Aug 21– From "The Confessions of St. Augustine" (400) translated by Edward B. Pusey

 Augustine OF HIPPO

Aug 21– From The Confessions of St. Augustine (400) translated by Edward B. Pusey

Summary:

Commentary: I don't know how many more ways I can write, "Old Testament Christianity is incompatible with a Liberal Education!" but here I am.

I can conceivably go along with some kind of generic "it's good to remember you're fallible, there's always something bigger than you," but this is very specifically Christianity is the TRUTH with passages like this:

to that age a worshipper of idols, and a partaker of the sacrilegious rites, to which almost all the nobility of Rome were given up, and had inspired the people with the love of

Anubis, barking Deity, and all

The monster Gods of every kind, who fought

'Gainst Neptune, Venus, and Minerva:

Not much room for flexibility in your higher power there.

Likewise, I guess I can go with some degree of, "well, Christianity is important, so you should know about it," and that's fair too. But it feels like that should mean it's selected occasionally, and maybe with some secondary sources to help put it in context. Instead, it's weekly first person accounts of how awful we all are and Bible verses, while the Quran pops up once in the year. I don't think there's been any Jewish writings (other than the ones shared with the Bible). 

I dunno, at one point I wondered if Eliot purposefully picked bad Christian writings/Bible selections as a sort of back door apostasy, but it feels like he's laying it on too thick for that now.