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ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
(cont) |
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by St Augustine of Hippo |
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Ch 19. Wicked men judge others by
themselves |
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28. But those who, giving the rein to lust, either wander about
steeping themselves in a multitude of debaucheries, or even in
regard to one wife not only exceed the measure necessary for the
procreation of children, but with the shameless license of a sort
of slavish freedom heap up the filth of a still more beastly
excess, such men do not believe it possible that the men of
ancient times used a number of wives with temperance, looking to
nothing but the duty, necessary in the circumstances of the time,
of propagating the race; and what they themselves, who are
entangled in the meshes of lust, do not accomplish in the case of
a single wife, they think utterly impossible in the case of a
number of wives.
29. But these same men might say that it is not right even to
honour and praise good and holy men, because they themselves when
they are honoured and praised, swell with pride, becoming the more
eager for the emptiest sort of distinction the more frequently and
the more widely they are blown about on the tongue of flattery,
and so become so light that a breath of rumour, whether it appear
prosperous or adverse, will carry them into the whirlpool of vice
or dash them on the rocks of crime. Let them, then, learn how
trying and difficult it is for themselves to escape either being
caught by the bait of praise, or pierced by the stings of insult;
but let them not measure others by their own standard.
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Ch 20. Consistency of good men in all
outward circumstances |
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Let them believe, on the contrary, that the apostles of our faith
were neither puffed up when they were honoured by men, nor cast
down when they were despised. And certainly neither sort of
temptation was wanting to those great men. For they were both
cried up by the loud praises of believers, and cried down by the
slanderous reports of their persecutors. But the apostles used all
these things, as occasion served, and were not corrupted; and in
the same way the saints of old used their wives with reference to
the necessities of their own times, and were not in bondage to
lust as they are who refuse to believe these things.
30. For if they had been under the influence of any such
passion, they could never have restrained themselves from
implacable hatred towards their sons, by whom they knew that their
wives and concubines were solicited and debauched.
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Ch 21. David not lustful, though he fell
into adultery |
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But when King David had suffered this injury at the hands of his
impious and unnatural son, he not only bore with him in his mad
passion, but mourned over him in his death. He certainly was not
caught in the meshes of carnal jealousy, seeing that it was not
his own injuries but the sins of his son that moved him. For it
was on this account he had given orders that his son should not be
slain if he were conquered in battle, that he might have a place
of repentance after he was subdued; and when he was baffled in
this design, he mourned over his son's death, not because of his
own loss, but because he knew to what punishment so impious an
adulterer and parricide had been hurried. For prior to this, in
the case of another son who had been guilty of no crime, though he
was dreadfully afflicted for him while he was sick, yet he
comforted himself after his death.
31. And with what moderation and self-restraint those men used
their wives appears chiefly in this, that when this same king,
carried away by the heat of passion and by temporal prosperity,
had taken unlawful possession of one woman, whose husband also he
ordered to be put to death, he was accused of his crime by a
prophet, who, when he had come to show him his sin set before him
the parable of the poor man who had but one ewe-lamb, and whose
neighbour, though he had many, yet when a guest came to him spared
to take of his own flock, but set his poor neighbour's one lamb
before his guest to eat. And David's anger being kindled against
the man, he commanded that he should be put to death, and the lamb
restored fourfold to the poor man; thus unwittingly condemning the
sin he had wittingly committed. And when he had been shown this,
and God's punishment had been denounced against him, he wiped out
his sin in deep penitence. But yet in this parable it was the
adultery only that was indicated by the poor man's ewe-lamb; about
the killing of the woman's husband,--that is, about the murder of
the poor man himself who had the one ewe-lamb,--nothing is said in
the parable, so that the sentence of condemnation is pronounced
against the adultery alone. And hence we may understand with what
temperance he possessed a number of wives when he was forced to
punish himself for transgressing in regard to one woman. But in
his case the immoderate desire did not take up its abode with him,
but was only a passing guest. On this account the unlawful
appetite is called even by the accusing prophet, a guest. For he
did not say that he took the poor man's ewe-lamb to make a feast
for his king, but for his guest. In the case of his son Solomon,
however, this lust did not come and pass away like a guest, but
reigned as a king. And about him Scripture is not silent, but
accuses him of being a lover of strange women; for in the
beginning of his reign he was inflamed with a desire for wisdom,
but after he had attained it through spiritual love, he lost it
through carnal lust.
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Ch 22. Rule regarding passages of
Scripture in which approval is expressed of actions which are
now condemned by good men |
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32. Therefore, although all, or nearly all, the transactions
recorded in the Old Testament are to
be taken not literally only, but figuratively as well,
nevertheless even in the case of those which
the reader has taken literally, and which, though the authors of
them are praised, are repugnant to
the habits of the good men who since our Lord's advent are the
custodians of the divine
commands, let him refer the figure to its interpretation, but let
him not transfer the act to his
habits of life. For many things which were done as duties at that
time, cannot now be done except
through lust.
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Ch 23. Rule regarding the narrative of
sins of great men |
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33. And when he reads of the sins of great men, although he
may be able to see and to trace out
in them a figure of things to come, let him yet put the literal
fact to this use also, to teach him not
to dare to vaunt himself in his own good deeds, and in comparison
with his own righteousness, to
despise others as sinners, when he sees in the case of men so
eminent both the storms that are to
be avoided and the shipwrecks that are to be wept over. For the
sins of these men were recorded
to this end, that men might everywhere and always tremble at that
saying of the apostle:
"Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he
fall." For there is hardly a page of
Scripture on which it is not clearly written that God resisteth
the proud and giveth grace to the
humble.
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Ch 24.The character of the expressions
used is above all to have weight |
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34. The chief thing to be inquired into, therefore, in
regard to any expression that we are trying
to understand is, whether it is literal or figurative. For when it
is ascertained to be figurative, it is
easy, by an application of the laws of things which we discussed
in the first book, to turn it in
every way until we arrive at a true interpretation, especially
when we bring to our aid experience
strengthened by the exercise of piety. Now we find out whether an
expression is literal or
figurative by attending to the considerations indicated above.
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