But, now that it is clear that Sion is the city of God; what is the city of God, but the Holy Church? For men who love one another, and who love their God who dwells in them, constitute a city unto God. Because a city is held together by some law; their very law is Love; and that very Love is God: for openly it is written, "God is Love." 1 John 4:8 He therefore who is full of Love, is full of God; and many, full of love, constitute a city full of God. That city of God is called Sion; the Church therefore is Sion. In it God is great....
Zion is the Catholic church...Oh brother...And based on what??? Nothing, but tradition...
I hate to post this entire thing here since I'm sure no one will read it...But,,,
11. "O magnify the Lord our God!" Psalm 98:9. Again we magnify Him. He who is merciful even when He strikes, how is He to be praised, how is He to be magnified? Can you show this unto your son, and cannot God? For you are not good when thou dost caress your son, and evil when you strike him. Both when thou dost caress him you are a father, and when you strike him, you are his father: thou dost caress him, that he may not faint; you strike him, that he may not perish. "O magnify the Lord our God, and worship Him upon His holy hill: for the Lord our God is holy." As he said above, "O magnify the Lord our God and fall down before His footstool:" now we have understood what it is to worship His footstool: thus also but now after he had magnified the Lord our God, that no man might magnify Him apart from His hill, he has also praised His hill.
What is His hill? We read elsewhere concerning this hill, that a stone was cut from the hill without hands, and shattered all the kingdoms of the earth, and the stone itself increased. This is the vision of Daniel which I am relating. This stone which was cut from the hill without hands increased, and "became," he says, "a great mountain, and filled the whole face of the earth." Daniel 2:34-35 Let us worship on that great mountain, if we desire to be heard. Heretics do not worship on that mountain, because it has filled the whole earth; they have stuck fast on part of it, and have lost the whole. If they acknowledge the Catholic Church, they will worship on this hill with us. For we already see how that stone that was cut from the mountain without hands has increased, and how great tracts of earth it has prevailed over, and unto what nations it has extended. What is the mountain whence the stone was hewn without hands? The Jewish kingdom, in the first place; since they worshipped one God. Thence was hewn the stone, our Lord Jesus Christ....
That stone then was born of the mountain without hands: it increased, and by its increase broke all the kingdoms of the earth. It has become a great mountain, and has filled the whole face of the earth. This is the Catholic Church, in whose communion rejoice that you are. But they who are not in her communion, since they worship and praise God apart from this same mountain, are not heard unto eternal life; although they may be heard unto certain temporal things. Let them not flatter themselves, because God hears them in some things: for He hears Pagans also in some things. Do not the Pagans cry unto God, and it rains? Wherefore? Because He makes His sun to rise over the good and the bad, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Matthew 5:45 Boast not therefore, Pagan, that when you cry unto God, God sends rain, for He sends rain upon the just and the unjust. He has heard you in temporal things: He hears you not in things eternal, unless you have worshipped in His holy hill. "Worship Him upon His holy hill: for the Lord our God is holy."...
All this proves is that Augustine liked to toke a bowl now and then, perhaps...
An account of the dream revealed by Daniel to Nebuchadnezzer...As it turns out, the end kingdom is the Catholic religion...The old saying is; 'you just can't make this stuff up'...But by God they did...Amazing...
And what do they base this idea on??? Tradition, fables, fairy tales or whatever you want to call it... And so then the footstool is the earth, which also is the Kingdom of the Catholic religion...Daniel didn't know that but Augustine and them popes got it figured out...
What a convoluted mess this is...Augustine says this, I fear not to worship the footstool of my Lord, because the Psalm bids me, "fall down before His footstool."
Nobody in Psalms or anywhere else says to worship a footstool...It says,
Psa 99:5 Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy.
Worship AT his footstool...Maybe Auggie didn't realize he needed bi-foculs...And here's more about the footstool...
And the Scripture tells me, "the earth is My footstool." In hesitation I turn unto Christ, since I am herein seeking Himself: and I discover how the earth may be worshipped without impiety, how His footstool may be worshipped without impiety. For He took upon Him earth from earth; because flesh is from earth, and He received flesh from the flesh of Mary. And because He walked here in very flesh, and gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation; and no one eats that flesh, unless he has first worshipped: we have found out in what sense such a footstool of our Lord's may be worshipped, and not only that we sin not in worshipping it, but that we sin in not worshipping. But does the flesh give life? Our Lord Himself, when He was speaking in praise of this same earth, said, "It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing."...But when our Lord praised it, He was speaking of His own flesh, and He had said, "Except a man eat My flesh, he shall have no life in him." John 6:54
Some disciples of His, about seventy, were offended, and said, "This is an hard saying, who can hear it?" And they went back, and walked no more with Him. It seemed unto them hard that He said, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in you:" they received it foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off parts from His body, and give unto them; and they said, "This is a hard saying." It was they who were hard, not the saying; for unless they had been hard, and not meek, they would have said unto themselves, He says not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learned that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learned. For when twelve disciples had remained with Him, on their departure, these remaining followers suggested to Him, as if in grief for the death of the former, that they were offended by His words, and turned back.
But He instructed them, and says unto them, "It is the Spirit that quickens, but the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63 Understand spiritually what I have said; you are not to eat this body which you see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery; spiritually understood, it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood.
But good ole' Auggie's got it down pat on the Eucharist tho...
So there...No Eucharist for Augustine...
Becareful not to misunderstand Augustine here. When Augustine says ‘Catholic,” it is no different than saying the universal body of Christ. In the 4th century, there wasn’t even a Roman Catholic Church at all. You had individual churches spread across the world, with no “Papal” figure claiming sovereign authority. This actually wouldn’t properly happen until after “Pope” Gregory the First. Thus, when you read the word “Catholic” and read “Roman Catholic,” you’re making the same mistake the Papists do in reading into ancient texts your own meaning, rather than trying to draw meaning from the text itself. (Augustine interprets Augustine).
As for the footstool thing. It is goofy, but the end result is that he saw the “footstool” as a prediction of Jesus Christ:
“And the Scripture tells me, “the earth is My footstool.”... For He took upon Him earth from earth; because flesh is from earth, and He received flesh from the flesh of Mary.”
This is essentially a complicated way of taking the word “footstool,” linking it to the Earth being defined as the footstool, taking the humanity of Christ which is made of the dust of the Earth, and therefore it is Christ who is worshipped.
You do him an injustice to read him uncarefully, no matter how goofy this particular reading is of Psalm 99.