St Augustine

St Augustine (354 – 430), real name Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, also known as Saint Augustine of Hippo, was a doctor of the Church, and a North African Christian religious leader. He was a native of Tagaste, in Numidia, now in present-day Algeria, and son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, St. Monica. He is famous for his Confessions (400) and the twenty-two-volume City of God (412-427), which dominated subsequent Western theology. He was the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church. He was the bishop of Hippo Regius from Thagaste in Numidia Cirtensis.

After a life of a youth of dissipation, he was converted to Christ by a text of St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 13, 14), which his eyes first lit upon, as on suggestion of a friend he took up the epistle to read it in answer to an appeal he had made to him to explain a voice that was ever whispering in his ears, "Take and read". He became bishop of Hippo in 396, devoted himself to pastoral duties, and took an active part in the Church controversies of his age, opposing especially the Manichæans, the Donatists, and the Pelagians.

His principal works apart from his "Confessions," and his "City of God," are his treatises on Grace and Free-Will. It is safe to say, no Churchman has ever exercised such influence as he has done in moulding the creed as well as directing the destiny of the Christian Church. He was especially imbued with the theology of St. Paul.

Feast day, August 28.

Wisdom & Quotes

• He that is not jealous is not in love.
• To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

- On the Good of Marriage

• Give me chastity and consistency, but not yet.

- Confessions

• Where, my God, where, Oh Lord, where or when was I,

Your servant , innocent ?
- Confessions

• What then is time ? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not Know.

- Confessions

• The desire for fame tempts even noble minds.

- The City of God

• Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer.

– The City of God

• The violence which assails good men to test them, to cleanse and purify them, effects in the wicked their condemnation, ruin, and annihilation.

– The City of God

• The Heavenly City outshines Rome, beyond comparison. There, instead of victory, is truth; instead of high rank, holiness; instead of peace, felicity; instead of life, eternity.

– The City of God

• The dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity.

– The City of God

• The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but — what is worse — the slave of as many masters as he has vices.

– The City of God

• Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?

– The City of God

• For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.”

– The City of God

• Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

– The City of God

• Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

– The City of God

• Hear the other side.

- De Duabus Animabus

• The greatest evil is physical pain.

- Soliloquies

• The great good is wisdom.

- Soliloquies

• Augustinus, Augustinus, what are you trying to do? Do you believe to be able to pour the whole sea in a little jar?

– quoted in the letter of Augustine to saint Cyril of Jerusalem

• Do not go outside yourself, return to yourself: truth dwells in the interiority of man and, if you find that your nature is changeable, transcend yourself too.

– quoted in De vera religione

• The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others.

– Patrologia Latina

• Love the sinner and hate the sin.

– Opera Omnia

• An unjust law is no law at all.

– On Free Choice Of The Will, Book 1

• God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

– Enchiridion

• The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

– Tractates on the Gospel of John

• Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.

– Tractates on the Gospel of John

• God is one, and the Church is a unity; only unity can respond to him who is one.

– Expositions on the Psalms

• For God loves to save and not to condemn; therefore is he patient with evil, that out of evil good may be brought.

– Sermon 18

• What is anger? A lust for revenge. What is hatred? An anger grown old.

– Sermon 58

• Anger is a weed; hate is the tree.

– Sermon 58

• The dove loves even when it attacks; the wolf hates even when it flatters.

– Sermon 64

• Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.

– Sermon 80

• God became man so that man might become God.

– Sermon 128

• He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

– Sermon 169

• Don’t hold yourselves cheap, seeing that the creator of all things and of you estimates your value so high, so dear, that he pours out for you every day the most precious blood of his only-begotten Son.

– Sermon 216

• Nobody should ever doubt that in the washing of rebirth (Titus 3:5) absolutely all sins, from the least to the greatest, are altogether forgiven.

– Sermon 229

• Singing is of a lover.

– Sermon 336

• Death is the penalty of sin.

– Sermon 348

• We were ensnared by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the foolishness of God.

– De doctrina christiana

• Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.

– De doctrina christiana

• It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed.
• Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt: all else will follow.

– On the Mystical Body of Christ

Tao Chien