Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

I2O Different Interpretations
CHAP. IV.
morality as bad at the foundation, and therefore as a hollow,
false, and only seeming morality itself. Nor does he admit
the existence of a good heathen, though he admits that
the heathen did actions which in Christians would be good
ones. 1 And though he allows that the Divine image in
which man was created did not wholly disappear at the fall,
a remainder (to preserve man s identity in the two states)
of a rational nature is alone admitted. He extends this view
to heathen philosophy. Acknowledging in some systems a
greater likeness to Christian truth than in others, he speaks
of heathen philosophy as a whole with coldness, distrust, and
hostility, warning the Christian it. against He looks on
the truth it promulgates as external to Christian truth and
not mingling with it, and sees a barrier between the two
where the earlier fathers only saw a gradual ascent. 2
But, though no goodness in the heathen is admitted,
he allows different degrees in evil, and that some men in
a state of nature have been less sinful than others, such as
Quis porro eorum qui se Christianos
haberi volant, nisi soli Pelagiani,
aut in ipsis etiam forte tu solus,
justum dixerit infidelem, justum
dixerit impium, justum dixerit diabolo
mancipatum ? Sit licet ille
Fabricius, sit licet Fabius, sit licet
Scipio, sit licet Kegulus, quorum
me nominibus, tanquam in antiqua
Curia Romana loqueremur, putasti
esse terrendum. Contra Julianum,
Pelag. 1. 4. n. 17. ; see, too, Contra
1. 3. n. 14. 23.
Duas, Ep.
Hi qui naturaliter quse legis
sunt faciunt, nondum sunt habendi
in numero eorum quos Christi jxistificat
gratia ; sed in eorum potius
quorum etiam impiorum nee Deum
verum veraciter justeque colentium,
qufedam tamen facta vel legimus
vel novimus vel audimus, quae secundum
justitise regulam non solum
vituperare non possumus, verum
etiam merito recteque laudamus ;
quanquam si discutiantur quo fine
fiant, vix inveniuntur quse justitiae
aebitam laudem defensionemve me-
reantur. De Spirit, et Lit. 1. 1. n.48.
2
Eosque (Platonists, Pythago
reans, &c.) nobis propinquiores
fatemxir. De Civit. Dei, 1. 8. c. 9.
Gavet (Christianus) eos qui secundum
elementa hujus mundi philosophantur,
non secundum Deum,
a quo ipse factus est mundus. Admonetur
enim :
prsecepto Apostolico
"
Cavete ne quis vos decipiat," &c.
(Col. ii. 8.) De Civit. Dei, 1. 8. c. 10.
It is worthy of remark, that
while Clement sees in the rudi
ments of the world which S. Paul
speaks of, the objects of intellectual
apprehension, as distinct from, but
subsidiary to, those of faith (Strom.
1. 6. c. 8.), Augustine sees in them
carnal and corrupt ideas only. The
latter interpretation agrees more
with the text, in which, however,
S. Paul is speaking only of a certain
portion of heathen philosophy, not
the whole of it : but the difference
in the interpretation of the Apostle
shows the different feeling of the
two writers on this subject.