Saturday, February 18, 2006
St. Augustine
St. Augustine (354-430 AD)—“The antique man of the old classical culture, and the Christian man of the new Gospel, meet in Augustine.” Ernest Barker
De Civitate Dei (The City of God)—We see Classical and Christian Augustine at grips with one another.
—stands on the confines of two worlds, the classical and the Christian, and it points the way into the Christian.
Augustine—baptized in 387 at age 33, ordained a presbyter in 391, skipping all minor orders, and consecrated a bishop in 395.
397-426—writes De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine).
413-426—writes City of God
—also wrote Confessions (finished 400); commentaries on Genesis, Psalms, Gospel of St. John; homilies: De Bono Conjugali, De Nuptiis; treatises on Free Will and Predestination, the Trinity and the Grace of Christ; and the Retractationum Libri.
—dies in 430, as the Vandals are sieging Rome. He is the ‘last of the Romans’.
City of God—started as a response to the sacking of Rome by Alaric and the Goths in 410.
—Rome, intact up until then for 1000 years, had fallen.
—Her fall happened in the hour of victory for Christianity.
Is it Christianity’s fault? Did Rome fall because they abandoned the ancient civic gods?
—Augustine started City of God as a response to these questions.
—City of God took 13 years to write, and its message transcended its original design.
—22 books long
2 goals: (1) provide a philosophy of history in answer to pagan murmurings and (2) provide a justification of the whole philosophia Christi in answer to human philosophy of the ancient world.
22 books divided into 2 parts: Part 1: Books I-X, part 2: books XI-XXII.
Books I-V—speak against the belief that human prosperity is dependent upon the maintenance of a civic worship of the many gods of the pagan pantheon. In particular, his goal is to disprove the opinion that the outlawing of pagan worship rites contributed to the decline of the Empire.
Books VI-X—refutes more moderate pagans who did not blame the decline on what the pagans described in I-V did, but nevertheless still thought that belief in the ancient gods had its own advantages.
—yet, it was not enough to refute pagan claims. He also wanted to draw thoughtful pagans to the Christian side.
Part 2 (books XI-XXII)—3 divisions:
XI-XIV—the origin of the two cities, the city of God and the city of this world
XV-XVIII—their process or progress.
XIX-XXII—their appointed ends.
4 “grades” of human society:
(1) domus or household
(2) civitas—City, and the State founded upon and co-extensive with the City, also extended to mean the State in general.
(3) orbis terrae—the whole earth and the whole human society than inhabits the earth.
(4) mundus—the Universe, including the heavens and their constellations as well as the earth, and includes God and His angels and the souls of the departed, as well as the human society still on earth.
The City of God transcends the grade of the civitas. It belongs to the universe and is co-extensive with the mundus.
—from St. Paul, the Divine City is distinct from the Human City based on righteousness. The Divine City is completely righteous; nothing unclean may enter it.
—The Greek word for “righteousness” is translated in Latin as justitia, or justice, which evokes a legal connotation, when the Greeks and St. Paul, and Augustine, meant something in the moral realm.
To be continued…
De Civitate Dei (The City of God)—We see Classical and Christian Augustine at grips with one another.
—stands on the confines of two worlds, the classical and the Christian, and it points the way into the Christian.
Augustine—baptized in 387 at age 33, ordained a presbyter in 391, skipping all minor orders, and consecrated a bishop in 395.
397-426—writes De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine).
413-426—writes City of God
—also wrote Confessions (finished 400); commentaries on Genesis, Psalms, Gospel of St. John; homilies: De Bono Conjugali, De Nuptiis; treatises on Free Will and Predestination, the Trinity and the Grace of Christ; and the Retractationum Libri.
—dies in 430, as the Vandals are sieging Rome. He is the ‘last of the Romans’.
City of God—started as a response to the sacking of Rome by Alaric and the Goths in 410.
—Rome, intact up until then for 1000 years, had fallen.
—Her fall happened in the hour of victory for Christianity.
Is it Christianity’s fault? Did Rome fall because they abandoned the ancient civic gods?
—Augustine started City of God as a response to these questions.
—City of God took 13 years to write, and its message transcended its original design.
—22 books long
2 goals: (1) provide a philosophy of history in answer to pagan murmurings and (2) provide a justification of the whole philosophia Christi in answer to human philosophy of the ancient world.
22 books divided into 2 parts: Part 1: Books I-X, part 2: books XI-XXII.
Books I-V—speak against the belief that human prosperity is dependent upon the maintenance of a civic worship of the many gods of the pagan pantheon. In particular, his goal is to disprove the opinion that the outlawing of pagan worship rites contributed to the decline of the Empire.
Books VI-X—refutes more moderate pagans who did not blame the decline on what the pagans described in I-V did, but nevertheless still thought that belief in the ancient gods had its own advantages.
—yet, it was not enough to refute pagan claims. He also wanted to draw thoughtful pagans to the Christian side.
Part 2 (books XI-XXII)—3 divisions:
XI-XIV—the origin of the two cities, the city of God and the city of this world
XV-XVIII—their process or progress.
XIX-XXII—their appointed ends.
4 “grades” of human society:
(1) domus or household
(2) civitas—City, and the State founded upon and co-extensive with the City, also extended to mean the State in general.
(3) orbis terrae—the whole earth and the whole human society than inhabits the earth.
(4) mundus—the Universe, including the heavens and their constellations as well as the earth, and includes God and His angels and the souls of the departed, as well as the human society still on earth.
The City of God transcends the grade of the civitas. It belongs to the universe and is co-extensive with the mundus.
—from St. Paul, the Divine City is distinct from the Human City based on righteousness. The Divine City is completely righteous; nothing unclean may enter it.
—The Greek word for “righteousness” is translated in Latin as justitia, or justice, which evokes a legal connotation, when the Greeks and St. Paul, and Augustine, meant something in the moral realm.
To be continued…
# posted by SeanPatrick @ 10:08 AM 
