no longer many souls, but one

Today, August 28, is the feast day of Saint Augustine. He died on this day in 430, under siege, in Hippo in present day Algeria.

Some scattered responses to the day.

Augustine was, for many years, the most prominent African read in the European and American academies. Augustine's Confessions were required in the Columbia core curriculum, so as such were familiar to most of my circle in my youth. I remember a symposium organized by my brilliant friend Mark Caponigro on an important anniversary (of birth or death, I don't recall).  Mark disliked a number of the implications of his theology.

I believe Mark's objection had to do with Augustine's construction of human nature as flawed. In his Confessions, Augustine reasons that there is never a time he can remember when he was good; even in our youth, we tend toward disobedience and willfulness.

My mother used to quote his definition of evil as the act of turning away from the good, or, as it is usually formulated, choosing a lesser good over a greater good. In the excellent biography of him by Gary Wills, he quotes the example of friendship.  

Friendship is a good; it echoes the love we share with our maker, and can be a force for making God's love real in our world.  At times, choosing friendship over something greater becomes a poor choice.Then the choice, not the idea, becomes evil.

But here's what I like: in the Confessions, Augustine wrote this beautiful description of friendship, gorgeous in its appreciation of its creative glories: 

Reciprocated love uses such semaphorings -- a smile, a glance, a thousand winning acts -- to fuse separate sparks into a single glow, no longer many souls, but one. 

From Augustine, Confessions, 4, 17, in translation in Garry Wills' excellent  Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives)