Chapter 30.—The Church Apostrophised as Teacher of All Wisdom. Doctrine of the
Catholic Church.
62. But why say more on this? For who but sees that men who dare to speak thus against
the Christian Scriptures, though they may not be what they are suspected of being, are at
least no Christians? For to Christians this rule of life is given, that we should love the Lord
Our God with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the mind, and our neighbor as
ourselves; for on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Rightly, then,
Catholic Church, most true mother of Christians, dost thou not only teach that God alone,
to find whom is the happiest life, must be worshipped in perfect purity and chastity, bringing
in no creature as an object of adoration whom we should be required to serve; and from
that incorrupt and inviolable eternity to which alone man should be made subject, in
cleaving to which alone the rational soul escapes misery, excluding everything made,
everything liable to change, everything under the power of time; without confounding what
eternity, and truth, and peace itself keeps separate, or separating what a common majesty
unites: but thou dost also contain love and charity to our neighbor in such a way, that for
all kinds of diseases with which souls are for their sins afflicted, there is found with thee a
medicine of prevailing efficacy.
63. Thy training and teaching are childlike for children, forcible for youths, peaceful
for the aged, taking into account the age of the mind as well as of the body. Thou subjectest
women to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not to gratify passion, but for
the propagation of offspring,135 and for domestic society. Thou givest to men authority
over their wives, not to mock the weaker sex, but in the laws of unfeigned love. Thou dost
subordinate children to their parents in a kind of free bondage, and dost set parents over
their children in a godly rule. Thou bindest brothers to brothers in a religious tie stronger
and closer than that of blood. Without violation of the connections of nature and of choice,
thou bringest within the bond of mutual love every relationship of kindred, and every alliance
of affinity. Thou teachest servants to cleave to their masters from delight in their task rather
than from the necessity of their position. Thou renderest masters forbearing to their servants,
from a regard to God their common Master, and more disposed to advise than to compel.
Thou unitest citizen to citizen, nation to nation, yea, man to man, from the recollection of
their first parents, not only in society but in fraternity. Thou teachest kings to seek the good
of their peoples; thou counsellest peoples to be subject to their kings. Thou teachest carefully
to whom honor is due, to whom regard, to whom reverence, to whom fear, to whom con-
135 [This view of the marriage relation seems to have been almost universal in the ancient Church. Tertullian
and Clement of Alexandria are fond of dwelling upon it. For Augustin’s views more fully stated see his De Bono
Conjugali, 6. See also an interesting excursus on "Continence in Married Life" in Cunningham’s St. Austin, p.
168. sq.—A.H.N.]
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The Church Apostrophised as Teacher of All Wisdom. Doctrine of the Catholic…