Pseudo-St. Augustine, considered as an exact quotation only. What follows are the relevant passages in which procrastinat* occurs in the text (as distinguished from the indices) of the WSA translation, as reproduced in its Third Release in Past Masters (1989-2022) (procrastin*, by contrast, occurs in the Latin of CAG only once, at De ordine 1.20). As you will see, the terminology is all there, just not in the condensed form of the bon mot above (yellow highlighting only once, so you'll have to read these passages, and maybe read them also in the larger contexts of the whole sermons and the ennaratio from which I've extracted them, rather closely):
"'I'm only asking,' he says, 'to be allowed a little more time.' Why? 'Because God has promised [(promisit)] me pardon.' But no one has promised you that you are going to be alive tomorrow. Or else, just as you have read in the prophet, the gospel, the apostle, that when you have turned back to him God will blot out all your iniquities, read out to me where a tomorrow is promised you, and then live in an evil way tomorrow.
"Though of course, my brother or sister, I shouldn't really have said that to you. Perhaps you have a long life ahead of you. If it's a long one, let it be a good one. Why do you want to have a long, and bad, life? Either it won't be a long one, and you should be taking delight in that other long one which has no end; or else it will be a long one—and what harm will it do you to have lived a long life well? Do you really want to live a long life badly, don't you want to live it well? And for all that, nobody has promised you tomorrow.
"Put yourself straight, listen to the scripture: Do not be slow to turn to the Lord (Sir 5:8). Those aren't my words—though yes, they are my words too. If I love, they are mine. You try loving too, and they are yours. This sermon I'm now preaching comes from holy scripture. If you ignore it, it becomes your adversary. But now listen to the Lord saying, Come to terms with your adversary quickly (Mt 5:25).
"Let it be heard by all of you—I'm reciting the words of God's scripture. You in particular, you bad procrastinator with your bad longing for tomorrow [(o male dilator, o crastini male appetitor)], listen to the Lord speaking, listen to holy scripture preaching. I from this place of mine am only playing the part of a look-out. Do not be slow to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day. See if he hasn't marked those people, see if he hasn't observed those people who say, 'Tomorrow I'll live a good life, today let me life a bad one.' And when tomorrow comes, you'll say the same thing again. Do not be slow to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day. For suddenly his wrath will come, and at the time for vengeance he will destroy you (Sir 5:8).
"Did I write that? Can I cross it out? If I cross it out, I'm afraid of being crossed out myself. I could keep quiet about it; I'm afraid of keeping quiet about it! I'm compelled to preach it. In terror I aim to terrify. Be afraid with me, in order to rejoice with me. Do not be slow to turn to the Lord.
"Lord, please note that I'm saying it. Lord, you know how you frightened me when your prophet was read. Here I am, saying it: Do not be slow to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day. For suddenly his wrath will come, and at the time for vengeance he will destroy you. But I don't want him to destroy you.
"Nor do I want you to say to me, 'I want to perish.' Because I, Augustine, don't want it. So my 'I don't want it' is better than your 'I do.' If your old father in your care had gone down with sleeping sickness, and you, a young man, were there with the sick old man, and the doctor said, 'Your father's dangerously ill; this sleepiness is a mortal heaviness. Watch him, don't let him go to sleep. If you see him nodding off, shake him; if shaking's not enough, pinch him, and if even pinching's not enough, poke him, or you father may die.'
"There you would be, a young man extremely troublesome to the old man. He would be relaxing and sinking into his pleasant disease; his eyes would be heavy with it—and he would close them—and you on the other hand would be shouting at your father, 'Don't sleep!' But he would say, 'Leave me alone. I want to sleep.' And you would tell him, 'But the doctor said, if he wants to sleep, don't let him.' And he would say, 'Please leave me alone, I want to die.' 'But I don't want it,' says the son to his father. To whom? Clearly, to someone choosing to die. And still you want to postpone your father's death, and to live just a little longer with your old father, who is going to die soon anyway.
"Well, the Lord is shouting at you, 'Don't go to sleep, or you may sleep for ever. Wake up, to live with me, and to have a Father you will never have to carry to the grave.' You hear—and you remain deaf."
St. Augustine, Sermon 40.5-6 (cf. Sermon 339, below), trans. Edmund Hill, WSA III/2, pp. 222-224. Latin from Miscellanea Agostiniana 1 (Rome: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1930), 198 l. 12-200 l. 6 (189-200), where it is Frangipane II.7-8; it is not present in CAG.
"'I'm only asking,' he says, 'to be allowed a little more time.'
"Why?
"'Because God has promised [(promisit)] me pardon.'
"But no one has promised you that you are going to be alive tomorrow. Or else, just as you have read in the prophet, the gospel, the apostle that when you have turned back to him God will blot out all your iniquities, read out to me where a tomorrow is promised you, and then live in an evil way tomorrow. . . .
"Let it be heard by all of you—I'm reciting the words of God's scripture. You in particular, you bad procrastinator with your bad longing for tomorrow [(o male dilator, o crastini male appetitor)], listen to the Lord speaking, listen to holy scripture preaching. I from this place of mine am only playing the part of a lookout. Do not be slow to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day. See if he hasn't marked those people, see if he hasn't observed those people who say, 'Tomorrow I'll live a good life, today let me live a bad one.' And when tomorrow comes, you'll say the same thing again. Do not be slow to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day. For suddenly his wrath will come, and at the time for vengeance he will destroy you (Sir 5:7).
"Did I write that? Can I cross it out? If I cross it out, I'm afraid of being crossed out myself. I could keep quiet about it. I'm afraid of being kept quiet about! I'm compelled to preach it, in terror I aim to terrify. Be afraid with me, in order to rejoice with me. Do not be slow to turn to the Lord.
"Lord, please note that I'm saying it. Lord, you know how you frightened me when your prophet was read. Here I am, saying it: Do not be slow to turn to the Lord, nor put it off from day to day. For suddenly his wrath will come, and at the time for vengeance he will destroy you. But I don't want him to destroy you. Nor do I want you to say to me, 'I want to perish,' because I, Augustine, don't want it. So my 'I don't want it' is better than your 'I do.'
"If your old father in your care had gone down with sleeping sickness, and you, a young man, were there with the sick old man, and the doctor said, 'Your father's dangerously ill; this sleepiness is a mortal heaviness. Watch him, don't let him go to sleep. If you see him nodding off, shake him; if shaking's not enough, pinch him; and if even pinching's not enough, poke him, or your father may die.' There you would be, a young man extremely troublesome to the old man. He would be relaxing and sinking into his pleasant disease; his eyes would be heavy with it, and he would close them. And you on the other hand would be shouting at your father, 'Don't sleep!' But he would say, 'Leave me alone. I want to sleep.' And you would tell him, 'But the doctor said, if he wants to sleep, don't let him.' And he would say, 'Please leave me alone; I want to die.' 'But I don't want it,' says the son to his father. To whom? Clearly, to someone choosing to die. And still you want to postpone your father's death, and to live just a little longer with your old father, who is going to die soon anyway.
"Well, the Lord is shouting at you, 'Don't go to sleep, or you may sleep for ever. Wake up, to live with me, and to have a Father you will never have to carry to the grave.' You hear—and you remain deaf."
St. Augustine, Sermon 339.7-8 (cf. Sermon 40, above), trans. Edmund Hill, WSA III/9, pp. 287-288. Latin from CAG.
"The Lord is compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and richly merciful. Could there ever be any greater instance of long-suffering? People sin, yet go on living; sins are piled on sins, yet life only increases; God is blasphemed every day, yet he makes his sun rise over good and bad alike. On every side he calls us to amend, from every quarter he summons us to repent. He calls through the blessings of creation, he calls by granting us a prolongation of our lives, he calls through the reader, he calls through the preacher, he calls through our inmost thoughts, he calls through the corrective scourge, he calls through his comforting mercy: he is long-suffering and richly merciful.
"But be careful not to abuse the long-drawn mercy of God and store up anger for yourself against the day of his wrath, as the apostle warns: Do you despise his generous kindness and forbearance, and his long restraint, not realizing that God is patient only to lead you to repentance? (Rom 2:4) Do you imagine that you are pleasing to him, just because he spares you? Not at all. All this you did, and I was silent; you were wrong to think that I will be like you (Ps 49(50):21), he says. 'Your sins are not acceptable to me; but in my endless patience I look for good actions on your part. If I were to punish sins, I would never find any people confessing their sins.' By sparing you, God in his long-suffering kindness leads you to repentance, yet you keep on saying with every day that passes, 'Today is nearly over, and I can carry on in the same way tomorrow, for tomorrow will not be my last day. And then there will be another....' And suddenly his anger falls on you. My brother, my sister, do not delay in turning back to the Lord (Sir 5:8). There are people who mean to be converted, but keep putting it off; they are for ever crying, 'Cras, cras!' like a raven. A raven was sent out of the ark, and did not return. What God wants is not the procrastination [(dilationem)] of the raven’s cry but the moaning confession of the dove. When the dove was sent forth, she did return. How long will you go on crying, 'Cras, cras'? Watch out for that last 'tomorrow.' You do not know when the last one will be; all that matters is that you have lived as a sinner until today. You have heard the warning, you are accustomed to hearing it frequently and you have heard it again today; but though you hear it daily, you daily neglect to correct yourself. With your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up against yourself anger that will be manifest on the day of God’s just judgment, for he will render to each and all as their deeds deserve (Rom 2:5-6). Do not so misrepresent God’s mercy to yourself as to lose sight of his justice. 'The Lord is compassionate and merciful: I am glad to hear that,' you say. Fine: hear it and rejoice. The psalm went further and added, Long-suffering and richly merciful; but the final words tell you that he is also constant. You find joy in the earlier statements; tremble at the closing phrase. God is merciful and long-suffering in such a way that he is also constant. If you have stored up anger for yourself against the day of wrath, will you not then experience as just the God with whose kindness you have trifled?"
St. Augustine, Ennaratio in Ps 102 (v. 8, sec. 16), as trans. Maria Boulding, WSA III/19, pp. 98-99. Latin from CAG.
"Encourage them, brothers and sisters, and urge them not only in words but also with your way of life, and I too am urging them not to put it off any longer. Some of them, you see, are perhaps thinking and saying, 'Tomorrow I’ll become a Christian.' If it’s a good thing tomorrow, it’s a good thing today. After all, to become a Christian he isn’t going to be seeking an auspicious day from an astrologer. God made every day. That day is a good one for you on which you accomplish anything good. So if it’s good to believe in Christ, so that the heart may be purified by faith (Acts 15:9), and that that eye may be healed which is going to see such a great light, why put it off, why has the crow’s caw remained so popular with human beings? 'Cras, cras, tomorrow, tomorrow,' says the crow, who didn’t return to the ark after being sent out; it was the dove that returned. The crow caws 'cras, tomorrow,' the dove moans every day. So don’t make your own the cawing of procrastination [()], but the moaning of confession."
St. Augustine, Sermon 360B.27, trans. Edmund Hill, WSA III/11 (Sermons discovered since 1990), pp. 382-383. Latin from DOL 24 (Mainz 61) or Revue d'études augustiniennes et patristiques 37 (1937): 42-52 eventually.
With thanks to Fr. Geoffrey Horton of Fauxtations for the diversion.
