"I NEED say no more about right conduct. For if God is man's chief good, which you cannot deny, it clearly follows, since to seek the chief good is to live well, that to live well is nothing else but to love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind; and, as arising from this, that this love must be preserved entire and incorrupt, which is the part of temperance; that it give way before no troubles, which is the part of fortitude; that it serve no other, which is the part of justice; that it be watchful in its inspection of things lest craft or fraud steal in, which is the part of prudence. This is the one perfection of man, by which alone he can succeed in attaining to the purity of truth. This both Testaments enjoin in concert; this is commended on both sides alike. Why do you continue to cast reproaches on Scriptures of which you are ignorant? Do you not see the folly of your attack upon books which only those who do not understand them find fault with, and which only those who find fault fail in understanding? For neither can an enemy know them, nor can one who knows them be other than a friend to them."
~St. Augustine of Hippo: Of the Morals of the Catholic Church (A.D. 388), Ch. 25, par. 46.
St. Augustine, by Tiziano Vecellio. Oil on oak panel; ~St. Augustine of Hippo: Of the Morals of the Catholic Church (A.D. 388), Ch. 25, par. 46.
Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.
