Has a fourth century monk got anything to teach us? This is the question a short 7 minute introduction to Augustine asks us. Augustine lived through troubling times as the vandals closed in on Rome, a time of political and material chaos and upheaval.

Augustine warns us against pride and passion

An age of self-belief in the perfectability of human life was about to be cruelly shattered – and we may have thought things were getting better, but even today there is a case that things are no different than they have always been – pride and passion rule human affairs and power and money are the currencies of the day.

Augustine issues us with a warning – believe too much in the perfectability of human beings, in justice on earth and in the fair distribution of power and you will end up a victim of naivete.

But see yourself in the light of eternal truths contained in the city of God and you will find this perspective strangely liberating.

His views are politically all around us. Isn’t one of the great divides in Politics between those who believe that as circumstances (education, housing and health) improve so human lives will be some better and also more moral – and those who see this as a misunderstanding of our condition, who argue, in contrast, for a strong state offering a strong deterrent to evil?

Augustine’s doctrine of original sin – that we inherit a flawed condition, like a virus, from Adam, is perhaps the most puzzling – but is it wholly irrelevant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBAxUBeVfsk