Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (continued)
INTRODUCTION
ardent desire to cleave to his Maker, and may burn to enter upon the participation in that true light, that he may be approved by Him to whom he owes his existence. A man's free will, indeed, avails for nothing except to sin, if he knows not the way of truth; and even after his duty and his proper aim shall begin to become known to him, unless he also take delight in and feel a love for it, he neither does his duty, nor sets about it, nor lives rightly. Now, in order that such a course may engage our affections, "God's love is shed abroad in our hearts," not through the free will which arises from ourselves, but "through the Holy Spirit who is given to us.''8
Therefore we see that the greater the truth the greater the freedom. Christianity opened a new way to truth, chiefly the way of love. Augustine said: "We pilgrims make our way by faith and hope, and strive to reach our end by love.'®? He distinguished false freedom from true freedom, egotistical love from personal love. "Indeed, the truth of the Christians is incomparably more beautiful than Helen of the Greeks. For the former, our martyrs fought more valiantly against this Sodom than those famous heroes fought for the latter against Troy."7°
In the final analysis, love is the key to the freedom and the unity and the peace of the world. The person who loves according to truth and is really free achieves that unity with God, unity within self, and unity with others which is the prelude to the Eternal Peace of the risen life where there is perfect freedom or spiritual liberty. Love builds the City of God where freedom flourishes because it is made up of persons in loving relation to God. To frustrate the person's capacity for relating to God is the only way to allow for everlasting slavery, to allow death its victory. Just as the intellect is purified by the gift of faith in Christ to know God as Trinity, so the work of the Spirit is re-formation of human freedom by the gift of charity.
No discussion of Augustine's views on freedom can ignore the fact that he has been interpreted by some readers as upholding
68. On the Spirit and the Letter, 3. 69. Augustine, Epistle, 55. 70. Augustine, Epistle 40.