“Two kinds of men”

THE sociology of St. Augustine is based on the same psychological principle which pervades his whole thought—the principle of the all-importance of the will and the sovereignty of love. The power of love has the same importance in the spiritual world as the force of gravity possesses in the physical world. As man’s love moves him, so must he become; pondus meum amor meus, eo feror quocumque feror.

And though the desires of men appear to be infinite they are in reality reducible to one. All men desire happiness, all seek after peace; and all their lusts and hates and hopes and fears are directed to that final end. The only essential difference consists in the nature of the peace and happiness desired, for, by the very fact of his spiritual autonomy, man has the power to choose his own good; either to find his peace in subordinating his will to the divine order, or to refer all things to the satisfaction of his own desires and to make himself the centre of his universe— “a darkened image of the divine Omnipotence.” It is here and here only that the root of this dualism is to be found: in the opposition between the “natural man” who lives for himself and desires only a material felicity and a temporal peace, and the spiritual man who lives for God and seeks spiritual beatitude and a peace which is eternal. The two tendencies of will produce two kinds of men and two types of society, and so we finally come to the great generalization on which St. Augustine’s work is founded. “Two loves built two cities—the earthly, which is built up by the love of self to the contempt of God, and the heavenly which is built up by the love of God to the contempt of self.” (City of God, XIV, xxviii)

~Christopher Dawson: Enquiries into Religion and Culture, Ch. XII—St. Augustine and His Age.

__________________________________________________

"The Triumph of St. Augustine" by Claudio Coello.
Oil on canvas, 1664; Museo del Prado, Madrid.