Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Eloquence and virtue in Cicero's statesman
- 2 Justice and the limits of the soul
- 3 Christ and the formation of the just society
- 4 Divine eloquence and virtue in the scriptures
- 5 Wisdom's hidden reasons
- 6 Eloquence and virtue in Augustine's statesman
- General conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index of references to Augustine's works
- Index of persons and subjects
2 - Justice and the limits of the soul
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Eloquence and virtue in Cicero's statesman
- 2 Justice and the limits of the soul
- 3 Christ and the formation of the just society
- 4 Divine eloquence and virtue in the scriptures
- 5 Wisdom's hidden reasons
- 6 Eloquence and virtue in Augustine's statesman
- General conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index of references to Augustine's works
- Index of persons and subjects
Summary
Augustine's views on justice and society stem more from his analysis of the capacities and limits of the human soul than from his thinking about social and political structures. Human beings, he believes, are just insofar as they know and love God. Crucially, at an early point in his episcopal career, Augustine concluded that man's natural capacity to know and love God is impeded by ignorance and weakness, two permanent, debilitating effects of original sin on the soul. In his later writings, he generally associates these spiritual defects with concupiscence. His most significant observations in the City of God concerning the failure of Roman justice arise from his treatment of ignorance and weakness in relation to the pursuit of the true virtue through which God is known and loved. In this chapter, we shall explore Augustine's conclusions concerning the effects of ignorance and weakness on human beings who desire to live justly. Moreover, we shall examine how Augustine understands fear of death as the epitome of the effects of original sin on the soul, and how he believes that this fear is reflected in the inability of human beings to know and love God through the mystery of the incarnation. Finally, we shall show that Augustine bases his criticisms of Ciceronian and other Roman conceptions of virtue in the false attitudes toward God which he holds that this fear of death produces in them.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine , pp. 27 - 71Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
- 1
- Cited by