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QUESTIONS 36-37 71 them to loves God, you no longer desire the praise of men, but something else. However, one who desires to please still needs to have fear: first, that he not be counted by God among the hypocrites because of secret sinning; second, if he desires to please through good deeds, that he not lose what God is .,going to give through chasing after this reward. (4) Once this kind of covetousness is overcome, there is need to watch out for pride. For it is difficult for him who no longer desires to please men and who considers himself to be fully virtuous to think the company of men worthwhile. Consequently fear is still necessary that even that which he seems to have may not be taken from him,9 and that with hands and feet bound he may not be cast into outer darkness.1O For this reason, the fear of God is not only the beginning of the wise man's wisdom, but the completion of it as well. And the [wise man] is he who loves!! God supremely and his neighbor as himself. As for the dangers and difficulties to be feared in this journey and the remedies to be used, that is another question. 37. ON THE FOREVER BORN He who is forever born is superior to one who is forever in the process of birth, because the one who is forever in the process of birth has not yet been born, and neither has he 8 diligendum. 9 Mt 25.29. 10 Mt 22.13. 11 diligit. Although Possidius, St. Augustine's friend and biographer, states in his Indiculus that this Q. is an anti-Arian piece (see Wilmart, p. 173), the content of the Q. is not directly concerned with the basic heretical teaching of Arius. Indeed Arius, an Alexandrian priest from Libya who died in 336, denied the eternal preexistence of the Son with the Father, maintaining instead that the Son is a created being, albeit the first among such beings. Hence talk about the Son being "forever born" or "forever in the process of birth" has no direct connection with his views, since he would deny that either expression is correct. (For more on Arius, see Quasten, Patrology 3.7-13). 72 ST. AUGUSTINE ever been born nor will he ever be born if he is forever in the process of birth. For it is one thing to be in the process of birth, it is another to have been born. Consequently one never becomes a son if one is never born. But the Son, because born, is forever the Son. Therefore he is forever born. 38. ON THE STR UCTURE OF THE SaUD Although nature, learning, and habit differ, they are understood [to exist] in a soul which is one without distinction of nature. Again, native endowment, courage, and tranquillity differ, yet similarly they belong to one and the same substance. The soul, furthermore, is a substance other than God, although made by him. And God himself is that most sacred Trinity, known by name to many but in reality However, this Q. may have an indirect refation to the Arian controversy which would allow us to view it as anti-Arian. For Augustine is arguing here in Q. 37 that the expression semper natus is to be preferred to the expression semper nascitur. The reason for this preference seems to be the following: if the Son were truly he who is "forever in the process of birth," then he would never be a son, whereas if he were truly "forever born," then he is both a son and forever a son. Furthermore Augustine's interest in this terminological dispute might very well have been aroused by criticism of Catholic trinitarian teaching by Arians who had seized on Origen's expression semper nascitur (found in St. Jerome's Latin translation of one ofOrigen's homilies on Jeremias [see In Ieremiam homiliae 9.4 (PG 13.358)1, which Jerome translated in the early 380's) in order to show the alleged incoherence of orthodox belief. Augustine's argument on behalf of the Son being "forever born" would therefore be a response to just such a criticism. St. Augustine is here once again interested in the issue of the vestiges of the divine Trinity in the created order. (See above, Q. 18, "On the Trinity," and n. 1.) In particular, he has an interest in certain "trinitarian" features of...

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