Reduced to its simplest terms, the existence of love in a human being means that the eye of the spirit has opened to the sunshine of good. A man has seen that which is good and, seeing it, has delighted in it. His delight is acceptance, and what is accepted is a gift; he must [...]
Archive for the ‘Augustine’ Category
Love
Posted in Augustine, Love on November 19, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Augustine’s “Point of Decision”
Posted in "The Confessions", Augustine, Henry Chadwick on November 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
At the end of July, 386, in the garden of the house in Milan where he was living with his mother and with his former pupil, Alypius (a competent lawyer who, in 386, was still shedding Manichee beliefs and, later, became bishop of Thagaste), Augustine finally came to the point of decision. His health had [...]
Augustine on Alypius’s Integrity
Posted in "The Confessions", Augustine, Henry Chadwick on November 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
One thing, alone, almost led him astray because of his passion for books. He could have manuscripts copied for his own use at special government rates. He deliberated on the justice of this, and decided on the better choice, judging it more expedient to keep integrity, which would forbid it, than to use the power [...]
Augustine on His Mother
Posted in "The Confessions", Augustine on October 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
With her husband, may she rest in peace. She had no one as her husband before him and after him. She served him by offering you “fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15) so as to gain him for you also. My Lord, my God, inspire your servants - my brothers, your sons, my masters – to whose [...]
Augustine and Milton on the Fall of Man
Posted in "Paradise Lost", Augustine, C. S. Lewis, John Milton on September 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
But, while the Fall consisted in Disobedience, it resulted, like Satan’s, from Pride (De. Civ. Dei, xiv, 13). Hence, Satan approaches Eve through her Pride: first, by flattery of her beauty (P. L. ix, 532-48) which “should be seen…ador’d and served by Angels” and, secondly (this is more important), by urging her selfhood to direct [...]
What Seneca Thought of the Jews
Posted in Augustine on May 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Along with other superstitions of the civil theology, Seneca also censures the sacred institutions of the Jews, especially the Sabbath. He declares that their practice is inexpedient because, by introducing one day of rest in every seven, they lose, in idleness, almost a seventh of their life and, by failing to act in times of urgency, [...]
Augustine’s Reaction to the Psalms
Posted in "The Confessions", Augustine on April 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
How I cried out to you, my God, when I read the Psalms of David, those hymns of faith, those songs of a pious heart in which the spirit of pride can find no place! I was new to your true love. I was a catechumen living at leisure in that country house with Alypius, [...]
The Death of Monica, Augustine’s Mother
Posted in Augustine on April 20, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Augustine, Adeodatus, and Alypius had been preparing for their baptisms ever since their names had been handed in at the cathedral at the beginning of Lent and, on the night before Easter which, in 387 came on April 25, they were baptized by St. Ambrose, himself. Soon afterwards, Augustine decided to return to Africa and [...]
Augustine’s View of History
Posted in Augustine, Ronald H. Nash on April 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Augustine is one of the earliest thinkers to give history the kind of reflection necessary to make it an acceptable part of a worldview. Augustine’s philosophy of history is spelled out in his monumental work The City of God (written between 413 and 426). The immediate occasion for Augustine’s writing the book was the sack [...]
“An Intimate Friend of St. Augustine”
Posted in Augustine on April 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Nebridius, an intimate friend of St. Augustine and, probably, of about the same age, described by him as very good and of a very cautious disposition. While Augustine was at Carthage under the influence of Manichean doctrine, it was partly through Nebridius and Vindicianus that he was induced to give up his belief in astrology, [...]
