Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine (continued)
cause, like death, it is vanquished by none; or because the measure of love in this life is even unto death, as the Lord says, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"; (John 15:13) or, rather, because, as death forcibly separates the soul from the senses of the body, so love separates it from fleshly lusts. Knowledge, when it is of the right kind, is the handmaid to love, for without love "knowledge puffeth up," (I Cor. 8:1) but where love, by edifying, has filled the heart, there knowledge will find nothing empty which it can puff up.
Moreover, Job has shown what is that useful knowledge by defining it where, after saying, "The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom," he adds, "and to depart from evil is understanding." (Job
28:28) Why do we not say then that the man who has this virtue has all virtues, since "love is the fulfilling of the law?" (Rom.
13:10) Is it not true that the more love exists in a man, the more he is endowed with virtue; and the less love he has, the less virtue is in him; for love is itself virtue; and the less virtue there is in a man, so much the more vice will there be in him?
Therefore, where love is full and perfect, no vice will remain.
12. The Stoics, therefore appear to me to be mistaken in refusing to admit that a man who is advancing in wisdom has any wisdom at all and in affirming that he only has it who has become altogether perfect in wisdom. They do not, indeed, deny that he has made progress, but they say that he is in no degree entitled to be called wise, unless, by emerging, so to speak, from the depths, he suddenly springs forth into the free air of wisdom. For, as it matters not when a man is drowning whether the depth of water above him be many stadia or only the breadth of a hand or finger, so they say, in regard to the progress of those who are advancing towards wisdom, that they are like men rising from the bottom of a whirlpool towards the air, but that unless they, by their progress, so escape as to emerge wholly from folly as from an overwhelming flood, they have not virtue and are not wise; but that, when they have so escaped, they immediately have wisdom in perfection, and not a vestige of folly whence any sin could be originated remains.
13. This simile, in which folly is compared to water and wisdom to air, so that the mind emerging, as it were, from the stifling influence of folly, breathes suddenly the free air of wisdom, does not appear to me to harmonize sufficiently with the authoritative statement of our Scriptures; a better simile, so far, at least, as illustration of spiritual things can be borrowed from material things, is that which compares vice or folly to darkness and virtue or wisdom to light. The way to wisdom is therefore not like that of a