Summary
Well, this was going to be an incredibly timely episode, and then a lot of life happened. You might recall that some time back, JD Vance made some remarks misinterpreting St. Augustine’s doctrine of “just war.” As medievalists, we took exception to those remarks…but also, let’s take a little time to look at Augustine, who was an interesting historical figure who just wanted to write a lot and hang out with his bros. Whom amongst us, etc.
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Notes
Sources for this episode:
- Bart Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew.
- Iain Gardner, The Founder of Manichaeism: Rethinking the Life of Mani.
- Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, Vol. 1).
- Kevin Madigan, Medieval Christianity: A New History.
- J. Patout Burns “Grace: The Augustinian Foundation” in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century eds. Bernard McGinn, John Meyendoriff, and Jean Leclercq Vol. 1 (New York: Crossroad, 1986); 331-349.
- C.H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism.
1/ Em’s own personal father did his undergraduate work at Loyola College in Chicago, a Jesuit college named for Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. The other big Jesuit name to look out for is Francis/Francisco Xavier, better known as the namesake for the X-Men’s school, the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, formerly the Xavier School for Gifted Youngers. There were other guys around at the time of the order’s founding, but they don’t seem to get the naming shout-outs.
2/ Obviously, we have distributed podcasts about popes since Pope Leo was elected. We just hadn’t discussed…anyway, you get it.
3/ Bernard McGinn comments on the extent of Augustine writing on page 229 of The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, Vol. 1).
4/ The previous English-speaking pope, for those following along on their pope-mention bingo cards, was of course Adrian IV, who reigned from 1154–1159.
5/ HERE is the “woke Marxist Pope” rhyme, and HERE is the song.
6/ For more on the concept of “just war,” click HERE.
7/ For more on the history of popes against war (and the current Spring 2026 situation), see HERE.
8/ Augustine of Hippo! 354CE-430CE.
9/ I don’t know if this is the first time anyone has ever compared Corinthians to McSweeney’s Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond [https://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/open-letters-to-people-or-entities-who-are-unlikely-to-respond]. I kinda hope so.
10/ See episode 47 for more on Gnosticism and Manichaeism (and episode 48, note 1). Also, by dualism, we mean specifically the (initially) Gnostic belief that there’s a spiritual world that is the “real” world, and also a physical world that is kind of a mistake. There are other kinds of dualism. [Hi Descartes!!–Jesse]
11/ For even more on Manichaeism, see Wikipedia entry HERE.
12/ For more on Donatism, see HERE.
13/ “The tale of Darth Palagius the Wise? Anyone?” For more on Pelagianism, see HERE.
14/ “The Gryphon and the Minor Canon,” by Frank Stockton. [IT’S SO GOOD!!!–Jesse]
15/ Canons Regular follow the Rule of St Augustine.
For more on the Norbertines, see HERE.
16/ HERE is the Order of St Augustine.
17/ Villanova University!
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