Timely Wisdom

Saint Augustine

(354-430)
Ideas

- Faith and understanding go hand in hand: Understand that you may believe; believe that you may understand.

- True happiness consists in knowledge of God.

- Father, Son and Spirit coinhere in the Godhead as the faculties if memory, intellect and will coinhere in the human mind.

- Individual beings in the midlle empirical world have developed out of the primeval matter God created ex nihilo with the help of seminal powers implanted in it.

- Not only sin but also guilt has been transmitted from Adam as a consequence of the 'Fall' by way of concupiscence, which Christ alone has avoided.

- As a consequence of Adam's sin, humankind was condemned, but God has chosen to predestine some to salvation as an act of grace while permitting others to be lost.

- The church on earth is a mixed body of saints and sinners outside of which there is no salvation.

- So long as human civilization lasts, there will be two 'cities', one composed of those who desire to serve themselves and to grasp worldly power, the other of those who desire to serve God and who would forfeit power.



Inspired by the philosophical treatise Hortensius, by the Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, Augustine became an earnest seeker after truth. He considered becoming a Christian, but experimented with several philosophical systems before finally entering the church.

He returned to North Africa and was ordained in 391. He became bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria) in 395, an office he held until his death.

Augustine's doctrine stood between the extremes of Pelagianism and Manichaeism. Against Pelagian doctrine, he held that human spiritual disobedience had resulted in a state of sin that human nature was powerless to change. In his theology, men and women are saved by the gift of divine grace; against Manichaeism he vigorously defended the place of free will in cooperation with grace.

Augustine died at Hippo, August 28, 430.


Quotes from Saint Augustine

- "A city is [not] fortunate when its walls are standing, while its morals are in ruins." (from "The City of God")

- "Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?" (from "The City of God")

- "As a youth I had been woefully at fault, particularly in early adolescence. I had prayed to you for chastity and said, "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." For I was afraid that you would answer my prayer at once and cure me too soon of the disease of lust, which I wanted satisfied, not quelled." (from "Confessions")

- "In the memory everything is preserved separately, according to its category." (from "Confessions")

- "My inner self was a house divided against itself." (from "Confessions")

- "My will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit it became a necessity. These were the links which together formed what I have called my chain, and it held me fast in the duress of servitude." (from "Confessions")

- "When large numbers of people share their joy in common, the happiness of each is greater because each adds fuel to the other's flame." (from "Confessions")

- "Why does truth engender hatred?" (from "Confessions")

- "You made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you." (from "Confessions")

- "There is no salvation outside the Church." (from "On Baptism")

- "Let me know myself, Lord, and I shall know Thee." (from "Soliloquies")

- "Necessity has no law." (from "Soliloquies")

- "Believe that you may understand. (Crede ut intelligas.)" (from "A Guide for the Perplexed" by E. F. Schumacher)

- "Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desirest to attain to what thou art not." (from "Emblems" by Francis Quarles)

- "An unjust law is no law at all." (from "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr.)

- "Love, and do what you will!" (from "Espistolam Joannis Ad Parthos")

- "Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues; hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance." (from "Spiritual Diary: Selected Sayings and Examples of Saints" by Daughters of St. Paul)