Biography from History: Augustine of Hippo

[Linna Heartbooger]

On the polling thread "Biography discussion: Crazy? fanatical? In love with God?", unofficial results determined that Augustine was one of the top 2 people.

He wrote "The Encarydion," a "Handbook of Faith, Hope, & Love."
Format: a personal letter.
He wrote "Confessions."
He wrote "City of God," apparently as a response to the disillusionment of people in the face of the Roman empire beginning to unravel.

He had a quote about "the good that only the good know" which I wish to find and post.
It made me think about some things in ways I never had before.

[Avatar]

Never read anything by him, I must say.

--A

[Linna Heartbooger]

Never read anything by him, I must say.

Ah good.. I always felt like I was "behind" because I've only read short excerpts from him. Even though I was at a quite secular uni, MANY history courses had "Confessions" as one of the required readings... it framed worldviews for... a bunch of centuries.

Have you read much history from around the time? (just before the fall of the Roman Empire)

[Cord Hurn]

A quote of Augustine's from City of God that I like:

“What are kingdoms without justice? They're just gangs of bandits.”

TRUTH!

[Avatar]

There's no justice.

--A

[Linna Heartbooger]

A quote of Augustine's from City of God that I like:

"What are kingdoms without justice? They're just gangs of bandits."

TRUTH!

Oooh! Yes! =)
He does some serious reaming of kingdoms and rulers around his time, and throughout history.
That Augustine. Such a scrapper.

Cord Hurn, did you read the whole thing? (if not... well, still darn good for quotes!) and if so, when? as a student, or later?

Reading "City of God" right now for the first time!
Just Chapter 1 includes sections on these topics:
8. Blessings and disasters often shared by good and bad
9. The reasons why the good and the wicked are equally afflicted
10. The saints* lose nothing by being deprived of temporal goods
11. The end of this present life must come, whether sooner or later
12. The lack of burial does not matter to a Christian
13. Why we do bury Christians when we can, nonetheless <-- (okay, that's my own title to section 13.)
16. Violation of chastity, without the will's consent, cannot pollute the character
18. The question of violence from others, and the lust of others suffered by an unwilling mind in a ravished body
20. Christians have no authority to commit suicide in any circumstance

Section number 16 has a quote that I feel like... I know at least one or two women who need to hear it.
And after Section 20, Augustine goes on for a bunch of sections with related stuff, including an ad absurdum in Section 27 that he pretty much flags as such.

(context for "City of God" was written at the time when Rome was beginning to fall, and people blamed the fact that Rome was forsaking its gods and becoming Christian.)

* Here by "saints," I'd say Augustine simply means "Christians."

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Thanx for that.

Keep us up-to-date, if you don't mind.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Keep us up-to-date, if you don't mind.

Ooh. yay, thanks - a response indicating interest helps me!

I am on Book 2, but didn't feel up for writing on it... and wanted to say more on book 1.

Here was a gem of a quote from Chapter 8:

Yet often, even in the present distribution of temporal things, does God plainly evince His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with manifest punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the other hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded that there is no divine providence at all. And so of the good things of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should say that these good things were not at His disposal; and if He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only rewards of His service; and such a service would make us not godly, but greedy rather, and covetous.

("City of God," Book 1, Chapter 8, this translation*, emphasis mine.)

And I love this argument:

They [the good and the wicked -LH] are punished together, not because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this present life; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to a better mind.

("City of God," Book 1, Chapter 9, emphasis mine!)


* I got my hands on a Penguin Classics hard copy, but using the link for easy copy-paste.

[Edit: fixed second link to go to right place - good catch, Cord Hurn!]

[Cord Hurn]

Admittedly, Linna, I haven't read the whole thing, but will look at the parts you've linked for me!

[Cord Hurn]

From chapter 8:

Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.

Very thought-provoking!

[Cord Hurn]

A note: Linna, both your links in this post seem to go to the very same page (chapter 8 ).

Keep us up-to-date, if you don't mind.

Ooh. yay, thanks - a response indicating interest helps me!

I am on Book 2, but didn't feel up for writing on it... and wanted to say more on book 1.

Here was a gem of a quote from Chapter 8:

Yet often, even in the present distribution of temporal things, does God plainly evince His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with manifest punishment, nothing would seem to be reserved for the final judgment; on the other hand, if no sin received now a plainly divine punishment, it would be concluded that there is no divine providence at all. And so of the good things of this life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should say that these good things were not at His disposal; and if He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only rewards of His service; and such a service would make us not godly, but greedy rather, and covetous.

("City of God," Book 1, Chapter 8, this translation*, emphasis mine.)

And I love this argument:

They [the good and the wicked -LH] are punished together, not because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them, love this present life; while they ought to hold it cheap, that the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example, might lay hold of life eternal. And if they will not be the companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come to a better mind.

("City of God," Book 1, Chapter 9, emphasis mine!)


* I got my hands on a Penguin Classics hard copy, but using the link for easy copy-paste.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Very thought-provoking!

Yay.
I'm noticing that the "causing chaff to smoke" effect is one that my mind tries to flee from thinking about.

I think Chapters 8 and 9 provide such beautiful answers to the tired old question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?"
Of course, "good people" is SUCH a vague term.
It's really answering the ancient, ancient question, "Well, if God is all-powerful... and you follow him.. where is your God now?" (when horrible things happen to His followers.)

A note: Linna, both your links in this post seem to go to the very same page (chapter 8 ).

Yay, free error-checking. Fixed it now. Thanks!

[Cord Hurn]

Thanks, Linna! I have read chapter 9, and especially like this part:

Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal calamities--the reason which Job's case exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.

I'm a fan of the book of Job, anyway, and like references to it whenever I see them.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal calamities--the reason which Job's case exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.

Thanks for reminding me of that! Love the part I bolded in there.

I'm a fan of the book of Job, anyway, and like references to it whenever I see them.

Me too.
The faithful Job and the unrighteous would-be-comforters!
(And God.)

I've been slacking on City of God... :-/
But tonight I'm poking around in Confessions for something for an article I'm writing.
And I came across these two scraps I loved..

And I got all ready to post them.... but apparently they have non-ASCII characters in them which I cant find.
So... whoever's interested, stay tuned, I guess?

In Confessions, Book 1, Chapter VI.
I delight in the way Augustine talks to God... with wonder, and yet humility.

Was it such another age which I spent in my mother's womb? For something of that sort has been suggested to me, and I have myself seen pregnant women. But what, O God, my Joy, preceded that period of life? Was I, indeed, anywhere, or anybody? No one can explain these things to me, neither father nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own memory. Dost thou laugh at me for asking such things? Or dost thou command me to praise and confess unto thee only what I know?

Augustine reams himself (as he was at about 16) about the way he responded to his mother Monica's adjuration not to engage in various kinds of sexual immorality...
And he describes how he spoke among his peers of such things: "I was ashamed to be ashamed..." was how one translation had it.
(That last one just sounds like a story that's played out over and over again.)

These appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I would have blushed to obey. Yet they were from thee, and I knew it not. I thought that thou wast silent and that it was only she who spoke. Yet it was through her that thou didst not keep silence toward me; and in rejecting her counsel I was rejecting thee--I, her son, "the son of thy handmaid, thy servant." But I did not realize this, and rushed on headlong with such blindness that, among my friends, I was ashamed to be less shameless than they, when I heard them boasting of their disgraceful exploits--yes, and glorying all the more the worse their baseness was. What is worse, I took pleasure in such exploits, not for the pleasure's sake only but mostly for praise. What is worthy of vituperation except vice itself? Yet I made myself out worse than I was, in order that I might not go lacking for praise. And when in anything I had not sinned as the worst ones in the group, I would still say that I had done what I had not done, in order not to appear contemptible because I was more innocent than they; and not to drop in their esteem because I was more chaste.

(From Confessions, Book 2, Chapter III)


Edit: Formatting - Edited thing to show Cord-Hurn quote.

[peter]

I have no aquaintance with 'The Confessions' Linna - but from these quotes they are clearly writings that I should look at. I love the first one where he considers what might have been before he was born; clearly this was a man capable of turning problems around like a diamond and studying them from all sides.

[Cord Hurn]

What is worse, I took pleasure in such exploits, not for the pleasure's sake only but mostly for praise.

Unfortunately a common experience for humans, particularly among adolescents.

[peter]

Absolutely - and one that results in the results of surveys of kids on acitvities such as alcohol consumption, sexual activity, smoking and drug use virtually meaninglessness.