Introduction Reception of Augustine

1. IntroductionReception of Augustine Ann T. Orlando Sept. 4, 2008

2. Outline • Why the Reception of Augustine? • Syllabus Review • Class Structure and Hermeneutics • Cautions • Assignment

3. Why Augustine (363 – 430) • Because he is (arguably) the most important Christian theologian • Because almost every serious Western theologian (and philosopher) must deal with Augustine • Because I am interested in this

4. Middle Ages • Augustine was the standard for doctrinal truth and theological method throughout the Middle Ages • Boethius Consolation of Philosophy and De Trinitate both owe debts to Augustine • Carolingian renaissance scholarship focuses on editing Augustine • Anselm starts the Monologion with reference to Augustine's De Trinitate • Peter Lombard’s Sentences specifically focused on Augustine • Bonaventure followed Augustine’s approach to spirituality and theology • Aquinas (13th C) runs into trouble because • He seems to abandon Augustine’s theological method (Neoplatonism) for Aristotelianism • But also because of primacy of intellect over will • Open any page of ST and see number of references to Augustine

5. Renaissance and Reformation • Renaissance sometimes said to begin when Petrarch reads Confessions • Erasmus and Luther debate over Augustine and meaning of free will • Luther and Calvin claim Augustine for themselves in opposition to Scholasticism • Galileo calls upon Augustine in his defense against ecclesial criticisms • Augustine is patron saint of Jansenists, Augustinus

6. Modernity • Descartes rejects notion that Augustine had any influence on him • Rousseau writes his own Confessions opposed to Christianity • Enlightenment rejection of Christianity is often phrased as a rejection of Augustine (Voltaire, Diderot, Gibbon) • Romantic reaction against Enlightenment is in part a rediscovery of Augustine (Newman) • Heidegger and Wittgenstein both start with Augustine in their philosophical treatises. • Rethinking evil in 20th C: Albert Camus The Plague and John Hick Evil and the God of Love explicitly reject Augustine’s understanding of evil • Augustine quoted in CCC more often than any other theologian • Recent new translations of and ‘popular’ interest in Augustine: New City Press; J.J. O’Donnell, Garry Wills • Pope Benedict XVI has defined himself, and is often referred to as, an Augustinian theologian

7. Critical Issues for Augustine • Theory of Language • Epistemology • Theory of Time • Nature of God • Relation between human nature and God’s grace • Primacy of love; • Man as a social being who should be completely motivated by properly ordered loves • “Love and do whatever you will” • Importance of friendship • Theodicy • Ecclesiology

8. Syllabus Review • Purpose • Expectations • Class Structure • Requirements • What do you want out of this class?

9. Class as an Exercise in Hermeneutics and History • Hermeneutics: • Meaning • Significance • Interpretation • History: • Context in which the text was written (authorial intent) • Context in which it is interpreted (interpretive traditions) • Significance for us

10. Reading a Classic • David Tracy, Analogical Imagination following Gadamer and Riceour, developed stages by which a reader works to understand a classic text • Reader approaches the text already with pre-understanding based on reader’s historical context • Classic presents reader with challenges to pre-understanding • The reader enters into dialog with the text • The reader expands dialog to include others interpreting the text

11. This Class as a Microcosm of Tracy’s Approach • I will provide some pre-understanding so that together we start with a minimal set of pre-understandings • But you should not be (in fact cannot be) limited by my introductory remarks • Read text and see how text challenges pre-understanding • Enter into dialog with the text through papers • Enter into a broader interpretive circle through discussion of papers in class

12. Method of Categorizing Material • History of Ideas • Arthur Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being (1936) • Consider history of ‘unit ideas’ • Trace how ideas developed and changed over time • ‘Unit Idea’ examples from Chain of Being: continuity, graduation, plenitude • Assumes • Some commonality in human existence across time • Reasonably define unit ideas as separate entities

13. Selection of ideas • Method • Theological Method and Exegesis • Divine Illumination • Scientific • Trinity and Nature of God • Virtue and Vice • Justification • Church • Society and history • Ecclesiology • Language and Sacraments

14. Approach to Selection of Materials • ‘Classics’ of their own era • Highlight dependency on Augustine • Indicators of development of ideas • Illuminate critical issues today: • Religion and Science • Religion and Politics • Personal Morality • Evil • Free Will and Grace • Language, Sacraments, Church

15. Introduction to Augustine • Man of late antiquity • Some (Copleston) see him as beginning of Middle Ages • Brown places him in late antiquity

16. Brief Biographical Sketch • Born near Carthage in 354 to a devoutly Catholic mother and worldly father • In youth leads a life of pleasure searching for happiness • Flirts with Manichaeism • Becomes enamored with Platonism (Plotinus) • Conversion to Catholic Christianity • Ordained priest 391, bishop of Hippo 395 • Died on 28 August 430 • Peter Brown’s book Augustine of Hippo remains the most important biography of Augustine in English • Be sure to get the New Edition with Epilogue • Discusses discovery of 12 previously unstudied letters and sermons of Augustine (396-404)

17. Augustine’s Works • Augustine’s friend and biographer, Possidius, catalogued Augustine's works after his death and observed that no one would be able to read them all • Among the vitally important works which every Catholic theologian should read • On Free Will • Confessions • On the Trinity • City of God • On Christian Teaching • Retractions concerning On Free Will • Nearly innumerable letters, treatises, homilies, commentaries • Retractions

18. Introduction to Confessions • Written shortly after Augustine was named bishop of Hippo (395-400) • Written at the request of his friend Paulinus of Nola; written 11 years after his baptism • It is Augustine the bishop reflecting in middle age on events in his youth; • It is not a telling of the story of his youth • May have been written as a defense against charge that Augustine was still a Manichean • Became an instant best seller • Most important work in Modernity (City of God most important in Middle Ages)

19. Structure of Confessions • Division of 13 Books is Augustine’s division • Usually considered in two parts: • Augustine’s past (I-IX) • Augustine's present (X-XIII)

20. Structure of Part 1 • Can be viewed as being a chiasm • Book I: Birth and relationship of infant with mother • Book II: Bondage of Flesh • Book III: Slavery of eyes and mind; problem of evil • Book IV Ambition of World • Book V Encounter with Faustus, Manichaeism, philosophy; moving from Carthage to Rome • Book VI: Recognition of emptiness of world’s ambition • Book VII: Freedom of mind; resolution of problem of evil • Book VIII: Liberation from bondage of flesh • Book IX: Relation to Monica, her death

21. Another Perspective of Part 1: What Is Augustine Reading • Book I: School books on Greek grammar, Virgil Aeneid • Book II: Sallust, Catiline • Book III: Cicero, Hortensius, and Old Testament • Book IV: Manichean texts, Aristotle • Book V: Compares Manichean texts with astronomy; reads Academics; Ambrose explains Old Testament • Book VI: Ambrose continues to explain Old Testament; • Book VII: Platonists and Paul • Book VIII: Athanasius, Life of Antony and Paul • Book IX: Isaiah

22. Structure of Part 2 • Book X: Augustine the Bishop at the end of his reflection on his youth, meditates on • Memory and knowledge • Sin • Book XI: Augustine the Bishop meditates on • “In the beginning” • What is Time • Book XII: Augustine the Bishop meditates on • “God created the heavens and the earth” • How to interpret Scripture and authorial intent • Book XIII: Augustine the Bishop meditates on • Trinity • Church • NB: Augustine uses the word ‘confessions’ more often in these last four than the previous nine books • Confessio: both ‘accusation of oneself and praise for God’ Sermon 67.2

23. Cautions • A teacher can only teach what she knows or wants to know • Teacher’s ignorance should not limit student who knows (or wants to know) other things • Class is an experiment in establishing frameworks for evaluation of texts • Also an exploration of a thesis: • If the Renaissance and Reformation were marked by rejection of Scholasticism, Modernity (Enlightenment) is marked by a rejection of Augustine • But post-modernity may be a re-engagement with Augustine • Benedict XVI emphasis on Augustine

24. Another Caution: Gobbets • A century or so ago, the English word “gobbet” was given a new lease of life. This obscure term for a small lump of something unsavory (mud, raw meat, snot) was reborn. It now referred to a short extract of text, one that was often set as an examination exercise for students to identify and analyze. Who wrote these lines? What is their context? What is their historical significance? • The OED finds its first use in the new sense in March 1912, in a poem in Punch satirizing those who promised quick routes to classical learning: “He’ll gorge you with gobbets of Homer” (meaning, you won’t have to read the whole thing). But the examination exercise went back well into the nineteenth century, and the word must have had currency in university jargon long before the Punch satirist picked it up. You certainly find it several years earlier in donnish letters and diaries. R. W. Livingstone, for example, the best-selling author of The Glory That Was Greece, was full of complaints in a letter to an Oxford colleague written around 1910 that, while the students could do their gobbets in the examinations well enough, they did not seem to have much clue about classical literature and culture as a whole: “The shocking thing is that real understanding of the classics counts for so very little side by side with the gobbets”. • Mary Beard, TLS

25. Assignment • David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 2002), Preface, Chapter 3, pp 99 – 135. • Augustine, Confessions: • III.iv-v, Cicero and Old Testament • IV.xvi, Aristotle • VII.xx-xxi, Platonists and Paul • Benedict XVI, General Audience , Augustine of Hippo (5), 27 Feb. 2008, available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080227_en.html • Write 1-2 page paper on Augustine as a reader of classics (especially Old Testament) OR Benedict XVI as a reader of Augustine