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Saint Augustine in His Study (detail), Sandro Botticelli

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions XII.5: What May Have Been the Form of Matter

Sandro Botticelli, Saint Augustine in His Study (detail), c. 1480 · Ognissanti, Florence · Public domainSandro Botticelli, Saint Augustine in His Study (detail), c. 1480, Ognissanti, Florence

SectionAugustine of HippoPublic domainBook XII

5. So that when herein thought seeketh what the sense may arrive at, and saith to itself, “It is no intelligible form, such as life or justice, because it is the matter of bodies; nor perceptible by the senses, because in the invisible and formless there is nothing which can be seen and felt;—while human thought saith these things to itself, it may endeavour either to know it by being ignorant, or by knowing it to be ignorant.

Reproduced in full. Translation: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 1 (Schaff, 1886), public domain (Public domain).

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