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ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
(cont) |
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by St Augustine of Hippo |
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Ch 21. Neither body nor soul extinguished
at death |
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And so faith clings to the assurance, and we must believe that it
is so in fact, that neither the
human soul nor the human body suffers complete extinction, but
that the wicked rise again to
endure inconceivable punishment, and the good to receive eternal
life.
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Ch 22. God alone to be enjoyed |
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20. Among all these things, then, those only are the true objects
of enjoyment which we have spoken of as eternal and unchangeable.
The rest are for use, that we may be able to arrive at the full
enjoyment of the former. We, however, who enjoy and use other
things are things ourselves. For a great thing truly is man, made
after the image and similitude of God, not as respects the mortal
body in which he is clothed, but as respects the rational soul by
which he is exalted in honour above the beasts. And so it becomes
an important question, whether men ought to enjoy, or to use,
themselves, or to do both. For we are commanded to love one
another: but it is a question whether man is to be loved by man
for his own sake, or for the sake of something else. If it is for
his own sake, we enjoy him; if it is for the sake of something
else, we use him. It seems to me, then, that he is to be loved for
the sake of something else. For if a thing is to be loved for its
own sake, then in the enjoyment of it consists a happy life, the
hope of which at least, if not yet the reality, is our comfort in
the present time. But a curse is pronounced on him who places his
hope in man.
21. Neither ought any one to have joy in himself, if you look
at the matter clearly, because no one ought to love even himself
for his own sake, but for the sake of Him who is the true object
of enjoyment. For a man is never in so good a state as when his
whole life is a journey towards the unchangeable life, and his
affections are entirely fixed upon that. If, however, he loves
himself for his own sake, he does not look at himself in relation
to God, but turns his mind in upon himself, and so is not occupied
with anything that is unchangeable. And thus he does not enjoy
himself at his best, because he is better when his mind is fully
fixed upon, and his affections wrapped up in, the unchangeable
good, than when he turns from that to enjoy even himself.
Wherefore if you ought not to love even yourself for your own
sake, but for His in whom your love finds its most worthy object,
no other man has a right to be angry if you love him too for God's
sake. For this is the law of love that has been laid down by
Divine authority: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" but,
"Thou shalt love God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind:" so that you are to concentrate all your
thoughts, your whole life, and your whole intelligence upon Him
from whom you derive all that you bring. For when He says, "With
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," He
means that no part of our life is to be unoccupied, and to afford
room, as it were, for the wish to enjoy some other object, but
that whatever else may suggest itself to us as an object worthy of
love is to be borne into the same channel in which the whole
current of our affections flows. Whoever, then, loves his
neighbour aright, ought to urge upon him that he too should love
God with his whole heart, and soul, and mind. For in this way,
loving his neighbour as himself, a man turns the whole current of
his love both for himself and his neighbour into the channel of
the love of God, which suffers no stream to be drawn off from
itself by whose diversion its own volume would be diminished.
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Ch 23. Man needs no injunction to love
himself and his own body |
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22. Those things which are objects of use are not all,
however, to be loved, but those only which
are either united with us in a common relation to God, such as a
man or an angel, or are so related
to us as to need the goodness of God through our instrumentality,
such as the body. For assuredly
the martyrs did not love the wickedness of their persecutors,
although they used it to attain the
favour of God. As, then, there are four kinds of things that are
to be loved,--first, that which
is above us; second, ourselves; third, that which is on a level
with us; fourth, that which is beneath
us,--no precepts need be given about the second and fourth of
these. For, however far a man may
fall away from the truth, he still continues to love himself, and
to love his own body. The soul
which flies away from the unchangeable Light, the Ruler of all
things, does so that it may rule
over itself and over its own body; and so it cannot but love both
itself and its own body.
23. Forever, it thinks it has attained something very great if it
is able to lord it over its
companions, that is, other men. For it is inherent in the sinful
soul to desire above all things, and
to claim as due to itself, that which is properly due to God only.
Now such love of itself is more
correctly called hate. For it is not just that it should desire
what is beneath it to be obedient to it
while itself will not obey its own superior; and most justly has
it been said, "He who loveth
iniquity hateth his own soul." And accordingly the soul becomes
weak, and endures much
suffering about the mortal body. For, of course, it must love the
body, and be grieved at its
corruption; and the immortality and incorruptibility of the body
spring out of the health of the
soul. Now the health of the soul is to cling steadfastly to the
better part, that is, to the
unchangeable God. But when it aspires to lord it even over those
who are by nature its
equals,--that is, its fellow-men,--this is a reach of arrogance
utterly intolerable.
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Ch 24. No man hates his own flesh, not
even those who abuse it |
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24. No man, then, hates himself. On this point, indeed, no
question was ever raised by any sect.
But neither does any man hate his own body. For the apostle says
truly, "No man ever yet hated
his own flesh." And when some people say that they would rather be
without a body altogether,
they entirely deceive themselves. For it is not their body, but
its corruptions and its heaviness, that
they hate. And so it is not no body, but an uncorrupted and very
light body, that they want. But
they think a body of that kind would be no body at all, because
they think such a thing as that
must be a spirit. And as to the fact that they seem in some sort
to scourge their bodies by
abstinence and toil, those who do this in the right spirit do it
not that they may get rid of their
body, but that they may have it in subjection and ready for every
needful work. For they strive by
a kind of toilsome exercise of the body itself to root out those
lusts that are hurtful to the body,
that is, those habits and affections of the soul that lead to the
enjoyment of unworthy objects.
They are not destroying themselves; they are taking care of their
health.
25. Those, on the other
hand, who do this in a perverse spirit, make war upon their own
body as if it were a natural
enemy. And in this matter they are led astray by a mistaken
interpretation of what they read: "The
flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the
flesh, and these are contrary the one to the
other." For this is said of the carnal habit yet unsubdued,
against which the spirit lusteth, not to
destroy the body, but to eradicate the lust of the body--i.e., its
evil habit--and thus to make it
subject to the spirit, which is what the order of nature demands.
For as, after the resurrection, the
body, having become wholly subject to the spirit, will live in
perfect peace to all eternity; even
in this life we must make it an object to have the carnal habit
changed for the better, so that its
inordinate affections may not war against the soul. And until this
shall take place, "the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh;" the
spirit struggling, not in hatred, but
for the mastery, because it desires that what it loves should be
subject to the higher principle; and
the fleshy struggling, not in hatred, but because of the bondage
of habit which it has derived from
its parent stock, and which has grown in upon it by a law of
nature till it has become inveterate.
The spirit, then, in subduing the flesh, is working as it were to
destroy the ill founded peace of an
evil habit, and to bring about the real peace which springs out of
a good habit. Nevertheless, not
even those who, led astray by false notions, hate their bodies
would be prepared to sacrifice one
eye, even supposing they could do so without suffering any pain,
and that they had as much sight
left in one as they formerly had in two, unless some object was to
be attained which would
overbalance the loss. This and other indications of the same kind
are sufficient to show those who
candidly seek the truth how well-founded is the statement of the
apostle when he says, "No man
ever yet hated his own flesh." He adds too, "but nourisheth and
cherisheth it, even as the Lord the
Church".
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Ch 25. A man may love something more than
his body, but does not therefore hate his body |
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26. Man, therefore, ought to be taught the due measure of loving,
that is, in what measure he
may love himself so as to be of service to himself. For that he
does love himself, and does desire
to do good to himself, nobody but a fool would doubt. He is to be
taught, too, in what measure to
love his body, so as to care for it wisely and within due limits.
For it is equally manifest that he
loves his body also, and desires to keep it safe and sound. And
yet a man may have something that
he loves better than the safety and soundness of his body. For
many have been found voluntarily
to suffer both pains and amputations of some of their limbs that
they might obtain other objects
which they valued more highly. But no one is to be told not to
desire the safety and health of
his body because there is something he desires more. For the
miser, though he loves money, buys
bread for himself,--that is, he gives away money that he is very
fond of and desires to heap
up,--but it is because he values more highly the bodily health
which the bread sustains. It is
superfluous to argue longer on a point so very plain, but this is
just what the error of wicked men
often compels us to do.
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Ch 26. The command to love God and our
neighbour includes a command to love ourselves |
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27. Seeing, then, that there is no need of a command that every
man should love himself and his
own body,--seeing, that is, that we love ourselves, and what is
beneath us but connected with us,
through a law of nature which has never been violated, and which
is common to us with the
beasts (for even the beasts love themselves and their own
bodies),--it only remained necessary to
lay injunctions upon us in regard to God above us, and our
neighbour beside us. "Thou shalt
love," He says, "the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind;
and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two
commandments hang all the law and
the prophets." Thus the end of the commandment is love, and that
twofold, the love of God and
the love of our neighbour. Now, if you take yourself in your
entirety,--that is, soul and body
together,--and your neighbour in his entirety, soul and body
together (for man is made up of soul
and body), you will find that none of the classes of things that
are to be loved is overlooked in
these two commandments. For though, when the love of God comes
first, and the measure of our
love for Him is prescribed in such terms that it is evident all
other things are to find their centre in
Him, nothing seems to be said about our love for ourselves; yet
when it is said, "Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself," it at once becomes evident that
our love for ourselves has not been
overlooked. |
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