Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 223G.1, ed. André Wilmart, "Easter Sermons of St. Augustine. Some New Texts," Journal of Theological Studies, vol. XXVII, issue 108 (July, 1926) 337-356 (at 350; tr. Edmund Hill, with his notes):

So there's nothing praiseworthy about just keeping awake, because burglars too keep awake; but with the intention of taking advantage of sleeping husbands, and getting at their wives under the pimping cover of night.⁴ The practitioners of magic arts also keep awake; but with the intention of serving demons, and committing abominations with their help. It would take too long, and be quite unnecessary to run through all the reasons vicious people have for keeping awake. But let me also refer you to a number of perfectly innocent reasons for doing so, craftsmen keep awake, so do farmers, sailors, fishermen, travelers, merchants, managers of all sorts of businesses, judges, counselors, buyers and sellers of literary learning, persons in authority, persons under authority, people engaged in any kind of trade or industry in which human life can be spent; but all with the intention of ensuring that the earth is inhabited more conveniently and decently by inhabitants who are going to pass on with the speed of light.⁵

4. Lenocinante nocte, a telling phrase. It is very odd that he should ascribe this aim to burglars, latrones. I think he must have inadvertently left out a phrase or two, having perhaps first learned his sermon by heart—this would support my hunch of an early date. He must surely have originally intended to say that burglars keep awake with the intention of burgling, and adulterers—or perhaps pimps, lenones—with the intention of seducing other men's wives. But, no doubt being himself rather sleepy, he jumped from the first "with the intention of," eo fine ut, to the second. Or it could be that the eye of a copyist jumped from latrones; sed eo fine ut ... to lenones; sed eo fine ut ... See Sermon 223J, note 2, below.

5. He actually says celeritate vaporea. But "with the speed of steam" would sound ridiculous in English—even though "with the speed of light" is perhaps just a little too quick for what Augustine had in mind.

Non ergo uigilare laudabile est. Nam uigilant et latrones; sed eo fine ut insidiantes somno maritorum ad eorum coniuges lenocinante nocte perueniant. Vigilant et magicarum artium sectatores; sed eo fine ut daemonibus seruiant et eorum auxilio nefanda committant. Longum est et non necessarium omnium sceleratorum commemorare uigilias. Sed, ut de quibusdam uigiliis etiam innocentibus loquar, uigilant opifices, agricolae, nautae, piscatores, uiatores, mercatores, quarumque rerum administratores, iudices, causidici, litterarum emptores et uenditores, potestate praediti, potestatibus subditi, et quidquid est artium uel industriae quo humana uita transigitur; sed eo fine ut terra ab [a]duenis suis celeritate uaporea transituris vel commodius vel decentius incolatur.

Perhaps a word like castitatis or pudicitiae has dropped out before or after latrones. We could then translate "thieves of chastity" instead of "burglars," thus fixing the problem discussed by Hill, n. 4. See Justinian, Novellae Constitutiones 14.1 (castitatis furtum et latrocinium).