Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
Of True Religion
St. Augustine's Review of'De Vera Religioner
Retractations /, xiii
I. At that time also I WTOte a book Concerning True Religion in which I argued at great length and in many ways that true religion means the worship of the one true God, that is, the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I pointed out how great was his mercy in granting to men by a temporal dispensation the Christian religion, which is true religion, and how man is to adjust liis life to the worship of God. But the book is written chiefly against the two natures of the Manichees.
2. In a passage in that book (chap. X; I say, ''There could have been no error in religion had not the soul worshipped in place of God either soul or body or its own phantasms." By "soul," here, I meant the whole incorporeal creation. I was not using the language of Scripture which, when it speaks of soul, under that name seems to mean nothing but that which animates living beings including men so long as they are mortal. A little later I put my meaning better and more briefly, "Let us not ser\'e the creature rather than the Creator, nor become vain in our thoughts." By "creature" I indicated by one word both spiritual and corporeal creation. And "Let us not become vain in our thoughts" corresponds to "the phantasms of the soul."
3. Again, in the same chapter, I said, "That is the Christian religion in our times, which to know and follow is most sure and certain salvation." I was speaking of the name, here, and not of the thing so named. For what is now called the Christian religion existed of old and was never absent from the beginning of the human race undl Christ came in the flesh. Then true religion which already existed began to be called Christian. After the resurrection and ascension of Christ into heaven, the apostles began to preach him and many believed, and the dis-