Resultados8 letters/passages
augustine_hippo · c. 416 · score 0.02
… why, reluctantly and after much internal struggle, I came to support the use of imperial authority to break the social power of the Donatist leadership — not to force belief (which is impossible) but to create conditions in which people could hear the truth without fear. The scriptural basis for this position is the pa …
augustine_hippo · c. 416 · score 0.02
… ica, it lays out the historical, theological, and practical arguments for using imperial force against the Donatists. The letter is simultaneously one of Augustine's most influential and most controversial works. It was cited by medieval inquisitors and by early modern persecutors of heresy. It was also cited by August …
augustine_hippo · c. 422 · score 0.02
Farewell, dear friend. I pray for you daily. [Context: Count Boniface was the Roman military governor of Africa and one of the most powerful men in the Western Empire. Augustine had known him for years and had once hoped he would enter the religious life. Instead, Boniface became entangled in the deadly politics of the …
augustine_hippo · c. 422 · score 0.02
Augustine to Boniface, greetings. I hear disturbing reports about you, my friend, and I am compelled to write. When I first knew you, you were a man on fire for Christ. You served as a military commander with honor, defended the innocent, and lived with a discipline that put many monks to shame. You even considered lea …
augustine_hippo · c. 417 · score 0.02
Augustine to Boniface, greetings. You have written to me about the military life, and whether a soldier can be a Christian — whether the violence inherent in your profession is compatible with the faith you profess. I take this question seriously, because you ask it seriously. The short answer is yes: a soldier can be …
augustine_hippo · c. 394 · score 0.02
The most notorious crime of your savagery, and your unheard-of cruelty, shakes the earth and strikes heaven, so that in your streets and shrines blood gleams and murder resounds. Among you the Roman laws lie buried, the dread of righteous courts is trampled underfoot. Among you there is certainly no reverence or fear f …
augustine_hippo · c. 402 · score 0.01
Augustine to Boniface, my colleague in the episcopal office, greetings in the Lord. You have raised a profound and delicate question: what happens in infant baptism? The infant cannot profess faith. The infant cannot repent. The infant cannot consent to what is being done. And yet we baptize infants — and the entire Ch …
augustine_hippo · c. 402 · score 0.01
Some object: if the infant has no sin of its own, why does it need baptism? Because the infant, though personally innocent, is born into a fallen race. Original sin is not a personal crime but a condition — like being born into a besieged city. The infant did nothing to start the siege, but the siege is real, and rescu …