23. Augustine

GA 87/1902-04-19/p018 ·1902-04-19 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Auch wenn die Mitschrift noch nicht die später übliche Genauigkeit aufweist» (Even though the transcript does not yet have the accuracy usual later). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 87), which calls the cycle the earliest of which a listener's transcript exists. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

Augustine is considered the greatest authoritative and most important Doctor of the Church. Let us now take a look at this great personality of St. Augustine himself. There will hardly have been a second personality in the Christian Church who combined all three characteristics in such a harmonious way. Let us disregard what the Christian Church had lost at that time and consider St. Augustine as a Christian mystic. Clear thinking, sharply based on reason, depth of mind and at the same time the noblest will and character. These were the qualities that were present in rare harmony in this man. We therefore also see that his life is a continuous process of self-initiation, which is sought by most mystics. We see how he is religiously educated by his mother Monika, but how he is not satisfied by the ordinary teachings of the Church; we see how he falls into doubt, how, after finding no satisfaction in the teachings that his mother could give him, he joins the Manichaeans, a sect.

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Cite: GA 87/1902-04-19/p018 · edition English