The City of God
“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.” (14.28) Love, in a present-day definition is normally a good thing. According to the brilliant St. Augustine, that would depend on the nature of the love in understanding. In his book, The City of God, Augustine skillfully drew upon two loves: on one hand, a love which is holy: agape, unselfish love, and on the other hand a love which is unholy: distorted love of self; selfishness. Augustine identifies with unselfish love, which is holy love, the love of God, and following God’s rules according to the bible. As contrasted to its opposite, love of self is to the point of contempt of God and neighbor in which these two loves conflict. In this essay, I will give a brief background of the author; I will be discussing the topic of love in The City of God, but more specifically, Augustine’s perception of self-love.
Saint Augustine of Hippo was born on November 13, 354, in the town of Thagaste, which is now located in Algeria. His father was a pagan who converted on his death bed, and his mother was Saint Monica, whom was a devout Christian. In 370, he went to the University at Carthage to study rhetoric and wanted to become a lawyer. He gave up on law, and later on abandoned his Christian faith. He had a mistress with who he lived with for fifteen years and he had a son out of wedlock as well. He later, returned to his Christian faith, and on the death of his mother he returned to Africa, sold his property, gave all of his income to the poor, and founded a monastery at Tagas...
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... hand, a love which is holy: agape, unselfish love, and on the other hand a love which is unholy: distorted love of self; selfishness. Augustine clearly acknowledged unselfish love, which is holy love, the love of God. Augustine’s philosophy of love of self is defined as self-seeking and egotistical. The two self-loves are entirely divergent. One is self-giving, selfless, self-sacrificing, and the other is self-centered. One builds up; the other idea of love is self-destructive. One turns to God, and the other turns away from God. In my opinion, I think it is almost impossible in today’s world to live in the way that Augustine accepts. Nevertheless, I can agree somewhat due to the fact that he referring towards an eternal life with God in a Christian sense of thinking. In our secular culture of today's culture, many more people are beginning to turn away from God.
...escribes two different aspects of God’s Love. The first is that God’s love can be very commanding, resulting in a sovereign relationship between man and God. The second being that God’s love is everything, all around and forever present. There is nothing that was not made by God, and without his love nothing would continue to exist. Julian implies that it is humanity’s duty to observe these “sixteen showings” and to make it their goal to work towards that oneness with God. Once man is able to obtain this ultimate unity with God, he will be able to understand the true passion of God.
Augustine remarks that he sees man as seeking what gives him glory rather than what brings glory to God. When talking about self Augustine shares that he enjoyed studying Latin in school simply because it came easy to him, not because it brought glory to God. As he grew, he was, in the eyes of his society, an upstanding citizen, he did nothing inherently wrong. However, Augustine believes he did considerable wrong; rather than living for and seeking after the Lord, he was living for and seeking after his own desires. These claims exemplify mankind’s tendency to turn its back on its beliefs and the One in whom they
"Love in L.A.," written by Dagoberto Gilb, is a story full of irony and multiple themes. The story is set in Hollywood during the summer time. Written in third person objective, "Love in L.A." guides the reader along through the story as opposed to an omniscient point of view.
Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. The City of God. Trans. Marcus Dods. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.
“Our hearts find no peace until they rest in you” (21). The return to God, the means of doing so, and the manners by which man is turned from him in the first place, are central themes in St. Augustine’s Confessions; a historical work serving as confession, praise, and examination of faith. Autobiographical in nature, Augustine’s work retells the story of his life and of his spiritual journey in retrospect, considering each event and its importance to the larger framework of his religious philosophy, a result of the merging of Neo-Platonist thought and Catholic theology. Through this fusion, Augustine is able to reconcile God and “evil,” make a distinction between the physical and spiritual realms, and lay out his views on how one can come to know and love God the truest sense possible; how one returns to him.
After stating this, Augustine continues to support his statement by talking about friendship. Is the friendship Augustine mentions lustful or sincerely about love? "Thus I polluted the stream of friendship with the filth of unclean desire and sullied its limpidity with the hell of lust." (pg. 35) Obviously Augustine is letting the idea of love turn straight to lust. He talks about unclean desires, but he says he wants to be clean and courtly. Maybe Augustine has the wrong idea about love.
Augustine claims, “I cared for nothing but to love and be loved” (Book II, Ch.2). Augustine demonstrates his desire for love just like Dido shows her love to Aeneas and even commits to suicide in order to pursue her love. By contrast, Aeneas never admits his marriage with Dido. However, there is a major distinction between Dido’s love and Augustine’s love. For Dido, her love is more about carnality and romanticism, while Augustine’s real need is the love of God. That’s why Augustine writes a self-condemnation about his mistaken love at Carthage, as he says, “I also fell in love, which was a snare of my own choosing” (Book III, Ch.1). Augustine denies sexual love. Instead of insisting on romantic love like Dido does, Augustine chooses to give up and begins a new a journey to find what he is destined to do, same as Aeneas leaves for Dido and continues to find
Why does St. Augustine seek God? Through his Confessions we come to understand that he struggled a great deal with confusion about his faith, before finally and wholeheartedly accepting God into his life. But we never get a complete or explicit sense of what led Augustine to search for God in the first place. Did he feel a void in his life? Was he experiencing particular problems in other relationships that he thought a relationship with God would solve for him? Or perhaps he sought a sense of security from religion? A closer analysis of the text of St. Augustine’s Confessions will provide some insight into these fundamental questions.
This paper will outline specific points in Saint Augustine’s Confessions that highlight religious views following the fall of Rome. Though Augustines views on religion may not reflect that of most people in his time period, it still gives valuable insight into how many, namely Neoplatonists,, viewed God and his teachings.
...estructive. Love led to Dido’s physical death and it lead to Augustine’s spiritual death. Virgil and Augustine further demonstrate that there our ideals greater than love. Aeneas ends his romance with Dido in order to fulfill his destiny to become founder of Rome. Aeneas must obey the gods before his passion. Augustine forsakes his life of lust when Christ calls him. He obeys his God and learns to love and esteem Him above all else. Aeneas fulfills his duty to his gods and to his country; Augustine fulfills his duty to His God and his church. Duty should take precedence and overpower love.
The second circle of hell, a realm for those who fell victim of their carnal desires, is another level at which to place Augustine’s soul for he was consumed by lust in his pre-conversion days. He was encouraged by his family to learn the art of persuasion and making of fine speech when he was only sixteen. He used these skills, which he developed very well, along with his good looks to seduce as many women as possible. It was “in that sixteenth year of my life in this world, when the madness of lust. . . took complete control of me, and I surrendered to it” (Confessions, 987). He was in love with being in love. Yet, he was unable to discern between love and lust.
...unconditional love for God. Once Augustine converts, he attains the purest form of love and it is solely reserved for God.
St. Augustine's sordid lifestyle as a young man, revealed in Confessions, serves as a logical explanation for his limited view of the purpose of sexuality in marriage. His life from adolescence to age thirty-one was so united to passionate desire and sensual pleasure, that he later avoided approval of such emotions even within the sanctity of holy union. From the age of sixteen until he was freed of promiscuity fifteen years later, Augustine's life was woven with a growing desire for illicit acts, until that desire finally became necessity and controlled his will. His lust for sex began in the bath houses of Tagaste, where he was idle without schooling and "was tossed about…and boiling over in…fornications" (2.2). Also during that time, young Augustine displayed his preoccupation with sexual experience by fabricating vulgarities simply to impress his peers. In descript...
The title of his book alone reveals that Augustine is deeply religious. Rarely in City of God is there a discussion that does not have divine elements or references, and his discussion of justice is no exception. For Augustine, justice seems to be the combination of two things: recognition by man of his place in the world below God, and strict (or as strict as possible by a mortal) observance of God’s laws. The second part is actually the easier one of the two to examine. Man is simply supposed to follow the teachings professed in Christianity’s religious texts to the best of his ability. The interpretation of the correct ways to follow those laws is another matter, but one that Augustine pays little attention to. Augustine’s attention is focused rather on man’s recognition of his place below God, and in a greater sense, on man’s respect for God. “…impeded by [man’s] own humility…especially when the divine providence justly resisted their pride, so that it might show by comparison with them that i...
..., the closer he was really moving toward God. He began to realize that God is all good, so nothing he creates will be of evil. “God does not create evil but it is of the world” (Augustine 230-31). Once he took responsibility for his personal life and spiritual walk, Augustine began to uncover the truths to his life. He reveals one must take responsibility for their actions and confess to develop a stronger connection with God. He then comprehends; God allows bad things to happen in your life to show you that you need him. Evil is not a lesser good, but it is a reflection of ones moral well-being. In order for one’s well being to be saved one must confess their sins to Christ.