"In his forceful attempts to impart, protect, elucidate, and formulate a vitalized Christianity though his many soul-oriented writings, Augustine was seeking to prevent Christianity from mutating into a semblance of religion that 'held onto the form of the faith but denied its true power. [II Timothy 3:5]' Always one who favored the 'life and light of the mind'..., he feared that Christianity might one day be transformed into a mindless, purely symbolic and simple religion that would be content with engaging in childlike otherworldly reflections and fantasies."
Masquerading as an angel of a light show...
"He feared that the faith would become a spirituality of the moods, not of the mind and heart; unexercised, it would degenerate into a belief system that reflected a soft, relaxed confidence in Christ.... In his great concern, he may have foreseen a day when congregations would gather to worship not with the mind strengthened and sustained by the heart, but by the heart alone...."
(link)
"People could easily be swayed and swept away by the heavenly beauty of the temporal light falling through stained glass windows, or, like Odysseus with the Sirens, become captivated by soothing melodies rising from a choir."
Clowns of a feather...
-- S. T. Georgiu, The Last Transfiguration: The Quest for Spiritual Illumination in the Life and Times of Saint Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1994), p. 82
