Source for St. Augustine quote

[pcamarata]

Have often seen the quote, “Take care of your body as if you would live forever, take care of your soul as if you were going to die tomorrow” or some permutation, always attributed to St. Augustine, but without any source. Does anyone have any idea where this came from - he wrote an awful lot on the soul and I’d have no idea where to begin looking. Thanks for any help!

 

[futurtheologian]

Hmm…I am no Augustine scholar by any means! But if you are not aware, I would say out of all the works I have encountered, the two most important: Confessions and City of God. I do not remember coming across that quote in Confessions, and I have not started City of God but I intend to read it quite soon.

Another suggestion: try finding an Augustinian Order or Augustine scholars at universities and send them an email or call. I am sure they would love to help you; they are probably few and far between, but I have met a few and they are often quite knowledgeable. More priests than secular individuals but that would be expected probably.

Hope you find the source; send me a private message/email or post in the thread if you ever find it—I would be intrigued to know!

 

[JoeSwan]

I Google’d this looking for the source and came across this question. All the sites that I visited only attributed it to St Augustine.

Google Search: google.com/search?q=%22Take+care+of+your+body+as+if+you+were+going+to+live+forever+take+care+of+your+soul+as+if+you+were+going+to+die+tomorrow.%22

Anyone have an idea? Sounds like a little bit of gnostic philosophy in there:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies#Gnosticism

Mainly, this concept: “Gnosticism refers to a diverse, syncretistic religious movement consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world…]”