Abstract:
By the end of his life, Augustine condemms his earlier conception of happiness in his work of youth, De beata vita, with the following words: 'In this book it dislikes me that I mentioned repeatedly the Fortune and that I said that in the time of this life the happy life dwells in the wise's soul'. Against this view, he asserts now that 'the only true happy life is the future life' (retrac. I, 2). During the forty years between both works, Augustine gave away his classical heritage, creating his own theological thought, in which 'happy or good life' of the classical thinkers shifts from this life to the future one. This new turn in the ethical thought weighty consequences upon the ancient moral of virtues.
