Secretum (book)

[2] Secretum was not circulated until some time after Petrarch's death, and was probably meant to be a means of self-examination during "the crisis of his middle years" more than a work to be published and read by others.

[1] The dialogue opens with Augustine chastising Petrarch for ignoring his own mortality and his fate in the afterlife by not devoting himself fully to God.

The dialogue then turns to the question of Petrarch's seeming lack of free will, and Augustine explains that it is his love for temporal things (specifically Laura), and his pursuit of fame through poetry that "bind his will in adamantine chains".

Especially important are his rejection of love for temporal things not because it is a sin, but because it prevents him from knowing the eternal, a position that resembles classical philosophy far more than the contemporary Christian theology.

Classical writers are also regarded as sources of authority supporting Christianity, and Secretum quotes them more frequently than scripture.