Augustine

The Western Roman Emperor Valentinian I (364-375 AD) refused to intervene in theological controversies “It is not right for me, a layman, to meddle in such things. Let the bishops whose business it is meet by themselves wherever they like”.

Valentinian tolerated all sects of Christian (bar the Manichees) and even allowed the traditional pagan rituals to take place in the Senate House in Rome – the alter of Victory remained in place, and the Vestal Virgins and the other ancient Roman priesthoods continued.

Valentinian was not a half hearted Christian – he had been an open Christian during the time of the pagan Emperor Julian (when being a Christian was not exactly a good strategy for promotion).

Nor was Valentinian a kindly man – for example he had men who tried to dodge conscription burned alive.

It was simply that religious toleration was a perfectly respectable point of view for a Christian in Valentinian’s time.

The other point of view (that at least non Christians should be persecuted) was widely held also – for example by the powerful Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Valentinian’s own brother (the Emperor of the East – Valens) persecuted Christians that held to a different point of view to himself (as Valens was an Arian this meant persecuting people who held what later became the mainstream point of view). But the matter was not clear cut – one could be a Christian in good standing and not support persecution. Only a few years later the idea that the ruler should not lay down what people believed and that pagans and heretics should not be persecuted would have been held to be absurd by most theologians and rulers. This continued to be the mainstream view till at least the 17th century and it was only in the 18th century that most Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians came towards the view that they should tolerate each other.

What had happened?

I hold that it was the vast prestige that the writings of St. Augustine were held in that explains the matter. Augustine had justified persecution (in his case of the Donatist Christians) Augustine was the greatest theologian of all time – so (for most people) that settled the matter. When the Protestant Reformation came it did not mean religious toleration because the Protestant theologians (such as Luther and Calvin) were at least as devoted to Augustine as the Roman Catholics were.

Nor was this Augustine’s only negative influence. Augustine practically invented (certainly did more than anyone else to make mainstream) the revolting doctrine of ‘predestination’. Under this doctrine how a man acts in his life does not affect his chances of going to heaven. Human beings were, by definition, so vile that nothing they could do would improve their chances – they all deserved to be damned for all eternity.

God (according to Augustine – with, I admit, some support form the Book of Revelation, whilst ignoring most of the rest of the Bible) has selected certain people from the begining of time to save and their being saved is nothing to do with any merit – as human beings can have no merit.

True Augustine pushed this doctrine to counter the British theologian Pelagius, who Augustine (perhaps falsely) held stressed free will so much as to deny divine grace (i.e. that people could make themselves perfect, or could work their way into heaven without any need of God), but the effects of this doctrine of predestination were terrible.

People understood from the doctrine that reason and moral effort were meaningless, that the ways of God were arbitrary and nothing to do with reason – and that human beings were vile and would always not just be not perfect, but would always be utterly vile and those of the slave owing, child raping crew (that is humanity) that went to heaven rather than to hell were selected at random, or at least by some process outside human understanding. Not so much “justification by faith” (for it is not the choosing to be a Christian that saves someone according to predestination), but “justification by who knows what”.

This may not have been Augustine’s intention, but this was the logical conclusion of the doctrine he spread. And as the early Protestant theologians (especially Calivn, but Luther also) were devoted to Augustine the Protestant reformation of a thousand years later did not mean the breaking down of the doctrine (although the later Lutherians did break with it).

St. Augustine was consistent. Just as he used his vast reasoning powers to deny reason in the area of religion (“that bastard reason” as Luther put it), thus committing treason against the mind, so he also denounced scientific thought.

For example ideas that the world was very ancient (according to Augustine) should be crushed – because they went against the Bible.

Only a tiny fraction of the literature of the classical world has come down to us. And whilst it is true that the Church was the great preserver of classical writings, it is also true that there were periods when the Church destoyed writings thought of as anti-Christian – and when they burnt the books they had the prestige of Augustine to justify their actions.

It is not true that either the ‘dark ages’ or the ‘middle ages’ were free from intellectual enquiry (far from it), but the forces of ignorance and persecution had the prestige of Augustine to support them at every turn.

Objections.

“But Augustine is a saint, so he must have been a good man”.

Cyril of Alexandria was also made a saint (indeed he was honoured  by Pope Leo XIII as recently as the late 19th century) and he was a revolting man. He ‘won’ a debate against a rival (Nestorius) by having the rival’s tongue removed and then saying that ‘divine worms’ had come down from heaven and ate it whilst it was still in his rival’s mouth. Cyril also indulged in all forms of bribery and corruption, organised a pogrom against the Jews and caused the pagan philosopher and mathematician Hypatia to be dragged from her chariot, stripped naked and skinned alive on the high altar – this seems rather more like a sexually perverted ‘black mass’ straight from a horror film then anything a Christian should be proud to be involved in.

“Augustine was a great thinker and inspired many other great thinkers”.

Karl Marx is also widely held to have been a great thinker and to have inspired many other great thinkers – that does not mean that Marxism is true.

“Michael Oakeshott held that Augustine was a defender of civil association”.

Michael Oakeshott also held that Thomas Hobbes, Jean Bodin, Sir William Petty and many other supporters of tyranny were defenders of civil association. Michael Oakeshott was indeed a great man who had many great and true ideas – but he is a dangerious guide to the history of political thought.

Oakeshott correctly states that (for example) Thomas Hobbes held that the alternative to the state was chaos were no man’s goods or life would be safe. But this does not make Hobbes a defender of civil association. There is no attempt anywhere in Hobbes’ writings to limit the power of the state – no constitutional ideas and no theory of resistance.

Indeed the whole point of Hobbes’ writings is to get people to submit to the state (to avoid civil strife yes, but the state is in no way limited to just preventing civil strife). To Hobbes the rulers can do what they like and there is nothing we should try and do about it, he is an a defender of the all mighty state state – and was understood as such.

Oakeshott loved to get writers such as Hobbes (supporters of tyranny) and present them as defenders of freedom (what would be the point of presenting Hobbes as a defender of tyranny – anyone could do that, only a powerful thinker could present the opposite case, just as only a truly powerful thinker can present the case that Alexander Haig was a great general during the first World War – John Terraine has done exactly this).

To present Augustine as a defender of civil association is false. Certainly he did not express much interest in government economic planning (unlike, say, Sir William Petty he had other concerns). But there is little in Augustine about constitutional government (he may, as Oakeshott points out, use some of the language of Cicero – but he is no follower of Cicero). Indeed Augustine even has ‘positive’ ideas for government himself – such as his support for government welfare provision.

“Augustine was guided by the holy sprit and therefore can not have been a force for evil”.

For libertarians who are atheists the above will not seem a strong argument. However, for those people who are not atheists I would say the following.

By their fruits shall you know them – you know this. I am not saying that everything Augustine wrote was wrong (let alone evil), or even that all the consequences of his writings were evil.

Nor am I saying that Augustine was an evil man. Indeed even when he justified the persecution of the Donatists it should be remembered that they were in favour of persecuting the mainstream church people.

Nor am I defender of the idea that reason can do everything, or that people can transform the objective facts of their lives by the “power of positive thinking” (or other such emotional uplift). Anyone who knows me would testify that I am a grim minded man with, if anything, far too strong an idea of the darkness of human life in this world and the limits of what many (indeed perhaps most) people can do to improve their lives.

What I am saying is that Augustine was sometimes mistaken and that the consequences of some of the doctrines he defended were bad.

If you can refute what I say by using the reason that God has given you please do so – if not, do not hide behind the evasion that people who win theological disputes and have a lot of influence must have been guided by the holy spirit in everything they wrote. To do this does not just insult human reason, it insults God as well.