St. Augustine of Hippo

JCSteel

JCSteel

Orthodox Inquirer
Heritage
@BrotherAugustine started a thread in the Orthodox Forum; only Orthodox members can reply in there, so I suggest we move it here so Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Inquirers can contribute. I love Augustine. I've read Confessions(Pine-Coffin translation) at least 4 times, The Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love 3 times, and I just read Of True Religion twice, which I recommend. I've been told his writings are influenced by Neo-Platonism, when he says things like sin is the negation of good and that it has no existence in itself. He talks a lot about beauty and how we get pleasure out of something because our minds, not our eyes, recognize a standard of beauty, which is superior to our minds.

Like the Bible, Augustine can be read over and over.
 
Good idea.

My original post:

I'd like to devote a thread to St. Augustine of Hippo, my Patron Saint. There is a lot of debate in modern Orthodoxy about St. Augustine (far more than there ever was during the ancient world) and it would be nice to have one place to discuss such things if anyone is interested. Particularly I would like this thread to develop into a place using meaningful dialogue and the most up-to-date scholarship in order to help discern which of St. Augustine's ideas were accepted by the Orthodox Church and which of his admitted speculations were not. Many of the debates surrounding St. Augustine involve the topics of monergism, predestination, original sin, the filioque, and his reception (or supposed lack thereof) in the Greek-speaking Byzantine world.

I am personally most familiar with his anti-Pelagian works, of which I have read a decent amount (both in St. Augustine directly and as expressed by his disciple St. Prosper of Aquitane) and have not yet delved deeply into his anti-Donatist works or his book On the Trinity. If anyone has something to contribute to the discussion I hope this will become a fruitful place to do so, and hopefully the ensuing debates and disputes will remain charitable and level-headed. I will contribute, as the first post, this talk given by Dr. Tikhon Pino on the reception of St. Augustine in St. Gregory Palamas (feel free to ignore the ecumenist comments from other people outside of his actual speech):

 
JCSteel said:
I've been told his writings are influenced by Neo-Platonism, when he says things like sin is the negation of good and that it has no existence in itself.
Click to expand...
For the record, sin/evil as a negation of good (with no positive ontological existence of its own) is standard Orthodox theology and derives, at least in part, from the verse in Genesis in which God looks upon all creation and deems it “good.” If all things God created are good, then there can exist no actual principle or substance called “evil” (as dualistic religions like Zoroastrianism and, more anciently, the Manichaeans believed) but rather evil is a sort of “void” left when an angelic or human creature’s will turns away from the good.

As a hopefully helpful analogy, your air conditioning does not add something called “cold” to your home. Instead, it removes heat. “Cold” is simply a lack of heat, and is what you get when heat is removed. Similarly, “evil” is simply a lack of good, and is what you get when good is removed.
 
Last edited:
St. Augustine wrote in City of God wrote that Platonists were the best of all the pagan philosophers. Platonism/Neo-Platonism has been a big influence on pretty much all branches of Christianity in general whether it Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.
 
Wutang said:
St. Augustine wrote in City of God wrote that Platonists were the best of all the pagan philosophers. Platonism/Neo-Platonism has been a big influence on pretty much all branches of Christianity in general whether it Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.
Click to expand...
Plato is depicted in Orthodox iconography (though rarely) but never with a halo. There are some concepts which began with pagan philosophers which were updated / Baptized by the Fathers but ultimately Christianity has a very different outlook on God and creation.

 
GodfatherPartTwo said:
B.B Warfield once remarked that the Reformation was Augustine’s soteriology triumphing over his ecclesiology.
Click to expand...
If that were accurate it would only be in the sense of agreeing with St. Augustine on monergism and predestination, but taken in isolation from the rest of his work - and not all Protestant Reformers agreed with him on those topics anyway. St. Augustine consistently insisted that there was no salvation outside the Church, specifically due to the absolute necessity of the Church’s Baptism for salvation. Though he formulated an interesting theory about Baptism performed outside the Church (if in the exact Orthodox formula) having some kind of validity, he nonetheless separated that “validity” from salvific efficacy and did not believe Baptism performed outside the Church could save anyone from the power of the devil unless that person were received into the Church at a later time.

To summarize, the suggestion that his soteriology can be separated from his ecclesiology relies on having not read enough of St. Augustine to realize that can’t be done.
 
BrotherAugustine said:
To summarize, the suggestion that his soteriology can be separated from his ecclesiology relies on having not read enough of St. Augustine to realize that can’t be done.
Click to expand...
I see an inconsistency between his soteriology and his ecclesiology. His sacramentalism and ecclesiology were very influential on Catholicism. But later in his life, His soteriology was very monergistic. The Reformers were avid students of Augustine, but they consciously did not agree with him on everything. Just as the works-based salvation synergists do not agree with him on everything.
 
Monergism doesn’t preclude sacramentalism, though. Even though I don’t agree with St. Augustine on monergism - and even St. Prosper, his most zealous disciple, softened his view on it over time - monergism can still be understood as God predestining someone to salvation and thus leading them to the Church.
 
Wasn't it Augustine who said that it didn't matter if the barbarians conquered the Empire as long as they were Christian? I was just thinking about that this morning, how Vox Day says that what's happening to the USA right now is essentially the same as the Volkerwanderung or Migration Period that overwhelmed the Roman Empire with foreigners, just on an even larger scale.

When I go to the Eucharist with my Latina Catholic wife, I'm almost always the only Heritage American in attendance. The celebration is in English although many of the parishioners and sometimes even the priest struggle to speak it and it often feels silly that we don't just switch into Spanish. It's a similar feeling of sadness to when I'm in a Target or Costco and realize I hear little, if any, English being spoken around me and realize that my country doesn't really exist anymore as it did when I was young. It matters to me, but maybe it shouldn't as long as the foreigners are Christian.

 
scary_robot_music said:
Wasn't it Augustine who said that it didn't matter if the barbarians conquered the Empire as long as they were Christian? I was just thinking about that this morning, how Vox Day says that what's happening to the USA right now is essentially the same as the Volkerwanderung or Migration Period that overwhelmed the Roman Empire with foreigners, just on an even larger scale.
Click to expand...
I wonder what he would think of modern day Algeria. Both barbarian in every sense of the word and non-Christian in every sense of the word. Don't even get me started on Morocco.

I don't know how conquering the Empire is even a Christian thing. Being Christian is kind of the opposite of being a barbarian. Sources for the quote would be good.
 
God's lonely asperger said:
I wonder what he would think of modern day Algeria. Both barbarian in every sense of the word and non-Christian in every sense of the word. Don't even get me started on Morocco.

I don't know how conquering the Empire is even a Christian thing. Being Christian is kind of the opposite of being a barbarian. Sources for the quote would be good.
Click to expand...
To the Romans "barbarian" meant "anyone not Roman or Greek." Foreigners, basically.

I think the idea that it's fine if the barbarians conquer the Empire is from City of God. The Background section in this wikipedia article suggests that.

 
BrotherAugustine said:
Monergism doesn’t preclude sacramentalism, though.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily, but functionally that's how it played out. If God predestined you to salvation before the world was, then the sacramental treadmill of salvation becomes moot. There is a way to hold those together, but historically, it plays out with one or the other.
 
GodfatherPartTwo said:
Not necessarily, but functionally that's how it played out. If God predestined you to salvation before the world was, then the sacramental treadmill of salvation becomes moot. There is a way to hold those together, but historically, it plays out with one or the other.
Click to expand...
Not when salvation specifically requires Holy Baptism, which was the view of not just St. Augustine but the overwhelming majority of Saints throughout time. Of course there are logistical exceptions to this (ie, the Thief on the Cross or a person who gets martyred immediately after converting) but the normative requirement for salvation is and has always been Baptism.

"All are in the devil's power, born in sin, unless they are regenerated in Christ" (On Marriage and Concupiscence) - St. Augustine. When he speaks of "regeneration" he always means Baptism.
 
BrotherAugustine said:
f course there are logistical exceptions to this (ie, the Thief on the Cross or a person who gets martyred immediately after converting) but the normative requirement for salvation is and has always been Baptism.
Click to expand...
In the sense that Baptism is how you are initiated into the Church, and there is no salvation outside of the Church, then yes. In the sense that your Baptism is the basis of your salvation, then no. Faith precedes Baptism.
 
GodfatherPartTwo said:
In the sense that Baptism is how you are initiated into the Church, and there is no salvation outside of the Church, then yes. In the sense that your Baptism is the basis of your salvation, then no. Faith precedes Baptism.
Click to expand...
I agree that faith precedes Baptism. But it is never considered (in the writings of the Fathers) enough for salvation just to have faith without joining the Church. In the case of infants, it’s the parents’ faith that “counts” for Baptism.
 
Last edited:
GodfatherPartTwo said:
Are you sure you're not a Presbyterian?
Click to expand...
That's just the Traditional position. I don't have BrotherAugustine's knowledge on Patristics, but we do believe that sacraments have inherent value, independent of the conscious faith of the person they are directed at. In the same sense as we believe that prayers for others work, even if the addressee is not himself a believer, as our God is the living God who interferes in the world on his own accord.
By the same token, children do not get to choose their early religious education, so you could continue the "free will" rabbit hole endlessly.

Traditional Christianity accepts individual Salvation as part of the spiritual process, but rejects the idea of individualism in terms of faith and sacraments only being valid if a person agrees to them 100% on their own individual accord, as such a case would be difficult to ascertain to begin with.

The members of the Church are the Corpus Christi, and as such do not proclaim complete independence from one another. In the same way that your genes influence your gifts and personality, your parents' faith influences your spiritual path.
 
Last edited:
God's lonely asperger said:
I wonder what he would think of modern day Algeria. Both barbarian in every sense of the word and non-Christian in every sense of the word. Don't even get me started on Morocco.

I don't know how conquering the Empire is even a Christian thing. Being Christian is kind of the opposite of being a barbarian. Sources for the quote would be good.
Click to expand...

In his days, the barbarians were on the cusp of conquering his homeland and they actually succeeded in doing so soon after his death. These barbarians (I believe they were Vandals) had already been Christianized and most of the other barbarians that were knocking on the doors of the Roman Empire were already Christian by that point even if they were of a non-orthodox (small o not big O) sect - typically Arian. I'm wondering if him living in that sort of situation that influenced him to write that it was fine that if the empire was conquered as long as it was by Christians.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top