Book: Prophets and poets. Page 36

What does the future value in the past - faith, loyalty, holiness? No, the spirit of doubt is the main driving force of culture.

Do not wander outward, but enter into yourself.

Augustine expressed the most important idea: people cannot comprehend the way in which the spirit is connected to the body; and yet it is in this union that man is.

Augustine owns one of the first philosophies of history - history as a struggle between the adherents of God, who build the "city of God" on earth and the supporters of Satan, these sons of Cain. When the earthly one built by the second dies, the "eternal world power of God" takes its place. In other words, the meaning of history is in the discovery of the divine. History is unpredictable, its every act is divine.

Oh Lord! Grant me purity of heart and purity of abstinence, but do not hurry!

Reflections on the piety of virgins occupied Augustine no less than the mystery of Genesis. He did not tire of instructing virgins on how to preserve virginity, but he was lenient in relation to the raped: chastity is not lost during violence if the victim did not experience pleasure.

The more questionable the teaching, the more effort is expended to prove its purity.

Heavenly. The way Origen so recklessly resorted to avoid the temptations of the flesh was condemned by the church.

Following Plotinus, Origen inspiredly preached the coming peace (let’s beat swords into plowshares!) And the beauty of nonviolent life: we do not learn the art of war, for through Jesus Christ we became children of the world.

Equality and democracy is when everyone hates everyone ...

The transition from Olympus to the One is somewhat similar to the onset of totalitarianism, arising in the depths of pluralism.

How is a new faith born? Is the host of gods necessarily inferior to the First One? How does a new truth emerge from sacrilege and how does it turn into heresy? What makes up the Doctrine, what wins and what is doomed to destruction?

For me, even the most saints are above all human.

The religious feeling is immense: from complete self-forgetfulness to self-deification.