[Artemisia] St. Augustine

[Catie Clark]

> I'm seeking help from the scholarly-inclined. I just now stumbled across this quote:
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>> Hope has two lovely daughters: Anger and Courage>>St. Augustine
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> Could someone point me to an online source by which I could confirm the attribution to Saint Augustine?

Sorry Aurora, it appears to be a false attribution as far as I can tell.
Not only is there no evidence he ever said that, it doesn't even sound
like something he would have said (and I've read a lot of St. Augustine
for my sins).  I personally checked _The City of God_, _Confessions_,
and the _Enchiridion_.  And the BBC website of unattributed quotes
has it listed as unconfirmed (and it's been there for at least 3 years).

The flip side is that Augustine left behind a rather substantial opus of
letters and sermons.  It can not be disproven as a quote so long as
these are unchecked.  I will opine that you won't find it there either
just on the basis of how he really thought and how he treated the concept
of hope in his writings.  He was not a metaphorical or anthropomorphizing
guy.  He also dealt with hope in just one way: hope for eternal salvation.
The full version of this "quote" sounds like the Serenity Prayer (sometimes
misattributed to St. Francis of Assisi) but stuffed into the mouth of
Augustine: "Hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage; anger
at the way things are and courage to change them."

The plea for action in the world outside one's self is not Augustinian.
For Augustine, the inner struggle of the soul is the important thing (with
an implicit assumption that faith comes first and deeds will naturally 
follow).
If you have real faith then deeds will happen - you won't be able to help
yourself.  Deeds are a symptom of having faith.  Faith is the driving force
of good works, not anger or courage.  That's why the above "quote"
is not Augustinian. YMMV.

Online copies of the complete opus of St, Augustine can be found at:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/index.html

ttfn
Therasia (who went to a "Great Books" university)