St. Augustine
Joseph Fornieri
Life and Legacy
Augustine lived from 354 A.D. to 430 A.D.
Roman empire and its fall are the context of
Augustine‟s political thought.
Christianity was viewed by many Roman
intellectuals as the cause of Rome‟s fall.
Augustine‟s The City of God against the
Pagans rebutted these accusations.
Life and Legacy - Continued
The fall of Rome was not due to its neglect of
imaginary gods, but instead was rooted in its
moral decadence and lust for power.
R.W. Dyson, “In drawing upon the language and
ideas of the pagan philosophical heritage, and
in scrutinizing those ideas in the light of
Christian revelation, Augustine has effectively
fashioned them into a Christian philosophy of
politics.”
Life and Legacy - Continued
Augustine‟s Confessions documents his struggle to
find Christian faith.
The work brings interiority and introspection to the fore of
philosophical inquiry.
Augustine was a lover in love with love, ultimately
focusing on the ability of individuals to love God and his or
her fellow human beings.
Cicero‟s book Hortensius is credited with turning
Augustine toward the love of the immortality of
wisdom.
This thought reflected the Stoic school, a school of
philosophy that deeply influenced the fathers of the
Catholic Church.
Life and Legacy - Continued
Stoic teachings that were important to the
church included:
The law of nature based on right reason (A
Christian understanding of the law of nature)
A lost Golden Age (Fall from the Garden of
Eden)
A universal common humanity (Spiritual dignity
of all human beings created in the image of God)
Life and Legacy - Continued
Augustine‟s spiritual journey included time spent
as a Manichaean.
Manichaean beliefs included:
The universe is divided into two material forces
including light (goodness) and darkness (evil).
The goal of life was to separate these forces.
Liberation could be achieved by the elite few who
possessed a secret knowledge or gnosis about how the
light particles in their souls could be released from the
dark matter imprisoning their true selves.
Human beings, given this structure of the universe,
were not responsible for evil.
Life and Legacy - Continued
Augustine‟s mature teachings reflect this Manichaean
legacy including his key teaching about the city of
man and the city of God.
Augustine was also influenced by St. Ambrose to
move away from simple literalism to a more nuanced
allegorical approach to scripture.
In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision,
we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be
interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the
faith we have received. In such cases, we should not
rush headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side
that, if further progress in the search for truth justly
undermines the position, we will fall too.
Life and Legacy - Continued
The death of Augustine‟s concubine and young son
had a profound impact on Augustine.
Augustine studied the Neo-Platonists, Plotinus and
Porphyry, whose teachings included:
Philosophical life was participation in the divine life and
served as a path to divinization.
The One was the sustaining force of the True, the Good,
and the Beautiful.
All things are drawn toward the one and the soul‟s moral
purity is a prerequisite to the ascent toward the one.
Augustine credited the Neo-Platonists with freeing him
from Manichaean materialism and his understanding of
evil as a privation rather than an active force.
Life and Legacy - Continued
Augustine converted to Catholic Christianity
around 385-386 A.D.
“Oh God make me chaste, but not yet.”
Romans 13:13: “Not reveling and drunkenness,
not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and
rivalries. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord
Jesus Christ, spend no more thought on nature
and nature‟s appetites.”
Divine grace and not human will liberates
and saves human beings.
Life and Legacy - Continued
Augustine rejected the Pagan equation of
evil and ignorance and embraced a Pauline
understanding that we can know the good
but reject it for evil unless we are helped by
God‟s grace.
Augustine observed human beings take a
perverse delight in sinning.
Life and Legacy - Continued
Augustine established a philosophical retreat,
but abandoned a life of leisure to take up the
post of Bishop in Hippo where he battled
external foe and internal heretic.
Augustine died in 430 A.D. around the same
time the Vandals were besieging Hippo.
Augustine‟s writing survived the fall of Roman
Africa and became an important part of
Christian and Western civilization.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word,
Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Judgment
The Incarnation of Jesus Christ is the
turning point of history for Augustine.
The Sermon on the Mount and the humble
service and sacrificial love of Jesus Christ
revealed human pretensions of glory as
pale images at best and idolatrous
perversions at worst of the true glory that
belongs to God.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
The use of the Greek word logos for word in the
Gospel of John embedded Christ with the rich
meanings that logos had in Greek culture of
divine wisdom and cosmic intelligence.
The term linked the Hellenic and Hebraic
worlds.
The love of God or wisdom is the orientation of
the true philosopher from Augustine‟s
perspective.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
Augustine rejected Tertullian‟s antipathy
towards philosophy.
Tertullian, “I believe because it is absurd.”
Augustine comes closest to the teachings
of the second century church father Justin
Martyr.
Martyr believed the seeds of wisdom, the Logos
Spermatikos, were scattered throughout the
universe.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
Augustine credits Plato with coming closest among the
pagan philosophers to the Christian understanding of
God.
“If Plato, therefore, has declared that the wise man
imitates, knows and loves this God and is blessed
through fellowship with him, why should we have to
examine other philosophers? No school has come
closer to us than Plato.”
Natural law teaching of the Stoics played important role
in Augustine‟s thought as well.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
Humanity‟s ability to conform with natural law
has been impeded by the fall from innocence
and the Garden of Eden (prelapsarian state) to
the condition defined by original sin
(postlapsarian state).
Human beings are divided by the law of sin.
Human efforts are necessary to overcome this
condition, but not sufficient. Only God‟s
revelation and grace can overcome this fallen
state.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
Pride prevented pagan philosophers from accepting
God‟s incarnation in Jesus Christ.
The pagan philosophers failed to appreciate the depth
of human depravity.
Faith precedes wisdom for Augustine.
“Lest you believe, you will not understand.”
Sapienta (wisdom) comes through loving rightly.
Scientia (knowledge) without faith and love leads to
vanity and pride.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
Tyrannical and philosophical souls are not
distinguished by differences in intelligence but in
the orientation of their love.
Tyrants love themselves.
Philosophers love God.
Augustine embraced a linear view of history
(creatio ex nihilio) instead of a cyclical view of
history.
Human beings are actors in a drama that is overseen
by a Creator God who desires to bring about some
ultimate good.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
God created all things good.
The fall is precipitated by human pride when Adam and
Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Pride is the original sin as Adam and Eve thought they
could know better than God.
The fall divided human beings against one another,
against themselves, and against nature.
The doctrine of original sin makes the consequences of
this act apply to all human beings.
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation, Fall,
Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
Evil resides in the human will according to Augustine,
and no human efforts can undue the consequences of
this reality.
Jesus Christ is the atonement for human depravity.
Philippians 2:5 – 9: “your attitude should be the same as
Jesus Christ: Who being, in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped but
made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. And being found in
appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became
obedient to death – even death on the cross.”
Augustine’s Theology: The Word, Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Judgment - Continued
The redemption of the fallen world will only
happen with Christ‟s second coming and the
final judgment of the living and the dead.
Augustine‟s thought is divided between the
tensions of the fallen world and the perfection of
God‟s redemption of this fallen world.
Peter Brown states, “So the City of God, far
from being a book about flight from this world, is
a book whose recurrent theme is „our business
within this common mortal life‟; it is a book
about being otherworldly in the world.”
Character and History of the Two
Cities
The City of God is defined by its love of God or
amour Dei.
Matthew 22:37: “to love God with all your heart and with all your
soul with all your mind… and to love your neighbor as yourself.”
The City of Man is defined by the love of self or
amour sui.
When we love ourselves in a selfish manner we choose
personal desire over faithful love in God.
Cupiditas – cupidity or greed
Concupiscentia – concupiscence or disordered appetite
Character and History of the Two
Cities - Continued
The fall leads us to depraved desires.
Ordo Amoris requires a hierarchical love with God at
the apex.
Augustine‟s should not be misconstrued as self-hatred
but as a rejection of selfishness.
Cardinal virtues were expressions of love:
Temperance – ability to love a thing in its proper measure.
Fortitude – the ability to hold steadfast to one‟s love.
Prudence – the ability to direct one‟s love properly.
Justice – the ability to love God, other and self
appropriately.
Character and History of the Two
Cities - Continued
Love and happiness are linked in
Augustine‟s political ethics.
Like Aristotle, Augustine views happiness as
objective perfection.
Slavish desires must be disciplined and
subordinated to love of God and neighbor.
Augustine traces the history of the two
cities from Cain through the tower of Babel.
Character and History of the Two
Cities - Continued
Augustine embraces the doctrine of
predestination indicating God has
foreknowledge of who will be saved and
damned.
The two cities are intermixed.
Augustine rejected Eusebius‟ vision of
Christian Empire.
Questions for Reflection
How do the views of both Aristotle and
Augustine on happiness differ from the
current belief that happiness consists in the
satisfaction of subjective desire?
The Two Cities, City of God, Book
XIV, Chapter xxviii
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two
loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the
contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of
God, even to the contempt of self. The former,
in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord.
For the one seeks glory from men but the
greatest glory of other is God, the witness of
conscience. The one lift up its head in its own
glory; the other says to its God.
Augustine’s Critique of Roman Glory
and the Libido Dominandi
Rome is a case study of the earthly city
infected with pride.
Augustine demythologizes Roman history
and critiques its heroes and rejects its
Gods.
Cluacina goddess of sewers is a great example
of what he rejects.
Augustine’s Critique of Roman Glory
and the Libido Dominandi - Continued
Romans loved glory.
This glory they most ardently loved. For its sake they
chose to live and for its sake they did not hesitate to
die. They suppressed all other desires in their
boundless desire for this one thing. In short, since
they held it shameful for their native land to be in
servitude, and glorious for it to rule and command,
their first passion to which they devoted all their
energy was to maintain their independence; the
second was to win dominion.
Augustine’s Critique of Roman Glory
and the Libido Dominandi - Continued
Regulus is an admirable Pagan hero but
his virtue is imperfect.
Roman suicides were a prideful
unwillingness to persist in the face of defeat
and suffering.
Rome was undone by its lust for power and
domination (libido dominandi).
Augustine’s Critique of Roman Glory
and the Libido Dominandi - Continued
Herbert Deane interprets Augustine:
Men were created equals, and God alone was the
superior and the ruler of mankind. But the soul of fallen
man, in “a reach of arrogance utterly intolerable,”
perversely seeks to ape God by aspiring “to lord it even
over those who are by nature its equals – that is, its fellow
men”…. This lust for domination over other men is
associated with the love of glory, honor, and fame, which
men “with vain elation and pomp of arrogance seek to
achieve by the subjection of others.” Like avarice, the
desire to exercise power and domination is not confined to
a few men, although it is particularly strong in the
ambitious and the arrogant; “there is hardly any one who
is free from the love of rule, and craves not human glory.
Augustine’s Critique of Roman Glory
and the Libido Dominandi - Continued
Augustine views states as being nothing less
than band of robbers.
Augustine focused on the unrealizable nature of
the ideal as described by Plato, Aristotle, and
Cicero.
Cicero provided Augustine with the logical
device necessary to deny the existence of the
Roman Republic because of the lack of true
justice necessary for its foundation.
The city‟s love its true foundation.
Questions for Reflection
To what extent does James Madison‟s view
of human nature correspond with
Augustine‟s?
Questions for Reflection
What does Augustine‟s diagnosis of the libido
dominandi mean for politics? Is the lust for
power intrinsic or can it be cured through
proper social conditioning? Can we
appease those who are driven by its
tyrannical longings?
Kingdoms as Dens of Robber Barons,
City of God, Book IV, Chapter iv
Justice being taken away, then, what are
kingdoms but great robberies? For what are
robberies themselves but little kingdoms…
Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which
was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate
who been seized. For when that king had
asked the man what he meant by keeping
hostile possession of the sea, he answered with
bold pride, “What you mean by seizing the
whole earth; but because I do it with a petty
ship, I am called a robber, while you who does it
with a great fleet are styled emperor.”
The Role of the State
Freedom and equality were destroyed by
the fall.
Slavery is a punishment for violating the
natural law.
All authorities including wicked authorities
need to be obeyed.
Things can always be worse so chaos and
anarchy are to be avoided.
The Role of the State - Continued
Christians should serve the state to achieve
what degree of justice, order, and peace that is
possible.
Augustine all living beings possessed an
intrinsic and natural yearning for peace.
The peace of the family was important for the
peace of society.
Peace can be achieved through love or fear.
The Role of the State - Continued
The Romans established Pax Romana
through fear and conquest.
The temporal peace between the city of
God and man is known as the Peace of
Babylon.
Christians are obliged to contribute to this
peace.
The Role of the State - Continued
Augustine understands war to be a consequence of
man‟s fallen state, but he argues for justice in war:
A great deal depends on the reasons why humans
undertake wars and on the authority to begin a war. The
natural order of the universe which seeks peace among
humans must allow the king the power to enter into a war
if he thinks it necessary. That same natural order
commands that the soldiers should then perform their
duty, protecting the peace and safety of the political
community. When war is undertaken in accord with the
will of God (the God who wishes to rebuke, humble, and
crush malicious human beings), it must be just to wage it.
The Role of the State - Continued
Christian emperors may exist, but they will
still be forced to make tragic decisions
where evils will be competing.
Peace should be the goal of such a
monarch.
Augustine and American
Exceptionalism
Americans have always considered themselves an exceptional
people called to a higher purpose. Our Puritan forefathers
described their new colony in Massachusetts Bay as “city
upon the hill” (Mathew 5:14) – a nation set apart. Borrowing
from Virgil, the founders likewise proclaimed that they had
established a novus ordo seclorum – a new order for the
ages (eternity). Indeed, this motto, along with “In God we
trust” and annuit coeptis (“God smiles upon us”), is stamped
on our currency. Consonant with this exceptionalist strain in
American history, Ronald Reagan referred to the United
States as “a shining city upon the hill.” Indeed, throughout
their history, Americans have understood their national
destiny in terms of a mission – or a special calling – to serve
as an exemplar or model of democracy to the world.
Questions for Reflection
Is American exceptionalism any different
from Rome‟s founding myth? Does it
inevitably lead to national arrogance and
imperialism? Did Abraham Lincoln
introduce an important qualification to this
belief when he referred to Americans as
God‟s “almost chosen people.” What would
Augustine think of American
exceptionalism?
A People Are Defined in Terms of the Object of Their
Love, From City of God, Book XIX, Chapter xxiii-xxiv
But if we discard the definition of a people, and,
assuming another, say that a people is an
assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by
a common agreement as to the objects of their love,
then, in order to discover the character of any people,
we have only to observe what they love. Yet
whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of
reasonable beings and not of beasts, and is bound
together by an agreement as to the objects of love, it
is reasonably called a people; and it will be a superior
people in proportion as it is bound together by higher
interests, inferior in proportion as it is bound together
by lower.
Questions for Reflection
How does Augustine‟s Christian realism differ
from the political realism of Machiavelli and
Hobbes?
Questions for Reflection
Does Augustine‟s teaching on slavery as a
punishment for sin and his related teaching
on obedience to tyrants lead to a political
quietism that passively resigns us to the
evils of this world rather than confronting
them?
The Peace of Babylon, City of God,
Book XIX, Chapter xxvi
Miserable , therefore is the people which is
alienated from God. Yet even this people has a
peace of its own which is not to be lightly
esteemed, though indeed, it shall not in the end
enjoy it, because it makes no good use of it
before the end. But it is our interest that it enjoy
this peace meanwhile in this life; for as long as
the two cities are commingled, we also enjoy
the peace of Babylon.
“Mirror of a Christian Prince,” City of
God, Book V, Chapter xxiv
But we say that they are happy if they rule justly; if they are not lifted up amid
the praises of those who pay them sublime honors, and the
obsequiousness of those who salute them with an excessive humility, but
remember that they are men; they make their power the handmaid of His
majesty by using it for the greatest possible extension of His worship; if
they fear, love, worship God; if more than their own they love that kingdom
in which they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to punish ,
ready to pardon; if they apply that punishment as necessary to government
and defense of the republic, and not in order to gratify their own enmity; if
they grant pardon, not that iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope
that the transgressor may amend his ways; if they compensate with the
lenity of mercy and the liberality of benevolence for whatever severity they
may be compelled to decree; if their luxury is as much restrained as it
might have been unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires
rather than any nation whatever; and if they do all these things, not through
ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of eternal felicity, not
neglecting to offer ot the true God, who is their God, for their sins, the
sacrifices of humility, contrition, and prayer.
Questions for Reflection
What are the necessary qualities that define
a Christian emperor for Augustine? How
do Augustine and Machiavelli differ in their
understanding of these qualities?
Reinhold Niebuhr: A 20th-Century Augustinian
on the Ironies of American History
To What extent does Niebuhr‟s diagnosis of
the ironies of American history apply to
current American foreign policy?
Conclusion
Augustine emphasizes the limitations of politics.
Efforts to achieve perfection in this life our
doomed.
Pseudo or ersatz religions such as Nazism and
Communism reveal the destiny of human
desires for utopia.
Liberalism is similarly fated in the eyes of
Augustine‟s understanding of human efforts to
master their own lives without God‟s grace.