There is so much about his life and doctrine that is off-putting, but there is far more that is just amazing. This guy was incredible. Faithful, brilliant, and attuned to God. Here is a collection of quotes I came upon recently that I had to share:
"Whoever,
then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of
them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to
build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet
understand them as he ought.”
― Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine
“The
wisdom of what a person says is in direct proportion to his progress in
learning the holy scriptures--and I am not speaking of intensive
reading or memorization, but real understanding and careful
investigation of their meaning. Some people read them but neglect them;
by their reading they profit in knowledge, by their neglect they forfeit
understanding.”
― Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine
"Usually,
even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and
the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the
stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable
eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons,
about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this
knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now,
it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking
nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an
ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of
faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great
loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture
are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian
mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him
maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to
believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead,
the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think
their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves
have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and
incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow
on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their
mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not
bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their
utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call
upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages
which they think support their position, although they understand
neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion." [1
Timothy 1.7]- Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430) in his work The Literal
Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim)
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