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5 - Sacrificial Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2019

Joshua S. Nunziato
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Boulder
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Summary

Desire inspires exchange. It is the power of economy. And it is a motive with the power to purify our giving and getting from all attachment to what is given and gotten. We always want more but what is it that we really want more of? Stuff? Pleasure? Power? Perhaps, instead, we want more sacrifice. Maybe, we desire to elicit an even greater offering – an even more intense delight of parting and surrender – from our partners. But why? Simply to squeeze more out of them and keep more for ourselves? Perhaps we would elicit from our partners an even greater demand from us – a stretching of our own sacrificial capacity in response to their own desire for more, for better. But more or better of what? Simply to extract more from us in order to enrich themselves? Why not that their desire to bear fruit in our lives should be more and more fully realized? And how? Perhaps by eliciting in us a more total release from the fruit of our action by releasing them more completely from the fruit of theirs. As we grow together through our exchanges with one another, we practice – with ever greater intensity – this work of parting, which teaches us detachment from the outcome of all our exchanges.

Type
Chapter
Information
Augustine and the Economy of Sacrifice
Ancient and Modern Perspectives
, pp. 170 - 216
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Sacrificial Economy
  • Joshua S. Nunziato, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: Augustine and the Economy of Sacrifice
  • Online publication: 01 October 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108630467.006
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  • Sacrificial Economy
  • Joshua S. Nunziato, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: Augustine and the Economy of Sacrifice
  • Online publication: 01 October 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108630467.006
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Sacrificial Economy
  • Joshua S. Nunziato, University of Colorado Boulder
  • Book: Augustine and the Economy of Sacrifice
  • Online publication: 01 October 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108630467.006
Available formats
×