Can you provide the direct quotation, in context? From what I can remember, no, he would say the the Church is the mother of all Christians. Mary is a traditional illustration of this.
I gave you the book and address within the book. And
HERE i went and got it for you.
And here you turn around and suggest that he had a different point of view without citation or suggestion.
Now do me the respect of providing the citation for your rebuttal.
Augustine sees John 19:26-27 as a passage about faithfulness to parents and John caring for Mary, not a passage about Mary being the spiritual mother of all Christians in the sense Roman Catholics suggest: "This, without a doubt, was the hour whereof Jesus, when about to turn the water into wine, had said to His mother, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.' This hour, therefore, He had foretold, which at that time had not yet arrived, when it should be His to acknowledge her at the point of death, and with reference to which He had been born as a mortal man. At that time, therefore, when about to engage in divine acts, He repelled, as one unknown, her who was the mother, not of His divinity, but of His human infirmity; but now, when in the midst of human sufferings, He commended with human affection the mother by whom He had become man. For then, He who had created Mary became known in His power; but now, that which Mary had brought forth was hanging on the cross. A passage, therefore, of a moral character is here inserted. The good Teacher does what He thereby reminds us ought to be done, and by His own example instructed His disciples that care for their parents ought to be a matter of concern to pious children: as if that tree to which the members of the dying One were affixed were the very chair of office from which the Master was imparting instruction. From this wholesome doctrine it was that the Apostle Paul had learned what he taughtt in turn, when he said, 'But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' And what are so much home concerns to any one, as parents to children, or children to parents? Of this most wholesome precept, therefore, the very Master of the saints set the example from Himself, when, not as God for the hand-maid whom He had created and governed, but as a man for the mother, of whom He had been created, and whom He was now leaving behind, He provided in some measure another son in place of Himself. And why He did so, He indicates in the words that follow: for the evangelist says, 'And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own,' speaking of himself. In this way, indeed, he usually refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved: who certainly loved them all, but him beyond the others, and with a closer familiarity, so that He even made him lean upon His bosom at supper; in order, I believe, in this way to commend the more highly the divine excellence of this very gospel, which He was thereafter to preach through his instrumentality. But what was this 'his own,' unto which John took the mother of the Lord? For he was not outside the circle of those who said unto Him, 'Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee.' No, but on that same occasion he had also heard the words, Every one that hath forsaken these things for my sake, shall receive an hundred times as much in this world. That disciple, therefore, had an hundredfold more than he had cast away, whereunto to receive the mother of Him who had graciously bestowed it all. But it was in that society that the blessed John had received an hundredfold, where no one called anything his own, but they had all things in common; even as it is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. For the apostles were as if having nothing, and yet possessing all things How was it, then, that the disciple and servant received unto his own the mother of his Lord and Master, where no one called anything his own? Or, seeing we read a little further on in the same book, 'For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of them, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need,' are we not to understand that such distribution was made to this disciple of what was needful, that there was also added to it the portion of the blessed Mary, as if she were his mother; and ought we not the rather so to take the words, 'From that hour the disciple took her unto his own,' that everything necessary for her was entrusted to his care? He received her, therefore, not unto his own lands, for he had none of his own; but to his own dutiful services, the discharge of which, by a special dispensation, was entrusted to himself." (Tractates on John, 119:1-3)
agree. And also elevates the intellect above the spiritual heart.
