Augustine: Earlier Writings
OF TRUE RELIGION 269 Then he will realize how well the chariot had been made with all its equipment, which by his ruinous handling brought danger upon himself and left the course of becoming moderation. So in paradise the greediness of the soul which badly used its body produced weakness. For it snatched at forbidden food against the prescription of the physician, in following which salvation is to be found.
84. If in the very weakness of visible flesh, where no happy life can be, some pointer towards happiness can be found, because the form of it reaches from the top to the bottom of the scale of existence, much more can a pointer be found in the search for rank and excellence, even in the pride and vain pomp of this world. For what else does a man seek in this case but to be if possible the sole lord of all things, perversely imitating Almighty God? If he submissively imitated him by living according to his commandments, God would put all other things under him, and he would not reach such deformity as to fear a little animal even while he wants to rule over men. Pride in a manner seeks unity and omnipotence, but in the realm of temporal things, where all things are transient like a shadow.
85. We want to be unconquered and rightly so, for the nature of our mind is unconquerable though only as we are subject to God in whose image we are made. But his commandments had to be observed, and if they were obeyed no one would overcome us. But now while the woman to whose words we basely consented is subject to the pains of childbirth, we labour on the ground and are disgracefully overcome by anything that can trouble or disturb us. We do not want to be overcome by men, but we cannot overcome anger. What more execrable baseness can there be? We admit that we are men, and even a vicious man is better than vice. How much more honourable it would be to be conquered by a man than by a vice? Who would doubt that envy is a monstrous vice which must necessarily torture and subdue anyone who is unwilling to be conquered in temporal things. It is better that a man should overcome us than that we should be overcome by envy or any other vice. xlvi, 86. He who has overcome his vices cannot be overcome by man either. Only he is overcome who has what he loves snatched from him by his adversary. He who loves only what cannot be snatched from him is indubitably unconquerable, and is tortured by no envy. He loves what many have come to know and to love, thereby deserving to be congratulated.
For he loves God with all his heart and with all his soul and with