Elder Packer, finish that thought!

[Kishkumen]

Some things that are true are not very useful.

There are many truths which it is not useful for the common people to know, and, moreover, that there are many false views which it is expedient that people should take to be true.

[Physics Guy]

Is Augustine really borrowing Varro’s words to express Augustine’s own real opinion about expedient truth? Or is he rather quoting Varro to condemn Varro?

[huckelberry]

source?for context.I gather his authoritarian rigidity grew but the quote still is a bit surprising.

[Kishkumen]

source?for context.I gather his authoritarian rigidity grew but the quote still is a bit surprising.

Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect," Address to the Fifth Annual CES Religious Educators' Symposium, 1981

[huckelberry]

source?for context.I gather his authoritarian rigidity grew but the quote still is a bit surprising.

Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect," Address to the Fifth Annual CES Religious Educators' Symposium, 1981

I guess that was lazy of me not to be more specific.I was wondering about that African bishop Augustine. I have seen the Boyd Packer quote a number of times the Augustine quote is new to me.

[Kishkumen]

Is Augustine really borrowing Varro’s words to express Augustine’s own real opinion about expedient truth? Or is he rather quoting Varro to condemn Varro?

Good question! I don't have City of God in front of me. I will look into it. My guess is that he is probably criticizing Varro in some way. He misuses and criticizes Varro quite often.

[Kishkumen]

I guess that was lazy of me not to be more specific.I was wondering about that African bishop Augustine. I have seen the Boyd Packer quote a number of times the Augustine quote is new to me.

Augustine, City of God 4.31.

[Kishkumen]

Is Augustine really borrowing Varro’s words to express Augustine’s own real opinion about expedient truth? Or is he rather quoting Varro to condemn Varro?

Checked into it. So, he notes that Varro says that if he were founding the city anew, he would rename its gods according to the principles of nature. But, since it is not practicable to contradict an ancient tradition, he advocates that people worship the gods by their ancient name. Augustine takes this as an admission that the gods as represented in traditional Roman religion are not true. Worse yet, the deceit whereby people worship false deities brings joy to the host of demons, who possess the deceivers and deceived alike.

[Physics Guy]

I tried to read City of God once (in English) but didn't get very far because it seemed long-winded and rambling. I had never even heard of Varro before (as far as I can remember). I doubt I'll find time to read either of them any time soon, but I might enjoy a blog post or something by someone who had.

It sounds as though Varro had a project of reimagining Roman paganism as a more rational religion, retaining a lot of its forms while reinventing their meaning—or, perhaps, recognising what they had always really meant, whether people consciously knew it or not. Up to a point I'd have a lot of sympathy for that project. Our ancestors surely did have some wisdom that we would do well to heed still, tradition may be a terrible master but it's an excellent servant, and a lot of important ideas can probably be represented flexibly with a wide range of symbolic forms. If this is really what Varro wanted to do, then I guess I'm trying to do a similar sort of re-imagining now with Christianity, at least for myself.

On the other hand, though, if I think about Varro trying to keep paganism alive in an iron lung while Augustine was winning the ratings, I have to reckon that Varro might have been trying to pour too much new wine into bottles too old. You can only update and upgrade for so long, I think, before you reach the edge of the inherent envelope and it's time to migrate to a whole new architecture. I'm not convinced that Christianity is quite at that stage yet, but I'm pretty sure that Roman paganism was.

[huckelberry]

Is Augustine really borrowing Varro’s words to express Augustine’s own real opinion about expedient truth? Or is he rather quoting Varro to condemn Varro?

Checked into it. So, he notes that Varro says that if he were founding the city anew, he would rename its gods according to the principles of nature. But, since it is not practicable to contradict an ancient tradition, he advocates that people worship the gods by their ancient name. Augustine takes this as an admission that the gods as represented in traditional Roman religion are not true. Worse yet, the deceit whereby people worship false deities brings joy to the host of demons, who possess the deceivers and deceived alike.

Kishkumen, thanks for the source and clarification. Augustine is not approving of the quoted view.