I perish: but Thou dost not abandon me because
APPROACHING GOD THROUGH UNDERSTANDING 147 hear Thine utterances. Heal and open my eyes that I may behold Thy significations of command. Drive delusion from me that I may recognize Thee. Tell me whither I must tend, to behold Thee, and I hope that I shall do all things Thou mayest enjoin. O Lord, most merciful Father, receive, I pray, Thy fugitive; enough already, surely, have I been punished, long enough have I served Thine enemies, whom Thou hast under Thy feet, long enough have I been a sport of fallacies. Receive me fleeing from these, Thy house-born servant, for did not these receive me, though another Master's, when I was fleeing from Thee? To Thee I feel I must return: I knock; may Thy door be opened to me; teach me the way to Thee. Nothing else have I than the will: nothing else do I know than that fleeting and falling things are to be spurned, fixed and everlasting things to be sought. This I do, Father, because this alone I know, but from what quarter to approach Thee I do not know. Do Thou instruct me, show me, give me my provision for the way. If it is by faith that those find Thee who take refuge with Thee, then grant faith: if by virtue, virtue: if by knowledge, knowledge. Augment in me faith, hope, and charity. O goodness of Thine, singular and most to be admired!
I beseech Thee and once again I beg of Thee the 6. means to beseech Thee. For if Thou abandon me, I perish: but Thou dost not abandon me because Thou art the Supreme Good whom no one ever sought with justice and could not discover. And all have sought Thee rightly to whom Thou hast given to seek Thee rightly. Grant me, Father, that I may seek Thee; keep me from error. Let me find none but Thee when I seek Thee. I beg Thee, Father. But if I have in me any trace of desire, do Thou make me clean and fit to behold Thee. And with regard to the health of this my mortal body, so long as I do not know what advantage it has for me, or those whom I love, I commit it to Thee, Father, most wise and most good; and I shall pray for it when Thou dost advise me. Only this I beg of Thy exceeding mercy—that Thou turnest me wholly to Thee and grantest that nothing stand in my way when I come to Thee. And do Thou command me, so long as I move and wear this body, that I be pure and high of soul and just and prudent, that I be the perfect lover and perceiver of Thy wisdom and worthy of Thy dwelling place; and grant me to dwell in Thy most blessed kingdom. Amen. Amen.
LATE HAVE I LOVED THEE*
Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and 27.38. so new, late have I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within and I was without. I was looking for Thee out there, and I threw myself, deformed as I was, upon those well-formed things which Thou hast made. Thou wert with me, yet I was not with Thee. These things held me far from Thee, things which would not have existed had they not been in Thee. Thou didst call and cry out and burst in upon my deafness; Thou didst shine forth and glow and drive away my blindness; Thou didst send forth Thy fragrance, and I drew in my breath and now I pant for Thee; I have tasted, and now I hunger and thirst; Thou didst touch me, and I was inflamed with desire for Thy peace.
When I shall cleave to Thee with all my being, 28.39. sorrow and toil will no longer exist for me, and my life will be alive, being wholly filled with Thee. At the present time, however, because Thou. dost lift up whomever Thou fillest and I am not filled with Thee, I am a burden to myself. My joys, which are to be lamented, struggle against my sorrows, which are cause for joy, and I know not on which side victory may stand.
* Confessions, X, 27.38-28.39; trans. FOC 5 (1953) 297.
VII. MORAL AND
RELIGIOUS LIFE
We remarked at the end of the introduction to the preceding chapter that man's approach to God is not merely cognitive but involves his heart and his very existence. This present chapter deals with some of Augustine's views on this practical life of man. He is not interested in theory or speculation for its own sake; Augustine's wisdom is always eminently practical. He does not separate ethics from religious morality and spiritual life. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, with its fundamental naturalism, was quite unknown to Augustine. The return of the soul to its Source is a constant theme in Neoplatonic treatises, which Augustine had read. It never occurred to him to separate ethics from religion, however. Here as elsewhere, his insights are triggered by some innocent-looking text from Scripture. This is illustrated in our first selection, where the basic tenet of moral eudaimonism (that all men desire happiness) is enunciated—not from Plato or Aristotle but from a remark in the Psalms!
The over-all orientation of man's life toward God as the perfect good is treated at great length in Book XIX of the City of God. Augustine there examines three types of finite goods (bodily, psychic and social), and argues that none of these could wholly satisfy man's aspirations. It is an argument by exclusion, eventually leading to the conclusion that
God is the only goal worthy of man's efforts. The fitting end of human existence is a loving union with God. In various forms, this reasoning is also found in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy (Book III), in Aquinas' Summa contra Gentiles
(Book III), and in many later ethical treatises.
A famous description of virtue runs through medieval treatises in moral theology and is called the Augustinian definition. Actually it was gathered in the twelfth century by Peter Lombard from several works of Augustine (mostly from On Free Choice, Il, 19). The famous definition is this: "Virtue is a good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works within us, but without us." (For a discussion of it, see St. Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Virtues in General, article 2.) While the final form of this statement is not the work of Augustine, the thought is typically his. This may be verified in the second from last selection of this chapter.
Augustine's approach to morality, and particularly to questions of religious perfection, is not legalistic. He frequently speaks of the eternal law of God and of the moral law that is inscribed in the hearts of man. Moral conscience is an eXpression of this divinely implanted law of goodness (Exp. on Psalm 57, 1; and On Order, Il, 8, 25). However, he does not especially emphasize duties, obligations, sanctions, and all the judicial trappings of some later moral theology. The selections below, on the precepts of love and on the diversities of local customs, illustrate how foreign to the mind of our author is legal quibbling.
The two passages dealing with telling lies exemplify his judgment on a particular moral problem. Augustine's definition of lying included the intention to deceive another person.
(Thomas Aquinas' definition excludes such an intention.) As a result, lying is always treated by Augustine as an interpersonal action, and he has the greatest difficulty in maintaining the view that he feels called upon to support: that all lies are morally evil. There are obviously some cases where a speaker intends to deceive another person for the real good of that person, or for some other important good. It is not evident that all such deceptions are immoral. :Later Catholic theology has modified Augustine's definition and treated lying as a form of self-abuse—but has admitted that not all deceptions are lies. Augustine's frank puzzlement on such a kag has aided others in their search for a better soution.
Augustine is also one of the pioneers in the development of religious exercises. The basic pattern of many later methods of advancing in spiritual perfection is forecast in Augustine's description of seven stages of life in the human soul
(On the Magnitude of the Soul, 33). Essentially, the movement of such exercises is triadic: withdrawal of psychic attention from the things of this world; concentration on what is best within the soul; and a rising above the soul to focus upon God as the transcendent Good. It is possible to see this pattern on a grand scale in many of the great Augustinian treatises, notably in the Confessions.