The City of God, Volume IIAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
The City of God, Volume II
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Kingdom of God -- Early works to 1800
The right will is, therefore, well-directed love, and the wrong will
is ill-directed love. Love, then, yearning to have what is loved,
is desire; and having and enjoying it, is joy; fleeing what is
opposed to it, it is fear; and feeling what is opposed to it, when
it has befallen it, it is sadness. Now these motions are evil if
the love is evil; good if the love is good. What we assert let us
prove from Scripture. The apostle "desires to depart, and to be with
Christ."[30] And, "My soul desired to long for Thy judgments;"[31]
or if it is more appropriate to say, "My soul longed to desire Thy
judgments." And, "The desire of wisdom bringeth to a kingdom."[32]
Yet there has always obtained the usage of understanding desire
and concupiscence in a bad sense if the object be not defined. But
joy is used in a good sense: "Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice,
ye righteous."[33] And, "Thou hast put gladness in my heart."[34]
And, "Thou wilt fill me with joy with Thy countenance."[35] Fear is
used in a good sense by the apostle when he says, "Work out your
salvation with fear and trembling."[36] And, "Be not high-minded, but
fear."[37] And, "I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from
the simplicity that is in Christ."[38] But with respect to sadness,
which Cicero prefers to call sickness (_ægritudo_), and Virgil pain
(_dolor_) (as he says, "_Dolent gaudentque_"[39]), but which I prefer
to call sorrow, because sickness and pain are more commonly used to
express bodily suffering,--with respect to this emotion, I say, the
question whether it can be used in a good sense is more difficult.
8. _Of the three perturbations, which the Stoics admitted in the
soul of the wise man to the exclusion of grief or sadness,
which the manly mind ought not to experience._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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