Shannon Costello

The first five books argue against those who serve the gods to receive temporal blessing. Augustine now turns his attention to those who seek eternal life.

His main focus in on the theological work of Marcus Varro, who subdivided theology into fabulous, civil, and natural theologies. In this book Augustine concerns himself mainly with the first two. Fabulous theology is seen in the writings of the poets about the gods, performed as plays. Civil theology centers on the religious rites of the people who serve the gods. Varro downplays the significance of the fabulous theology while affirming civil theology.

Augustine argues that the civil theology is not all that different from the fabulous theology, and the fact that Varro treated one right after the other shows that he did not approve of either, though perhaps he feared to state this plainly. During the course of this discussion Augustine makes a strong case against the Roman gods. Gods that cannot always grant temporal blessings can scarcely be trusted for eternal life. In a system where each god has such a small domain (the god of wine, the god of water, etc.), no god possesses the power to grant eternal life.

Augustine is persuasive. However, I cannot adequately assess his work. I lack the historical background, I have never read anything by Varro, and the particular work Augustine deals with no longer exists. I did find a web page written by an individual who was convinced Augustine simply did not understand Varro, though his words were not nearly as convincing.

It does sound like Varro was pretty clear in his rejection of fabulous theology. Augustine is quick to note what thoughtful individuals have written on these subjects. He earlier suggests that Cicero was afraid to state how strongly he disagreed with certain parts of Roman theology. He quotes Seneca as one who for whatever reason did not fear to verbally attack certain beliefs. He has also spent some time showing that some in the upper classes supported religion more because they thought it was good for the people than because they actually believed in it themselves.

Augustine’s strong disgust for the plays comes through clearly in several of these books. For Augustine, if worship of the gods leads one to delight in the immoral acts that were lauded in these works, there must be something wrong. This is solid thinking.

I’ve been wondering about this business of attacking elements of a culture and trying to compare current talk against recent works of fantasy with Augustine’s attacks on Roman theatre. Are such attacks fair?

I suppose because I fear conflict I sometimes object to vigorous attacks. However, if one must attack (and Augustine’s attack certainly arises from a desire to defend), one may as well do it thoroughly. Augustine’s critique is that of someone who has carefully studied his subject. He has thought through his arguments carefully and can state them in writing. He also does not lose sight of where he is heading, as suggested by the title of his work.