Did Augustine draw a distinction between Community and Society
Poet W. H. Auden wrote in The Dyer's Hand that St. Augustine drew a distinction between a *society* which exists only for the preservation of itself (such as, say, a Rotary Club) and a community which exists for love of something outside itself (such as, say, a community of music lovers). But Auden's text is not footnoted and I personally have not been able to find any reference to such a distinction in Augustine.
Can anyone verify for me (or deny) that Augustine did indeed make such a distinction? And if so, in which work?
Can anyone verify for me (or deny) that Augustine did indeed make such a distinction? And if so, in which work?
Comments (7)
Your example of "music lovers" doesn't capture the tension between the two cities that is demonstrated by the different kinds of association they rely upon. In Book 19, you will find the following:
"This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained, but recognizing that they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace."
Thanks again for this response. I didn't get a notification of a response and only just now saw it.
I have not read The Dyer's Hand (I plan to, someday) so I don't know the context or exact phrasing of the distinction he is making. I would say that distinguishing "society" from "community" is a modern development where the word "society" went from meaning a club or fellowship in the 16nth century to becoming a form that includes all "people being with people" in a general sense as developed since writings such as Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke analyzed what are the elements of political structures. In that sense of the word, I don't think a distinction of the kind you ask for is expressed directly in Augustine. I would love to be corrected on this score if I am wrong.
In the passage I quoted, Augustine speaks of a "society of pilgrims." Think of it as a club whose members have dual citizenship; They sojourn within the earthly city but also participate in the heavenly one. Now among the citizens of the earthly city, there are institutions that tend toward peace upon different principles than those embraced by the pilgrims. Drawn as a Venn diagram, there is an overlapping region of shared ends. But the means to those ends are at odds with each other. The pilgrims are working on changing why the good thing comes into being.
I don't trust my paraphrase of Auden's paraphrase, so I'd like to identify the original quotation (Auden has no footnotes). Does that ring a bell at all? Any idea where I might find that in Augustine's works?
You are still not using the reply function. I just happened to see this.
Can you quote Auden's paraphrase?
"Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."
- C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Letter 13
"If, when a thief stole money, he lost an eye, everybody would say that it was a punishment of God. Yet; you have lost the eye of your mind and you think that God has not punished you."
- Saint Augustine, In Ps. 47
Lewis is quoting Joseph Butler's The Analogy of Religion, but the passage does seem to have an echo of what Augustine said.