The De Doctrina Christiana is one of Augustine's most important works on the classical tradition. Undertaken at the same time as the Confessions, is sheds light on the development of Augustine's thought, especially in the areas of ethics, hermeneutics, and sign-theory. What is most interesting, however, is its careful attempt to indicate precisely what elements of a classical education are valuable for a Christian, and how the precepts of Ciceronian rhetoric may be used to communicate Christian truth. An (...) up-to-date translation has long been necessary, for readers of Augustine and all who study the early church, or the classical tradition, or the history of literary criticism or Biblical interpretation. This completely new translation gives a close but stylish representation of Augustine's thought and expression. A succinct introduction and select bibliography embodies the results of recent work. (shrink)

The De Doctrina Christiana is one of St. Augustine´s most important works, not only because of the reflection and hermeneutic exposed, but because of its special nature, since their composition realizes the vital and intellectual development of the author over two decades. A large section of the specialized reviews say that this work should be understood as a set of two irreconcilable parts, that one written in 396, with a hermeneutical character, the other finished by 426 devoted to (...) rhetoric and the doctrine of grace. While it should not be ignored the difference between these two parts of the work, it is necessary to find a common ground that not only ensures the unity of the work, but also of the whole Christian culture. (shrink)

Despite the abundant production of catecismos in 16th century Spain, few of them were addressed directly to the new converted population, and fewer still were translated into or written in Arabic. Given the dimension of the Morisco question within Catholicism at the time, this scarcity is striking. Archbishop of Valencia and attending member of the Council of Trent, Martín Pérez de Ayala, commissioned one of these rare texts, the Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Arauiga y Castellana, written in Valencian (...) Arabic. The text encloses a brief catechism containing mainly prayers but also a set of instructions about both Arabic phonetics and doctrinal matters. The present article intends to study the language ideology present in the translation of Christian doctrine into Arabic. In order to do so, it asks questions such as whether the emphasis on spoken Arabic is a conscious distance from a Koranic Arabic language, and how religious space is shaped through language. (shrink)

El discurso que San Pablo dirige a los atenienses en el Areópago constituye el más claro ejemplo de inculturación que aparece en el Nuevo Testamento. Siendo el precedente inmediato de todo el esfuerzo que los Padres de la Iglesia realizarán por establecer un diálogo fecundo entre la filosofía y la revelación, entre la fe y la razón. Bajo un esquema histórico de «predicación kerigmática a los gentiles», San Lucas crea un relato donde vierte todo su saber filosófico y retórico. Aspecto (...) este último que puede ser percibido con claridad a la luz del De Doctrina Christiana de San Agustín. (shrink)

In this article, I first show in what way Augustine's 'De doctrina Christiana' actually concerns liberal education, or at least includes it within its scope. Second, I articulate the new 'modus' of education, its new “mode” or “measure,” presented in 'De doctrina'. Third, I exemplify the modification of education by briefly considering Augustine’s treatment of rhetoric in Book IV of 'De doctrina'. Fourth and finally, I conclude with general remarks that attempt to situate the sort of (...) education of which Augustine speaks in 'De doctrina' among some current alternatives with which we are familiar. (shrink)

Augustine's treatment of neighbor - love in De doctrina Christiana has been the subject of much criticism in twentieth-century scholarship. Specifically, Augustine is criticized for reducing neighbor - love to an instrumental "use" of the neighbor as a tool in one's personal project of salvation. This paper argues that careful attention to the relationship between Christ and the uti-frui distinction in book 1 of De doctrina reveals a much different conception of "use." Far from advancing an instrumental (...) treatment of the other, Augustine, when he speaks of "using" the neighbor, is developing language to describe acts of charity. (shrink)

Le bien-fondé de l’herméneutique d’Augustin dans son De doctrina christiana est d’ordre communautaire, plus qu’épistémologique. Occasion d’enseigner et d’apprendre, de se parler et de s’entendre, l’activité herméneutique se révèle toute désignée à la pratique de la charité; les médiations humaines qu’elle met en jeu, et qu’elle structure à l’intérieur d’un certain cadre éthique, sont propres à affermir les liens communautaires. Le De doctrina christiana veut promouvoir la double économie du sens et de l’amour. Il s’y essaie (...) d’une manière originale, qui trouve à se refléter et à se synthétiser dans son prologue, comme je me propose de le démontrer. (shrink)

In theDe doctrina christianaAugustine lays the foundations of a type of hermeneutics more community oriented than epistemological. Likewise, the rules he formulates have jurisdiction beyond the sole domain of semiotics; as I shall argue, they are applicable, in like (even congruent) manner, to the world of social relations. More fundamentally, these rules are intended to moderate an economy of desire, in which semiotics and social relations find a common origin and, above all, the principles of their harmonious organization. I (...) shall demonstrate these ideas through an analysis of the image of“the voyage towards the homeland” (peregrinatio ad patriam). (shrink)

아우구스티누스는 해석학이나 수사학이라는 표제로 책을 저술하지는 않았다. 그럼에도 중세 해석학이나 수사학에 나타난 아우구스티누스의 영향은 적지 않다. 본 논문을 통해 필자는 아우구스티누스가 『그리스도교 교양』이라는 책을 저술한 목적을 해석학과 수사학의 측면에서 고찰할 것이다. 30년이라는 간극을 두고 책의 해석학과 수사학의 내용이 저술되었는데, 한 책에서 해석학과 수사학을 다루고 있는 이유는 무엇인가? 아우구스티누스는 해석학과 수사학을 서로 독립된 분야가 아니라, 해석학이 수사학의 토대가 된다는 입장에서 있다. 성서 해석을 통한 성서 수사학으로의 전개를 염두에 두고 책을 썼던 것이다. 그러니까 『그리스도 교양』을 제대로 읽기 위해서는 해석학 원리만을 탐구하거나 수사학 (...) 규칙만을 논구해서는 안 된다.BR 아우구스티누스는 수사학의 적극적인 실행은 성서 해석으로부터 시작된다고 주장한다. 아우구스티누스 수사학의 전제는 성서 해석인 셈이다. 수사학을 통해 성서의 내용을 전달하기에 앞서 성서의 해석은 필수적이라는 입장을 개진한다. 따라서 본 논문은 아우구스티누스는 그리스도교 해석학을 ‘성서 해석학’으로 규정하고, 그리스도교 수사학의 본령을 ‘성서 수사학’으로, 그 실행을 ‘설교’라 는 연설 장르로 이루어짐을 정초했다고 볼 수 있다. (shrink)

This article examines the role of bodily expressions within Augustine’s theory of signs and language. Philosophical reflection, rhetorical practice, and his own homiletical experience all led Augustine to consider the role played by the body in communicative acts. The invesitgation is sharpened via careful analysis of the rhetorical category of actio and close readings of particular passages that are relevant for Augustine’s understanding of the process of learning language in general and of learning the catechism in particular. The centrality of (...) bodiy signs for the dramatization of the famous scene of Augustine’s conversion in the Milanese garden is also discussed: here, voice and physiognomy express the tragedy of the will, even as bodily signs prove crucial to Augustine’s particular retelling of the story. (shrink)

본 논문은 아우구스티누스의 『그리스도교 교양』에 대한 다양한 평가를 고찰하고 자리매김하는 데 있다. 수사학의 역사에서 아우구스티누스는 『그리스도교 교양』을 집필하며 그리스도교 설교학의 지침서를 제공하고 그리스도교 수사학을 정초한 인물이다. 1928년 찰스 발드윈(Charles Baldwin)을 시작으로 현대 조지 케네디(G. A. Kennedy)에 이르기까지 아우구스티누스의 『그리스도교 교양』에 대한 논의와 평가가 진행되고 있다. 최근에는 아우구스티누스가 실행했던 설교에 나타난 수사학에 대한 분석이 시도되고 있다. 본 논문은 아우구스티누스 수사학 이론에 대한 관심보다 『그리스도교 교양』에 대한 평가에 집중하고자 한다. 1920년 대 이후부터 현대까지에 이르는 평가를 살펴보면서 수사학 역사에서 아우구스티누스의 위상을 정립하고자 한다. (...) 『그리스도교 교양』에 대한 평가는 아우구스티누스가 그리스 로마의 수사학과 그리스도교와의 조우를 통해 그리스도교 교리를 강화하는 수단으로 사용했으며, 수사학 역사에서 수사학의 그리스도교화를 이끌어내는 데 공헌한 것으로 연결될 것이다. (shrink)

Hermeneutics as we understand it today is an essentially modern phenomenon. The chapter presents observations that illustrate some of the central ways in which the modern and late modern phenomena of philosophical hermeneutics relate to the ancient philosophical legacy. First, the roots of hermeneutics are traced to ancient views on linguistic, textual, and sacral interpretation. The chapter then looks at certain fundamentally unhermeneutic elements of the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Augustinian “logocentric” theory of meaning that philosophical hermeneutics and its heirs sought (...) to call into question, reconsider, and deconstruct. Augustine's De doctrina christiana, can be regarded as an epitome and culmination of the ancient protohermeneutic heritage, theological as well as philological. Finally, Aristotle's practical philosophy, particularly the notion of phronesis, “practical insight”, is designated as an implicit ancient prototype of hermeneutic thinking, the reappropriation of which lay at the core of the Heideggerian and Gadamerian philosophical projects. (shrink)

Augustine and his practical advices on education and teaching. – Based on De doctrina christiana, Augustine is presented as a teacher, an educator of other educators and teachers, namely speakers in the Church in his time. The paper starts with the question of whether Augustine’s distinction between enjoyment and utility and Augustine’s principles of exegetical work and preaching can be inspirational for educators today. The text aims to show Augustine’s conception of the education of fundamental values and thus (...) present suggestions for educators. (shrink)

Introduction, by R. A. Markus.--St. Augustine and Christian Platonism, by A. H. Armstrong.--Action and contemplation, by F. R. J. O'Connell.--St. Augustine on signs, by R. A. Markus.--The theory of signs in St. Augustine's De doctrina Christiana, by B. D. Jackson.--Si fallor, sum, by G. B. Matthews.--Augustine on speaking from memory, by G. B. Matthews.--The inner man, by G. B. Matthews.--On Augustine's concept of a person, by A. C. Lloyd.--Augustine on foreknowledge and free will, by W. L. Rowe.--Augustine on (...) free will and predestination, by J. M. Rist.--Time and contingency in St. Augustine, by R. Jordan.--Empiricism and Augustine's problems about time, by H. M. Lacey.--Political society, by P. R. L. Brown.--The development of Augustine's ideas on society before the Donatist controversy, by F. E. Cranz.--De Civitate Dei, XV, 2, and Augustine's idea of the Christian society, by F. E. Cranz.--Chronological table.--Note on further reading (p. [422]-423). (shrink)

L’addition, dans la cinquième édition en 1683 de La Logique ou L’Art de penser, d’un chapitre consacré à la définition générale du signe et de plusieurs chapitres relevant spécifiquement d’une analyse des signes linguistiques, a été parfois interprétée comme une apparition tardive du “problème du langage” dans le traité d’Arnauld et Nicole. Parce que la plupart de ces chapitres supplémentaires sont la transposition de passages auparavant destinés dans la Perpétuité de la foi (1669-1674) à réfuter le sens calviniste de Ceci (...) est mon corps, on a été enclin à attribuer l’importance de la question du signe et du “problème du langage” dans l’édition de 1683 à une origine théologique. J’essaie au contraire de montrer que, dès la première édition de L’Art de penser en 1662, la problématisation des écarts des expressions linguistiques avec une correspondance terme à terme entre les mots et les idées a été indissociable pour Port-Royal de l’analyse des opérations de l’esprit. Selon moi, dans la Perpétuité de la foi, la critique du sens calviniste de la formule eucharistique constitue elle-même une application de cette analyse logique du langage : les passages incorporés ensuite dans L’Art de penser sont dans le prolongement des réflexions de 1662 sur les difficultés d’adéquation entre le dire et le vouloir-dire. Je montre pour finir que la définition générale du signe à Port-Royal suppose une restructuration de la définition augustinienne du De doctrina christiana, et fonde en 1683 une identification de la relation de signification linguistique à un rapport de représentation des mots aux idées, qui vient redoubler le rapport de représentation des idées aux choses établi en 1662. (shrink)

On March 27, 1572 Fray Luis de Leon was imprisoned, among other reasons, because according to his informers, fray Luis, in addition to «be a friend of novelties» has argued that to understand the Sacred Scripture is not necessary the scholastic Theology. Fray Luis, who was always opposed to this view, will try to defend himself on the basis of the work De doctrina christiana of St.Augustine and putting forward that to correctly interpret Scripture is necessary the scholastic (...) Theology, but also other wisdoms such as history or language knowledge. (shrink)

Several times, when faced with a difficult passage of scripture in Sermones ad populum, Augustine implores his audience, “knock and it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7c; par. Luke 11:9c). Augustine uses this phrase to stress humility and the human need for God’s activity when interpreting scripture. Studying the archeological record of domestic architecture of locked doors in Roman North Africa elucidates Augustine’s message. Knowledge of the material culture shows that Augustine calls upon Christians to “knock” upon scripture as if it (...) were a door, locked and barred in such a way that it could only be opened from inside. Thus, a reader of scripture is like a petitioner calling from outside a locked door, needing God to open its meaning. Augustine’s use of “knocking” contrasts with the metaphor of “keys” to scripture, which was favored by Tyconius and other early Christian writers. In De doctrina Christiana, Augustine expresses concern that “keys” could lead a person into overconfidence, expecting to unlock obscure passages of the Bible by his or her own power. Augustine’s frequent use of Matt. 7:7c is a call for exegetes to approach scripture with humility. All members of the totus Christus, great and small, must humbly knock. The image of “knocking” provides a versatile theological message: human effort is important, but the meaning of the Bible is ultimately unlocked by God’s activity. (shrink)

Este artículo sostiene que los límites del verbum vocis, paradójicamente, le dan sentido al esfuerzo del docere humano en la retórica agustiniana. Se espera ilustrar a lo largo de la investigación que esta hipótesis se sigue del análisis del concepto de docere en libro IV de De doctrina christiana a la luz del De Magistro. Se pretende alcanzar este objetivo a través de tres etapas. En primer lugar, se analizarán las funciones de la retórica agustiniana, en especial, la (...) enseñanza, en De doctrina christiana IV. En segundo lugar, se profundizará en los límites del lenguaje en el docere según las reflexiones del De Magistro. Finalmente, se realizará una síntesis de ambas descripciones, basada en De Trinitate, para mostrar que los límites del lenguaje no son una limitación en la retórica agustiniana, sino la realización de su propio sentido. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Augustine on the True Presence and the Eucharist as Sacrament of UnityElizabeth KleinAugustine's understanding of the Eucharist has been a thorny topic for theologians (both within the academy and without) since the Reformation.1 Ulrich Zwingli cited Augustine as an authority in favor of his merely symbolic understanding of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist at the colloquy of Marburg, to which Martin Luther reportedly conceded: "You have Augustine (...) and Fulgentius on your side, but we have all the other fathers."2 John Calvin also insistently took Augustine to be in his camp on the question of the Eucharist, citing, for example, Augustine's John commentary in a refutation of the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation—specifically regarding what happens when an unbeliever eats of the Eucharist: "Let those, therefore, who make unbelievers partakers of the flesh and blood of Christ, if they would agree with Augustine, set before us the visible body of Christ, since, according to him, the whole truth is spiritual."3 To this day, some Protestant commentators maintain a narrative about the theology of the Eucharist that follows a trajectory something like this: Augustine had a more spiritual or symbolic understanding of the [End Page 1325] sacrament, but this understanding was slowly effaced in the early to late Middle Ages, and then recovered at the Reformation. Correspondingly, in academia, Augustine's theology of the sacraments is often ignored or underplayed, no doubt in part due to the inheritance of this Protestant memorialist narrative.At the heart of the debate over Augustine's view of the Eucharist is his view of the effect of the sacraments. Are the sacraments, and the Eucharist in particular, a cause of sanctification for Augustine? Or are they merely a kind of symbol or reminder, one means among many for strengthening faith? Phillip Cary, perhaps the most vigorous opponent of seeing any efficacy in Augustine's sacramental theology, argues that Augustine "has no room for such a notion, which I shall label 'efficacious external means of grace.'"4 But, at the same time, the Catechism of the Catholic Church draws liberally from Augustine in its description of the Eucharist and its effects (for example, see §§1372, 1396, and 1398), as does Thomas Aquinas—particularly on the question pertaining to the effect of the sacrament.5How can Augustine's legacy be so hotly contested, claimed by two opposing camps on such an essential theological question? The short answer is that Augustine speaks about Christ's presence in the Eucharist as symbolic and as real in equal measure, and that both modes of expression were entirely natural to him. But that is not a wholly adequate answer. What is Augustine's Eucharistic theology and how does it accommodate this breadth of expression? What does the Eucharist really mean for him? Part of the difficulty of discerning Augustine's Eucharistic theology is his reticence to speak about it directly,6 but let us take as our point of departure two passages from book [End Page 1326] 1 of De doctrina Christiana in which Augustine explicitly mentions the Eucharist and where he sounds, at first blush, very much like a Zwinglian.Those, you see, who practice or venerate some kind of thing which is a significant sign, unaware of what it signifies, are enslaved under signs, while those who either carry out or venerate useful signs established by God, fully understanding their force and significance, are not in fact venerating what can be seen and passes away, but rather that reality to which all such things are to be referred.... In this time, though, after the clearest indication of our freedom has shone upon us in the resurrection of our Lord, we are no longer burdened with the heavy duty of carrying out even those signs [i.e., of the old covenant] whose meaning we now understand. But the Lord himself and the discipline of the apostles has handed down to us just a few signs instead of many, and these so easy to perform, and so awesome to understand, and so pure and chaste to celebrate, such as the sacrament of baptism, and the celebration of the Lord's body and... (shrink)

This article addresses Augustine’s distinction between usus and fruitio—and O’Donovan’s critique of it—in order to consider the dangers of disordered love in the forms of idolatry and instrumentalisation in neighbourly relations on earth. Examining the christological heart of the pilgrimage image as articulated in De doctrina christiana addresses O’Donovan’s critique that the pilgrimage image instrumentalises one’s relationships to others in the progress of one’s own journey to God. In fact, this image presents a christological dialectic that establishes the (...) continuity of earthly and eschatological neighbour-love and thus protects the neighbour from being made either idol or instrument by securing their right place in the order of love. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Augustine's Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to ChristianityTravis E. AblesBrian Dobell. Augustine's Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to Christianity. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xvii + 250. Cloth, $82.00.The question of Augustine's Platonism is famously vexed. Since Peter Brown, the standard reading holds that Augustine did not move beyond the Neoplatonism of his early dialogues until he studied the writings of the apostle Paul (...) in the mid-390s CE, after which his distinctive theology begins to emerge. In this book, Brian Dobell's basic claim is that, whatever the validity of the "volitional conversion" of book 8, Augustine is not truly converted to orthodox Christianity until he discards the Photinian (adoptionist) Christology he admits to in Confessions [hereafter conf.] 7.19.25, and discards the Platonic ascent as a means to contemplative union with God, both of which take place with the reading of Paul. But the book is equally motivated by a concern to defend the historicity of conf.; Dobell claims it is perfectly reliable, once we understand the latter half of book 7 not as a few months in 386, but as a compressed narrative spanning Augustine's entire development until his true conversion to Christianity around 395. [End Page 137]Dobell develops this argument by isolating Augustine's twofold way of salvation in the writings of the late 380s. First is the "way of authority," in which Augustine's putative Photinian Christology portrays Christ as a kind of "poor man's Plato, sent to provide a path to salvation for the uneducated masses" (96). The human Jesus is "assumed" by God and is as "a man of outstanding wisdom" (73) but is not the incarnate Son. Dobell analyzes the homo assumptus/susceptus language of the early writings, arguing that Augustine does not truly hold an orthodox Christology until 396, concordant with the development of his theology of operative grace. The second, much longer section of the book concerns the "way of reason," the intellectualist path of salvation expressed in Augustine's early obsession with the liberal disciplines. Dobell dissects the Platonic ascents of conf. 7, adducing verbal and conceptual parallels from texts ca. 387–390 (De immortalitate animae, De ordine, De libero arbitrio, De vera religione) showing how Augustine's métaphysique des degrés d'être, a concept Dobell borrows from Olivier Du Roy, provides both a means of articulating these ascents and an answer to the problem of evil. But by De doctrina christiana, Augustine has decisively rejected the Platonic ascent and the liberal disciplines, and it simply remains for his Christology to come in line for the "intellectual conversion" to be complete.Dobell's book is a significant addition to the current debate. His knowledge of the first decade or so of Augustine's literary output is impressive, and his familiarity with the secondary literature is considerable, though not encyclopedic—he misses the work of J. Patout Burns, which complicates the Pauline thesis through consideration of the anti-Donatist literature. Dobell offers magisterial and invaluable discussions of famously fraught topics such as Augustine's indecisiveness about the preexistence of the soul, or the volitional solution to the problem of evil. There are some problems with Dobell's argument, though. While his main thesis that conf. 7.9.13ff. is a kind of précis of almost a decade of intellectual development deserves serious consideration, and is an elegant solution to debates about the historicity of Augustine's narrative in conf., the supporting arguments Dobell employs are less persuasive. A major portion of his book revolves around the contention that Augustine's early, heretical Photinian Christology extends much longer than modern scholarship has realized, that Augustine rectifies this Christology in conjunction with a Pauline soteriology of grace, and that all of this has to happen before Augustine's conversion is complete. If we suspend the question of normativity inherent in deciding Augustine's "orthodoxy" (particularly prior to Chalcedon), Dobell still does not succeed in showing that the early "pedagogical" homo assumptus Christology is, in fact, adoptionist; indeed, his evidence is often rather weak (for a tacit admission, see 73). On the flip... (shrink)

Contemporary critics of Augustine, including many feminists, have often charged him with debasing the body by considering it to be the seat of sin, worthy of enmity and neglect. I argue that in several texts Augustine displays a marked effort to liberate his readers from precisely that position. I attempt to show that in De doctrina christiana and City of God, Augustine defends the body by shifting the blame for sin from the flesh to the soul. I contend (...) that this move does not amount to claiming that the body is inherently good, but only that it is not inherently worthy of contempt -or, at least, no more than is the soul. I go on to show that in the Enchiridion Augustine moves beyond a mere defense of the body: he argues for its inherent goodness. This claim results from his metaphysics of created being, in which all substances are good to some extent simply because they are creations of God. Thus Augustine both defends the body, by showing that it is not entirely responsible for sin, and redeems it, by showing that it is inherently good. (shrink)

Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse attempts to give philosophical warrant to the claim that ‘God speaks’. While Wolterstorff's argument depends largely on his appropriation of J.L. Austin's speech act theory, he also uses two narratives that for him demonstrate how ‘God speaks’. The first is the story of Augustine's conversion in the Confessions and the second is a story that Wolterstorff recounts about a certain ‘Virginia’. This study argues that what Wolterstorff claims to derive from Augustine's narrative for his view of (...) divine discourse is not fully supported by the Confessions, and that Augustine's interpretation of the words ‘tolle lege, tolle lege’, can be construed as a useful interpretation of an ambiguous sign. This is consistent with Augustine's understanding of the interpretation of texts in both the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. In short, Augustine is far more open to the ambiguity of signs than Wolterstorffs's account suggests. (shrink)