Augustine's Criticism of Paganism

In Book 1: Early Years of Confessions, Augustine criticizes Pagan logic found in Virgil's Aeneid. He thinks it shameful that in the Aeneid, Virgil becomes so upset over the death of his lover, Dido, when his larger problem is a lack of connection to God. Augustine writes: "What is more pitiable than a wretch without pity for himself who weeps over the death of Dido dying for love of Aeneas, but not weeping over himself dying for his lack of love for you, my God....?" (Augustine, 15). According to Augustine, Dido is a distraction from Aeneas' connection to God, and like anyone but God, unworthy of such emotion.

Aeneas' sorrow is understandable in the world of the Aeneid: humans and Gods alike are subject to emotions, irrational and rational. They love, they cheat, they punish, they fear, etc. The logic Augustine imposes on this part of the Aeneas puts his suffering into perspective and makes the matter seem trivial. But further application of this ideal seems dangerously simplistic: at what point does Augustine deem matters unimportant against our faith in God? Also, if Augustine holds Aeneas to Christian standards, can he hold every man, regardless of time and circumstance, to the same standards?

Augustine starts of his Confessions with such ideals that do not allow room for grey areas. Either one is devoted to God or distracted by 'dust.' He then proceeds to condemn theatre as another distraction for God that poses the additional threat of propagating such distraction.

Augustine so worships God because he is responsible for all good things. For instance, Augustine attributes his own positive qualities to Him: "It was your will to endow us sufficiently with the level (of memory and intelligence) appropriate of our age" (12). Augustine claims earlier, however, that God is not only responsible for good but for everything: "You are God and Lord of all you have created. In you are the constant causes of inconstant things. All mutable things have in you their immutable origins. In you all irrational and temporal things have the everlasting causes of their life" (7). This idea that God is responsible for all coheres with the belief that He has created everything, and that we are not wise enough to understand his ways, even if they seem "irrational," "inconstant," or painful (like Dido's death) to us humans. In the Old Testament, Job learns that God is responsible for his pain, but he must ignore it. Similarly, here Augustine advocates disregard for all human interpretation of occurrences, and instead their attribution to a higher plan. It is then confusing why Augustine continuously extols God's benevolence, thanking him for everything such as being "the innermost recesses of my thinking" (16), when God is at the same time the force of everything negative and "irrational." If we should forgo interpretations of life around us and simply attribute everything to God's will, how do we distinguish between right and wrong - how can we even determine what is sinful and what is not?

Augustine's God-centric ideals seem to have the ability to answer all questions with the response, "God willed it." This approach, though perhaps more simple or satisfying than the confusion of emotions and gods and goddesses and fates in Paganism, threatens basic understanding of the world around us and our own feelings.