Abstract

In the six books of mus., the only substantial part of his early disciplinary project that survives, Augustine presents an educational ascent from sensible matter to self-knowledge and the knowledge of God through a single arithmetical discipline: music. Much scholarship has expressed doubts concerning the unity of mus. with the preface of mus. 6 (= mus. 6, 1, 1), leading to a view of mus. as a bifurcated work in which mus. 6, 1, 1 represents a later rejection of the disciplinary vision contained in the rest of the mus. and other early works such as ord. My argument to the contrary has four sections. First, I outline the composition history of mus. Second, I provide a brief review of scholarship treating mus. 6, 1, 1 and its relation to the rest of mus. and early works like ord. Third, I argue that the vision of the disciplines in ord. and the rest of mus. is entirely coherent with mus. 6, 1, 1. I conclude by suggesting that recent scholarship has overly emphasized a negative shift in Augustine’s later thought regarding the disciplines.