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22 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2015 Salvino Caruana In defence of personal God B eyond any discussion on Bill 113, which local Ecclesiastical and lay authorities have so admirably and exhaustively affirmed as being extremely and intrinsically deleterious, my primary interest is with regard to some opinions which Mark Camilleri splashed with such an appalling unhistorical ease in his contribution in your newspaper of Sunday, 30 August 2015. Besides a rather distorted analy- sis of the Son of God's Person and mission, in word and deed, I think I need not spill too much ink but sim- ply suggest to Mr Camilleri to read, or re-read, with less haste and preju- dice, Christ's Sermon on the Mount and the very opening words of St Augustine's Confessions. Besides a surprisingly distorted and rather popular and outdated read- ing and interpretation of the early history of Christianity, the author's presentation of the theology and Christology, as well as the person and legacy of the great Doctor and Father of the Church Augustine of Hippo, (354-430) need correction. I am, therefore, suggesting a more irenic and contemporary reading of Augustine's life, mission and oeu- vre, proposing to strip it of a great amount of prejudices heaped upon it throughout the ages, and thus obtain a more objective and correct reading of his life and times, so as we can then look into the constructive reciprocity and fruitful interaction between context and content. One has to keep in mind that al- ready during his lifetime, Augustine received a prominent place within the history of Christianity and in the development of the whole of West- ern thought. After his demise, he was read, re-read and explained, in- terpreted over and over again, to the extent that now, after 16 centuries, it often results extremely difficult to maintain sufficient distance from him, in order to form a picture of him in all historical and intellectual objectivity. There are many portraits of him, as well as many prejudices. In order to obtain the desired true meaning of Augustine for us today, one needs, before all, examine and deconstruct some of these prejudices. Only then shall we be able to assess which of these prejudices are founded; for in- stance, to what extent can one right- ly label as negative certain aspects of Augustine's thought – and, on the other hand, which prejudices seem less correct, and thus Augustine's thoughts may even contain kernels of truth? Augustine lived in a very diverse historical and religious landscape than ours. Christianity was not the only or prevalent religious voice. The fact that believers from his bishopric still participated in pagan festivals before they flocked to his church, was of great concern to him. This reveals that paganism had cer- tainly not been wiped out and done with even long after 313. This was one of the major aspects of Christian life he reacted against in his magiste- rial and monumental work The City of God, composed between 413 and 426. It was also his reaction to the pa- gan accusation that the Fall of Rome in 411, was the result of the reprisal of the gods against the replacement of pagan rites by Christianity, or else that the weakening of the Roman Empire was the cause of the new Christian morality, which advocated the love of one's enemy, a universal brotherhood, humility, meekness, patience, and so on. Secondly, Christianity at the time of Augustine was anything but a monolithic whole. North Africa, the Roman province in which Augus- tine lived, is a case in point: Catho- lic Christianity was at the time he became bishop, merely a minority Church. Donatism (Donatus d. 355), a Christian schism, boasted as hold- ing sway over the greater majority of North African Christians. It was only thanks to the support of the Roman Catholic Emperors, who condemned Donatism primarily because this re- ligious movement jeopardised the political unity and stability of the Ro- man Empire, that the North African Catholic bishops – headed by Au- gustine – managed to prevail. As a result, Catholicism prevailed even in North Africa, even though Donatism remained present under some hidden forms, until the rise of Islam, which expelled all forms of Christianity from North Africa. When Augustine was lying on his deathbed in August 430, the Van- dals were standing before the gates of Hippo, ready to conquer his city. Again, these Vandals were Chris- tians, of Arian belief, though they did not believe Christ to be completely equal to the Father on the divine level. They considered him to be an outstandingly virtuous man instead. This Arian position counted many adherents amongst the so-called 'barbarian' tribes who at the time were invading the Roman Empire, and who were about to change boundaries and peoples within west- ern Christianity. Against this Ar- ian Christological subordinationism, Augustine argued for the absolute equality of all three divine persons in the 15 books On the Trinity com- posed between 399 and 420s. Thirdly, even within Catholic EY's attractiveness survey Malta: Open for business 7 October 2015 The Westin Dragonara Resort, St Julian's mas@mt.ey.com www.ey.com