In the Cassiciacum dialogues, Augustine attempted to adopt Ciceronian
friendship for a Christian philosophical life by working out what it
means to live according to reason. I will argue that Augustine developed
the soliloquy as a spiritual exercise so that the soul could recognize
that to live according to reason means to identify and love oneself in
God's love. Augustine emphasized that when friends use their reason
well (Sol.I.7), they long for God; the more friends choose to
pursue the activity of contemplating the divine, the more they choose to
become identified and unified in the intimacy and love which they have
for each other in God. Like Cicero, however, Augustine understood that
one could not begin to love one's friends without a proper form of
self-love (Sol.I.8). Linking self-love to self-knowledge,
Augustine asserted that individuals love themselves when they pursue the
two objects of philosophy: knowledge of God and the soul (Ord.2.48).
As a spiritual exercise, the soliloquy allowed individuals to pursue
knowledge of God and the soul because they could remember the love God
has for them through a conversation with their own reason. In adopting
such a mode of discourse, Augustine provided a way to overcame the pride
of the will by deepening Ciceronian friendship and showing that one
become friends with oneself when one sees one's existence as a gift
from God.
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