Augustine, and two Fathers of the Greek Church, St. Athanasius and St. Chrysostom ("Interior of the Basilica."). Not far away, in the center of the crossed halls of Saint Peter’s and over the high altar sits the Baldachin, a giant bronze and gilt canopy with four twisting pillars. Decorated in olive and laurel vines with nude children at play and chasing swarms of bees to come to rest underneath the canopy at a golden dove, symbolizing, peace, victory in peace, purity and unity, and the Holy Spirit, respectively ("Interior of the Basilica."; DiMassa, 202-03). The bees symbolize a thing that works for the hive, its only ultimate goal is the continual success of the hive with no recompense to itself (DiMassa, 202-03). The same can be said …show more content…
My next offensive argument is that the Catholic Church creates a space of hypocrisy by publicizing one theme of morality but practicing whatever they like through alteration or blatant ignoring of religious tradition within the clerical order with the intent on making money instead of upholding doctrine. This hypocrisy extends to religious vows that were blatantly ignored by the clergy in the past, and do so now with more secrecy. It is Cannon Law that “competent authority of the Church” must take vows of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, obedience, and charity (Catholic Canonists). Meanwhile, in the past as seen by the previously mentioned criticisms of Pope Alexander VI’s use of great wealth to help seize the papacy and the modern “Bishop of Bling” shows that both the vows of poverty and obedience to those vows are explicitly ignored by those who are supposed to enforce them. As far as chastity goes, Pope Alexander IV had four, possibly more, very public children with a mistress that he was able to legitimize and use for his own political ventures, as well as two other mistresses he had while serving as pope, blatantly ignoring the vow of chastity (Murphy). In more recent days the Catholic Church sex scandal of pedophilic priests and Cardinals shows not only an air of disobedience and sexual immorality, but that the insubordination of the clergy hasn’t stopped since the more “primitive” days but has
The appearances of Augustine and his twin brother, Alfred, are in great contrast, keying us in on some important behavioral differences. Alfred St. Clare has dark eyes, a haughty Roman profile, and is decidedly built very well, with tan skin. He has a much more brutal way of treating his slaves, and this is made even clearer when his son, Henrique—who is also dark-eyed and has a princely, entitled look—beat one of their young slaves. Augustine St. Clare, on the other hand, is full of spirit with the same bright blue eyes as his daughter, Eva, and a more wiry shape. Henrique’s actions are called out by little Eva, with her head full of golden curls and angelic face, who takes very much after her after. While Alfred apparently thinks that allowing
In the Confessions by Saint Augustine, this great philosopher experiences many problems and emotions related to sin and evil. As a boy, he often felt darkness, blindness, and confusion while attempting to find rest in God. Augustine started out in childhood with a restless heart because he had to live in two different worlds. These worlds consisted of his mother’s Christian faith, and the world of everything else. These two worlds confused and disturbed Augustine as a child. Augustine’s father was pagan and his mother was Christian, and they both wanted him to be very successful in the world. As he became confused, he began asking questions that could not be answered such as, “Humans often feel restless, but what is it they need to feel at
Both St. Augustine’s Confessions and Confucius’s Analects are significant teachings that have influenced people around the world not only in ancient times but in current history as well. Both doctrines provide discussion on the ethical values of society back in the ancient time they were written and lead us to discover similarities between the two beliefs. Although we find these connections, there are significant differences between St. Augustine and Confucius’s views on life and beliefs since they were living in different time periods and environments. Their experiences are the influencers that have impacted to the way that philosophies and traditions have grown today between the West and the East. I agree that Confucius celebrated social
In The Confessions, Augustine goes on a journey to discover the truth, and purses the ideals of how he should live and what he finds value in. In his pursuit for the truth and his journey through life, Augustine is faced with obstacles that significantly shaped who he is, forming his very thoughts contained in the novel. The obstacles Augustine had to face through his life was the confrontation of sin and why humans perform sinful actions, the passing of his friend, and the passing of his own mother.
In both, Confessions by Saint Augustine and The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle the theme of friendship is constantly portrayed. Each philosopher has his own respected thoughts and opinions about the different aspects of friendship. This paper will argue both the similarities and differences between Aristotle and Saint Augustine’s argument about the role of friendship.
In regards to Montaigne 's statement on page 23 in Apology for Raymond Sebond, I would deduce that he was using the metaphor of nature and natural tendencies in opposition to man 's vain, self-seeking façade that displaces God the creator. Montaigne 's statement appears to (on the surface at least) value mans naturalistic tendencies and graces in a much better light than our own vain-striving presumptions that claim that our "competent utterances" hold the very answers to the "right" way in which to conduct oneself. Montaigne constantly uses the contrast of animals and humans with the former representing a more pure, natural existence that I assume is to be
Similarly, the moral decay in the Catholic Church is best represented through the lack of morals displayed by the people who were supposed to be among the saintliest of all men: “The whole day is spent in filthy talk; their whole time is given to play and gluttony… They neither fear nor love god; they have no thought of the life to come, preferring their fleshly lusts to the needs of the soul… They scorn the vow of poverty, know not that of chastity, revile that of obedience” (128-129). Sadly the priests were so lowly respected that in England it was a bitter insult to call anyone a priest. At one time priesthood was the objective of ambitious young men however eventually no one would dare join the monastery due to such a low reputation. This was because rather than following the vows that they had once taken, the priests committed sexual acts and knew nothing of living life modestly.
Throughout his Confessions, Augustine's view of humans--our essential nature has interesting differences from the way in which others, in different time periods and in different civilizations, have seen humans.
The idea of the hero in Greco-Roman culture was integrated into the idea of the saint (in the process of conversion and totalization) by way of Christianity's adoption of and ancestry in the Greco-Roman culture. As Professor Ambrosio indicates, "The need and the search for meaning is shared by all human beings" (Hero or Saint Saul of Tarsus). Thus, it is no surprise to find that a pagan Greco-Roman title is applicable to a Christian whose virtue is viewed as greater than that of ordinary men just as the hero is viewed as greater (in fame, bravery, strength) than ordinary men. The fact that two of early Christianity's most heroic figures (St. Paul and St. Augustine) were Roman makes this integration even less surprising. This paper will discuss the way in which the hero is integrated into the idea of the saint by comparing Saul of Tarsus with Augustine of Hippo two men who underwent a conversion and rose to "heroic" or "saintly" heights in terms of Christian virtue.
Aristotle and St. Augustine both wrote philosophical works in order to teach us something that they have learned, in hopes that we will apply it to our own lives. However, Augustine uses a type of autobiographical style in addition to treatise in his works, while Aristotle only uses the treatise style in his works.What were they both thinking when they were writing these famous works? Did they use their respective styles to achieve a goal?
Misericordiae Vultus says ‘mercy has no meaning without a consciousness of sin and of God’s judgment.’ and Augustine agrees with this. On book ten, Augustine says “O Lord my God, to whom daily my conscience makes confessions, relying more in the hope of Your mercy than your own innocence”. What Augustine means with this is that the mercy of God is the most important thing we need, and it is achieved by confession. We also know that Augustine says that confessions are not for God but for ourselves to acknowledge our sins, therefore we obtain the mercy of God by accepting our sins so that God may forgive us.
At the time of Augustine, there was four major movements that threatened the apostolic faith and the Church livelihood as a whole. Firstly, he wrestled with the Donatists, which insisted that the sacraments, in order to be valid, must be given by a personal holy minister. Augustine refused this view, stating that the minister of the sacraments was Christ himself, therefore ensuring their validity. Against Donatism, Augustine directed two works, On Baptism and On the Correction of the Donatists, in which he formulated the idea that the church's authority is the guarantee of the Christian faith, as the Christian faith's own guarantee is the apostolic succession.
The “City of God” is an eloquently written challenge, from Saint Augustine, for human society to choose which city it wishes to be a part of, the city of God or the city of man. As described by Augustine, the city of God is a metaphorical place where the citizens love, glorify, worship, and praise God. They find their strength and authority through mutual servitude with Yahweh. This city is then compared to the earthly city where the people love themselves, glorify themselves, find strength in themselves, and worship themselves or created things. The earthly city seeks praise from people and strives for domination. These two cities are the crux of Augustine’s novel which entails people to be worthy citizens of the City of Heaven, despite the devastating fall of Rome. Many people questioned whether Christianity was at fault for Rome’s demise, claiming that the pagan gods were angry that Christianity became the dominant religion in Rome, thus the pagan gods were thought to have left, leaving Rome vulnerable to attack. Thereby, Augustine sets out to dispute these beliefs by stating that God initiated all of creation, and in such a grand plan, the fall of Rome is rather insignificant. The more important issue is to choose a life in the city of man or the city of God, of which Augustine marks the parameters with compelling metaphors that beg the reader to choose the everlasting city because it provides the achievement of peace, the achievement of a purposeful ending, and the
Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was one of the greatest philosophers of the roman period. He was raised in a religiously divided home, but through time he found his own truth. He was always an excellent student. He fully mastered the Latin language, however, he never did well with Greek. Saint Augustine was also a man who had a way with words. After his teenage rebellious stage, he found an unorthodox religious group that he decided to become involved with for a while. He traveled the area and ended up staying in Milan for a while. This is where he met Bishop Ambrose and began to listen to his teachings. This caused for Augustine think about his life and ultimately converted him to Christianity. After converting, he wrote books such as: Confessions, The City of God, and De Doctrinia (On Christian Doctrine), along with many others. Saint Augustine was and still is a great Christian influence in the world today.
Theologians, Biblical scholars and Christians all over the world often wrestle with two extremely important questions about their faith. These questions are, "What is God like?" and "How should we live in response to God?" Some feel that we need others to direct us, some feel we need them to challenge us, but everyone agrees that we need others. That is exactly how Saint Augustine struggles to find his faith and beliefs. He found it extremely difficult to come with a conclusion when it was staring at him straight in the face, but just as he did, we draw up our own conclusions with the guidance of others.