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.
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“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.
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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.
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Interesting. I will need to read up on Augustine since I know nothing of him, Thanks for the info.
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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.
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@ 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.
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@ 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.
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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
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@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.
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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.
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@ 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!
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“…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!
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@ 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.
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