July 17, 2017

That intriguing St. Augustine quote

To the editor:

No one seems to have been able to find the St. Augustine quote [“Donald Trump stole my old church”). People often quote Tony Campolo (Letters to a Young Evangelical) where he attributes it to Augustine, but it is not. A similar quote comes from Dorothy Day, who said, “The church may be a harlot at times, but she is my mother.” Thanks for your post.

Robert Nystrom, Ovid, Mich.

Editor’s note: According to Brett Younger, “Mr. Nystrom is right that I got it from the Campolo attribution. Some suggest Campolo is doing a loose paraphrase of a paragraph of Sermon 213 in Augustine’s Essential Sermons: ‘Let us honor her, because she is the bride of so great a Lord. And what am I to say? Great and unheard of is the bridegroom’s gracious generosity; he found her a whore, he made her a virgin. She mustn’t deny that she was once a whore, or she may forget the kindness and mercy of her liberator.’ The Dorothy Day quote seems closer.”

Thanks to both of you for the additional information.