Wednesday, May 25, 2005

This is my first attempt to do badly what others have done well, but since the internet is supposed to be the home of all things amateur why not? The only really interesting thing I'm doing at the moment is to read large chunks of St Augustine. A retiring colleague gave me the complete works in Latin (the 1838 Paris edition for the antiquarian book buffs) so I have the whole lot at my fingertips. The trouble is that the "whole lot" includes some that isn't actually by Augustine; as the old joke goes "Have you read St Augustine's complete works? Well, if you haven't don't worry about it, neither has he!" One really interesting thing I found today is in one of his letters to a Donatist priest living in his diocese. He opens it by pleading "If you could see the sorrow of my heart and my concern for your salvation, you would perhaps take pity on your own soul, doing that which is pleasing to God, by giving heed to the word which is not ours but His, and you would no longer give to Scripture only a place in your memory, while shutting it out from your heart." Can you imgaine a bishop nowadays addressing BASIC or CTA or CFFC in terms like these? Maybe it would do some good if they did, though it might be better aimed at the SSPX.