In his early treatise de musica , Augustine arranges everything into a hierarchy: God and other immutable objects above; human souls between; bodies and other carnal things below. It’s a Neoplatonic and hardly Christian notion. But embedded within that Augustine gets at something more sound.
“Delight or enjoyment sets the soul in her ordered place,” he says, citing Matthew 6:11. That step allows two other interesting ones: The reason why (inordinate?) delight in lower things cannot be beautiful is that this delight is by definition disordered, and beauty requires order. And, though the hierarchy seems rather rigid in itself, it is arranged not by power or even by reason but by delight. Right desire is what keeps us in our proper, mediate place.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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