Politics, Sin, and Redemption

It is a commonplace that American politics in the first decade of the twenty-first century has been sometimes nasty and polarized; equally familiar are the calls for politeness in public discourse. Yet a call for politeness does not by itself draw forth the civility it desires, and one cannot enforce courtesy via police methods. New York Times columnist David Brooks asks about origins of manners:

Civility is a tree with deep roots, and without the roots, it can’t last. So what are those roots? They are failure, sin, weakness and ignorance.

It is not our virtue or nobility which creates courtesy, but rather it is our human nature - flawed and imperfect - which gives rise to civility - or, more precisely, the awareness that because of our human nature, we need and receive grace, mercy, and forgiveness. One who is constantly aware of his flaws, further aware that his flaws are apparent to others, and who finally aware that others are forgiving his flaws and allowing him to participate in society - such a one is very inclined to respect the habits of civil behavior, knowing that civil behavior is what keeps him a part of society, and not an outcast:

Every sensible person involved in politics and public life knows that their work is laced with failure. Every column, every speech, every piece of legislation and every executive decision has its own humiliating shortcomings. There are always arguments you should have made better, implications you should have anticipated, other points of view you should have taken on board.

Because it is our very human nature which causes us to err, it is inevitable that we will do so. Truth is broader and grander than our minds can comprehend, than our words can express, and than our actions can copy, so we will necessarily fall short of it.

Moreover, even if you are at your best, your efforts will still be laced with failure. The truth is fragmentary and it’s impossible to capture all of it. There are competing goods that can never be fully reconciled. The world is more complicated than any human intelligence can comprehend.

Forgiveness often flows to us through, and is announced to us by, our fellow citizens. Forgiveness is a necessary ingredient in the culture of any political society.

But every sensible person in public life also feels redeemed by others. You may write a mediocre column or make a mediocre speech or propose a mediocre piece of legislation, but others argue with you, correct you and introduce elements you never thought of. Each of these efforts may also be flawed, but together, if the system is working well, they move things gradually forward.

The meaning of mercy is that we don't get the censure we deserve: and grace is receiving the accept we don't deserve. This is the moral economy of a society which understands that we cannot expect perfection from humans. Its dynamic is an energizing humility which encourages cooperative and respectful participation even among those who disagree with each other.

As a result, every sensible person feels a sense of gratitude for this process. We all get to live lives better than we deserve because our individual shortcomings are transmuted into communal improvement. We find meaning — and can only find meaning — in the role we play in that larger social enterprise.

Although some people in society have physical disabilities, and other have mental disabilities, we all have a moral disability. It is this recognition about both self and other which yields gracious tolerance as the best and only way to carry out the tasks of a civilization. Any other pattern - including the hypocritical politicized tolerance which is merely intolerance used as a weapon - will lead to a collapse of civilization (although not necessarily of governmental structures: leaving a government without civilization, which is the surest formula for tyranny).

So this is where civility comes from — from a sense of personal modesty and from the ensuing gratitude for the political process. Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation. They are useless without the conversation.

When a society loses, individually and collectively, its humility, it is doomed to nastiness, which will chip away at civilization:

The problem is that over the past 40 years or so we have gone from a culture that reminds people of their own limitations to a culture that encourages people to think highly of themselves. The nation’s founders had a modest but realistic opinion of themselves and of the voters. They erected all sorts of institutional and social restraints to protect Americans from themselves. They admired George Washington because of the way he kept himself in check.

But over the past few decades, people have lost a sense of their own sinfulness. Children are raised amid a chorus of applause. Politics has become less about institutional restraint and more about giving voters whatever they want at that second. Joe DiMaggio didn’t ostentatiously admire his own home runs, but now athletes routinely celebrate themselves as part of the self-branding process.

So, of course, you get narcissists who believe they or members of their party possess direct access to the truth. Of course you get people who prefer monologue to dialogue. Of course you get people who detest politics because it frustrates their ability to get 100 percent of what they want. Of course you get people who gravitate toward the like-minded and loathe their political opponents. They feel no need for balance and correction.

Beneath all the other things that have contributed to polarization and the loss of civility, the most important is this: The roots of modesty have been carved away.

David Brooks points us toward modesty as an essential ingredient for a civil society. Pride goes before a fall: if we are not humble, we will be humiliated when our nation weakens itself by means of its own unkind discourse. Brooks points us toward the words of Reinhold Niebuhr:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. ... Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

Multiculturalism?

The word "multiculturalism" and whatever ideas may be represented by that word have been used for a number of years to represent a path for western societies to embrace diversity. Note that this implies that there are other ways to embrace diversity - better or worse - and that other societies are apparently not expected to embrace diversity. After continuous, and tiresome, talk about multiculturalism, what has it achieved? Here must broaden our perspective and not think only of America, but other nations as well - in France, years of multiculturalism culminated in Islamic youth rioting and burning buildings and cars in various parts of Paris. In England, we see radical Muslims taking center stage and encouraging the youth to embrace violence, not dialogue. In Germany, we see Muslims rejecting any thought of engaging in society, and rather choosing to isolate themselves from the communities in which they live. In Holland, we see the assassination of Theo van Gogh in response to his filming daily life among the Muslims. In Denmark, we see freedom of speech being denied, as Islamic rioters demanded that newspapers refrain from publishing political cartoons which question the beneficence of Islam. At home in the USA, African-American leaders have begun distancing themselves from the multicultural rhetoric, finding instead that there are better ways to embrace diversity and to ensure that African-Americans are truly "at home" in our society.

British Prime Minister David Cameron explained, “We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values. So when a white person holds objectionable views — racism, for example — we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn’t white, we’ve been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them.”

French President Nicholas Sarkozy said, “Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want… a society where communities coexist side by side. If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France. The French national community cannot accept a change in its lifestyle, equality between men and women… freedom for little girls to go to school.”

Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, said, “We are a country which at the beginning of the 1960s actually brought guest workers to Germany now they live with us and we lied to ourselves for a while saying that they won’t stay and that they will disappear one day that is not the reality this multicultural approach saying that we live side by side and that we are happy about each other–this approach has failed. Utterly failed.”

What other approaches can realize the promise and potential of diversity? Immigrants and those who wish to obtain citizenship in a country should be willing to ask themselves why they have these desires, and if they are willing to embrace their new home's society. More than taking advantage of economic opportunities, those who come to the USA must consider the meanings of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. The are the documents and ideas that led to the ending of slavery, and to giving women the right to vote. Those who would reject these basic human rights and civil rights, as understood by these three foundational texts of American political structure - those who would insist rather on Sharia Law and radical Islam - should not expect to be embraced in American society.

Those who insist on hatred and violence should not expect to be affirmed by the American society which rejects hatred and violence as normal methods of cultural interaction.

The end of multiculturalism comes when we cannot have, in our public institutions, an ideology which insists that women are inferior to men, and that violence is an acceptable response to those who do not embrace one's views.

Misinterpreting the Great Depression

When we move from the level of concrete facts to larger interpretive generalizations, much mischief can occur. For this reason, it is important to do careful, and voluminous, work at the fact level before moving up to the meta-level. Historians can make radically mistaken conclusions in their categorical conclusions when they have failed to examine detailed evidence.

The Great Depression, which began in 1929, offers an example. A superficial acquaintance with the economic hardships of the era tempted one historian to write:

The Great Depression tested the fabric of American life as it had been seldom tested before or has since. It caused Americans to doubt their abilities and their values. It caused them to despair. But they weathered the test, and as a Nation, emerged stronger than ever, and we are all better today for their strength and their courage.

The first and last sentences of the above paragraph, despite some curious capitalization and syntax, are either supportable by data, or are emotive and constitute an interpretation of facts, and can thus be allowed. The middle two sentences, however, constitute assertions which would need to be supported by facts, and yet cannot be supported by facts.

In order to support his point, the author would need to produce evidence that (1) Americans doubted their abilities and values, (2) that the Great Depression caused this doubt, (3) that Americans despaired, and that (4) the Great Depression caused this despair. Such evidence cannot be found.

On the contrary, we can find evidence that, in the midst of hardship, despite hardship, and perhaps even because of hardship, Americans relied on their abilities and on their values. Such evidence would include the creativity and ingenuity which empowered people to survive these difficult years - creativity on a physical level, finding ways to make do with less than ideal supplies and materials, and creativity on a societal level, using the social structures of the time to offer material and emotional support to those who needed it. Americans continued to rely on their values, as evidenced by the continuance of societal norms based on cultural and moral tradition, and by continued eagerness with which they embraced the moral codes which directed individual choices and supported familial and social structures.

To be sure, individual exceptions can be found: those who perceived their abilities as insufficient, or those who doubted and even abandoned their values. But it would be necessary to show that these exceptions were measurably greater during the Great Depression than during other eras in history, and to show that such manifestations were caused by the Great Depression and didn't simply coincide with it. Even so, the number of exceptions would appear to be significant, and so the generalization would not stand.

Similarly with the notion that Americans despaired. Again, individual exceptions aside, as a categorical statement, we find insufficient supporting evidence. On the contrary, the resilience of the nation allowed for good humor, artistic creativity, and a form of hope or optimism in which people lived, loved, and worked, enjoying what could be enjoyed in the present, striving toward good moral character, forgiving their own failings and the failings of others, and establishing goals for the future. There was no general societal or national sense of despair.

What counts as evidence for all of the above? Evidence falls into different categories. Demographic and statistical evidence would count, offering information about everything from church attendance to divorce and suicide - with the usual caveat about the misuse and misinterpretation of statistics, per Mark Twain. Individual biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs - including oral histories and anecdotes - count as evidence. General histories of the era count, as do specific histories of a particular event, project, or series of developments: from accounts of agriculture to a chronicle of the development of the motion picture. Artifacts count as evidence: museums filled with machines, clothing, furniture, coins, etc., from the Great Depression.

Only a large amount of concrete specific evidence, and the analysis of this data, will confirm generalizations like those given above.

Arizona Assassin Motivated by Media?

In the tragic shooting which left several people, including a nine-year-old child and federal judge, dead, and which left a member of Congress severely wounded and in the hospital, the question looms: what motivated the assassin? The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, clearly has extreme mental health problems. In search through the remains of his life, several items shed light on his potential motives.

Obsessed with politics and the Internet expression thereof, we find that he read various websites, including the Daily Kos, a notorious hate-filled site which regularly demonizes political leaders who fail to embrace its left-wing views. The Daily Kos wrote that Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the target of Loughner's attack, had a "bull's eye" on her because she has spoken against the liberal elements in her party. Loughner was encouraged by such violent language and began plotting to assassinate her.

The Daily Kos went on to tell its readers that Gabrielle Giffords should be "targeted" in the elections because she was not embracing the left-wing agenda favored by Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos.

Naturally, a reader in good mental health reads the violent rhetoric as merely metaphorical, and does not take words like "target" and "bull's eye" literally. But the hate speech of the Daily Kos has a different effect on those who are already in the grip of mental illness.

Loughner, a self-proclaimed fan of Karl Marx, in his delusional state, took the left-wing rants literally. In a free society, we cannot ask the media to censor itself merely because some insane individual will use words or phrases as a pretext for violence: no, we affirm the freedom of the press. But the freedom of the press also allows us to see the Daily Kos and Markos Moulitsas for what they are: merchants of hate and violence.

What an Assassin Reads

Jared Lee Loughner is, according to early reports, likely the killer of six or seven people in Arizona, including a member of congress and a federal judge. This horrifying shooting rampage took only a couple of minutes, but resulted in traumatizing loss of life.

In such cases, we often ask, what makes this person tick? There is no simple answer, and psychologists will be mulling over the question for years to come. But we have at least one partial answer in the killer's own words. He listed some of his favorite books. He was obsessed by political and social concerns, and read, and re-read, The Communist Manifesto many times.

In addition, he listed Animal Farm and Brave New World as some of his favorites.

To what extent he properly understood what he read, we do not know. But these texts were the raw material out of which he constructed whatever twisted justification he used to explain his murderous intent.

What Really Happened in Africa?

By the year 600, most of Africa had embraced the Christian religion. Although more widespread in the north, Christianity was found south of the Sahara as well. It was not universally adopted, as there were many Jews in Africa, especially on the east coast, and some of the primitive pre-religious belief systems, such as animism, survived in isolated regions.

Historians disagree about what happened to Christianity after the Muslim armies swept across north Africa in the late 600's and early 700's, and dominated southern parts of the continent in the following centuries. Was Christianity totally destroyed? Did the Islamic invasions succeed in removing all traces of the faith? Most Christians met one of three fates: they were executed, they converted to Islam, or they fled. But historians debate whether or not there were some who survived and remained in the conquered territories.

The conventional historical view is that the conquest of North Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate between AD 647–709 effectively ended Christianity in Africa for several centuries. The prevailing view is that the Church at that time lacked the backbone of a monastic tradition and was still suffering from the aftermath of heresies including the so-called Donatist heresy, and this contributed to the earlier obliteration of the Church in the present day Maghreb. Some historians contrast this with the strong monastic tradition in Coptic Egypt, which is credited as a factor that allowed the Coptic Church to remain the majority faith in that country until around after the 14th century.

However, new scholarship has appeared that disputes this. There are reports that the Christian faith persisted in the region from Tripolitania (present-day western Libya) to present-day Morocco for several centuries after the completion of the Islamic conquest by 700. A Christian community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in central Algeria. There is also evidence of religious visits after 850 to tombs of Christians outside of the city of Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts with Christians surviving in Muslim-occupied Spain. In addition, calendar reforms adopted in Europe at this time were disseminated amongst the indigenous Christians of Tunis, which would have not been possible had there been an absence of contact with Christians in other parts of the world.

Local Christian communities came under even more pressure when the Muslim fundamentalist regimes of the Almohads and Almoravids came into power, and the record shows demands made that the local Christians of Tunis to convert to Islam. We still have reports of Christian inhabitants and a bishop in the city of Kairouan around 1150 AD - a significant report, since this city was founded by Muslims around 680 AD as their administrative center after their conquest. A letter in Church archives from the 14th century shows that there were still four bishoprics left in North Africa, admittedly a sharp decline from the over four hundred bishoprics in existence at the time of the Islamic conquest. Berber Christians continued to live in Tunis and Nefzaoua in the south of Tunisia up until the early 15th century, and the first quarter of the 15th century, we even read that the native Christians of Tunis, though much assimilated, extended their church, perhaps because the last Christians from all over the Maghreb had gathered there.

By the early 1800's, some regions of Africa persecuted Christians to the extent that these religious communities were secret churches, meeting in homes or remote locations, using codewords to identify themselves to each other and avoid police detection.

British Mistakes, American Honesty

If the English had only dealt with their America colonies a little more wisely, chances are that places like New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio would still be part of the British Empire. Americans, at first, did not want independence from England: they merely wanted equal representation in parliament, and their rights as Englishmen under the Magna Carta. But instead, writes Jack Rakove (at Stanford University),

it took a peculiarly flawed process of framing bad policies and reacting to the resulting failures to convince the government of George III and Lord North that the best way to maintain the loyalty of their North American subjects was to make war on them.

Pushed toward the radical step of declaring independence, the Founding Fathers were actually, in the words of John M. Taylor (George Washington University),

two sets of leaders - an older group that led the move for independence, including Washington and the Adamses, and a younger group, including Madison and Alexander Hamilton, who came of age with it.

But both groups shared one characteristic, as Rakove sums it up:

For the revolutionaries of 1776, virtue meant the ability of citizens to subordinate private interest to public good.

This same quality can create hope in the future of any nation, including ours - as we begin the twenty-first century burdened with national government debt and outrageously high taxes, we can still find a good future, if we are willing to accept healthy cuts to government spending. We will have to set aside our "private interest" in getting something "for free" from the government - the pain of which is lessened somewhat by remembering that it isn't really "for free" if every American, from richest to poorest, is paying such high taxes - and work toward the "public good": reducing debt, reducing deficit, and reducing taxes.

History Has the Answers!

In the study of famous events and people, we often come across obvious and well-known truths. It doesn't surprise us to learn that Josef Stalin was evil (remember the forty million people he killed?), or that Mother Theresa was noble (anybody want to leave a life of middle-class ease to offer care to sick people in one of the world's poorest slums - all for no pay?). No, none of that is new information.

But only the careful and detailed study of history can give us the deeper understanding of these thumbnail icons: what are the details of Stalin's villainy, in its historical context, which can give us a clearer understanding of Stalin, of ourselves as humans, and of the philosophical definition of "evil"? Like, what exactly did Mother Theresa do, under which circumstances, and how do those details inform us about her, about what it means to be honorable, and about how humans beings can treat each other ethically?

Only thoughtful engagement with history - the analysis of facts, texts, and people - can yield these types of insight. And here we stand on the borderline between history and philosophy: the philosopher can give us the abstract definition of virtue or vice; the historian can give us detailed examples. Both are necessary if we are to broaden our minds.

Harvard's Aram Bakshian gives us an excellent example in his comments about George Washington. Our first president was, Bakshian writes, one of those

dignified, self-disciplined figures whose very virtues makes us uncomfortable about our own inadequate selves.

Here then we have three concepts worth investigating: dignified, self-disciplined, and virtues. These generalizations need specific examples: for this purpose we study biographies of Washington and learn the details of his life. Yale's Ron Chernow gives us further raw material. He writes that Washington was a man of

unerring judgment, sterling character, rectitude, steadfast patriotism, unflagging sense of duty, and civic-mindedness.

Again a list of categorical qualities which need concrete facts to help us envision them. In addition, we begin to see why this task is important: in the early twenty-first century in which we live, exploring the characteristics of George Washington will point us toward those things which we need to survive. We need "steadfast patriotism" instead of militant nationalism. We need "civic-mindedness" instead of a list of imagined grievances from self-proclaimed victims.

As we explore Washington's writings and biography, we can escape from the prison of viewing events from the narrow perspective of the moment of time in which we happen to live, and begin to explore the richer possibilities of viewing events from a timeless perspective, as we see

an eighteenth-century gentleman living by a clear code of honor that emphasized quiet courage, dedication to duty and stern self-control rather than getting in touch with one's inner child,

as Bakshian phrases it. Only from a narrow perspective would we refer

to Washington's "repressing" or "suppressing" his feelings, as if

this behavior on Washington's part was

a pathology rather than a triumph of character over impulse.

The historical perspective approaches the eternal perspective asymptotically - from which can gain amazing insights into human nature and character. We can find models who are, while not quite perfect, worth emulating - and among their admirable traits is the manner in which they considered their own imperfections:

No one judged himself more constantly or more severely than George Washington. From an early age, he strove to make himself a better person. He was a man of powerful passions and raging ambition, but he conquered his passion and he channeled his ambition honorably. Having mastered himself, he mastered the art of command; a man with no formal military training, leading what began as an armed rabble, he created and held together the first regular America army.

Washington's stellar ability to lead emerged from his ability to first lead himself - to be good at commanding others, one must first be good at commanding one's self.

As presiding officer at the constitutional convention and then as first president, he provided gravitas and a clear, uncluttered vision.

So, then, this is our task: let's go get several biographies of George Washington, study them, and find out why he is an excellent model. Then let's imitate him.

The Man Who Avoided American Public Schools

Barack Obama started school at St. Francis Roman Catholic School in Indonesia. He continued his education at Besuki Public School in Indonesia. Moving to Hawaii, he enrolled in Punahou School, a private academy. After graduating, he enrolled first in Occidental College, a private school in California. He transferred to Columbia University on the east coast, and after obtaining his bachelor's degree, he studied at Harvard Law School. He never attended an American public school, and he also chose to keep his daughters out of public schools.

George W. Bush attended public schools, as did Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman - an interesting mixture of liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican.

The only other modern U.S. presidents to entirely avoid public schools were John F. Kennedy and George H.W. Bush.

Augustine's Diverse Experience

Augustine lived a complex life. As a young man, he explored nearly every religion known, and studied the views of various philosophers. He also committed a wide variety of unethical actions. Yet, despite this complexity, his writings are remarkably clear - he has a talent for helping his reader to understand.

Perhaps what makes Augustine so easy to follow is the passion of his own convictions. He believes that Christianity is absolute truth. He takes Christianity very seriously and expects all others too as well. There was no compromise between paganism and Christianity as he felt one was right and the other wrong. He found Christianity a clear moral guide for life. God gave him everything. And yet, he was not always so saintly. He was a thief. He had a concubine and a child out of wedlock. He admits to thoughts that were not always so clean. Augustine came across as so human. In his book, The Confessions, he revealed his many intimate and sometimes impure thoughts. Romans could relate to what he was saying because they could identify with his experiences. He was not Christian his whole life. For a long while, he followed the ways of the Manichees, a group that borrowed some elements from Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. The Manichees believed that there were essentially two worlds, one of light, created by God, and another of evil. The fact that he struggled with inner turmoil about what was the right way, and finding peace when he finds Christianity, was a story that was very persuasive. Phillip Woollcott, a historian, noted, “Augustine had a deep sense of inner unrest to match his times, but in addition, he had the gifts to reify his own inner struggles between good and evil; and in seeking his own creative solution, he gave power and logical cohesion to the youthful church which was largely inspirational at that time.” Romans had turmoil. Would Christianity bring them peace? Augustine certainly felt it could.

Augustine had seen what would finally create peace of mind in a world filled with turmoil. His Roman audience, weary of struggle and meaninglessness, had found all those other religious systems unable to enlighten their minds, and were eager to try Augustine's faith.

The American Way

Given that so much of America's culture comes from Europe (our music, literature, societal values, etc.), and that what little doesn't come from Europe comes from Africa or Asia, is there anything that is truly American? Is there anything here that didn't come from somewhere else?

Professor Allen C. Guelzo, at Gettysburg College, might have an answer:

America has always been the nations of theory, not practice; it would built around ideas (even upon a "proposition") from the moment the first idea-haunted Pilgrim stepped off onto Plymouth Rock.

America, as a nation, started with ideas. In the Old World, in Europe, the events of history were studied, and general principles were gathered by induction. In America, before we got started, we first set down, in thought and in writing, our guiding principles. Our history is a debate about those principles - what they mean and how they ought to be applied - and so we are fundamentally a nation of ideas. This trend goes all the way back to the earliest years of the founding of America. The

Puritans possessed a university-trained leadership and organized themselves found a university-trained clergy, sunk deeply in theology and medieval scholasticism.

These earliest settlers of Massachusetts wove a seamless progression of thought from academic (mathematics, logic, physics, chemistry) to sociopolitical principles organized in their founding documents. Thus Harvard University was founded six years after the Puritans founded the city of Boston; all this activity emerged from a text, the "Mayflower Compact," the central idea of which is:

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honor of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

Not only had

the Puritans founded Harvard College only six years after settling Boston,

but they shortly afterward founded other colleges and universities, and Puritan leader Jonathan Edwards was the president of Princeton University after it was had already been established by an earlier generation of Puritans.

To be sure, the Puritans were far from perfect, and capable of mistakes, despite their intellectual and academic skills. The first attempt at organizing the Plymouth colony nearly destroyed it, so badly was it designed. On the other hand, the faults of the Puritans are sometimes exaggerated: they did not possess the irrational superstitious fear and loathing of alcohol which some historians attribute to them; on the contrary, they brewed beer, made wine, and consumed both regularly.

In any case, they formed the basis for the ideology of the American Revolutionaries: Locke's political treatises would not have fueled the American Revolution had not the Puritans laid the foundation for their reception. Jonathan Edward's collected works (twenty-six volumes) contain ethical treatises which led to an atmosphere in which the morality of England's imperialism was questioned.

Between the day that the Puritans founded Harvard and the day Edwards began preaching stretches an entire century in which New Englanders wrestled mightily with the impact on the intellectual world of Cartesian epistemology and Newtonian science.

The active intellectual life of America was absorbing these latest developments, sometimes faster than the countries in which they took place. But intellectual life in America would encounter a roadblock:

the revolutionary upthrust of Pragmatism at Harvard after the Civil War. Nothing could represent a more dramatic intellectual break with the moral philosophers' pursuit of truth, hard-wired into the natural order of things, than Pragmatism.

The American intellectual tradition will suffer in these decades, as reason and logic are rejected, and random passions are followed. Academic life tormented by

the fundamental premises of Pragmatism - that no truth exists apart from satisfaction, that no nation or principle is worth dying for, and that all human inequities are merely problems awaiting the application of intelligence.

The first premise reduces life to something very like hedonism; the second deny any rational contemplation of values; and the third enslaves human reason in the service of in impossible Romanticist quest for an impossible utopia.

The darkness which Pragmatism cast on the life of the American mind was lifted by two very different, but simultaneous, phenomena: first,

the rise of a neo-orthodox religious critique (especially as championed by Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1950s) and the persistence of the seriousness with which theology was conducted as an intellectual enterprise in America,

and

the emergence, in violent fashion, of the New Left in the 1960s.

These two social movements were not only different from each other, but opposed to each other. Yet together, they revealed the intellectual inadequacy of Pragmatism:

both were a puzzle to Pragmatists, because there was no reason they could see for the dogmatic outlook behind both to even exist.

These two survivals, desperately unalike in all respects except the single conviction that there is an unmistakable pattern written into human experience and history, suggest that the moral philosophers' instinct was truer than Pragmatism ever imagined, and that Americans want more from ideas than the Pragmatic assurance that ideas are merely tools for experimentation.

A nation founded on ideas doesn't mean a nation which finds itself in harmonious unity: on the contrary, the more seriously one takes ideas, the more heatedly one will debate about them.

When Jefferson asserted that "we hold these truths to be self-evident," he assumed that not only were there truths, but that everyone was compelled to acknowledge their existence. Lincoln believed that the American order was founded on a "proposition" - not an experience, and certainly not on race, blood, ethnicity, or any of the other Romantic irrationalities.

We may speak of Lincoln's objection to Pragmatism, even though he slightly antedated it. In his opposition to Pragmatism,

he denounced slavery as ethically wrong, as a violation of natural law and natural theology - and would admit to no compromise with, and no scaling back of, his Emancipation Proclamation.

More than anything, to be American is to have an idea and attempt to transform that idea into reality. It is a search to discover the way things ought to be.

Who's to Blame?

The city of Rome has been attacked, besieged, and sacked many times throughout history. Human nature is such that people want to know whom to blame for their misery: around 410 A.D., Rome was sacked by Germanic tribesmen, whose superiority was such that the city was incapable of defending itself in any meaningful way. Recovering and rebuilding from this defeat, the citizens of the empire began to look for scapegoats.

Attention quickly focused on a minority group: the Christians. This new religion had been illegal for almost three hundred years, and the Roman government had invested much energy into the activities of arresting, torturing, and executing Christians. Hundreds of thousands had been killed. Gradually, however, the new religion gained some measure of tolerance in Roman society, and, in a stunning reversal of government policy, Christianity was legalized around 313 A.D. by the emperor Constantine.

Although now legal, and to some extent tolerated, the new religion was still a minority, and the pagan majority looked with suspicion upon the Christians. Less than a century after the legalization of the new faith, Rome was sacked. Were the Christians to blame? Were the old Roman gods angered by the new faith, and did they stop protecting Rome from Germanic attacks? Or did the Christians, with their pacifism, weaken Rome's military ability to defend itself?

Fueled by such prejudices, many began calling for Christianity to again be illegal, and for the government execution of Christians to resume. A dangerous time indeed!

At this point in time, Augustine wrote one of his most famous books, entitled "The City of God."

"The City of God" was written in reaction to an event where Rome was sacked. Romans questioned a God that could not protect them from foreign invaders. In 410, Alaric and the Goths invaded Rome. They raped women, burned down houses and public buildings, looted wealth from individuals and the city, and killed those who opposed them. In truth, the sack was one of several on Rome, and could have been worse. However, many believed that if Christianity was a true religion, the Christian God would have protected his followers from this tragic fate. Many Romans believed that by turning their backs on the traditional Roman Gods, the Gods were angry with them and taking it out on them. Peter Brown wrote, “In an atmosphere of public disaster, men want to know what to do. At least Augustine could tell them. The traditional pagans had accused the Christians of withdrawing from public affairs and of being potential pacifists. Augustine’s life as a bishop had been a continual refutation of this charge.” Many suggested converting back from Christianity to paganism. Augustine wrote the City of God to make an argument for staying with Christianity. In it, he argued that Goths live in the City of Man, a city of sin, death, selfishness, and ruled by a love of power. However, since this is God’s world, man should try to live in his city. This city is full of truth, virtue, selflessness, was eternal and ruled by a love of God. As long as people live in this world, the Goths cannot really hurt the Christians. For example, by living in the City of God, one does not really need wealth. They will find happiness in other ways. So a Goth taking their possessions does nothing to actually hurt them. In order to receive God’s Grace, a Christian must live in the City of God. And Augustine’s argument is very emotional, looked to the future, appealed to reason and was firm in his devotion to God and Christianity, despite these terrible events. He told people that God does not protect them from all human misery, and quoted the Bible to show lots of examples of people who had problems. He told the demoralized Romans exactly what they needed to hear. This argument appealed to many Romans, not just the scholars. It will be a reason why Christianity will continue to grow, despite such tough times, and gain even more popularity.

Ancient Declines and Modern Urban Crises

Dealing with the harsh realities and desperate personal emotional pains of daily life in inner-city neighborhoods (take your pick: Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, etc.) may seem long-removed from discussions of Babylonian and Roman empires, but there are commonalities. The dynamics which cause once-flourishing cities like New Orleans and St. Louis to crumble are the same dynamics which caused Greece and Persia to lose their political and economic momentum thousands of years ago.

In all of these times and places, ancient and modern, it is to be noted that the misery was not universal. During the decline of the Roman empire, there were families who established a meaningful existence for themselves; when Greece was losing its clout, and becoming a territory of Rome, there were husbands and wives, sons and daughters, who built a happy existence for themselves, and even managed to make contributions to the lives of others in their communities.

The dynamics which cause the fall of a society, then, do not manifest themselves in every individual in that society. On the other hand, every individual in that society will, in some way, be impacted - negatively, harmfully - by those factors which are causing the fall. But those impacts will not always be of a magnitude which causes them to be devastating - hence the happy family in the midst of the decline and fall of the Roman empire. Materially, perhaps, they suffered some losses of land or property; mentally, the indignity of being later ruled by a Germanic king instead of a Roman emperor (the indignity being merely ethnic; the rights of citizenship under both being very similar).

Because many, or perhaps even most, of the factors causing societal decline begin within the family structure, we see how it is possible for those families who are not affected internally by these factors - i.e., those families not afflicted with the problems which cause both personal misery and societal decline - can on the one hand avoid the intramural grief but still be impacted inasmuch as they live within the larger society which is falling because of such problems.

Prentice Tipton, an African-American leader, identifies these ancient woes in the modern context of America's inner-urban culture:

When mothers lead the family because the fathers fail to lead - either by absenting themselves from the home or by taking a passive role - boys are deprived of the most important natural model of manliness. Growing up mainly under the supervision of women, many experience insecurity over their identity as men.

One tendency for boys growing up in such circumstances is to rebel against women who are authorities over them and become socially disruptive - irresponsible in family and work commitments, overly assertive about their manly prowess, especially in sexual areas, or leading lives characterized by violence and crime, alcoholism, and other addictions.

Another tendency for young men is to identify with the adult women who are authorities in their lives and learn to behave or react in ways that are more appropriate to women than to men. To the extent that young males take either option, they do not learn the discipline, the responsibility, and the character involved in being a man. They are left groping for manhood in a variety of socially disruptive ways.

In the later years of the Roman empire, we see the "absent father" - either physically absent, being away at war, or away watching games and sports, or away drinking and committing adultery - or emotionally absent, being preoccupied with material wealth, substance abuse, or sheer lazy indulgence - and having no meaningful interaction with his children.

We see also in falling empire those social problems catalogued as results of such absent fathers.

However, we must be careful not to over-simplify: there were many different factors leading to the fall of the Roman empire, and certainly not all of them had to do with broken family structures. Bad weather, exhausted farmland, the superiority of Germanic tribesmen, imbalance of imports and exports, etc., all belong to the long and hotly disputed list of possible causes for Rome's fall.

We can, however, safely and sadly say that these same problems are inflicting misery on young people today, thousands of years later, wherever and whenever fathers neglect their children.

Shrewd Marketing

In the late 300’s and early 400’s A.D., Augustine was writing to persuade the Roman public that Christianity should be permitted as part of Roman society. Recently legalized in 313 A.D., the new religion was a minority within the empire, and faced discrimination and persecution. Around 410 A.D., when the city of Rome was attacked and heavily damaged by the Goths, many Romans believed that their city had been sacked because the old Roman gods were angry that a few Christians had been allowed to live there. Augustine’s message to the public was twofold: first, that Christianity was not responsible for the Gothic attack on Rome, and secondly, that Christianity was a reasonable system of beliefs. To support the latter claim, Augustine made use of the philosophers and writers who were respected by the educated class in Rome. He pointed out some similarities between Plato’s thought and the ideas in the New Testament.

Augustine was also able to find connections between Cicero, stoicism and Christianity. Cicero was a lawyer and politician in the tumultuous first century B.C. He was able to distinguish himself through eloquent writing and boldly argued and articulated speeches. Augustine wrote in the Confessions, “Following the usual curriculum I had already come across a book by a certain Cicero, whose language (but not his heart) almost everyone admires.” Finding connections between Cicero’s ideas and Christianity was critical in appealing to the Roman scholars because Cicero had their respect. The book of Cicero he found is called Hortentius, which is unfortunately lost to the modern world except for various quotations Augustine used in his writings. “The book changed my feelings. It altered my prayers, Lord, to be toward you yourself. It gave me different values and priorities. Suddenly every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart.” Augustine has a very emotional reaction to this book. It changed his perspectives completely. It gave Augustine a love of wisdom. Cicero wrote about ideas that expressed the Greek philosophy of stoicism. Stoics believe in Natural Law, universality of mankind, and a strict adherence a virtuous lifestyle. It’s not hard to see how Augustine could reconcile Stoicism and Christianity. Stoicism had gained quite a following in the Roman Empire, and linking together Christianity and stoicism appealed to a wider group of people.

Augustine had to use these sources – Plato, Stoicism, and Cicero – selectively, because, while he could point to some similarities and thereby persuade the Romans to allow Christianity, he also knew that there some points of difference: Plato’s view of women, for example, did not give them the level of dignity which they attained in the New Testament; Stoicism, despite its moral outlook, was a belief system which was comfortable with suicide and with the mass executions of Christians which the Romans had carried out prior to 313 A.D.; and Cicero, while in some ways an inspirational philosopher, was also a sleazy lawyer connected with various shady dealings, and who also glorified the political and social structure of the old Roman Republic to an extent which was neither plausible to the critical thinker nor acceptable to anyone who wished to avoid deifying the state. Augustine knew that neo-Platonism, Stoicism, and Cicero had failed to offer meaningful correctives to the problems of Roman society, but he still found it useful to refer to them in his explanations of Christianity, because such references were crucial to capturing the interest and favor of the Roman readership.

Nazi Euthanasia

In October of 1939 amid the turmoil of the outbreak of war Hitler ordered widespread “mercy killing” of the sick and disabled.

Code named “Aktion T4,” the Nazi euthanasia program to eliminate “life unworthy of life” at first focused on newborns and very young children. Midwives and doctors were required to register children up to age three who showed symptoms of mental retardation, physical deformity, or other symptoms included on a questionnaire from the Reich Health Ministry.

A decision on whether to allow the child to live was then made by three medical experts solely on the basis of the questionnaire, without any examination and without reading any medical records.

Each expert placed a + mark in red pencil or - mark in blue pencil under the term “treatment” on a special form. A red plus mark meant a decision to kill the child. A blue minus sign meant a decision against killing. Three plus symbols resulted in a euthanasia warrant being issued and the transfer of the child to a ‘Children’s Specialty Department’ for death by injection or gradual starvation.

The decision had to be unanimous. In cases where the decision was not unanimous the child was kept under observation and another attempt would be made to get a unanimous decision.

The Nazi euthanasia program quickly expanded to include older disabled children and adults. Hitler's decree of October, 1939, typed on his personal stationary, enlarged “the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.”

Questionnaires were then distributed to mental institutions, hospitals and other institutions caring for the chronically ill.

Patients had to be reported if they suffered from schizophrenia, epilepsy, senile disorders, therapy resistant paralysis and syphilitic diseases, retardation, encephalitis, Huntington’s chorea and other neurological conditions, also those who had been continuously in institutions for at least five years, or were criminally insane, or did not posses German citizenship or were not of German or related blood, including Jews, Negroes, and Gypsies.

A total of six killing centers were established including the well known psychiatric clinic at Hadamar. The euthanasia program was eventually headed by an SS man whose last name was Wirth, a notorious brute with the nickname ‘the savage.’

At Brandenburg, a former prison was converted into a killing center where the first Nazi experimental gassings took place. The gas chambers were disguised as shower rooms, but were actually hermetically sealed chambers connected by pipes to cylinders of carbon monoxide. Patients were generally drugged before being led naked into the gas chamber. Each killing center included a crematorium where the bodies were taken for disposal. Families were then falsely told the cause of death was medical such as heart failure or pneumonia.

But the huge increase in the death rate for the disabled combined with the very obvious plumes of odorous smoke over the killing centers aroused suspicion and fear. At Hadamar, for example, local children even taunted arriving busloads of patients by saying “here comes some more to be gassed.’

On August 3, 1941, a Bishop, Clemens von Galen, delivered a sermon in Münster Cathedral attacking the Nazi euthanasia program calling it “plain murder.” The sermon sent a shockwave through the Nazi leadership by publicly condemning the program and urged German Christians to “withdraw ourselves and our faithful from their (Nazi) influence so that we may not be contaminated by their thinking and their ungodly behavior.”

As a result, on August 23, Hitler suspended Aktion T4, which had accounted for nearly a hundred thousand deaths by this time.

The Nazis retaliated against the Bishop by killing three parish priests who had distributed his sermon, but left the Bishop unharmed to avoid making him into a martyr.

However, the Nazi euthanasia program quietly continued, but without the widespread gassings. Drugs and starvation were used instead and doctors were encouraged to decide in favor of death whenever euthanasia was being considered.

The use of gas chambers at the euthanasia killing centers ultimately served as training centers for the SS. They used the technical knowledge and experience gained during the euthanasia program to construct huge killing centers at Auschwitz, Treblinka and other concentration camps in an attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. SS personnel from the euthanasia killing centers, notably Wirth, Franz Reichleitner and Franz Stangl later commanded extermination camps.

Plato's Appeal

Plato's philosophy contains a number of features which made it attractive to early Christians; many, but not all, of them were neo-Platonists to various degrees. Certainly, Plato's concept of an immortal soul played well to them.

Dualism also appealed to the Christians. There are several different dualisms, or different axes of dualism, in Plato's thought: mind/body, material/idea, physical/metaphysical, and in the neo-Platonic schools, good/evil, man/god. Augustine played off of these concepts through the semi-metaphorical talk of two cities.

Plato also had another theory that Augustine argued in his famous work, The City of God. Here he argued that the two worlds exist concurrently. The city of earth is corrupt, full of self-love and sinners. But the city of God, which exists on earth, is a city of good, god-fearing people who love humanity. The link between Plato and Augustine is unmistakable. “Yet there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, according to the language of our Scriptures. The one consists of those who wish to live after the flesh, the other of those who wish to live after the spirit; and when they several achieve what they wish they live in peace, each after their kind,” writes Augustine, espousing a Christian dualistic theory of humanity, which was very similar to Plato’s view. Augustine was the one who made the connection clear to the Platonists. “As a Christian theologian, he puts to grateful use the Platonic concepts of ‘spiritual substance,” of evil as the privation of the good, of intuition as the basic mode of knowledge and the duality of body-soul,” writes Albert Outler. Because Augustine is able to make such a close tie between Platonic philosophy and Christianity, he made Christianity more appealing, especially to the Platonist.

Coming to America

The earliest German immigration to American came in the form of individual Germans among the Dutch who, in 1620, settled New Amsterdam - which later became New York. They were predominately from peasant backgrounds or were people who had worked in cottage industries. Some were also soldiers of the Dutch West Indies Company, carrying on an already long tradition of German mercenary soldiers. Later, in the seventeenth century, William Penn made a tour of German in 1677 to recruit immigrants for his colony of Pennsylvania. Religious toleration in Pennsylvania was a special attraction to those Germans whose religion differed from that of their respective established churches in their regions of Germany. Pennsylvania thus attracted the first sizable German communities in America, largely from the Rhineland region.

A Small-Town Boy in the Big City

Augustine's amazing intelligence and education allowed him to produce books which are still standards in philosophy and logic. Although he wrote them over a thousand years ago, some of his personal experiences seem very modern. Going off to the university is still a major turning-point in a person's life.

Augustine’s education also gave him a more cosmopolitan viewpoint. At fifteen, he was sent to Carthage, a big city with theaters, universities, intellectuals, and, in his opinion, great temptations. He wrote, in Confessions, his dynamic autobiography, “I came to Carthage and all around me hissed a cauldron of illicit loves.” Augustine even got caught up in a more worldly and sinful lifestyle. He was in close contact with a lot of different groups of people and many different religious groups. This experience would prove invaluable in appealing to different groups and understanding their viewpoints.

Technically, Carthage had schools, not universities, because the first universities wouldn't appear for another five hundred years. But Augustine's experience was one which reflects the universal human nature.

Arabic Philosophy

When we study Scholastic philosophers of the Middle Ages, and learn that they laid the rational foundations for modern physics and chemistry, we learn about intellectual giants like Abelard and Ockham, and how they pushed the limits of logic to include innovative forms of argumentation.

Philosophers like Abelard and Aquinas did not work in isolation. They were in dialogue with Arabic philosophers. Despite political and religious tensions between the Europeans and empires of the Near East, the philosophers corresponded. Neither side had any difficulty in simultaneously calling the other "godless heretical infidels" and yet respecting the intellectual and academic accomplishments of the other.

The beginnings of Arabic philosophy came with the translation of large numbers of philosophical works into Arabic from Greek. The works were primarily those of Aristotle, Plato, and the later Neo-Platonists. Curiously, many of these works were translated by Christian Arabs, at the end of era of Arabic Christianity and the beginning of the era of the hegemony of Islam in Arabic culture. We need to remember that, prior to the Islamic invasions, Christianity was the most popular religion in the Arabic regions, as well as in non-Arab territories like Persia. Arab philosophers were confronted with the divergent lines of thought represented by Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists. Presented with these two different perspectives, the early Arabic philosophers had to choose one, or the other, or try to harmonize both.

One of the earliest Arabic philosophers was Al-Kindi (who died around the year 870 A.D.). Al-Kindi, like the Islamic philosophers who followed him, sought to harmonize a rational philosophical system with the teachings Islam. His teachers, and the authors of many of the books he studied, were Christians. He wanted the tradition of philosophy to continue under Islamic rule.

He was followed by Al-Farabi, who based his thought primarily on Plato's Laws and Republic. Al-Farabi, who was either a Turk or a Persian, and therefore not an Arab, represents a quite developed system of philosophical terminology; he died around 950 A.D. His teachers were Christians, and therefore he was exposed to Greek philosophy, which was less tolerated in purely Islamic circles. He carefully distinguished between philosophy and theology, and placed philosophy in the service of theology. He introduced formalized logic into the Arabic world, and began producing arguments for the existence of God, which were strikingly similar to Thomistic arguments for the same. Like Aquinas (who was familiar with Al-Farabi's works) and his followers, so Al-Farabi and his followers were often mis-understood in their arguments for the existence of God. Neither the Islamic nor the Thomist philosophers were trying to prove the existence of God, even though they wrote "proofs". Much rather, because both were surrounded by a community of their respective faiths, each group took the existence of God as something which did not need to be proved. Why, then, write such proofs? The "proof for the existence of God" was a literary form for philosophical discourse; by writing such a proof, a philosopher could exhibit his skill, demonstrate the particular kind or argumentation which he thought to be most powerful, and en passant make certain assertions about other issues in philosophy. Thus, many Aristotelian arguments for God (Islamic or Thomist) were written as a way to make assertions about physics and metaphysics. Scholars debate whether he grew up in Turkey or in Persia, but in either case, Al-Farabi's native land still offered him more intellectual freedom at the time, because it was on the fringe of the Islamic region, and not yet as thoroughly dominated by Muslim control.

The high points of Arabic thought began with Avicenna (Abu Ali ibn-Sina), who based himself upon Aristotle, but strove to either further refine or change Aristotle's system in order to harmonize it with some of the teachings of Islam. It is an interpretive question whether Avicenna's work is a natural development of Aristotle's system, and thus represents an internal and organic application of the system to itself, or whether Avicenna subjected the Aristotelian system to the external pressures of Islamic orthodoxy and so introduced additions to the system which were not inherent to the organic whole of the system itself. In either case, Avicenna replaced Aristotle's two-fold basis (matter and form) for metaphysics with a three-fold basis (matter, form, and being). According to Avicenna, God (qua necessary Being) provides the underlying support for the ongoing process of these three constituents; hence, the existence of the world depends on God. Avicenna was deeply influential in the work of Aquinas; Avicenna's impact is evident in the Thomistic doctrine of God as the underlying support for the existence of the world. Avicenna also indicated that the fundamental metaphysical distinction between necessity and contingency was parallel to, and based upon, the distinction between existence and essence. Avicenna's distinction of existence and essence again shows both how he studied Aristotle and how he modified Aristotle's system - cf. Aristotle's distinction between accident and essence. Avicenna has had an influence on the development of modern formal logic, which works with such modalities. Quite notable is his assertion that the mind necessarily apprehends the idea of being, although it is normally acquired through experience; but even without experience, he says, the mind would have this idea: here he is quite ahead of his time, anticipating themes which would occupy modern philosophers. Avicenna distinguished between two kinds of necessity: contingent beings were not necessary of themselves, but necessary as the result of a determining cause; truly necessary beings were necessary of themselves. Avicenna lived from 980 until 1037.

This most productive period of Islamic thought continued with Averroes (ibn-Rushd), who lived from 1126 until 1198. Averroes represented an attempt to return to a purer form of Aristotelianism, in contrast to the modified Aristotelianism of Avicenna. Averroes also marked the beginning of the decline of Arabic philosophy, as Muslim control of cultural life became complete.

The Islamic philosophers of the Middle Ages bore a strong resemblance to their Christian European counterparts, which whom they exchanged information. The era of Arab philosophy came to an end as Islam made further inroads and eventually eliminated the tradition of philosophical reflection.

An Educated Spokesman

Augustine had a classical education that made him an acceptable ambassador of Christianity to the intellectual classes. His parents had to sacrifice to get their son, who was obviously gifted, into schools that studied in a classical manner. His education was very traditional, and tedious in the area of liberal arts. His education emphasized Latin and the philosophies of the classical Latin scholars. He read the writings of Virgil many times and cried when he read about Dido’s fate as she lamented for Aeneas. He read Cicero, not only for his impressive ideas, but to better grasp the Latin language and his use of rhetoric. Peter Brown, an author of a biography on Augustine, said, “The great advantage of the education Augustine received was that, within its narrow limits, it was perfectionist. The aim was to measure up to the timeless perfection of an ancient classic.” Augustine was taught to believe that the classical scholars never made mistakes. Every word had significance. He applied this careful reading and studying to Christianity as well. His education would have also involved the study of rhetoric. He was very good at not only speaking, but at convincing others that his viewpoint was right. It taught him to dynamically express himself, which was a great gift, and helped him to appeal to many kinds of people. Augustine, although proficient in Latin, struggled when it came to the Greek language. Eventually, he started to read Greek philosophers’ works, but mostly in a Latin translation. However, his knowledge of both Latin and Greek classical ideas was useful in his writings, teaching, and dialogues with people in Rome. Thus, Augustine was able to present Christianity in a way that appealed to the classical scholars of his day.