A daydream of mine is to go back in time to see Augustine’s library. Not only do I love his books, he was one of the top thinkers in the Latin West not long before the fall of Rome. When the Vandals burned down his town his books somehow escaped and were put on a ship bound for Italy. What became of them after that I do not know.
It would be amazing just to spend two hours in his library! Someone like him, I imagined, would have a wonderful library with all the best books of his age, many of them now lost forever to time.
Well, that is not quite how it would go according to Augustine scholar James J. O’Donnell. Probably all his library had, apart from his own works, were books of the Bible, Bible reference books and maybe some not-particularly-deep Christian writers!
He did not read as widely as you would expect - unlike, say, Ambrose, Jerome and other top minds of the age. In his later years he pretty much just stuck to the Bible. And even there he mainly just read and studied the Psalms, Genesis, Paul and the Gospel of John. He carried his book of Psalms with him on his travels and read it again and again. (Get an Eastern Orthodox Bible to read the Psalms as he knew them.)
There were three things going on:
- He did not generally hang on to books. For example, at 19 he loved Cicero more than anything, yet at age 54 he had no Cicero! In most cases he would read a book, get what he could out of it and then throw it over his shoulder, sotospeak.
- Master texts: Throughout his life he moved from one set of master texts to another, studying each in turn for years, reading other books mostly just to understand the master texts better:
- Cicero and Virgil in his teens
- Manichaean writings in his 20s
- Plotinus and Porphyry in his early 30s
- The Bible from his 30s onwards
- He was bad at Greek: He learned Greek at school but hated it. That was unfortunate since all the best stuff, even the New Testament itself, was written in Greek. That limited him to poor Latin translations.
So at any one time his library was not amazing. What was amazing is that it did not hold him back.
Since I do not know how to build a time machine I did the next best thing: I wrote a computer program that made it easy for me to tell which authors and books Augustine most often brings up or quotes from. That hit the high points – the Bible, Cicero, Virgil, Mani, Plotinus, etc – but missed the fact that he did not have them all at the same time. It also missed some of the lesser known Christian writers that he read:
- Tertullian
- Cyprian
- Arnobius
- Lactantius
- Hilary of Poitiers
Source: James J. O’Donnell, “Augustine: A New Biography” (2005).
See also:
Great entry. Someone’s made a movie about Augustine that is coming out, but to no surprise they are using a European actor to portray the African (Berber) saint.
What passion this man must have had – he gave up the woman he loved, marriage, abandoned up his career, converted to catholic Christianity and celibacy, all to serve God. He must have struggled with his lustful feelings for the rest of his life.
“Since I do not know how to build a time machine I did the next best thing: I wrote a computer program that made it easy for me to tell which authors and books Augustine most often brings up or quotes from.”
damn….I need to get on that programming thing. This alone makes me VERY jealous of you sir. . . and your knowledge of world history.
Inspired to read more , and then find out where biggest library in my state is.
Impressive Abagond! Don’t know much about the classsics, but if I could…the Vatican library and whatever secret vault(s) they have, and the library at Alexandra before, you know who, burned it down. Oh yeah, Timbuktu and a lot of the ancient writings there.
Interesting. I will need to read up on Augustine since I know nothing of him, Thanks for the info.
I just wonder how civilized he was after all, because to me Augustine was very much the epitome of ignorant upper class roman (according to some historians) guy who, after a guilty trip, turned into the new intolerant religion and became one of its most influental creators and as such created one of the most monstrous concepts of christianity: the original sin.
For me a guy who condemns innocent un babtised children and babies into hell, just because a couple ate the apple from the wrong tree thousands of years before, is not much of a humanitarian. Also he devised the concept of devils as flying around and being physical creatures and satan also as a physical personality and creature.
Granted, I am very very critical towards any religions, christianity included, and tend to think about this religion much in the same way as Nietsche did: the last christian died on the cross.
@sam
Yes, original sin. I completely forgot Augustine was the author of that idea.
We arrive in this world unclean and pre-disposed to sin.
This single idea be the only provable one of the Christian doctrines.
How much does has this idea that we are bad to the bone shaped Western Civilization? Political structure, pedagogy and child rearing, etc.?
I think it is a “generic” idea now. Sin is the great leveler.
I noticed that on the “what if it were reversed and blacks had guns and ocean going ships before whites did” thread, I noticed that when the discussion hit the area of African philosophical traditions being different from the ideas in Europe that formed the Spanish conquistadors – there was not much debate – or perhaps incomprehension. Why? Because I think we are so used to the idea of evil being present and inherent in ALL humans EVERYWHERE, and cannot imagine national traditions – or ANYONE – who doesn’t have it in them.
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/what-if-it-was-reversed-and-blacks-had-guns-and-ocean-going-ships-before-whites-did/#comment-132108
But why? We know, these days, intellectually, that Eve did not eat a fruit (I don’t think the fruit is actually named as an apple) because we have evolutionary science. We know snakes don’t talk.
Even though the historicity of original sin is in doubt, it still doesn’t affect the idea of its existence.
I think for Augustine, he needed God, and Original Sin was necessary to make God necessary to save him.
@sam – sorry about my typos above.
I recall a teacher (at Catholic school) who once who asked the class what is the alternative to Original Sin?
In contrast to Augustine, how many people have head of Pelagius? He lived at around the same time as Augustine denied the existence of Original Sin.
But because Pelagius was a heretic, he was largely ignored in history, his writing destroyed and his famed squashed. It seems he was no less skilled an orator as Augustine or any less saintly. But he opposed Augustine, and that did him no favours.
Pelagius believed that humans had the “moral ability” not to sin. It was our choice and within our human power.
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/people/pelagius.htm
wow abagond you’re so scholarly. I took Latin for a while and I loved it, I had an amazing teacher…but I’ve only read Virgil/ Cicero and ofcourse I’ve read the Bible. those other authors I’ve not even heard of lol. I did read a book about the peloponnesian war though, you love classical literature. some of it is good, some of it is crazy sounding like some of those roman emperors were crazy…some were brilliant. I’ve gotten into reading books about ancient african civilizations though…like meroe, axum, nubia, kush, my favorite thing that I learned was that Egypt was colonized by Nubia…it is also interesting to learn how many ancient romans regarded Ethiopians and Egyptians with great respect
you’re so scholarly abagond you make me feel like a slacker and an idiot…i need to read more. i spend too much time on the internet. My Grandfather was a HUGE classics buff…he loved classics so much he named my mother after an ancient Greek character in one of his favorite books. I guess I shared his passion to an extent because I did study latin for several years…but i was nowhere near as scholarly as he was nor you abagond.
@ Bulanik
“We arrive in this world unclean and pre-disposed to sin.”
True
“I think for Augustine, he needed God, and Original Sin was necessary to make God necessary to save him.”
True (whether he believed in original sin or not, the fact that men are just disposed to sin, he would still need God to save him)
“Pelagius believed that humans had the “moral ability” not to sin.”
True too, another provable point of the christian doctrine, since it is also believed that men were ‘originally’ created good.
@ Sam
Hmmm, You know I’m very critical if every religion as well even though I consider myself to be a follower of Jesus Christ. However, if you believe the last christian died on the cross then he was the last one who spoke of the “concept of devils as flying around and being physical creatures and satan also as a physical personality and creature.”
Augustine just echoed it.
I wrote a computer program that made it easy for me to tell which authors and books Augustine most often brings up or quotes from.
Damn dude… i’m impressed. Think I’m gonna go find a book to pick up right now lol
@bulanik:
I know Pelagius and one of the reasons he became heretic was his contradictory ideas of sin. And yes, I think the concept of Original Sin still shapes western minds and not to the better. The idea that man is basically driven by self interest and is naturally violent and tries to oppress others for his own benefit is loosely based on that very same idea: man is a sinner, bad, dangerous naturally etc. It is also one of the keys to understanding the racism. “Racism is bad, ok, but aren’t we all sinners after all? Who will cast the first stone? It is natural, after all.”
@cynic:
I have no idea did Yeshua the Jew have the same idea of flying devils as Augustine did, perhaps he was familiar with some of the more mystical jewish sects which did have some hellenistic demon concepts or more eastern sects who also had ideas of evil beings, but the devils we know are creation of Augustine. His influence on christianity was simply massive and such he must be considered as one of the most influental individuals in history.
I have no intention of being rude or disrespectful towards any mans faith or religion, though. Christianity has produced some good too: concept of love towards the fellow man, great arts etc.Also, not all ideas of Augustine were bad or wrong in my mind.
Excellent observation by Sam:
Now I just wonder whether Thucydides was influenced by Augustine? In contrast to say someone like Pelagius,as Bulanik indicated:
Pelagius believed that humans had the “moral ability” not to sin. It was our choice and within our human power.
In any even it just shows how narrowly defined and fatalistically programmed Western societies view of human nature has become.
@Kwamla
“Now I just wonder whether Thucydides was influenced by Augustine?”
(It maybe a typo – but I believe that Thucydides was some centuries before Augustine? In any case, I hope I’ve understood you properly as my answer presumes that Augustine was influenced by Thucydides.)
It’s certainly likely that Thucydides influenced Augustine.
Augustine read Greek, and if he did not read Thucydides in the original Greek, he may have read him in Latin. And, even if Augustine did neither due to lack of available translations or access to these works at this time – his teachers and the books he read were probably heavily influenced by Thucydides’ ideas and approach.
We know Augustine read Cicero. And Cicero admired Thucydides’ style.
In turn, Cicero was impressed by the histories of Polybius – and Polybius is recognized as Thucydides’ literary and intellectual successor.
Augustine also read Virgil.
Was Virgil influenced by Thucydides? I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.
Would the poetry of The Aeneid have the same level of philosophical complexity if Virgil knew nothing of Thucydides history and the political nature of warfare?
If Cicero’s prose and Virgil’s poetry were stamped on Augustine’s mind at a young age, could Augustine write many pages without some reminiscence or verbal allusion to them?
Thucydides’s writing does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs. His political world is God-less. And his view of that world – hardheaded and cynical – is has long been the tone of Realpolitik.
In this sense then, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched for a man moved by religious passion to find Thucydides’s world-view consistent with Original Sin.
Books, for Augustine, must have been ‘living entities’, their impact profound.
What were the Manichaean writings that Augustine read in his 20s?
Some were translated into Latin from their original Syriac or Persian.
Before Augustine rejected the Manichaean belief he had held dearly, much of what Mani believed stayed with him. Especially the nature of human evil.
The Manichees regarded ‘the lower half of the body’ as the disgusting work of the devil, the very prince of darkness. Sex and the dark were intimately associated in Mani’s mind; and the Dark was the very essence of evil.
Was anything written at that time that opposed that world view?
Manichees believed evil lived, and could never be eradicated.
Evil was the result of an ever continuing cosmic conflict between Light and Dark. Because of its attitude toward the material world, Manichaeism regarded evil as a PHYSICAL rather than a moral entity. Women were considered forces of darkness, binding men to the flesh. If women were forces of darkness, and sexual acts were acts of evil, then the by-product and emanation from this evil – children – were born as naturally prone-to-evil beings.
Again, I doubt if there was anything at that time that questioned dualism – or dichotomous thinking.
Obviously there was little that proposed women were innocent beings, or the natural possessors of Light or moral strength.
I’d imagine because the central question for Mani was the origin of evil, this question may have preoccupied Augustine as well. And he may never have questioned its existence or asked whether it was in fact ‘natural’ to think in this way?
Augustine may not have been certain of Mani, but he did not seem to be uncertain of evil.
Augustine eventually rejected Mani’s teaching, because he considered it to be theosophy. It probably boiled down to this: was Mani’s opinion greater than the Bible’s? I think in those years of uncertainty and criticism of Manichaeanism, Augustine probably read the Sceptical philosophers as well.
How else could he have divined the uncertainty and inconclusiveness of all received opinions, of sense-perception, and of the power of words to tell one anything important that one does not really know already?
http://www.skepdic.com/theosoph.html
@ Bulanik
“..“Now I just wonder whether Thucydides was influenced by Augustine?…
Yes this was my mistake it would have been the other way round. Your responses are very descriptive of Augustine life and possible influences which I find intriguing particularly his rejection of Theosophy. – A philosophical approach which would have been totally at odds with Thucydides world view!
However, your historical descriptive explorations serve to illustrate my central point and that is how a predominately flawed view of human nature and spirituality pervades Western civilisation today masquerading itself as a universal reality. When this is obviously not the case!
@ Kwamla
“… flawed view of human nature and spirituality pervades Western civilisation today masquerading itself as a universal reality…”
It seems so. And Augustine found many more who added to, and polished up, this One Opinion dressed as Universal Truth.
These days we look somewhat judgmentally at Islamic madrassas – religious schools – that drum doctrine into the heads of youths: memorize, memorize, memorize.
But wasn’t this the way that of male youths were educated long before Islam? The education system of the ancient and medieval consisted of learning by rote at an impressionable age. Augustine was no different.
What intellectual resistance could he have nurtured under these conditions? From what I remember reading about Augustine’s early life – he hated school and his teachers were unkind, literally beating the words into his memory.
But this type of learning – the book with the whip – despite the violence, was probably a valuable training ground for his adult experience of injustice, conflict and bitter disappointment.
Abagond mentions Augustine reading Plotinus. The same Plotinus who punished his own body and could root out for human dishonesty wherever he found it? Plotinus firmly believed the human soul was essentially weak because it lived in body. And the body was matter (thus akin to filth).
Augustine also read Porphyry, who was not much different, but he put the mind//body problem this way: God contains all things, but is contained in nothing.
These 2 writers were quite a combo!
No wonder, when Augustine read Paul, in the Bible, Paul’s words spoke directly to him. Wasn’t sexual passion the one obstacle between his soul and union with eternal incorporeal truth? What Plotinus and Porphyry had wriiten was now being made possible and real with the help of a text from St Paul.
Galatians 5:17:
For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.
Romans 7:18-20
For I know that nothing good dwells ain me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
@Kwamla
@sam
I have not had the time to comment and concentrate more about this subject, but hope to do so when time allows.
This idea of the ‘universal nature’ is of the human being is crap, crap and nothing but crap.
It is trundled out over and over, the lack of critical comment – repugnant.
Yet, the prestige given to it as the Apex of Truth and Learning because Greeks wrote about it and Romans thought that way!
How learned, dude!
Utter fuckery.
My repugnance to the concept of Original Sin is because of the damage it has done, and continues to do. I don’t only mean wars and the way International Relations is played out (after the fashion of Thucydides).
One common manifestation of it is the way children are perceived and reared. Children, then, are born depraved. To curb their depravity, they must be taught to be good through ‘discipline’, that is, the use violence and psychological torture. Because it’s for their own good. Beating teaches. It is loving battery. etc.
This method has been the method for centuries. What has it produced?
Evil and more evil, oftentimes.
Some, if not many, thinkers on this subject believe that this belief in innate depravity and the abuse exercised to exorcise it is – in itself – the cause of neuroses and psychoses.
Polish psychologist Alice Miller studied this and concluded that
“… human beings prefer not to know about their own victimization during childhood… to avoid unbearable pain.”
She believed that the unconscious command of the individual, not to be aware how he or she was treated in childhood, led to ‘displacement’, the irresistible drive to repeat trauma-inducing states of parenting in the next generation of children.
In her books, Dr Miller, takes many examples of people who experience or saw great violence from their parents/carers during upbringing: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyesky, and so on, to show how the violence of their early lives shaped their understanding of human evil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Miller_(psychologist)#cite_note-18
“…My repugnance to the concept of Original Sin is because of the damage it has done, and continues to do…
You are absolutely RIGHT! about this Bulanik.
Original sin is basically a false doctrine. But so much supposed truth and light has been built upon it (not mentioning the Catholic Church) OK! I mentioned it! That a man or woman can be born imperfect with the constant need to atone for this sin through the intervention of an appointed intermediary denies and distorts man’s innate natural spiritual being. And its even worse for what it does to a women!
It really is an abomination when you do some thorough, detailed and diligent research into horrors and destruction the Christian Catholic Church has for centuries reaped upon this planet!
@ Kwamla
It’s also no surprise to me that the Romans, Virgil and Cicero, were read by Augustine. Both authors knew something of Hell and what was necessary in the making and maintaining of a state.
@Kwamla
The Catholic Church was the power structure of it’s era just as the nation-state became the power structure after The Enlightenment. Power structures here and there throughout history with their own forms and ways of menacing the public.
@ Legion
The insidious power of the Vatican Catholic Church still plays a significant role in the billions of Catholics around the world today. When you research and dig deeper you will find that it is more just a religion. It has many vested interests.