# Where Augustine on self-love



## RamistThomist (Feb 29, 2008)

Besides _City of God_, where else, if at all, does St Augustine write on "self-love," perhaps in contrast to the love of God, perhaps complementing it?


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## ServantofGod (Mar 1, 2008)

He touches on it briefly in his _Confessions_ pgs. 44-48.


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## RamistThomist (Mar 2, 2008)

ServantofGod said:


> He touches on it briefly in his _Confessions_ pgs. 44-48.



Since we probably have different editions, do you know what book/section that is?

Thanks


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## ServantofGod (Mar 2, 2008)

Ivanhoe said:


> ServantofGod said:
> 
> 
> > He touches on it briefly in his _Confessions_ pgs. 44-48.
> ...






Book Two: Trapped in Sinful Self

Chapters 6-8


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Mar 2, 2008)

Augustine, _Contra Faustum Manichaeum_, 21.5:



> Show me, if you can, any animal, however despicable, whose soul hates its own flesh, and does not rather nourish and cherish it, by its vital motion minister to its growth and direct its activity, and exercise a sort of management over a little universe of its own, which it makes subservient to its own preservation. Even in the discipline of his own body by a rational being, who brings his body under, that earthly passion may not hinder his perception of wisdom, there is love for his own flesh, which he then reduces to obedience, which is its proper condition. Indeed, you yourselves, although your heresy teaches you a fleshly abhorrence of the flesh, cannot help loving your own flesh, and caring for its safety and comfort, both by avoiding all injury from blows, and falls, and inclement weather, and by seeking for the means of keeping it in health. Thus the law of nature is too strong for your false doctrine.



Augustine, _De Trinitate_, 14.14.18:



> But there are yet more testimonies in the divine Scriptures concerning the love of God. For in it, those other two [namely, memory and understanding] are understood by consequence, inasmuch as no one loves that which he does not remember, or of which he is wholly ignorant. And hence is that well known and primary commandment, "You shall love the Lord your God." The human mind, then, is so constituted, that at no time does it not remember, and understand, and love itself. But since he who hates any one is anxious to injure him, not undeservedly is the mind of man also said to hate itself when it injures itself. For it wills ill to itself through ignorance, in that it does not think that what it wills is prejudicial to it; but it none the less does will ill to itself, when it wills what would be prejudicial to it. And hence it is written,"He that loves iniquity, hates his own soul." He, therefore, who knows how to love himself, loves God; but he who does not love God, even if he does love himself,—a thing implanted in him by nature,—yet is not unsuitably said to hate himself, inasmuch as he does that which is adverse to himself, and assails himself as though he were his own enemy. And this is no doubt a terrible delusion, that whereas all will to profit themselves, many do nothing but that which is most pernicious to themselves. When the poet was describing a like disease of dumb animals,"May the gods," says he, "grant better things to the pious, and assign that delusion to enemies. They were rending with bare teeth their own torn limbs." Since it was a disease of the body he was speaking of, why has he called it a delusion, unless because, while nature inclines every animal to take all the care it can of itself, that disease was such that those animals rent those very limbs of theirs which they desired should be safe and sound? But when the mind loves God, and by consequence, as has been said remembers and understands Him, then it is rightly enjoined also to love its neighbor as itself; for it has now come to love itself rightly and not perversely when it loves God, by partaking of whom that image not only exists, but is also renewed so as to be no longer old, and restored so as to be no longer defaced, and beatified so as to be no longer unhappy. For although it so love itself, that, supposing the alternative to be proposed to it, it would lose all things which it loves less than itself rather than perish; still, by abandoning Him who is above it, in dependence upon whom alone it could guard its own strength, and enjoy Him as its light, to whom it is sung in the Psalm,"I will guard my strength in dependence upon You," and again, "Draw near to Him, and be enlightened," —it has been made so weak and so dark, that it has fallen away unhappily from itself too, to those things that are not what itself is, and which are beneath itself, by affections that it cannot conquer, and delusions from which it sees no way to return. And hence, when by God's mercy now penitent, it cries out in the Psalms, "My strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes, it also is gone from me."



Augustine, _De Disciplina Christiana_, 1.23.22-1.27.28:



> CHAP. 23.--MAN NEEDS NO INJUNCTION TO LOVE HIMSELF AND HIS OWN BODY.
> 
> 22. Those things which are objects of use are not all, however, to be loved, but those only which are either united with us in a common relation to God, such as a man or an angel, or are so related to us as to need the goodness of God through our instrumentality, such as the body. For assuredly the martyrs did not love the wickedness of their persecutors, although they used it to attain the favor of God. As, then, there are four kinds of things that are to be loved,--first, that which is above us; second, ourselves; third, that which is on a level with us; fourth, that which is beneath us,--no precepts need be given about the second and fourth of these. For, however far a man may fall away from the truth, he still continues to love himself, and to love his own body. The soul which flies away from the unchangeable Light, the Ruler of all things, does so that it may rule over itself and over its own body; and so it cannot but love both itself and its own body.
> 
> ...


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