David B

In a comment thread on the conservative Christian Cranmer blog I posted a quote I found attributed to Augustine, which someone now suggests is actually not anything he can be shown to have said.

He might well be right, and I might well have to eat some crow, but if someone can actually find the source of the quote below, and whether or not it can properly be laid to Augustine's door, I should be most grateful.

It is a particularly obnoxious quote, and I waxed lyrical on how people could stay in a church that held such a person holding such views in high esteem, so I would like it to be a genuine quote, but truth comes first.

David

David B

Further to the OP, a contributor to Secular Cafe says that the first citing of the quote is Helen Ellerbe in 'The Dark Side of Christian History'.

Anyone know if she is reliable, or where she might have got the quote from?

David

andrewcriddle

No source for this quote is ever given. It would be contrary to the attitudes shown by Augustine in his letters to women e.g. his letter to a young woman called Florentina agreeing to try and instruct her.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

Wiki Quotes Talk

The Dark Side of Christian History (or via: amazon.co.uk) - you can find a pdf of this online, and I do not see that quote in the book. There are a number of quotes from Augustine that are anti-sex ("this diabolical excitement of the genitals"), and someone might have made a loose or inaccurate paraphrase of something Augustine or some other early church father said about women.

You can find enough misogyny in early church history. There's no need to make stuff up.

Roger Pearse

Fabricated quotes designed to smear early Christian writers are a staple of the less pleasant kind of anti-Christian polemic. I never trust any quote unless I have seen the original and checked the context.

Of course it is rather easy to read the fathers, identify places where they reflect views different from the views current in the time in which we happen to live, and jeer at them for failing to conform. Whether it is very intelligent might be an open question.

spin

Having just located a copy of Ellerbe's book and searched it, I can say the quote is not from that book. Someone has just overgeneralized from a page of quotes (such as this) of which some are derived from Ellerbe.

A good rule to follow in this business: if you can't track down the source for a quote, treat it as bogus. A lot of nonsense is spread across the internet, so before one gets het up about anything they find out there, it's best to rule out the crap factor. People make things up. People get things mixed up. People pass on stuff they haven't vetted. So, source it or forget it. There are enough well-sourced things to worry about without wasting your time walking up someone's garden path.

Tom Sawyer

fta

Isn't that how most religions got started? :devil1:

David B

Indeed - my informant tells me he found it attributed to Ellerbe somewhere else.

But thanks to all for your responses. I had to go and eat some crow on the Cranmer blog, but that is preferable continuing to believe something genuine when it ain't.

David

Toto

You probably can find Catholics and others who endorse this view. There was a video going around recently of a Catholic father who didn't want to send his daughters to college because it might ruin them for traditional womanly roles.

But, like Abe Lincoln says, beware of quotes on the internet.