{"id":326732,"date":"2014-10-12T03:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T01:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/augustine-of-hippo-a-legacy-and-a-resource\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T14:58:12","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T12:58:12","slug":"augustine-of-hippo-a-legacy-and-a-resource","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/augustine-of-hippo-a-legacy-and-a-resource\/","title":{"rendered":"Augustine of Hippo: a legacy and a resource"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Agostino_d'Ippona_01\"<\/a>Loppiano<\/b><\/a>\u2019s Auditorium was packed last October 3,<\/strong> in an atmosphere of great expectations. On the agenda was an evening dialogue on \u201cAugustine of Hippo: a legacy and a resource,\u201d inserted within the framework of the fifth edition of LoppianoLab, promoted by the Sophia University Institute <\/a>(IUS) and Citta’ Nuova Publishing House,<\/a> and emceed by Marco Tarquinio, Director of Avvenire<\/a>, the\u00a0 main Catholic paper in Italy. Onstage were two \u201ctop advocates of Italian creative thought,\u201d according to New City\u2019s Director, Sophia University, theologian and philosopher, Piero Coda. This was really \u201can extraordinary lesson\u201d offered within a perspective of dialogue and enriched by stimulating questions addressed by the students regarding the actuality of the philosophy of this \u201cgigantic\u201d figure of the Church and of philosophy. Despite the different profiles of the two main guests and the outstanding diversity between their evaluations of \u00a0the works of the Bishop of Hippo, what occurred was not so much a rhetoric duel or even an abstract confrontation detached from daily life, but rather, a remarkable outcome which the art of dialogue is able to produce when knowledge and sharing intertwine in a clear action, open to the light of truth. The philosopher, Galimberti, <\/strong>gave the Bishop of Hippo credit for having introduced into western culture the concept of the individual person, underlining the dualism of body\/soul, as inspired by a religion such as Christianity which assigns a central value to self reflection on one\u2019s own corporeal existence (“And the Word was made flesh”, wrote John in the prologue of his Gospel). Piero Coda, on the other hand, defined Augustine as the person who \u201cdiscovered interiority\u201d <\/strong>in the Christian perspective. Interiority is seen as the inner space where man encounters God, and reaches total fulfillment as a bodily and spiritual being, as conveyed in the expression, \u201cwithdrawing inwards\u2026 so as to transcend also oneself,\u201d which is the starting point of Augustine\u2019s reflections, without however isolating oneself in a blind introspection but in order to perceive also what lies beyond ourselves.\u201d Augustine\u2019s interiority is inhabited by Christ and therefore by the relationship with the other: and this where the discussion faces the concept of \u201crelationships,\u201d since God reveals Jesus Christ, who in turn speaks of God as a father and attests to the universal bond of brotherhood. The<\/strong> third concept <\/strong>which clearly\u00a0 emerged<\/strong> <\/strong>was that of<\/strong> <\/strong>the \u201ccity\u201d given that precisely Augustine wrote \u201cDe Civitate Dei,\u201d a work that deals with the image of a city which embraces people of all beliefs, open to the quest for a common good rooted in that Utmost Good which is God, through the life of the Gospel. Three overviews offer new meanings that can direct society today towards a fuller integration. Dissatisfied with the consolation of certainties, and a relentless seeker of truth, in this sense Augustine also on this occasion, has revealed to be a personage who is able to bridge the centuries and speak to the youth and adults of all latitudes. It is a landmark which guides us in our quest for the roots of the \u201cperson,\u201d of a people, so as to better grasp the present and also work up new proposals for the future. Source: Sophia University Online<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Sophia University Institute, within the framework of the LoppianoLab 2014 programme, a philosopher and theologian held a debate on the modernity of St Augustine\u2019s philosophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}