annos trecentos Romae ignoratum esse credibile
est: nam xii tabulis nusquam nominatas horas invenies, ut in aliis postea legibus, sed ante
meridiem, eo videlicet quod partes diei bifariam tum divisi meridies discernebat. alii
diem quadripertito, sed et noctem similiter dividebant. idque consuetudo testatur milita-
ris, ubi dicitur vigilia prima, item secunda et tertia et quarta; Var. Ling. VI.5: ‘Solarium’
dictum id, in quo horae in sole inspiciebantur, <vel horologium ex aqua,> quod Cornelius
in Basilica Aemilia et Fulvia inumbravit.
And as a curiosity, Dam. Hist. 74d: “The cat marks (διακρίνει) the passing of the twelve
hours (τὰς δώδεκα ὥρας) by urinating in each one, both day and night, without exception, in
the manner of a time-keeping instrument (νύκτας καὶ ἡμέρας οὐροῦσα καθ᾿ ἑκαστην ἀεί, δίκην
ὀργάνου τινὸς ὡρογνωμονοῦσα).”
28 Irby-Massie 2010, 72: “The Greeks devised various horologia (sundials and water clocks) to
measure the passage of time. Fundamental units are determined by astral data: according
to the geocentric perspective accepted in antiquity, a day (twenty-four hours) was one
revolution of the sun around the earth; a month, one revolution of the moon around the
earth; a year, a full circuit of the sun through the zodiac. Poets incorporated astral refer-
ences to mark seasons of the year or time of night. . . . Phaenomena, by Aratus (fl. 250 bce),
fulsomely describes how to estimate the passage of time by observing the moon, sun, and
constellations.”
29 Astronomical ‘night-hours,’ however, first emerge with the Babylonians and the Egyptians.
Dohrn-van Rossum (2003, 459) reports that “a star clock that indicated the hours of the
night by the crossing of the meridian by the decan stars was already found in the Egyptian
Old Kingdom (2nd half of the 3rd millenium bc). In Mesopotamia time measurement
during the night using the . . . culminating stars was known since at least the 1st half of the
1st millenium bc.”
Fowden (1986, 67) suggests that the Egyptian ‘decan’ system for reckoning night-hours
lives on in late-antique Hermetism: “Some form of time-keeping was essential to
the . . . functioning of the temples. Coffin lids and the ceilings of Ramesside tombs reveal
crude efforts to divide the night into ‘hours’ on the basis of observations which will pre-
sumably have supplied the material of the astronomical Thoth-literature attested
Augustine has mechanistic ‘night-hours,’ yet his hours as such appear

to be mechanistically indivisible—at least, in terms of any significant pre-
cision. This can be inferred from Confessions XI.15.19–20, where he con-
tends that present-time is, sensu stricto, inextended and hyper-transitive.
Having appealed to a mechanistic time-division of ‘twenty-four hours’
to identify a ‘day,’30 such time-divisions then disappear. Augustine does
not exclude them—they are not yet commonplace. Having restricted the
present-time of a century to a year,31 year to month,32 month to day,33 day to
by . . . Clement of Alexandria. Especially characteristic was the system whereby (in its
fully-developed Hellenistic form) the zodiacal belt was divided into thirty-six 10°
segments, or ‘decans.’ And the use of this decanal system . . . does impart an air of
Egyptianism to the astrological texts of the Hellenistic and Roman periods.”
30 The mechanistic invariability of these twenty-four hours would have emerged with the
refined, post-Aristotelian clepsydra; but the division itself is pre-mechanistic. Thus Irby-
Massie (2010, 72), at least, on the Greeks’ time-divisions: “Days, beginning at sunset, were
divided into twelve equal hours of darkness and twelve of light: daylight hours lasted from
forty-five to seventy-five (modern) minutes, depending upon season . . . Time of day was
estimated trigonomically by means of a gnomon (a pole or horizontal pointer) whose
shadow changed in length and position according to the sun’s position. . . . Crude esti-
mates from shadow tables were used until the third century bce when mathematical theory
advanced sufficiently for drawing accurate hour-lines that radiated from a point on spheri-
cal, conical, or plane surfaces.”
31 Note that Varro regards the ‘century’ as a space of time, at Var. Ling. VI.11: “A seclum ‘cen-
tury’ was what they called the space of one hundred years (spatium annorum centum).”
And by ‘year,’ Augustine refers to a julian year, of which A.E. Samuel (1972, 155) writes:
“The calendar which Julius Caesar instituted in 46 B.C. abandoned the old Roman
Calendar completely to start afresh with a calendar of 365¼ days, a period long known by
the astronomers to approximate the [solar] year.”
32 Motus determines Varro’s etymologies of annus and mensis, at Var. Ling. VI.10: “As the
year is named from the motion of the sun (ab sole), so the month is named from
the motion of the moon (a lunae motu).”
But cf. Samuel 1972, 159–60: “Despite the fact that [the pre-julian, ordinary Roman
year’s] 355 days is close to a lunar year, and although the sources seem to impute a lunar
character of some sort to the [pre-julian Roman] months, in the historical and even pre-
historical period of the Roman calendar, there was no attempt to keep the months to any
phase of the moon.”
33 Cf. Samuel 1972, 154: “The Roman calendar of the historical period had 12 months: Januarius,
Februarius, Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis (= Julius), Sextilis (= Augustus),
September, October, November, December”; and 167–68: “The Roman calendar originally
had only ten months. This was the view of Censorinus, citing Junius Gracchus, Fulvius
Nobilior, Varro, and Suetonius . . . [while] Macrobius also subscribed to the position of a ten
month year, as did Solinus, and other writers. . . . It would also seem likely that one may trust
260 chapter 13
hour34 at XI.15.19–20,35 Augustine then writes: “And that hour-itself is driven-

on in fugitive particles.”36 These ‘fugitive particles’ are significantly indetermi-
nate: Augustine uses no term for them because no commonplace, mechanistic
metric yet obtains within the hour. For Augustine, a quotidian ‘hour’ is not
the traditions of a [primitive Roman] calendar of 304 days . . . [while] the ancient sources
seem to reflect a tradition that the introduction of the 12 month calendar came at the same
time as the [pre-julian] expansion of the calendar year to 355 days.”
In this, the Romans lagged far behind the Sumerians and Babylonians. Vid. Robson
2004, 55: “Temple records from the [Sumerian] city of Uruk in the late 4th millennium
BCE are already witness to a 360-day year of 12 30-day months, and this remained the
accounting norm throughough the 3rd millennium and beyond.”
Also note that Augustine omits the seven-day week here. Salzman (1990, 13) suggests
that “the inclusion of a seven-day hebdomadal cycle in the Calendar of 354”—which was
prepared for a wealthy Christian convert in Rome, in Augustine’s natal year—“does not
have any peculiarly Christian meaning; seven-day weekly cycles came to Rome via an
interest in astrology as early as the first century B.C.” Samuel (1972, 18), however, writes:
“Weeks are not part of the Graeco-Roman calendaric tradition . . . and there is no doubt
that the tradition of the week finds its origin in Hebrew practice. . . . As the week became
known in the Western Mediterranean it had no direct effect on the operation of calen-
dars, but in the common usage there grew up the practice of naming the days of the week
after planets. This is attested as early as the end of the first century B.C. by Tibullus’ refer-
ence (I, 3, 18) to ‘Saturniae sacram . . . diem,’ and first century inscriptions at Pompeii list
‘the days of the gods.’ By the third century [A.D.] the planetary week was broadly known,
as we learn from Dio Cassius (XXXVII, 18), who, while correctly telling us that the ancient
Greeks did not know of it, misinforms us that the Egyptians invented it. While the Hebrew
practice of simply numbering the days persisted in the Greek East and entered the prac-
tice of the Greek Church, the planetary days persisted in Western Europe.”
34 Macrobius still associates ‘hours’ with the sun, at Macr. Sat. I.21.13: apud [Aegyptios]
Apollo, quid est sol, Horus vocatur, ex quo et horae viginti quattuor quibus dies noxque
conficitur nomen acceperunt et quattuor tempora quibus annuus orbis impletur ὧραι
vocantur.
Cf. Isid. Etym. V.39.2: ‘Hora’ Graecum est nomen, et tamen Latinum sonat.
35 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: ad unius diei spatium contractum est.
36 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: ipsa una hora fugitivis particulis agitur.
One use of the word particulae, by Quintilian, helps to anticipate Augustine’s choice of
syllabae when he returns to the question of minima temporalia in the last sections of the
time-investigation. Vid. Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.69: “And just as these [semantic] particles
(hae particulae) of an [enunciated] ‘period’ are grave or vigorous, slow or rapid, languid or
the reverse, so also the [enunciated] ‘periods’ which they go to form will be severe or luxu-
riant, compact or loose.” It should be noted, however, that Quintilian’s particulae in this
sentence refer to short groupings of words—phrases or clauses—within a given ‘period,’
i.e. within a “single thought” (unum sensum) that should be conveyed within a single
“breath” (unum spiritum).
comprised of sixty ‘particles,’37 which are in turn comprised of sixty ‘particles,’

and so on.38 Rather, Augustine’s ‘fugitive particles’ remain numerically indeter-
minate in his analytics of praesens tempus because they remain mechanisti-
cally indeterminate when he writes the Confessions.
Nevertheless, substituting a light-year for Augustine’s ‘year’ or a nanosecond
for his ‘particle’ would not vitiate his analytics of praesens tempus—nor indeed,
the time-investigation that follows. (Citing Empedocles, Aristotle already says
“all time is divisible” in a passage on the speed of light.)39 To the contrary,
Augustine proceeds from the mechanistically indeterminate ‘particles’ that
comprise his mechanized ‘hours,’ to assert:
If any [particle] of time is conceived which it is impossible to divide into

even the hyper-minutest fraction of a instant, this alone is what could be
called ‘present’—yet that [hyper-indivisible particle] flicks with such
imperceptible speed from future to past that it cannot extend into any
interval [of time]; for if it were extended it would be divisible into past and
future, but the present has no space.
si quid intellegitur temporis, quod in nullas iam vel minutissimas momen-

torum partes dividi possit, id solum est quod praesens dicatur; quod
tamen ita raptim a futuro in praeteritum transvolat, ut nulla morula
extendatur. nam si extenditur, dividitur in praeteritum et futurum; prae-
sens autem nullum habet spatium. (XI.15.20)
Though Augustine’s analytics of praesens echoes with Aristotle’s Physics IV

(see Appendix 1), Augustine does not insist here on the infinite divisibility of
37 Cf. Pasco-Pranger 2010, 73–74: “The period between sunrise and sunset was divided into
twelve equal hours, as was the period of night, so that a summer daytime hour was signifi-
cantly longer than a winter one; the length of hours was also affected by latitude. An hour
might thus be as short as forty-five minutes by our reckoning or as long as seventy-
five. . . . The ‘hours’ [typically] reckoned were still the unequal hours of Roman civil life.”
38 However, cf. Aug. 83 Quaest. 45.2: Augustine is acquainted astronomical sixty-minute
hours and sixty-second minutes.
Cf. also Isid. Etym. V.39.1: Momentum est minimum atque angustissimum tempus, a
motu siderum dictum.
39 Arist. Sens. 6 (446a–b): “Empedocles for instance states that the light from the sun
(ἡλίου φῶς) reaches a mid-point (μεταξὺ) before it reaches vision or the earth . . . but all
time is divisible (ὁ δὲ χρόνος πᾶς διαιρετός), so that an interval existed during which the
light was not yet seen, but the ray was still moving in the intermediate space.”
262 chapter 13
time. He does not posit a continuum, sensu stricto.40 Rather, Augustine

suggests:
(i) that any temporal ‘particle’ that could be subdivided—sensually,

mechanistically or speculatively—is not present-time in the strict-
est sense;
(ii) that any temporal ‘particle’ that could not be subdivided—sensually,
mechanistically or speculatively—would be present-time in the
strictest sense, but would per definitionem have no ‘space,’41 i.e.
would be punctile;42 and
(iii) that the corollary of our sensus of time as mora, intervallum or spa-
tium is temporal divisibility, while the condition of present-time, in
the strictest sense, is indivisibility, i.e. absolute transitivity.
Thus, for Augustine, our originary sensus of mora (divisibility of praesens) con-
flicts with a phenomeno-logical analytics of praesens tempus (indivisibility of
praesens).
Augustine’s first real advance, and his first provisional finding—having
articulated this analytics of praesens tempus—is the identification of a co-
originary sensus with the sensus of temporal mora or ‘intervals.’ The analytics
of present-time in Confessions XI.15.18–20 yields no interval, no space; this
analytics yields hyper-transitivity—a punctile, illocalizable passing. Thus, in
Confessions XI.16.21, Augustine observes that co-originary with our sense
of mora or intervalla, which conflicts with the analytics of praesens tempus,
is a sense of precisely—passing. “When time is passing it can be sensed.”43
40 Cf. O’Daly 1981, 172: “Augustine and the Stoics assume that time is an infinitely divisible
continuum. Augustine’s language in [Conf. XI.]15.20 seems momentarily to suggest the
alternative possibility of a minimal present time which is indivisible, a ‘time-atom’ . . . but
he immediately undermines this possibility by remarking that the present cannot be
extended (nam si extenditur, dividitur in praeteritum et futurum: praesens autem nullum
habet spatium). An indivisible minimum time is, however, necessarily extended, and so
cannot constitute a present. . . . Elsewhere, as in De musica VI.8.21, Augustine unequivo-
cally asserts that time, like space, can be divided infinitely by our reason.”
41 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: nulla morula extendatur . . . nullum habet spatium.
42 Cf. Arist. Sens. 7 (447a): “There is a further difficulty (ἀπορία) with regard to sensation,
whether it is possible to sense (αἰσθάνεσθαι) two things in one and the same indivisible
point of time (ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ ἀτόμῷ χρόνῷ)”; 7 (447b): “. . . a single indivisible point of time”
(ἄτομον χρόνον μίαν); 7 (448b): “. . . by ‘at once’ (ἅμα), I mean in a time which is one and
indivisible (ἑνι καὶ ἀτόμῷ χρόνῷ)”; etc.
43 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: cum . . . praeterit tempus, sentiri . . . potest.
Augustine’s hope in identifying this sensus—a sense of passing time—is

duplex:
(i) it may resolve the aporetic dis-identity of temporal praesens as

interval and praesens tempus as point; and
(ii) it may prove to be the condition for our achievement of temporal
mensuration, since “we sense intervals-of-times and compare them”
(XI.16.21).44
Whereas our sense of temporal intervals or spaces is irrecusable, it is yet—

as previously discussed (see 12.1)—originarily indeterminate. Temporal men-
suration is a concrete achievement—and it is absurd to suggest that “it is
possible to measure what is not” (XI.16.21).45 Per the analytics of praesens
tempus, temporal intervals have no existence as praesens tempus—and thus,
temporal intervals cannot themselves be measured. (The condition for a tem-
poral mora, intervallum or spatium is, per Augustine’s analytics of praesens
tempus, that it can be divided into past and future; while the precise condition
for praesens tempus in that analytics is that it cannot be divided into past and
future: thus it is punctile, has no space.)46 But co-originary with our sense of
temporal intervals is our sense of passing time, and perhaps it is this sense that
gives rise to ‘intervals.’ Perhaps it is also this sense which permits of temporal
comparatio and mensuration:
Thus when time is passing it can be sensed and measured, but when it has
passed, since it is-not, it cannot [be sensed or measured].
cum ergo praeterit tempus, sentiri et metiri potest, cum autem praeterierit,
quoniam non est, non potest. (XI.16.21)
It is this suggestion that Augustine recalls in Confessions XI.21.27 and

XI.26.33—namely, that our sense of passing-itself may constitute the mora
or intervallum that permits us to measure intervals of time, and the move-
ments of bodies. But the ‘when’ (cum) in his phrase, “when time is passing”
(cum . . . praeterit tempus, XI.16.21), signals its inevitable difficulty: what is-not
44 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: sentimus intervalla temporum et comparamus.

45 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: praeterita vero, quae iam non sunt, aut futura, quae nondum sunt,
quis metiri potest, nisi forte audebit quis dicere metiri posse quod non est?
46 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: quod in nullas iam vel minutissimas momentorum partes dividi pos-
sit, id solum est quod praesens dicatur.
264 chapter 13
cannot be sensed (as contuitus) or measured (as praesens tempus), and this
‘when’ of passing time is, as present-time—i.e. as constituted by motus omnis—
inextended. The very condition that produces the sense of passing time—i.e.
motus omnis—precludes that the ‘when’ of what is sensed as passing could
have extent, could evade Augustine’s analytics of praesens tempus.
13.2 Times Are Not ‘Times’ and Presence Is Not ‘Presence’ (Conf. XI.20)
The most proper sense of ‘times’ in the Confessions, as I have been at pains to
demonstrate, is that of ‘time’ insofar as it is produced by, and is to be identified
with, motus omnis. ‘Times’ are thus the acute successions of present-time
which, relative to Augustine’s ‘time’ (intervalla temporum, spatium temporis):
(i) are necessarily hyper-singular, as punctile—“no ‘time’ is present all-

at-once” (XI.11.13),47 whereas the analytic definition of present-time
is that it is, as indivisible, incalculably ‘present all-at-once’; and
(ii) are necessarily hyper-plural—“a ‘long time’ cannot become long
except out of a multitude of motions” (XI.11.13),48 i.e. a multitude of
present-times.
It is this difficult co-relation that determines an improper sense of ‘times’ in

Confessions XI.20.26 and XI.27.36—and with it, an improper sense of ‘presence.’
The improper sense of ‘times’ and ‘presence’ in XI.20.26 and XI.27.36 has
not been previously addressed because it is restricted to these sections. It is
this sense of ‘times’ and ‘presence’ that I have denoted, throughout, with the
neologism ‘impresence.’ That this sense is improper is indicated in XI.20.26,
and if this indication is overlooked the interpretation will be flawed.
But it is necessary to observe, before proceeding, that the improper senses
of ‘times’ and ‘presence’:
(α) surface in the sections of the time-investigation which initially

(XI.20.26–21.27) and finally (XI.27.36) evince ‘dilation’ (distentio),
i.e. the condition of possibility of temporal impresence or a space of
time; and

48 Aug. Conf. XI.11.13: . . . longum tempus, nisi ex multis praetereuntibus motibus qui simul
extendi non possunt, longum non fieri.
(β) indicate, in a duplicity of usage of the terms ‘presence’ and ‘times,’

the originary duplicity of praesens and of tempus as such in the
Confessions, i.e. the ‘improper’ senses of ‘times’ and ‘presence’ are
themselves originary, since impresence is originarily implicated in
presence.
Augustine opens Confessions XI.20.26 with a strong statement that derives

from his analytics of praesens tempus in XI.15.18–20: “But what is now clearly
apparent is this—neither future things nor past things are.”49 Only the pres-
ence of present-time is, and present-time lacks dimension or space. It is thus
incorrect to say (nec proprie dicitur), as per custom (consuetudo),50 and as per
Augustine (or Pseudo-Augustine) in De Grammatica51: “There are three
times—past, present and future.”52 Why? Because ‘times,’ as the hyper-
plural condition for any ‘long time’ or space of time, never exist but as
the hyper-singularity of a punctile present-time. There is thus—the grammati-
cal impossibility of the phrase is suggestive—only one ‘times,’53 namely,
49 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: quod autem nunc liquet et claret, nec futura sunt nec praeterita.
50 Pace Kotzé (2004, 222), who suggests that “book 11 as a whole targets a Manichaean audi-
ence familiar with a dogma that stressed the three moments in time,” Conf. XI.20.26 ‘tar-
gets’ a commonplace in the rhetorical handbooks, as Augustine himself states in Conf. XI,
at XI.17.22: . . . esse tria tempora, sicut pueri didicimus puerosque docuimus, praeteritum,
praesens, et futurum.
Augustine says the same of odd and even numbers, at Aug. Rhyth. I.12.20: illud nonne
ab ineunte pueritia didicimus, omnem numerum aut parem esse, aut imparem?
For the rhetorical commonplace of ‘times,’ cf. for instance, Cic. Part. 11.37: In tempori-
bus autem praesentia [et] praeterita [et] futura cernuntur.
Kotzé (2004, 222) cites O’Donnell for her unfounded suggestion, and O’Donnell (1992,
III:252) indeed—though far less dogmatically, far less reductionistically—gives some cre-
dence to the idea of a “possibility that [Augustine’s] ‘Past, Present, and Future’ (see [Conf.]
XI.20.26)” have to do with a “Manichean . . . battle between light and darkness in past,
present, and future.” I have pursued O’Donnell’s citations of Augustine’s Contra Felicem
and Contra Faustum, in defence of this ‘possibility,’ and see nothing that bears on
Augustine’s question of praesens in Conf. XI.20.26.
51 Cf. Aug. Gramm.reg. III.6: . . . hic autem modus sine definition personarum est et habet
solet tempus finitum, praesens, praeteritum et futurum; III.14: . . . per tempora autem, id est
per praesentia, praeterita vel futura.
52 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: nec proprie dicitur, “tempora sunt tria, praeteritum, praesens, et
futurum.”
53 There is a curious example that is relevant to my para-grammatical phrase, ‘one times,’ in
Augustine’s (or Pseudo-Augustine’s) De Grammatica: Regulae, in which utrumque tempus
is preferred to Virgil’s utraque tempora.
266 chapter 13
present-time. Or stated differently: it is only the strictest sense of praesens as

praesens tempus that validates Augustine’s assertion, “neither future-things
nor past-things are” (XI.20.26); and it is only the strictest linkage of times (‘one
times’) to the hyper-singularity of a punctile praesens tempus that validates his
objection, “nor is it proper to say, ‘There are three times—past, present and
future’” (XI.20.26).
Yet Augustine then proceeds to suggest a possible and proper manner of
speaking of ‘times’ which refracts the hyper-singularity of a present-time:
But perhaps it is proper to say, “There are three times—a presence of past
things, a presence of present things, a presence of future things.” For
these three are somehow in the soul, and I do not see them elsewhere—a
presence of past things, memory, a presence of present things, observa-
tion, a presence of future things, expectation.
sed fortasse proprie diceretur, “tempora sunt tria, praesens de praeteritis,

praesens de praesentibus, praesens de futuris.” sunt enim haec in anima
tria quaedam et alibi ea non video, praesens de praeteritis memoria,
praesens de praesentibus contuitus, praesens de futuris expectatio.
(XI.20.26)
It is imperative for the conflict in XI.20.26, and the shift, to be felt: “Nor is it
proper to say, ‘There are three times’ . . . but perhaps it is proper to say, ‘There
are three times.’ ”54 This is how Augustine alerts us to the fact that, in Confessions
XI.14–29, times are not ‘times’ and presence is not ‘presence.’
Vid. Aug. Gramm.reg. 2.13: Inde addita in compositione ‘que’ syllaba facit ‘uterque’ et
significat ambos, sed tamen singulari sono est et significatione duali. Nam, cum dixit
Virgilius “constitit in digitos extemplo arrectus uterque” [Virg. Aen. V.426], duo signifi-
cati sunt, cum dixit ‘uterque’; cum autem dixit ‘arrectus,’ voluit expectare pluralitatem, ut
sit plural in ‘utrique.’ Sed hoc interest, quia ‘uterque,’ licet duo significet, tamen solos duo;
‘utrique’ autem duo significat, sed ut in singulis multi sint: si dicam ‘utrique exercitus,’
duo significo, sed in singulis turbam intellegi volo. Haec quidem distincta sunt, sed iterum
auctoritate confusa sunt. Nam, cum ait Virgilius “super utraque quassat tempora” [Virg.
Aen. V.855–56], confudit: dicere enim debuit ‘super utrumque tempus’; loquebatur enim
de duobus temporibus tantum, cui utrique tempori sufficiebat accusativo, ut diceret
‘utrumque quassat tempus.’
For the significance of Augustine’s confirmed grammatical treatises, the Ars (pro frat-
rum mediocritate) breviata and De Dialectica, vid. Luhtala 2005, 138–50.
54 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: nec proprie dicitur, “tempora sunt tria, praeteritum, praesens, et futu-
rum,” sed fortasse proprie diceretur, “tempora sunt tria, praesens de praeteritis, praesens
Only present-time is. This is the deliverance of Augustine’s rigorous analytic

of presence in Confessions XI.15.18–20, which he repeats as “clearly apparent”
(liquet et claret, XI.20.26) in the first sentence of this short paragraph,
Confessions XI.20.26, and which he relies upon in rejecting the commonplace,
inherited mode of speaking about ‘three times.’ And past things and future
things are not because they are not present—they are not co-present as
present-time, and they are not co-present as a presence of present things. And
yet—there is a ‘presence’ of past things and future things.55 That is to say, there
is a ‘presence’ of things that are not, that are not ‘present.’ This ‘presence’ of
things that are not—as memory, as expectation—is distinct from the presence
of present-time (as sensation); while this triplicity of ‘times’ in the soul is dis-
tinct from a triplicity of ‘times’ that common usage refers to and that—
Augustine insists—are not. For these ‘times’ in the soul are not indifferently
‘present’ (praesens tempus), but rather memoria-praeteritum tempus and
expectatio-futurum tempus are distinct modalities of a duplex ‘presence-of ’
(praesens de) things which are impresent, things which are not present as ‘pres-
ent things.’56 This improper deployment of ‘presence’ and ‘times’—in my ter-
minology: ‘impresence’—is characterized in XI.20.26 as a trine-‘presence’;
increasingly, it comes to be characterized as a ‘dilation’ (distentio).57 Distentio
is a radicalization of the trine-presence in XI.20.26. Trine-presence in
Confessions XI.20.26 is “in the soul,” whereas dilation in XI.26.33 is “of
the soul.”58
It is thus a specific, ‘improper’ sense of ‘presence’—and with it, of ‘times’—
that is not improper to speak of, which is why Augustine writes, in the teeth of
his immediately preceding statement: “Perhaps it is proper to say . . .”59
It is necessary to identify what is and is not the propriety of Augustine’s
new, ‘improper’ sense of ‘presence’—and with it, of ‘times’—in the time-
investigation. And the praesens tempus of Augustine’s analytic of presence, in
de praesentibus, praesens de futuris.”

55 At Arist. Mem. I (449b), Aristotle writes that it is “in the present-time” or “within the
now” (ἐν τῷ νῦν) that “sensation (αἴσθησις) refers to what is present: hope (ἐλπίς) to what
is future: memory (μνήμη) to what is past,” and that without such refraction, there can be
no “sense of time” (χρόνου αἰσθάνεται).
56 Or rather, as he specifies here—the ‘future’ and the ‘past’ are not: praesens tempus/
contuitus is, but lacks space.
57 First, in the last sentences of Conf. XI.23.30: video igitur tempus quandam esse
distentionem.
58 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: inde mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem; sed
59 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: nec proprie dicitur . . . sed fortasse proprie diceretur.
268 chapter 13
Confessions XI.15.18–20, is the presence of contuitus, of sensation in the strict-

est sense—i.e. the praesens tempus that is constituted by motus omnis is also
the praesens tempus of contuitus. This is manifestly a proper sense of the word
‘presence,’ which is why Augustine writes of quasi-praesentia, for instance, in
the memory sections of Confessions X.60 Similar Latin indicators could have
clarified the time-investigation in book XI significantly; yet Augustine signals
the constitutive linkage of praesens tempus and sensus here in his peculiar,
hypertrophic phrase, praesens de praesentibus = contuitus. In this sense, the
sense of contuitus, there is not a triplicity of ‘times.’ Only present-time is, and
conversely, only what is is “that which may be called ‘present’ ” (id solum est
quod ‘praesens’ dicatur, XI.15.20). This is why Augustine never retreats—in
XI.20.26,61 or at the end of the time-investigation, in XI.28.3762—from his
assertion that present-time lacks space, and that past things and future things
are not, are inexistent.
Still, this originary sense of presence—i.e. presence as present-time, pres-
ence as sensation—is co-originarily inflected with and constituted by the pres-
ence of what is not sensation: a duplex ‘presence’ within present-time of what
is not present-time.63 (Again: presence defies unicity.) And indeed, it is only
this originary duplicity of presence—a ‘power’ (vis) by-which to compare what
is (as contuitus, as praesens tempus) with what is-not (as memoria, as expecta-
tio)—which initially permits Augustine’s elaboration of the restrictive sense of
‘presence’ to an inextended, hyper-transitive present-time (XI.15.18–20). That
is, ‘presence’ as present-time and ‘a presence of present things’ at once is and
is-not the most proper sense of ‘presence,’ since without impresence, this
restricted sense of ‘presence’ could not be delimited.
Yet our leitfaden here is contuitus, and as a ‘presence of present things,’ it is
contuitus that is assigned a privileged and incommutable—but as a result,
hyper-transitive—link to praesens tempus as produced by motus omnis.
A certain attenuation or rarefaction of Augustine’s language is in evidence as
60 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.8.14: . . . et ipse contexo praeteritis atque ex his etiam futuras actiones et
eventa et spes, et haec omnia rursus quasi praesentia meditor.
The word quasi appears 17× in Conf. X.8–27.
61 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: quod autem nunc liquet et claret, nec futura sunt nec praeterita.
62 Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: quis igitur negat futura nondum esse? . . . et quis negat praeterita iam
non esse? . . . et quis negat praesens tempus carere spatio, quia in puncto praeterit?
63 Cf. Arist. Mem. I (450b): “When one engages his memory, this affection (πάθος) is what
he considers and senses (θεωρεῖ . . . καὶ αἴσθάνεται). How, then, does one remember what is
not present (τὸ μὴ παρὸν)? For this would imply that one can also ‘see’ and ‘hear’ what is not
present (τὸ μὴ παρὸν). But surely in a sense this can and does take place.”
the time-investigation progresses—the sensus of XI.16.21 is characterized

as contuitus in XI.20.26,64 and becomes attentio in XI.28.3765—until Augustine’s
parting formulation in XI.31.41: variatur affectus sensusque distenditur. This
rhetorical ‘ascent’ is by no means axiologically determined or ‘subjectivizing,’
however. To the contrary, it is determined by Augustine’s heightening concern
with the (‘objectivizing’) achievement of rendering an originarily indetermi-
nate sensus of a time-interval into a determinate temporal quantum—i.e. tem-
poral mensuration. And in this ascent, as Augustine’s rhetorical ‘lapse’ to
viscera in XI.29.39 and sensus-affectio in XI.31.41 demonstrates, the vital—i.e.
sensual—constitution of temporal presence and temporal impresence are
never abandoned. The anima-animus in which a trine-‘presence’ (i.e. impres-
ence) is acquired, in Confessions XI.20.26, is still constituted as anima-corpus.
This temporized ‘soul’ is still a ‘soul-flesh.’
The constitutive haerere of Confessions X.7.11, that is to say, is still the sub-
phenomenal condition of praesens tempus in sensus or in contuitus or in
attentio—and no less, of ‘impresence,’ i.e. of sense-imaginal praesens-de
in memoria and in expectatio. And it is because of this that Augustine’s rudi-
ment for temporal intention and temporal mensuration alike, in Confessions
XI.27.34, is sensation (see 13.5).
13.3 “As I Just Said, We Measure Times as They Pass” (Conf. XI.21)
“As I just said,” Augustine proceeds, “we measure times as they pass.”66 Here
the term tempora immediately reverts to its ‘proper’ sense—i.e. here ‘times’
signify mutive times, ‘times’ as produced by motus omnis, ‘times’ as present-
time—while contuitus reverts, with Augustine’s backwards glance at his
64 On which, cf. O’Donnell 1992, III:284–85. This gloss is illuminating, but the references
O’Donnell provides tend to constellate Augustine’s contuitus, here, with uses of the
term—elsewhere in his corpus—to describe contemplatio, and not—as here—to
the ‘presence of present things’ in sensation. My interpretation rather orients the sense of
contuitus to Augustine’s sentimus at XI.16.21, and ultimately, to his affectus sensusque at
XI.31.41.
65 Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: expectat et attendit et meminit, ut id quod expectat per id quod
attendit transeat in id quod meminerit.
66 Aug. Conf. XI.21.27: dixi ergo paulo ante quod praetereuntia tempora metimur.
270 chapter 13
earlier formulation, in Confessions XI.16.21, to sensus: “When time is passing it

can be sensed and measured.”67
Yet the issue of the time “when we measure” (cum metimur) at XI.27.36 is
still on the horizon, because the term presence has also reverted to its ‘proper’
sense—i.e. as hyper-transitivity, as constituted by motus omnis. As in XI.16.21,
so here, it is impossible to measure what is-not, and yet present-time, the
hyper-contracted presence of contuitus, is inextended—and thus cannot be
measured.68 Augustine, therefore, re-secures his time-question:
In what space, then, do we measure passing time?
in quo ergo spatio metimur tempus praeteriens? (XI.21.27)
There is no need to belabour the significance of this question, but it is precisely

a constitutive vinculation of sensation with present-time that is driving
Augustine to articulate a co-origineity of impresence within sense-temporal
‘presence,’ i.e. to identify time—that “by-which we measure”69—with the con-
dition of possibility of a space of time. For temporal mensuration is still, on
reflection, impossible—but it is actual: “I know,” says Augustine, “because
I measure.”70
Augustine’s time-question is never: Do I measure ‘times’? And his question
is never: Do I measure ‘presence’? Nor indeed are his questions here: Is prae-
sens tempus produced by motus omnis? Is praesens tempus, as produced by
motus omnis, inextended? Is praesens tempus disclosed as, in, and to contuitus?
Or: Is praesens tempus, as restricted to and disclosed in contuitus, sensu stricto,
immeasurable? Augustine’s response to all such questions is—yes; whence,
very precisely, his aporia, and his decisive time-question: ‘In what space
(spatio) do we measure passing time (tempus praeteriens)?’
67 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: cum ergo praeterit tempus, sentiri et metiri potest; cf. XI.21.27: quo-
circa, ut dicebam, “praetereuntia metimur tempora.”
68 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: praeterita vero, quae iam non sunt, aut futura, quae nondum sunt,
quis metiri potest, nisi forte audebit quis dicere metiri posse quod non est?; XI.21.27: in
quo ergo spatio metimur tempus praeteriens? utrum in futuro, unde praeterit? sed quod
nondum est, non metimur. an in praesenti, qua praeterit? sed nullum spatium non metimur.
an in praeterito, quo praeterit? sed quod iam non est, non metimur.
motus.
70 Aug. Conf. XI.21.27: praetereuntia metimur tempora, et si quis mihi dicat, “unde scis?,”
respondeam, scio quia metimur, nec metiri quae non sunt possumus, et non sunt praet-
erita vel futura.
13.4 Vagaries of Motion and the Introduction of Dilation

(Conf. XI.24–26)
“I measure—and I do not know what I measure.”71 The quid (or praesens) of

temporal mensuration is not, however, the movement-itself of any specific
body. This is established in Confessions XI.24.31: “The movement of a
[given] body is one thing, and it is another by-which we measure how long this
movement is.”72
In XI.24.31, Augustine specifies that the word ‘tempus’ should be reserved
for this by-which, rather than assigned to the motus he analyzes. This repeats
and finalizes his stated desire in XI.23.30, which I have quoted several times:
“I desire to know the power and nature of time, by-which we measure the move-
ments of [all] bodies.”73 There is a duplex restriction in evidence in XI.24.31
that should be remarked, but will not be re-elaborated here (see 4.2–3): the
question of ‘motus’ in XI.24.31 has been restricted from the totalized motus
omnis of XI.23.29, to a singularized motus corporis; and ‘corpus,’ accordingly,
has been restricted from the omnia corpora of XI.23.29.74 To eliminate the
suggestion that any determinate movement of any single body is ‘time’
(ipsum . . . corporis motum tempus esse, XI.24.31), it suffices to observe that any
determinate ‘rest’ (status) of any single body can also be measured: “Thus
‘time’ is not the movement of a [single] body” (XI.24.31). The motus or the sta-
tus of any given body, celestial or terrestrial, occurs in time and is itself mea-
sured by and against—what, if not time-itself?75
It is in Confessions XI.26.33 that the expression ‘time-itself’ (ipsum tempus)
surfaces for the first time since the first sentence of Augustine’s time-
investigation.76 Ipsum tempus is the ‘by-which’ for measuring the movements
of all bodies, yet Augustine states in XI.24.31 and XI.26.33 that tempus is also
the ‘in-which’ of the movements of all bodies.77 And decisively for the sections
71 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: metior et quid metiar nescio.

72 Aug. Conf. XI.24.31: cum itaque aliud sit motus corporis, aliud quo metimur quamdiu sit,
quis non sentiat quid horum potius tempus dicendum sit?
motus.
74 Aug. Conf. XI.23.39: cur enim non potius omnium corporum motus sint tempora?
75 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: metior motum corporis tempore: item ipsum tempus nonne metior?
an vero corporis motum metirer, quamdiu sit et quamdiu hinc illuc perveniat, nisi tempus
in quo movetur metirer? ipsum ergo tempus unde metior?
76 Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: nullo ergo tempore non feceras aliquid, quia ipsum tempus tu feceras.
77 Aug. Conf. XI.24.31: nam corpus nullum nisi in tempore moveri audio.
272 chapter 13
that follow, Augustine also states in XI.25.32 that tempus is the ‘in-which’ of
speech:
I know that I speak these things in time, and that I have already long spo-
ken of time, and also that this ‘long’ itself is not long if not for a lapse or
space of time.
scire me in tempore ista dicere, et diu me iam loqui de tempore, atque

ipsum diu non esse diu nisi mora temporis. (XI.25.32)
Tempus is here the condition of Augustine’s time-question, and a mora

temporis—that originary sensation which contravenes Augustine’s analytics of
praesens tempus—is a condition of his time-question: ‘no mora temporis = no
longum tempus.’ But note the negative articulation of this condition: we
observed the same in Confessions XI.11.13, in which ‘no motus = no longum tem-
pus’ (see 12.3). Here, a new and distinct condition for longum tempus is stated:
a “ ‘long’ [time] is not long except by a lapse or space of time (mora temporis)”
(XI.25.32). Augustine’s duplex, positive condition for longum tempus is thus,
since ‘no motus = no longum tempus’ (XI.11.13), and since ‘no mora temporis =
no longum tempus’ (XI.25.32): (i) the motion of all bodies (motus omnis) and
(ii) a space of time (mora temporis).
The motion of all bodies is precisely, however, the simplex condition for
times on the analytics of present-time—i.e. for hyper-transitivity, for succes-
sion. The longus of a ‘long time’ cannot be longus without the motion of all
bodies (motus omnis); yet the longus also cannot be longus without a lapse or
space of time (mora temporis); and finally, the longus cannot be determined as
a temporal quantum without a lapse or space of time (mora temporis). Hyper-
transitivity as praesens tempus has been identified with sensus-contuitus (prae-
sens de praesentibus, XI.20.26); and yet durativity as the mora temporis is also
linked with sensus.78 As the life of a body and a conditio sine qua non of sensa-
tion, ‘the soul’ is thus itself a locus of:
(α) a sense of praesens tempus—i.e. of that which is, in time;

(β) a sense of this praesens in its most pungent sense, the praesens de
praesentibus incoming-from, and shading into, impresence—i.e. a
sense of passing time;79 and
78 Aug. Conf. XI.15.19: datum . . . tibi est sentire moras atque metiri; XI.16.21: sentimus inter-
valla temporum.
79 Again, Aug. Conf. X.16.21: sed praetereuntia metimur tempora cum sentiendo metimur.
(γ) a sense of impresence as constituting a mora temporis—i.e. a space

of time.
This triplex ‘sense’ of the soul (anima-animus) involves a conflict, and with it
a stress, the constitutive stress,80 that should be heard in all the inflections
of Augustine’s term distentio—as a ‘dilation’ or a being ‘afflicted,’ as ‘distracted’
and ‘divided.’81
The relative tranquillity of trine-presence in the soul, in Confessions XI.20.26
(where the sense of passing time is not mentioned), is first called a ‘distentio’
in the last sentences of XI.23.30,82 and Augustine reintroduces this term in the
last sentences of XI.26.33.83 The elaboration of this vivid descriptor, ‘distentio,’
does not climax in XI.28.37 with Augustine’s observation that “intention lasts”
(attentio perdurat), but rather in XI.29.39 with: “My life is dilation, my life is
division!”84 It is precisely because it is the soul that constitutes a space of time—
spatium, not punctum—that the soul, as the condition of possibility of tempo-
ral mensuration or division, is itself originarily divided in time. And the most
illuminating display of this duplicity, for Augustine—that the soul, as condi-
tion of possibility of temporal division, is itself divided in time—is provided,
for him, by human speech.
As any body moves in tempore, so I—ego, ego animus85—I also speak in
tempore. Augustine makes this connection clear, since it is first in Confessions
XI.24.31 that he insists that a body moves in tempore—which he repeats
in XI.26.3386—while in XI.25.32, he confesses: “I know that I say these things in
time,” and that this—namely, his confession itself—could not be “long if not
80 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: . . . et nos multos, in multis per multa . . . ; Bochet 2004, 309: “Nous
sommes multiples . . . La multiplicité ici évoquée tient certes à la pluralité des hommes,
mais elle est aussi en chaucun de nous, en raison de notre condition corporelle et tempo-
relle. Le temps est en effet ‘distension’ . . . [et] la distension constitutive du temps engen-
dre un ‘éparpillement’ et un ‘déchirement’ douloureux de l’âme humaine.”
81 Cf. Hrdlicka 1931, 82: “distentio, a distraction: [Conf.] 11, 29, 39, ecce distentio est vita
mea. . . . In Itala Eccles. 3, 10 and 5, 13, and in Vulg. Eccles. 8, 16, this word [distentio] ren-
ders περισπασμός (in Eccles. 3, 10 and 5, 13 the Vulgate has afflictio).”
82 Aug. Conf. XI.23.30: video igitur tempus quandam esse distentionem.
83 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem.
84 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: distentio est vita mea . . . et tumultuosis varietatibus dilaniantur cogi-
tationes meae.
85 Aug. Conf. X.6.9: ego, ego animus per sensum corporis mei, interrogavi mundi molem.
86 Aug. Conf. XI.24.31: nam corpus nullum nisi in tempore moveri; XI.26.33: an vero corporis
motum metirer . . . nisi tempus in quo movetur metirer?
274 chapter 13
for a lapse or space of time.”87 Thus, though human speech—like the motion of
any body—proceeds in tempore, could it nevertheless be such speech that is
the originary ‘by-which’ of temporal mensuration? Is speech itself the ‘space’ in
which “we measure passing time” (XI.21.27)?88
In Confessions XI.26.33, Augustine shifts his investigation—still seeking
the by-which of any determinate temporal quantum, which is also to say that
“by-which we measure the movement of [all] bodies” (XI.23.30)—to the
mode of temporally regulated enunciation that he inherited as a speaker of
late-antique Latin89 and perfected as poet and rhetor.90 Quintilian writes: “It
is impossible for us to speak without using the short and long syllables from
which metric proportions are produced”;91 and thus Augustine later says to his
protégé in the De Rhythmo: “Even if you do not know which syllables are to be
kept short, which prolonged, we can nevertheless overlook this ignorance of
yours since it suffices that you . . . have noticed that some syllables are shorter,
others longer.”92
87 Aug. Conf. XI.25.32: scire me in tempore ista dicere, et diu me iam loqui de tempore, atque
ipsum diu non esse diu nisi mora temporis.
88 Aug. Conf. XI.21.27: in quo ergo spatio metimur tempus praeteriens?
89 At Conf. I.18.29, for instance, Augustine cedes that the late-antique distribution of long
and short syllables is purely conventional (pacta . . . syllabarum), i.e. “received from prior
speakers” of the Latin language (accepta a prioribus locutoribus) and subject to change.
90 Aug. Conf. III.7.14: “I composed poems, and it was not permitted for me to place any foot
wherever I liked, but different kinds in different metres and never in any given verse the
same foot in all places alike. The art itself by-which I composed poems did not have differ-
ent principles in different places, but comprised all at once and in one” (et cantabam
carmina et non mihi licebat ponere pedem quemlibet ubilibet, sed in alio atque alio
metro aliter atque aliter et in uno aliquo versu non omnibus locis eundem pedem. et ars
ipsa qua canebam non habebat aliud alibi, sed omnia simul).
The amorous lyricism of Conf. III.1.1 suggests that Augustine, like Donne, might have
left a mark with his love-poems no less than his sermons, had such pre-conversion car-
mina survived. For ‘Donne’s Augustine’: Ettenhuber 2011, esp. 117–35.
91 Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.61: neque enim loqui possumus nisi syllabis brevibus ac longis, ex
quibus pedes fiunt.
Cf. Cic. Or. 56.189: “All [rhythms] may occur in prose (orationem), as can be inferred
from the fact that we often utter verses unintentionally when delivering a speech (versus
saepe in oratione per imprudentiam dicimus) . . . [and] it is nearly impossible to avoid
senarii and Hipponacteans, since the greater part of our speech consists of iambs (magnam
enim partem ex iambis nostra constat oratio).”
Cf. also Pseudo-Longinus’ caution against foot-tapping prose-rhythms, at Long. Subl.
41 (204v).
92 Aug. Rhyth. II.2.2: . . . etiam si nescis quae syllaba corripienda, quae producenda sit; pos-
sumus tamen non impediri hac ignorantia tua, satisque habere, quod te animadvertisse
dixisti alias syllabas correptiores, alias productiores.
Having first alluded to the “time-rhythm”93 of quantitative enunciation in

Confessions XI.16.21, while introducing the sense of passing time,94 Augustine
appeals thereafter to the simplex, duplex and triplex time-values associated
with Latin syllables;95 but this thematic comes to clear prominence here
in XI.26.33,96 in parallel to and as a subset of the measure of ‘the movements
of all bodies.’97 Does such quantitative enunciation of Latin ‘short’ and ‘long’
syllables—or of metricized, Latin lines—itself grasp (comprehendere) a deter-
minate metric of time-itself? Is quantitative enunciation itself a veracious tem-
poral measure (certa mensura temporis)?98 That is to say, does speech itself
track motus omnis with the constitutive fidelity that contuitus tracks praesens
tempus? For it is only thus that a mora temporis as the originary but indetermi-
nate phenomenon of sensus becomes a veracious temporal quantum—and “I
know,” says Augustine, “that I measure time.”99
It does not. And its failure is banal. I can rush a ‘longer line’ and drag out a
‘shorter line’ to pervert or reverse their temporal values. That is to say, the same
syllable, line or song (ita carmen, ita pes, ita syllaba) can be manipulated as
93 Cf. Nietzsche’s letter to Carl Fuchs in August 1888, at Nietzsche 1969, 309: “Our rhythm is
a means of expressing emotion; ancient rhythm—time rhythm—has the opposite task of
mastering emotion and eliminating it to a certain extent . . . time symmetry was felt to be
a kind of oil upon the waters. Rhythm to the ancient mind is, morally and esthetically, the
reins which are put on passion.”
94 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: metimur etiam quanto sit longius aut brevius illud tempus quam
esse quantum illud.
95 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.21.27: dixi ergo paulo ante quod praetereuntia tempora metimur, ut pos-
simus dicere duplum esse hoc temporis ad illud simplum . . . neque enim dicimus simpla
et dupla et tripla et aequalia, et si quid hoc modo in tempore dicimus nisi spatia tempo-
rum; XI.22.28: “duplum temporis habet haec syllaba ad illam simplam brevem”;
XI.23.30: . . . et utrumque tempus comparantes diceremus illud simplum, hoc duplum,
etiamsi aliquando illo simplo, aliquando isto duplo sol ab oriente usque orientem
circuiret.
96 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: sic enim videmur spatio brevis syllabae metiri spatium longae sylla-
bae atque id duplum dicere.
97 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.22.28: “duplum temporis habet haec syllaba ad illam simplam brevem”;
XI.24.31: nam si et varie corpus aliquando movetur, aliquando stat, non solum motum
eius sed etiam statum tempore metimur et dicimus, “tantum stetit, quantum motum est”
aut, “duplo vel triplo stetit ad id quod motum est” et si quid aliud nostra dimensio sive com-
prehenderit sive existimaverit, ut dici solet plus minus.
98 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.24.31: . . . sive comprehenderit sive existimaverit; XI.26.33: . . . sed neque
ita comprehenditur certa mensura temporis.
99 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: tempus metior, scio.
276 chapter 13
regards its space of time (spatio temporis).100 Or as Augustine remarks in De

Rhythmo, I can manipulate the space of time that is occupied (plus temporis
occupare) by a metricized line,101 even if I maintain its metrical proportions,102
and thus the formal distribution of the line—or what he calls there its “law of
times” (temporum legi).103 The rigour of the late-antique enunciative ictus
thus fails, in the vagary of the act, to grasp the certa mensura for any temporal
quantum. Quantitative enunciation in tempore, no less than the determinate
motus/status of any solitary body (or subset of bodies) in tempore, fails to
track the hyper-transitivity of praesens tempus (= tempora, motus omnis)104
as a space of time (= tempus, spatium temporis)105 with anything like a consti-
tutive fidelity.
“From-which it seems to me,” says Augustine, “that ‘time’ is nothing else but a
dilation” (XI.26.33). And again: “From-which it seems to me . . .”
This ‘from-which,’ this single adverb inde, is the crux of Augustine’s time-
investigation, and it does not issue from an arbitrament of the human anima-
animus over tempus,106 nor does it introduce a temporal “idealism” in
100 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: sed neque ita comprehenditur certa mensura temporis, quandoqui-
dem fieri potest ut ampliore spatio temporis personet versus brevior, si productius pro-
nuntietur, quam longior, si correptius. ita carmen, ita pes, ita syllaba.
101 Aug. Rhyth. VI.7.17: M.—Quid? sonus ille qui correptioribus et quasi fugacioribus syllabis
editur, num potest plus temporis occupare quam sonat? D.—Qui potest?
102 Cicero makes the opposite point—namely, that metric lines can vary in internal propor-
tions, number of syllables, and so forth, yet occupy the same space of time—at Cic. Or.
54.215: Nam et creticus, qui est e longa et brevi et longa, et eius aequalis paean, qui spatio
pars est, syllaba longior . . . ; cf. 54.217: . . . sed spatio pars, non syllabis.
103 Aug. Rhyth. VI.7.17: M.—. . . cum aliquanto correptius sive productius, dum serviam tem-
porum legi qua simplo ad duplum pedes conveniunt, versum pronuntio, num offendo ulla
fraude iudicium sensus tui? D.—Non omnino.
For Augustine’s expression, temporum legi, here, cf. Ter. Met. 1632–33: Namque
metrum certique pedes numerusque coercent, | dimensa rhythmum continet lex temporum.
104 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: eo modo loca metimur, non tempora.
105 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: . . . spatio brevis syllabae metiri spatium longae syllabae atque id
duplum dicere. ita metimur spatia carminum spatiis versuum et spatia versuum spatiis
pedum et spatia pedum spatiis syllabarum et spatia longarum spatiis brevium . . . sed
neque ita comprehenditur certa mensura temporis, quandoquidem fieri potest ut
ampliore spatio temporis personet versus brevior, si productius pronuntietur, quam lon-
gior, si correptius.
106 Pace von Herrmann 1992, 119/2008, 124 (tr. mod.): “The experience of the self, that I am
the one who can arbitrarily extend enunciated syllables, words, or verses [as in Conf.
XI.26], affords the insight that the extension of time is a self-extension of the mind (die
Dehnung der Zeit das Sicherstrecken des Geistes).”
Confessions XI.107 It is precisely the reverse. It is because the celestial revolu-

tions in Confessions XI.23108 fail to grasp a veracious measure (certa mensura)
of time-itself (ipsum tempus); and because the movements of solitary bodies in
XI.24 fail to grasp a veracious measure of time-itself; and because the vagaries
of late-antique speech-acts in XI.26 fail to grasp a veracious measure of time-
itself; it is from all this that Augustine then writes:
. . . it seems to me that time is nothing else but a dilation—but of what,

I do not know, and would be shocked if it is not the soul-itself . . . That I
measure time, I know. But I do not measure the future, because it is-not-
yet—and I do not measure present-time, because it extends into no space
of time—nor do I measure the past, because it no-longer-is. Thus—what
do I measure? Is it times passing—not past? So I have said.
inde mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem; sed cuius
rei, nescio, et mirum, si non ipsius animi. . . . tempus metior, scio; sed non
metior futurum, quia nondum est, non metior praesens, quia nullo spatio
tenditur, non metior praeteritum, quia iam non est. quid ergo metior? an
praetereuntia tempora, non praeterita? sic enim dixeram. (XI.26.33)
Here again—the analytics of present-time (XI.15.18–20); and here again—the

sense of passing time (XI.16.21).
13.5 Sensation and Originary Temporal Mensuration (Conf. XI.27–28)
In what way does αἴσθησις grasp the πρῶτος χρόνος?

— F. Nietzsche 109
It is essential to observe: Augustine’s ‘dilation’ (distentio) will simultaneously

illuminate the most ‘subjective’ appearances of time, i.e. tempus as a
107 Pace O’Donnell 1992, III:292: “The present passage marks the most original feature of
[Augustine’s] theory, what might be called its ‘idealism’: locating time in consciousness.”
108 Recall the discussion of the proem to Aug. Sol. in 5.3.
109 Cit. Porter 2000, 137 (tr. mod.).
Porter (2000, 137–38) writes: “[Nietzsche] means the constituent parts of ancient
rhythm and thus the whole phenomenon of rhythm . . . That is the guiding question of
Nietzsche’s inquiry, as it was for the ancient rhythmicians.” And if Nietzsche’s
(Aristoxenan) αἴσθησις and πρῶτος χρόνος are replaced by Augustine’s sensus and spatium
temporis, this is also—I suggest—at the back of Augustine’s time-question in Conf. XI.27–
28: In what way does sensus grasp a spatium temporis?
278 chapter 13
sense-affective, indeterminate longum tempus or mora temporis (→ vagaries of

durée), and the most ‘objective’ appearances of time, i.e. tempus as a sense-
affective, determinate quantum or spatium temporis (→ temporal technics). Yet
it is not, immediately, the question of the possibility of longum tempus that
drives Augustine to formulate ‘dilation’—though the question of this possibil-
ity is, as argued above, at the root of his time-investigation. Rather, it is imme-
diately the question of the possibility of a quantum of tempus—which is to
say, of a veracious ‘space of time,’ of a temporal inexistence (on the analytics
of praesens tempus-contuitus) which yet tracks and illuminates the hyper-
transitive ‘times’ of motus omnis-contuitus—that issues in Augustine’s articu-
lation of distentio.110
As the originary condition for any sense of indeterminate intervals of time
(sentimus intervalla temporum, XI.16.21) and for any intention of determinate
spaces of time (spatiis temporum, quantum illud ad illud sit, XI.27.36)—i.e. as
the condition of possibility of that comparatio or conlatio of temporal impres-
ences or inexistences (on the analytics of praesens tempus-contuitus) without
which ‘times’ cannot be rendered determinate in any sense—distentio is not
articulated as a negation of technics of time-division, such as the water-clock
that Augustine alludes to in Confessions XI.2.2, or of the astronomical and
mechanized time-divisions that he incorporates in XI.15.20 (e.g. ‘year,’ ‘twenty-
four hours’). To the contrary: as the originary condition of possibility of the vera-
cious constitution of any longum tempus out of “a multitude of motions”
(XI.11.13); as the originary locus of any veracious measure of time (certa men-
sura temporis, XI.26.33) which remains, in contuitus, constitutively linked to
the hyper-transitivity of praesens tempus and motus omnis: Augustine’s ‘dila-
tion’ is a precondition for the emergence of temporal technics and those astro-
nomical and mechanistic time-divisions which track the ‘times’ constituted by
motus omnis indefinitely towards the imperceptible, hyper-instantaneous
‘times’ or particles of time (minutissimas momentorum) that Augustine ges-
tures towards in XI.15.20.
It is also imperative to note that it is relative to the phenomenon of the con-
stitution of a veracious space of time, which is at once the acquisition of a
certa mensura of time-itself (in animo . . . per sensus, XI.18.23),111 that Augustine
proceeds, in Confessions XI.27–28, with his proto-phenomenological analyses
110 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: nonne tibi confitetur anima mea confessione veridica metiri me tem-
pora? . . . metior motum corporis tempore: item ipsum tempus nonne metior?
111 Aug. Conf. XI.18.23: imaginibus . . . quae in animo velut vestigia per sensus praetereundo
fixerunt.
of hearing “the voice of a body” (vox corporis, XI.27.34),112 and of reciting verses
he has committed to memory. That is to say, the ‘phenomenology’ of time that
is beautifully elaborated in Confessions XI.27–28 is manifestly not a ‘pure phe-
nomenology’ of tempus,113 and it is manifestly not presented as an exhaustive
‘phenomenology’ of tempus. This is evident in the drastic shifts in tonality from
Confessions XI.27–28 to XI.29. This is evident in the contrasts between the
‘phenomenology’ articulated here, and Augustine’s immanentist analyses of
the “time-itself” (ipso tempore, X.3.4) of his confession in Confessions X,114 first
as memory and then as incessant temptation (sine ullo interstitio, X.28.39).115
Or again, this is evident in the contrasts between Confessions XI’s dispassionate
‘phenomenology’ of time, and the ‘phenomenologies’ of abject time in the
wake of a death in Confessions IV, or during Augustine’s indecisions in
Confessions VI and VIII.
But most decisively, Augustine’s proto-phenomenological analyses in
Confessions XI.27–28:
(i) strictly and resolutely seek to illuminate the condition of possibility

of the originary constitution of a certa mensura of ipsum tempus,
which Augustine fails to acquire in Confessions XI.23–26, and which
he comes to identify with a veracious, sensualist spatium temporis
in ‘dilation’; and
(ii) differ in certain respects from his ‘phenomenology’ of predictive
expectation in XI.18.24, in the instance of a sunrise (see 5.3), though
predictive expectation, no less than enactive expectation, could
serve to exhibit Augustine’s ‘dilation.’
It should also be noted that in Confessions XI.18.24, Augustine explicitly refers

to his analysis of predictive expectation—as with, for instance, his analysis of
cantus in Confessions XII.29 (see 9.5)—as an exemplum. Augustine also indi-
cates his use of an exemplum in Confessions XI.23.29 (in a phrase that seems to
recollect one of Lucretius’ couplets in De Rerum Natura II),116 in his discussion
112 Cf. Mar. Gramm. 2.1: ‘Vox’ est aer ictus auditu percipibilis, quantum in ipso est.
113 Ricœur (1984, 83) observes this: “There is . . . no pure phenomenology of time in
Augustine.”
114 Aug. Conf. X.3.4: ecce in ipso tempore confessionum mearum.
115 Aug. Conf. X.28.39: numquid non temptatio est vita humana super terram sine ullo
interstitio?
116 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.23.29: dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum par-
varum atque magnarum; Lucr. Rer.nat. II.123–24: dumtaxat rerum magnarum parva
potest res | exemplare dare et vestigia notitiai.
280 chapter 13
of celestial movement and ‘times.’117 It is crucial to recognize that the proto-

phenomenological analyses in Confessions XI.27–28 are also exempli, and are
exempli that explicitly address—not the sense-affective constitution of a
longum tempus as such—but specifically the originary (i.e. pre-mechanistic)
constitution of a veracious temporal quantum. (And Augustine establishes
the fact that originary mensuration is pre-mechanistic mensuration—i.e.
mensuration without recourse to “a sundial or a water-clock” (horologio vel
clepsydra)—in De Rhythmo I.)118 In Augustine’s analyses of this originary
mode of ‘constitution,’ the sense-affective or sense-imaginal condition of pos-
sibility of any ‘lapse of time’ (mora temporis) or ‘long time’ (longum tempus) or
‘space of time’ (spatium temporis) is also—but only indirectly—characterized.
This is because Augustine’s exempli are specifically calibrated to the dilational
constitution of a temporal quantum—i.e. to ‘grasping’ and ‘enacting’ a certa
mensura that discrete physical movements (while conditioning, within the
totality of motus omnis), and that speech (while manifesting, within the total-
ity of motus omnis), failed to provide him.
Yet it is, recall—“so I have said” (XI.26.33)—the sense of passing time that
leads Augustine into his much-cited exempli in Confessions XI.27–28. And
though the privileged ‘dilational’ procedures here—the constitution of a certa
mensura in metric recitation (or silence), i.e. in premeditated and pre-quanti-
fied repetition—are rarefied, still Augustine’s leitfaden of sensus—i.e. of contui-
tus, of a praesens de praesentibus that is co-constituted by motus omnis—is by
no means lost sight of. The decisive inadequacy of the sense of passing time to
itself (as ‘pure’ presence) constitute a space of time, however—and thus, more
acutely, a veracious temporal quantum—is precisely its constitutive link to ‘pres-
ence’ in the hyper-transitive sense of present-time. That is to say, Augustine’s
dilational problem of sensus in the most restrictive sense of contuitus is
precisely the reflective problem of tempora as constituted by motus omnis:
“Times never stand” (XI.11.13).119
117 Aug. Conf. XI.18.24: loquatur mihi aliquod exemplum tanta rerum numerositas; XI.23.29:
an vero, si cessarent caeli lumina . . . cum haec diceremus, non et nos in tempore
loqueremur aut essent in verbis nostris aliae longae syllabae, aliae breves, nisi quia illae
longiore tempore sonuissent, istae breviore? deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo com-
munes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum.
118 Aug. Rhyth. I.13.27: . . . utrum si quisquam mora unius horæ currat, et alius deinceps
duarum, possis non inspecto horologio vel clepsydra, vel aliqua hujuscemodi temporum
notatione sentire illos duos motus, quod unus simplus, alius duplus sit.
119 Aug. Conf. XI.11.13: temporibus numquam stantibus.
In Confessions XI.27.34, this ‘times’-formulation from XI.11.13 is reprised in

Augustine’s analysis of hearing the voice of a body (vox corporis)—Husserl’s
preferred analysis in the Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness,120
incidentally, though in those lectures corporeity is ‘reduced’ or methodologi-
cally deferred as a condition of the phenomenality of any tone (Ton). And to
give some indication of how Augustine’s proto-phenomenological operations
on vox are also, in this decisive regard, anti-phenomological, it suffices to
adduce a post-Confessions epistle in which he refers back to his early dialogue,
De Rhythmo (c. 388/9).121 In Epistle 101 (c. 408/9),122 Augustine observes that
“in all the movements of things (omnibus rerum motibus)”—we will of course
recall his formulation of motus omnis, at Confessions XI.23.29123—“the poten-
cies of number are most easily analyzed by way of voices (in vocibus).”124 This
sentence cannot, of course, be superimposed on the last paragraphs of
Augustine’s time-investigation, in which—for instance—there is no trace
of ‘the potencies of number’ per se. But the analytical transparency of vox in
Epistle 101, relative to ‘all the movements of things,’ is pertinent. It alerts us to
the fact that vox corporis has been selected as, and serves as, a privileged
instance of ‘the movements of things’ in Confessions XI, so that Augustine can
write offhandedly in XI.28.36 that “we traverse songs and verses . . . and the
dimensions of movements in thought, and report on spaces of times.”125 For as
120 Husserl 1971, 33–34: “Every tone itself has a temporal extension: with the actual sounding
I hear it as now. With its continued sounding, however, it has an ever new now, and
the tone actually preceding is changing into something past. . . . It begins and stops,
and the whole unity of its duration, the unity of the whole process in which it begins and
ends, ‘proceeds’ to the end in the ever more distant past.”
121 Zarb (1934, 87) dates Aug. Rhyth. to 387–390; Mutzenbecher (1984, xvii) to 388/90.
122 Cf. Marrou 1983, 580–83: “Les deux éditions du livre vie du De Musica.”
123 Aug. Conf. XI.23.29: cur enim non potius omnium corporum motus sint tempora?
124 Aug. Epist. 101.3: in omnibus rerum motibus, quid numeri valeant, facilius consideratur
in vocibus.
125 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: peragimus cogitando carmina et versus . . . motionumque dimensio-
nes quaslibet et de spatiis temporum . . . renuntiamus; cf. IV.16.30 (cit. Burton 2007, 78):
quidquid de arte loquendi et disserendi, quidquid de dimensionibus figurarum et de musi-
cis et de numeris . . .; X.12.19: continet memoria numerorum dimensionumque rationes et
leges innumerabiles; XI.24.31: et si quid aliud nostra dimensio sive comprehenderit sive
existimaverit, ut dici solet plus minus . . .
Cf. also Burton’s (2007, 78–79) remarks on dimensio and numerus in the Confessions,
which he takes to be linked to geometria and arithmetica respectively. As the preceding
references suggest, however—and the repetition of dimensio in Conf. XI, with a
clear reference to temporal mensuration—this link is not exclusive. It is not only the
282 chapter 13
we have seen in chapters 10 and 11, vox in Confessions XI is not originarily

regarded as a ‘phenomenon,’ but rather as a species of physical movement.
It is in light of this that we can return to Augustine as he turns, towards the
end of Confessions XI, to the temporal appearance of vox:
The voice of a body begins to sound and sounds and still sounds, and now
it ceases—and already there is silence, and that voice is past and is no
longer a voice. It was future before it sounded and could not be mea-
sured, because as-yet-it-was-not—and now it cannot be measured,
because it-no-longer-is. Thus, then when it was sounding it could be mea-
sured, because there was [still] then what-could-be-measured [viz.
praesens]. But even then it did not stand still, for it was going and passing-
away.
vox corporis incipit sonare et sonat et adhuc sonat, et ecce desinit,

iamque silentium est, et vox illa praeterita est et non est iam vox. futura
erat antequam sonaret, et non poterat metiri quia nondum erat, et nunc
non potest quia iam non est. tunc ergo poterat cum sonabat, quia tunc
erat quae metiri posset. sed et tunc non stabat; ibat enim et praeteribat.
(XI.27.34)
As suggested with motus omnis in Confessions XII.8.8, so with sensus at the end
of book XI: motus omnis and the sense-affective link to motus omnis, in prae-
sens tempus, ‘condition’ time-itself yet do not ‘found’ time-itself. Distentio
depends upon sensus carnis as contuitus, and thereby, is originarily and incom-
mutably linked to motus omnis. But this ‘objectivizing,’ constitutive link to
motus omnis proves an “uncanny anchoring.”126 The curse of the privileged
presence of the presence of present things is the curse of present-time as such:
sensation ‘proper,’ and presence ‘proper,’ and times ‘proper,’ never stand.
The sense of passing time—introduced at XI.16.21 and reprised at XI.21.27
and XI.26.33—has led Augustine into the ‘dilation’-analyses in XI.27–28. This
sensus is Augustine’s first and last hope for constituting a mora temporis and a
veracious spatium temporis on the order of praesens, sensu stricto (i.e. praesens
space of figures (geometria), but also the space of time, that is susceptible to measure, in
the Confessions.
126 Lyotard 2000, 73.
Cf. Verbeke’s (1958, 79) sentences on “la splendeur instable du monde corporel” in
Augustine.
as contuitus, praesens as praesens tempus). But in XI.27.34 this hope collapses.

Augustine’s immanentist analytic of vox temporalis as praesens, in this section,
reproduces and heightens his analytics of praesens tempus in XI.15.18–20: not
only is the condition of praesens tempus hyper-transitivity, but the condition
of (originary) temporal mensuration (as comparatio/conlatio) is temporal
impresence. That is to say, the sense of passing time (tempus praeteriens) fails,
in this paragraph, to constitute a space of time (spatium temporis), and thus,
the possibility of a rigorous temporal measure (certa mensura temporis),
because
(α) despite Augustine’s desperate gesture here—“while passing the

sound was extending into some space of time (spatium temporis)”
(XI.27.34)127—vox corporis nevertheless succumbs to the analytics
of praesens tempus; and
(β) despite Augustine’s naïve128 (and surely anticipatory) suggestion,
on introducing the sense of passing time, that “we sense (senti-
mus) intervals of times and we compare them with-themselves”
(XI.16.21),129 he here demonstrates that the duplex condition of orig-
inary temporal mensuration (comparatio/conlatio) is impresence.
Since “times never stand” (XI.11.13), not only is it impossible to measure a

temporal presence (as present-time) ‘with-itself’; and not only is it impossible
to measure a temporal presence (as present-time) with another temporal
presence; and not only is it impossible to measure one temporal presence
(as present-time) against a temporal impresence. Rather, the wholly unforgiv-
ing result of originary temporal mensuration, relative to the analytics of
praesens tempus and the sounding of a vox corporis in Confessions XI.27.34, is
this: only a past (and thus impresent) sound can be measured, and it can only
be measured against a past (and thus impresent) sound. A spectral proce-
dure—to measure impresence against impresence! Yet termination is the pre-
condition for temporal determination (in the mode of originary temporal
127 Aug. Conf. XI.27.34: . . . praeteriens enim tendebatur in aliquod spatium temporis quo
metiri posset, quoniam praesens nullum habet spatium.
128 And Aug. Rhyth. II.3.3 places it beyond all doubt, that this is a feigned naïvety: Num igitur
potest sibi una syllaba comparari? Nam omnem comparationem, nisi tu aliud putes, singu-
laritas fugit.
129 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: sentimus intervalla temporum et comparamus sibimet.
284 chapter 13
comparatio), and “when [a voice] has ended”—that is, can be measured—“it-

no-longer-is”—that is, cannot be measured as presence.130
The sense of passing time is not, because of this, denied as an originary sen-
sation; and the sense of passing time is not, because of this, eliminated from
the temporal analyses which follow; and the sense of passing time is not,
because of this, rejected as (possibly) constituting, simpliciter, the originary
sensation of indeterminate ‘intervals of times’ (intervalla temporum). Yet in
the last sentence of XI.27.34, the sense of passing time (tempus praeteriens)
is declared powerless—precisely because of its exclusive link to present-time—
to constitute a certa mensura of time, and a veracious space of time:
Thus we measure neither future times nor past times nor present times
nor passing times—and yet we measure times.
nec futura ergo nec praeterita nec praesentia nec praetereuntia tempora
metimur, et metimur tamen tempora. (XI.27.34)
In this last sentence of XI.27.34, the ‘improper’—yet co-originary—sense of

‘times’ and ‘presence’ that surfaced in XI.20.26 resurfaces, though this
‘improper’ sense is not yet decisive.
Rather, in Confessions XI.27.35, it is initially sensus that is prominent. The
veracity of temporal mensuration that distentio achieves here and illuminates
is linked to and depends upon sensus’ tracking the hyper-transitivity of prae-
sens tempus (← motus omnis), but it also depends upon sensus’ veracious ‘infix-
ion’ (infigere) of praesens tempus (as tempus praeteriens) in the imaginal
‘impresence’ of memoria. The condition for this ‘infixion’ is of course not intel-
lectus or mens, but anima-animus as vita corporis (see 11.2). Distentio is assigned
to the animus in the sense of animus that denotes a sub-phenomenal haerere
to the body for humans and beasts (see 8.2), and in the sense that gives rise to
memoria (as a quasi-foris) for humans and beasts (see 8.3). As Augustine writes
in De Rhythmo VI: “To each living thing (animanti) . . . is given a sense of
130 Aug. Conf. XI.27.34: cum autem finita fuerit, iam non erit.
Augustine appends this new finding to his previous analytics of praesens tempus, in
Conf. XI.27.34: et metimur tamen tempora, nec ea quae nondum sunt [= futurum tempus],
nec ea quae iam non sunt [= praeteritum tempus], nec ea quae nulla mora extenduntur
[= praesens tempus], nec ea quae terminos non habent [= tempus praeteriens].
positions and times (sensus locorum temporumque).”131 Distentio is merely the

term Augustine selects to designate a ‘sense of times’ in the human animus.
13.6 “The Verse Is Sensed by a Clear Sensation” (Conf. XI.27)
Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm.132 Augustine is an old hand at quantitative analysis, and

compared to the array of secular verse he deconstructs and reconstructs in
books I to V of De Rhythmo,133 this line, which he also analyzes in De Rhythmo
VI, is simple.134 The simplicity of Ambrose’s metre increases its usefulness,
however: this foot produces a highly regular effect on what Cicero calls “the
ear’s measure” (aurium mensura).135
131 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. VI.7: “To each living thing in its own species (unicuique animanti in genere
proprio), in its proportion to the totality, is given a sense of positions and times (sensus
locorum temporumque), so that . . . its age is determined in proportion to the totality of
age (universi saeculi), whose part it is”; Arist. Gen.corr. 2.10 (336b): “The time-spans, i.e.
the lives (καὶ οἱ χρόνοι καὶ οἱ βίοι) of each (ἑκάστων) kind of living thing have a number, and
are thereby distinguished. For there is an order for everything (πάντων γάρ ἐστι τάξις),
and every life and time-span is measured by a period (καὶ πᾶς βίος καὶ χρόνος μετρεῖται
περιόδῳ), though this is not the same for all: some are measured by a shorter (ἐλάττονι),
some by a longer (πλείονι) period.”
132 Diacritics here per O’Donnell 1992, III:293.
Cf. Aug. Conf. IX.6.14: munera tua tibi confiteor, domine deus meus, creator omnium;
IX.12.32: recordatus sum veridicos versus Ambrosii tui. tu es enim, deus, creator
omnium; X.34.52: cum autem et de ipsa laudare te norunt, deus creator omnium, adsu-
munt eam in hymno tuo.
133 Cf. Marrou 1983, 580–81: “les vers cités en exemple par les livres II–V [of Aug. Rhyth.] sont
empruntés à des auteurs classiques païens, Catulle, Horace, Virgile, ou au manuel scolaire
de Terentianus le Maure; le seul exemple utilisé par le livre VI est un vers de saint
Ambrose . . . Deus Creator omnium.”
134 Aug. Rhyth. VI.2.2: deus creator omnium, istos quatuor iambos quibus constat, et tempora
duodecim ubinam esse arbitreris, id est, in sono tantum qui auditur, an etiam in sensu
audientis qui ad aures pertinet, an in actu etiam pronuntiantis, an quia notus versus est,
in memoria quoque nostra hos numeros esse fatendum est?
135 Cic. Orat. III.47.183: . . . aurium mensura, quod est acrius iudicium et certius; cf. Part. 6.18:
Numeros [i.e. rhythmic quantities and periods] aures ipsae metiuntur . . .
Cf. also Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.116: Optime autem de illa iudicant aures, quae plena
sentiunt et parum expleta desiderant . . . ; IX.4.118: Iam vero spatia ipsa, quae in hace qui-
dem parte plurimum valent, quod possunt nisi aurium habere iudicium?
286 chapter 13
But regardless, here—as in his analytics of praesens tempus—it is not the

complexity of the metric that determines the validity of Augustine’s reflection.
Thus, he proceeds:
This verse of eight syllables alternates between short and long syllables . . .
I recite them and report on them and so it is, insofar as the verse is sensed
by a clear sensation. Insofar as the sensation is clear, I measure the long
syllables by the short and I sense that the long is twice as long as the
short.136
versus iste octo syllabarum brevibus et longis alternat syllabis . . . pronun-

tio et renuntio, et ita est quantum sentitur sensu manifesto. quantum sen-
sus manifestus est, brevi syllaba longam metior eamque sentio habere bis
tantum. (XI.27.35)137
This is no ‘idealist’ procedure, and this is no strictly ‘phenomenological’ proce-

dure: the constitution of a veracious measure of time-itself commences, here,
with sensus. While the definite quantum of a space of time may not be phe-
nomenally originary—it is preceded, recall, in Confessions XI.15–16 by the
indeterminate sensation of a ‘lapse’ or ‘interval of time’—yet the quantum in
originary temporal mensuration is originarily disclosed to sensus.
Augustine will not retreat from this finding, and in this finding, he is pre-
ceded, not by Plotinus’ esoteric tractate on eternity and time, but by a ‘sensual-
ist’ commonplace in the rhetorical treatises of Cicero—indeed, by a
commonplace that originates, at the very latest, with Aristotle’s protégé,
Aristoxenus.138 A rapid glance at this ‘sensualist’ notion of originary temporal
mensuration in antiquity—i.e. of the opinion that rudimentary time-intervals
are disclosed to sensus—should suffice to establish the provenance of
Augustine’s manouevres in Confessions XI.27.35.
For while interpretations of time in Confessions XI typically refer us to the
unidentified, Latinized libri Platonicorum that Augustine had on hand in Milan
in Confessions VII; Augustine also recounts, in Confessions IV, his impressions
of a Latin translation of Aristotle’s Categories that he obtained in Carthage in
136 Note that Augustine simplifies the syllabic time-quanta here: Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.84;
Mar. Gramm. 5.1–26.
Also, I am very grateful to Gerard O’Daly and Ann Douglas Enghauser for advising me
on the translation of these sentences.
137 Cf. Isid. Etym. I.16.1–2, I.17.1, I.18.4.
138 Aristoxenus’ connexion to Aristotle is remarked at, for instance, Cic. Tusc. I.18.41.
374 or 375.139 Significantly, this fixes the Categories140 as the only Aristotelian
work that we can be certain Augustine analyzed and discussed.141 (We will
recall, from 9.5, that Augustine appears to make use of the Categories—
apropos of time—at the end of Confessions XII.) And no less significantly,
in the Categories—like Augustine in Confessions XI, but unlike Plotinus in
Enneads III.7—Aristotle links quantitative enunciation to temporal mensura-
tion and indeed, to his time-concept as such.142 It is therefore from this
Aristotelian text, and then by way of Aristoxenus’ Elementa Rhythmica (which
Augustine may well have seen excerpted),143 that we can arrive at Cicero (with
whose rhetorical treatises, “it goes without saying,” Augustine was thoroughly
acquainted),144 and finally, at Quintilian (with whose Institutio Oratoria it is
“not unlikely” Augustine was acquainted).145
139 Aug. Conf. IV.16.28: et quid mihi proderat quod annos natus ferme viginti, cum in manus
meas venissent aristotelica quaedam, quas appellant decem categorias (quarum nomine,
cum eas rhetor Carthaginiensis, magister meus, buccis typho crepantibus commemoraret
et alii qui docti habebantur, tamquam in nescio quid magnum et divinum suspensus
inhiabam), legi eas solus et intellexi?
140 Or possibly—I am sceptical—the Paraphrasis Themistiana. Cf. Carter 2011, 317 n. 52: “The
possibility that Augustine had on hand Marius Victorinus’s complete translation of
Aristotle’s [Categories] cannot be . . . ruled out. [It has nevertheless been claimed] that the
text used by Augustine is identical to the received Paraphrasis Themistiana (Pseudo-
Augustini Categoriae decem), which may be reliably traced back to either a paraphrase of
Aristotle’s work penned by one of Themistius’ circle, or possibly a certain Albinus, men-
tioned by Boethius in his commentaries on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione.”
141 Aug. Conf. IV.16.28: quas cum contulissem cum eis qui se dicebant vix eas magistris eru-
ditissimis, non loquentibus tantum sed multa in pulvere depingentibus, intellexisse, nihil
inde aliud mihi dicere potuerunt quam ego solus apud me ipsum legens cognoveram.
142 This is missed by Stock (1996, 234), for instance: “[Augustine’s] arguments concerning
time can be compared with those of Aristotle’s Physics 4.1–14 [sic], Plotinus’ Enneads 3.7
(45), and Stoic views; however, there is no parallel in earlier discussions for his combina-
tion of the everyday experience of time with the temporal relations of speaking.”
As I will briefly demonstrate here, there is a ‘parallel in earlier discussions for
[Augustine’s] combination of the everyday experience of time with the temporal rela-
tions of speaking’: one that dates back to Aristotle’s Categories.
143 At very least, Augustine would have been alerted to Aristoxenus’ importance by Cic. Tusc.
I.10.19–20, I.18.41, etc.
144 Hagendahl 1967, 553.
145 Hagendahl 1967, 676: “The question of whether he knew Quintilian [still results in] . . . a
non liquet. . . . It seems to me to be not unlikely that he had some reminiscences of the
institutio oratoria.”
288 chapter 13
Aristotle’s Categories
In Aristotle’s Categories, as in his Physics, time is continuous.146 Aristotle states
this several ways in the Categories, but perhaps most forcefully in this way:
“Present-time (νῦν χρόνος) is continuously linked (συνάπτει) to past and future-
time.”147 This continuity is conceived in the Categories—as in Confessions XI—
as a hyper-transitivity: “For no part of time (χρόνου μορίων) endures or remains
(ὑπομένει).”148 Yet temporal continuity and hyper-transitivity, per se, by no
means provide Aristotle with a sufficient condition for originary temporal
mensuration. For that, temporal discontinuity and dimension are also required,
and in the Categories, temporal discontinuity is provided, indifferently, by
number (ἀριθμός) and by speech (λόγος).149 Whereas Aristotle deploys number
in Physics IV, in the Categories he selects speech. And the hyper-transitivity of
Aristotle’s χρόνος, of course, also obtains for his discontinuous λόγος: “For none
of the parts (μορίων) of speech endures or remains (ὑπομένει); pronounce
them, and they are gone.”150
This notwithstanding, it is temporally regulated enunciation that Aristotle
adduces as a privileged instance of the discontinuity and primitive durativity
that possibilize originary temporal mensuration, with Aristotle writing:
Speech is a manifest, a disclosed quantum or expanse [of time] (ποσόν

ἐστιν ὁ λόγος, φανερόν), inasmuch as it is being measured (καταμετρεῖται)
in long and short syllables . . . whose parts (μόρια) are not continuously
linked (συνάπτει) by a common boundary.151
146 Arist. Cat. VI (4b): “Of quantities that are continuous (συνεχὲς) [we may here instance]
line, superficies and body, to which time and place (χρόνος καὶ τόπος) may be added.”
Cf. Boeth. In Cat. II: Continuo vera, ut linea, superficies, corpus. Amplius autem et præter
hæc est tempus et locus.
147 Arist. Cat. VI (5a). Cf. Boeth. In Cat. II: præsens enim tempus et præteritum et futurum
copulat.
148 Arist. Cat. VI (5a). Cf. Boeth. In Cat. II: Sed neque illæ quæ temporis sunt, non enim
permanent particulæ temporis, quod autem non est permanens . . .
149 Arist. Cat. VI (4b): “Thus number is discontinuous, and the same may be said about
speech.” Cf. Boeth. In Cat. II: Quapropter numerus quidem discretorum est, similiter
autem et oratio discretorum est.
150 Arist. Cat. VI (5a). Cf. Boeth. In Cat. II: Sed et oratio similiter, non enim permanent
particulæ ejus, sed et dictum est et non amplius sumi hoc . . .
151 Arist. Cat. VI (4b).
Now, it is likely that Augustine examined this passage of the Categories in

the late 4th century, in Latin translation, before he wrote Confessions XI at the
turn of the 5th century. And how might this Aristotelian passage have appeared
in Augustine’s unidentifiable152 Latin copy of the Categories?153 A rough idea
can perhaps be gathered from Boethius’ early 6th-century Categories commen-
tary, in which Boethius translates the above sentences in this way:
Quod autem oratio [i] quantitas sit manifestum est, [ii] mensuratur enim
[iii] syllaba brevi et longa . . . ad nullum enim communem terminum par-
ticulæ ejus copulantur.154
Boethius’ Latin Categories preserves for us, here, a (post-Augustinian) time-

formulation which is close, lexically, to Augustine’s in Confessions XI:
[i] quantum sensus manifestus est, [iii] brevi syllaba longam [ii] metior
eamque sentio habere bis tantum. (XI.27.35)
The resemblances are suggestive, albeit associative. When we range

Aristotle’s (post-Augustinian) Latin clause, ‘quantitas sit manifestum est,’
beside Augustine’s pivotal phrase, ‘quantum sensus manifestus est,’ however,
we notice that Augustine’s sensus remains unstated in Aristotle’s Categories.
And it is for this disclosive condition—Augustine’s sensus, Aristotle’s αἴσθησις—
that we can turn from Aristotle to his protégé, Aristoxenus.
152 Cf. Minio-Paluello 1945, 65–68; O’Donnell 1992, II:265.

153 It is neither my intent nor my desire here to affect, much less decide, the question of
whether Augustine had access to a Latin translation of Aristotle’s Categories (possibly
Varro’s, possibly Marius Victorinus’) or rather to a paraphrase (possibly the Paraphrasis
Themistiana); and in any event, that question could not be decided by Boethius’
6th-century translation of the Categories.
Nevertheless, since that question is as yet undecided; since neither Varro’s nor Marius
Victorinus’ (reported) translations of Aristotle’s Categories is still extant; since the
Paraphrasis Themistiana yields no particularly illuminating parallels to Augustine’s time-
investigation in Conf. XI; and since—to my awareness—there has been no recourse to
Boethius’ translation of Aristotle’s Categories to help clarify the sense and provenance of
Augustine’s time-investigation: the ‘rough idea’ I present, here, of a (credible) relevance
of Aristotle’s Latinized Categories to Augustine’s Confessions XI, seems justified.
154 Boeth. In Cat. II.
290 chapter 13
Aristoxenus’ Elementa Rhythmica

Aristoxenus opens book II of his Elementa Rhythmica by stating that “rhythm is
concerned with times (τοὺς χρόνους) and the sensation (αἴσθησιν) of times.”155
As Augustine appeals to simplex, duplex and triplex ‘times’ in Confessions XI156
to establish a primitive metric of temporal quanta—a metric that is not so
much as alluded to in Plotinus, Enneads III.7—so Aristoxenus assigns “the
term ‘primary (πρῶτος) time-length’ ” to a “time-length that cannot be further
subdivided,” then “‘diseme’ (δίσημος) to that which measures twice as long,”
and so on.157 And what fixes a limit to Aristoxenus’ primary time-length? It is a
“time-length which is too short to contain even . . . two syllables (μήτε δύο
ξυλλαβαί).”158 (Augustine appears to invoke to this Aristoxenan definition in
De Rhythmo II.)159 And how is this corpuscular time-length ‘disclosed’?
155 Ar. Rhyth. II.2.

156 Aug. Conf. XI.16.21: metimur etiam quanto sit longius aut brevius illud tempus quam
esse quantum illud; XI.21.27: neque enim dicimus simpla et dupla et tripla et aequalia, et
si quid hoc modo in tempore dicimus nisi spatia temporum; XI.24.31: nam si et varie cor-
pus aliquando movetur, aliquando stat, non solum motum eius sed etiam statum tempore
metimur et dicimus . . . “duplo vel triplo stetit ad id quod motum est” et si quid aliud nostra
dimensio sive comprehenderit sive existimaverit, ut dici solet plus minus.
Cf. Aug. Rhyth. II.3.3: . . . ita in syllabis, qua scilicet a brevi ad longam progredimur,
longam duplum temporis habere debere: ac per hoc si spatium quod brevis occupat, recte
unum tempus vocatur; spatium item quod longa occupat, recte duo tempora nominari.
158 Cf. Cens. Frag. XI: [unum] tempus est syllabae spatium, huius elementum brevis
syllaba.
159 Aug. Rhyth. II.3.3: Non absurde igitur hoc in tempore quasi minimum spatii, quod brevis
obtinet syllaba, unum tempus veteres [Aristoxenus?] vocaverunt.
In the notes to his translation of Augustine’s De Musica (i.e. De Rhythmo),
R.C. Taliaferro is less hesitant: “This [Rhyth. II.3.3] refers to the doctrine of the prótos
chrónos, or primary time, of Aristoxenus.”
Apropos of the temporal ‘minimum’ in Rhyth. II, cf. Aug. Rhyth. II.1.1: Age iam, saltem
illud eloquere, utrum tu ipse per te numquam animadverteris in locutione nostra alias
syllabas raptim et minime diu, alias autem productius et diutius enuntiari; II.3.3: Rursus
hoc vide, quamlibet syllabam brevem minimeque diu pronuntiatam, et mox ut eruperit
desinentem, occupare tamen in tempore aliquid spatii, et habere quamdam morulam suam.
For other references to ‘the ancients’ in Rhyth. II, cf. Aug. Rhyth. II.4.4: Atqui scias,
veteres pedem nuncupasse talem collationem sonorum; II.7.14: . . . nam si auctoritatem
solam intueamur, is erit versus, quem versum dici voluit Asclepiades nescio qui, aut
Archilochus, poetae scilicet veteres, aut Sappho poetria, et caeteri; II.11.21: Atqui scias vet-
eres miscendos iudicasse istos pedes, et horum mixtione versus compositos con-
What Aristoxenus simply calls “one time” (ἑνὸς χρόνου),160 and Marius
Victorinus161 and Augustine still call “one time” (unum tempus),162 is—per
Aristoxenus—“one of the appearances (φαινομένοων) that presents itself very
readily to our senses (αἰσθήσει),” particularly when observing “movements of
the voice (φονὴ κινεῖται) in speaking or singing, and of the body in its gestures
(σῶμα σημαῖνόν).”163 Or again: “Sensation or sense-perception (αἴσθησις) will rec-
ognize this time-length.”164
Thus, Aristoxenan ‘rhythm’ is a science by which we “make [time-lengths]
perceptible to the senses” (γνόριμον ποιοῦμεν τῇ αἰσθήσει),165 while Aristoxenus—
like Quintilian and Augustine166—holds that “the same [principle] clearly
obtains for syllables (ξυλλαβῶν) and for bodily signals.”167 And hereby,
didisse . . . Quid ergo dubitamus consentire veteribus non eorum auctoritate, sed ipsa iam
ratione victi . . .?
161 Mar. Gramm. 5.26: In brevi syllaba tempus est unum, quia nihil morarum illic vox facit.
In longa autem duo sunt, quia bis tantum quantum in brevi <in> eadem vox detinetur.
162 With Augustine, perhaps, citing Aristoxenus on just this point: see again, Aug. Rhyth.
II.3.3: Non absurde igitur hoc in tempore quasi minimum spatii, quod brevis obtinet
syllaba, unum tempus veteres vocaverunt.
Cf. also, Aug. Rhyth. II.3.3: . . . ita in syllabis, qua scilicet a brevi ad longam progre-
dimur, longam duplum temporis habere debere: ac per hoc si spatium quod brevis occu-
pat, recte unum tempus vocatur; spatium item quod longa occupat, recte duo tempora
nominari; II.4.4: . . . siquidem in ea simplum ad duplum collatum esse video, id est unum
tempus brevis syllabae ad duo tempora longae syllabae; II.4.5: . . . nam cum syllabae hunc
modum acceperint, ut brevis unum tempus, longa duo habeat, cumque syllaba omnis aut
brevis aut longa sit; etc.
166 Cf. Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.139: Atqui corporis quoque motui sunt sua quaedam tempora et
ad signandos pedes non minus saltationi quam modulationibus adhibetur musica ratio
numerorum; Aug. Rhyth. I.13.27: Quid, si quispiam numerose plaudat, ita ut unus sonitus
simplum, alter dumplum temporis teneat, quos iambos pedes vocant, eosque continuet
atque contexat; alius autem ad eumdem sonum saltet, secundum ea scilicet tempora mov-
ens membra? nonne aut etiam dicas ipsum modulum temporum, id est quod simplum ad
duplum spatia in motibus alternent, sive in illo plausu qui auditur, sive in illa saltatione
quæ cernitur; aut saltem delecteris numerositate quam sentias, tametsi non possis
numeros ejus dimensionis edicere? . . . illi qui hos numeros noverunt, sentiunt eos in
plausu atque saltatione; VI.9.24: . . . et ‘sonantium’ nomen mutandum putem, quoniam si
‘corporales’ vocentur, manifestius significabunt etiam illos qui sunt in saltatione, et in
cætero motu visibili.
292 chapter 13
I suggest, Aristoxenus identifies αἴσθησις—i.e. sensus—as the disclosive condi-

tion for Aristotle’s ‘manifest quantum or expanse’ of enunciative time in the
Categories.
Cicero’s Orator, etc.

Cicero takes over this sensualist, Aristoxenan condition of primitive time-
lengths in his Latin rhetorical treatises. For instance, in those pages of the
Orator that treat “the numbering and measuring of syllables,”168 Cicero at first
indiscriminately assigns “some natural capacity for measuring all sounds
(vocum omnium mensionem)” to the ear-itself or to the soul (aures ipsae . . . vel
animus).169 It is because of this natural capacity that our auris/animus “judges
(iudicat) . . . longer and shorter syllables,” “expects” (exspectat) the finish
of a metrical period,170 and “senses” (sentit) when a metre has been interrupted
or distorted.171 And whatever precise inflection Cicero’s animus may have
in these pages, it is certainly not reason (ratio), since he specifies that primitive
time-metrics are “not recognized by reason (ratione), but by nature and sensa-
tion (natura atque sensu).”172 (In De Rhythmo IV—as in De Rhythmo I:
see 8.4—Augustine seems to recollect and approve this clarification in the
Orator.)173 Cicero can thus later subsume auris and animus under the single
term, sensus. “It is sensation (sensus),” he writes, that “judges” (iudicat) primi-
tive time-intervals.174
168 Cic. Or. 43.147: . . . de syllabis propemodum dinumerandis et demetiendis loquemur.

169 Cic. Or. 53.177: . . . cum animos hominum aurisque pepulisset . . . Aures ipsae enim vel ani-
mus aurium nuntio naturalem quandam in se continet vocum omnium mensionem.
Itaque et longiora et breviora iudicat et perfecta ac moderata semper exspectat . . .
170 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. IV.2.3: Non enim frustra sensus offenditur, cum omnium syllabarum nullo
interposito silentio tempora singula exspectat . . .
171 Cic. Or. 53.178: Itaque et longiora et breviora iudicat et perfecta ac moderata semper
exspectat; mutila sentit quaedam et quasi decurtata . . .
172 Cic. Or. 55.183: Neque enim ipse versus ratione est cognitus, sed natura atque sensu,
quem dimensa ratio docuit quid acciderit; cf. 41.173: et tamen omnium longitudinem et
brevitatem in sonis sicut acutarum graviumque vocum iudicium ipsa natura in auribus
nostris collacavit; 60.203: quorum modum notat ars, sed aures ipsae tacito eum sensu sine
arte definiunt.
173 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. IV.16.30: Ita enim naturali et communi sensu judicarent, quid disciplinæ
norma præscriberet; VI.2.3: Idipsum ergo quidquid est, quo aut annuimus aut abhorre-
mus, non ratione sed natura, cum aliquid sonat, ipsius sensus numerum voco.
174 Cic. Or. 55.183: Iudicat enim sensus; in quo est inicum quod accidit non agnoscere, si cur
id accidat reperire nequeamus; cf. 56.187: . . . intervallorum longorum et brevium.
Similarly, in his De Rhythmo, Augustine appeals more than once to the

“judgement of sense” (iudicium sensus) of his protégé,175 and assigns the term
‘sensual’ (sensuales) to the highest genus of time-number which is not immor-
tal, i.e. which is not apprehended by reason,176 in the specific instance of one
singing Ambrose’s hymn, Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm.177 Augustine’s ‘sensual’ time-
numbers, at De Rhythmo VI.9.23–24, have until this point in the dialogue been
called ‘judicial’ time-numbers. He here determines, however, that they are
‘mortal’—and thus, ‘sensual.’ Under his sensual time-numbers, Augustine
ranks corporeal, perceptual, memorial and processual time-numbers—
i.e. the time-numbers of physical motus, of present-temporal sensus, of reten-
tive memoria, and of protentive expectatio.178 The entire procedure of enunci-
ating the temporally pre-regulated line, Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm, is thus—
And in light of the fact that Augustine disputes Cicero’s De Finibus with Alypius and
Nebridius in Milan, and cites the work at Conf. VI.16.26 (et disputabam cum amicis meis
Alypio et Nebridio de finibus bonorum et malorum), compare:
(i) Cic. Fin. II.36: quid iudicant [or: iudicat] sensus? dulce amarum, leve asperum,
prope longe, stare movere, quadratum rotundum.
(ii) Aug. Quant.anim. 33.71: Intendit se anima in tactum, et eo calida, frigida, aspera,
lenia, dura, mollia, levia, gravia sentit atque discernit. Deinde innumerabiles dif-
ferentias saporum, odorum, sonorum, formarum, gustando, olfaciendo, audiendo
videndoque diiudicat. Atque in iis omnibus ea quae secundum naturam sui coporis
sunt, adsciscit atque appetit; reiicit fugitque contraria. Removet se ab his sensibus
certo intervallo temporum, et eorum motus quasi per quasdam ferias reparans,
imagines rerum quas per eos hausit, secum catervatim et multipliciter versat, et hoc
totum est somnus et somnia.
175 Aug. Rhyth. II.12.22: Verumtamen et in iis quatuor requiro iudicium sensus tui;
VI.7.17: . . . versum pronuntio, num offendo ulla fraude iudicium sensus tui?
Cf. Rhyth. II.12.23: Nam pro omni pede sex temporum, omnem pedem sex temporum
poni posse, ita sensu interrogato iudices licet . . . Contexe igitur ista omnia atque pronuntia,
vel me potius pronuntiante accipe, quo ad iudicandum liberior sensus vacet; IV.16.30: Ita
enim naturali et communi sensu iudicarent, quid disciplinae norma praescriberet.
Cf. Also Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.61: . . . aures continuam vocem secutae ductaeque velut
prono decurrentis orationis flumine tum magis iudicant, cum ille impetus stetit et intu-
endi tempus dedit.
176 Aug. Rhyth. VI.9.24: Jam nunc, si placet, illi qui nobis subrepserant ad principatum
obtinendum, sensuales nominentur, et judicialium nomen, quoniam est honoratius . . .
177 Aug. Rhyth. VI.9.23: Sed ego puto cum ille a nobis propositus versus canitur: “Deus cre-
ator omnium” . . .
178 Aug. Rhyth. VI.9.23: Sed ego puto cum ille a nobis propositus versus canitur: “Deus cre-
ator omnium”; nos eum et occursoribus illis numeris audire, et recordabilibus recognos-
cere, et progressoribus pronuntiare, et his judicialibus delectari, et nescio quibus aliis
aestimare . . .
294 chapter 13
in Augustine’s De Rhythmo VI, at least—a ‘sensual’ procedure. (Incidentally,

this is in line with his allusion to numerus sensibilis, as opposed to numerus
intellegibilis—i.e. ‘immortal number’—in Epistle 3,179 which Augustine wrote
in 386.)180 And since retention-memoria and protention-expectatio are express
In Rhyth. VI.9.24, Augustine revises this list in several, crucial ways: (α) he places (his
re-named) ‘corporeal’ time-numbers (corporales) below the ‘perceptual’ time-numbers
(occursoribus) of VI.9.23; (β) he re-designates the ‘judicial’ time-numbers (iudicialibus) of
VI.9.23 as ‘sensual’ time-numbers (sensuales); and (γ) he designates the “I do not know
what other” time-numbers (nescio quibus aliis) of VI.9.23 as ‘judicial’ time-numbers
(iudicialium).
Thus, per Aug. Rhyth. VI.9.23–24, the quantitative enunciation of Ambrose’s line—
revisited in Conf. XI.17.35—necessarily involves these five, and only these five, modes of
time-number:
(i) corporeal time-numbers: the numerosity intrinsic to physical motus;
(ii) perceptual time-numbers: the singularity intrinsic to praesens tempus in
sensus;
(iii) memorial time-numbers: the retentive contintuity (memoria as recordatio) nec-
essary to utter any syllable, however short, much less a metric line (cf. Aug. Rhyth.
VI.8.21);
(iv) processual time-numbers: the protentive capacity (expectatio) necessary to
utter any syllable, much less a metrically pre-distributed line;
(v) sensual time-numbers: the sense-affective capacity to take pleasure or ‘offense’
in the distribution of time-intervals (quod fit in delectatione convenientiæ, et
offensione absurditatis talium motionum sive affectionum, Aug. Rhyth. VI.9.24).
All of this, Augustine stipulates, is ‘sensual.’ It is only a formal-metaphysical aestimatio of
the pleasure (or offence) that is taken in time-intervals—in a word, ‘axiological’ time-
analysis—that is attributed to ‘reason’ here (et aliud est æstimare utrum recte an secus
ista delectent, quod fit ratiocinando, Aug. Rhyth. VI.9.24). The remainder of Rhyth. VI is,
in large part, devoted to precisely such an ‘axiological’ time-analysis. But it is Augustine’s
sensualist time-analysis—which culminates in his Rhyth., as in his Conf., with Ambrose’s
verse—that has been elaborated in books I to V of the Rhyth., and indeed, in the first half
of book VI.
179 Aug. Epist. 3.2 is a very pertinent passage, in which Augustine contrasts “sensible num-
ber” (sensibilis numerus), by which he means the spatial—or, for us here, the temporal—
“quantity of bodies or of parts of bodies” (sensibilis numerus [est] corporeorum vel
corporum quantitas)—and “intelligible number” (numerus intellegibilis), which (so
Augustine suggests, crediting the idea to Alypius) is susceptible to a positive, but not a
negative infinity; whereas ‘sensible number’ is susceptible to a negative, but not a positive
infinity. It is less the precise difference of numerus intellegibilis and numerus sensibilis in
Epist. 3, than the fact of this difference that is of interest to us, since this is the crucial
distinction in Aug. Rhyth. VI.
180 Divjak 2002, 1028.
conditions of possibility of this ‘sensual’ enunciative procedure,181 it is no great

liberty to claim a ‘distentio sensuum,’ and a ‘sensualist’ time-concept, for the
De Rhythmo.
Nor is it any great liberty to suggest that it is an Aristoxenan-Ciceronian182
iudicium sensus—possibly traceable to Augustine’s exposure, in Carthage, to
Aristotle’s Latin Categories—that he relies on when he returns, in Confessions
XI.27.35, to Ambrose’s short verse, Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm,183 and concludes:
“I confidently report that, insofar as trust can be placed in a practiced sense
(quantum exercitato sensu fiditur),184 this syllable is simplex, that duplex, in
terms of the space of time (in spatio scilicet temporis).”185 These primitive—
and impresent—‘spaces of time’ are here, as in De Rhythmo VI, ‘sensual.’ That is
to say, the hyper-minimal—and impresent—‘spaces of time’ in Latin quantita-
tive enunciation are disclosed to sensus, “insofar as the sensation is clear”
(quantum sensus manifestus est, XI.27.35).
Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria

On the question of Augustine’s exposure to Quintilian, Harald Hagendahl
“abides by a non liquet,” though it remains “not unlikely that he had some remi-
niscences of the Institutio Oratoria.”186 With the question of direct influence
mooted, the rôle of sensus in Quintilian is in any case indicative of the Latin
rhetorical culture within which Augustine was formed.
181 Already at Aug. Imm.anim. 3.3.

182 Which is not to say that contradictory—or superficially contradictory—passages on sen-
sus and iudicium, in Cicero and Augustine, could not be adduced. Cf. for instance, Cic.
Tusc. I.20.46: Quid? quod eadem mente res dissimillimas comprehendimus, ut colorem,
saporem, calorem, odorem, sonum? quae numquam quinque nuntiis animus cognos-
ceret, nisi ad eum omnia referrentur et is omnium iudex solus esset.
183 Aug. Conf. XI.27.35: “deus creator omnium”: versus iste octo syllabarum brevibus et longis
alternat syllabis . . .
184 Cf. exercitatus sensus here and stilus exercitatus at Cic. Or. 44.150: “A practiced stilus (sti-
lus exercitatus) will nevertheless readily find the [desirable] method of composition. For
as the eye looks ahead in reading so in speaking the soul will foresee what is to follow (ut in
legendi oculus sic animus in dicendo prospiciet quid sequatur), so that the linking of your
final syllables (extremorum verborum) with your initial ones may not cause harsh or
‘gaping’ sounds (voces).”
185 Aug. Conf. XI.27.35: . . . fidenterque respondeo, quantum exercitato sensu fiditur, illam
simplam esse, illam duplam, in spatio scilicet temporis.
186 Hagendahl 1967, 676.
296 chapter 13
Quintilian addresses rhythm in book IX of the Institutio Oratoria, and he

appeals—like Cicero—to “the ear’s measure” (aurium mensura),187 as well as
to “the judgement of the ear” (aurium . . . iudicium),188 to determine the ‘space’
of syllabic and periodic time-intervals:
No one would doubt that poetry has its origins in some natural impulse
(impetu), and was generated by the ear’s measure (aurium mensura)
and . . . by the observation of spaces of time (spatiorum observatione).189
Regarding the laws of rhythmic intervals, of course, it is not sensus that

can judge—for Cicero, Quintilian, or Augustine. But regarding primitive
time-intervals themselves, says Quintilian:
The finest judge of those is the ear (optime . . . de illa iudicant aures), which
senses (sentient) a fullness or lack of rhythm. . . . And moreover, with
regard to such spaces of time themselves (spatia ipsa)—which are of such
importance where rhythm is concerned—what could render judgement
if not the ear (quod possunt nisi aurium habere iudicium)?
Thus, for Quintilian,190 as for Cicero and Augustine,191 versification originates

in sensus, not ratio. Moreover, Quintilian accedes that there are rhythmic mat-
ters that ratio cannot elucidate, but sensus can dictate:
Perhaps I cannot offer a reason (rationem), yet I sense (sentiam) that this
is better (melius). . . . Therefore, such questions must be referred back to
sensation (ad sensum . . . referenda sunt).192
In Confessions XI.27.35, this is precisely what we witness: the time-rhythm

of Ambrose’s verse is ‘referred back,’ by Augustine, ‘to sensation’ (ad sensum),
precisely because time-rhythm originates in sensation.
187 Cf. Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.114: aurium mensura; Cic. Orat. III.47.183: aurium mensura.
188 Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.118: aurium . . . iudicium.
189 Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.114.
191 Cf. Cic. Or. 41.173, 55.183, 60.203; Aug. Rhyth. IV.16.30, VI.2.3.
13.7 “Something Remains Infixed in My Memory” (Conf. XI.27)
It is astonishing that the rhetorico-philosophical provenance of Augustine’s

repeated (if slightly varied) phrase, ‘sensus manifestus est,’ in this cresting
paragraph of the time-investigation, has not been registered in the literature.
But regardless of influences, Augustine here—momentarily—relies on the
sense of passing time to itself constitute a space of time. That is to say, this
sensus is not immediately subjected to the corrosive analytics of praesens
tempus.
The reprieve is nevertheless very brief, since Augustine proceeds: “I measure
a long syllable by a short syllable,” and
[a syllable’s] determination is its termination—thus what is it that I mea-

sure? . . . Both have sounded, both have vanished, have passed-into-the-
past and no-longer-are—and still I measure . . . nor could I do this unless
they had terminated and become determinate. So it is not the syllables
themselves (which no-longer-are) that I measure, but something that
remains infixed in my memory.
eius autem finitio praeteritio est: quid ergo est quod metior? . . . ambae
sonuerunt, avolaverunt, praeterierunt, iam non sunt. et ego metior . . .
neque hoc possum, nisi quia praeterierunt et finitae sunt. non ergo ipsas
quae iam non sunt, sed aliquid in memoria mea metior, quod infixum
manet. (XI.27.35)
Unlike the infinite cabinets of memoria that Augustine describes in Confessions

X or the grotesqueries of phantasia that he glimpses in Confessions XII,193 here
memoria is neither Augustine’s “insane refuge” nor his “fondement du temps,” as
Éric Alliez asserts.194
193 Aug. Conf. X.8.15: haec omnia, cum dicerem, non ea videbam oculis, nec tamen dicerem,
nisi montes et fluctus et flumina et sidera quae vidi et oceanum quem credidi intus in
memoria mea viderem, spatiis tam ingentibus quasi foris viderem. nec ea tamen videndo
absorbui quando vidi oculis, nec ipsa sunt apud me sed imagines eorum, et novi quid ex
quo sensu corporis impressum sit mihi; XII.6.6: foedas et horribiles formas perturbatis
ordinibus volvebat animus.
194 Alliez 1996, 135/1991, 199: “. . . the insane refuge of a Memory that lets itself be thought [in
Augustine] as the foundation of time ( fondement du temps).”
298 chapter 13
Rather, here in the culmination of the time-investigation, Augustine’s

memory is introduced as a veracious perdurance of sensation.195 This is not, in
Aristotle’s terminology, memoria as ‘recollection’ (ἀνάμνησις) but as ‘memory’
(μνήμη);196 or in Husserl’s terminology, this is not memoria as ‘recollection’ but
as ‘retention.’197 In De Rhythmo VI, Augustine himself characterizes a mode of
sense-dilated memory, i.e. “when a sound beats on our ears” even while “mem-
ory presents, as it were, the recent traces (recentia . . . vestigia)” of this very
sound.198 Here, Augustine contrasts revocatio199 with what he calls recordatio:
It is a different thing [than revocatio], I suggest, whereby we sense that the

present motion of the soul has already existed at some time, that is, to rec-
ognize the recent movements of an act we are in the midst of when we
‘remember,’ which movements are certainly more vivid [than less-recent
memory traces]. . . . Such a perception is recognition, and ‘retention.’
Est etiam aliud unde nos sentire arbitror praesentem motum animi ali-
quando iam fuisse, quod est recognoscere, dum recentes motus eius
actionis in qua sumus cum recordamur, qui certe vivaciores sunt . . . et
talis agnitio, recognitio est et recordatio.200
Recordatio is, here, a ‘presence of past things’ that—note well—we sense (nos
sentire). And this sensual rudiment of ‘retention’ is articulated in De Rhythmo
VI.8.22, while it is in the following paragraph—De Rhythmo VI.9.23—that
Augustine writes: “And when that verse, Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm, is sung . . .”201
Clearly, it is memory as retention—i.e. as a sense of recent-past things202—
that prepares Augustine’s Ambrose-citation in De Rhythmo VI. And similarly, in
Confessions XI.27.35, when the Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm is enunciated, sensus
195 Cf. again, Aug. Serm. 198.2: Vos certe cantavistis, et adhuc divini cantici sonus recens est in
auribus vestris: “salva nos, domine deus noster.”
196 Cf. Arist. Mem. I (449b–450b), II (451a–452a).
197 Cf. Husserl 1971, 50–59.
198 Aug. Rhyth. VI.8.21: cum . . . aures pulsat sonus; VI.8.22: . . . quasi recentia eorum fugien-
tium vestigia offert memoria.
199 Cf. for instance, Cic. Tusc. I.1: . . . ea studia, quae retenta animo, remissa temporibus, longo
intervallo intermissa revocavi . . .
200 Aug. Rhyth. VI.8.22.
201 Aug. Rhyth. VI.9.23: . . . cum ille a nobis propositus versus canitur: “Deus creator omnium.”
202 Augustine’s recordatio, here, should be contrasted with Cicero’s assimilation of recordatio
to Platonic ἀνάμνησις at Cic. Tusc. I.24.57–58: . . . quam quidem Plato recordationem esse
vult superioris vitae . . . ex quo effici vult Socrates ut discere nihil aliud sit nisi recordari.
remains the crux. Memory is certainly invoked, but it is a mode of memory—

i.e. recordatio or retention—in which the decisive sense of presence is still the
presence of present things, with its constitutive link to the sensual mutivity
of present-time (i.e. the sense of time passing), and with its hyper-transitive
infixion of ‘recent’ sense-images ‘in the soul.’203 Augustine’s certa mensura of
ipsum tempus is here:
(α) sought in distentio only out of the repeated failure of motus qua
motus to evade the analytics of praesens tempus, and
(β) sought in memoria only out of the failure of the sense of passing
time to itself evade that analytics.
Memory is not posited, here, but accepted; and it is accepted in the specific
mode of recordatio, i.e. of a perdurance of sensation. The constitution of a
space of time on the order of present-time as sensation is impossible—and
with it, the constitution of a veracious temporal quantum on the order of prae-
sens tempus is forsaken. Yet memory in this paragraph and expectation in the
following paragraph co-constitute a proper temporal ‘presence’ as ‘impres-
ence’ (on the analytics of praesens tempus) precisely because of their fidelity to
sensation (as the presence of present things).
Memory serves as a lead into the possibility of a veracious space of time
precisely because memory dilates sensation. The disclosedness to sensus of a
temporal quantum (on the order of passing time) ‘remains infixed’ in memory.
As this ‘infixion’ recedes further (on the order of present-time) into preterity,
and yet retains its veracious link (on the order of passing time) to sensus—
and thus to motus omnis—‘the soul’ is dilated. But ‘the soul’ is dilated, in this
exemplum, as sensus. For it is not of a simplex or a duplex syllable, but of
Ambrose’s verse of eight syllables,204 that Augustine says: “Insofar as it is sensed
by a clear sensation (sentitur sensu manifesto) . . .” (XI.27.35). Since a short
When Augustine refers to Platonic ἀνάμνησις at Epist. 7.1.2, he uses both recordatio and
revocatio, but it is recordatio which signals the present calling-to-mind, whereas revocatio
is the calling-to-mind of what was beheld in a distant past: nonnulli calumniantur adver-
sus Socraticum illud nobilissimum inventum, quod adseritur non nobis ea, quae disci-
mus, veluti nova inseri, sed in memoriam recordatione revocari . . .
203 Cf. Arist. Mem. I (450a): “Now, we must cognize (γνωρίζειν) magnitude and motion as we
cognize time, and the [memorial] image (φάντασμα) is an affection of the common sense-
faculty (τῆς κοινῆς αἰσθήσεως πάθος). Thus it is clear that the cognition (γνῶσίς) of these
things [viz. time, motion, magnitude] belongs to the primary sense-faculty (τῷ πρώτῳ
αἰσθητικῷ).”
204 I owe this clarification to Gerard O’Daly.
300 chapter 13
syllable is a simplex enunciative ‘time,’205 the verse Dĕūs crĕātŏr ōmnĭūm is

comprised of twelve simplex ‘times.’206 Distentio is, of course, the condition of
possibility of such hyper-minimal ‘times’ constituting spaces of time,207
as of this verse constituting a space of time—and yet the space of syllables and
of verse are sensed. Clearly, this is a ‘distentio sensuum.’
Therefore, distentio is by no means a derangement or disseverment of
memoria from sensus, or of sensus from motus omnis. On the contrary, it
is memory’s link to sensation and its tracking of past infixations (as present-
time), relative to the hyper-transitive presence of sensation, which dilates the
human anima-animus. This dilation of sensus—i.e. of anima-animus as vita
corporis—is originarily an indeterminate mora temporis and becomes, in men-
suration, a quantum or dimension or space of time.
13.8 “These Are ‘Times,’ or I Do Not Measure Times” (Conf. XI.27)
It is the very intensity of memory’s link to sensation (in ‘retention’) that threat-
ens to obscure the ‘impresence’ that co-constitutes distentio, and to obscure
Augustine’s finding that the temporal comparanda within the utterance and
quantification of the very word ‘dĕūs’ are not, in the strictest sense, present.
That is, they are not in sensation as the presence of present things, nor are they
in presence as present-time.208 In enunciating the word ‘dĕūs,’ the syllable
‘dĕ’ is itself constituted by the sense of passing time,209 and is in memory—
205 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.21.27: dixi ergo paulo ante quod praetereuntia tempora metimur, ut pos-
simus dicere duplum esse hoc temporis ad illud simplum, aut tantum hoc quantum illud,
et si quid aliud de partibus temporum possumus renuntiare metiendo.
206 Aug. Conf. XI.27.35: “deus creator omnium”: versus iste octo syllabarum brevibus et longis
alternat syllabis. quattuor itaque breves (prima, tertia, quinta, septima) simplae sunt ad
quattuor longas (secundam, quartam, sextam, octavam). hae singulae ad illas singulas
duplum habent temporis.
207 Aug. Conf. XI.27.35: et ego metior fidenterque respondeo, quantum exercitato sensu fidi-
tur, illam simplam esse, illam duplam, in spatio scilicet temporis.
208 Cf. Aug. Rhyth. VI.8.21: Quamlibet enim brevis syllaba, cum et incipiat, et desinat, alio
tempore initium eius, et alio finis sonat. Tenditur ergo et ipsa quantulocumque temporis
intervallo, et ab initio suo per medium suum tendit ad finem.
209 Cf. for instance, Aug. Imm.anim. 3.3: . . . neque enim valet quavis ope agatur, aut perfecte
unum esse, quod in partes secari potest, aut ullum est sine partibus corpus, aut sine
morarum intervallo tempus, aut vero vel brevissima syllaba enuntietur, cuius non tunc
finem audias, cum iam non audis initium. Porro quod sic agitur, et exspectatione opus est
ut peragi, et memoria ut comprehendi queat quantum potest; Rhyth. VI.8.21: Quamlibet
as ‘distentio sensuum’—prior to the enunciation of the ‘ūs.’210 (In the De

Quantitate Animae, incidentally, Augustine selects the word ‘Lucifer,’ not
‘deus,’ to exhibit temporal ‘dilation’ (per tempus distendebatur).)211 And to mea-
sure the antecedent syllable against the subsequent, they must alike be in
memory—as ‘distentio sensuum.’
Temporal comparanda in originary mensuration are necessarily impresent,
are necessarily ‘presence’ on the order of a presence of past things and not on
the order of present-time, or a presence of present things. The immediacy and
incessancy of the sense of passing time—and it is this, precisely, that Augustine
must ‘estrange’ himself from here, in reflection—suggest that in originary
temporal mensuration I measure the res ipsa of sensus and thus the ‘times’ of
motus omnis. But I do not:
In you, o my soul, I measure times. Do not obstruct me—that is, do not

obstruct me with your hosts of affections. In you, I say, I measure times:
the affections that things produce in you [= sensus] remain [= memoria]
when the things have passed by. This-itself I measure as ‘presence,’ not the
things-themselves which have passed by giving rise to these affections,
but this-itself [‘impresence’] I measure [as ‘presence’] when I measure
times. Thus either these [sense-images or sense-affections] are ‘times,’ or
I do not measure times.
enim brevis syllaba, cum et incipiat, et desinat, alio tempore initium eius, et alio finis
sonat. Tenditur ergo et ipsa quantulocumque temporis intervallo, et ab initio suo per
medium suum tendit ad finem. . . . nullius syllabae cum initio finis auditur. In audienda
itaque vel brevissima syllaba, nisi memoria nos adiuvet, ut eo momento temporis quo iam
non initium, sed finis syllabae sonat, maneat ille motus in animo, qui factus est cum ini-
tium ipsum sonuit; nihil nos audisse possumus dicere.
210 Cf. Aug. Enarr. 38.7: Cum dicis ipsum ‘est,’ certe una syllaba est, et momentum unum est,
et tres litteras syllaba habet: in ipso ictu ad secundam huius verbi litteram non pervenis,
nisi prima finita fuerit; tertia non sonabit, nisi cum et secunda transierit; Tract. 1.8: Ecce
verbum dico, cum dico: ‘deus.’ Quam breve est quod dixi, quatuor litteras, et duas syllabas!
Numquidnam hoc totum est deus, quatuor litterae, et duae syllabae? . . . quaecumque
dicuntur et transeunt, soni sunt, litterae sunt, syllabae sunt. Hoc verbum transit, quod
sonat: quod autem significavit sonus, et in cogitante est qui dixit, et in intellegente est qui
audivit, manet hoc transeuntibus sonis.
211 Aug. Quant.anim. 32.68: . . . maiorem temporis moram tenet, cum ‘Lucifer’ dicitur, quam
si ‘Luci’ tantummodo diceretur. Quare si hoc significatione vivit in ea diminutione tempo-
ris, quae diviso illo sono facta est, cum eadem significatio divisa non sit (non enim ipsa per
tempus distendebatur, sed sonus). . . . illa significatio non distenta per tempus, omnes
tamen nominis litteras suas moras ac tempora possidentes, velut animaverat atque
compleverat.
302 chapter 13
in te, anime meus, tempora metior. noli mihi obstrepere, quod est; noli
tibi obstrepere turbis affectionum tuarum. in te, inquam, tempora metior.
affectionem quam res praetereuntes in te faciunt et, cum illae praeteri-
erint, manet, ipsam metior praesentem, non ea quae praeterierunt ut
fieret; ipsam metior, cum tempora metior. ergo aut ipsa sunt ‘tempora,’ aut
non tempora metior. (XI.27.36)
It is this apostrophe to the soul,212 in which Augustine distills, elides and

alludes to all his preceding distinctions and findings, while insisting precisely
on the impresence of the comparanda in temporal mensuration,213 that misdi-
rects subjectivizing interpretations and could appear to invite them.
The fundamental difficulty of this passage is that in Confessions XI.27.36
Augustine reintroduces the terminological duplicities that more explicitly sur-
faced in XI.20.26 (see 13.2):
(i) a duplicity of ‘presence’ as a punctile, hyper-transitive present-time,

and as a constitutively trine, dimensive presence-of; and
(ii) a duplicity of ‘times’ as the hyper-transitive ‘times’ which are strictly
conditioned by and identified with motus omnis, and as the trine,
refractive ‘times’ which are not times on the order of present-time,
but on the order of presence-of.
The latter duplicity is most acute in the final sentence of the passage just
quoted—“thus either these [sense-affections] are ‘times,’ or I do not measure
times” (XI.27.36)—yet both duplicities can be traced up this apostrophe as
a whole.
In seeking the certa mensura of ipsum tempus, the times that Augustine
seeks to measure are indisputably the times of motus omnis. It is the failure of
a violable celestial motus (XI.23.30),214 the occasional motus/status of bodies
(XI.24.31), and the variable enunciation of a text (XI.26.33) to ‘grasp’ such
times that drives the second phase of the time-investigation (i.e. XI.23–28).
And it is of these times that Augustine will write, shortly after the present
apostrophe:
212 O’Donnell 1992, III:279: “apostrophes to the soul.”

213 Cf. a much less rigorous, ‘nostalgic’ sense of temporal comparatio at Lucr. Rer.nat.
II.1166–67: et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert | praeteritis . . .
214 Pace for instance, Cic. Nat.deor. II.5.15: . . . tantis motionibus tantisque vicissitudinibus,
tam multarum rerum atque tantarum ordinibus, in quibus nihil umquam inmensa et
infinita vetustas mentita sit . . .
Times are produced by the movements of things.
rerum mutationibus fiunt tempora. (XII.8.8)
These ‘times’ are times on the order of hyper-transitivity, of praesens tempus,

of motus omnis. These ‘times’ are also times on the order of sensation, or the
presence of present things. Observe here:
The affections that things produce in you [o my soul] remain when the
things have passed by.
affectionem quam res praetereuntes in te faciunt et, cum illae praeteri-

erint, manet. (XI.27.36)
The fieri of ‘the movements of things’ in Confessions XII.8.8 (→ tempora) paral-

lels the facere of ‘the movements of things’ that condition sense-affections
(← tempora) in XI.27.36.215 This is the ontological sense of the ‘times’ that
Augustine seeks to measure, and which he measures: “In you, o my soul, I mea-
sure times” (XI.27.36). Yet the mensuration of times on the order of presence as
present-time—i.e. as a presence of present things—is impossible. And thus,
“when I measure times . . . either [sense-affections] are ‘times,’ or I do not mea-
sure times” (XI.27.36).
This is by no means Augustine’s assertion of an identity of the refractive
‘times’ of distentio with the mutive times of motus omnis. It is rather a strictly
simultaneous dis-identity of ‘times’ that is indicated by the word ‘when’ (cum)
in the sentence: “This-itself I measure, when (cum) I measure times”
(XI.27.36).216 Augustine here asserts a dis-identity of the mutive times of motus
omnis-contuitus and the refractive ‘times’ of a spatium temporis-distentio animi.
It is this dis-identity that memory tracks and reflects, and it is memory that
Augustine here insists upon. But while asserting this dis-identity as the
condition for temporal mensuration (because present-time yields no mensu-
ration), Augustine simultaneously asserts the veracity of dilational ‘times’ (as
impresence) in tracking hyper-transitive times (as present-time). This dis-
identity of present-time and temporal ‘presence’ (“this-itself I measure as
215 It is thus praesens de praeteritis as dilational memoria that here provisionally, and posi-
tively, completes the negative fieri-formulation in Conf. XI.11.13: longum tempus, nisi ex
multis praetereuntibus motibus qui simul extendi non possunt, longum non fieri.
216 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: ipsam metior, cum tempora metior. ergo aut ipsa sunt ‘tempora,’ aut
non tempora metior.
304 chapter 13
‘presence’ ”),217 and this dis-identity of successive times and refractive ‘times’

(“either these are ‘times,’ or I do not measure times”),218 illuminates a constitu-
tive and originary duplicity of the terms ‘presence’ and ‘times’ in the time-
investigation, because dilational mensuration is veracious: “I measure times . . .
I measure times . . . I measure times” (XI.27.36).219
Distentio is an ‘outness,’ a ‘dilation’ precisely because, in its constitutive link
to present-time (in the strictest denotation of sensus, as praesens de praesenti-
bus), it tracks and localizes the hyper-transitive, punctile, mutive times of
motus omnis—a condition for veracious temporal mensuration. Yet distentio is
an ‘outness,’ a ‘dilation’ precisely because it also refracts the hyper-transitive,
punctile, mutive times of motus omnis into the dimensive, triplex ‘times’ of
‘impresence’—a condition for veracious temporal mensuration. Anima-
animus as vis and natura (i.e. as vita corporis) ignites not only sensus as a pres-
ence of present things (← praesens tempus, tempora), but sensus as a presence
of recent-past things (→ spatium temporis, ‘tempora’).220
This refraction, as condition for the duration of any longum tempus, is an
originary condition for dimensive time as ‘hyper-subjective’; and this refrac-
tion, as condition for the spaciousness of any space of time as a determinate
temporal quantum, is an originary condition for dimensive time as ‘hyper-
objective.’ And it is this originary duplicity of time that conditions the scio/
nescio dialectic of Augustine’s time-question in Confessions XI.14.17, and that
shadows the time-investigation as a whole: time is “hyper-manifest and
hyper-banal—and again,” it is “endlessly obscure.”221 As ‘distentio animi’—as
‘distentio sensuum’—time is at once and essentially hyper-intimate and hyper-
extimate. “Look! You have made my days old and they pass away,” Augustine
confesses, “but I do not know how!”222 Tempus as ‘distentio sensuum’ is the
originary condition for the passivity-mortality of the sum (I live ‘in time,’
217 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: ipsam metior praesentem.

218 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: ergo aut ipsa sunt ‘tempora,’ aut non tempora metior.
219 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: in te, anime meus, tempora metior . . . in te, inquam, tempora
metior . . . ipsam metior, cum tempora metior.
220 Cf. Aug. Conf. X.7–17.
221 Aug. Conf. XI.22.28: manifestissima et usitatissima sunt, et eadem rursus nimis latent et
nova est inventio eorum.
Cf. the noli claudere at Conf. XI.22.28 (noli claudere . . . noli claudere desiderio meo ista
et usitata et abdita) and the noli obstrepere at XI.27.36 (noli mihi obstrepere . . . noli tibi
obstrepere turbis affectionum tuarum).
222 Aug. Conf. XI.22.28: ecce veteres posuisti dies meos et transeunt, et quomodo, nescio.
Cf. Psalms 38.6: ecce veteres posuisti dies meos et substantia mea tamquam nihil ante
te; verumtamen universa vanitas, omnis homo vivens. (Cit. O’Donnell 1992, III:287.)
I speak ‘in time’: I age), as for the potency of the enactive-numerative ego (‘I
measure times’: I delimit, I enact)—that is, for the ineliminable duplicity of
Augustine’s sum/ego (‘I myself cannot grasp all I am’).223
And in Confessions XI.27.36 and XI.28.38, the last exempli of the time-inves-
tigation, it is the enactive-numerative ego that is valorized and held in view. Yet
the passivity-mortality of the sum is still adumbrated here, and will resurface
with a wild lament in XI.29.39. For the enactive-numerative ego, which is
dependent upon the passive-mortal sum and its constitutive implication in
the tempora of motus omnis, itself illuminates the sense-affective condition
of the sum as ‘mortal.’ That is to say, the triplex, dilational ‘presence’ of memo-
ria-contuitus-expectatio which possibilizes veracious temporal mensuration
(as enaction) in Confessions XI.27–28 also possibilizes a fore-presence of death,
as ‘impresence,’ in Confessions XI.29.224
My death, which for the enactive-numerative ego is not presence (on the
order of present-time) as not yet, and which for the sum—very precisely—
never-will-be presence (on the order of present-time),225 is yet a constitutive
fore-presence for the dilated ‘soul’ of Confessions XI.27–28. This is because
distentio is co-constituted by—not only sensation and memory—but expecta-
tion. A sense-affective condition for the mensuration of ipsum tempus as a
And cf. Aug. Enarr. 38.10: quomodo hic sum, quamdiu hic sum, quamdiu in hoc saeculo
sum, quamdiu carnem mortalem porto, quamdiu tentatio vita humana est super terram,
quamdiu inter scandala suspiro, quamdiu timeo ne cadam qui sto, quamdiu mihi incerta
sunt et mala mea et bona mea, “universa vanitas omnis homo vivens.”
223 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.28.38: . . . per tempora et locos pulchras mutationes faciant aut
patiantur.
224 Aug. Conf. XI.29.39: donec in te confluam purgatus et liquidus igne amoris tui.
225 Cf. Augustine’s discussion of a sophistical denial of death because the point of death—
and in this, as he remarks, death precisely parallels praesens tempus—cannot be identi-
fied, at Aug. Civ. XIII.11:
quamdiu quippe est anima in corpore, maxime si etiam sensus adsit, procul dubio vivit
homo, qui constat ex anima et corpore, ac per hoc adhuc ante mortem, non in morte
esse dicendus est; cum vero anima abscesserit omnemque abstulerit corporis sensum,
iam post mortem mortuusque perhibetur. perit igitur inter utrumque, quo moriens vel
in morte sit; quoniam si adhuc vivit, ante mortem est; si vivere destitit, iam post mor-
tem est. numquam ergo moriens, id est in morte, esse comprehenditur. ita etiam in
transcursu temporum quaeritur praesens, nec invenitur, quia sine ullo spatio est, per
quod transitur ex futuro in praeteritum.
Yet death, like time, is ineliminable by the analytics of presence, for “death is real and
so harassing that no locution can express it and no sophism can evade it” ([nunc] non
solum est, verum etiam tam molesta est, ut nec ulla explicari locutione possit nec ulla
ratione vitari, Civ. XIII.11).
306 chapter 13
determinate quantum—“its determination is its termination” (XI.27.35)226—

is also a condition for the ‘determination’ of my life. And a sense-affective con-
dition for the enaction of ipsum tempus as a determinate quantum—“there is
already in the soul the expectation of future-things” (XI.28.37)227—is at once a
condition for the anticipation of my death. Augustine intimates this link at the
close of Confessions XI.28.38: “The same holds [for recitation and] for the total-
ity of a human life.”228 But how does expectation emerge in Confessions
XI.27–28?
13.9 “Songs and the Dimensions of Movements” (Conf. XI.27–28)
When Augustine shifts from passive mensuration and sense-memory to enac-

tive mensuration and sense-expectation in XI.27.36—and with this shift, refers
not to the line from Ambrose’s hymn, but indifferently to “songs or verses or
any discourses”229—it is imperative recall that any memorized line would
have been temporally pre-quantifiable in late-antique Latin.230 (Says
Quintilian: “Rhythm pervades the whole body of prose—so to speak—through
226 Aug. Conf. XI.27.35: eius . . . finitio praeteritio est.

227 Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: quis igitur negat futura nondum esse? sed tamen iam est in animo
expectatio futurorum.
228 Aug. Conf. XI.28.38: hoc in tota vita hominis, cuius partes sunt omnes actiones hominis.
229 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: carmina et versus et quemque sermonem.
230 This said, however, Augustine’s appeal to a “practiced sense” in determining the spaces of
enunciative time must be borne in mind (respondeo, quantum exercitato sensu fiditur,
illam simplam esse, illam duplam, in spatio scilicet temporis, XI.27.35). Augustine under-
scores the importance of this in 408/9, at Epist. 101.3:
Five books of [my De Rhythmo] are all but unintelligible (difficillime quippe intelle-
guntur) unless you have a lector on hand who can . . . enunciatively mark the spaces of
time that the syllables should occupy (pronuntiando ita sonare morulas syllabarum), so
that their distinctive measures may be expressed and sped to the ear’s sense (sen-
sumque aurium feriant), and most importantly, because in some places measured
intervals of silence (silentiorum dimensa intervalla) are involved, which can of course
by no means be sensed (omnino sentiri nequeunt) unless the lector informs the hearer
of them.
While in Epist. 3, written in 386, he admits—off-handedly and light-heartedly, to his
friend Nebridius—that he is himself unsure whether the penultimate syllable in a num-
ber of declensions is to be pronounced long or short, at Epist. 3.5: ‘fugitum,’ ‘cupitum,’
‘sapitum’ . . . item tria utrum paenultima longa et inflexa, aut gravi brevique pronuntianda
sint . . . nescio.
all its extent.”)231 Such pre-quantification of an enunciated line illuminates a

constitutive triplicity of dilation that the sense-memorial quantification in
XI.27.35 did not. Enactive mensuration links futural impresence to memorial
impresence through the sense of passing time, and it is this procedure which
demonstrates—so Augustine suggests—that the ‘times’ of dilational impres-
ence can track and prevene the times of sensus, or contuitus, or attentio. But
what is the link of expectation to sensation? A passage from Confessions X can
help to elucidate it.
In Confessions X.8.13, as Augustine reflects on sense-imaginal memory, he
introduces a thing/image (res/imago) distinction that he will reintroduce in
XI.27.35 to lead into his analyses of expectation. He first writes this in book X:
The things-themselves do not enter memory, but the images of sensed-

things are present in memory for thought to recollect them. And who can
say precisely how these sense-images are constituted?
nec ipsa tamen intrant, sed rerum sensarum imagines illic praesto sunt
cogitationi reminiscenti eas. quae quomodo fabricatae sint, quis dicit?
(X.8.13)232
This helps to identify the sense that cogitatio has in Confessions XI.27.36,233
where—as in Confessions X.8.13—cogitatio is intimately associated with sense-
images, and thus, with sensus. But this passage from book X is also relevant,
here, because Augustine proceeds to observe:
231 Quint. Inst.orat. IX.4.61: Et in omni quidem corpore totoque (ut ita dixerim) tractu
numerus insertus est.
And on the metrical qualities of the Confessions’ prose, vid. Borromeo Carroll 1940,
here 80: “The prose of the Confessions is from a metrical point of view on a higher plane
than the prose of the [late-antique] ametrical writers, while at the same time it does not
deserve to be regarded as metrical in the marked sense in which Arnobius, Symmachus,
and Ammianus Marcellinus are metrical”; and 81: “In the Confessions of St. Augustine
there is at least some effort made toward establishing that harmony between ictus and
accent which was to prepare the way for the ultimate triumph of accentual clausulae.”
232 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.27.35: non ergo ipsas quae iam non sunt, sed aliquid in memoria mea
metior, quod infixum manet.
233 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: . . . nonne cogitationem tendimus ad mensuram vocis, quasi sona-
ret . . . nam et voce atque ore cessante peragimus cogitando carmina et versus . . .
308 chapter 13
And though my tongue is at rest and my throat is silent—yet I can ‘sing’

as much as I will.234
et quiescente lingua ac silente gutture canto quantum volo. (X.8.13)
This progression in Confessions X precisely anticipates Augustine’s progres-

sion from a res/imago distinction in the last sentence of XI.27.35 to enactive
mensuration in XI.27.36—which illuminates a ‘space’ of dilational impresence
that is sensually preceded and quasi-sensually elaborated. For he writes in
book XI:
What when we measure silence—and say that this silence has lasted as
long as that [bodily] voice lasted? Do we not extend our thought to mea-
sure the [bodily] voice as if it sounded so that we can report something
about the intervals of silence in a [determinate] space of time? For
when our voice and lips are still, we traverse songs and verses . . . and the
dimensions of movements in thought and report on spaces of times—
how-much this [song or motion] will be relative to that [song or motion]—
no-differently than if we sounded-out [a song] in speech [or observed
a motion in space].
And if a person decides to utter a slightly elongated sound and pre-
meditatively constitutes how-long this future-sound should be, this person
has certainly gone through this [pre-decided] space of time in silence
and—committing it to memory—begins to utter the sound, and it sounds
out until it is prolonged to the [temporal] limit that was pre-decided
for it. Yes—it has sounded-out and it will sound-out. For the [fraction]
of it that is traversed has definitely sounded and the [fraction] of it
that remains will sound—and so this [space of time] is traversed—as
long as this person’s present-intention transposes future[-protention] into
past[-retention], with past[-retention] increasing by a diminishment of
future[-protention] until, by consuming the future, the total[-intention]
is past.
234 Aug. Conf. X.8.13: et quiescente lingua ac silente gutture canto quantum volo, imaginesque
illae colorum, quae nihilo minus ibi sunt, non se interponunt neque interrumpunt, cum
thesaurus alius retractatur qui influxit ab auribus. ita cetera quae per sensus ceteros ingesta
atque congesta sunt recordor prout libet, et auram liliorum discerno a violis nihil olfa-
ciens, et mel defrito, lene aspero, nihil tum gustando neque contrectando sed remi-
niscendo antepono.
quid cum metimur silentia, et dicimus illud silentium tantum tenuisse

temporis quantum illa vox tenuit, nonne cogitationem tendimus ad men-
suram vocis, quasi sonaret, ut aliquid de intervallis silentiorum in spatio
temporis renuntiare possimus? nam et voce atque ore cessante peragi-
mus cogitando carmina . . . motionumque dimensiones quaslibet et de
spatiis temporum, quantum illud ad illud sit, renuntiamus non aliter ac si
ea sonando diceremus.
voluerit aliquis edere longuisculam vocem, et constituerit praemedi-
tando quam longa futura sit, egit utique iste spatium temporis in silentio
memoriaeque commendans coepit edere illam vocem quae sonat, donec
ad propositum terminum perducatur. immo sonuit et sonabit; nam quod
eius iam peractum est, utique sonuit, quod autem restat, sonabit atque
ita peragitur, dum praesens intentio futurum in praeteritum traicit,
deminutione futuri crescente praeterito, donec consumptione futuri sit
totum praeteritum. (XI.27.36)
To this extent, in Augustine, a “conquest of time” has been given to the

human soul.235 As vita corporis, the soul inherits and exhibits a sensual and
quasi-sensual expansiveness and purposiveness that Augustine here calls
intentio or attentio.236 To intentio it is given—despite its constitutive link to
present-time—a transitive, sense-imaginal or sense-affective spaciousness
which, as ‘impresence,’ veraciously produces a duration that can ‘conquer’
present-time precisely, and invariably, by subjecting its space and relinquish-
ing its ‘impresence’—at every point, in merciless succession—to the exhaus-
tive regime of present-time. Intention ‘conquers’ sensation by passing-through
235 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.15.19: anima humana . . . datum enim tibi est sentire moras atque metiri;
and the subtitle of Alliez 1991: Récits de la conquête du temps.
236 That intentio hinges upon sensus-contuitus and is directed at things in all its phases is
perhaps most clearly stated at Aug. Conf. XII.15.18: “The expectation of future things
becomes sight when they have arrived, and this same sight becomes memory when they
have passed by. . . . All intention which is thus altered is mutable” (expectatio rerum ventu-
rarum fit contuitus, cum venerint, idemque contuitus fit memoria, cum praeterierint.
omnis . . . intentio quae ita variatur mutabilis est . . .).
Cf. O’Daly 1977, 271: “Intentio or attentio [is] a vis animae [which is] essential to per-
ception, [and] is stressed by Augustine in early treatises and persists into the later De
trinitate. . . . In discussing our awareness of duration in Conf. 11,28,38 he will use the
related concept of attentio.”
310 chapter 13
sensation;237 attention ‘conquers’ present-time by pre-subjecting itself to

present-time. A pyrrhic victory—and yet a victory.
The logic of precedence in distentio, which is not to say the phenomenality
of distentio, is this: sensation prevenes memory, memory prevenes expecta-
tion; but then expectation prevenes sensation, and sensation newly prevenes
memory. It is this specific precedence of expectation to sensation, and the
veracity of this expectation as it passes-through sensation, which indicates for
Augustine that the certa mensura of ipsum tempus is originarily grasped by a
‘dilation of the senses’—and not by solitary motus (XI.24.31), etc. The ‘times’ of
intentio—preceded by sensation, veraciously infixed in sense-imaginal mem-
ory, quasi-sensually elaborated in expectation—here prevene the successive
times of a determinate motus, here as actio. A vocalization which is quasi-con-
stituted (as sensus) in silence sounds out on the air. (Augustine observes in De
Trinitate,238 as in Confessions X.8.13, that syllables are temporally quantifiable
in silence as in speech. This is decisive here.)239 Dilational or dimensive ‘times’
are successively and incessantly reconstituted per carnem and in carne as
hyper-transitive times—from sense-imaginal expectatio to sensual attentio to
sense-imaginal memoria—until an enacted and exhausted intentio lays
new memory-traces against the memory-traces of its prior expectatio. All this
is a dilation of sensus. And on condition of its pre-subjugation to the order of
present-time, it is this dilation which grasps—originarily—the times of motus
omnis as a space of time.
Sensation prevenes memory and memory prevenes expectation; this is the
initial logic of Augustine’s exposition here. But the glory of distentio is also this:
in dilation, expectation can prevene sensation, and in such enactment, it is
impresence that prevenes present-time. This is hardly a ‘conquest’ or even
‘autonomy,’ and this is not a ‘subjectivation’ of time: but this is an outness, and
with it, a pre-potency of the human soul. This is the acquisition of a transitive-
237 Cf. for instance, Aug. Quant.anim. 33.71: Intendit se anima in tactum, et eo calida, frigida,
aspera, lenia, dura, mollia, levia, gravia sentit atque discernit. Deinde innumerabiles dif-
ferentias saporum, odorum, sonorum, formarum, gustando, olfaciendo, audiendo viden-
doque diiudicat. Atque in iis omnibus ea quae secundum naturam sui coporis sunt,
adsciscit atque appetit; reiicit fugitque contraria. Removet se ab his sensibus certo inter-
vallo temporum, et eorum motus quasi per quasdam ferias reparans, imagines rerum quas
per eos hausit, secum catervatim et multipliciter versat, et hoc totum est somnus et
somnia.
238 Cf. Aug. Conf. XII.15.18: expectatio rerum venturarum fit contuitus, cum venerint, idemque
contuitus fit memoria, cum praeterierint.
239 Cf. Aug. Trin. IX.10.15 (cit. Stock 2010, 4): verba . . . spatia temporum syllabis tenent sive
pronuntientur sive cogitentur.
dimensive space of time; and the human soul hereby—kissing the rod of tran-
sitivity, having a foretaste of its death—demonstrates a power (vis) to track
and affect the corporeal order that produces times.
For observe: “We traverse songs and verses . . . and the dimensions of move-
ments (motionumque dimensiones) in thought” (XI.27.36). For Augustine, dis-
tentio is itself a vis, itself a mutive force. Subjected (as natura) to the inrush of
presence, the indigence of succession and the intimate-extimate disquiet
of motus omnis, it has yet been given to the anima humana (as vis)—which is
still, constitutively denied praescientia (see 5.3)240—to posit the temporal
quantum of a past-motus as the temporal quantum of a future-motus. And thus,
while dilation is not a precondition for motus omnis, dilation is yet valorized as
the precondition for any dimensio or temporal quantum of motus—and thus,
as that “by which we measure the movements of [all] bodies” (XI.23.30). Yet
again: the space of time of any vita is itself, originarily and incommutably, fated
to comprise a finite and preterite dimensio, since “the same holds [for recita-
tion and] for the totality of a human life” (XI.28.38).
It is only as distentio that motus omnis appears. It is only as distentio that a
presence of past-things endures. And it is only as distentio that a presence of
future-things is traversed, transposed, diminished and exhausted in a preve-
nience of sense-imaginal or sense-affective impresence. In Confessions X to XII,
distentio is the originary condition for indeterminate lapses of time and for
determinate spaces of time. It is distentio that grasps the certa mensura of
ipsum tempus. But the originary and incommutable dependence of memory
and expectation upon sensation, of impresence upon presence, of time upon
succession, of succession upon the motion of all bodies flashes out at the very
height of the time-investigation in this phrase: “. . . until, by consuming the
future, the totality is past” (XI.27.36).241
240 Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: quis igitur negat futura nondum esse? sed tamen iam est in animo
expectatio futurorum.
241 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: . . . donec consumptione futuri sit totum praeteritum.
ENVOI: Time Exceeds Us because Time Is in Us
“Until (donec),” says Augustine, “by consuming the future (consumptione futuri),
the total intention is past” (XI.27.36).1
The lexical senses of consumere include ‘to annihilate, to destroy,’2 and
Augustine re-deploys the word successively in Confessions XI.28.37–38:
But how is that future, which is-not-yet, diminished and consumed?3 . . .

The life of this action of mine is dilated in memory . . . and in expectation . . .
until the total expectation is consumed when the totality of that act is
ended and passed-into memory. And as it is with this song [I recite] . . . so
it is with the life of a man.
sed quomodo minuitur aut consumitur futurum, quod nondum est? . . .

distenditur vita huius actionis meae in memoriam . . . et in expectatio-
nem . . . donec tota expectatio consumatur . . . et quod in toto cantico . . .
hoc in tota vita hominis. (XI.28.37–38)
Mortality is inscribed in the phenomenality and ontology of Augustine’s

distentio,4 with expectation silencing his analytics of present-time only in this
1 Aug. Conf. XI.27.36: donec consumptione futuri sit totum praeteritum.

Cf. Arist. Phys. IV.13 (222b): “All change is in its nature a ‘passing away’ . . . for change is
per se a ‘passing away’ ” (Μεταβολὲ δὲ πᾶσα φύσει ἐκστατικόν . . . ἐκστατικόν γὰρ ἡ μεταβολὲ καθ᾿
αὑτὴν).
2 Cf. Aug. Conf. IX.4.10: . . . nec volebam multiplicari terrenis bonis, devorans tempora et
devoratus temporibus; Cic. Nat.deor. II.25.64: consumit aetas temporum spatia annisque
praeteritis insaturabiliter expletur; Lucr. Rer.nat. I.232–33: omnia enim debet, mortali cor-
pore quae sunt, | infinita aetas consumpse anteacta diesque; Man. Astr. III.514–15: . . . quo Sol
effulserit, annus, | annua quod lustrans consumit tempora mundum; Sall. Jug. 98.2: . . . iamque
dies consumptus erat; Sen. Brev. 17.2: . . . et intra exiguum tempus consumpturus illos quibus
centesimum annum timebat; etc.
3 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.28.37: sed quomodo minuitur aut consumitur futurum, quod nondum est?;
XII.11.14: quis . . . dicet mihi quod, deminuta atque consumpta omni specie, si sola remaneat
‘informitas’ per quam de specie in speciem res mutabatur et vertebatur, possit exhibere vices
temporum?
4 Cf. for instance, Aug. Conf. I.6.9: et ecce infantia mea olim mortua est et ego vivo; IV.10.15:
decedendo ac succedendo agunt omnes universum, cuius partes sunt; X.31.43: reficimus enim
cotidianas ruinas corporis edendo et bibendo; Gen.litt. IV.1.1: in infimis rebus pulchritudinem
temporalem, per ordinatas vices quorumque mutabilium cessionibus successionibusque per-
agitur, sicut manifestum est in rebus terrenis atque mortalibus; Enarr. 38.19: Natus es; certum

ENVOI 313
way: ‘that which is-not-yet’ can be diminished because expectation is being

consumed. The impresence of expectation deflects the inexistence of futurity,
which was established in Confessions XI.14–15 and is re-introduced in XI.28, by
itself illuminating its diminishment and its future inexistence.
The time-concept in Confessions X to XII is not, as I have sought to demon-
strate, ‘idealistic’ or ‘subjectivistic.’ It is originarily, incessantly, fatally irreduc-
ible to a cogitative ‘ego’ or ‘subject,’ to a pure ‘perceiver’—or indeed, to ‘a life.’
Times are worldly (motus omnis); time is fleshly (distentio animi). Yet the time-
question, for Augustine, is also never less than the question of a life—and thus,
of a death. He subtly insinuates this in Confessions XI.27–28 with his sudden
and stoccato repetition of consumere, consumptio, as he elaborates the ‘objec-
tivizing’ rigour of the numerative-enactive ego.5
Consumere—‘to exhaust’: consummare—‘to perfect.’6 In an echo between
expectatio consumatur and expectatio consummatur—‘expectation is
exhausted,’ ‘expectation is perfected’7—the motif of temporal duplicity that
initiates the Confessions and activates the time-investigation perhaps comes to
perfection. “Our heart is restless,” so Augustine confessed, “until all our expec-
tation is consumed.”8
est quia morieris: et in hoc ipso quia mors ipsa certa est, dies mortis incertus est . . . et sola
multum cavetur, quae nullo modo devitatur; 47.13: violentiam mortis vitare non potest, qui
mortalis natus est.
Cf. also Girard 1992, 51: “. . . si le terme mortalitas peut parfois désigner le fait de devoir
mourir, ce n’est pas l’événement ponctuel de la séparation du corps et de l’âme qui est visé,
mais la présence de la corruption tout au long de la vie.”
5 Consumere/consumptio only appears 3× in Conf. XI, at XI.27.36, XI.28.37, XI.28.38.
6 This Latin echo can still be heard in the lines of a very young Wilfred Owen (1963, 15), circa
1911: “Consummation is Consumption | We cannot consummate our bliss and not
consume.”
7 A 1608 Venetian edition of Henry of Ghent’s Quodlibeta prints expectatio consummatur for
expectatio consumatur when Henry quotes Conf. XI.28.38, at Quodl. III, q. 11, fol. 103v: “Utrum
tempus poſſit eſſe sine anima.” Other instances of this typographic oscillation could doubt-
less be found, though neither Knöll nor Verheijen lists consummatur as a variant in the man-
uscript tradition.
8 Aug. Conf. I.1.1: inquietum est cor nostrum donec . . .; XI.28.38: . . . donec tota expectatio con-
sumatur; cf. IX.10.26: “fili, quantum ad me attinet, nulla re iam delector in hac vita. quid hic
faciam adhuc et cur hic sim, nescio, iam consumpta spe huius saeculi . . .”
Appendices
Appendix 1 Remarks on Plotinus, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus and

Augustine
It should be recalled that the short-hand phrase distentio animi is not Augustine’s.
Rather, distentio animi is a reckless compression of this sentence in Confessions XI:
It seems to me that time is nothing else but a dilation—but of what, I do not

know, and would be shocked if it is not the soul-itself.
. . . mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem; sed cuius rei,
nescio, et mirum, si non ipsius animi. (XI.26.33)
Antecedents to Augustine’s distentio . . . animi in the literature are typically limited

to the expression διάστασις . . . ζωῆς in Plotinus’ Enneads III.7, where Plotinus specula-
tively produces the “form and nature” of time1 from a hyper-static eternity.2 This is
Plotinus:
As Soul (ψυχή) presents one act, and a different act to itself—and then a new and
different act in ordered succession—it produces (ἐγγέννα) succession along with
its activity. . . . Thus the extension of Life (διάστασις . . . ζωῆς) involves time.3
Augustine’s distentio animi and Plotinus’ διάστασις ζωῆς

This is not the place to review or engage the sizeable literature that traces Augustine’s
time-investigation back to Plotinus’ tractate on time-eternity.4 Rather, I limit myself to
several observations that weaken the basis of that literature:
1 Plot. Enn. III.7.11: “. . . we shall produce time (γεννήσομεν δὲ χρόνον) by means of the form and
nature (λόγῳ καὶ φύσει) of what comes after.”
2 Plot. Enn. III.7.11: “Eternity is restive Life (αἰών ἐστι ζωὴ ἐν στάσει), indifferent and
self-identical.”
3 Plot. Enn. III.7.11.
4 Cf. E.A. Schmidt’s (1985, 47–54) contrast of Plot. Enn. III.7 and Aug. Conf. XI, which I only
obtained after this appendix had been written.

Appendices 315
(i) Gerard O’Daly’s methodological caution in the 1970s still stands:

Augustine’s distentio “need not be a translated term.”5
(ii) If Augustine’s distentio is translated, there is still little reason to assume a
specifically Plotinian source.
Distentio is conceptually related to the Greek terms διάστασις and διάστημα—
and these terms are commonplace in Stoic, Pyrrhonian and Neoplatonic discus-
sions of time and space.6 Thus, Plutarch reports that certain Stoics held time to
be the “extension (διάστεμα) of motion and nothing else.”7 Sextus Empiricus
reports that other Stoics defined time as the “extension (διάστημα) of the motion
of the cosmos.”8 And Damascius still asks in his 6th-century Dubitationes et
Solutiones: “If time is an extension (διάστημα), how could the unextended consti-
tute it?”9 As this indicates, Augustine’s distentio could translate—for instance—
the Stoics’ διάστημα, no less than Plotinus’ διάστασις.
(iii) If Augustine’s distentio . . . animi is a translation of Plotinus’ διάστασις . . .
ζωῆς, then it is a free translation.
Dominic O’Meara reminds us that “Marius Victorinus’ Latin translation of the
Enneads”—which is perhaps the translation, or more likely a partial translation
of the Enneads, that Augustine had on hand in 386—“seems not to have survived
into the early medieval period.”10 Marsilio Ficino’s 1492 translation of the
Enneads is thus the first surviving Latin edition of Plotinus’ work, and Ficino
Latinizes the phrase διάστασις . . . ζωῆς with distantia . . . vitae.11 Since vitae—not
Augustine’s animi—is the natural translation here, I know of no reason to con-
5 O’Daly 1977, 265–66.

6 The Greek διάστασις and διάστημα pertain indifferently to time and space—or perhaps,
originally and primarily to space; and it is the same with Augustine’s distentio. Cf. for
instance, Aug. Quant.anim. 14.23: . . . in spatium distendunt; 15.26: Deinde, si per spatium
sui corporis anima distenditur, quomodo nullius quantitatis est?; Cons. I.23.31: aetherem
quippe non spiritum, sed corpus esse dicunt sublime, quo caelum super aerem
distenditur.
7 Plut. Plat.quaest. VIII.4 (1007a–b).
9 Unlike Augustine, Damascius resolves this question by positing an “extension of time”
(διάστημα . . . τοῦ χρόνου) in present-time. Time is “not composed of indivisible parts
(μερῶν ἀμερῶν),” writes Damascius, “but of discrete and extended (διαστατῶν)
parts.” Accordingly, present-time is redefined: “The Now (τὸ νῦν) is a temporal extension
(διάστημα) and time consists of such extensions” (exc. in Sambursky and Pines 1987,
86–91).
10 O’Meara 1992, 57.
11 Ficino 1559, 176.
316 APPENDICES
jecture that Marius Victorinus would have Latinized Plotinus’ ζωῆς with animi,
rather than vitae.
(iv) If Augustine’s animi is yet a translation of Plotinus’ ζωῆς, then Augustine’s
animus-concept in Confessions XI is a free variation on Plotinus’ ζωή-
concept in Enneads III.7.
Augustine detects a chronogenic power in the terrestrial souls of humans and
beasts (see 8.2–3), whereas Plotinus posits a cosmogonic power in a hyper-
elevated all-soul.
(v) And finally: if Augustine’s distentio . . . animi is a variation on Plotinus’
διάστασις . . . ζωῆς, then it is a free variation on Plotinus’ penultimate
time-concept.
For unlike Augustine, whose time-investigation concludes with a (non-
dogmatic) distentio, Plotinus’ tractate presses beyond his (dogmatic) notion
of διάστασις (in Enneads III.7.11) to the hyper-exalted cause of this διάστασις
(in Enneads III.7.13). And this cause of διάστασις—i.e. the cosmogonic “essence-
itself” (οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ) of time12—is not ‘the extension of Life,’ but rather
“the movement of Soul” (τῆς ψυχῆς κίνησιν).13 Plotinus states this three times
in Enneads III.7.13: time-itself is the movement of the all-soul.14 Yet just as
there is no reference to a Plotinian ‘all-soul’ in Confessions XI (see 2.2), so
also there is no echo—however faint, however corrupt—of soul’s ‘movement’
in ConfessionsXI.
In short: if Augustine takes over Plotinus’ διάστασις . . . ζωῆς in Confessions XI, he takes

it with a high hand.
Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus and Augustine’s Analytics of

Present-Time
If the literature on the sources of Augustine’s distentio animi is less than convincing,
the literature on the sources of his time-question is lacking. And as regards his time-
question, Augustine’s hyper-Plotinian interpreters have nothing to offer.
This is because Augustine opens his time-investigation in Confessions XI.14–15 with
an aporia of temporal inexistence that Plotinus simply ignores. This aporia is unmen-
tioned in Enneads III.7, whereas it introduces Aristotle’s time-investigation—as it will

14 Plot. Enn. III.7.13: τῆς ψυχῆς κίνησιν . . . τῆς ψυχῆς κίνησιν . . . κίνησιν τῆς ψυχῆς
Appendices 317
later introduce Augustine’s.15 This is Aristotle, in the proem to his pages on time in
Physics IV:
Some of time-itself is past and no longer exists (οὐκ ἔστι), the rest is future and
does not yet exist (οὔπω ἔστιν) . . . and it is impossible to conceive of that which is
composed of inexistents as having a share in being.16
Aristotle then conjoins—like Augustine,17 unlike Plotinus—this inexistence of past-

time and future-time with present-time’s peculiar mode of ‘presence,’ namely,
transit. “Time strikes us,” says Aristotle, “as being a passing-on (κίνησις) and a changing
(μεταβολή).”18 Regardless of its direct or indirect transmission, it is this coupling of
the aporia of temporal inexistence with the Ur-phenomenon of present-temporal
transit that Augustine inherits. That is to say, in formal terms, it is Aristotle—not
Plotinus—who provides Augustine with the structure and crux of his time-question in
Confessions XI.
And Aristotle’s aporia of temporal inexistence is later re-elaborated by Sextus
Empiricus19 in Adversus Physicos II,20 relative to the Epicurean doctrine of time as “a
day-like and night-like phantasm.”21 This is of interest not only because Augustine’s
time-concept appears to resemble Epicurus’ (see 2.3); and not only because Epicurus—
like Plotinus—ignores the aporia of temporal inexistence; but also because Sextus
Empiricus’ re-deployment of Aristotle’s aporia seems to anticipate Augustine’s analyt-
ics of present-time in Confessions XI.15.19–20. I, at least, have seen no other text that so
methodically pre-delineates Augustine’s “restriction” (contractio) of the “space”
15 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: duo ergo illa tempora, praeteritum et futurum, quomodo sunt,
quando et praeteritum iam non est et futurum nondum est?; XI.15.18: sed quo pacto longum
est aut breve, quod non est? praeteritum enim iam non est et futurum nondum est. non
itaque dicamus, “longum est,” sed dicamus de praeterito, “longum fuit,” et de futuro,
“longum erit.”
16 Arist. Phys. IV.10 (217b–218a).
17 Cf. Aug. Conf. XI.14.17: si ergo praesens, ut tempus sit, ideo fit, quia in praeteritum
transit . . .
18 Arist. Phys. IV.10 (218b).
19 For Aristotle as a forerunner to, and source for, the Greek sceptics: Long 1981.
20 Cf. Sext. Ad.Phys. II.192: “Time is held to be composed of inexistents (ἀνυπάρκτων)—of
the past which no longer exists, and of the future which does not yet exist—and there-
fore, time in inexistent (ἀνύπαρκτος).”
Cf. also the parallel passages at Sext. Ad.Phys. II.197; Ad.Mus. 49; Ad.Gramm. 6.64–65.
318 APPENDICES
(spatium)22 of a day—with a day being “comprised,” writes Augustine, “of twenty-four

hours: night-hours and day-hours”23—to a single hour; and then from a single hour to
a swarm of hyper-transitive “fugitive particles” (fugitivis particulis).24 This is Sextus:
If day and night are shown to be unreal (ἀνυπόστατος), it follows that Epicurus’
“day-like phantasm” is also unreal (ἀνυπόστατον). For ‘day’ in its stricter concep-
tion consists of twelve hours (δωδεκάωρος) . . . and appears to be unreal once we
examine it. For when the first hour exists, the other eleven do not yet exist; and
when most of its hours are inexistent, ‘day’ will not exist. And again: when the
second hour is present the first no longer exists and the other ten do not yet
exist, so that in this case also—since most of its hours are inexistent—‘day’ will
not exist. This always holds: if a single hour exists but ‘day’ is not a single hour,
then no day will exist.
Nor, in fact, does a single hour exist. For an ‘hour’ is conceived by way of an
extension (κατὰ πλάτος γὰρ νοεῖται) and is itself comprised of a number of parts
(ἐκ πλειόνων τε καὶ αὐτη συνέστηκε μοιρῶν): some are not yet existent and others
no longer existent, so that what is compounded of them is unreal. But if neither
an hour nor a day nor a night (by way of analogy) exists, then time will not be
Epicurus’ “day-like” or “night-like phantasm.”25
This passage26 merits a sustained comparison—which it will not receive here—

with Confessions XI.15.19–20. The parallels are on the surface, though perhaps not
superficial; while the question—perhaps irresolvable—of possible channels by which
Sextus’ analysis could have reached Augustine has, to my awareness, never been pur-
sued. (Augustine repeats in Confessions V and VI that he read many philosophers’
works prior to 386,27 and inclined towards the Academics;28 in Confessions VII, he is
22 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: ecce praesens tempus, quod solum inveniebamus longum appellan-
dum, vix ad unius diei spatium contractum est.
23 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: unus dies . . . nocturnis enim et diurnis horis omnibus viginti quat-
tuor expletur.
24 Aug. Conf. XI.15.20: et ipsa una hora fugitivis particulis agitur.
26 Alongside the very similar analysis at Sext. Ad.Phys. II.238–43.
27 Aug. Conf. V.3.3: et quoniam multa philosophorum legeram memoriaeque mandata ret-
inebam . . .; VI.5.7: . . . tam multa quae legeram inter se confligentium philosophorum . . .
28 Aug. Conf. V.10.19: etenim suborta est etiam mihi cogitatio, prudentiores illos ceteris
fuisse philosophos quos academicos appellant, quod de omnibus dubitandum esse censu-
erant . . .; V.14.25: itaque academicorum more, sicut existimantur, dubitans de omnibus
atque inter omnia fluctuans . . .; VI.11.18: o magni viri academici! nihil ad agendam vitam
certi comprehendi potest.
Appendices 319
merely presented with some Platonic texts.29 The Augustine-literature has tended to
ignore the implications of these self-reports.)
Nor are Sextus’ fore-echoes of Confessions XI limited to his analytics of present-
time. For instance: Augustine, in passing, contrasts temporal mensuration with spatial
mensuration in terms of cubits at Confessions XI.26.33.30 Plotinus also refers to the
cubit, in passing, at Enneads III.7.9.31 But it is Sextus’ analysis of the cubit in Adversus
Physicos II32—and not Plotinus’—that anticipates Augustine’s analysis in Confessions
XI.26.33. This is Sextus:
The cubit (πῆχυς) is measured by the palm of a hand, and the palm is a part
of the cubit (πήχεως μέρος), while the palm is measured by the finger, and the
finger is a part of the palm. So then, if time is divisible, it ought to be measured
by some part of itself (τινος αὐτου μέρους). But it is impossible for the other times
to be measured by the present. For if the present-time measures the past, then
this present-time will be in the past, and being in the past it will no longer be
present but past . . .33
It is not my question here whether Augustine might have seen Sextus’ analysis of
the cubit and present-time—reported, excerpted or paraphrased—before he wrote
Confessions XI. But the fact remains that Sextus’ analysis is rooted in an aporia of tem-
poral inexistence that we encounter in Aristotle,34 and later in Augustine—but not in
Plotinus. It is also the case that Sextus’ use of the cubit—but not Plotinus’—anticipates
Augustine’s in Confessions XI.26.33. Nor is the placement of Augustine’s glance at the
cubit insignificant, since it occurs in a paragraph that culminates in these words:
From-which it seems to me (inde mihi visum est) that time is nothing else but a
dilation—but of what, I do not know, and would be shocked if it is not the soul-
itself. (XI.26.33)
29 Aug. Conf. VII.9.13: procurasti mihi per quendam hominem immanissimo typho turgi-
dum quosdam platonicorum libros ex graeca lingua in latinam versos, et ibi legi . . .
30 Aug. Conf. XI.26.33: an tempore breviore metimur longius sicut spatio cubiti spatium
transtri?
31 Plot. Enn. III.7.9: “If [time] is a continuous measure, then it will be a measure because it
consists of a certain space (ποσόν)—like a length of one cubit (οἷον τὸ πηχυαῖον μέγεθος)”;
cf. III.7.11: “ . . .as if one said that what is measured by a cubit (πήχεως) was ‘the length,’
without saying what length was in-itself . . . ”
32 Cf. a parallel passage at Sext. Ad.Gramm. 6.64–65.
34 Again: Aristotle as a source for the sceptics, including Sextus Empiricus, vid. Long 1981.
320 APPENDICES
Appendix 2 Augustine and the Paris Condemnations of 1277
Apropos of my remark that there is a scholastic precedent for “reprobating” Augustine’s

time-concept (see chapter 2): the reference, here, is to Stephen Tempier’s index of 219
reprobated articles—“la plus grave condamnation du moyen âge”35—which was
drawn up by a cabal of neo-Augustinians in Paris, including Henry of Ghent,36 and
issued on 7 March 1277. The crucial article, for us, is variously numbered 20037 or 86;38
But regardless, this is the article in which Tempier, as bishop of Paris, damns the notion
That the aevum and time have no being outside the soul, but solely in
apprehension.
Quod evum et tempus nichil sunt in re, sed solum in apprehensione.39
Now, the precise sense of the expression in re in this article is difficult to ascertain
or to convey. There is nevertheless ample textual support for taking in re to simply
mean extra animam, since 13th-century treatments of ‘time’ repeatedly use these
phrases in complementary and parallel, if not indistinguishable ways, and not infre-
quently, with reference to Augustine. This is what we see, for instance, in Albertus
Magnus’ Physics commentary:
Augustinus etiam disputans, an tempus sit in anima, quaerit, si tempus extra ani-
mam, ubi sit. Praeteritum enim cum non sit, nusquam est in rerum natura; futu-
rum etiam cum nondum sit, non habet esse in rerum natura; ergo si tempus est
in rerum natura extra animam, hoc erit praesens.40
Or in Kilwardby’s Tractatus de Tempore:
Videtur quod tempus non sit de entibus extra animam . . . posuit Augustinus quod
tempus non sit nisi in anima . . . tempus secundum ipsum est quedam distentio
non alicuius existentis extra animam . . .41
35 Van Steenberghen 1966, 483.

36 Hissette 1977, 7.
37 Duhem 1959, VII:311.
38 Hissette 1977, 152.
39 Cf. Temp. Coll. cap. 12, fol. 18v; Porro 1987, 208 n. 3 (my translation).
40 Alb. Phys. IV, tr. 3, cap. 3.
41 Kil. Temp. 1–4.
Appendices 321
Or again, in one of Henry of Ghent’s Quaestiones Quodlibetales:
Revera necesse est ponere instans sive praesens esse in natura rei extra animam,
si transitum vel translationem aliquam ponamus extra animam . . . Et si conceda-
tur nunc instans esse in re extra animam [etc.] . . . Nec plus possunt concludere
persuasiones Augustini ad probandum tempus non esse in rebus sed solum in
anima.42
Thus, Tempier’s article can be taken to condemn the position that ‘time has no being
outside the soul, but solely in apprehension.’
This article is still being circulated at the close of the 15th century. It is reproduced
in a 1490 Cologne incunable (from which I have quoted it) that contains Tempier’s
Paris condemnations and Kilwardby’s Oxford condemnations; and it is cited in a 1481
Venetian incunable containing John the Canon’s Quaestiones super Octo Libros
Physicorum. Now, Canon’s Quaestiones were arguably penned in the first decades of
the 14th century, but may in fact date to the mid-15th century. In any event, Canon is
still being published in 1481, and he writes that the opinion of a prominent Franciscan
master, Peter Auriol (d. 1322), is
manifestly false, inasmuch as it says that time has its existence from the soul. This
proposition . . . is [also present in] an article that was excommunicated at Paris
by the bishop of Paris and by the whole University. They stated that it was erro-
neous to hold that the aevum and time have their sole existence in the apprehen-
sion of the soul.43
Pierre Duhem assumes a heavy influence of Confessions XI on Peter Auriol’s account

of time,44 which Canon rejects here; and Duhem also takes Tempier’s ‘time’-article to
have struck at Confessions XI.45 Roland Hissette, however, has briefly documented that
the positive doctrine in Tempier’s article—i.e. tempus solum est in apprehensione—
can be detected in a range of 13th-century sources,46 including Thomas Aquinas47 and
Siger of Brabant.48 Aquinas and Siger alike reference Aristotle—not Augustine—when
42 Gand. Quodl. III, q. 11 (cit. Porro 1996, 6).

43 Cf. Can. Quaest. IV, q. 6, fol. 72v; Duhem 1959, VII:317.
44 Duhem 1959, VII:370.
45 Duhem 1959, VII:367–68.
46 Hissette 1977, 153–54.
47 Cf. Aq. S.Th. I, q. 1, art. 1, resp.
48 For Siger’s treatment of time, consult the references provided at Van Steenberghen 1977,
334.
322 APPENDICES
they use Tempier’s condemned term, apprehensio. Thus, it is provisionally an

Aristotelian and Averroistic discourse of time ‘in the soul’—i.e. in apprehensione—
that appears to be circulating in 13th-century scholastic circles, and that Tempier
excommunicates. And this could of course be predicted, since it is the rise of neo-
Peripateticism in Paris that occasions Tempier’s condemnations.
It is with reason, then, that Hissette concludes: “Cette insistence sur l’apprehensio a
sans doute éveillé l’inquiétude d’un censeur: il a cru que certains maîtres contestaient
le caractère réel de la durée des créatures.”49 And this is very interesting, since there is
no distinctly Augustinian resonance in the term apprehensio, apropos of time. To the
contrary, it is preeminently god—i.e. eternity—that may be ‘apprehended’ in
the Confessions (already at I.5.5); though the word has a corporeal-legal sense when
Augustine’s friend Alypius is ‘apprehended’ by a mob (at VI.9.14–15), and though a
mood can also seize or ‘apprehend’ Augustine (as at X.8.15). Most significantly, in the
last sentences of his time-investigation (at XI.29.39), apprehensio signals Augustine’s
faith in the mediation of eternity by Christ, and in a post-temporal future in which the
human contemplation of god will be perfected. Apprehensio here denotes the possibil-
ity of a mode of intellection that is unembittered by loss (i.e. time) and unencumbered
by massy and opaque (i.e. mortal) flesh. Augustine’s apprehensio in Confessions XI.29
signifies, at once, a divine intellection of time from eternity; a devout but ceaselessly
distracted contemplation of eternity in time; and finally, the hope of a purified, stabi-
lized and finalized, human intellection of eternity after time: intentio exalted, intentio
lifted out over time. But it does not denote the ‘time’ that is distentio. Augustine’s term
apprehensio is, rather, directly opposed to his sense-temporal term, distentio, in
Confessions XI; which makes the scholastic term apprehensio—as condemned by
Tempier—a counter-concept to Augustine’s late-antique distentio.
Since the scholastics frequently associate Augustine with Aristotle and Averroes,
and regard him as holding a restrictive notion of time ‘in the soul,’50 this by no means
disproves Duhem’s hypothesis that Augustine is included in Tempier’s article on
time—and thus, that Augustine is tacitly reprobated on this point. For we will recall
that Henry of Ghent had a hand in drafting Tempier’s articles, while he clearly takes
Augustine’s time-concept to be restrictive (though note the absence of apprehensio
here):
Ecce plane quid de proposita quaestione sensit Augustinus, videlicet quod [tem-
pus] non esset nisi in anima.51
49 Hissette 1977, 154.

50 Cf. for instance, Stras. S.Ph. II, tr. 9.
51 Gand. Quodl. III, q. 11.
Appendices 323
Rather, what I would like to suggest is that the ‘Augustine’ Tempier excommunicates is
a 13th-century ‘Augustine’ in so far as he is assimilated to the intellectivism (see 2.5) of
Aristotle’s Physics and Averroes’ Physics commentaries. For it is not Augustine, but
Aristotle and his Cordovan commentator who specify that ‘the soul’ in which time is
actualized is the intellective soul—whence Tempier’s intellective term, apprehensio.
This is Aristotle:
And if nothing can enumerate but the soul, i.e. the intellective soul (ψυχῆς νοῦς),
it is impossible that time should exist if the soul did not . . .52
Si autem nichil aliud aptum natum est quam anima numerare et anima intellec-
tus, inpossibile est esse tempus anima non sit . . .53
And this is the scholastics’ Averroes:
. . . cum ſit declaratum quod, cum numerans non fuerit, non erit numerus: & eſt
impoſſibile aliquid aliud numerare pręter animam. & de anima intellectus:
manifeſtum eſt quod, ſi anima [intellectus] non fuerit, non erit numerus: &, cum
numerus non fuerit, non erit tempus.54
And finally, again, Averroes:
Dicamus igitur ad hoc, quod extra mentem non eſt niſi motus, & tempus non ſit,
nisi quando mens dividit motum in prius, & poſterius: & hæc eſt intentio numeri
motus, id est motum eſſe numeratus . . .55
If Augustine had not been misinterpreted in this Aristotelian-Averroistic vein, then

his time-concept would not have been ‘excommunicated’ by Stephen Tempier in 1277.
Or said differently: my impious, sensualist interpretation of Confessions XI sets the
bishop of Hippo Regius out of reach of the bishop of Paris’s article on time.
52 Arist. Phys. IV.14 (223a).

53 Arist.Lat. Phys. IV.14.
54 Aver.Lat. Phys. IV, 131d–e (my transcription).
55 Aver.Lat. Phys. IV, 109c (my transcription).
324 APPENDICES
Appendix 3 Pierre Gassendi’s Metaphysical Confession of Time
It is curious, in light of the scholastic reception of Confessions XI (see chapter 2), to

glance at a 17th-century treatment of time that opens with Augustine’s confession:
“If no one asks me what time is, I know; if I wish to state what it is when asked, I do not
know.”56
It is Pierre Gassendi—a front-wave neo-Epicurean57—who quotes this in the first
paragraph of his commandingly erudite discussion of time and eternity,58 which is
located in Section I (“De Rebus Naturæ universè”) of Part II (“Physicæ”) of the Syntagma
Philosophicum, first published in 1658. For Gassendi, as for the scholastics, the ques-
tion of time pertains to the rebus naturae,59 although in this, he is following Epicurus
and Lucretius, Aristotle and Augustine—not Albertus Magnus. Gassendi’s placement
of his chapter “Quid Tempus ſit” is nevertheless, perhaps, the only aspect of it that
harmonizes with Epicurus60 or Lucretius, Aristotle or Augustine—though they all fig-
ure in the nine folio pages he devotes to time and eternity.
It is no shock that Gassendi rejects Aristotle’s “celebrated definition” of time as “the
number of motion according to the prior and posterior”61 in Physics IV: he had
announced his decision to break with the Peripatetics on time62 a quarter-century
before the Syntagma went to press.63 That Gassendi also shows no deference to
Augustine in Confessions XI is hardly a scandal: as we have seen, there is scholastic
precedent for rejecting Augustine’s time-concept. What could not be predicted, per-
haps, is this:
56 Gassendi 1658, I:220: “Profectò verò haud abs re in ore eſt omnium, quod D. habet
Auguſtinus, Si nemo, inquit, ex me quærat, quid sit Tempus, scio; si quærenti explicare velim,
nescio [Aug. Conf. XI.14.17].”
For a scholastic citation, vid. Gand. Quodl. III, q. 11: Quid eſt ergo tempus? Si nemo ex
me quęrat: ſcio. Si quęrenti explicare velim, neſcio.
57 Vid. Lolordo 2007, 20–24.
58 Gassendi 1658, I:220: “Caput VII. Quid Tempus ſit, & quod illius ab Æternitate diſcrimen.”
59 This is clear from Gassendi’s text, although the Syntagma was “never finished,” and was
“put together after Gassendi’s death by [Samuel] Sorbière and [Henri-Louis Habert de]
Montmor” (Lolordo 2007, 20).
60 Cf. also Gassendi’s précis of Epicurus on time in the Syntagma Philosophiae Epicuri, at
Gassendi 1684, 275–77: “Caput XVI. De eis Qualitatibus, quæ habentur rerum Eventa; ac
præſertim de Tempore.”
61 Gassendi 1658, I:221: “Ariſtotelis difinitio celebris eſt, quâ eſſe Tempus voluit, . . . Numerum
motus . . . secundùm prius, & posterius.”
62 For a review of several “Renaissance critiques of Aristotle’s theory of time”: Hutton 1977.
63 Lolordo 2007, 106: “In a letter to Peiresc on 28 April 1631 that was printed as a preface to
the Exercitationes, Gassendi wrote that he planned to reinstate the space of the ancients
and dispense with Aristotelian place . . . and treat time ‘differently’ from Aristotle.”
Appendices 325
(i) that Gassendi, Epicurus’ foremost Catholic apologist, displays no partiality

whatever for Epicurus’ time-doctrine;
(ii) that by rejecting Epicurus’ time-doctrine, Gassendi also rejects—and in
interesting ways, reverses—Augustine’s time-concept; and
(iii) that while Gassendi distances himself markedly from Epicurus and
Augustine on time, he nevertheless introduces one of his decisive proposi-
tions on time with the—perhaps, seemingly Augustinist—expression: “It
must be confessed ” ( fatendum).64
This nest of issues deserves serious investigation, though here I can only address the
last: What is the source of Gassendi’s decision ‘to confess’ ( fateri) one element of his
time-doctrine in the Syntagma?65
Gassendi’s source could in fact be Augustine, since—as we have seen—Gassendi
opens his chapter with a sentence from Confessions XI; since—while Augustine greatly
prefers confiteri to fateri—he nevertheless selects fateri for his first ‘confession’ in
Confessions I,66 with fateri appearing in nine of the Confessions’ thirteen books;67 and
since—crucially—fateri appears in Confessions XI.20.26, where Augustine first articu-
lates a co-presence of memoria, contuitus and expectatio in the soul.68 Gassendi’s
choice of fateri in the Syntagma’s time-discussion could, then, plausibly derive from
the Confessions, and specifically, from Confessions XI. However, it does not. For
Gassendi uses the gerundive for his ‘confession,’ which fateri never takes in the
64 Gassendi 1658, I:223: “Fatendum nihil eſſe reverâ permanenter, niſi permanens; at eſſe
reverâ quoque ſuo modo, hoc eſt ſucceſſivè, quod eſt ſucceſſivum.”
65 I have seen no scholastic appropriate the language of ‘confession’ in this way. Cf. for
instance, Alb. Phys. IV, tr. 3, c. 2–4; Gand. Quodl. III, q. 11; Gross. In Phys. IV;
Harc. Q.Ord. XVIII; Kil. Temp. q. 1–16; Scot. Q.Disp. XVIII–XIX; Stras. S.Ph. tr. IX; Vit.
Quodl. XII.
66 Aug. Conf. I.5.6: habet quae offendant oculos tuos: fateor et scio; I.6.9: an inrides me ista
quaerentem teque de hoc quod novi laudari a me iubes et confiteri me tibi?
67 Aug. Conf. II.7.15: . . . et omnia mihi dimissa esse fateor; V.10.20: . . . cogerer finitum fateri;
VII.3.5: . . . qua me non iniuste plecti te iustum cogitans cito fatebar; VII.19.25: ego autem
aliquanto posterius didicisse me fateor; VIII.10.23: aut enim fatebuntur quod nolunt;
IX.4.12: expavi, fateor, domine meus deus meus; X.20.29: audimus nomen hoc et omnes
rem ipsam nos appetere fatemur; X.33.49: . . . fateor, aliquantulum adquiesco; X.37.61: sed
auget, fateor, non solum, sed et vituperatio minuit; XII.22.31: ita fatemur minus bonum
esse quod factum est creabile atque formabile, sed tamen bonum; XII.30.41: sed omnes
quos in eis verbis vera cernere ac dicere fateor.
68 Aug. Conf. XI.20.26: si haec permittimur dicere, tria tempora video fateorque, tria sunt.
326 APPENDICES
Confessions;69 whereas fateri takes the gerundive form, fatendumst,70 in a Lucretian

line that Gassendi quotes one folio page before he writes his own, anti-Lucretian ‘con-
fession’: fatendum. This is Lucretius, in Gassendi’s typography:
Nec per se quemquam tempus sentire fatendum’st

Semotum ab rerum motu placidáque quiete.71
Which can be rendered:
Nor should we confess that anyone senses time in-itself or far-removed from the
motion and untroubled rest of bodies.72
It is because of this Lucretian couplet (which is quoted in chapter 1) and not at all
because of Augustine, that Gassendi ‘confesses’ time in the Syntagma.73 And Gassendi’s
is a singular time-confession. He heeds neither Lucretius’ admonition, as just quoted;74
nor the objections of Augustine, Gregory Nazianzen and John Damascene;75 nor the
69 Cf. Arts 1927, 114–19.

70 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. I.377: receptumst; I.465: videndumst; II.94: probatumst; II.1052: putan-
dumst; etc.
71 Gassendi 1658, I:222 = Lucr. Rer.nat. I.462–63.
Cf. Gassendi 1658, I:222 = Lucr. Rer.nat. I.465–66: . . . videndum’st | Ne fortè hæc per
se cogant nos esse fateri . . .
72 Cf. Munro 1920, II:11: “And we must admit that no one feels time by itself abstracted from
the motion and calm rest of things.”
73 Gassendi 1658, I:223: Fatendum nihil eſſe reverâ permanenter, nisi permanens; at eſſe
reverâ quoque ſuo modo, hoc eſt ſucceſſivè, quod eſt ſucceſſivum.
74 Gassendi 1658, I:222: . . . Ac talis eſt quidem Epicuri ſententia. Videntur porrò Stoïci
meliùs, quàm ipſe Epicurus ſenſiſſe, quod per se esse intelligatur, non tale quod accidat
rebus, eo ſenſu, ut Tempus non foret, ſi res non eſſent, quæ eo durarent, aut niſi etiam
noſtra mens durare ipſas cogitaret . . .
75 Gassendi 1658, I:227: Obiiciuntur rursùs Patres aliqui, uti Auguſtinus, Nazianzenus,
Damaſcenus, qui fuiſſe negent Tempus ante Mundum . . .
Apropos of Gassendi’s linkage of ‘Auguſtinus . . . Damaſcenus’: in his 1597 Metaphysical
Disputations, Francisco Suarez calibrates Augustine’s 5th-century Latin distentio to the
8th-century, Latinized protensio in John Damascene. Vid. Suarez 1861, 955: . . . ita videtur
locutus Augustinus dicto capite 23, lib. 11 Confess. . . . Video igitur tempus quamdam esse
distensionem; et Damascenus, libro 2, cap. 1, mentionem facit illius successionis imagi-
nariæ, quam vocat, velut temporalem motum, ac spatium, quod (ait) una protenditur cum
rebus æternis. Unde fit etiam protendi cum reali tempore.
Appendices 327
strictures of Plato and Aristotle;76 but rather concludes that time is in no sense “depen-
dent from motion or subsequent to it.”77 Gassendi’s ‘time’ in the Syntagma is a preter-
mundane, absolute, space-like,78 “bodiless extension” in which it is yet possible “to
designate past, present, future.”79
What is of prime importance is this, however: in articulating his proto-Newtonian
time-concept, Gassendi has no complaints regarding Augustine’s ‘metaphysical’ treat-
ment of time. To the contrary, it is quite evident that Gassendi regards Augustine’s
time-concept—like Aristotle’s, like Epicurus’ and Lucretius’—as being unduly, inde-
fensibly physical. (This is because, per Augustine: “The forms of [material] things give
rise to times.”)80 Moreover, Gassendi seems to regard the Stoics’ and Plotinus’ time-
concepts—neither of which directly informed 13th-century disputes over time—with
the least disfavour.81 That is to say, in propounding his arch-metaphysical time-
concept—for recall, Gassendi’s time is a “bodiless extension” (Extenſio incorporea)82—
Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius and Augustine (inter alia) are forgone, whereas the Stoics
and Plotinus are advanced upon.
76 Gassendi 1658, I:227: Tametſi dici quoque poteſt, priores illos negaſſe ſolùm fuiſſe ante
Mundum eìuſmodi Tempus, quod Plato, & Ariſtoteles deſcribunt, ut quidpiam à motu
dependens.
77 Gassendi 1658, I:225: Atque ex his tandem non videtur Tempus eſſe aliquid à motu depen-
dens, aut illo poſterius; ſed motu ſolùm indicari, ut menſuratum à menſura.
Cf. Bernardino Telesio’s similar formulation in book I of his 1565 work, De Rerum
Natura (cit. and tr. Hutton 1977, 354, 354 n. 47): “Time in no way depends on motion, but,
as has been said, it exists by itself, and what characteristics it has, it has of itself, and none
from motion” (Nihil enim a motu cum pendeat tempus per se, ut dictum est existat, quas
habet condiciones, a se ipso habet omnes, a motu nullam prorsus).
78 Gassendi 1658, I:220: ut datur incorporeum Spatium . . . ſic dari videtur incorporea
quædam . . . à corporibus independens Duratio . . . Ut enim illud Spatium, præterquàm
quod Locus eſt Mundi partiúmque eius omnium . . . ita hæc Duratio, præterquàm quod
Tempus eſt Mundi, rerúmque omnium in eo exſtantium, & diffuſa fuiſſe abſque ullo prini-
cipio ante Mundum concipitur, & diffundenda abſque ullo fine intelligitur, deſtructo
etiam Mundo.
79 Gassendi 1658, I:220: . . . Duratio iam valeat deſcribi, Extenſio incorporea, fluens, in qua ſic
præteritum, præſens, futurum deſignare liceat, ut rei cuiuſque eſſe Tempus poſſit.
80 Aug. Conf. XII.29.40: formae rerum exserunt tempora.
81 Gassendi 1658, I:222: Videntur porrò Stoïci meliùs, quàm ipſe Epicurus ſenſiſſe . . .; 224:
Qua occaſione Plotinus Peripateticos reprehendit . . .
82 Gassendi 1658, I:220.
328 APPENDICES
Appendix 4 Thomas Hobbes’s Physical Confession of Time
If the neo-Epicurean Gassendi rarefies the Stoics and Plotinus on time (see Appendix 3),
his friend83 Thomas Hobbes revises Aristotle,84 Epicurus and Lucretius in “De Loco et
Tempore,” the chapter that introduces Hobbes’s “Philosophia Prima” in the De Corpore,
published in 1655 (when Gassendi was on his deathbed).85
Unlike Gassendi, Hobbes makes no reference to Epicurus, Lucretius or Augustine
on time; Aristotle’s is the only name here.86 Unlike Gassendi, Hobbes articulates a
time-doctrine that closely resembles Augustine’s.87 But like Gassendi’s “Quid Tempus
ſit,” Hobbes’s “De Loco et Tempore” pivots on some notion of ‘confession,’ for which
Hobbes uses Augustine’s preferred term: confiteri. This is Hobbes—in his translation,
and his Latin:
For seeing all men confess a year to be time, and yet do not think a year to be the
accident or affection of any body, they must needs confess it to be, not in
the things without us, but only in the thought of the mind. So when they speak
of the times of their predecessors, they do not think after their predecessors are
gone, that their times can be any where else than in the memory of those that
remember them.88
Nam quum confiteantur annum, esse tempus, et tamen annum alicujus corporis
accidens aut affectum, aut modum esse non putent, necesse est ut confiteantur
esse eum, non in ipsis rebus, sed in animi cogitatione, reperiendum; quumque
de majorum suorum temporibus loquuntur, an existimant, extinctis majoribus
suis, tempora eorum alibi esse posse, quam in memoria recordantium?89
We could of course range Hobbes’s last statement, which isolates past times ‘in the
memory of those that remember them,’ beside these sentences from Confessions XI:
83 Lolordo 2007, 10: “Gassendi apparently became friends with Hobbes during his time in
Paris in the 1640s, although the two had met previously.”
84 Hobbes 1839b, 94: “ . . .without receding much from common opinion, or from Aristotle’s
definition”; 95: “ . . .which agrees with this definition of Aristotle, time is the number of
motion according to former and latter.”
85 Lolordo 2007, 10: “Samuel Sorbière, a disciple of both Gassendi and Hobbes in turn, tells
us that when Gassendi was given a copy of De corpore on his deathbed, he greeted it with
a kiss.”
86 Cf. Hobbes 1839a, 83–84; 1839b, 94–95.
87 The word doctrina does not appear in Aug. Conf. XI, but is the first word in Hobbes’s “De
Loco et Tempore.” Vid. Hobbes 1839a, 81: “Doctrinæ naturalis exordium . . . ”
88 Hobbes 1839b, 94.
89 Hobbes 1839a, 83–84.
Appendices 329
Who denies that past things are now inexistent? But nevertheless, there is still in
the soul the memory of things past. . . . Nor is time past, which is inexistent, ‘long’;
but a long past is ‘a long memory of the past.’
quis negat praeterita iam non esse? sed tamen adhuc est in animo memoria praet-
eritorum. . . . neque ‘longum’ praeteritum tempus, quod non est, sed longum
praeteritum ‘longa memoria praeteriti’ est. (XI.28.37)
Yet Augustine is not Hobbes’s source here. Rather, Hobbes is demonstrably reworking
a passage from book I of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura that Gassendi quotes in extenso,90
though Gassendi then—unlike Hobbes—takes his distance.
Alluding to the rape of Helen and the sack of Troy,91 Lucretius urges us in this pas-
sage to “see to it that they do not force us to confess (fateri) that these things ‘are’ in-
themselves (per se . . . esse)” (Hobbes has ‘in the things without us’), since “those
generations of men” (Hobbes’s ‘predecessors’), “of whom these things were accidents
(eventa), have now been irrevocably swept away by past ages.”92 Lucretius does not
make the point himself here (as he will in De Rerum Natura III),93 but his lines testify
to the fact that all that remains of Helen and the walls of Troy is memory (as when
Augustine recollects Virgil’s ‘Troy’ at Confessions I.13. and I.17).94 ‘In-themselves’ or per
se,95 Helen and that city are simply—to use Hobbes’s word—gone.
90 Gassendi 1658, I:222: Denique Tyndaridem raptam, bellόque subactas | Troiugenas genteis
cùm dicent esse videndum’st | Ne fortè hæc per se cogant nos esse fateri, | Quando ea sæcla
hominum, quorum hæc eventa fuêre, | Irrevocabilis abstulerit iam præterita ætas. | Namque
aliud rebus . . .
91 Cf. Arist. Phys. IV.13 (222a): “[We say,] ‘He has come now,’ if he came today. But we do not
speak in the same way of the Trojan War or Deucalion’s flood (ὁ κατακλυσμὸς) . . . ”
92 Lucr. Rer.nat. I.464–68: Denique Tyndaridem raptam belloque subactas | Troiiugenas
gentis cum dicent ‘esse,’ videndumst | ne forte haec per se cogant nos esse fateri, | quando
ea saecla hominum, quorum haec eventa fuerunt, | irrevocabilis abstulerit iam praeterita
aetas.
93 Cf. Lucr. Rer.nat. III.819–69.
94 Aug. Conf. I.13.22: . . . et dulcissimum spectaculum vanitatis, equus ligneus plenus armatis
et Troiae incendium atque ipsius umbra Creusae; I.17.27 (cit. Courcelle 1984, I:28 n.
84): . . . ut dicerem verba Iunonis irascentis et dolentis quod non posset Italia Teucrorum
avertere regem [≈ Virg. Aen. I.38].
Cf. Aug. Rhyth. II.2.2: sic enim pronuntiem, “Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus
ab oris” [= Virg. Aen. I.1]; etc.
95 Arts 1927, 25: “Such prepositional phrases as per se are uncommon in Cicero and Caesar,
but very frequent in Livy. These phrases have their origin in popular speech. The fact that
such expressions were taken over into the Romance languages is sufficient proof of this.
Examples of the expression per se in St. Augustine’s Confessions are as follows: per se ipsa
intus cernimus, Conf. 10, 11. num et ipsa per imaginem suam sibi adest ac non per se
330 APPENDICES
With Hobbes, then—as with Gassendi—it is because of Lucretius, not Augustine,

that time is to be ‘confessed.’ Yet it is precisely the Lucretian provenance of Hobbes’s
time-doctrine—though he also has recourse, as stated, to Aristotle96—that is so
suggestive. For it is as a neo-Epicurean (sensu lato) that Hobbes writes, in the mid-
17th century:
A moved body leaves a phantasm of its motion [in the soul], namely, an idea of
that body passing out of one space into another by continual succession. And
this idea, or phantasm, is that, which . . . I call Time.97
Corpus motum motus sui phantasma in animo relinquit, nimirum ideam corpo-
ris, nunc per hoc, nunc per aliud spatium continua successione transeuntis. Est
autem talis idea sive phantasma, id quod . . . appello tempus.98
And it is as a Platonist (sensu lato) that Augustine writes in his Confessions, in the first
decade of the 5th century:
When past things are veraciously narrated, they are brought out of memory—
not the things themselves, which have passed by (praeterierunt)—but words
conceived (concepta) from the images of these things, which the things have
infixed in the soul as traces, by passing through the senses (in animo velut ves-
tigia per sensus praetereundo fixerunt). (XI.18.23)
Or again, this is Augustine:
It is not the things themselves, which are now inexistent, that I measure, but
something that remains infixed in my memory . . . the affections that passing
things produce in [the soul] (affectionem quam res praetereuntes in [animo] faci-
unt) and that, when the things themselves have passed by (cum illae praeteri-
erint), remain . . . This is what I measure (ipsam metior) when I measure times.
(XI.27.35–36)
ipsam, Conf. 10, 15. per se ipsam sibi praesto est ipsa memoria, Conf. 10, 16. si per se ipsam
praesto esset oblivio, Conf. 10, 16.”
96 Hobbes 1839b, 95: “Wherefore a complete definition of time is such as this, time is the
phantasm of before and after in motion; which agrees with this definition of Aristotle, time
is the number of motion according to former and latter; for that numbering is an act of the
mind; and therefore it is all one to say, time is the number of motion according to former
and latter; and time is a phantasm of motion numbered.”
97 Hobbes 1839b, 94.
98 Hobbes 1839a, 83.
Appendices 331
What is it, precisely, that separates the late-antique Platonist from the early-modern
materialist? Or when Hobbes writes the following, later in the De Corpore, what term
or relation is it that is inassimilable to time in Confessions XI?
Time is, by the definition of it, a phantasm, that is, a conception of motion . . . [and]
there can be no conception of motion, without conceiving past and future time.99
Est enim tempus, ex definitione, phantasma, id est, conceptus motus . . . [et]

motum non concipi sine conceptu præteriti tum futuri.100
Hobbes is clear that sensus is that “by which a phantasm is made” (ex quo oritur
phantasma),101 and recall that for Augustine, in Confessions XI.18.23, it is “by passing
through the senses” (per sensus praetereundo) that images arise in the soul. Thus, if
Hobbes’s tempus is ‘a phantasm, that is, a conception of motion’; and if ‘there can be no
conception of motion, without conceiving past and future time’; then what is this tri-
plex condition of time, in the De Corpore, but Augustine’s “presence of past-things,
memory, presence of present-things, observation, presence of future-things, expecta-
tion” (XI.20.26)?
It is not my intention to resolve these questions, or to imply that Hobbes’s time-
doctrine in the De Corpore is a mere doublet of Augustine’s time-concept in the
Confessions. But the affinities are distinct, and cannot—this is the crux—be traced
back to Augustine’s text, any more than Hobbes’s repeated use of confiteri can be
traced to the Confessions. Hobbes’s ‘confession’ in “De Loco et Tempore,” like Gassendi’s
in “Quid Tempus ſit,” is Lucretian. And when Hobbes writes—
What then can days, months, and years, be, but the names of . . . computations
made in our mind? Time therefore is a phantasm, but a phantasm of motion.102
Ubi igitur est dies, mensis, vel annus, nisi sint hæc nomina computationum in
animo factarum? Est igitur tempus phantasma; sed phantasma motus.103
99 Hobbes 1839b, 110, 111.

100 Hobbes 1839a, 97, 98.
101 Cf. Hobbes 1839b, 396: “The motion of the organ, by which a phantasm is made, is not
commonly called sense, unless the object be present. And the phantasm remaining after
the object is removed or past by, is called . . . in Latin imaginatio . . . [and in] Greek
Φαντασία”; 1839a, 322–33: “Solet . . . motus organi, ex quo oritur phantasma, non nisi
præsente objecto, sensio appellari: remoto autem sive prætervecto objecto, manente
tamen phantasmate . . . Latinis imaginatio . . . [et] phantasia Græcorum.”
102 Hobbes 1839b, 94–95.
103 Hobbes 1839a, 84.
332 APPENDICES
—his inspiration is unquestionably Epicurean. For as Sextus Empiricus reports in

Adversus Physicos II, a text that Hobbes was likely introduced to in Paris in the 1630s,104
by the Mersenne circle:
There is ascribed to the physicists (φυσικοὺς) Epicurus and Democritus a con-

ception of time (χρόνου νόησις) such as this, “Time is a day-like and night-like
phantasm” (χρόνος ἐστιν ἡμεροειδὲς καὶ νυκτοειδὲς φάντασμα).105
Epicurus is a physicist, here, and the Epicurean ‘conception of time’ is a physical time-
concept—as Epicurus himself states in the letter to Herodotus, where time is sub-
sumed under physical theory (περὶ φύσεως θεωρίας).106 For Epicurus, phantasmatic
time is physical time, and vice versa.
Hobbes, similarly, sees no diremption of his neo-Epicurean, phantasmatic time
from physical and indeed mechanistic time, since he proceeds in this way:
Time therefore is a phantasm, but a phantasm of motion, for if we would know

by what moments time passes away, we make use of some motion or other, as of
the sun, of a clock, of the drops in a water-clock107 . . . there being no other means
by which we may take notice of any time at all.108
Est igitur tempus phantasma; sed phantasma motus; cum enim, quibus momen-
tis tempus labatur, cognoscere volumus, adhibemus motum aliquem, ut solis, vel
automati, aut clepsydræ . . . alio autem modo tempus nullum apparet.109
That Augustine also alludes to a ‘water-clock’ (clepsydra) in Confessions XI (see 13.1)

suggests that he no more than Hobbes conceives time ‘in the soul’ as a derangement or
104 Hamilton 2012, 219.

106 Epic. Epist. I.35.
107 Hobbes renders his Latin here, ut solis, vel automati, aut clepsydræ, into English as “of the
sun, of a clock, of the sand in an hour-glass.” It would of course be churlish to take issue
with Hobbes’s English translation. Nevertheless, lexically at least—and perhaps, techni-
cally—his Latin clepsydra refers to a much-refined form of ‘water-clock’ that Empedocles
and Plato already refer to (see 13.1). And it certainly seems from Gassendi’s reference to
the clepsydra, in his chapter on time in the Syntagma, that a ‘water-clock’ is still intended.
Vid. Gassendi 1658, I:225: “ . . .imò & poſſent interim fluxu clepſydræ, aut alterius machinæ
horariæ diſtingui.”
108 Hobbes 1839b, 94–95.
109 Hobbes 1839a, 84.
Appendices 333
a negation of physical, indeed mechanistic time—for mechanistic time is, of course, a

result of, in Hobbes’s phrase, ‘computations made in our mind.’
It is with this association, the reference to a ‘water-clock’ in Hobbes and Augustine—
as in Gassendi, incidentally110—that I will close a frankly associative 17th-century set
of appendices, since it is precisely a series of associations that Gassendi and Hobbes
help to disrupt. For they alike ‘confess’ time, but in a post-Renaissance, Lucretian vein.
Hobbes is a representative of 17th-century materialistic physics, yet it is his time-doc-
trine in the De Corpore that echoes Augustine’s distentio animi. And Gassendi, unlike
the scholastics, has access to Plotinus’ Enneads, yet it is clear that to Gassendi,
Augustine represents—with Aristotle, Epicurus and Lucretius (inter alia)—a ‘physical’
time-concept. It is Gassendi, whose sympathies appear to lie with the Stoics and
Plotinus, who advances a ‘metaphysical’ conception of time in the Syntagma
Philosophicum. And finally, it is instructive that Gassendi, Epicurus’ preeminent 17th-
century apologist, rejects Epicurus’ time-doctrine tout court; whereas Hobbes, who at
times subjects Epicurean physical theory to harsh criticism, revives Epicurus’ phantas-
matic account of time. This is called libertas philosophandi.
And as I have said (see chapter 2), it is only in matters of sacred doctrine that
Augustine renounces his libertas philosophandi. For this—and other reasons—it can-
not be assumed that Augustine’s time-concept is ‘Platonic.’ Its strange affinities with
Hobbes’s 17th-century time-concept, for instance, suggest that Augustine’s is an
‘Epicurean’-type time-concept (see 2.3).
110 Gassendi 1658, I:225: “ . . . imò & poſſent interim fluxu clepſydræ, aut alterius machinæ
horariæ diſtingui.”
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Index
Adeodatus (Augustine’s son) 165 Colish, M.L. 4 n. 27, 17 n. 45, 149 n. 37, 216
Aelian 185 n. 83
Albertus Magnus 36–37, 42–43, 318, 322 Courcelle, P. 3 n. 17, 33 n. 126, 68 n. 21, 70
Alliez, E. 45–46, 48, 51, 106–107, 113, 149, n. 32, 71 n. 42, 75 nn. 71–72, 147 n. 25, 177
174–75, 195, 202–203, 212, 295 n. 44, 183 n. 74, 219 n. 97
Alypius (Augustine’s friend) 290 n. 174, 292
n. 179, 320 Damascius 159 n. 50, 244 n. 1, 256 n. 27, 313
Ambrose of Milan 17, 54, 95, 132 n. 83, Derrida, J. 10, 94 n. 177
145–46, 145 n. 19, 147 n. 25, 191, 254 n. 14, Drecoll, V.H. 1 n. 7, 79
283, 283 n. 133, 291–97, 304 Duchrow, U. 52 n. 90, 103 n. 21
Ammianus Marcellinus 1 n. 1, 1 n. 4, 305 Duhem, P. 36 n. 6, 135 n. 89, 147 n. 30,
n. 231 319–21
Aristoxenus 275 n. 109, 284–85, 288–90 Duns Scotus 323 n. 65
Aristotle 2 n. 9, 3 nn. 14–15, 5–6, 8 n. 22, 16 ‘Duplicity’ 148 n. 35
n. 40, 36–38, 42–44, 50, 56–57, 59 n. 124,
62, 77, 87 n. 134, 101 n. 11, 106–107, 123 n. Empedocles 8 n. 24, 255, 259, 259 n. 39,
33, 147, 182 n. 68, 188, 191, 209, 212 n. 63, 330 n. 107
217 n. 91, 227 n. 20, 239 n. 35, 240, 255–56, Ennius 68 n. 21
259, 260 n. 42, 266 n. 63, 283 n. 131, Epicureans 8 n. 21, 18 n. 51, 19–21, 22 n. 70,
284–87, 296, 297 n. 203, 310 n. 1, 314–17, 56 n. 104, 60–62, 75–76, 80–93, 122 n. 29,
319–21, 322, 325–26, 328 n. 96 315, 322–31
Arrian 185–86 Epicurus 8 n. 24, 19, 19 n. 55, 20 n. 60, 38,
Augustinus (Donatist bishop) 1 n. 2 60–62, 78, 80 n. 102, 81 n. 104, 88, 315
Averroes 36 n. 6, 37, 37 n. 8, 320 Eugippius 4, 52 n. 92, 77
Euhemerus 68 n. 21
Bede 2 n. 8
Boethius 43 n. 42, 118 n. 14, 285 n. 140, 287 Faustus (Manichaean bishop) 53, 76,
Brentano, F. 229 n. 27 145–46
Ficino, M. 37, 313
Calcidius 11 Finaert, J. 72 n. 47, 72 n. 51, 94, 133 n. 84
Carthage 1 n. 6, 53, 145, 284–85, 293 Flasch, K. 36 nn. 5–6, 45 n. 51, 49 n. 75, 52
Casanova, J. 67 n. 89, 52 n. 90
Castoriadis, C. 47–49, 51, 99, 102, 149, 195, Fortin, E. 213 n. 69
203 Fortlage, C. 43–44, 244 n. 1
Chrétien, J.-L. 14 n. 30
Cicero 3, 3 n. 16, 5 n. 2, 10, 16 n. 41, 18 n. 51, Gassendi, P. 10 n. 10, 23 n. 39, 38, 87, 229
22 n. 70, 24 n. 82, 28, 35, 37, 42, 50, 55, 59, n. 27, 322–25
61 n. 139, 65–68, 70 n. 32, 71–78, 80 nn.
101–102, 81–85, 88, 93, 96, 123 n. 34, 130 n. Hagendahl, H. 21 n. 64, 28 n. 108, 69–70, 75
72, 147, 154 n. 23, 166, 178 n. 51, 182, 183 n. n. 75, 76 n. 82, 82, 132 n. 83, 166 n. 76, 185
71, 186–87, 213 n. 69, 216, 255, 263 n. 50, n. 80, 187, 285 nn. 144–45, 293
272 n. 91, 274 n. 102, 283, 284, 285, 290–94, Heidegger, M. 3 n. 20, 9, 28 n. 101, 44, 104
296 n. 202 n. 24, 127 n. 56, 128 n. 64, 147–48, 159 n. 51,
Clocks see Star-clocks; Sundials; 173, 212–13
Water-clocks Helen 327
index 357
Henry of Ghent 42–43, 44 n. 45, 229 n. 27, Manichaeans 53, 76, 80–81, 145, 225 n. 10,
311 n. 7, 318–21 263 n. 50
Henry of Harclay 209 n. 56, 323 n. 65 Marion, J.-L. 12 n. 23, 48, 52
Heraclitus 3 n. 19, 7 n. 12, 60 n. 127 Marius Victorinus 55 n. 101, 285 n. 140, 287
Hervet, G. 37–38 n. 153, 289, 313–14
Hippocrates 6 Marrou, H.-I. 35 n. 142, 66 n. 7, 279 n. 122,
Hippo Regius 1, 2 n. 8, 19, 79, 189, 225, 321 283 n. 133
Hobbes, T. 6 n. 5, 45 n. 50, 62, 87, 326–31 Meijering, E.P. 28 n. 108, 80 n. 102, 81 n. 104,
Hombert, P.-M. 19 n. 57 82, 130 n. 72
Homer 2 n. 11, 3 n. 19, 6, 183, 183 n. 74, 188 Milan 1, 19, 20, 76 n. 77, 79, 86, 88, 95 n. 180,
n. 97 146, 151, 154 n. 26, 284
Honorius of Autun 2 n. 8 Mohrmann, C. 72 nn. 47–48, 79, 80 n. 99
Husserl, E. 9, 104 n. 24, 229 n. 27, 233 n. 6, Monnica (Augustine’s mother) 32 n. 124,
279, 296 33–34, 128 n. 62, 311 n. 8
‘Impresence’ 28, 115, 117, 124–29, 135, 137, Nebridius (Augustine’s friend) 61 n. 138,
159, 175, 244–45, 247, 254 n. 14, 262–63 290 n. 174, 304 n. 230
Isidore of Seville 3 n. 17, 174 n. 27, 175 n. 33, Nicolas of Strasbourg 37 n. 8, 320 n. 50, 323
211 n. 58, 211 n. 60, 246 n. 9, 259 n. 38, 284 n. 65
n. 137 Nietzsche, F. 20, 25–26, 67–68, 246, 273
n. 93, 275
Jeck, U.R. 36 n. 6, 43 n. 37
Jerome 26 n. 42, 132 n. 83 O’Connell, R.J. 116 n. 6, 119 n. 21
Jordan, R. 15 n. 33, 35 n. 141, 46 n. 59, 47 O’Daly, G.J.P. 12 n. 22, 17 n. 45, 100 n. 4, 104
n. 65, 48 n. 72, 104 n. 26 n. 26, 111 n. 43, 137 n. 97, 157 n. 43, 176 n. 36,
Julian the Apostate 2 n. 8, 68 n. 18 215 n. 80, 260 n. 40, 313
Jurgeleit, R. 48 n. 74, 110 n. 42 O’Donnell, J.J. 12 n. 20, 19 n. 57, 26 n. 92, 28
n. 107, 70 n. 33, 79, 99 n. 199, 107 n. 32,
Kant, I. 9 n. 5, 43 n. 42, 147, 229 n. 27 130 n. 72, 146 n. 22, 148 n. 31, 176 n. 36,
Kotzé, A. 69 n. 27, 80–81, 263 n. 50 203 n. 37, 237 n. 25, 248 n. 15, 252 n. 2,
255 n. 25, 263 n. 50, 267 n. 64, 275 n. 107
Lampey, E. 3 n. 20 Odysseus 2 n. 11, 183
Leibniz, G.W. 229 n. 27 Ovid 2 n. 12, 125 n. 47
Longinus 224 n. 8, 272 n. 91
Lucian 3 n. 19 Panofsky, E. 11 n. 12
‘Lucifer’ 30 n. 116, 299 Parmenides 8
Lucretius 2 n. 11, 8 n. 21, 20–22, 37, 39–40, Patricius (Augustine’s father) 1 n. 2, 32 n. 124
60, 62, 67, 78, 79 n. 95, 80–81, 85–93, 111, Pépin, J. 11 n. 12, 51 n. 86, 68 n. 21, 69 n. 24,
133 n. 84, 138 n. 100, 177–78, 192 n. 117, 197 143 n. 4, 147 n. 28, 169 n. 4
n. 10, 213 n. 68, 217 n. 89, 220 n. 103, 244, Peter Auriol 319
277, 277 n. 116, 300 n. 213, 310 n. 2, 322–31 Philo Judaeus 23 n. 76, 147
Lyotard, J.-F. 4, 9–17, 25, 34 n. 137, 65, 71 Pindar 12 n. 17, 56–57
n. 46, 94–97, 100 n. 2, 115, 117, 123, 127 n. Pius II 67
56, 128 n. 59, 148, 151, 158–59, 169, 202, 244 Plato 18 n. 51, 20 n. 59, 22 n. 70, 35
n. 2 nn. 139–40, 50, 50 n. 80, 55 n. 102, 56–58,
59 n. 121, 59 n. 124, 74 nn. 61–62, 80 n. 101,
Macrobius 3 n. 18, 6 n. 8, 11, 11 n. 12, 132 82, 95 n. 181, 96 n. 184, 170 n. 10, 188, 255,
n. 80, 255 n. 26, 257 n. 33, 258 n. 34 296 n. 202, 325
Madec, G. 16, 34 n. 138, 51–55 Pliny the Elder 185, 190–91, 256 n. 27
358 index
Plotinus 12 n. 22, 37, 50–51, 55 nn. 101–102, Stephen Tempier 318–21

72 n. 52, 75, 77, 92, 110 n. 41, 116 n. 6, 119 Stock, B. 65 n. 4, 96 n. 185, 97 n. 189, 285
n. 21, 120 n. 24, 205 n. 44, 284–85, 288, n. 142
312–17, 325, 326, 331 Stoics 4 n. 28, 17 n. 45, 19 n. 55, 20 n. 60,
Plutarch 2 n. 11, 3 n. 19, 11 n. 12, 56–58, 61, 50, 56–57, 59–60, 83, 107 n. 32, 147, 149, 213
107 n. 32, 313 n. 69, 260 n. 40, 285 n. 142, 313, 325, 326,
Porro, P. 36 n. 6, 167 n. 81 331
Possidius 225 n. 10 Suarez, F. 49 n. 74, 153 n. 17, 253 n. 10, 324
Proclus 12, 159 n. 50 n. 75
Proculeianus (Donatist bishop) 225 n. 10 Sundials 58, 254 n. 16, 256 nn. 27–28, 278
Prosper of Aquitaine 2 n. 8 Szentkuthy, M. 68
Pythagoras 8 n. 24, 56–58, 72 n. 53
Terentianus Maurus 274 n. 103, 283 n. 133
Quintilian 65 n. 5, 258 n. 36, 272, 283 n. 135, Tertullian 68 n. 21, 132 n. 83, 148 n. 35
284 n. 136, 285, 289, 291 n. 175, 293–94, Teske, R.J. 49–51, 52, 116 n. 6, 117 n. 11, 124
304–305 n. 39, 136 n. 91, 136 n. 93
Testard, M. 28 n. 108, 65 n. 3, 76 n. 82, 82,
Ricœur, P. 9 n. 3, 10, 14–15, 44, 46–47, 51, 52 166 n. 76, 187, 216 n. 86
nn. 89–90, 94–95, 96 n. 187, 101, 104 n. 24, Thagaste 1, 79, 183, 189
105 n. 28, 116 n. 4, 203, 223 n. 1, 235 n. 18, Thomas Aquinas 36 n. 2, 118 n. 14, 213 n. 70,
277 n. 113, 321 319–20
Robert Grosseteste 36 n. 7, 52 n. 92, 323 Trifogli, C. 36 n. 6, 43 n. 37
n. 65 Troy 2 n. 9, 54 n. 99, 132 n. 83, 327
Robert Kilwardby 36–37, 42–45, 48, 58, 209
n. 56, 318–19 Van Riel, G. 69 n. 22, 147 n. 28
Rousseau, J.-J. 67 Varro 59, 69, 132 n. 80, 152 n. 12, 154 n. 26,
Runia, D.T. 23 n. 76, 147 n. 25 180, 257 nn. 31–32, 287 n. 153
Verbeke, G. 156 n. 38, 280 n. 126
Sallust 24 n. 81, 67, 69–71, 310 n. 2 Virgil 6 n. 5, 6 n. 8, 21 n. 61, 54, 67, 68 n. 21,
Sarapis 6 n. 8 78, 132 n. 81, 132 n. 83, 178 n. 49, 179 n. 54,
Schürmann, R. 10, 117 n. 9, 118 n. 13, 169 183 n. 75, 202 n. 30, 263 n. 53
n. 3 Von Herrmann, F.-W. 9 n. 2, 10, 14–15, 73,
Seneca 14 n. 30, 17–19, 33–34, 67, 76, 134 100, 104–105, 159 n. 51, 195, 198 n. 15, 205
n. 88, 143 n. 1, 178 n. 50, 213 n. 65, 253 n. 10, n. 46, 223 n. 1, 227 n. 16, 227 n. 18, 235 n. 16,
310 n. 2 249 n. 18, 274 n. 106
Sextus Empiricus 8, 37–38, 43 n. 42, 50,
58–61, 313, 314–17 Walter Map 36 n. 7
Simplicius 235 n. 16, 239 n. 35 Water-clocks 254, 255 n. 22, 256, 276, 278,
Sophocles 12 n. 17 330, 330 n. 107, 331
‘Soul-body’ or ‘Soul-flesh’ 148, 218–19 William of Conches 10 n. 10
Speed of light 259 Wittgenstein, L. 44
Speusippus 56–58
Star-clocks 4, 256 n. 29, 259 n. 38 Zarb, S.M. 19 n. 57, 41 n. 27, 238 n. 30

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The Space of Time

Supplements to the Study of Time

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sst

David van Dusen

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Van Dusen, David.

Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

naturali ex illa filio meo

One ‘time,’ i.e. the space of one short syllable.

Present-time has no dimension, no space. Where then is the time we call

Synopsis: Dilation and the Question of Time 1

1 Augustine and the Temporal Intrigue 11

3 Remarks on the Genre and Sources of Augustine’s Confessions 67

4 Towards a Lexical Clarification of ‘Time’ (Conf. XI.22–24) 102

6 What Is and Is Not in Question in Confessions XII 145

9.5 Excursus on Logical Precedence (Conf. XII.29) 210

10 Intimacy with the Flesh Is Intimacy with Time (Conf. XI–XII) 225

ENVOI: Time Exceeds Us because Time Is in Us 312

I am greatly indebted to professors Robert J. Dodaro, Johannes Hoff, Mathijs Lamberigts,

Ael. Nat.anim. Aelian, De Natura Animalium

Aug. Fid. Augustine, De Fide Rerum quae non Videntur

Dam. Hist. Damascius, Historia Philosophica

Proc. Tim. Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria

Aurelius Augustinus was born on 13 November 3541 to the small-landowning

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004269316_�02

As of this writing, then, Augustine is ‘long dead.’8 And this expression,

For Augustine in Confessions XI—as for Aristotle in the Categories14 and

In the Eighty-Three Questions, Augustine alludes to star-clocks that could

Seven centuries before Augustine writes that there is “a presence of past-things,

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Thus, whatever conceptual refinements Augustine may introduce in the

This is a sensualist, near-Heraclitean12 formulation of temporal flux.13 This is

Yet this ‘inexistence’ of temporalia never implies the inexistence of tempus. To

There is no Eleatic or finally sceptical tendency in Augustine, apropos of time.

Augustine and the Temporal Intrigue

“From book XI of the Confessions,” writes Jean-François Lyotard, “Husserl reads

1 Lyotard 1998, 37–38/2000, 19.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004269316_�04

When Cicero confesses how difficult it is “to define time-itself and in

When Macrobius hails Saturn as “the inaugurator of times” (auctor est

1.1 Against a Truncated Interpretation of Confessions XI

While the interpretation I develop here is decisively influenced by phe-

29 Aug. Conf. XI.31.41: variatur affectus sensusque distenditur.

the privileged and incommutable crux of Augustine’s distentio, the hyper-

and necessarily indeterminate findings.45 What generally occurs could be

1.2 Preliminary Remarks on the Term ‘Sensualist’

It is necessary to address the basic tendency of my interpretation, which is

(perhaps) been deposited in his balneal sedan-chair; or if not, knows that he

asceticism and a sublimated hedonism—or said differently, and with Friedrich

Time has no existence in-itself, but from the things-themselves a sensation

Tempus . . . per se non est,61 sed rebus ab ipsis

It is this formula that fixes the Epicureans’ doctrine of time as ‘sensual-

Nor should we confess that anyone senses time in-itself or far-removed

nec per se quemquam tempus sentire fatendumst

Rather, as I will lay out in Part II, Augustine’s idea of a discarnate,

b­ odies’—cannot be conceived as “dilated in times”67 or as having “time in it.”68

1.3 Axiology and Temporality in Augustine’s Confessions

This is why it is necessary at the outset—and will be necessary throughout—to

a genitive of a synonym of that noun, marks an exceptional . . . element in the works of

ordering of natures73 according to their participation in being (esse) as perdur-

according to (necessarily) more elusive analyses,80 which are frequently sig-

while his praesentior is not necessarily certior—whence, of course, the leaden

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi ��.��63/9789004269316_�02

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi ��.��63/9789004269316_�03

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi ��.��63/9789004269316_�04

b odies’—cannot be conceived as “dilated in times”67 or as having “time in it.”68

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��4 | doi ��.��63/9789004269316_�05

It is not by dogmatizing or asserting (adfirmando) but by seeking (quae