St. Augustine (354-430)

De civitate Dei [The City of God]

413-427

"Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say, 'Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.'"

Wherefore, as the life of the flesh is the soul, so the blessed life of man is God, of whom the sacred writings of the Hebrews say, "Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord." Miserable, therefore, is the people which is alienated from God. Yet even this people has a peace of its own which is not to be lightly esteemed, though, indeed, it shall not in the end enjoy it, because it makes no good use of it before the end. But it is our interest that it enjoy this peace meanwhile in this life; for as long as the two cities are commingled, we also enjoy the peace of Babylon. For from Babylon the people of God is so freed that it meanwhile sojourns in its company. And therefore the apostle also admonished the Church to pray for kings and those in authority, assigning as the reason, "that we may live a quiet and tranquil life in all godliness and love." And the prophet Jeremiah, when predicting the captivity that was to befall the ancient people of God, and giving them the divine command to go obediently to Babylonia, and thus serve their God, counselled them also to pray for Babylonia, saying, "In the peace thereof shall ye have peace,"-the temporal peace which the good and the wicked together enjoy.
(XIX.xxvi)

ut vita carnis anima est, its beata vita hominis Deus est

Body::Life and Death

Reading Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989. p. 134.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I. Vol II. Trans. Rev. Professor J. F.Shaw. 1886? <www.ccel.org> <volume II of 1871 translation in Google Books><volume II of 1945 translation in Internet Archive>

01/14/2004

03/23/2009