Hello and welcome to Classical Stuff You Should Know. We are a podcast about the classical world, old books, history, art, theology, philosophy, that sort of thing. My name is A.J. Hanenberg and I'm joined by two more bros, Graham Donaldson.
Hello. What? And Thomas Magdy. Hello.
Oh man, you guys. I was trying to add a little bit of some like, I don't know. Some lenity? A little yeah, some lenity.
A little aristocratic elegance. Yeah, sorry. We are raining on your parade. I'm so sorry.
Aristocratic elegance is nothing. I've never been accused of that. Okay, so today we are talking about hunting in Africa. Specifically, a guy that has been always an advocate against it.
He really wants to collect all the populations of large mammals and make sure they're protected. So he does some elephants, but primarily hippos. Primarily hippos, that's correct. He was considered of the hippos.
Yeah, of the hippos. He was accepted by the hippos. Yeah, it was really sweet. Yeah, we're going to talk about that a lot.
Appropriated hippo culture. Yeah, yeah, now. Because there's later years, so we will get to that. The controversy around the man.
Yeah, but he really, I mean, he really only worked in one season. August. August. Yeah, so primarily August.
Yeah, he's the Steve Irwin of August. Of the hippo world. Right? I guess that sounds exactly right.
Yeah, crikey. Oy crikey. That is what the man himself always liked to say. Yeah, we're talking about Augustine of hippo, so the other angle to take this is to talk about Augustine of hip-hop.
Graham made some references to this before the podcast began. Is this a sweet Twitter handle? Is this one that you follow? I don't actually.
I think someone retweeted and I laughed, but I didn't follow it. It's lovely. So anyway, if you're looking for a combination of hip-hop and Augustine, then boy, oh boy, is Twitter the place for you. 23,000 followers.
Oh, jeez. Oh, jeez. That's the name we have, right? Yeah, give or take 22,000.
22,500. Man, you are so close. We have 96 followers. I think it's something like that.
I didn't know that number. I mean, it's around there. It's probably even less than that. It's like when you're like, I don't know really how many yards I rushed for in high school.
I can't really say. So it turns out when I was on Augustine of hippo's Twitter page, I was actually logged in as classical stuff. So should I like all their tweets? Is that a thing I should do?
Sure. Okay, great. I'm going to go ahead and do that. Get some pity followers.
I'm sorry. By liking people, I get pity followers? I don't know how to put it. Southern Nets based.
Is that what? It's only how it works. Okay, so we will talk about Augustine of hippo. Okay, so a few episodes ago, we talked about disciplina, which we talked about the Roman conception of discipline and how Augustine has some thoughts on that.
I think I mentioned as part of that podcast that I had intended to go through four biographies and talk about four important dudes in history. And again, the reason for talking about these four in particular is that at Veritas Academy, we have a house system into which all high schoolers and court teachers are placed. So they are all there. Everyone's placed into the house of Augustine, the house of Bonhoeffer, the house of Francis, and the house of Mueller.
I'm sorry, could you make reference to Francis? Can you use the full title of what we've earned this past year? You guys keep saying a word and I can't hear it. I hear Mueller, I hear Augustine, I hear Bonhoeffer, and I just hear it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like winning the 2018-2019 House Cup champion in the House of St. Francis. Okay, so everyone is placed into one of four houses, three-time winner, Augustine, two-time winner, Bonhoeffer, two-time winner, Francis, and three-time winner, Mueller.
Is that what I should be saying? I actually don't know if those numbers are good. How many times have you all won the House Cup? I think two or three.
I think two or three, yeah. Sorry, so I feel like when I know I should list them in order of interview ranking, right? Isn't that how that works? We've listed them.
We can move on. Okay, are you sure? Everyone. I said my bit.
Great. Francis won last year, guys. Okay, I love the competition. It's wonderful.
But we are not starting with Francis because of reasons. So, St. Augustine of Hippo, what do we know about the man, the myth, the legend? What do you all know about him?
His name is pronounced, it's originally Augustineus. That is the thing, yeah. He had a deal with Paris. He did have a deal with Paris.
He had a bastard child. He got naked in a courtroom. I don't think I found that one. Was that him or was that Francis?
That's Francis. Yes, Francis gets naked a lot. Francis takes off his clothes and he's like, you know, you can have my riches and that kind of thing. That was it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Augustine, he also became a bishop. He became a bishop, that's true. I didn't think about him.
He wrote The City of God. He confessed. He also wrote the confession, that is correct, yeah. He wasn't the one with the golden tongue.
That's Christoph's. And he also helped kind of appropriate platonic thought into Christianity. Yeah, we'll get to that. He was really critical of the classical world.
He didn't appreciate the mingling of the classical and Christian world. So, a perfect fit for a classical world. I love that. So, we have him as one of our patron dudes of our houses, but I don't think he would agree with our project.
He would have serious reservations. He would agree with our project in terms of the medieval version of classical education. He liked classical education, but had a problem with the wholehearted acceptance of the classical world. Yeah, yeah.
And was highly critical of the classical world. That's all I'm trying to say. He would have lots of questions, I guess. I never met the guy.
I wouldn't really know. Okay, so... Yeah, I guess that is the plan. So, Augustine, he's born in 354 AD.
He's born in Northern Africa. Carthage. Yeah, it's... That always sounds just like slaughter to me.
It's so close to Carnage. Carnage, yeah. And also because of the whole, you know, like, um... What's the dude?
Across the Alps. Oh, um... Hamlet. Yeah, and Carthage was known for sacrificing babies.
Yeah, I might get this wrong. He will eventually move to Carthage. He's born in a region... Is it like Algeria?
Yeah, there is the modern day Algeria. So, I think the running thing is how bad my pronunciations are. T-H-A-G-A-S-T-E, Thagaste, Thagaste, is the name of the town. But currently, it's modern day Algeria.
This region is also part of the region of Hippo. So, he is both from Hippo, he will eventually return to Hippo. I think that... Is that a prestigious region?
No. It's the edge of the Roman Empire. So, it's like, as far out as it goes, gets to, it's kind of like, uh... It's like Canada.
It's just like... Wait, so, just to be clear, Canada is the... Edge of the American Empire. You are the hat that's at the top of your empire.
The lame apartment above the party. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite up. That's most of what we hear.
So, he's born in a region. It's not a great region, it's not a prestigious region. He has many important figures in his life. We'll only talk about a few of them.
Oh, and I said this two episodes ago, but I'm mostly operating from a biography of Augustine by Peter Brown. It is great. I think it's just called Augustine of Hippo. So, I highly recommend it.
Your contemporary? Peter Brown is? Yeah. What about Augustine?
That's exactly right, yeah. He's a time traveler, so he spends time with the man himself. So, I always like a man named Peter Brown to be born in 354. Yeah, there you go.
Can you hear from that? Yeah, that sounds... Okay, so, that's when he's born in Hippo. An important figure in his life is Monica, his mother.
He will... He's very close to his mother all of her life. I guess she'll die before. He does.
But she also kind of is... It's hard to read the account of Monica and Augustine because she can come across as controlling, manipulative, you know, of course, all these negative words. But Augustine, like, doesn't view her that way. He holds her in high esteem, even in her kind of shadier moments.
Important things to know about him is that he had a lover for 15 years. I think it started around... I think it was from when he was 17, and then I would make it till 32. I think that's how that works.
And had a son by that woman. Don't... I don't believe we know who she was or what her name was. I actually will not recount this.
Clarice of Hippo. Clarice. Clarice. I don't like that.
You've got Hannibal. You've got Clarice? What's going on? Yeah, seriously.
What's going on? I just watched Sons of the Lames again recently. Is it age well? Yeah, I mean, it's a super bummer.
And anyway, it's a good movie. I mean, it's a horrible movie. It has bad things in it. Don't watch it.
Augustine's son, Adiotis, A-D-E-O-D-A-T-U-S, Adiotis, will live until about 17, if I'm reading my numbers correctly. So he lives until about the age when Augustine had, so about 17 years old, and then will die. My understanding is we don't know the cause of his death, but listenership, I guess you have passed that along. What is interesting in Augustine, and we'll get to this with kind of our next set of themes, is that in Augustine's writing, we will...
Wait, did you say... I'm sorry, just go back for a second. He left, or he ended the relationship with the... Yes, I didn't say that, but...
Around 17, and the child died at 17? Right, he started the relationship at 17. They were... Him and the love were together for 15 years.
Do you know when they had the child? Like, did they have the child in the relationship? I guess not. No.
The time doesn't add up. I don't think so. Anyway. Oh, so sorry, the O-D-354 plus 17 is 371, and Adiotis will die in 388.
Okay, okay. So I'm trying to get my numbers wrong in there, but there's some difference. So, sorry, the reason the relationship isn't in it is because Monica wanted to set Augustine up with an appropriate, suitable marriage, and so we'll encourage Augustine to end that relationship and kind of just drop this person who he's been with, again, for 15 years, long-term relationship, for the purpose of entering into a relationship essentially for status. So, like, continuous career.
Yes, exactly, yeah. And that's what Monica wants for Augustine. That arranged marriage will not happen, so instead, Augustine will end up becoming a priest and will remain solid after all of this. So he has this 15-year kind of scandalous thing happening.
Maybe not scandalous because he's not married. Peter Brown makes it sound like it's a very normal social arrangement that Augustine had for, again, early in his life. Yeah, I mean, it's not like having a concubine and a child in, you know, this time in the Roman Empire is out of the scandalous thing. But, I mean, and this is, again, when Christianity comes on the scene and has its precepts towards marriage and talks about the sanctity of this and also the relationship between husband loving their wives, wives submitting to husbands, it is, maybe to our modern years, seems a little old-fashioned and regressive, maybe to some modern years, but to the ancient world, it is a pretty, transgressive is the wrong word, but it's a pretty paradigm-busting stance on these kinds of relationships because, yeah, being with somebody, having a child, and then casting them off to go off and be married for some sort of political gain was a pretty common thing, and sort of status and name and family name and reputation or everything, and marriage was the thing that helped solidify this, so it wouldn't have been, so it's kind of like a raw deal for the concubine, but anyway, so that's just how they're talking together.
Also, we have that sense of not even being brought up by name, not going more into that. Part of what I like about Destin and getting to know him through his thought is that he, so I'm not calling him St. Destin, maybe I should, but when I think of, like, saints or holy people, I think of people who are totally unlike me, or people who are, they were perfect from day one, and they lived in sinlessness and then died perfect. Makes me uncomfortable when you talk about me on the podcast.
Yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, what I'm going to say is St. A.J. Hanenberg. I don't think you can be sainted before you die, but then they met A.J.
Hanenberg. Yeah, yeah. Beatified or the beatific vision of God at, like, six years old and then never sinned again, and you're like, all right, well, I can't relate to that. But that's not the story of Augustine, a guy who will eventually become sainted, who will eventually look back to and revere, had this very normal social, had this very normal relationship with a concubine, had a kid out of wedlock, ascribed to heresies, which we'll get to in a second, and was horrible to up and rising members of the Catholic Church, that's later in life, which we might get to.
So he messed up in all these significant ways, but still succeeded in saintedhood, still succeeded in finding some sort of holiness. So I find the Pope in his story, I guess that's what we'll get to eventually. All right, so let's get on to heresies, because this is all I want everyone to talk about. We've been down this road.
Well, part of what I didn't realize is how many of these are just tied into the life of Augustine. So our first of three heresies that we'll talk about right now is Manichaeism. What do you all remember about Manichaeism? What is Manichaeism?
Screw the Old Testament. Sure. Is that it? Well, also, I mean, screw most of, like, the Bible when you get down to it.
So full-on Manichaeism will have these, like, really, the important part is that there's this battle between good and evil. Good and evil are two equal and opposite forces, and it's kind of going to go back and forth. So that's Manichaeism. You also get, like, it's essentially, it will be tied to Christianity, but it doesn't, like, you don't get Manichaeism from...
So it's this epic struggle of, like, almost this yin-yang kind of thing. This epic struggle of good versus evil, and good just needs, like, two more levels of power in order for the... Or even the world needs, like, more good people. Like, if we got more good people, we would fix all the problems.
We could finally overthrow the powers of Manichaeism. Yes, and I think there are pieces of Manichaeism that will eventually lead to Pelagianism, which is the... It's like a bad RPG storyline. I was going to say, I've heard that.
There's so many other stories. The balance is off. But that's, okay. So this is a tangent.
This is a tangent. We can talk about Star Wars for a second. We can talk about Star Wars for a second. This is all I ever wanted.
I think Star Wars is Manichaeistic or whatever. Oh, it's notistic, I would say. Anyway, that's great. But, okay, here's my thing.
Okay, so Star Wars is all about this balance between good and evil. The right side and the dark side, correct? Is the dark side evil in the Star Wars mythos? Yeah, because it helps the dark side.
But if you need a balance... If you need a balance, you need to have the dark side. That's what I'm saying. If it were evil, it should be eradicated.
Like, evil things should... We should not have evil things. We should only need good things. So how can the dark side be evil if it is necessary?
You can answer, guys. Come on. It sounds like you're trying to burn the sacred texts. Eating broccoli.
Let's take taxes. We didn't need those books anyway. Whatever it says. There weren't page turners, I think.
Whatever it was. You've got to eat broccoli. That's evil. It's probably not evil.
No, I mean, I guess in the Star Wars mythos, like, it's the... Isn't that, like, you know, Palpatine's way that he seduces Anakin is, like, they need us, they need the dark side. The dark side's, like, not where all the good music is. Is that how it's, like, modern concessions of hell?
Why would I have an argument to be hell? Have I ever told you the story of Darth Pelagius the Wise, right? Thank you. So, I mean, it's, uh...
We're like, we just got in our first classical stuff shirt. Have I ever told you the story of Darth Pelagius the Wise? That is what his face says. So, you're right.
I think Star Wars does have a manichee heresy to it in that it needs this balance. In that it's sort of Eastern in its sense. That there's the yin-yang balance between these forces. And then there's some sort of, you know, teleology is that there's some sort of endgame where there's a balance, and then within that balance we have some sort of, like, greater state that we achieve.
It's almost like a Hegelian dialectic. Maybe my problem is more Star Wars ought to be perfect philosophy, but I just don't know how to think... Yeah, if a thing is necessary, it shouldn't be evil. Like, the world is possible...
Well, I mean, this is a Christian theological principle, which is that evil is a twisting of good. Evil is a... As opposed to a thing in and of itself. And that's what the manichees don't believe.
The manichees believe that there are things that are evil that exist in and of themselves as evil, whereas Orthodox Christianity would say, no, anything that exists that we would call evil is a twisting of good. You should go back to... Yeah, we talked about this on the podcast, the introduction to Parasolus. And are those Augustinian theological principles?
I think they are. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yes.
He is funny. So this fits very nicely with the Republic in our last episode. So early on in Agassin's life, he likes the manichee worldview. He will eventually very much like the Platonic worldview also.
It's very romantic, right? Yeah, but the only piece of poetry we have, if I don't have the line for me, sorry, is some form of saying, like, God made the world good. So he works on the place of saying equal good and evil to a Platonic to say the spirit is superior to the body, a very typical classical Platonic view, to eventually saying God actually made this world good and this is a place for us to enjoy. as a gift so it takes him a long time but he reaches that point and again that's what i like about the guy like he's got stuff wrong for a long time um before ending up in a good place okay so anyway i don't think we've settled that one maybe there's some problems star wars bankrupt universe oh i mean the very whatever don't get me started the fact that we have to have the sequels are just other retellings like what else can you do you have the resurgence whatever they're called the rebellion versus the empire again but they're called the you know the grievance the new ones oh the seven eight uh the grievance no what's the name you got like it's not the empire it's the first order and then you saw the rebellion it's the resistance there it is guys guys hello okay so let's go back to augustine so they destroyed the wrath of khan so uh augustine will be drawn to this heresy manikism he will be a maniky i guess is the noun i don't know for a decade for a long portion of his life he will ascribe to this worldview peter brown gets at why this is an appealing worldview by quoting augustine um and why manikies are an appealing view i still have the view that it was not i who was sending but some other nature within me i very much preferred to excuse myself and accuse some other thing that was in me but was not i but in truth i was a complete whole it was my impiety that divided me and myself so this is it was a very appealing view to say that i so yes the world has these cosmic forces of good and evil ones you know in equal and opposite power then to take that inside myself and say actually i'm made out of a good and bad part they're equal they fight so sometimes it's the bad part of me that's not the real part of me it's only the good is the real part of me and i mean if you think maniky is dead and buried in the ancient world you are wrong like that i mean yeah that view is common right here in bible studies just talking you know you hear it in churches talking about like well you can see how quickly uh verses can be pulled out of context into that view talking about the flesh as i was saying i don't know what i do is yeah what's the phrase just so we don't you know what i'm talking about but maybe listeners don't um yes i do the very thing that i hate and i don't do the thing that i should do there's no health in me you i can see how you could extrapolate from that phrase paul saying that there's this force inside me that does bad things that's not me right um and that's what i think the fair place to say to get with augustine to say he's not like this totally far out heretic this is like this is a commonly held view in uh in church far out here yeah yeah man so it was a it was a popular view held by many people we'll talk more about this in the donatist and the plebeian heresies but most theological views are kind of set by what popular at the time and it is something come in favor and something's fall from favor do you think they called like clearly obviously no oh i'm following the maniky philosophy of christianity or something no uh i think all it was called christianity and so there would be people who would say this is a thing that's true the donatist would not say i'm a donatist i'm just wondering like but afterwards he looks back and says at that point i was a maniky you talk about this in terms of history sometimes graham that the isms come up afterwards yeah so in the moment it's two people talking like it's in the moment it's there's um a view that's like so common no one can give it a name because they can't like well that was gonna be my last question is do you think it's is it healthy or is it um helpful if someone's like yeah i did that thing again but it's just my old self it's not really me if you're like well no that's manikyism like is that are those helpful categories to have in church life i think it's helpful to know what should we call people heretics more often i think this will be some of the classical view i think the word is not always very helpful yeah so the identification of the manikyism is not really super helpful sure but but to say to describe the logical fallacy to describe the heresy can be appropriate to correct that and say you know the view that you're expressing is is something or you know i with many of these i think i would prefer to send people to the original text and say like you're describing a view that's kind of like this read the best version of it well this is going to dovetail nicely into next episode yeah so we're talking about how do you make the logical principles from the bible that'd be really good um so i like that okay so sweet augustin is a heretic he likes manikyism because it lets him get off scot-free and do whatever he wants to do this is largely the period of life of his life where he's again doing whatever he wants to do this is preceding his conversion this is preceding him breaking things off being kind of forced to break things off with his um his lover's concubine um and again this is a view that was common inside the church um augustin will eventually uh come to he has a series of points that he calls uh his salvation or um repentance there's we'll get to the confessions later where we talk about the most famous of those which is him hearing a voice that says the bible and read that's related to the pair stuff that um Graham was talking about but um one of the earlier ones is essentially i think i would call it a conversion from manichaeism to platonism so to say that these forces are not equal but there is there are spiritual truths um and there are and the spirit is superior to the body and the best form of understanding the spirit is christianity that's kind of his first um uh um transition like his first theological change it's not a perfect theology but neither is mine okay so he will eventually be baptized and another one somewhere oh so in this time he uh Graham mentioned carthage he will travel a lot carthage milan rome he goes he goes to big cities and he again this is michael wanting to set up for him a really successful career and he hates it it um he'll eventually call it an mst career i think i got that career in like public speaking rhetoric teaching so he vaguely political more um teaching so he there's a story of him in rome i think he might have talked about this before that the old way that teachers got paid is that students would pay them like for the course or the class and so the way augustine's classes were structured is that he would teach them for whatever the term was and get paid on the last day well the first time he goes up there teaches this class the whole time no one shows up on the last day to pay him so he ends yes he ends poor he ends with no money to reflect all the uh time he put into that um so he gets really bummed out i've seen that coming yeah i mean very tough pace you guys made 29th right yeah crazy okay so this is all boarded up when you come to school that day so this is him reflecting on his time in milan his career in milan had been a puffed up occupation but it was easy for the life of an african bishop also to be a puffed up i don't live a puffed up anyway he's making a comparison but okay so he didn't like milan he will eventually move back to the same region hippo and i guess we'll talk about his becoming a priest so um augustine did not want to have a religious vocation he wanted to teach originally um had some kind of like again monica was interested in him uh pursuing kind of like a political life that's like a prestigious life that's all moms do yeah exactly and he just wants to take care of a kid don't blame her and he goes to a church in in midia which is that same which is near it's about 60 miles away from i guess it's the same region as um where he was born uh he's still in hippo he goes to a church in northern africa he's i'm not saying he's like here he's like in the town to hang out with a friend he wants to go hear a bishop speak and the bishop talks about how there's an urgent need for priests in this region of hippo and the crowd kind of knows who this disgusting guy is and they start to turn around looking at him and they push him to the front of the church and they ordain he's yeah he's like he's pushed he goes to the front and he is made a priest and bam he's trying and because he's now a priest which the funny quote of lord may be celibate but not now like anyway that's um he's lovely i love him lord may be celibate but not yet yeah um yeah that's that's my boy so god was like all right so he starts crying people uh people thought he was crying because they didn't make him a higher position they didn't make him a bishop immediately they only made him a priest which is not why he's crying he's crying because he's being made a priest i just think that's really lovely okay um and he's also a priest in the backwater region of hippo so that's another thing he thought he wanted to go to milan and again milan rome like the bigger cities to make something of himself this is from peter brown and i thought it was a lovely oh is this not the right quote i was going to say it's a lovely quote and read the wrong quote that would be a wonderful moment so augustine's part of a group of friends augustine again goes to hippo some of his other friends go to hippo some of his friends go to rome and this is peter brown reflecting on this so um ro romanianus and his son came to italy again as befitted a member of the traditional roman governing class he had come to press his son's fortunes in rome ten years previously he had been followed by a whole group of serious ambitious provincials in search of honor and power in italy with augustine among them so augustine wanted power thought he would find that in rome now most of these men had come to retire forever had come to retire forever to little provincial towns in africa they must have seemed to have condemned themselves to living in a backwater yet this news from italy is the last we hear of romanianus and his son they disappear from history it is augustine aurelius and alypius bishops wielding power in little towns over little men who will influence the lives of their fellow provincials far more intimately than ever the other guy who went to rome could have done with as many lawsuits in his distant ambitions it is in such ways that all roads no longer ran to rome i like that so cool it's not the size of where he's bishop it is that he like loves people he's committed to i think there's a lot to that of being wary of seeking ambition um seeking fame that augustine went after that and he achieved it like he got to teach in the place with like the smartest people and hated it it was miserable um and instead got to accomplish all of his intellectual goals all of his intellectual exercises by being in austin texas by going against like what was considered like the path to success i think there's a lot to that all right that is our boy he will uh he becomes priest he's still like not uh again he's more platonic than he is like christian at this point and he will eventually uh be upset with himself for following platonism for so long i'm flipping to a quote it's in the confession and it's just basically him saying that he agrees that he did not come to it sooner um i'll read it that it's he will eventually relent of platonism as well which is kind of what we talked about all right next heresy that is important to the life of augustine is donatism what do you all remember oh man okay is donatist is this the one where we're not going to have priests be priests after they've recanted their faith under torture uh yes i appreciate you remembering yes so i uh i uh worked my life my heresy flashcards before i came i have a hard time remembering any of these and it's made even worse by my like frantic search for fun puns to say as soon as you say the name i was i was cooking up donut shops and that's what i'm really sorry you know i don't i don't know why i'm a manikese donatist i just you don't know plegian after this right uh is that the back to the garden guy get back to the garden like we can make eating again yeah yeah we can be burning weird so for those who don't you know that's right yep that's that's that's right i'm not i'm not i'm sorry aj's running for president in 2020 which party would you uh actually yeah i totally old enough i'm 34 i'll be 35 next year you can certainly write me in when you write someone in it doesn't matter what you don't pick a party for them you can just write them your name right i don't think so yeah all right so ultimately is not going to matter sorry podcast listeners write in no don't know don't you imply that you can't win okay so the donut test is going to summarize this i'll just read like the full story because this is i'm in control of the podcast around 311 the african communities found themselves in a position similar to that of members of a resistance movement whose country had begun to settle down to the complexities and compromises of peacetime too many bishops it was thought had collaborated during the last the great persecution of diocletian in 303-305 they handed over copies of the holy scriptures to be burnt by the pagan magistrates this craven act the handing over of the holy books would have deprived the sacred texts would have deprived the guilty bishop of all spiritual power it was believed that uh castilian bishop of carthage had been ordained by such a traitor it was a simple matter from a million bishops in 311 to declare his the bishop's ordination invalid and to elect another bishop in his place because you were ordained by some punk because you were ordained by bad bishop so bad bishop who had given up books ordained this bishop and so they said that that ordaining was didn't happen and donatist is that other guy so this pure bishop of carthage was soon succeeded by another donatist it was he who was a rival bishop of carthage gave his name to what we call the donatist church so the yeah so um uh people who are not christian take over this region they ask for bibles and under you know torture in front of death they do in fact give up those scripture people then afterward and say that those priests are no longer real priests because they like messed up in real i mean uh they're in a really bad situation probably it's not a great thing that's christian burned but it's also a great thing to not die so yeah it's an easy way to put that so the donatist would say that any priest who had given up those bibles were no longer real priests and that that bishop was a fake bishop that is the donatist controversy august does not give in to the controversy he will indeed fight it he in a number of times will debate members of that opposing view and there's something about that i really like that he there's no view that he was like dismissive of or we don't have recordings of that but views that he would wildly disagree with he would still engage with and they would find their uh points of agreement again he's mostly debating with christians so finding that agreeing on scripture agreeing on scripture being foundation of a worldview and then getting as far into agreement as possible but was always willing to engage in those conversations he eventually becomes crotchety with again like i said a young dude at the end of his life um but for most of his life he is like a a rational reasonable dude though okay so um these donatists would this is uh this is for you aj because i appreciate this so these donatists were like not okay with these messed up priests and so they withdrawn the donatists had withdrawn from contact with an unclean society into a coterie of their equals for augustine innocence was not enough it was only one-third of the full range of human relationships which the good christian had to expose himself he must perform a three-fold task he must himself become holy he must coexist with sinners in the same community as himself a task involving humility and integrity but he must also be prepared actively to review and correct them so uh augustine starts kind of a monastery of his own but he's like opposed to full-on withdrawal from society he says that it's important to like actually be uh in contact with people who don't agree with you but only if you can point out all their faults yeah yeah life of the party he went he's funny because like his early life he's like a crazy dude like again you know whatever and he loved going to gladiators and no theater theater and that's he very much like so again like wild fun dude and by the time he becomes a priest like totally uh recans of all that but he's still uh engaged with like he still talks to people who go to the theater that's why his comments about the theater are to his um to his flock to the people who come to his church to warn them about going to the theater so again he's engaged with people he disagrees with i think there's a lot to do that yeah i think cloistering yourself it's it runs the possibility of becoming the worst kind of echo chamber yeah right and as those views slowly shift you can get some really weird stuff going on so i agree with all that i think that's why it's important for the medievals that they have like a set rule that didn't shift and you know wasn't wasn't up for debate yeah i said you're you are critical of like a certain type of monastery i think that's interesting yeah isn't there a place in christendom for the or the carthusians whatever they're called the ones that are really uh isolated like that's not the entirety of christianity you wouldn't want to say that everybody needs to be that or else they're not holy but isn't there room for that i think um so i went to a monastery last summer in kentucky um uh the same as many uh abby in Kentucky.
It's the monastery that, it's Travis, sorry. I always forget, Travis falls under something bigger. But they order I was thinking the same thing I don't mean a donut pun. I was thinking Trappell?
I'm sure it is actually. And as part of the monastery there's like one of the monks who is like a science to talk to people who are sitting there. Anyway, one of his things is like there are people who come here and say I want to be a monk and they say why do you want to be a monk? And they say I want to get away from the world.
I hate the world. The world is the worst. I need to like escape from this monastery and then I'll be happy here. And they reject those people.
They say those people aren't allowed to come to the monastery because the people who are in the monastery love the world. And out of the love of that world they are praying for the world. So Augustine's criticism is that the donatists are not doing it. The donatists are going off to the hills and being like we're better to be here.
We're here to have people who are like us and we'll be more spiritual than we're around us. There's a certain type of that. I mean being able to draw that distinction between that we just said we're going to go be by ourselves and screw everybody else and we're better than everybody and then the story you just told about the monk who says that the monastery should actually love the world is a big hinge on which this whole Benedict Option conversation is hanging but no one really talks about it in those kinds of ways. So I usually think of Benedict Option as we hate the world so much we must withdraw from it.
To read the rule of St. Benedict it's the same people who deeply loves I forget the exact phrasing of it but this is a quote up on the walls of St. Gethsemane Abbey it must be Gethsemane not St. Gethsemane it's Gethsemane Abbey is welcome all travelers as if they were Christ himself.
That is the command of St. Benedict and that is not normally how the Benedict Option is framed. Yeah it's framed as like get your robes, go to the woods build a compound. And you can be really hard on you know monks and their tendency to get away but I think for most of history monks were really typically involved with the communities they were in.
Yeah they'd make food from the people around they would you know make baskets and sell them and they would do all kinds of things. They eventually had this like social cohesion in that they owned the land and they allowed people to work the land but they had taken the vow of poverty so they didn't exploit the land at least in the rosiest picture of it. And then that changes when the land moves from many many many monasteries to few lords and then you get this sort of yeah this problem. With all we become monks.
Okay that was my takeaway from all that. So donatism is kind of spreading there's an appeal to it of you know I'm better than people there's a superiority to it and it spreads and spreads and eventually the emperor will pass a law forbidding donatism forbidding people to follow the views of donatism forbidding people to talk about it like donatism becomes a crime. And these are the guys who are like you guys don't count as vicious right? Yes.
So the emperor's basically saying like these dudes are fine. No one talk bad about these dudes. So yeah the Catholic Church is like is acknowledged by the state essentially and it's hard for us to look back there's no separation of church and state in the way that we understand that today. So yeah the government takes sides in this and they take sides because there's a donatist riot and I forget if someone was killed or seriously injured but essentially it was a what's happening in the backdrop of all of Augustine's life is the fall of Rome.
Yeah yeah. It's kind of a deal so like the first sack of Rome is 390 Augustine will live from 354 until 430 so not there are many sacks of Rome I guess but like 390 until the end of Augustine's life is a free. But it is a psychologically destabilizing thing because Rome was supposed to be the sacred city that would never fall and to have Isigoths come in and burn Rome I mean it must have been an absolutely horrifying thought to just the mythos of your culture and nation and sort of tinkering identity. Which is why I think it shouldn't be able to happen.
Which is why I think it happened because everyone's like so no one ever took measures against it. And Augustine will remain strictly calm through the whole thing and we'll talk about that kind of wrap up in a little bit we'll get there. But yeah that kind of the backdrop of all this is Rome is in some significant way crumbling. Rome is losing its influence and so in a show of some type of civility this law comes out against the donatists.
So this group of people inside of Rome are starting riots they are squelched by the state. And that ultimately is what kind of kills the donatist movement. It's not a conquering of the ideas it's the power of the state. Which is kind of I think I have a memory but like here we are.
So that's the second big heresy of Augustine's life. So the one that he will face in his late life is the heresy of Pelagianism. So Pelagianism is the this one's more like a works of righteousness you can work so hard that you end up becoming I think even your original unfallen state again. But it is possible to be a completely perfect unfallen again through your works in this life.
So get cracking kids. Again I'm so uncomfortable you guys talk about me on the line. How can someone be so holy? So yes even more specifically Augustine is somewhat known for building out the theology like expanding whatever the theology of the original sin the latest will come along and say there is no original sin.
So we're not born with any fault. So there's no like problem off the bat. This man never had kids. Never had kids yeah.
I think he's a monk. He's called like the British monk but there's apparently some question of like where he's actually from. He really did never have kids? I think he's a monk.
So Pelagius is a monk because we don't actually know a lot about him himself. It's kind of like we only know about him and the people that have written against him. We know about the views associated with Pelagius because of the council that condemns his views which is like well so I don't actually know what the guy said but this is what he's associated with him. So no original sin.
So people can choose good and evil for themselves and then if we can choose good and evil for ourselves then we must choose good. It's a heavy weight that's put upon us. This is so again with the backdrop of all of this like fighting and like war behind us this is what Peter Brown has to say. In this confusion the harsh firm message of Pelagius came as a deliverance.
He would offer the individual absolute certainty through absolute obedience. We can see this in the letter of a man who had suddenly fallen under the influence of a noble lady the nominating figure of a group of Pelagian enthusiasts in Sicily. When I lived at home I thought that I was being a worshiper of God. Now for the first time I have begun to know how I can be a true Christian.
It is easy to say. I know God I believe in God I fear God I serve God. So there's a certain charm to Pelagianism that it becomes all about me that it's about my actions and my holiness and that's kind of easier than receiving grace. That's eventually what Pelagianism will be condemned of of denying the doctrine of grace.
Yeah and this is I mean yeah this is a similar kind of heresy to a Protestant heresy of sort of like works righteousness or any other yeah that denies the doctrine of grace that it's something that you can which does have like a bit of some psychological comfort to where it's no these things are in your control go out and take it you can do it but ultimately that's not a comforting thing but I can see how someone it sounds like it and part of the argument kind of sounds reasonable I think this might be a quote of Pelagianism this is ultimately where my criticism of like Jordan Peterson and sort of the new the new atheists well he's not a new atheist but there's sort of this this wave of re-looking at these ancient texts as just things to inspire you towards you know cultivating the divinity within becoming sort of a better person if you google Pelagius or Pelagianism the first image that pops up I only know this because I've been preparing the podcast it's a picture of Jordan Peterson on the right and Pelagius on the left no way that's the first picture I forget it's on the Wikipedia page but there's a thing I think an article that is it called the new Pelagianism I thought I figured out myself you did you figured out independently yeah that doesn't count not in this world so just to further expand what Graham's talking about because I think it's important to understand why Pelagianism was popular is that there is a certain logic to it I think this is Pelagius or attributed to him after somebody notices drawing your attention to virtue after the giving of the law after the prophets after the gospels after the apostles I just do not know how God can show indulgence to you if you wish to commit a crime and there's something to that where it's like well yeah if I said laws you expect people to follow those laws it's a wrong view but I can see in that why it was appealing it feels like a good old American like you can do it if you put your mind to it take responsibility for your actions tie your shoelaces get up in the morning and go and chop some wood it's very much a you based thing so this world view again will I mean I say it falls out of favor there are seeds of Pelagianism even still today I guess most people are not reading Pelagius and saying oh yes I agree it's just kind of like I think works righteousness is just a natural tendency because it's easier to understand so in some ways it is I guess we'll fight against Pelagius this world view will eventually be condemned by a council and so it's kind of I guess defeated in that way eventually there is a young dude who I just went too far in my screenshots of all these quotes and got to a picture of a bunch of diapers so that's my life right now is I have a kid no no the question is why you're taking pictures of diapers I was shocked by how one of our entire closet like the top of one of our entire closet is just covered they're just like filled with diapers I mean you can throw them away new ones why would I throw away what oh yes just to be clear I keep all the old ones because I'm just going to miss first time father I can't bear throwing anything out so the name of so Julian is the name of the dude who will write against Agustin Julian of Aclenum Agustin will shoot him down by essentially insulting him it's kind of a bummer to read the back and forth between them Agustin will die before finishing his final letter which is just essentially vitriol against Julian is Julian the young upstart and he's a don'tist no he's not don'tist Peter Brown makes reference to him as being 100 years too early he does have decent theology but he comes at it by saying Agustin is wrong instead of saying I think this thing is true and so Agustin takes that attack poorly and he's a crudgy old man so that happens so toward the end of his life there's a 390s update that I said before that's a big deal 410 there is another big one let's see if I can find my quote on that one but the big deal of the 410 attack is that the Gauls break into the city of Rome they're in the city and they are and this is one of those deeply affecting moments but Agustin's whole thing stays pretty calm he has no deep love for Rome he has no deep love for classical antiquity a funny thing about Agustin is that he never went Greek he is one of the few early church fathers who only knows Latin and so he is not he's not worried about this he sees that this attack has a purpose he will eventually view this attack on Rome in the context of disciplina like what we talked about two episodes ago his reaction to the catastrophes of 410 reveals the elemental bedrock of the ideas that he had crystallized in justifying controlled catastrophe of the coercion of the donutists the human race as a whole needed discipline by frequent unwelcome impingements and so his God is a stern father who will scourge the son he receives and you you spoil the son of the Lord you want to be received but not beaten that is kind of like the Ozymandias Watchmen view of that we need well that's more like an attack on New York to bring the world together yeah you have this giant space monster or something that attacks New York City to unite us but what we need is we need a horrible thing to happen to us to make us better right yeah that's what I'm saying you know you know you read too much when you're sitting watching an action movie and you're like it's like siding with the super film you're like that makes a lot of sense you'd like it outside and talk to your neighbors and stop reading books there's no point we should stop reading books okay so how bad was it really though this is an account from someone at the time the man of God I forget what this is there's a dude who wrote Augustine's biography like right after he died I don't know if this comes from that the man of God saw a whole city sacked country villas razed their owners killed or scattered as refugees the churches deprived of their vicious and clergy and the holy virgins and ascetics dispersed some tortured to death some killed outright others as prisoners reduced to losing their integrity in soul and body to serve an evil and brutal enemy the hymns of God and praises in the churches had come to a stop in many places the church buildings were burnt to the ground the sacrifices of God could no longer be celebrated in their proper place and divine sacraments were either not sought or when sought no one could be found to get them and as Rome I guess as Hippo is essentially falling to these outside attackers as outside force Augustine is not killed by them so he's protected in that degree but he's watching because he's also in Hippo he's not in Rome correct but I'm saying by hinting on the outside of the empire he's like seeing it he's seeing essentially all of the cities that he built up all the churches he built up burned to the ground destroyed his entire life's work is destroyed before him as he is an old man he's been to a dead rest and his works survive his library survives but everything he built his life around is destroyed and he sees I believe the council that condemned Pelagianism came after his death so he died thinking that this heresy was going to continue spreading in the church that this young Julian would malign him and tear down his works and again all the churches he built put to the torch put to the fire and that's the life of Augustine that's how that ends I don't associate him with someone who is despondent and in despair at the end of his life because when you read City of God it's not this the world's going to burn let's all go to heaven these things are interwoven with each other and God's providence is nevertheless I think that's the significance of seeing that final the push of the barbarians into Rome as discipline not as the end of the world not as pure destruction not as any cataclysmic event but as discipline for the children of God in which God is still sovereign and in which all the entire thing what applies to the future in reading this biography Augustine's life is largely defined by these three heresies that he's fighting his entire life it sounds so much harder to be a Christian in that time these heresies started spread throughout the entire church and then died quickly to be picked up then by another heresy spread throughout the church Augustine does not get this sweet time of everything's perfect and everyone believes the right thing he was constantly fighting for true belief did not lose hope I totally agree with that he might become a little cold and withdrawn in seeing how he is responding to Julian at the end of his life but yeah so he got his written after that 410 attack on Rome it's kind of an encouragement to the Christians experiencing all that so yeah there's a lot that is positive in the end of his life but also that's what he had to see attacking hordes of barbarians at his door is what he has at the end of his life that's my boy Augustine it's inspiring for today I mean just not that we have hordes of barbarians but just the just the thought of maintaining steadfastness in the midst of still unsettled intellectual opinions I should end on a hopeful note Augustine does not lose hope even though he's seeing white's red hairs you know what I mean he holds you that God is controlling all these things that the church will be brought through it the church will be sustained through all of the times so there is an optimism there in the face of horrible horrible misery cool well cool thank you Thomas and that has been this has been Classical Stuff You Should Know you can check us out on the web at classicalstuff.net you can send us an email at classicalstuff at veritasacademy.net you can tweet us c-l-s-s-c-a-l-stuff and we always love to get your emails we read every single one even if we can't always get to the things that we'd love to get to sometimes we get sent you know like writings and stuff we can always get to those but we'd love to we still always have the time so send those in and we will definitely read them we'll try to respond to as many as we can and we're grateful to have you guys as listeners all we do is for you guys so anyway this is AJ Graham and Bees signing off so thanks for having me bye Transcription by CastingWords