AUGUSTINE AND AQUINAS

AMEETH VIJAY

Augustine of Hippo (Saint Augustine)

354 - 430 CE

Confessions

Autobiography

"I must now carry my thoughts back to the abominable things I did in those days, the sins of the flesh which defiled my soul. I do this, my God, not because I love those sins, but so that I may love you. For love of your love I shall retrace my wicked ways."

Bodily Desire vs. True Love

"I cared for nothing but to love and be loved. But my love went beyond the affection of one mind for another, beyond the arc of the bright beam of friendship. Bodily desire, like a morass*, and adolescent sex welling up within me exuded mists which clouded over and obscured my heart, so that I could not distinguish the clear light of true love from the murk of lust. Love and lust together seethed** within me"

morass: a: an area of soft, wet ground : a marsh or swampb: a situation that traps, confuses, or impedes c: an overwhelming or confusing mass or mixtureseethe: a: to feel or show strong emotion (such as anger) even though you try to control itb : to be in a state of constant activityeuphemism: the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant;

- "I was tossed and spilled, floundering in the broiling sea of my fornication, and you said no word."

- "Was there no one to lull my distress…so that the high tide of my youth might have rolled in upon the shore of marriage? The surge might have been calmed and contented by the procreation of children, which is the purpose of marriage."

- "I deserted you and allowed myself to be carried away by the sweep of the tide.”˜

Plato

SensibleCopiesAppearancesChangesShadows

IntelligibleIdeal FormsRealityUnchangingTrue Light

+ Augustine

SensibleMatterBodily DesireEvil

IntelligibleTranscendenceTrue LoveGood

"shadowy, deceptive beauty which makes vice attractive — pride, for instance, which is a pretense* of superiority, imitating yours, for you alone are god, supreme over all."

"The lustful use caresses to win the love they crave for, yet no caress is sweeter than your charity and no love is more rewarding than the love of your truth, which shines in beauty above all else. Inquisitiveness has all the appearance of a thirst for knowledge, yet you have supreme knowledge of all things…extravagance masquerades as fullness and abundance, but you are the full unfailing store of never-dying sweetness. The spendthrift makes a pretense of liberality: but you are the most generous dispenser of all good."

pretense: a false reason or explanation that is used to hide the real purpose of something: an act or appearance that looks real but is false

- "So the soul defiles itself with unchaste love when it turns away from you and looks elsewhere for things which it cannot find pure and unsullied except by returning to you" - "Since I had no real power to break his law, was it that I enjoyed at least the pretense of doing so, like a prisoner who creates for himself the illusion of liberty by doing something wrong…here was the slave who ran away from his master and chased a shadow instead!…What a parody of life!"

asceticisma: relating to or having a strict and simple way of living that avoids physical pleasureb: practice of strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline

Pear Trees and Original Sin

"For of what I stole I already had plenty, and much better at that, and I had no wish to enjoy the things I coveted by stealing, but only to enjoy the theft itself and the sin. There was a pear-tree, near our vineyard, loaded with fruit that was attractive neither to look at nor to taste. Late one night a band of ruffians, myself included, went off to shake down the fruit and carry it away, for we continued our games out of doors until well after dark, as was our pernicious habit. We took away an enormous quantity of pears, not to eat them ourselves, but simply to throw them to the pigs. Perhaps we ate some of them, but our real pleasure consisted in doing something that was forbidden."

"I loved my own perdition and my own faults, not the things for which i committed wrong, but the wrong itself."˜

City of God

Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274 CE)

Discussion Questions

1. Comparing Augustine and Aquinas with Ovid, what is the status of desire?

2. Are there earthy responses to earthy excesses?

3. Does Christian theology replace a material hierarchy (strong/weak) with a moral hierarchy (good/bad)?