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
Hence it is that even the philosophers who have approximated to the
truth have avowed that anger and lust are vicious mental emotions,
because, even when exercised towards objects which wisdom does not
prohibit, they are moved in an ungoverned and inordinate manner, and
consequently need the regulation of mind and reason. And they assert
that this third part of the mind is posted as it were in a kind of
citadel, to give rule to these other parts, so that, while it rules and
they serve, man's righteousness is preserved without a breach.[110]
These parts, then, which they acknowledge to be vicious even in a wise
and temperate man, so that the mind, by its composing and restraining
influence, must bridle and recall them from those objects towards which
they are unlawfully moved, and give them access to those which the
law of wisdom sanctions,--that anger, _e.g._, may be allowed for the
enforcement of a just authority, and lust for the duty of propagating
offspring,--these parts, I say, were not vicious in Paradise before
sin, for they were never moved in opposition to a holy will towards
any object from which it was necessary that they should be withheld
by the restraining bridle of reason. For though now they are moved in
this way, and are regulated by a bridling and restraining power, which
those who live temperately, justly, and godly exercise, sometimes with
ease, and sometimes with greater difficulty, this is not the sound
health of nature, but the weakness which results from sin. And how is
it that shame does not hide the acts and words dictated by anger or
other emotions, as it covers the motions of lust, unless because the
members of the body which we employ for accomplishing them are moved,
not by the emotions themselves, but by the authority of the consenting
will? For he who in his anger rails at or even strikes some one, could
not do so were not his tongue and hand moved by the authority of the
will, as also they are moved when there is no anger. But the organs
of generation are so subjected to the rule of lust, that they have no
motion but what it communicates. It is this we are ashamed of; it is
this which blushingly hides from the eyes of onlookers. And rather
will a man endure a crowd of witnesses when he is unjustly venting his
anger on some one, than the eye of one man when he innocently copulates
with his wife.
20. _Of the foolish beastliness of the Cynics._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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