Augustine

Augustine′s conversion to Christianity in A.D. 386 is a pivotal moment not only in his own life, but in Christian and world history, for the theology of Augustine set the course of theological and cultural development in the western Christian church. But to what exactly was Augustine converted? Scholars have long debated whether he really converted to Christianity in 386, whether he was a Platonist, and, if he adhered to both Platonism and Christianity, which dominated his thought. The debate of (...) the last thirteen decades spans an immense body of literature in multiple languages. In this literature, four major views on Augustine′s conversion may be discerned. The first view is associated with Gaston Boissier and Adolph von Harnack, and was famously championed by Prosper Alfaric: that Augustine in 386 converted to neo-Platonism but not to Christianity. Second, there is the view recently promoted by Catherine Conybeare: that Augustine in 386 converted to Christianity and rejected neo-Platonism. Third, there is the view that he converted to Christianity and was also a neo-Platonist; the most famous adherents of this view are Robert J. O′Connell and Pierre Courcelle. Finally, there is the view recently promoted by Carol Harrison: that Augustine committed to Christianity in 386, yet did not utterly reject neo-Platonism; rather, he aimed to develop a Christian faith that was informed by neo-Platonic insight. In this article, I first explain and distinguish these four general views, and then I explain why I prefer the fourth view. -/- More Info: This is the pre-peer reviewed version of Boone, Mark, "The Role of Platonism in Augustine's 386 Conversion to Christianity," Religion Compass 9.5 (May 2015), 151-61. This article has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12149/abstract. (shrink)

This lecture seeks to resurrect the difficult project of a theology of history as a necessary correlate of renewed interest in political theology. The theme of history and politics is both ambitious and familiar, admitting a vast literature just within Augustine studies given his efforts to understand time, creation, and the historical careers of the ciuitas permixta and the “most glorious” ciuitas dei. That literature is usually focused on the much-debated saeculum and Augustine’s rejection of cyclical history through a linear, (...) universal history that admits apocalyptic discourse. My overarching goal is to inspire a contemporary Augustinian political theology that is more theological, more biblical, and more political, retrieving a contested category in the field: myth. (shrink)

Augustine is commonly interpreted as endorsing an extramission theory of perception in De quantitate animae. A close examination of the text shows, instead, that he is committed to its rejection. I end with some remarks about what it takes for an account of perception to be an extramission theory and with a review of the strength of evidence for attributing the extramission the- ory to Augustine on the basis of his other works.

In one of his earliest dialogues, the Soliloquia, Augustine identifies the liberal arts (disciplinae) with truth (veritas), and employs this somewhat puzzling identification as a premise in his infamous proof of the immortality of the soul (Sol. 2.24). In this paper, I examine Augustine’s argument for this peculiar identification. Augustine maintains both (1) that the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are true, and (2) that the liberal art of dialectic (disciplina disputandi) is the “truth through which all disciplines are (...) true” (Sol. 2.21). I argue that Augustine identifies the liberal arts with truth because (1) the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are learned, and (2) dialectic’s structure is essential to the liberal arts. I further suggest that the subject matter of each liberal art reflects a distinct segment of intelligible reality, that is, the realm of the intelligible Forms. (shrink)

Augustine combined two distinctions to develop an elegant interpretive framework for embracing multiple senses of “resurrection,” resolving tensions that had bedeviled predecessors such as Irenaeus and Tertullian. The first distinction was between the general resurrection of the body and an accompanying bodily transformation restricted to the saved. The second distinction, which he shared with many fourth-century authors but may have drawn most directly from Tyconius, was between a “first,” spiritual resurrection experienced now by the baptized and a “second,” bodily resurrection (...) experienced eschatologically by all. Scholars have noted both distinctions separately but not explored how Augustine came to adopt them and use them in combination. Augustine deployed these distinctions together to resolve theological problems caused by apparent Pauline connections between the “first” resurrection of believers and the “second” resurrection of all. (shrink)

St. Augustine’s commitment to the doctrine of predestination did not change from the early days of his ministry in the mid-390s to his last writings and sermons, shortly before his death in 430 CE. Two genres of Augustine’s late communications address his teachings on predestination: First, his treatises, including De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseuerantiae (CE 427–428); second—and of greater interest for this article—his often-overlooked mature and late sermons. Although treatises and sermons were contemporaneous, Augustine’s purposes differ in each. (...) Against arguments that “the beginning of faith is of ourselves,” in treatises, Augustine relied heavily on scriptural proof-texts to support his contention that God both foreknew and foreordained individuals’ eternal destiny. The first intent of his sermons, however, was not to present scriptural authority for the doctrine, but to encourage his listeners’ belief by helping them discern God’s activity within themselves. Certainly, his congregation was attracted by the hope of eternal life and by the fear of eternal punishment, yet their present affections and actions also mattered in substantial ways that Augustine’s doctrinal writings do not fully describe. We must look to his sermons, that is, to his (in-person) conversations with fellow members of Christ’s body, if we are to recognize his attentiveness to the urgency of the present. (shrink)

This article focuses on the unresolved scholarly question of how Confessiones, book 10 should be interpreted, proposing a new explanation as to how and why the second half of book 10 is critically important to this text. Emphasizing important relations between the introductory chapters and the second half of book 10, the article revisits Augustine’s treatment of ambitio saeculi, interpreted as a state of will, with which author Augustine continues to struggle, even during his act of confessing publicly (i.e., in (...) composing the book 10 text for publication). As a corruption of the motive behind his act of public confession, ambitio saeculi threatens to undermine the moral integrity of this same act. After Augustine recognizes that he cannot solve this moral flaw, he despairs and considers abandoning his human audience, and so, the very publication of his text. However, he is made newly capable of remaining, as confessant, before his readership, through a new, deeper conversion. This conversion to a new humility is given in and through the confessant’s participation in the eucharistic sacrament, which provides a hopeful resolution to his ambitio saeculi. (shrink)

Tyconius’ Liber regularum is a late fourth century treatise, often dubbed as “the first (extant) Latin treatise on hermeneutics.” This article investigates the following issue: What does Liber regularum as an introductio to hermeneutics amount to in the context of the other introductiones mentioned in Cassiodorus, Inst. 1.10? What has been presupposed by the author, what exactly is contended, and why has his treatise been called “the first Latin treatise on hermeneutics” when it is not limited to interpretative matters and (...) discusses only a few selected hermeneutical issues? Indeed, the topic Tyconius almost exclusively focuses on is the unannounced change of reference within a sentence. He advises to recognize the seven compositional regulae mysticae in-built in scripture and, with the help of these, to determine the ever-changing references. In fact, this is what justifies calling his treatise a hermeneutical introductio. The compositional rules become hermeneutical rules and are immensely helpful for eliminating seeming contradictions in scripture. Particular attention is given to Augustine’s critical reception of Tyconius’ rules which mattered so much, in turn, for the reception of Tyconius. (shrink)

Abstract: One approach to alignment with human values in AI and robotics is to engineer artiTicial systems isomorphic with human beings. The idea is that robots so designed may autonomously align with human values through similar developmental processes, to realize project ideal conditions through iterative interaction with social and object environments just as humans do, such as are expressed in narratives and life stories. One persistent problem with human value orientation is that different human beings champion different values as ideal, (...) meaning that the values to which an AI should be aligned are ambiguous. Prior work considered human development of purpose and source of meaning in life in terms of project ideal conditions, in effect establishing lifelong value orientations according to which intermediate situations are evaluated. The present work compares views on motivating values from St. Augustine and from popular cognitive science. These accounts are described as divergent error theories which present to their proponents as mutually exclusive yet accurate accounts of personal experience due to differential development of variable innate potentials. SpeciTically, the hypothesis proposed is that differential development of spindle neural projections establishes enduring connections between prior established relatively immediate routine processes entrained during childhood and prioritized in popular cognitive science, and later developing higher-level social and self-processes entrained during adolescence and emphasized in Augustine's account, with these projections hard-wiring lifelong motivating value orientations more or less inaccessible to modiTication through material interaction. Robot experiments informed by this study may evaluate variable value orientation by design, with for example autonomous robots developing motivating associations with temporally distal project ideal conditions through love for humanity, as described by Augustine, and others pursuing adaptive Tit to passing norms consistent with popular contemporary accounts. (shrink)

This book addresses a lacuna in scholarship concerning Hannah Arendt's Augustinian heritage that has predominantly focused on her early work. It de-canonises the sources that political theology has appealed to by shifting the interpretive focus to her mature treatment in The Life of the Mind. Arendt's initial criticism of Augustinian desiring is that it generates worldlessness. In her later works, Arendt develops a more nuanced reading of the movements of thinking, desiring, and loving in her engagement with Augustine. This study (...) attends to these movements and inspects the spatio-temporal framework which structure Arendt's conception of the political. The author assesses the claim that Arendt's conception of the political is drawn from a pedagogy of desiring and thinking from Augustine severed from his mystagogy. Although respecting the method of political theory, the author contends that Arendt's severing of Augustinian pedagogy from mystagogy brings her to an insurmountable aporia. Instead, the author embeds these pedagogical practices within Augustine's theology and suggests how that aporia might be overcome and used to develop a mystagogy for contemporary political life. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of political theology, as well as political theory, and political philosophy. (shrink)

This essay explores the theological and anthropological significance of birth, in order to discern what might be lost with the adoption of complete ectogestation (“artificial wombs”). Specifically, it considers both Saint Augustine and Karl Barth’s respective accounts of humanity’s whence—that is, their theological answer to the question of the nature and significance of our origins as individuals. I suggest that Augustine’s account of his origins emphasizes both his epistemic and biological dependency on his mother and nurses, while Barth’s stresses the (...) individual’s immediate derivation from God. Those disparate answers affect how they construe the relationships of parents and children and work themselves throughout their theological visions and imaginations. I conclude that careful consideration of humanity’s whence cannot answer whether we ought to pursue ectogestation; but it does help us account for how our understanding of God and ourselves might be altered if we gestate human life outside the womb. (shrink)

The present article examines Contra Academicos 2.5 in which Augustine seems to detail the influence of the libri Platonicorum on his conversion. In the first part of the paper, I argue that Michael P. Foley is correct to interpret Augustine’s phrase “libri quidam pleni” as a reference to the libri Platonicorum. I advance the further claim that Augustine primarily has in mind Ennead I.6. This is in contrast to the argument alluded to by Pierre Courcelle and formally given by John (...) J. O’Meara where such a reading of Contra Academicos misconstrues the relationship between Augustine and Plotinus. In response to O’Meara, I advance a threefold argument, a corollary of which is a novel reading of a Latin phrase (bonas res Arabicas) that has perplexed scholars. In the second part of the paper, I use my reading of Contra Academicos along with two considerations from Ennead I.6 to motivate a deeper understanding of Augustine’s conversion. The present study develops recent lines of thought in Augustine scholarship and seeks to open new avenues for understanding the libri Platonicorum and their influence on Augustine’s conversion. (shrink)

Augustine’s sermons on the Psalms of Ascent, part of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, are a unique entry in the venerable tradition of those writings that aim to help us ascend to a higher reality. These sermons transform the ascent genre by giving, in the place of the Platonic account of ascent, a Christian ascent narrative with a Trinitarian structure. Not just the individual ascends, but the community that is the church, the body of Christ, also ascends. The ascent is up (...) to God, the Idipsum or the Selfsame, the ultimate reality, confessed by the church as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Through the grace of the Incarnation, God the Son enables us to ascend, making himself the way of ascent from the humility we must imitate at the beginning of the ascent all the way up to Heaven, where he retains his identity as Idipsum. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit works in the ascending church to convert our hearts to the love of God and neighbor. I review the Platonic ascent tradition in Plato’s Republic and Plotinus’ Enneads; overview ascent in some of Augustine’s earlier writings; introduce the narrative setting of the sermons on the Psalms of Ascent; and analyze the Trinitarian structure of their ascent narrative. I close with some reflections on the difference between a preached Trinitarianism that encourages ascent and a more academic effort to understand God such as we find in Augustine’s de Trinitate. (shrink)

The Enarrationes in Psalmos are an important source for understanding the Augustinian theology of desire, linking it to his systematic theology and his pastoral practice. In this paper I illustrate by overviewing the expositions on Psalms 11 (12), 12 (13), 23 (24), and 26 (27). These Psalms teach us to love, trust, and seek God only, a failure to do which marks the Donatist schism. Augustine mingles ideas from pagan philosophy’s quest for eudaimonia or beata vita—the good, happy, and blessed (...) life—with biblical ideas. We want a stable happiness, and we must pursue wisdom; we can find stability in the rock that is Christ, to follow whom is to pursue wisdom rightly. Our desires must be converted to God, the only complete and perfect good and the source of eternal happiness, whom we must single-mindedly pursue with prayer and faith. While we must desire the eschaton and look to no earthly satisfaction, earthly goods may be received as gifts from God. One thing we can learn from studying the Enarrationes is how closely connected are the ideas of right love, the right church, and the right end; all three go together in Augustine’s theology. (shrink)

Aurélio Agostinho, when he was consecrated bishop in Hippo, had contact with a community in a situation of extreme social inequality, and adding to his understanding of bidirectional love (to God and neighbor), translated into nonconformity with the suffering of others, in the function as a bishop he had the opportunity to fight with the weapons at his disposal for a less undignified life for the poorest. Therefore, the concept of poverty that appears between the lines of his texts and (...) sermons is translated as a lack of material resources that makes it impossible for people to get the basics for survival. Among the weapons used by the philosopher bishop is the exhortation in his sermons, which in addition to denouncing the intense inequality of society, pondered on ways to resolve this huge gap between rich and poor. Thus, in this article we will analyze Augustine's lucubrations in sermons: 345, 355, 60, 61, 161, 14, which critically reflect poverty and wealth. The aforementioned sermons stand out on the subject for their critical reflections, because, although they treat the rich and their accumulation of wealth very harshly, showing solidarity with the less favored, and at different times they also have a critical look at the poor they idealized as a dream., desire or life goal to possess riches. (shrink)

In this contribution, an analysis of the term pestilentia in Augustine’s works is developed. First, all the textual places where the term recurs are listed, specifying the type of meaning it has. A distinction is made between a proper sense, of a medical kind, and a metaphorical sense, of a moral kind. Secondly, the passages where the word pestilentia is used in a clearly medical sense are examined in detail.

This essay promotes affective engagement with the texts we read, arguing that we should attend both to recognizing emotion within the texts and to allowing ourselves to feel emotion as we read. The essay thus aligns itself with contemporary theories of non-hermeneutic or surface reading. The argument is illustrated specifically by the relationship of Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE) to the emotion of anger. The transcripts of the Council of Carthage, held in 411, show an eruption of anger on Augustine’s (...) part. The essay then traces his thinking on anger through various texts, notably the City of God, the Augustinian Rule, and the personal letters to Nebridius. Using the reflections on anger of the contemporary philosopher Agnes Callard, I argue that Augustine saw anger as a unique type of moral problem, something that, once experienced, was ineradicable and distorted a sense of justice and order. It is only through an emotionally engaged reading that such a position is perceptible. (shrink)

Augustine scholarship on grief has mostly focused on Confessiones 4 and 9 and De ciuitate dei 14.9, with a focus on how Augustine legitimates Christian expressions of grief. In this essay, I explore the ways in which his account of grief is inflected Christologically, with a primary focus on In Iohannis euangelium tractatus 49, 52, and 60, where Augustine reflects on a set of Johannine texts that speak of Jesus being “troubled”: John 11:33, 12:27, and 13:21. The homiletic context adds (...) to the traditional picture of grief in Augustine scholarship by drawing more attention to issues of Christology. In particular, the Johannine passages afford Augustine the opportunity to highlight the ways in which conceptions of divine power (potestas) shape an interpretation of the difference between Christ’s unique experience of grief in comparison with ours. Christ’s grief, Augustine emphasizes, is only ever voluntary, whereas we experience it involuntarily, and yet it is precisely this difference that prompts Augustine to focus his hearer’s attention on how Christ’s grief serves as the healing of our griefs. (shrink)

Augustine maintains that the mind at least consists of memory, intellect, and will (De Trinitate 10.9.13 & 10.11.17). While it is easy to understand the intellect and will as essential to the mind’s activities, memory proves more difficult to understand. It is not immediately clear, for example, whether a human mind could operate without memory, whether people without memory have minds, and what distinguishes memory from the intellect. To understand the role of memory and its respective activities, this article addresses (...) Augustine’s philosophy of mind and places it in the context of human teleology. By philosophy of mind, I mean an account of what is necessary for the constitution of a mind and to execute a mental act. I argue that, for Augustine, memory is necessary to have a human mind, to execute any mental act, and thus to know God. (shrink)

How does Christ's mediation affect the individual human being? And how does that effect on the individual human being's soul relate to the way of salvation that incorporates, in principle, all human beings? Harmon answers both questions by examining Augustine's narration of his own life, and his treatment of the universal way of salvation as it flows among men in society and as it flows through the individual both involve the reconciliation of elements divided by the effects of sin. The (...) healing of divisions among human beings and within human beings, in the thought of Augustine, is effected by the same agency: the redemptive action of the Incarnate Word. (shrink)

Among both the defenders and adversaries of orthodox Trinitarian dogma, the so-called “kenosis hymn” of Philippians 2 was of the utmost importance, whether in refuting opponents’ teachings or articulating one’s own. While historical theologians have extensively investigated its place in the works of Sts. Hilary and Augustine—each the leading Latin pro-Nicene authority of his time—a comparative examination of the two has not yet been undertaken. This article seeks to trace and account for Augustine’s noteworthy improvement upon his predecessor’s thought in (...) the closely related realms of exegesis and Christology. It first summarizes the most relevant points of continuity and discontinuity in the Latin bishops’ uses of the Pauline language of forma dei–forma serui. From there, it turns to the role of Phil. 2 in countering subordinationist readings of hotly contested scriptural texts, arguing that Augustine more ably responds to the challenges at hand. Finally, it argues that his employment of the forma dei–forma serui paradigm is closely linked to his teaching on the revelatory capacity of Christ’s human nature. With regard to both, Augustine’s teaching marks a bona fide development of Hilary’s and thus of the Latin tradition more broadly. (shrink)

A book review of Daniel A. Dombrowski's, "Pre-Liberal Political Philosophy: Rawls and Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas.".

In terms of theology, practice, and norms, Hinduism is apparently far different from Christianity. And yet, in spite of their obvious differences, there are beliefs and teachings in which they share certain parallelisms. That is what this paper will explore. In particular, this paper will delve into the parallel themes and concepts found in the doctrine of soteriology of Sri Rāmānuja and St. Augustine — two of the most outstanding philosopher-theologians in the Hindu and Christian worlds. In addition, this paper (...) further contends that the parallelisms in Rāmānuja’s and Augustine’s soteriology could serve as bases for a deeper dialogue of theological exchange between Hindus and Christians. (shrink)

This work considers the fundamentally “oppositional” structure of reality, viewing Augustine as a “Christian Heraclitus” and focusing on his conception of dialectic. -/- Matthew W. Knotts situates Augustine's anthropology within a classical Roman philosophical context, while characterizing his intellect by continuous questioning. In this way, the book grounds a constructive philosophical-theological enquiry in an historical-critical study of the sources and their context.