Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings
INTRODUCTION
'All the ends of the earth shall be reminded and shall be returned to the Lord.'?° In cleaving to the Lord, its desires will be satisfied with good things, whose image it is; and that nothing may henceforth injure it, it will be the secret of His face,3! so filled with His abundance that it will never find delight in committing sin. But now when it sees itself, it does not see anything unchangeable.?
Not recollection of the past but remembering God so that, being mindful of Him, one loves Him: such is the significance of Augustine's statement: "And He is whole everywhere, and on that account it lives, moves, and has its being in Him, and therefore it can remember Him."33 Augustinian memory provides the experience of truth, available to all human beings. "But it is reminded that it should turn to the Lord as to that light by which it was touched in some way, even when it was turned away from Him. For hence it is that even the godless think of eternity, and rightly condemn and rightly praise many things in the moral cdnduct of men."34 Such rules of conduct cannot come from changeable minds and so they must derive from unchangeable Truth, to which men naturally have access. The very common experience of guilt and remorse testifies to this contact with the "holiness of truth? >
Memory wherein God arouses mindfulness of Himself is a participation in divine wisdom, which understands and loves itself. Since creation was not necessary and since God is Love, there must be in God a plurality. But since man is not a threesome and yet love is the way that God's image in mankind is made bright and beautiful, there seems to be a necessity for community, life in common characterized by the unity of love. Augustine teaches that man's love for God has to extend to his fellowmen so as to build a City of God, a Christian fellowship, a communion of saints. "Love, then, which is from God and is God, is properly the
30. Ps 21:28. 4 3) Ps30:2 1. BP, aps, SGINVAIOL ING: 33. Acts 17:28; Trin., XIV.15.21. 34. Trin., XIV.15.21. 35. Ibid.