What St Augustine teaches us
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2018
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ideas of tryanny, martyrdom, sin and grace in a new play set against Indian politics today and an exhibition which might be called pornographic. April De Angelis has relocated a Lope De Vega play to contemporary India, and a backdrop of political unrest. The original Fuenteovejuna was inspired by an incident in 1476 when inhabitants of a village banded together to seek retribution on a commander who mistreated them. The Spanish Baroque artist and printmaker, Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652) is known for his depictions of human suffering, a popular subject for artists during the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The curator Xavier Bray looks at this savage imagery. Then historian Gillian Clark and theologian John Milbank discuss the legacy of Augustine of Hippo. Anne McElvoy presents.
The Village runs at the Theatre Royal Stratford East from 7 Sep - 6 OcT 2018 written by April De Angelis and directed by Nadia Fall. Ribera: Art of Violence runs at Dulwich Picture Gallery from Sept 26th to Jan 27th 2019. Gillian Clark has edited Augustine: Confessions Books I-IV; Augustine: The Confessions and she's working on a commentary of Augustine's City of God. John Milbank directs the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. His books include Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology, With Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis; the essay "Postmodern Critical Augustinianism: A Short Summa in Forty-two Responses to Unasked Questions", found in The Postmodern God: a Theological Reader, edited by Graham Ward
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
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| 0:32.4 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:34.9 | Hello, I'm Anne McHellvoy. |
| 0:37.3 | Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion programme. Welcome to the BBC. Hello, I'm Anne McHelvoy. Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion program, |
| 0:41.4 | where we bring together the most stimulating artists, writers and thinkers in conversation and debate. |
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| 1:02.3 | When is the use of violence legitimate? Should we tolerate tyrants? What is time? How do we obtain the grace of God? |
| 1:11.1 | They're all questions that exercise us now, but they also preoccupied the great early Christian thinker, Augustine of Hippo. |
| 1:18.3 | We'll be investigating how his ideas have been interpreted and used by subsequent generations, |
| 1:23.8 | and what he might have to say to us today, in this the first of a trio of programmes, |
| 1:29.0 | weighing the legacy of influential philosophers. |
| 1:32.0 | And here he is on a subject that causes us concern today, gangs and justice. |
| 1:37.3 | Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? |
| 1:42.5 | What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? |
| 1:45.0 | A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader bound by a compact of association, |
| 1:51.0 | in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. |
| 1:55.0 | If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralised that it acquires |
| 2:00.0 | territory, establishes a base, |
| 2:02.3 | captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom, |
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