The Big Lacuna

The extant manuscripts of Saint Augustine’s De beata uita contain a missing passage in 3.22. Using literary analysis, Augustine’s penchant for numerology, and modern codicology, this essay argues that we can for the first time reconstruct the size and content of the lacuna. Specifically, we conclude that the lacuna probably contained approximately 400 words that filled two pages, and that in these missing passages, Augustine and the group most likely wrestled with the statement that someone who seeks God, even though God is well-disposed to him, is miserable. The conversation also probably shifted from the theme of wanting or wishing (uolo/uolere), which had hitherto framed the discussion on fulfillment, to that of needing (ego/egere). The group apparently agreed with the statement that every person in need is miserable while Monica concluded that misery is nothing other than need

Conversation · Extant taxon · Nothing · SAINT · Statement (logic) · Theme (computing) · Fern and Epiphyte Biology · Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology · Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils