Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

180 JOSEPH TORCHIA
that is, in terms of the soul and the body alike. While he would
always uphold the primacy of the spiritual over the corporeal
life, one of his abiding concerns was the explanation of the unity
of the body and the soul in human beings. 35 In De Civitate Dei
xix.4, however, his chief interest lies in coming to terms with the
reality of misfortune in human life, and not with a focus upon
its goods. In opposition to the Stoics, he vehemently denies that
virtue provides any guarantee against the encroachment of such
negativity.
If they are genuine virtues (and genuine virtues can exist
only in those in whom true godliness is present) they do not profess
to have the power to ensure that the people in whom they
exist will not suffer any miseries; genuine virtues are not such
liars as to advance such claims. 36
So too, Augustine strongly opposes the Stoic dismissal of
physical distresses as neither goods nor evils. For him, such ills
are genuinely evil, at least in existential terms. 37 Unlike the Stoic
materialists (who ground their happiness completely in the present
life), however, the Christian Augustine can face these trials
with a patient endurance that finds support in the hope of eternal
life.
35
One of Augustine’s most explicit statements on this particular issue is
found in the De moribus Ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum
I,4(6). See De moribus Ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum
I,27(52), for Augustine’s classic definition of the human being as “a rational
soul, making use of a mortal and earthly body.” In this definition, we see a
blending of Augustine’s emphasis on the primacy of the soul with a recognition
of the importance of the body in human existence.
36
De Civitate Dei xix,4, 180-184: CC xlviii, 668.
37
This statement must be qualified, since it might be construed as contradicting
Augustine’s interpretation of evil as a lack or deficiency of being
and goodness. While Augustine defined evil in negative terms in a metaphysical
sense, he still recognized the real impact of such negativity in human
life. Accordingly, his denial that evil has an ontological status of its own does
not imply that it has no effect (e.g., in the way that starvation, as the absence
of nourishment, has an effect on the one who is starving).