" I listen to all these arguments and give them thought, but I will not engage in wordy disputes, such as can only unsettle the minds of those who are listening. The law is intended for edification, and it is an excellent thing, where it is applied legitimately, because its end is charity, based on purity of heart, on a good conscience and a sincere faith. Christ our Master well knows which are the two commandments on which, he said, all the law and the prophets depend. O my God, Light of my eyes in darkness, since I believe in these commandments and confess them to be true with all my heart, how can it harm me that it should be possible to interpret these words in several ways, all of which may yet be true?"
- Book XII Chapter XVIII
Commentary:
This passage says much about the character of St.Augustine. Not only is he legitimately righteous, but he is also completely humble. Augustine acknowledges the fact that for truths both so divine as to be obscure and indeterminable and so basic as to be commonplace and mundane that there may be alternate interpretations of the scriptures in which these truths are revealed. In an age when so many people cling to Christian dogma with an iron, narrow and scrupulous, grip this message is almost revolutionary. How avante garde this saint wasp; He accepted the possibility of having to share his concept of what is proper or true to the point of being free of the insularity that would cripple him in an effort to be infallible.
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