Augustine the Pagan
- Thread starter fortyseven
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David S Poepoe
Banned
Well, that would begger the question of why would a university in Milan accept a non-Christian into its ranks. Think about the time period we're talking about. Are there any Jews on the faculty?
WE are talking about Augstine of Hippo, right? Not St Augustine the Apostle of the Saxons?
I'm fairly sure he would have made his mark anyway, being a gifted rthetiorician and philosopher. However, he could not have become the head of either a pagan or a Christian seat of learning as he was a Manichee before he converted. Thus, an unconverted Augustine would continue to teach Gnostic truths as he saw them. He might get in trouble with the Christian authorities (unless he finds a powerful protector) and find relatively little support from the pagan side (as he can accommodate pagan deities in his belief system, but not regard them highly, they being of this world). Wherther we would know anything of him will largely deepend onm whetherthe church develops in a similar manner without him, or whether the absence of 'de civitate dei' actually butterflies into something big and painful. Maybe the whole 'blueprint for a Christian state' that this boook is often read as is replaced by millennial expectation which, in turn, is bound to be disappointed and create heresies and spinoffs? A disintegrating Christianity would have a decent chance of preserving the memory of the great Manichaean teacher as the founder of some heretical movement or other?
Of course, if you want to go all-out weird, you could have him turn into an inspired Manichaean missionary who converts all of Africa to the Gospel of Sophia...
I'm fairly sure he would have made his mark anyway, being a gifted rthetiorician and philosopher. However, he could not have become the head of either a pagan or a Christian seat of learning as he was a Manichee before he converted. Thus, an unconverted Augustine would continue to teach Gnostic truths as he saw them. He might get in trouble with the Christian authorities (unless he finds a powerful protector) and find relatively little support from the pagan side (as he can accommodate pagan deities in his belief system, but not regard them highly, they being of this world). Wherther we would know anything of him will largely deepend onm whetherthe church develops in a similar manner without him, or whether the absence of 'de civitate dei' actually butterflies into something big and painful. Maybe the whole 'blueprint for a Christian state' that this boook is often read as is replaced by millennial expectation which, in turn, is bound to be disappointed and create heresies and spinoffs? A disintegrating Christianity would have a decent chance of preserving the memory of the great Manichaean teacher as the founder of some heretical movement or other?
Of course, if you want to go all-out weird, you could have him turn into an inspired Manichaean missionary who converts all of Africa to the Gospel of Sophia...
I was thinking more of Augustine and his influence on Christianity, namely Original Sin and that sex is bad.
The lack of City of God I hadn't thought about.
I don't think he'd stay Manichae though.
The lack of City of God I hadn't thought about.
I don't think he'd stay Manichae though.
fortyseven said:
Right, original sin is another one of his... might make all kinds of theological debates interesting. Take infant baptism, frex.
I think you'll still get the 'sex is bad' line. That idea was extremely prevalent at the time. Even Julian the Apostate bought into it. However, without original sin it might soften over time rather than ossify.
Interesting...
'Sex is from God' vs 'Sex is bad'
Could there have been any way that Christian theologians could've at the outset changed the 'sex is bad' line to 'sex is from God' instead ? I'm just drawing on my personal experience, where I'm currently attending a course at my local church on Christianity and sexuality, which explores the concept that, in contrast to the traditional institutionalised religious line that sex is inherently evil and of the Devil, that sex and sexuality are actually sacred and created by God as the ultimate blessings for all human beings to enjoy within the confines of marriage. But would such an idea have been totally rejected by the Catholic church and other denominations no matter what ?
Could there have been any way that Christian theologians could've at the outset changed the 'sex is bad' line to 'sex is from God' instead ? I'm just drawing on my personal experience, where I'm currently attending a course at my local church on Christianity and sexuality, which explores the concept that, in contrast to the traditional institutionalised religious line that sex is inherently evil and of the Devil, that sex and sexuality are actually sacred and created by God as the ultimate blessings for all human beings to enjoy within the confines of marriage. But would such an idea have been totally rejected by the Catholic church and other denominations no matter what ?
Melvin Loh said:
Unfortunately, it very likely would have been. The common opinion of the time was that anything physical was bad, and sex, which is both fun and leads to the procreation of physical life, is doubly so. If anything. mainstream Christianity was among the moderate parties. Frex, many Manichaean sects held that all procreation was bad and thus rejected marriage and intercourse (though they allowed, under certain circumstances, sexual practices that did not lead to pregnancy). A number of Gnostics and Gnostic-inspired Christians held that only perpetual virginity was pleasing to the highest entity. Late Stoics often taught that sex was only a means to perpetuate the species and must under no circumstances be enjoyed. A splinter group of Christianity even advocated self-castration for men in order to attain salvation (needless to say they had trouble attracting converts and even more tropuble perpetuating their group organically
). Late Antiquity was a pretty screwy time in that regard. Now, if Christianity had somehow managed to preserve a sane, balanced approach to sexuality that would no doubt have helped its stability (if not necessarily is popularity). However, given the way that individual ascetics acted as recruiting posters for the faith, I doubt this would have worked for it (as Sir Stephen Runciman put it succinctly: St Simeon Stylites performed 462 genuflections towards Jerusalem in the course of a day. I do not know whether to be more disturbed by the fervour of the holy man's devotions or that of the layman at the bottom of the pillar keeping count.)
Maybe if the Jewisdh tradition were more strongly emphasised for some reason?
You'd still have Augustine's nut case contemporary St (alleged) Jerome who was obsessive about virginity. For one thing he gave us the Triple Virginity of Mary:
1] Before the Birth of Jesus
2} During the Birth of Jesus (something like the tunnel effect of quantum mechanics)
3] After the Birth of Jesus so all those brothers of Jesus in the New Testament were really cousins
Sex was very troubling to St. Jerome because it destroyed the virginal perfection of the human form. Eventually he found only one justification namely it would create more virgins!
1] Before the Birth of Jesus
2} During the Birth of Jesus (something like the tunnel effect of quantum mechanics)
3] After the Birth of Jesus so all those brothers of Jesus in the New Testament were really cousins
Sex was very troubling to St. Jerome because it destroyed the virginal perfection of the human form. Eventually he found only one justification namely it would create more virgins!
NapoleonXIV
Banned
Leo Caesius said:
I first read of them in Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination Another was the church father Origern.
What if the plagues came early? The great pandemics of the 500's were not really recovered from for another millenia and my understanding is they give rise to a "fruitful and multiply" ethic that balances the "sex is bad" idea throughout the Middle Ages. (the idea became that the Church forbade while the peasants played
ie laws were written, but not enforced)Its very hard to push the idea that human procreation is bad, the world sinful etc etc. when you've just come from a journey where whole areas that used to be full of people are now occupied only by wolves. Writings abound from the era just after the Black Death of just how oppressive such areas are and how it promoted sex and fruitfulness as good things, right down to the present.
No, because the Catholics, at the very least never taught that - that would have been rank heresy - this is the same Church that sponsored a campaign against the Albegenesians for holding to that belief, remember. The so-called 'contrasting' belief you state is actually very close to the Catholic line. Extramarital sex, yes, was considered bad ('thou shalt not commit adultery'), but they had no problem with sex within marriage - only that sacrificing that for God was a Good Thing - the line would be 'celibacy is better, though sex is good'. This is an age, remember, where both Latin and Byzantine Rites permitted married clergy in general.
As for Augustine staying non-Christian, probably he would have gone down as a good rhetor, but a terrible, terrible heretic along the lines of Arius, at best, and BarJesus, at worst.