Speak to most liberal academia about St. Augustine and you will undoubtedly hear all about his conservative philosophy, particularly in regards to sexuality. You will hear important facts, such as, "His Confessions were the model in the Middle Ages for all autobiographies," and, "His Civitate Dei was considered a valuable source of political theory." This is all true and highly relevant, however, in my academic travels, I have found that the venerable saint is often bashed too much for his supposed "hatred of the body," and this becomes the the central commentary on his work. I would like to argue here primarily that this is a fallacy, and must be taken in the context of his personal life. For this, we must turn to his Confessions.
In Book VII of the Confessions, Augustine explicitly (and eloquently) writes that all things which have substance must be good, for "if they were to be deprived of all good, they would not exist at all." (124) Furthermore, "the evil into whose origins I was inquiring is not a substance, for if it were a substance, it would be good... Hence I saw and it was made clear to me that you made all things good, and there are absolutely no substances which you did not make." Similarly, Augustine also attributes all forms to the God, the "supreme beauty." (10) Clearly, Augustine philosophically did not despise the body. He was simply afraid of what it is capable of doing to the soul when the soul is unable to make the right moral decisions, for he also believed that the soul was in control of the body and acted as the pathway to God, since God was not of the flesh but rather of the spirit.
Augustine's supposed hatred of the body can be connected to his own dilemma as a sexual addict. There is little maneuverability around this prickly fact, but it is significant here. Augustine rails mainly against the corruptibility of sexuality, not necessarily about physical existence - an important distinction. And what is more, all his huffing and puffing over sex must be attributed to his fear of rekindling his own sexuality, which was a constant problem until his conversion in the garden in Milan. He writes that Carthage proved to be a "cauldron of illicit loves," (35) and later he writes of how he "fell with a groan into [his] old habits." "Give me chastity and continence, Lord, but not yet," is another piquant little quote demonstrating his sexual addiction. Does it not make sense then that he would be petrified of what the tantalizing human body can do to a man/woman and his/her senses?
For me, the Confessions represent Augustine's characteristically fantastic grappling with philosophy and theology in a way that is poetically sweet and rhetorically erudite. From the book's beginning, in which St. Augustine questions how he can address a God that is everywhere, is part of him and all else, and which exceeds the spatial limitations of that which it even created (a mind-boggling conundrum that Augustine admits he cannot hope to wrap his mind around), to the analysis of memory and the nature of evil, one can only remain impressed at the profundity of Augustine's exegesis. His argument that evil has no substance immediately reminds me of the Sephiroth in which God is sephiras 1-10, but Daath is the realm of literal nothing, and is therefore considered relatively "evil" by Qabalists. Likewise, his emphasis on the unity of God's being seems more in line with Eastern religions and Qabalah than with Trinity-obsessed Western Christianity.
I suppose this is why I feel so strongly about defending Augustine. The man was brilliant. Part mystic/philosopher/teacher/academic/writer/and theologian, his works reflect a personage of intense intellect, who has undergone tremendous personal trial and guilt, and who deserves an amount of sympathy and praise, even if you still believe he was too conservative (note: Augustine also disliked ascetic practices because of the bragging rights they allowed individuals. He was monastically egalitarian. Yet another reason why Augustine cannot be considered a raving ascetic, unlike Gregory the so-called Great), because let's face it - we all have our addictions and personal road blocks that prevent us from truly listening to our real selves. Very few of us are beatific enough to not have these dilemmas, and in this context, it seems foolish to me to condemn a man for his own self-fear and indomitable will-power.
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