Augustinian values

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St. Augustine of Hippo as pictured during the Renaissance
St. Augustine of Hippo as pictured during the Renaissance

Augustinian values refer to values which are Christian and which Augustine of Hippo has colored with his saintly life and deepened by his teaching. A "value" is a "good that contributes to the perfection of being (not having or doing)." "Christian values" are values based on the Gospel proclaimed by Christ and handed on to believers by the apostles. "Augustinian values" are "Christian values" which Augustine lived and taught in the conviction that such values contribute to the fulfillment of the Lord’s two-fold commandment of love in the spirit of the Beatitudes. Below are ten of these values, selected because of their importance in the thought of Augustine and their relevance for the student.[1]

Contents

[edit] The Ten Augustinian values

[edit] Love and the Order of Love

The primacy of love, or charity, in the thought of St. Augustine is described by John Paul II in these words:

“ Augustine located the essence and the norm of Christian perfection in charity, because it is the gift of the Holy Spirit and the reality which prevents one from being wicked. It is the good with which one possesses all goods and without which the other goods are of no avail. ‘Have charity, and you will have them all; because without charity, whatever you have will be of no benefit.’[2] ”

Here, the Pope speaks of love as a value (‘good’). Christianity in fact takes the value of love as proclaimed in the Gospels as its central ethical principle. The contributions of Augustine in deepening our knowledge of Christian love can be outlined as follows: (a) Love and the Hierarchy of Values; (b) Love for God is verified in one’s love for the neighbor; (c) Solidarity: Identification through Love.

[edit] Love and the Hierarchy of Values

Love, for Augustine, is not a static reality but a dynamic force. It is a movement that pulls the person from within towards the object loved. "My love is my weight" Augustine says. It is like the force which draws the falling leaves to rest on the ground. This mysterious force is experienced by man as a restlessness, a longing. But there is, according to Augustine, a false love and a true love. Augustine defines true love as "charity," that love by which we love what we ought to love,[3] or the "love of the thing which is to be enjoyed, and of the thing which is able to enjoy that thing together with us." (De doc. chris. I, 35, 39). Love, to be true, must respect a hierarchy of goods (= values) wherein God alone is to be enjoyed for His sake, oneself and neighbor to be enjoyed for the sake of God ("in Deo") and things are to be used. False love, on the other hand, is that love which does not respect this order.

Related to this is the idea that a person’s love makes him what he/she is. "I am what I love," Augustine would say. In the end, the person’s love will determine whether he/she will belong to the "sheep" or to the "goats":

Every community has its deepest roots in love, and love alone differentiates human beings, for only love differentiates men’s actions. It is not in speech or any other outward particular that the true criterion of that differentiation is to be found, but in the deeds and in the heart of man. Through the good they do to one another, men show their real worth. Therefore, only in trial and distress does a man show who he really is. The reason only love distinguishes one person from another is that a man "is" what he loves.[4]

True love therefore is a rightly ordered love, i.e. a love that is proportioned to the hierarchy of goods established in the nature of things. It is that love which the Lord commands.

[edit] Love for God is verified in one’s love for the neighbor

Augustine has been accused of having spiritualized love, reducing it to a kind of personal intimacy with God. But we know that Augustine seriously took 1 Jn. 3:17: "If anyone has a brother in need but has no pity in him, how can the love of God be in him?." Augustine knew the demands of love:

If you want to live in love, you may be certain that love cannot be had either easily or cheaply. We cannot live in love just by being good-natured; actually this puts it too mildly, but cannot live in love by being lazy, indifferent, or negligent. Do not imagine that you love your servant because you do not chastise him; that your child is loved if you do not correct him; that you love your neighbors if you never speak to them. That is not love, but weakness.

Progress in love is actually measured in terms of one’s growth in commitment to the needs of the other, and towards the common good (see "Common Good", below). And any sin against love is sin against God, for "God is love". This is how Augustine puts it:

No one can assert: I sin merely against a man if I fail to love a fellowman, and this failure against another person happens rather easily; at no time would I be sinning against God. How can that be? Do you not sin against God when you fail to love your neighbor? God is love! I say this not on my own authority... Scripture leaves us in no doubt: God is love.

[edit] Solidarity: Identification through Love

The idea explained above becomes clearer if we look at the Incarnation as that process whereby God identifies Himself with man through Love. Augustine was moved especially by two biblical texts that illustrate this identification between God and Man. Matt. 25: 41.45 Whatever you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me... Whatever you refused to do for one these least ones, you refused to do to me." and Acts 9: 4-5 "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" The latter is the Risen Lord’s question regarding Saul’s (later Paul) motive for persecuting the Christians of Damascus. What struck Augustine here is the identification of Christ with his persecuted community. In the former, the Son of Man (v. 31) (= King, v. 34; Lord, v. 37. 44) identifies Himself with the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoner, the sick, the naked, in such a way that one’s actions towards these are acts towards Him.

Augustine does not use the term "solidarity" -- a word that comes from Roman Law and has come to mean, in terms of social justice, not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.[5]

But Augustine does render the idea -- especially in its connotation in Latin American circles -- in his insistence on recognizing Christ in the poor. "Turn your attention to Christ who lies in the street," Augustine once said, "Look at Christ who is hungry and suffering from the cold, Christ who is a stranger and in need!"[6]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Fr. Alberto Esmeralda, OSA. "Augustinian Values", www.merrimack.edu, n.d.. Retrieved on November 23, 2006.
  2. ^ John Paul II: Augustinum Hipponensem: Apostolic Letter on the Occasion of the 16th Centennial of Augustine's Conversion, L'Osservatore Romano, 15 September 1986
  3. ^ Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine, (New York: Octagon Books) 1983 (reprint), p. 136
  4. ^ Tarcisius van Bavel. Christians in the World: Introduction to the Spirituality of St. Augustine, in John Rotelle OSA (ed.) Spirituality for Today, vol. II. Catholic Book Publishing Company: NY 1980, p. 60
  5. ^ John Paul II, Sollecitudine Rei Socialis, n. 38. CCC n. 1939 vaguely identifies it as friendship or social charity
  6. ^ Cf. Serm Guelferb., XIX, 2 in Miscellanea Agostiniana, I. Rome: 1930, p. 503. Compare with Gaudium et Spes 88
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