Augustine on Memory (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology) 9780197587218, 9780197587232, 9780197587225, 9780197587249, 0197587216

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Augustine on Memory

OX F O R D S T U D I E S I N H I S T O R IC A L T H E O L O G Y Series Editor Richard A. Muller, Calvin Theological Seminary Founding Editor David C. Steinmetz† Editorial Board Robert C. Gregg, Stanford University George M. Marsden, University of Notre Dame Wayne A. Meeks, Yale University Gerhard Sauter, Rheinische Friedrich-​Wilhelms-​Universität Bonn Susan E. Schreiner, University of Chicago John Van Engen, University of Notre Dame Robert L. Wilken, University of Virginia ORTHODOX RADICALS Baptist Identity in the English Revolution Matthew C. Bingham

RINGLEADERS OF REDEMPTION How Medieval Dance Became Sacred Kathryn Dickason

DIVINE PERFECTION AND HUMAN POTENTIALITY The Trinitarian Anthropology of Hilary of Poitiers Jarred A. Mercer

REFUSING TO KISS THE SLIPPER Opposition to Calvinism in the Francophone Reformation Michael W. Bruening

THE GERMAN AWAKENING Protestant Renewal after the Enlightenment, 1815–​1848 Andrew Kloes THE REGENSBURG ARTICLE 5 ON JUSTIFICATION Inconsistent Patchwork or Substance of True Doctrine? Anthony N. S. Lane AUGUSTINE ON THE WILL A Theological Account Han-​luen Kantzer Komline THE SYNOD OF PISTORIA AND VATICAN II Jansenism and the Struggle for Catholic Reform Shaun Blanchard

FONT OF PARDON AND NEW LIFE John Calvin and the Efficacy of Baptism Lyle D. Bierma THE FLESH OF THE WORD The extra Calvinisticum from Zwingli to Early Orthodoxy K. J. Drake JOHN DAVENANT’S HYPOTHETICAL UNIVERSALISM A Defense Of Catholic And Reformed Orthodoxy Michael J. Lynch RHETORICAL ECONOMY IN AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGY Brian Gronewoller GRACE AND CONFORMITY The Reformed Conformist tradition and the Early Stuart Church of England Stephen Hampton

CATHOLICITY AND THE COVENANT OF WORKS MAKING ITALY ANGLICAN James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition Why the Book of Common Prayer Was Harrison Perkins Translated Into Italian THE COVENANT OF WORKS Stefano Villani The Origins, Development, and Reception AUGUSINE ON MEMORY of the Doctrine Kevin G. Grove J. V. Fesko

Augustine on Memory K EV I N G . G R OV E

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Grove, G. Kevin, author. Title: Augustine on memory / Kevin G. Grove. Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, 2021. | Series: Oxford studies in historical theology series | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021024164 (print) | LCCN 2021024165 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197587218 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197587232 (epub) | ISBN 9780197587225 (updf) | ISBN 9780197587249 (oso) Subjects: LCSH: Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354–430. | Memory—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Memory (Philosophy) | Memory. Classification: LCC BR65. A9 G78 2021 (print) | LCC BR65. A9 (ebook) | DDC 128/.3—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024164 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024165     

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

Non memoria, sed vita. Not with your memory, but with your life. —​Augustine, preaching on Psalm 102 at Carthage

Contents Acknowledgments  Abbreviations of the Works of Augustine 

ix xi

Introduction: “My Most Intimate Interior” or “Stuck in the Self ”? 

1



Historical Setting: The Work of Memory  Memory and Mediation  A Renewed Memory for Augustinian Studies  A Renewed Augustine for Memory Studies  Outline of Chapters 

3 4 7 13 19

1 .   T H E B E G I N N I N G O F M E M O RY 1. Preparing to Preach: Memory, Self, and Christ 

25

2. Preaching from the Whole: The Self in Christ 

57



Memory in Augustine’s Early Writings  Confessions as Hinge  Confessions 7: Memory, Soul, and Body  Confessions 10: The Spectacular Failure of Memory  Confessions 11: Memory, Time, and Expectation  Conclusion: Memory Un-​Placed and Un-​Selfed 

What the Psalms Made of Augustine: Preacher of a Whole Christ  En Route to Wholeness: Tracking Christ the Mediator  The Whole Christ: Form and Content of Mediation  The Whole Christ: Mediation as Transfiguration  Conclusion to Part 1: The Beginning of Memory 

26 31 32 35 53 55 59 62 75 78 81

2 .   T H E WO R K O F M E M O RY 3. Learning to Leap: Memory as Shared Exercise 

Leaping Psalmist, Leaping Christ  The Leap of Memory into Christ  The Leap of Memory out from Christ  The Leap of Forgetting into Christ  Leaping as Re-​Membered Ascent  Conclusion: “Go with Idithun and See” 

85

85 88 94 99 104 110

viii Contents

4. The Work of Remembering 

112

5. The Work of Forgetting 

141

6. The Work of Memory: The Life of Grace 

158



Broken Memories: The Self in the Whole Christ  Remembering Back: Confession into Christ  Remembering Forward: An Eschatology of Hope and Mourning  Collective Memory or Christic Memory?  Conclusion: The Work of Remembering  Memory’s Need to Forget  The Pauline Paradigm of Forgetting (Philippians 3:13–​14)  Can the Whole Christ Forget?  Conclusion: The Work of Forgetting  Binary Method  Lyre and Psaltery: Christology from Above and Below  Labor and Rest  Solitude and Communion  Praising and Groaning  Life of Grace  Conclusion to Part 2: The Work of Memory 

112 115 127 138 140 142 146 154 156 159 162 167 170 175 180 182

3 .   T H E E N D O F M E M O RY 7. Transitus and Trinity 

187

8. Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death 

213

Bibliography  Scripture Index  Index to Works of Augustine  Subject and Name Index 

227 251 253 259



Reprising Idithun the Leaper: Transitus and Transiliens  The Eagles of Forgetting  The Work of Memory and Memory’s Failure (Again)  The Work of Memory and the Trinity: Scientia and Sapientia  Participation: Abiding Traces and Image Renewed  Conclusion: Transitus and Trinity  Possidius’s Hagiographic Reduction  Psalm 50: Rethinking the End of Memory  Continuing to Leap  Remembering Back: Confession and Festivals of Abiding Traces  Remembering Forward: Rebuilding Jerusalem’s Walls  Conclusion: A Different End of Memory 

191 196 198 205 208 211 213 215 216 218 222 224

Acknowledgments When the late James B. Reichmann first introduced me as an undergraduate to Augustine through the Confessions, like many, I underappreciated what I considered his preoccupations with memory, time, and the Psalms. I still keep the text of my first reading, a too boldly marked-​up paperback of the Chadwick translation, as a lieu de mémoire of a youth in need of humility. The long work of this research has developed through generous interlocutors, beginning with the patient Fr. Reichmann. I owe the greatest debt of thanks to Janet Soskice, who guided me through the portions of this study that I pursued during my doctorate. Rowan Williams and Michael Cameron further provided excellent advice for the reworking and publication of the whole. Along the way, I benefited greatly from the wisdom of Nicholas Boyle and Michael Banner, as well as conversations with Lewis Ayres, Amy Daughton, Andrew Davison, Frederick van Fleteren, Mark Langham, Marianne Lloyd, Alban McCoy, Vittorio Montemaggi, Mark Retter, Ann Swailes, Jonathan Teubner, and many Gates Cambridge friends. A brief postdoc at L’Institut Catholique de Paris blessed me with the generous insights of Isabelle Moulin, Isabelle Bochet, Olivier Boulnois, Vincent Holzer, and Jean-​Luc Marion. I have been supported at the University of Notre Dame by the Department of Theology, the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts. While more individuals merit recognition than I can name here, I would be remiss without mentioning Matthew Ashley, Kimberly Belcher, John Betz, John Cavadini, David Clairmont, Brian Daley, Brad Gregory, David Bentley Hart, Timothy Matovina, Hildegund Müller, Cyril O’Regan, Donald Stelluto, and Robert Sullivan. The weaknesses of this volume are mine and not theirs. Cynthia Read and Richard Muller have guided this volume through a helpful peer review process and publication with Oxford University Press in a time of pandemic, and I am grateful for their care. I am grateful to the following copyright holders for their permissions. Though much of the translation work is my own, I am grateful to the Augustinian Heritage Institute, which owns the rights to the translations in

x Acknowledgments the series The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, published by New City Press, New York. Parts of ­chapters 1, 2, and 3, have appeared in my own prior work: “Rhetoric and Reality: Augustine and Pope Francis on Preaching Christ and the Poor” in Theological Studies 80, no. 3 (2019): 530–​553; “Memory after the ‘Confessions’: Communal and Incarnational Memory in the Later Writings of Augustine,” in Monument and Memory, edited by Jonna Bornemark, Mattias Martinson, and Jayne Svenungsson, 202–​212 (Berlin: LIT-​Verlag, 2014); and “Christology, Ascent, and Augustine’s Idithun Enarrationes,” in Praedicatio Patrum: Studies on Preaching in Late Antique North Africa, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 75, edited by G. Partoens, A. Dupont, and S. Boots, 269–​314 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). Finally, those who have been most instrumental in supporting this work, in addition to my own family, have been the members of my religious order, the Congregation of Holy Cross. Many confrères over these years of research have helped me to foster the zeal that resists the temptation to trudge and instead opens onto virtue’s stride of hope.

Abbreviations of the Works of Augustine c. Acad. quant. b. vita cat. rud. civ. Dei conf. div. qu. doc. Chr. en. Ps. ep.(epp.) ep. Rm. inch. ex. Gal. ex. prop. Rm. c. Faust. Gn. litt. Gn. adv. Man. imm. an. Jo. ev. tr. lib. arb. mag. mor. mus. ord. retr. sermo. s. Dom. mon. Simpl. sol. trin. vera rel.

Against the Skeptics On the Greatness of the Soul On the Happy Life Instructing Beginners in the Faith City of God Confessions On Eighty-​Three Varied Questions On Christian Teaching Expositions of the Psalms Letters Unfinished Commentary on the Letter to the Romans Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians Commentary on Statements in the Letter to the Romans Answer to Faustus, a Manichaean On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis On Genesis, against the Manichaeans On the Immortality of the Soul Tractates on the Gospel of John On Free Will On the Teacher On the Catholic and the Manichaean Ways of Life On Music On Order Revisions Sermons On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount To Simplicianus Soliloquies Trinity On True Religion

Introduction “My Most Intimate Interior” or “Stuck in the Self ”?

Memory mediates reality—​ time, sensation, mind, and identity—​ to the human self. For this reason, it never ceases to fascinate and also to elude. Augustine, who in his Confessions famously interrogates his own memory for the roots of his motives, the fickleness of his longings, and the intersection of his own story with God’s, opens to his reader his own memory as interior intimo meo.1 Neither precisely a place nor a faculty, this most intimate interior is the intelligibility of Augustine’s very existence as creature, his restless heart, and his desire for and encounter with God. As such, memory forms a tantalizingly incomplete, but nevertheless real, integration of the self and connection to God. Memory at once provides a storehouse or stomach for the mind, as well as the epicenter of the entire confession of the restless heart. Memory as the most intimate interior has inspired important scholarly images of Augustine, of which for my purposes four are the most important. First, we see Augustine the philosopher, a very early Augustine who draws on received Greek philosophical conceptions of memory only to modify them as he adopts Christian categories of creation and sin. This Augustine grapples with the possibility of a priori knowledge of God reflected in a posteriori discourses. Second, Augustine as practitioner of the ars memoriae emerges as an early Christian figure who does not quite fit either the classical type of a Simonides of Ceos, recalling a dinner seating chart after a catastrophic accident, or the medieval monks who created memory palaces in order to aid their recitation of the psalter. Third, on account of his articulation of memory Augustine the proto-​psychologist is credited by scholars of the self across disciplines with groundbreaking steps concerning ideas of interiority. And

1 conf. 3.6.11. This version of memory and interiority characterizes Augustine’s recalling the entirety of his life in books 1–​9; it structures a more abstract argument in book 10. See Charles Mathewes, “Augustinian Anthropology: Interior intimo meo,” Journal of Religious Ethics 27, no. 2 (1999): 195–​221.

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0001

2 Introduction fourth, in his Trinity, Augustine the mature theologian takes memory into the dynamism of Trinitarian logic. For all the strengths of these contributions, two problems persist. The first is an implicit methodological assumption that Augustine’s understanding of memory—​variously called a doctrine, a concept, a faculty, or a power—​can be distilled through the analysis of its appearances in his treatises, primarily Confessions and Trinity. While this approach has borne much fruit, the greatest volume of memory language and musing in Augustine occurs in his preaching. Indeed, Augustine the preacher is nowhere to be found in the scholarly portrayals of Augustine on memory just listed. The second problem is one to which I will give Augustine’s own label: “stuck in the self.” In his sermons, memory as interior intimo meo gives way to memory that is the shared exercise of the communal existence he calls the “whole Christ.” Augustine’s understanding of this communal remembering emerges and develops over time in his preaching, eventually leading him to revise or bring to maturity his earlier understanding of interior intimo meo. In his preaching, the self is discovered in the whole, the individual paradoxically in Christ. In fact, despite being famous for his writings on the interiority of memory, in his preaching Augustine raises and addresses the danger that the interiority of individuals’ memories could lead people to become “stuck in themselves” (see ­chapters 3 and 5). And, as such, they will cease to attain their end in God. The primary claim of this book is that memory is the heart of shared life in the whole Christ. Memory draws forward time-​bound past grace and confession such that Christ is in some way acting in the present. Likewise, memory can draw backward traces of future Sabbath rest or the heavenly Jerusalem, traces given not from history but from grace, such that singing, laboring, groaning, and resting are in some way a present participation in the heavenly order. What I call the “work of memory” explores the contours of how these past and future traces might be mediated to the present. Shared chewing staves off the forgetting of individuated digestion, and shared singing keeps the songs of the heavenly Jerusalem on the lips of those who abide on the banks of the rivers of Babylon. In each of these instances the work of memory is embedded in the changing, the human, and the temporal, with the whole Christ providing access and promise that such activity is not without connection to the eternal and abiding—​from the foundation of creation in the Word to the end of time.

Introduction  3 In this way, the work of memory is the shared participation that demands a shared identity, not as an end product but from the outset. The work of remembering keeps festival with abiding traces such that they shall not be forgotten until the image of the human person is completely renewed. The same is true of forgetting, a healing action of working from distention to extension. Even seeming binaries in the temporal order become revelatory of ongoing Christic transfiguration. When the whole Christ remembers (and forgets), it does so only to become ever more that which it recalls: the image of God being renewed in human persons.

Historical Setting: The Work of Memory It is common in philosophies and theologies of memory to speak about primordial, or a priori, memories as well as last things, or eschatologies, of memory—​in other words, the beginning and the end of memory. The extant portrayals of Augustine on memory could be located within these categories. In this scheme the beginning emerges from the early writings through the Confessions: memory as mediator of a self in search of unity and union with God. Meanwhile the end of memory, as the end of all reality, emerges in Augustine’s preaching and is taken up as an inner triad in the Trinity. So configured, both the beginning of memory, culminating in the Confessions, and the end of memory, culminating in the Trinity, privilege the mind and the self, the interior as the access to the superior. However, within the nearly twenty-​year gap between the beginning and the end of memory, Augustine preached often upon memory, God, and community.2 This book, then, is an account of how memory’s middle—​the work of memory—​threads through and holds together the beginning of memory in the self and its end in the Triune God. Between the intimate interior of the early writings of Augustine and the Trinity considered in itself is the whole Christ, a communal reality sojourning through the world. Evidenced by these decades of preaching, Christology proves not to be a limit on memory but rather a framework for reimagining the self as communally constituted, ever in relation and being healed in a sinful world. This middle work of memory reconfigures our understanding both of memory’s beginning and its end. 2 That is, from the end of writing the Confessions (400) to the completion of the final book of Trinity (c. 419–​427), the dating of which I account for in c­ hapter 7.

4 Introduction This book’s temporal range overlaps Augustine’s years of preaching, with particular emphasis on the first two decades of the fifth century. In addition to his Sermons generally, his Expositions of the Psalms form a primary resource for this study, for two reasons. First, across the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, the Psalms are the most densely packed with memory language—​on the part of God, the lamenting individual, or the collective subject Israel. Second, Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms constitute his longest work, both in number of years to complete and in terms of words, representing his enduring commitment to these texts. Though not all of his expositions were preached, he works his way through the entire psalter, beginning not long after his ordination in 392 and continuing until late in his life. The psalms are the texts that make him cry just before his conversion and that he chooses to have pasted up around his bed as he lies dying in 430.3 These records of his preaching on them show his developing understanding of the whole Christ within a constellation of frequently recurring memory language.

Memory and Mediation To understand Augustine’s use of memory is not as simple as determining the places and instances in which the word memoria, or verbal forms related to it, occur in his work. Nor is there a precise Latin term for the Greek anamnesis (recollection), which Augustine articulates by means of different verbs, including reminiscari, recordare, and commemorare.4 In fact, Augustine has a full semantic field of terms concerning memory, remembering, and memories. These include descriptions of memories themselves meant to suggest abiding traces (vestigium, memoria, reliquiae cogitationis) or ongoing reflection (cogitatio hominis), which, in turn, could be paired with any number of verbs (recordare, cogitare, commemorare, memor esto, meminisse). The words for forgetting are equally varied (obliviscor, delere, excidere). Moreover, other transitive verbs that are situationally specific—​ I will give examples of leaping, belching, ruminating, and keeping solemn festival throughout the book—​can also stand in for the act of remembering, either individually or collectively. Most important, Augustine’s vast 3 conf. 9.4.8; Possidius, Sancti Augustini vita. 31.2. 4 ep. 7.2; trin. 12.15.24; and sol. 1.20.34ff., respectively. Augustine affirms his distance from the concept in retr. 1.1.3–​4, 1.8.2.

Introduction  5 vocabulary for memory is often prompted by the particular terms of the scripture on which he is preaching. While Augustine’s unsystematic employment of a vast register of words related to memory might at first seem an insuperable challenge, I contend that it actually proves advantageous in reconsidering memory throughout his corpus. This is in part because Augustine’s semantic field stymies debates that focus too narrowly on a single—​often imported—​concept of memory. For example, at the International Augustinian Congress in Paris in 1954 and in the publication of the first volume of Augustinus Magister in the same year, scholars debated the extent to which memoria Dei, or a memory of God, existed for Augustine. The core of the debate concerned whether or not Augustine, largely in Confessions 10 and Trinity, argued for an a priori memory of God that existed somehow naturally in the human person.5 This particular debate continued, largely in Revue des Études Augustiniennes, for over a decade, with Goulven Madec summarizing the arguments in 1965 in “Pour et contre la ‘memoria Dei,’ ” and Lope Cilleruelo, one of the original presenters at the 1954 congress, responding decidedly with “Pro memoria Dei” in 1966. The debate did not resolve itself: all were left trying to parse how it was that Augustine’s understanding of memory could be transcendent though perhaps not innate. Answers ranged from unconscious natural habit to distinctions between awareness in memory and presence to memory. I suggest that the debate broke down without resolution because it imposed a sweeping philosophical concept upon a single term, memoria Dei, which is hardly an important terminological formulation for Augustine. This terminological approach further limited the texts with which the participants were concerned: each treated the first half of book 10 of Confessions as a treatise on the philosophical concept of memory, concluding with “Late have I loved you” and neglecting the remainder of the book in favor of turning to Trinity for further investigation.6 Additionally, by selecting the label

5 In chronological order of publication, the debate includes Lope Cilleruelo, “La ‘Memoria Dei’ según San Agustín,” in Augustinus Magister 1 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1954), 499–​509; Klaus Winkler, “La théorie augustinienne de la mémoire à son point de départ,” in Augustinus Magister 1 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1954), 511–​519; M. Moreau, “Mémoire et Durée,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 1, no. 3 (1955): 239–​250; José Morán, “Hacia una comprensión de la ‘Memoria Dei’ según San Agustin,” Augustiniana 10 (1960): 185–​234; José Morán, “Sobre la ‘memoria Dei’ agustiniana,” Augustinus 9, no. 33 (1964): 205–​209; Lope Cilleruelo, “¿Por qué ‘memoria Dei’?,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 10, no. 4 (1964): 289–​294; Goulven Madec, “Pour et contre la ‘memoria Dei,’” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 11, nos. 1–​2 (1965): 89–​92; and Lope Cilleruelo, “Pro memoria Dei,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 12, nos. 1–​2 (1966): 65–​84. 6 conf. 10.27.38.

6 Introduction memoria Dei, the scholars of the debate were treating a memory of God the creator. While that is indeed a noble goal, it does not account for the manner in which remembering God is more properly an action or work within the created order than the narrow recalling of an eternal content. Nor does it include what might be gained in memory about God as creator by means of embodied, time-​bound existence. For Augustine, that exploration of memory and God emerges through considering the God-​man Jesus Christ and, equally, the members of his body who remember together. The body of Christ is not only important but, as I will argue, primary in Augustine’s thought. It was precisely this Christological centrality of memory that the 1954–​1966 debate missed by limiting the whole semantic field to a single, imported term. This study will argue, by contrast, that memory, though beginning as an anthropological issue for Augustine in his early writings, develops into an important Christological issue. “Mediation” as a central concept for both Christ and memory helps track Augustine’s developments throughout this book. From the Latin word for “middle,” a mediator and the action of mediation are terms that draw together two distinct realities. In Augustine’s early writings, memory mediates anthropological realities, understood as the middle between body and soul, time and eternity, and the measure appropriate to wisdom. As Paige Hochschild explains, memory unifies natural mutability with the permanence of divine eternity.7 I treat these early indicators of memory as anthropological mediator in ­chapter 1. But by the time he writes Confessions, Augustine realizes and admits the limits of memory’s mediatory power. In a fallen world, with fallen, forgetful minds, human memory cannot mediate the wholeness and health of salvation to itself. Augustine does not condemn fallen human memory as false, but rather uses the limits of our mediating memory to point toward a true mediator, Jesus Christ. Christ as mediator, as Brian Daley describes, is capable of bringing “God to us and us to God.”8 The link between Christ as mediator (salvific) and memory as mediator (anthropological) emerges early for Augustine, in book 10 of Confessions (see ­chapter 1). To reach his conclusion about Christ the mediator, Augustine implicates memory as anthropological mediator (successes and failures) 7 Paige Hochschild, Memory in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 133. 8 Brian E. Daley, “A Humble Mediator: The Distinctive Elements in Saint Augustine’s Christology,” Word and Spirit 9 (1987): 110.

Introduction  7 along the way. From this early, formal connection in Confessions 10, how Jesus as divine mediator relates to memory as anthropological mediator develops throughout this book. In order to track this relationship, an important distinction must be made from the outset about Christ as mediator and how memory participates in Christ’s mediation. As Augustine’s understanding of Jesus develops, he remains committed to the Pauline expression that Christ is the one mediator between God and the human race and did this work once and for all (1 Tm 2:5–​6). Mediation, when referred to Jesus Christ, is the salvific work unique to God. In this strictest sense, fallen human memory cannot mediate the divine. Yet Augustine will go so far as to say that through human memory, Christ is sacrificed daily so as to renew us every day.9 In fact, we will often see Augustine using memory to preach about the mediation of the divine to the human. He is not blurring the boundaries between God’s salvific work in Christ and the graced work of human beings. But a remarkable synthesis of Christology and anthropology takes place when Augustine describes ongoing mediation within the body of the whole Christ (see ­chapter 2). Within the totus Christus, Christ the head transfigures his members into himself, that is, into his body. In Augustine’s sermons explored in this book, it is through memory that he continues to articulate how Christ effects mediation to the members of his body. Memory as an anthropological mediator, or middle, is relocated—​within Christ the salvific mediator’s body—​and with the effect that memory (both remembering and forgetting) becomes work par excellence of participating in the ongoing transfiguration of persons into the body of the whole Christ.

A Renewed Memory for Augustinian Studies This book develops a concept I call the work of memory, comprised of both remembering and forgetting. It is primarily concerned with how, within the whole Christ, memory mediates the distention-​inducing binaries of human experience. Augustine’s preaching provides just such a vibrant arena of exploration, for it can hold together, in one exercise, self, community, the rest of the world, and God. Preaching as a most sophisticated locus for thought can strike the twenty-​first-​century ear as curious or even improbable. However we may be conditioned by modern perceptions or experiences of 9 en. Ps. 75.15. See c­ hapter 4, “Memory Alive Together: Festivals of Abiding Traces.”

8 Introduction preaching, we would do well not to impose our hermeneutics upon the intellectual relationship between Augustine and his congregants. Reading Augustine’s preaching, we enter into an integrative rhetorical act wherein Augustine marshals exegesis, philosophy, and developing Christological and Trinitarian grammars in order to communicate the ongoing actions of the whole Christ. Here sermons themselves are first-​order theology in which Augustine conjures up ideas, develops and refines them, and then revisits them. Along the way, he and his congregation are formed by the scriptures they encounter. Augustine’s preaching is anything but a dumbed-​down version of his treatises; his sermons, in their real intellectual rigor, might be better understood as the shared laboratory of the whole Christ. At least in terms of memory, his most extraordinary discoveries emerge in this context and radiate outward, even into the famed treatise on the Trinity. As such, I use these sermons to engage four areas within Augustinian studies.

Augustinian Memory Studies of Augustine on memory have tended up to this point to engage philosophically—​ theories of mind, time, and antecedent Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions. As mentioned, these same studies have scrutinized a similar canon of Augustine’s works based on a limited terminology: the few references to memory in the early writings, the first half of Confessions 10, as well as the later books of Trinity. Helpful studies in this vein include those by Janet Coleman, John Mourant, Gerard O’Daly, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Roland Teske.10 More recently, Hochschild shifted the debate entirely, not only by reviewing the philosophical sources behind Augustine’s worldview but also by suggesting that memory has a place in Augustine’s theological anthropology.11 Hochschild laid the groundwork—​especially establishing the anthropological aspect of memory as mediator—​for which I am grateful 10 Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); John Mourant, St. Augustine on Memory, Saint Augustine Lecture Series (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Augustinian Institute, 1980); Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Gerard O’Daly, “Memory in Plotinus and Two Early Texts of Augustine,” Studia Patristica 14 (1976): 461–​ 469; Jaroslav Pelikan, The Mystery of Continuity: Time and History, Memory and Eternity in the Thought of St. Augustine (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986); and Roland Teske, “Augustine’s Philosophy of Memory,” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 148–​158. 11 Hochschild, Memory.

Introduction  9 throughout this text. She points to the importance of Christ for memory and concludes that for Augustine, memory may indeed be exchangeable with the restless heart.12 However, despite the many merits of Hochschild’s study, the sources are again familiar: Augustine’s early writings, Confessions, and Trinity. As we will see, the two decades of Augustine’s life between Confessions and Trinity directly connected memory to the life of grace, salvation, and existence within the whole Christ. The writings of these decades are not only important in themselves but allow a developing and continuous reading of Augustine concerning memory throughout his entire ministerial life. As I will argue in ­chapter 7, the best reading of memory in Trinity emerges out of Augustine’s treatment of it in his preaching. Ultimately, this study shows that Augustine’s approach to memory may have begun as philosophical but quickly became Christological.

Augustinian Interiority and Exteriority While I will introduce this book’s relation to phenomenologies of self later, here I want to describe a controversy within Augustinian studies concerning interiority, to which memory continues to be of central import.13 Phillip Cary’s three significant volumes (Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self, Outward Signs, and Inner Grace) come to the conclusion that Augustine the Christian Platonist did indeed invent an inner space in which God could be found.14 Cary’s fundamental worry is that Augustine’s move to find God by looking within the self sacrifices the work of finding God outside the self. In Cary’s estimation, Augustine’s inward turn ends up undermining Christian faith and practice across the ecumenical divides, from Orthodox reverence for icons to Catholic sacraments and Protestant faith in the Word of God. By contrast, I argue that, in the work of memory, Augustine’s mature thinking is characterized by a communal, external, sacramental, and liturgical character. It is in fact the most interiorizing aspect of the human person—​ memory—​that opens onto this communal exterior. Chapter 3, “Learning to 12 Hochschild, Memory, 221. 13 Matthew Drever has provided another important touchstone in this conversation: Image, Identity, and the Forming of the Augustinian Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 14 Phillip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Phillip Cary, Inner Grace: Augustine and the Traditions of Plato and Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Phillip Cary, Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

10 Introduction Leap,” reconsiders Augustine’s inward turn as self-​subverting, moving back outward to God and neighbor. Indeed, ascent becomes a “re-​membering” exercise. In terms of the exterior, I suggest that Augustine’s development of memory in his preaching allows for even more significant reconciliations. The fully formed “work of memory,” in ­chapter 6, takes up a number of seemingly irreconcilable binaries of human experience and shows how Augustine believes such binaries might be mediated: Christology above and below, solitude and communion, labor and rest, and praising and groaning. In Christ and the Just Society, Robert Dodaro claimed that for Augustine language and grace intersect for the purpose of renewal of the human person.15 Within Christ, as we will see, memory (including especially its failures) is the marker of exterior human participation in the life of grace precisely through distention-​inducing realities.

Augustine the Preacher Peter Brown, in the new edition to his now classic biography, Augustine of Hippo, identified Augustine’s sermons as one of key areas of growth for Augustinian scholarship.16 Interestingly, the Expositions of the Psalms were his most popular and widely circulated texts until the dawn of modernity, when they fell out of favor as the historical mode of biblical scholarship grew in popularity. More recently, however, scholarship has taken up again the texts of allegorical exegetes like Augustine, not as ancillary to their thought but as part and parcel of it. This line of thought accrued momentum in earnest with Michael Fiedrowicz’s 1997 Psalmus Vox Totius Christi and has continued and expanded.17 Others, like Michael Cameron, have explored how rhetoric and Christology simultaneously develop in Augustine’s preaching, whether he is allegorically parsing a complex scriptural character or a rival Christian faction in the fractious crucible of Christian North Africa at the dawn of the fifth century.18 David Meconi has shown that in these texts the 15 Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 147–​181. 16 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (1967; Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 2000), vii, 441–​520. 17 Michael Fiedrowicz, Psalmus Vox Totius Christi: Studien Zu Augustins Enarrationes in Psalmos (Freiburg: Herder, 1997). 18 Michael Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figurative Exegesis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Michael Cameron, “‘Totus Christus’ and the Psychagogy of Augustine’s Sermons,” Augustinian Studies 36, no. 1 (2010): 59–​70.

Introduction  11 idea of theosis, often purported to be present only in Greek traditions and not in Augustine, actually can be found as deification in Augustine’s preaching.19 Rowan Williams, Brian Daley, Anthony Dupont, Carol Harrison, Paul Kolbet, Gerard McLarney, and others have each contributed to a fresh appreciation of what is to be gained from patristic preaching, singing, and worship.20 This study also contributes to the question of how Augustine’s preaching relates to his treatises. I will argue that Christ and memory are fundamental to reading Trinity. My argument connects to and stands in gratitude for those scholars who have, for more than a generation, been re-​reading Augustine’s Trinitarian thinking. The work of Rowan Williams (again), Lewis Ayres, Michel Barnes, John Cavadini, and others has shifted interpretation of Augustine’s Trinity away from the psychological to become much more focused on exegesis and Trinitarian theology.21 Their work has paved the way for studies like this one, which establish Augustine’s preaching as the laboratory in which Augustine was able to forge several of the great insights on memory he puts to work in Trinity.

19 David Meconi, “Becoming Gods by Becoming God’s: Augustine’s Mystagogy of Identification,” Augustinian Studies 39, no. 1 (2008): 61–​74; David Meconi, The One Christ: Augustine’s Theology of Deification (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013). 20 Rowan Williams, “Augustine and the Psalms,” Interpretation 58, no. 1 (2004): 17–​27; Daley, “A Humble Mediator”; Brian E. Daley, “Is Patristic Exegesis Still Usable? Reflections on Early Christian Interpretation of the Psalms,” Communio 29, no. 1 (2002): 185–​216; Brian E. Daley, God Visible: Patristic Christology Reconsidered (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Anthony Dupont, Gratia in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum during the Pelagian Controversy: Do Different Contexts Furnish Different Insights? (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Anthony Dupont, Preacher of Grace: A Critical Reappraisal of Augustine’s Doctrine of Grace in His Sermones ad Populum on Liturgical Feasts and during the Donatist Controversy (Leiden: Brill, 2014); Carol Harrison, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Carol Harrison, The Art of Listening in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Paul Kolbet, Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010); and Gerard McLarney, St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Psalms of Ascent (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014). 21 Rowan Williams, “Sapientia and the Trinity: Reflections on the ‘de Trinitate,’” Augustiniana 40, no. 1 (1990): 213–​232; Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Michel René Barnes, “The Visible Christ and the Invisible Trinity: Mt 5:8 in Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology of 400,” Modern Theology 19, no. 3 (2003): 329–​355; Michel René Barnes, “Re-​ reading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity,” in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, ed. Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 145–​ 176; John C. Cavadini, “The Structure and Intention of Augustine’s ‘De Trinitate,’” Augustinian Studies 23 (1992): 103–​123; John C. Cavadini, “Trinity and Apologetics in the Theology of St. Augustine,” Modern Theology 29, no. 1 (2013): 48–​82; and John C. Cavadini, “The Quest for Truth in Augustine’s De Trinitate,” Theological Studies 58, no. 3 (1997): 429–​440.

12 Introduction

Christology at the Forefront As I will briefly discuss in the introduction to ­chapter 2, by the middle of the twentieth century, it became common for scholars who paid little attention to Augustine’s exegesis to say that Augustine either had little interest in Christology or even lacked one altogether.22 Tarsicius van Bavel, one of the early figures to correct this strain of thinking, claimed that aspects of it had simply been “forgotten.”23 This book contributes to the now growing contemporary consensus—​including among figures like Michael Cameron, Brian Daley, Robert Dodaro, and David Meconi—​that Augustine became a thoroughly Christological thinker.24 That memory, a concept treated in earlier times as entirely philosophical or anthropological, proves to be so thoroughly integrated with Augustine’s Christology, proves this point. By tracing the development of Augustine’s whole Christ as a mediator and then exploring how that reality functioned, we can see that Augustine inhabited a fundamentally Christological view of the world in which he lived, of the people to whom he preached, and of his own self in which he frequently enough found enigma and riddle. What I have just set forth in these four areas—​memory, interiority, preaching, and Christology—​is a claim on the scope of the task at hand. Studying the preaching of Augustine is a daunting task because of its occasional yet also integrative nature. Augustine as preacher, exegete, rhetor, philosopher, and theologian all converge in the issue of memory. This issue is of importance not only within the horizons of Augustinian studies. When it comes to memory, many disciplines beyond Augustinian studies have held onto the insight that Augustinian memory holds ever ancient, ever new promise for the challenges of contemporary thought.

22 See c­ hapter 2, “Preaching from the Whole: The Self in Christ.” 23 Tarsicius van Bavel, “The ‘Christus Totus’ Idea: A Forgotten Aspect of Augustine’s Spirituality,” in Christology, ed. Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), 84–​94. 24 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere; Daley, “A Humble Mediator”; Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society; and Meconi, The One Christ. In addition to these figures, the work of Adam Ployd and Jonathan Teubner has found in Augustine’s totus Christus not merely a useful exegetical tool but the heart of the church and prayer, respectively. Adam Ployd, Augustine, the Trinity, and the Church: A Reading of the Anti-​Donatist Sermons (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Jonathan Teubner, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

Introduction  13

A Renewed Augustine for Memory Studies For the field of memory studies broadly, Augustine, perhaps on par with Plato, is the foundation on whom scholars consistently rely and to whom they time and again return. These generous readers of Augustine on memory continue to shape the cross-​disciplinary possibilities of his thought. This book of Augustinian studies, in an effort inspired by Augustine’s emphasis on “keeping festival with abiding traces”25 even with those not part of his community who were listening to his sermons, attempts to keep in mind these strains of thought. Augustine on memory is a topic which reaches far beyond the bounds of historical theology. Social reconciliation, political theology, systematic theology, philosophy, phenomenology, ethics, sociology, literary theory, legal theory, and theories of self all variously return to Augustine in order to think about memory. I mention these fields here in order to suggest that the work of memory which we will uncover through his preaching offers a new image of Augustine on memory that is not circumscribed in the confines of the self. To that end, there are three broad ways in which the work of memory fleshes out and expands the relationship between memory and God to include community: phenomenologies of self and God; theories of collectivity, politics, and reconciliation; and ethics of remembering and forgetting. These areas have continued to be generous interlocutors with Augustinian studies and my hope in this project is to provide a historical grounding that is simultaneously suggestive of new collaborative horizons.

Phenomenologies of Self in Relation to God Many studies credit, in small or large part, Augustine’s turn to the interior-​ as-​superior with the emergence of selfhood and subjectivity in the western world. In Charles Taylor’s formulation, Augustine is the titanic figure between Platonism and Descartes.26 And, whether the topic is the self within memory, time, or narrative, scholars include Augustine.

25 en Ps. 75.14–​15. See ­chapter 4. 26 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

14 Introduction Martin Heidegger is among the exegetes of Augustine whose influence continues to shape Augustinian phenomenologies of self.27 Heidegger’s early thinking about facticity, what is ready-​to-​hand while searching, as well as the relationship between being and care, emerge out of reflection in the early 1920s on Augustine’s thinking through memory, specifically in Confessions book 10 and some of the sermons on particular psalms.28 The productivity of engaging Augustinian memoria is unquestionable for Heidegger. Yet, Heidegger’s conversation with Augustine is necessarily narrow: within a conception of self, and explicitly exclusive of the allusion to Christological community with which Augustine ends his Confessions text. Without the development of what such an allusion to Christ might provide to a phenomenology of care and searching, it is understandable how the Christ of Confessions 10 may have been perceived as more of a liability to phenomenology than an asset. By contrast I will argue that the recoupling of memory and Christ proves not to be a limit on but is an expansion of possibility. Post-​Heideggerian phenomenology and theology in its turn often reads Augustine’s memory within the bounds of the self, holding out hope that recovering Augustine’s idea, whether called a doctrine or a philosophy, might provide new insight into the mind’s relation to God. Karl Rahner, for instance, suggests in his Foundations of Christian Faith that in order to make progress in the relationship of the mind to God, theology needs to reclaim Augustine’s understanding of memoria.29 Rahner’s intuition, even if never spelled out, captures an ongoing fascination. French phenomenology has a similar interest after its theological turn. Jean-​Luc Marion, for example, reads Augustine on memory quite directly through Heidegger. In many ways, Marion gets to the heart of Augustine in considering how, in an apophasis of self, one might find God in the place of the self.30 German, French, and beyond, these rich discourses of phenomenology, philosophical theology, and theories of the self have continued to mine the contention that the relationship between the mind and God will be sharpened for us by Augustinian 27 Concerning the Augustine-​Heidegger relationship, see Ryan Coyne, “A Difficult Proximity: The Figure of Augustine in Heidegger’s Path,” Journal of Religion 91, no. 3 (2011): 364–​396; Ryan Coyne, Heidegger’s Confessions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015). 28 Martin Heidegger, “Augustine and Neo-​Platonism,” in The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-​Ferencei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 113–​227. 29 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. W. V. Dych (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 319–​320. 30 Jean-​Luc Marion, In the Self ’s Place: The Approach of St. Augustine, trans. Jeffrey Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012).

Introduction  15 resources of memory. All of them, however, function at the level of memory and the individuated self. This book’s work on memory, through the failure of the self into the whole, will suggest that for Augustine, memory’s connection to God is equally lived in connection to one’s neighbor and the poor. Thus the new Augustine offered to the study of memory will be one in which the relationship between memory, self, and God is first defined by and emerges from community. It becomes quickly evident that Augustine’s understanding of memory grows alongside his understanding of the “whole Christ.” This Christological conceptuality perhaps represents an understandable hesitance for nontheological disciplines invoking Augustine on memory—​whether this hesitance regards Christology generally or worry about the implication that the “whole Christ” and the institutional Catholic Church are connected. These are important concerns. Yet, as we will see, the richness of this shared Christological existence allows for Augustinian memoria to take its full shape in accounting for the pushes and pulls of contrasting earthly experience. Phenomena of minds in relation to God take shape not in a vacuum but in the givenness of lived, embodied, and practiced communal experience. And concerning the second hesitance, Augustine’s whole Christ is more interesting and encompassing in its structure than any medieval or modern ecclesiology we might read back into it. Augustine provides a particularly earthy and challenging mode of thought in which Christology acts as a conceptual lever, lifting the possibilities for phenomenological analysis beyond the confines of the self and defining communions of persons by means of their memorial action in a shared identity that is limited only by the confines of time and creation. There is one further subset of memory studies concerning the self that merits mention here. The work of memory holds promise for the art of memory (ars memoriae) traditions as well. Memorizing large tracts of text or scripture by means of tools such as memory palaces helped to develop the ability to re-​create worlds and texts—​from Simonides, whom Quintilian called the father of the art of memory, to Hugh of St. Victor’s instructions on how to learn the psalter by heart.31 Yet, as Mary Carruthers, Frances Yates, and other scholars of these traditions have shown, memory palaces themselves could perpetuate the violence and sin of the broken world around 31 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 11.2.11–​14; Hugh of St. Victor, De Tribus Maximis Circumstantiis Gestorum.

16 Introduction them.32 A nun may have memorized a psalm, but the memory clue for a particular verse might have emerged from a most horrific scene playing out in her own memory palace. When he preaches on memorization, Augustine is keen to remind his assembly that a good mind does not make one good.33 The work of memory adds to these rich architectures of memorization the shared experience of the whole Christ.

Theories of Collectivity and Political Theology Paul Ricoeur, another of Augustine’s French phenomenological readers, has identified a fissure in modern thought between individual theories of memory and those that have been termed “collective memory,” best known in the social sciences. Ricoeur dedicates much of his own final work, Memory, History, Forgetting, to the complicated task of reconciling the ontological existence of collective consciousness with the phenomenon of individual memory.34 The task is Herculean—​requiring attentiveness to the sociological advancements in collective memory theory provided by scholars like Paul Connerton, Maurice Halbwachs, Danièle Hervieu-​Léger, and Pierre Nora on the one hand, and the careful articulation of individual memory from Bergsonian habit memory to psychology and philosophy of mind on the other hand.35 For the purpose of bridging this breach, Ricoeur looks to Augustine. Augustine’s enduring potency as bridge-​builder only stands to be increased because in the work of memory we expand analysis of him beyond, 32 Mary Carruthers explains how some of these mnemonics could be funny, others violent or even lewd. At one point St. Bernard advised the monks of Cluny against grotesque figures in their mnemotechnic practices. Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 163–​172; Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1992). 33 In fact, Augustine advises those with trained memories, accustomed to sacred reading, to slow down and include those with less retentive faculties. E.g., en. Ps. 90.2.1. 34 Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 93–​97. 35 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Paul Connerton, How Modernity Forgets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Paul Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning: History, Memory, and the Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. L. A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Danièle Hervieu-​Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory, trans. Simon Lee (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000); Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, trans. Lawrence Kritzman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, trans. N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer (Cambridge, MA: MIT, Zone, 1990); Edward S. Casey, “Keeping the Past in Mind,” Review of Metaphysics 37, no. 1 (1983): 77–​95; and Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000).

Introduction  17 but not despite, the individual. We will see him simultaneously sorting through the collective and the singular in terms of memory. The second aspect of collectivity in which Augustine continues to speak is that of post-​Shoah political theology. I am speaking more broadly than the field of Augustinian studies concerning politics. The advances of this aspect of theological memory have especially included suffering and eschatology as foundational categories of thought. J. B. Metz’s “dangerous memory” is founded upon anamnesis of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, while continuously challenged by an eschatological future of what has not yet been.36 In the remembering-​backward and remembering-​forward aspects of the work of memory, the political theologian will find a renewed Augustinian conversation partner for present communities trying to abide by such a reality. Augustine never uses the word “danger” concerning memory, yet he makes his congregants gasp by telling them to invest their wealth in Christ by putting it in the hands of the poor. Through preaching inversion, Augustine succeeds in mediating binary realities of all sorts. Whether praising or groaning, laboring or resting, the political and liturgical theologies that have emerged in consideration of memory will find Augustine an even more welcome sojourner.37

Ethics of Remembering, Forgetting, and Forgiveness The third area of scholarship in which the work of memory stands to present a renewed Augustine deals with the ethics of remembering and forgetting, especially as they correlate with forgiveness. From Paul Ricoeur and Jean-​ Louis Chrétien in phenomenology to Miroslav Volf in theology and Teresa Godwin Phelps and O. Carter Snead in reconciliation and law, the Augustine of the ethics of memory is made much richer by considering memory’s communal context.38 In a word, we will see how Augustine’s work of memory 36 J. B. Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, trans. J. M. Ashley (New York: Crossroad, 2007). 37 Bruce T. Morrill, Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory: Political and Liturgical Theology in Dialogue (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000). 38 Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, especially the epilogue; Jean-​ Louis Chrétien, The Unforgettable and the Unhoped for, trans. Jeffrey Bloechl (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002); Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 2006); Teresa Godwin Phelps, Shattered Voices: Language, Violence, and the Work of Truth Commissions (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); and O. Carter Snead, “Memory and Punishment,” Vanderbilt Law Review 64, no. 4 (2011): 1195–​1264.

18 Introduction stands in total opposition to King Lear’s plea to “forgive and forget.”39 In part, this is because Augustine works through the manner in which the grace of having been forgiven is eclipsed if one does not recall in particular that from which one has been absolved. Fine lines and great care are necessary to avoid being locked in one’s past, on the one hand, or foolhardily unaware of past sin, on the other. Augustine sketches and works through precisely these lines, alongside his congregants, in the work of memory.

Icons of Memory: Angelus Novus and Idithun the Leaper The work of memory does not promise a cross-​disciplinary panacea. It claims only that the Augustine of memory studies—​heretofore confined by current scholarship to the self in search of its God—​is fundamentally reshaped in his preaching by the other and community. In this regard, Augustine’s work of remembering is also humbled by its failure. The work of memory will show that Augustine is completely comfortable with—​if not pedagogically committed to—​the failure of the self and even sometimes of the whole. As we will see, that failure, if failure into God and neighbor, need not be the end or limit of memory but may offer a new opening into its possibilities. Thinking along with Augustine’s whole Christ is not, as the theorist Tzvetan Todorov rightly worries, an abusive memory of ritual, because it is always and already configured to glory.40 Augustine provides a humble collectivity of the broken, the failed, and those hoping and mourning for a future they cannot themselves construct. Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations has provided contemporary memory theorists, including those who rely on Augustine, with the most prominent image of memory—​perhaps even an icon. It is a painting by Paul Klee, owned for a time by Benjamin and now in the Israel Museum of Jerusalem, called Angelus Novus (1920). The angel of history floats suspended between the wreck of the past, accumulating at his feet in front of him, and a propulsion backward into the future by the storm of progress. The angel is unable to stay in the present, to awaken the dead and, as Benjamin says, “make whole what

39 Lear to Cordelia (Act 4, Scene 6). William Shakespeare, King Lear, in The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. S. Wells and G. Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1179. 40 Tzvetan Todorov, Les Abus de la mémoire (Paris: Arléa, 1995).

Introduction  19 has been smashed.”41 At once stirring and haunting, Benjamin’s image has become the angel of memory that seeks to heal but cannot. Augustine will provide an equally challenging image of memory. Idithun the leaper will stop and start, speak and fall silent, be broken and afraid as well as awed and babbling. The stops and starts of such a leaper provide not an angel of memory but the communal embodiment of it, abiding in the tension between the wreck of our history and the hope for healing. Augustine’s Idithun must keep leaping, for the action comes to constitute his very identity and existence. Idithun the leaper is perhaps the icon of memory’s renewed Augustine. None of memory’s brokenness will be gone, nor will the Augustinian reader attain certainty concerning the divine. But together the broken might labor to leap and in so doing learn both the work of remembering and forgetting toward a common future of hope.

Outline of Chapters The text is divided into three parts: the beginning and the end of memory form the poles with the work of memory in the middle drawing it all into a whole. Part 1 comprises the beginning of memory and has a twofold purpose. In the first chapter, I summarize the earliest treatises as well as letters where Augustine grapples with memory and anthropological unity, including his early consideration of the concept of recollection (anamnesis). These writings span the years 386 until roughly 391 and suggest that memory language helps the young Augustine to describe mediation within the human person—​specifically the relation of soul and body, wisdom, and time. In light of this early linking of memory and mediation, I then show how Augustine places the anthropological mediation of memory and the salvific mediation of Christ into relief in Confessions, specifically the failure of memory to mediate God the creator’s presence to Augustine’s mind in Confessions 10. This new reading of Confessions makes an incipient but nonetheless important argument for the pairing of memory and Christ in time, especially in the language of the psalms. The second chapter shows how, in preaching, the self comes to be mediated by the whole. The insight about memory and Christ from the Confessions 41 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 2007), 253–​255.

20 Introduction grows into a full-​fledged Christological reality wherein the “whole Christ” becomes, as van Bavel famously claimed, a route to God. This chapter, especially by attention to exegesis and rhetorical tools in addition to philosophical and theological interlocutors, shows the development of Augustine’s communal construct and thus sets up the method of the middle portion of the book. Part 2, “The Work of Memory,” presents the heart of the argument. Its four chapters set forth the rich and formative space and time between the “self ” of the early Augustine and the late contemplation of the triune God and Augustine’s own death. This middle part reveals the ongoing exercise of the whole Christ, as practiced by Augustine and his congregation gathered in various basilicas across Northern Africa. Thus ­chapter 3, the first in this section, begins with a spiritual exercise characteristic of the whole body of Christ. Augustine allegorizes Idithun, a name occurring in the Psalms, as “one who leaps across.” That leaping psalmist, a figure for the body of Christ, vaults all the way to the divine and back while remembering, forgetting, speaking, and keeping silent. This chapter excavates a standard pattern of Augustinian ascent through memory revised communally by Idithun. Chapters 4 and 5 form a binary: the work of remembering and the work of forgetting from the communal vantage of the whole Christ. Chapter 4 explores remembering both backward in time—​through Augustinian confession, festivals of abiding traces, and the bread of memory—​as well as forward in time, in hope and in mourning, by remembering Jerusalem’s songs and Sabbath rest. The work of remembering builds to the thesis that “remembering together” comprises Christian existence for Augustine. Chapter 5, on the work of forgetting, explores how memory has a certain need for forgetting. Especially cognizant of forgetfulness of self, the chapter engages forgetting forward (extension) and backward (distention) through images of Paul the runner, Lot’s wife, and the eagle of forgetting. In both chapters, the “self ” reemerges as constituted in the whole, uncovering its Christological identity in the practice of remembering and forgetting together. Forgetting and remembering form the heart of Augustinian language for the work of memory, or participation in the life of Christ through the pushes and pulls of distended temporal life. Chapter 6, on the work of memory and the life of grace, shows how remembering and forgetting form a binary construction that images and supplies language to hold together any number of oppositions in Christ. Highlighting how Augustine applies remembering and forgetting, imagery, concepts, and

Introduction  21 language, the chapter revisits four central Augustinian binaries that emerged in ­chapter 1: lyre and psaltery (below and above), labor and rest, solitude and communion, and praising and groaning. In short, the work of memory, for Augustine, extends to all created reality and structures the life of grace within the body of Christ. The two chapters in the third part of the book discuss the intellectual consequences of the work of memory and its personal consequences, respectively. Chapter 7, “Transitus and Trinity,” connects the whole Christ as sojourning through earthly reality to the Trinity. Idithun the leaper, festivals of abiding traces, and more serve this end. The importance of memory in Trinity, this chapter suggests, is in large part an intellectual consequence of the work of preaching on memory in part 2. The chapter reveals not only a profound continuity between Augustine’s preaching and Trinity but also how his mature contemplation about Christian doctrine organically unfolds from and builds upon the work of memory. The final chapter suggests the consequences of the work of memory by rereading Psalm 50 throughout Augustine’s preaching and with an eye to his death. Augustine’s death, as recounted by Possidius, is often enough read in terms of lament for his sins, as he lies weeping with the psalms of penitence pasted up around his deathbed. In light of the work of memory as well as the case that the likeliest psalm text Augustine has at his bedside is Psalm 50, this concluding chapter revisits the work of memory through the way Augustine has used Psalm 50 consistently and broadly throughout all of his mature preaching—​from Idithun the leaper to Jerusalem’s walls. That the work of memory is important unto the last of Augustine’s life affirms its centrality across his work and preaching. In light of this cross-​corpus reading of Psalm 50, Augustine’s deathbed remembering should at least be suggestive of the need to revisit the trope of the aged bishop with a diminished optimism on the human spirit. Rather, here the early Augustine’s question about memory and becoming reaches its conclusion. The work of memory will have shown that remembering and forgetting in Christ ground the participatory actions wherein hope becomes reality in Christ.

PART 1

THE BE GIN N ING OF M E MORY

1 Preparing to Preach Memory, Self, and Christ

For Augustine, memory reveals first the coherence and then the instability of the human person. The coherence of the person is what I am calling the beginning of memory. This coherence or intelligibility of the self quickly proves unstable and slips into the failure of the same. Failure, of course, can be productive—​in this case, spectacularly so. Augustine’s writings through the Confessions lay the groundwork for memory becoming central to his philosophical and theological anthropology: memory is the mediator—​ a middle between binaries—​ which renders the human person intelligible amid the pushes and pulls of body and soul, of changing knowledge and enduring wisdom, and of the temporal and the eternal.1 Memory increases in importance over the course of Augustine’s own thought because, as mediator, it holds the potential key to unlocking the mysteries of the self, as well as the created order as it exists in time. Augustine’s earliest writings concerning memory, however, are unsystematic and varied in literary form. They open questions that Augustine processes more thoroughly in the Confessions. Through the most famous passages of that book, this chapter will show how what is frequently treated as the text par excellence where Augustine elaborates his doctrine of memoria is actually a very carefully structured argument about mediation that requires memory’s failure. That failure is productive, culminating in the exposition of a true mediator, Jesus Christ, at the end of the book. The result is not the end of memory, but its true beginning: precisely through the echo chamber of the human self, memory fails into Christ. This extraordinary 1 I deliberately use “theological” in a sense of the term—​for the study of God—​that would have been unknown to Augustine. For him, “theology” was a term for ancient poets. I justify this usage here and throughout the book on the grounds that the term “philosophical” as a study of phenomena exclusive of divine revelation would have been equally foreign to Augustine. He would have preferred intellectus fidei. My use of “theology” is merely a more contemporary term for a way of considering Augustine’s writings on memory in terms of their Christological context. I am grateful to Frederick van Fleteren for this insight.

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0002

26  Augustine on Memory link in the Confessions is nevertheless incipient, hardly the culmination of Augustine’s thinking about memory and Christ together. The present chapter reveals a forming trajectory, shifting the discussion of memoria from philosophy to pulpit, and from the self to the whole.2 It prepares us for Augustine’s preaching.

Memory in Augustine’s Early Writings Augustine’s early letters and writings, from his summer 386 conversion onward, utilize memory language to describe various aspects of mediation within the human person. His presentation of memory in these texts is unsystematic, and the genres vary greatly, but I agree with Paige Hochschild that because of its mediatory role, in these early texts memory begins to emerge as central to Augustine’s anthropology even if its appearances are fleeting.3 The time period in question concerns the five years prior to Augustine’s ordination and the commencement of his preaching career. From 386–​391, then, we have a series of letters to his friend Nebridius outside of Carthage, as well as eight texts that incorporate memory as mediator: Letters 3–​14 (388–​391), Against the Skeptics (386), On the Happy Life (386), On Order (386), Soliloquies (386–​387), On the Immortality of the Soul (386–​387), On the Greatness of the Soul (387–​388), On the Teacher (389), and On Music (387–​391). Memory occurs in these texts in terse or truncated ways. For our purposes, three central themes emerge which inform the study of Augustine’s later writings: memory as mediator of body and soul, wisdom, and time. At this point in Augustine’s thought, these themes raise as many questions as they suggest answers, yet they serve productively as markers going forward. 2 Throughout this chapter, I am using the word “self ” in a manner that needs justification in Augustinian studies. As John Cavadini has argued, Augustine’s Latin ipse was an intensifier that cannot sustain the hermeneutical layers we subsequently have attached to the word “self.” Augustine’s sense of self, Cavadini suggests, is unstable, enigmatic, and incomprehensible. For precisely those reasons, I employ the term. John Cavadini, “The Darkest Enigma: Reconsidering the Self in Augustine’s Thought,” Augustinian Studies 38, no. 1 (2007): 119–​132. Also concerning the place of the self: Matthew Drever, Image, Identity, and the Formation of the Augustinian Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Gerard O’Daly, “Two Kinds of Subjectivity in Augustine’s ‘Confessions’: Memory and Identity, and the Integrated Self,” in Ancient Philosophy of the Self, ed. Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola (London: Springer, 2008), 195–​203. The primary interlocutors of the other position are Phillip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) and Emmanuel Bermon, Le Cogito dans la pensée de Saint Augustin (Paris: Vrin, 2001). 3 Paige Hochschild, Memory in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 69–​133.

Preparing to Preach  27

Body and Soul Augustine’s writings from 386 to 391 show that he is concerned in this period with the way in which the soul and the body relate. Whether in epistolary exchanges with his friend Nebridius,4 in textual dialogues with the interlocutor Licentius,5 or when articulating the nature of the soul,6 Augustine holds that one cannot have a soul that imagines things apart from bodily sensation. The human person is a complex unity of body and soul, with the soul complicatedly extending both into the eternal as well as into the ever-​changing materiality of the body and its perceptions. Memory emerges as mediator because it has a twofold function: actively engaging the sensory impulses of embodied life and discerning the eternal reality of one’s end in beatitude.7 It holds both of those realities together in coherent simultaneity. For instance, in On Order, Augustine uses his friend Licentius to make the point that memory is neither concerned only with impermanent realities, nor is it a blindly subservient function of the mind dedicated to simple storage and recall, a bit like an ancient USB drive.8 For Augustine, memory mediates bodily sense perception and understanding. In this way, memory is both intellective and affective. It mediates the whole of the person, and thus becomes indexed to heart and self just as much as to mind.9 The result of memory’s mediatory role between soul and body is that the mind is not restricted to the immediacy of sensory input.10 Memory draws on experiences past and present, the imagination, and—​as we will see in Confessions—​expectation of the future, in order to reveal that the complex unity of the human person is body and eternal soul. Through memory the fixed point of the mind’s awareness (inclusive of the body) sprawls outward without limit into the realms of the created and the eternal. For Augustine, this soul-​and-​body synthesis is the precondition for wisdom.11

4 epp. 3–​14. 5 c. Acad. and ord. 6 imm. an. and quant. 7 mus. 5, 11–​12; quant. 23.41, noting commentary by Hochschild, Memory, 106–​108. 8 ord. 2.5–​8. 9 For more on the correlation of memoria and cor: Hochschild, Memory, 69–​87. 10 Important here is Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 11 ord. 2.6.

28  Augustine on Memory

Wisdom Memory, as mediator, makes human wisdom possible. Augustine’s early writings produce a distinction that continues to be productive for him through completion of the Trinity between 419 and 427.12 He defines wisdom as the knowledge of matters human and divine.13 Supporting the idea that seeds of Augustine’s later thought can often be discerned in his early works, the knowledge-​versus-​wisdom distinction he makes in the Trinity clearly recalls this earlier formulation.14 (In the Trinity, which we will take up in part 3, Christ as the knowledge and wisdom of God will be the locus of mediation.) In Against the Academics, Augustine describes the soul as having not only wisdom, but a wisdom that can be further clarified with the term “measure.”15 Measure, for Augustine, not only is a limit but indicates virtue.16 Measure is involved in desire, and thus in happiness. This develops for Augustine in two ways: the ordinary use of the term “measure” and the “highest measure,” which Augustine associates specifically with God.17 The first is the virtue of the soul, practiced as something akin to Aristotelian virtue or the mean between extremes.18 The second is specifically correlated to God the Father, with the Son representing the descent into truth and the Spirit forming the interior light.19 But the highest measure, importantly, must be mediated to the ordinary measure of the human person. The use of the term “measure” as a subset of wisdom shows the connection between memory and knowledge both human and divine. Augustine criticizes his interlocutors who relegate memory only to matters of perception and human knowledge, or the ordinary form of measure.20 Rather, as evidenced by language and learning, memory has a higher aspect, involved 12 trin. 12–​14. Concerning the dating of the later books of trin., see ­chapter 7, n1. I am following Lewis Ayres’s arguments to propose this date range. 13 c. Acad. 1.6.16. 14 This is argued by a number of scholars, but I rely in particular on Carol Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Works: An Argument for Continuity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) and Jaroslav Pelikan, The Mystery of Continuity: Time and History, Memory and Eternity in the Thought of St. Augustine (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986). 15 c. Acad. 4.31–​32. 16 Esp. ord., b. vita, and mus. Perhaps originally inspired by Wis 11:21, but also with Stoic resonances, “measure” (modus), in addition to terms like “number” and “order,” recurs not only across these early writings but later ones as well. 17 b. vita 5.34. 18 c. Acad. 2–​4; b. vita 5.34. 19 c. Acad. 2–​4; b. vita 5.34. 20 ord. 2.9–​20.

Preparing to Preach  29 in ascertaining the supreme measure, or wisdom, that is correlated with God’s existence and sustenance of creation.

Time Memory further mediates the human person’s distended experience of time and eternity. When Augustine writes to his friend Nebridius, he explains that eternity is the one thing that might enter the mind without the imagination’s use of bodily senses.21 And so the mind has, in some manner, though not precisely in a Platonic recollection, access to eternity at the same time as it is embedded within the temporal flow of the present.22 Here, ways of speaking about the eternal being mediated to the temporal begin to emerge. Augustine’s language for this varies by text and genre, at times employing number, at others music.23 By the time he reaches the Confessions, and subsequently in his preaching, he will employ imagery of speech and of song.24 But regardless of register, memory renders stable the ever-​transitory nature of the sensory present, re-​presenting that which has passed and expecting that which will come. Memory becomes the locus where the past, present, and future are simultaneously coherent. For Augustine, time almost always raises the issue of creation.25 For that which is, was, and is to come, the very nature of God is uncreated, and thus exists not only in time but through all time. Inasmuch as memory is indexed to time, it is always, for Augustine, related to the act of God’s creation and the creature’s access to awareness of it. We will see this developed in Confessions 10 and 11. The one remembering is always a creature, and the human memory proves to be a fickle and at times unreliable mediator of even one’s own sensory images, perceptions, and judgments. Yet memory nevertheless emerges as the place in Augustine’s early anthropology where time and eternity might most productively interact. 21 ep. 7.2. 22 Augustine’s exposure to precisely which Platonic books (conf. 7) remains undetermined. He presumably had access to some translations by Cicero. The relevant texts for recollection include the Meno, Republic, Phaedrus, and Timaeus. 23 ord. and mus.; on language, especially mag., Carol Harrison has shown how attention to the aural aspect of Augustine and his environment is important to his thought. Carol Harrison, The Art of Listening in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 24 conf. 11; see also c­ hapter 4, “Jerusalem’s Songs: Remembering as Singing.” 25 This is underscored by the unitary whole of conf., in which meditations involving memory and time in books 10–​11 open onto creation in books 12–​13.

30  Augustine on Memory These early sources reveal one further point about Augustine’s development of the term “memory.” Though inarguably formed by what he has received of Greek and Roman thought, when it comes to memory he engages these antecedent ideas unsystematically and even opportunistically. Platonic recollection, or anamnesis, provides the key example. Augustine wrote to Nebridius about Socrates’s “remarkable discovery” of learning as recollection.26 Yet he limits his own adaptation of that Socratic vision to learning and the liberal arts, as he is primarily interested in how something can come back into the mind through a series of unrelated connections.27 And certainly, Augustine later makes clear that he repudiates any idea of the soul’s preexistence of the body, as Platonic anamnesis would require.28 One helpful solution has been to broaden the search for possible influences; one can identify Plotinian resonances in memory’s inclusion of not only recollection of the bodily (in a negative sense) but also the soul’s recollection of the eternal (in a positive sense). At the same time, Hochschild has claimed that Augustine’s articulation of the relation of memory and imagination is closest in fact to Aristotle, even if Augustine received the latter’s ideas through Plotinus and tertiary Neoplatonic sources. One can further add Porphyry, Stoic, and rhetorical influences.29 For all of Augustine’s methods of incorporating the philosophical tools he received, even if partially and incompletely, when it comes to memory they never determine his use of it as mediator concerning the unity of the human person. The inconclusiveness of the foregoing genealogies does not stymie our study of memory. Rather, it supports the thesis that Augustine’s most productive partner for thinking about the anthropological mediation of memory comes to be the salvific mediation of Christ—​a thesis developed over the whole of this book. Working through the Confessions, where 26 ep. 7.2; sol. 27 In this regard, in sol. Augustine discusses both remembering and forgetting. For Augustine’s various uses of the liberal arts: Virgilio Pacioni, “Liberal Arts,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 492–​494 and Ilsetraut Hadot, Arts libéraux et philosophie dans la pensée antique (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1984). 28 retr. 1.1.3–​4, 1.8.2; trin. 12.15.24. Pelikan articulates what I think is the most important point: in Augustine’s early writings, he mentions Platonic anamnesis, which he no longer holds once he understands the soul to have been created. The dating of that early development can be debated, but not that it happened (Mystery of Continuity, 24–​33). Also James Lowe, “Platonic Recollection and Augustinian Memory” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin Madison, 1986); John A. Mourant, St. Augustine on Memory, Saint Augustine Lecture Series (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Augustinian Institute, 1980). 29 For a helpful overview: Carol Harrison, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3–​45.

Preparing to Preach  31 Augustine formally links the anthropological mediation of memory with the salvific mediation of Christ, we will find that growing connection means the “influence” that undergirds memory the most will be scripture. The classical influences, which I will nevertheless identify along the way, become more and more ancillary to questions worked out in concert with the Word made flesh. This brief account of Augustine’s writings from 386 to 391 shows that his sense of memory as anthropological mediator—​whether of the body and soul, human knowledge and divine wisdom, or time and eternity—​is characterized primarily by the unity of the human person. It is in the Confessions that he takes up his treatment of mediation more profoundly. There memory and Christ come together.

Confessions as Hinge In the Confessions, Augustine uses memory to lead his reader to Christ, the true mediator. As I have established, Augustine’s earliest writings show him grappling initially with the way memory reveals the anthropological unity of the human person. All of these early writings, however, were completed before Augustine’s ordination in 391. That event completely refashioned his life—​rooting him in North Africa, precipitating his intensive study of scriptures, opening the path to his episcopal ordination and therefore leadership role for the Catholic community around Hippo, and, importantly for this book, marking the point after which his preaching on a regular basis took up a great deal of his pastoral and intellectual energy. By the time of the Confessions (397–​400), Augustine’s categories and terminology had matured in a decidedly Christological direction.30 The Confessions provide a historical as well as theological hinge which reveals how memory and Christ are

30 The way this transition happened is a matter of great debate. I agree with Carol Harrison that the seeds of Augustine’s later thought are present in his early work. Hochschild, Pelikan, and John Rist trace similar narratives of growth for Augustine. Those who reject this thesis, like Jason David BeDuhn, do so on grounds of Augustine’s changing ideas being due to different external groups and pressures. Jason David BeDuhn, Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–​401 c.e., vol. 2 of Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 13–​14; Harrison, Rethinking Augustine’s Early Works; Hochschild, Memory, 133; Pelikan, Mystery of Continuity, 24–​ 33; and John Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 41–​91.

32  Augustine on Memory connected backward to Augustine’s pre-​ordination writings, as well as forward to the next two decades of preaching.31 Augustine explores the “mediator” conceptuality in three key places in the Confessions. The first looks back, in a certain sense, to his early writings, describing what was wrong with his conception of Christ’s mediation when he was in Milan. The second is the famous book 10, where the anthropological mediator that is memory fails into the soteriological mediator that is Christ. And finally, in book 11 the third instance of mediation relates Christ’s mediation and the scriptures. In each instance, Augustine associates memory language and 1 Timothy 2:5, which provides him with a scriptural insight into the link between mediation and Jesus Christ.32 Taken together, these three passages make the case that the failure of memory to mediate God to the human person will be linked concretely to the success of Christ to mediate salvation to humanity.

Confessions 7: Memory, Soul, and Body Augustine recalled his thinking near Milan about memory as mediator with a certain nostalgic affection. In recounting the intellectual conversion antecedent to his spiritual one, he describes the “loving memory” (amantem memoriam) of his fleeting, Platonic ascent to God.33 In the classical pattern of an ascent of the soul to God, Augustine ascends beyond material things, the soul that perceives through the body, the inner power of the soul to which the senses report, discursive reason, and toward the unchangeable, that which is.34 The trouble is that he cannot sustain the ascent. He keeps being distracted—​figuratively pulled back down—​by those things he considers to 31 I make a case for why this method of investigation is profitable in “Memory after the ‘Confessions’: Communal and Incarnational Memory in the Later Writings of Augustine,” in Monument and Memory, ed. Jonna Bornemark, Mattias Martinson, and Jayne Svenungsson (Berlin: LIT-​Verlag, 2014), 202–​212. 32 This scriptural text is important for Augustine’s understanding of mediation, though I will show in the following chapter that his understanding of mediation develops as he continues to preach. The foundational study on Christ’s emergence in mediation is Gérard Rémy, Le Christ médiateur dans l’oevre de saint Augustin (Lille: Atelier Reproduction des Thèses, 1979). Relevant to mediation and conf. are Brian E. Daley, “A Humble Mediator: The Distinctive Elements in Saint Augustine’s Christology,” Word and Spirit 9 (1987): 110–​117 and Karlheinz Ruhstorfer, “Der Mittler zwischen Gott und Mensch: Der Mensch Jesus Christus, die Christologie im 10 Buch der ‘Confessiones,’” in Selbsterkenntnis und Gottsuche, ed. Norbert Fischer and Dieter Hattrup (Munich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2007), 117–​136. 33 conf. 7.17.23. 34 conf. 7.16.22. As Pierre Courcelle explains, Augustine does not reveal his sources for this structured ascent. Courcelle makes an important claim for its Neoplatonic influences, though not discounting the importance of Christian scriptures such as the letters of St. Paul (e.g., Rom 1:20).

Preparing to Preach  33 be lower interests, especially his own sexual temptations. Yet his memory provides the elusive and ongoing possibility of contact with his experience of God who is. His memory, at this point, mediates remnants of his upward ascent—​memories of a “gaze” he describes as catching a fragrance, yet not feasting upon it.35 Augustine’s memory of encounter with God is confusing, mixing sight, smell, and taste. Memory suggests both the plenitude of sensation and the utter inaccessibility of it. For his ascent, Augustine needs “strength” but does not possess enough of it until he later embraces a mediator, Jesus Christ.36 He describes his Platonist self as not knowing the mediator who would teach him that true strength is humility.37 Such a mediator would invert Augustine’s understanding of the “strength” by which he might ascend to God. Instead of dissociating himself from his body and rising above his mind by strength, a weak Augustine would have to learn to suck milk (nourishment adapted to his spiritually infant condition), to eat food (the Word made flesh), and to speak (in words like those of the Psalms).38 Christ’s Mediation would not be at the expense of the body but through it. Augustine presents himself as a reader of Platonism (in Latin translation) who had taken to Christ only through his mind.39 From his retrospective vantage, Augustine explains he was missing the humility that comes from the weakness of the body. He describes what his conception of Christ as mediator lacked during the time that he was reading Platonic books: Christ for him then was a man of excellent wisdom, but not more.40 Augustine remembers himself as having a sense of “God’s solicitude for us” and therefore the

Courcelle identifies Plotinus’s Enneads (1,6; 1,8; 5,1) as relevant influences. Pierre Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1950), 157–​167. 35 conf. 7.17.23. The use of sensory language here probably is directed also at Manichaeans. Nevertheless, Augustine’s use of it in terms of memory is consistent with his earlier investigations into mediation. Annemaré Kotzé outlines some of the ways Augustine might have made protreptic and paraenetic overtures to Manichaeans and other groups. See Annemaré Kotzé, Augustine’s “Confessions,” Communicative Purpose and Audience (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 159–​161. 36 conf. 7.18.24. 37 As Hochschild points out, humility is not a Christian novelty. A similar, moralizing ontology is a hallmark of the spiritual tradition of Plotinus. What will prove to be Augustine’s break from that tradition, however, is his association of humility with flesh, or created matter (Memory, 132). 38 conf. 7.18.24. Physical reality, in these instances, also included the physical words (written, read, and spoken) of scripture. 39 conf. 7.9.13. 40 conf. 7.19.25.

34  Augustine on Memory authority of Christ’s teaching.41 Yet “I could not even begin to guess what a mystery was concealed in the Word made flesh.”42 Though Christ was an authoritative human teacher, he was not truth in a human person. In his confession of what his understanding of Christ lacked, Augustine importantly establishes Christ both in terms of a physical body and in terms of truth. Christ is not only the eternal truth but also, as Augustine had come to discover, the personal embodiment of truth.43 The personal embodiment of truth mediates in an embodied and physical manner. The same eternal truth who is better than creation itself “has built himself a humble dwelling from our clay, and used it to cast down from their pretentious selves those who do not bow before him, and make a bridge to bring them to himself.”44 This incarnational language recalls the clay of the earth from which Adam was made (Gen 2:7) and promises redemption through God’s making of a bridge out of the same. Augustine explains that those needing healing might “weaken as they see before their feet the Godhead grown weak by sharing our garments of skin, and wearily fling themselves down upon him, so that he may arise and lift them up.”45 The Godhead has grown weak in an inglorious image of kenosis. The garments of skin suggest a continued use of Genesis imagery as a description of mortality.46 The kenotic mediator contrasts sharply with the image of the ascent Augustine has just undertaken. Instead of progressing beyond his body in successive movements of Platonic ascent, Augustine highlights descent. Here he importantly uses the language of participation. Though for Augustine participatio frequently describes the manner in which humans participate in God, Augustine has already failed at that. In this instance the movement is the opposite.47 God participates in garments of skin. 41 conf. 7.19.25. For Augustine, God’s care for human souls is a central theological and pastoral concern. Paul Kolbet, Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 139–​209. 42 conf. 7.19.25. 43 conf. 7.18.24. 44 conf. 7.18.24. 45 conf. 7.18.24. 46 conf. 7.18.24. Augustine, like Origen and Ambrose, also uses this imagery in his exposition of Psalm 103, which I treat in c­ hapter 4, “Bread of Memory, Drink of Grace.” 47 James J. O’Donnell also notes the downward direction. David Meconi explains that this incarnational expression of participation requires Augustine to rethink the modes of participation that he has learned from the Platonic books. Émilie Zum Brunn goes so far as to refer to mediation and the salvation it brings as a metaphysics of conversion, changing us into who we really are. James J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 2: Commentary: Books 1–​7 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 463; David Meconi, “The Incarnation and the Role of Participation in St. Augustine’s ‘Confessions,’” Augustinian Studies 29, no. 2 (1998): 61–​75; David Meconi, “St. Augustine’s Early Theory of Participation,” Augustinian Studies 27 (1996): 79–​96; Émilie Zum Brunn, Le Dilemme

Preparing to Preach  35 Augustine mines the effects of this downward participation. Humans recognize their God at their feet.48 Not overcoming their weariness but rather succumbing to it, they fling themselves down also, though not to the ground but “upon him” (in eam infirmam divinitatem), onto the flesh of Christ at their feet.49 Augustine states the result simply at this point: Christ, the Godhead grown weak, rising, might raise them also (illa autem surgens levaret eos).50 The books of the Platonists give Augustine a memory, he contends, of the goal, but not of how to reach it. The trouble with such experiences is that the memory itself provides no bodily map to mediate the spiritual end it intends. As Augustine describes it, it is like glimpsing a homeland from the heights but then descending into the woods and wandering in vain through violent lands trying to find it.51 Or, in terms of his own life, Augustine says that one might delight in God’s law within but struggle not to live sinfully in relation to that which is without.52 In contrast, he sees Christ emerging as an embodied way to the goal; one can identify and hold onto him.53 His writing suggests a difference between remembering the Platonic goal and remembering Christ—​a difference he describes as that between “presumption” and “confession” (praesumptionem and confessionem), between recalling an end for the purpose of perceiving and recalling an end that is also a place in which one dwells.54 The “memory” of Christ at least holds the possibility of a dwelling and an end, which he will take up in detail in book 10.

Confessions 10: The Spectacular Failure of Memory Perhaps unfortunately, it has become all too common in translations of Augustine’s Confessions since the 1960s to label what had before simply been de l’Être et du Néant chez Saint Augustin: Des premiers dialogues aux “Confessions” (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1969), 80–​83, 90–​97; James Wetzel, “Will and Interiority in Augustine: Travels in an Unlikely Place,” Augustinian Studies 33, no. 2 (2002): 155–​160. 48 conf. 7.18.24. 49 conf. 7.18.24. 50 conf. 7.18.24. This account prefigures Augustine’s reconstruction of his throwing himself down in an infantile spiritual condition of divided will, discordant desire, and tears in the garden in book 8. His rising, at the “take up and read” command, is to read Paul’s instruction to the Romans for putting on Christ (conf. 8.12.29; Rom 13:4). 51 conf. 7.21.27. 52 conf. 7.21.27. 53 conf. 7.21.27. 54 conf. 7.20.26.

36  Augustine on Memory “Book 10” with a title presumably of use to the reader: e.g., “Philosophy of Memory” (Ryan) or simply “Memory” (Chadwick, Boulding, et al.). This is problematic, because it reinforces a compartmentalized method of analyzing Confessions 10 rather than attending to it as a literary and argumentative whole. Scholars who describe book 10 as a treatise on memory inevitably immediately qualify this by saying that Augustine treats memory in the first half of the book, then goes on to treat other topics—​the happy life and desire—​before finishing the book with Christ as mediator.55 Such a method circumscribes Augustine’s memory as a purely philosophical, anthropological, or even phenomenological term. The Christological climax, in this analysis, can become merely, as Johannes Brachtendorf describes it, an epilogue to the book.56 Based on both what we have seen of memory and mediation thus far as well as the literary whole of the book, I argue instead that looking at book 10’s first half as a treatise on memory uncouples memory from Augustine’s rather sophisticated argument about Christ’s mediation, 55 It would be hard to overstate the pervasiveness of this approach. Examples include (Hochschild being a welcome exception): Todd Breyfogle, “Memory and Imagination in Augustine’s ‘Confessions,’” in Literary Imagination, Ancient and Modern: Essays in Honor of David Greene, ed. Todd Breyfogle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 139–​154; Bruce Bubacz, “Augustine’s Account of Factual Memory,” Augustinian Studies 6 (1975): 181–​192; Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 245; Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 96–​97; Hermann Kaiser, Augustinus: Zeit und Memoria (Bonn: H. Bouvier, 1969); Antonius Nic. Kertész, Doctrina S. Augustini de memoria mentis (Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1944); Tiziana Liuzzi, “Tempo e memoria in Agostino: Dale Confessioni al de Trinitate,” Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 39 (1984): 35–​60; Lowe, “Platonic Recollection and Augustinian Memory,” 138–​187; Michael Mendelson, “Venter animi/​distentio animi: Memory and Temporality in Augustine’s ‘Confessions,’” Augustinian Studies 31, no. 2 (2000): 137–​163; Oscar Meo, “Memoria e linguaggio nel libro x delle ‘Confessioni’ di sant’Agostino,” Laurentianum 4 (1976): 388–​407; Luis Merino, “La Memoria en ‘Confessiones’ (10, 8–​26) de Agustín,” Anuario de Estudios Filológicos 23 (2000): 347–​367; Monique Roblin, “Temps et mémoire dans les ‘Confessions’ de saint Augustin” (PhD diss., Université Pantheon-​Sorbonne Paris, 1985); Aimé Solignac, “Notes Complementaires: Livre X,” in Les Confessions: Livres VIII–​XIII (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1962), 556–​672; Christopher Stead, “Augustine, the ‘Meno,’ and the Subconscious Mind,” in Doctrine and Philosophy in Early Christianity: Arius, Athanasius, Augustine, ed. Christopher Stead (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 339–​345; Roland Teske, “Augustine’s Philosophy of Memory,” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 148–​158. Dominique Doucet includes some of Augustine’s considerations of concupiscence. Dominique Doucet, “‘L’Ars Memoriae’ dans les ‘Confessions,’” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 33, no. 1 (1987): 53–​57. 56 Brachtendorf claims the Christological conclusion of the book as “einem Epilog über die Notwendigkeit der Fleischwerdung des Wortes für die Erlösung des Menschen.” Brachtendorf attributes importance to the incarnation for salvation but does not use “Epilog” as an ancient rhetorical synonym for peroration, but as that which is additional to the book. Martin Heidegger, whom Brachtendorf acknowledges in his analysis of book 10, similarly neglected the Christological ending of the book in his own influential notes on the book. See Johannes Brachtendorf, Augustins Confessiones (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005), 202, 228–​ 235; Martin Heidegger, “Augustine and Neo-​Platonism,” in The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-​Ferencei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 113–​227.

Preparing to Preach  37 which is the conclusion and purpose of the book. By the turn of the fifth century, when Confessions is completed, memory as an anthropological mediator is pointing toward Christ as true mediator in Augustine’s thought, and Confessions 10 provides central evidence. Attentive to the literary and formal context of memory in terms of the unity of book 10, we can make this case. Augustine’s memory will fail him, but it will fail precisely into Christ, and with spectacular consequences for his considerations of both.

Making the Truth: A Failed Ascent of Memory (10.1.1–​10.27.38) The entirety of book 10 works through memory and Christ in terms of truth.57 Memory and Christ will be put to the service of “making the truth” (volo eam [veritatem] facere) (Jn 3:21) and thereby come into the light.58 “To make the truth” is James J. O’Donnell’s helpful formulation, immediately highlighting how mediation (in this case of truth to the self) is linked to existence itself.59 O’Donnell writes, “The ‘truth’ of which Augustine spoke was not merely a quality of a verbal formula, but veracity itself, a quality of a living human person. Augustine ‘made the truth’—​in this sense, became himself truthful—​when he found a pattern of words to say the true thing well.”60 Augustine explains that this making of the truth is both before God in his heart through the act of confession and before other people through his writing.61 The act of confessing, which in book 10 relies on memory, is concerned with Augustine’s “making the truth.” It would be far too simplistic to say that what is at stake here is a truthful telling of what Augustine was, for he states that in book 10 he is not concerned with his past.62 He is no longer 57 This link between memory and truth was important for Augustine in his early writings as well. Hochschild documents examples (Memory, 69–​132). 58 conf. 10.1.1. 59 Volo eam [veritatem] facere is a demanding phrase and difficult to translate, as O’Donnell and Cavadini have pointed out. O’Donnell settles on “to make” for facere, and Cavadini positively reviews the move. Boulding notes the difficulty but translates the equally acceptable “to do” for facere. At the heart of O’Donnell’s translation is the assumption that “making” takes great work and the truth is not “scuttled” by its being made. Boulding, Confessions, 237n5; John Cavadini, “Making Truth: A New Commentary on Augustine’s ‘Confessions,’” Religious Studies Review 21, no. 4 (1995): 291–​298; James J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 1: Introduction and Text (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), xvii. 60 O’Donnell, Confessions, vol. 1, xvii. 61 There is an echo here of the double love command of Christ as well as the double love command of scriptural interpretation. See doc. Chr. 1.84–​85. 62 This is a matter of great concern to some historians, as it hints at Augustine’s protreptic and paraenetic purposes. BeDuhn, for instance, argues that Augustine is constructing the self he wants

38  Augustine on Memory confessing what he was or recollecting past narratives of his life. Rather, he is confessing who he is.63 Making the truth, taken up in an exploration of his consciousness, is in the here and now. Augustine’s making truth takes shape as a search for God. He first evaluates the external world and his senses, beginning, as in book 7, with a stylized Neoplatonic exercise of ascent.64 When in this early stage Augustine considers God’s location, he does so spatially and comparatively. “You” are “far above.”65 The physical world points Augustine upward.66 Even if the words of God might have come so close as to pierce Augustine’s heart, God is imaged as that which is higher than everything else. This comparative height, corresponding also to magnitude, prompts Augustine to ask what he loves when loving God. In an imagined conversation, Augustine interrogates the elements of the earth about God.67 The earth, everything contained in it, the sea as well as the creatures that crawl, all reply to Augustine that they are not God. They indicate to him that he should seek higher.68 Augustine continues. He interrogates the wind, the birds, the sun, moon, and stars. None of these created phenomena, external to Augustine’s own body and soul, proves to be God; their reply to him is only an affirmation of their creation, echoing Psalm 99: “He made us.”69 The created order figuratively speaks to Augustine. “Truth tells me, ‘Neither earth nor sky nor any bodily thing is your God.’ ”70 Rather, “your God is to you the life of your life itself.”71 This prompts Augustine to examine his own life, or at least that which animates his physical body. Thus,

to be (and wants Manichaean readers to be), pointing out that Augustine’s treatise on lying appears in the same time period (Making a “Catholic” Self, 244–​257). While this care for Augustine’s possible readership is welcome, any self that Augustine might be constructing, as we will see, proves to be elusive by the end of the book. 63 conf. 10.4.6. 64 conf. 10.6.8–​10.7.11. 65 conf. 10.6.8. The dynamic between “I” and “You” by which Augustine completes this exercise is explored by Goulven Madec, “‘In te supra me’: Le sujet dans les ‘Confessions’ de saint Augustin,” Revue de l’Institut Catholique de Paris 28 (1988): 45–​63. 66 conf. 10.6.9. 67 There is a rhetorical parallel here to “prosopopoeia,” “face-​making,” or speaking in the voice of another, which Augustine will take up in terms of Christ in the psalms and is common in his sermons. I take this up in c­ hapter 2. 68 conf. 10.6.9. 69 conf. 10.6.9; Ps 99:3. Augustine’s Psalter accords with LXX numbering (Ps 100:3). 70 conf. 10.6.10. Augustine is drawing this from Romans 1:20, both an early and continually important text for him. This logic appears in the 390s in his Ex. Prop. Rm. 3. Augustine, Propositions from the Epistle to the Romans, trans. Paula Fredriksen Landes (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982). 71 conf. 10.6.10.

Preparing to Preach  39 what is “above” the external world beckons Augustine inward.72 He turns within, to search for God in his memory. Augustine turns to his own being. He identifies himself as a man composed of body and soul. He characterizes his composite nature: inner (homo interior) and outer (homo exterior). These two parts are complementary, and their relation is important; the inner, though superior, can know the world only by means of the outer. The interior provides vivification to the exterior; while the interior manipulates the function of the body, one mind acts through the senses.73 Augustine carries on to the interior, toward “him who made me,” not solipsistically but still in the context of creation.74 For Augustine, the decision to turn to his memory is only continuing the examination of that which God has made. The goal of this internal ascent—​ learned from Neoplatonism but expressed here in language mixing the psalms and the Gospel of John—​is very clearly articulated as “the creator,” or the source and sustainer of being. Augustine’s interrogation not only of the external world but also of his own body-​and-​soul matrix is in search of the creator. Augustine is clear: “I will leave behind that faculty of my nature, and mount by stages toward him who made me. Now I arrive in the fields and vast mansions of memory.”75 At this point, it is in search of God as creator—​not Christ the mediator—​that Augustine turns to his memory. Augustine’s treatment of memory catalogues numerous levels of both sensory experience and cognition. At times, he introduces images and language which he then chooses to leave behind. For instance, he refers to memory as a storehouse, a hall, vast fields, and even the stomach of the mind.76 The strength of the digestive analogy is that it highlights the mediating role (anthropologically) of memory. Memory as a stomach is first a container for perception and experience. Second, recollection as rumination on those experiences mediates them to the present time.77 Augustine is searching for truth, and he realizes that both affections of the mind and the processing of sensory experiences intersect in the mediating capacity of memory. “Rumination” is perhaps a misleading word, but it is an image that Augustine



72 conf. 10.6.9.

73 conf. 10.7.11. 74 conf. 10.8.12.

75 conf. 10.8.12, emphasis added. 76 conf. 10.8.13, 10.14.21. 77 conf. 10.14.22.

40  Augustine on Memory will continue to use and modify in his later writings.78 Ultimately, he will find the digestive analogy too simple, for both the container and the act of recollection: “It is absurd to think the operations of the memory and stomach are really alike, yet they are not in all respects dissimilar.”79 Augustine works through all that he might find or place in his own mind: sensory perceptions (10.8.13), the liberal arts (10.9.16), past experiences of pleasant things (10.10.17), laws, numbers, and dimensions (10.12.19), false objections (10.13.20), affections of the mind that might or might not correlate to experience (10.14.21), memory’s presence to itself (10.15.23), and forgetting as within the memory (10.16.24). These form a carefully worked-​out inventory of the actions of Augustine’s own mind. In the great power that is his memory, he is looking for truth that might make him true; instead, he finds inconsistency. Often enough he realizes that he does not remember things when he wishes, or that his mind recalls affections with different emphases (such as remembering joy with sadness), while memory retains memories of its opposite: forgetting. Memory here has not mediated truth. If anything, it has hopelessly complicated how truth might be mediated to Augustine. This is itself distressing, for if God (Truth) is not in Augustine’s memory at all, then Augustine cannot remember God. Even those who lose things, like the woman who loses her silver coin in the Gospel of Luke (15:8), know what they are looking for when they have lost it.80 Augustine attempts to ascend even above his memory, to move beyond it in search of the true good and sweetness that will never fail.81 He employs his memory as a mediating middle between body, soul, and God: “As my body derives its life from my soul, so does my soul derive its life from you.”82 He pauses to recalibrate his ascent by clarifying the object of it. A happy life, in Augustine’s consideration, is that which all must desire, whether in actuality or in the hope of becoming happy. He re-​poses the question: If all humans desire the happy life, must it in some way be in the memory? The happy life is not a new thing but a renewed mode of approach to the self in which God and

78 Augustine will use but modify this digestive imagery for sharing the sweetness of the memories of Christ found in scripture and liturgical practice. I take this up in both ­chapters 4 and 5, on the work of remembering and the work of forgetting, respectively. 79 conf. 10.14.21. 80 Brian Stock suggests that the widow with a lamp is herself an image for the importance of scripture. Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-​Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 223–​224. 81 conf. 10.17.26. 82 conf. 10.20.29.

Preparing to Preach  41 the world might be appropriately mediated. The initial question is whether or not the happy life lies in the memory.83 By definition for Augustine, the happy life is “joy in you, who are the Truth.”84 So pursuing the happy life is still the pursuit of truth. The trouble is that this pursuit of the happy life is not so simple. Humans pursue objects that are not the truth out of love for the truth. In this way, love for the truth can engender a sort of hatred.85 “Distention” emerges in earnest for Augustine as the pursuit of truth itself is constantly beleaguered by distraction and misdirected love.86 The problem, at its heart, remains the mediation of truth. God is truth, yet Augustine describes love as being directed constantly at other ends and wanting those objects to be the truth.87 Augustine struggles to locate truth. Humans would have no love for the truth unless there were some knowledge of it in their memory, that is, unless some flash of it were mediated to the person.88 Augustine is certain he knows that God is truth, yet he cannot assure the salvific mediation of that truth through the most powerful means of anthropological mediation available to him: his own memory. This becomes evident very quickly when he tries to locate the truth that is God within his memory. Augustine writes, “How widely I have ranged through my memory seeking you, Lord, and I have not found you outside it.”89 His first statement establishes that God is not mediated simply to him from the external world, though he is confident he can identify it as God’s work.90 Second, Augustine has learned truths that come from God. These he holds in his memory: “you have dwelt in my memory ever since I learned to know you, and it is there that I find you when I remember and delight in you.”91 Augustine has a genuine epistemological problem. He has experienced the truth that is God. The experience of that truth is mediated to him by his memory. But his memory does not recall truth-​as-​God as it does other

83 Heidegger isolates this as Augustine’s central concern. Heidegger, “Augustine and Neo-​ Platonism,” 141–​148. 84 conf. 10.23.33. 85 conf. 10.23.34. 86 Distentio is a word Augustine will apply to the experience of time in book 11. Though he does not use it in book 10, it also describes the nature of his will divided among many competing loves. We will take up this term again at length in c­ hapters 5 and 6. 87 conf. 10.23.34. 88 conf. 10.23.33. 89 conf. 10.24.35. 90 Romans 1:20 most often grounds this claim when it occurs in Augustine’s writings. 91 conf. 10.24.35.

42  Augustine on Memory images and affections. When Augustine searches his memory, he cannot place God in his memory, which is the mind itself: Yet not even there were you to be found. Just as you are not any corporeal image, nor any of the emotions that belong to a living person, such as we experience when we are joyful or sad, when we desire or fear something, when we remember or forget or anything similar, so neither are you the mind itself: you are the Lord and God of the mind.92

Augustine seems to spin in contradiction at this point. He has identified truth with God. He has also identified that he has at various points learned truth. He says again, “Most certain it is that you do dwell in memory, because I have been remembering you since I first learned to know you, and there I find you when I remember you.”93 He continues, “If that is so, where did I find you in order to make acquaintance with you at the outset? You could not have been in my memory before I learned to know you. Where then could I have found you in order to learn of you, if not in yourself, far above me?”94 Memory has helped to mediate past things he has learned. He certainly has learned of God, but Augustine keeps working through his access to God before that learning. At this point, his attempted answer—​that he learns of God through God’s transcendence—​does not solve the problem. The transcendence of God does not alleviate the predicament because it simply relocates it. Augustine removes God from “place,” and thus from “seeking higher.” “ ‘Place’ has here no meaning,” he writes, “further away from you or toward you we may travel, but place there is none.”95 Augustine’s provisional model for mediation is that God is in no place, thus in all places—​ in no time, thus in all times. Much Augustinian-​inspired phenomenology takes off from this insight. Jean-​Luc Marion, for instance, works from this seemingly apophatic moment to un-​place the self, in order that by being a no-​place and a no-​thing it might discover its givenness in God.96 Augustine, however, does not end with God being in a no-​place, because this gives an unsatisfactory account of mediation. Truth presides over all things, and thus God cannot be without a place. At the same time, God certainly is not in 92 conf. 10.25.36. 93 conf. 10.25.36. 94 conf. 10.26.37. 95 conf. 10.26.37. 96 Jean-​Luc Marion, In the Self ’s Place: The Approach of St. Augustine, trans. Jeffrey Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), 311.

Preparing to Preach  43 every-​place, because Augustine can identify much within himself that is—​to understate the matter—​less than godly. Yet God must either be every-​place or no-​place, and so the question of how the creator God is mediated to the created Augustine goes unanswered. He will spend the second half of the book examining those desires in himself which he satisfies in such a way as to draw him further away from God. Making the truth with memory up to this point turns out to be fraught. Augustine began with exterior things, turned within, and then ascended from inferior things within to superior. At the point he reached the superior he attempted to go even beyond himself to God who made him. The difficulty with his ascent, of course, is that it fails. Augustine does not locate God other than in “no place.” Equally unhelpful is that God is in every place. That, for Augustine, fails to explain how his life is full not of the sweetness of truth but instead of temptation, frustration, and sin. Augustine transitions from attempting ascent to supernal sublimity into grinding through embodied memories.

Making the Truth, Part 2: Desire’s Descent through Memory (10.27.38–​10.39.64) Moving rather in the opposite direction of exterior to interior and inferior to superior, Augustine describes God as the superior that comes crashing into the interior—​and entirely in words ascribed normally to the exterior. His poetic “late have I loved you” is not only the culmination of his thinking on memory so far, but also the beginning of his exploration in the opposite direction, from interior back out to the exterior. Introducing another transcendental, Augustine changes from addressing truth to speaking to beauty. He writes, “You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.”97 The poetry is high Latin style, and the content merges imagery from the Song of Songs with Platonism.98 This speaks to both the failure of Augustine’s ascent as well as his 97 conf. 10.27.38. 98 Henry Chadwick labels the Neoplatonic influences as a “Neoplatonic reflection on Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium.” Boulding suggests also Plotinus’s “Tractate on Beauty” (Enneads 1.6.2). Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 201n25; Boulding, Confessions, 262n82.

44  Augustine on Memory failure to “place” God. Augustine describes the encounter with God in sensory terms. Beauty affects his hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch. The difficult part is that such an encounter is described in opposite terms of the ascent he has just attempted, in which he divested himself of sensory inputs in order to go within himself and seek God in his mind. This flourish, a turn to beauty, reintroduces sensory language for the experience of God.99 Augustine does not, however, give any explanation of how beauty is mediated to those senses. The text gives no explanation of the “how” in its description of what is inarguably an encounter with God. In any case, the experience of beauty leaves Augustine even more to investigate. He describes the recovered full functioning of his senses: deafness overcome, blindness put to flight, heightened breathing, hunger, thirst, and touch that feels like fire. But as soon as he examines his own sensory experiences, he is forced to admit that he is not “full of you”—​“and so,” he concludes, “I am a burden to myself.”100 It is here that writers frequently suggest Augustine’s treatise on memory is completed.101 However, the argument is only partially complete; Augustine has simply inverted the method of his investigation.102 Whereas before memory sought God as truth by Augustine’s entering into his own consciousness and moving beyond sensory impressions, now he interrogates the content of memories of temptation and joy. These two experiences create a set of oppositions in Augustine’s life that he is powerless to reconcile. He writes, “Joys over which I ought to weep do battle with sorrows that should be matter for joy, and I know not which will be victorious. But I also see griefs that are evil at war in me with joys that are good, and I know not which will win the day.”103 For Augustine, the very act of remembering is one of struggle, because his remembering is not anthropologically mediating those experiences in such a way that they are harmoniously integrated into his present; he feels himself to be in battle—​using the language of struggle, victory, and trial 99 Guillem Bouissou traces the lyrical change that takes place here: longer rhythms, resounding structure, language of spiritual senses. Bouissou claims this recalls Augustine’s conversion and is the transposition of images onto the material plane of a purely spiritual adventure. I am suggesting a slight variation. The text that follows will investigate actual senses, rendering the adventure not only spiritual but also bodily. Guillem Bouissou, “Sero Te Amavi (Confessions, X, xxvii, 38),” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 7, no. 3 (1961): 247–​250. 100 conf. 10.28.39. 101 See nn55–​56. 102 Johann Kreuzer also notices the importance of the descent. Johann Kreuzer, “Confessiones 10: Der Abgrund Des Bewußtseins,” in Die Confessiones Des Augustinus Von Hippo: Einführung und Interpretationen zu den dreizehn Büchern, ed. Norbert Fisher and Cornelius Mayer (Freiburg: Herder, 1998), 445–​487. 103 conf. 10.28.39.

Preparing to Preach  45 without respite. The first example he offers is his own habits, which have imprinted in his memory temptations he cannot rid himself of in any final way. Specifically, he invokes sexual temptations, which are so deeply part of his experience that he is not free from them when he sleeps, even should he be committed to continence in his waking.104 In other words, Augustine finds that he is unable to stop remembering, especially the things he would prefer not. Augustine systematically takes apart his own sensory experiences, starting with the desire of the flesh, working through touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. This is followed by the desire of the eyes and ambition of the world. The structure is as follows:105   10.30.41–​34.53  desire of the flesh   10.30.41–​42  touch   10.31.43–​47  taste   10.32.48     smell   10.33.49–​50  hearing   10.34.51–​53  sight   10.35.54–​57   desire of the eyes   10.36.58–​39.64  ambition or desire for honors Augustine’s descent through his embodied memories uses for analysis the categories of the First Letter of John (desire of the eyes, desire of the flesh, and pride of life). This need not be a perplexing shift if considered in terms of Christ the mediator. In his earlier exposition of Christ as mediator in book 7, Augustine suggests something about that mediator’s fleshly (“downward”) participation in humanity. The second half of book 10 is the complement to the first; the investigation downward and outward follows the one inward and upward. Augustine’s desire in this downward examination is to reconcile again his interior and exterior: “My hope is that you will bring your merciful dealings in me to perfection, until I attain that utter peace which all that is within me and all my outward being will enjoy with you, when death shall be swallowed

104 conf. 10.30.41. 105 This structural outline is from James J. O’Donnell. For debates about the structure of Confessions 10, see nn55–​56. James J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 3: Books 8–​13 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 150.

46  Augustine on Memory up in victory.”106 He pursues the root of what he has identified as the discordance between interior and exterior, articulating it in terms of the will and the cloaking of uncontrolled self-​indulgence.107 His examples of this are practical and simple; if food is medicine, for instance, then uncontrolled desire can lead to gluttony and drunkenness.108 Though Augustine suggests that almost all people are occasionally carried beyond necessity concerning food and drink, he has hope, praying, “May he who has overcome the world intercede for my sins.”109 Christ is here the one who intercedes and brings hope for those who, on their own, are prone to eat and drink too much. The reconciliation of interior desire and exterior action is not described in technical language. Rather, Augustine approaches Christ’s mediation through something as commonplace as the desire for food and drink. Augustine adds a further dimension to his analysis that subtly fills this part of the book: exterior includes other. That is, Augustine speaks—​in a way that he did not during his ascent—​of the exterior also in terms of those around him, including his readers. He obliquely mentions being part of a body: God counts Augustine “among the frailer members of his body.”110 Here something new begins to emerge: that a life mediated by Christ would also implicate Augustine in a communally configured relationship to the mediator. Augustine is a member, though a weak one, of the mediator’s body. As Augustine continues his examination of sensory temptations, he addresses that body on more than one occasion. When frustrated that the delights of music are more pleasing to his ear than the subject of the song (e.g., the words of a psalm), Augustine implores his neighbors, “Weep with me, and weep for me, you who feel within yourselves that goodness from which kind actions spring!”111 This confessional mode addresses a particular body, though at this point it is not explicitly called the body of the mediator—​the body of Christ. Augustine’s description of the second temptation, the desire of the eyes, also connects the individual with the other. He gives examples readily available to the modern reader as well: one’s desire to look at a mangled corpse when nothing is to be gained by it, to acquire knowledge for its own sake, to use the magical arts, and to demand signs and wonders from the divine, not

106

conf. 10.30.42. conf. 10.31.44. conf. 10.31.43–​47. 109 conf. 10.31.47. 110 conf. 10.31.47. 111 conf. 10.33.50. 107 108

Preparing to Preach  47 for any salvific end but merely for a thrill.112 Augustine realizes that when his heart is full of these external distractions, so too is his internal prayer.113 He finds that he is able to alleviate this somewhat by the activity of prayer: “When I entreat you for the salvation of someone, the object of my prayer is quite different. You grant me, and will continue to grant me, the grace to follow you freely, whatever you choose to do.”114 Prayer connects him to those around him as one seeing another in God, not as a voyeur looking at a mangled corpse. Augustine here writes of being transformed by God. Yet he does not use the first-​person singular, the voice that dominates the book. Instead, he speaks in the first-​person plural: “Can there be for us any route back to hope other than your mercy, of which we have proof already because you have begun to change us?”115 Only then does he revert: “You know how much you have changed me.”116 Augustine is weaving into his account of temptation not only his own experience but also references to those around him. At one level, this functions rhetorically to draw the reader to relate his or her own experience to Augustine’s. But at a second level, Augustine also seems to suggest being transformed by God in the midst of others. The same is true of the final temptation: pride or ambition. Augustine’s view of pride is that God alone can rule without it. Augustine identifies his own pride as the main reason he is unable to love and fear God with purity.117 Augustine’s solution to pride, too, has to do with both him and his readers: “Lord, remember that we are your little flock: keep us as your own. Spread your wings and let us flee to shelter beneath them. Be yourself our glory: let us be loved on your account, and let it be your word in us that is honored.”118 In stemming the temptation to pride, Augustine once again articulates a solution in terms of not merely himself, but the flock. Having finished his analysis of temptations, Augustine connects truth and neighbor: “You are Truth, and in you I see that if I am touched by the high opinion others hold of me, it should be not for my own sake but so that my neighbor may profit thereby.”119 At the end of Augustine’s investigation of his temptations, he confesses, “I know myself less clearly than I know you.

112

conf. 10.35.54–​57. conf. 10.35.57. 114 conf. 10.35.56. 115 conf. 10.36.58. 116 conf. 10.36.58. 117 conf. 10.36.59. 118 conf. 10.36.59. 119 conf. 10.37.62. 113

48  Augustine on Memory I beg you to reveal myself to me as well, O my God, so that I may confess the wounded condition I diagnose in myself to my brethren, who will pray for me.”120 All of his self-​seeking is in the context of his neighbors. Yet Augustine is honest about his own self-​concern. He admits, for instance, that when an equal insult is cast on his neighbor and on him, he feels the wound to himself more acutely. Confessing for the good of his neighbor, yet not sincerely holding his neighbor on a level with himself, reveals a precarious double standard. In effect, Augustine realizes that it is a self-​deception by which his own pride causes him to cease to make the truth (verum non faciam).121 He returns, then, to his argument’s beginning: with a concern to make the truth before God. In the same thought, though, he admits his powerlessness to do so and implores God to remove the madness of the double standard of sin from him. At the end of his analysis of temptation, Augustine’s memories of his own proclivity to broken desire and to sin offer him little hope of an integrated life in God. If anything, his exercise of ascent upward to the heart of memory in the first part of the book, and then downward through embodied memories in the second, have revealed to him (and presumably to the reader) what he cannot accomplish alone.

Augustine Recaps His Own Argument (10.40.65–​10.41.67) Perhaps the most self-​evident case for the argumentative wholeness of book 10 is that, at the end, Augustine reviews for his reader where he has been before presenting his conclusion.122 Before he makes his shift from truth to Christ, he revisits the entire complicated project of book 10. He addresses truth as having been walking with him, then reviews his ascent through memory, through the external world, his own body, and his memory. He confesses that the problem is his ego, his self.123 Augustine gives God, as abiding light, the credit for teaching him and giving his soul a place of refuge it could find in no other place. The trouble with Augustine’s ascents, however, is that even having had moments of an “inward experience quite unlike any



120

conf. 10.37.62. conf. 10.37.62. 122 For debate concerning the structure of Confessions 10, see nn.55–​56 of this chapter. 123 conf. 10.40.65. 121

Preparing to Preach  49 other, a sweetness beyond understanding,” he would fall back into his usual habits of sin.124 The three forms of desire that Augustine has considered reveal his inability to attain truth. “You are the Truth, sovereign over all,” Augustine writes, but “you did not consent to be possessed in consort with a lie.”125 Augustine’s sin represents his living a mixed life: he wishes to hold onto the truth while at the same time holding onto the lies of his sin. The upward ascent toward truth through memory cannot be sustained; the downward descent into an analysis of temptation and the memories of specific temptations that plague the human person brings no peace to Augustine either. His concluding desire is for a mediator. He cannot make himself true in such a way as to reconcile himself to God. He lists a number of other mediators along the way who cannot help him either: not angels, not prayers, not sacred rites. Augustine criticizes theurgy, taking aim at those who think they can return to God on their own strength: “Many have there been who tried to make their way back to you and, finding themselves insufficient by their powers, had recourse to such means as these, only to lapse into a fancy for visions that tickled their curiosity.”126 A proper mediator between God and the human race is in one respect like God and in another like human beings.127 Augustine has finally reached the point in the book where truth emerges as Christ.

Making the Truth: In Christ the True Mediator (10.42.67–​10.43.70) Memory might have failed as an anthropological mediator. But in the argument of book 10, it fails into a salvific mediator who succeeds. Augustine literally begins the last paragraph of the book with the “true mediator”: verax autem mediator.128 In the final section he addresses not Christ but, still, God the Father, just as he has throughout the book. God is truth, and the true mediator has the same truth:

124 conf. 10.40.65. 125 conf. 10.41.66. 126 conf. 10.42.67. 127 conf. 10.42.67. 128 conf. 10.43.68. Ruhstorfer has also drawn attention to the importance of this passage for Augustine’s Christology in Confessions book 10. Ruhstorfer, “Der Mittler zwischen Gott und Mensch.”

50  Augustine on Memory You first gave the humble certain pointers to the true mediator, and then sent him, that by his example they might learn humility like his. This mediator between God and humankind, the man Christ Jesus, appeared to stand between mortal sinners and the God who is immortal and just: like us he was mortal, but like God he was just.129

Augustine’s emphasis on the humanity of this mediator is deliberate. “Only in virtue of his humanity is he the mediator; in his nature as the Word he does not stand between us and God, for he is God’s equal, God with God, and with him only one God.”130 Though Augustine affirms that there is but one God and that as Word he is not midway somehow, the focus is on the humanity, the flesh of Christ. Since Christ as true mediator is both God and human, he is able to hold in himself things that should be opposites, starting with the fact that he is God and man. For humanity, Augustine explains, Christ is victor because he is victim. Christ is priest because he is sacrifice. Christ is both son to God and servant to humanity. Christ mediates truly. At last, Augustine reaches his conclusion: Filled with terror by my sins and my load of misery I had been turning over in my mind a plan to flee into solitude, but you forbade me, and strengthened me by your words. “To this end Christ died for all,” you reminded me, “that they who are alive may live not for themselves, but for him who died for them” (2 Cor 5:15). See, then, Lord: I cast my care upon you (Ps 54:23) that I may live, and I will contemplate the wonders you have revealed (Ps 118:17–​18). You know how stupid and weak I am (Ps 68:6): teach me and heal me (Ps 142:10, 6:3). Your only son, in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3), has redeemed me by his blood (Rev 5:9). Let the proud not disparage me (Ps 118:22), for I am mindful of my ransom (Ps 61:5). I eat it, I drink it, I dispense it to others,

129 130

conf. 10.43.68. conf. 10.43.68.

Preparing to Preach  51 and as a poor man I long to be filled with it (Lk 16:21) among those who are fed and feasted. And then do those who seek him praise the Lord (Ps 21:27).131

At the time of his writing the Confessions, he had only recently begun his preaching on the psalms. Yet, even by this early phase, he is looking for Christ in these scriptures.132 In a densely packed flurry of at least seven psalms, Augustine brings his book to a close.133 He began the book wanting to know God who knows him. In many ways that exercise was frustrating, failed, and fleeting. Here, however, the true mediator actually mediates. First, the words of scripture (exterior) keep Augustine from fleeing into solitude. On account of his own sinfulness, he considered living by himself (focusing interiorly), which would have removed many of the exterior temptations to which he succumbed on a regular basis.134 Here he returns to answer, in a backhanded manner, a question that he deferred partway through the book.135 In his treatment of memory and the happy life, Augustine had said, “What I am attempting to find out is whether this resides in the memory, because if it does, that must mean that we were happy once upon a time—​though whether each of us was happy individually, or we were all happy in the man who committed the first sin, in whom we all died and from whom we are all born to misery, I am not now inquiring.”136 He hints at the prelapsarian unity that might have existed in 131 conf. 10.43.70. Following O’Donnell, Confessions, vol. 3, 249 I agree that the bracketed is laudant rather than the Maurist laudabunt. 132 Each of the psalms Augustine quotes at the end of conf. 10 is one through which he will preach about the whole Christ, the totus Christus (Ps 21, 54, 61, 68, 118, and 142). These texts are important in c­ hapters 2 and 3 of this book. 133 The specific use of psalms in conf. has been traced by Georg Nicolaus Knauer but has been more recently taken up by Paul Burns and Rowan Williams. Georg Nicolaus Knauer, Psalmenzitate in Augustins Konfessionen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955); Paul Burns, “Augustine’s Distinctive Use of the Psalms in the ‘Confessions,’” Augustinian Studies 24 (1993): 133–​146; Rowan Williams, “Augustine and the Psalms,” Interpretation 58, no. 1 (2004): 17–​27. 134 O’Donnell explains this text as relating to Augustine’s ordination as well as the possibility of his fleeing to a monastic vocation. Important for my thesis will be God’s directing Augustine back into communion with others. James J. O’Donnell, “Augustine’s Unconfessions,” in Augustine and Postmodernism: Confession and Circumfession, ed. John Caputo and Michael Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 212–​221. 135 Richard Sorabji marks the tension in Augustine between individuality and growing to be one with others. Sorabji’s concern is whether or not individuality remains eternally. I suggest that the full Augustinian answer to this question must include not only a certain forgetfulness of self but also identity in Christ as the new Adam, in whom many members can exist with one head. Richard Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 99–​100, 127. 136 conf. 10.20.29.

52  Augustine on Memory the human will had the fall not taken place. The body of Adam—​which Augustine uses as a trope for all humankind—​would have been a unified, God-​willing, happy-​together-​and-​not-​alone body. Augustine does not return here to analyze the prelapsarian condition, but he does produce a communal location for redemption. God forbids solitude on the grounds of Christ’s death for all. The most obvious reference to the body of Christ is the Eucharistic allusion at the end of book 10 (Ps 61:5). This has been well studied, as it recalls the community gathered around Monica at her death at the end of book 9.137 But here, Christ’s mediation takes place in real time. Augustine eats and drinks the Eucharistic food and drink of his redemption. He does not do this alone, but dispenses it, as a priest, to others and longs with them, as a poor one, to be filled. He concludes his last line by explaining that “those who seek him praise the Lord.” Augustine has altered the verb tense from the same quotation at the beginning of book 1.138 At the outset, those who seek the Lord will praise him (future tense). But in Christ the mediator, Augustine and his people are praising (present tense). Mediation is being accomplished; the tense shift indicates they have found the one they were seeking. That Augustine ends book 10 with Christ the true mediator does not give a simple solution to the problem of mediation with which he has been wrestling for the intervening forty chapters. Christ the true mediator has been present all the way along, helping Augustine to make—​or perhaps more properly, to be made into—​the truth. His two attempts at making the truth, both the ascent upward through memory divesting itself of external things and the descent downward through memory of temptation by external things, have been undertaken in Christ the mediator. The problem, however, has been Augustine’s ego, his very self. Attempting both the ascent and the descent on his own power, he has proven himself powerless to heal his own ills. The Christic mediator at the conclusion not only provides such healing but does so in a different way, one that drives Augustine not

137 Gerald Bonner, “Augustine’s Understanding of the Church as a Eucharistic Community,” in Saint Augustine the Bishop: A Book of Essays, ed. Fannie LeMoine and Christopher Kleinhenz (London: Garland, 1994), 39–​63; John Cavadini, “Eucharistic Exegesis in Augustine’s ‘Confessions,’” Augustinian Studies 41 (2010): 87–​108; Janet Soskice, “Monica’s Tears: Augustine on Words and Speech,” New Blackfriars 83, no. 980 (2002): 448–​458. 138 The difference is between laudabunt and laudant as future becomes present. See n131.

Preparing to Preach  53 out to be with himself in solitude so as to gain self-​mastery but into a communion of broken and impoverished people being fed together in the action of the Eucharist.

Confessions 11: Memory, Time, and Expectation Augustine’s final use of mediation in the Confessions adds expectation to memory, but in a manner that foregrounds Christ the mediator from the end of book 10. Seeking God in book 11 is not an investigation of one’s individuated memory—​neither in an ascent of continued climbing toward God nor in a descent into memories of physical temptation. Rather, seeking God in book 11 takes the form of seeking the “treasures of all knowledge and wisdom” (Col 2:3) which are to be found in scripture. Scripture is the forest—​though dense and sometimes opaque—​that deer might inhabit in order to ruminate and recover their strength.139 Scripture is knocking on the door of Christ in order to have hidden meanings opened.140 Augustine writes of Christ the mediator, “For in him are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And they are what I seek in your books. Moses wrote of him; Christ told us so himself, and he is the Truth.”141 This sets out a whole program of reading for Augustine.142 He will read scripture looking for Christ, which means learning from the mediator who made both heaven and earth as well as who called to adoption the people who believe.143 At first it might seem strange that Augustine would frame a book concerning time in terms of scripture. But he connects the books of scripture with Christ’s mediation, the Word spoken eternally. From the beginning, the Word spoke in human flesh, “making his claim audible to people’s outward ears that they might believe him and seek him within themselves and find him in the eternal Truth where he, our sole teacher, instructs apt disciples.”144 Augustine complicates the direction of the spiritual journey here. God made truth sound externally that it might be heard by human ears. In 139 conf. 11.2.3. 140 conf. 11.2.3. Augustine uses imagery of knocking throughout conf. (c.f. Mt 7:7–​8; Lk 11:9–​10). Here in book 11 he speaks of knocking at the gate and the door. At 11.22.28 he explicitly claims Christ as gate/​door, another mediating image for Christ. 141 conf. 11.2.4. 142 Stock, Augustine the Reader, 232–​240. 143 conf. 11.2.4. 144 conf. 11.8.10.

54  Augustine on Memory scripture, Christ speaks. Yet the Word from the beginning speaks; thus the speech unites both the unchanging beginning and the ever-​changing hearer. The Word, known through scripture, stands at the intersection of time and eternity. Augustine’s discussion of time in terms of scripture, which points to Christ as the mediator of time and eternity, allows him to add something to his understanding of memory—​namely, expectation. He describes the entire life of a person in terms of a psalm.145 As a person speaks a psalm, the act is stretched in two ways. At first, one looks at the psalm entirely in expectation. But as one speaks it, the expectation lessens as it passes into memory. This is true both of speech acts and of the entire life of a person. Augustine is making a claim about the human condition: temporal existence is both an expectation forward and a memory of what is behind.146 This mix of expectation and memory is called “distention,” and for Augustine it is part of human existence in the temporal order.147 Augustine explains that for the creator of the universe, the creator of souls and bodies, there is no distention: knowledge of all that has been does not strain against all that will be. But for created beings, Augustine writes, “When a person is singing words well known to him, or listening to a familiar song, his senses are strained between anticipating sounds still to come and remembering those sung already.”148 A human being is ever caught in distention, forgetting to an extent what lies behind in order to strain ahead. This phrasing from Philippians 3:12–​14 becomes a favorite of Augustine for preaching an image of the tension between memory and expectation.149 Augustine’s third image of Christ as mediator in the Confessions is of one who can unite the scattered fragments of human life, one who can bridge memory and expectation not only in Augustine, but also in the many others who, like him, are pulled in opposite directions by multifarious distractions.150

145 conf. 11.28.38. 146 James Wetzel makes the very important clarification here that “disjunction” need not mean “exclusion” for Augustine. James Wetzel, “The Force of Memory: Reflections on the Interrupted Self,” Augustinian Studies 38, no. 1 (2007): 158. 147 conf. 11.23.30, 11.26.33, 11.29.39. 148 conf. 11.31.41. 149 This becomes a central trope in the sermo. and en. Ps.; Philippians 3 serves as one of Augustine’s paradigmatic texts for talking about this topic of memory and expectation. I will take this up in ­chapter 5, “The Pauline Paradigm of Forgetting (Philippians 3:13–​14).” In its Confessions context, see Gerard O’Daly, “Time as distentio and St. Augustine’s Exegesis of Phil 3, 12–​14,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 23, nos. 3–​4 (1977): 265–​271. 150 conf. 11.29.39.

Preparing to Preach  55

Conclusion: Memory Un-​Placed and Un-​Selfed If memory mediated ideally, it would establish coherent selfhood and place in creation (time, physicality, and communion with divine wisdom). At this point in Augustine’s works, memory has mediated more disharmonies than harmonies. If anything, memory has un-​selfed, or destabilized self, and un-​ placed, or destabilized place, from any fully integrated version. In Augustine’s self, we have seen both the hope for coherence and ongoing instability. Memory holds out great initial promise as the anthropological mediator that will make possible a coherent consciousness of mind and body. But at the same time that memory marks the self ’s power, it also shows its limits and failures. Augustine’s Platonic “loving memory” fails to mediate God to him until he casts himself down upon the God grown weak at his feet. Both the ascent to the seat of memory itself and the descent through embodied memories of desire in Confessions 10 fail to deliver a true self to Augustine. He remains, as he is famous for saying, a riddle to himself.151 And Confessions 11 makes a strong case for a self distended in time, managing future expectations and past perceptions in a present that is only ephemeral. In sum, memory—​the great power and precipitator of selfhood and interiority—​has yielded neither self-​coherence nor mediated God to the self. In terms of place, memory seemed as though it were a place: a hall, storehouse, or stomach. But God could not be placed there. Augustine could find God in his memory but not locate or place God. One potential solution is that Augustine meets God not in any place at all but in the act of confession itself.152 Confession, scholars who hold this suggest, is a performative practice of memory that proceeds from no place.153 This position provides a significant advance that is consonant with Augustine’s continuous

151 conf. 4.4.9. 152 This is the conclusion of David Tell. Confession allows one to remember God without “placing” God. Tell offers this position to qualify mnemotechnic scholarship (M. Carruthers, R. Sorabji) as well as those who position memory as against rhetoric (B. Stock). David Tell, “Beyond Mnemotechnics: Confession and Memory in Augustine,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 39, no. 3 (2006): 249. 153 Tell and Marion approach the problem in different ways but hold a similar position on “placement” by stepping back from place and focusing on either performance or givenness. Teske suggests that the central concern of Augustine in Conf. is how—​one notes the openness of such a term to performance—​one seeks the Lord (conf. 10.20.29). These debates about place are important because “how” always involves “where,” and thus place cannot be entirely avoided or negated. Marion, In the Self ’s Place, 237–​288; Tell, “Beyond Mnemotechnics,” 249; Teske, “Augustine’s Philosophy of Memory,” 153.

56  Augustine on Memory encouragement of his congregants to undertake the act of confession.154 Our analysis of Confessions books 7, 10, and 11, however, shows that Augustine is indeed trying very hard to “place” his investigations and indeed himself. As Brian Stock points out, Augustine’s reflections on memory show his seeking “an appropriate place to take up the contemplative life.”155 Lewis Ayres puts this even more helpfully by saying that Christology as contemplative practice for Augustine is not merely doctrine but the social context in which it is explored.156 Each of the encounters with Christ as mediator remains somewhat suggestive in the Confessions. But they all point to quite a concrete place—​ actually, a person—​who is not the self. Christ, for Augustine, turns out to be a rather vast and mediating locus, productive for theology and philosophy of all sorts: of wonders revealed, teaching and healing, being fed and feasted, and praising the Lord together.157 The psalms, as he continues to reflect upon them, reveal that mediator Christ to Augustine. Once this Christ—​a whole Christ—​emerges, memory and all it anthropologically mediates (time, wisdom, body and soul) will be energized entirely anew.

154 Augustine’s exhortations to his congregants to confess—​that is, not to tell God what they have done but to praise God in who they are—​are frequent in his en. Ps., especially in those psalms that treat memory. See ­chapter 4, “Memory out of the Self: Confession.” 155 Where I disagree with Stock, Augustine the Reader, 209, however, is in his suggestion that Confessions books 10–​13 reflect the individual rather than institutional aspect of the contemplative life. One can be too quick to equate Christological community manifest in Augustine’s texts with contemporary tropes of church as institution. 156 Lewis Ayres, “Christology as Contemplative Practice: Understanding the Unity of Natures in Augustine’s Letter 137,” in In the Shadow of the Incarnation: Essays on Jesus Christ in the Early Church in Honor of Brian E. Daley, S.J., ed. Peter W. Martens (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 206. 157 At conf. 10.43.70, Augustine lifts up psalms to describe his experience of the body of Christ. See en. Ps. 118.17–​18, 24.5.

2 Preaching from the Whole The Self in Christ

In the first chapter, as we traced memory’s beginning from Augustine’s early writings through the Confessions, we saw how memory’s initial promise as an anthropological mediator that could render the human self coherent amid competing realities remained unfulfilled. As we saw in Confessions, memory’s ultimate failure as mediator—​between body and soul, human and divine wisdom, time and eternity—​was also the failure of any stable sense of self. Yet that failure was into Christ the true mediator, forging a curious bond between the anthropological mediator that fails (memory) and the salvific one who somehow manages to succeed (Christ). Now, given memory’s spectacular failure, we must open the question’s inverse: Can Christ as salvific mediator save and transform memory as anthropological mediator for Augustine? Augustine’s answer will be affirmative, but in order to see how he comes to that conclusion, we must first trace how his understanding of Christ as mediator develops and matures. Augustine’s appreciation of Christ as mediator grows from, but is not limited to, the actions of the historical Jesus as well as the ritual memorializations of him. What I will show in this chapter is that for Augustine, after the year 400, the arc of Christ’s mediation culminates in the ascended Christ—​who, though absent physically from earth, is still joined to his embodied, earthly members as their head. Christ after the ascension continues to mediate the divine to the human in the present time. For Augustine, this development of Christ as mediator emerges as a concept called “the whole Christ,” or Christus totus. The whole Christ and its development will redefine Augustine’s understanding of mediation wholesale, after which in Christ memory, self, and community will never be the same. I can only realize the full-​fledged sense of Christ the ascended mediator due to Christological and exegetical developments in Augustinian studies. Concerning Christology, Brian Daley helpfully suggests that Augustine’s

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0003

58  Augustine on Memory Christology received little attention because of its ordinariness.1 That is, Augustine’s great doctrinal arguments concerned other issues. Yet Christ, as Michael Cameron has claimed, was a way of seeing for Augustine.2 That way of seeing was practiced by Augustine in the reading of scriptural texts. For a complex set of reasons, but especially those tied to trends in biblical studies’ increased utilization of historical and critical tools in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Augustine’s allegorical and figurative exegesis—​having been popular in classical and medieval periods—​received less scholarly attention in the modern era than his seemingly more philosophical or doctrinal texts. Interpretations of the latter, however, were impoverished by the neglect of the former. A fulsome sense of Augustine’s Christology suffered on account of these converging factors. By the mid-​twentieth century, it was possible for a scholar like James Dittes to claim that Augustine put relatively little emphasis on Christ as mediator or redemptive agent.3 In 1954, Tarsicius van Bavel began making the case that scholarship had “forgotten” about the mediatory reality of the totus Christus.4 Even into the 1990s, scholars felt the need to justify that Augustine had a Christology at all before they explored any particular aspect of it.5 The scholarly reassessment of Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms, in particular, has resulted in the renewal of Augustinian Christology, which in some ways parallels the “new canon” advancements in his Trinitarian theology.6 Engaging with these texts, which together comprise his longest work both in terms of words and number of years to complete, scholars have discovered anew that allegorical and figurative exegesis is a productive locus for 1 Brian Daley, “Christology,” in Augustine through the Ages, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 164–​169. 2 Michael Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figurative Exegesis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 12. 3 James Dittes, “Continuities between the Life and Thought of Augustine,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 5, no. 1 (1965): 132. For a response in Augustine’s defense: David Burrell, “Reading ‘The Confessions’ of Augustine: An Exercise in Theological Understanding,” Journal of Religion 50, no. 4 (1970): 327–​351. 4 Tarsicius van Bavel, Recherches sur la christologie de saint Augustin: L’humain et le divin dans le Christ d’aprés saint Augustin (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1954); Tarsicius van Bavel, “Die Einheit Des ‘Totus Christus’ Bei Augustinus,” in Scientia Augustiniana: Studien über Augustinus, den Augustinismus und den Augustinerorden (Würzburg: Augustinus-​Verlag, 1975), 43–​75; Tarsicius van Bavel, “The ‘Christus Totus’ Idea: A Forgotten Aspect of Augustine’s Spirituality,” in Christology, ed. Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), 84–​94. 5 Michael Heintz, “The Immateriality and Eternity of the Word in St. Augustine’s Sermons on the Prologue of John’s Gospel,” in Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum, ed. J. Lienhard, E. Muller, and R. Teske (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 395–​402. 6 The label “new canon” refers specifically to the work of Rowan Williams, Michel Barnes, Lewis Ayres, and subsequent thinkers (Ployd, Gioia, Kloos, et al.) who have recontextualized Augustine’s Trinitarian thought in terms of Latin Pro-​Nicene theology. See also c­ hapter 7, n5.

Preaching from the Whole  59 all sorts of thinking for Augustine. His preaching on the psalms in the context of liturgical celebration with his people functioned as a laboratory for his Christological thinking. Through this reassessment, we are rediscovering, after explicit claims to the contrary,7 that Augustine has a sense of deification.8 The totus Christus has become once again a tool for study, and it is becoming ever more present as a productive partner for thought—​similarly but variously styled as a grammar, hermeneutic, or psychagogy.9 Building upon this work, the following account develops Augustine’s mediatory Christology, drawing particular attention to the character of ongoing mediation after Christ’s ascension.

What the Psalms Made of Augustine: Preacher of a Whole Christ The psalms provide marking points for Augustine’s Christian life, from his catechumenal retreat in Cassiciacum in 386, in which he recalls being moved to tears by the songs of David, through his deathbed in 430, when, as Possidius recounts, Augustine prays psalms (see ­chapter 8).10 The psalms form the very language of confession, or union with God.11 They are not just prayerful texts but, as Rowan Williams suggests, texts that “make” Augustine into something.12 That transformation of self happens over time—​specifically, as Augustine preaches. The early middle-​aged Augustine received the call to preach during a sermon. Having returned to North Africa from Italy in 388 as a baptized Catholic, he had taken up residence with a community of friends in his childhood hometown of Thagaste. When Augustine journeyed to Hippo Regius,

7 These claims are spelled out by Gerald Bonner, “Augustine’s Concept of Deification,” Journal of Theological Studies 37, no. 2 (1986): 369–​386 and Will Cohen, “Augustine and John Zizioulas,” in T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology, ed. C. C. Pecknold and T. Toom (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 223–​238. 8 David Meconi, “Becoming Gods by Becoming God’s: Augustine’s Mystagogy of Identification,” Augustinian Studies 39, no. 1 (2008): 61–​74; David Meconi, The One Christ: Augustine’s Theology of Deification (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013); Jared Ortiz, ed., Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2019). 9 Grammar (P. Candler, J. Teubner), hermeneutic (M. Fiedrowicz), psychagogy (P. Kolbet, M. Cameron). 10 conf. 9.4.8; Possidius, v. Aug., 31.2. 11 In en. Ps. 75.14, Augustine defines confession as the action that unites us (adiungit nos) to Christ. 12 Quid de me fecerit. conf. 9.4.8. Also Rowan Williams, “Augustine and the Psalms,” Interpretation 58, no. 1 (2004): 17–​27.

60  Augustine on Memory on what is now the Algerian coast, the elderly bishop Valerius pointed out in his sermon that his community had need of a presbyter, and specifically he called upon Augustine. The congregation rallied around this suggestion with its own affirmation—​in its day a mechanism of ecclesial election nearing the force of conscription. Augustine, accordingly, was ordained a priest in 391 and consecrated bishop of Hippo in 395/​396. This history is important because, except for a time of scriptural self-​study and retreat, Augustine did not follow a formal curriculum of training in scripture in the same way that we would expect of a “seminary,” which has become a mode of religious training only since the Council of Trent.13 In many ways, Augustine learned as he went, encountering and refining his theology as he preached. The only skill set in which he had been rigorously trained before his ordination was rhetoric. He had been, however, both an excellent rhetorician and an excellent teacher of the same. The combination of these two expertises—​rhetor and pedagogue—​launched a wildly successful career as a preacher. The most important texts for this argument are from the Expositions of the Psalms. I will also point out correspondences across the rest of Augustine’s preaching: his Sermons and the Tractates on the Gospel of John.14 Augustine’s Christological understanding begins through rhetorical hermeneutics for preaching on the psalms and grows into a mode of participation—​as Christ’s living, breathing, praising, groaning, and remembering members. It might at first seem odd to the modern scholar to read psalms in order to develop a Christology. But in this regard, Augustine is testifying to a conviction that is standard for the Church Fathers—​namely, that the psalms were prophecies of Christ and prayers prayed by Christ.15 Augustine’s abiding concern is that Christ spoke the psalms, indeed choosing to take up the words of the psalmist as his own from the cross. In so doing, Christ spoke the first-​ person voice of the psalms as his own. On its face, this is unremarkable. 13 ep. 21 for Augustine’s self-​study. Concerning Trent’s Canon 18 (Session 23), see John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 209–​217. 14 Though Augustine formulated the totus Christus through exegesis of the psalms, it also appears at other points in his later works, especially Jo. ev. tr. and sermo. Marie-​Anne Vannier, “L’apport des nouveaux ‘semons’ à la christologie,” in Augustin Prédicateur, ed. Goulven Madec (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1998), 267–​279. 15 Jerome produces a list of patristic psalm commentaries for Augustine in ep. 75.6.20. Greek: Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, Theodore of Heraclea, Asterius of Scythopolis, Apollinaris of Ladodicea, and Didymus of Alexandria. Latin: Hilary of Poitiers and Eusebius of Vercelli (translators of Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea), and Ambrose. Jerome indicates his list could have been longer; he limited himself to those who engaged the whole psalter. He was trying to dissuade Augustine from the task.

Preaching from the Whole  61 Christ was doing something that would have been natural in Hebrew prayer. Christian communities continued this Hebrew practice and used the psalms as the first-​person expressions of their own praise or lament, yet now with the added importance that the words are also Christ’s and point to Christ.16 Even recent theological scholarship—​historical, liturgical, and spiritual—​ addresses praying the psalms in Christ and spiritual “formation” in Christ taking place by means of the psalms.17 In short, Augustine as an exegete may be very far from some forms of modern biblical studies; he is not so far from either modern prayer or theological discourse about spiritual formation. We turn to Augustine not only as an exegete but also as a preacher.18 He preached without notes in basilicas, standing before a congregation also on its feet.19 The texts we have are at times Augustine’s exegetical notes and at other times his preached sermons, written down by scribes called notarii as he preached. These records of Augustine’s homilies are at times a sprawling and unwieldy collection and have vexed scholars who have tried to date them too precisely.20 Nevertheless, they are useful because they cover a great span of years, and Augustine never had time to go back and revise their imperfections, allowing later readers a glimpse at his evolution as a preacher. There remains even the occasional account of how Augustine perceives his congregation to be reacting to his words. He will confess when he is tired or 16 I explain this practice in terms of Christian prayer, generally, in “Transfiguring Speech: Prayer and the Psalms,” in The T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Prayer, ed. A. Cocksworth and J. McDowell (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 45–​64 . See also Laurence Kriegshauser, Praying the Psalms in Christ (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). 17 Jason Byassee, Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007); Paul Janowiak, Standing Together in the Community of God: Liturgical Spirituality and the Presence of Christ (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2011); J. Gordon McConville, “Spiritual Formation in the Psalms,” in The Bible and Spirituality: Exploratory Essays in Reading Scripture Spiritually, ed. Andrew Lincoln, J. Gordon McConville, and Lloyd Peterson (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013), 56–​74. 18 On Augustine’s exegesis of the psalter: Robert W. Bernard, “In Figura: Terminology Pertaining to Figurative Exegesis in the Works of Augustine of Hippo” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1984); Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988); J. Lerena, “Las Enarrationes in Psalmos: Criterios agustinianos de interpretacion,” Augustinus 24, no. 93 (1979): 3–​22; Maurice Pontet, L’Exégèse de s. Augustin prédicateur (Paris: Aubier, 1946); Marie-​Josèphe Rondeau, Les Commentaires Patristiques du Psautier: Exégèse Prosopologique et Théologie (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1985). 19 Hildegund Müller, “Preacher: Augustine and His Congregation,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. Mark Vessey (Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2012), 297–​309. 20 The principal scholars who have undertaken to make systematic claims on dating the en. Ps. are A. M. La Bonnardiere, O. Perler, H. Rondet, and S. Zarb. The Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum series is producing critical editions of the en. Ps. that occasionally call into question the bases on which the aforementioned dating systems made their claims. Pierre-​Marie Hombert has also clarified the dating of some psalm expositions. Pierre-​Marie Hombert, Nouvelles recherches de chronologie Augustinienne (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2000).

62  Augustine on Memory when a sermon has been hard work, both for him and for the congregation. He indicates in the course of one long sermon that he would have stopped if he thought his congregants were getting bored, notes in another that he spoke for too long because of the increasingly pungent smell of the crowd in the church, and marks when his suggestion that they give their wealth away causes a discernable gasp.21 Augustine does not spare his congregation dense theology, and both preaching and hearing such lengthy discourses must have been, as Hildegund Müller posits, an activity nearly athletic in intensity.22 As a result, the development of the story of Christ’s mediation is the story of a preacher learning to speak about and then in Christ.

En Route to Wholeness: Tracking Christ the Mediator The evolution of Augustine’s understanding of Christ’s mediation can be explained by means of three moments in Christ’s life: the incarnation, paschal mystery, and ascension. Christ is mediator in each, but in an increasingly comprehensive manner. As Augustine preaches about these three mysteries in Christ’s life, his understanding of Christ’s meditation deepens.

Christ the Incarnate Mediator Concerning the psalms, the most helpful way to understand the evolution of Augustine’s thinking is to ask his own question of the psalm text: “Who is speaking?” Augustine frequently uses this question in the opening lines of his sermons, and rhetoric scholars have noticed that he frontloads topics of central importance.23 The question reveals how Augustine grows from cataloguing a number of voices to identifying Christ’s voice as the primary speaker of the psalms. In so framing the inquiry, I acknowledge my fundamental debt to the interpretive method—​identification of voices—​of Michael Fiedrowicz and Michael Cameron for framing this and the following section

21 en. Ps. 38.23 (boredom); 78.33 (smell); 38.12 (gasp). 22 Müller, “Preacher.” 23 Roy J. Deferrari, “St. Augustine’s Method of Composing and Delivering Sermons,” American Journal of Philology 43, no. 3 (1922): 199; Neil Kelly, “La Persona del ‘totus Christus’: Interpretación cristiana de san Agustín,” Augustinus 36 (1991): 147–​153.

Preaching from the Whole  63 on the incarnation and the crucifixion.24 I will add to their work by means of the ascension, to claim that the question of how Christ is speaking cannot be answered fully until one considers Augustine’s theology of the resurrected and ascended Christ. The first development in mediation is in Christ’s person. In working out how it could be that Christ is fully God and fully human, Augustine considers which verses of the psalms Christ appropriately could or could not say, a task that produces no small exegetical labor. Augustine’s exposition of Psalm 1 begins with a verse and then a commentary: “Blessed is the person who has not gone astray in the counsel of the ungodly. This statement should be understood as referring to our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the Lord-​Man (homine dominico).”25 Scholars agree that this term serves as a marker in Augustine’s development, as it is a formulation that he uses in his early expositions, ceases using after a while, and even later regrets for its imprecision.26 Three things should be noticed about Augustine’s phrasing at the outset. The first is that the verse of the psalm is not apparently spoken by anyone. Rather, Augustine writes that it should be understood “as referring to” Jesus Christ.27 This exposition is one of Augustine’s first thirty-​two, an early group that vary in style and form from the rest of the expositions.28 The writing is terse; the text is a compilation of notes rather than a recorded sermon. This is helpful because it shows what an exposition looked like in the earliest phase, probably around 392–​394.29 Augustine would revisit and preach on a number of these first thirty-​two psalms a second time with a marked difference in Christological

24 Fiedrowicz breaks down the speaking voices into “words”: word to Christ, word about Christ, word spoken by Christ himself, word about the Church, and a word spoken by the Church. While Fiedrowicz’s precision is helpful, all of these “words” are related—​in some aspect or another—​to the voice of Christ, the “whole Christ.” These distinctions can lead scholars to focus on more than one voice of Christ when Augustine’s whole program concerns the “oneness” of Christ and therein also the oneness of his voice. For these reasons, I will distinguish speakers but not follow Fiedrowicz’s classification scheme. Michael Fiedrowicz, Psalmus Vox Totius Christi: Studien Zu Augustins Enarrationes in Psalmos (Freiburg: Herder, 1997), 234–​378; also Emmanuel Durand, “La variété des langues dans le ‘Christus totus’ selon saint Augustin,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 86, no. 1 (2010): 1–​25. 25 en. Ps. 1.1. 26 retr. 1.19.8. Though the reference is to s. Dom. mon., Augustine indicates he regrets wherever he employed the term. Augustine did not revise the en. Ps. 27 en. Ps. 1.1. 28 There are two breaks in the first thirty-​two expositions accepted among scholars. The first is between en. Ps. 1–​14 and en. Ps. 15–​32, due to differences in style such as brevity and attention to the grammar of the scriptural texts. The second is between those en. Ps. on which Augustine compiled notes during his first expositions, and then those he revisited and preached. 29 The date range is 392 (Zarb), 391–​394 (Rondet), and 393–​395 (La Bonnardiere).

64  Augustine on Memory presentation.30 But in this early phase, the psalm verse is about Christ; Christ is not the speaking voice. Second, Augustine’s exegesis provides a key indicator of one of his theological concerns at this point: Manichaeism. The very first line of the commentary in fact indicates his exegesis in contradistinction from Manichaean teaching. Augustine’s presentation of Christ as the referent of the first verse validates the psalms—​which are Old Testament texts and therefore not part of the Manichaean canon—​not only as sacred scripture but as scripture worth studying for references it contains to Christ.31 Third, Augustine provides a descriptive clarification for the term “our Lord Jesus Christ” as “the Lord-​Man.”32 That Augustine takes the trouble to highlight “Lord” and “Man” in the same formulation is an affirmation of the fleshly incarnation of Christ. This, too, sounds a direct note of opposition to the Manichaeans. Augustine is not merely referring a text to Jesus; he is doing so in a way that is a direct affront to Manichaeism as he understands it. He has already dedicated more than one work to the refutation of the Manichaeans, and that conflict is evidenced at various points—​both directly and indirectly—​in his Expositions of the Psalms.33 For our study of the “Lord-​Man,” it suffices to understand that the most distinctive quality of the strain of Manichaean thought and practice that Augustine knows is its dualist metaphysics of dark and light. In the present state of the world, some of the latter remains trapped in the former until a final cosmogonical moment when light and dark realms will be separated with finality.34 Jesus, in this cosmology, is a figure of the light whose work is to deliver gnosis for the liberation of light from its entrapment in material.35 This Jesus could not have had fleshly existence at all, 30 On this point Pierre-​Marie Hombert, “La Christologie des premiéres ‘Enarrationes,’” in Augustin Philosophe et Prédicateur: Hommage à Goulven Madec, ed. Isabelle Bochet (Paris: Institute d’Études Augustiniennes, 2012), 431–​463. 31 C. Schmidt discovered Coptic codices now published as a Manichaean Psalm Book, but the texts are the poetry of the sect. C. R. C. Allberry, ed., A Manichaean Psalm-​Book II (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1938); Julien Ries, “La Bible chez saint Augustin et chez les Manichéens,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 7 (1961): 231–​243. Arguments for the unity of scripture—​Old and New Testaments—​can be found in many of Augustine’s writings from the 390s. Augustine held that the Word was involved in the inspiration of the Old Testament. 32 en. Ps. 1.1. 33 See conf., mor. (387–​389), Gn. adv. Man. (388–​389), and c. Faust. (397–​398). There is a subfield of Augustinian studies concerned with how it is that Augustine’s writings, and especially his preaching, described and addressed Manichaeans, Donatists, Pelagians, etc. Treating any one of those groups fully is beyond the scope of this study, and it must suffice to describe here where engagement with one of them helped to precipitate a further insight into Augustine’s own developing Christology. 34 J. Kevin Coyle, “Mani, Manicheism,” in Augustine through the Ages, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 520–​525. 35 Augustine knew of three different versions of the Manichaean Christ. c. Faust. 20.11. See also Volker Henning Drecoll and Mirjam Kudella, Augustin und der Manichäismus (Tübingen: Mohr

Preaching from the Whole  65 thus creating the Manichaean rejection of his human birth as well as the crucifixion. This line of thinking further leads to the rejection of the Genesis accounts of the creation of a material universe as well as the rest of the Old Testament—​including those aspects of the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament—​for their dependence on the Law and a Lord who perpetrates immoral actions and suffers such emotions of physicality as anger, jealousy, and revenge. Jesus, in this system, is not a reconciling mediator but the opposite: the bringer of final division between the realms of dark and light. Augustine’s describing Christ as “Lord-​Man” indicates how strongly anti-​ Manichaean he has grown in the process of coming to understand Christ as mediator. This Christological term, however useful for its distinction from Manichaean theology, proves to be problematic and does not last all that long in Augustine’s writings.36 The main reason for his abandoning of “Lord-​ Man” will be that it fails to provide him an adequate account of mediation. The term’s positive attribute is that it affirms the flesh of Christ as well as his divinity. But the difficulties are inherent in the grammatical construction. One of the words is always adjectival. Here, the adjective dominicus modifies the noun homo, making it literally “lordly man.” If the man is “lordly,” the construction does not suggest in what manner. Both of Jesus Christ’s natures are stated, but not how they relate. In the Revisions, Augustine says he had taken the term from unidentified earlier Catholic authors but came to regret it because he realized that any person in the house of the Lord might be called a dominicus homo.37 The need to clarify the relation—​the relation at the heart of mediation—​becomes clearer when Augustine begins to identify voices within psalms. Psalm 4 provides a clear example. Augustine’s text of Psalm 4:2 is “When I called on him he heard me, the God of my vindication. When I was hard beset you led me into spacious freedom.”38 In asking who might be speaking this phrase, Augustine comes up with two possible answers. He suggests to his congregation that they prepare themselves to hear either the “Lord-​Man after the resurrection” or “any member of the Church who believes and hopes

Siebeck, 2011); Mirjam Kudella, “Christologie in der antimanichäischen Polemick Augustins Eine Frage der Abgrenzung,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 58 (2012): 1–​39.

36 In the earliest en. Ps. the term “Lord-​Man” occurs at 1.1, 4.1, and 7.20. 37 retr. 1.19.8. 38 en. Ps. 4.1.

66  Augustine on Memory in him.”39 The difficulty is that verse 4:2 makes more sense as the voice of the psalmist, or of a member of the Church, than as the voice of the Lord-​Man. If the voice is the psalmist’s, then one need not worry about the change of voice from third person to second person: “he heard me” in the first sentence to “you led me” in the second sentence. If this were not done for the sake of stylistic variety, Augustine suggests, it could possibly evidence how much the psalmist’s heart had been enlarged by God upon having been heard in the first sentence. After a remarkable experience of hearing God, the psalmist may well have simply begun speaking with God in the second person.40 Augustine runs into more trouble when investigating whether the voice speaking the psalm is that of the Lord-​Man, admitting, “I do not see how this can hold.”41 If in the incarnation the very wisdom of God entered human flesh, then one also must hold that the Lord-​Man was never somehow abandoned by the wisdom of God. For that reason it would be odd for the Lord-​ Man to address wisdom as someone (you) other than himself. At the heart of the problem is that it seems the Lord-​Man would be speaking in two different voices. His humanity could certainly be addressing God as “you”: “You led me into spacious freedom.” But his divinity would not utter those words. Or, even worse, it might seem as if the humanity of the Lord-​Man is imploring his own divinity, as if Jesus’s two natures could be chattering among themselves. Rather than attribute the phrase to Christ’s divine nature and have a disastrous account of mediation, Augustine settles on phrases that allow the Lord-​Man to speak “on behalf of one of his littlest ones” or “for his faithful.”42 In this sense, the Lord-​Man is speaking for the benefit of humans, including Augustine and his congregation. At this point we see Augustine attempting to work through the intellectual problems that an incarnate mediator raises. I follow Cameron’s insight that at this stage Augustine’s description can be accounted for in terms of his rhetorical skills.43 Augustine is able to make the exegetical move that the Lord-​ Man can speak on behalf of little ones by employing a rhetorical tool called metonymy. As defined in classical rhetorical handbooks, specifically those of Cicero and Quintilian, metonymy describes a cause through its effect.44 39 en. Ps. 4.1. It is possible that this early exposition was not in fact preached, so perhaps this is an anticipation of a suggestion rather than the thing itself. 40 en. Ps. 4.2. 41 en. Ps. 4.2. 42 en. Ps. 4.2, emphasis added. 43 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 164–​212. 44 Of special importance here are Cicero’s Orator and Ad Herennium as well as Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria. I am indebted to the insights of Cameron and Soskice. Cameron, Christ Meets

Preaching from the Whole  67 In this mode of exegesis, scripture reveals qualities of human emotions by ascribing them to God. For instance, as Cameron points out, Augustine would argue against the Manichaeans that God’s “resting” on the seventh day is not about God’s being tired but about God’s gift of rest to humans on the Sabbath.45 Augustine uses a similar strategy in this text from Psalm 4. It would be very curious indeed to have the humanity of the Lord-​Man praying to his divinity, so Augustine says that the phrase is about our humanity. The Lord-​Man speaks “for” his faithful and “on behalf of ” the littlest ones. Metonymy allows Augustine to avoid an incarnational misstep in parsing the psalm text. More important, in Psalm 4 and the other early expositions metonymy gives evidence of Christ beginning to speak as a mediator, or for the benefit of those he is redeeming. The metonymy of the Lord-​Man solves an exegetical difficulty in the text, but it does not yet clarify the relation between Christ’s humanity and his divinity, which Augustine is struggling to express relative to these verses of the psalm. Christ’s speaking for humans could end in what Cameron calls “divine ventriloquism.”46 Augustine needs a clearer descriptor for how divinity and humanity relate in Christ, and he begins to develop the tools to work this out through engagement with the writings of St. Paul. During Augustine’s study of scripture in the years following his ordination to the priesthood, he also wrote commentaries on Romans and Galatians (394–​395). Paul’s texts help supply conceptual terms for the relation of Christ’s humanity and divinity that “Lord-​Man” ultimately lacks. In Paul’s letters, Augustine finds language for the concept of “mediation.” I have already mentioned the importance of 1 Timothy 2:5, in which Paul writes of Christ as a mediator (see introduction and ­chapter 1). This passage of Augustine’s commentary on Galatians from the mid-​390s undergirds its importance: God’s only son became the mediator between God and human beings when the Word of God, God with God, both laid down his majesty to the level of the human and exalted human lowliness to the level of the divine, in order

Me Everywhere, 45–​61; Janet Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 57–​58.

45 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 58.

46 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 185.

68  Augustine on Memory that he—​a human being who through God was beyond human beings—​ might be the mediator between God and human beings.47

Here Augustine does not use the term “Lord-​Man,” suggesting that this was but an intermediate conceptual step. He instead focuses on Christ’s role as mediator. Not only does the Word descend into the human, but the Word also exalts humanity as “a human being who through God was beyond human beings.”48 Yet up until this point in the story of this emergent Christology, Augustine has still not discovered how it is that Christ can speak, in the psalms, words that ought not apply—​at least at first glance—​to his divinity. This would come to light for Augustine when he considers Christ on the cross in his exposition of Psalm 21.

Christ the Crucified Mediator Psalm 21 stands as a watershed moment in Augustine’s exegesis.49 This psalm provided Augustine with a model for how the human and the divine in Christ the incarnate Word might relate and interact. Augustine was helped along in his thinking by the fact that the gospels indicate precisely who speaks in the psalm. Augustine opens his explanation of the first verse by stating that “the words of this psalm are spoken in the person of the crucified one, for here at its beginning is the cry he uttered while he hung upon the cross.”50 With the question of who is speaking having been solved from the outset, Augustine has to explain how it is that these words could make sense on the lips of the crucified one.51 The phrase at the heart of the problem is Christ’s cry of 47 ex. Gal. 24.8. Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 157 notes that the insight was important enough for Augustine that the appellation of “mediator” appears for Christ in the later pages of div. qu. (395) as well as c. Faust. (398–​400). 48 There is a resonance with the image of rising upon the humble flesh of Christ which Augustine describes in conf. 7.18.24. See c­ hapter 1, “Confessions 7: Memory, Soul, and Body.” 49 Augustine commented on the psalm on two occasions. The first is in his early set of psalm expositions; the second time is a Good Friday sermon from a later year. The date ranges ascribed to these two are as follows: first exposition (Zarb 392, Rondet 391, La Bonnardière 393–​395); second exposition (Zarb 395, Rondet 412–​415, La Bonnardière 407). Héctor Aguer, “‘Infirmitas Christi’: La debilidad de Cristo en el comentario agustiniano de los Salmos,” Teología: Revista de la Facultad de Teología de la Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina 32 (1978): 101–​146; John Cavadini, “Jesus’ Death Is Real: An Augustinian Spirituality of the Cross,” in The Cross in the Christian Tradition, ed. Elizabeth Dreyer (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), 169–​191; Fiedrowicz, Psalmus Vox Totius Christi, 430–​431. 50 en. Ps. 21.1.1. 51 By this point, Augustine has abandoned the language of “Lord-​Man” and simply refers to the speaker as the “Lord Jesus Christ.”

Preaching from the Whole  69 dereliction from the cross: “O God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and left me far from salvation?”52 Augustine’s earlier psalm expositions showed him wrestling with the problem of how the human flesh of Jesus could speak in the text without seeming as if the human part of Jesus were praying to his divine part. The same problem surfaces here. If Jesus were truly divine, then he would have never been forsaken by God. If Jesus were truly human, then he would have had to have known the human feeling of abandonment. Augustine clarifies the speaker by plunging into the mystery of redemption. Christ is indeed speaking, but he speaks in “the character of our old self, whose mortality he bore and which was nailed to the cross with him.”53 In assuming human flesh, Christ also assumed a human voice and a human death. He spoke in human words so that human beings might speak in his. He died a human death so that humans might die in him. This is mediation with a universal effect. Augustine uses “Adam” as a trope for all men and women, representing fallen humanity after sin. But importantly, he does not use the language of “benefit,” as he does in his earlier expositions. Christ does not speak in imitation of, on behalf of, or even for the benefit of Adam. Rather Christ, who himself shares Adam’s flesh, speaks in the voice of Adam because he has taken it up as his own.54 Augustine styles this as a great redemptive “exchange”—​death for life—​transacted in human flesh.55 The Manichaeans had thought that someone other than Christ died upon the cross; divinity abhorred entanglement with the material. Augustine’s insight moves him in precisely the opposite direction. By taking up humanity’s cry of dereliction, Christ does not eliminate dereliction but makes it possible that those who experience dereliction (or who pray the words “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”) might do so not alone, but in him. This opens up a new way that Christ is a mediator of divinity to humanity. In taking up flesh, the Word also takes up death and a voice. Christ on the cross could not have been more human, and so his salvific exchange overcomes the two most human problems: sin and death.56 Death and dereliction no longer need to be experienced alone, but in him. 52 en. Ps. 21.1.2. 53 en. Ps. 21.1.1. 54 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 154 helpfully notes how Augustine’s use of suscipere broadened after his encounter with Paul’s writings. The Word did not “take up” human nature in a limited way in the incarnation. He took up human weakness and even death. 55 William Babcock places this “exchange” as the heart of Augustine’s Christology in the en. Ps. William S. Babcock, “The Christ of the Exchange: A Study in the Christology of Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1971), 30–​45. 56 Romans 6:6–​9 stands behind this idea.

70  Augustine on Memory Augustine’s insight into Christ the crucified mediator employs a different rhetorical tool. Prosopopoeia is a Greek term for an author’s impersonation of the voice of a character either well-​known or invented. Known as fictiones personarum in the Latin rhetorical tradition, it makes present the voice of persons, giving speech to cities, states, peoples, and even the dead.57 One sees through the eyes and speaks through the voice of another. But this concept is even older than rhetorical handbooks. Philip Sydney, in an apology for poetry, describes David’s very writing of the psalms as an act of prosopopoeia.58 The one who prays the psalms sees God coming in majesty, gates lifting high their heads, and laments as one in exile.59 Cameron explains that “by this device the self transcends itself to become the other, even if only briefly.”60 Augustine begins to experiment with prosopopoeia in his early psalm expositions, and it eventually provides him a theological and basic hermeneutic for his later ones. At first, this method allows a multiplicity of voices to speak in various ways: at times the Christian might speak, at times Christ, and at others the Church.61 These voices begin to pray within each other, as well: the individual in the Church, and the Church in Christ. Different voices come to form a “whole” in Christ.62 The practice of prosopopoeia gives Augustine the mechanism by which Christ can speak in Adam’s voice and thereby reveal the redemption of the cross.63 As Cameron summarizes, “Prosopopoeia’s rhetorical transposition of voices provides Augustine with the Christian theological pattern that articulates that momentous exchange.”64 The picture of Christ the mediator that emerges from Augustine’s consideration of Psalm 21 hinges on the theological union of voices. Christ speaks in Adam’s voice, employing prosopopoeia not for the purpose of theatrics 57 Cicero, Orator, 25.85–​87; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 9.2.29–​31. Also Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 179–​185. 58 Sidney writes, “For what else is the awaking his musical instruments, the often and free changing of persons, his notable prosopopoeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty, his telling of the beasts’ joyfulness, and hills leaping.” Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (or the Defense of Poesy) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 84.22–​25. I am grateful to Małgorzata Grzegorzewska for this insight. 59 Sidney, Apology, 84.22–​25. 60 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 181. Rhetoric is not the only possible approach: Hjalmar Sundén, “Saint Augustine and the Psalter in the Light of Role-​Psychology,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 26, no. 3 (1987): 375–​382. 61 In the case of en. Ps. 3, for instance, this includes David, Absalom, Christ, and the Church. 62 en. Ps. 3.9 provides a good example of Augustine heading toward a whole Christ through prosopopoeia. 63 Augustine would continue to treat the crucifixion in six other early psalm expositions. In each, Christ speaks in the first person from the cross: en. Ps. 15, 16, 17, 21, 27, 29, and 30. 64 Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 199.

Preaching from the Whole  71 or declamation but for the purpose of redeeming human flesh from sin and death. This mature formulation of Christ the mediator and the exchange of voices is on display in Augustine’s presentation of Psalm 30, in which he articulates what his consideration of the crucifixion added to his understanding of mediation: But in fact he who deigned to assume the form of a slave, and within that form to clothe us with himself, he who did not disdain to take us up into himself, did not disdain either to transfigure us into himself, and to speak in our words, so that we in our turn might speak in his. This is the wonderful exchange, the divine business deal, the transaction effected in this world by the heavenly dealer. He came to receive insults and give honors, he came to drain the cup of suffering and give salvation, he came to undergo death and give life.65

Up to this point, I have relied especially on the work of Cameron in tracing the basic contours of the development of Augustine’s account of mediation through the year 400. However, I suggest Augustine’s understanding of mediation is not complete even with the watershed understanding that he gained from Psalm 21. One reason is that he is concerned with making the account of Christ’s mediation an ongoing reality for his congregants. He needs to give his congregants a reason why in the present time they might rejoice, groan, weep, and commemorate liturgically the words and actions of Christ. Augustine needs an account for how “yearly remembrance in a sense makes present what took place in time past.”66 He needs, in short, to preach that mediation remains ongoing, even though Christ has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.

Christ the Ascended Mediator Augustine’s major advance in determining the consequences of Christ’s cry of dereliction from the cross has its roots in both his rhetorical training and his increased knowledge of Pauline letters. Christ speaks in the psalms not only on behalf of or for those needing redemption, but in their words,

65 en. Ps. 30.2.3. 66 en. Ps. 21.2.1.

72  Augustine on Memory mediating life even through the most profound experience of abandonment at death. What Augustine has not yet worked through is how mediation might happen after the resurrection and ascension, or when Christ is no longer present on earth. While one might also approach this period in terms of ecclesiology or pneumatology, it is important for our purposes to see that Augustine is still working through mediation first through Christology.67 In this section, I argue that Augustine’s mediator Christ comes to complete configuration after the ascension, which Augustine explains in light of Acts 9:4, the conversion of Paul. Though a great deal of Augustinian scholarship considers the various ways in which Augustine’s encounters with Paul in the 390s change his theological thinking and writing about Christ, very little scholarship has taken account of the importance of Paul’s conversion as presented by Luke-​Acts.68 This can, in part, be attributed to the modern separation between Paul’s letters themselves and Luke’s presentation of Paul in Acts.69 For Augustine, however, both texts illuminate the same Paul. Augustine’s thinking about Christ in the context of Acts 9:4 will expand his understanding of Christological mediation. When Saul is rebuked by God on the road to Damascus, a voice from heaven asks him the question “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). Saul asks the voice to identify itself, and Jesus responds, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (9:5). Augustine points out that Christ has certainly already ascended into heaven and that Saul’s actions cannot have 67 Babcock, who undertook the project of articulating Augustine’s Christology in the en. Ps., helpfully focuses the reader of the en. Ps. on Christ’s redemptive action, which Augustine highlights throughout. Babcock, “The Christ of the Exchange,” 238–​354. Many studies treat Christ as head of the Church. See Pasquale Borgomeo, L’Église de ce temps dans la prédication de saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1972); Elisabeth Grünbeck, “Augustins ekklesiologische Christologie im Spiegel seiner Hermeneutik: Die Bildstruktur der ‘Enarratio in Ps 44,’” Vigiliae Christianae 49, no. 4 (1995): 353–​378; Émilien Lamirande, L’Église céleste selon saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1963); Émilien Lamirande, Études sur l’ecclésiologie de saint Augustin (Ottawa: Éditions de l’Université Saint-​Paul, Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1969); Michael McCarthy, “An Ecclesiology of Groaning: Augustine, the Psalms, and the Making of Church,” Theological Studies 66, no. 1 (2005): 23–​48; Michel Réveillaud, “Le Christ-​Homme, tête de l’Église: Étude d’ecclésiologie selon les Enarrationes in Psalmos d’Augustin,” Recherches Augustiniennes 5 (1968): 67–​94. 68 The earliest occurrence of the Acts 9:4 text for Augustine is Simpl. (396), though it increases in frequency in his letters and sermons after the year 400 and continues at least through 429. Paula Fredriksen mentions it in ep. 185. Paula Fredriksen “Paul,” in Augustine through the Ages, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 624. Also Benedict Guevin, “‘Saul, Saul, Why Are You Persecuting Me?’ Augustine’s Use of Acts 9:4 in His ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos,’” Downside Review 127, no. 449 (2009): 261–​268. 69 Fredriksen advocates for separating Paul’s letters and Acts 9:4 on account of different authorship. This hardly would have been Augustine’s view. Paula Fredriksen, “Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narratives, Orthodox Traditions, and the Retrospective Self,” Journal of Theological Studies 37, no. 1 (1986): 27.

Preaching from the Whole  73 directly harmed the resurrected and ascended flesh of Christ.70 Rather, Saul has been “raging against” Christians on earth.71 Why does Christ say “Why are you persecuting me?” instead of “Why are you persecuting my saints?” or “my servants?”72 Augustine concludes that when the voice of Christ speaks to Saul it is saying the equivalent of “ ‘Why attack my limbs?’ The Head was crying out on behalf of the members, and the Head was transfiguring the members into himself.”73 The voice from heaven indicates that head and body are one. Further, Augustine explains that the relationship between head and body is continually established and renewed by means of the head. As a result, in speaking through the members the head continues to transfigure the members into himself, even after ascending to heaven. This is Augustine’s complete configuration of the head-​and-​members imagery.74 Christ’s mediation after the ascension thus is an ongoing action of transfiguration of his own body still on earth. In addition to a few citations in the late 390s, Augustine’s use of Acts 9:4 increases in his sermons and expositions after 400.75 In these texts, the increased occurrence of Acts 9:4 is complemented by consistent usage. The central consideration of this scriptural text hinges on the same word as Augustine’s consideration of Psalm 21: “me.” In Psalm 21, the “me” of the cry of dereliction is Christ, who is speaking in the voice of Adam. In Acts 9, Augustine again determines the referent of “me.” This time “me” is Christ speaking in his members. Augustine’s exegesis of Acts 9:4 helps him to discover the indispensable part played by the ascension in Christ’s mediation. In Augustine’s homilies treating the ascension, he builds on the language of “taking up” we have encountered in considering the incarnation and crucifixion. Christ has taken up human flesh in the incarnation of the Word. Christ has also taken up other aspects of the human condition, including a human death and a human voice, such that he can speak in the voice of Adam on the cross.

70 en. Ps. 30.3.3. 71 en. Ps. 30.2.3. 72 en. Ps. 30.2.3. 73 en. Ps. 30.2.3, emphasis added. 74 Meconi uses “transformation” and “deification,” but gets at this central issue of the union of head and body in Christ for Augustine. Meconi, “Becoming Gods by Becoming God’s,” 61–​74 and The One Christ, 195–​242. 75 A comprehensive study of the ascension in Augustine’s writings has been done by William H. Marrevee, who notes that the ascension is most important in Augustine’s sermo. and en. Ps. William H. Marrevee, The Ascension of Christ in the Works of St. Augustine (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1967).

74  Augustine on Memory After the resurrection, Christ ascends—​literally taking up a human body—​ to heaven. One could imagine this being the end of Christ’s mediation, as Augustine clearly says that humans do not yet glory in immortality.76 Christ, however, does not set down again what he has taken up. Augustine reminds his congregants that if Christ purchased their redemption in his death and resurrection, he is now gathering up after the ascension that which he bought.77 Christ the individual’s body has ascended, but the ascension makes Augustine consider Christ’s being head of a body of which human beings are members (1 Cor 12:12). Augustine maintains that the members of the body remain connected to the head in grace, even though physically they might be on earth. From heaven the head then experiences and understands the sufferings and plight of the members. Augustine puts this point vividly. The whole Christ functions like the tongue of a body speaking in the name of the foot. When one’s foot is trampled in a crowd, the tongue cries out, “You are treading on me!” not “You are treading on my foot.”78 The tongue was not crushed; the foot does not speak. Nonetheless, the unity of tongue and foot within the body allows the tongue to say “me” for both.79 Augustine thus does not need to say of Psalm 30, “Christ is speaking here in the prophet,” for he can simply say, “Christ is speaking.”80 Christ speaks because on the cross he “transfigured the body’s cry and made it his own.”81 The ascension, however, extends that speaking relationship beyond Christ’s immediate bodily presence on earth. Head and members means that once separate voices within a psalm—​in this text the prophet, the people redeemed, and the people in fear—​can all be transfigured into the one voice from the one body of Christ. It is at this point that Augustine’s preaching moves beyond rhetorical convention. One might suggest that his mode of address is simple synecdoche, wherein the whole is considered in light of a part or vice versa.82 But here, we have a Christic synecdoche where Christ is both whole and part. The significance of Augustine’s reflecting on Paul’s conversion cannot be overstated, especially if we are considering Christ as mediator. The ascended

76 sermo. 261–​265F. 77 sermo. 263.1. 78 en. Ps. 30.2.3. 79 en. Ps. 30.2.3. 80 en. Ps. 30.2.4. 81 en. Ps. 30.2.11. 82 On “synechdoce,” in Augustine, I follow Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 45–​61 and Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 57–​58.

Preaching from the Whole  75 Christ—​though removed from the world in his flesh—​is not removed from the members of his body. Instead, when Christ ascends into heaven, the head becomes the way and therein the possibility for all the members connected to him to ascend there as well. The head is there in reality, the members in hope.83 In a very late sermon, Augustine will present this as a unique mode of knowing Christ in the scriptures.84 It is just as important as both of the more well-​known modes: the Word from the beginning and the Word incarnate. The third way of studying Christ—​head and members—​means considering Christ ascended and still aware of the plight of those on earth as head of the body.85 Mediation does not cease after the resurrection and ascension, but the locus of its effects is redefined. The grace of the head is mediated to the body. Head and body together form the totus Christus, the whole Christ. For Augustine, this richness of the union of head and body emerges from his prior writings and preaching about the mediatory role that Christ played in both the incarnation and the crucifixion. The mediatory acts of Christ on earth—​such as transfiguring humanity’s cry by taking up Psalm 21 from the cross—​do not cease after he ascends to heaven. Rather, Augustine transfers these mediatory relations to the interaction between head and body.86 Both head and members will maintain unique voices on account of the actual difference of Christ the head being in heaven and humans being on earth. Nevertheless, in the mystery, or sacramentum, of their union, as intimate as bridegroom and bride, head and members speak together.

The Whole Christ: Form and Content of Mediation Though the whole Christ is a uniquely Augustinian innovation for Western Christianity, it is frequently presented in terms of later but related ecclesiological and theological concepts, especially that of the mystical body of Christ.87

83 Throughout Augustine’s preaching the Latin construction, “in spe . . . in re,” or “in hope and in reality, or the fulfillment of that hope” is a commonplace occurrence. 84 sermo. 341.19. 85 sermo. 341.9, 341.20–​21. 86 I defer here concerning the Spirit until I discuss trin. in ­chapter 7. Augustine will there describe the mediation between the head and the body in terms of the Holy Spirit (15.34). The en. Ps., as explained earlier (“What the Psalms Made of Augustine”), are Christologically focused exegeses because Christ spoke psalms and they were prophecies about Christ. Augustine preaches the role of the Spirit as a given in the totus Christus (en. Ps. 30.3.3). 87 Van Bavel also describes the totus Christus in conjunction with the debated concept of a corporate personality in ancient Israel (“The ‘Christus Totus’ Idea,” 93–​94). The concept of this corporate

76  Augustine on Memory The first half of the twentieth century yielded a number of monographs on the totus Christus, coinciding with the revival of mystical-​body theology: Émile Mersch’s classic Le Corps Mystique, renamed by its English translator The Whole Christ, renders the totus Christus as the Augustinian version of the later concept.88 Stanislaus Grabowski, Angelo Corticelli, Joseph Cyrillus, and Gérard Philips speak in the same terms.89 Without engaging the various forms in which mystical-​body theology has appeared in Christian history—​ notably the high Middle Ages, the romantic era’s appropriation of mystical texts, and the Second Vatican Council—​I raise the methodological caution not to read Augustine through any of these later usages.90 There is a semantic shift from “whole” to “mystical,” though obviously the two concepts are related. In short, the word “mystical,” as it is later employed, is susceptible to eclipsing Augustine’s focus on the concrete, earthly transfiguration that the whole Christ routinely brings about.91 As the union of head and members, the whole Christ is a communal and daily reality, manifest in the Catholic Church, where individuals might learn how Christ can speak, and thereby dwell, in them, and where they can practice speaking and dwelling in Christ. Augustine preaches the whole Christ as the way in which the experience of his congregants becomes transfigured by Christ. The concrete application of this concept is evidenced by Augustine’s use of it to explain what is wrong with the Donatist account of Christ’s mediation.

personality is contentious in biblical studies, and I avoid it in my study on the grounds that one is not transfigured into Christ’s personality—​in the modern sense of the word—​but into his person. 88 Émile Mersch, The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition, trans. John R. Kelly (London: Dennis Dobson, 1949). 89 Angelo Corticelli, “La dottrina del corpo mistico nelle Enarrationes in Psalmos di san Agostino” (Diss., Pontifical Gregorian University, 1967); S. Joseph Cyrillus, “Totus Christus in Saint Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos” (Diss., Pontificia Facultate Theologica S.S. Teresiae a Jesu et Joannis a Cruce in Urbe, 1964), 67–​93; Stanislaus Grabowski, The All-​Present God: A Study in St. Augustine (London: Herder, 1954); Stanislaus Grabowski, The Church: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Augustine (London: Herder, 1957); Stanislaus Grabowski, “St. Augustine and the Doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ,” Theological Studies 7, no. 1 (1946): 72–​125; Gérard Philips, “L’influence du Christ-​chef sur son corps mystique: Suivant saint Augustin,” Augustinus Magister 2 (1954): 805–​815. 90 Even the indices to Maria Boulding’s translation of en. Ps. perpetuate this usage by employing the major entry “mystical body” rather than “whole Christ.” Joseph Ratzinger, however, argues for keeping a concrete expression of the house of God—​the people redeemed in Christ—​in Augustine. Joseph Ratzinger, Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche (St. Ottilioen: EOS-​Verlag, 1992), 15. 91 At least in Roman Catholic theology, this problem generally gained recognition when Pius XII noted the tendency to make the mystical body of Christ invisible, intangible, or only pneumatological in his 1943 encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, 14.

Preaching from the Whole  77 The Donatists are the external group that receives by far the most mention in Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms.92 In a positive way, Augustine learns from and perhaps is influenced by teachings about the body of Christ from the Donatist Tyconius—​though Augustine later admits he could never figure out why Tyconius is not a Catholic.93 Augustine, however, also spends a great deal of time figuratively characterizing the Donatists, as well as counter-​ characterizing the Church in response.94 He argues against Donatism from one Christological starting point: the ongoing mediation of the whole Christ. For instance, Augustine alleges that the Donatists, by claiming the true or pure Church to be among themselves and their clergy, restrict Christ to their own geographical area. In his exposition on Psalm 54, Augustine suggests that the voice of Christ must be broad enough to cover the whole earth: “The body of Christ, the unity of Christ, is crying out in its anguish, its weariness, its affliction, in the distress of its ordeal. It is one single person, a unity grounded in an individual body, and in the distress of its soul it cries out from the bounds of the earth.”95 Augustine is insistent that this is one person who cries out, and further that the voice cries out to the Lord and not to Donatus, insinuating that on account of pride (superbia) Donatus has harmed the body by making himself Christ. In Augustine’s thinking, Donatus has attempted to transfigure the body into himself rather than let Christ the head transfigure him. Donatus, of course, fails to mediate the wholeness Christ could. Augustine understands the Donatists as having separated themselves from the body of Christ. Their offense is precisely against the unity of the body; they have “crossed over from the whole to a part,” which means going from “the body to a wound, from live belonging to amputation.”96 Though

92 Augustine uses the totus Christus to critique others as well, including astrologers, Circumcellions, Manichaeans, Maximinians, Priscillianists, and Pelagians. 93 Augustine was influenced by the Liber Regularum of Tyconius, a late fourth-​century Donatist with whose work Augustine became familiar upon returning to Africa in 388. Tyconius’s rules—​ especially 1, 2, and 7—​deal with figurative exegesis as well as the mixed body of Christ in such a way that scholars have noted connections to Augustine’s thinking on the totus Christus as well as the two-​city model of De Civitate Dei. Pamela Bright, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); Pamela Bright, “‘The Preponderating Influence of Augustine’: A Study of the Epitomes of the ‘Book of Rules’ of the Donatist Tyconius,” in Saint Augustine and the Bible, ed. and trans. Pamela Bright (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 109–​128; Tyconius, Liber Regularum: Book of Rules, trans. William Babcock (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989). 94 Cameron catalogues much of this figurative imagery. Michael Cameron, “Augustine’s Construction of Figurative Exegesis against the Donatists in the Enarrationes in Psalmos” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1996), 303–​432. 95 en. Ps. 54.17. 96 en. Ps. 54.25.

78  Augustine on Memory Augustine argues for the return to unity of these groups, and therein presumably the healing of wounds, his argument is that they have removed themselves from the head in an act of self-​amputation that also harmed the rest of the body. When he is using the image of the body, Augustine most frequently refers to the Donatists as having pridefully cut themselves off from Christ. In contrast, he describes the whole Christ more and more often in terms of humility.97 Ultimately, the controversies and conflicts shaping Augustine’s Christology are not merely about the institutional priority of Catholicism or the suppression of rival views, as they are occasionally cast in some secondary literature.98 At the heart of Augustine’s concern remains Christ’s ongoing mediation as a whole: head to body.

The Whole Christ: Mediation as Transfiguration At the very root of Augustine’s understanding of the totus Christus is Christ’s speaking, first in the psalms and then through them in all the members of his body, past and future. As we have seen, the development of the concept roughly follows Augustine’s deepening understanding of Christ in the late 390s and early 400s.99 In the places where it first occurs in Augustine’s writings, the whole Christ is rather flatly exegetical. A number of voices can exist together within a simple text in which Augustine is reading Christ. By his later usages of it, the whole Christ becomes the locus of ongoing mediation. Augustine’s exposition of Psalm 30, which we examined earlier in this chapter, provides an example of the difference; Augustine comments on it in the 390s and then returns to preach on it around 411.100

97 en. Ps. 33.2.7. Humility is a frequently recurring theme in the en. Ps. The Word humbly assumed human flesh and then died a human death. The members of Christ’s body learn this through imitation of their head. 98 This is the difficulty with arguments like that of James Dittes (n3), who concludes that the “institutional” Church and Christ became so closely configured that the former edged out the latter. BeDuhn follows a similar arc by suggesting Augustine to be institutionally preoccupied in his own self-​presentation; see Jason David BeDuhn, Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–​401 c.e., vol. 2 of Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 414–​417. 99 Precise dating across scholarly accounts depends on identifying these marker texts. Acts 9:4 gives evidence for the concept after 400, in accord with Fiedrowicz’s timeline for the concept. Earlier examples from the 390s exist but are fewer in number. Christopher Beeley, The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 235–​241; Fiedrowicz, Psalmus Vox Totius Christi, 372. 100 All of the dating schemas for the en. Ps. cite a gap here. For Augustine’s first exposition the range is 391–​395. The suggested date range of the second exposition is 411–​415.

Preaching from the Whole  79 At the beginning of his first exposition of Psalm 30, Augustine lists the speakers that one will find in the course of the psalm: “The mediator himself speaks first; then the people redeemed by his blood gives expression to its thankfulness; and finally this same people speaks for a long time in its distress. . . . The voice of the prophet breaks in twice, once near the end and again in the final verse.”101 At this point in his exegetical development, Augustine notices the work of the mediator in the psalm, but the diversity of voices is not yet within the whole Christ. The psalm exposition from the 390s predates Augustine’s first uses of Acts 9:4; as such it provides an early consideration of the head-​and-​members imagery.102 Augustine identifies the role of each voice depending on the content of its speech. At this point, however, this method simply allows him not to predicate something wrongly of the savior. For instance, verse 6 of Augustine’s text reads, “Into your hands I commend my spirit. You have redeemed me, Lord God of truth.”103 Augustine attributes the first phrase to Christ the mediator, speaking to the Father. But he breaks this attribution halfway through the verse to say that the people redeemed by Christ pray the second part of the verse, as well as the head. The addition of a voice mid-​line does not remove the words from the mouth of the head and put them on the lips of the people. Rather, the people, joyful in the glory of the head, say along with him, “You have redeemed me, Lord God of Truth.” The people and the head do not speak with the same voice, but they do speak the same words independently. By the time Augustine revisits Psalm 30 in a set of preached expositions over a decade later, the whole Christ is a fully formed concept. Augustine introduces verse 6 in this exposition by reminding his hearers that the Lord says the same words from the cross (Lk 23:46; Jn 19:30).104 Augustine explains that Christ has good reason for “making the words of the psalm his own.”105 Christ wants “to teach you that in the psalm he is speaking. Look for him in it.”106 This identification of Christ as speaker in the psalm is different from the first exposition because Christ is the only speaker. Gone is the need to differentiate between the mediator, the people redeemed, and the 101 en. Ps. 30.1.1. 102 Further evidence of Augustine not having explored head-​and-​members imagery is his use of “mediator” with “people redeemed.” His mature concept of the totus Christus uses the language “head” with “body,” or “members.” 103 en. Ps. 30.1.6. 104 en. Ps. 30.2.11. 105 en. Ps. 30.2.11. 106 en. Ps. 30.2.11.

80  Augustine on Memory psalmist. Rather, Augustine presents Christ as fulfilling a prophecy in himself while at the same time transfiguring the cry of the body: Bear in mind how he wanted you to look for him in another psalm, the one “for his taking up in the morning,” where he said, “They dug holes in my hands and my feet, they numbered all my bones. These same people looked on and watched me. They shared out my garments among them, and cast lots for my tunic” (Ps 21:17–​19). He wanted to make sure you would understand that this whole prophecy was fulfilled in himself, so he made the opening verse of that same psalm his own cry: “O God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yet all the same he transfigured the body’s cry as he made it his own, for the Father never did forsake his only Son. “You have redeemed me, Lord God of truth,” carrying through what you promised, unfailing in your pledge, O God of truth.107

In this sermon, Christ says “You have redeemed me, Lord God of truth,” but only because Christ has “transfigured the body’s cry and made it his own.” This consideration of transfiguration reads a backward-​and forward-​ looking sense of time into Christ’s salvific mediation. Christ has taken up Adam’s flesh and Adam’s voice on the cross. Yet once Augustine has configured the totus Christus, Christ transfigures not only the cry of Adam from the fall in Eden but the cry of every person after him. Perhaps this was implicit before. But in the voice of the body taken up by Christ, the cry is every person’s after Adam, including especially those hearing Augustine’s sermon. They pray Psalm 30; they speak the words of Christ; their words are transfigured into his. At the center of Augustine’s mature understanding of the whole Christ is “transfiguration,” a new term for ongoing mediation. Just as Christ’s mediation extended temporally back to Adam, it extends forward to the future, “transfiguring” members of his body in the present. Christ does not speak the psalms merely for his own good but for all those who might pray them in him. Building on its own momentum, an exegetical mechanism for preaching that enables the conjunction of voices also opens the possibility of the conjunction of heaven and earth. Those who pray the psalms within the whole Christ cannot resist this transfiguration by assuming that a particular part of Christ’s speech does not apply to them. In his exegesis of Psalm 118:153–​156,

107

en. Ps. 30.2.11.

Preaching from the Whole  81 Augustine takes up the perspective of the members of the body. He writes, “No one who has a place in Christ’s body should think the next verse has no bearing upon him or her.”108 The verse, which reads, “Behold my humiliation and deliver me, because I have forgotten your law,” would seemingly not relate to everyone who would hear it.109 Augustine’s immediate explanation to those before him is that it is not the individual who needs to be ready to speak it; rather, the “entire body of Christ finds itself in a position to say this, for it is very used to being humiliated.”110 The result is that the voice of the body, whether that be Christ the head or the collective of the members, is the primary speaker. The individual member of the body might not be in a position to pray a psalm of lament or enthronement or any other word of Christ. But the whole Christ here again operates from a sense of wholeness that does not deny individual experience but integrates it. An individual member’s place in Christ thus enables one to see matters not otherwise in one’s purview. Augustine, in the voice of the speaker of Psalm 118, says, “I could not have seen it myself if I had not seen it through the eyes of Christ, if indeed, I had not been in him; for these words are the words of Christ’s body, of which we are members.”111 The object of vision in this instance is the way of God’s justice. Whether or not this object is seen at all depends on looking at it with the eyes of Christ. These eyes are not to be taken and adapted at will by an individual who wishes to put them on as one might don spectacles. Rather, by being a member of the body, one learns to speak, see, smell, taste, and understand in ways that are characteristic of the whole body. The individual meets himself or herself, mysteriously, in the whole.

Conclusion to Part 1: The Beginning of Memory The first part of this book has shown that, as mediators, memory (anthropological mediator) and Christ (salvific mediator) are intimately linked. Memory functions in Augustine’s early works in terms of the mediation that would render a human person intelligible, reconciling body and soul, divine and human wisdom, time and eternity. Yet despite memory’s extraordinary anthropological mediatory capacity—​interior intimo meo—​it cannot

108

en. Ps. 118.30.1. en. Ps. 118.30.1. 110 en. Ps. 118.30.1. 111 en. Ps. 118.30.4. 109

82  Augustine on Memory provide any lasting stability to the self. Augustine comes to realize this, and his presentation of mediation in the Confessions is actually the story of memory’s failure, both in the act of remembering and in the particular content of desires remembered, to mediate Augustine’s relationship to his own self and to God. We have seen that precisely where memory fails as mediator for Augustine, it fails into Christ the true mediator, incipiently indicated by the language of the psalms at the end of Confessions book 10 and throughout book 11. The link between Christ and memory, forged out of their asymmetrical commonality as mediators, opens up a second question: If Christ becomes a true and successful mediator for Augustine, what effect might Christ have on Augustine’s memory? To answer this question, ­chapter 2 has traced an inverse trajectory. As much as memory fails to mediate, Christ continues to succeed. Augustine’s understanding of Christ as mediator grows through his preaching, particularly on the psalms, into a totus Christus. Christ, especially evidenced in acts of speech, incorporates members into his body. First incarnate, then crucified, then finally ascended to heaven, Christ still transfigures the cries of his body as its head who has gone before it in hope. Christ’s mediation has made possible and sustained the shift from the individual to the whole Christ and is described by Augustine as transfiguration. In this first part of the book we have seen the “beginning of memory.” Where Augustine’s thinking on memory, which will continue to mature especially through his preaching, will lead him, and the results it will produce, have only been intimated so far. We have seen memory fail, revealing the instability and mystery of the human self. On the other hand, we have seen Augustine claim that the self in Christ can see with the eyes of Christ—​a vision and perception that is beyond the self, from the whole of head and body, which brings God to the individual who longs to be true. Such a participation in the whole, as it turns out, will be a shared adventure transacted fundamentally through remembering and forgetting. To that work of being Christ we now turn.

PART 2

T HE WOR K OF M E MORY

3 Learning to Leap Memory as Shared Exercise

We are now able to consider memory in a new way. I have titled part 2 of this book “The Work of Memory” in order to describe the daily, ongoing exercise and dynamic activity of the totus Christus. Augustine’s early writings relying on memory, as we observed in the Confessions, are sometimes described as exercitatio animi, or exercises of the soul, wherein one ascends—​or at least attempts to ascend—​to God. Augustine’s sermons are likewise filled with ascents as exercises, but in such a way that one might call them exercitatio Christi toti, or exercises of the whole Christ. The basilicas in which Augustine preaches are filled with individuals, but we have already seen how he has reconfigured the remembering subject. Within that communal subject, as we will see, he and his congregation together can make any number of moves of ongoing participation with striking degrees of success. To introduce this daily, working memory in this chapter, I focus on the action of leaping. The body of Christ will indeed take leaps—​vertically and horizontally—​of memory. The term “leap” is scripturally derived for Augustine, employs memory language as shorthand for participation in Christ, and is transacted by the body of Christ. Leaping is not simply observed by Augustine and his congregants; they learn to do it themselves.

Leaping Psalmist, Leaping Christ Expositions of the Psalms 38, 61, and 76 concern separate psalms that share in their first verses the obscure character of Idithun.1 The regular reader of any of these three psalm texts—​two laments (38, an individual one; 76, a communal one) and one song of praise (61)—​might not even notice the name 1 Idithun also appears in en. Ps. 80.2 and sermo. 77B.5–​7. The former is in the context of a label or name, and the latter about tears in a sermon about the Canaanite woman.

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0004

86  Augustine on Memory Idithun (or Jeduthun) at the outset. To this day, scripture commentators are unsure whether the word indicates a historical person from 1 and 2 Chronicles, a setting for the psalm, another liturgical term, or perhaps an instrument named after the family that played it.2 In medieval illuminated psalters, Idithun is portrayed along with other musicians of David’s court, striking an instrument of bells affixed by string to a sounding board.3 Augustine accepts Idithun as a historical figure, yet he is aware—​and admits as much to his congregation—​that neither he nor other scholars he knows have any concrete data about him. That said, Augustine has received from Latin scholars who translated Hebrew names that Idithun means “one who leaps across.” In other psalm commentaries of which Augustine is aware, Origen mentions Idithun as a possible singer but not a leaper; Ambrose identifies him as a Levite and singer, but not a leaper.4 Augustine’s leaping one (transiliens) is thus relatively free of the hermeneutical context of other psalm commentators. Because Augustine uses the leaping one to interpret each of the three psalms in which the name Idithun appears—​for the first verses he considers as doorways to the psalms5—​the various “leaps” provide homegrown, quintessential examples of Augustine preaching memory language across a semantic field. These leaps figuratively express the dynamic relationship between Christ and memory. Finally, that Augustine uses leaping figuratively to interpret the psalm does not mean that he uses it imprecisely or loosely. What emerges in his preaching about leaping is a very careful and thorough exploration of participating in Christ’s mediation by memory.

2 The Hebrew word “Jeduthun” translates “praising.” Modern biblical scholarship is divided over the name. Hermann Gunkel writes that no one can say what the expression ‘al yedūtūn means, but says it is certainly about musical performance and not linked to Jeduthun in Chronicles. Sigmund Mowinckel takes a similar position, that the name is simply a liturgical term. Amos Ḥakham’s more recent approach suggests that Jeduthun is indeed a name referenced in 1 Chronicles, but also possibly a musical instrument named after the family who played it. See 1 Chron 9:16, 16:38, 41–​42, 25:1, 3, 6; 2 Chron 5:12, 29:14, 35:15; Hermann Gunkel, Introduction to Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel, trans. J. Nogalski (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), 351; Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 2 vols., trans. D. R. Ap-​Thomas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), 2:95; Amos Ḥakham, Psalms with the Jerusalem Commentary (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 2003), 306. 3 Two manuscripts that label Idithun are illustrative: Hague KB, 76 E 11 Fol. 2R; Vatican Library Pat. Lat. 39 Fol. 44V. 4 Michael Heintz, “The Pedagogy of the Soul: Origen’s Homilies on the Psalms” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 2008), 266–​299; Origen, Homilies on the Psalms: Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, trans. Joseph Trigg, Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2020), 238–​286; Ambrose, Exposition of Twelve Psalms, 142. 5 See en. Ps. 80.2, which includes a reference to Idithun. Also, on Idithun in the first verse of a psalm, Carol Harrison, “Getting Carried Away: Why Did Augustine Sing?,” Augustinian Studies 46, no. 1 (2015): 14–​15.

Learning to Leap  87 Augustine treats Idithun the leaping psalmist as a trope for the body of Christ. This dual identification allows him, on the one hand, to follow Idithun through the psalm as if he and his congregation were observers of the dispositions of their leaping pedagogue. But in the next breath, Augustine will address in the second person those before him: “you, Idithun, body of Christ” and “go with Idithun and see” and “if anyone among us is able to be an Idithun.” In short, Idithun allows Augustine to move back and forth between the individual (the leaper himself or even Augustine’s hearers) and the communal (the whole Christ) in addressing the issue at hand (e.g., remembering God).6 What is so remarkable about Augustine’s Idithun character, rhetorically and theologically, is that he can look at the same leaper for the purpose of simultaneously showing the whole body of Christ and as inclusive of particular individuals in the Carthage basilica where at least two of these sermons (en. Ps. 38 and 61) were preached.7 The example of leaping reveals the dynamism of the head-​members relationship within the totus Christus. Idithun, especially as he remembers God, will accomplish extraordinary things, both spiritually and in terms of human relations. As Idithun leaps, it is important to note two points that build on ground we have already trod. First, the human need for anthropological mediation in Augustine’s early works continues to recur in his preaching: body and soul, time and eternity, human and divine wisdom. Second, in each leap Augustine uses Idithun to caution us away from getting “stuck in the self,” further corroborating the method of part 1, in which the subject of memory shifts from the isolated individual as Augustine’s Christology develops, in order to reframe the self within the whole. I will analyze three different leaps—​memory into Christ, memory out from Christ, and forgetting into Christ—​before drawing the chapter to a close by showing how these leaps open new pathways for considering ascent as exercise together. 6 It is important to keep in mind in considering Idithun as body of Christ that Augustine is elsewhere adamant about the whole Christ’s inclusivity: vir et femina. en. Ps. 26.2.23. 7 I have elsewhere argued for this interpretation of the Idithun psalms in se as well as in terms of the arc of the en. Ps. on the whole. Isabelle Bochet is less optimistic about Augustine’s holding together the individual and the whole. See Kevin G. Grove, “Christology, Ascent, and Augustine’s Idithun Enarrationes,” in Praedicatio Patrum: Studies on Preaching in Late Antique North Africa, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 75, ed. G. Partoens, A. Dupont, and S. Boots (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 269–​ 314 and Isabelle Bochet, “Le commentaire augustinien des Psaumes pour Idithun: Les Enarrationes in Psalmos 38, 61, et 76,” in Praedicatio Patrum: Studies on Preaching in Late Antique North Africa, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 75, ed. G. Partoens, A. Dupont, and S. Boots (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 219–​268. Luc Brésard offers an entirely Neoplatonic reading with only passing Christological reference in order to discuss “dépassement.” Luc Brésard, “Le thème du dépassement chez saint Augustin,” Collectaena Cisterciensia 39, no. 2 (1977): 222–​230.

88  Augustine on Memory

The Leap of Memory into Christ Augustine’s description of Idithun at the opening of his sermon on Psalm 76 signals that he is taking off from the point he reached at the conclusion of Confessions book 10. Idithun the leaper stands in for the congregation itself (Asaph), and by means of the psalm they, the body of the whole Christ, are leaping into Christ as their end and head. Augustine here produces his whole-​Christ logic in short form by reminding his congregation of the apostle Philip, who asks Christ in the Gospel of John, “Show us the Father, and that is enough for us” (14:8). Philip, Augustine explains, desires to go leaping all the way to his end in God. But Jesus chides the apostle, “Have I been all this time with you, and yet you have not truly seen me? Whoever has seen me, Philip, has seen the Father” (14:9). Thus, true to Augustine’s program, Christ is both the goal and the way, the end of the leap and the manner in which one will get there.8 This Christological opening is not merely the setting or introduction to the exegesis that follows. It rhetorically reasserts the congregation’s own identity—​figured by Idithun—​as leapers in Christ who will also reach their end in Christ. This initial confidence in the leap, which will be tempered throughout the sermon, gives Augustine and his congregation an important freedom. Given that the leap is going to succeed, there is no suspense in the sermon concerning whether or not the leap of memory will end in Christ. Rather, with the goal established, Augustine is free to explore with Idithun that which is already at hand in each part of Idithun’s leaps.9 He treats each act of leaping in terms of remembering. Leaping, as it turns out, is a strenuous activity that forms an identity. Augustine’s preferred expression is participial, describing the one leaping (transiliens) as in the act of doing so. Ceasing to be a leaper will mean ceasing to journey toward one’s end in Christ. Psalm 76 is a communal lament, and thus at the outset Idithun—​spoken of singularly but of course standing in for those congregated in Christ—​is one who lacks consolation. In the terms of the psalm, “On the day of my trouble, I searched for God. With hands outstretched before him I sought him in 8 See also trin. 13.19.24. The consistency of this aspect of Augustine’s thought will emerge especially in c­ hapter 7. 9 This point is a credit to Martin Heidegger. Though Heidegger eventually uncoupled entirely memory from Christ, he helpfully elucidates the phenomenological significance of memory’s relation to what is ready to hand. Martin Heidegger, “Augustine and Neo-​Platonism,” in The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-​Ferencei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 113–​227.

Learning to Leap  89 the night.”10 For a figurative exegete like Augustine, this describes precisely the human condition he and his congregants share. They know they are not searching for some material thing (he gives the example of a lost coin or garment) but rather are searching for God. Further, the search is undertaken in the nighttime, or in the darkness, characterizing the limited vision of spiritual things from earthly vantage.11 And finally, Idithun “seeks,” which is different for Augustine from “yearning ineffectually.”12 Though Idithun is not going to be disappointed, then, his condition is nevertheless one of desolation which prompts him to seek in an ardent pursuit, with hands outstretched in the night, making the very most of his embodied action within the limits of earthly cognition.

The First Leap: Remembering God and Babbling Idithun’s first act, amid the slings and arrows of earthly life lacking consolation, is to remember God. Augustine’s psalm text reads, “I remembered God, and the memory filled me with delight.”13 At first, Idithun’s simple act of remembering God (memor factus Dei) seems to bring consolation and refreshment after experiencing human scandals and the wounds of brokenness. Augustine even preaches that Idithun could delight in such a memory, consoling him as if to make him anew. Such profound interior consolation is borne exteriorly by physical disposition. Idithun the leaper, having been consoled by the memory of God, starts to speak exteriorly. In the voice of Idithun, Augustine exclaims, “I remembered God, and babbled (garrivi) with delight.”14 The tone is exuberant praise: “I rejoiced and chattered exultantly.” Idithun is so inspired, Augustine explains, that he has “neither the power nor the wish” to be silent.15

10 en. Ps. 76.3–​4. 11 Memory’s function throughout these passages is like unto what Origen terms “spiritual senses.” See Matthew Lootens, “Augustine,” in The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity, ed. Paul Gavrilyuk and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 56–​70; Jean Pépin, “Augustin et Origène sur les ‘sensus interiores,’” in Sensus-​Sensatio: VIII Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo, ed. Massimo Bianchi (Florence: Olschki, 1996), 11–​23. 12 en. Ps. 76.4. 13 en. Ps. 76.6. 14 en. Ps. 76.6. 15 en. Ps. 76.6.

90  Augustine on Memory Idithun’s remembering God is at once exciting and too good to last in a fallen world. The communal context of this seeking also threatens to be its undoing. Not only does Idithun stand in for Augustine and his congregation; he also encounters those outside of himself and thus the community. His first bout of memorial babbling outside of himself is neither sustainable nor intelligible to those around him. His enemies do not understand him; they mock him and prove more alert than he in his babbling. Indeed, as the psalm indicates, Idithun has become a chatterbox and in so doing has ceased to be watchful; he is unaware of his precarious spiritual position in the world, especially amid his enemies. The babbler becomes one whose spirit is dissipated by chatter. Thus, within only a short time after his initial leap, Idithun becomes troubled and ceases to speak. Perhaps, muses Augustine, he has found that in his babbling he has come also to seek some sort of human approval? Outside pressure precipitates not only exterior but also interior silence and trouble. All memory is lived in a network of human relations—​whether friends or enemies—​and the character of Idithun allows Augustine to plant the memory of God squarely within these human networks. The first part of Idithun’s leaping involves remembering God, so wonderfully that he begins to babble, but only to become silent and troubled again. Idithun, however, cannot cease to be a leaper without ceasing to be himself as the body of Christ. The second step of his leap of memory takes an interior turn.

The Second Leap: Remembering Time and Interior Babbling Idithun’s second recourse to memory is an improvement upon the first. On this occasion, he moves within the private retreat of his mind. He remembers time, first bygone days and then the years of eternity. Augustine is thinking through the experience of time within the body of Christ along with his congregation. Like Idithun’s first leap, this one brings with it extraordinary consolations. By remembering the days that have passed, Idithun removes himself from the negative criticism of others in the present. No one will accuse Idithun, Augustine preaches, of saying the wrong thing, of speaking too much, or of having an incorrect opinion. Idithun’s interior recourse, in the act of remembering the past, produces safety. From that inner safety, with God’s help, Idithun remembers (memor fui) the years of eternity.16 In his preaching,

16 en. Ps. 76.8.

Learning to Leap  91 Augustine explains the leaper’s actions as a tremendous work of human thought, requiring one to be free from distraction and the exterior turmoil of human affairs, and in a profound silence. The psalmist’s phrase—​years of eternity (annorum aeternorum)—​provides Augustine the chance to draw together the two parts of time that humans experience as irreconcilable.17 “Years,” of course, are characteristic of time that passes. This “year” describes the present, which can be reduced to the present day, hour, moment, and part of a moment before one realizes that the present time is always elusive, slipping away even as one speaks. Augustine reminds his hearers that the word “moment” (momento) is three syllables, and by the time one begins to pronounce the second syllable, the first has already become part of the past.18 This being the case, Idithun realizes that clinging to any aspect of earthly time is a fraught exercise, as the present time is always somehow slipping beyond grasp or control. Eternity, by contrast, opens the possibility of the contemplation of something stable, wherein God is the selfsame (idipsum).19 Thus, Idithun can focus on the eternal God and hold onto (by remembering) that contemplation, for its object will not cease to be present, even if one cannot comprehend it. Idithun’s contemplative accomplishment yields a second bout of babbling, though in a much more measured manner. In this instance he is remembering the years of eternity within his own heart and babbles within himself as he searches his spirit.20 The advantage of this sort of memory that prompts interior contemplation is that it both removes Idithun from exterior criticism and allows his new bout of babbling to occur within a context of self-​ examination, questioning, and searching. In many ways, by contemplating the eternal Idithun has accomplished a great deal here by means of memory. It will prove to be a hallmark of the work of memory that it requires a leap out of the self. Idithun, who represents the whole congregation’s identity in his leaps, opens himself up to a profound danger by contemplating eternity

17 en. Ps. 76.8. 18 en. Ps. 76.8. 19 en. Ps. 76.8, but also 101.28. Idipsum recurs in Augustine’s preaching at points of encounter with the Word. See Aimé Solignac, “Notes Complementaires: Livre X,” in Les Confessions VIII–​XIII (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1962), 550–​552. Augustine’s use of the term continues to be important in phenomenological readings of the en. Ps., especially Jean-​Luc Marion, In the Self ’s Place: The Approach of St. Augustine, trans. Jeffrey Kosky (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), 289ff. 20 en. Ps. 76.9. This language is variable within a single passage: in his heart, in the place of his spirit, and within. Augustine frequently uses “searching one’s spirit” as a phrase to describe introspection. This phrase, along with “pouring oneself out” and “turning back to oneself,” form a set of expressions describing the interior aspect of spiritual exercise and occur often in the en. Ps. and sermo.

92  Augustine on Memory in an interiorized setting. As Augustine presents it, the danger is that he will become “stuck” (remaneat) within himself and cease to be a leaper.21 What begins to emerge at this point in Augustine’s preaching is the manner in which the leap of memory is a labor or exercise that points to the need for a collective identity. One cannot simply retreat into one’s own memory, recall eternity, and babble contentedly to oneself. The inward turn always runs the risk of becoming solipsistic. Thus Idithun’s leaps of memory are always characterized by those who interact with him. Memory in Christ is not merely concerned with interior peace and babbling but requires exterior engagement with the whole.

The Third Leap: Remembering the Works of the Lord By the time we reach the Christological resolution of Idithun’s leaping, Augustine describes Idithun’s earthly existence as grievously hampered and reviews more than once the babbling induced by the memory of God (spurned by others) and subsequently by remembering the years of eternity (nearly getting stuck in the self).22 At stake in Idithun’s final leap is his very identity as a leaper. We can characterize this fundamental shift in Idithun’s leaping as kenosis: out of himself and into Christ.23 In some ways, both earlier leaps accomplish this, though very partially. The first is certainly a leap outside of the self, but only as Idithun may continue to babble about his own experience. The second leap is to the glorious heights of eternity, but only within the confines of Idithun’s pseudo-​safe interior. The outpouring of self becomes explicit in this third leap. Augustine sets up the movement out of the self with a line from Isaiah: “Man went away sad and walked in his own ways. But I saw where those ways led him and I healed him” (57:16–​18).24 Idithun discovers that the problem with his leaping is that he has been leaping within himself. Leaping outside of or beyond himself, Augustine preaches, is the sign of God’s healing Idithun. Idithun confesses that danger and fear are the hallmark of his own 21 Augustine uses this same word (remansit) to describe Lot’s wife, whose longing, backward glance ended with her permanently stuck on that roadway as a pillar of salt. en. Ps. 69.9. She becomes a paradigm for the need to forget; see c­ hapter 5, “Lot’s Wife: Stuck in the Self.” 22 en. Ps. 76.10. 23 en. Ps. 76.10–​14. 24 en. Ps. 76.11.

Learning to Leap  93 self-​contained leaps.25 Instead, leaping “beyond” himself brings freedom, joy, and an end to anxiety.26 Leaping reveals the way of healing. The self is not the way; Christ is the way and the goal.27 Healing is offered to the self by means of the whole Christ, but not by transacting that healing on the self ’s terms or on the self ’s turf. Augustine underscores his point with the psalm, reminding his congregants that God works wonders “alone,” not with human help. Augustine preaches that Idithun the leaping psalmist becomes so delighted that he leaves “even himself behind in order to be with God and babble all the more about God’s works, not in his own spirit, nor as the person he was, but in God, by whom he had been created.”28 Idithun rejoices in “having begun,” for he has “found a way out of himself.”29 In fact, Augustine pushes this further for his congregants: if they, like Idithun, are to rejoice, they must forget themselves.30 The leap of memory—​in Christ and by Christ’s power—​ culminates in fixing the body of Christ’s gaze on Christ.31 The picture that Augustine paints of Idithun the leaper is of one whose remembering is characterized by delight. Confident of being healed by the Most High, Idithun is free from anxiety, needs not fear his enemies, and strolls amid the works of the Lord as if at leisure, since he recognizes them as such. Forgetful of himself, he discovers himself in—​indeed as—​Christ. The leap characterizing Idithun’s identity has not been of his own power but is itself a “miracle of God.”32 In this way, the enjoyment of God—​consonant with Augustine’s elaboration in On Christian Teaching—​is also the work of God.33 What Augustine presents to his hearers by means of Idithun the leaper is the actual enjoyment of contemplation, not alone in their homes or their hearts but together in Christ. They, as the congregated Idithun, leap and thus “have begun,” in the words of the psalm.34 “Having begun” describes the leap of memory within the whole Christ not as something to accomplish but as the exercise of beginning to enjoy Christ. It is but the start of an ongoing activity that becomes an identity. Augustine suggests to his congregants that this

25 en. Ps. 76.12. 26 en. Ps. 76.12. 27 en. Ps. 76.15. 28 en. Ps. 76.11. 29 en. Ps. 76.12. 30 en. Ps. 76.13. 31 en. Ps. 76.15. 32 en. Ps. 76.16. 33 Cf. doc. Chr. 1.3–​5. Given the early date (396) of doc. Chr. 1, this only supports theories of continuity in Augustine’s development as a scriptural thinker. 34 en. Ps. 76.12.

94  Augustine on Memory activity should be enjoyable. In their regular lives, gaming, theater, hunting, fowling, and fishing yield enjoyment.35 Augustine, by means of Idithun’s leaps of memory, practices, indeed exercises his congregation in order to develop the skill to leap out of the self and into Christ. When remembering is at its best, this exercise in Christ becomes an identity marked by enjoyment. Augustine asks his congregation if together he and they are so foolish (desipimus), inert (infra iacemus), and incapable of leaping (nihil transilimus) that they cannot recognize Christ as the power and wisdom of God made known to the nations (1 Cor 1:23–​24).36 But even more important than exhorting them to leap, Augustine reminds his hearers once more that he is speaking of a leaping congregation made possible by Christ.37 This first set of Idithun’s leaps is suggestive of how Augustine is working simultaneously to move the individual and the congregation out of the self and into Christ. Each step or turn emerges from the language of memory.

The Leap of Memory out from Christ In Augustine’s exposition of Psalm 61, the memory of Christ provides a security that demands the leaper’s care for the other members of Christ’s body—​ even those outside of ecclesial communion in time or belief. The relationship between Christ and memory is further corroborated and deepened by the fact that Augustine imports and reiterates a Christ/​memory distinction that he makes in an earlier non-​Idithun exposition (en. Ps. 60). Finally, this is also the one Idithun psalm in which Augustine references the leaper having been introduced earlier, rendering certain at the very least that it is not the first of the three to be preached.38

The Tower of Christ Accessed by Memory In the exposition of Psalm 61, Idithun does not begin from a position of desolation, likely on account of the psalm’s being a song of trust rather than a

35 en. Ps. 76.14. 36 en. Ps. 76.16. 37 en. Ps. 76.16. 38 en. Ps. 61.1.

Learning to Leap  95 lament. Instead he speaks from the safety of having leaped over all—​things, people, trips, traps, and flattery—​that might have kept him stuck to the earth.39 At once this sounds the classical tones of an ascent of the soul, yet two further conditions apply. First, Idithun has already reached his secure place by means of memory. Second, the security of that place only prompts Idithun to work for and on behalf of others. Idithun’s secure place references an impregnable tower, on which Augustine has previously preached. He recalls that image from Psalm 60, in which the text says that the Lord has guided the psalmist to an impregnable tower against the enemy.40 For Augustine, the tower is Christ, and access to it, and thus to Christ, is by means of memory: “Remember Christ and enter the tower.”41 Second, the security with which Augustine paints Idithun in the tower actually becomes the freedom to relate outwardly. His leap, Augustine explains, is not pride in where he is but the progress of one on the way. Idithun looks down from his leap only in order to encourage and try to move along those who might be lazier than himself.42 And so the work of leaping, which Augustine and his congregation analyze, in fact reveals that Idithun’s leaps have not only a vertical dimension but also a horizontal dimension.43 In terms of verticality, it is a given that Idithun models a leap into Christ, the Word spoken only once from the Father.44 What expands upon this vertical aspect is how Idithun, described as “thirsty,” will be increasingly attentive to those around him who might join in his leaping. As we will see, this horizontal aspect increases alongside any advances in the vertical.

39 en. Ps. 61.2–​3. 40 en. Ps. 60.4–​5. In that exposition, Augustine describes how one is to remember Christ so as to enter the tower. I will return to that data in the following chapter. For the current circumstances, it is enough to recall that the impregnable tower is Christ and accessed by memory. 41 en. Ps. 60.5. 42 en. Ps. 61.1. 43 Jonathan Teubner in a parallel and helpful manner describes “participation” in terms of the horizontal and vertical. Carol Harrison describes the duty of Augustine as preacher as Janus-​ faced: outward and inward. Jonathan Teubner, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 85–​112; Carol Harrison, “Worship as the Beginning and End of Preaching,” in Praedicatio Patrum: Studies on Preaching in Late Antique North Africa, Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaevalia 75, ed. G. Partoens, A. Dupont, and S. Boots (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 204. 44 en. Ps. 61.18.

96  Augustine on Memory

Running Thirstily: The Horizontal Aspect of Leaping Idithun’s memory serves the same purpose that we have seen previously: liberating the leaper into the whole Christ from the preoccupations of self. Idithun deliberately remembers in order that he might pour himself out, no longer to be, as Augustine says, stuck in himself.45 In this regard, Augustine displays marked consistency across the Idithun psalms. Any sort of leaping, especially the leap of memory into Christ, crosses not only over things on earth that might bind and stick, but primordially over the self. Augustine reminds his congregants that Idithun undertakes the act of pouring out of self by his very searching for God. Augustine sets up Idithun’s outpouring of self in order to explain the exteriorizing nature of his leap into Christ. The phrase that he uses to describe Idithun’s movement throughout the psalm is “to run,” and to do so “thirstily.” The language comes from the psalm verse, and so theologically comes to characterize the movement of the body of Christ.46 Augustine preaches, “So there you are in your stronghold, secure in your impregnable tower against enemy attacks, but you must have pity on those who used to terrify you. Your duty is to run thirstily.”47 This is an instance where Augustine demands great attention from his hearers. He is referencing a memory image—​the tower of Christ from another psalm—​only in order to revise the image of secure stasis into the motion of leaping, security in a tower to a duty of thirstily running.48 Idithun’s thirst is the body of Christ’s thirst. But in order to understand it, Augustine first looks back to Israel as example. Augustine is clear with his congregants that the members of Christ include those who antedated Christ in salvation history: “Never doubt, brothers and sisters, that all the righteous people who have endured persecution from the wicked were already members of Christ.”49 The Exodus images a certain thirst for incorporation, like the people of Israel at the base of Sinai drinking up the ground dust of the golden calf mixed with water upon Moses’s order (Ex 32). That which previously has been false or untrue is taken into the very body of the true

45 en. Ps. 61.14. 46 Thirst (sitis), in addition to human longing for God, becomes for Augustine a way of describing Christ’s loving desire for his members. He thirsts for and drinks up—​verbs of incorporation into his body. en. Ps. 61.9–​10; also 32.3.27, 35.14, 41.6, 62.3–​8, 66.1, 67.35 (likely not preached), 68.1.14, 85.24, 98.5, 103.1.17, 118.27.5, 140.7, 142.12; sermo. 99.3; Jo. ev. tr. 15.11–​12. 47 en. Ps. 61.15. 48 en. Ps. 61.9–​10, 15. 49 en. Ps. 61.4.

Learning to Leap  97 community, incorporated for healing in such a way that all believers in the body progress on their journey. In the New Testament, Christ’s thirst is also an incorporating thirst, although for persons. In the gospel, Jesus indicates his twofold thirst both for the water that the Samaritan woman offered to him at the well (Jn 4) and for her incorporation into the totus Christus. Her coming to believe will be as living water to Christ, who has thirst.50 The whole imagery of Christ’s and Idithun’s thirst—​a thirst that, Augustine explains, is shared by head and body—​purifies those in the tower of Christ from the fear that drove them there. In short, the body of Christ might have been spurred by some difficulty to remember to enter the impregnable tower. Augustine lists all sorts of possibilities—​temptations, iniquities, scandals within the church and without, opposition, flattery, and those with kind words on their lips and evil in their hearts—​which might cause one to flee into the tower of Christ.51 The thirst of Christ, however, subverts any idea of Christ as a safe space for the self. Rather, Christ is thirsting for those who might be empty-​minded, chasing falsehood, or pursuing temporal goods as their end.52 Idithun knows this and, along with the head, thirsts precisely for these people, which Augustine uses to redefine the leap of memory. The one who has truly leaped is not the one who, by means of his or her memory in Christ, has escaped the complex brokenness of horizontal human relations. Rather, the one who, in Christ, has truly leaped is one who can look out from the tower of Christ in order to pity the sinner and love the enemy.53 Thus, while the vertical leap into Christ may have provided the security that casts out fear of earthly mockery and even harm, in doing so it reframes horizontal relations. At this point Idithun, running thirstily, engages those whom he has earlier overleaped as sojourners. Augustine uses the character of Idithun to image an exchange for his congregation: “Being so thirsty for them, Idithun turns to them and pleads, ‘Do not set your hope on iniquity.’ My own hope is in God. ‘Do not set your hope on iniquity.’ If you are unwilling to go the whole way and leap across, at least do not set your hope on iniquity.”54 This Idithun, running thirstily for other sinners, is strikingly pragmatic and even understanding of their limits. He wishes them to leap with him, even if only in a shortened, partial jump.

50 en. Ps. 61.9.

51 en. Ps. 61.13.

52 en. Ps. 61.15–​16. 53 en. Ps. 61.15. 54 en. Ps. 61.16.

98  Augustine on Memory Augustine extends Idithun’s horizontal obligation even unto enemies: “For them you must thirst.”55 He goes on to inspire: “Truth may be obscured for a while, but it cannot be defeated. Iniquity may flourish for a while, but it cannot persist.”56 Idithun leaps through greed, fraud, and robbery in order to plead with those whom he had formerly feared. Thirstily running, he is precisely Christ’s thirst for sinners. Inasmuch as Idithun leaps into Christ,57 he takes a more and more proactive role in the potential leaps—​even if partial—​ of those who might be incorporated into Christ’s body.

A Test Case: An Astrologer Augustine’s sermons were popular, and at times even his theological rivals would come to hear what he had to say. On one occasion, Augustine took notice of a mathematicus in their midst, who had once been a believer but then had left in order to practice astrology.58 He had come back to Augustine’s congregation in order to renounce his astrological practices, burn his astrological books, and be a penitent in their midst. For our purposes, it is important to see the Christological framing with which Augustine speaks to his congregants on this occasion. He instructs them to pray for the astrologer through Christ rather than to Christ.59 The use of the preposition per plus the accusative Christum (“through Christ”) rather than the grammatically expected ad Christum (“to Christ”) is reflective of Augustine’s whole Christology. Augustine exhorts his congregation to treat this man as one of their own: We must therefore commend him to your eyes and your hearts. With your hearts, love the person you see; with your eyes, take care of him. Look at him, make sure you will know him again, and wherever he goes, point him out to our brothers and sisters who are not here today. This watchfulness is a mercy, for without it the old seducer might drag his heart back again and assault him. Make yourselves his guardians.60 55 en. Ps. 61.16. 56 en. Ps. 61.16. 57 In this particular sermon Idithun vertically accomplishes the leap into the Word who from the beginning creates and sustains all things; en. Ps. 61.18. 58 en. Ps. 61.23. 59 en. Ps. 61.23. 60 en. Ps. 61.23.

Learning to Leap  99 The journey to their end in God includes the various leaps of Idithun, not merely vertical but increasingly horizontal. The closing image, mirroring a tone Augustine struck in the opening lines, is that of the heart—​but specifically of the heart extending out in merciful guardianship over the repentant sinner.61 The astrologer’s sins have caused harm to the whole community; now the whole community will benefit him—​as well as their own hearts—​by participating in the mercy of his healing. This is not restricted to within the walls of the church. Augustine charges that they are to be mindful of the penitent on the street and in the marketplace. In mercy, the body of Christ comes to recognize again one of its members. One could say that the instance of the astrologer at the close of the exposition is simply the practical treatment of a community matter, adjudicated as bishops were wont to do.62 But the imagery Augustine uses of eyes and hearts is set up all the way through his sermon by the leaping psalmist encouraging others. Idithun, as the image of the body of Christ, has taught the congregation how to leap over their enemies, as well as how to continue to see them and to learn to love them. Though Idithun’s leap of memory is into the tower of Christ, the work of memory is increasingly inclusive of friend and foe wherever Christ’s body might be—​which for Augustine is to the ends of the earth. The leap of memory, practiced together by Augustine and his congregation, renders them an Idithun. Their very identity as leapers demands their care for the astrologer.

The Leap of Forgetting into Christ The third instance of Idithun’s leaping, this time in a psalm of individual lament, allows for the introduction of the topic of forgetting in Christ. This way of leaping serves to introduce the topic of forgetting that will we will explore in both its positive and negative aspects in c­ hapter 5. Idithun’s particular leap, however, reconfirms the general connection to memory, inclusive 61 At the beginning of en. Ps. 61.1, Augustine commended the discerning “palates” of their hearts that seized upon the things that were good for them. 62 As Peter Brown explains, the work of episcopal arbitration after Constantine, called episcopalis audientia, took up a great deal of Augustine’s time and warranted his complaining on more than one occasion (Ep. 24 and 247.2; En. Ps. 46.5). Episcopal arbitration cut across the social spectrum of peasants and landlords, even to whether the poor might or might not sell their children. Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Late Roman Empire (London: University Press of New England, 2002), 67–​68; John C. Lamoreaux, “Episcopal Courts in Late Antiquity,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 2 (1995): 143–​167.

100  Augustine on Memory here of forgetting, and Christ, especially in its horizontal aspect of service to the poor.

Leaping as Forgetting In the exposition of Psalm 38, Idithun the leaping psalmist takes up the lament of an individual in mortal illness. As such, he is once again most concerned with his end in Christ and how to reach that end. In that context, Augustine cites one of the central texts for his understanding of forgetting in a manner that complements remembering in Christ. As Augustine does throughout his sermons, he draws in particular scriptural texts in order to remind his hearers of principles or ideas with which they are already familiar. In ­chapter 2 we observed how Augustine did this with Psalm 21:1 and Acts 9:4 in reminding his hearers of the whole Christ. Philippians 3:12–​14 functions across Augustine’s thought in the same manner, alerting his hearers to a central concept of Christ and forgetting.63 Idithun introduces the topic of forgetting by bringing up what he has already leaped across. Though he has done much leaping, he wonders about reaching the end.64 In answer, Augustine gives to his congregation these verses: “ ‘One thing only I do,’ he says. ‘Forgetting what lies behind and straining to what lies ahead, I bend my whole effort to follow after the prize of the heavenly call in Christ Jesus.’ ”65 Forgetting emerges as positive in two aspects. The first is that the place from which Idithun has leaped (that which lies behind) does not keep hold of him in such a way as to inhibit his further leaping. He does not, as Augustine preaches, “slip back” (relabamur) to where he has already been. This forgetting adds focus to the leap: “Do not be complacent about the things you have left behind; rather be concerned for those you have not yet gained.”66 At the same time, the aspect of forgetting what lies behind, as a necessary and positive aspect of the activity of leaping, chastens the leaper’s confidence in his own ability to effect such a leap. One who is in the process of forgetting what lies behind and straining on ahead to Christ is one who is still on the way and cannot claim to have reached the end. 63 Philippians 3:13–​14 was an important text for preachers throughout the early church. Especially important are Marius Victorinus, “Epistle to the Philippians,” 3.12–​15; Chrysostom, “Homily on Phil 3:13–​14”; and Jerome, “Dialogue against the Pelagians,” 1. 64 en. Ps. 38.5. 65 en. Ps. 38.6. 66 en. Ps. 38.6.

Learning to Leap  101 Gerard O’Daly has suggested that Philippians 3:12–​14 reveals Augustine’s interest in temporality, and particularly distentio.67 His insight about these verses in terms of time is illuminating for our examination of them in terms of remembering and forgetting. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, O’Daly claims, helps Augustine to move from an idea of distentio to extentio, from the state of being uncomfortably unstable in time that is passing away to the state of anticipation unique to the Christian life. Building from O’Daly’s insight, what Idithun shows is that forgetting functions to free memory, as anthropological mediator, from being overwhelmed by the preoccupations of distentio in order that it might be more fully open to that which comes from expectation of Christ as end. Augustine shows his congregants that their time on earth is quickly slipping away by preaching his regular exercise of reduction, from days to yesterday to today to the current moment, all of which are passing away. His point is that time—​though it can be mediated by memory—​cannot be possessed.68 One can, however, constructively let go of what lies behind in order to strain ahead to Christ, whom one does not possess but becomes. As a result, Augustine’s vision of Philippians 3:12–​14 means that Idithun, and therefore the body of Christ, is always forgetting. If a leap of memory is in some manner into Christ, there is an equally important second sense in which it is also a leap of forgetting—​whether that be of place, self, or time. The leap of forgetting also provides a further point about the ongoing action of leaping. In the first leap, the leap of memory into Christ, to cease leaping would be for Idithun as the body of Christ not to attain its end in Christ the head. A similar logic recurs here. If Idithun is in some way always forgetting, especially in the manner that one can be forgetful of self while straining toward Christ, then the ongoing action of forgetting is further reinforcement of his continued need to leap. There is an emergent sense across these sermons—​which we will treat more fully in the next two chapters—​that the actions of shared remembering and forgetting must be not occasional but continual, within the whole Christ. Augustine’s worry over Idithun’s ceasing to be a leaper flags the importance of the continual nature of remembering and forgetting.

67 Gerard J. P. O’Daly, “Time as distentio and St. Augustine’s Exegesis of Philippians 3, 12–​14,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 23, nos. 3–​4 (1977): 265–​271. 68 en. Ps. 38.6.

102  Augustine on Memory

Forgetting Adam In forgetting what lies behind and striving to what lies ahead, Augustine captures the redemptive dynamic between Adam and Christ, the old and the new. It is commonplace for Augustine to describe how all of humanity sinned in Adam; the body of Adam describes the postlapsarian collective. The totus Christus, however, presents a new possibility for collective identity. Forgetting what lies behind means stripping oneself of the old and running or leaping toward that which is new. Augustine preaches, “We have not so put on Christ as to wear nothing any longer of Adam. Look at Adam growing old, and Christ being made new in us.”69 While the newness of Christ, Augustine explains, will not be complete until the resurrection of the body, one can even now experience a new self, a new day, a new song, and a new covenant. The love of newness in Christ—​ the tending toward what lies ahead—​allows the one who remembers to be fearful of the old things experienced in Adam. As the old self and the old day decay, that need not be a matter for fear. Idithun can relate to Adam only through the ongoing act of forgetting or having forgotten (oblitus).70 Augustine reiterates in a number of ways—​ being, materiality, flesh, temptation, etc.—​that Idithun cannot be made fully new. He always bears some resemblance, even as a leaper, to one who limps along without leaping.71 The one who exists under the sun does not experience the realities of God in their lasting fullness, which now is only held in hope. Therefore, even though Idithun pants for the realities to which he seems so close, he cannot fully attain them while he bears the marks of the postlapsarian life of Adam. And so forgetting, letting Adam grow old and straining unto newness in Christ, is an ongoing action that renders those on earth leapers rather than beings hobbling along through the time and space of enfleshed life.

The Forgetfulness That Cares for the Poor Idithun’s work of forgetting what lies behind and running toward the newness of Christ reframes the way in which Augustine is able to preach about

69 en. Ps. 38.9.

70 en. Ps. 38.6, 14. 71 en. Ps. 38.10.

Learning to Leap  103 the body of Christ and the poor.72 Augustine hears from the psalmist that although human beings walk as an image—​of course, for Augustine, an image of God—​their “perturbations are in vain.”73 The psalm further clarifies that perturbation is caused by the acquisition of wealth. With Idithun as a guide, Augustine works his way through a discourse on the storage of wealth. He is still operating within the semantic field of leaving behind in order to strive toward Christ. Possessions, however, indicate just how demanding such a forgetting in Christ can be. Augustine’s only question to his congregants is for whom they might be keeping their wealth. He is not concerned here with how they have gathered it, any aspects of earthly greed, or concerns that he takes up in other places.74 Rather, exploring for whom his listeners are storing their wealth becomes an extension of whether or not they are forgetting what lies behind and striving for what lies ahead. Idithun, of course, is unimpressed by the answer Augustine presents on behalf of his congregation: that they are storing their wealth for their children.75 In Augustine’s mind, family loyalty serves in this instance as an excuse for injustice in the present time. But Idithun thinks that such a practice belongs to the old ways and represents, more than anything, a clinging to what lies behind. To emphasize this point, Augustine reiterates that not only are his congregants passing away, but so are their children and their householders. As it turns out, even storing one’s earthly treasure is a mode of clinging to what lies behind. Augustine provokes anxiety in his congregation when he asks them where they store their riches. In comparing the interior riches of a life in Christ to the exterior riches of wealth, he says to his congregants that as they are in the basilica listening to him, it may well be the case that they are losing that which is hidden at home—​either to robbers or simply to being misplaced. This causes something of a gasp in the congregation, but Augustine carries on, wondering why people seek interior recourse (in Christ) to protect exterior riches. Rather, Augustine suggests that they place their money in the only safe place—​where Christ advised them to put 72 I treat the importance of Christological rhetoric concerning poverty itself in “Rhetoric and Reality: Augustine and Pope Francis on Preaching Christ and the Poor,” Theological Studies 80, no. 3 (2019): 530–​553. 73 en. Ps. 38.11. 74 The relation of wealth to Christ is a common theme in Augustine’s sermons, and one on which he is markedly consistent. See en. Ps. 48.1.14–​15, 36.3.6, 51.14–​15, 52.8, 68.2.14–​18, 69.7, 85.3, 101.1.1–​2, 122.9–​12, 131.24–​26, 136.12–​16; sermo. 9.18–​21, 14.1–​10, 32.20, 299E.5, 304.8. 75 en. Ps. 38.11.

104  Augustine on Memory it—​“into the hands of the poor.”76 Augustine’s deliberate provocation certainly causes a stir, based on his own commenting on the congregation’s reactions.77 But it makes concrete for his community the difficulty of forgetting in Christ. The Pauline phrase “forgetting what lies behind” is inclusive of matters as ordinary as money. Being forgetful in such a way as to orient oneself in and to Christ means placing one’s wealth where Christ has told one to place it. Matthew 25:40 is, as Andrew Hofer rightly points out, a regular reminder for Augustine of life within the whole Christ.78 Augustine rhetorically employs Idithun more like a consultant than the primary actor in these sections of his sermons, but that underscores a point that Augustine is making about the self. The forgetting of what lies behind, when it comes to the totus Christus, is in some ways a forgetfulness of one’s self-​interest. Money provides the pattern example of this sort of self-​interest (desire of the eyes) actually coming to govern one’s relationship to Christ.79 The totus Christus inverts that logic. We will explore forgetting and the totus Christus more thoroughly in ­chapter 5. For the present, it suffices to say that the individual, earthly ties of the members of Christ can stymie the leaping that characterizes the full functioning hope of the whole Christ.

Leaping as Re-​Membered Ascent Idithun the leaper, as a trope for the body of Christ, indicates just how expansive the work of memory has become for Augustine the preacher in comparison to his earlier years. Memory, as we explored it in c­ hapter 1 and as it appears in most secondary scholarship, functions as the most interiorizing aspect of Augustine’s anthropology. The connection between this intimate interior and any outside other is only suggestive in the Confessions. With Idithun the leaper, however, the interiorizing aspect of memory has been borne out in the exterior at each turn, whether in bouts of babbling, the pouring out of the self, or the divestment of riches in order to give them to the poor.

76 en. Ps. 38.12. 77 en. Ps. 38.12. 78 Andrew Hofer, “Matthew 25:31–​46 as an Hermeneutical Rule in Augustine’s ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos,’” Downside Review 126, no. 445 (2008): 285–​300. 79 See examples at n74.

Learning to Leap  105 Memory in the whole Christ shifts an entire paradigm of ascent—​ synonymous with leaping—​which Augustine had inherited. His unsuccessful ascent through memory, which we traced through Confessions book 10 in c­ hapter 1, can now serve as something of a foil for the new ascent-​leap of memory in Christ of which Idithun provides an example. Augustine’s Confessions 10 ascent (echoing an earlier Platonic one in book 7) at first follows a standard pattern of ascent of the soul: a movement of progressive interiority, from external things to the interior person to God.80 It is generally agreed that Augustine must have been first exposed to this idea in his reading of Platonic books in northern Italy and that his ascent program is roughly consonant with Plato’s Symposium but is more likely handed on to him through the ideas of Plotinus (especially Ennead 1.6) and his student Porphyry (de Regressu Animae). Though Augustine later regrets (displicet mihi)81 where he oversubscribed to—​his understanding of—​Platonic ascent at the expense of the body,82 the question of how precisely Platonism remained a sustaining influence for Augustine is an ongoing scholarly problem.83 It is only further complicated when the book is taken as a whole and the ascent through memory that begins Confessions 10 ends in the communion of Christ the true mediator. Idithun provides an opportunity to consider what has changed for Augustine. Frederick van Fleteren, who began writing about Augustinian ascent in the 1970s, has suggested, reliant upon evidence from the earliest 80 I draw on Frederick van Fleteren’s definition in “A Reply to Robert O’Connell,” Augustinian Studies 21 (1990): 128–​129. 81 retr. 1.3.2. Augustine’s regret is that he was imprecise about delineating the senses of the body. In retr., concerning ord. (retr. 1.3.2) and sol. (retr. 1.4.2), he corrects what he first wrote in ord. (1.11.32), where he explored whether Christ might have been making distinctions between “the world,” “this world,” and another far removed from it. 82 Plotinian ascent, as van Fleteren points out, brings together many ancient sources but follows Plato’s Symposium. It is likely that Augustine’s libri Platonicorum of 386 (conf. 7.9.14, 7.20.26) included Plotinus’s Enneads 1.6 as well as Porphyry’s De Regressu Animae. Augustine mentions Porphyry specifically in retr. 1.4.3 as a “false philosopher” on account of Porphyry’s suggesting that one should flee sensory things. As van Fleteren points out, Augustine’s “ascents,” even by the time of conf. book 7, cannot be considered strictly Plotinian because of Christian elements already fused in them. See van Fleteren, “A Reply to Robert O’Connell,” 128–​129 and Frederick van Fleteren, “Ascent of the Soul,” in Augustine through the Ages, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 63–​67. 83 The Augustine-​Platonism relation is variously described, from the former “subverting” the latter (Milbank) to “transcending” (Louth). I think the best reading may be Rist’s: that Augustine’s developing appreciation for the acratic, or weakness of the will, shifted his emphasis from Platonic ascents to inspiration and grace. John Milbank, “Sacred Triads: Augustine and the Indo-​European Soul,” Modern Theology 13, no. 4 (October 1997): 465; Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 144; John Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 184–​185.

106  Augustine on Memory Expositions of the Psalms, that Augustine’s thinking about ascent evolves after his ordination and that he comes to believe that divine grace can inspire some vision while still on earth.84 Idithun the leaper appears in later Expositions of the Psalms, and his remembering and forgetting in Christ give evidence of what might be seen or perceived (in Christ) while still on earth. Thus, building on van Fleteren’s as well as Bernard McGinn’s work,85 I draw two conclusions from Idithun’s leaps of memory: first that the ascent shorthand of “inward and upward” used in Augustinian scholarship needs to be revisited and qualified; second, that Idithun’s leaps have a re-​membering function, uniting the leaping psalmist again with the body of Christ and the created order.

Qualifying the Inward-​Upward Model In his preached exposition of Psalm 145, Augustine uses an ascent phrase for which he has become famous. Of the soul admonishing itself to praise in an act of memory, he writes that it recalls itself “from exterior to interior, from lower things to higher.”86 The phrase provides a snapshot of the anthropological mediation of body and soul. It has also taken on a life of its own in secondary scholarship. Étienne Gilson admittedly even edited Augustine somewhat to form a triad, exterior/​interior/​superior, based on this same line of the psalm exposition.87 Augustine’s precise phrase is ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab inferioribus ad superiora.88 The first movement, from exterior to interior, is simultaneously a movement from inferior to superior. It must be added that he is not 84 Frederick van Fleteren, “Authority and Reason, Faith and Understanding in the Thought of Augustine,” Augustinian Studies 4 (1973): 33–​71; van Fleteren, “A Reply to Robert O’Connell,” 128–​ 129; Frederick van Fleteren, “Augustine’s Ascent of the Soul in Book VII of the ‘Confessions’: A Reconsideration,” Augustinian Studies 5 (1974): 29–​71; Frederick van Fleteren, “The Early Works of Augustine and His Ascents at Milan,” Studies in Medieval Culture 10 (1977): 19–​23; Frederick van Fleteren, “Augustine and the Possibility of the Vision of God in This Life,” Studies in Medieval Culture 11 (1977): 9–​16; Frederick van Fleteren, “The Cassiciacum Dialogues and Augustine’s Ascents at Milan,” Medieavalia 4 (1978): 59–​82. 85 Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century, vol. 1 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 2002), 233. 86 en. Ps. 145.5. 87 In his Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine (1929 French; 1960 English), Gilson describes Augustine’s method as exterior to interior and inferior to superior, acknowledging in a footnote that Augustine’s precise formulation is different (Gilson drops “inferior”). Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine, trans. L. E. M. Lynch (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961), 20, 256n38. 88 en. Ps. 145.5.

Learning to Leap  107 denigrating the body, which he antecedently describes as created exceedingly good (bona valde); he is, rather, valuing the eternal nature of the soul.89 The text, then, clearly supports movement from without to within (homo exterior to homo interior). However, as Frederick Scott points out, Gilson’s revision seems to create three realms out of two. In Gilson’s formulation, there are exterior, interior, and superior, rather than exterior and interior, with ascent to the superior occurring through both.90 Gilson’s formulation, by suggesting that the movement to God is inward and then upward, risks concluding that “superior” is now two degrees removed from the “exterior,” buffered by “interior.” It is interesting to note that in scholarship that credits Augustine as a source for the self (Charles Taylor) or an inventor of the inner self (Phillip Cary), this two-​step movement, inward and then upward—​most often giving credit to Gilson’s revised Augustine—​allows for the emergence of a self-​as-​interiority which in its very articulation indicates its distance from Augustine.91 Idithun helps us to, indeed demands that we rethink this distinction. Because his leaps are those of memory, he is always in some way moving from exterior to interior. Yet that inward move is only a beginning that finds its completion in return to the exterior. Idithun starts to babble-​within in the leap of memory into Christ, only to realize that he could get stuck in himself and cease to be a leaper. The final action of his leap, into the works of the Lord, is decidedly exterior. In the leap of memory out from Christ, Idithun moves from the safe tower of remembering Christ in order to “thirst” for those outside, including the repentant astrologer. And finally, in the leap of forgetting, Idithun’s forgetfulness of self is not a forgetfulness of the exterior world but culminates in giving one’s riches to the poor. In each of these instances, Idithun’s leap as ascent moves to the interior only in order to simultaneously reconfigure the exterior. Both interior and exterior witness to the dynamism of Christ. At this point the “work of memory” functions to stave off any overly interiorizing articulation of both memory and life in Christ. The work of memory is not as simple as a flight into a removed interior space; rather it is the ongoing reconciliation of interior and exterior realities in Christ. The 89 en. Ps. 145.3. 90 Frederick Scott, “The Odyssey of an Augustinian Text,” Modern Schoolman 36, no. 3 (1959): 209–​211. 91 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 136; Phillip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 65.

108  Augustine on Memory formulation of leaping is so important for Augustine for the reason that it is in part lateral: leaping “across” (transiliens). The lateral part of a verticalizing verb preserves the exterior, human interface of the search for God frequently described in vertical terms.

Memory in Christ as a Re-​Membering Exercise Idithun’s leaps of memory are evidence of how remembering and forgetting might be properly characterized as “re-​membering.” Because Idithun is leaping as the totus Christus, he provides a natural opportunity for Augustine to consider, with his congregants, how the actions of remembering and forgetting might not merely be their flight out of the exterior world and into an inner space, sanctuary, or self. Instead, the opposite proves to be the case: Idithun moves interiorly and exteriorly, into silence and resumed babbling, into the riches of Christ and out of the riches of his own pocketbook. In each of these instances, Idithun’s leaping is what Denys Turner calls “self-​subverting,” opening onto awareness of the whole over fixation on a particular individual desire.92 Using the Greek word anabathmōn, Augustine links Idithun’s ascents to a subset of ascents in his preaching on the psalms of ascent (119–​133).93 These sermons stand as further corroboration that what we have here proposed with Idithun is not an idiosyncratic figuration unique to three psalms. Rather, Augustine’s expositions of the psalms of ascent not only confirm that ascent in Christ is self-​subverting but further contribute to an understanding of ascent framed by community. Gerard McLarney, in his book on Augustine’s expositions on these psalms, suggests that Augustine is trying to establish his congregants not merely as listeners, readers, or singers of the psalms but as “coparticipants” in the ascents.94 The ascents, which Augustine understands to have been sung by the people of Israel as they walked up the

92 Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 68–​69. 93 en. Ps. 38.2. 94 Though McLarney distances his own interpretation from Augustine’s Christology in favor of what he calls a hermeneutic of alignment, it is undeniable that any such aligning happens on account of the shared Christological voice. Gerard McLarney, St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Psalms of Ascent (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 123.

Learning to Leap  109 hills to Jerusalem, are steps upward with an increasing focus on the incorporating aspect of the totus Christus.95 The increasingly communal ascent of the songs of ascent requires a forgetfulness of self. Indeed a cliff-​climbing psalmist in exposition of Psalm 122, representative of each of the persons of Augustine’s congregation, has to keep his eyes off himself and on God.96 In another exposition treating the monastic life, Augustine revises the term monos for “monk” from “one alone” to “one with others.”97 In more than one exposition, Christ the Good Samaritan lifts the broken congregation lying in the ditch onto his own flesh and cares for its health.98 Fraternal charity,99 love of enemies,100 and even what can be learned from professional beggars101 mark the broadening communal, or horizontal, aspect of what on its face is a vertical ascent to God. This exploration of unity remains grounded in Augustine’s Christology; he and his congregation are not one person and Christ another. Rather, in the ascended Christ, they are one single individual, head and body.102 In describing the psalms of ascent as Word of God for Augustine, Michael McCarthy explains that Augustine seems to be less interested in the stages of ascent than “the performative force of biblical locutions expressing a longing for God and communicating the pain of alienation.”103 In this way, McCarthy argues, ascent is an ongoing exercise more than something that is accomplished. McCarthy is certainly correct that ascent communicates the shared pain of alienation, but it also communicates something of the joy of increasing human union. Through remembering and forgetting together, something of the end can be glimpsed in Augustine’s sermons. That end in Christ fills ascents with the language of sweet reward among the works of the Lord as much as the pain of betrayal, the scourge of sickness, the mockery of enemies, and the violence that accompanies any of these. Perhaps beginning from the exercise of alienation, a new identity forms beyond alliance or association. Overcoming of self and ascent together in Christ bring some

95 In his explanation of the Greek term anabathmōn, Augustine indicates that it means “steps upward.” Christ was the one who took first steps down. en. Ps. 38 and 119. 96 en. Ps. 122.2–​3. 97 en. Ps. 132.6. 98 en. Ps. 125.15, 121.5. 99 en. Ps. 121.13. 100 en. Ps. 132.13. 101 en. Ps. 125.12. 102 en. Ps. 127.3. 103 Michael McCarthy, “The Psalms of Ascent as Word of God in Augustine’s ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos,’” Augustinian Studies 41, no. 1 (2010): 113.

110  Augustine on Memory satisfaction to the alienated and the longing—​even if that enjoyment requires great sacrifice vis-​à-​vis one’s enemies or the poor. That satisfaction, in part, is precisely the identity shift that does not delimit human ascent by means of individuated strife.

Conclusion: “Go with Idithun and See” In part 1, we saw that memory as anthropological mediator failed into Christ as salvific mediator. Now, from the vantage of Christ the mediator—​ specifically the whole Christ—​Idithun has introduced us to what might be accomplished by the work of memory. Augustine the preacher uses the figurative identity of Idithun as “leaper across” in order to exercise his congregation in shared memorial ascents to Christ. As we have seen, Augustine variously constructs Idithun’s leaps through memory language. At each turn of remembering, and in some cases forgetting, Idithun’s self fades in light of the Christological whole, and some attainment of Idithun’s end in Christ is able to be experienced while in the midst of the difficulties of life on earth. Idithun introduces an outcome that is not guaranteed—​for Augustine never loses sight that he and his congregation praise from within a fallen world and even a scandal-​ridden church—​ but to the extent to which they remember or forget together in Christ, they nonetheless know the enjoyment of that end. By means of memory in Christ, Augustine the preacher does not conform to scholarly presentations of the elderly bishop and thinker whose optimism about humanity darkens as he ages.104 These sermons, from the second decade of the fifth century, are representative of the mature Augustine. And, despite the limits, broken desires, and conflicts that Idithun, either as the leaping psalmist or as the Christological whole that he represents, experiences, Augustine’s work in this period is characterized by enjoyment in Christ, on account of leaping in and as the body of the Word made flesh. Remembering and forgetting become the optimistic possibility of enjoying prayer together in a way more enticing than hunting, fishing, games, and the 104 Though he has since tempered his opinion, some of this sentiment can be traced to “The Lost Future” in Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo (1967; Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 139–​150, 492–​497. Jason BeDuhn, more recently, has strongly argued this position: Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–​401 c.e., vol. 2 of Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 51, 221, 281, 427.

Learning to Leap  111 other pursuits Augustine’s congregants might have undertaken for simple pleasure. Enjoyable as the ascent of memory in Christ might be, it is equally demanding. For the enjoyment of God does not happen away from the exterior, hidden within the self. Though ascent for Augustine without doubt involves the full engagement of the inner life, this turns out to be not the exaltation of the self but the grounds of care for the other. Whether by the astrologer, the poor, or the enemy, the leap of memory does not end interiorly, but exteriorly. And as such, we have claimed that Idithun’s ascents in Christ open new scholarly possibilities for serious consideration of the incorporating nature of spiritual exercise, including those that might bridge Augustine’s preaching with his political theology.105 Augustine preaches to his congregation (perhaps skeptical of attaining a limpid Christological end), “Go with Idithun and see.”106 They cannot make an evaluative claim on Idithun’s memorial success or failure unless they try it for themselves. This ongoing collective exercise, coextensive with identity, is the reason for my description of the “work” of memory. The next chapters on remembering and forgetting, respectively, make a more systematic claim about the memorial work of Idithun, of the whole Christ. For Augustine the preacher, as we take up in the next chapter, laboring together to remember Christ means becoming Christ together.

105 Especially Robert Dodaro, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Charles Mathewes. Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 152–​ 155; Jean Bethke Elshtain, “Why Augustine, Why Now?” in Augustine and Postmodernism: Confessions and Circumfession, eds. John Caputo and Michael Scanlon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 249; Elshtain, Augustine and the Limits of Politics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 15; Charles T. Mathewes, “Augustinian Anthropology: Interior intimo meo,” Journal of Religious Ethics 27, no. 2 (1999): 201–​202. 106 en. Ps. 61.18.

4 The Work of Remembering Idithun makes communal “leaps” of memory, a figurative exercise of memorial ascent that draws him out of himself, into Christ, and into service of the rest of Christ’s body. Idithun helpfully shifts Augustinian memory beyond categories of self and interiority. However, for Augustine, memory in the whole Christ is not merely an occasional exercise; it reveals and forms an identity. In this chapter, we shift from memory as exercise to memory as existence in the whole Christ. As such, I advance the thesis that Augustine preaches with memory language because memory enables and structures existence in the totus Christus, which is able thereby to participate in three temporal realms simultaneously. Memory links past brokenness of the self to communally configured healing in Christ; Christ’s self to the whole in the present; and the eschatological future of Christ’s body—​both as a promise and in the mourning of longing for that which is not yet. As temporalities, each of these three might be studied on its own: personal sins and confession, the worship of the body of Christ in the present, and what humans are promised to become in Christ. Memory, however, sustains all three simultaneously and interrelatedly. What I am calling the work of remembering in Christ expresses the simultaneity of being lifted out of the self, refashioned by Christ in the present, and drawn along by a future that can only be recalled. Taken together, these unfold Christian existence for Augustine. In short, the work of remembering is the work of becoming, and being, Christ.

Broken Memories: The Self in the Whole Christ In the whole Christ, memory obviates neither human brokenness nor histories of sin. In fact, it provides ongoing evidence of them. Where Augustine may have deliberately extolled the great power of his individual memory in Confessions 10, he is much less optimistic about individuated memory in his preaching.1 In fact, the weakness and fickleness of the individual human 1 conf. 10.8.15; c­ hapter 1, “Confessions 10: The Spectacular Failure of Memory.”

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0005

The Work of Remembering  113 mind is but further evidence of the need for the individual to seek healing that the self cannot conjure or provide alone. Augustine frequently leads his congregants in his preaching to this realization through self-​examination.2 An illustrative example is found in his exposition of Psalm 37. The verse of the lament psalm, spoken by the body of Christ, is “My soul is full to the brim of deceitful fantasies, and there is no health in my flesh.”3 Augustine, quick to remind his congregants of the goodness of creation and the body, claims that true health is immortality, and so it can make sense for Christ to say that there is not health in the flesh of his members. Most interesting, for our purposes, is that Augustine uses the example of the memory of his congregants to prove his point. Augustine preaches, “I will remind you briefly how full our souls are with these lying fantasies. So insistent are they that we are scarcely permitted to pray.”4 He describes how images seem to impose themselves upon the mind in ways that the individual memory cannot control. Once you become aware of these intrusive images rushing in upon your consciousness, “then you want to go back to your starting point and rid yourself of what you are currently thinking about, but something else occurs to you. You try to remember something you have forgotten, but it does not present itself to your mind.”5 Augustine peppers his congregation with questions: Where did the forgotten thing go? How do things we have forgotten recur when we are not looking for them? The sequence of questions is quite literally an examination of consciousness. Augustine’s purpose in preaching this way is to remind his congregants that all of them are inhibited by the weakness of their own memories. The brokenness of the memory is evidence of the fall—​the loss of the truth that would be manifest as the coherence of the human memory and therein the self.6 Augustine consistently describes himself and his congregants as those who have forgotten about their identity in the whole Christ, forgotten the content of the scriptures, or even forgotten about their own memory’s propensity to forget either of the first two things. In preaching on Psalm 102, Augustine asks, “Even when we try to think about God, as it is

2 Augustine frequently uses this rhetorical formulation. See, for instance, en. Ps. 37, 57, 58, 59, 75, 83, 84, 85, 93, 97, 101.1, 102, 105, 106, 109, 122, 143. 3 en. Ps. 37.11. 4 en. Ps. 37.11. 5 en. Ps. 37.11. 6 en. Ps. 37.11.

114  Augustine on Memory proper for human beings to do, how many things get in the way, interrupting us on the pretext of our corruptible nature?”7 Even the one who understands that Christ is medicine for the human mind is still constrained by the limits of the self. Augustine reminds his congregants that if they wish it, God will heal them.8 People who want to get better treat ailments with regular doses of medicine. For physical sicknesses, a doctor is called in, and one has to set aside financial affairs, one’s business, and managing one’s employees in order to be able to focus on getting better. The same is true of the mind: “Concentrate on your salvation. Christ is your salvation, so fix your mind on Christ.”9 Augustine uses the rhetorical force of repetition. He repeats the imperative cogita five times in a short span of the sermon.10 If his congregants want to get better, they must quite literally set their minds on Christ as the appropriate and ongoing program of healing. However, as we explored with Idithun’s ascents in c­ hapter 3, the individual cannot accomplish such mindfulness alone. Only the whole Christ can carry it out. Augustine begins again with an image of physical illness. The sick man is tempted to “hanker for temporal things” while he is unwell.11 As an individual, he is unnecessarily concerned with his land and affairs. Those around him shift his focus: “But he is immediately recalled from these anxieties by the solicitude of his relatives who fuss and murmur all around him. He is advised, ‘forget about all that; just concentrate on getting better.’ ”12 Augustine’s earthy—​ almost folksy—​ rhetorical formulation of a family fussing over one of its own is, in reality, a carefully executed performance of his Christology: “The same advice is apposite for you.”13 The sick man is able to forget his own temporal affairs and remember Christ because of those around him. They care for his needs, remind him to focus on healing, and help him to forget other concerns that would distract from that healing. Augustine paints the ill individual as completely dependent on those around him in order to get better. This example—​only one of many similar—​reveals

7 en. Ps. 102.6. 8 Though there is not space for a treatise on the will in Augustine’s thought here, it is worth noting that these passages suggest Augustine does not collapse the memory into the will. For contrasting opinions on that debate, see John A. Mourant, Saint Augustine on Memory, Saint Augustine Lecture Series (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Augustinian Institute, 1980), 24 and Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine, trans. L. E. M. Lynch (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961), 133. 9 en. Ps. 102.6. 10 en. Ps. 102.6. 11 en. Ps. 102.6. 12 en. Ps. 102.6. 13 en. Ps. 102.6.

The Work of Remembering  115 his implicit theology: forgetting one’s own temporal concerns and remembering Christ is no solitary activity that can be conducted in the privacy of one’s mind. Psalm texts like these provide markers for how much Augustine’s thought concerning memory has shifted. More than any other prior influence, his Christological readings of the scriptures shape his sense of memory. Augustine does not discover space in the psalms for latent dualism that privileges the mind over the body, holding out hope that memory as anthropological mediator might somehow solve individual human brokenness. In a fallen world, memory is itself evidence of human fallibility. Nor does one’s memory provide movement to an inner space that is somehow stable. Rather, the condition of the human person—​interior and exterior—​that Augustine’s sermons set forth is one in need of healing to be mediated by Christ. This is further corroborated by the fact that when Augustine preaches about the brokenness of individual human minds, he is not doing so for protreptic purposes—​refuting a Manichaean, Donatist, or other rival theological group. Rather, this picture of the human person has become standard for him. The brokenness and instability of the individual memory is the everyday, ongoing reminder that the healing of memory is transacted not in the self but with others in Christ. Augustine comes to call this exteriorizing movement of memory into Christ “confession.”

Remembering Back: Confession into Christ In contemplating the crucifixion in his exposition of Psalm 21, the psalm that provided Augustine his first major prosopological insight into Christology, he also muses on the memorial character of Christian liturgy: “The Lord died only once. Yet to ensure that we do not forget what was done once, it is re-​ enacted every year in our liturgical commemoration of it. Does Christ die every time his passover is celebrated? No, yet the yearly remembrance in a sense makes present what took place in time past, and in this way it moves us as if we were actually watching our Lord hanging on the cross, but watching as believers, not mockers.”14 This is remembering as actualizing; it recurs at many other points in his preaching and allows Augustine to pose the question of what precisely the present relationship to the past is in Christ.15 Augustine

14 en. Ps. 21.2.1.

15 See en. Ps. 37.10, 66.10, 101.1.12–​13, 113.1–​6.

116  Augustine on Memory claims that it is “through memory” that Christ “is sacrificed daily in such a way as to renew us every day.”16 For Augustine, remembering holds together memories of self, sin, forgiveness, and corporate actions of the whole Christ. Memory in the whole Christ encounters a familiar challenge. At each point thus far in the exercise of remembering, we have seen the instability of the self. Idithun was always in danger of getting stuck in the self and ceasing to be a leaper. And undependable, individual human memories cannot keep control over images that rush upon human consciousness unbidden. Now, in looking back to the past, we can identify two specifically Christological actions of memory that function upon this instability: confession and festivals of abiding traces. Together, these ongoing actions show a movement within memory, from the exercise of leaping to the ongoing action that is the very existence of the body of Christ.

Memory out of the Self: Confession Augustine encourages his congregants to confess with great regularity, in part because the language of confession recurs in the texts of the psalms.17 In his sermons, the term “confession” has specifically Christological and memorial dimensions. As Maria Boulding concisely notes, scholarship on the Confessions tends to posit three levels of the act of confession: the recollection of sin, the praise of God’s goodness, and the joining of human and divine speech.18 In Augustine’s preaching, it becomes clear that all three of these levels happen through memory, shifting the self into the whole Christ. Concerning the recollection of sin, Augustine preaches that confession is remembering the self with humility—​an act of outpouring mirroring incarnational kenosis. That first level of confession opens onto Boulding’s second aspect, which is the confession of God’s goodness in either groaning or praising. It is at this point that Augustine’s sermons often take on explicitly Christological language. For instance, he admonishes his hearers to confess the Way (i.e., Christ the Way) and in so doing to take the way that prior habits of sin had closed off.19 This second level of confession adds the remembrance 16 en. Ps. 75.15. 17 See en. Ps. 39.20, 49.28, 50.13, 74.2, 84.16, 94.4, 99, 105.7. 18 Maria Boulding, “The Meaning of Confession,” in Augustine, Confessions (New York: New City Press, 1997), 11–​13. 19 en. Ps. 84.16.

The Work of Remembering  117 of Christ’s mercy to the remembrance of past wrongdoings. These two actions of remembering bring about a way of being in Christ, wherein the self has poured itself out, been relocated into Christ, and can speak—​evidencing its healing—​with the words of Christ.20 This forms the third level of the joining of human and divine speech. As such, Augustine preaches confession as a continual matter, not a one-​off exercise but an ongoing practice of existence. Confession is his congregants’ job:21 it ought to “burst forth” from them22 and always be an “opening of the whole self.”23 While superficially the memorial aspects of the act of confession seem obvious, in practice memory is more complicated. In the act of confession, invited always by grace, one’s memory draws forth past brokenness because it shapes who one currently is. Memory proves to be both moral and existential. For Augustine, retaining anything of falsehood—​and sin is falsehood par excellence—​renders one untrue. One’s moral acts shape one’s existence. Given that humans know the falsehood of sin, the remembering of confession is a truth-​telling and therein also a truth-​making. Memory does not just unite the past to the present moment, but reforms it by representing it honestly. One confesses who one is in order to become who one is not.24 In terms of memory, one makes the past present in order that a currently false self might become one that is true. In the act of confession one admits culpability not only for that which one remembers but even for the things one cannot remember but should.25 At one point, Augustine writes that it is better to remember and confess even ignorance and negligence than to excuse and retain them.26 He is not being overly scrupulous; he is instead concerned with existing in the splendor of truth. Augustine introduces two memory terms from Psalm 75 that help him to parse the intricate mental nature of confession. The verse from Psalm 75 is “Human reflection (cogitatio hominis) will confess to you, and its abiding traces (reliquiae cogitationis) will keep festival in your presence.”27 For Augustine, both of these terms are about human memory, the first describing 20 This replicates Augustine’s own learning to speak at the time of his conversion and subsequent confession. See Janet Soskice, “Monica’s Tears: Augustine on Words and Speech,” New Blackfriars 83, no. 980 (2002): 448–​458. 21 en. Ps. 39.20. 22 en. Ps. 49.28. 23 en. Ps. 50.13. 24 en. Ps. 105.7. 25 en. Ps. 105.7. 26 en. Ps. 105.7. 27 en. Ps. 75.14.

118  Augustine on Memory conscious looking back into one’s own past, and the second alluding to the condition of living the past in the present. He modifies the psalm language from cogitatio hominis to prima cogitatio in his discussion of it. I treat that first term here, and the reliquiae cogitationis in the following section. Preliminary reflection, prima cogitatio, is the shift by which one begins to seek God and to confess. Augustine teaches this concept with two examples: Paul and David. First, he employs Acts 9:4, the same passage critical to his developing the concept of the whole Christ (see c­ hapter 2). Saul’s preliminary reflection comes to him when he hears a voice from heaven. Christ speaks, asking Saul why he is persecuting him and thus remembering for Saul his own sinful actions. Saul is surrounded by light and becomes physically blind. This experience is the preliminary reflection. Paul’s confession takes the form of a question: “What do you want me to do, Lord?” (9:6).28 At that point, Augustine observes that Paul is “already addressing as ‘Lord’ the one he has been persecuting.”29 The text thus reveals that confession is serving its proper function of uniting him to Christ. Saul—​in this instance through Christ’s question—​recalls his sin as a persecutor in such a way that he may become what he is not. David provides a less dramatic example because the prima cogitatio comes not directly from God but from another person. David has sinned gravely, having orchestrated the death of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite (2 Sm 11). The graced interaction that yields confession comes from Nathan the prophet, whose stinging rebuke remembers for David not only his sin but who the Lord has chosen him to be. This is an important communal qualifier to prima cogitatio as a form of remembering. The grace of prima cogitatio is not circumscribed between God and the individual, like the voice of Christ addressing Saul on the road. The Davidic example highlights a graced interaction of the whole Christ that is with another member of the community, in this instance Nathan. In his confession “I have sinned” (2 Sm 12:13), Augustine points out, David is “unquestionably speaking for us all.”30 Inasmuch as David is speaking for Augustine and his congregation, they are also opening themselves to the prompting of Nathan the prophet—​ figuratively or literally. Augustine describes the prima cogitatio of his own community in terms of the members’ conversions. Their first belief in Christ’s having been sacrificed

28 en. Ps. 75.14. 29 en. Ps. 75.14. 30 en. Ps. 75.15.

The Work of Remembering  119 for them is their own primary reflection. This has brought about the confession of baptism and the Lord’s making them new. On the octave of Easter, Augustine preaches this as sowing a seedling of light in the memory.31 Yet he and his congregants share the problem that with time it is possible for the strength of prima cogitatio (at one point he calls it prima gratia) to fade.32 Paul engages in conversation directly with Jesus Christ only one time on the road to Damascus. Only once does David say to Nathan, “I have sinned.” And only once are Augustine’s congregants (pace the Donatists) baptized. Thus, on account of temporal distance, the prima cogitatio slips further away and necessitates a second movement in order to continue confessing: keeping festival with abiding traces.

Memory Alive Together: Festivals of Abiding Traces The problem with fading prima cogitatio is that in forgetting one’s sins as well as one’s subsequent confession, one also forgets the vibrant mercy of the deliverer. At stake in Augustine’s thinking at this point is what relationship human persons ought to have to their past sins. On the one hand, one can think of the approach, oft quoted in English, of Shakespeare’s Lear to his daughter Cordelia, “Pray you now, forgive and forget.”33 Such a forgetting, supposedly in the service of the father-​daughter relationship, actually complicates both the joy and the ethics of this relationship. In order to appreciate how good things are at present, it is necessary to have the perspective granted by the memory of how bad they were before. In Augustine’s understanding, “forgive and forget” illustrates the problem with fading prima cogitatio, for the joy of being forgiven is only magnified when one recalls the sin for which one needed such mercy. Yet an individual might remain so focused upon the memory of sin that he or she cannot trust that Christ has brought and continues to bring newness. Into this dilemma, Augustine develops his idea of reliquiae cogitationis, or abiding traces. The action of remembering—​one’s sins along with one’s confession or joining Christ—​is what Augustine calls “keeping festival with abiding traces.” We can enumerate the concept by returning to Paul and David. Paul’s keeping 31 sermo. 260.C.7. 32 Prima gratia: en. Ps. 75.15. 33 Lear to Cordelia (Act 4, Scene 6). William Shakespeare, “King Lear,” in The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. S. Wells and G. Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1179.

120  Augustine on Memory festival with abiding traces took the form of writing epistles to communities. Augustine reminds his congregation of their having recently heard Paul’s second letter to Timothy: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, born of David’s lineage, whom my gospel proclaims” (2:8).34 Augustine’s interest is in the imperative “remember.” He writes, “What does remember signify? Do not let that first reflection be blotted out of your memory—​the one that led you to confession; rather let the abiding traces of that reflection be a lasting memory.”35 Paul’s letters provide the first-​person form of ongoing confession by which he is able to remember his prima cogitatio. In his first letter to Timothy, for example, Paul writes, “I was originally a persecutor and a blasphemer, and acted unjustly” (1:13).36 Paul is no longer a persecutor, but, Augustine points out, the abiding traces of his confession “were there to remind him of the grace he had been given, and through those abiding traces he habitually kept solemn festival.”37 Paul’s festivals of abiding traces were not a private affair but an epistolary communication with other members of Christ’s body. For Augustine the preacher, Paul provides a perfect model; by reading his letters, Augustine and his congregants are themselves continuing a festival with Paul’s abiding traces. Augustine invokes Paul as a model in order to speak directly to his congregation about Christ. Switching from considering Paul to considering the assembly, Augustine preaches, “Yes, indeed, my brothers and sisters, think how Christ has made us new.”38 He presents prima cogitatio and reliquiae cogitationis explicitly in Christ, stating quickly and simply the preliminary reflection and confession, “He forgave all our sins, and we turned back to him.”39 His more extended refection is on the abiding traces. For the danger of forgetting still looms: “If we forget the grace we have been given, and who gave it, we forget our savior’s gift.”40 Forgetting the gift means forgetting the one, Christ, who gave the gift. Augustine then brings together remembering and Christ: But if we do not forget his gift, is not Christ being sacrificed for us every day? It is true that Christ was sacrificed for us once for all, when we first believed,

34 en. Ps. 75.14. 35 en. Ps. 75.14. 36 en. Ps. 75.14. 37 en. Ps. 75.14. 38 en. Ps. 75.15. 39 en. Ps. 75.15. 40 en. Ps. 75.15.

The Work of Remembering  121 and that was our reflection; but now when we recall him coming to us and what he gave us, these memories are the abiding traces of our reflection. Through them, which is to say through our memory, he is sacrificed daily in such a way as to renew us every day, as once he made us new by his initial grace.41

The festivals of abiding traces are the ways in which, through memory, the sacrifice of Christ happens in the present with full renewing grace. Augustine explains that “it is true that Christ was sacrificed for us once for all” and that sacrifice, when remembered, prompts the prima cogitatio of which Psalm 75 speaks. Through the active keeping festival with abiding traces, the saving sacrifice of Christ is not simply being recalled; it is being temporally extended into the present.42 Augustine’s presentation could lead one to consider memory a great human power—​that by means of one’s own mind one might draw forward an event from the past so as to participate in its graces. However, what is happening here in Augustine’s presentation is taking place in Christ. Christ meets those remembering in their recollection for the purpose of making them new. In terms of mediation, one might say that Christ mediated salvation once for all (prima cogitatio), but inasmuch as it is continually remembered (reliquiae cogitationis), Christ’s members continue to participate through the act of remembering. Augustine’s final step in expounding keeping festival with abiding traces broadens his reflection to its full, communal import. David has made an individual confession. But, as Augustine points out, the consequences of David’s confession extend far beyond himself. David’s sin and confession have effects for all of Israel, from Uriah’s death to Bathsheba’s marriage, and from the enduring sword upon the land to the birth of Solomon (2 Sm 12). Augustine preaches the communal nature of the festival of abiding traces: “Let us keep ourselves mindful, I beg you, dearest brothers and sisters. Everyone who has been freed from sin needs to remember what he or she was formerly; the abiding traces of reflection must live on in that person.”43 Then he focuses the sermon with an image of sick people on the way together to healing: “We are able to carry others towards healing only if we remember that we have 41 en. Ps. 75.15. 42 Augustine’s presentation of temporality is consistent with that of conf. 11, often including the same examples of the quickly passing tones of a psalm as the balance of memory and expectation. See ­chapter 1, “Confessions 11: Memory, Time, and Expectation.” 43 en. Ps. 75.15.

122  Augustine on Memory been healed ourselves. Each of us must bear in mind what we were, and ask ourselves whether we are still like that; then we shall be in a position to help someone else who is still in that state where we are no longer.”44 The conclusion of Augustine’s exhortation to memory is a vivid picture of the members of the body. Remembering is the action by which Christ is sacrificed for them all and by which Christ continues to heal them all. The memories of their own sins and transgressions are profoundly individual things which they must not forget. But the prima cogitatio that yields confession, or union with Christ, does not remain individuated. Memory ends in communion. Reliquiae cogitationis is the festival activity of the whole Christ, who remembers for a single purpose: carrying each other toward healing. It is telling that Augustine also preaches reliquiae cogitationis at the Easter vigil—​ for the resurrection is the final celebration of remembered healing.45 The image Augustine paints of the body of Christ is of a group of people walking together on the way, increasingly remembering each other because they are increasingly remembering Christ. Christ’s weaker members are carried by the stronger;46 the sharper slow their steps to pray with the dull;47 and by remembering they are being healed and made new together.

Bread of Memory, Drink of Grace In c­ hapter 1, we saw how Augustine used memory as failed anthropological mediator in Confessions 10 in order to conclude his book with Christ the true mediator in an image of Eucharistic communion. Now the location of the whole Christ not only provides an awareness of memory’s brokenness but also establishes eating and drinking as the heart of the vocabulary for the ongoing work of remembering in Christ and the actions that memorially characterize existence and life in the whole Christ. Augustine plays out his theory of how the whole Christ is the location for memory in his exposition of Psalm 101, wherein Christ the true bread (Jn 6:41) has come. He preaches that the congregants, from their position of being in Christ’s body, are able to recall their forgetful condition, cry out from their poverty, and receive his riches.48 In this way, the sequence of

44 en. Ps. 75.15. 45 sermo. 220.

46 en. Ps. 75.15.

47 en. Ps. 90.2.1.

48 en. Ps. 101.1.5.

The Work of Remembering  123 conversion is similar to that which we covered in prima cogitatio and reliquiae cogitationis: the body of Christ provides the awareness that is the preliminary reflection for its members; they cry out in their poverty as a form of confession; and the receipt of riches fits the pattern of the festival of abiding traces. Their location within Christ moves those who have previously been forgetful to eat: Eat now, for you are within the body of him who said, I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. You had forgotten to eat your bread, but now that he has been crucified all the ends of the earth will be reminded and will turn to the Lord. Let remembrance succeed forgetfulness, let the bread from heaven be our food that we may live, not the manna which the ancients ate only to die. Let us eat the bread of which the gospel says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”49

Remembering has a location: within the body of Christ. The congregants are to “eat now” precisely because they are “within” (in eius enim corpore) the body of Christ. This is not, in the first instance, a statement concerning those who do or do not belong to Eucharistic communion—​for all of the righteous throughout time are, in Augustine’s mind, within the whole Christ.50 Rather, it is providing a location for Christian existence, since the bread of heaven is both the word of God they hear51 and Christ himself.52 The whole Christ first prompts individuals to remember that they are forgetful. In response to their own forgetfulness—​discovered together—​those within the body can then cry out, remembering to eat.53 The eating of bread is both the remembering of the scriptures and an allusion to Christ the bread who brings life eternal. On the one hand, gastronomic imagery for memory, like Augustine’s venter animi from Confessions 10, was a culturally intelligible image in the

49 en. Ps. 101.1.5, emphasis added. 50 In addition to the righteous since Adam and Eve and until the end of time, Augustine is also adamant that the whole Christ includes both men and women, and he describes Christ as in uno viro vir et femina. en. Ps. 26.2.23. 51 Augustine describes God’s word as bread. This imagery is found in his considerations of both the Old Testament and the New. Adam forgot to eat the bread of God’s command in the garden; the Ten Commandments were bread to be eaten; Christ, of course, is himself Eucharistic bread as well as the Word from God. Within this single exposition, one sees Augustine layering these correlations of word and bread (en. Ps. 101.1.5; sermo. 63.2). 52 That is, the Eucharist. See sermo. 63.2, 272. 53 en. Ps. 101.1.5.

124  Augustine on Memory ancient world that only increased in popularity in the Middle Ages.54 It provides the advantage of simultaneous interplay between memory as content and the act of ruminating on that content. On the other hand, Augustine had rejected stomach imagery nearly as soon as he suggested it, years before.55 What has changed in the intervening time has been the whole Christ. Different from Confessions, Augustine’s use of digestive imagery not only privileges the communal but warns against the individual. “Each one of you must try to recall what he or she has heard. Chew over the choicest parts and share them with one another; ruminate on what you have received, and do not let it slip away into the bowels of oblivion.”56 One of Augustine’s verb choices for this action makes it even more graphic: one belches (ructate) the word’s sweetness to others.57 His congregants’ sharing with one another is the mode of staving off forgetfulness. All of the members of the congregation have been given something to eat, but the individual action of chewing is not ultimately for the purpose of individual digestion, as the digestive process is correlated to forgetting. Rather, taking a cue from Proverbs 21:20, “A desirable treasure lingers in the wise person’s mouth, but the foolish gulps it down,” Augustine says that the word they have received (i.e., Christ) is to repose in their mouths as a desirable treasure.58 The digestive imagery is still imagery of memory, but remembering is undertaken together, outside of individual propensity to oblivion. Augustine does not distinguish between what later theology would call the presences of Christ—​Christ in the Word, for instance, or Christ in his body. Rather, these are collapsed into one whole Christ in the action of communal remembering. So when John the evangelist eats at the Lord’s table, reclines on the Lord’s breast, and drinks divine secrets, John’s work is not done until he belches forth “the abundant memory of Christ’s sweetness.”59 54 Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 55 Augustine describes memory as a stomach (quasi venter) in conf. 10.14.21 as one of the spatial images for memory. As I argued in ­chapter 1, however, he questions the value of this image later in the same book. See c­ hapter 1, “Making the Truth: A Failed Ascent of Memory (10.1.1–​10.27.38).” 56 en. Ps. 103.4.19. 57 en. Ps. 103.4.19, Invicem ructate saginam vestram. The adverb invicem indicates the mutuality of the exercise. Augustine elsewhere connects sagina—​derived from the verb saginare (to fatten)—​with preaching. For instance, see O praedicare! O saginam Dominici pectoris eructuare! (sermo. 119.2). 58 en. Ps. 103.4.19. Augustine describes this as showing oneself to God in order that God might reveal Godself in return. This further is an instance of the Father’s work in the mutual speaking of Christ and his members. “He has told you about himself. How did he himself speak to you? Through his Word. What Word? Christ. He uttered himself, and to you. By sending Christ he spoke himself.” en. Ps. 103.4.18. 59 en. Ps. 144.9.

The Work of Remembering  125 John belches, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.” John’s writing of his Gospel, signified here by his opening line, is possible only because he eats (remembers) properly. God’s “abiding mindfulness” of human beings means that the memorial action of eating is never in service of the self prone to forgetting. Rather, Augustine preaches, one eats in order to belch; one receives in order to give.60 Christ is true bread, one loaf, the word, milk, and wine.61 Within Christ, remembering is both receiving that nourishment and sharing it at the same time. Augustine uses drinking imagery, as well as eating: “If you want to belch forth grace, drink grace.”62 Or, speaking of “wine that cheers the human heart” (Ps 103), he becomes playful with his congregants: “Let no one expect to get drunk—​or, rather, let everyone get drunk!”63 Of course, he is quick to clarify. Drunk persons, he explains, at least appear to be happy until they become quarrelsome: “I wish they would just be happy, and not brawl.” But in seriousness, the truly drunken exhibit only a certain veneer of happiness. By contrast, one who becomes inebriated on the “intoxicating chalice” of the Lord is not literally drunk but is happy in truth. God’s intoxication loosens the grip of human brokenness in favor of a “holy love for justice.”64 For Augustine, Christ is bread; Christ is wine. When members of the whole Christ either eat bread or drink wine in this way (not only in the Eucharist but in the Word and the poor), they share this richness with one another.65 They recall Idithun’s thirst for those in need.66 They stave off forgetting, keeping festival with the abiding traces of the same Christ who renewed them at the time of their first confession. This maps precisely onto Augustine’s most famous sermon on the Eucharist, in which he urges those in front him, infantes who are just about to receive their first Eucharist, to remember their own identity in terms of bread and wine.67 They can recall their own movement out of themselves and into Christ: ground into flour together at their exorcism, mixed as dough with the water of baptism, and baked by the fire of the Holy Spirit. The result of remembering their own journey in terms of 60 en. Ps. 144.9. 61 Examples include en. Ps. 101.1.5 (bread); sermo. 130A.7 and 272 (bread); en. Ps. 102.10 (loaf); en. Ps. 130.14 (milk); sermo. 272 (wine). 62 en. Ps. 144.10. 63 en. Ps. 103.3.13. 64 en. Ps. 103.3.13. 65 See Kevin G. Grove, “Rhetoric and Reality: Augustine and Pope Francis on Preaching Christ and the Poor,” Theological Studies 80 no. 3 (2019): 530–​553. 66 See c­ hapter 3, “Running Thirstily: The Horizontal Aspect of Leaping.” 67 sermo. 272.

126  Augustine on Memory Eucharistic bread is that their individual identity is transformed and given back to them in Christ. In famous words, Augustine tells his congregants that the mystery of their very selves has been placed on the Lord’s table; what they receive in receiving him in the Eucharist is simultaneously the mystery of themselves:68 “Be what you can see, receive what you are.”69 The mystery of memory is the mystery of identity together. In remembering as Christ, together they become Christ. The same is true of wine. Many grapes hang in a bunch, but the juice of the grapes is poured together into a vessel.70 The individual finds a place in the whole. And though the process of being pressed into wine—​an image Augustine frequently uses to describe persecution or even martyrdom—​ might be painful, the wine also gives expression to identity together in Christ.71 At this point, we can draw some conclusions about what I have termed remembering backward, or from the present re-​presenting the past. This vantage on memory in the whole Christ has confirmed an earlier conclusion and added two more. First, remembering in Christ involves a subversion of the self. This memorial action comes to be called “confession.” In Augustine’s sermons, the act of confession, inspired by grace (prima cogitatio), moves the individual beyond the sins, strictures, and desires of the self and into Christ. This confirms the trajectory we established individually in Confessions (­chapter 1) and corporately in the exercises of Idithun the leaper (­chapter 3). Yet movement beyond the self is but a first step, unable to produce a stable identity. That begins to emerge in the memorial activity of the totus Christus. Christian life together, the life of those moved to confess it, is characterized by keeping festival with abiding traces (reliquiae cogitationis). In that action together, the grace of confession continues to participate in Christ’s grace in the present. Whether reading Paul’s letters or merely the carrying of one another intellectually or physically, the festival of abiding traces is the ongoing work of remembering that characterizes Christian existence. Augustine’s semantic field for festivals of abiding traces reaches its zenith in the Christological imagery of bread and wine. The members of the body of Christ remember by feasting, never letting the reality of Christ repose in 68 sermo. 272. 69 sermo. 272. 70 sermo. 272. 71 On the importance of the figure of the winepress and its development in Augustine’s preaching, see en. Ps. 8, 55.3, 83, 85.5.

The Work of Remembering  127 forgetting, actively digesting and ruminating together. Augustine’s language is graphic. One belches both the sweetness of the fat of the bread that is eaten and the grace of the wine that is drunk. Ultimately, his use of bread and wine imagery will correlate to identity. In eating and belching Christ together, they are producing Christ together. When this logic is extended, the mystery of the self is unfolded anew. Together the members eat, drink, belch, and even take on the holy inebriation of John producing the gospel word. The self reemerges from the whole. Remembering Christ together, for Augustine, means becoming Christ together.

Remembering Forward: An Eschatology of Hope and Mourning The whole Christ remembers its future. This grammatical construction would be absurd if the content of that future memory and the act of remembering it were not within the whole Christ. Outside of Christ there can be no memory of the future because the content of that future is yet indeterminate. This is not the case, however, with and in Christ. The head of the body has gone before it. Christ has ascended from earth and is drawing along his members to that final fullness that is expressed by the word “heaven.” Time-​ bound humans can have a memory of such a fullness because it has been revealed to them by their head. It is a memory of their own future, one that humans have now in hope but will have one day in reality. This memory of the future is a unique function of the whole Christ and reshapes earthly remembering. The two examples I treat next emerge not only from Augustine’s understanding of memory but also form major topics for the rest of his works. The first is remembering Jerusalem, the heavenly city in which the Christian journey culminates. In Augustine’s sermons, time-​bound humans are citizens of Jerusalem yet not residing there, so they do not have a memory, as such, of the place. The psalms nevertheless urge the whole Christ to “remember Jerusalem.” The second example is remembering the Sabbath, which is remembering rest that has been promised but has not been attained. True Sabbath rest is also a future memory that is recalled. The whole Christ’s remembering the future is an extraordinary accomplishment—​even more striking, in some ways, than Idithun’s enjoyment of God in ­chapter 3. But at the same time, remembering the future not yet realized, even one promised in Christ, has an equally painful aspect. The

128  Augustine on Memory body of Christ who sings of the heavenly Jerusalem is still on alien soil; the body that remembers the rest God has ordained as the telos of creation is nonetheless in a state of unrest. And so, in a move complementary to Michael McCarthy’s description of the Augustinian self as in a state of alienation, groaning, and longing, I will argue that Augustine here treats eschatology in the same manner.72 The body of Christ, which waits in hope, pines for the realization of that hope—​the in spe . . . in re grammatical construction that Augustine uses throughout his preaching.73 Augustine develops a word for that disposition which I will also draw out in the treatment of both Jerusalem and the Sabbath: “mourning.” The whole Christ does indeed remember its future in hope, but its humility in not yet having attained such a future results in eschatological mourning which characterizes the work of remembering in Christ.

Jerusalem’s Songs: Remembering as Singing Augustine’s two-​city model gives us an example of how the spiritual medicine of remembering a future not yet attained or experienced might work. He takes up the two-​city model in his exposition of Psalm 136 because the text opens with that image: “Above the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept, as we remembered Zion.”74 The community of Israel in exile has ceased to sing the songs of their native land on alien soil. In Augustine’s theology, Babylon and Zion (Jerusalem) represent two cities that are physically intermingled on earth but distinct as to their ends. Babylon’s ambition is earthly peace; Jerusalem’s goal is eternal peace. Men and women on earth are both members of the city of Jerusalem and also captive in, or waiting to be freed from, the city of Babylon. In this way the structure of the Jerusalem-​and-​Babylon relationship parallels the structure of the whole Christ on earthly pilgrimage.75 Christ the head has ascended and is in heaven. His members still on earth, 72 Michael C. McCarthy, “The Psalms of Ascent as Word of God in Augustine’s ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos,’ ” Augustinian Studies 41, no. 1 (2010): 113. 73 See c­ hapter 2, n83. 74 en. Ps. 136.1. 75 The Donatist Tyconius, who presumably had some influence on Augustine’s early understanding of Christ as whole Christ, also advocated a two-​city (mixed) model. For Tyconius’s descriptions, see “The Lord’s Bipartite Body” and “The Particular and the General” in Tyconius. Liber Regularum: The Book of Rules, trans. William Babcock (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), 14–​21, 54–​89. Bright provides the context: Pamela Bright, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988).

The Work of Remembering  129 connected to their head, have some share in heaven. Nevertheless, they remain on earth. Augustine does not condemn Babylon; he explains it, rather, as limitedly earthly pursuit. All those involved in earthly pursuits are involved in Babylon. For instance, one who is very keen on farming will take care “to work at it, to grow rich on it, to give his whole mind to it and to gain pleasure from it.”76 He might be a fine farmer, just as another might be an equally good soldier, eloquent speaker, or sailor. But, Augustine contends, all of these are rivers of Babylon because their ends of money, power, and prestige are ephemeral. As temporal realities, they flow away from the person who is pursuing them. These necessary human strivings and desires can even overwhelm and “snatch people, drag them along, and push them into the sea.”77 But those who work for temporal peace and stability in the city of Babylon will not be forgotten by God, who understands their temporal status, for they have been predestined as members of Jerusalem. On them, then, “lies the duty to encourage their fellow citizens as best they can and to strive along with them to gain that city, for their fellow citizens are also fellow pilgrims.”78 True to what we have seen in Augustine’s articulation of shared identity and existence in the whole Christ, he describes the pilgrimage to Jerusalem as one taken together. Augustine first takes care to explain what precisely he and his congregants are remembering when they consider Jerusalem. The eschatological memory of the heavenly Jerusalem is a memory not of a shined-​up earthly city but of a life of isolation overcome, a life together in Christ. This includes being at peace with and in Christ—​free of temptation, sin, and enemies. Augustine probes further: From where does the memory of Jerusalem come? In a word, Christ: Let your ardent sighs be for the eternal Jerusalem. Your hope has gone ahead of you and your life follows, for there we shall be with Christ. Christ is our head even now, for he guides us from on high, but then he will take us into his embrace in that city, and we shall be equal to the angels of God. We would not have dreamed of such a destiny for ourselves had not the truth



76 en. Ps. 136.3. 77 en. Ps. 136.4. 78 en. Ps. 136.2.

130  Augustine on Memory promised it. Long for it, then, brothers and sisters. Think about it night and day.79

The content of the memory of Jerusalem is beyond our invention, for “we would not have dreamed of such a destiny for ourselves.” In other words, humans on their own would not have an a priori memory of the Jerusalem for which they are destined. Rather, truth (Christ) promises Jerusalem, which is another way of saying that Christ promises union with himself. In this way, remembering Jerusalem is remembering union with Christ, by which “he guides us from on high” and “will take us into his embrace in that city.” Thus, if one considers the heavenly Jerusalem as the content of a memory, one cannot describe a city with buildings, pavements, and organized infrastructure. In fact, remembering Jerusalem means remembering that “your hope has gone ahead of you,” and by remembering that hope—​namely, Christ—​we remember that we are following in it with the rest of the body. The content of the memory of Jerusalem is the future condition of the full union of the whole Christ. The whole Christ remembers its future in Jerusalem by singing. Singing and salvation, as Carol Harrison has explored, are linked throughout Augustine’s preaching.80 Here we can reveal that link as memory. The language of Psalm 136 gives Augustine a privileged way of speaking about the process of remembering because its lament concerns the act of Israel’s singing. The people weep by the rivers of Babylon, having hung up their harps, succumbing to silence as aliens unable to sing the songs of their Lord in a foreign land. This is particularly troublesome when enemies demand to hear some of Jerusalem’s songs and they feel unable to sing them or even, as Augustine explains, have them understood.81 Augustine thinks that singing should be natural for his congregation because the heavenly song, “the song of Jerusalem,” is “our own language.”82 He continues: the “song that tells of love for this world is a foreign tongue, a barbaric language we have picked up in our captivity.”83 Augustine explains that when the psalmist says, “May

79 en. Ps. 136.22. 80 See Carol Harrison, The Art of Listening in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 81 en. Ps. 136.10–​12. 82 en. Ps. 136.17. It is interesting that Augustine’s reference is to a single song of Jerusalem and thus not the psalms or psalter as a whole. The subject here is not the psalms, but rather singing about Christ, wherein singing opens one to spiritual progress. 83 en. Ps. 136.17.

The Work of Remembering  131 my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you,” the point of speaking or of singing at all is to be singing one of Jerusalem’s songs.84 Singing is remembering in Christ; forgetting these songs—​as in Idithun’s falling silent—​brings about a silence equivalent to turning from Christ. Augustine exhorts his hearers, “Let our harps not fall silent, brothers and sisters; let them play constantly as you sing to each other the songs of Zion.”85 Singing the psalmist’s words to each other is the privileged way of remembering Jerusalem. Singing about Jerusalem unites them with Christ; they sing to each other in order to remember and thus practice the language for which they are most truly suited. Both the content of the memory of Jerusalem (namely, that their collective hope has gone before them) and the singing to remember it simultaneously remind the praying congregants that they are not in Jerusalem. Thus there is a certain paradox to the memory of future fulfillment in the whole Christ. Though its end is “supreme joy” (summa iucunditas) in Christ the head, in the interim there is pain in not having that joy in its fullness.86 Across his sermons Augustine gives expression to this pained longing through “groaning” and “restlessness,” both of which carry the weight of lament.87 He finds the imagery of mourning and weeping in Psalm 136 itself: “This is what must draw forth your tears: your memory of Zion.”88 He then goes on to preach, “Who flung us into our present plight? Why did we abandon him who founded you and forsake the fellowship within you? Look upon this, as all things swirl and slide around us. Scarcely one of us will escape from the river except by laying hold of the wood.”89 These lines are filled with Christological allusion. In speaking of sin—​turning from God on account of distractions—​Augustine speaks in the voice of the body, to the body, about its head. “Why did we abandon him who founded you” is a preached way of stating that captivity in Babylon and exile from Jerusalem has come by turning from their very being in Christ. Those who turn from Christ forsake the “fellowship within” them. In turning from who they are in Christ, they become separated from each other. Thus the disposition of mourning, weeping, and crying at the rivers of Babylon is an acknowledgment that in sinning against God they have turned 84 en. Ps. 136.17. 85 en. Ps. 136.22. 86 en. Ps. 136.17. 87 The lament continues to be an important form even up to Augustine’s death. I will treat that relationship in c­ hapter 8. 88 en. Ps. 136.4. 89 en. Ps. 136.4, emphasis added.

132  Augustine on Memory away from their own being and their neighbors.90 They have turned toward the individual isolation characteristic of Babylon. Their weeping is a sign of their humility, and when plunged into a river the only way to be saved is by “laying hold of the wood,” an image that points to the salvific mediation of Christ wrought by means of the cross.91 The reference to the cross draws together two important threads of our study. Augustine’s development of the whole Christ largely tracked his rhetorical insights into the way the union of human and divine is revealed through union of voice (­chapter 2). As Christ spoke in human words, so humans speak in Christ’s (Ps. 21:1). And the ongoing speech of Christ is evidenced by Jesus’s questioning Saul on the road to Damascus about his members in the region around Jerusalem. Whereas these instances advance Augustine’s understanding of the formation of the whole Christ past and present, singing forms a privileged way of considering the future. The voices of the congregants of Augustine’s churches—​accustomed to singing in liturgy—​ join together physically in time and in space. And Augustine’s expression for the anthropological mediation of time is most frequently speech or song (see ­chapter 1). Now we see that the remembrance of what is yet to come is most properly recalled also in song. The theology works at three levels simultaneously: the people are united physically in musical expression; they sing the psalms as their own language, that is, Christ’s language; and they renew their trust that, by the action of their remembering, Christ is renewing them as his body on pilgrimage from hope to reality. Ultimately, remembering Jerusalem is a great amount of work, accomplished by the unitive act of singing. By remembering Jerusalem through singing, Christ’s body grows more aware of the fellowship within it. This fellowship remembered both in songs of joy and songs of tears forms the language of hope emergent from mourning—​that Christ is further uniting what the pride, pleasure, and power of temporal life in Babylon are ever dividing. At each turn, Augustine consistently describes the memory of the city of Jerusalem, or the end of life in Christ, as one experienced together. He preaches, “Supreme joy is found where we delight in God, where free from all anxiety, we live in united fellowship with our brothers and sisters and our true 90 In sociological literature, this is an example of a history or narrative of mourning. See Paul Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning: History, Memory, and the Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17. 91 en. Ps. 136.4. Even those who sit above the river are to sit humbly, as those who have drawn forth from themselves confession and repentance for their sins.

The Work of Remembering  133 companions in that city.”92 For Augustine, delight in God, or fulfillment in the body of Christ, is a union of fellowship with one’s sisters and brothers that, as the psalmist says, extends to “all the ends of the earth.”93 He underscores this theology in his mode of address to his congregants: “O people of God, O body of Christ, O noble caravan of pilgrims.”94 In unceasing song, the whole Christ remembers in the present its future home in Jerusalem.

Sabbath Rest: Remembering as Breathing Augustine does not believe the state of humble weeping or mourning to be a bad thing. As he reminds his congregants, the Lord considers mourners to be blessed (Mt 5:5).95 The same is true of his presentation of restlessness, which runs throughout the Augustinian corpus but appears in detail in his sermons. This is well-​illustrated for our purposes by his exposition of Psalm 37, a psalm of lament. As we have already established, Augustine took the titles of psalms seriously as gateways or doorways upon which are written the keys to understanding the rest of the text.96 At the entrance to Psalm 37 we find “A psalm for David himself, for a remembrance of the Sabbath.”97 Like Jerusalem, the Sabbath—​which Augustine understands as rest—​provides an example of remembering something one does not have and will not have fully until the end of time. Similar to the paradox of remembering Jerusalem, remembering the Sabbath is an experience both of remembering rest in Christ and of experiencing the restless suffering that accompanies not fully being configured to that rest. Concerning the content of the eschatological memory of the Sabbath, Augustine is quick to dismiss the idea that the psalm could be talking about remembering the Sabbath day: “Why should it be so ‘remembered’? Since the Jews observed the Sabbath as they did, why should something 92 en. Ps. 136.17, 93 This is a favorite verse of Augustine’s, which he draws from Psalm 21, that “all of the ends of the earth will be reminded” and turn to the Lord (en. Ps. 21.2.29–​32). 94 en. Ps. 136.12. A further study of designations of the people of God in Augustine’s writings is found in Joseph Ratzinger, Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre Von Der Kirche (St. Ottilioen: EOS-​Verlag, 1992). 95 en. Ps. 37.2. 96 This was the case for Idithun (see ­chapter 3). 97 These titles to various psalms are actually the first verses. They are normally typeset as titles in modern texts and excluded from reading and recitation, though they technically remain the first verses. Psalm 37 is one example. “Of the Sabbath” was included in Augustine’s text as well as Jerome’s Vulgate.

134  Augustine on Memory that inevitably recurred every seven days need to be ‘remembered’?”98 Augustine distinguishes observing (observandum) from remembering (recordandum).99 The former is the experience of the Sabbath day as it occurs each week. Remembering, however, is done when a thing is both present in one way and absent in another. Here Augustine explores different sorts of absent things: “In this city of ours, for instance, you remember Carthage, where you were some time or other; today you remember yesterday, or some day last year; or you remember some earlier year, or something you did some time ago, or where you were, or some event in which you played a part.”100 Remembering the Sabbath, however, is not like any of these other acts of remembering because the “Sabbath is rest” and true rest is found only in God.101 This rest is unknowable by humans on their own, but it can be remembered in Christ. Since humans do not know rest in God, the whole Christ begins to remember the Sabbath from the position of groaning and lament, indicators of restlessness (inquietudo). Thus his preaching on this psalm follows Augustine’s regular pattern of an admission of the need for healing followed by Christological healing.102 Augustine challenges his hearers to see that the speaker of the psalm, though mourning, is not miserable but blessed. Their job together—​preacher and congregation—​is to recognize the unknown mourner. Of course, for Augustine, he and his congregation are the unknown speaker. The purpose of his sermon is to convince his listeners of three things: that the psalmist’s voice is their own voice, that this shared voice is also their shared identity in Christ, and that as Christ it is indeed possible to remember the Sabbath. The memory of the Sabbath, which comes from the scent of Christ, not only produces awareness of one’s own sinfulness, but it also increases human longing. The psalmist laments, “My bruises have rotted and festered.”103 98 en. Ps. 37.2. 99 en. Ps. 37.2. 100 en. Ps. 37.2. 101 en. Ps. 37.2. 102 The speaker says, “There is no soundness in my flesh.” The groaning over and remembering of the Sabbath is that of a psalmist who is in need of healing from Christ. Augustine comments, “There is no peace in my bones in the face of my sins. . . . If we deny that these words in our psalm are the words of Christ, we should have to deny it also of that other cry, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The tale of my sins leaves me far from salvation’ ” (Ps 21:2). Noting the continuity between this psalm (“face of my sins”) and Psalm 21 (“tale of my sins”), Augustine walks his congregation through the process of realizing that though Christ was sinless, the voice of the body speaks as one with its head. This is for the purpose of healing the body. en. Ps. 37.5. 103 en. Ps. 37.9.

The Work of Remembering  135 Augustine, speaking on sin, explains, “You only need a healthy sense of smell in spiritual matters to be aware how sins fester.”104 With this prompt, he describes the memory of the Sabbath in olfactory language, an important form of sensory description not only for him but also for preaching throughout the Mediterranean region in antiquity.105 The opposite of the reek of sin is the fragrance of Christ. But in his letter, Paul identifies the believing community as the fragrance of Christ, and Augustine delivers this wholesale to his congregation: “We are the fragrance of Christ offered to God in every place, for those who are on the way to salvation” (2 Cor 2:15). These lines would sound incredibly triumphal in Hippo, where Augustine is preaching, had he not just described the congregation as somehow still suffering under the stench of sin. The community does not have salvation fully now, but the scent is always inviting them.106 Their remembering increases their longing. In identifying his congregation with the eschatological “fragrance of Christ,” which both awaits as well as solicits them, Augustine mentions the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit he and his congregants have a memory of the Sabbath, the scent of Christ, which they themselves not only smell but also are becoming. This mention of the Holy Spirit, which Augustine does not develop in the sermon, evidences a link between Augustine’s whole Christ and the Trinity, which I will take up in detail in c­ hapter 7. For now it is sufficient to claim that, though Augustine’s congregation is becoming the scent of Christ, there is an acknowledgment, even if undeveloped here, of the Holy Spirit in the present care of the head for the members. Thus, Augustine’s Christological scheme is not independent from but simply assumes the relevant pneumatology. With the content of the memory established, Augustine works through what the action of remembering the Sabbath might mean for those in the body of Christ. One breathes memory. In fact, those who turn from the stink of their own sin and remember the Sabbath in Christ are able to breathe more easily than before.107 Using a new sensory verb, Augustine continues a theological pattern we have seen for the work of remembering in eating, drinking, singing, and belching. The bad smell of sin in this life causes confession; 104 On Augustine and spiritual sensation, see c­ hapter 3, n11; en. Ps. 37.9. 105 Augustine is sensitive to the olfactory, including on occasion even the smell of his congregation (en. Ps. 78.33). On the importance of olfaction and knowing: Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (London: University of California Press, 2006). 106 en. Ps. 37.9. This is presumably Hippo since Augustine mentions he is not in Carthage. 107 en. Ps. 37.9.

136  Augustine on Memory confession with sighs unites to Christ; and breathing in Christ—​which is breathing Sabbath rest—​is actually breathing more easily.108 Augustine says of the sinner, “Let him remember the Sabbath, and by remembering deserve to attain it.”109 The Sabbath of the Jews was the sign of the reality of rest in God.110 Christ, through the Spirit, has revealed whiffs of the reality of rest to Augustine and his congregation.111 They learn to desire it when the words of scripture fall on their hearts as arrows directed to their targets and cause them to remember the Sabbath.112 Augustine proposes here a constant remembering of the Sabbath—​an ongoing response to the fragrance of Christ which he and his congregation are learning to “breathe a little more freely.”113 To make this point, Augustine describes remembering the Sabbath in the broadest possible terms: There is another kind of prayer that never ceases, an interior prayer that is desire. Whatever else you may be engaged upon, if you are all the while desiring that Sabbath, you never cease to pray. If you do not want to interrupt your prayer, let your desire be uninterrupted. Your continuous desire is your continuous voice. You will only fall silent if you stop loving. . . . The chilling of charity is the silence of the heart; the blazing of charity is the heart’s clamor. If your charity abides all the time, you are crying out all the time; if you are crying out all the time, you are desiring all the time; and if you are desiring, you are remembering rest.114

Augustine brings a vast number of concepts together in a short span of preaching. At the very root of this part of the sermon is the correlation of 108 en. Ps. 37.9. 109 en. Ps. 37.10. 110 Following Boulding, I point out that Augustine’s criticism of Jewish Sabbath observation is grounded in the Pentateuch itself. Exodus 20:8–​11 and Deuteronomy 5:12–​15 indicate that the Sabbath is for recalling God’s rest after creation and liberation from captivity in Egypt, respectively. Augustine preaches that Jewish observation of the Sabbath had shifted away from this stated intention (en. Ps. 91.2). Also, it seems important to note at this juncture that Augustine’s figuration of Jews in the en. Ps. has relatively little, if anything, to do with Jewish people in his community, but rather is a way of describing those who did not recognize Christ for who he was and who thus provide lessons about recognizing Christ in his body. Jason Byassee has offered constructive suggestions for how modern scholars might understand Jews and Judaism in the en. Ps. Jason Byassee, Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007), 149–​193; Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New York: Doubleday, 2008). 111 en. Ps. 37.12. 112 en. Ps. 37.5. 113 en. Ps. 37.9. 114 en. Ps. 37.14.

The Work of Remembering  137 remembering with prayer. Specifically, remembering the Sabbath is a form of prayer that is possible at every point of life, articulated by the image of breath. This would not be the case if the memory of rest were the memory of ceasing to be active on a particular day of the week. One can see in this distinction how remembering is not an occasional exercise (a restful nap) but the abiding character of existence (breathing) in Christ. Augustine presents a series of equivocations: abiding charity is crying out; crying out is desiring; desiring is remembering rest. Loving, groaning, and desiring are not merely parts of but rather the same as remembering the rest of the Sabbath. By remembering, they might deserve to attain it; by “longing for Christ,” Augustine explains at the end of his sermon, “we are made new.”115 When Augustine closes his exposition of Psalm 37, he does so with an exhortation.116 As Jason Byassee points out, the fundamental disposition of prayer in Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms is that of doxology, whether praise is expressed as lament, thanksgiving, or another form of address.117 Though Augustine speaks very poetically about what will be—​praise forever, no pain of iniquity, no perversion of sin, and the city where God is our good, light, life, and bread—​he ends his discourse on that for which we long in remembering: In him will be that quiet that we remember now, though the memory cannot but cause us pain; for we remember that Sabbath, and about its memory so much has been said, and we must still say so many things, and never cease to speak of it, though with our heart, not our lips; because our lips fall silent only that we may cry the more from our heart.118

Augustine’s concluding formulation is instructive. The memory of the Sabbath, as we saw, is not of the Sabbath day each week but “that Sabbath” which is “in him” (in illo).119 The remembering of the Sabbath is described ultimately as the one ongoing activity of desire in Christ that continues even beyond the limits of words and speech so as to be characterized by the very act of breathing. For humans who know the limits of time and sin, the work 115 en. Ps. 37.27. Isabelle Bochet describes it in this manner: “The movement of love of the human person toward God is in effect that person’s source in God.” Isabelle Bochet, Saint Augustin et le désir de Dieu (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1982), 397. 116 en. Ps. 37.28. 117 Byassee, Praise Seeking Understanding, 201. 118 en. Ps. 37.28. 119 en. Ps. 37.28.

138  Augustine on Memory of praising, loving, desiring, and hoping, inasmuch as these things happen in Christ, is an active remembering of the Sabbath that, while longed for, has not been fully experienced. It is a memory of the future, knowable in Christ only by whiffs of the Spirit of the head in the noses of the members of the body, that reorders the present. This puts into full perspective Augustine’s earlier writing on Jerusalem: “May you say with one mind, one single mind formed out of many in the peace of Christ, and may Jerusalem itself, captive here on earth, say it: ‘If I ever forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget me.’ ”120 The content of these future memories, whether Jerusalem or the Sabbath, is the fullness of God in Christ Jesus. The work of remembering, in singing or even in breathing, is not the occasional recourse to God but a relation of ongoing healing at the level of existence itself.

Collective Memory or Christic Memory? Augustine often receives at least a passing reference in the ever-​increasing realm of scholarship, mostly in the social sciences, that posits collective memory. First developed by Maurice Halbwachs, these lines of investigation treat how remembering communities evolve ethics around rituals, sites, identities, and topographies. This scholarship, advanced especially by Halbwachs, Pierre Nora, Paul Connerton, and Danièle Hervieu-​Léger, has noticed two important matters: first, the existence of communal or collective memories, and second, the religious or quasi-​religious roots of the process of remembrance and commemoration—​even in secular collectives.121 The work of remembering in Augustine’s preaching offers tantalizing connections to these theories and interdisciplinary possibilities but needs to be distinguished from this sociological scholarship in one important way: Augustine’s presentation of remembering, with Christ as its object, is transacted only in Christ, and not as a place (lieu) but as a person. If this could be called a “collective memory” (and I do not think there can be a transference of the

120 en. Ps. 136.15. 121 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Paul Connerton, How Modernity Forgets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning; Danièle Hervieu-​Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory, trans. Simon Lee (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000); Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. L. A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, trans. Lawrence Kritzman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).

The Work of Remembering  139 term), one could study it only by articulating who Christ is as well as the relation of the collective to him. For that reason, it seems more prudent to see if Augustine’s categories on their own might be informative. Especially concerning eschatology, generally, this seems promising.122 In this regard, if memory in the whole Christ is to have a label, it might properly be called Christic rather than collective. Such a distinction has advantages not only in Augustinian studies but beyond, one of which presents itself now. For Augustine, the term “memory” includes both the content remembered and the act of remembering it; recall how prima cogitatio and reliquiae cogitationis reveal both of these. Often enough, thinkers who have studied memory after Augustine have analyzed the topic either from one aspect or the other.123 One could easily make the argument that the early Augustine explored in ­chapter 1 is so enamored with the act or power of memory that he might have been overly focused on the mind’s movement. But by the time Augustine understands the whole Christ and preaches on the psalms, he deals with the act and content of remembering in a unique and uniquely theological manner. Both act and content are united in Christ. This Christological cohesion of what in memory studies often is separated opens unique possibilities for Augustine to speak of time and identity, as we have seen in this chapter. Christic memory, as Augustine preaches it, is not limited to content about Christ, nor is it limited to the action—​liturgical, ethical, or other form of exercise—​of remembering Christ. Rather, Christic memory is about becoming Christ, reforming existence itself.

122 I have in mind here in sociology the work of Connerton, The Spirit of Mourning, and in political theology the work of J. B. Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, trans. J. M. Ashley (New York: Crossroad, 2007). 123 For example, among those who prioritize the act of memory, Heidegger argues that in the process of searching (act), Augustine does not remember God as an object (content). For Heidegger, the true character of searching, or what is ready to hand while searching, is Augustine’s achievement. Poststructuralist and postmodern readings of Augustine on memory further tend to concentrate nearly entirely on the act of remembering. These include Edith Wyschogrod, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-​François Lyotard. In contrast, the ars memoriae scholarship tradition has focused on the content of memory—​and its arrangement—​within the mind. This body of scholarship has as its leaders Frances Yates and Mary Carruthers. Martin Heidegger, “Augustine and Neo-​Platonism,” in The Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-​Ferencei (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 139–​141; Edith Wyschogrod, An Ethics of Remembering: History, Heterology, and the Nameless Others (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 185–​217; Jacques Derrida, “Circumfession,” in Jacques Derrida, trans. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 3–​315; Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1992), 46–​49; Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 18–​152; Mary The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–​1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 7–​59.

140  Augustine on Memory

Conclusion: The Work of Remembering This chapter has advanced the thesis that the work of remembering reveals a shift from thinking about remembering as occasional exercise to remembering as a defining character of Christian existence. This is a major advance in memory’s role. Remembering within the whole Christ, building upon the example of Idithun the leaper, unseats the individual self whose fickle and malleable memory finds it difficult even to focus and pray. From the self, recollection in Christ involves a first encounter with Christ that prompts confession, the memorial act of joining oneself to Christ by describing who one is after ceasing to be the sinner one was. The act of confession, opening onto praise itself, however, is sustained only by the work of remembering together, what Augustine describes as keeping festival with the abiding traces of memory. The members of the whole Christ remember together by eating and drinking, belching and sharing the richness of Christ with each other. In so remembering together, they become what they receive. The mystery of the self is disclosed by the Christic memory of the whole. What starts as an exercise yields identity and existence. The whole Christ’s memory further proves to be able to remember the future. In Christ, singing the songs of Jerusalem beckons those still in Babylon, while remembering-​as-​breathing Sabbath rest inspires what is good among the members in the present. In both of these instances, the promise of memory is the source of great hope, but the pain of its not yet being fulfilled is the work of mourning and groaning. Thus the eschatological reach of memory is not only made possible in Christ but is made simultaneously into a painful memory of how that body is still on the way to the place where its head has already gone. It is from such a straining on the way that Augustine can make the correlative case that forgetting has an essential role in Christian existence.

5 The Work of Forgetting “You have forgotten Christ,” Augustine chides his congregants. “Christ is asleep in you.”1 His phrasing is derived from the gospel account of Christ falling asleep in a boat while his disciples struggle in the midst of a storm (Mt 8:23–​27). Augustine’s use of this imagery suggests that forgetting Christ might be harder than one imagines. Recall that in his early reflections in Confessions, Augustine distinguished between things completely blotted out from the mind, which therefore cannot be recalled, and things that have been forgotten in part but can be recalled by searching.2 If remembering in Christ is the language for Christian existence itself (­chapter 4), it is improbable that Christ could be forgotten in such a way as not to be recalled. Indeed, within the language of memory, Christ—​the source and sustainer of being—​abides in the human person and in the whole Christ.3 Augustine’s suggestion that Christ still sleeps in those who have forgotten Christ means that their existence is not somehow apart from Christ on account of their forgetfulness. This chapter thus moves beyond forgetting Christ to the matter of forgetting “in” Christ. Forgetting here takes on a positive connotation and, as we will see, becomes a labor or work. As a necessary complement to remembering in Christ, forgetting is intended to help sever pilgrims—​such as Lot’s wife or the people wandering in the wilderness of Exodus—​from those aspects of their own histories that would keep them from their end in Christ. The paradigm for forgetting in Christ, for Augustine, emerges in the figure of Paul, whose letter to the Philippians, used in Idithun’s leap of forgetting, shows the forgetting person also to be striving toward Christ. Forgetting in Christ, backward and forward, complements the backward-​and-​forward structure of remembering in Christ. The distended and extended postures of Paul advance the concept of a productive, even psychagogical forgetting. Lastly, this chapter, through the characters of Ephraim and Manasseh, poses

1 sermo. 63.2. 2 conf. 10.19.28; see c­ hapter 1, “Confessions 10: The Spectacular Failure of Memory.” 3 Augustine gives a concise account of this abiding in en. Ps. 86.3.

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0006

142  Augustine on Memory the question of to what extent the whole Christ is able to exercise this type of forgetting. It should be said at the outset, however, that Augustine’s concern for forgetting, like his concern for remembering, is largely anthropomorphic. For instance, alleging that God has forgotten—​as the psalms verbalize—​does not, for Augustine, indicate that God either remembers or forgets as humans do.4 Rather, as Augustine says repeatedly when those phrases emerge in scripture, that sort of language tells us more about ourselves than it does about the nature of God.5 With that caveat, we turn first to the need to forget, and then to the work of forgetting.

Memory’s Need to Forget Remembering wrongly can mean getting stuck (remansit) in the past.6 For Augustine, a looking-​backward that is not also a movement forward in Christ is the thing most inimical to future hope.7 I introduce this broken remembering with two examples: Lot’s wife on the road out of Sodom and the chosen people during the Exodus pining for the delicacies of Egypt. The first illustrates the point individually, the second communally.

Lot’s Wife: Stuck in the Self In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus admonishes his disciples to “remember Lot’s wife” (17:31). Augustine seizes on this text to present Lot’s wife as the paradigm of being stuck in the past, by which he means being stuck in the self. In the Genesis text, Lot’s wife is journeying with her husband and family, having been delivered by the Lord’s angels from Sodom and thus escaping God’s wrath. The angel’s only command is not to look back while leaving the plains of their now former home. Disobeying the command of the angel, however, Lot’s wife—​unnamed in the text, rendering her a sort of every-​person for 4 Augustine’s position in this regard corresponds with other ancient exegetes and is still largely held in Hebrew Bible exegesis concerning memory of God (labeled in scholarship mneme theou). See William Horbury, “The Remembrance of God in the ‘Psalms of Solomon,’” in Memory in the Bible and Antiquity, ed. C. Studenbruck, S. Barton, and B. Wold (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 121–​128. 5 en. Ps. 102.21, 118.15.1, 134.21. 6 en. Ps. 69.9. 7 sermo. 105.7.

The Work of Forgetting  143 Augustine—​looks back upon the city of their former life and is turned into a pillar of salt (19:26). She remains there on the road, facing all that she has left behind. In consonance with what we observed with Idithun, Lot’s wife images for Augustine how, by means of memory, one can get “stuck” in the self. Lot, in the translation of Hebrew names that Augustine had been given, means “turning away.”8 Though at various points in his life, Lot’s turning is away from the Lord, in this particular instance Lot effects his name properly. He turns from his former life and livelihood to trust the Lord on the unknown journey ahead. His wife, Augustine preaches, is delivered by God to be on the same journey: placed “on the road” (in via) with others in a position to strive.9 Yet she does not. Lot’s wife images not one who is appropriately grateful for past deliverance (i.e., the festivals of reliquiae cogitationis) but rather one who pines in such a way that she is trapped, becoming herself the salty tears of regret for an old life. Augustine employs Lot’s wife across his sermons, often in conjunction with Philippians 3:13–​14, so that his congregation might learn from her example.10 Her exemplary nature accounts for why scripture would recount such a sad tale, Augustine suggests. Salt, tragic for her, could still be seasoning for his congregation. In their forward striving, they will have been salted by her example, becoming flavorful and full of life. If they decide to look back, they will not have profited from her salt, instead becoming tasteless and insipid. The horror of the past figuratively seasons the present. Augustine urges his congregants to learn from Lot’s wife and strain forward on the way, forgetting what lies behind them. The example of Lot’s wife raises the issue of recollecting one’s own sins in such a way as to become stuck in them—​gawking at what is repulsive. We have already explored how it is that a certain memory of deliverance is important in order not to forget the mercy of Christ. Indeed, Augustine preaches to the members of the whole Christ, “We have been freed from the Sodom of our past lives.”11 To underscore how revolting it is to become stuck in memory of one’s past sins, Augustine borrows a graphic image from 2 Peter 2:22, comparing the one who incessantly looks back at past sin with the dog 8 en. Ps. 82.8. See the earlier discussion of Augustine’s use of Hebrew names in ­chapter 3, “Leaping Psalmist, Leaping Christ.” 9 en. Ps. 69.9. 10 sermo. 96.10, 105.7; en. Ps. 36.3.14, 69.9, 75.16, 83.3–​4. 11 en. Ps. 83.3.

144  Augustine on Memory who vomits, only to return to the vomit when it feels better. Augustine poses the question to his congregants: Why do they go back to their own vomit?12 Though Augustine’s imagery is deliberately vulgar, it concretizes his thought about sin and the self. Concerning forgetting, he preaches that the only thing within the human self that is fully of the self alone is sin.13 This in no way supports derivative Augustinianisms which arrive at depraved humanity, for as we have shown throughout this text, most of what comprises a self for Augustine is that which is shared—​its created goodness, belonging to the whole Christ, etc. Nevertheless, sin does wholly belong to the self in that it is self-​made. Even more problematic, sin is not the truth of the individual self but a false form of it. And so, to return in memory, to look back constantly to one’s sin, is to return to a falsehood that traps, isolates, and renders a self “stuck” in its own morass. In this system, it is not absurd for Augustine to preach that such looking back is not peering again into the truth of one’s existence, but looking at something as noncontinuous with the human person as its prior vomit.14 True to form, in the whole Christ those who look back as Lot’s wife did and become stuck in their own sin are the responsibility of Augustine and his congregation. Rather than letting anyone in their midst get trapped in himself or herself, Augustine writes, “We take the same line today with any of our brethren whom we may happen to notice weakening in their good resolve. ‘Do you want to be like him?’ we ask, reminding them of those who have looked back.”15 The whole community thus is responsible for individual memories, in order that together they might support those around them from being reduced to and stuck in gawking delectation over their own past sins.

The Exodus: Stuck in the Memory of Egypt Lot’s wife provides an individual example of becoming stuck in a memory of sin. The Exodus, however, narrates the story of an entire community. When Augustine preaches about Egypt, he generally describes allegorically the 12 en. Ps. 83.3. 13 sermo. 306.B.2. 14 Augustine works with parallel logic in his early treatment of memory in considering why crowds might seek to look upon a mangled corpse. conf. 10.25.55. 15 en. Ps. 75.16.

The Work of Forgetting  145 difficulties of earthly life. Desire, darkness, temptation, and sin characterize not only the captivity of the Israelites but life in a fallen world.16 The Exodus, the journey provided by God out of captivity into freedom, establishes a pattern example for how the people might together remember that they were once freed by God (prima cogitatio) and continue to walk in God’s light (reliquiae cogitationis).17 Of course, the memory of Egypt provides also the possibility for the temptation to return to a former captivity. Even though the Israelites have been delivered from Egypt and have physically left that place, they grow weary on their journey in the desert. Augustine cites Acts 7:39 to describe how in their hearts the people freely journeying through the desert desire to return to Egypt.18 Not having what Augustine calls the “delicacies” (deliciae) they remember being promised, they choose instead to look back, pining for the fleshpots of their former home. They murmur against God. The nuanced part of Augustine’s example is that it shows the difficulty of remembering forward. In this instance, remembering the promise of a future homeland in hope while not having the reality of it becomes a burden in the present. In the previous chapter, we saw how this act of remembering forward can rightly be classified as mourning. The example of the Exodus is subtle, showing how remembering forward is indeed an act of mourning that might actually tempt in the opposite direction: back to the strictures and even captivities of the past. This example of looking back and getting stuck is different from the story of Lot’s wife in two ways. First, even though they physically have begun to move out of their past, those in the Exodus still confront the difficulty of remembering—​mourning—​the promises of the Lord in hope while they remain not fully realized. The interior of the heart is presented with a temptation to turn back to the darkness of sin. Even such an interior turning or looking back is enough to trap them again in Egypt, allegorically indicative of being enslaved, stuck, and making no progress toward the end. Additionally, the subject is now communal. As God’s chosen, the people of Israel function as a whole. In his sermons, Augustine cites such diverse examples as remembering the works of the Lord in praise or forgetting God such that they fashion a golden calf. Since the whole Christ, for Augustine, is inclusive of all time and space, Israel’s journey is also the whole Christ’s in the present.



16 en. Ps. 77 provides an extended example of one of Augustine’s allegorical treatments of Egypt. 17 en. Ps. 104, 105, 113. 18 en. Ps. 69.9.

146  Augustine on Memory Even the whole Christ, in its body, can turn away from the redemption it has been promised by its head. Whether neglecting the poor, indulging in the temptations of the world, or harboring impatience at the slowness of their journey, the temptation to go back is antithetical to life in Christ. Both Lot’s wife’s turning back to Sodom and the community’s turning in its heart back to the captivity of Egypt give evidence of how memories of sin entrap individuals and communities. Unlike Idithun, who keeps leaping in order to maintain his identity as a leaper, Lot’s wife and the people of the Exodus cease to move along the way, becoming instead figures of stasis and isolation. These examples show individuals and indeed a whole community locked in a false paradigm of their own selfhood. At least in the case of Lot’s wife, this inability to forget is deadly. Thus, forgetting is emerging as necessary for keeping Christian existence pointed toward its goal and not allowing slipping backward into repetition of former cycles of sin. In order to account for these contrasting aspects of remembering and forgetting, Augustine needs a paradigm that will be simultaneously remembering of God’s works while actively “forgetting” that which isolates, renders static, and tends toward death.

The Pauline Paradigm of Forgetting (Philippians 3:13–​14) The apostle Paul becomes Augustine’s model for how forgetting is appropriately part of the work of memory. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul describes himself as one having been claimed by Christ yet still striving for perfection unattained (3:12). He explains, “One thing only I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining to what lies ahead, I bend my whole effort to follow after the prize of God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”19 These verses were important for patristic exegesis generally, including notably, in Augustine’s time, for Marius Victorinus and Jerome.20 Augustine’s own interpretation of the text emerges from his fundamental concerns about memory and time. Out of Paul, he reads the distended and extended nature of the life of one belonging to Christ. These two verses of Philippians become a regular, topical marker in his preaching, just as we saw with Psalm 21:1 and Acts 9:4 (­chapter 2).21 The image of Paul is of the athlete, a runner straining to finish 19 en. Ps. 38.6. 20 See c­ hapter 3, n63. 21 For instance, en. Ps. 38.6, 38.8, 38.14, 39.3, 66.10, 69.8, 72.5, 83.4, 118.2.2, 130.14, 149.8; sermo. 91.6, 96.10, 105.7, 215.1, 255.6, 260.C.7, 261.3, 280.4, 284.4, 306.B.2, 341.21. An early instance can

The Work of Forgetting  147 the race and reach the prize. The striving forward has an object (Christ) which has not yet been attained. At the same time, Paul’s work is simultaneously that of forgetting what is left behind. This continues to open onto the thesis that not only a particular way of remembering in Christ but also a particular way of forgetting in Christ comprises the “work” of Christian existence. In terms of the grammar of memory, Paul provides Augustine with a positive complement to the difficulty of distentio, which we saw first in Confessions 11 (­chapter 1) and revisited in Idithun’s leap of forgetting (­chapter 3). Distentio is Augustine’s preferred word from early in his career for describing the human person in time: the present is slipping into the past as quickly as one can attempt to expect the future. In Augustine’s pattern example, embeddedness in time is as incoherent as speaking the word memoria, in which the first syllable has already become past as soon as the mouth, in speaking the second syllable, anticipates the third and fourth.22 Memory is the center of this thought world because, since Augustine’s earliest writings, memory is that anthropological mediator that can at least try to hold together a coherent picture of the present by carving out along with it past memories and future expectations. This formulation of the word distentio is truly Augustinian. As Gerard O’Daly points out in his history of the term, in non-​Christian authors the word was largely confined to medical treatises describing physical spasms.23 And in Christian contexts, it was only sometimes used to translate the perispasmos of Ecclesiastes 3:10, for a “great burden,” “distention,” or “affliction.”24 Paul’s athleticism is the key to forgetting as work. Ongoing forgetting allows the apostle to extend—​in ea quae ante sunt extentus—​forward into Christ from his own temporal embeddedness. This distentio-​extentio pairing emerges from Augustine’s preaching on Philippians 3:13–​14, revealing the work of forgetting in Christ to involve both verbs simultaneously. Augustine treats the two together at length in sermon 255, explaining that one thing “extends” the human person—​namely, Christ. All other things “distend” the human person. These many distractions—​ distentions—​ stretch the be found to describe Augustine’s conversation with his mother before her imminent death at conf. 9.10.23. 22 See c­ hapter 3 and en. Ps. 76.8. 23 Gerard J. P. O’Daly, “Time as distentio and St. Augustine’s Exegesis of Philippians 3,12–​14,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 23, nos. 3–​4 (1977): 266. 24 Jerome ultimately preferred afflictio. O’Daly, “Time as distentio,” 266.

148  Augustine on Memory individual out sideways. By contrast, extension, as Paul models it, stretches a person out longways.25 The lateral is diffusive unto death; the elongating is focusing into life. The work of forgetting diminishes horizontal diffusion and enables forward stretching. In order to develop more fully the work of forgetting, we turn now to explore both the forgetting-​backward of distention and the forgetting-​forward as extension, as well as how the two serve the whole Christ in pilgrimage.

Forgetting Backward: Distention Initiates into Augustine’s church received the creed, the “symbol of the most sacred mystery” of faith, and then affirmed it by their own profession. This rich liturgical action, commemorated by Augustine in sermon 215, models the focused forgetting of distention. In order to speak the mystery of the triune God they are professing, those hearers present in the assembly need to be like Paul in Philippians 3:13–​14, to “forget the past, reject as worthless the staleness of the old life.”26 Paul’s forgetting images the twofold movement within Christian initiation practices, a rejection of evil and sin as well as the affirmation of life and belief. The same bimodal reality will then be practiced in baptism, when the catechumen enters into both the death and the resurrection of Jesus, drowned in a watery grave as well as cleansed in the waters of life. Christian initiation establishes an important contextual point concerning forgetting. The work of forgetting is not mental abstraction. Rather, it is undertaken in bodily liturgical action from professing a creed, to entering a font, to preaching a sermon. It would undermine the richness of Augustine’s project not to appreciate how forgetting in Christ is bodily action shared in communion, not simply the straining of an individual mind. At this point, it comes as no surprise that the distentions which forgetting treats are those that constrain either the self or the whole Christ. Augustine’s semantic field for what needs to be forgotten includes pits of misery, slimy mud, carnal lusts, empty pleasure, the darkness of iniquity, and the knotty problems of human concern.27 These form a useful list of past things that might constrain and entrap. What we have not yet seen is precisely in what sense Augustine means they should be forgotten. Indeed, forgetting them in

25 sermo. 255.6.

26 sermo. 215.1.

27 en. Ps. 39.3, 69.8, 130.14.

The Work of Forgetting  149 such a way as to make them irretrievable could jeopardize the individual’s or community’s ability to keep festival with the abiding traces of their having been delivered (see c­ hapter 4). He explains this by glossing Philippians 3:13–​ 14 with animal imagery: the eagle and the asp, both animals who appear in the psalter and whose behavior illustrates what forgetting in Christ means. In his exposition of Psalm 66, Augustine repeats a popular understanding of eagles dating back to both Greek and Latin antiquity. The thinking was that as eagles aged, the upper part of the beak (hooked) could continue to grow to such a degree that it would no longer allow the bird to eat. An aged eagle then would peck at a rock in order to grind down the excess of its beak, allowing it to eat once more and thus return to strength. Augustine seizes on this image to explain what he means by forgetting in Christ, for he and his congregants must “dash our old self against the rock of Christ.”28 Thus they will be able to eat once more; their youthful strength will be renewed. This is an important image for forgetting. In one sense, in order to protect its existence, the eagle breaks off parts of its own beak in what becomes a productive self-​sacrifice—​just as in forgetting, memories are lost for the purpose of preserving one’s life as a Christian. However, inasmuch as the eagle still has a beak, it retains evidential reflection of what it has forgotten, but not in a way that hinders its health in the present. Of course, the way this sort of forgetting can take place is “against the rock of Christ.” Such a location makes the self-​destruction of beak-​grinding/​forgetting the beginning of new health by returning to food. Augustine admits that he is uncertain whether this is real ornithological observation or if he is merely recounting popular myth regarding eagle behavior. But in his preaching, he simply states this does not matter.29 The example is to illustrate a theological point about forgetting in the context of Christ. The eagle is able to accomplish what the asp cannot. The asp, Augustine preaches, doing its very best to resist the Marsian snake charmer’s melodious luring, would use its tail to stop up its one ear while holding its other ear against the ground.30 On the one hand, this is willed deafness in order that the asp not be lured from its lair, for the Marsians were vaunted snake charmers, having descended from Marsus, son of Circe. In Augustine’s figurative exegesis the asp images an individual who is thoroughly rooted in the past (ear



28 en. Ps. 66.10.

29 en. Ps. 57.7–​10, 66.10. 30 en. Ps. 57.7–​10, 66.10.

150  Augustine on Memory plugged by the tail of what is behind) and the present (the other ear pressed to the ground). The asp serves as a negative counterexample to the eagle, willfully deaf to the future because it finds that future threatening. Further, the asp is stuck in place, probably to its own peril, having occupied its tail and its ear in self-​imposed deafness. Augustine and his congregants need not be so constrained. Forgetting, in this imagery, is an opening of the ears such that they are not willfully filled only with the past and the present. Forgetting is the condition of opening the self to hear, not the voice of a snake charmer, but the voice of Christ. Paul, in forgetting what is lying behind, makes sure that he does not stop himself from hearing Christ by means of his own past. Yet he does not forget what lies behind in order to be satisfied by the present. No, his work of forgetting, Augustine preaches, is the freedom to hear the medicine of the wise man, walk into the light, and leave the darkness behind.31 Forgetting distention as the act of crushing one’s own beak against the rock of Christ or pulling one’s own tail out of one’s ear in order to hear Christ—​ these are not fanciful examples but carefully wrought imagery for how memory language helps to make sense of Christian existence. We can demonstrate the importance of these examples by showing how they contrast with a contemporary interpretation of Augustine on forgetting. In his wide-​ranging work The End of Memory, Miroslav Volf suggests that Augustine believes humans will have no memory of wrongs suffered in heaven, basing this on the final pages of City of God, where Augustine suggestively writes that when God is all in all there will be no memory of faults or punishments.32 By taking that stand-​alone phrase from Augustine, Volf provides an excellent example of the consequences of uncoupling forgetting from Christ. Augustine holds, rather, that just as Christ’s resurrected body bears the wounds of his passion, humans will have knowledge of sin and evil that have transpired on earth, but will no longer have sensory experience of them. Just after the line Volf cites, Augustine says that those in the heavenly city cannot forget their liberation, lest they cease to be grateful to their liberator.33 Memory remains; shame is forgotten. An eagle still has its beak, yet after breaking parts of it off, it is able to feast. The memory of past sin and the peace of the heavenly Jerusalem coexist coherently because they are in Christ. City of God replicates the logic of the whole Christ concerning eschatological forgetting: in Christ one forgets 31 en. Ps. 57.10. 32 Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2006), 133; civ. Dei 22.30. 33 civ. Dei 22.30.

The Work of Forgetting  151 the shame of sin but remembers as grace the forgiveness of the sin, and therein the fact of the sin.

Forgetting Forward: Extension The purpose of Augustine’s paradigm of Pauline forgetting is extension into, and thus intensified existence in, Christ. Forgetting and extension are simultaneous actions. As one forgets, one extends forward in desire, not in delight over what has been attained.34 This one movement, for Augustine, is most accurately captured by the image of stretching—​longways, not sideways. Augustine borrows this image in part from the second phrase of Philippians 3:13–​14: “I bend my whole effort to follow after the heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” He uses verbs for stretching and straining in order to illustrate how forgetting in Christ is not simply the wiping clean of a slate into stasis but a movement forward, which nevertheless remains difficult because the end has only in part been attained.35 He also explains forgetting as extension in terms of musical instrumentation: a drum and psaltery, the latter of which was a ten-​stringed instrument used to praise God.36 I will treat the psaltery, with the correlative lyre, at more length in ­chapter 6. Here, however, we can note that stretching is the movement required to make both psaltery and drum. In the case of the drum, an animal skin is stretched tight over a frame, becoming more taut as it dries. In the case of the psaltery, the gut of an animal is stretched between two pegs attached to a sounding board. In each image, it is not that Paul is creating a drum or psaltery; it is rather that Paul is being made into a drum and a psaltery, stretched and extended to such a point that he can be plucked by Christ. The resulting music is a sweet, true sound, a new song, harmonized with the “choir” of the whole Christ, which accounts for the musical harmony of the created order.37 Forgetting is the key to Paul’s being stretched. Stretched on the wood (an allegorical allusion to the cross), the apostle has the concupiscence of his former life dried out of him. In the act of stretching, Paul forgets what lies behind. His old life evaporates as he stretches forward—​whether becoming the surface of the drum or the string of the psaltery. Augustine preaches,

34 en. Ps. 39.3.

35 en. Ps. 39.3; sermo. 91.6, 280.4, 341.21. 36 en. Ps. 149.3.

37 en. Ps. 149.7–​8.

152  Augustine on Memory “He stretched forward, Christ touched him, and the sweet sound of truth rang out.”38 This image shows how the work of forgetting is part and parcel of extension forward into Christ. The string or the drum surface dries and stretches at the same time; Paul forgets and extends forward simultaneously. The making of the new song of the Lord is an Augustinian image of freedom. When Christ plucks Paul, the song that rings out is all-​ encompassing: Paul’s whole being resonates in relation to the song of creation. That Christic tonality, Augustine explains, includes giving bread to the hungry, clothing the naked, and welcoming the traveler.39 The song of praise fits within the harmony of the whole, and if a single aspect is off-​key, then the whole is diminished in light of it.40 To produce a pure sound, stretching involves leaving behind a great number of ways of interacting with God and the world: addressing God in order to suppress an enemy, making merry over someone else’s misfortunes, or in some other manner trying to manipulate the divine. These are people stuck in themselves, and their God is but a replica of their entrapped selves.41 Those who forget and stretch, however, give thanks for what they have been given: the forgiveness of sins, the illumination of faith, the strength of hope, and the fire of charity. The one who forgets and extends is one who seeks only the prize of Christ (Phil 3:14) or the crown of righteousness (2 Tm 4:8).

Slipping Back: Pilgrimage in Christ We can now recall that Idithun the leaping psalmist, trope for the whole Christ, undertakes a leap of forgetting—​letting go of aspects of his old self in Adam and stretching forward out of his own interests into the need to care for the poor around him (see c­ hapter 3). Augustine introduces Idithun’s leap of forgetting into Christ by using Philippians 3:13–​14. Of concern to us here is how Idithun has to continue to forget. As we saw, Augustine preaches that Idithun is in danger of “slipping back” (relabamur) to where he has already been. If he is to continue to be a leaper, he has to guard against such a slipping-​back, precisely by forgetting. Complacency concerning his past can keep Idithun from a future in Christ.42

38 en. Ps. 149.8. 39 en. Ps. 149.8. 40 en. Ps. 149.8. 41 en. Ps. 39.4. 42 en. Ps. 38.6.

The Work of Forgetting  153 The concern over “slipping back” illustrated by Idithun is a general aspect of Augustine’s understanding of forgetting. It serves as a very practical way to describe the ordinariness of ceasing to forget. For instance, Augustine considers individuals who have chosen to leave behind their secular ambitions and worldly contacts to join a religious community, defined here by the common sharing of life and property, and with one heart and mind directed to God (Acts 2:42–​45).43 Joining such a group requires forgetting and stretching. One who decides to abandon a community like this is not doing the same thing as one who never joins it in the first place. The former has slipped back, ceasing to forget his or her secular ambitions, property, and individual life. Another example is the man who has given up fornication and unlawful lust in order to maintain conjugal fidelity. If the man returns to infidelity, he has slipped back and ceased to forget.44 In another instance, we find that it is no problem whatsoever for a young man or woman to marry. But a monk or nun who departs monastic life in order to marry has slipped back, ceased to forget what lies behind. What emerges for our purposes is that ongoing forgetting is in proportion to each one’s station and ability (quomodo quisque potest).45 The temptation to look or slip backward is omnipresent, antithetical to identity into Christ, and affirms the need for the continuous work of forgetting in order to exist together in Christ. Augustine’s understanding of Paul’s notion of forgetting is critical to his articulation of Christian existence. Paul’s ongoing forgetting allows him to walk in the way of the Lord even while in the flesh. As Augustine points out, citing the letter to the Romans, Paul continues to fail to do the good he wants or to restrain himself from the evil he does not wish to do (Rom 7:15–​17).46 Augustine’s understanding of forgetting does not efface temptations but allows for the whole Christ not to be haunted by past temptations. Describing again Paul’s modeling this aspect of the spiritual journey, Augustine explains that although we pilgrimage through the wilderness sighing for a spiritual homeland, enemies from the past have been conquered by our baptism.47 Forgetting in Christ allows the pilgrim body of Christ to deal with what is on the road right beside and in front of it. “Walking in Christ through the desert



43 en. Ps. 83.4; also 55.19, 64.4, 75.16. 44 en. Ps. 83.4. 45 en. Ps. 83.4.

46 en. Ps. 118.2.2. 47 en. Ps. 72.5.

154  Augustine on Memory of this life,” as Paul does, and as Idithun leaps, requires this constant sort of forgetting.48

Can the Whole Christ Forget? Much of the language of forgetting, even when either Paul or Idithun figuratively represents the whole, is correlated to individuals, on account of sin most frequently belonging to individuals. But Augustine, though less frequently, does think it possible that the whole Christ collectively might forget. The logic builds on what we have explored through Paul, though here Augustine turns back to the psalms. In his exposition of Psalm 59, he treats the verse “Gilead is mine. Manasseh is mine. And the strength of my head is Ephraim.”49 The verse allows Augustine to draw together a number of concepts because Gilead is translated as a “heap of witnesses” (aceruus testimonii), Manasseh as “forgetful” (oblitus), and Ephraim as “fruitful” (fructificatio).50 These names are commonly correlated to memory in allegorical exegesis, evidenced also in Philo of Alexandria.51 They prompt Augustine to consider together the body of Christ, forgetting, and the fruitfulness of Christ’s headship of the body. For Augustine, the heap of witnesses (Gilead) continues to be built up in the times that members of the body of Christ are persecuted. In this particular example, Augustine also uses the language of the earliest church in order to describe the body of Christ as scorned. Augustine explains, “At that period the church was a contemptible object in the eyes of the public. It was flung as a reproach at the widowed church that she belonged to Christ, that she wore the sign of the cross on her forehead; for the cross was not then an honorable sign, but a disgrace.”52 Bridal imagery for the church is common in Augustine’s preaching, but here he inverts the imagery: the church is pictured as a scorned widow, having lost her spouse.53 The heap of witnesses (Gilead) 48 en. Ps. 72.5, 86.3. 49 en. Ps. 59.9. 50 en. Ps. 59.9. 51 Philo of Alexandria allegorizes Jacob as the wise seeker of virtue, choosing the more desirable mneme (Ephraim) over anamnesis (Manasseh), thus distinguishing between more and less desirable dispositions of mindfulness (anamnesis involves having forgotten). Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis, trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Loeb Classical Library 226 (London: William Heinemann, 1929), 361–​365. 52 en. Ps. 59.9. 53 The bridal imagery of Ephesians 5:30–​32 is common in Augustine’s preaching, especially in discussions of the whole Christ.

The Work of Forgetting  155 affects a transformation not of the painful history of the early church but of the memory of it. In other words, the fact of ancient persecution, scorn, and even death remains, but the way it is remembered changes. The vehicle of that change is charity. The heap of witnesses spreads abroad the charity of Christ in the public eye.54 The result is that the fruitfulness (Ephraim) of Christ the head brings about great change in the members. Preaching on the image of a seed that dies and rises again, Augustine explains that the seed “looks like some poor, despicable thing, but concealed within it lies the power to change other matter into itself and to produce a harvest.”55 Augustine sets up a parallel to the head transfiguring the members into the body. In the crucifixion, Christ the seed falls to the earth to rise again with “the power to draw all things after him.”56 The great heap of witnesses (Gilead) is likewise drawn into Christ the head. The members, particularly the martyrs, have become the fruitfulness (Ephraim) of Christ exemplified for all to see. The result is that the body of Christ forgets (Manasseh). Because the heap of martyrs has yielded fruitfulness through Christ the head, the church “forgets” (Manasseh) her former confusion and the stigma of her widowed state. When Christ speaks in his body, “Manasseh is mine,” the claim is precisely “forgetting is mine.” What can seem dangerous, as Augustine explains, makes sense in terms of Isaiah saying to the church, “You will forget your confusion forever, and no longer be mindful of the stigma of your widowhood” (54:4). Augustine describes confusion as the reality of the church in an earlier age—​but she has now forgotten it. When the heap of witnesses (Gilead) was nascent, it was shameful to be a Christian, but “no one remembers now the confusion of those days when to be a follower of Christ was ignominious.”57 Augustine continues, “No one recalls that now. Everyone has forgotten, for now,” as Christ says in the church, “Manasseh is mine.”58 This is a striking passage about the memory of the members of Christ. Their forgetfulness of their own shared history—​particularly that of shame and dishonor—​is treated as a matter of simple fact. Augustine in no way laments the stigmatization of the early church during times of persecution. Rather, forgetting is concerned with Christian existence in the present. At

54 en. Ps. 59.9. 55 en. Ps. 59.9. 56 en. Ps. 59.9. 57 en. Ps. 59.9. 58 en. Ps. 59.9.

156  Augustine on Memory this juncture, evaluating Augustine’s telling of history would miss or obscure the point of his explicitly theological purpose in the sermon. The point is simple: the whole Christ must forget even parts of its own shared past that lie behind in order to extend forward together, by means of love, to become themselves the fruitfulness of Christ the head.

Conclusion: The Work of Forgetting This chapter has provided the complement to the argument (in c­ hapter 4) that the work of remembering is the work of Christian existence for Augustine. In the work of remembering, looking back unseated the self, connected it to the whole Christ through confession, and carried on solemn festivals of abiding traces. In singing the songs of Jerusalem and breathing Sabbath rest, that memory could even remember a future in hope which it did not yet know in reality. The work of remembering seemed at many points to be oriented to staving off forgetting. In that sense forgetting—​the effacement of traces or the simple elimination of reliquiae cogitationis—​would be antithetical to the ongoing life of the whole Christ. What we have seen in this chapter is that there is a positive action of forgetting that correlatively comprises existence in the whole Christ. It begins from a problematic remembering that privileges the unredeemed needs, wants, and desires of the self. Lot’s wife from Genesis 19:21, remembered by Jesus in Luke 17:31, provides an individual example of one who physically cannot wrest herself away from her past life and sins. Instead of journeying down the road together with her family, she remains stuck in place as a pillar of salt. Likewise, the people of Israel on pilgrimage through the desert return to Egypt in their hearts, pining for the fleshpots of captivity rather than plucking up the desire to move forward in their freedom. Both of these examples, individual and communal, allow Augustine to show that some memories trap the human self and the journeying community. They do not free, but bind. The apostle Paul gives Augustine a paradigm for how a certain sort of active forgetting might appropriately characterize Christian existence. Forgetting what lies behind and striving ahead toward Christ (Phil 3:13–​14), Paul shows that forgetting, like remembering, is a bidirectional activity. Forgetting what lies behind is specifically a forgetting into Christ, like the eagle dashing its own beak on the rock of Christ in order to be able to eat again. The purpose

The Work of Forgetting  157 of this sort of forgetting is not the effacing of the past but deeper union with Christ. The distention of ordinary human existence in time tends to spread one’s focus and interests horizontally, an act of diffusion. The forgetting of Paul, and subsequently the whole Christ, provides focus, imaged as elongation, to the pilgrimage through life. Forgetting enables forward movement, or in Pauline terms, extension. It is only because Paul forgets that he is able to be stretched, as if a string on a psaltery or skin covering a drum, and plucked by Christ to sound anew within the harmony of both the body of Christ and the whole created order. Forgetting, along with remembering, becomes the ongoing and active work of Christian existence. Regardless of station attained in life—​ repentant sinner, married, monk, or various other persons in Augustine’s congregation—​the temptation to return, or even turn back, to what lies behind is precisely that: temptation to be avoided. Forgetting is the ongoing work of enabling the whole Christ, with respect to individual vocation and station, to continue on pilgrimage together. And so, in a way that allows it to replicate this same forgetting and extension, it is possible for the whole Christ to forget. In the instance of Ephraim and Manasseh, this forgetting amounts to not being held back by former shame—​a frequent enough condition of the ecclesial body. This is not for the purpose of self-​preservation or institutional control. Rather, inasmuch as the whole Christ is on pilgrimage, it too is in a state of active letting go of anything that might, in dissipating self-​service, hinder its following Christ the head. Hope of healing in Christ is built simultaneously from the work of remembering and the work of forgetting. One forms a constant remembering of Christ and the other a constant letting go of distention. Both are necessary and shared with others. They hold out promise that within the whole Christ the pushes and pulls of temporal embeddedness might actually be brought into constructive relief. Expressed in terms of festivals of abiding traces at the same time as forgetting what lies behind, Augustine is not simply thinking in contradictions. Rather, life in the whole Christ expressed through the work of remembering and forgetting makes sense of a whole range of Augustinian concerns. These binaries—​seeming oppositions of Christ above and below, praising and groaning, laboring and resting—​can now become expressions of reality being redeemed in Christ. In them the work of memory, to which we now turn, reaches its earthly plenitude.

6 The Work of Memory The Life of Grace

In c­ hapter 1, memory first emerged as an important anthropological issue for Augustine in his early writings because of its unifying function for the human person. His difficulty at that point was that memory failed to unite and sustain a sense of self in a coherent way. Augustine experienced distention—​ pulled by opposing binaries of time and eternity, body and soul. Even his remembering was frustrated by the opposite experience of forgetting. In part 2 we have seen memory develop into an important Christological issue in Augustine’s preaching, as he wrestled with memory’s expression of how the whole Christ brings healing to its members. Both the work of remembering and the work of forgetting became the unceasing labor of Christian existence. Though binary opposites, remembering and forgetting function together and productively as the work of memory. Holding the work of remembering and the work of forgetting together as the single, binary work of memory is important. It allows us to see how Christ the salvific mediator reshapes memory as anthropological mediator. For in Christ these oppositions need not be distention inducing as they were before, but Christ can be discovered in both aspects of what was distention. Augustine applies this insight from remembering and forgetting to other human distentions he has experienced. The result of his doing the work of memory is that, in Christ, these distentions also become potential sites of a graced life. At times he employs memory language; at others he invokes various figures or logic from remembering or forgetting in order to exercise the work of memory as participation in Christ. The work of memory is at the heart of Christian existence, and Augustine’s employing it to parse other binaries underscores the claim. After describing this binary method, I will treat four binaries in the course of this chapter, each of which emerged in some way as a source of struggle for Augustine in ­chapter 1. The first, lyre and psaltery, is a binary in which one’s life is configured to Christ from both above and below. The second, labor Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0007

The Work of Memory  159 and rest, voices Augustine’s lifelong concern of the restless heart and remembering rest in God. The third, solitude and communion, allows for revisiting a binary important to this study since Augustine contemplated flight into solitude at the end of Confessions 10. The fourth, praising and groaning, also emerged at the end of Confessions 10 and characterizes one of Augustine’s abiding concerns throughout his entire corpus.

Binary Method Remembering and forgetting, though opposites, nevertheless become both necessary and constant actions of life within the whole Christ for Augustine. The acts of remembering—​confession, keeping festival with abiding traces, and the shared digestion of eating the bread of scripture or drinking grace—​privilege the movement from self into community. Hardly the recourse simply to an inner, individual space, remembering, whether leaping, babbling, or serving the poor, is the action of together being the whole Christ. The same dynamic defines forgetting in an opposite yet complementary manner. As Paul forgets what lies behind, the eagle pecks off parts of its own beak in order to eat again, or the body of Christ forgets its former shame, the ongoing action of forgetting focuses and extends both the self and the whole Christ in and toward its end in Christ the head. Like remembering, the action of forgetting also privileges movement from being stuck in the self to journeying together on the way to completion in Christ. Binaries, I argue, become a way for Augustine to explore the life of grace in Christ in concrete and applicable ways for his congregation. Choosing this method of exploring binaries is also a deliberate effort to avoid what I consider a misstep in the most strident critiques of Augustine’s whole Christ.1 These critiques force Augustine either to collapse or to separate binaries definitively. Douglas Farrow, for example, provides two such objections to the whole Christ. The first is that the totus Christus is a “turbo-​charged construction” at risk of running away with itself because after the ascension what

1 I note here, but do not engage, Martin Wisse’s critique that the totus Christus is “pan-​ Christological.” His critique is ultimately targeted at “participation” as it occurs in current, English-​ language, Trinitarian theology, especially Radical Orthodoxy. He does not address the concept as Augustine exercised it. Martin Wisse, Trinitarian Theology beyond Participation: Augustine’s “De Trinitate” and Contemporary Theology (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), 114–​148.

160  Augustine on Memory “belongs to Jesus” passes “more or less directly to the church.”2 Thus, in perhaps the central binary of divine and human, Augustine would have collapsed Christ’s divinity and the human aspects of the church. This means that Christ’s triumph as savior and that of the church as earthly institution could be identified as one and the same.3 Given ecclesial history, even in Augustine’s time, such a collapse would indeed be horrible. Farrow, however, has transposed the terms. For Augustine, divinity belongs to Christ, and humanity also belongs to Christ. The two are not collapsed into one after the ascension but are considered in an ongoing relationship as head and members of the same Christ. Farrow in effect transposes the categories of Christ as head and Christ as body—​two distinct realities inseparable within a “whole” Christ for Augustine—​to a necessarily separated Jesus-​ascended and church-​as-​ institution. But remembering and forgetting in the whole Christ, which certainly preserve the brokenness and need for healing of individual members and of the whole body, provide contrary evidence. The work of remembering and forgetting is a marker of Augustine’s sophistication in this regard. For him Idithun the leaper might fall silent as well as babble thoughtlessly (see ­chapter 3); abiding traces of grace are ever tenuous, and the festivals to keep them vibrant are constant work (see ­chapter 4); and the eagle’s aged brokenness is the impetus for its salutary forgetting (see c­ hapter 5). For Augustine, the members of Christ do not have a perfect memory of the promises of their head, but remember forward, in what we have seen is an eschatology of both hope and mourning. The work of memory shows not only the nuance but also the dynamic fruitfulness of Augustine’s constant return to the divine and human relationship within the whole Christ. In his second critique, Farrow suggests that Augustine’s treatment of the ascension is Nestorianizing, which Farrow defines as “absent in one nature but present in the other.”4 That is, Christ’s humanity is now absent from us, but we are left with his divinity. But Farrow fails to acknowledge how carefully Augustine thinks through Christ’s presence and absence in terms of his body. The body of the whole Christ experiences both presence and absence. The work of remembering and the work of forgetting are both evidence of this claim. Both remembering and forgetting in Christ are first transacted through the latter’s humanity—​ whether Idithun’s discovering the poor 2 Douglas Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 122–​123. 3 Farrow, Ascension, 123. 4 Farrow, Ascension, 123, 177.

The Work of Memory  161 as Christ’s limbs (see ­chapter 3), the work of remembering forward being enacted by mourning and weeping in Christ (see ­chapter 4), or Christ’s being “asleep” in those who forget (see c­ hapter 5). Augustine’s preaching shows how it is not only consistent but healing and transformative to parse Christ’s humanity as present as well as absent, divinity as present as well as absent. Farrow’s two critiques of the whole Christ involve two caricatures of Augustine: either the complete collapse of divinity and humanity or their complete separation.5 I maintain that these caricatures validate my binary method. Augustine’s whole Christ is human and divine together, neither collapsed nor separated. By looking at how this totus Christus actually functions—​as we have done through the central actions of remembering and forgetting—​we see that Augustine employs the mediatory relationship between Christ’s divinity and humanity neither to combine nor to separate fully. Rather, the work of memory in Christ opens up an entire way of inhabiting realities which in themselves are binary opposites. I take a point of methodological support from Tarsicius van Bavel, who describes Augustine’s approach to the very ability to speak about God as “between affirmation and negation.”6 In short, concerning what Augustine could say or not say about God, van Bavel suggests that either in a multitude of words or in a void, something presents itself.7 God, of course, is contained in neither the multitude of words nor the void because one does not grasp God. But both the multitude of words and the void can be helpful in bordering on, or “touching” (attingere), God.8 I suggest that in the many binary formulations that characterize his preaching and broader thought, Augustine is doing even more than speaking about God. Working from within Christ’s body and by means of memory, Augustine presents these binaries—​both in the psalms and in the daily experience of his congregants—​as pregnant with possibility for reconciliation by Christ.

5 Farrow, Ascension, 123. 6 Tarsicius van Bavel, “God in between Affirmation and Negation According to Augustine,” in Augustine, Presbyter Factus Sum, ed. Earl C. Muller, Joseph T. Lienhard, and Roland J. Teske (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 73. 7 Van Bavel, “God in between Affirmation and Negation,” 73. Van Bavel is drawing on a distinction from Pierre Hadot between apophaticism and aphaireticism, or the difference between negating predicates of the divine and negating sensory experience. Van Bavel, rightly it seems to me, places Augustine in the latter position. 8 Van Bavel, “God in between Affirmation and Negation,” 84. Van Bavel offers attingere as preferable to other options (e.g., apprehendere from Bochet) because “touch” is more accurate than “grasp” or “comprehend.”

162  Augustine on Memory

Lyre and Psaltery: Christology from Above and Below When Augustine exhorts his congregants to “remember” the lyre and the psaltery, he does much more than prompt mnemonics.9 He is drawing forth the work of remembering as confession (lyre) and the work of forgetting in the Pauline paradigm (psaltery). Thus, we begin with a binary—​lyre and psaltery—​that may not even appear to be one to the contemporary reader, but it did occur to Augustine and illustrates his thinking about Christ’s grace in contrastive realities. We have already encountered this binary; in Augustine’s preaching about forgetting, he images Paul as a string on a psaltery to be plucked by Christ (see c­ hapter 5). As Paul forgets what lies behind, he becomes an extended, stretched psaltery string to be plucked by Christ and ring out a sweet sound of harmony. The association of forgetting and the psaltery is hardly happenstance. Augustine’s connection of music to the work of forgetting’s distention-​extension proves productive for describing how Christ can simultaneously sound from above (psaltery) and below (lyre). The psalm texts themselves on occasion give evidence of musical setting. This does not escape Augustine’s notice. The manner in which the psalms were sung, who sang them, the instruments used, and what the act of singing might mean for salvation—​all become topics of his preaching. The psaltery and the lyre demonstrate the dexterity that Augustine employs in using these images to consider not only opposite aspects of musical tonality but also how healing occurs in Christ. Here, the varying physical structures of the two musical instruments allow Augustine to speak about other distinctions. Psalm 32 indicates that one should “confess to the Lord on the lyre” and “sing psalms to him with the ten-​stringed psaltery.”10 The terms cithara and psalterium reference types of stringed instruments. Augustine repeatedly points out the contrastive ways in which they are structured and produce sound. The psaltery has a concave, wooden sounding chamber—​a drum-​like piece, according to Augustine—​at the top. The lyre, on the other hand, has a hollow sounding chamber at the bottom. One produces sound from above and one from below.11 But while assigning fundamental structural differences to the psaltery and lyre, Augustine nevertheless maintains several qualities the two instruments have in common. Both are used to praise God; both are held in human hands and plucked in order to make sound; finally, both are good

9 en. Ps. 32.2.5.

10 en. Ps. 32.2.5. 11 en. Ps. 42.5.

The Work of Memory  163 instruments (which grounds a claim about human goodness), and one can be skilled at playing either or, ideally, both.12 At a literal level, Augustine is merely making distinctions among classifications of stringed musical instruments. Their divergent ways of making sound, however, speak metaphorically about the mysteries of salvation. Augustine interprets the above and below locations of the resonance chambers of the psaltery and the lyre as different ways of living on earth, praising, being embodied, and progressing on the spiritual journey. The differences, however, are not absolute because Augustine realizes that Christ must be understood in terms of both lyre and psaltery. First, Augustine uses the lyre and the psaltery to indicate different modes of human life. In his exposition of Psalm 32, commemorating the feast of Saint Cyprian at the basilica of the saint’s burial, Augustine recalls that lyres had once been the chosen instrument of the non-​Christian dancers and singers who had celebrated on those very grounds through the night.13 The liturgical celebration of the feast of the local martyr Cyprian had displaced wanton dancing. However, Augustine preaches that the text of the psalm—​“Confess to the Lord on the lyre and sing psalms to him with the ten-​ stringed psaltery”—​indicates that the lyre of fleshly music is still relevant.14 Confession, as we have seen, Augustine developed as the heart of the work of remembering, leading one out of the self and into the whole that keeps festival with abiding traces. Here the lyre describes the breadth of memory. Augustine spiritualizes the lyre into the praise of human life in its embodied fullness. He explains that both earthly good fortune, such as bodily health, bountiful crops, and abundance, and ill fortune, including frailty, pain, sickness, disasters, and temptations, are all melodies played here below. All the benefits of blessings, which God’s mercy bestows on the just and unjust alike, are gifts from God and reasons for singing on the lyre. Augustine asks his congregation, “Just because they are earthly, are they any less God’s gifts?”15 His congregants must equally play the lyre in their times of suffering so as to remember: “If there is no place from which he is absent, can he fail us anywhere?”16 The person with earthly want or lack also must play the lyre of praise, for though what had been given by God might have been taken away,

12 en. Ps. 42.5; sermo. 33. 13 en. Ps. 32.2.5. 14 en. Ps. 32.2.5. 15 en. Ps. 32.2.5.

16 en. Ps. 32.2.5. Augustine treats place and God’s absence in conf. 10.27.36. See c ­ hapter 1.

164  Augustine on Memory God, as Augustine says, “has not been taken from you.”17 The spiritualized lyre, then, is an instrument of the heart plucked in both sorrow and joy in gratitude for the God who is never absent. The ten-​stringed psaltery Augustine correlates to the Ten Commandments of the law.18 As the commandments came from heaven, so the psaltery corresponds to music that is played from above. Augustine instructs, “Pluck your psaltery, then, and fulfill the law, for the Lord your God came not to supersede it but to bring it to perfect fulfillment.”19 The action of plucking the psaltery of one’s heart is the action of love, first of God (commandments 1–​3) and then of neighbor (commandments 7–​10).20 Plucking the psaltery is remembering, living the double love command that Augustine understood to be central not only to scriptural interpretation but to all Christian life.21 Augustine’s juxtaposition of the lyre and the psaltery, of praise from below and above, allows a song to God to emerge from a human life that is a mixture of seeming oppositions. God gives and sustains embodied life in all of its constantly changing aspects (lyre) but also gives commandments as perfect instructions in the way of divine love (psaltery). This is not a privileging of either the lyre or the psaltery; rather, a “new song” emerges from both. The psalmist’s instruction is to sing skillfully.22 And both the remembering of earthly blessings but also the forgetting-​as-​stretching forward to divine fulfillment condition how skillful singing takes place. One need not go seeking for words in order to sing a song that is pleasing to the Lord. Rather, the lyre and the psaltery are plucked by one’s life and one’s actions. The jubilation of the heart at this point “defies speech” in the same way that one who sings while working eventually ceases to use words and simply resorts to cries of jubilation.23 This ceasing to speak but not to praise maps precisely onto the Pauline forgetting of ­chapter 5. Deliberately forgetting words, one stretches forward in silent praise to Christ. Thus, the work of forgetting in order to praise God assists in not attempting to contain 17 en. Ps. 32.2.5. 18 What Augustine references as the “psalterium” may have been the kinnôr, which was a lyre modified in form on account of either Hellenistic influence or Roman rule in Palestine. Josephus, in the first century, mentions that the kinnôr has ten strings. Augustine’s description of a ten-​ stringed instrument somehow differentiated from the lyre thus has some precedent. Bo Lawergren, “Distinctions among Canaanite, Philistine, and Israelite Lyres, and Their Global Lyrical Contexts,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 309 (1998): 57–​59. 19 en. Ps. 32.2.6. 20 en. Ps. 32.2.6; also sermo. 9. 21 en. Ps. 32.2.6; doc. Chr. 1.84–​85. 22 en. Ps. 32.2.8. 23 en. Ps. 32.2.8.

The Work of Memory  165 God. “You cannot speak of him because he transcends our speech; and if you cannot speak of him, yet may not remain silent, what else can you do but cry out in jubilation, so that your heart may tell its joy without words and the unbounded rush of gladness not be cramped by syllables?”24 In this way, one begins by singing a psalm, but the prayer that ultimately takes place in the heart encompasses and exceeds both one’s lyre and one’s psaltery. What rises out of the binary of lyre and psaltery is a deep reflection on the action of prayer, which Augustine reaches by approaching the same reality from two sides of a binary. Without the lyre, Augustine’s praise would be only of divine perfection. Without the psaltery, Augustine’s praise would be only of God in the temporal. The cry of jubilation arises from the fullness of both. In other places, when Augustine mentions the psaltery and the lyre, which he consistently explains according to their physical and musical differences, he discusses the above and below aspects of the instrumentation in terms of Christ. An example comes from Psalm 56:9, “Arise, psaltery and lyre.”25 Augustine interprets the first word as a way of considering Christ’s resurrection. The psaltery and the lyre allow him to hold together two types of actions undertaken by Christ on earth. Augustine explains: The Lord used his flesh for two kinds of operations: miracles and sufferings. The miracles came from above, the sufferings from below. The miracles he performed were divine, but he worked them through his body, he wrought them through his flesh. So when the flesh performs divine works it is a psaltery; but when the flesh suffers human pain it is a lyre.26

This exposition might be quite problematic if Augustine held the lyre and the psaltery to be irreconcilable opposites. He does not, however, and Christ, like a skilled musician, plays both. He continues, “Let the psaltery give forth its melody: let the blind see the light of day, the deaf hear, the paralytics feel their muscles toned up, the lame walk, the sick spring from their beds, the dead arise. All this is the sound of the psaltery.”27 But the lyre is not silent in Christ while the psaltery pours forth melodies. In the music of the lyre, “Let Christ hunger, thirst, sleep, and be arrested, scourged, mocked, crucified, and buried.”28 Importantly for Augustine, both the lyre and the psaltery sound

24 en. Ps. 32.2.8. 25 en. Ps. 56.16. 26 en. Ps. 56.16. 27 en. Ps. 56.16. 28 en. Ps. 56.16.

166  Augustine on Memory from Christ’s flesh. There was only one flesh in Christ, one flesh that arose, and “in that one flesh we catch notes of both psaltery and lyre.”29 Only “in Christ” are the melodies of both miracles and sufferings heard harmoniously. The psaltery/​lyre binary provides Augustine a chance to consider how human life in Christ sounds from both above and below. The purpose of the imagery is not to separate the fleshly and the divine into a bifurcated metaphysics. Rather, Augustine uses the opposition to show graced human experience made coherent in the whole Christ. In the first instance, those singing both from above and from below remember that their songs and voices—​ both are in the heart—​are gifts of God. The singing of the psalm and the living of one’s life culminate in a praise that is beyond words, a forgetting of what lies behind, a fulfillment in Christ. Second, the lyre and the psaltery provide a model for understanding how it is that Christ’s flesh not only experiences the sufferings of human life, like hunger, thirst, and death, but also effects divine transfiguration, miracles and resurrection, in that very flesh. The lyre/​ psaltery binary builds from remembering and forgetting as two contrastive facets of human life in God.30 By holding them together, Augustine consistently brings before his hearers the relationship of the human to the divine and their place in it.31 Finally, the lyre and the psaltery, within the whole Christ, provide believers with a model for how to sing—​not only individually but beyond the self and within the whole. Paul, in forgetting what lies behind, is plucked to sound in a chorus beyond himself.32 On the occasions of Augustine’s sermons, and in various liturgical settings, psalms are sung before Augustine preaches, and he frequently references at the outset of his sermons what has just been sung.33 It is not just that psalms are sung, but that that they unite voices in Christ, that makes this significant for Augustine. First, singing together in Christ is to reshape the individual congregant’s heart. Second, the performative act of singing together in the whole Christ brings about a harmony of voice and action, word and deed, which has a witness value for other human pursuits.34 29 en. Ps. 56.16. 30 In other expositions in which Augustine invokes the lyre and psaltery, he pairs praising from above and below (en. Ps. 150.6) as well as thoughts in the mind and corporeal works (en. Ps. 149.8, 91.3, 67.1, 67.34). 31 Carol Harrison helpfully describes the preacher as a mediator, one who himself is following the pattern of Christ, descending into human words in order to speak eternity into them. Carol Harrison, The Art of Listening in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 164–​168. 32 See c­ hapter 5, “Forgetting Forward: Extension.” 33 E.g., en. Ps. 146.1. This is the case with the majority of the preached expositions, normally in the opening paragraphs. 34 en. Ps. 146.2.

The Work of Memory  167 For those who sing together in Christ, even rightly transacted business is recast as singing praise. Eating and drinking rightly are playing psalms to God. Sexual pleasure between spouses and even the rest of sleep can praise God. At the heart of the work of memory in reconciling binaries is Augustine’s conviction that the Word of God is received through bodily effort, not only in liturgy but in a life of response to Christ’s grace.35 Though embodied praise is ever imperfect in this life, the practice of it, God’s playing of the lyre and psaltery, stretches and plucks individuals into a united chorus of a “new song,” a “hymn to grace.”36

Labor and Rest We have already seen that both remembering and forgetting are tremendous labors. Idithun’s remembering the works of the Lord or calling to mind the years of eternity are but two prominent examples (see ­chapter 3). Remembering Sabbath rest is a work so unceasing that Augustine compares it to breathing (see c­ hapter 4). Paul’s forgetting distention in order to extend requires “his whole effort” (see ­chapter 5). Yet these efforts of labor are inspired by the hope of rest. This provides perspective concerning the binary labor/​rest, made most famous by Augustine’s confessing his own heart’s restlessness until it rests in God.37 In his sermons, especially taking cues naturally occurring in the psalms, Augustine pairs rest with labor.38 The two form a binary that allows him to explore heavenly rest and earthly hope for it in the present (also ­chapter 4). Those who labor on earth do not know the fullness of rest, and heavenly rest is not the same as earthly sleeping. The labor/​rest binary opens up ways for Augustine to explore how hope for a reality remembered, yet unattained, characterizes life within the body of Christ. The closest one might come to a satisfactory definition of “rest” for Augustine comes from his preaching on Psalm 114: “a peace that is always awake.”39 He explains that this real rest is precisely the opposite of the physical 35 en. Ps. 80.5, 146.2. 36 en. Ps. 143.16. 37 conf. 1.1. 38 In addition to the psalms, see Matthew 11:28. sermo. 30.8, 33, 58, 125.4, 362.28–​31. Haflidson, though treating eschatological rest largely beyond Augustine’s sermons, notices that labor and rest come together as paradox in Augustine’s en. Ps. 46 and 147. Ron Haflidson, “We Shall Be the Seventh Day: Deification in Augustine,” in Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition, ed. J. Ortiz (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2019), 181. 39 en. Ps. 114.6.

168  Augustine on Memory rest to which humans are accustomed. In ordinary life rest is decreased activity or sleep that prepares one for action. But when we think of heaven we find that one prepares not for action by means of rest but for rest by means of earthly labor.40 Labor culminates not in sleep but in a peaceful wakefulness in God. Labor, as Augustine understands it, includes but transcends ordinary work. The labors of daily life are obvious. But labor within Christ is reconfigured as care for the members of the whole body: the ongoing work of remembering and forgetting together and by extension the actions of clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, etc.41 The action of laboring ceases with death, while the rest promised by God continues for eternity.42 The labor/​rest binary unfolds from God as creator in whom both are contained. This binary is clearly illustrated in Augustine’s thinking about labor and rest in terms of the Sabbath. Concerning the phrase “God rested on the seventh day” (Gen 2:2), Augustine explains that the Genesis text indicates that God had completed exceedingly good works. The phrase must not be taken to mean that God rested because he was somehow tired at the end of the labor or that he stopped working on the seventh day.43 The first misunderstanding was that of the Jews, who continued, in Augustine’s eyes, to spend their Sabbath on material concerns and human rest.44 The second misunderstanding was corrected by Jesus, who indicated that his Father had been at work since the beginning (Jn 5:17). Thus for Augustine, God’s very self contains the binary of labor and rest: “God acts in quiet stillness. He works all the time, and all the time he is at rest.”45 Replicating remembering and forgetting, for Augustine, the binary of rest and labor—​two seemingly opposed human pursuits—​reveals two realities held together by God, who encompasses both. Once God emerges as perpetually laboring and perpetually resting, one can work backward from the divine binary to the human one. Augustine determines how humans, as fashioned in the image of God but having fallen

40 en. Ps. 114.6. 41 en. Ps. 93.23. Andrew Hofer describes this care for others in the whole Christ as a hermeneutical rule for Augustine in interpreting the psalms. Andrew Hofer, “Matthew 25:31–​46 as an Hermeneutical Rule in Augustine’s ‘Enarrationes in Psalmos,’” Downside Review 126, no. 445 (2008): 285–​300. 42 en. Ps. 93.23–​24. 43 en. Ps. 92.1. 44 Augustine’s criticism of Jewish Sabbath observation was grounded in the Pentateuch itself. I treat this as well as Byassee’s constructive scholarship for treating Jews and Judaism for Augustine at ­chapter 4, n110. 45 en. Ps. 92.1; sermo. 4.8, 8.6, 8.17–​18, 9.

The Work of Memory  169 and damaged that image, might benefit from laboring and resting.46 He explains that humans already labor at many good works, but those things require a twofold effort. First, it is effort in the present to remember an image that our sinful labors have tarnished and dulled. Second, it is effort, like Paul’s in Philippians 3:13–​14, that hopes for rest as its end. Rest—​which is characteristic of being in and with God for Augustine—​is the condition of enjoying God.47 Real enjoyment is an action of beatitude; thus, the fullness of rest is always deferred while here on earth. Labors in the fallen world cannot fully attain God’s always-​working/​always-​resting. Rather, in the expectant condition of laboring while on earth one hopes for rest as lasting reality. Thus, the labor and rest binary encodes a favorite Augustinian grammatical construction: humans are ever between spes and res, hope and the reality for which hope longs.48 Longing for rest in God reshapes the action of laboring on earth in two ways, both involving the body of Christ. First, Augustine looks to the poor members of Christ. Giving one’s extra tunic to clothe a naked person, for instance, is a good labor and requires much less effort than the work it takes to strip someone of a garment.49 Then he raises the stakes: “Is any action as good as doling out bread to the starving?”50 The labors of earthly life that characterize the body of Christ are good works, in imitation of Christ, and modeled after Christ’s gentleness and humility.51 This laboring is never done in isolation, however, but within communities that fracture. Augustine is frank in preaching that laboring often transpires in the condition of societal or ecclesial discord. As a result, sometimes people seek earthly rest—​ especially solitude—​in order to escape the company of those who might be their enemies, even within the body of Christ.52 Augustine explains to his congregants that there is not a desert to which they might flee that would free them from human contact. Even those who had fled to the desert in search of earthly rest have found themselves surrounded by others.53 Augustine says, “You cannot separate yourself from the human race as long as you live

46 en. Ps. 92.1. 47 en. Ps. 92.1. Augustine frequently plays on the use of the term “enjoy,” which echoes his doc. Chr. 1.3–​5. 48 en. Ps. 92:1. 49 en. Ps. 92.1. 50 en. Ps. 92.1. 51 en. Ps. 114.6. 52 en. Ps. 54.9. 53 en. Ps. 54.9.

170  Augustine on Memory the life of humankind.”54 This is true both with others and within oneself. Among others, there will be labors of difficulty that occur in community and require charity. Internally, there can be no separation of one’s self from the work of external charity. Even flight into one’s own soul is not separation from others.55 Second, within the body of Christ, Augustine shows, the condition of restlessness is a remembrance of heavenly rest. We first introduced this concept as “remembering forward” in ­chapter 4 through both rest and Jerusalem. Unattained rest is both remembered and hoped for in the whole Christ. With the right understanding of the work, or labor, of remembering, one need not object that the person who is restless cannot presume to remember a rest that is unknown. This is precisely what the body of Christ provides: a memory of rest in Christ its head such that the rest of the members can in some small way participate in it. Earthly, bodily rest, considered in this light, yields an imperfect but nevertheless real opportunity to inspire a memory of God’s rest.56 Remembering God’s rest, Augustine suggests, kindles charity, brings about the cry of the heart, and draws the person who prays into a relationship with real rest that is not simply a break from human effort but an indwelling in the divine.57 The work of memory is not easy, but if heavenly rest can be remembered in earthly rest, so too can it be remembered—​though with more difficulty—​in the active labors of the day. Laboring now in hope for the fullness of rest means laboring in Christ. When laboring and resting are undertaken in Christ, the result is that humans are “grafted” as branches onto the vine (body) of Christ through which God restores their broken image, renewing in grace their very existence.58

Solitude and Communion Since our first look at memory’s failure in Confessions and Augustine’s other early writings, we have seen him employ both remembering and forgetting with striking consistency in order to show the necessary movement from self to whole Christ. Memory becomes re-​membering; Idithun’s leaps are out of

54 en. Ps. 54.9.

55 en. Ps. 54.9–​10. See also Idithun’s leaps throughout c ­ hapter 3 for examples. 56 en. Ps. 62.15.

57 en. Ps. 37.14, 83.3. 58 en. Ps. 94.15.

The Work of Memory  171 the self and into service of the poor; confession moves the individual beyond the self into festivals of abiding traces with others; and the bread of memory is digested together and not alone. Nowhere is the payoff of the work of remembering and the work of forgetting clearer than in the manner in which Augustine constructs the binary of solitude and communion. In the Confessions, Augustine presents his mother’s death as having been a moment of profound ecclesial and Eucharistic communion.59 By the end of book 10 he writes that he desires to flee into solitude, but Christ forbids him and drives him back into communion, to the Eucharistic redemption that he can eat, drink, and distribute to others.60 At this critical moment, Augustine describes the tension between the individual and the collective. What is subtle and unresolved in the Confessions, however, is striking and straightforward in his preaching. Here Augustine often explores the individual and corporate nature of the encounter with Christ through consideration of Israel, as we saw in the work of forgetting in c­ hapter 5. He explains that in the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, there was a peculiar merging of individual and community that happened all at once: “The whole race of Israel, the whole nation descended from Abraham according to the flesh, the entire house of Israel, was led out of Egypt once only, was led once through the Red Sea, and once brought through to the promised land. They experienced these things collectively and at the same time.”61 Augustine contrasts Israel with the ways in which Christians become part of Christ. Christians are led through the same sacramental journey, but not all at once: “We are not all gathered at once into a single city, the one people of God, but little by little and one by one as we come to believe.”62 So the “people of God” is a reality that comes to its fullness with the addition of individuals. This corresponds to the fact that Augustine would have been preaching not only to the baptized but also to catechumens and to outsiders who had come to church for any number of reasons. Nevertheless, despite the individual nature of coming to faith and participating in sacred rites, Augustine is quick to explain that once sacramentally initiated, an individual is also linked to a communal form of experience as well as existence:

59 conf. 9.11.28–​9.12.30; Janet Soskice, “Monica’s Tears: Augustine on Words and Speech,” New Blackfriars 83, no. 980 (2002): 454–​458. 60 conf. 10.43.70. 61 en. Ps. 106.3. 62 en. Ps. 106.3.

172  Augustine on Memory If, then, you recognize anything in yourself as I am speaking, if anything I say corresponds to your own experience, do not let your reflections remain confined to yourself, as though you were the only person to whom these things happen, but realize that they happen to all, or nearly all who join this people and are redeemed from their enemies’ clutches by Christ’s precious blood.63

This corresponds quite neatly to the pattern of prima cogitatio and reliquiae cogitationis which we established in ­chapter 4. Individuals’ confession or conversion moves them through a certain forgetting of self in order to continue the work of an ongoing festival of abiding traces with others. Augustine does not minimize individual experience but connects it to the whole body, not only through the span of the present time but also through what has been and will be. Augustine’s frequent reminding his assembly of their voice and identity continues this relocation of both the one and the many within the whole Christ. The tension plays out in his exposition of who speaks a psalm. A clear instance is the opening to the sermon on Psalm 60. The title of the psalm is “To the end, for David himself, among the hymns.”64 For Augustine, the end is Christ and the voice is Christ’s. Augustine continues: But if we are among his members and find ourselves part of his body (which we dare to presume, since we have his word for it) we must recognize the voice that speaks in this psalm as our own voice, not as something alien. But when I say “our voice,” I do not mean only the voice of us who are here today. It is the voice of all of us who are dispersed throughout the world, all of us from east to west. To make it clear to you that it is our own voice, the psalm speaks as though one single person is praying; but it is not a lone individual, it is a unity, speaking as one. In Christ we all form one human person, whose head is in heaven and whose limbs are toiling on earth. Listen now to what they say, and you will see how hard they are toiling.65

For Augustine, membership in the body of Christ changes the way the individual members gathered as a North African congregation understand themselves to be speaking. He unceasingly exhorts his congregants to remember

63 en. Ps. 106.3. 64 en. Ps. 60.1. 65 en. Ps. 60.1.

The Work of Memory  173 that the psalm is their voice, but is not limited to their church gathering or their liturgy. That voice extends, in this instance geographically, to the rest of the world. Though spoken in the first person, it is the unity of a multitude of persons in the person of Christ. The justification given is his usual understanding of the ascended Christ who speaks in and for his members on earth (Acts 9:4).66 This binary of the one and the many changes how the gathered congregation prays psalms. For instance, “O God, hear my plea, give heed to my prayer” sounds as if it is being prayed by a single person. But the next line of Psalm 60 makes that one person sound as if many: “from the ends of the earth I have called to you, as my heart was wrung with pain.”67 Augustine explains that the person speaking the psalm “cannot be one alone, then; yet it is one, because Christ is one and all of us are his members.”68 Effectively he makes a distinction in oneness: Iam ergo non unus; sed ideo unus.69 The first part of the sentence, “not one alone,” is the speaking individual; the second part, “yet one,” is the speaking Christ. There is expansiveness in the oneness of such a voice. “This possession of Christ, this heritage of Christ, this body of Christ, this one Church of Christ, this unity that we are—​this is what sounds from the ends of the earth.”70 The gathered assembly is to understand its own voice extending beyond the walls of the church and throughout time, such that the voice of Christ sounds across the world, in history, and to the end of time. The unity is neither that to which they aspire nor that for which they hope, but “this unity that we are.” To finish the point, Augustine explains the act of his preaching in the same terms: “Yes, this is what I’ve been shouting to you, and ‘from the ends of the earth’ my cry has come. I have shouted it, from every place on earth.”71 The phrase gives evidence that Augustine understands himself as shouting the verse of the psalm “from the ends of the earth,” that is, crying out in the single voice of Christ issued forth singly from his pulpit and his congregation as well as from every corner of the earth.

66 See c­ hapter 2 for the importance of Acts 9:4. 67 en. Ps. 60.2. 68 en. Ps. 60.2. 69 en. Ps. 60.2. 70 en. Ps. 60.2. 71 en. Ps. 60.2. This phrase supports the scholarship of Müller, which suggests that the fifth-​century North African preaching environment required a person of health and stature to take up the work of preaching in a large space to a large crowd. Hildegund Müller, “Preacher: Augustine and His Congregation,” in A Companion to Augustine, ed. Mark Vessey (Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2012), 297–​309.

174  Augustine on Memory When Augustine considers solitude and communion, he comes to a central theological point: the work of memory is always the re-​membering of Christ’s body, which fallen humans tend to divide (see ­chapter 3). In Psalm 66, Augustine explains that though God begets one son alone, God does not will him to be alone. The adoption of brothers and sisters is part of the marvelous exchange of redemption.72 In other psalms, such as 67, Augustine begins from the many. An enormous number of holy and faithful people become one as God’s metaphorical chariot by bearing God.73 Ultimately, however, the whole Christ concept allows Augustine the freedom to remind his hearers that the whole is in view even as he treats the individual in the text of the psalm and in the first-​person voice of his sermon.74 Finally, reconciling the one and the many by Christ gives Augustine a Christological way to consider fractures within that body. Though I have mentioned the Donatists in discussing the genesis of the totus Christus (see ­chapter 2), they are also helpful for unpacking Augustine’s binary of solitude/​ communion. When describing the Donatists, Augustine’s most frequent approach is to note the geographic specificity, and therein the solitude, of the Donatist Church. In his consideration of Psalm 21, in which the crucifixion of Christ is of prime importance, Augustine explains that the goodly fragrance of Christ, an eschatological memory that we have seen is known through the Spirit, is in every place on account of the faithful (see c­ hapter 4). This is a unity lived only in Christ. The Donatists, Augustine says, understand unity to consist only in themselves, the authentic remnant of tradition. Augustine tells his congregation, “So while Paul said that all the faithful are Christ’s good scent in every place, Paul is flatly contradicted. ‘No,’ say the Donatists, ‘Africa alone smells good; the rest of the world stinks.’ ”75 The problem with Donatist catholicism in Augustine’s thinking is a failed remembering forward—​Christ’s good scent, which should be an eschatological memory of connection to the rest of the world and the whole Christ throughout time, is only local. Donatist solitude is exclusive (condemning traditores, literally those who “handed over” scriptures in times of persecution), thus rendering Donatist communion incomplete, provincial in scope, remembering only backward into their own history. The heart of Augustine’s rhetoric is that Christ, as head and members, is the one diminished by the

72 en. Ps. 66.9.

73 en. Ps. 67.24. 74 en. Ps. 127.5.

75 en. Ps. 21.2.2.

The Work of Memory  175 Donatist position. The cry going up from the whole earth is one in Christ. The whole Christ cries out unto God. The Donatists, Augustine says, cry out in a limited way, ultimately only to Donatus.76 Augustine gives a further example of this mode of argumentation in his preaching on Psalm 54: “In view of this you longed for solitude and wished for wings. You grumble, you cannot bear it—​all this argument and iniquity in the city. Take your rest, then, with those who live with you inside the church, and do not seek solitude.”77 Augustine is honest that life within the walls of the church requires repentance, especially for members of the body of Christ, on account of the fact that “usury and deceit are never lacking” in the streets of the city of pride.78 Further, forgiveness is difficult, even though mandated by God. It might be easier to flee into solitude. But for Augustine, refuge is not to be found in solitude but only in Christ’s body—​a place still of yearning and groaning, within which the work of memory (in this binary remembering forward and backward) configures the many into one Christ and one voice.79

Praising and Groaning We have seen how confession is a key action of the ongoing work of remembering in Christ: a backward-​looking act uniting the individual to the whole Christ in the present (­chapter 4). Now we can see how confession within the work of memory reveals the famous Augustinian binary of praising and groaning.80 Praising and groaning appear with frequency not only because the scriptures are full of the language of longing, groaning, praising, and rejoicing, but also because Augustine understands both of these realities to be present in the action of confession. An attempt to look at this binary thus requires, first, understanding how the two relate to confession. Augustine preaches on this when prompted by Psalm 94:2, “Let us forestall him by coming into his presence confessing.”81 Augustine defines the 76 en. Ps. 54.17. 77 en. Ps. 54.15; also Jo. ev. tr. 1.3–​9 and sermo. 302. 78 en. Ps. 54.14. 79 en. Ps. 54.17; sermo. 47.23. 80 Prominent expositors of both are Michael C. McCarthy, “An Ecclesiology of Groaning: Augustine, the Psalms, and the Making of Church,” Theological Studies 66, no. 1 (2005): 23–​48 as well as Jason Byassee, Praise Seeking Understanding: Reading the Psalms with Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2007). See sermo. 188.1, 211A.2; and concerning Augustine’s early thinking sermo. 29B and 72.9. 81 en. Ps. 94.4; also sermo. 29, 29A.

176  Augustine on Memory term: “ ‘Confession’ is understood by scripture in two senses: there is the confession of one who praises, and the confession of one who groans. The confession of one who praises is concerned with the honor of him who is praised; the confession of one who groans belongs to the repentance of the one who is confessing.”82 In this way confession, a constitutive act of the work of remembering, can be said to describe two contrasting actions, praising and groaning, drawn together by means of Christ. Christ himself confesses in the Spirit to the Father (Lk 10:21) but does not do so as one having sinned. This most certainly, for Augustine, is a confession of praise.83 Second, on account of God’s mercy, the mercy that forgives sins, the confession of repentance (groaning) becomes a confession of praise. In fact, “the higher the heap of sins on the part of one who confesses, the higher the praise to him who forgives.”84 The confession of groaning is neither negated nor sublated but is transformed into praise on account of Christ. This becomes more apparent in Augustine’s exposition of Psalm 101. Christ speaks words of groaning in this psalm of lament; he speaks them in his human body. When Christ takes up human flesh and human death, he also takes up human groaning and labor, not because he is sinful but for the purposes of redemption. Augustine writes: How could hard work and groaning have come to the lot of the Word, through whom all things were made? But if he has deigned to take on our death, will he not give us his life? He has lifted us up to a mighty hope, and in that mighty hope we are groaning. Groaning implies sadness, but there is a kind of groaning that also has room for joy.85

The implication is that Christ prays human groaning and thereby makes room for a certain type of joy in what should only imply sadness. It remains an incomplete joy known only in hope, but nevertheless Augustine is able to introduce the emotion opposite to what groaning normally produces. The human experience of embodied life is a mixed one of praise and groaning. However, in Christ, one does not merely vacillate between the two. The work of remembering, undertaken as confession, can relate both praising and groaning to Christ. In order to present this to his congregation,

82 en. Ps. 94.4. 83 en. Ps. 94.4. 84 en. Ps. 94.4.

85 en. Ps. 101.1.2.

The Work of Memory  177 Augustine amplifies how praising and groaning happen together in scripture. Again, he sees a pattern example in Paul, both the consummate groaner (remembering forward) and praiser (remembering backward). As regards the first, Augustine tells his congregants that Paul “himself groaned louder than most others in his captivity as he longed for the eternal Jerusalem, and he taught us to groan in the same Spirit that filled him and inspired his groans.”86 The scope of this groaning and longing is universal, as “all creation” joins in (Rom 8:22). Those who have faith as well as those who are not yet believers all groan. The difference between the two is that the former are able to groan in hope of redemption, whereas the latter do not. Augustine interlaces this reflection on Paul’s letter to the Romans with the Christian disposition of groaning in order to establish that humans “are awaiting what we hope for, but we do not grasp it yet, and until we do lay hold of it we sigh in this in-​between time, because we are longing for what we do not yet possess.”87 That which is groaned for is the redemption of the body. Augustine objects to his own presentation of groaning. Both the person standing during Augustine’s sermon in the church and the person across town at the public arena could be described as groaning. What difference would it make to be a groaning believer or a naturally groaning nonbeliever? Augustine appeals here to the body of Christ: “The flesh which the Lord took from us is saved in him, not in hope but in actuality. In him, our head, our flesh rose and ascended, in salvation fully realized; but in his members it is to be saved still.”88 It is only on account of Christ having risen from the dead and ascended into heaven with his resurrected flesh that Augustine can justify any modicum of praise for the believer during a life of earthly groaning and yearning. Yet this praise is not partial, because Augustine explains that in the flesh of Christ salvation is “fully realized.” Within the whole Christ, head and members, is the real hope of those whose earthly flesh groans in the ever-​changing reality of embodied life. Nevertheless, the certainty of the salvation of human flesh through Christ’s flesh means that members of the body “can rejoice without anxiety, for they have not been forsaken by the head.”89 In fact, “to his toiling members” the head gave assurance that he would be with them always, even to the end of the age (Mt 28:20).90 The person in the

86 en. Ps. 125.2. 87 en. Ps. 125.2.

88 This is another example of the spes . . . res construction. en. Ps. 125.2.

89 en. Ps. 125.2. 90 en. Ps. 125.2.

178  Augustine on Memory public arena and the church both groan; the latter does so in Christ and thus with hope. Augustine preaches in such a way as to put groaning and rejoicing in conversation with each other.91 In his second exposition of Psalm 31, he comments, “You who make me dance with happiness, save me.”92 He engages the psalmist—​as the body of Christ—​in conversation. If the text of Augustine’s sermon is broken up, one can see prosopopoeia at work, as well as the conjunction of praising and groaning. I have labeled the speakers and provided scripture in italics; Augustine, of course, is preaching both voices, sometimes speaking the psalmist’s part, sometimes speaking to the psalmist as interlocutor. Augustine: If you are already dancing with happiness, why ask to be saved? Psalmist: You make me dance with happiness, save me. Augustine: I can hear the voice of joy when he says, You make me dance with happiness; and I hear groaning when he prays, Save me. Augustine: You are joyful, yet you groan. Psalmist: “Quite so,” he replies, “I both groan and rejoice. I rejoice in hope but still groan over present reality.” You who make me dance with happiness, save me. Augustine: The apostle entreats us, Rejoice in hope, and so the psalmist is right to pray, You who make me dance with happiness, save me. Paul continues, Be patient in anguish, and the psalmist is in accord.93 This exchange between Augustine and his interlocutor, the praying psalmist, shows how Augustine’s own rhetorical method supports his pedagogical goals. As in his conversations with Idithun the leaper, Augustine is able to weave an interrogation of both the text and the speaker into his oratory. Asking how one can dance with happiness but still need salvation, he directly consults the psalmist. This, however, is never merely the writer of the original poem but a figurative interlocutor whom Augustine is able to engage one-​to-​ one for the purposes of homiletic simplicity. The person who both groans and rejoices embodies seemingly contrary emotions in life. Paul provides a further evidential witness of the same phenomenon. But as soon as Augustine has shown by means of a projected conversation with the psalmist and

91 sermo. 31, 34.6, 67, 68, 114A.1, 365.1, 398.10. 92 en. Ps. 31.2.20. 93 en. Ps. 31.2.20.

The Work of Memory  179 supporting evidence from Paul that life in God is one of both groaning and praising, then all of the first-​person-​singular pronouns in his sermon change to the plural “we.” “We are still groaning inwardly,” his congregation hears, and “we await the redemption of our bodies.”94 “We” are waiting in patience, saved in hope. The first-​person-​singular voice of the psalmist becomes the first-​person-​plural “we” of the whole Christ in a final flourish that reframes the conversation: “We can say both these things simultaneously: you make me dance with happiness, and save me.”95 The priority of the first-​person plural in Augustine’s exegesis of this binary derives from his theology of the whole Christ. One’s individual groaning or rejoicing makes sense within Christ and contributes to the strength of the cry of the entire body of Christ. Augustine discusses the groaning aspect of this in his exposition of Psalm 85:3, “Have mercy on me, Lord, for I have cried to you all day long.”96 Augustine explains: Not just on one day; “all day long” must be understood as throughout time. From the day when Christ’s body began to groan in the wine press, until the end of the world when the pressures have passed away, this one person groans and cries out to God, and we, each of us in our measure, add our own contribution to the clamor of the whole body. You have cried out during your days, and your days have expired; someone else took your place and cried out in his days; you are here, he there, she somewhere else. The body of Christ cries out all day long, as its members give place to each other and succeed each other. One single person spans the ages to the end of time, and it is still the members of Christ who go on crying out, though some of them are already at rest in him, others are raising their cry now, others will cry out when we have gone to rest, and others again after them.97

The voices of individuals are part of the one voice of Christ. The winepress is shared difficulty, but the condition of earthly existence in the body of Christ is hopeful. Here Augustine connects the groaning of people in all places and all times so as to link the members of the body of Christ from the earliest persons to the last.98

94 en. Ps. 31.2.20. 95 en. Ps. 31.2.20. 96 en. Ps. 85.5. 97 en. Ps. 85.5.

98 For similar explanations of the whole Christ groaning, see en. Ps. 74.1, 100.3, 118.20.1.

180  Augustine on Memory The same thing happens in rejoicing. Augustine closes his exposition on Psalm 74 by referring to drinking the cup of the Lord. In this instance, the “I” that Augustine speaks as the preacher is immediately qualified to remind his congregation that the speaker is the whole Christ. “ ‘But I’—​for all drink, but especially I: Christ with his body, that is.” Augustine continues, “I will rejoice for ever; I will sing psalms to the God of Jacob over that promise which will be fulfilled at the end, the promise concerning which our psalm besought God, ‘Do not cancel it.’ And I, ‘I will rejoice forever.’ ”99 Augustine was adamant earlier in this exposition that “when Christ has begun to dwell in our inmost being through faith, when we have confessed and invoked him, and he has begun to take possession of us, then is formed the whole Christ, head and body, one from the many.”100 We see here the lived conjunction of remembering backward and remembering forward. The act of confession (remembering backward) brings about the incorporation, or reincorporation, of the individual into the whole, in which Christ speaks, acts, and sustains one body that lives “one life in one Spirit” (remembering forward).101 In Christ, both groaning and praising are configured to the redemption of his body.

Life of Grace Throughout part 2, we have noted that Augustine referenced grace in the operations of memory. Remembering and forgetting both functioned in producing awareness of Christ’s grace—​whether in festivals of abiding traces, drinking, belching, or forgetting what lies behind. Grace, of course, permeates Augustine’s works. Scholars (most notably Anthony Dupont) are increasingly taking notice of its importance in his preaching.102 It is worth drawing out at the end of part 2 how the work of memory connects to the life of grace. To that end, I begin with a helpful illustration from Robert Dodaro,

99 en. Ps. 74.13. 100 en. Ps. 74.4. 101 en. Ps. 74.4. 102 J. Patout Burns, The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1980); Anthony Dupont, Gratia in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum during the Pelagian Controversy: Do Different Contexts Furnish Different Insights? (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Anthony Dupont, Preacher of Grace: A Critical Reappraisal of Augustine’s Doctrine of Grace in His Sermones ad Populum on Liturgical Feasts and during the Donatist Controversy (Leiden: Brill, 2014).

The Work of Memory  181 who in his book Christ and the Just Society describes the manner in which grace and the virtue of justice relate.103 For Augustine, grace has a hidden dimension, which he explains in terms of the cross and scriptural hermeneutics.104 The whole of the cross presents the mystery (sacramentum) of the grace of Christ. Yet the cross on which Jesus hung had a portion hidden and buried in the ground. The unseen wood, or hidden aspect, of the cross provides the foundation for the visible. The same is true, as Dodaro explains, for scriptural exegesis: the grace that ensures a passage’s complete meaning also ensures it will elude full human understanding.105 At issue in both instances is the limit of human perception in relation to both sacramental mysteries (signs and examples) and textual exegesis. In exercising their capacity for understanding Christ’s grace, human persons are transformed, tempered, and cleansed in their increasing dependence upon God. In Dodaro’s presentation, as people’s capacity to understand and love justice increases, they themselves become just, or at least more so. The work of memory, remembering and forgetting, renews human perception of the grace of Christ in his body that in human brokenness and time has become faded or less perceptible. Christ as ascended head of the body is invisible. Remembering and forgetting render his work in his members visible. In remembering and forgetting, the members of the whole Christ exercise and experience their identity as Christ’s body and become ever more the same. For instance, in en. Ps. 75 (­chapter 4), we saw how initial grace from God leads one to confession, or union with Christ. After that grace, which itself does not recede but which the limits of the human person experience as fading in time, the work of remembering makes present the initial grace in such a way that—​through memory—​Christ is being sacrificed each day. Christ’s grace has remained throughout. But the work of remembering renews and makes present the hidden and fading perception of Christ for the purpose of transforming members into Christ. The same is true of forgetting. Long after the grace of his initial conversion, as Paul stretched forward and thus forgot what lay behind (Phil 3:13–​14), Christ was newly heard from the person of Paul.

103 Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 104 ep. 140.64; Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 162–​164. 105 Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 164.

182  Augustine on Memory Remembering and forgetting, because they act upon the human perception of Christ’s grace, thus function together toward the graced transfiguration of the human person into Christ’s body. Augustine, as this chapter has developed, uses the work of memory in order to reveal any number of binaries as potentially grace made visible in the body of Christ. Above and below, laboring and resting, solitude and communion, or praising and groaning, the binaries that brought distention to the early Augustine have become binaries of grace.

Conclusion to Part 2: The Work of Memory In his exposition on Psalm 86, Augustine preaches on a favorite theme, the journey or movement to Christ: “We are traveling to the place whither Christ has gone before, but it is equally true to say that Christ is making his way to the place where he has already gone in advance, for though Christ has gone before us as head, he follows in his body.”106 Christ himself is already there yet also still on the way—​one aspect as head, and another as the body remembering forward. These aspects do not contradict each other but rather point to the completion that one day will be. At the heart of the work of memory is the progress of the body of Christ in the life of grace: Christ’s renewal of the members of his body not despite but through the opposing binaries of human experience. When memory first emerged as an anthropological mediator for the early Augustine, it was limited to the confines of the self. Now, from the Christological whole, it grounds the dynamism of movement from hope (spes) to reality (res), characterized by forgetting what lies behind and remembering forward together into the whole Christ. If the early Augustine encountered binaries as giving expression to temporal distention, then in his mature preaching the work of memory shows Christ’s grace across even the most conflicting human experiences. The work of remembering and the work of forgetting function together and simultaneously to effect transfiguration into Christ. Through this ongoing work, members of Christ’s body learn together how to live the contradictions of human life not as the despair of distention but as hopeful extension into the fullness of grace. The early Augustine was a riddle to himself, unable to reconcile the pushes and pulls of his own predicament, within and without. But

106

en. Ps. 86.5.

The Work of Memory  183 the shared reality of memory in Christ reshapes this task. In the whole Christ, remembering and forgetting never cease, for they open awareness outwardly onto a horizon of Christ’s renewal of all things. For the illness of sin is being healed, a broken image is being renewed, and one realizes that darkness itself becomes radiant in the sight of God (Ps 138:12). It is a striking and hopeful presentation of graced Christian existence. These insights from the work of memory are of great consequence for Augustine, intellectually in terms of his Trinitarian thought, and personally in terms of his relationship to Psalm 50 in life and in death. Those consequences—​intellectual and personal—​ structure the end of memory in the final part of this book.

PART 3

T HE E N D OF M E MORY

7 Transitus and Trinity Parts 1 and 2 showed how attention to Augustine’s preaching shifts memory from the self to the whole Christ. In his preaching, the work of remembering and forgetting becomes constitutive of shared existence in the whole Christ. Remembering and forgetting together in Christ become a way of journeying through time and space so as to encounter the binaries of embodied life, not as irreconcilable distention but as occasions of healing. In this final part, we will consider “the end of memory” by exploring the fruits or consequences of the work of memory from Augustine’s many years of preaching to North African congregations. In this chapter, I explore the intellectual consequences of the work of memory by showing how it plays out in Augustine’s taking up memory’s telos in his Trinity. In c­ hapter 8, I explore the personal consequences of Augustine’s work of memory by discussing his preaching on Psalm 50 throughout his life and his death. Intellectually in this chapter and personally in ­chapter 8, part 3 considers what happens when the work of memory is completed. Along with the Confessions, the Trinity is one of the texts to which scholars conventionally look for understanding Augustine on the topic of memory because of the prominent role memory plays in the various triads it offers—​ especially that of memory, understanding, and will. As in the Confessions, in the Trinity the human memory is itself a site pregnant with possibility for contemplation of the divine. While debates concerning the dating of the Trinity comprise a veritable cottage industry of scholarly analysis, for our purposes it is sufficient to claim that Augustine began the early books in the years after the turn of the century and completed the final books between 419 and 427.1 This accords the final books a place in Augustine’s mature thought, and also gives evidence of the gap between the final books of the Trinity and 1 The touchstones of this debate are Anne-​Marie La Bonnardière, Recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1965) and Pierre-​Marie Hombert, Nouvelles recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 2000). Edmund Hill suggests the work was completed around 420, and I think Ayres’s range of 419–​427 helpfully establishes that our best guess is really within this frame. Hill, The Trinity, 20, 56–​7n2; and Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 118–​120.

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0008

188  Augustine on Memory the completion of the Confessions in 400. The majority of the sermons we examined in part 2 are thought to fall into this gap; given that most of them were preached before he wrote, or at least while he was writing, the later books of the Trinity, the Trinity becomes a rich case study to explore whether Augustine’s work on memory, especially in the context of preaching on the psalms to his congregation, affects his later thinking. Further, Augustine himself considered the Trinity a work of intellectual reflection upon revelation.2 This underscores the need to consider how memory is not merely a philosophical term for Augustine, but one that has itself been forged and refined in his grappling with revelation. Having examined memory in Augustine’s preaching in part 2, we can now see how the work of memory prepares Augustine for, and structures aspects of, his Trinitarian reflection. Building from the work of memory—​from Idithun’s leaping to individual memory’s failure into the whole Christ—​we will see the work of memory supporting and enabling the healing character of both Augustine’s final employment of his memory-​understanding-​will triad as well as the reconciliation of the central binary of knowledge and wisdom in Christ. The work of memory in the whole Christ prepares us for the participation in the Triune God that is the healing of the image of God in the human person. The fifteen books of the Trinity form a structured chiasm. The first seven set forth Augustine’s purpose and work through evidence from the Old and the New Testament, as well as explaining how specific Trinitarian terms (especially those challenged by Augustine’s rivals, such as the Arians and Homoians) are reasonable subjects of reflection given the statement of the Trinity as article of faith. Importantly, book 4, on Jesus Christ, marks the first appearance of the trinity of memory, understanding, and will. The eighth book shifts the focus. Since human persons are in no manner able to see and investigate the inner life of God, there is value in searching within the inner life of the human person, created in God’s image and likeness. This sets up the interior context where memory will play its most prominent roles. Books 9–​11 take up inner and outer trinities of the human person. Books 12–​14 concern the renewal of the image of human persons in Christ who is knowledge and wisdom, a most important binary formulation for Augustine. Book 15 draws together the entire work, though only by means of another spectacular failure, with Augustine showing the absolute difference between

2 trin. 14.28.51.

Transitus and Trinity  189 even the best of his triads and the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We can categorize extant treatments of memory and the Trinity based on how they relate memory to Christ, that is, the second person of the Trinity having assumed human flesh. As it turns out, this maps onto debates about the intrinsic or extrinsic nature of the incarnation to Trinitarian contemplation for Augustine generally.3 One scholarly approach is simply to relegate memory to a psychological triad. Considering memory, understanding, and will as such allows for a deep appreciation of Augustine’s anthropology and even a small but incongruous connection between memory and God the Father.4 The circumscribed role that the incarnation plays in triune contemplation demarcates the limits of such an approach. Against this, contemporary scholarship on the Trinity and Augustine’s Trinitarian logic more generally, especially that which we have earlier identified as “new canon,” has in many ways renewed the care with which Christology is considered a productive context for Augustine’s Trinitarian epistemology.5 I will suggest in this chapter that connecting memory in the Trinity and the “work of memory” that we developed specifically in the whole Christ in part 2 reveals how the latter sets up and undergirds the former. In short, the work of memory in the whole Christ bridges the psychological triad of the inner person and the reformation of the imago Dei of Trinitarian participation. Without the work of memory in the whole Christ, scholars cannot account properly for the role of Christ’s body in relation to inner triads, on the one hand, and Trinitarian participation, on the other. The work of memory in the whole Christ is not ancillary to moving from the self to Trinitarian communion, but the work of that reformation. Scholarship that treats memory in Augustine and looks at the Christological context of the Trinity struggles 3 The position most heavily criticized in this regard is that of Olivier Du Roy, L’Intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon San Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1966). In chronological order of critical reappraisal, major voices include Goulven Madec, La patrie et la voie: Le Christ dans la vie et la pensée de saint Augustin (Paris: Desclée, 1989); Basil Studer, The Grace of Christ and the Grace of God in Augustine of Hippo: Christocentrism or Theocentrism?, trans. M. O’Connell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1997); Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity. 4 trin. 15.23.43. 5 See ­chapter 2, n6. Ayres introduces this helpfully by means of ep. 137. Lewis Ayres, “Christology as Contemplative Practice: Understanding the Unity of Natures in Augustine’s Letter 137,” in In the Shadow of the Incarnation: Essays on Jesus Christ in the Early Church in Honor of Brian E. Daley, S.J., ed. Peter W. Martens (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 190–​211. See also Luigi Gioia, The Theological Epistemology of Augustine’s “de Trinitate” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Rowan Williams, “Sapientia and the Trinity: Reflections on the De Trinitate,” Augustiniana 40, no. 1 (1990): 317–​332; Rowan Williams, “The Paradoxes of Self-​Knowledge in the De Trinitate,” in Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum, ed. J. Lienhard (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 121–​134.

190  Augustine on Memory precisely with this issue of the body of Christ.6 The most recent and prominent example comes from Paige Hochschild, who makes a strong and welcome claim on the Christological grounding of Trinitarian contemplation. Indeed, humanity is taken up into the Trinity through Christ; human knowledge of God cannot consist in direct and ongoing intellectual apprehension.7 The benefit of this approach is that memory must be connected to Christ. Despite this deep attentiveness to Christology, reliance on the Trinity alone leaves only partially answered how precisely Christological community matters. Indeed, Hochschild writes that when it comes to the body of Christ, “memory is not simply a key in the argument about the unity of man’s nature, but instead becomes a necessary element for a spiritual theodicy of participation in the body of Christ, and therefore the life of the triune God.”8 The strength and limit clearly emerge. If one looks only at Confessions and Trinity, then “necessary element for a spiritual theodicy of participation” may be gesture enough at the importance of memory in the body of Christ. The work of memory as we have observed it in Augustine’s preaching, however, provides the missing link in order to speak about memory and the body of Christ with precision. We can do away with the language of theodicy in this instance, for the work of memory in the whole Christ is not a hazy afterthought but Christian existence itself growing into Trinitarian contemplation within the created order. My argument for the manner in which memory in the Trinity is a fruit and consequence of the work of memory in the whole Christ is in five parts. The first two revisit figures from the work of memory: Idithun the leaper and the eagle of forgetting. Both represent the success of communal Christological exercise, yet we also see that an essential Trinitarian dimension is part and parcel of these homiletic reflections. The third section shows how the work of memory helps Augustine work through the limits of the trinity of memory, understanding, and will, despite this triad’s brilliance. The pedagogically fruitful failure of the mental trinity is concomitant not only with the failure of the self, a theme with which we began our study, but with failure into the whole Christ, where a worn-​out and tarnished image of God might be renewed. Fourth, the binary structure of the work of memory comes 6 Paige E. Hochschild, Memory in Augustine’s Theological Anthropology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 189–​233; Matthew Drever, Image, Identity, and the Formation of the Augustinian Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 7 Hochschild, Memory, 195. 8 Hochschild, Memory, 195.

Transitus and Trinity  191 into full relief in reconciling the binary of knowledge and wisdom, scientia and sapientia. We identified this binary as a problem in Augustine’s earliest writings on memory (­chapter 1); now, as a consequence of the work of memory, we can see it as psychagogical. The chapter closes with Trinitarian participation, the movement from self to whole. The work of memory is the bridge to memory’s end in wholeness: the image of God renewed in human persons together in triune communion.

Reprising Idithun the Leaper: Transitus and Transiliens Idithun introduced the entire project of the work of memory for us because this leaping psalmist images the striking difference between Augustine’s early writings and his preaching concerning memory. Idithun is a communal Christological subject; the work of memory is at each stage a movement beyond the self with the greatest temptations to become stuck in oneself; and the exercise of spiritual ascent is not merely taken alone in individuated contemplation, but rather closeness to God is necessarily proportional to closeness with one’s neighbor (especially the poor). While memory and the whole Christ were the focus of our investigation in ­chapter 3, we here point out that in each of Idithun’s leaps in and as the whole Christ, the Father and the Spirit were in view. In order to connect the Idithun of the work of memory to the Trinity, I need to introduce the specific Augustinian term transitus, the Latin participial form for “one having gone across.” For Augustine, this is the Latin translation of the Hebrew Pasch, meaning “Passover.”9 In Augustine’s writings the term most often occurs in reference to Jesus Christ—​specifically in the assumption of human flesh by the Word in the incarnation as well as his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. Yet more broadly, it concerns human persons experiencing God through created matter. Augustine’s antecedent is the God of Israel in Exodus 33, whose transitus is to pass by Moses. Augustine explains that this was the divine intimacy of which Moses had been found worthy. The puzzle of God’s showing the divine back rather than the divine face on the mountain opens onto contemplation of how precisely humans might be able to understand, in an intelligible manner, the Word that has been spoken only once in the creation and sustenance of all living 9 en. Ps. 138.8.

192  Augustine on Memory things. As a result, transitus—​whether the Passover itself, the passing by of I AM WHO AM on the mountain before Moses, or Jesus Christ—​is a term that specifically deals with the mediation of the eternal within the temporal. The etymological construction of transitus, describing “movement across,” is particularly important because God’s eternity is not intelligible statically or in stasis to time-​bound persons.10 Rather, for the human mind, the divine is mediated in movement. From the passing of time to the speaking of words, the need for the work of memory to be ongoing is affirmed as absolute. This was foreshadowed by Augustine’s articulation of the work of memory by verbs of motion, and even binary sets of motions: leaping, eating, drinking, belching, singing, breathing (the work of remembering), running, extending (the work of forgetting), praising, groaning, laboring, and resting (the work of memory). In sermon 349, Augustine treats the whole temporal range of transitus as it applies to Jesus Christ.11 The purpose of Christ’s passing-​over is for human salvation. Transitus explains all of the actions of the Word in the created order, including the entry of the Word into time, his birth in Bethlehem, and growth; the routines of human life, such as rising and sleeping; and ultimately his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.12 It is equally true, Augustine explains, to say that the Word abides eternally.13 With precision, Augustine uses transitus to describe specific temporal events along the Word incarnate’s journey to the right hand of the Father. The abiding and eternal Word is in view, but the term transitus treats the specific time of the created order. Because the body of Christ exists in time, the whole Christ knows the Word as transitus. Even though the ascended Christ now abides at the right hand of the Father, the members of his body are still following in movement. And so, for those in the midst of temporal flux, some conception of the transitus, and therein the memory of Christ in time, will be necessary in order to conceive, by means of human knowledge, the wisdom of the Trinity. At this point we can draw together not only an etymological but a theological consonance between the transitus of Jesus Christ and the leaps (transilitio) of Idithun. Both words have similar etymological structures: the preposition trans-​, “over” or “across,” followed by a verb of motion, in the 10 See Kimberly Baker, “Augustine on Action, Contemplation, and Their Meeting Point in Christ” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 2007), 116–​135. 11 sermo. 349.6. Other examples include en. Ps. 120.6, 138.8, 140.25. 12 sermo. 349.6. 13 Augustine plays with verbs of moving and then standing or sitting to make this point. sermo. 349.6.

Transitus and Trinity  193 first instance “to go” and in the second instance “to go” in the specific form of “leaping.” In the transitus of the Word, Jesus Christ has journeyed across—​ kenotically divesting, assuming human flesh and making the redemptive journey through time and human life in order to rise again and ascend to heaven in triune communion. Transitus is always a perfect participle. The redemptive action has been completed; Christ was born, died, rose, and ascended. Transiliens, the one leaping, meanwhile, relates the movement of the body of Christ to the head that has gone before. Idithun-​the-​body-​of-​ Christ is one who leaps in the present, active tense, and for whom ceasing to leap would be ceasing to maintain identity and purpose. Leaping across must be unceasing because it is theologically connected to the journey or transitus of Christ to the Father, sustained by the Spirit. Ceasing to leap as the body of Christ in time is also failing to participate in triune communion in eternity. This reaffirms the earlier conclusion that the work of memory is actually the work of Christian existence. Not remembering or forgetting in Christ, that is, ceasing to leap, is neglecting both self and communion—​within time and in relation to eternity. And so the ongoing action of leaping, the communal exercise of the body of Christ, is where Augustine began to work out methodologically how memory and the Trinity might relate. This is the case because this communal exercise of leaping remains rooted in the concrete reality of the embodied and time-​bound world of the community right before Augustine, yet simultaneously reaches to the limpid realities beyond the comprehension of the interior of the self and knowable only in Christ. Thus, Augustine’s privileging the perspective of the leaping one, the transiliens or body of Christ, is the honest and humble signification that what can be known of the Trinity by human persons is only through time and the created order. This includes, of course, the regular interaction of preacher and congregation while they try to leap with and as Idithun. Humble though that might be, it is nevertheless an ongoing and dynamic action of contemplative movement. In ­chapter 3 we examined three leaps of remembering and forgetting as they transpire in Christ. In brief here, I revisit how each of the three leaps, though focused on the whole Christ, also shows the whole Christ as the bridge to the Trinity. In them we can see how in the successful leaps of the whole Christ, remembering and forgetting, the relationship between the transiliens and the transitus is the relationship between the members currently on pilgrimage and the head that has gone before—​both simultaneously

194  Augustine on Memory part of the one, whole Christ. Those actions of memory, for Augustine, open up the possibility of holding the Trinity in view. First, regarding the leap of memory into Christ, Augustine explains that it is the triune God who enables Idithun’s leap. Augustine’s text of Psalm 76 is “You are God, who work your wonders alone.”14 The question Augustine poses of his congregation is in what sense “alone” might be understood. Is the Father working and the Son not, for instance? Augustine’s answer is “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are at work.”15 As one God, the Trinity works wonders as one, “including the wonders seen in our leaping psalmist.” I give here a full paragraph of Augustine’s sermon. In it, one sees how Idithun’s—​the body of Christ’s—​leaping is always and ever a work of the entire Trinity. But this is knowable only through God’s power made manifest in a form observable to human perception in Christ. And so Augustine pivots from the leap as sustained by the Trinity to Christ’s being the one without whom the leap makes no sense. Augustine begins with the leap as miracle of God as Trinity: His very leap to the place he has reached was a miracle of God. When he babbled within, conversing with his own spirit in order to leap even beyond his spirit and find his delight in God’s works, he was himself doing wonderful things. But what did God do? You made your power known among the nations. So this congregation, this leaping Asaph, only came into existence because God made his power known among the nations. And what power was that? We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles folly; but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, a Christ who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. If, then, Christ is the power of God, it was Christ whom God made known among the nations. Do we not yet recognize this fact? Are we so stupid, so inert, so incapable of leaping over anything, that we cannot see it? Yet you have made your power known among the nations.16

If anything, preaching in this manner indicates that Trinitarian contemplation is going to be dependent upon the work of God who “works wonders alone,” but manifest and intelligible in Christ as transitus. And so, inasmuch as Idithun’s leaps of memory are into Christ, they are always and already into



14 en. Ps. 76.15. 15 en. Ps. 76.16. 16 en. Ps. 76.16.

Transitus and Trinity  195 Triune existence. For Christian existence, in sharing the life of God, is necessarily Trinitarian. Idithun’s second leap, that of memory out from Christ, explores the beginning of all things. The psalmist writes, “Only once has God spoken, but these two things have I heard” (61:12–​13). Augustine’s interpretation of this verse involves both aspects of the Word: the Word spoken by the Father from the beginning, that is, through all eternity, as well as the Word having taken up flesh and dwelling on earth. Importantly, Augustine begins his explanation with the transitus and works his way back to how God spoke only once. Augustine preaches that Idithun “had leapt a very long way to arrive at that place where God spoke only once. There you are, beloved friends: I have given you a short answer to our query. Here on earth, among human beings, God has indeed spoken frequently to us, in many ways, in many places, using many a created medium.”17 Augustine thus focuses in on the transitus, all of the ways that divine communication changed because of Christ’s incarnation, and continues in the body of the whole Christ. He reminds his congregants that their normal life is filled with contemplation of the transitus, be it in scriptures, the sacramenta of their liturgical celebrations, their confessions, or their festivals of abiding traces. All of these things, indeed, concern the communication of God to human persons. Yet what Idithun accesses by his leap of memory includes something more, that which is beyond these created communications while still containing them. Augustine explains to his congregants that “within himself, God has spoken only once.”18 Here, other members of the Trinity are at least in view of Augustine’s presentation of the one Word the Father begot. Idithun, the leaping one, is able to reach this point having summoned all of the sharpness of his memory, having leaped by the gaze of faith even beyond angels and all created things. Idithun, with self completely poured out, attains to the limpid reality of the very beginning: “the word who is God-​with-​God.” Augustine tells his congregants that Idithun finds the unique Word of the unique Father, and he knows then that God did indeed speak only once and thus is able to behold the one in whom all things exist.19 This sequence is important because it models how, for Augustine, the body of Christ serves as a ground of possibility for Trinitarian contemplation. Idithun’s leaps involve



17 en. Ps. 61.18. 18 en. Ps. 61.18.

19 en. Ps. 61.18. In the terms of trin., there is a parallel at 15.11.20.

196  Augustine on Memory memory, faith, and the grace of God, all while pouring himself out. In this way the communications of God to the created order, including the scriptural passages that inspire and guide the body of Christ in its leaping, establish the potential for contemplation of God speaking in God’s self. Idithun, without a Christological identity, would in no way be able to contemplate how “within himself God has spoken only once.” Thus the kenotic journey of Christ through the created order—​transitus—​sets up and allows for the same body of Christ, transiliens, to leap together to some small appreciation of God’s self. Augustine, by means of Idithun’s communal character, includes the whole Christ in the Trinitarian contemplation of the transiliens. Finally, in the leap of forgetting into Christ, Idithun undergoes the sort of Pauline forgetting we saw in c­ hapter 5. Forgetting what is behind, Idithun strains forward to Christ. But what Idithun realizes in forgetting and extending is precisely that, as he journeys toward God’s very self, what he lacks is greater than what he has.20 In other words, his own existence becomes seemingly small and lacking in importance compared with what is being renewed in him through Christ. And so, dragging Adam along, Idithun hastens toward Christ, HE WHO IS.21 This effort requires the power of Idithun’s memory as well as the longing of his heart, but in forgetting himself in Adam he can remember and long for a more complete version of even himself in Christ. Idithun reaches being and rest.22 As in the two preceding examples, Idithun’s access to contemplation of the God WHO IS emerges from contemplation of Christ.

The Eagles of Forgetting The sermons we have studied provide one further and prominent image that is important in order to see the Trinitarian dimension at work in both remembering and forgetting. The eagle—​who in an act of self-​forgetfulness chips away its own overgrown beak against the rock of Christ in order to be able to eat and regain strength—​provides Augustine with one further example of how the transitus is the point of access to the Trinity. Augustine suggests to his congregants that they should not be satisfied with mortal things or temporal goods. The only thing that will satisfy them is God’s very

20 en. Ps. 38.8. 21 en. Ps. 38.9.

22 en. Ps. 38.22.

Transitus and Trinity  197 self, “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Because the one who has seen the Son has seen the Father and the Spirit (Jn 14–​15), Augustine describes to his congregants that they already have a longing for the Trinity, whetted by the three loaves of scriptural bread which they seek when they stand at the door and knock in the night.23 The trouble is that they are not able to consume and digest the solid bread of the Trinity. In the here and now Augustine and his congregants have some notion of the Trinity, but “it is like looking at a confused reflection in a mirror” or like being an eagle whose overgrown beak prevents it from consuming its food.24 The eagle who chips away its own overgrown beak on the rock of Christ helps Augustine and his congregants to kenotically condition their own selves in such a way as to be able to consume the great food—​not only of the living bread come down from heaven in Christ Jesus but also the bread of the Father and the bread of the Spirit. All three form equal gifts for human satisfaction. The conceptual pairing of maturity with learning to eat and drink is common throughout Augustine’s writings.25 Here I highlight in particular the importance of Christological forgetting of self (the chipping away of one’s own beak) in order to be able to eat not only the bread of Christ but also the bread of the Father and the bread of the equal gift of the Spirit. In short, existence in Christ provides the therapeutic forgetting that also connects (even if Augustine does not develop it in his sermon) to the bread of the Father and the bread of the Spirit. Both Idithun the leaper and the eagle of forgetting have attuned us to the way in which the transitus is an access point for Trinitarian contemplation in Augustine’s preaching. Christ is the transitus, having completed his kenotic journey of redemption through the created order and time.26 But as the body of Christ, transiliens, Idithun, Augustine, and his congregants, continue to leap. And inasmuch as they do so from the location of Christ’s body, they are afforded a certain measure of success in attaining to the reality of God in God’s self, or the Trinity. We will see that success, the intellectual fruit of Augustine leaping from the location of Christ’s body into the reality of the Trinity, in the Trinity. In a complementary way, the eagle of forgetting models the chipping away of self that moves the self beyond its own confines 23 Lk 11:5–​13. 24 en. Ps. 102.10; 1 Cor 13:12. 25 The progression of nourishment from milk to solid food is ubiquitous in Augustine’s preaching and used consistently across his work. 26 trin. 4.18.24.

198  Augustine on Memory in order to consume the bread of the Father and the bread of the Spirit. The body of Christ cannot be taken for granted in looking to Augustine’s project in Trinity. For in that text it can be all too tempting to move from interior triad of the self (e.g., memory, understanding, and will) to the Trinity in itself. As Augustine reminds his readers, such a direct correlation is simply impossible for the creature. But those who have been trained through Augustine’s sermons, like Augustine himself, will anticipate the hope of the communal Christological pivot in Augustine’s argument. Indeed, those leapers and eagles of forgetting, schooled in the work of memory, will find the Trinity’s failure of individual memory not only understandable but also salutary.

The Work of Memory and Memory’s Failure (Again) It is not in itself controversial to suggest that in Augustine’s Trinity, the interior triad of memory, understanding, and will as the highest articulation of the image of God within the human person must fail. For the self turns out to be radically unlike the Trinity in itself. What is more, scholars like John Cavadini,27 Lewis Ayres,28 and those labeled “new canon” generally agree that what is frequently lacking in consideration of Trinitarian exercitatio mentis, or exercise of the mind, is that the structure and function of the Trinity is effectively lost when one relegates it to the inner person. In the terms of the language we have explored in the work of memory, even contemplation of the Trinity runs the risk of getting “stuck in the self ” (see c­ hapter 3). My interest therefore concerns how the triad fails. The work of memory has provided us Augustine’s regular and practiced paradigm for the failure of the self into the whole Christ and into divine contemplation. We have indeed seen different sorts of failures of self, from Augustine’s casting himself down upon Christ in frustration in the Confessions to the failure of self in the work of memory that ends in the union of the whole Christ. The advancement of the work of memory prepares us for the way the Trinity models the failure of the self into Christological 27 Cavadini shows how the failure represents a failure ultimately of a certain Neoplatonism, which must be reinscribed through faith in Christ and the Christian community. John C. Cavadini, “The Structure and Intention of Augustine’s ‘De Trinitate,’” Augustinian Studies 23 (1992): 103–​123. 28 In terms of fifth-​century theological pressures, Ayres has subsequently argued for appreciation of the broader argumentative purposes Augustine had in engaging interlocutors throughout the second half of trin. Lewis Ayres, “The Christological Context of Augustine’s De Trinitate XIII: Toward Relocating Books VIII–​XV,” Augustinian Studies 29, no. 1 (1998): 111–​139.

Transitus and Trinity  199 community and healing (see part 2 for examples). The point is hardly to go looking for a fleshed-​out totus Christus theology in Trinity. That simply is not Augustine’s project in the text. Instead, the argument is structural. The structure of Trinity does indeed reveal itself as an intellectual product of Augustine’s work of memory. What we will trace here is how the best interior triad—​the mind remembering itself, understanding itself, and loving itself—​ fails in the final books only alongside an argument about a Christological binary. The binary knowledge/​wisdom dates back to Augustine’s earliest writings (­chapter 1). Now, in light of the work of memory, that binary is not simply a Christological excursus in the second half of a book on the Trinity. Rather, the binary of knowledge and wisdom in Christ connects the best of the interior trinity within the self to the final and healing formulation of Trinitarian communion. For when Augustine closes the book with a prayer to remember God, understand God, and love God, he only does so in order that God might refashion him entirely. The subversion of the self through the work of memory becomes the ongoing practice of Trinitarian participation. I explore this first in terms of the inner and outer person, the binary of knowledge and wisdom, and then consider the end of memory in terms of image renewed.

Inner and Outer Trinities of the Human Person The methodological proposition of the Trinity is that one might be able to learn something of the Trinity, known as an article of faith, by looking at the created order and then specifically at the human person created in the image of God. To this end, Augustine moves inward and upward through a number of triads or trinities—​over twenty of them—​depending on the phase of his argument. For the purposes of considering memory, I focus on the triad of memory, understanding, and will, which Augustine first introduces in book 4 and then continues to refine and restate throughout the second half of the work, sometimes interchanging willing and loving.29 Even unto the final prayer of book 15, some version of this triad threads through his argument. In what follows, I establish how this trinity, as image of God in the

29 The dating of Augustine’s writing of these books roughly corresponds to the time period of the work of memory from part 2. Ayres, for instance, affirms Hombert, dating trin. book 4 at approximately 414 (Augustine and the Trinity, 119–​120).

200  Augustine on Memory human person, does and does not unfold onto contemplation of the Trinity. It reaffirms both the promise and the failure of memory and the self. Augustine’s method is attentive to both the outer and inner person, locating trinities in both aspects of human persons composed of body and soul. As he moves into books 9, 10, and 11, he turns inward—​a move we introduced in detail in ­chapter 1 on the Confessions and reinscribed in the whole Christ throughout part 2, beginning with the inward turns of Idithun the leaper. Yet in the inward turn of Trinity, Augustine signals maturity concerning the work of memory from the outset. In the prologue of book 9 he appeals to the Pauline forgetting (Phil 3:13) we discussed in c­ hapter 5. The forgetfulness of the self ’s distention and extension into Christ are the starting characteristic of the inward turn of Trinity. The end of this inward turn to memory has already been signaled; one should expect a self refashioned in Christological communion. The advantage of the inward turn in the Trinity is that Augustine is able to consider trinities of interrelated actions that are part of the same being or substance. Early in this process, he experiments with mind, knowledge of self, and love of self (book 9). However, the mind’s knowledge of self and love of self are utterly fraught in a fallen world, and further heirs to all sorts of materialist and philosophical mistakes that might define the mind through some exterior thing rather than knowledge or love strictly of itself (book 10). At the end of book 10, Augustine posits and explores his mental trinity of memory, understanding, and will. This triad advances Augustine’s project in two ways. First, they are not three substances but one. Augustine explains that with reference to themselves, memory, understanding, and will are life, mind, and substance. It is necessary to use the terms memory, understanding, or will only when one refers to them alongside something else. In themselves, they all have a singular substance, contain one another, and are equal to each other both individually and all together.30 Second, one remembers the whole of one’s memory, understands the whole of one’s understanding, and wills the whole of one’s will. In an earlier sermon when Augustine is describing the Trinity via the baptism of Jesus, he writes that the whole Trinity produces the flesh being baptized, but the only one it belongs to is Christ.31 The whole Trinity produces the dove in the sky, but it belongs to the Holy Spirit. And the whole

30 trin. 10.11.18. 31 sermo. 52.21.

Transitus and Trinity  201 Trinity produces the voice from the sky, but it belongs to the Father. One can appreciate the parallel for which he is striving. Memory, understanding, and will all together produce the word “memory,” which is distinct. Thus, the mental trinity on the one hand has extraordinary potential in terms of shared substance. What is lacking, however, is the way in which remembering, understanding, and willing happen in time and with specific objects. Augustine moves from the inner back to the outer in book 11 to refine this more precisely. He ponders two trinities of the outer person. First is sight, the visibility of the thing seen, and the will that connects the two.32 Then, expanding upon the first, he turns to memory, the attention of the mind, and the will that joins the two together.33 These trinities reveal Augustine to be particularly aware of sensory perception and human embeddedness in time. The first accounts for sensory perception in the present in a triune meditation on the act of seeing, the thing seen, and the act of will to connect the two. The second operates at a further level of abstraction—​a memory of the sensory world, attention of the mind upon it, and the will that joins the two. Augustine gives practical examples of the power of this sort of memory. The enduring image that produces a particular lust, for instance, or a sensory impression that begets a vehement fear, can act so powerfully upon willed contemplation that they change the condition and the disposition of the physical body of the one remembering. As the examples of lust and fear demonstrate, these trinities are not necessarily good. In fact, Augustine reintroduces an idea of modus, or measure, from his early writings, to show how principles of measure (beginning with weight, number, size, color, etc.) chasten and guide how, in a fallen world, memory and will might fix upon destructive images and habits.34 Augustine distinguishes between lower and higher aspects of these contemplations in order to make an important revision of the trinity of memory, understanding, and will. The distinction between lower and higher concerning memory, understanding, and will at this point has to do with content and act. The “lower” way of configuring the interior trinity of memory, understanding, and will has to do with the three operations considering a particular content. This is lower because it involves a content that is exterior to the mind (a sensory impression, emotion, abstract idea, etc.). By contrast,



32 trin. 11.2.2.

33 trin. 11.3.6ff.

34 trin. 11.10.17–​18; Cf. c ­ hapter 1.

202  Augustine on Memory the higher aspect is self-​reflective, designated by Augustine’s adding the reflexive pronoun “itself.” One does not remember, understand, and will other content; rather, the trinity becomes the mind “remembering itself, understanding itself, and loving itself.”35 The advancement of this formulation is that no outside thing defines the mind—​not sense perception, not historical situatedness, not input from the temporal order. Rather, Augustine is able to formulate this trinity from the self-​awareness of the human person. This is the best triad proportionally for the Trinity (though of course ultimately unlike it) that Augustine is able to make within the individual self. Of course, this self is going to fail. The problem, which Augustine is quick to point out, is that though the human person is indeed created in the likeness and image of God, and the trinity of the human mind’s remembering itself, understanding itself, and loving itself is an extraordinary accomplishment of three coequal but distinct actions of a single substance, the human mind pales in comparison to the divine Trinity. There is an infinite gap, and in the latter part of book 14 and throughout book 15, Augustine is clear that memory, understanding, and will/​love, even with the reflexive additive, are unable to mediate the divine Trinity to the human mind. The image of God in the human person is in a broken state, in need of renewal that it cannot itself effect. The work of memory has helped us to anticipate that Christian existence is not consummated by self-​awareness or mindfulness. Rather, since first experiencing the failure of individual memory in Confessions, Augustine has discovered that when this great power of the self fails, it can do so into Christ. As he starts to work out that implication in his preaching, a pedagogical habit forms as he displays the stellar capabilities of the individual memory only to have it fail into the whole Christ. We have observed this repeatedly: in the structure and intention of Confessions 10; in each of Idithun’s leaps as the body of Christ that involve the pouring out of the self; in the work of remembering in both backward and forward directions together in Christ; and in the work of forgetting oneself in order to strain forward unto the whole. All the way through, memory has revealed the failure of the self as part of its healing. In the Trinity Augustine does not stray from this well-​worn psychagogical path that he has practiced and honed through his preaching. When Augustine constructs the seeming pinnacle triad, the image of God, of the mind remembering itself, understanding itself, and loving itself, one

35 trin. 14.8.11.

Transitus and Trinity  203 could hardly expect that such a self-​contained action could ever mediate the divine Trinity in itself to the temporal. If Augustine were to have ended his study at this point, contemplation of the divine Trinity might never get further than the fraught confines of the self. Augustine’s Trinitarian “seeker” at this point pales in comparison to Idithun the leaper. But from the outset of book 9, Augustine has alerted his reader to forgetfulness of self in a Pauline fashion, extending with great effort toward Christ. Thus, Augustine submits his trinity of memory, understanding, and will/​ love to a final revision. The renewal of the image of God in the human person is not in the mind’s remembering itself, understanding itself, and loving itself. It is, rather—​with a certain forgetfulness of self—​the mind’s remembering God, understanding God, and loving God.36 This is not the remembrance, understanding, and loving of God as some exterior temporal thing. It is instead the approach to uncreatedness that Augustine defines as the act of worship (colere).37 In this instance, the self does not produce its own light but opens itself to the divine light shared with it. The self does not produce its own wisdom but comes to inhabit the divine that is shared with it. And though Augustine’s project in Trinity is not specifically occupied with the whole Christ, the explicit groundwork for Augustine to make his Trinitarian claim has been building for years in his preaching on the work of memory—​ Idithun’s consistent outpouring of self and his “forgetfulness that cares for the poor” being particularly prominent examples. Recalling these texts provides genealogical grounding for what is stated so briefly in the Trinity that it seems assumed. When the human person undertakes the actions of remembering God, understanding God, and loving God, the pinnacle triad in the Trinity, that person can be rightly commanded to love neighbor as self.38 The communal constitution of triune contemplation is explicit. What might seem abrupt within the Trinity, however, is—​when considered in light of the work of memory—​a conclusion to which Augustine and his congregations have journeyed through days and weeks of sermons. The movement of remembering-​understanding-​loving God that opens onto love of neighbor is psychagogical. In the earlier formulation, the one who knows how to remember the self, understand the self, and love the self is always and already open to the possibility of remembering, understanding,



36 trin. 14.12.15.

37 trin. 14.12.15. On the issue of worship, see Drever, Augustinian Soul, 142–​186. 38 trin. 14.14.18.

204  Augustine on Memory and loving God. Augustine’s presentation of this hopefulness of healing in the midst of brokenness comes from the rhetoric of his beloved psalms.39 He cites one of the Idithun psalms, for instance, to claim that though human beings walk as an image of God, they still experience troubles in vain.40 Yet, Augustine suggests, when given the choice to have either the loss of remembering, understanding, and loving of self (the image, though broken) or some other earthly thing like treasure, the human person is always going to choose the self. Even in brokenness, the human propensity to opt for the inner trinity over any external good brings the hope of the image being renewed. In terms of the work of memory, one will be ever vacillating between the extremes of binaries such as laboring and resting, yet there is still hope for reconciliation of those distentious pulls and pushes. Confession and the return to the truth of the self that has sinned are hallmarks of the first stages of the work of remembering. For even when the mind pursues the most destructive of things in the most warped of manners, it still does so in reference to the self. Memory, understanding, and will might be broken and exercised unevenly in a fallen world, but their operation within the self is still a sign of their created potency for God. The trinity of remembering God, understanding God, and loving God, even though insufficient for articulating the inner life of God, nevertheless serves day by day and contemplation by contemplation to renew what is best in the human person as image of God. In a mode of remembering forward as in the healing that comes from the memory of Sabbath rest and the peace of Jerusalem, Augustine closes the treatise in a prayer: “Let me remember you, let me understand you, let me love you. Increase these things in me until you refashion me entirely.”41 The mood is subjunctive, the hope of prayer for that which is not yet known in reality. Like all remembering forward, this one brings with it some pain and mourning, for one cannot remember God, understand God, and love God in a complete and final way during the passage of time. Nevertheless, by these actions the self, first failed and then self-​ forgetting, is reestablished in communion—​with God as Trinity and with earthly neighbor. We have seen even in this short consideration of inner trinities that the work of memory in the whole Christ bridges the failure of the interior self 39 Ps. 21, 37, 38, 93, and 112. 40 trin. 14.14.19. 41 trin. 15.28.51. “Meminerim tui, intelligam te, diligam te. Auge in me ista, donec reformes ad integrum.”

Transitus and Trinity  205 and remembering God (and therein also the understanding and loving God) which refashions the human person. The interior triad is of a single person. In reaching the pinnacle and thus the failure of the mind remembering itself, the fallen self becomes dislocated just enough in humility that it might be renewed and brought to life by the remembering of God and neighbor. Yet the shift to a triune communion of persons requires mediation, for such a shift is far beyond the highest powers of the self. How that happens is again through Christ the mediator and opens for us a final binary made coherent in Christ: knowledge and wisdom.

The Work of Memory and the Trinity: Scientia and Sapientia In ­chapter 6, on the work of memory, we observed how, through his preaching, Augustine comes to see that in the whole Christ seemingly opposite things, which I call binaries, become sites of healing. Starting with remembering/​forgetting, these binaries include praising/​groaning, laboring/​ resting, and lyre/​psaltery. Consistently articulated in memory language, they provide the promise of the rehabilitation of a world broken by oppositions. This work of memory prepares the reader for Augustine’s introduction of a binary in the later books of the Trinity, this time of knowledge and wisdom (scientia/​sapientia).42 Notably, in Augustine’s early writings on mediation in memory, this binary involved “measure” at the intersection of earthly and divine (see ­chapter 1).43 Though the language of measure continues to be useful, memory has since turned in a decidedly Christological direction. Augustine still links knowledge and wisdom in terms of memory, even keeping the language of measure, yet now he resolves the relationship by means of Christ. Augustine’s mature presentation of the knowledge/​wisdom binary in Christ requires that he disavow a certain presentation of Platonic recollection that stands in the way.44 Memory continues to connect knowledge and wisdom, but how that connection works in Christ is not the same thing as Platonic recollection. Concerning knowledge, there are eternal, intelligible, 42 See: Goulven Madec, “Christus, scientia et sapientia nostra: Le principe de cohérence de la doctrine augustinienne,” Recherches Augustiniennes 10 (1975): 77–​85. 43 See also in c­ hapter 1, “Body and Soul,” “Wisdom,” and “Time.” 44 Hochschild provides the most exhaustive presentation of Platonism concerning memory and suggests how Augustine received aspects of those traditions (Memory, 9–​66).

206  Augustine on Memory nonbodily, and nonspatial ideas which an acute mind can indeed contemplate.45 Of course, the problem of human knowledge is that one cannot abide in the contemplation of such an eternal idea. One’s encounter with such eternality is itself a transitory and passing thought about a nontransitory thing. However, Augustine reminds his readers that by means of memory, one can return to such a transitory thought and be led, even as if a novice once more, back to contemplation of eternal reality. In this way, even the transitory aspects of memory have an ongoing role to play in human knowledge—​ which is capable in rather profound ways of transitory brushes with eternal wisdom. In light of this high consideration of knowledge, Augustine at least appreciates what Plato was after in trying to develop his theory of recollection, when learning was truly a matter of remembering, like the young boy who upon interrogation in the Meno is able to learn-​via-​remembering geometric principles.46 Augustine, while honoring Plato, is clear in his own refutation of learning as remembering things once known: “If this were recollection of things previously known, not everybody or practically everybody would be able to do the same if interrogated in that way; it is unlikely that everybody was a geometer in a previous life, seeing that they are such a rarity in the human race that it is a job even to find one.”47 This forms the backbone of Augustine’s refutation of Platonic anamnesis. If it were possible to remember things that had simply been forgotten from prior embodiments, all sorts of people would be doing it. Rather, Augustine claims, this is a sort of false memory, akin to when one dreams of seeing or doing things one has never seen or done. In the order of knowledge, Augustine clarifies his own position: “The nature of the intellectual mind has been so established by the disposition of its creator that it is subjoined to intelligible things in the order of nature, and so it sees such truths in a kind of non-​bodily light that is sui generis.”48 In this way Augustine places distance between his own presentation of knowledge and that of Plato. There is indeed an exalted aspect of scientia, but Augustine develops this in consideration of the temporally defined actions of Christ. Augustine makes a very careful demarcation between knowledge and wisdom in his articulation of the Word. He writes that all of the things that

45 trin. 12.14.22.

46 Plato, Meno, 82b–​86e. 47 trin. 12.15.24. 48 trin. 12.15.24.

Transitus and Trinity  207 the Word made flesh did for human persons in time and space belong to knowledge, not to wisdom.49 It is helpful here to recall the use of the term transitus as pertaining to those actions describable in the perfect tense in which Jesus Christ sojourned through time and matter. On the other hand, inasmuch as the Word is coeternal with the Father, in whom all things came to be, the Word is rightly described as wisdom. By means of this distinction, Augustine is able to draw together knowledge, strictly defined as action concerning temporal things in Christ, and wisdom, strictly speaking contemplation of the eternal in Christ. The binary is productive because, as Augustine writes, our knowledge is Christ and our wisdom is Christ: “It is he who plants faith in us about temporal things, he who presents us with the truth about eternal things. Through him we go straight toward him, through knowledge toward wisdom, without ever turning aside from one and the same Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”50 This articulation can allow for the concrete content of the life of Christ at the same time as it holds the eternality of the Word, and therein of the Father and the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, in a way that is appropriate to the faith-​seeking-​ understanding method of Trinity, we see Augustine using Christ to distinguish types of knowledge. In terms of exterior and interior triads, one might hear or read of the knowledge of the life of Christ on earth: birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The simple cognitive processing of that data belongs to the trinity of the outer person, while when one remembers, understands, and loves in light of those words, this action is moving toward the trinity of the inner person.51 On the other hand, we see Augustine using Christ to distinguish types of wisdom. There is the wisdom of this world (“folly,” according to Paul), the wisdom that is coterminous with God’s very self, and the wisdom of human persons that is the worship of God.52 When one remembers, understands, and loves God—​the trinity not of the self but extending (forgetful of self) beyond it—​then one becomes wise. Thus, even at the point where the image of God in the human person is being renewed by the Trinitarian action of remembering God, understanding God, and loving God, we see enacted on a Trinitarian horizon what we have first in the sermons watched mature as the work of memory.

49 trin. 13.19.24. 50 trin. 13.19.24. 51 trin. 13.20.26.

52 trin. 14.1.1; 1 Cor 3:19.

208  Augustine on Memory In Christ the work of memory is at once the work of knowledge—​the life of faith concerning the temporal interventions of Jesus Christ in human history. At the same time, the work of memory is also the work of wisdom—​ transforming and renewing that image which is eternal within the created order. Augustine does not display this in his earliest thought; he comes to it through the work of memory in preaching. I continue to use the terminology “work of memory” because these actions are indeed ongoing work in Christ, with the maturation in Augustine’s own knowledge/​wisdom binary being a prime instance. It is Christ, mediating the binary of knowledge and wisdom, who bridges the interior trinity of the mind remembering itself, understanding itself, and loving itself and the trinity of reform of the self which is remembering God, understanding God, and loving God. This work of memory prepares us for memory’s end: the very image of the triune God renewed in human persons.

Participation: Abiding Traces and Image Renewed In his final book of the Trinity, Augustine speculates about the way a human person might exist in the vision of God. This was a central question with which Augustine wrestled in Confessions, years before.53 Yet his understanding of mediation has grown vastly—​especially through the work of memory. In the Trinity, the context of his speculation is his admission of the absolute difference between creator and created, but nonetheless he hopes for some soteriological stability of the mind. He imagines that, relieved from the bounds of time, human thoughts might no longer come and go, changing quickly and seemingly uncontrollably, as we have frequently seen him describe in preaching. If contrastive binaries could be mediated in the whole Christ on earth, there is only reasonable hope of time and eternity being mediated to one another in the human mind in the eschaton. Imagining this, Augustine writes, tantalizingly, “We shall see all our knowledge in one simultaneous glance.”54 Even though that knowledge will be formed in time and memory, Augustine accords it a certain stability in eternity, although he is not certain of this. He writes, “if it does happen.”55 But this speculative move,



53 See c ­ hapter 1, n47. 54 trin. 15.16.26. 55 trin. 15.16.26.

Transitus and Trinity  209 originating from utter difference between human and divine, is precisely the work of memory he has been practicing in his preaching. Augustine’s postulation about the end of memory, our eschatological seeing of all knowledge in one simultaneous glance, invites not only consideration of the difference between the human person and the divine, but the relationship between “abiding traces” in the work of memory and the renewal of the image of God in the human person in the Trinity. He articulates both of these in terms of the word “participation,” another label for the recurring theme of Christian existence that characterizes the work of memory.56 In such an examination, we are able to see how the work of memory leads to the end of memory, or the image of God renewed. In the whole Christ, memory draws forward a time-​bound past grace and confession such that Christ is in some way acting in the present. Likewise, memory can draw backward traces of future Sabbath rest or the heavenly Jerusalem, traces given not from history but from grace, such that singing, laboring, groaning, and resting are in some way present participation in the heavenly order. In both of these aspects of the work of memory, Augustine focuses on how these past and future traces might be mediated to the present. Shared chewing staves off the forgetting of individuated digestion, and shared singing keeps the songs of the heavenly Jerusalem on the lips of those who abide on the banks of the rivers of Babylon. In each of these instances the work of memory is embedded in the changing, the human, and the temporal, with the whole Christ providing access and promise that such activity is not without mediated connection to the eternal and abiding—​from the foundation of creation in the Word to the end of time. In this way, the work of memory is the shared existence of participation that demands a shared identity, not as an end product but from the outset. The work of remembering keeps festival with abiding traces such that they shall not be forgotten until the image of the human person is completely renewed. The same is true of forgetting, of working unto renewal, from distention to extension. Even seeming binaries in the temporal order are revelatory of this Christic transfiguration. When Augustine speaks in the Trinity about the image of God, he uses the word “participates” (participare) to describe how it is that the image of God in the human person might relate to God, for the two do not share the same 56 Especially helpful context here is Jonathan Teubner, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 87–​108.

210  Augustine on Memory nature. The image of God, which we have seen already in the mind remembering itself, understanding itself, and loving itself, cannot be destroyed. For Augustine there is no better part of human nature. That such an image of God exists in the human person does not guarantee that it participates in God. Indeed, the human person is ever beleaguered by desires and loves that fail to offer more than fleeting temporal satisfaction. The image can become, as Augustine suggests, worn out and distorted (obsoletam atque deformem).57 Thus, the image of God in the human person might or might not participate in God. The concern in the Trinity is the manner in which that participation might be brought about. As Matthew Drever has argued in his Image, Identity, and the Forming of the Augustinian Soul, we can consider two factors in participation concerning the Trinity.58 Both relate to the second person of the Trinity. The first is that there is an “inner word” which, when allowed to speak, is in some manner Christ’s speaking in us. Augustine explores the use of this inner word in the Trinity through citation and explanation of the prologue of the Gospel of John.59 The second is what Drever establishes as the kenotic model of participation. In this model the self-​emptying of the second person of the Trinity who assumes human flesh takes up who we are. Full self-​emptying brings about maximal possibility for participation by means of Christ. Drever concludes with the conceptuality that through Christ we go to Christ. In Christ the inner word speaks; human flesh finds its exaltation by latching onto Christ’s kenosis. Therein lies the promise of renewal. The renewed image, renewed existence itself, is indeed the end of memory. When the image of God in the human person is no longer worn out or distorted, then remembering God, understanding God, and loving God will be at the service not of reform but of the enjoyment of rest and rejoicing. A powerful vision of renewal and completion of human anthropology emerges in the final books of the Trinity. Yet scholars, perhaps on account of Augustine’s own concern with the issue, qualify that the renewal of the image of God in the human person is not a solitary project. Drever goes so far as to claim that being on one’s own is contrary to participation in God.60 Hochschild, as we discussed at the outset of this chapter, made the case for a “spiritual theodicy of participation” in the body of Christ.61 Both of these are certainly

57 trin. 14.8.11.

58 Drever, Augustinian Soul, 142–​186. 59 trin. 13.1.2.ff.

60 Drever, Augustinian Soul, 163. 61 Hochschild, Memory, 195.

Transitus and Trinity  211 correct and do justice to Augustine’s Trinity. But what the Trinity, in all of its magnificence and contemplative achievement, does not do is to provide an in-​depth treatment of what such a shared participation in the whole Christ might look like beyond the straightforward articulation of love of God and neighbor. The whole Christ, formed and practiced throughout Augustine’s preaching, provides a whole conceptual groundwork, from the forgetfulness and failure of the self to the reconciliation of binaries as the work of memory, on which the building blocks of the Trinity rest. As such, the participation that Augustine articulates in the Trinity, the renewal of the image of God—​ remembering, understanding, and willing—​has already been an ongoing practice for Augustine and his congregants in the whole Christ.

Conclusion: Transitus and Trinity This chapter has not been an exhaustive treatment of the Trinity. Rather, I have shown ways in which Augustine’s use of memory in the Trinity emerges as a consequence of his preaching on the work of memory. By looking back at Augustine’s long preaching career, we saw that in Christ as transitus eternal wisdom is always in view from temporal knowledge. Idithun the leaper (transiliens) establishes the body of Christ not as a secondary consideration but as the primary actor. Since leaping is not simply exercise but existence, the ongoing work of memory demands consideration of this communal subject. Existence in the whole Christ foregrounds awareness of existence in the Triune God. When seen in this context of the advances made in the work of memory, Augustine’s failure of memory in the inner trinity is even more stunning. The work of memory shows how the inward turn of the Trinity, marked by Augustine’s hallmark Pauline forgetting of self, opens onto God and neighbor. Second, replicating a pattern we saw repeated in the work of memory as describing Christian existence, Augustine in the Trinity bridges the binary of knowledge and wisdom. In his earliest writings, memory holds out promise as an anthropological mediator of knowledge and wisdom, or that which is observable in time and that which is eternal. But it turns out that the whole Christ is precisely what holds together the temporal actions of the Word incarnate in history (knowledge) along with the Word that eternally abides (wisdom). This Christological mediator, unearthed in Augustine’s preaching, provides the link between the failed interior triad of the human person and

212  Augustine on Memory the remembering-​understanding-​loving God that renews the broken and tarnished image of God. Thus, the work of memory shows how the body of Christ is not secondary to Augustine’s Trinitarian theology but the necessary precondition for it. If Confessions and the Trinity on memory are taken together apart from the sermons, one may reach the simple conclusion that memory is healed in Christ. How precisely that happens in Christ’s body—​ and how Augustine himself came to that realization—​remains unexplained. In the Trinity, the renewal of the image of God in the individual person only commences outwardly in remembering God, understanding God, and loving God, which also means the same for one’s neighbor. These are indeed profound contemplations, and ones to which, Augustine suggests, those who discover them might devote all of their energy.62 But devoting that sort of energy to remembering God (and therein understanding God and loving God as well as one’s neighbor) would entail making rather concrete work, day in and day out, of such a contemplation. The whole Christ is the dynamic arena of that endeavor and intrinsic to memory’s end in the triune God. The Trinity shows the intellectual fruits of the work of memory. But some of those fruits can be seen in Augustine’s own story as well, and so we now take up the end of Augustine’s memory, evidenced by his relationship to Psalm 50 in his life and his death.



62 trin. 15.20.39.

8 Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death This chapter comprises the second part of the end of memory, moving from intellectual to personal. The work of memory reaches its conclusion in natural death—​the end of earthly binaries—​making Augustine’s own death the perfect occasion to examine how all of his work on memory, for his congregants and for himself, shapes his own life and death. Since Augustine’s Confessions, his interest in memory was not only about truth but also about his own becoming true—​bringing peace to his restless heart in a world of seemingly distending binaries. His deathbed gives us a final glimpse of the heart longing for rest. Remarkably, we know one critical detail concerning Augustine’s final labors of memory from Possidius, bishop of nearby Calama and author of the Life of Augustine at some point in the 430s: Augustine had someone paste copies of the penitential psalms around his deathbed. In support of his hagiographic project, likely over and against Augustine’s detractors, Possidius interprets this as a simple act of penitence, but Augustine’s action, preserved by chance, could not be more significant as a final reflection upon the work of memory. Just as the beginning of memory has an essential personal dimension for Augustine in Confessions, the end of memory also has consequences that are personal for him.

Possidius’s Hagiographic Reduction Possidius of Calama made an enduring contribution to Augustinian studies only shortly after Augustine’s death on August 28, 430, in Hippo. In the years immediately following, he took up the writing of the Life of Augustine, inclusive of an index that has since formed the contours of our understanding of Augustine’s oeuvre. For all that Possidius contributes, he does not provide substantive insight into Augustine’s theology, generally.1 This is certainly 1 Mark Vessey makes this claim perhaps most strongly. Mark Vessey, “Possidius,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 668.

Augustine on Memory. Kevin G. Grove, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197587218.003.0009

214  Augustine on Memory true concerning his depiction of Augustine’s death. Possidius sets the stage with a highly unusual detail: “Augustine had the very few Davidic psalms on repentance written out and the sheets attached to the wall opposite his bed; then, while he lay ill, he looked at them, read them, and wept continuously and copiously.”2 Possidius paints Augustine as engaging in fitting and appropriate repentance for his sins at the end of his life—​something that Augustine previously indicated in conversation that all exemplary Christians ought to do. Possidius’s presentation projects a penitential and solitary end for Augustine and, as Erika Hermanowicz argues, tempers the image of Augustine’s external power and importance with the suggestion of his interior humility and contrition.3 Possidius provides this narrative detail about the psalms, then, but reveals his authorial interest in proving—​likely against opposition—​Augustine’s holiness in that he continues to repent until the last.4 Possidius’s end of memory for Augustine is regret, tears, and penitence. Those things certainly have a role to play in Augustine’s own life and thought, but otherwise they seem to contradict the work of memory and the whole Christ that is woven throughout Augustine’s decades of preaching. Possidius, working within the narrow conventions of ancient genres for biography, fails to dig deeper into the psalms and thus misses Augustine’s relationship with the very texts he pastes upon his walls.5 That Augustine weeps when he reads the psalms is not new; he claims as much at the time of his conversion in the Confessions.6 However, since having wept in his early days over the psalms of David, Augustine had undertaken to preach on them, as well as to incorporate and build upon many of those exegetical insights throughout his work. In that light, his reading the psalms at his death merits a more thorough consideration. I argue that the work of memory prepared him to read these texts with a much more positive end for memory, and for himself.

2 Possidius, Sancti Augustini vita, 31.2. 3 Erika Hermanowicz, Possidius of Calama: A Study of the North African Episcopate in the Age of Augustine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 1.1n87. 4 This intention is particularly helpful, as Hermanowicz explains, in not drawing too closely together Possidius’s Vita Augustini and either Suetonian or Plutarchian narrative models. The latter cannot account for the Christian Augustine of Confessions. Hermanowicz, Possidius, 24–​25. 5 Various forms of biographical Christian vitae in this era were written to set forth images to which present readers might aspire. Possidius presents Augustine’s death for his contemporaries as a model of repentance. Michael Stuart Williams, Authorized Lives in Early Christian Biography: Between Eusebius and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 230–​235. 6 See c­ hapter 2, “What the Psalms Made of Augustine: Preacher of a Whole Christ.”

Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death  215

Psalm 50: Rethinking the End of Memory What psalms was Augustine reading? Possidius provides us with two clues: “very few” (paucissimi) and “repentance” (de paenitentia). Depending on whether one classifies them individually or communally, the psalms of lament together can account for around a third of the psalter, and many have penitential aspects, so the “very few” helps narrow our focus to the subset on penitence. Unfortunately, the earliest record of what are now known as the penitential psalms comes from Cassiodorus in the sixth century.7 Those psalms are 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, and 142. These would make for quite a striking integration of the work of memory at memory’s end, for when Augustine preaches on these texts, he does the work of memory: in preaching on Psalm 31 he draws together the binary of praising and groaning; through Psalm 37 he works out how remembering forward includes recalling future rest in God; Psalm 101 describes the bread of memory; in considering Psalm 129 Augustine takes up the voice of Christ to tell his congregants they too will rise again; and Psalm 142 images how the whole Christ can call to mind the miracles of salvation that the individual might not. The connections between the work of memory and what the tradition post-​Cassiodorus has come to identify as penitential psalms are fulsome indeed. However, Augustine provides much less evidence for which psalms he thinks concerned penitence. Scholars frequently enough will credit Augustine with parts of Cassiodorus’s list, but not describe precisely which psalms they think Augustine categorized as penitential.8 While, then, we might identify psalms 6, 31, 37, 101, 129, and 142, there is ample internal Augustinian evidence in support of Psalm 50 being one of the psalms pasted up at Augustine’s bedside. Augustine does use the formulation “penitential psalm” (psalmo paenitentiae) when he imports the logic of Psalm 50:10 in his sermon on Psalm 44.9 He is claiming not simply that an aspect of Psalm 50 is penitential but that the whole thing is a penitential psalm. On multiple occasions—​sermons on psalms as well as sermons on other topics—​Augustine cites Psalm 50 as penitential.10 And while scholars’ 7 Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 97.71. 8 Clare Costley King’oo, Miserere Mei: The Penitential Psalms in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), 3–​13. Harry Nasuti maintains Augustine’s influence on Cassiodorus and the Western tradition in this regard. Harry Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition and the Post-​Critical Interpretation of the Psalms in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 30–​38. 9 en. Ps. 44.18. 10 E.g., sermo. 20, 113.2, 351.12, 352.1.

216  Augustine on Memory claims upon Augustine’s favorite scriptural texts are as diverse as scholarship on Augustine, Psalm 50 has an inarguably prominent place in his preaching, notwithstanding what comes to be the daily utilization of it in the Latin traditions of liturgy of the hours.11 Concerning his sermons on the psalms alone, Augustine marshals the text of Psalm 50 in order to help him interpret scriptural texts across the Old and New Testaments.12 Consequently, if we were to posit which of the “very few” psalms treating penitence he might be reading as he lies upon his bed dying and weeping, Psalm 50 is the only one about which we can speak with a high degree of probability based on Augustine’s own writings. As we dig deeper, what is so important about Psalm 50 is not simply Augustine’s sermon on the text. Rather, what is remarkable about this psalm of penitence is the way Augustine uses clusters of its verses throughout his preaching. A few sets of verses from Psalm 50 function rather like Acts 9:4 in recalling the whole Christ, or Philippians 3:13–​14 in drawing up a Pauline model of forgetting into Christ. He cites three clusters of verses with regularity and consistency of purpose. All of them treat the work of memory in the whole Christ. And thus, what forms my argument is not only Augustine’s sermon on Psalm 50 but also a trans-​oeuvre forensic effort to show how a single, prominent psalm of memory glosses a great deal of his preaching. Ultimately, what emerges in Augustine’s preaching is the consistency of the work of memory. And thus, the following three sections will naturally recapitulate themes from the entire book.

Continuing to Leap One of Augustine’s oft-​cited verses is Psalm 50:10. The verse is not about leaping but about dancing—​which does not exclude leaping—​emerging out of the humbling or diminishment of the self. Augustine’s text of Psalm 50:10

11 This psalm came to be part of the opening of the divine office, “O Lord open Thou our lips.” For more concerning that development theologically and liturgically, see Kevin G. Grove, “Transfiguring Speech: Prayer and the Psalms,” in The T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Prayer, ed. A. Cocksworth and J. McDowell (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 45–​64. 12 In addition to the specific verses I highlight and their corresponding sermons, Augustine also uses Psalm 50 in sermo. 19, 23.1, 28.2, 112A.5, 187.1, 347.2, 351.2, 351.7, 351.9, 351.12, 381.1, 384.3, 391.1 as well as en. Ps. 31.2.9, 64.4, 78.4, 141.8, 150.3. Though the dating of his sermons is always and ever approximate, these generally emerge from the mature part of his life and preaching in which the whole Christ had taken shape after 400 and especially from 410 to 419.

Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death  217 reads, “As I listen you will give me delight and gladness, and my humbled bones will dance for joy.”13 In Augustine’s sermon on Psalm 50, he describes the inward turn wherein one might encounter and discover Christ’s truth, neither through the self nor in a self-​contained way but in the humbling of a self open to God. John the Baptist is the model, for he heard Christ’s voice and resolved to stand, listen, and then speak about Christ to his own seeming diminishment.14 Such a person, who is able to hear humbly and correctly so as to experience Christ’s delight and gladness in his or her humbled bones, is one who has already opened up his or her whole self by means of confession.15 The turn inward, for the person in the psalm or for John the Baptist, is only in order that the Word might be encountered and produced in speech outwardly. The turn inward, paradoxically out of the self and into the Word, ends outwardly in communication of Christ to others. Both in structure and in content, this is strikingly consistent with the manner in which Augustine uses Psalm 50:10 to describe the predicament of Idithun the leaper. Idithun the leaper is a trope for the whole Christ, whose leaps of remembering and forgetting reveal this as a communal exercise out of the self and into Christ, which results in increased awareness of the needs of others within the same. In Idithun’s leap of forgetting, he at one point encounters the tension between hearing delight and gladness from the Lord and ceasing to speak.16 After the first part of his leap, he has run into his characteristic trouble. In this instance, he fears speaking, imposing silence upon himself and thereby losing his words. He is running the risk of ceasing to be a leaper. Augustine solves Idithun’s problem with the insight of Psalm 50:10. Idithun needs to remember what he has previously heard that has been worthwhile: the delight and gladness of Christ. Augustine reminds his assembly that John the Baptist was filled with joy, not at his own voice but at that of Christ the bridegroom. So also Idithun needs to remember that his own voice will indeed prove insufficient for speaking. But Idithun the leaper, like John the Baptist, is one who hears gladness and joy from the Word and then speaks it to those in need. Augustine preaches to his congregation, “If you are a leaper, you stand and wait to hear from God what you are to say to 13 See also Augustine’s use of this concept from Ps. 50 in sermo. 20.2, 52.22, 104.5. 14 en. Ps. 50.13. 15 en. Ps. 50.13. 16 en. Ps. 38.4, though Idithun also experiences this tension in the “Leap of Memory into Christ” in ­chapter 3.

218  Augustine on Memory your fellow men and women. You leap between our rich God and the needy folk who look to you, so that you may hear in one quarter and speak in the other.”17 The voice of gladness Idithun will learn to speak will not be of his own self but of Christ. The potentially sad and irksome fate of Idithun, Augustine thinks, can be avoided by a certain forgetfulness of self, coupled with the spoken sharing of delight and gladness that comes from God. If Idithun remains silent, his self-​ imposed guard over his own mouth might seem like an aversion from sin, even humility. However, Augustine preaches that a silent Idithun is hardly virtuous or humble. Rather the silent Idithun is scorning the poor, neglecting the household awaiting its rations, and denying himself the good words that are promised in Christ.18 True to form, Idithun’s leap is out of the self and into the whole. And thus, if Augustine lay upon his deathbed reading the verses of Psalm 50, he would have been reading verses that helped him to come to terms with Idithun the leaping psalmist, a figure for the unceasingly leaping body of Christ. Psalm 50 helped Augustine to preach about how Idithun’s leap is out of the self and into the whole. These leaps of the body of Christ, as we showed in ­chapter 3, involve a certain degree of success and enjoyment of the richness of God. Augustine’s humble and dying bones may well have been supplied with images of dancing, even leaping. Should Augustine have lain contemplating Psalm 50, we have strong support for the case that the preacher who had instructed his congregants to go with Idithun and see may have unto his last continued to leap.

Remembering Back: Confession and Festivals of Abiding Traces Augustine joins together verses 5 and 11 of Psalm 50 theologically in order to work through a single thematic of memory. The verses themselves are as follows: “For I admit my wrongdoing, and my offense confronts me all the time. /​Turn your face away from my sins and blot out all my iniquities” (50:5, 11).19 When Augustine uses these verses in other sermons to explain 17 en. Ps. 38.4. 18 en. Ps. 38.4. 19 Aspects of this logic, based in Psalm 50, also appear in sermo. 19.1–​3, 20.2, 29A.4, 29B.4–​5, 113.2, 136A.2, 278.12, 352.1.

Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death  219 scripture, they are in service of the work of memory—​both remembering and forgetting. They often appear in sequence, 50:5 treating one’s relationship to one’s own sinful past and 50:11 adding God’s relationship to sinners. Psalm 50:5 appears frequently in Augustine’s preaching and, at first glance, could lead one to imagine his holding a vision of the human condition as simply haunted by memory’s pain, trapped in confrontation with sin. Augustine’s use of it, however, serves to re-​create the dynamics of confession and abiding traces we developed in ­chapter 4. Throughout his preaching, he uses Psalm 50:5 to lift up examples of those whose offense confronts them all the time, yet who are in the process of being delivered by Christ. Two important examples are the publican and the woman caught in adultery. The publican of Luke 18:9–​10 prays, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”20 The publican’s sin confronts him all the time. His prayer is the Augustinian confession—​out of self, and into Christ—​we developed in ­chapter 4. The publican, unlike the Pharisee nearby whose prayer is sanctimonious gratitude for God’s not having made him like the rest of broken humanity, and especially like the publican, is willing to take an honest, humble look at his own sin, removing it from where it is hidden behind him and setting it in front of him. This itself is an effort at remembering. Whereas the Pharisee has struggled vainly to excuse his own pride by dwelling on the shortcomings of others, the publican, for Augustine, remembers his shortcomings as a tax collector (understood already as a cheat) right in front of his own eyes. The way Augustine describes the virtue of this sort of remembering comes from Psalm 50:5, 11. Christ the head hears the voice of his own body: “Turn your face away from my sins,” and “I know my iniquity.” Thus, Augustine draws in these psalm verses to make a point about the work of remembering. Because remembering one’s sins in Christ—​what we described as remembering backward—​ prompts confession, the remembering subject is only further joined to Christ by such a painful remembering. Using this logic, which he introduces by and patterns on Psalm 50, Augustine can claim a Christological outcome for the penitent sinner. He preaches on the publican in juridical terms: “The Lord did not merely plead the case in his defense: he went further and decided it in his favor.”21 The total forgiveness of sins emerges from the context of the work of remembering.



20 sermo. 136A.2.

21 en. Ps. 31.2.12.

220  Augustine on Memory The woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1–​11) provides Augustine with another ideal example. The occasion of the stoning of the woman is meant, he explains, to trap Jesus—​either to lose his reputation for gentleness or to reveal himself opposed to the law.22 In Augustine’s eyes, the just enforcement of such a law would require innocent administrators. Since the officials who convoke the stoning are themselves guilty, they leave one by one. They are forgetful of their own sin, their own breaking of the law, and embody a hypocritical antitype of the work of remembering. Augustine speaks in the voice of Jesus to those about to depart the scene of the woman’s stoning: “Take note of this woman you are bringing to me, and take note of who you are.”23 Augustine’s preaching places words of admonishing mindfulness into the mouth of Christ. Ultimately, though, and citing Psalm 50, it is only the woman whose confession of sin unites her to Christ. Augustine preaches, “The adulteress remained, and so did the Lord: the wounded woman remained with the doctor; great misery remained with great mercy.”24 Both the publican and the woman caught in adultery exemplify this aspect of Psalm 50 for Augustine: their sin confronts them all the time. Yet Jesus comes as abiding help to both the man and the woman. Together they form a pattern of Augustine’s use of Psalm 50. In other places, Augustine uses the same logic of remembrance through Psalm 50 to explain the condition of his congregation,25 the sin of David,26 and even the predicament of the Ninevites in the Book of Jonah.27 The remembering individual is not simply haunted by sin, but through the work of remembering sin rightly each is pursued by Christ’s liberation. These examples of sinners remembering their sins for the purpose of confession also serves the purpose of helping them not to get stuck in themselves. This book has shown how Augustine maintains a lifelong concern over the inward turn not becoming solipsistic—​from his writing of the Confessions to his preaching of remembering and forgetting within the whole Christ and his reasoning in the Trinity. For Augustine, through the recollection of sins in confession, we are concerned with abiding in Christ. This has a fundamental effect of turning the eyes away from the self.28 Those whose

22 en. Ps. 50.8. 23 en. Ps. 50.8. 24 en. Ps. 50.8.

25 en. Ps. 44.18. 26 en. Ps. 50.8.

27 en. Ps. 49.28. 28 en. Ps. 122.3.

Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death  221 sin is always confronting them (Ps 50:5) are also those whose confession of sin moves them to focus their vision on the healer of their sin. Augustine preaches, “Do not keep yourself before your eyes, if you want to be before the eyes of God.”29 The recollection of sin for the purpose of healing is simultaneously a forgetfulness of self. This inversely correlates to what Augustine describes, through Psalm 50:11, as God’s disposition. God, of course, does not remember or forget as humans do. But in facing “away” from sin, God faces toward the sinner—​looking away from nonbeing and at being, away from falsehood and toward truth. And so, in the pleading voice of Psalm 50 that God turn away from sin and blot out guilt, Augustine is not speaking about some sort of divine forgetting. Rather, God turns to the person, to the one who, no longer focused solipsistically on the self, is confessing sin with eyes to God for the purpose of healing through Christ. God’s turning only to the beauty of the created order is not the effacing of sin but the blotting out of guilt in favor of healing.30 In summary, the sinner, in confessing, turns his or her eyes onto sin and thus away from being stuck in the self. God turns away, literally overlooks the falsehood of sin in order to recognize the truth emergent in the one who, by confessing it, is becoming true. This becoming true was Augustine’s stated goal from three decades earlier as he considered Christ and memory together in Confessions 10. The work of memory has helped him to see how that goal of memory might be attained. Thus far in tracing Augustine’s use of Psalm 50:5, 11 in his preaching, we have seen how the confrontation with one’s own sinfulness yields the sort of Augustinian confession that brings about ever closer union with God. Out of the confines of the self and into union with Christ, confession brings healing. In ­chapter 4 this formed the first aspect of “remembering backward,” or how some grace or primary reflection (prima cogitatio) could inspire turning out from the self by confession. As we explained in ­chapter 4, however, that is only the first part of the work of remembering. The second is how to keep festival with the abiding traces (reliquiae cogitationis) of that primary reflection so that the work of Christ might continue to renew sinners in the present. That Augustine uses Psalm 50 also to gloss his presentation of reliquiae cogitationis is the final evidence of possible joy in his deathbed penitential psalm prayers. In the work of remembering, we discussed how Augustine describes keeping festival with the abiding traces of thought as the way in

29 en. Ps. 122.3.

30 en. Ps. 122.3; also en. Ps. 26.2.16, 32.3.19, 74.2.

222  Augustine on Memory which the one who confesses confrontation with sin is able to be constantly renewed within the whole Christ, even after confession. For Paul, this took the form of letter-​writing after his conversion. For David, it shaped the time after Nathan the prophet confronted him. None of these forgets his sin, and to give evidence for that, Augustine brings in Psalm 50:5, “My sin confronts me all the time.” But Augustine preaches that the decision to turn away from sin is primary reflection. The question naturally emerges: If one has already confessed, how is it that sin is always before one?31 Augustine’s answer is that the primary reflection has temporally passed, but the “abiding traces are keeping solemn festival.”32 When one understands “My sin confronts me all the time” within the language system that Augustine preaches as the work of memory, the constant confrontation with one’s sin is rich in meaning. “My sin confronts me all the time” indicates turning one’s eyes from oneself, confessing for the purpose of union with the whole Christ, and ultimately keeping solemnity through a festival of abiding traces that continues to make one new in the present. One begins with the confrontation of sin but concludes with the whole Christ. The festivals of abiding traces are for the purpose of carrying others toward healing.33 Thus, if Augustine were considering Psalm 50:5, 11 as he lay dying, he would have been doing much more work than confronting his own sin. He would have been keeping solemn festival with the abiding traces of ongoing life in the whole Christ.

Remembering Forward: Rebuilding Jerusalem’s Walls The work of remembering is not simply of the past but of a future that can only be held in hope. That remembering forward, which we discussed in terms of both Jerusalem and the Sabbath in ­chapter 4, recurs near the end of Psalm 50. Though a penitential song, Psalm 50 ends not in sadness but in hope. The text of Augustine’s psalm ends with the verses “In your good will, O Lord, deal kindly with Zion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be rebuilt. /​ Then you will accept a sacrifice of righteousness, oblations, and holocausts” (50:20–​21). In his sermon on Psalm 50, Augustine’s treatment of this text is straightforward: “If you are awaiting our future hope in full confidence, and if you

31 en. Ps. 75.15. 32 en. Ps. 75.15. 33 en. Ps. 75.15.

Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death  223 are at peace with God, you recognize yourselves in Zion and in Jerusalem.”34 In preaching about Jerusalem, he shifts from self to whole. “You” await “our” future. The individual will recognize himself or herself in a whole city of others. Jerusalem, held now in hope, promises the completion of the self in the whole: “May the ramparts of our immortality be built up in faith, and hope, and charity,” Augustine preaches.35 For Augustine, the Lord’s building the heavenly city is nothing other than Augustine’s and his congregation’s being built together into that immortal reality. The shift that Augustine paints is from the sacrifice now of confession of sin—​a troubled spirit and contrite heart, in the language of Psalm 50—​to a sacrifice of righteousness or one of pure praise (laudes solas).36 No longer groaning but only praising, this marks the time when the fire of God’s wisdom will have consumed the figurative holocaust of the human person—​ both body and soul—​yielding immortality through even human death.37 The ultimate move out of the self and into Christ is in the resurrection from the dead. Augustine’s use of these last verses of Psalm 50 supports how memory language provides the locus of hope for the final configuration of life in Christ. In his sermon on Psalm 64, Augustine treats the songs of Jerusalem, fittingly sung to the Lord. Using his exegesis of Psalm 50, he describes resurrection. He writes that in Jerusalem, “we shall be whole, in perfect integrity, at the resurrection of the just.”38 There, Augustine preaches, he and his congregants will have left Babylon behind; their earthly bodies will be transfigured, changed into heavenly bodies.39 Among the many striking aspects of Augustine’s sermon on Jerusalem and resurrection is his relation of it to the mind. He preaches to his congregants that they know already the first fruits of the resurrection because of the renewal of their minds that prompts them to long and pine for Jerusalem.40 This is quite extraordinary language for the work of remembering forward. Of course, Augustine and his congregants would have no memory of the heavenly Jerusalem had it not been given them in Christ and continued to 34 en. Ps. 50.22. 35 en. Ps. 50.22. 36 en. Ps. 50.23. Sacrifice emerges earlier in the psalm as well as in en. Ps. 50.20–​21, and that related theme is refracted through sermons: en. Ps. 41.17, 49.15, 95.9, 130.4, 140.4, 140.14, 146.5. 37 en. Ps. 50.23. See also c­ hapter 6, “Praising and Groaning.” 38 en. Ps. 64.4. 39 en. Ps. 64.4. 40 en. Ps. 64.4.

224  Augustine on Memory solicit them through the Holy Spirit. Once that memory has been given, Augustine and his congregants can experience to some extent, even in the present, the future resurrection for which they can now only long and groan. For the present, then, this action of longing—​remembering forward—​for the completion of their re-​creation is captured by Psalm 50. In rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, they will become acceptable holocausts: “Let the fire seize us, that divine fire that blazes in Jerusalem; let us begin now to burn with charity until all that is mortal in us is consumed and whatever has fought against us goes up to the Lord in sacrifice.”41 Jerusalem’s completion is the whole consumption of human offerings by the Love that does not eliminate the self but shows its full resplendence within the whole. Returning now to Augustine’s potentially reading Psalm 50 on his deathbed, one might simply and casually note that the text of the psalm ends with longing for the walls of Jerusalem to be rebuilt, as well as holocausts acceptable to the Lord. However, when one appreciates how these verses emerge elsewhere in support of Augustine’s remembering forward—​or considering the memory of heavenly beatitude which is held in hope but not yet in reality—​then the walls of Jerusalem and the holocaust of charity take on a whole new layer of meaning. First, the heavenly Jerusalem is a memory of the future, received through Christ the head who has gone before and offered in an ongoing way through the Holy Spirit. That such a remembering-​forward in Christ is possible at all is a hopeful sign that future resurrection can be known in some small way through present remembering within Christ. Second, the walls of Jerusalem are composed of the transformed realities of human persons—​bodies included. The final transformation out of the self and into the whole, effected by the holocaust fire of charity, is simultaneously all-​consuming and all-​begetting. And so the image of the end of Augustine’s own memory is also a remembering forward—​such that remembering Christ he might become Christ.

Conclusion: A Different End of Memory Possidius evidences a standard case that death is the end of memory. We have, by means of a speculative but nonetheless possible if not probable account, opened up another option: that for Augustine personally the end

41 en. Ps. 64.4. Augustine uses similar logic at en. Ps. 49.15.

Psalm 50 in Augustine’s Life and Death  225 of memory was Christ. Taking into consideration that Augustine himself would have been formed by the work of memory in his preaching, we can realize that his having penitential psalms pasted around his bedside as he lay dying could not have been more consistent with his undertaking the work of memory unto the last. Possidius rightly reads contrition for sin into the account of the dying Augustine. This both conforms with classical expectations for the presentation of saintly lives and assists Possidius in securing Augustine’s memory for the practical purpose of stabilizing the North African church. Possidius, however, may have wrongly read Augustine’s contrition and weeping only in terms of the self. The portrait of the solitary sinner, weeping to the end, provides an image of Augustine that feeds all too neatly into later portrayals of the elderly bishop, weary from having fought interlocutors from Donatists to Pelagians, as having a darkened and gloomy outlook on the human condition. His own meditation on his sinfulness at the last seems simply to reinforce the darkness of his worldview. The work of memory suggests that it is time to revisit this account. Rather, Augustine formed himself and formed his congregation in a nuanced, subtle, and collective work of remembering and forgetting. Within these binaries, one need read Augustine’s death not only as groaning but also as praising. His solitude was unto communion, knowledge unto wisdom, and laboring unto rest. Throughout his preaching, at each juncture these actions drew him and his congregants out of themselves and further into the whole Christ of which they were members. As a result, they became ever more themselves. In this chapter, I have used Psalm 50 to demonstrate that these very patterns of his exegesis characterize the end of his own remembering not in an act of darkness but in the liminal shift from hope to reality. Whether an ongoing festival of abiding traces in remembering backward, or offering his own body and soul as a figurative holocaust to be built by love into the heavenly Jerusalem, a better description of Augustine’s deathbed psalm praying is his personally completing the work of memory. Augustine had first forged the link between memory and Christ in his Confessions, seeking to make the truth and in so doing become true himself. His intuition was right, but Christ the true mediator of Confessions 10 had not yet been formed fully into the gritty, self-​emptying, other-​focused, binary-​ breaking reality of the whole Christ. That Christ emerged in the dynamic arena of preaching. Augustine would become true with others, remembering and forgetting, such that his very existence might be—​truly—​mediated in the

226  Augustine on Memory whole Christ. And so his deathbed, and indeed the earthly end of all memory, might be spoken in terms of such truth—​forgetful of the distentions of self as what lies behind and extending forward such that the abiding traces of God’s grace might simply abide. Such a one, made true, living nothing of falsehood, has finished the work of memory. The image is renewed. Augustine once preached—​unimpressed with memory as memorization—​ that his congregants were to progress non memoria, sed vita: “not with your memory, but with your life.”42 For Augustine, memory is configured less to memorization than it is to life, to existence mediated by Christ at its communal fullness forever. The work of remembering and of forgetting ends in becoming Christ together.



42 en Ps. 102.26.

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Scripture Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Genesis 2:2, 168 2:7, 34 19:21, 156 Exodus 20:8-​11, 136 32, 96–​97 33, 191–​92 Deuteronomy 5:12-​15, 136 2 Samuel 11, 118 12, 121–​22 12:13, 118–​19 1 Chronicles 9:16, 85–​86 16:38, 41-​42, 85–​86 25: 1, 3, 6, 85–​86 2 Chronicles 5:12, 85–​86 29:14, 85–​86 35:15, 85–​86 Psalms 1, 63–​64 4:2, 65–​67 6, 215 21, 51, 68–​69, 70–​71, 73, 75, 115–​16, 132–​ 33, 134, 174–​75, 203–​4 21:1, 100, 146–​47 21:17-​19, 80

30, 70–​71, 74, 78–​80 31, 178–​79, 215 32, 162–​65 37, 112–​14, 133–​38, 203–​4, 215 38, 85–​86, 100–​4, 203–​4 44, 215–​16 50, 21, 182–​83, 215–​26 50:5, 218–​19, 220–​22 50:10, 215–​18 50:11, 218–​19, 220–​21 50:20-​21, 222–​24 54, 51, 77, 175 56:9, 165–​66 59, 154–​56 60, 95, 172–​74 61, 51, 85–​86, 94–​99 61:12-​13, 195–​96 66, 149, 174 67, 174 68, 51 74, 180 75, 117–​19, 121 76, 85–​86, 88–​94, 194–​95 85:3, 179 86, 182 93, 203–​4 94:2, 175–​76 99:3, 38–​39 101, 122–​24, 176, 215 102, 113–​15 103, 34 112, 203–​4 114, 167–​68 118, 51 118:153-​156, 80–​81 122, 109

252  Scripture Index 129, 215 136, 128–​33 138:12, 182–​83 142, 51, 215 145, 106–​7 Proverbs 21:20, 124 Ecclesiastes 3:10, 147 Isaiah 54:4, 155 57:16-​18, 92–​93 Matthew 5:5, 112–​40, 133 7:7-​8, 53 8:23-​27, 141 11:28, 167 25:40, 103–​4 28:20, 177–​78 Luke 10:21, 175–​76 11:9-​10, 53 15:8, 40 16:21, 51 17:31, 142–​43, 156 18:9-​10, 219 23:46, 79–​80

7:39, 145 9:4, 71–​74, 78, 79, 100, 118, 146–​47, 172–​ 73, 216 9:5, 72–​73 Romans 1:20, 32–​33, 38–​39, 41 6:6-​9, 69 7:15-​17, 153–​54 8:22, 176–​77 13:4, 35 1 Corinthians 1:23-​24, 94 3:19, 207 12:12, 73–​74 13:12, 196–​97 2 Corinthians 2:15, 134–​35 5:15, 50 Ephesians 5:30-​32, 154–​55 Philippians 3:12, 146–​47 3:12-​14, 54, 100, 101 3:13, 200 3:13-​14, 100, 143, 146–​54, 156–​57, 168–​ 69, 181, 216 3:14, 152

John 1:1, 124–​25 3:21, 37–​38 4, 96–​97 5:17, 168 6:41, 122–​23 8:1-​11, 220 14-​15, 196–​97 14:8, 88 14:9, 88 19:30, 79–​80

1 Timothy 1:13, 119–​20 2:5, 32, 67 2:5-​6, 6–​7

Acts 2:42-​45, 153

Revelation 5:9, 50

2 Timothy 2:8, 119–​20 4:8, 152 2 Peter 2:22, 143–​44

Index to Works of Augustine For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. c. Acad. 1.6.16, 28 2–​4, 28 quant. 23.41, 27 b. vita 5.34, 28 civ. Dei 22.30, 150–​51 conf. 3.6.11, 1 4.4.9, 55 7, 29, 105 7.9.13, 33–​34 7.9.14, 105 7.16.22, 32–​33 7.17.23, 32–​33 7.18.24, 33–​35, 68 7.19.25, 33–​34 7.20.26, 35, 105 7.21.27, 35 8.12.29, 35 9.4.8, 4, 59 9.10.23, 146–​47 9.11.28–​9.12.30, 171 10–​11, 29 10.4.6, 37–​38 10.6.8, 38–​39 10.6.8–​10.7.11, 38–​39 10.6.9, 38–​39 10.6.10, 38–​39 10.7.11, 39

10.8.12, 39 10.8.13, 39–​40 10.8.15, 112–​13 10.14.21, 39–​40, 123–​24 10.14.22, 39–​40 10.19.28, 141 10.20.29, 51–​52, 55–​56 10.25.55, 144 10.27.36, 163–​64 10.27.38, 5–​6 10.28.39, 43–​45 10.30.41, 44–​45 10.30.41–​10.34.53, 45 10.30.41–​42, 45 10.30.42, 45–​46 10.31.43–​47, 45–​46 10.31.44, 45–​46 10.31.47, 45–​46 10.32.48, 45 10.33.49–​50, 45 10.33.50, 46 10.34.51–​53, 45 10.35.54–​57, 45, 46–​47 10.35.56, 46–​47 10.35.57, 46–​47 10.36.58, 46–​47 10.36.58–​10.39.64, 45 10.36.59, 47 10.37.62, 47–​48 10.40.65, 48–​49 10.41.66, 49 10.42.67, 49 10.43.68, 49, 50 10.43.70, 50–​51, 56, 171 11, 29, 121 11.2.3, 53

254  Index to Works of Augustine 11.2.4, 53 11.8.10, 53–​54 11.23.30, 54 11.26.33, 54 11.28.38, 54 11.29.39, 54 11.31.41, 54 12–​13, 29 doc. Chr. 1.3–​5, 93, 168–​69 1.84–​85, 37–​38, 164 en. Ps. 1.1, 63–​64, 65 3, 70 3.9, 70 4.1, 65–​66 4.2, 65–​66 7.20, 65 8, 126 15, 70 16, 70 17, 70 21, 70 21.1.1, 68–​69 21.1.2, 68–​69 21.2.1, 71, 115–​16 21.2.2, 174–​75 21.2.29–​32, 132–​33 24.5, 56 26.2.16, 220–​21 26.2.23, 87, 123 27, 70 29, 70 30, 70 30.1.1, 79 30.1.6, 79 30.2.3, 71, 72–​73, 74 30.2.4, 74 30.2.11, 74, 79–​80 30.3.3, 72–​73, 75 31.2.9, 215–​16 31.2.12, 219 31.2.20, 178–​79 32.2.5, 162–​64 32.2.6, 164 32.2.8, 164–​65

32.3.19, 220–​21 32.3.27, 96 33.2.7, 77–​78 35.14, 96 36.3.6, 103 36.3.14, 143 37, 112–​13 37.2, 133–​34 37.5, 134, 136 37.9, 134–​36 37.10, 115–​16, 136 37.12, 136 37.14, 136, 170 37.27, 136–​37 37.28, 137–​38 38, 87, 108–​9 38.2, 108–​9 38.4, 217–​18 38.5, 100 38.6, 100, 101, 102, 146–​47, 152 38.8, 146–​47, 196 38.9, 102, 196 38.10, 102 38.11, 102–​3 38.12, 61–​62, 103–​4 38.14, 102, 146–​47 38.22, 196 38.23, 61–​62 39.3, 146–​47, 148–​49, 151 39.4, 152 39.20, 116–​17 41.6, 96 41.17, 223 42.5, 162–​63 44.18, 215–​16, 220 46, 167 46.5, 99 48.1.14–​15, 103 49.15, 223–​24 49.28, 116–​17, 220 50.8, 220 50.13, 116–​17, 217 50.20–​21, 223 50.22, 222–​23 50.23, 223 51.14–​15, 103 52.8, 103 54.9–​10, 169–​70

Index to Works of Augustine  255 54.14, 175 54.15, 175 54.17, 77, 174–​75 54.25, 77–​78 55.3, 126 55.19, 153 56.16, 165–​66 57, 112–​13 57.7–​10, 149–​50 58, 112–​13 59, 112–​13 59.9, 154–​55 60, 94 60.1, 172 60.2, 173 60.4–​5, 95 60.5, 95 61, 87 61.1, 94, 95, 99 61.2–​3, 94–​95 61.4, 96–​97 61.9, 96–​97 61.9–​10, 96 61.13, 97 61.14, 96 61.15, 96, 97 61.15–​16, 97 61.16, 97, 98 61.18, 95, 98, 111, 195–​96 61.23, 98 62.3–​8, 96 62.15, 170 64.4, 153, 215–​16, 223–​24 66.1, 96 66.9, 174 66.10, 115–​16, 146–​47, 149–​50 67.1, 166 67.24, 174 67.34, 166 67.35, 96 68.1.14, 96 68.2.14–​18, 103 69.7, 103 69.8, 146–​47, 148–​49 69.9, 91–​92, 142, 143, 145 72.5, 146–​47, 153–​54 74.1, 179 74.2, 116, 220–​21

74.4, 180 74.13, 180 75, 112–​13, 181 75.14, 59, 117–​18, 119–​20 75.15, 6–​7, 115–​16, 118, 120–​22, 221–​22 75.16, 143, 144, 153 76.3–​4, 88–​89 76.4, 88–​89 76.6, 89 76.8, 90–​91, 147 76.9, 91 76.10, 92 76.10–​14, 92 76.11, 92–​93 76.12, 92–​94 76.13, 92–​93 76.14, 93–​94 76.15, 92–​93, 194 76.16, 93, 94, 194 77, 144–​45 78.4, 215–​16 78.33, 61–​62, 134–​35 80.2, 85–​86 80.5, 166–​67 82.8, 143 83, 112–​13, 126 83.3, 143–​44, 170 83.3–​4, 143 83.4, 146–​47, 153 84, 112–​13 84.16, 116–​17 85, 112–​13 85.3, 103 85.5, 126, 179 85.24, 96 86.3, 141, 153–​54 86.5, 182 90.2.1, 15–​16, 121–​22 91.2, 136 91.3, 166 92.1, 168–70 93, 112–​13 93.23–​24, 167–​68 94.4, 116, 175–​76 94.15, 170 95.9, 223 97, 112–​13 98.5, 96

256  Index to Works of Augustine 99, 116 100.3, 179 101.1, 112–​13 101.1.1–​2, 103 101.1.2, 176 101.1.5, 122–​23, 124–​25 101.1.12–​13, 115–​16 102, 112–​13 102.6, 113–​15 102.10, 124–​25, 196–​97 102.21, 142 103.1.17, 96 103.3.13, 125 103.4.18, 124 103.4.19, 124 104, 144–​45 105, 112–​13, 144–​45 105.7, 116, 117 106, 112–​13 106.3, 171–​72 109, 112–​13 113, 144–​45 113.1–​6, 115–​16 114.6, 167–​68, 169–​70 118.2.2, 146–​47, 153–​54 118.15.1, 142 118.17–​18, 56 118.20.1, 179 118.27.5, 96 118.30.1, 80–​81 118.30.4, 81 119, 108–​9 120.6, 192 121.5, 109 121.13, 109 122, 112–​13 122.2–​3, 109 122.3, 220–​21 122.9–​12, 103 125.2, 176–​78 125.12, 109 125.15, 109 127.3, 109 127.5, 174 130.4, 223 130.14, 124–​25, 146–​47, 148–​49 131.24–​26, 103

132.6, 109 132.13, 109 134.21, 142 136.1, 128–​29 136.2, 129 136.3, 129 136.4, 129, 131–​32 136.10–​12, 130–​31 136.12, 132–​33 136.12–​16, 103 136.15, 137–​38 136.17, 130–​33 136.22, 129–​31 138.8, 191–​92 140.4, 223 140.7, 96 140.14, 223 140.25, 192 141.8, 215–​16 142.12, 96 143, 112–​13 143.16, 166–​67 144.9, 124–​25 144.10, 125 145.3, 106–​7 145.5, 106–​7 146.1, 166–​67 146.2, 166–​67 146.5, 223 147, 167 149.3, 151 149.7–​8, 151 149.8, 146–​47, 151–​52, 166 150.3, 215–​16 150.6, 166 ep. (epp.) 7.2, 4–​5 21, 59–​60 24, 99 137, 189 140.64, 181 185, 71–​72 247.2, 99 ex. Gal 24.8, 67–​68

Index to Works of Augustine  257 ex. prop. Rm. 3, 38–​39 c. Faust 20.11, 64–​65 Jo. ev. tr. 1.3–​9, 175 15.11–​12, 96 mus. 5, 27 11–​12, 27 ord. 1.11.32, 105 2.9–​20, 28–​29 retr. 1.1.3–​4, 4–​5, 30 1.3.2, 105 1.4.2, 105 1.4.3, 105 1.8.2, 4–​5, 30 1.19.8, 63–​64 sermo. 4.8, 168 8.6, 168 8.17–​18, 168 9, 164, 168 9.18–​21, 103 14.1–​10, 103 19, 215–​16 19.1–​3, 218–​19 20, 215–​16 20.2, 216–​17, 218–​19 23.1, 215–​16 28.2, 215–​16 29, 175–​76 29A, 175–​76 29A.4, 218–​19 29B, 175–​76 29B.4–​5, 218–​19 30.8, 167 31, 178 32.20, 103 33, 162–​63, 167

34.6, 178 47.23, 175 52.21, 200–​1 52.22, 216–​17 58, 167 63.2, 123, 141 67, 178 68, 178 72.9, 175–​76 77B.5–​7, 85–​86 91.6, 146–​47, 151 96.10, 143, 146–​47 99.3, 96 104.5, 216–​17 105.7, 143, 146–​47 112A.5, 215–​16 113.2, 215–​16, 218–​19 114A.1, 178 119.2, 124 125.4, 167 130A.7, 124–​25 136A.2, 218–​19 187.1, 215–​16 188.1, 175–​76 211A.2, 175–​76 215.1, 146–​47, 148 220, 121–​22 255.6, 146–​48 260C.7, 118–​19, 146–​47 261.3, 146–​47 272, 124–​26 278.12, 218–​19 280.4, 146–​47, 151 284.4, 146–​47 299E.5, 103 302, 175 304.8, 103 306B.2, 144, 146–​47 341.9, 74–​75 341.19, 74–​75 341.20–​21, 74–​75 341.21, 146–​47, 151 347.2, 215–​16 349.6, 192 351.2, 215–​16 351.7, 215–​16 351.9, 215–​16 351.12, 215–​16

258  Index to Works of Augustine 352.1, 215–​16, 218–​19 362.28–​31, 167 365.1, 178 381.1, 215–​16 384.3, 215–​16 391.1, 215–​16 398.10, 178 sol. 1.20.34, 4–​5 trin. 4.18.24, 197–​98 10.11.18, 200–​1 11.2.2, 201 11.3.6, 201 11.10.17–​18, 201 12.14.22, 205–​6

12.15.24, 4–​5, 30, 206 13.1.2, 210 13.19.24, 88, 206–​7 13.20.26, 207 14.1.1, 207 14.8.11, 201–​2 14.12.15, 203 14.14.18, 203 14.14.19, 203–​4 14.18.11, 209–​10 14.28.51, 187–​88 15.11.20, 195–​96 15.16.26, 208–​9 15.20.39, 212 15.23.43, 189 15.28.51, 204 15.34, 75

Subject and Name Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. abiding traces (reliquiae cogitationis), 3, 4–​5, 13, 117–​18, 119–​23, 126–​27, 140, 143, 148–​49, 156, 157, 159–​60, 163–​64, 172, 208–​9, 218–​22 in preaching on Psalms, 117–​18, 119–​ 23, 126–​27, 140, 143, 148–​49, 163–​ 64, 218–​22 and Trinity, 208–​9 Acts of the Apostles, conversion of Paul in, 71–​75 Adam Christ and, 69, 70–​71, 73, 80–​81 forgetting and, 102, 152, 196 as humanity, 34, 51–​52, 69, 70–​71, 102 Idithun and, 102, 152, 196 anamnesis, 4–5, 30. See also memory Angelus Novus (Klee), 18–​19 ars memoriae, 1–​2, 15–​16, 139n.123 ascension, of Christ, 71–​75 ascent to God in Confessions, 37–​43, 55 failure of, 43, 202–​5 leaping as, 104–​11, 114–​15, 191 Platonic, 32–​35, 37–​43 asp, as image of distention, 149–​50 astrology, 98–​99 Augustine binary method of, 159–​61, 205–​6 biography of, 3–​4, 10–​11, 26, 31–​32, 59–​60, 187–​88, 213–​15, 224–​26 death of, 4, 213–​15, 224–​26 Ayres, Lewis, 11, 55–​56, 58n.6, 187n.1, 189n.5, 198, 199n.29 babbling, of Idithun, 89–​92, 104, 108 Babcock, William, 69n.55, 72n.67

Babylon, 128–​29, 130–​32, 140, 209, 223 backward forgetting, 141–​42, 175–​80 remembering, 2, 115–​27, 140, 141–​42, 175–​77, 180, 209, 218–​23 Barnes, Michel, 11 beauty, 43–​44 BeDuhn, Jason David, 31n.30, 37–​38n.62, 78n.98, 110n.104 belching, 4–​5, 124–​25, 126–​27, 135–​36, 140, 180–​81, 191–​92. See also digestive imagery Benjamin, Walter, 18–​19 Bergson, Henri, 16–​17 Bochet, Isabelle, 87n.7, 137n.115, 161n.8 body and soul, mediation of, 27, 39, 56, 81–​82, 87, 106–​8, 200, 223 body of Christ in Confessions, 46, 52–​53 and Eucharist, 52–​53, 122–​23, 126–​27 Idithun as, 87–​89, 93–​94, 96–​97, 99, 101, 102–​3, 104, 192–​96, 211, 218 as leaping, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91–​92, 96–​98, 99, 101, 116, 192–​96, 218 as mediator, 46, 52, 57–​58, 72–​75, 80–​ 81, 82, 121, 180, 211–​12 mystical, 75–​76 in preaching on Psalms, 73–​75, 77–​78, 80–​81, 85, 87–​89, 93–​94, 96–​97, 99, 101, 102–​3, 104, 110–​11, 112–​13, 121–​23, 126–​27, 132–​33, 154–​56, 169–​70, 172–​73, 177–​80, 192–​96 and Trinity, 189–​90, 192–​96, 197–​98, 211–​12, 218 See also Christ Jesus; whole Christ Bouissou, Guillem, 44n.99

260  Subject and Name Index Boulding, Maria, 37n.59, 43n.98, 116, 136n.110 Brachtendorf, Johannes, 35–​37 bread imagery, 122–​27, 159, 170–​71, 196–​ 98, 215. See also food imagery breathing, rest as, 135–​38 Brown, Peter, 10–​11, 99n.62, 110n.104 Burns, Paul, 51n.133 Byassee, Jason, 136n.110, 137 Cameron, Michael, 10–​11, 12, 57–​58, 62–​ 63, 66–​68, 69n.54, 70–​71, 77n.94 Carruthers, Mary, 15–​16, 16n.32, 139n.123 Cary, Phillip, 9–​10, 106–​7 Cassiodorus, 215 Cavadini, John, 11, 26n.2, 37n.59, 198 Chadwick, Henry, 35–​37, 43n.98 Chrétien, Jean–​Louis, 17–​18 Christ Jesus ascension of, 71–​75, 82 in Confessions, 14, 31–​32, 35–​37, 49–​ 54, 55–​56 and conversion of Paul, 71–​75 flesh of, 33–​34, 35, 50, 53–​54, 64–​66, 68–​69, 73–​74 humanity of, 50, 62–​71, 73–​74, 159–​61, 165–​66, 206–​7 leaping into, 88–​94, 99–​104, 194–​ 95, 196 leaping out from, 94–​99, 195–​96 as mediator, 6–​7, 12, 35–​37, 45–​46, 49–​ 56, 57–​59, 62–​82, 110, 115, 121, 122, 158, 206–​8, 209, 211–​12, 225–​26 passion of, 68–​71, 82 as tower, 94–​95, 96, 97, 99, 107 transitus and, 191–​96 See also body of Christ; whole Christ Cicero, 66–​67 Cilleruelo, Lope, 5 Coleman, Janet, 8–​9 collective memory, 16–​17, 138–​39 communion, and solitude, 170–​75 confession, 37–​38, 55–​56, 115–​19 lyre and, 162–​64 praising and groaning as, 116–​17, 131–​ 32, 134, 175–​80, 215

as remembering backward, 115–​22, 126, 135–​36, 140, 162–​64, 172, 175–​ 76, 218–​23 Confessions ascent to God in, 37–​43, 55 Christ in, 14, 31–​32, 35–​37, 49–​ 54, 55–​56 communion in, 170–​71 memory in, 1, 5–​7, 8–​9, 25–​26, 31–​56, 81–​82, 105, 112–​13, 170–​71 psalms in, 51, 54 truth in, 37–​39, 40–​42, 47–​48, 49–​50 Connerton, Paul, 16–​17, 138–​39 Corticelli, Angelo, 75–​76 Courcelle, Pierre, 32–​33n.34 crucifixion, of Christ, 68–​71, 181 Cyrillus, Joseph, 75–​76 Daley, Brian, 6, 10–​11, 12, 57–​58 deification, 10–​11, 58–​59 Derrida, Jacques, 139n.123 descent in Confessions, 43–​48, 55 of God, 34, 45 digestive imagery, 39–​40, 123–​27, 140, 180–​81, 191–​92 distention asp as image of, 149–​50 in Confessions, 41, 54, 55 and Philippians, 54, 101, 146–​51, 156–​ 57, 167, 200 Dittes, James, 57–​58, 78n.98 Dodaro, Robert, 10, 12, 111n.105, 180–​81 Donatists, 115, 118–​19, 128n.75, 174–​ 75, 225 whole Christ and, 75–​78, 174–​75 Drever, Matthew, 9n.13, 210–​11 drum, extension and, 151–​52 Dupont, Anthony, 10–​11 eagle, as image of forgetting, 149–​51, 156–​ 57, 159, 196–​98 Elshtain, Jean Bethke, 111n.105 eschatology, 127–​38, 169–​70, 204–​5, 209–​ 11, 222–​24 eternity, and time, mediation of, 29–​31, 53–​54, 87, 92–​94, 158, 208–​9 Eucharist, 52–​53, 122–​27, 171

Subject and Name Index  261 Exodus narrative, 96–​97, 144–​46, 171 Expositions of the Psalms dating of, 63–​64 as source, 4, 10–​11 extension, 147–​48, 151–​52, 156–​57, 162, 182–​83, 200 exterior, and interior, 9–​10, 39, 99, 106–​ 8, 111 failure of memory in Confessions, 25–​26, 43, 47–​48, 49, 55–​56 in Trinity, 202–​5 Farrow, Douglas, 159–​61 festival of abiding traces, 3, 4–​5, 13, 117–​ 18, 119–​23, 126–​27, 140, 143, 148–​ 49, 156, 157, 159–​60, 163–​64, 172, 208–​9, 218–​22 Fiedrowicz, Michael, 10–​11, 62–​63, 78n.99 food imagery, 33, 122–​27, 140, 180–​81, 191–​92, 196–​97 forgetting and Adam, 102, 152, 196 backward, 141–​42, 175–​80 eagle as image of, 149–​51, 156–​57, 159, 196–​98 forward, 151–​52, 156–​57 Idithun and, 99–​104, 108–​11 leaping as, 99–​104, 108–​11, 196, 197–​98 need for, 142–​54 and Philippians, 54, 100–​1, 141–​42, 143, 146–​52, 216 and pilgrimage, 152–​54, 156–​57 whole Christ and, 154–​56 forgiveness, 17–​18 Fredriksen, Paula, 72n.68, 72n.69, 136n.110 gastronomic imagery. See food imagery Gilson, Étienne, 106–​7 God ascent to, 32–​35, 37–​43 as truth, 37–​39, 40–​42 See also Christ Grabowski, Sanislaus, 75–​76 grace, memory and, 180–​82

groaning, and praising, 116–​17, 131–​32, 134, 175–​80, 215 Gunkel, Hermann, 86n.2 Ḥakham, Amos, 86n.2 Halbwachs, Maurice, 16–​17, 138–​39 Harrison, Carol, 10–​11, 29n.23, 31n.30, 95n.43, 130–​31, 166n.31 Heidegger, Martin, 14–​15, 36n.56, 41n.83, 88n.9, 139n.123 Hermanowicz, Erika, 213–​14 Hervieu-​Léger, Danièle, 16–​17, 138–​39 Hochschild, Paige, 6, 8–​9, 26, 30, 31n.30, 33n.37, 189–​90, 205n.44, 210–​11 Hofer, Andrew, 103–​4, 168n.41 Holy Spirit, 75n.86, 135, 200–​1, 223–​24 Hombert, Pierre-​Marie, 61n.20 Hugh of St. Victor, 15–​16 humility, 33, 77–​78, 116–​17, 127–​28, 131–​ 32, 204–​5, 218 Idithun the leaper, 19, 85–​111 and Adam, 102, 152, 196 and ascent, 104–​11, 114–​15, 191 babbling of, 89–​92, 104, 108 as body of Christ, 87–​89, 93–​94, 96–​97, 99, 101, 102–​3, 104, 192–​96, 211, 218 and danger of becoming stuck in self, 87, 91–​92, 94–​95, 96, 107, 116, 191 and forgetting, 99–​104, 108–​11, 152–​54 as historical figure, 85–​86 and remembering, 88–​99, 108–​11 and slipping back, 152–​54 as thirsty, 95, 96–​98, 107, 125–​26 and Trinity, 193–​96, 202–​3 as whole Christ, 87–​88, 92–​94, 105, 110, 152, 217–​18 Illuminations (Benjamin), 18–​19 “in spe…in re,” 75n.83, 127–​28, 169–​70, 177n.88, 182 interior, and exterior, 9–​10, 39, 99, 106–​ 8, 111 interiority, Augustine and, 1–​2, 9–​10 Jerome, 60n.15, 100n.63, 147n.24 Jerusalem, remembering, 2, 127–​33, 137–​ 38, 140, 150–​51, 156, 204, 209, 222–​24 Jesus Christ. See Christ Jesus

262  Subject and Name Index John the Baptist, 217–​18 John the Evangelist, 124–​25, 126–​27 kenosis, 34, 45, 92–​94, 197, 210 Klee, Paul, 18–​19 Knauer, Georg Nicolaus, 51n.133 knowledge. See scientia Kolbet, Paul, 10–​11 Kotzé, Annemaré, 33n.35 Kreuzer, Johann, 44n.102 labor, and rest, 167–​70, 203–​4, 205 lament, psalms of, 60–​61, 80–​81, 85–​86, 88–​89, 94–​95, 112–​13, 128–​38, 176, 215–​16 leaping (transiliens) as ascent, 104–​11, 114–​15, 191 body of Christ as, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91–​92, 96–​98, 99, 101, 116, 192–​96, 218 into Christ, 88–​94, 99–​104, 194–​95, 196 out from Christ, 94–​99, 195–​96 as forgetting, 99–​104, 108–​11, 196, 197–​98 Idithun and, 19, 85–​111, 146, 152, 187–​ 88, 191–​96, 217–​18 as remembering, 88–​99, 108–​11 and service to the poor, 102–​4, 107, 109–​10, 152, 160–​61, 170–​71, 203, 218 time and eternity and, 90–​94, 101 and Trinity, 193–​96 Licentius, 27 Life of Augustine (Possidius), 21, 59, 213–​ 15, 224–​25 Lot’s wife, as symbol of being stuck in self, 92n.21, 142–​44, 145–​46, 156 Louth, Andrew, 105n.83 Lyotard, Jean-​François, 139n.123 lyre, 162–​67 Madec, Goulven, 5, 38n.65 Manichaeans, 33n.35, 37–​38n.62, 64–​65, 66–​67, 69, 115 Marion, Jean-​Luc, 14–​15, 42–​43, 55n.153 Marius Victorinus, 100n.63, 146–​47 Marrevee, William H., 73n.74 Mathewes, Charles, 111n.105

McCarthy, Michael, 109–​10, 127–​28, 175n.80 McGinn, Bernard, 105–​6 McLarney, Gerard, 10–​11, 108–​9 measure, 28–​29 Meconi, David, 10–​11, 12, 34–​ 35n.47, 73n.74 mediator body of Christ as, 46, 52, 57–​58, 72–​75, 80–​81, 82, 121, 180, 211–​12 Christ as, 6–​7, 12, 35–​37, 45–​46, 49–​56, 57–​59, 62–​82, 110, 115, 121, 122, 158, 206–​8, 209, 211–​12, 225–​26 memory as, 6–​7, 26–​31, 32–​35, 37–​48, 55–​56, 57, 81–​82, 101, 115, 122, 147, 158, 211–​12 whole Christ as, 6–​7, 57–​59, 70–​71, 74–​ 78, 108–​11, 159–​61, 181–​82 memoria Dei, 5–​6 memory a priori, 3–4, 5 collective, 16–​17, 138–​39 in Confessions, 1, 5–​7, 8–​9, 25–​26, 31–​ 56, 81–​82, 105, 112–​13, 170–​71 failure of, 18, 25–​26, 43, 47–​48, 49, 55–​ 56, 57, 81–​82, 202–​5 as mediator, 6–​7, 26–​31, 32–​35, 37–​48, 55–​56, 57, 81–​82, 101, 115, 122, 147, 158, 211–​12 Platonic conceptions of, 1–​2, 8–​10 and re-​membering, 104–​11, 170–​ 71, 174 in Trinity, 1–​2, 5–​6, 8–​9, 11, 188–​91, 198–​212 See also forgetting; remembering memory-​understanding-​will, in Trinity, 198–​205, 207–​8, 209–​11 Mersch, Émile, 75–​76 metonymy, 66–​67 Metz, J.B., 17, 139n.122 Milbank, John, 105n.83 Mourant, John, 8–​9 Mowinckel, Sigmund, 86n.2 Müller, Hildegund, 61–​62, 173n.71 music, 29, 128–​33, 140, 151–​52, 156, 162–​ 67, 209 musical instruments, imagery of, 151–​52, 162–​67, 205

Subject and Name Index  263 Nebridius, 26, 27, 30 Neoplatonism, 30, 38–​39. See also Platonism Nora, Pierre, 16–​17, 138–​39 O’Daly, Gerard, 8–​9, 101, 147 O’Donnell, James J., 34–​35n.47, 37–​38, 45n.105, 51n.134 Origen, 86, 89n.11 participation, 34–​35, 198–​99, 208–​11 passion, of Christ, 68–​71 Paul, conversion of, 71–​75, 132 Pelikan, Jaroslav, 8–​9, 30n.28, 31n.30 Phelps, Teresa Godwin, 17–​18 phenomenology, 13–​16, 17–​18, 42–​43 Philippians in Confessions, 54 distention and, 54, 146–​52 forgetting in, 54, 100–​1, 141–​42, 143, 146–​52, 216 Philips, Gérard, 75–​76 pilgrimage forgetting and, 152–​54, 156–​57 of the whole Christ, 129, 156–​57 Plato, 13, 105, 206 Platonism ascent in, 32–​35, 37–​43, 105 memory in, 1–​2, 8–​10, 29, 30, 32–​34, 35 Plotinus, 30, 33n.37, 105 political theology, 17, 111 poor, service to the, 17, 102–​4, 107, 109–​ 10, 125–​26, 145–​46, 152, 160–​61, 169–​71, 203, 218 Porphyry, 30, 105 Possidius, 21, 59, 213–​15, 224–​25 praising confession as, 116, 137, 140, 175–​80 and groaning, 116–​17, 131–​32, 134, 175–​80, 215 lyre and psaltery and, 162–​67 psalms of, 60–​61, 85–​86, 89 preaching, as source, 3–​4, 7–​9, 10–​11 preliminary reflection. See prima cogitatio prima cogitatio, 117–​22, 126, 139, 144–​45, 172, 221 prosopopoeia, 38n.67, 70–​71, 115–​ 16, 178–​79

psalms Christ in, 60–​61, 62–​64, 67, 68–​75, 78–​81 in Confessions, 51, 54 Idithun the leaper in, 85–​111, 217–​18 of lament, 60–​61, 80–​81, 85–​86, 88–​89, 94–​95, 112–​13, 128–​38, 176, 215–​16 penitential, 213, 215–​16 whole Christ in, 73, 74, 77–​81, 82 psaltery, 151–​52, 162–​67 publican, Gospel of Luke, 219 Quintilian, 15–​16, 66–​67 Rahner, Karl, 14–​15 Ratzinger, Joseph, 76n.91, 133n.94 reliquiae cogitationis (abiding traces), 3, 4–​5, 13, 117–​18, 119–​23, 126–​27, 140, 143, 148–​49, 156, 157, 159–​60, 163–​64, 172, 208–​9, 218–​22 remembering backward, 2, 115–​27, 140, 141–​42, 159–​ 61, 175–​77, 180, 209, 218–​23 confession as, 115–​22, 126, 135–​36, 140, 162–​64, 172, 175–​76, 218–​23 forward, 2, 127–​38, 159–​61, 170, 174–​75, 176–​77, 180, 182, 204, 209, 222–​24 Jerusalem, 2, 127–​33, 137–​38, 140, 150–​ 51, 156, 204, 209, 222–​24 leaping as, 88–​99, 108–​11 re-​membering, 104–​11, 170–​71, 174 rest and labor, 167–​70, 203–​4, 205 Sabbath, 127, 133–​38, 140, 156, 167–​70, 204, 209 rhetoric, Augustinian and, 59–​61, 62–​63, 66–​67, 70, 74, 114–​15, 178–​79 Ricoeur, Paul, 16–​18 Rist, John, 31n.30, 105n.83 Sabbath rest, 127, 133–​38, 140, 156, 167–​ 70, 204, 209 sapientia (wisdom) measure and, 28–​29, 201, 205 memory as mediator of, 28–​29, 57, 87, 187–​88, 190–​91, 198–​99, 205–​8, 211 and scientia (knowledge), 28, 198–​99, 205–​8, 211

264  Subject and Name Index Saul. See Paul scientia (knowledge), and sapientia (wisdom), 28, 198–​99, 205–​8, 211 Scott, Frederick, 106–​7 self in Confessions, 26n.2, 52–​53, 55–​56 definition of, 26n.2 failure of, 52–​53, 55 limitations of, 112–​15 phenomonologies of, 13–​16 being stuck in, 2, 87, 91–​92, 96, 107, 116, 142–​46, 152, 156, 191, 198, 220–​21 and whole Christ, 112–​15 sensory imagery in Confessions, 32–​33, 43–​44, 45–​47 in preaching, 134–​37 See also food imagery Simonides of Ceos, 1–​2, 15–​16 singing, 29, 128–​33, 137–​38, 140, 156, 162–​65, 166–​67, 209 smell, 32–​33. See also sensory imagery Snead, O. Carter, 17–​18 solitude, and communion, 170–​75 Sorabji, Richard, 51n.135, 55n.152 soul and body, mediation of, 27, 39, 56, 81–​82, 87, 106–​8, 200, 223 Stock, Brian, 40n.80, 55–​56 stretching. See extension stuck in self, 2, 87, 91–​92, 96, 107, 116, 142–​46, 152, 156, 191, 198, 220–​21 asp as image of, 149–​50 Exodus and, 144–​46, 156 Idithun and, 87, 91–​92, 94–​95, 96, 107, 116, 191 Lot’s wife and, 92n.21, 142–​44, 145–​ 46, 156 synecdoche, 74 Taylor, Charles, 13, 106–​7 Tell, David, 55n.152, 55n.153 Teske, Roland, 8–​9 Teubner, Jonathan, 12n.24, 95n.43, 209n.56 time and eternity, mediation of, 29–​31, 53–​54, 87, 92–​94, 158, 208–​9

leaping and, 90–​94, 101 Todorov, Tzvetan, 18 totus Christus. See whole Christ tower, Christ as, 94–​95, 96, 97, 99, 107 traces. See reliquiae cogitationis transfiguration, of body of Christ, 71–​72, 77, 80–​81, 82, 182–​83, 209 transiliens. See leaping transitus, 191–​98 Trinity eagle and, 196–​98 Idithun and, 193–​96 Trinity (Augustine) composition of, 187–​89 memory in, 1–​2, 5–​6, 8–​9, 11, 188–​91, 198–​212 memory-​understanding-​will in, 198–​ 205, 207–​8, 209–​11 truth, God as, 37–​39, 40–​42, 47–​48, 49 Turner, Denys, 108 Tyconius, 77, 128n.75 van Bavel, Tarsicius, 12, 19–​20, 57–​58, 75–​76n.87, 161 van Fleteren, Frederick, 105–​6 Volf, Miroslav, 17–​18, 150–​51 Wetzel, James, 54n.146 whole Christ (totus Christus) and Donatism, 75–​78, 174–​75 and forgetting, 154–​56 Idithun as, 87–​88, 92–​94, 105, 110, 152, 217–​18 as mediator, 6–​7, 57–​59, 70–​71, 74–​78, 108–​11, 159–​61, 181–​82 and preaching on the psalms, 51n.132, 73–​75, 77, 78–​81, 87–​88, 92–​94, 96–​98, 100, 112–​19, 122–​40, 154–​56, 170–​75, 178–​80, 191–​96, 215, 216, 217–​18, 220–​22 and re-​membering, 104–​11, 170–​ 71, 172–​74 self and, 112–​15 and Trinity, 189, 191–​96, 198–​99, 202–​ 4, 209–​11, 212, 220–​21

Subject and Name Index  265 See also body of Christ; Christ Jesus Williams, Rowan, 10–​11, 51n.133, 58n.6, 59 wine imagery, 124–​27, 179. See also food imagery wisdom. See sapientia Wisse, Martin, 159n.1

woman caught in adultery, Gospel of John, 220 Wyschogrod, Edith, 139n.123 Yates, Frances, 15–​16, 139n.123 Zum Brunn, Émilie, 34–​35n.47