Augustine and the Politics of Love

“Compared to the other classical political philosophers, Augustine stands apart from not articulating a preferred political order or what the ideal order would be. And that is the point.”

Introduction

The “original insight” of Saint Augustine was his recognition that humans are intense creatures of desire. Humans are, as Augustine said, restless hearts constantly on the move—searching for love, a home, and happiness in life. The cry of the human heart attracts moral compassion from others and the restless heart seeks fusion with something besides the self. Love, Augustine argued, transcends all boundaries and raises the soul to the new heights where it cannot be stripped away, and all earthly honor, glory, and manliness falls short of the immeasurable beauty and glory of God.

Augustine’s “Original Insight”

Augustine’s original insight of the centrality of desire to the human was scandalous in a world where desire was generally viewed as problematic (or has been corrupted into the cesspool of hedonistic nihilism). While the Neoplatonists were closest to emergent Christianity in seeing the erotic as something good and powerful, the Stoics, Aristotelians, and other virtue philosophers emphasized man’s rationality over desire. But in a powerful section in Confessions, when Augustine implores Alypius—his friend and embodiment of Hellenic virtue philosophy—not to attend a gladiator game, the limits of individual virtue preached by the Hellenic virtue philosophers are made manifest.

Alypius informs Augustine he will close his eyes when the moment of death is about to occur; he is confident that his training in virtue and rational imposition over the passions will override the torrent of emotion within the coliseum. Alypius failed. He opens his eyes and is captured by the bloodlust and the uncontrollable screams of the masses around him. Augustine’s criticism of the limits of Hellenic philosophy continued in his critique of Porphyry in the City of God, arguing that Porphyry’s pride and self-confidence in himself—and only himself—led him astray and incapable of recognizing that which he sought: the true wisdom found in the incarnate god-man from Nazareth.