{"id": "card_n_50e60fde274b", "kind": "note", "title": "Augustine, Confessions §aug_conf_07_009: Upon hearing and believing these things, told by one of such credibility, all...", "body": "Upon hearing and believing these things, told by one of such credibility, all that my resistance gave way; and first I endeavoured to reclaim Firminus himself from that curiosity, by telling him that upon inspecting his constellations, I ought if I were to predict truly, to have seen in them parents eminent among their neighbours, a noble family in its own city, high birth, good education, liberal learning. But if that servant had consulted me upon the same constellations, since they were his also, I ought again (to tell him too truly) to see in them a lineage the most abject, a slavish condition, and every thing else utterly at variance with the former. Whence then, if I spake the truth, I should, from the same constellations, speak diversely, or if I spake the same, speak falsely: thence it followed most certainly that whatever, upon consideration of the constellations, was spoken truly, was spoken not out of art, but chance; and whatever spoken falsely, was not out of ignorance in the art, but the failure of the chance.", "source": {"label": "Augustine, Confessions (c. AD 400)", "url": "/canon.html?ref=augustine_aug_conf_07_009", "ref": "aug_conf_07_009", "authority_tier": "father"}, "shelf": "classics", "box": "augustine_confessions", "bands": ["augustine", "confessions", "father"], "connections": [{"to_card_id": "card_n_513c2b9ef687", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}, {"to_card_id": "card_n_5091b0a96dbf", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}], "author": "engine", "created_at": "2026-05-19T13:20:57.799663+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-19T19:57:55.316024+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": "06860ab8a902766d9433ec2d54623e2d2979ee18b508185fd8601a6273a5890b", "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"}