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ricardienneSo, one does have to wonder how well Augustine kept those vows of chastity when one gets letters like this one from his friend Severus:
Severus, to the venerable and desirable bishop Augustine, whom I would embrace wholly in the bosom of love…
…You know best how greedy I am for you: but still I do not grumble because I cannot do as much as I want, since I do no less than I can. Thanks be to God, sweetest brother, things are good for me when I am close to you, indeed clinging to you as tightly as possible, my one and only. I take in the abundance of your breasts and grow stroner, if I can just grasp and squeeze those breasts, so that whatever they protect and shut up secretly within -- well, if I can just take away the skin they give to the suckling to suck on, then maybe they can pour our their innermost essence to me. I want that essence poured out to me, I say: your innermost essence, your essence fat with heavenly stuffing and flavored with every spiritual sweetness, your essence, pure innermost essence, essence simple but crowned by the twofold bond of double love; your essence, innermost essence drenched in the light of truth and making the truth shine back within. I place myself under what drips from them, what comes back from them, so that my darkness may grow weak in the presence of your light, so we can both walk together in the brightness of day. O truly cunning honeybee of God, building honeycombs illed with divine nectar, dripping with mercy and truth, through which my sould runs with delight, and whatever if finds it lacks, or wherever it feels weak, it struggles to fortify itself with your life-giving food.
O'Donnel, James J. Augustine: A New Biography. New York: HarperCollins Publishing Inc, 2005. 101-102.
But really, I DO think that this is platonic love, and intellectul love. Augustine freaks out so much about his sexuality that I just can't imagine him in any kind of physical relationship as a bishop. But it's pretty funny, anyway. And apparently the actual Latin isn't "essence" but "entrails."
Severus, to the venerable and desirable bishop Augustine, whom I would embrace wholly in the bosom of love…
…You know best how greedy I am for you: but still I do not grumble because I cannot do as much as I want, since I do no less than I can. Thanks be to God, sweetest brother, things are good for me when I am close to you, indeed clinging to you as tightly as possible, my one and only. I take in the abundance of your breasts and grow stroner, if I can just grasp and squeeze those breasts, so that whatever they protect and shut up secretly within -- well, if I can just take away the skin they give to the suckling to suck on, then maybe they can pour our their innermost essence to me. I want that essence poured out to me, I say: your innermost essence, your essence fat with heavenly stuffing and flavored with every spiritual sweetness, your essence, pure innermost essence, essence simple but crowned by the twofold bond of double love; your essence, innermost essence drenched in the light of truth and making the truth shine back within. I place myself under what drips from them, what comes back from them, so that my darkness may grow weak in the presence of your light, so we can both walk together in the brightness of day. O truly cunning honeybee of God, building honeycombs illed with divine nectar, dripping with mercy and truth, through which my sould runs with delight, and whatever if finds it lacks, or wherever it feels weak, it struggles to fortify itself with your life-giving food.
O'Donnel, James J. Augustine: A New Biography. New York: HarperCollins Publishing Inc, 2005. 101-102.
But really, I DO think that this is platonic love, and intellectul love. Augustine freaks out so much about his sexuality that I just can't imagine him in any kind of physical relationship as a bishop. But it's pretty funny, anyway. And apparently the actual Latin isn't "essence" but "entrails."
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Date: 2005-10-14 02:56 am (UTC)But Severus. *snicker snicker*. Poor Snape, to be given a name with such homoerotic overtones.
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Date: 2005-10-14 01:12 pm (UTC)There was an Emperor Septimius Severus, as well. He rebuilt Hadrian's Wall, which is coincidentally quite close to the Village of Snape.