Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 89 as they take a detour from the Aeneid to explore the life and education of Augustine of Hippo. Discover how the Latin language, the poetry of Vergil, and the grueling Roman education system shaped one of history’s greatest theologians. Plus, the dark side of catharsis, the theology of earrings, and the horror of “mouse bacon.”
Introduction: The Balmy Bunker and The Johnny Cash Wardrobe
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 89 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting from the depths of Vomitorium South, your hosts, Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe, are surviving a spectacularly muggy, humid, and “balmy” Michigan evening. Stepping outside feels like walking into a thick curtain of moisture, but thankfully, the subterranean bunker remains perfectly cool and comfortable.
In a moment of pure, unplanned Jungian synchronicity, the hosts realize they have dressed exactly alike. Sporting all-black attire to match the black table and black chairs, they declare themselves the “Johnny Cash of podcasts”.
Before diving into the heavy lifting of late antiquity, the hosts share a delightful listener shout-out from Jackie Huttinga-Sytsma in Houston, Texas. Jackie, a longtime friend of Dr. Noe’s from their college days, wrote in to praise Dave’s mentorship of her daughter (a current classics major) and to defend the podcast’s signature “witty banter”. This provides a much-needed salve for a recent, slightly stinging four-star review that labeled the hosts’ banter “tiresome and tedious”.
Jackie has been teaching at Providence Classical School for seven years. She notes that her 6th-grade students loved the recent episode on Pythagoras, though as native Texans who profoundly love their barbecued meats, they likely think the ancient philosopher’s strict vegetarianism was absolutely nuts.
A Detour from Carthage: Enter Augustine of Hippo
For the past several episodes, the podcast has been tracking Aeneas’s grueling journey through the first three books of Vergil’s Aeneid. The audience is highly anticipating the fiery romance of Book IV (which Dr. Noe affectionately dubs the “90210 of the Aeneid“). However, to build suspense, the hosts are taking a deliberate detour.
This week, they are exploring how Vergil’s supreme masterpiece impacted one of the most important intellectual figures in Western history: Augustine of Hippo. To understand Augustine’s reception of Vergil is to understand how the entire late Roman world processed the classics.
The Mercenary Education: The Roman Quadriga
To set the historical stage, Dr. Noe reads a substantial quote from Peter Brown’s monumental 1967 biography, Augustine of Hippo.
Born in 354 AD in the North African town of Tagaste, Augustine was a Berber whose middle-class father, Patrick, poured all of his money into his son’s education, hoping to secure him a lucrative career as a lawyer or rhetorician.
Brown reveals that the Roman educational system of the 4th century was incredibly narrow and fiercely mercenary. It had not changed its primary aim in 800 years: to teach young men the art of words so they could absolutely eviscerate their opponents in court and persuade the masses.
Students did not read a wide variety of subjects like science or history; they focused exclusively on a literary Quadriga (a four-horse chariot) of authors: Sallust, Cicero, Terence, and above all, Vergil.
The instruction was grueling. Teachers would dissect these texts word by word, treating Vergil as an infallible god of literature who had never written a single flawed line. As Dr. Winkle points out, the irony is profound: these young men were mining the exquisite, beautiful art of the Latin language for cold, hard, practical career advancement.
The Torment of Greek and the Tragedy of Dido
In his Confessions (written around 395-396 AD), Augustine reflects bitterly on this childhood education. While he was a native speaker of the Latin language and loved its literature, he absolutely loathed his elementary grammar lessons, particularly his forced instruction in Greek.
Dr. Winkle relates to this perfectly, noting his own teenage rebellion against assigned reading; he refused to read The Catcher in the Rye in 10th grade simply because he was forced to, only to discover it later in grad school and love it. As George Orwell later noted, teaching the classical languages historically required a terrifying amount of physical force and beatings, something Augustine despised.
However, Augustine’s most famous critique of his Vergilian education deals with his emotional response to the text. Reading from the Thomas Williams translation (published by Hackett), Dr. Noe shares Augustine’s famous lament:
“How much better than those later lessons in which I was forced to memorize the wanderings of Aeneas… and to weep over dead Dido, who killed herself for love, when all the while I had no tear to shed for myself, wretch that I was, dying in the midst of these things…”
The Dark Side of Catharsis and Lightning McQueen
Why is Augustine so upset that he cried for Dido? Dr. Noe explains that this is Augustine recognizing the dark side of Aristotelian catharsis.
Aristotle argued that theater and literature are good because they allow us to experience extreme emotions (like pity and fear) vicariously, purging them from our systems. Augustine, however, realizes that he was wasting his finite emotional capacity on a completely fictional Carthaginian queen while remaining totally cold and blind to the actual, spiritual death happening in his own soul.
Dr. Winkle provides a hilariously poignant modern equivalent. He admits that when his own children were born, he did not weep in the delivery room. However, if he watches the ending of the Pixar movie Cars—when Lightning McQueen selflessly gives up the Piston Cup to help a crashing friend—he is reduced to a blubbering mess, shedding tears into his bowl of popcorn.
Augustine is warning us against the danger of letting fictional art completely hijack our genuine human empathy.
Secularizing Culture: Amulets vs. Earrings
As Augustine grew older and became a bishop, he developed a brilliantly nuanced way of handling classical pagan literature.
During the 4th century, the cultural wars were vicious. Following the brief pagan revival of Emperor Julian the Apostate (360-361 AD), conservative pagans began treating the classics as literal divine gifts. In response, reactionary Christians diabolized the classics, claiming they were the work of the devil. Some even praised anti-intellectual monks who claimed they were taught to read purely by the Holy Ghost, bypassing schools entirely. St. Jerome famously suffered nightmares where Christ condemned him for being a “Ciceronian” rather than a Christian.
Augustine bypassed this culture war entirely. He argued that human culture and literature are simply products of human society and language. They are inherently secular. You can read Vergil’s descriptions of pagan sacrifices without committing idolatry, because it is just a story.
Dr. Noe highlights a brilliant historical anecdote from Peter Brown regarding Augustine’s associate, Possidius. Possidius wanted to ban his Christian congregation from wearing earrings, viewing them as dangerously worldly. Augustine firmly intervened, establishing a brilliant theological distinction: amulets worn to magically placate demons must be banned, but earrings worn simply to look beautiful for other humans are perfectly fine.
It is a masterclass in separating spiritual idolatry from simple human aesthetics.
Sua Voluptas: The Enduring Power of Love
Ultimately, Augustine never lost his deep love for Vergil. Dr. Winkle points out that even when Augustine was an old man of 70, preaching a sermon on the Gospel of John, he casually dropped a famous quote from Vergil’s Eclogues: sua voluptas (“each man’s pleasure draws him”).
Augustine recognized the profound Vergilian truth that human beings are not primarily driven by cold logic; we are pulled irresistibly by the things we love. If you love the right things, you will be drawn to the truth without needing to be forced.
Sponsors: Popcorn, Books, and Brews
To properly fuel your own classical education, the hosts invite you to support the sponsors that make the Ad Navseam bunker run:
- Pop City Popcorn: Dr. Noe loves the yellow kernels for a long movie, while Dr. Winkle prefers the Two-Way Drizzle and the Bacon Cheddar. Unlike the fake “cellulose sawdust” of generic brands, Pop City uses real Parmesan cheese. Visit popcitypopcorn.com and use code ANPOP20 for 20% off your first order.
- Ratio Coffee: Dr. Winkle survived a morning panic when he thought he lost his beautiful, hand-blown borosilicate glass carafe for his Ratio 8 (his wife had safely put it in the dishwasher). Avoid the “Kindle brick” scorching pads of cheap coffee makers. Go to ratiocoffee.com and use code ANCO A4 for 15% off the Ratio 6 or Ratio 8.
- Hackett Publishing: Celebrating 50 years! Hackett is the gold standard for affordable, brilliant academic translations (including the Thomas Williams translation of Augustine’s Confessions used in this episode!). Go to hackettpublishing.com and use code AN2022 for 20% off and free shipping.
- The Moss Method & Latin Per Diem: Want to read the Confessions without reading a translation? Learn ancient Greek from “neophyte to erudite” at mossmethod.com, or master the grammar of the Latin language with Dr. Noe at latinperdiem.com/llpsi.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
We conclude Episode 89 with one of the most bizarre and disturbing quotes in the history of the podcast. Dr. Noe delivers a Gustatory Parting Shot from Frank Teil’s dystopian work, London:
“One day, and it may be long off, but one day there will be bacon again. It might be mouse bacon, but that will do for me.”
Dr. Winkle is thoroughly repulsed by the mental image of “mouse bacon,” and frankly, so are we. Stick to the Bacon Cheddar popcorn instead.Valete! (And stay cool in the bunker).
