Love of Self = Love of Death
Augustine's indignation at the postulations of the ancient Romans is evident through his writing in The City of God. Much of his indignation stems from the Roman idea that human existence has already achieved its culmination, and that this idea radiates a hollowness of life owing to its temporal nature, leading ultimately to death. Ovid's Metamorphoses follows the mythical progression and regression of mankind, bringing history to the ultimate pinnacle of human achievement: man's "metamorphoses" into a god, as man should be per Ovid. Ovid's presuppositions about the earth indicate an attempt to confine the creator to his own creation, while Augustine glories in the eternal presence of God, and the implications given the presence of an eternal Creator God. Augustine, while granting that man is indeed a superior specimen and indeed, creation’s finest, and that many great things are possible for man on the earth. However, the earthly city is temporal, and man’s real hope should lie in the eternal. While Ovid deems human purpose to be realized when man becomes god, Augustine adopts the biblical imperative to thereby intimate that the objective of man should be to become like God, because self-idolatry is death, whereas God is eternal.
Metamorphoses is a history of mankind that finishes with the birth of a god, indicating Ovid's "all's well that ends well" perspective on humanity. The journey to realize the full potential was a long one, according to Ovid, as mankind had to come within two persons of being exterminated because of his impiety. Caesar Augustus is the ultimate achievement of the creation, the god that all the history has been leading to, and therefore all is as it should be. Ovid is essentially saying that mankind has reached its pinnacle with the birth of Caesar Augustus, born of Julius Caesar, who upon being taken to heaven achieved eternal god-ship, "so each is both a father and a god" (Ovid, 33). Ovid is in essence celebrating the time and place where the progression of man has led to a god. Man has become god, and fulfilled his destiny that was his very birthright, as he had been "given a lofty countenance" (Ovid 23).
Lofty countenance or no, Ovid has still placed man under a ceiling of achievement. That ceiling is creation. Since the unknown "god, or kindly Nature" (Ovid, 21), in Ovid’s account, formed the earth, but did not create it, he is not greater than it. If Ovid’s gods are not greater than the creation, then man’s highest achievement is to become a sub-omnipotent god.
The personal implications behind City of God are that the completing of the individual is only fulfilled through God. The God-given imperative to mankind is to become like God. Pointedly different from Ovid's conception of man actually becoming a God, Augustine takes a humbler road. He is simply suggesting that man espouse God's orderly guidelines as given in the bible, which dictate that man strive to emulate Christ rather than following the ways of man: "because man was made upright, that he might not live according to himself, but according to Him that made him" (Augustine, 39). The alternative, illustrated in Romans 1:21-22 is that "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like to corruptible man" (qtd in Augustine, 39).
Since Ovid’s view is that mankind has reached its peak, it is obligatory to note that Augustine’s outlook on mankind is far from bleak in contrast to Ovid’s. Throughout Metamorphoses, Ovid's diction conveys his celebratory attitude. It is not only an achievement for mankind due to the birth of a god in Caesar Augustus, but a celebration in the immortalization of himself through his work: "Yet in my better part shall I be borne immortal far above the stars on high...I shall be read by lips of men" (Ovid, 34). Augustine’s view initially comes off as a downer compared to Ovid’s: "life eternal is the supreme good, death eternal [is] the supreme evil...we must live rightly" (Augustine 44). Upon further evaluation, however, it is necessary to see the world as it actually is according to Augustine: condemned because of sin. Augustine considers the blessing of the beauty of man along with the creation as it is presently, and then wonders: “What then shall these [future] rewards be, if such be the blessings of a condemned state” (Augustine, 51).
The condemned state, of course, is a result of the fall of man, and more directly, man’s desire to become like God, stemming from his love of self. “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Genesis 3:4-5 New American Standard Bible). Eve surely died, and all those who have practiced the love of self in the future have died. If we are our own idols, God kills our gods that had no life or legitimacy in the first place. To love ourselves is to love something that is an empty vessel, and temporal in nature, ultimately leading to death. Therefore, love of self is equal to love of death.
The relevance of Augustine’s writing not only turns Ovid’s writing upside down, but it is in stark contrast to man’s typical believe that he is autonomous. Evaluating these two authors simultaneously has led me to a further understanding of God’s intricate plan. ”You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 3), is not only because God is a jealous God, but also because our own “deification” is ultimate death, both in the temporal world and the eternal world: death in the temporary world because the love of self is not conducive to harmonious living, and death in the eternal world because we have no existence outside of creation without God, who alone is external to creation in light of His being the creator of it. Creation is not greater than the Creator – how could it be? Therefore, in view of God’s greatness, I now have a better understanding of God and am more readily able to take Augustine’s advice: “We do well to love that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously” (40).
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