{"id": "card_n_2d5ec606e174", "kind": "note", "title": "Augustine, Confessions §aug_conf_04_024: But I saw not yet, whereon this weighty matter turned in Thy wisdom, O Thou O...", "body": "But I saw not yet, whereon this weighty matter turned in Thy wisdom, O Thou Omnipotent, who only doest wonders; and my mind ranged through corporeal forms; and \"fair,\" I defined and distinguished what is so in itself, and \"fit,\" whose beauty is in correspondence to some other thing: and this I supported by corporeal examples. And I turned to the nature of the mind, but the false notion which I had of spiritual things, let me not see the truth. Yet the force of truth did of itself flash into mine eyes, and I turned away my panting soul from incorporeal substance to lineaments, and colours, and bulky magnitudes. And not being able to see these in the mind, I thought I could not see my mind. And whereas in virtue I loved peace, and in viciousness I abhorred discord; in the first I observed a unity, but in the other, a sort of division. And in that unity I conceived the rational soul, and the nature of truth and of the chief good to consist; but in this division I miserably imagined there to be some unknown substance of irrational life, and the nature of the chief evil, which should not only be a substance, but real life also, and yet not derived from Thee, O my God, of whom are all things. And yet that first I called a Monad, as it had been a soul without sex; but the latter a Duad;--anger, in deeds of violence, and in flagitiousness, lust; not knowing whereof I spake. For I had not known or learned that neither was evil a substance, nor our soul that chief and unchangeable good.", "source": {"label": "Augustine, Confessions (c. AD 400)", "url": "/canon.html?ref=augustine_aug_conf_04_024", "ref": "aug_conf_04_024", "authority_tier": "father"}, "shelf": "classics", "box": "augustine_confessions", "bands": ["augustine", "confessions", "father"], "connections": [{"to_card_id": "card_n_2d9d9ecf6173", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}, {"to_card_id": "card_n_2d4e828f306f", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}], "author": "engine", "created_at": "2026-05-19T13:20:57.721137+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-19T19:57:55.692795+00:00", "visibility": "public", "lifecycle_stage": "public", "volatility": "permanent", "metrics": {"paperclips_count": 0, "helpful_count": 0, "not_helpful_count": 0, "cite_count": 4, "walks_through_count": 0, "flagged_count": 0}, "source_hash": "eb9907fe1d76a463eb787677cdd1f42b6a7ec773433689560ff83ea519a14dcf", "witnesses": [{"class": "manuscript_tradition", "label": "Patrologia Latina (Migne) vol. 32 — Confessions Latin text", "url": "https://patristica.net/latina/", "ref": "PL-32"}, {"class": "critical_edition", "label": "Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (CCSL) 27 — Verheijen", "url": "https://www.corpuschristianorum.org/", "ref": "CCSL-27"}, {"class": "translation", "label": "Pusey translation (1838) — Library of Fathers", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf101.html", "ref": "Pusey-1838"}, {"class": "translation", "label": "Pine-Coffin translation (Penguin Classics, 1961)", "ref": "Pine-Coffin-1961"}, {"class": "republication", "label": "Internet Archive — Confessions (multiple editions)", "url": "https://archive.org/search?query=augustine+confessions", "ref": "IA-Confessions"}, {"class": "republication", "label": "Project Gutenberg — Confessions", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3296", "ref": "PG-3296"}, {"class": "citation_tradition", "label": "Aquinas, Summa Theologica — cites Confessions extensively", "ref": "Aquinas-ST"}], "witness_status": "passed", "witness_status_reason": "7 witnesses across 5 independence classes: ['citation_tradition', 'critical_edition', 'manuscript_tradition', 'republication', 'translation']", "surface": "witness"}