Studia Patristica: Papers Presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2019; Augustine of Hippo's De ... Interpretations (14) (Studia Patristica, 117) 9789042944657, 9789042944664, 904294465X

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STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXVII

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 14:

Augustine of Hippo’s De ciuitate Dei: Content, Transmission, and Interpretations Edited by ANTHONY DUPONT and GERT PARTOENS

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXVII

STUDIA PATRISTICA Editor: Markus VINZENT, King’s College London, UK and Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt, Germany

Board of Directors (2019): Carol HARRISON, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Mark EDWARDS, Professor of Early Christian Studies, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Neil MCLYNN, University Lecturer in Later Roman History, Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford, UK Philip BOOTH, A.G. Leventis Associate Professor in Eastern Christianity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, UK Sophie LUNN-ROCKLIFFE, Lecturer in Patristics, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK Morwenna LUDLOW, Professor, Theology and Religion, University of Exeter, UK Ioannis PAPADOGIANNAKIS, Senior Lecturer in Patristics, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK Markus VINZENT, Professor of the History of Theology, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London, UK Josef LÖSSL, Professor of Historical Theology and Intellectual History, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, UK Lewis AYRES, Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, UK John BEHR, Regius Chair in Humanity, The School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History, University of Aberdeen, UK Anthony DUPONT, Research Professor in Christian Antiquity, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium Patricia CINER (as president of AIEP), Professor, Universidad de San Juan-Universidad Católica de Cuyo, Argentina Clayton JEFFORD (as president of NAPS), Professor of Scripture, Seminary and School of Theology, Saint Meinrad, IN, USA

STUDIA PATRISTICA VOL. CXVII

Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019 Edited by MARKUS VINZENT Volume 14:

Augustine of Hippo’s De ciuitate Dei: Content, Transmission, and Interpretations Edited by ANTHONY DUPONT and GERT PARTOENS

PEETERS LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2021

© Peeters Publishers — Louvain — Belgium 2021 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form. D/2021/0602/151 ISBN: 978-90-429-4465-7 eISBN: 978-90-429-4466-4 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in Belgium by Peeters, Leuven

Table of Contents Anthony DUPONT – Gert PARTOENS Introduction .........................................................................................

1

Marina GIANI Book XVIII of Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei in Four Carolingian Witnesses ...................................................................................................

9

Anthony DUPONT The Anti-Pelagian Context of De ciuitate Dei: Human Mortality in Books XIV & XXII .............................................................................

23

Diane FRUCHTMAN The Passio of the Sickbed Martyr and Augustine’s Definition of Martyrdom ...........................................................................................

49

Kevin M. KAMBO Theories of Divine Punishment in Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei........

61

Matthew ELIA Fugitive Signs: Augustine’s Cross, Slavery, and Black Thought ......

77

Montague BROWN Augustine on Justice, Mercy, and Freedom .......................................

91

Kristiaan VENKEN Unity and Division in Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei ........................... 107 Jonathan TEUBNER Charity and Pastoral Power: A Reconsideration of Political Augustinianism .............................................................................................. 121 Emmanuel BERMON Commitment to Public Life and Adherence to God According to a Letter from Nebridius to Augustine (ap. Aug., Ep. 5) ....................... 131 Paul R. KOLBET Freedom from Grim Necessity: Correcting Misreadings of Augustine on Torture ............................................................................................ 139

VI

Table of Contents

Eva Elisabeth HOUTH VRANGBÆK – Kristoffer L. NIELBO Composition and Change in De ciuitate Dei: A Case Study of Computationally Assisted Methods ............................................................ 149 Richard J. DOUGHERTY Augustine’s Roman Heroes: The Contest of Classical and Christian Virtue ................................................................................................... 165 Laela ZWOLLO Augustine’s Motivations for his Refutation of Porphyry and Theurgy in The City of God .............................................................................. 177

Abbreviations AA.SS AAWG.PH AB AC ACL ACO ACW AHDLMA AJAH AJP AKK AKPAW ALMA ALW AnalBoll ANCL ANF ANRW AnSt AnThA APOT AR ARW ASS AThANT Aug AugSt AW AZ BA BAC BASOR BDAG BEHE BETL BGL BHG BHL

see ASS. Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen Philologisch-historische Klasse, Göttingen. Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels. Antike und Christentum, ed. F.J. Dölger, Münster. Antiquité classique, Louvain. Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, ed. E. Schwartz, Berlin. Ancient Christian Writers, ed. J. Quasten and J.C. Plumpe, Westminster (Md.)/London. Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, Paris. American Journal of Ancient History, Cambridge, Mass. American Journal of Philology, Baltimore. Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht, Mainz. Abhandlungen der königlichen Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin du Cange), Paris/Brussels. Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, Regensburg. Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels. Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Buffalo/New York. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed H. Temporini et al., Berlin. Anatolian Studies, London. Année théologique augustinienne, Paris. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, ed. R.E. Charles, Oxford. Archivum Romanicum, Florence. Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Berlin/Leipzig. Acta Sanctorum, ed. the Bollandists, Brussels. Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments, Zürich. Augustinianum, Rome. Augustinian Studies, Villanova (USA). Athanasius Werke, ed. H.-G. Opitz et al., Berlin. Archäologische Zeitung, Berlin. Bibliothèque augustinienne, Paris. Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Madrid. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, New Haven, Conn. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edn F.W. Danker, Chicago. Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Paris. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, Louvain. Benediktinisches Geistesleben, St. Ottilien. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, Brussels. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis, Brussels.

VIII BHO BHTh BJ BJRULM BKV BKV2 BKV3 BLE BoJ BS BSL BWAT Byz BZ BZNW CAr CBQ CChr.CM CChr.SA CChr.SG CChr.SL CH CIL CP(h) CPG CPL CQ CR CSCO

CSEL CSHB CTh CUF CW DAC

Abbreviations

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Orientalis, Brussels. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, Tübingen. Bursians Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Leipzig. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, ed. F.X. Reithmayr and V. Thalhofer, Kempten. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, ed. O. Bardenhewer, Th. Schermann, and C. Weyman, Kempten/Munich. Bibliothek der Kirchenväter. Zweite Reihe, ed. O. Bardenhewer, J. Zellinger, and J. Martin, Munich. Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, Toulouse. Bonner Jahrbücher, Bonn. Bibliotheca sacra, London. Bolletino di studi latini, Naples. Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten Testament, Leipzig/Stuttgart. Byzantion, Leuven. Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Leipzig. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, Berlin. Cahiers Archéologique, Paris. Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Washington. Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca, Turnhout/Paris. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout/Paris. Church History, Chicago. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Berlin. Classical Philology, Chicago. Clavis Patrum Graecorum, ed. M. Geerard, vols. I-VI, Turnhout. Clavis Patrum Latinorum (SE 3), ed. E. Dekkers and A. Gaar, Turnhout. Classical Quarterly, London/Oxford. The Classical Review, London/Oxford. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Louvain. Aeth = Scriptores Aethiopici Ar = Scriptores Arabici Arm = Scriptores Armeniaci Copt = Scriptores Coptici Iber = Scriptores Iberici Syr = Scriptores Syri Subs = Subsidia Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna. Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, Bonn. Collectanea Theologica, Lvov. Collection des Universités de France publiée sous le patronage de l’Association Guillaume Budé, Paris. Catholic World, New York. Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, ed. J. Hastings, Edinburgh.

Abbreviations

DACL DAL DB DBS DCB DHGE Did DOP DOS DR DS DSp DTC EA ECatt ECQ EE EECh EKK EH EO EtByz ETL EWNT ExpT FC FGH FKDG FRL FS FThSt FTS FZThPh GCS GDV GLNT GNO GRBS

IX

see DAL Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. F. Cabrol, H. Leclercq, Paris. Dictionnaire de la Bible, Paris. Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplément, Paris. Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects, and Doctrines, ed. W. Smith and H. Wace, 4 vols, London. Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, ed. A. Baudrillart, Paris. Didaskalia, Lisbon. Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Cambridge, Mass., subsequently Washington, D.C. Dumbarton Oaks Studies, Cambridge, Mass., subsequently Washington, D.C. Downside Review, Stratton on the Fosse, Bath. H.J. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer, ed., Enchiridion Symbolorum, Barcelona/Freiburg i.B./Rome. Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, ed. M. Viller, S.J., and others, Paris. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, and E. Amann, Paris. Études augustiniennes, Paris. Enciclopedia Cattolica, Rome. Eastern Churches Quarterly, Ramsgate. Estudios eclesiasticos, Madrid. Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. A. Di Berardino, Cambridge. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, Neukirchen. Enchiridion Fontium Historiae Ecclesiasticae Antiquae, ed. Ueding-Kirch, 6th ed., Barcelona. Échos d’Orient, Paris. Études Byzantines, Paris. Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Louvain. Exegetisches Wörterbuch zum NT, ed. H.R. Balz et al., Stuttgart. The Expository Times, Edinburgh. The Fathers of the Church, New York. Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Berlin. Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Göttingen. Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, Göttingen. Festschrift. Freiburger theologische Studien, Freiburg i.B. Frankfurter theologische Studien, Frankfurt a.M. Freiburger Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie, Freiburg/Switzerland. Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller, Leipzig/Berlin. Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit, Stuttgart. Grande Lessico del Nuovo Testamento, Genoa. Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Leiden. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, Mass.

X GWV HbNT HDR HJG HKG HNT HO HSCP HTR HTS HZ ICC ILCV ILS J(b)AC JBL JdI JECS JEH JJS JLH JPTh JQR JRS JSJ JSOR JTS KAV KeTh KJ(b) LCL LNPF L(O)F LSJ LThK LXX MA MAMA Mansi MBTh

Abbreviations

Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, Offenburg. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament. Tübingen. Harvard Dissertations in Religion, Missoula. Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft, successively Munich, Cologne and Munich/Freiburg i.B. Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, Tübingen. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Tübingen. Handbuch der Orientalistik, Leiden. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Theological Review, Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Theological Studies, Cambridge, Mass. Historische Zeitschrift, Munich/Berlin. The International Critical Commentary of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, Edinburgh. Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, ed. E. Diehl, Berlin. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, ed. H. Dessau, Berlin. Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Münster. Journal of Biblical Literature, Philadelphia, Pa., then various places. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Berlin. Journal of Early Christian Studies, Baltimore. The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, London. Journal of Jewish Studies, London. Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie, Kassel. Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie, Leipzig/Freiburg i.B. Jewish Quarterly Review, Philadelphia. Journal of Roman Studies, London. Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period, Leiden. Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, Chicago. Journal of Theological Studies, Oxford. Kommentar zu den apostolischen Vätern, Göttingen. Kerk en Theologie, ’s Gravenhage. Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, Gütersloh. The Loeb Classical Library, London/Cambridge, Mass. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace, Buffalo/New York. Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Oxford. H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, new (9th) edn H.S. Jones, Oxford. Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Freiburg i.B. Septuagint. Moyen-Âge, Brussels. Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, London. J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Florence, 1759-1798. Reprint and continuation: Paris/Leipzig, 1901-1927. Münsterische Beiträge zur Theologie, Münster.

Abbreviations

MCom MGH ML MPG MSR MThZ Mus NA28 NGWG NH(M)S NIV NKJV NovTest NPNF NRSV NRTh NTA NT.S NTS NTTSD OBO OCA OCP OECS OLA OLP Or OrChr OrSyr PG PGL PL PLRE PLS PO PRE PS PTA PThR PTS PW QLP QuLi RAC RACh

XI

Miscelanea Comillas, Comillas/Santander. Monumenta germaniae historica. Hanover/Berlin. Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Louvain. See PG. Mélanges de science religieuse, Lille. Münchener theologische Zeitschrift, Munich. Le Muséon, Louvain. Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th edition, Stuttgart. Nachrichten der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Nag Hammadi (and Manichaean) Studies, Leiden. New International Version. New King James Version. Novum Testamentum, Leiden. See LNPF. New Revised Standard Version. Nouvelle Revue Théologique, Tournai/Louvain/Paris. Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen, Münster. Novum Testamentum Supplements, Leiden. New Testament Studies, Cambridge/Washington. New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents, Leiden/Boston. Orbis biblicus et orientalis, Freiburg, Switz., then Louvain. Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome. Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Rome. Oxford Early Christian Studies, Oxford. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, Louvain. Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, Louvain. Orientalia. Commentarii editi a Pontificio Instituto Biblico, Rome. Oriens Christianus, Leipzig, then Wiesbaden. L’Orient Syrien, Paris. Migne, Patrologia, series graeca. A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed. G.L. Lampe, Oxford. Migne, Patrologia, series latina. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, ed. A.H.M. Jones et al., Cambridge. Migne, Patrologia, series latina. Supplementum ed. A. Hamman. Patrologia Orientalis, Paris. Paulys Realenzyklopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, Stuttgart. Patrologia Syriaca, Paris. Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen, Bonn. Princeton Theological Review, Princeton. Patristische Texte und Studien, Berlin. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. G. Wissowa, Stuttgart. Questions liturgiques et paroissiales, Louvain. Questions liturgiques, Louvain. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, Rome. Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Stuttgart.

XII RAM RAug RBen RB(ibl) RE

Abbreviations

Revue d’ascétique et de mystique, Paris. Recherches Augustiniennes, Paris. Revue Bénédictine, Maredsous. Revue biblique, Paris. Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, founded by J.J. Herzog, 3e ed. A. Hauck, Leipzig. REA(ug) Revue des études Augustiniennes, Paris. REB Revue des études byzantines, Paris. RED Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, Rome. RÉL Revue des études latines, Paris. REG Revue des études grecques, Paris. RevSR Revue des sciences religieuses, Strasbourg. RevThom Revue thomiste, Toulouse. RFIC Rivista di filologia e d’istruzione classica, Turin. RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Gunkel-Zscharnack, Tübingen RHE Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Louvain. RhMus Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Bonn. RHR Revue de l’histoire des religions, Paris. RHT Revue d’Histoire des Textes, Paris. RMAL Revue du Moyen-Âge Latin, Paris. ROC Revue de l’Orient chrétien, Paris. RPh Revue de philologie, Paris. RQ Römische Quartalschrift, Freiburg i.B. RQH Revue des questions historiques, Paris. RSLR Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa, Florence. RSPT, RSPh Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, Paris. RSR Recherches de science religieuse, Paris. RTAM Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, Louvain. RthL Revue théologique de Louvain, Louvain. RTM Rivista di teologia morale, Bologna. Sal Salesianum, Roma. SBA Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft, Basel. SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien, Stuttgart. ScEc Sciences ecclésiastiques, Bruges. SCh, SC Sources chrétiennes, Paris. SD Studies and Documents, ed. K. Lake and S. Lake. London/Philadelphia. SE Sacris Erudiri, Bruges. SDHI Studia et documenta historiae et iuris, Roma. SH Subsidia Hagiographica, Brussels. SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae. SJMS Speculum. Journal of Mediaeval Studies, Cambridge, Mass. SM Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige, Munich. SO Symbolae Osloenses, Oslo. SP Studia Patristica, successively Berlin, Kalamazoo, Leuven. SPM Stromata Patristica et Mediaevalia, ed. C. Mohrmann and J. Quasten, Utrecht.

Abbreviations

SQ SQAW SSL StudMed SVigChr SVF TDNT TE ThGl ThJ ThLZ ThPh ThQ ThR ThWAT ThWNT ThZ TLG TP TRE TS TThZ TU USQR VC VetChr VT WBC WUNT WZKM YUP ZAC ZAM ZAW ZDPV ZKG ZKTh ZNW ZRG ZThK

XIII

Sammlung ausgewählter Quellenschriften zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte, Tübingen. Schriften und Quellen der Alten Welt, Berlin. Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, Louvain. Studi Medievali, Turin. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, Leiden. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. J. von Arnim, Leipzig. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Grand Rapids, Mich. Teologia espiritual, Valencia. Theologie und Glaube, Paderborn. Theologische Jahrbücher, Leipzig. Theologische Literaturzeitung, Leipzig. Theologie und Philosophie, Freiburg i.B. Theologische Quartalschrift, Tübingen. Theologische Rundschau, Tübingen. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament, Stuttgart. Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Stuttgart. Theologische Zeitschrift, Basel. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Lancaster, Pa. Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Berlin. Theological Studies, New York and various places; now Washington, DC. Trierer theologische Zeitschrift, Trier. Texte und Untersuchungen, Leipzig/Berlin. Union Seminary Quarterly Review, New York. Vigiliae Christianae, Amsterdam. Vetera Christianorum, Bari (Italy). Vetus Testamentum, Leiden. Word Biblical Commentary, Waco. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, Tübingen. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vienna. Yale University Press, New Haven. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, Berlin. Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik, Innsbruck, then Würzburg. Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Giessen, then Berlin. Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, Leipzig. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, Gotha, then Stuttgart. Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie, Vienna. Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche, Giessen, then Berlin. Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Weimar. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, Tübingen.

Introduction Anthony DUPONT, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Gert PARTOENS, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

For readers of Studia Patristica, Augustine of Hippo’s De ciuitate Dei (413427) hardly requires introduction. Occasioned by the sack of Rome in 410, the work is situated at a crucial moment in Western history, though the symbolic significance of Rome’s fall outweighed its immediate historical impact. As one of Augustine’s major writings, De ciuitate Dei has been consulted as a history of the Roman Empire, an encyclopedia of Roman philosophical and religious systems, a political handbook on citizenship, a philosophical consideration of human virtue and vice, a theological treatise on human and divine love, and much more. This “magnum opus et arduum” (De ciuitate Dei, praefatio) has been read, studied, and discussed for centuries, and from a variety of perspectives. The current volume offers a sample of the many ways – philological, philosophical, theological, political, digital – in which De ciuitate Dei is being approached in the twenty-first century. Except for the paper of Kristiaan Venken, all the contributions to this volume were presented during the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies (August 19-24, 2019). The essential basis for any study of De ciuitate Dei is of course the establishment of its critical edition. The first contribution to the present volume studies the textual transmission of book XVIII in four Carolingian witnesses. Despite De ciuitate Dei being one of Augustine’s best-known and most-studied works, its medieval textual transmission remains a largely untouched field of research; in fact the work’s critical editions are not based on a thorough understanding of the genealogical relationships between the manuscripts. In her paper, Marina Giani identifies a group of four genealogically related Carolingian manuscripts on the basis of a series of loci critici taken from the work’s largest book (XVIII) and on the basis of how the tabulae capitulorum for book XVIII are distributed in these textual witnesses. Giani also situates these manuscripts in their historical and geographical context (i.e. Bavaria and Northern Italy). During the conference, particular attention was paid to how Augustine reflected on the negative consequences of the Fall in his De ciuitate Dei. Accordingly, two studies in the present volume consider how Augustine dealt with the issue of death. Anthony Dupont outlines the anti-Pelagian background to the treatment of human mortality in De ciuitate Dei, while Diane Fruchtman deals with the notion of the sickbed martyr.

Studia Patristica CXVII, 1-7. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

2

A. DUPONT – G. PARTOENS

The years 413-427 are not only the period in which Augustine wrote De ciuitate Dei, they also coincide with the so-called Pelagian controversy. Anthony Dupont argues that this controversy left its mark on Augustine’s approach to human mortality in books XIV and XXII of De ciuitate Dei. In these two books, Augustine articulates the following views: humans were not created mortal; original sin is the cause of all human suffering and death; and Christ liberates humankind from (eternal) death. The topic of mortality and the specific way in which this topic is thematized, echo Augustine’s anti-Pelagian reflections on the Adamic corpus mortis. In addition to detailing this significant parallel between De ciuitate Dei (XIV and XXII) and Augustine’s anti-Pelagian oeuvre, Dupont also shows how the former supplements the latter. While Augustine offers a rather spiritual reading of mortality in his rebuke of the Pelagians, in De ciuitate Dei he addresses the physicality of human death and suffering. Dupont’s article thus challenges scholars to peruse the anti-Pelagian treatises and De ciuitate Dei in tandem, in order to fully comprehend Augustine’s conception of human mortality. As Dupont’s contribution illustrates, Augustine discusses the issues of death and illness in De ciuitate Dei. The work is also known for Augustine’s acceptance of the veneration of martyrs – a position to which he only came gradually – and his reflections about the true cause and significance of Christian martyrdom. Diane Fruchtman brings these two elements together in an innovative way. Through analysis of a carefully chosen selection of sermones ad populum (4; 286; 306E; 318; 328; 335D), she unearths Augustine’s notion of the sickbed martyr. That Augustine urges his faithful, at a time when Christians were no longer subject to persecution, to imitate the martyrs by living morally, has been the subject of elaborate investigation. Fruchtman shows that Augustine appeals in his sermons to a second form of imitatio martyris: the sick ought to accept their suffering without seeking solace in ‘pagan’ amulets or incantations. Augustine’s sermons in fact contain vivid passiones that he constructed and dedicated to these ‘sickbed martyrs’. The belief that the seriously ill likewise fight in an arena and obtain a crown highlights two key elements in Augustine’s redefinition of the Christian martyr. Martyrdom is an act of the will (rather than of the body) that resists temptation; because being a martyr need not involve physical or mortal suffering, every Christian can and should become a martyr in this sense. The fallen condition of humankind also finds expression in two other, timely areas of consideration: punishment and slavery, as Kevin M. Kambo and Matthew Elia show in their respective articles. The related question of God’s justice, and how it relates to human justice, is addressed by Montague Brown. These three scholars, in addition to analyzing Augustine’s reflections about these topics, offer a contemporary recontextualization of the bishop of Hippo’s ideas. A much-debated question is whether Augustine’s notion of punishment can be reduced to merciless retribution: evildoers must themselves undergo evil.

Introduction

3

Kevin M. Kambo argues that Augustine’s theory of retribution and reciprocation in De ciuitate Dei XIV, 15 and XXI, 11 (with roots in De libero arbitrio and Confessiones) exhibits a chiastic (creational) structure: each evil act is an infringement against creation and thus provokes a reaction by creation. On this view, evildoers themselves cause the evil they suffer. Human disorder results in cosmic disorder. Though not denying the remedial value of punishment, Augustine therefore distances himself from the Platonic therapeuticrehabilitative model. First of all, due to original and personal sin, all people are alienated from themselves and from God, and are therefore liable to eternal punishment. Second, this punishment should not be read as God’s retaliation against individual sinners, but should instead be understood at the level of creation. Hence a reductive interpretation of Augustinian retribution as transactional justice ought to give way to a more holistic approach: punishment of evildoers fits within the grand scheme of Augustine’s metaphysics of creation. By examining Augustine’s knotty relationship with the slave society he inhabited, Matthew Elia complicates the notion that Augustine’s theology implied a complete reconfiguration of Roman juridical thinking. On the one hand, Augustine displayed an intellectual habit characteristic of Roman masters: ‘thinking with slaves’, which involved using enslaved bodies as metaphors, as signifying tools to satisfy the conceptual needs of masters, while erasing the voices of enslaved people themselves. On the other hand, suggests Elia, Augustine’s own theory of signification presses against this habit, or at least opens up other possibilities. By bringing Augustine’s account of the restlessness of signs into contact with the notion of fugitivity in modern Black religious and political thought, Elia constructively reworks Augustinian hermeneutics as an insurgent symbolic practice, grounded in how Christ’s words at the Last Supper interrupt the enslaving symbol of Roman crucifixion, thereby showing how the city of God ruptures and remakes the symbols of the earthly city it inhabits. Augustine famously distinguishes human justice from divine justice in his De ciuitate Dei. This distinction, however, is also found in other parts of his oeuvre, notably in his homilies, shedding light on theological and philosophical aspects of his teaching on justice not developed in his more systematic treatises, occasioned by the pastoral and scriptural nature of his homilies. Montague Brown studies the relationship of God’s justice and his mercy and mankind’s freedom in Augustine’s sermons, and especially in the collection of In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus. The case studies of Tr. 33 (on the Pericope Adulterae, Jn. 8:3-11) and s. 46 (on God’s urging for constant repentance) illustrate – Brown argues – that Augustine’s doctrine of grace, divine justice and mercy are compatible: God combines both, not as an easy compromise watering either down, but on the contrary, deepening their meaning and reinforcing their impact. Finally, God’s call to human repentance illustrates that God’s grace and mercy – which always precede human decisions and acts – do not annihilate mankind’s freedom and responsibility to lead a moral life.

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For centuries De ciuitate Dei was considered a manual for public and political life; in the tradition of this perspective, three contributions address the notions of unity (Kristiaan Venken), the episcopal office (Jonathan Teubner), and civil or public commitment (Emmanuel Bermon). According to the bishop of Hippo, the basis for peace both in the earthly and the heavenly city is order. The driving force of societal order – be it on earth or in heaven – is unity, or harmony. In other words, unity is a specific aspect of order, and is by definition the opposite of dissension. In a crucial way, argues Kristiaan Venken, unity and disharmony define both the ciuitas Dei and the terrena ciuitas as well as the loves that direct the two cities. Venken offers a terminological analysis of the concepts of unity (unitas, concordia) and division (diuisio, discordia): unity designates, on different levels and in many different contexts, the ideal situation, a state of perfection towards which one ought to strive; division refers to the perversion of this original ideal of unity, caused by the Fall. Venken shows that unity and the lack of unity are essential to the distinction between the ciuitas Dei and the terrena ciuitas. Disharmony not only causes societal problems in this world, it also lies at the root of the difficult relationship between the earthly and heavenly cities, as biblically expressed in the enmity between Cain and Abel. De ciuitate Dei has also been consulted as a manual for Christian politicians, notably by philosophers adhering to the tenets of Political Augustinianism. This school of thought asserts that the ideal Christian emperor, according to Augustine, assumes both a political and a pastoral office. Jonathan Teubner agrees with this interpretation but contends that philosophers and moral theologians tend to excise from their reconstructions of Augustine’s ideal emperor the coercive aspects that Augustine associates with the pastoral office. By comparing how Augustine describes his own actions as motivated by love (epistula 185; sermo 350D) with his praise of Theodosius’ imperial acts of love, Teubner highlights the subtle ways in which Augustine imports pastoral power into the political vocation. This reading produces a more ambivalent portrait of the ideal Christian emperor and highlights the short-comings of concrete politics informed by an Augustinian love-ethic. The classical otium – negotium distinction is well known. After his conversion, baptism, and return to Africa, Augustine withdrew to his family estate in Thagaste with likeminded friends and family members. According to a letter written by Nebridius to Augustine in this period (preserved in Augustine’s epistolary corpus as epistula 5), this withdrawal should not be read as a purely monastic contemplative retreat or as a Neoplatonic or philosophical fuga mundi, such as was undertaken by Nebridius himself, for Augustine seems to have been involved in the negotia ciuium. Did Augustine, as the son of a curial, inherit the municipal duties (munera publica) of his father as prescribed by Roman law? After all, Augustine was no longer a professor and not yet a cleric, professions that were both exempt from this municipal duty. Emmanuel Bermon

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suggests a nuanced answer to the question: ciuis does not necessarily have a profane civil denotation. This answer is instructive for a better understanding of the complex (double) citizenship of Christians, as that concept is deployed in De ciuitate Dei. Although Christians as pilgrims are fundamentally directed to the heavenly city, they should also assume their responsibility in the earthly city to work for societal stability, order, and peace. Many aspects and passages of De ciuitate Dei have been and remain bones of contention. Some scholars, for instance, have recently argued that Augustine opened, albeit unwillingly, the door to judicial torture. Following Reinhold Niebuhr’s realistic interpretation of Augustine’s understanding of the world in which we live, Herbert Deane (and in his wake Rebecca Gordon, Terrance McConnell, and John Parish) read De ciuitate Dei XIX, 6 as granting permission to judges to use torture. Torture is a grim necessity in criminal justice, and as such not a sin, it seems. Paul Kolbet – referring to recent studies by Robert Dodaro, Joseph Clair, John von Heyking, and Veronica Roberts Ogle – argues that this view rests on a faulty exegesis of the aforementioned passage. Situated in its proper rhetorical context, De ciuitate Dei XIX, 6 makes clear that Augustine, rather than tolerating torture, showcases the limits of Roman Stoicism. Such an interpretation is consistent with Augustine’s overall rejection of capital punishment, the abhorrence of torture expressed in his sermons and letters, his plea to prioritize mercy and the spoken word as a means of coercion, and his belief that if physical corrective measures are necessary, they should serve therapeutic objectives. Since one function of conferences is to provide perspectives for the future, this volume also contains three programmatic papers, each outlining a promising avenue for new research: one paper concerns digital humanities (Eva Elisabeth Houth Vrangbæk and Kristoffer L. Nielbo), and the other two invite for further research on how Augustine related to pagan authorities (Richard J. Dougherty and Laela Zwollo). Eva Elisabeth Houth Vrangbæk and Kristoffer L. Nielbo endeavour to integrate patristic research with newer methods of the digital era by applying the technique of digital exegesis to De ciuitate Dei. Stressing that the fruitfulness of digital methods depends on their integration with traditional approaches to research, the authors propose a technique which they call ‘computationally assisted close reading’, a name which signifies the benefit of collaboration between old and new methods. Too often, the authors argue, digital methods have been imposed in a fast and precipitate way. The article aims to test whether an algorithm the authors have developed can be trained to detect topical changes in the compositional structure of De ciuitate Dei at the same level as a human reader. On the one hand, these digitally assisted reading techniques support the traditional division of De ciuitate Dei into two major parts, as well as the five-fold structure Augustine himself lays out. On the other hand, and more innovatively, the authors have unravelled a more hidden structure; in so doing the authors

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show how these techniques can – and according to them soon will – be used to explore patristic texts on both a small and a large scale. Could pagans be truly virtuous? Were they able to fully grasp the truth? Though Augustine addresses these questions in De ciuitate Dei, his answers have not only remained a topic of debate: they have also resulted often enough in binarily opposed interpretations. Yes, he appreciated classical examples of virtue, and he venerated the authors of ancient Rome. No, he rejected those examples and authors as completely immoral and false, because they were vitiated by pride. Richard J. Dougherty revisits this debate by carefully reading how Augustine approached, for instance, Cicero and Plato in books II and V of De ciuitate Dei, as well as canonized examples of Roman virtue, such as Junius Brutus, Titus Manlius Torquatus, and many others in De ciuitate Dei V. Dougherty argues that Augustine’s appreciation of preChristian auctoritates and exempla should not be seen as a black-and-white matter. Though Augustine did believe that the love of praise and glory, and the libido dominandi motivated the moral acts of classical auctoritates, and that the (partial) truths discovered by pre-Christian thinkers were true only in the sense they were in fact Christian truths, he did not reject the exempla and teachings of pagans out of hand. Though pagans possessed neither virtue nor truth in the fullest sense, Augustine nevertheless appreciated their quest for truth and allowed that certain pagans attempted to serve the common good of the city. Such people should not be disregarded as possible guides and models for Christians to follow and study. Laela Zwollo discusses the presence of Porphyry in De ciuitate Dei: his place within the broader theological and historical-political objectives of Augustine’s exposition (Augustine’s refutation of the so-called pagan religions and philosophies in the first six books); Porphyry’s role within Platonism and Neoplatonism (book VIII); and his position on theurgy (book X). Zwollo argues that the bishop of Hippo’s vehement rebuke of Porphyry is linked to Augustine’s rejection of the veneration of demons and to his fundamental belief that Christ is the only mediator. Zwollo offers suggestions as to why Augustine reacted so disproportionally and elaborately against Porphyry. Augustine deemed acts of theurgy as highly dangerous. As a young intellectual, Augustine had read Porphyry with great enthusiasm, which proved to be an embarrassment for the older bishop. The latter also realized that Porphyry still enjoyed some authority among the intellectuals of his time. Augustine’s resentment of Porphyry may have also been exacerbated by fear, given the turbulent period in which Augustine lived. In the wake of the violence surrounding the Donatist controversy, the sack of Rome, and the crumbling empire, Augustine was concerned that ordinary Christians would resort to worshipping demons and imploring them for help and relief. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the many parties that made this volume possible. An initial word of recognition goes to the directors of the

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Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies, chaired by Carol Harrison and Mark Edwards, for the meticulous organisation of the conference, which remains without any doubt the most important forum in our discipline. We would also like to express our appreciation to the colleagues who acted as anonymous referees for the papers published in this volume – for their generosity and insightful remarks. We thank the authors for sharing their research, for their patience and their willingness to enter into dialogue with their peers. Finally, special gratitude is due to Markus Vinzent, who devotes much of his time and tireless energy to Studia Patristica.

Book XVIII of Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei in Four Carolingian Witnesses* Marina GIANI, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

ABSTRACT Despite the crucial role of Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei in shaping Christian identity and its influence on Western culture, we are still far from understanding the paths of its medieval transmission and dissemination. This paper aims to list a number of loci critici supporting the hypothesis of the genealogical relatedness – limited to book XVIII, in the current state of knowledge – of four 9th-century witnesses, namely Brescia, Biblioteca Queriniana, G.III.3; München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 6267 (pars recentior); Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud misc. 135; and Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, LXXI (52). These loci have been singled out by collating randomly selected sample passages from the sole book XVIII, which is the longest in the entire work and the most frequently equipped with tabulae capitulorum. This enquiry is to be intended as a first attempt to shed some light on a largely unexplored topic, which deserves to be examined in much more depth and on the basis of a broader array of data.

The De ciuitate Dei (henceforth, ciu.) was written in response to the ethical and political crisis of the Empire that followed the sack of Rome by Alaric’s Visigoths on the 24th of August 410 CE.1 Nonetheless, its aim extends far beyond the immediate historical circumstances: it was intended to be not only an apologetic work but, first and foremost, a catechetic and parenetical one, as

* Research for the essay was conducted in the framework of the C1-project ‘Magnum opus et arduum’: Towards a History of the Reception of Augustine’s ‘De civitate Dei’, supervised by Gert Partoens, Anthony Dupont, Jeroen De Keyser and Andrea Robiglio at KU Leuven. I wish to thank Paolo Chiesa and Gert Partoens for their insightful comments on the draft version of this paper. I bear sole responsibility for any errors that might remain. 1 A general introduction to the work and its reception is to be found in Gustave Bardy, ‘Introduction générale’, in Saint Augustin, La cité de Dieu, livres I-V. Impuissance sociale du paganisme, BA 33 (Paris, 1959), 9-144; Gerard J.P. O’Daly, ‘Civitate dei (De)’, in Cornelius Mayer et al. (eds), Augustinuslexikon (Basel, 1986-1994) I 969-1010; id., Augustine’s City of God. A Reader’s Guide (Oxford, 1999); Ernest L. Fortin, ‘Civitate Dei (De)’, in Allan D. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the Ages. An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI, Cambridge, 1999), 196202; Michael Sloan, ‘De civitate Dei’, in Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten (eds), The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (Oxford, New York, 2013), I 255-61.

Studia Patristica CXVII, 9-21. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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is clearly stated in Augustine’s second letter to the catechumen Firmus.2 The sack of Rome was an extremely traumatic event for Christianity, and produced a flurry of literary responses, as Catholics sought to explain why such a disaster had occurred in Christian times. Indeed, the calamity was exploited by some members of the ordo senatorius to discredit the Christians, whose God had failed to protect the core of the Empire, whereas the pagan gods had carried out this task excellently over the centuries. What is more, the besiegers and pillagers were Christians, albeit Arian Christians, which contributed to the perception of the dissemination of Christianity as a ruinous event for the survival of the Empire. Therefore, in order to reassure believers and respond to the pagans’ allegations, Augustine decided to write a work that was to exert a crucial influence on the development of Christian thought – and in particular of political theology – from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern era and beyond. Despite the significant impact of ciu., we are currently very far from understanding the path of its transmission and dissemination in the Middle Ages, as we still rely on an almost century-old edition which takes into account a limited number of manuscripts.3 The present paper aims to identify a group of four (at least partially) genealogically related Carolingian witnesses of ciu. based on a series of loci critici. These loci have been singled out by collating randomly selected ‘coring samples’ passages taken from book XVIII. Therefore, this enquiry is to be intended as a first attempt to shed some light on a largely unexplored topic, which deserves to be examined in much more depth and on the basis of a broader array of data. I should also stress that the concluding remarks given below relate uniquely to this very book and cannot be extended to the whole work, as the relations between manuscripts are bound to change substantially from one book to another, due to the extensive contamination that affects the early medieval transmission of ciu.4 Book XVIII presents a number of peculiar features. First, it is the longest in the whole work, as it comprises 54 chapters. In the first ten books, Augustine criticizes the view according to which the cult of the pagan gods is useful for earthly life as well as for the afterlife. The second part of the work is construens: here Augustine displays his theory of the two cities, the heavenly and the 2 Ep. Divjak 2*, 3: Neque enim ille fructus est eorum, quod delectant legentem, nec ille, quod multa faciunt scire nescientem, sed ille, quod ciuitatem dei persuadent uel incunctanter intrandam uel perseueranter habitandam. Quoted from Sancti Aurelii Augustini Opera II. VI. Epistolae ex duobus codicibus nuper in luce prolatae, ed. Johannes Divjak, CSEL 88 (Wien, 1981), 10-1. 3 Aurelius Augustinus, De civitate Dei libri XXII, ed. Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb, 4th ed. (Leipzig, 1928-1929). The text was reprinted in Sancti Aureli Augustini De civitate Dei, CChr.SL 47-8 (Turnhout, 1955). 4 See Emanuela Colombi, ‘Assetto librario ed elementi paratestuali nei manoscritti tardoantichi e carolingi del De civitate Dei di Agostino: alcune riflessioni’, Segno e testo 11 (2013), 183-272 and Marina Giani, ‘The Transmission of Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Starting Point for Further Research’, Revue d’Études Augustiniennes et Patristiques 66 (2020), 93-138.

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earthly. In particular, in books XV to XVIII he had planned to deal with the procursus, or history, of the two cities. In book XV he addresses the events occurred from the Creation to the Flood; in books XVI and XVII he focuses on the history of the sole city of God from Noah to the coming of Christ, leaving aside the procursus of the earthly city. When completing book XVII, he realized that he had only one book left to fulfill his original plan. Thus, he condensed into book XVIII a summary of the events pertaining to the earthly city up to the coming of Christ, synchronizing the previously discussed Biblical stories with the facts narrated by Greek and Latin historians.5 In book XVIII Augustine also deals with scattered issues, such as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies, the canonicity and harmony of the Scripture and the authority of the Septuagint. He gives the impression of accumulating and compressing together the topics he had not yet fully explored in the previous books, as he had originally intended to do.6 Second, Augustine’s letter 2* to Firmus, the Carthaginian lay noblemen, shows that book XVIII aroused Firmus’ curiosity during a (public?) reading, which took place in Carthage in the space of three days.7 This is the only surviving evidence for an oral fruition of ciu. Third, book XVIII is the most frequently equipped with tabulae capitulorum, a sort of content summary intended to guide the readers through such a long and originally undivided text. This peculiar concentration may be due to the special need of the audience for a tool to navigate the disparate and copious material gathered in it.8 Even though it should be kept in mind that paratexts are unstable and may have been contaminated from different exemplars, the presence of the same version of the tabulae may suggest either a direct or indirect kinship between given copies. Six 9th-century manuscripts display version B (according to Emanuela Colombi’s classification) of the tabulae before the sole book XVIII,9 whereas other nine include either version A or B before a group of books (or each book of a group) including book XVIII. Lastly, this book is the most frequently quoted in the Liber glossarum, to which I devoted my PhD dissertation.10 5 On the sources of this book see Carl Frick, Die Quellen Augustins im XVIII. Buche seiner Schrift «De civitate dei» (Höxter, 1886), and G.J.P. O’Daly, ‘Ciuitate dei (De)’ (1986-1994), 9981004. 6 G.J.P. O’Daly, ‘Ciuitate dei (De)’ (1986-1994), 981-2 and 993-4. 7 Ep. Divjak 2*, 3: In his est ille textus huius operis octauus decimus, quem nobiscum pomeridiano continuo triduo cum legeretur attentus audisti. Quoted from ed. J. Divjak (1981), 10. 8 In Colombi’s view, version B of the tabulae may have been compiled by assembling marginal annotations. See Emanuela Colombi, ‘Titoli e capitoli nella trasmissione del De civitate Dei di Agostino’, in Lucia Castaldi and Valeria Mattaloni (eds), Diagnostica testuale. Le ‘tabulae capitulorum’ (Firenze, 2019), 61-106, 78-9. 9 See E. Colombi, ‘Titoli e capitoli’ (2019), 78. To the four manuscripts mentioned in her article should be added MSS. Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 134 and Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, LXXI (52). See also M. Giani, ‘The Transmission’ (2020), 133. 10 Marina Giani, Le opere di Agostino di Ippona e il ‘Liber Glossarum’, PhD dissertation defended on the 23rd June 2017 at SISMEL–FEF, Florence.

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The following manuscripts dated up to the 9th century witness to book XVIII. I mark with an asterisk the ones that I have only partially been able to consult.11 *An Agers, Bibliothèque Municipale, 161 (153), saec. IX2/4, Western France, books XVI-XXII, Bischoff I 56.12 *β Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 134, saec. IX2, Fleury, books I-XXII, Bischoff I 540. Bs Brescia, Biblioteca Civica Queriniana, G.III.3, saec. IX3/4, Brescia?, books I-XXII, Bischoff I 684. Bx Bruxelles, Bibliotèque Royale, 9641 (1145), saec. VIII-IX, Northern France (region of Corbie?), books I-XXII, CLA X 1545,13 Bischoff I 734. *E El Escorial, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo, S.I.16, saec. IXmed., Septimania?, books XII, 10-XXI, tabulae capitulorum 8 (acephalous, lacunose and lacking the end), Bischoff I 1200.14 Pl Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Pl. 12.21, saec. IX3/4, Tours, books I-XXII, Bischoff I 1218. *Le Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Voss. lat. fol. 6, saec. IX2, France, books IXXII, Bischoff II 2184. *Lu Lucca, Biblioteca Capitolare Feliniana, 19, saec. IX3/4, Lucca, books IXXII, Bischoff II 2519. Ma Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, San Millán de la Cogolla 29, saec. IXex. (or year 977?), San Millán de la Cogolla, books I-XXII. Mp Montpellier, Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire, H 255, saec. IXin., Eastern or Southern France, books XIII, 1-10; XV, 8-XVIII, 34; XII, 18-26, Bischoff II 2853. A München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 3831, saec. IXmed., (Eastern) France, books I-XXII, Bischoff II 2955. 11 A complete list of the earliest manuscripts is to be found in E. Colombi, ‘Assetto librario’ (2013), 192-201 and in M. Giani, ‘The Transmission’ (2020), 105-10. I adopt the sigla codicum of E. Colombi, ‘Titoli e capitoli’ (2019), with the exception of L (Leiden MS., here Le), as it has been already used by B. Dombart and A. Kalb in Aurelius Augustinus, De civitate Dei libri XXII (1928-1929) for MS. Lyon, BM, 607. Whenever I do not mention a given manuscript in the following apparatuses, it means that I have not been able to check it. 12 This indication refers to Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen), I-IV (Wiesbaden, 1998-2014). 13 This indication refers to Elias Avery Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores, I-XII (Oxford, 19341972). 14 I mainly rely on the collations published by Olegario García de la Fuente and Valentín Polentinos Franco, ‘El texto del De civitate Dei de San Agustín según el manuscrito escurialense S.I.16 (I)’, Analecta Malacitana 10 (1987), 219-57; Olegario García de la Fuente and Valentín Polentinos Franco, ‘El texto del De civitate Dei de San Agustín según el manuscrito escurialense S.I.16 (II)’, Analecta Malacitana 11 (1988), 39-71. I have been able to collate a number of loci on the microfilm held at IRHT in Paris. In these instances, the siglum E is not marked with the asterisk.

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München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 6259, saec. IX2/4, Lyon, books XV-XXII, Bischoff II 3010. Fb München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 6267, saec. IX1, Freising, books I-XI and XVIII, fols. 1-176 and 386-422, Bischoff II 3017. O2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud misc. 135, years 825-855, Würzburg or Niederaltaich, commissioned by Gozbaldus, books VIII-XVIII, Bischoff II 3844. b Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 2051, saec. IXmed., NorthWestern France (Brittany?), books I-XXII, Bischoff III 4125. f Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 11637, saec. IXmed.-3/4, Corbie, books XI-XXII, Bischoff III 4698. g Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 12215, saec. IX1/4, Bourgogne, books XVI-XXII, Bischoff III 4772. G Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 178, saec. IXmed., Sankt Gallen, books XIXXII, Bischoff III 5636. *T Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, 119, saec. IXmed.-3/4, Paris, Saint-Germaindes-Prés?, books I-XI, 33 + XVII, 23-XXII, 30 (lacunose and lacking the end), Bischoff III 6243. Pa Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 200, saec. IX1, Lorsch, books XVIII-XXII, Bischoff III 6479. Ve Vercelli, Archivio e Biblioteca Capitolare, LXXI (52), saec. IX4/4, Vercelli, books I-XXII. R

The presence of version B of the tabulae capitulorum before the sole book XVIII suggests in itself some relatedness between Fb, O2, Bs, Ve, b, and β. As I have shown elsewhere, the last two are actually closely related to each other,15 whereas the first three are to be included in a larger group (that I have named IIb), comprising also MSS. Ma, E, Ca (Cambrai, BM, 350; books I-X), K (Köln, Dombibliothek, 75, books I-X), and probably, as I am going to show, Ve.16 The loci critici listed below suggest indeed a close relatedness between Fb, O2, Bs, and Ve: these four manuscripts probably stem from a common ancestor ε and form a sub-group within group IIb. Before listing the loci, I should clarify that O2, written around the second quarter 9th century in the monastery of Niederaltaich (or in Würzburg), underwent a systematic revision by roughly contemporary hands working in the cathedral scriptorium of Würzburg (O21). They collated its text with at least one other witness, correcting all the relevant errors of ε and adding 15

M. Giani, ‘The Transmission’ (2020), 135-6. Ibid. 132-5 and Marina Giani, Il ‘Liber glossarum’ e la tradizione altomedievale di Agostino (Firenze, 2021). 16

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several variants in the margins.17 Luckily, O2’s original readings are mostly still visible. 1) Skipping of a line and censorship ciu. XVIII, 18 (280, 7-8) Diomedeas autem uolucres, quando quidem genus earum per successionem propaginis durare perhibetur, non mutatis hominibus factas, sed subtractis credo fuisse suppositas, sicut cerua pro Iphigenia, regis Agamemnonis filia. Neque enim daemonibus iudicio Dei permissis huius modi praestigiae difficiles esse potuerunt; sed quia illa uirgo postea uiua reperta est, suppositam pro illa esse ceruam facile cognitum est.18 An Ve desunt postea uiua reperta est suppositam pro illa esse β Bx Pl Le Lu Mp A R O21 b f g G T Pa ] om. Fb O2 Bs, postea uiua reperta est suppositam (positam Ma) fuisse pro illa Ma E, postea uiua reperta est suppositam fuisse per illam esse Lu1

In this chapter Augustine brings the supernatural power of demons into play to explain the myth of Iphigenia. When the girl was about to be sacrificed by her father, says Augustine, the demons replaced her body with that of a deer, and therefore she managed to escape her fate. The lacuna shared by Fb, O2, and Bs has been possibly caused by a line–jump, and it is highly significant since it is not a saut du même au même.19 XVIII, 23 (287, 29) Ad cibum autem fel et ad sitim acetum dederunt; inhospitalitatis hanc monstrabunt mensam. Ipsa enim insipens tuum Deum non intellexisti, ludentem mortalium mentibus, sed spinis coronasti et horridum fel miscuisti. An deest ludentem mortalium mentibus β Bx Le Lu Mp R O21 b f g G T Pa ] om. Fb O2 Bs Ve, medentem mortalium mentibus Ma E, ludentem mortalium mortalium mentibus A, ludentem mortalium sensibus Pl 17 On this manuscript and its complementary volume, Oxford, Bodl. Library, Laud misc. 120, see Bernhard Bischoff and Josef Hoffmann, Libri Sancti Kyliani. Die Würzburger Schreibschule und die Dombibliohek im VIII. und IX. Jahrhundert (Würzburg, 1952), 38 and 42; Franz Römer, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus. Band II/2: Grossbritannien und Irland: Verzeichnis nach Bibliotheken (Wien, 1972), 269 and 272; B. Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften (2004), II 3829 and 3844; Rolf Bergmann, Stefanie Stricker, Yvonne Goldammer and Claudia Wich-Reif, Katalog der althochdeutschen und altsächsischen Glossenhandschriften (Berlin, New York, 2005), III 1404-5; Daniela Mairhofer, Medieval Manuscripts from Würzburg in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 2014), 366-74 and 444-52. 18 The text is quoted according to Aurelius Augustinus, De civitate Dei libri XXII, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, II (1929). The following sigla refer to variants introduced by other hands than those who copied the main text: O21 (on which see supra) f 1, R1 (on which, see M. Giani, ‘The Transmission’ [2020], 123-6) and Bs1 (on which see Simona Gavinelli, ‘Tradizioni testuali carolinge fra Brescia, Vercelli e San Gallo: il De civitate Dei di s. Agostino’, in Antonio Manfredi and Carla Maria Monti [eds], L’antiche e le moderne carte. Studi in memoria di G. Billanovich [Roma, Padova, 2007], 263-84 and 278). Orthographic variants will not be recorded. 19 See also M. Giani, Il ‘Liber glossarum’ (2021).

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cf. Lact. Diu. inst. IV, 18, 20 παίζοντα θνητοῖσι νοήμασιν20 cf. Oracula Sibyllina VI, 22-4 ἐλθόντα θνητοῖσιν ἐν ὄμμασιν21

This locus criticus occurs within the verse prophecy about Christ’s advent that Augustine found in the original Greek version scattered throughout Lactantius’ Divinae Institutiones book IV. The verses were gathered together and a Latin translation was provided conceivably by Augustine himself, possibly on the basis of an (interlinear?) version already present in his source-manuscript.22 The prophecy envisaged Christ’s passion and revolved around the fact that he would not be recognized as the son of God. Ludentem mortalium mentibus, the subject of which is God, is the literal translation of Lactantius’ παίζοντα θνητοῖσι νοήμασιν, which, in turn, is a corrupted quotation of the original Sybilline oracle that reads ἐλθόντα θνητοῖσιν ἐν ὄμμασιν. Disturbed by the image of God deceiving and mocking human beings, the scribe who copied ε, on which supposedly Fb, O2, Bs and Ve depend, must have censored the entire phrase.23 2) Sauts du même au même caused by homeoteleuton XVIII, 1 (256, 18-9) Nunc ergo, quod intermiseram, uideo esse faciendum, ut ex Abrahae temporibus quo modo etiam illa cucurrerit, quantum satis uidetur, adtingam, ut ambae inter se possint consideratione legentium comparari. quantum satis uidetur, adtingam, ut ambae inter se possint *E Pl Ma Mp A R O21 b f g G Pa ] om. Fb O2 Bs Ve, quantum satis uidetur, adtingam, ut ambae inter se possent Bx XVIII, 22 (284, 17-8) ...cum in arca Noe octo soli homines euaserunt, anni non multo amplius quam mille transierant, quando Ninus Asiam totam excepta India subiugauit. anni non multo amplius quam mille transierant Bx *E Pl Ma Mp A R O21 f g Pa ] om. Fb O2 Bs Ve, anni non multo amplius quam mille transierunt b G XVIII, 23 (286, 24) Hi autem sunt uersus tres, quintus et octauus decimus et nonus decimus. An deest et nonus decimus β E Pl Le Lu Ma Mp A R O21 b f g G T Pa ] om. Fb O2 Bs Ve : et nouus decimus Bx ba.c. XVIII, 23 (287, 29-30) Ipsa enim insipiens tuum Deum non intellexisti, ludentem mortalium mentibus, sed spinis coronasti et horridum fel miscuisti. 20 L. Caelius Firmianus Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum libri septem, ed. Eberhard Heck and Antonie Wlosok (Berlin, 2007), II 388. 21 Die ‘Oracula Sibyllina’, ed. Johannes Geffcken (Leipzig, 1902), 131. 22 Nicoletta Brocca, Lattanzio, Agostino e la ‘Sibylla maga’. Ricerche sulla fortuna degli ‘Oracula Sibyllina’ nell’Occidente latino (Roma, 2011), 298. 23 See also M. Giani, Il ‘Liber glossarum’ (2021).

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An deest et horridum fel miscuisti β Bx E Pl Le Lu Ma Mp A R (horridum in ras.) O21 b f g G T Pa ] om. Fb O2 Bs Ve XVIII, 54 (342, 29) … postea quam in fluuio Iordane ministerio Iohannis est baptizatus. Mp deest Iordane ministerio Iohannis Bx *E Pl Ma A R O21 b f g G Pa ] Iordannis Bs, Iordanis Bs p.c. Ve, Iohannis Fb O2

Even though this type of error is, strictly speaking, not to be regarded as firm evidence, the number of instances and the consistency of the agreement incline me to consider the sauts as further clues of relatedness between these copies of ciu. I classified the first error under this category since the omission was probably facilitated by the verbal suffixes -erit (perhaps read as -ent) and -int. The last saut was provoked by the combination of homeoteleuton and homeoarcton. 3) Indifferent variants and minor secondary readings XVIII, 8 (264, 27-8) Multa quoque alia ex illis in Graecia temporibus confingi fabulosa coeperunt. *E deest confingi fabulosa Pl Ma Mp A R O21 b f g G Pa ] confingi fabula Bx, ***fingi O2, confingi Bs, **confingi Ve, sancto fingi Fb XVIII, 12 (271, 23) … expositus inuentus est puer dracone inuolutus, qui eum significauit magnum futurum et propter commune templum, cum essent parentes eius ignoti, Vulcani et Mineruae dictum esse filium. E Mp An desunt ignoti β Bx Pl Le Lu Ma A R O21 b f g G T Pa ] incogniti Fb O2 Bs1, cogniti Bs Ve XVIII, 33 (305, 17) ‘Tunc’, inquit, ‘transuertam in populos linguam et progenies eius, ut inuocent omnes nomen Domini et seruiant ei sub iugo uno; a finibus fluminum Aethiopiae adferent hostias mihi’ (Zeph. 3:9-10). *E deest sub iugo Bx Pl Ma Mp A R O21 b f g G Pa ] humero Fb O2 Bs Ve Vulgata XVIII, 35 (308, 2) Hoc quando factum sit, ut Dominus Christus in itinere iumento huius generis uteretur, in euangelio legitur, ubi et haec prophetia commemoratur ex parte, quantum illi loco sufficere uisum est. *E Mp desunt uisum est Bx Pl Ma Mp A R O21 b f g G Pa ] potest Fb O2 Bs Ve

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The variants listed above are mostly indifferent, with the exception of the third one, which is an adaptation of the Bible quoted by Augustine to the Vulgate,24 and, therefore, is highly polygenetic. Though all of them are irrelevant for stemmatic purposes, they are worth to be mentioned in light of the lists presented above. 4) An error shared by O2 and Fb XVIII, 24 (288, 16-7) Eodem Romulo regnante Thales Milesius fuisse perhibetur, unus e septem sapientibus, qui post theologos poetas, in quibus Orpheus maxime omnium nobilitatus est, σοφοὶ appellati sunt, quod est Latine sapientes. omnium nobilitatus est Bs Ve Bx *E Pl Ma Mp A R O21 b f g G (omnibum Pa ] om. Fb O2

a.c..

)

The occurrence of this error solely in O2 and Fb may suggest either that they stemmed from a common ancestor or that the ancestor of Bs and Ve was occasionally corrected against another witness. 5) G and f XVIII, 9 (267, 1) Ita illa ciuitas, mater aut nutrix liberalium doctrinarum et tot tantorumque philosophorum... E deest doctrinarum An β Bx Pl Le Lu Ma Mp A R b f g T Pa ] litterarum Fb O2 (uel doctrinarum add. O21 in marg.) Bs Ve G XVIII, 16 (276, 26-7) Nam duris et grandibus rostris satis ad haec proelia perhibentur armatae. An deest haec β Bx E Pl Le Lu Ma Mp A R b g T Pa ] haec esse Fb O2 Bs Ve G f XVIII, 24 (288, 29) Mortuum Romulum, cum et ipse non conparuisset, in deos, quod et uulgo notissimum est, rettulere Romani; quod usque adeo fieri iam desierat (nec postea nisi adulando, non errando, factum est temporibus Caesarum), ut Cicero magnis Romuli laudibus tribuat, quod non rudibus et indoctis temporibus, quando facile homines fallebantur, sed iam expolitis et eruditis meruerit hos honores, quamuis nondum efferbuerat ac pullulauerat philosophorum subtilis et acuta loquacitas. meruerit hos honores *E Pl Ma Mp R1 O21 b f 1 g G Pa ] seruit hos honores Fb, seruitos honores O2 Bs Ve f, meruit hos honores Bx R A 24 Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber and Roger Gryson (Stuttgart, 1994), 1414; Vetus Latina Database, Zeph. 3:9.

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G and f both share an indifferent variant (haec esse) and an error each (G litterarum, which is facilior than doctrinarum, and f seruitos honores) with ε. Even though it is too early to draw any conclusions about their stemmatic position, G and f may either have stemmed from ε, having lost the majority of its typical secondary readings owing to independent extensive contamination, or they may both have been sporadically collated with a manuscript descending from it. The fact that Ve stemmed from ε entails that it also belongs to group IIb.25 This claim is strengthened by Ve’s paratexts. It shares with Bs, Ma, Fb, and K the same elaborate heading at the beginning of the work (In nomine Domini nostri Iesu Christi incipit liber de ciuitate dei sancti Augustini episcopi mirifice disputatus aduersus paganos [et] daemones [et] eorum deos ab exordio mundi usque in finem saeculi); it also shares with Fb, O2, Bs, β, and b the presence of version B of the tabulae capitulorum before book XVIII alone, and the same elaborate incipit and explicit formulations occurring in K and Bs at the end of book I (explicit liber primus de ciuitate dei contra paganos Aurelii Augustini) and at the end of book III (explicit liber [tertius] sancti Augustini de ciuitate dei contra paganos [tertius]). Since the upper margin of Ve f. 181v is damaged, we do not know if it also shared the same formulation stressing the transition from book XIV to XV as Bs and O2. Incipit and explicit formulations in Ve are elsewhere basic (e.g., explicit liber quintus, incipit liber sextus), with the exception of Incipit liber duodecimus de ciuitate dei, the same formula to be found in O2, and of explicit liber XX de ciuitate dei, incipit liber XXI eiusdem.26 ε (book XVIII) Bs O2    Fb Ve

Group IIb Ma K    E Ca

G   f

Version ε of ciu. book XVIII appeared in Bayern in the first half of the 9th century. A pre-existing copy of ciu. books XII-XVII written in Freising cathedral scriptorium between the end of the 8th century and the beginning of the 9th (Fa) was supplemented with books I-X and XVIII (Fb), at least partially 25 26

See supra. E. Colombi, ‘Assetto librario’ (2013) and M. Giani, ‘The Transmission’ (2020), 132-5.

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from an ε-exemplar, at the time of Hitto’s bishopric (811-834).27 Not long after, Gozbaldus, abbot of Niederaltaich (825-842) and bishop of Würzburg (842855), commissioned a copy of ciu. books VIII-XVIII (O2) at least partially stemming from ε.28 This version of book XVIII possibly left some traces in Sankt Gallen too, where a copy of books XI-XXII (G) was made at the time of abbot Grimaldus (841-872).29 It is worth noting, incidentally, that two other copies of ciu. were produced during Grimaldus’s abbacy at Wissembourg (847-872): Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Cod. Guelf. 7 Weiss. (books XI-XVII) and Cod. Guelf. 16 Weiss. (fragments of two copies of the first books of ciu., bound together). The ε-version may have reached Corbie too, where f was produced in the mid-9th century, and where the late-antique copy Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 12214 + Sankt Peterburg, Publichnája Bibilioteka, Q.v.I.4 (C) was held at that time.30 Towards the end of the 9th century, this version reached Northern Italy. Bs was supposedly written for the cathedral library of Brescia at the time of bishops Nottingus (844-863) and Antonius (863-898), and Ve, according to Simona Gavinelli, was prepared in Vercelli at the time of bishop Liutwardus (880-899?).31 Four manuscripts supposedly produced in the second half of the 9th century for the cathedral library of Brescia are known to have survived.32 Claudia Villa, in her landmark study of the famous Brescia, Biblioteca Queriniana, B.II.6, put forward the hypothesis that this copy of Seneca’s Epistles was copied in Brescia from an exemplar originating in Southern Germany, maybe nearby the Lake Constance.33 In the conclusion of her article she stated that once all four 27

Bernhard Bischoff, Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzeit, Bd. I. Die bayerischen Diözesen (Wiesbaden, 19743), 89-90; Katharina Bierbrauer, Die vorkarolingischen und karolingischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, Katalog der illuminierten Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München 1 (Wiesbaden, 1990), II 33, n. 49; Günter Glauche, Katalog der lateinischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München. Die Pergamenthandschriften aus dem Domkapitel Freising. Bd. I. Clm 6201-6316, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Monacensis, 3. Series nova, pars 2, 1 (Wiesbaden, 2000), 120-2; R. Bergmann, S. Stricker, Y. Goldammer and C. Wich-Reif, Katalog (2005), III 1031-3; B. Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften (2014), II 3017. 28 For the bibliography on this manuscript, see note 17. 29 It should be identified with item XXII libros de ciuitate Dei in duobus uoluminibus mentioned in the earliest catalogues of Sankt Gallen library. See Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschland und der Schweiz, ed. Paul Lehmann (München, 1918), I 74, ll. 9-10 (saec. IXmed.) and 83, ll. 31-2 (years 841[850?]-872). See also Alain Stoclet, ‘Le De civitate Dei de saint Augustin. Sa diffusion avant 900 d’après les caractères externes des manuscrits antérieurs à cette date et les catalogues contemporains’, Recherches Augustiniennes 19 (1984), 185-209, 193-4 and 208-9; S. Gavinelli, ‘Tradizioni testuali carolinge’ (2007), 277, and E. Colombi, Assetto librario (2013), 192-3. 30 A. Stoclet, ‘Le De civitate Dei de saint Augustin’ (1984), 189-90 and 195-6. 31 S. Gavinelli, ‘Tradizioni testuali carolinge’ (2007), 273-7. 32 Claudia Villa, ‘Due antiche biblioteche bresciane’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 15 (1972), 63-97, 71-2. 33 Claudia Villa, ‘La tradizione delle Ad Lucilium e la cultura a Brescia dall’età carolingia ad Albertano’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 12 (1969), 9-51, 13-6, 24, and 37-8.

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manuscripts had been studied from a philological point of view, it would be possible to determine whether the well-documented political relation of the bishopric of Brescia with Southern Germany is consistently mirrored by the heritage of its cathedral library and, therefore, to what extent this relation influenced the cultural life of the Northern Italian city.34 Villa’s desideratum has been partially fulfilled by recent scholarship. In 2007, by collating a sample of passages from ciu. books I, XI, XVII and XVIII in Bs Ve and G, Gavinelli found out that Bs and Ve are closely related, and that G, though depending on the same ancestor as the two above-mentioned copies, stemmed from another branch of the tradition.35 In 2016 Shari Boodts and Gert Partoens, after having fully collated fifty fragments from Florus’ Expositio in Epistolas Beati Pauli against all surviving witnesses dated up to the 11th century, confirmed that the copy Brescia, Biblioteca Queriniana, G.III.2 is close to MS. Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 279-281, written in Sankt Gallen during Hartmut’s abbacy, and to Vat. lat. 4950, an 11th-century copy from Nonantola.36 The present study provides new data supporting Villa’s and Gavinelli’s insights: the tradition of ciu. seems to reflect the close relation between Brescia bishopric, Vercelli episcopal see, and some Bavarian religious institutions, in the context of a broader network of cultural exchanges involving also the monasteries of Sankt Gallen and Corbie.37 34

C. Villa, ‘La tradizione delle Ad Lucilium’ (1969), 51. S. Gavinelli, ‘Tradizioni testuali carolinge’ (2007). 36 Shari Boodts and Gert Partoens, ‘The Transmission of Florus of Lyons’ Expositio epistolarum beati Pauli apostoli. State of the Art and New Results’, in Hugh A.G. Houghton (ed.), Commentaries, Catenae, and Biblical Tradition. Papers from the Ninth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, in Association with the COMPAUL Project, Texts and Studies 13 (Piscataway, NJ, 2016), 253-76. A connection between Brescia and Sankt Gallen copies was already envisaged on the basis of the overall structure of the copies and of the political relations between the two institutions by C. Villa, ‘La tradizione delle Ad Lucilium’ (1969), 14-7, 51 and S. Gavinelli, ‘Tradizioni testuali carolinge’ (2007), 278-9. 37 The political and cultural relations between Brescia, Southern Germany and western Frankish empire in the 9th century have been studied by Villa and Gavinelli. See C. Villa, ‘La tradizione delle Ad Lucilium’ (1969); ead., ‘Due antiche biblioteche bresciane’ (1972), 68-72, where Villa pointed out that the presence in Brescia of the Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae (Brescia, Biblioteca Queriniana, B.II.13) may mirror the link between Brescia bishopric and the religious institutions of western Frankish empire; ead., ‘Denique Terentii dultia legimus acta [...]. Una lectura Terentii a San Faustino di Brescia nel secolo IX’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 20 (1979), 1-44; S. Gavinelli, ‘Tradizioni testuali carolinge’ (2007). General overviews of cultural relations between Northern Italy and Europe in the 9th century, focused on books production, are to be found in Giuseppe Billanovich and Mirella Ferrari, ‘La trasmissione dei testi nell’Italia nord-occidentale’, in La cultura antica nell’Occidente latino dal VII all’XI secolo, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo latino 22 (Spoleto, 1975), I 303-52; Mirella Ferrari, ‘Libri liturgici e diffusione della scrittura carolina in Italia settentrionale’, in Culto cristiano e politica imperiale carolingia, Convegni del centro di studi sulla spiritualità medievale 18 (Todi, 1979), 267-79; ead., ‘Manoscritti e cultura’, in Atti del 10° congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Milano 26-30 settembre 1983 (Spoleto, 1986), 241-75; Claudia Villa, ‘La produzione 35

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To conclude, I would like to stress once again that this enquiry is to be understood only as a pilot case-study. Broader surveys taking into account different parts of the work and a wider sample of copies will be carried out in the framework of KU Leuven research project ‘Magnum opus et arduum’: Towards a History of the Reception of Augustine’s ‘De civitate Dei’, in order to begin disentangling the intertwined lines of ciu.’s earliest transmission.

libraria, prima e dopo il 774’, in 774. Ipotesi su una transizione. Atti del seminario di Poggibonsi, 16-18 febbraio 2006, Seminari del centro interuniversitario per la storia e l’archeologia dell’alto medioevo 1 (Turnhout, 2008), 387-401. A copy of ciu. produced in Verona in the third quarter of the 9th century, not bearing any witness to book XVIII, still survives (Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, XXIX [27], book XIII-XVI). It would be interesting to clarify its relation not only to the late-antique Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, XXVIII (26), but also to the Northern Italian and Southern German copies, as Verona had close links with both Bavaria and the Bodensee area (see e.g. M. Ferrari, ‘Libri liturgici’ [1979], 270-1).

The Anti-Pelagian Context of De ciuitate Dei: Human Mortality in Books XIV & XXII Anthony DUPONT, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

ABSTRACT Augustine of Hippo’s (354-430) De ciuitate Dei (413-427) belongs to the canon of Western literature. The rich diversity of ideas his ‘magnum opus et arduum’ (ciu. 1. praef.) contains, was a source of inspiration for philosophers and theologians in subsequent centuries in many different domains. Of particular influence was the social and political vision Augustine deployed in the distinction he perceives between the ‘earthly city’ and the ‘heavenly city’. His doctrine of the two cities however did not come out of the blue, and was already present in prior writings, even preceding the fall of Rome (24 August 410) that occasioned Augustine’s apology of Christianity and his parallel construction of the idea of two cities in De ciuitate Dei. Similarly, the content of this massive work – penned by a very associative author – is not restricted to the said apology and two cities scheme. It contains themes elaborated upon in other parts of his oeuvre, concerns that occupied him throughout his whole life. The latter is definitely true for his reflections about divine grace and original sin. De ciuitate Dei’s composition overspans the whole period the doctor gratiae was entangled in the Pelagian controversy. The current article situates De ciuitate Dei within the context and content of the Pelagian controversy by analysing how Augustine discusses the topic of human mortality in books XIV and XXII of De ciuitate Dei. The way Augustine considers human physical suffering and death as a consequence of original sin in the two said books of De ciuitate Dei illustrates clearly that the debate with the so-called Pelagians did resonate in Augustine’s reflections when he was dictating his magnum opus. The specific way in which mortality is considered in De ciuitate Dei is manifestly conditioned by his anti-Pelagian doctrine of the human fall and its penal aftermath. Without Augustine’s anti-Pelagian dogmatic stance, his reflections on the Adamic corpus mortis in De ciuitate Dei cannot be understood. Moreover, the emphasis on the physical aspects of mortality in De ciuitate Dei supplements Augustine’s rather spiritual reading of mortality in his anti-Pelagian corpus. In order to fully comprehend Augustine’s doctrine of infralapsarian corporeality, his De ciuitate Dei and his anti-Pelagian writings should be read together.

Et in Arcadia ego In order to provide a bit of visual stimulus, I start my contribution with a reference to a famous painting – perhaps even a notorious one given its prominence among those who, perhaps under the influence of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci

Studia Patristica CXVII, 23-48. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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Code, are embarking on a quest for the Holy Grail. The current article does not deal with the Holy Grail, the cup of eternal life, but with death, and its place or role in Paradise, which is also the topic of this painting. The acclaimed French artist Nicolas Poussin, inspired by the traditional memento mori motif, depicts four shepherds in the utopian and idyllic Arcadia, a place of purity resembling the biblical Paradise. The shepherds discover a tomb and decipher its inscription: Et in Arcadia ego (‘I am also in Arcadia’). Traditionally, this iconic painting and epitaph have received two interpretations: the ‘ego’ refers either to a deceased inhabitant of Arcardia, or to Death itself. Both readings imply the same message: humans are mortal, and even in Paradise, humanity is destined for the grave. I will argue that Augustine would agree only with the claim that mortality is intrinsic to the human condition; he would reject the premise that death was a reality for humanity in Paradise. For Augustine believed that the introduction of death marked the end of Paradise. In order to better understand this Augustinian axiom, we shall consult his De ciuitate Dei, that grand theological synthesis of human history. De ciuitate Dei: context and content On 24 August 410, the impossible happened: the city of Rome was sacked by the Visigoths of Alaric. Although Rome was by then neither the political centre, nor the factual capital of the Roman Empire, it was still regarded – at least in the West – as the ‘centre’ of the world, the ‘eternal city’, Roma aeterna. Its sack therefore had enormous symbolic significance and raised important philosophical and theological questions on two levels. First, the disaster intensified criticism of Christianity. That criticism, in rudimentary and sloganesque form, went like this: Rome fell because the worship of ‘pagan’ gods had been abandoned and because Christian ethics had weakened the Roman Empire. More fundamentally, older philosophical points of critique concerning Christian anthropology and theology seemed vindicated. On a second level, many Christians who had conflated the fate of the Christianized Roman state with the fate of the Church feared that the fall of Rome also blackened the Church’s future. Augustine replied to these concerns in his De ciuitate Dei, a work he describes as a ‘magnum opus et arduum’,1 and which took him some fifteen years to compose. This opus consists of twenty-two books which can be divided into two parts. The first part (books I-X) provides an extensive reply to the aforementioned accusations and rebuts traditional Roman religious practices and philosophical schools. In the second part (books XI-XXII), Augustine develops his biblically inspired concept of the two cities: terrena ciuitas and ciuitas caelestis. The concept disconnects Church and State, and it implies that the end 1

Ciu. 1. praef., ed. CChr.SL 47, 1.

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of the Roman Empire does not entail the Church’s demise. Doing injustice to the complex and subtle structure of De ciuitate Dei, this, in a nutshell, is its historical context, content, and aim. This massive work – penned by an associative and prolix writer – contains a plethora of ideas, in many different domains. An object of particular scrutiny has been the social and political vision that Augustine’s distinction between the ‘earthly city’ and the ‘heavenly city’ entails. Although De ciuitate Dei offers the first systematic elaboration of this doctrine of the two cities, the underlying idea and eschatological scheme did not come out of the blue and were already present in some of Augustine’s earlier writings, even in writings that preceded the fall of Rome, which occasioned Augustine’s apology for Christianity and his parallel construction of the two-cities idea in De ciuitate Dei.2 Similarly, the content of this voluminous work is not restricted to the said apology and the two-cities scheme. Augustine’s magnum opus also contains ideas developed in other parts of his oeuvre and addresses concerns that occupied him throughout his life. Without entering the so-called continuity/discontinuity debate in this essay, it is clear that there is a scholarly consensus that reflection on divine grace and the sinful human condition – in one or other way – is a Leitmotif of Augustine’s thought. The question we will examine this evening is whether the specific way in which he conceived of grace and original sin – through the prism of human mortality – in the debate with the so-called Pelagians, also resonated in Augustine’s mind when he dictated his De ciuitate Dei. At first glance, there are clear arguments in favour of an anti-Pelagian background for De ciuitate Dei.3 First, we make an obvious chronological observation. Augustine wrote De ciuitate Dei between 413/414-426/427. He initiated the project while he was involved in the Pelagian controversy. Furthermore, the composition of De ciuitate Dei spanned the entire period during which the doctor gratiae was entangled in that heated contretemps. Second, a personal relationship should be noted. The works De peccatorum meritis et remissione peccatorum et de baptismo paruulorum (411-412) and De spiritu et littera (spring 412) state that due to original sin, neither human effort, nor the Mosaic law, suffice to resist sin; only God’s grace can bring about a successful resistance. These two anti-Pelagian treatises and De ciuitate Dei are all dedicated to one and the same person: tribunus et notarius Marcellinus, who was an imperial legate in Carthage. Marcellinus became a dear friend of Augustine’s and a close ally in ending the Donatist controversy.4 Volker Henning Drecoll has observed 2 Emilien Lamirande, ‘Ciuitas dei’, in Cornelius Mayer (ed.), Karl Heinz Chelius (red.), Augustinus-Lexikon I.5/6 (Basel, 1992), 958-69. 3 See the instructive study: Robert Dodaro, ‘Note sulla presenza della questione pelagiana nel De civitate Dei’, in Elena Cavalcanti (ed.), Il De civitate Dei. L’opera, le interpretazioni, l’influsso (Rome, 1996), 245-70. 4 Ep. 143, 4, ed. CSEL 44, 254; de gest. Pel. 11, 25, ed. CSEL 42, 78; ciu. 1. praef, ed. CChr.SL 47, 1.

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that Marcellinus was one of Augustine’s contemporaries who eagerly questioned and therefore significantly influenced the bishop’s doctrine of grace.5 In the grandiose opening sentence of De ciuitate Dei’s praefatio, Augustine relates that he had promised this same Marcellinus a book in which he would defend the glorious city of God against those who prefer their own, non-Christian, gods. Augustine presumably penned this sentence in 412, and the first three books of De ciuitate Dei were probably released for publication the next year, in 413. It is uncertain, however, if Marcellinus had the opportunity to read this instalment of the work dedicated to him, since – to Augustine’s great bewilderment – Marcellinus was charged with treason and then beheaded on 13 September 413. Augustine tried to prevent the execution, but to no avail. Marcellinus was most likely innocent, and it seems his trial was the result of a Donatist plot. Apparently some of his enemies had not forgiven him for siding with the Catholic bishops during the Conference of Carthage in 411, which outlawed Donatist Christianity. This emotional and personal experience of grave injustice gave Augustine additional impetus to think about the difference between politics and justice in the earthly and divine cities, as well as about the meaning of death in human history. These chronological and personal links between De ciuitate Dei and Augustine’s anti-Pelagian endeavours qualify only as circumstantial evidence. To find the smoking gun, we will need to analyse De ciuitate Dei’s content. At the present juncture, there are different positions among scholars. Gerard J.P. O’Daly, for instance, asserts: ‘the bulk of the work [De ciuitate Dei] reflects his [Augustine’s] mature thought on grace and predestination’.6 Others take the opposite position. Phillipe Curbelié recently described De ciuitate Dei as: ‘une œuvre de maturité qui ne s’inscrit pourtant pas dans la perspective de la controverse pélagienne’.7 Lenka Karfíková, labelling De ciuitate Dei as ‘the epopee of grace and condemnation’ puts forward the following compromise: ‘Augustine’s primary concern is not with grace or the polemic against the Pelagians, but with the Christian confrontation with the collapsing pagan world and its religion. Nevertheless, it is a treatise in which Augustine presented a substantial part of his theology and in which he addressed the issue of grace to a large extent as well’.8 5 Volker Henning Drecoll, ‘“Ungerechte Gnadenlehre” – Zeitgenössische Anfragen an Augustin und ihr Einfluß auf seine Gnadenlehre’, in Cornelius Mayer, Andreas Grote and Christof Müller (eds), Gnade – Freiheit – Rechtfertigung. Augustinische Topoi und ihre Wirkungsgeschichte. Internationales Kolloquium zum 1650. Geburtstag Augustins vom 25. bis 27. November 2004 im Erbacher Hof zu Mainz (Mainz, Stuttgart, 2007), 25-40, 30-2. 6 Gerard J.P. O’Daly, ‘Ciuitate dei (De -)’, in Cornelius Mayer (ed.), Karl Heinz Chelius (red.), Augustinus-Lexikon I.5/6 (Basel, 1992), 969-1010, 1005. 7 Philippe Curbelié, La justice dans La cité de Dieu, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 171 (Paris, Turnhout, 2004), 18. 8 Lenka Karfíková, Grace and the Will according to Augustine, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 115 (Leiden, 2012), 266-78, 267.

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Though perhaps the broader perspective and general aim of De ciuitate Dei may well differ from his anti-Pelagian œuvre, a number of detailed studies from the last decade argue that some specific ideas Augustine developed in the latter are clearly, explicitly, and manifestly present in the former. Fully aware that scholarship on Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei and his doctrine of grace are a ‘mer à boire’, I will limit myself to mentioning two prominent bones of contention in the debates between Augustine on one side, and Pelagius, Julian of Aeclanum, and the monks of Hadrumentum and Marseilles on the other, recognizing that this other side actually consists of many different sides. Those two bones of contention are concupiscence and predestination. First, concupiscence: In his standard reference work on Augustinian concupiscentia, Timo Nisula demonstrates that Augustine undertook extensive preparatory work on this subject against Julian of Aeclanum in books IX and XIV of De ciuitate Dei. In both contexts, Augustine distances himself from traditional philosophical approaches to concupiscentia, and prefers instead a theological approach: since concupiscentia is a violent, compulsive, and punitive force, it cannot be controlled by human will, but only by divine grace. Concupiscentia carnis – especially as expressed in sexual desire – can only be correctly understood within the context of humanity’s fall, its punishment, and God’s gracious remedy.9 Second, predestination: In a somewhat older article, Gaetano Lettieri shows that Augustine’s definition of divine predestination in De ciuitate Dei – especially as radically different from Stoic fatalism, a charge Pelagian critics had levelled against his doctrine of grace – parallels Augustine’s replies to Julian and the monastic communities of Hadrumetum and Marseilles.10 Marianne Djuth explains that the views Augustine expresses in De ciuitate Dei about the intercession of the saints do not contradict but rather accord with his ideas about predestination, election, and the grace of perseverance as described in De praedestinatione sanctorum and De dono perseuerantiae.11 In an elucidating study of 2017, James Patout Burns observes the same predestinarian link between De ciuitate Dei and the final two phases of the Pelagian controversy, and relates the predestinarian themes to the matter of perseverance. In this specific group of writings, the common thread in Augustine’s understanding of the agency of predestined Christians 9 Timo Nisula, Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 116 (Leiden, 2012), 262-5. Kevin E. Jones pleads to read Augustine’s ‘excessive’ rejection of the so-called pagan virtues in Contra Iulianum from the perspective of his more moderate position on this matter in De ciuitate Dei: Kevin E. Jones, ‘Reading Contra Julianum in Light of the City of God’, New Blackfriars (2019), doi: 10.1111/nbfr.12468 10 Gaetano Lettieri, ‘Fato e predestinazione in De civ. Dei V,1-11 e C. duas ep. Pelag. II,5,9 7,16’, Augustinianum 35 (1995), 457-96. See also Gene Fendt, ‘Between a Pelagian Rock and a Hard Predestinarianism: The Currents of Controversy in City of God 11 and 12’, The Journal of Religion 81 (2001), 211-27. 11 Marianne Djuth, ‘Augustine on the Saints and the Community of the Living and the Dead’, SP 70 (2013), 419-31.

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living under the gift of perseverance is a distinction between the divine grace that grants Christians faith and charity, and the divine governance whereby the elect persevere to the end. In other words, ‘the agency of the elect living under the gift of perseverance was distinguished from that of Christians who failed to reach salvation only by its success’,12 by the gift of perseverance granted to the agency of the predestined. Moreover, Burns shows that this link between De ciuitate Dei and the Pelagian controversy is not merely a static parallel, but that evolutions within Augustine’s thinking during the Pelagian controversy are also mirrored in his De ciuitate Dei – a work which, we recall, took fifteen years to write. For example, it is only in writings from the last five years of Augustine’s life that he described the secure happiness of the elect as the inability to sin, a sharing in the divine freedom not to fail. The works in question are De correptione et gratia, De dono perseuerantiae, Contra Iulianum Opus Imperfectum, and book XXII of De ciuitate Dei.13 Why should we focus on human mortality in situating De ciuitate Dei within the Pelagian controversy? In reconstructing Augustine’s political and social ideas, Robert Dyson notices that at the moment Augustine fully developed his celebrated idea of the two cities, he was also working out his views on damnation, grace, and predestination. Dyson makes an interesting observation: human death, the consequence of the fall, is, according to Augustine, the reason the terrena ciuitas and the ciuitas Dei are to be distinguished; in fact, human mortality is even the origin of this distinction and its rationale.14 Without entering into the debate about the many different meanings and levels involved in differentiating the two cities, it is fair to say that human death plays an important role in the theological-historical narrative of De ciuitate Dei. At the same time, questions and discussion about the significance of human death and its relationship to the first sin of humankind recur throughout the Pelagian controversy. Heikki Kotila has observed that within Augustine’s oeuvre, De ciuitate Dei, ‘offers the most consistent explanation of the problem of death and its connection with creation, the Fall, the history of salvation, and the death of the soul and the body’.15 In scrutinizing books XI to XIV of De ciuitate Dei, Volker Henning Drecoll has observed a fundamental difference in mentality between Augustine and Pelagius on the subjects of angelology and anthropology. More specifically, Drecoll sees similarities between De ciuitate Dei and the positions Augustine took in the Pelagian controversy concerning the meaning of beatitude, 12

James Patout Burns Jr., ‘Human Agency in Augustine’s Doctrine of Predestination and Perseverance’, Augustinian Studies 48 (2017), 45-71, 45. See also William S. Babcock, ‘The Human and the Angelic Fall. Will and Moral Agency in Augustine’s City of God’, in J. McWilliam (ed.), Augustine. From Rhetor to Theologian (Waterloo, ON, 1992), 133-49. 13 J. Patout Burns, ‘Human Agency’ (2017), 69. 14 Robert W. Dyson, The Pilgrim City. Social and Political Ideas in the Writings of St Augustine of Hippo (Woodbridge, 2001), 1-45. 15 Heikki Kotila, ‘Mors, mortalitas’, in Roberto Dodaro (ed.), Andreas Grote (red.), AugustinusLexikon IV.1/2 (Basel, 2012), 89-97, 90.

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natura uitiata, and mala uoluntas among angels and humans, as well as humanity’s incorporation into Adam and thus into Adamic mortality.16 In this study we shall examine whether Augustine develops a doctrine of human mortality explicitly and elaborately in De ciuitate Dei, and whether there are differences between this treatment and that of his anti-Pelagian treatises.17 In the interest of a clear focus, we shall specifically consider physical mortality, namely, death and other bodily consequences of original sin. We shall therefore leave mostly to the side the ‘mental’ consequences of the fall, such as ignorance, the cause of all possible errors; and concupiscence, that is, the quasi-impossibility of resisting sin in general and sexual lust in particular. We shall focus on the so-called mors prima – the separation of the soul from the body as a punishment for humanity’s separation from God. Although we cannot altogether avoid discussing it, we shall not systematically consider the so-called second death, or the eternal damnation of the sinners (in a body and soul reunited in hell), and the related issue of the possible eternal physical suffering of the damned. Two books of De ciuitate Dei delve into the issue of human mortality: books XIV and XXII. Before commencing to analyze these two books, I wish to concisely situate them within De ciuitate Dei’s larger project. Both books belong, as explained at the beginning of this article, to the second part of the opus. This is the part that elaborates the doctrine of the two cities – their exortus (origin: books XI-XIV), procursus (historical development: XV-XVIII), and debiti fines (final goal: books XIX-XXII). In book XIV, Augustine explains that the difference between the two cities came about as a consequence of original sin, which also resulted in the mortality of the human body as punishment. The final book of De ciuitate Dei, book XXII, discusses the Last Judgment and the Christian dogma of the bodily resurrection of the elect. Reiterating that the summum bonum cannot be reached on earth, and that paganism cannot protect against misfortune, Augustine revisits the ancient problem of evil in a world created by God: after painting a vivid and grand panorama of all possible forms of physical, human suffering, he concludes that the eternal beatitude of the saints is the only possible response to the miserable situation of infralapsarian humankind. 16 Volker Henning Drecoll, ‘Augustin und Pelagius – Vergleich zweier Mentalitäten. Civ. 11-14 auf dem Hintergrund des Pelagianischen Streits’, in Kampf oder Dialog? Begegnung von Kulturen im Horizont von Augustins De civitate Dei. Conflict / Dialogue? Augustine’s Engagement with Cultures in De civitate Dei. Internationales Symposion (International Symposium) Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Roma, 25.-29. September 2012 (Würzburg, 2015), 367-86. 17 Concerning the issue of death in the totality of Augustine’s thinking and writing, see the following three instructive studies: Jean-Michel Girard, La mort chez saint Augustin. Grandes lignes de l’évolution de sa pensée, telle qu’elle apparaît dans ses traités, Paradosis 34 (Fribourg, 1992). Stanislaw Kowalczyk, ‘La mort dans la doctrine de saint Augustin’, Estudio agustiniano 10 (1975), 357-72. Éric Rebillard, In hora mortis. Évolution de la pastorale chrétienne de la mort aux IVe et Ve siècles, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 283 (Rome, 1994).

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Books XIV and XXII: three questions As I have explained above, both the first and the second death determine the difference between the two cities.18 While the first death leads to mourning in the earthly city,19 the second death is conquered in the heavenly city.20 Since Adam’s fall, all humans are subject to the first death, which is physical death; while the elect – citizens of the heavenly city – will be liberated by God’s unmerited grace from the second death, which is eternal damnation.21 The grand narrative of Augustine’s eschatology is clear; let us now focus on mortality. Three questions will guide our analysis: (1) What is death? (2) What are the physical consequences of human mortality? (3) What role does Christ play? As we shall see, it is especially book XIV that considers the first two questions, and book XXII that takes up the third. First question: the cause and nature of death a. Death as punishment for original sin On this point, Augustine is straightforward: human death is caused by the first sin in Paradise: And the individual members of this race would not have been subject to death, had not the first two […] merited it by their disobedience. So great was the sin of those two that human nature was changed by it for the worse; and so bondage to sin and the necessity of death were transmitted to their posterity. Now the sway of the kingdom of death over men was so complete that all would have been driven headlong, as their due punishment, into that second death to which there is no end, had not some of them been redeemed by the unmerited grace of God.22

As Augustine frequently repeats in De ciuitate Dei, the essence of all sin, and of original sin in particular, is human pride.23 He also stresses that the first sin consisted in disobeying God’s initial commandment; as a fitting punishment for this offense, humans were confronted with the disobedience of their own bodies: To state it briefly, then: in the punishment of that sin, what was the retribution for disobedience if not disobedience itself? For what is man’s misery if not simply his own 18

See ciu. XIV, 1. Ciu. XIV, 8. 20 Ciu. XIV, 9. 21 Ciu. XIV, 1. 22 Ciu. XIV, 1, Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, ed. and trans. Robert W. Dyson (Cambridge, 1998), 581. Neque hoc genus fuisse in singulis quibusque moriturum, nisi duo primi, […], id inoboedientia meruissent, a quibus admissum est tam grande peccatum, ut in deterius eo natura mutaretur humana, etiam in posteros obligatione peccati et mortis necessitate transmissa. Mortis autem regnum in homines usque adeo dominatum est, ut omnes in secundam quoque mortem, cuius nullus est finis, poena debita praecipites ageret, nisi inde quosdam indebita dei gratia liberaret. CChr.SL 48, 414. 23 For instance ciu. XIV, 3; XIV, 11; XIV, 13-5; XIV, 27-8; XXII, 10; XXII, 22. 19

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disobedience to himself, […] For he is disobedient to himself: that is, his very mind, and even his lower part, his flesh, do not obey his will. Even against his will his mind is often troubled; and his flesh endures pain, grows old, and dies, and suffers.24

Augustine’s point, in other words, is that since our bodies experience pain, grow old, and die, they cannot be said to serve us or our soul anymore; our bodies are disobedient, and this disobedience is punishment for the Adamic fall. Such penal disobedience typifies our mortality: we are able to control neither the concrete course nor the duration of our physical life; against our will, we fall ill and die. What man is there at the present time who can live as he wishes, when living itself is not within his power? He wishes to live; he is compelled to die. In what way does he live as he wishes, then, when he does not live as long as he wishes?25

As we shall explain shortly, humanity bears complete and total responsibility for the first sin. Human mortality, the corruption of our bodies, is the punishment for that sin, not its cause. Sin came first; death followed as penal consequence.26 Moreover, this physical punishment during our earthly life is not an end in itself; instead physical suffering is intended as a punishment of the soul since our souls are to blame for our sins.27 b. The contrast between death and immortality In book XIII, Augustine argues that the human fear of death – timor mortis – shows that death does not belong to human nature in its original condition.28 In book XIV, Augustine extends this argument. Human desire for immortality testifies, according to Augustine, that mortality does not belong to humankind’s original condition.29 Instead, truly happy human life is necessarily eternal: 24 Ciu. XIV, 15. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 612. Denique, ut breuiter dicatur, in illius peccati poena quid inoboedientiae nisi inoboedientia retributa est? Nam quae hominis est alia miseria nisi aduersus eum ipsum inoboedientia eius ipsius, […] id est uoluntati eius ipse animus eius eoque inferior caro eius, non obtemperat? Ipso namque inuito et animus plerumque turbatur et caro dolet et ueterescit et moritur, […]. CChr.SL 48, 437. 25 Ciu. XIV, 25. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 628. Nunc uero quis hominum potest ut uult uiuere, quando ipsum uiuere non est in potestate? Viuere enim uult, mori cogitur. Quo modo ergo uiuit ut uult, qui non uiuit quamdiu uult? CChr.SL 48, 448. 26 Ciu. XIV, 4; XIV, 11. See ciu. XIII, 3: Corruption of human nature and human death are the consequences of Adam’s sin. Since we are all liable to these penal consequences, we all bear the same original guilt. 27 Ciu. XIV, 15. See also ciu. XXI, 3. 28 Ciu. XIII, 6. Quapropter quod adtinet ad corporis mortem, id est separationem animae a corpore, cum eam patiuntur, qui morientes appellantur, nulli bona est. Habet enim asperum sensum et contra naturam uis ipsa, qua utrumque diuellitur, quod fuerat in uiuente coniunctum atque consertum, quamdiu moratur, donec omnis adimatur sensus, qui ex ipso inerat animae carnisque complexu. CChr.SL 48, 389. 29 Ciu. XIV, 3.

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[…] if life is loved as it deserves to be loved – for a man cannot be happy if he does not love his life as it deserves – he who so loves it must necessarily wish it to be eternal. Life, therefore, will only be truly happy when it is eternal.30

Before the fall, of course, human life was not (yet) liable to mortality. Augustine continues: Man dwelt as he wished in Paradise, then, for as long as he desired what God commanded. He lived in the enjoyment of God, from Whose goodness came his own goodness. He lived without any want, and he had it within his power so to live forever. Food was present, lest he hunger; drink, lest he thirst; and the tree of life, lest age decay him. There was no corruption in the body, or arising from the body, to bring any distress to any of his senses. There was no fear of disease from within or injury from without. He enjoyed supreme health of body, and entire tranquility of soul. Just as there was no extreme of heat or cold in Paradise, so there arose in him who dwelt there no desire or fear to hinder his good will; There was nothing of sadness; neither was there any empty pleasure. Rather, true joy poured forth continually from God, […].31

In addition to the absence of physical mortality that Augustine describes here, we might add that sexual intercourse was also in Paradise, without, however, the taint of sinful concupiscence.32 The absence of mortality and the absence of any reason for the first human couple to fear death or physical illness, mean that fear of mortality cannot account for the commission of that first sin in Paradise. Humankind was completely happy, and nothing – be it physical or something on the level of the human will – motivated humankind to sin. ‘There was a tranquil avoidance of sin; and, as long as this continued, no evil of any kind intruded, from any source, to bring them sadness.’33 Precisely because life was so easy in Paradise, and because the one commandment given was so simple to fulfill, Augustine is convinced that the punishment exacted for the first sin was completely justified.34 30 Ciu. XIV, 25. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 628. […] porro si tantum amatur, quantum amari digna est (non enim beatus est, a quo ipsa beata uita non amatur ut digna est): fieri non potest, ut eam, qui sic amat, non aeternam uelit. Tunc igitur beata erit, quando aeterna erit. CChr.SL 48, 449. 31 Ciu. XIV, 26. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 628-9. Viuebat itaque homo in paradiso sicut uolebat, quamdiu hoc uolebat quod deus iusserat; uiuebat fruens deo, ex quo bono erat bonus; uiuebat sine ulla egestate, ita semper uiuere habens in potestate. Cibus aderat ne esuriret, potus ne sitiret, lignum uitae ne illum senecta dissolueret. Nihil corruptionis in corpore uel ex corpore ullas molestias ullis eius sensibus ingerebat. Nullus intrinsecus morbus, nullus ictus metuebatur extrinsecus. Summa in carne sanitas, in animo tota tranquillitas. Sicut in paradiso nullus aestus aut frigus, sic in eius habitatore nulla ex cupiditate uel timore accidebat bonae uoluntatis offensio. Nihil omnino triste, nihil erat inaniter laetum. Gaudium uerum perpetuabatur ex deo, […]. CChr.SL 48, 449. 32 Ciu. XIV, 26. 33 Ciu. XIV, 10. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 602-3. Erat deuitatio tranquilla peccati, qua manente nullum omnino alicunde malum, quod contristaret, inruebat. CChr.SL 48, 430. 34 Ciu. XIV, 15.

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Paradise was beneficial for body and mind; it was a physical and a spiritual paradise, both completely perfect.35 Moreover, if humankind had remained in this original happy state and avoided sin, which should have been easy to do so, they would have entered an even greater state of blessedness, namely, the blessedness of the predestined saints, which is ‘the certain assurance that no one would sin and no one would die’36; even their flesh would have become spiritual.37 If the first couple had remained without sin, this blessed stated would have continued until the predestined number of the elect was reached.38 In sum, the first couple was not created mortal, and they lived in a potentially immortal state; had they persisted in righteousness, the result would have been eternal life. Second question: the physical ramifications of the infralapsarian human condition As a consequence of the fall, ‘human nature was changed … for the worse’.39 Time and again, Augustine asserts that human nature itself was created good and is not the cause of human sin. Human will, not human nature, caused the fall; this perverted human will is at odds with human nature; it is a flaw and a defect. Ontologically, the first human will’s ability to sin is explained by humanity’s creation out of nothing. Created out of nothing mankind can opt to turn away from God – the source of all being which is good because created by God – and turn towards nothing, non-being, the definition of evil.40 Not only is human nature as such not to be labeled as bad, the same is true for the human body. In a kind of an anti-Manichaean automatism, Augustine, commenting on the ‘works of the flesh’ mentioned in Galatians 5, explains that the cause of these sinful works is not to be found in the body, but in our sinful will.41 He acknowledges, of course, that the corruption of the flesh can lead to all kinds of sinful enticements, but he stresses that this was not the case for the first human couple, and that for all of us, sin comes about when we willfully consent to those enticements.42 For infralapsarians, then, it is not our body, but rather its corruption that is bad. Augustine writes: We are pressed down by the corruptible body, therefore, yet we know that the cause of our being pressed down is not the nature and substance of the body, but its corruption; 35

Ciu. XIV, 11. Ciu. XIV, 10. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 603. […] ubi iam esset certa securitas peccaturum neminem neminemque moriturum, […]. CChr.SL 48, 431. 37 Ciu. XIV, 15. 38 Ciu. XIV, 26. See also ciu. XII, 22; XIII, 1. 39 Ciu. XIV, 1. 40 Ciu. XIV, 11. 41 Ciu. XIV, 3-5. 42 Ciu. XIV, 3. 36

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and, knowing this, we do not wish to be divested of the body, but to be clothed with its immortality. For there will still be a body then; but, because it will not be corruptible, it will not be a burden.43

This infralapsarian and pre-resurrection corruption has many manifestations. a. In the sexual organs De ciuitate Dei XIV, 26 refers to concupiscence as a libidinis morbus. Although sinful sexual concupiscence as a penal consequence of the fall is not a topic we can pursue in the current contribution, three physical phenomena arising from sexual concupiscence may be mentioned. First, by losing their original innocence, the first couple became aware for the first time of the potentially sinful aspects of human sexuality; in other words, they became aware of sexual concupiscence. It is for this reason that the first couple felt ashamed when they saw each other naked – nakedness, after all, had not bothered them before the fall. The feeling of shame is an expression of human sinfulness, on the spiritual level. Such shame also has a physical manifestation, namely, blushing, which Augustine describes in fascinating detail.44 Second, our sexual organs escape our control. Their disobedience is evidently also a cause of shame.45 It is not the will, but concupiscence that is in charge of the movements of our sexual organs.46 Since procreation and marriage were instituted in Paradise in order to reach the appointed number of predestined saints, neither marriage nor procreation is a consequence of the fall. Both, however, suffer the consequences of the fall, since they are now tainted by concupiscence. The sexual organs, then, were already active in Paradise, but they were completely controlled by the will, not by lust as they are now.47 The unruliness of the genitals is therefore a physical consequence of the fall. Third, although people were created to procreate, God deprives some of fertility as a punishment for Adam’s fall. It is therefore the fall that ultimately renders them barren.48 b. Crimes and disasters Who can describe in any discourse, who can comprehend in any process of thought, the number and severity of the punishments which disturb the human race in general? 43

Ciu. XIV, 3. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 585. Adgrauamur ergo corruptibili corpore, et ipsius adgrauationis causam non naturam substantiamque corporis, sed eius corruptionem scientes nolumus corpore spoliari, sed eius inmortalitate uestiri. Et tunc enim erit, sed quia corruptibile non erit, non grauabit. CChr.SL 48, 417. 44 Ciu. XIV, 16-7. See also: Wu Tianyue, ‘Shame in the Context of Sin. Augustine on the Feeling of Shame in “De civitate Dei”’, Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales 74 (2007), 1-31. 45 Ciu. XIV, 17. 46 Ciu. XIV, 20. 47 Ciu. XIV, 23-4; XIV, 26. 48 Ciu. XXII, 24.

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These punishments do not merely befall the malice and iniquity of the wicked, but belong to the condition of misery common to us all.49

In this passage, Augustine brings together the physical and mental pain people suffer on account of crime, accidents, and misfortune. First of all, since crime entered the world after the fall, humanity has to endure its physical consequences: murder, imprisonment, exile, and rape. Second, as consequences of the fall Augustine also mentions accidents, such as suddenly breaking a leg, and natural disasters: For there is heat and cold; tempest, rain and flood; lightning, thunder and hail; earthquakes and the opening up of chasms in the earth; the possibility of being crushed under falling buildings; accidents arising out of the fear or malice of domestic animals; from so many poisons in berries, water, air, beasts; from the painful, or even fatal, bites of wild creatures; from the madness which a rabid dog communicates, […] How many accidents do farmers – or, rather, all men – fear that crops may suffer from the weather, or the soil, or harmful animals?50

c. Diseases […] ills arising from the diseases which afflict the body itself are so numerous that all the books of the physicians cannot contain them.51

Augustine puts before his readers a horrific overview of disease and the symptoms of disease, such as being thirsty enough to drink your own urine, or being hungry enough to eat human flesh. He also concludes, quite cynically, that medical treatment and medicinal remedies are almost always painful – they are painful cures for pain.52 d. Labor and sleep Faithful to the account in Genesis 3:17, where God condemns Adam to painful toil in order to harvest food, Augustine counts labor as a physical punishment of the fall. 49 Ciu. XXII, 22. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 1155. Sine quibus disci non potest quod maiores uolunt, qui uix aliquid utiliter uolunt, quot et quantis poenis genus agitetur humanum. Quae non ad malitiam nequitiamque iniquorum, sed ad condicionem pertinent miseriamque communem, quis ullo sermone digerit? Quis ulla cogitatione conprehendit? CChr.SL 48, 843. 50 Ciu. XXII, 22. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 1155-6. […] aestibus et frigoribus, tempestatibus imbribus adluuionibus, coruscatione tonitru, grandine fulmine, motibus hiatibusque terrarum, oppressionibus ruinarum, ab offensionibus et pauore uel etiam malitia iumentorum, a tot uenenis fruticum aquarum, aurarum bestiarum, a ferarum uel tantummodo molestis uel etiam mortiferis morsibus, a rabie quae contingit ex rabido cane, […] Agricolae, immo uero omnes homines, quot et quantos a caelo et terra uel a perniciosis animalibus casus metuunt agrorum fructibus! CChr.SL 48, 844. 51 Ciu. XXII, 22. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 1156. Iam uero de ipso corpore tot existunt morborum mala, ut nec libris medicorum cuncta conprehensa sint; […]. CChr.SL 48, 844. 52 Ciu. XXII, 22. In ciu. XXII, 8 Augustine mentions fistulas and gout.

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Idleness, dilatoriness, indolence, negligence, are vices which shun labour, since labour, though useful, is itself a punishment.53

As a final expression of our mortality, Augustine also mentions sleep. At this juncture, however, he does not elaborate on the physical necessity of rest; instead he focusses on nightmares, which disturb rest, and on the delusions by which the sick and the healthy alike are sometimes plagued.54 Third question: the role of Christ Augustine asserts that Christ’s grace delivers humankind from the second death,55 that the nature of fallen humankind, which was created good but vitiated by sin, can only be restored by its Creator,56 and that Christ’s kenotic incarnation brings about this redemptive grace.57 All of this comes as no surprise. But in De ciuitate Dei XXII, 22, we find something like a hapax legomenon in Augustine’s oeuvre: Christ offers relief from physical suffering in two different ways: This is a state of life so miserable that it is like a hell on earth; and there is no escape from it other than through the grace of Christ, our Saviour, God and Lord. The very name Jesus shows this, for it means Saviour; and what He saves us from most of all is a life after this one which is more miserable still: an eternal life which is more like death than life. In this life, considerable consolations and healings are given to us by holy things and holy people,58 but the blessings for which men pray are not always conferred upon them; and this is so that religion shall not be sought merely for the sake of such blessings and not for the sake of that other life in which there will be no evil whatsoever. But grace indeed assists good men in encountering the evils of this life, so that they are able to bear them with a fortitude as great as their faith is strong.59

This paragraph contains two exceptional assertions. First, at the end of the paragraph grace helps those who are good to endure the evils of this life. That 53 Ciu. XXII, 22. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 1155. Desidia segnitia, pigritia neglegentia uitia sunt utique quibus labor fugitur, cum labor ipse, etiam qui est utilis, poena sit. CChr.SL 48, 843. 54 Ciu. XXII, 22. 55 Ciu. XIV, 1; XIV, 15. 56 Ciu. XIV, 11. 57 Ciu. XIV, 9. 58 My translation, Dyson’s translation reads: ‘in our present life, holy men and holy occupations bring us great solace’. 59 Ciu. XXII, 22. Trans. R.W. Dyson, 1156-7. Ab huius tam miserae quasi quibusdam inferis uitae non liberat nisi gratia saluatoris Christi, dei ac domini nostri (hoc enim nomen est ipse Iesus; interpretatur quippe saluator), maxime ne post hanc miserior ac sempiterna suscipiat. Non uita, sed mors. Nam in ista quamuis sint per sancta et sanctos curationum magna solacia, tamen ideo non semper etiam ipsa beneficia tribuuntur petentibus, ne propter hoc religio quaeratur, quae propter aliam magis uitam, ubi mala non erunt omnino ulla, quaerenda est; et ad hoc meliores quosque in his malis adiuuat gratia, ut quanto fideliore, tanto fortiore corde tolerentur. CChr.SL 48, 845.

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Christ’s grace offers the perseverance and courage – fortitude, or strength of heart – to endure the sufferings of this life, and that those sufferings are actually intended to strengthen a persons’ faith – is a topic discussed frequently in Augustine’s sermons. This is the so-called Christus Medicus theme. Augustine compares Christ to a doctor coming to earth in order to heal humankind, which is, after all, one sick patient. Humankind suffers from the tumor of superbia. Christ offers the medicine of humilitas – which is a painful medicine – like a bitter syrup or even the amputation of a limb. In order to persuade the patient to take the medicine, the doctor takes it himself, as an example, though of course he himself does not need to take it.60 The Christus Medicus motif fits within Augustine’s theodicy: physical suffering is not aimless; it helps in avoiding pride, embracing humility, and in finding one’s way back to God. The focus in Augustine’s preaching on the Christus Medicus theme is that this medicine is a painful process: Christ purposefully hurts us and tests us. Divine mercy inflicts pain both as punishment and as remedy.61 The emphasis in Augustine’s preaching, then, is on pain, not on relief. Moreover, physical illness symbolizes the spiritual malady of sin. This entire approach differs markedly from the passage just cited in De ciuitate Dei. There Augustine does not trace physical suffering back to its spiritual cause, and he does not deal with pedagogic pain; instead he insists that grace helps those who are good to endure pain. Perhaps the difference in perspective that this statement implies could be attributed to the doctrine of perseverance that Augustine was elaborating during this same period of time. Persevering till the end means not succumbing to temptation, and physical suffering can be a cause of temptation. That the topic of Christus Medicus is hardly to be found outside Augustine’s preaching, and that Augustine refers here to the gift of bodily fortitude, both render the above statement quite exceptional. Absolutely unique, however, is the statement in the middle of the paragraph: […] nam in ista [uita] quamuis sint per sancta et sanctos curationum magna solacia […]. Though Augustine is very careful not to suggest that each prayer will result in physical healing, he also does not want to deny the possibility of 60

Rudolph Arbesmann, ‘The Concept of ‘Christus Medicus’ in St. Augustine’, Traditio 10 (1954), 1-28. Isabelle Bochet, ‘Medicina, medicus’, in Cornelius Mayer (ed.), Andreas Grote (red.), Augustinus-Lexikon III (Basel, 2010), 1230-4. Isabelle Bochet, ‘Morbus’, in Roberto Dodaro (ed.), Andreas Grote (red.), Augustinus-Lexikon IV.1/2 (Basel, 2012), 74-9. Martin Claes and Anthony Dupont, ‘Augustine’s sermons and disabilities’, in Christian Laes (ed.), Disability in Antiquity, Rewriting Antiquity (New York, Abingdon, 2016), 328-41. Petrus Cornelis Josephus Eijkenboom, Het Christus-Medicusmotief in de preken van Sint Augustinus (Assen, 1960). Thomas Martin, ‘Paul the Patient. “Christus Medicus” and the “Stimulus Carnis” (2 Cor. 12, 7): A Consideration of Augustine’s Medicinal Christology’, Augustinian Studies 32 (2001), 219-56. 61 François Dolbeau, ‘Un sermon inédit de saint Augustin sur la santé corporelle, partiellement cité chez Barthélemy d’Urbino’, in id., Augustin et la prédication en Afrique. Recherches sur divers sermons authentiques, apocryphes ou anonymes, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 179 (Paris, 2005), 163-87, 172.

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physical healing. While the whole objective of De ciuitate Dei is to orient its readers towards finding happiness in the eternal city, Augustine nevertheless states that ‘in this life, however, we have the enormous relief of healing provided by sacred places and the saints’. In this specific context, Augustine is referring to physical alleviation granted by God’s grace, to miraculous healings performed by saints or martyrs at their shrines, or through their relics. In the broader context of De ciuitate Dei, this exceptional assertion ought to be read against the backdrop of his recent acceptance of post-biblical miracles. Augustine’s early scepticism about contemporary miracles, especially through the intercession of martyrs, eventually dissolved; the shift happened in 415, when the relics of the protomartyr Stephen were discovered and dispersed to the faithful.62 Paragraphs 8 to 9 of De ciuitate Dei XXII – the same book from which the paragraph we are examining was taken – clearly attest to Augustine’s acceptance of such miracles. He even lists twenty-five miracles that were known to him. In most instances, a visit to the shrine of a martyr or praying to a martyr resulted in the healing of the supplicant or the resuscitation of a deceased person at the request of a family member; such events constitute for Augustine a miraculous intervention in humankind’s mortality. Tars van Bavel points out that the discovery of Stephen’s relics did not occasion a substantial alteration in Augustine’s theology: the objective of miracles is to direct the attention of the faithful to God and Christ. De ciuitate Dei XXII, 8-9 similarly teach that the purpose of martyr miracles is to strengthen and affirm belief in Christ’s resurrection.63 This acceptance and the Christocentric orientation of miracles is exemplified in the paragraph 22 from De ciuitate Dei XXII which was quoted earlier. It remains, however, an exceptional statement, to which I find no equal in his anti-Pelagian oeuvre. The Pelagian controversy In order to situate books XIV and XXII of De ciuitate Dei in the Pelagian controversy, I will first locate them chronologically, and then offer a concise overview, grosso modo in chronological order, of parallels taken from the antiPelagian writings and that concern human mortality. 62 Serge Lancel, ‘La tardive acceptation du miracle’, in id., Saint Augustin (Paris, 1999), 64858. See Paul de Vooght, ‘La notion philosophique du miracle chez saint Augustin’, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 10 (1938), 317-43. Paul de Vooght, ‘La théologie du miracle selon saint Augustin’, Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 11 (1939), 197222. 63 Tars van Bavel, ‘The Cult of the Martyrs in St. Augustine. Theology versus Popular Religion?’, in Mathijs Lamberigts and Peter Van Deun (eds), Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective, Memorial Louis Reekmans, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium CXVII (Leuven, 1995), 351-61.

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a. The chronology of books XIV and XXII within the Pelagian controversy The composition of book XIV took place between 417 and 420; we know, for instance, that Augustine was working on it in 418.64 This period coincides with the end of the so-called first phase of the Pelagian controversy, which concluded with the final condemnation of Pelagius by emperor Honorius, Pope Zosimus, and a general African council in 418, and with the start of the second phase. In this first phase, discussion focused on Adam’s sin and its possible repercussions. Julian of Aeclanum refused to endorse Pope Zosimus’s Epistula Tractoria, which condemned Pelagius in the summer of 418. From that time on, Augustine was entangled in a highly polemical debate with Julian – the so-called second phase –, mainly concerning human sexuality, marriage, and their relation to sin, that is, to the sins of Adam and his progeny. By the time Augustine composed his Retractationes in 426/427, he had completed De ciuitate Dei, and thus also its concluding book XXII, probably in the same year.65 Julian, Augustine’s nemesis and fiercest critic, was in the aging bishop’s mind until the end of his life; his final reply, the Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, remained unfinished, the result of Augustine’s own mortality. The debate that scholars refer to as the third phase of the Pelagian controversy, with interlocutors sometimes called ‘semi-Pelagians’, was a non-polemical and brotherly exchange between Augustine and monastic communities of Hadrumetum and Marseilles; this exchange started around 426/427. It is a dialogue about grace, the status of faith and perseverance, and the impact of divine predestination. Book XXII was therefore completed shortly before this epistolary dialogue commenced. As James Patout Burns has remarked, however, the ideas about predestination and perseverance that Augustine develops in the treatises for these monks, are already present in De ciuitate Dei, most notably in book XXII. b. Human mortality in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian treatises Both prior to the Pelagian controversy, and in texts not specifically related to it, one can certainly find discussions by Augustine concerning the influence of Adam’s sin on humanity’s physical condition. Especially against the Manichean depreciation of the human body, Augustine explained that it was Adam’s sin that introduced bodily corruption and death into a world previously unfamiliar with it.66 The topic, however, would only become a fierce point of debate during the Pelagian controversy since the so-called Pelagians, according to Augustine’s report in De gestis Pelagii (end of 416 or in 417), held that Adam was created mortal, a claim attributed to Caelestius.67 Without wishing to enter 64 G.J.P. O’Daly, ‘Ciuitate dei (De -)’ (1992), 974. P. Curbelié, La justice (2004), 15-6, n. 21. V.H. Drecoll, ‘Augustin und Pelagius’ (2015), 367. 65 G.J.P. O’Daly, ‘Ciuitate dei (De -)’ (1992), 974. P. Curbelié, La justice (2004), 15-6, n. 21. 66 H. Kotila, ‘Mors, mortalitas’ (2012), 91. 67 Gest. Pel. 56-7. CSEL 42, 110-2.

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the debate as to whether all the so-called Pelagians asserted that Adam was created mortal, we can allow that Augustine at least presents them as defending this position.68 To the end of his life Augustine reacted against the claim that human mortality existed in Paradise, that humankind would have fallen ill, grown old, and died even if there had been no sin.69 At the beginning of his first clearly anti-Pelagian manifesto, De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum (411-412), Augustine states that the only reason for Adam’s mortality – that is, for death and the process of aging – is sin. Apart from sin, Adam’s body would have entered an incorruptible and immortal state.70 Had Adam obeyed, and then remained obedient, he would have passed ‘a mortalitate ad inmortalitatem sine media morte’, ‘from mortality to immortality without death intervening’.71 Disobedience is the first sin,72 and it is punished by the disobedience of our bodies, which results in both sinful desires and sinful acts.73 It was because of this bodily disobedience, that the first couple felt ashamed after the fall.74 Just as Adam and Eve were punished by toil and sorrow, even after returning to a just way of life, we too, even after Christ’s death, do not return to Paradise, and we still face the penal consequences of the fall.75 Because of Adam’s sin, only Christ’s grace can save humankind from the reign of death – and here death refers specifically to the second or eternal death.76 In De natura et gratia (spring 415), Augustine argues that human nature is wounded, injured, weakened, and corrupted by original sin. Though he most often refers to illness as symbol of humanity’s sinful state,77 especially when speaking about Christ as redeeming physician,78 Augustine also clearly asserts that bodily realities such as hunger 68 Rufinus the Syrian (Liber de fide 29-30) believed that Adam was born mortal. See Ali Bonner, The Myth of Pelagianism, British Academy Monographs (Oxford, 2018), 206-12. Walter Dunphy, ‘Rufinus the Syrian: Myth and Reality’, Augustiniana 59 (2009), 79-157. In this regard, it is interesting to observe that Julian of Aeclanum claimed: Haud sane impugnauero eos qui autumant Adam, si dicto audiens exstitisset, ad immortalitatem potuisse pro remuneratione transferri. c. Iul. imp. 6, 30. CSEL 85.2, 415. See Mathijs Lamberigts, ‘Julien d’Eclane et Augustin d’Hippone. Deux conceptions d’Adam’, Augustiniana 40 (1990), 373-410. 69 C. Iul. imp. praef. CSEL 85.1, 4; c. Iul. imp. 3, 154. CSEL 85.1, 459-60. 70 Pecc. mer. 1, 2-4. CSEL 60, 3-6. Pecc. mer. 1, 2: […] si non peccasset Adam, non erat expoliandus corpore, sed superuestiendus inmortalitate et incorruptione […]. CSEL 60, 4. 71 Pecc. mer. 1, 3. CSEL 60, 5. Trans. The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins and the Baptism of Little Ones, trans. Roland J. Teske, S.J., The Works of Saint Augustine, A translation for the 21st Century I.23 (Hyde Park, NY, 1997), 35. 72 Pecc. mer. 1, 21. CSEL 60, 21. 73 Pecc. mer. 1, 57. CSEL 60, 57. 74 Pecc. mer. 2, 36. CSEL 60, 108. 75 Pecc. mer. 2, 55. CSEL 60, 124-5. 76 Pecc. mer. 1, 13. CSEL 60, 13-4. 77 Nat. et gr. 21. CSEL 60, 246-7. 78 Nat. et gr. 23. CSEL 60, 248-9.

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and thirst, and especially death, are not the causes but the consequence of Adam’s sin.79 Many of the elements encountered in our consideration of De ciuitate Dei XIV and XXII are elaborately discussed in Augustine’s polemics with Julian of Aeclanum.80 Since Adam’s sin, humankind is marked by biological death.81 In Adam, human nature deteriorated, and for this reason, death is unavoidable for humankind.82 Adam’s state prior to the fall was unimpeachable; if he had not sinned, he would have retained the capacity not to die.83 So Adam was created good and he had an absolutely free will; he was able to opt for God, to not sin, which is the posse non peccare. This posse non peccare implies a posse non mori, a potential immortality.84 Had Adam remained obedient to God’s commandment, he would have received actual immortality (non posse mori) and the highest form of liberty, the non posse peccare.85 Adam, therefore, was not created mortal, but rather potentially mortal; he could die because he could sin. Had he not sinned, he would have achieved actual immortality and the blessed state of not being able to sin. Then his body would have been transformed into an immutable and spiritual body.86 The posse non mori excludes suffering. In Paradise there was nothing to cause internal or external pain: no worries or shame, no heat, cold, or horror.87 Suffering, in this view, is a (punitive) consequence of sin. Suffering in Paradise would be a violation of the original happiness and harmony of humankind. Augustine stresses that there were no defects of mind or body in Paradise.88 God banished the first human couple from Paradise so that death – both the

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Nat. et gr. 25. CSEL 60, 251-2. For the many references to Augustine’s writings and to further (secondary) literature, I refer to the unfortunately unpublished doctoral dissertation of my Doktervater Mathijs Lamberigts which I extensively consulted to write this part of the article: Mathijs Lamberigts, De polemiek tussen Julianus van Aeclanum en Augustinus van Hippo. Deel 1: Julianus van Aeclanum. Volume 1: Tekst, Volume 2: Voetnoten. Deel 2: Augustinus van Hippo. Volume 1: Tekst, Volume 2: Voetnoten, unpublished doctoral dissertation Theology, K.U. Leuven (Leuven, 1988), Part II, Vol. I: 56-60; Part II, Vol. II: 40-7. 81 C. Iul. imp. 6, 7. CSEL 85.2, 301-3. 82 In quo [Adam] ipsa in deterius natura mutata est, ut propter hoc etiam mori necessi sit homini. c. Iul. imp. 3, 19. CSEL 85.1, 362. 83 C. Iul. imp. 2, 99-100. CSEL 85.1, 230-2. 84 C. Iul. imp. 6, 16. CSEL 85.2, 344-6. 85 C. Iul. imp. 6, 30. CSEL 85.2, 417-9. For the concepts of posse non mori/non posse mori, posse non peccare/non posse peccare in Augustine’s rebukes to Julian, see also: c. Iul. imp. 1, 71. CSEL 85.1, 83-4; c. Iul. imp. 6, 25. CSEL 85.2, 383-4. 86 C. ep. Pel. 3, 5. CSEL 60, 490-1. 87 C. Iul. 5, 21-22. PL 44, 797. 88 C. Iul. imp. 6, 16. CSEL 85.2, 344-6. 80

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first and the second – would occur outside of and not within Paradise.89 Augustine accuses Julian of trying to implant in Paradise human misery,90 diseases of the dying,91 tortures and precursors to death,92 and even death itself. For that reason, Augustine considers all the followers of Julian to be enemies of grace and the Paradise of God. Because they fill Paradise with punishment, they reduce it to a lesser hell.93 Because Julian believes Adam is created mortal, Augustine asserts that he must also believe that all negative aspects of mortality belong in Paradise: For it forces you by an unavoidable necessity to locate in a place of such great happiness and beauty the blind, the one-eyed, those with inflamed eyes, the deaf, the mute, the lame, the deformed, the crippled, the worm-infested, the lepers, the paralytics, the epileptics, and those suffering from all kinds of other defects, and at times monstrous because of a terrible ugliness and horrible strangeness in their members never seen before. What shall I say of the defects of minds because of which certain people are by nature lustful, others prone to anger, others timid, and still others forgetful, some insensitive, stupid, and so feebleminded that a person would prefer to live with some animals than with such human beings? Add the groans of mothers in childbirth, the wailing of the newborn, the pains of the suffering, the struggles of the ill, the many torments of the dying, and the many more dangers of the living.94

According to the doctor gratiae, this catalogue of human suffering cannot be situated in Paradise, because all such defects are a direct consequence of Adam’s fall and the participation of all of humankind in the sin and guilt of the first man. So while Augustine does discuss with Julian the reality of human mortality, he is actually more interested in the ‘deeper’ reality, the ‘root’ of all disabilities, namely, (original) sin. Mortality is at the same time punishment for 89

C. Iul. imp. 3, 161. CSEL 85.1, 466-7. C. Iul. imp. 6, 26. CSEL 85.2, 387-8. 91 C. Iul. imp. 6, 30. CSEL 85.2, 417-9. 92 C. Iul. imp. 6, 40. CSEL 85.2, 463. 93 C. Iul. imp. 6, 30. O inimici gratiae dei, inimici paradiso dei, quo amplius progredi poteritis quam ut sanctarum deliciarum dulcedinem poenis amarissimis impleatis nihilque uelitis esse paradisum nisi gehennam minorem? CSEL 85.2, 422. 94 C. Iul. imp. 6, 16. John E. Rotelle (ed.), Roland J. Teske (trans.), Augustine, Answer to the Pelagians, III. Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian, The Works of Saint Augustine, A translation for the 21st Century I.25 (Hyde Park, NY, 1999), 641-2. Necesse est enim ut doleatis, quando quid respondeatis non inuenitis et tam prauam sententiam mutare non uultis, quae uos ineuitabili necessitate compellit in loco tantae beatitudinis et pulchritudinis constituere caecos luscos lippos surdos mutos claudos deformes distortos, tineosos leprosos paralyticos epilenticos et aliis diuersis generibus uitiosos atque aliquando etiam nimia foeditate et membrorum horribili nouitate monstrosos. Quid dicam de uitiis animorum, quibus sunt quidam natura libidinosi, quidam iracundi, quidam meticulosi, quidam obliuiosi, quidam tardicordes, quidam excordes atque ita fatui ut malit homo cum quibusdam pecoribus quam cum talibus hominibus uiuere? Adde gemitus parientium fletusque nascentium, cruciatus dolentium, labores languentium, tormenta multa morientium et pericula multo plura uiuentium. CSEL 85.2, 345. 90

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original sin – human life as uita poenalis – and proof of original sin’s existence: given the gravity of the punishment, human mortality can only be accounted for by the existence of peccatum originale,95 and our participation in its guilt.96 It is precisely this physical mortality – regnum mortis – that leaves room for sin and leads to the second death.97 Adam sinned and so did not fulfil his Paradisal task. Death, the loss of the posse non peccare status, is a direct consequence of this failure. The loss of the posse non mori is Adam’s punishment for his act of disobedience against God. This loss is a serious punishment because it relates to a serious sin, a sin committed by a completely free nature as a completely free act. Great evils of mind and body, the misery of mortals, bitter toil until death are all infralapsarian humanity’s fate.98 Though baptism erases the guilt of original sin, suffering – the punishment for original sin – remains as a test of humanity’s faith.99 In fact, it is only in the afterlife that humanity actually benefits from baptism; earthly life continues to be characterized by a variety of human ills.100 That innocent children suffer from bodily afflictions is regarded by Augustine as a clear proof of the existence of original sin.101 Timor and dolor were completely absent from Paradise, but they remain in this life, even for the baptized.102 In his discussion with Julian, Augustine frequently refers to the human fear of death as proof that death is not natural, but penal.103 Death is natural for animals but unnatural for humans.104 Another punitive consequence that was not a feature of life in Paradise, is concupiscentia carnis, which is the result of the discordia carnis et spiritus. The latter, in turn, is an instance of the inoboedientia carnis. As a result of 95

C. Iul. imp. 3, 154. CSEL 85.1, 460; c. Iul. imp. 6, 27. CSEL 85.2, 397-409. C. Iul. imp. 2, 63. CSEL 85.1, 210; c. Iul. imp. 2, 66. CSEL 85.1, 212. 97 Nupt. et conc. 2, 46. CSEL 42, 300. 98 C. Iul. imp. 3, 161. CSEL 85.1, 466-7. 99 C. Iul. 2, 12. PL 44, 681-2; c. Iul. imp. 6, 26. CSEL 85.2, 387-8. 100 C. Iul. 3, 13. PL 44, 709. 101 C. Iul. 3, 10-3. PL 44, 707-9. 102 C. Iul. imp. 6, 17. CSEL 85.1, 349-50. 103 C. Iul. imp. 2, 186-7. CSEL 85.1, 303-4; c. Iul. imp. 6, 16. CSEL 85.2, 344-6. See also Robert Dodaro, ‘Christus Iustus and Fear of Death in Augustine’s Dispute with Pelagius’, in Adolar Zumkeller (ed.), Signum Pietatis. Festgabe für Cornelius Petrus Mayer OSA zum 60. Geburtstag (Würzburg, 1989), 341-61. Anthony Dupont, ‘Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Interpretation of Two Martyr Sermons. Sermones 299 and 335B on the Unnaturalness of Human Death’, in Johan Leemans (ed.), Martyrdom and Persecution in Late Antique Christianity (100-700 AD). Essays in Honour of Boudewijn Dehandschutter on the Occasion of His Retirement as Professor of Greek and Oriental Patrology at the Faculty of Theology of the K.U. Leuven, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 241 (Leuven, 2010), 87-102. On the discussion about the ‘naturalness’ of death, and the specific cases of Enoch and Elijah (ascending without dying), see, in this context Giulio Malavasi, ‘Marius Mercator’s Enemies in Augustine’s Letter 193’, SP 74 (2016), 361-70. 104 C. Iul. imp. 4, 43. CSEL 85.2, 46-7; c. Iul. imp. 6, 36. CSEL 85.2, 438-42. 96

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disobedience to God,105 the flesh is no longer obedient to the spirit. Infralapsarian fecundity is infected with sinful lust – contrary to procreation in Paradise.106 As a further consequence, the libido carnalis is no longer obedient to the will and is thus beyond our control. Concupiscence rules the genitals. In contrast to the situation prior to the fall, Adam and Eve experienced shame on account of their nakedness. They are ashamed because of the impotence of the will and because of their culpability in the loss of the original harmony. It is for this reason that they cover their uncontrollable genitalia, as an expression of their sense of guilt at the sudden absence of inner harmony.107 That women bear and deliver children with excruciating pain did not belong to the original plan of nature; those pains are penal.108 Augustine finally stresses that at the moment of the first procreative act, Adam and Eve had already been driven out of paradise; they were already mortal, hence mortal life is transmitted from generation to generation.109 During the so-called third phase of the Pelagian controversy, Augustine explains the grace of perseverance to the monks of Hadrumetum in De correptione et gratia (426/427), where he elucidates the difference between both the posse non peccare and the non posse peccare; and between the posse non mori and the non posse mori. Adam had the capacities of posse non peccare and posse non mori. He had the liberty to sin, and consequently, to die. This first freedom of the will – the freedom to sin or not to sin – will be transcended by the final freedom: the non posse peccare; similarly, the first immortality – the posse non mori – will be transcended by the non posse mori. Hence, Augustine distinguishes two kinds of perseverance: in Paradise, being able not to forsake the good; in heaven, not being able to forsake the good.110 105

C. Iul. imp. 3, 154. CSEL 85.1, 459. C. Iul. 3, 23. PL 44, 714. 107 C. Iul. 6, 55. PL 44, 855. See also: nupt. et conc. 1, 7. CSEL 42, 218-9; c. ep. Pel. 1, 31-1.3. CSEL 60, 448-9; c. Iul. 5, 7-8. PL 44, 786-7; c. Iul. 5, 19. PL 44, 795; c. Iul. imp. 4, 44. CSEL 85.2, 48. 108 Nupt. et conc. 2, 30. CSEL 42, 284; c. Iul. imp. 6, 26. CSEL 85.2, 387-8. 109 C. Iul. imp. 5, 17. Cunctis quippe temporibus ex quo utriusque sexus fieri concubitus coepit, procul dubio usus feminae naturalis sine hac pudenda libidine esse non potuit; iam enim non uitae illius, sed mortis huius habebant corpus, quando post peccatum de paradiso egressi masculus et femina utrumque sexum naturaliter primitus miscuerunt. CSEL 85.2, 198. 110 Corrept. 33: Quapropter, bina ista quid inter se differant, diligenter et uigilanter intuendum est: posse non peccare et non posse peccare, posse non mori et non posse mori, bonum posse non deserere et bonum non posse deserere. Potuit enim non peccare primus homo, potuit non mori, potuit bonum non deserere. Numquid dicturi sumus: non potuit peccare, qui tale habebat liberum arbitrium? Aut: non potuit mori, cui dictum est, si peccaueris, “morte morieris”? (Gen. 2:17) Aut: non potuit bonum deserere, cum hoc peccando deseruerit, et ideo mortuus sit? Prima ergo libertas uoluntatis erat, posse non peccare; nouissima erit multo maior, non posse peccare. Prima immortalitas erat, posse non mori; nouissima erit multo maior, non posse mori. Prima erat perseuerantiae potestas, bonum posse non deserere; nouissima erit perseuerantiae felicitas, bonum non posse deserere. Numquid, quia erunt bona nouissima potiora atque meliora, ideo fuerunt illa prima uel nulla uel parua? CSEL 92, 359. 106

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Conclusion Augustine agrees with the old Latin saying: mors certa, hora incerta. In the undated sermo 97, Augustine states that we can only be certain of one thing: our death.111 Reflecting on human mortality is hardly a taboo for Augustine. In books XIV and XXII of De ciuitate Dei, he answers three questions; we also heard replies to them in his anti-Pelagian works. Let us briefly revisit the three questions. First question: The cause of human physical suffering and death is original sin. Miles Hollingworth aptly summarizes Augustine’s reading of the fall in Genesis 3: ‘For when Adam chose not to be part of a utopian history, he consigned all men to pay the price of his decision.’112 The original act of disobedience against God resulted in the body’s disobedience against humankind. According to the bishop of Hippo, humankind’s corpus mortis or corpus mortuum (Rom. 8:10) is also a corpus mortale. Death features not merely as the biological end to one’s life; it is also the essence of the condition humaine; it fundamentally determines how one lives.113 When Augustine writes about death and illness in the Pelagian controversy, these phenomena refer most often to sin, and only rarely to its specific bodily consequences. De ciuitate Dei contains that symbolic reading of human mortality, but also elaborates mortality’s physical consequences. Trying to overrule God, humankind loses rule over the very fact of life: people die, but they know neither when nor how death will come. Humankind also loses rule over the daily course of life, which is characterized by manifold physical suffering. Though Augustine explains such suffering as a punishment of the soul, we have also seen that he clearly addresses suffering in many of its physical aspects. Second question. Reacting against Pelagian anthropology, Augustine contends that human nature was created good but is now vitiated, wounded, and defective. The emphasis is on sin as vitiation, wound, and defect. As a result of this vitiation humanity suffers illnesses of body and mind, both as a direct consequence of sin.114 Mortality has metaphorical significance in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian treatises. More specifically, in the controversy with Julian, as in De ciuitate Dei XIV, 22, Augustine uses the concept of morbus to describe sinful concupiscence.115 In the debate with Julian, Augustine discusses sexual 111

Sermo 97, 3: Cetera nostra, et bona et mala, incerta sunt: sola mors certa est. RB 78 (1968)

217. 112 Miles Hollingworth, The Pilgrim City. St Augustine of Hippo and His Innovation in Political Thought (London, 2010), 91. 113 See ciu. 20, 15. CChr.SL 48, 725-6. See also: M. Lamberigts, De polemiek (1988), Part II, Vol. II: 44. 114 I. Bochet, ‘Morbus’ (2012), 74-9. 115 Gr. et pecc. or. 2, 38. CSEL 42, 196-7; nupt. et conc. 1, 9. CSEL 60, 220; nupt. et conc. 2, 19. CSEL 42, 271; c. Iul. 3, 42. PL 44, 723. I. Bochet, ‘Morbus’ (2012), 78.

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shame and the unruliness of the genitals, but he is especially interested in the cause of that unruliness: original sin. A similar spiritual reading of disease as referring to sin is present in De ciuitate Dei, but Augustine quite clearly also considers diseases in their literal and physical meaning, something he does not do in the anti-Pelagian oeuvre. Specific examples of these physical consequences – such as infertility or troubled sleep116 – are considered in De ciuitate Dei but they are nowhere to be found in the anti-Pelagian writings. Third question. Common to both contexts is the emphasis on the gratia Christi; Christ liberates humanity from eternal death. The claim that Christ also redeems humanity’s earthly mortality, which we saw in De ciuitate Dei, is exceptional in Augustine’s oeuvre. As far as content is concerned, Augustine’s treatment of human mortality in De ciuitate Dei therefore accords with his anti-Pelagian oeuvre, though we notice in the former a greater interest in mortality’s physical aspects – both on the penal and on the redemptive level. Chronologically there is an overlap of ideas between De ciuitate Dei and the Pelagian controversy: Book XIV corresponds to the last part of the first phase of the Pelagian controversy, which dealt with death as a consequence of Adam’s sin, and to the start of Augustine’s polemics against Julian. Book XXII likewise corresponds to the debate with Julian, especially the topic of sexuality and the discussion about the posse non mori and the non posse mori in Eden. The statements in book XXII about the gift of the fortitude to endure pain, and about the alleviation – at least for some – of suffering and death during earthly life are in line with the ideas concerning perseverance and miracles that Augustine was reflecting on at that time – whether within the Pelagian controversy or outside it. With due care, some chronological points can be made. While the discussion about Adam’s posse non mori and non posse mori in Eden was conducted mainly in the debates with Julian and the critical monks, book XIV explicitly addresses it, indicating that at least the discussion with Julian is already present in this book. In the same vein, we can affirm Burn’s observation that it was only during the last five years of his life that Augustine described the highest liberty as the inability to sin, but that position too was already implicitly present in the earlier book XIV. In sum, the Pelagian controversy left clear marks on Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei. We can and should answer this article’s initial question affirmatively: the debate with the so-called Pelagians did resonate in Augustine’s reflections when 116

When referring to sterilitas, Augustine metaphorically refers to sin, and not to physical infertility: nupt. et conc. 1, 17-8. CSEL 42, 230; c. Iul. 4, 21-4. PL 44, 747-8; c. Iul. 4, 32-3. PL 44, 755; c. Iul. imp. 6, 27. CSEL 85.2, 397. The passages dealing with sleep in the anti-Pelagian corpus do not explicitly link the human necessity for sleep with the post-lapsarian state in a relation of causality. Many passages, however, link sleep with death as a kind of irrational response that is beyond human control or volition: c. Iul. 3, 38. PL 44, 722; c. Iul. 4, 10. PL 44, 741; c. Iul. 5, 21. PL 44, 797; c. Iul. 5, 42. PL 44, 808. Outside the Pelagian controversy, on the need for sleep – like other weaknesses such as hunger and thirst: see en. Ps. 37, 5. CChr.SL 38, 384-5.

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he was composing De ciuitate Dei, and the prism of human mortality sheds a clear and colorful light on the anti-Pelagian context and content of Augustine’s magnum opus. Human mortality, both the presence of the topic itself and the specific way it is addressed, features in an identical way in De ciuitate Dei and in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian oeuvre. As concupiscence did for Nisula, predestination and perseverance for Lettieri, Djuth, and Burns, mortality has proven to be a significant litmus test of the intrinsic links between De ciuitate Dei and Augustine’s anti-Pelagian corpus. We have likewise established that both sets of writings exhibit a similar evolution in dealing with this theme. Hence, the theme of human mortality constitutes a revelatory piece of evidence that substantiates the claim of O’Daly and Karfíková: Augustine’s mature doctrine of grace and sin is present in De ciuitate Dei, and we saw this expressed in his thinking about human mortality. But we have also gone a step further in the present study. De ciuitate Dei does not merely entail similar considerations concerning earthborn bodiliness. We observed an even stronger connection: the specific way in which mortality is considered in De ciuitate Dei is manifestly conditioned by his anti-Pelagian doctrine of the human fall and its penal aftermath. Without Augustine’s anti-Pelagian dogmatic stance, his reflections on the Adamic corpus mortis in De ciuitate Dei cannot be understood. Contrary to Curbelié’s assessment, I would argue that De ciuitate Dei and the way human death and suffering are addressed therein cannot be understood outside an antiPelagian perspective. Dyson, Kotila, and Drecoll directed us to a path that we have explored in this article, resulting in a clear attestation of the anti-Pelagian axioms that De ciuitate Dei and its treatment of humanity’s mortal condition presuppose. We may also recognize here a double hermeneutical circle: the way in which Augustine examines the physical aspects of mortality in De ciuitate Dei supplements his rather spiritual reading of mortality in the anti-Pelagian corpus. So in order to fully understand Augustine’s ideas about humanity’s infralapsarian finite corporeality, his De ciuitate Dei and his anti-Pelagian oeuvre should be consulted together. Epilogue: The true identity of ‘ego’ Augustine’s reply to Nicolas Poussin’s painting, which was our starting point, is clear: death is not to be found inside, but outside Paradise, or Arcadia. Augustine might have been interested to learn of Nicolas Poussin’s pupil, Gaspard Dughet – sometimes called Gaspard Poussin. The latter, influenced by the monumental landscape paintings of his master, made a panorama, which Augustine would probably have preferred – not solely for reasons of taste or personal pride, but also of theological orthodoxy. We see, on a bright day, an idyllic setting, where, if you look carefully, Augustine features center stage. He is talking with a child, and the Trinity appears high in the clouds. We also see a

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couple of travelers, reminding us of the Leitmotiv of De ciuitate Dei, that humankind’s earthly sojourn is a pilgrimage. The painting depicts Augustine’s encounter with the Christ child, according to a famous legend preserved in the fifteenth-century version of the book of hagiographies known as the Legenda aurea, collected by Jacobus de Voragine in the thirteenth century. While composing his De Trinitate, Augustine walks along the shore at Hippo, and encounters the Christ child, who warns him that the mystery of the Trinity can only be approached in an apophatic way. Hence, mutatis mutandis, what was present in Paradise was not death, but rather the Trinity, God’s grace, and Christ as the divine answer to human sin and death. Et in Arcadia ego – this ‘ego’ is not death, but the ‘ego’ of Exodus 3:14: ego sum qui sum117 and of John 14:6: ego sum uia, ueritas et uita.118 Mortality belongs to the toils of the journey, but not to its point of departure, nor to its final destination. And Christ shows the way to true life. In Enarratio in Psalmum 145, 7, reflecting on humankind’s earthly life as an exile characterized by groaning, temptation, misery, and danger, Augustine concludes ‘enim haerere illi, uita est, recedere ab illo, mors est’,119 ‘if it is life to cling to Christ, it is death to be far away from him’.120

117

See ciu. VIII, 11. CChr.SL 47, 228; ciu. XII, 2. CChr.SL 48, 357. See ciu. X, 32. CChr.SL 47, 311. 119 CChr.SL 40, 2110. 120 Maria Boulding O.S.B. (trans., notes), Boniface Ramsey (ed.), Augustine. Expositions of the Psalms (Ennarationes in Psalmos) 121-150, The Works of Saint Augustine. A translation for the 21st Century III.20 (Hyde Park, NY, 1994), 406. 118

The Passio of the Sickbed Martyr and Augustine’s Definition of Martyrdom Diane FRUCHTMAN, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

ABSTRACT This article explores Augustine’s treatment of the ‘sickbed martyr’, the Christian who suffers illness without the aid of ‘illicit remedies’ (Sermo 335D, 3) such as amulets or incantations. These martyrs feature in several of Augustine’s sermons (4, 36; 286, 7; 306E, 7-8; 318, 3; 328, 8; and 335D, 3 and 5), serving as examples of God’s many ‘hidden martyrs’ (Sermo 306E, 6) and showing Augustine’s audiences some of the avenues by which they might, even after the end of persecution, receive their own crowns of martyrdom. Augustine even provides passiones for these martyrs, describing their torments narratively and recounting the words they would say as they reject the proffered palliatives. I argue not only that these passiones demonstrate Augustine’s full rhetorical investment in persuading his audience of their own ability to become martyrs, but that they are a pivotal tool in Augustine’s advocacy for a definition of martyrdom that does not require any physically inflicted suffering or temporal death.

Introduction Augustine argues consistently, in his sermons and elsewhere, that martyrdom is not achieved through death, but through the interior will as, with God’s help, a Christian prioritizes the divine.1 This idea is found not only in Augustine’s well-known dictum non poena sed causa (that it is ‘not the punishment, but the cause’ that makes a martyr),2 but also in his insistence that there are many paths 1

For example, explicit statements to this effect appear in one fifth of Augustine’s sermons on the martyrs (21 out of 102): Sermones 4, 94A, 128, 274, 260E, 285, 286, 296, 299F, 301A, 303, 305A, 306, 306B, 306E, 314, 318, 328, 335A, 335C, 335D. See also Nicholas De Maeyer and Anthony Dupont, ‘A Study of Augustine’s Theology of Martyrdom on the Basis of Sermon 306C (Morin 15) on the Feast of the Martyr Quadratus’, in Felici curiositate: Studies in Latin Literature and Textual Criticism from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century in Honour of Rita Beyers, ed. Guy Guldentops, Christian Laes and Gert Partoens (Turnhout, 2017), 275-92 and Peter Sanlon, Augustine’s Theology of Preaching (Minneapolis, 2014). 2 Jan den Boeft, ‘“Martyres sunt, sed homines fuerunt”: Augustine on Martyrdom’, in A.A.R. Bastiaensen, A. Hilhorst and C.H. Kneepkens (eds), Fructus Centesimus: Mélanges offerts à Gerard J. M. Bartelink à l’occasion de son soixante-cinquième anniversaire (Steenbrugge, 1989), 115-24 calls it ‘a proverbial phrase’ for Augustine (188), and Alan Dearn (‘The Polemical Use of the Past in the Catholic/Donatist Schism’ [PhD dissertation, Oxford, 2003]) describes its

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to martyrdom, some of which include living as a martyr.3 He declares, for instance, that ‘anyone who preaches wherever he can is a martyr’4 and that: ‘You will ever be crowned and depart from here a martyr, if you overcome all the temptations of the devil’.5 We see it too in his treatment of ‘traditional’ martyrs, those who forfeit their lives in persecution. When these martyrs appear in his sermons, Augustine often explicitly encourages his audience not to imitate their actions or their suffering, but instead to imitate their motivations and their willingness to serve God.6 Changing martyrdom from something external to something internal – from being eaten by lions to being willing to be eaten by lions – was central in Augustine’s pastoral mission. It conveyed his mistrust in human judgment and his fervent belief that humans need to rely absolutely on God. We find him using this argument often, including against the Donatists, the Pelagians, and the ‘pagans’, as well as against Christians that Augustine deems nominal or complacent.7 use in Augustine’s sermons as being ‘almost to the point of cliché’ (315). Indeed, within the sermons, we see the non poena sed causa formulation in Sermones 53A, 13; 94A, 1; 274; 275, 1; 285, 2; 306, 2; 306A; 325, 2; 327, 1; 328, 4; 331, 2; 335, 2; 335C, 5; 335G, 2; and 359B, 16-20. We see it as well elsewhere: in epp. 89, 93, 108, 185, and 204; in Enarr. in Ps. 34 (Sermo 2) and 88 (Sermo 1); and in the Contra Cresconium 3.47 and 4.46. 3 Indeed, Éric Rebillard notes that Augustine “promotes Christians who adhere to their Christian identity as their unique principle of action to the status of martyrs.” Christians and their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200-450 C.E. (Ithaca, 2012), 74. Rebillard also touches on this idea (and even notes Augustine’s use of the martyre au lit) in his In Hora Mortis: Évolution de la pastorale chrétienne de la mort aux IVe et Ve siècles dans l’occident latin (Rome, 1994), 117. 4 Sermo 260E, 2 (MiAg 1, 503): ubi potest praedicet, et martyr est. 5 Sermo 4, 37 (CChr.SL 41, 48): semper coronaris et martyr hinc exies, si omnes tentationes diaboli superaueris. 6 As I argue in Chapter 6 of my forthcoming monograph, Surviving Martyrdom: Living Martyrs in Late Antiquity and Beyond. For instance, in order to receive the crown that Stephen earned, Christians need not die, but rather love their enemies (Sermo 314, 2). In another instance, Augustine explained that those wishing to imitate the martyrs should imitate their choice of and commitment to a good cause (Sermo 285, 7). We see this again in Sermo 306, 2, when Augustine attributes the martyrdom of the massa candida to their causa candida. Augustine’s point here is that we cannot control how we die, but we can control, with God’s help, what cause we choose to commit to. Augustine did not exhort his audience to imitate Lawrence’s death on a grill in Rome, but instead asked: ‘Let us follow his footsteps in faith, and let us follow in contempt for the world’ (Sermo 303, 2 [PL 38, 1395]: sequamur uestigia eius fide, sequamur et contemptu mundi). Correct causa was what made one a martyr, in Augustine’s reckoning, and it was therefore the causa that Augustine urged his listeners to imitate. See Sermones 4, 37; 64, 1-2, 8; 64A, 1-3; 159A, 1; 300, 6; 302, 9; 304, 2; 305A, 4; 311, 1, 3; 317, 1; 325, 2; 328, 8. Notably, even when he praises biblical figures for fighting usque ad sanguinem or usque ad mortem, he occasionally throws a wrench in the ‘death’ definition by using figures like Susannah and Joseph (both of whom survived their trials) to illustrate it (see Sermo 318, 2). See also Anthony Dupont, ‘Imitatio Christi, Imitatio Stephani: Augustine’s thinking on martyrdom based on his sermones on the protomartyr Stephen’, Augustiniana 56 (2006), 29-61. 7 See 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, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 177 (Leiden, 2014); id., Gratia in Augustine’s

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But the interiorization of martyrdom seems to have been a hard sell: Augustine had to reiterate these points over and over, and he expended considerable rhetorical effort to make his case.8 My focus here is on one specific subset of the rhetorical tools Augustine used in this effort: the example of the sickbed martyr. To convince his audiences that martyrdom is, at its heart, ‘un-spectacular’, Augustine several times points to the ‘many’ Christians who ‘go to martyrdom on a sickbed’9: those Christians who suffer illness without the aid of ‘illicit remedies’10 such as amulets or incantations. These martyrs feature prominently in six of Augustine’s extant sermons (in seven separate vignettes), spanning the entirety of his tenure as bishop, across a range of contexts and a variety of topics, though they do mainly appear in his sermons for the feast days of other martyrs.11 Sermones ad Populum during the Pelagian Controversy: Do Different Contexts Furnish Different Insights? (Leiden, 2013); id., ‘Augustine’s Homiletic Definition of Martyrdom: The Centrality of the Martyr’s Grace in his Anti-Donatist and Anti-Pelagian Sermones ad Populum’, in Christian Martyrdom in Late Antiquity (300-450 AD): History and Discourse, Tradition and Religious Identity, ed. Peter Gemeinhardt and Johan Leemans (Berlin, 2012), 155-78; Adam Ployd, ‘Non Poena Sed Causa: Augustine’s Anti-Donatist Rhetoric of Martyrdom’, Augustinian Studies 49 (2018), 25-44. 8 See A. Ployd, ‘Non Poena Sed Causa’ (2018) for one aspect of his rhetorical program on this matter, as well as Chapter 6 of my forthcoming monograph. 9 Sermo 286, 7 (PL 38, 1300): multi ergo ducunt martyrium in lecto: prorsus multi. 10 Sermo 335D, 3 (PLS 2, 778): remedia inlicita. 11 The sermons under discussion here are (in rough chronological order, following Gryson, Répertoire général des auteurs ecclésiastiques latins de l’antiquité et du haut moyen âge, Vetus latina. Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel - 1/15, Cinquième édition mise à jour du Verzeichnis der Sigel für Kirchenschriftsteller commencé par Bonifatius Fischer, continué par Hermann Josef Frede [2007]): Sermo 328 (Lambot 13; RBen 51 [1939], 15-20), dated to 400-405; Sermo 4 (CChr.SL 41, 20-48), dated to January 22, 403 and delivered in Carthage; Sermo 306E (Dolbeau 18; AB 110 [1992] 296-304), dated to 415-420 and likely delivered in or near Carthage; Sermo 318 (PL 38, 1437-40), dated to December 26, 425 and delivered in Hippo; Sermo 335D (Lambot 6; PLS 2, 777-80), dated to 424 or later and likely delivered in or near Hippo (see Edmund Hill, trans. Sermons. The Works of Saint Augustine III/9 [New York, 1992-1997], 233 n. 1 and n. 3); and Sermo 286 (PL 38, 1297-301), delivered near Hippo no earlier than 425 (Hill suggests 428 [see Sermons III/8, 105 n. 1]). Sermo 328 is a sermon ‘on some martyrs’, emphasizes God’s role in martyrdom, and uses ‘pagan’ suffering to argue for the principle of non poena sed causa; Sermo 4 is a wide-ranging riff on the story of Jacob and Esau that addresses soteriology and ecclesiology at length (the Sermo is labeled as anti-Donatist, according to A. Dupont, ‘Augustine’s Homiletic Definition of Martyrdom’ [2012], 161); Sermo 306E was delivered on the feast day of the martyr Quadratus and emphasizes how martyrs are role models, and the ways that God works within the martyrs; Sermo 318 was delivered on receipt of the relics of St Stephen and focuses on imitating the martyrs by imitating their fight against sin and temptation; Sermo 335D may be a Sermo on unspecified martyrs, perhaps on a feast day, or is perhaps responding to a reading of Psalm 36, but its unifying theme is how to join the martyrs in their reward of divine ‘drunkenness’: not with revels at the martyrs’ shrines, but by fighting demonic forces, like they did; Sermo 286 was delivered on the feast day of St Protasius and St Gervasius, and focuses on martyrs doing God’s will and witnessing. It is noteworthy that in every Sermo but 306E, the

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Augustine presents these ‘sickbed martyrs’ as new archetypes for martyrdom. He narrates their trials and their temptations, explaining how they mirror the experiences of those martyred in persecution, and he does so using a variety of vivifying rhetorical devices designed to enable his audience to ‘see’ their martyrdoms. In short, he generates for these sickbed martyrs their very own passiones, narratives of martyrdom to rival the ones typically included in festal liturgies. The Passio of the Sickbed Martyr: The Spectacle of the Sickbed Augustine did not write any passiones, that we know of, and we do not know what exactly his audience would have expected from the passiones read before the homily.12 But from the evidence we have, we can say with some confidence that the passions included in the liturgy for feast days usually included direct speech from the martyrs and/or their persecutors, that they described the martyrs’ deeds and suffering, and, most importantly, that they were vivid, so much so that Augustine talks about them as having been viewed, rather than simply heard.13 When we look at the ways Augustine presents his sickbed martyrs, we see similar characteristics; direct speech, descriptions of martyrial deeds, and vivifying rhetoric appear in each of these depictions. Direct speech can be found in all seven of these sickbed martyr stories. The martyrs speak in four; the tempters in six. The martyrs’ speeches range in length from a brief ‘it is better for me to die than to do this’14 in Sermo 328 to an extended explication of God’s will and the difference between physical salvation and true salvation in Sermo 335D, 3. The tempters’ speeches are sickbed martyr is offered as a concluding example. In 335D, there are two sickbed martyrs, one in section 3 and another concluding the Sermo in section 5. For an overview of and bibliography for Augustine’s sermons, see Éric Rebillard, ‘Sermones’, in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, 1999), 773-92. 12 On feast days, the martyrs’ passiones were typically read aloud prior to the sermon; these readings were not preserved alongside the sermons and Augustine was not in the habit of recapitulating them, except in the rare instance that sections of them were important for the point that he was trying to argue: ‘In the sermons of Augustine we find only a few references to the deeds and glorious death of the saint being celebrated. These references, moreover, are almost never an end in themselves but are usually brought in because of some detail or other’ (M. Simonetti, ‘Alcuni osservazioni sulla struttura dei Sermones de sanctis agostiniani’, Augustinus Magister 1 [1954], as translated by and quoted in Cardinal Michele Pellegrino, ‘Introduction’, in The Works of Saint Augustine: Sermons III/1, edited by John E. Rotelle [New York, 1992], cxlii); The closest we come, I think, is in Sermo 273, where he recounts what Fructuosus and Eulogius said at length (Sermo 273, 2-3) and in Sermo 302, 8, where Augustine recounts some of Lawrence’s story. 13 See Sermones 280, 1; 274, 1; 275, 1; 277A, 1; 300, 1; 301, 1; and 301A, 7. See also A. Dearn, ‘The polemical use of the past’ (2003), 313-4. 14 Sermo 328, 8 (RBen 51, 20): melius est mihi mori quam hoc facere.

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similarly diverse, with some vague, like the ‘do this and this’15 of Sermo 328, and some quite involved, like that of the tempter in 335D, 5, who first tries to convince the sickbed martyr that the amulets are really Christian, and then tries a different tactic, reminding the martyr of his obligations to his wife and young children. We also see in these tellings descriptions of what the martyrs endured and what they accomplished. Notably, Augustine steers clear of gruesome depictions of illness – a far cry from the lingering and gory descriptions of illness in, for example, the Life of Syncletica.16 Instead, Augustine inclines toward the anodyne, focusing on the sick person’s fever, immobility, and weariness.17 Nonetheless, these un-spectacular sufferings lead to great achievements, as the sickbed martyrs wrestle in the arena, win their battles, and conquer the devil – all, of course, while appearing to lie still in their beds.18 And finally, we see an emphasis on the visual and the sensible in these stories, as Augustine makes use of sensory cue words and vivifying tactics – including repetition, accreted details, and even ekphrasis – to render these stories visible to his audience. Visual and auditory cue words abound in these narratives. Augustine uses ecce, audire, and uidere extensively to compel his audience to enter the realm of the sensible as they listen to these passiones. The example of the sickbed martyr is introduced in Sermo 328, for example, by a doubled ecce: Augustine asks his audience to ‘look’ at this one potential instance of temptation, interrupts himself to make clear that this is but one of countless possible scenarios, 15

Sermo 328, 8 (RBen 51, 19): fiat hoc et hoc. See Andrew Crislip, Thorns in the Flesh: Illness and Sanctity in Late Ancient Christianity, Divinations (Philadelphia, 2012), particularly Chapter 4. 17 Sermo 306E, 7: Aliquando febris, et certas ... febris, et certas. In lecto es ... Infirmus es (Dolbeau, 215). Sermo 328, 8: ... In lecto iacet et martyrium ducit. In lecto lassus et fatigatus febribus mouere se non potest ... (RBen 51, 20). Sermo 4, 36: Vides illum certe languere, uides anhelantem in lecto, uides uix mouentem membra, uix mouentem linguam... (CChr.SL 41, 47). Sermo 318, 3: aegrotat; In lecto es ... iaces; fatigatus es (PL 38, 1440). Sermo 335D, 3: languit; uix mouet membra; aegrum ... infirmum ... in lecto iacentem (PLS 2, 778). Sermo 335D, 5: In lecto iaces ... Non moues membra; febris (PLS 2, 780). Sermo 286, 7: Iacet fidelis in lecto, torquetur doloribus ... flagellatur (PL 38, 1300). 18 Sermo 306E, 7: Not consenting to sacrilege is emphasized, and the sick person is told: habeas animum martyris (Dolbeau, 216). Sermo 328, 8: martyrium ducit; luctatur; lacertis fidei suffocat leonem (RBen 51, 20). Sermo 4, 36: lassus iste diabolum uincit; in lecto uincentes diabolum coronantur; in corde tantas uires habent, tantam pugnam exercent (CChr.SL 41, 48). Sermo 318, 3: inuenisti parem pugnam, quaere parem palmam; in stadio es ... et luctaris ... uincis (PL 38, 1440). Sermo 335D, 3: Martyr has parrhesia; Languit et uincit, uix mouet membra et peragit proelia ... Exiet ad dominum suum, fronte signata cruce christi, cui per inlicitas ligaturas non fecit iniuriam. Non ergo dabit quod promisit quem confligentem ipse protexit? Prorsus protexit eum dominus ne mali aliquid patiatur, et certamen adiuuit ut ab eo diabolus uinceretur (PLS 2, 778-9). Sermo 335D, 5: athleta dei es; peragis proelia (PLS 2, 780). Sermo 286, 7: Non cedit, non obtemperat, non cor inclinat; certat tamen. Uires non habet, et diabolum uincit (PL 38, 1301). 16

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and then returns to the sickbed martyr with another ‘look’.19 In Sermo 4, Augustine employs sight more subtly, reminding his audience that, ‘certainly you see how many things the Devil suggests’.20 In Sermo 335D, we see sight and sound emphasized repeatedly, with both the martyr and Augustine commanding the audience to use their senses: the martyr commands his tempters to ‘hear the apostle’21 before quoting 1Cor. 10:20 (‘I do not wish you to associate with demons’), and Augustine later interrupts the martyr’s speech to address his audience: ‘You see the athlete of God! You hear the athlete of Christ!’.22 Augustine’s extensive and varied use of sensory cue words in these narrations marks them as moments during which he was aiming for heightened visuality and aurality – this conclusion is only confirmed by the pervasive use of direct speech noted above, since direct speech has the effect of providing a soundtrack for mentally conjured narratives. Augustine also incorporates narrative and descriptive details into these episodes to render these martyrs present to his audience. He will concatenate descriptors, for example, as he does in Sermo 328, depicting the martyr: ‘In bed, tired and weary with fevers, he is unable to move himself...’. Both the martyr’s exhaustion (lassus et fatigatus) and his immobility (in lecto ... mouere se non potest) are doubled here.23 When describing the temptations the martyrs faced, Augustine is equally emphatic: in 306E, for instance, he pauses to explain that the healing incantations on offer are ‘illicit, diabolical, to be detested and to be anathematized’.24 Clearly this is an attempt to make the threat seem as real as possible to an audience who might find such incantations and their proponents inoffensive, harmless, or (at worst) appealing. In addition 19 Sermo 328,8 (RBen 51, 19): ecce, ut aliquid commemorem ... ecce ergo ut aliquid dicam: aegrotat forte aliquis uestrum. 20 Sermo 4, 36 (CChr.SL 41, 47): Videtis certe iam quanta diabolus suggerit. 21 Sermo 335D, 3 (PLS 2, 778): audi apostolum. 22 Sermo 335D, 3 (PLS 2, 778): uides athletam dei, audis athletam christi. Later in this same sermon, while configuring the sickbed martyr now in the second person (that is, by acting as if a member of his audience is now the martyr in question), Augustine presents the tempters by saying: ‘But look! Here are your neighbor and your friend and your servant’ (Sermo 335D, 5 [PLS 2, 780]: Sed ecce adstat uicinus et amicus et ancilla, etiam dixi, forte dematricula, ceram uel ouum manibus ferens et dicit...) and he concludes this passio by commanding his audience (once again relegated to the third person, to being the observers of the martyr rather than being martyrs themselves) to ‘Hear the word of the martyr!’ (Sermo 335D, 5 [PLS 2, 780]: Audite uerbum martyris). The audience has gone from being the martyr to being in the role of hearing the martyr. 23 Sermo 328, 8 (RBen 51, 20): In lecto lassus et fatigatus febribus mouere se non potest et luctatur. We see similar compounding descriptors in Sermo 4, where the martyr languishes, gasps for breath, can scarcely move his limbs, can scarcely move his tongue, and then Augustine concludes, ‘weary, that one conquers the devil’ (Sermo 4, 36 [CChr.SL 41, 47]: Vides illum certe languere, uides anhelantem in lecto, uides uix mouentem membra, uix mouentem linguam: lassus iste diabolum uincit). 24 Sermo 306E, 7 (Dolbeau, 215): atque illae incantationes sint illicitae, diabolicae, detestandae atque anathemandae.

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to generating vivid mental imagery through layered descriptions, Augustine also includes elliptical but evocative details in these passiones. The tempters in Sermo 335D, 3, for instance, are specified hypothetically, so as to be relatable to Augustine’s audience: ‘with a friend suggesting it, and with a neighbor muttering or a nearby servant girl, sometimes even his own dematricula’,25 and in 335D, 5, the tempter’s offerings are noted specifically: she is ‘carrying wax or an egg in her hands’.26 The ambiguity of the tempter in these depictions is also a vivifying device – rather than describe a fixed and fictitious character, Augustine is conjuring familiar figures for his audience, whose identifying features can be populated by each audience member. Who doesn’t immediately picture a specific face when we hear ‘muttering neighbor’? Augustine’s vivid rhetoric even includes moments of ekphrasis. In Sermo 4, for example, we are asked to see the martyr’s torment: ‘You see him languishing, you see him gasping for breath on his bed, you see him scarcely moving his limbs, scarcely moving his tongue...’27 But even as he stresses the visual to arrest his audience’s attention and make these martyrs and their passiones present to his hearers, Augustine also asserts the limits of the visual. Several times he describes what one might see when looking at a sickbed martyr – and it doesn’t look like much: You see a man lying in bed, but really, he’s ‘reigning in heaven’.28 This martyr may even be visible only to God, as in Sermo 328: ‘He achieves a great victory, with no one seeing, enclosed in his body; he fights in his heart, is crowned in his heart but by the one who sees into the heart’.29 Indeed, in this passage, Augustine emphasized the interiority of martyrdom by repeating the syllable cor five times: facit magnam uictoriam, nemine uidente, in corpore inclusa; pugnat corde, coronatur in corde sed ab illo qui uidet in corde.30 He thus underscores the point that these victories all take place in the heart. Of course, this point is once again 25

Sermo 335D, 3 (PLS 2, 778): suggerente amico, et mussitante uicino aut uicina ancilla, aliquando et dematricula ei... It is unclear what dematricula means. Hill takes this to be some sort of life-long nurse, in line with Souter (accessed through Brepols’ Database of Latin Dictionaries), who takes it to mean ‘little mother’ – but it is, as far as I can see, a hapax legomenon (or, at least, used only in this sermon, where it appears twice). There is no entry for the word in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. 26 Sermo 335D, 5 (PLS 2, 780): ceram uel ouum manibus ferens. 27 Sermo 4, 36 (CChr.SL 41, 47): Vides illum certe languere, uides anhelantem in lecto, uides uix mouentem membra, uix mouentem linguam. 28 Sermo 335D, 3 (PLS 2, 778): uides athletam dei, audis athletam christi. O uirum aegrum et sanum. O infirmum et fortem. O in lecto iacentem et in caelo regnantem. For further instances of problematized sight, see later in this same sermon, where Augustine discusses the hidden machinations of the devil, which we can sense but not see. Augustine repeats the non uidemus/ non uides but sentimus/sentis formula five times in short succession here, emphasizing the interior nature of the Christian’s fight. See also Sermo 4, 36 and Sermo 286, 7. 29 Sermo 328, 8 (RBen 51, 19). 30 This relocation of martyrdom from an exterior event to an interior one is further highlighted by the progression of the words: while Augustine first uses the “cor” syllable in the word corpore,

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complicated by Augustine situating it within the doubled ecce noted above: Augustine uses ecce to introduce and again to conclude this caveat. The overall impression one is left with is that Augustine is here using an emphasis on visuality to correct human vision, to problematize it sufficiently that his audience knows that the externally visible is not all there is, and that both God and Satan work invisibly, within the body and soul of the Christian. Given our uncertainty about what an Augustinian homiletic passio would have looked like, it might seem a stretch to identify these passages as passiones, or to suggest that they were intended to compete with or supplant other passiones. After all, Augustine was a masterful homilist, always aiming for clear, persuasive, and emotionally resonant communication, and so he often employed tools like sensory cue words, vivid details, ekphrasis, and invented direct speech.31 But these stories stand out. Discrete narrative set-pieces are actually relatively rare in Augustine’s sermons. His illustrations are more often allusive or elaborative, and they don’t tend to include quite so much direct speech. Reading through the Sermones ad populum, one finds few parallels. But the strongest evidence that Augustine is using these narratives as passions is the fact that he always either implicitly or explicitly links these stories to more traditional ‘arena’ martyrdoms. In Sermo 4, for example, Augustine makes an explicit connection by juxtaposing the martyrs of the amphitheater with the martyrs of the sickbed: ‘Many are crowned in the amphitheater fighting against beasts. Many are crowned conquering the devil in their beds’.32 The message is clear: sickbed martyrs and arena martyrs are equivalent, and achieve equivalent crowns. Even more strikingly, in half of the sermons Augustine pauses to note that the words of those tempting the sickbed martyr are variations on what persecutors had said to martyrs in the arena. For example, in Sermo 318, 3, Augustine comments on the words of the sick Christian’s tempter (‘Do this, if you want to live; you will die if you don’t’), asking his audience to see the parallel between these words and those of earlier persecutors: See if this isn’t, ‘You will die if you don’t deny Christ’! What the persecutor said openly to the martyr, here the hidden tempter says to you obliquely: ‘Take this remedy, the outwardly visible is quickly superseded by the internal and invisible, as signified by the triple repetition of corde. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. 31 See M. Pellegrino, ‘Introduction’, particularly Chapter 9, ‘Augustine’s Way of Preaching’ (cxxxiv-cliv). See also Anthony Dupont, Shari Boodts, Gert Partoens and Johan Leemans (eds), Preaching in the Patristic Era: Sermons, Preachers, and Audiences in the Latin West, A New History of the Sermon 6 (Leiden, 2018). In this collection, see in particular the contributions of Mayer, Rebillard, Boodts and Dupont, and Ployd as they refer to Augustine. See also Wendy Mayer, ‘Chapter 27: Homiletics’, in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (Oxford, 2008), 565-83. 32 Sermo 4, 36 (CChr.SL 41, 47): Multi coronati sunt in amphitheatro pugnantes ad bestias. Multi in lecto uincentes diabolum coronantur.

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and you will live!’ Is this not, ‘sacrifice, and you will live’? ‘If you do not do this, you will die!’ Is this not, ‘If you do not sacrifice, you will die?’ You have found an equal fight – seek an equal reward. You are in bed, and you are in the arena; you are lying still, and you are wrestling. Hold steadfast in faith; and while you are weary, you are conquering.33

We see the same point made in Sermones 306E and 335D: For what did the unjust judge say to the martyr constrained by chains or the scaffold? ‘Consent to sacrifice, and I will release you from this distress!’ To this one suffering fever, the devil says, in secret: ‘Consent to this sacrilege, and I will release you from this fever!’34 ‘I will not do it’. … Hear the word of the martyr. See if this is not what the pagan said: ‘sacrifice and you will live’. But that one says, ‘I will not do it’. … That one conquers in the games, the other in a bed, that one by a murderer, the other by a seducer.35

Augustine’s intention of configuring sickbed martyrdoms as arena martyrdoms and of marking these seemingly disparate experiences as parallel passiones is clear here; it is no less clear in Sermones 328 and 286, where the connection is made implicitly – in the former via an analogy between the sickbed martyr’s tempter and a stalking lion (evocative of the arena), and in the latter by juxtaposition of the ideas amid a discussion of Satan’s shifting modus operandi: ‘Many, therefore, go to martyrdom on a sickbed, many indeed. There is a certain persecution of Satan, more hidden and more subtle than it then was’.36 By reinscribing the ‘traditional’ arena martyrdoms with the ‘sickbed option’, Augustine is not only adding these sickbed martyrs to the audience’s catalogue of martyrs and their passions to the audience’s repertoire of imitable exempla, he is also asking his audience to re-evaluate what lies at the heart of martyrdom.

33  Sermo 318, 3 (PL 38, 1439): fac, si uis uiuere; morieris, si non feceris. Uide si non est, morieris, si christum non negaueris. Quod dicebat aperte martyri persecutor, hoc tibi ex obliquo dicit occultus tentator. Fac tibi hoc remedium, et uiues: nonne hoc est, sacrifica, et uiues? Si non feceris, morieris: nonne hoc est, si non sacrificaueris, morieris? Inuenisti parem pugnam, quaere parem palmam. In lecto es, et in stadio es; iaces, et luctaris. Permane in fide; et dum fatigatus es, uincis. 34 Sermo 306E, 7 (Dolbeau, 215): Quod enim dicebat martyri in catena uel catasta constituto iudex iniquus: ‘Consenti ad sacrificium, et ab hac tribulatione dimitto te’, hoc febrienti diabolus in occulto: ‘Consenti ad hoc sacrilegium, et ab hac febre dimitto te’. 35 Sermo 335D, 5 (PLS 2, 780): Audite uerbum martyris. Uidete si non hoc est quod dicebat paganus: sacrifica et uiues. At ille: non facio. O merita martyrum numquam recedere. Illi in ludo, iste in lecto uicit, illi ab interfectore, iste a seductore. 36 Sermo 286, 7 (PL 38, 1300): Multi ergo ducunt martyrium in lecto: prorsus multi. Est quaedam persecutio satanae, occultior et astutior quam tunc fuit.

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From Arena to Sickbed to Life as a Martyr Augustine offers these sickbed passions as a way of correcting the idea that martyrdom must be spectacular, or even visibly apparent. They therefore point beyond themselves to help Augustine bridge the gap between the ‘traditional’ martyr (the martyr of the arena) and another type of martyr, the living one – the Christian who achieves martyrdom in this lifetime, while continuing to live in the world. By establishing the similarities of the sickbed martyr to the martyr in the arena, Augustine shows that their heroism is truly equivalent; by emphasizing the differences between the arena martyr and the sickbed martyr, he highlights the ways in which the principle of non poena sed causa might obviate the need for any poena at all. The precise ways that the sickbed martyr troubles the model of the arena martyr lead the audience to conclude that the devil is always tempting us, the true victory is wholly internal, and that martyrdom might well be achieved in spectacularly unspectacular ways, with no particular fanfare or external manifestation. For example, the arena martyr’s ‘athleticism’ and torments are visible – seen and documented by other humans, while the sickbed martyr’s athleticism is logically present but ‘invisible’ (or at least not readily legible as athleticism). Once we have established the possibility of invisible athleticism, the visibility or invisibility of the living martyr’s athleticism becomes irrelevant, and we can imagine a martyr who appears to be going about their daily business, but is, in reality, in constant combat with the Devil. As a second illustration, we can look at the struggles of the martyr: the arena martyr is engaged in a life-and-death struggle, with physical death a near-certainty, while the sickbed martyr is engaged in a life-and-death struggle, where physical death is a possibility but spiritual death is the real threat. The living martyr is also engaged in a life-anddeath struggle, but physical death is present only on the imaginative horizon – the death most keenly threatened is spiritual death. Again, once we have introduced an emphasis on spiritual death as the true death to be feared, the martyr’s physical death becomes irrelevant. This substantiates the legitimacy of the living martyr, and, in the process, redefines the experience of the arena martyr as being based on something other than physical death. To illustrate this relationship as clearly as possible, I have represented a point-by-point comparison in Table 1. The passion of the sickbed martyr thus helps Augustine move martyrdom beyond the sickbed: if the sickbed martyr can struggle to the point of death invisibly, with no one but God aware of his crown, why couldn’t other Christians struggle against sin invisibly, in other contexts? We see exactly this progression from arena to sickbed to life as a martyr in Sermo 306E. Augustine begins by discussing martyrs who suffered in the arena, arguing that their real victory was over sin, temptation, and their own

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Table 1 Arena Martyr

Sickbed Martyr

Living Martyr

Physical Persecutor, usually Devil himself as Persecutor, Devil himself as Persecutor, inspired by the Devil with Pagans or Pagan-lean- temptations from every side, ing Christians as tempters no physical tempters needed Pagan antagonist

Pagan or Pagan-leaning Christian antagonist

Unspecified antagonist

Visible ‘athleticism’: torments are seen by others

Invisible ‘athleticism’: torments either not seen by others (in case of paralytic) or seen by others but not acknowledged as ‘contest’

Varied visibility of torments

Life and Death struggle, Life and Death struggle, with physical death looming with physical death a real possibility; spiritual death also threatened if the martyr capitulates Adherence to cause at the expense of physical life

Life and Death struggle, with spiritual death a real possibility and physical death present on the imaginative horizon

Adherence to cause at the Adherence to cause without possible expense of physical regard for possible expense life of physical life (threat not imminent)

weakness – this, he argues, was the real ‘wrestling against sin up to the shedding of blood’ advocated in Hebrews (12:4).37 He then offers the passio of the sickbed martyr, as an example of how one can have the mindset of a martyr (animus … martyris), even in the absence of official persecution.38 Augustine then concludes with an example of a living martyr: a man who refuses to give false evidence in court, even after being threatened by a powerful man; as Augustine explains, ‘You should consider yourself a martyr if you struggle’.39 The passion of the sickbed martyr, then, was an important tool for Augustine in moving his audience from the familiar to the unfamiliar, acting as the perfect stepping stone to forms of martyrdom that would depart even further from the audience’s customary understanding and did not, in fact, involve death. The passion of the sickbed martyr was thus central to Augustine’s attempt to persuade others about his redefinition of martyrdom as based on one’s cause, not one’s punishment. 37 38 39

Sermo 306E, 2, 6. Sermo 306E, 7-8. Sermo 306E, 11 (Dolbeau, 218): Ergo martyrem te putas, si certas.

Theories of Divine Punishment in Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei Kevin M. KAMBO, Hope College, Holland, MI, USA

ABSTRACT Augustine’s treatments of praise and blame, reward and punishment are central to his ethics and are areas of perennial interest. Scholars see these themes as the starting point for understanding Augustine on the will. Still, his position on punishment has more recently been criticized as cruel and simply wrong in giving priority to retribution. Some apologists, however, argue that his main motives for punishment are ‘therapeutic and rehabilitative’. More work needs to be done, then, to appreciate the internal consistency of Augustine’s position. In this paper, I focus on investigating City of God’s principle of retribution (XIV.15) or reciprocation (XXI.11), namely that that those who do evil should suffer evil. I argue that the metaphysics and psychology of City of God allow us to interpret Augustine’s principle as a chiastic structure. An evil act is an act of rebellion against the providential order of the universe (and, therefore, against God); the evils suffered as punishment are principally a ‘recoil’ wherein creation reacts against the perpetrator. Thus, disordered agents, in a perverse imitation of the act of creation, generate the disorders that they suffer. Augustine’s theory of punishment is not simply repaying evil for evil (as with revenge), nor even primarily remedial (hence he criticizes the therapeutic view of Platonists for, inter alia, not being universally efficacious); it is a counterpart to his metaphysics of creation. Understood in this light we can also correctly connect it to his views on penance, forgiveness and mercy.

Theories of Divine Punishment in Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei Part of Augustine’s value as a theologian comes from how he incorporates the concerns of pagan philosophers in his own theological project. In the domain of moral philosophy or theology, he dedicates much energy to exploring questions on love, fear, reward and punishment. Bonnie Kent, for example, sees these themes as helpful for understanding him on the will.1 Still, Augustine’s position on punishment has enjoyed varied reception. It has been criticized as 1 Bonnie Kent, ‘Augustine’s Ethics’, in Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge, 2001), 217-20.

Studia Patristica CXVII, 61-75. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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cruel2 and simply wrong,3 even contrary to Christian faith, in giving priority to retribution, while Donald Burt, on the other hand, argues that Augustine’s main motives for punishment are ‘therapeutic and rehabilitative’.4 Without attempting to respond to all of Augustine’s critics, nor accepting everything that his defenders claim, I propose that a closer look at De ciuitate Dei allows us to work out some of the apparent tensions in Augustine’s theory of divine punishment and properly to contextualize his account within his metaphysics of creation. I take my bearings from what is expressed respectively in Books XIV and XXI as the reality of divine retribution (retributio) and reciprocation (vicissitudo), viz., that those who do evil should suffer evil.5 Dyson construes Augustine’s statement as a ‘principle’,6 whereas Dods, Walsh and Monaghan read it as a ‘law’.7 But what kind of principle or law is it? The language cannot help but sound transactional, likening God to schoolmaster concerned with tallying up our merits and demerits, returning hurts for hurts, repaying pains for pains – as well as rewarding us with pleasures for when we do things pleasing to him. But such a view immediately runs into problems: by understanding punishments in terms of pains exchanged, it commits a metaphysical mistake. In the classical tradition, vengeance is driven by anger. An accomplished rhetorician, Augustine is familiar with and fluent in this tradition and its application. Aristotle, for example, defines anger as a desire for revenge grounded in the pain caused by a perceived, undeserved slight.8 Examples of the phenomenon abound in classical literature. Greek tragedy often makes use of anger as the driving force of destruction, as in Medea or the Oresteia, and likewise in epic, anger is often the motive for significant action, as with Achilles against Hector, Odysseus against the suitors or Aeneas against Turnus. In these instances, as Aristotle perceives, pain is crucial to the psychology of anger. On the face of it, divine anger might be construed according to this paradigm. The doom visited upon humanity with the Flood, for example, appears to be driven by an irascible desire for vengeance which is a response to the undeserved, unjust actions of human agents. But part of Augustine’s project is the marrying of reason and revelation, the joining of the Scriptures and what he 2

Christopher Kirwan, Augustine (London, New York, 1989), 77. Paul Schilling, God and Human Anguish (Nashville, 1977), 94. 4 Donald Burt, Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine’s Practical Philosophy (Grand Rapids, 1999), 187-93. Burt’s focus is on temporal punishment, but he treats human and divine punishment as largely having the same pattern. 5 In XIV.15 the phrase is ut qui male faciunt, mala patiantur; in XXI.11 it is ut qui mala fecerit mala patiatur. 6 Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R.W. Dyson (Cambridge, 1998), 614, 1069. I shall largely be following this translation. 7 See Augustine, The City of God, trans. G. Walsh and G. Monaghan (Washington, DC, 2008), 388; Augustine, The City of God, trans. M. Dods (Toronto, 1913), 31. 8 Aristotle, Rhetoric 1378a. 3

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takes to be the best of pagan philosophy, typically Platonism and Stoicism. This leads him to a different view of divinity than is found in the mythological accounts of the poets. Creatures, for Augustine, can neither hurt nor harm God in his divine nature; thus, to depict God like a human agent, vengefully pursuing us to balance his ledger, as Poseidon pursues Odysseus, is to miss the point. Poseidon is personally pained by Odysseus’ blinding of Polyphemus (even though the cyclops violated Zeus’ laws of hospitality), and desires to repay pain with pain. Poseidon is, as it were, drawn into a quarrel and contest with Odysseus, and feels compelled to prove his superiority. But, as Rowan Williams has pointed out, Augustine’s God has nothing to fear from anyone and thus cannot be in competition with us.9 Conceiving divine punishment as a form of payback is inadequate: nothing we do could diminish God and so God has no motive to respond like a party who has suffered a loss: divine retribution needs to be understood under a paradigm different than human vengeance. The way forward, I propose, is to analyze what Augustine means when he says that ‘those who do evil should suffer evil’. I shall take in turn the three ‘parts’ of the expression, asking (1) what it means to do evil, (2) what is meant by the normative sense typically rendered by English translators as ‘should’ or ‘ought’, and, most importantly, (3) what are the divinely ordained evils that evildoers are to suffer. Doing Evil The locus of iniquity and righteousness, of good deeds and evildoing, is, for Augustine, the will.10 This will allows us a limited capacity for self-determination; through our choices we make – or better, shape – ourselves into certain kinds of persons, particularly in the order of freedom. Choice and freedom are related but not the same, and in the ethical life the central concern is which choices make us more or less free.11 Useful background for the theme may be found in Augustine’s De libero arbitrio. Here Augustine puts forward the question of how human beings fall into corruption. After arguing that a person who has virtue comes to err morally not by the influence of God nor some other good mind, he explains that this person succumbs to sin through ‘only [his] own will and free choice’.12 As Bart 9

Rowan Williams, ‘Insubstantial Evil’, in Robert Dodaro and George Lawless (eds), Augustine and His Critics (London, New York, 2002), 108. 10 The will is critical to Augustine’s treatments of punishment for either sin or crime. See Alain Houlou, ‘Le droit pénal chez Saint Augustin’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger 52 (1974), 9. 11 John Bowlin, ‘Hell and the Dilemmas of Intractable Alienation’, in James Wetzel (ed.), Augustine’s City of God: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2012), 200. 12 De libero arbitrio, I.11.

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van Egmond and Anne-Isabelle Boutoun-Touboulic elucidate, this choice for evil diminishes the agent and makes it more difficult for him to choose what is right and good.13 As Augustine explains it, free choice is necessary so that we may be justly praised and blamed, rewarded and punished, for our actions,14 but more valuable than free choice is good will, desiring to live uprightly and for the sake of highest wisdom.15 Possessing a good will is a condition of greatest freedom, and the perfection of our choosing. But our self-determination is partial and asymmetric. The downward motion to corruption is our fault and responsibility; the upward motion to perfection, particularly for fallen humanity,16 is impossible without divine assistance. The importance of the will’s partial self-determination is likewise highlighted in De ciuitate Dei. Augustine states that evildoing is principally about the will’s turning from what is superior to what is inferior, and that the will ‘becomes evil not because [the created good] towards which it turns is evil, but because the turning itself is evil’; and so ‘the will made itself evil by wickedly and inordinately desiring the inferior thing’ (XII.6), thereby, as we shall see, diminishing its freedom. A few books later, Augustine reiterates, ‘The will which is present in man’s nature can fall away from good to do evil; and it does this through its own free choice’ (XV.21). Evildoing is principally about the will and not about pains inflicted or (forbidden) pleasures enjoyed. And at the heart of this is a specific kind of desiring and choosing which can be summarized by considering the modalities of the will. In his discussion of incest, Augustine argues that ‘in ancient times, the act was acceptable, because done under the compulsion of necessity; now, however, it is damnable because forbidden by religion’ (XV.16). Following this example, to say rightly that something ought to be done (i.e., is required) implies it may be done (i.e., is allowable) and therefore can be done (i.e., is possible). The incest example may appear somewhat question-begging, however, and so it is worthwhile to take our bearing from a more pedestrian example. 13 Anne-Isabelle Bouton-Touboulic, L’ordre caché. La notion d’ordre chez Augustin (Paris, 2004), 336, 659; Bart van Egmond, Augustine’s Early Thought on the Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement (Oxford, 2018), 27-8. Bouton-Touboulic’s work is a formidable study on the place and role of ‘order’ in Augustine’s thought, and van Egmond’s monograph is a valuable investigation of Augustine’s early thought on divine punishment, including, for the present purposes, De libero arbitrio. Both authors stress how, for Augustine, sin diminishes human capacities to know the true and to live it, and that this diminishment is divine retribution. 14 De lib. arb., II.1. 15 De lib. arb., I.12. For context on Augustine’s uniqueness among early Christian authors, see Elaine Pagels and Marie-France Eslin, ‘La politique du Paradis: L’Occident, le sexe et le péché’, Esprit 143 (1988), 132-3. 16 De lib. arb., II.20. As he puts it, we cannot raise ourselves willingly as we fell willingly. I limit my comments on this text to fallen man (1) because Augustine does not discuss here what would have happened to Adam had he not sinned, and (2) because it is unclear that Augustine was ever adequately satisfied with accounting for how uncorrupt men or angels fell.

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The human organism, if it is to flourish, by nature needs to respire. Respiration is therefore a natural necessity for the human being, and therefore it is an activity that is permissible and possible. ‘Ought’ implies ‘may’ implies ‘can’. In the case of the human species, there is a biological and/or divine imperative to reproduce that is, once again, inscribed in our nature. Given what he accepts as data about the condition of ancient man from the Scriptures – whether after the expulsion from Eden or following the Flood – and given that polygenesis simply is not a live option for him, Augustine can see no other way for ancient humans to fulfill their end as a species except, temporarily, through incest; in the special case of early man, it is an action necessary for reproduction. And as necessary, it is thus, again, permissible and possible. Not any kind of necessity will do, however. It is important to note that Augustine is not discussing merely an internal compulsion born out of desire. It is perfectly possible that someone who has succumbed to disordered living could feel himself under a necessity to seek the very thing that is destructive of his life, as, say, an alcoholic might pine after liquor. Such internal necessity does not make disorder permissible. Indeed, this point becomes clear if we reflect on unfallen Adam and the situation of historical man. For Adam, it is possible not to sin (posse non peccare), while for historical man it is not possible not to sin (non posse non peccare):17 there is an internal necessity, but one contrary to nature, that drives fallen man to sin.18 The legitimate necessity that implies permission and possibility is grounded, generally speaking, in the ordained, natural order of things.19 Thus, for both unfallen Adam and historical man, flourishing according to nature requires not sinning. And so, despite the reality that historical man cannot keep himself from sinning, he is still not permitted to sin, even though he can sin. The necessity to sin that he finds himself under is a perverted necessity, the fruit of disordered actions, his own and of Adam. It does not follow, then, that just because something can be done, it may be done or ought to be done. This point is easier to understand, since we can see it operative in every sin committed, starting with that of Adam. A useful example of the phenomenon is the discussion of curiositas in Confessiones X. Vain curiosity is presented as a frivolous and empty hankering to be in the know; it is unworthy of man, and a deficient expression of our natural desire for knowledge and wisdom. Just because some particular knowledge is possible does not mean we are permitted to seek it. Even in the order of knowing, there 17

See Enchiridion, XXVIII. Historical man’s condition is therefore tragic: weakness, regret and moral fault are unavoidable. See Gérard Remy, ‘La tragique dans le pensée d’Augustin’, Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques 92 (2008), 269-70, 274. 19 A necessity based on the natural order of creation does not, of course, explain the mystery of the sacrifice of Abraham by Isaac, which is the locus of exegetical debates about a very different kind of necessity and obedience. 18

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are limits to what we may pursue. Curiositas is therefore a manifestation, in an epistemological context, of the libido dominandi apparent in the episode of the stolen pears and discussed throughout De ciuitate Dei. Possibility is not sufficient for permission. Still, as there is a relationship between what is necessary and what is possible, there is one between what is not possible and not permitted (and therefore not required). In describing the condition of unfallen Adam, Augustine tells us that the first man ‘did not at that time wish to do anything that he could not do, and therefore could do all that he wished’ (XIV.15). The implication is that the desire and choice to do what one cannot is wrong: cannot implies may not. The relevant impossibility here is reconfiguring the order of creation: the perverse will wishes for the lower over the higher; it desires and chooses against nature and therefore against the Creator, i.e., it challenges God. Augustine holds this point consistently, from as early as De libero arbitrio, where he describes evildoing or sinning as knowingly choosing something over the eternal law, viz., God’s immutable, providential will that justly orders all things in creation.20 It is impossible for this law to change and it is impossible that there be any law or reason above it. But the logic of sin is to choose some lesser good over the eternal law – the law that gives all beings their reality and goodness and value – and therefore to declare, as it were, that some good is preferable to it. To do evil is to rebel, to prefer one’s own designs over the absolutely good and wise will governing the cosmos, to attempt to usurp God. But it is impossible that the eternal law could be overruled. Indeed, even in the context of seeking salvation the principle that impossibility implies impermissibility is operative. We have already discussed how, on account of internal necessity, historical man is doomed to sin and yet still required, by nature, not to do so. Augustine resolves this tension by discerning that it is impossible for man to save or preserve himself from sin without God’s grace. To desire and attempt this impossibility is thus impermissible. It rejects the eternal law by promoting man as the wright of his own salvation: the sin of the Pelagians. All sinners, therefore, appear to elect what is absolutely impossible: independence from the Creator.21 Universal Punishment for Sin According to Augustine’s law or principle of retribution, such evildoers are to suffer, or should suffer, evil. Communicated by this ‘should’ is the sense that we are under a law or principle that is universal. In Book XV, Augustine 20

De lib. arb., I.6, I.15. B. van Egmond, Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement (2018), 28. We can choose against our God-given telos and lose our freedom, but we cannot redefine or override our telos. 21

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explains, ‘But God’s anger is not a disturbance of His mind; rather it is a judgement according to which punishment is visited upon sin’ (XV.25). The punishment is an expression of God’s immutable, providential will and is therefore always efficacious, i.e., it is the inescapable consequence of sin.22 Augustine believes that evildoing justly deserves punishment. At the beginning of De libero arbitrio, he asks whether God is a cause of evils and answers in the affirmative, with regard to a special sense of causing evil: God causes the evils that the wicked justly suffer. Evil deeds are rightly punished on account of God’s justice.23 It would take us too far afield to argue why wickedness deserves punishment – contrary, for example, to Thomas Talbott who argues, against Augustine, that what satisfies (divine) justice is not punishment but reconciliation and rehabilitation24 – but suffice it to say that Augustine is supported by the witness of both the Scriptures and the cultures of antiquity. Nevertheless, his notion of divine punishment cannot be that of pagan myth. Classical epic and tragedy lack a consistent articulation of divine providence. Thus, the gods can take different sides when adjudicating the quarrels of men, even sometimes coming into conflict with each other, and can also be bribed to withhold punishment if something is done in their interest. Such notions of divinity come under significant critique under the Platonic tradition. In the Euthyphro, Phaedrus and Statesman, Plato contests the idea that divinity can contradict itself and is careful to depict the gods as harmonious. And in the Laws he outlines three kinds of atheism that are destructive of personal and social virtue: denying the existence of the gods, denying that the gods care about human action, and asserting that the gods can be paid off to look the other way. What connects these three species of atheism is their denial of a robust providential order and an allowance for man to act independently of the gods. Similarly, Plotinus promotes a stable order, wherein wickedness is naturally and universally punished, and has no patience with theurgy. These consistent and coherent orders of the cosmos make for divine punishment that is not as arbitrary and vulnerable to manipulation as those of classical myth and is therefore more just: it applies to all.25 Augustinian providence is the expression of a rational, transcendent and personal will.26 As rational it is distinguished, like the Stoics and Platonists, from the inconsistent and contradictory deities of pagan myth; as transcendent it is 22 John C. Cavadini, ‘The Meaning and Value of Suffering: A Christian Response to Leora Batnitzky’, in Tikva Frymer-Kensky et al. (eds), Christianity in Jewish Terms (Boulder, 2000), 231-2. 23 De lib. arb., I.1. 24 Thomas Talbott, ‘Punishment, Forgiveness, and Divine Justice’, Religious Studies 29 (1993), 161. 25 See, for example, Euthyphro 8a, Phaedrus 247a, Statesman 269e, Laws 885b in Plato, and Ennead IV.3.16 in Plotinus. 26 See A-I. Bouton-Touboulic, L’ordre caché (2004), 253-60, 336, 664-5; B. van Egmond, Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement (2018), 29. For a discussion on Augustine’s doctrine

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different, like the Platonists, from the immanent providence that drives the Stoic cosmos; and as personal it departs, like myth (and the Scriptures), from the indifferent harmony that emanates from the Plotinian hypostases. Augustine’s account is therefore a skillful synthesis of and departure from classical sources; the order of his cosmos is neither blindly automatic nor impersonal, but willed (and universal). Universal application also helps with distinguishing the various forms of divine punishment in the Scriptures. Many of God’s more dramatic punishments are special or extraordinary. As such, these are less relevant to Augustine’s principle of retribution, since smiting does not fall predictably on all. The form of punishment of interest, then, is the ordinary, universal punishment for sin. There are, of course, extraordinary punishments, such as the plagues upon Egypt during the Exodus of Israel or the slaying of Ananias and Saphira in the Apostolic era, but it is empirically obvious that not all sins are punished in such vivid, externally perceptible ways. One cannot give an account of why special, extraordinary punishment does and does not occur.27 The punishments we are tracking need to be applicable to all sins; they are ordinary punishments.

Suffering Evil We have seen that the kind of punishment Augustine has in mind needs to have its focus on the desire and choice of the will, and needs to be universally efficacious. A third criterion is that it be appropriate to the evil done. The rub, of course, is in defining what counts as an appropriate punishment. The natural instinct, perhaps, is to assume that Augustine has in mind a balancing out of pain or suffering: something equivalent to the harm a sinner does is to be inflicted upon him. Such is the ‘eye for an eye’ law of retaliation, lex talionis, that can be found in the Code of Hammurabi and the books of Exodus and Leviticus. Thomas Talbott, for instance, describes retributivism (which he ascribes to Augustine) as concerned with dealing out pain, suffering or ‘torment’, as the due of sins and crimes and as taking the position that ‘it is of creation, including how he even deploys Plato against the Neoplatonists, see Marie-Anne Vannier, ‘Saint Augustin et la création’, Augustiniana 40 (1990), 366. 27 Augustine makes no attempt to give such an account in De ciuitate Dei. Reason for this may be intuited in considering the parallel case: grace. A science into the principles of the ordinary avenues of grace, e.g., sacraments, is possible. One can articulate, for instance, when a baptism is and is not valid. The same cannot be said about extraordinary graces, e.g., miracles; one cannot account for when miracles do and do not occur. Divine providence is free, personal will, not a necessary, impersonal law. Some actions of the divine will remain inscrutable – though, for Augustine, never irrational. As such, my study – and Augustine’s – is limited to ordinary divine punishment. To put things in an Aristotelian key, there is no science of the individual; and extraordinary graces – and punishments – are necessarily particular.

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wrong to inflict upon wrong doers greater suffering than they themselves have inflicted upon others’.28 For Talbott, Augustine the retributivist understands the punishment as something inflicted by an avenging power upon the wicked. And while Talbott thinks that Augustine is wrong to think that God is a retributivist and that the Augustinian (and traditional) view of Hell is fundamentally flawed in its understanding of God’s nature,29 some of Augustine’s apologists agree with much of Talbott’s description of Augustine’s position. So Oliver Crisp, who thinks the traditional view of Hell as coherent and defensible, says that in the Augustinian model Hell is the deserved infinite punishment for an infinite offence.30 Both Talbott and Crisp, therefore, read Augustine as operating under a balance or retaliation model of punishment, wherein punishment is inflicted by an external force. Given Augustine’s metaphysical commitments, however, the balance model has trouble getting off the ground. As we observed in the introduction, Augustine would not and cannot prosecute an evildoer on the grounds that the sinner harmed God. The wickedness of creatures does nothing to diminish the Creator; as such, Augustine’s God cannot really be seeking to extract our suffering to pay for pains he has suffered. The foundation of Augustine’s theory of punishment is not equivalence but justice. His intention is to show that the punishments suffered by the wicked are deserved, not that they counterbalance the sufferings the wicked caused, as some ancient theories demand. Indeed, his position departs from what either Talbott or Crisp describe. We are told in De ciuitate Dei that after the fall of the first parents ‘a punishment commensurate with their disobedience [was] inflicted on them’ (XIV.17). We should note that the punishment is to fit the crime (not necessarily to equal its pains, since God did not suffer pains), and that the identity of who does inflict the penalty is ambiguous. In the ordinary order of punishment, it is wrongdoers who are the crucial authors of their own suffering. So Augustine says that ‘the retribution for disobedience … [is] itself disobedience’ (XIV.15), that ‘disobedience … [was] the punishment for the first disobedience’ (XV.6), and that the enemies of the Church ‘cruelly envy the Christians with a hatred pernicious above all to themselves’ (XVIII.1). Augustine is quite consistent on this point. In De libero arbitrio, he clearly depicts the principal consequences of sin not in terms of pains or torments but in those of disorder in the mind and in desire. First, he describes a darkening of the intellect: the deeper a man descends into sin, the more he comes into epistemological poverty; has difficulty distinguishing error from truth; defends falsehood; abandons, contradicts and even persecutes 28

T. Talbott, ‘Punishment, Forgiveness, and Divine Justice’ (1993), 159-60. Ibid. 156. Per Talbott, God’s love and justice mean that God would never allow human beings to commit sins for which Hell could be an appropriate or deserved penalty. 30 Oliver Crisp, ‘Divine Retribution: A Defence’, Sophia 42 (2003), 36-44. 29

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the true opinions that he used to hold; is susceptible to being charmed or seduced by new lies; hampers his conscience; is less able to assent to what is true, and so on. Furthermore, evildoing cripples the will, since the greater the wickedness in us, the more disordered our loves and lusts: our passions both grow and shrink contrary to right order, whether inflamed and ravenous in the face of lesser goods, or apathetic and indifferent to those that are legitimate. Crucially, Augustine declares these effects, sometimes defined by lack of feeling and therefore lack of pain, to be punishments, and just ones at that.31 The situation is the same in Confessiones, where Augustine is more explicit. As early as Book I he tells us, ‘Matters are so arranged at [God’s] command that every disordered soul is its own punishment’.32 In Book III, after explaining that mankind’s viciousness and sins cannot take away anything from God, who is immune to harm, he prays to God, ‘You avenge [sin] nonetheless by causing the sin to rebound on the sinner, for even when people sin against you, they are maliciously damaging their own souls’.33 And in Book IV he admits at one point that ‘I was readier to assert that your immutable substance had been forced into error than to confess that my own mutable substance had gone astray by its own will, and that its error was its punishment’,34 underlying the point that with sin comes a deterioration of both will and intellect. In all this Augustine is hewing close to the Platonic tradition,35 as well as exemplars in the Scriptures, to argue that vice is its own punishment. But in putting the theory in terms of disobedience and rebellion, Augustine firmly places it in the context of creation. The evildoer disobeys God’s created order by choosing something created over the Creator. This ‘uprising’ generates a rebellion within the wrongdoer himself in that his own interior harmony is diminished, principally in the reduced authority of his rational, i.e., ruling, part over what should be ruled. In a perverse mirror or imitation of Creation, the sinner, through his disordered desire and choice, engenders disorder within himself, losing control of his desires, his reason, his body – he loses himself.36 The sinner attempts, irrationally, to be a self-creator or a rival to God, and this entails a denial and rejection of one’s own nature as a creature and, therefore, of dependence on God. The natural, divinely ordained consequence of 31

De lib. arb., I.11. Conf., I.12. Trans. Maria Boulding (New York, 1997). 33 Conf., III.8. 34 Conf., IV. 15. 35 In Ennead III.4.3, Plotinus explains that evil character pulls the soul down, and that this dragging down is itself a penalty for wickedness. 36 See A-I. Bouton-Touboulic, L’ordre caché (2004), 285-9; B. van Egmond, Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement (2018), 69. The soul rebels against God, and then the body against the soul by succumbing to weakness and death. 32

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this is that the wicked man becomes exiled or alienated from his own nature:37 he ‘flees’ himself and therefore must live in contradiction with what he is, miserably desiring what is impossible (XIV.25), to be a god on his own terms.38 A Scriptural image for this condition is Nimrod, architect of the Tower of Babel, of whom we learn, ‘Because the power of a ruler lies in his tongue, it was there that Nimrod’s pride was condemned, so that he who refused to understand and obey God’s bidding was himself not understood when he gave his bidding to men’ (XVI.4). The ordinary punishment for sin is less a repayment of evil for evil than a condition of discord in our persons occasioned by our introducing disharmony into creation, a ‘recoil’ in our nature brought about by our actions against and within the providential order. Central to Augustine’s scheme is the recognition that these punishments are self-inflicted. As he relates in Confessiones, ‘[My sin] was nothing, and by the very act of committing it I became more wretched still’.39 Commentators like Talbott and Crisp, whether sympathetic or critical of Augustine’s account of divine punishment, treat God’s penalties as impositions from without. They interpret divine punishment through human models. In cases of human justice, it is obvious that human authorities typically punish by taking away something good from the perpetrator; Augustine himself points this out in De libero arbitrio where, anticipating Locke, he says human law regulates the actions of men largely through fear since it threatens to dispossess the disobedient of property, society, freedom or life.40 But human law is severely limited: it has to deal with visible actions, not invisible hearts; and trades in perceptible incentives and penalties. To use this as a model for divine punishment is to work backwards; as Augustine says in De ciuitate Dei, human vengeance, even when it is irrational, is but a shadow of divine retribution (XIV.15), wherein, according to the subtle designs of invisible providence, sinners are the architects of their own prisons. Divine punishment is not large scale or expanded human punishment, but the efficacious ideal that human punishment weakly reflects. A profitable paradigm for grasping what Augustine has in mind is to consider someone knowingly and willingly walking off the roof of a three-storey building. God, as the creator of gravity and of mass, is therefore part of the reason why the person falls, accelerates in his descent and strikes the ground with fatal force. But it would be curious usage to say that God inflicted impact and death on the agent; responsibility for the events lies with the man who walked off the roof. The events unfolded according to the nature of the beings involved. As it is with the visible order, so with the invisible. Intelligent creatures 37

J. Bowlin, ‘Hell and Alienation’ (2012), 194, 201. What was famously said of Horace Greely, Augustine could apply to the sinner: he is ‘a selfmade man who worships his Creator’. 39 Conf., II.8. 40 De lib. arb., I.15. 38

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are of a kind that when they disobey or abandon God and the order he wills, they must nevertheless obey the law of their natures in becoming disordered and wretched. The penalties are not added impositions: the same order that makes it possible for a body to fall is what allows for dance and flight; likewise, the same order that rewards loving and creative fidelity to the eternal law has consequences for disobedience. It is those who depart from what is proper to their nature who hasten their own ruin. Augustine’s theory of divine punishment is thus not a simplistic or naïve settling of scores. We have already seen that such a view does not comport with a mature view of divine immutability. We should add also that the repayment model of punishment also misses the centrality of the will in its focus on balancing hurts and harms. This would appear to be the position in which Talbott and Crisp both find themselves, with their singular focus on whether a human could be capable of harm or evil great enough to merit Hell as a punishment. But Augustine’s position is both simpler and subtler than that. He frames the problem as a choice for or against God: he thinks that it is possible for a creature to choose some lesser good over the Creator, and therefore lose the perfection of her freedom. His interest is not in crediting and debiting the enormity of our wickedness. For Augustine, condemnation to Hell is simply God ratifying the soul’s choice;41 the first death of mortality and the second death of perdition are both conditions of estrangement defining the being of the sinner.42 The interval before second death is a season open, mercifully, to conversion. It is man’s turning away from God that makes Hell possible, not God’s exiling of man. Man elects his self-destruction, though as a creature he cannot bring about his independence from the Creator; he remains a rebellious creature and is not annihilated. When Talbott says that God could not allow humans to commit any offence deserving Hell, Augustine would read this claim as God not permitting us, ultimately, to choose anything but Him. This stance generates two related problems. Firstly, it falsifies the evidence of history and the Scriptures, which is that human beings do make choices against God all the time. Talbott’s position is akin to saying that we can walk off the three-storey building and appear to fall, but God is committed to making sure that we do not hit the ground and injure ourselves. On the one hand, there would be the order of creation, but, on the 41 B. van Egmond, Redemptive Function of Divine Judgement (2018), 70, 154. Unredeemed man, in the condition of sin, is aligned with the devil and alienated from God. 42 William Mann, ‘Augustine on Evil and Original Sin’, in Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (Cambridge, 2001), 47. Per Mann, in Augustine’s thought ‘original sin … is not an event but rather, a condition’. Analogously, Hell too is fundamentally a state of exile that is not simply the consequence but the very essence of man’s sin. It is not something God adds to the sinner, but what she has become. On the essence of Hell being privation from God rather than sensible torments, see also Paul O’Callaghan, Christ Our Hope: An Introduction to Eschatology (Washington, DC, 2011), 199-201.

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other, the Creator would constantly be intervening to prevent this very order from unfolding as ordained. This God appears to be working against Himself. Which brings us to the second issue: the severely attenuated drama of human life. If the game is rigged such that God must finally undo any choices against Himself, then the gravity of creaturely rebellion disappears. This then means that the significance of the Incarnation becomes muddled. If Hell was never a possibility, why have the sacrifice of the Christ? Is not salvation history predicated on at least the possibility of Hell? It is one thing to hope that no one is estranged from God in the end, but quite another to argue, with Talbott, that final estrangement has never even been an option. And still beyond those concerns, the repayment model of punishment is liable to misidentify sinners. Augustine acknowledges that God can send evils either as purifying trials or as retribution for sin (XXI.13);43 the repayment model accommodates only the latter and therefore risks endorsing a form of prosperity Gospel, i.e., wrongly attributing temporal triumphs to friendship with God and defeats and difficulties to sinful living. But Augustine is perfectly aware that many godly men suffer under godless masters (XIX.15), to say nothing of the victories of the martyrs, which are to be appreciated through the eyes of faith and not according to the criteria of secular success. Perhaps more intriguingly, Augustine’s theory of divine punishment is not principally therapeutic or rehabilitative. He reads the Platonists as conceiving punishment as (primarily) remedial, both in this life and the next (XXI.13).44 His interpretation is largely accurate. The myths of judgement at the end of the Phaedo, the Gorgias and the Republic,45 for instance, all feature what appear to be retributive punishments for the wicked in the afterlife, but these punishments are meant to be purgative. These form the background for Plotinus’ position that punishment for wrongdoing is for the sake of rehabilitation and healing.46 Such a view cannot work for Augustine, because he thinks there is eternal punishment for some, which means that the Platonist model does not always achieve its end: Hell would become a permanent frustration of God’s will, a punishment willed contrary to the end of punishment. The remedial model therefore cannot be universally efficacious for Augustine, given the data 43

John Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge, 1999), 274. For a useful survey of Platonic penology, in its individual and political aspects, as well as its relation to the concept of emendatio in pre-Augustinian Latin authors such as Livy, Seneca, Quintilian and Gellius, see Julia Hillner, Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2015), 28-44. 45 Phaedo 107d-115a, Gorgias 523a-526d, Republic 614b-621b. 46 Ennead IV.4.45. That said, there is the curious and striking passage in III.2.13 where Plotinus claims that those who suffer murder or rape in a present life where murderers and rapists in a past life and are being justly punished. The view is consistent with an overall remedial view of punishment, but it does introduce a troubling circularity that suggests that there are no innocent victims of violence. 44

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he interprets from Scripture, and indeed it is unlikely that he could consider a merely remedial model, with no retributive aspect, as punishment commensurate with one’s sins. The challenge of a purely remedial model is that it becomes difficult to distinguish punishment from admonishment. G. Fay Edwards proposes a definition of punishment that is limited to correcting behavior and so describes punishment as an action, in response to wrongdoing, that prevents future wrongdoing by the wrongdoer.47 But many candidates could fulfill such a role, such as threats, good example or education. Calling all these punishments is to strain language unduly. Merciful Punishment This is not to deny that Augustine sees remedial value in punishment. In truth, his theory of punishment is oriented in a remedial direction, at least within salvation history. The evils suffered in punishment – disharmony, disorder, interior disobedience, etc. – also work as spurs towards our conversion. We might conceive a different created order in which we did not suffer the psychological and physiological effects of sin and thus where our bodies and psychic faculties easily obeyed our perverse wills. This, for Augustine, would be the more monstrous state of affairs, wherein greater power would be married to a rebellious soul and perceiving our iniquity would be more difficult.48 The root of sin is pride, ‘a perverted imitation of God’ (XIX.12). The present dispensation of punishment, which dissipates our powers in response to our rebellion, makes ridiculous, upon self-examination, our claims to self-knowledge, self-determination and self-sufficiency: we realise that we do not really know ourselves, that self-deception colours our motives and actions, hiding us from ourselves; it becomes self-evident that we cannot remedy our brokenness through our own efforts alone, to say nothing of working out our salvation; and so our creatureliness and dependence are reasserted in our weakness, especially our mortality.49 The punishment we suffer for our sins therefore has a semiotic aspect: it is a sign and seal in our being, impressed through our actions, of our distance from the right order of things and therefore from the Creator. To be liberated from our punishments, we need to be healed of our pride. The scriptural paragon for rehabilitation is King David, of whom Augustine says, ‘His sins were overcome by a piety so great, and a penitence of such 47 G. Fay Edwards, ‘How to Escape Indictment for Impiety: Teaching as Punishment in the Euthyphro’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 54 (2016), 16. As he puts it, ‘[The Definition of] Punishment: A response, R, to the vicious, ~V, actions of a wrongdoer, w, constitutes punishment of wrongdoer, w, if and only if R prevents w from performing ~V actions in future.’ 48 R. Williams, ‘Insubstantial Evil’ (2002), 107. 49 Peter Brown, The Body and Society (New York, 2008), 407, 416.

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wholesome humility’ (XVII.20). Piety and penance are expressions of submission to the Creator and the eternal law, the unconditional surrender of the previously rebellious will. Intriguingly, Augustine also declares that exercising mercy and practicing forgiveness is, at least for faithful Christians, a remedy for sin (XV.6). Part of the logic would seem to be that in being merciful one subordinates one’s legitimate pride, power and anger to God’s will for the good of one’s neighbor – even a wicked neighbour. Forgiveness prioritizes God’s purposes for the wrongdoer over one’s vengeance; it is a form of letting go of one’s will to dominate or master. The merciful are both imitators of God and his servants. Conclusion Augustine’s divine punishments are therefore acts of mercy in the form of a chiasmus: the rebellious motion of sin, turning the sinner from the Creator, generates a counter-motion, wherein creation turns away from the sinner. The punishment is a metaphysically fitting repetition and reversal, in our persons, of our wilful abandonment of God and our nature, while at the same time a call back to that nature and its Author. It is focused on the pride of the will and points to reconciliation through humility and submission.50 It is universally efficacious, unfolding as a willed law of nature rather than the ad hoc penalties of mythological deities. In its depiction as a natural and commensurate consequence to our actions, it anticipates Dante’s contrapasso, the scheme by which the sinners in the Inferno endure divinely co-authored punishments that are, at the same time, reflections of the choices of the souls. And finally, Augustine’s theory of punishment is merciful in that it is aimed at the good of the soul as far as it challenges the prideful delusions of evildoers. When Augustine says that ‘those who do evil should suffer evil’, he is working out a third way between the vengeful deities of the poets and remedial position of the philosophers. He is explaining that the vicious are self-cannibalising and that, through their own choices, they diminish their own freedom and harmony. From this reduced condition they cannot liberate themselves, but instead must return to the one whom they had forsaken, the Creator and Author of their being. This form of divine punishment is commensurate with mankind’s sins, is universally efficacious and is a merciful sign pointing towards conversion and reconciliation.

50 Even Hell is proof that God respects our freedom to choose against Him but will not contradict his creative will and abandon us to annihilation. While the damned are, like fallen angels, beyond the hope of conversion, they nevertheless act as a spur to reconciliation for those still ‘on their way’ within history.

Fugitive Signs: Augustine’s Cross, Slavery, and Black Thought Matthew ELIA, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

ABSTRACT Augustine’s De doctrina christiana, Rowan Williams notes, contends that “we live in a world of restless fluidities in meaning”, where signs and symbols “refuse to stay still”. Interpretive anarchy lurks, Williams continues, but this is held in check by the cross of Jesus, which provides Augustine the final symbol, the only stable point amidst an endless play of signs. But neither Augustine nor Williams addresses what scholarship of Roman antiquity indicates: the cross did not become symbolic with Jesus. It was already charged with signifying power. A brutal parable of the Roman social imaginary, the cross showed what happened to bodies threatening imperial order – especially enslaved bodies found fugitive, disobedient, or rebellious. Informed by Black religious thought, this paper constructively reworks Augustine’s theory of signification by suggesting Jesus faced a question neither Augustine nor Williams raises: What do you do with a symbol like the Roman cross which – fluidity notwithstanding – has been designed precisely to hold you violently in place? To capture and pin down the meaning of your life, to stabilize it for the immense story-telling needs of empire? A reconstructed Augustinian theory of signs would revisit Jesus’s words of institution as interruption of imperial signifying work, as insurgent symbolic practice: the cross that once signified the realignment of bad slaves with good order has been stolen and bent, opened up and resignified toward a meal of communion, toward a Passover sociality which enacts the Exodus it echoes – the cross as divine sanction of fugitive flight. “The body of the condemned must always be made to mean something.” Danielle ALLEN1

A two-part question runs through Augustine’s De doctrina christiana: First, what is the precise relation of res and signum, or thing and sign, reality and its representation? Second, why does this relation matter so much for creatures like us – which is to say, for rational souls enfleshed? Living in flesh means living with limit: our rational natures know nothing purely, but partially and in 1 Danielle S. Allen, ‘Envisaging the Body Condemned’, Classical Philology 95 (2000), 149 (emphasis added).

Studia Patristica CXVII, 77-89. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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time, by word, symbol, image. Not in transparency, but by mirrors and shadows.2 Likewise we never possess with finality. We desire, acquire, then suffer loss – often irreparable loss. (Augustine’s son Adeodatus appears as dialogue partner in the earlier work on signs, De Magistro from 389, before dying in Thagaste a year later.) Learning and desiring, beset by grief and lack, we are restless creatures, Augustine thinks. This restlessness – as a complex theological claim about language, time, and desire, and not as a too-familiar portrait of his own psychological profile – provides one way of naming how Augustine parts ways with ‘the Platonists’.3 We could call restlessness the shape of his hope, watch it emerge in fragments across his life’s work, a hope remade elsewhere and otherwise than theirs. Rowan Williams notes it is the incarnation, God’s own entrance into the world of time, which slowly persuades Augustine to take the risk which animates De doctrina as a whole: the risk of trusting that what’s to be hoped for in this life is neither an overcoming of our need for signs, nor an escape from temporality, history, or body. Rather, writes Williams, to Augustine ‘the incarnation manifests the essential quality of the world itself as “sign” … of its maker. It instructs us once and for all that we have our identity within the shifting, mobile realm of representation, non-finality, growing and learning, because … the whole creation is uttered and “meant” by God, and therefore has no meaning in itself’.4 The upshot is that ‘we live in a world of restless fluidities in meaning’. Signs ‘refuse to stay still’.5 Symbols bend and rearrange in time. That means the threat of interpretive anarchy is real – as evidenced at times in Augustine’s own scriptural exegesis, Williams notes. Yet holding that threat at bay, for Augustine, is the cross of Jesus.6 For the cross provides the final symbolic form. The cross is that ‘sign’ which, Augustine writes in Book II, ‘encompasses the whole of Christian activity’.7 The cross marks the sole stable point in this endless play of signs – an anchor, around which churning waves of signification rearrange themselves in time. 2 As many commentators have noted, 1Corinthians 13:12 – ‘For now we see in a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face’ – figures centrally in Augustine’s account of knowledge, especially knowledge of God. See for example Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge, 2004), 169. 3 For an excellent account of Augustine’s evolving relation to Platonist thought across his oeuvre, see Sarah Stewart-Kroeker, Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine’s Thought (Oxford, 2017), chapter 1, ‘The Plotinian Heritage of Augustine’s Peregrinatio Image’. 4 Rowan Williams, On Augustine (London, New York, 2016), 45. My preceding paragraph is also indebted to his essay as a whole, ‘Language, Reality and Desire: The Nature of Christian Formation’. 5 R. Williams, On Augustine (2016), 46. 6 Ibid. 49, 51. 7 Augustine, Teaching Christianity (De doctrina christiana), I/11 in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY, 1996), trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Book II, 41, 62. Hereafter, DDC.

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This essay, working in a constructive-theological rather than historical mode of inquiry, tests and thereby extends the implications of this Augustinian theory of signs. It does so by seizing upon an aspect of ‘the cross’ neither Williams nor Augustine himself addresses, but one which social histories of Roman antiquity indicate in vividly complex detail: Crucifixion was no mere ‘res’ waiting to become ‘signum’ with Jesus. It already held rich symbolic dimensions. Embedded within Roman spectacle culture, it already marked an event charged with signifying power, intensely public, comprising what K. M. Coleman calls a ‘fatal charade’.8 ‘When we crucify criminals’, wrote Quintilian, firstcentury Roman rhetorician, ‘the most frequented roads are chosen, where the greatest number of people can look and be seized by this fear. For every punishment has less to do with the offence than with the example’.9 At once entertainment and deterrent, crucifixion enacted a brutal imperial parable, a ‘penal liturgy’ performed for watching crowds, as though to say: here is what befalls those who would exalt themselves, here is what rebellion looks like halted, humiliated, and violently realigned with political order – realigned with and by the very order it placed under threat.10 ‘The body of the condemned’, as classicist Danielle Allen writes in a different context, ‘must always be made to mean something’.11 In the Roman social imaginary, the cross was a paradigmatic scene of the body condemned, the body devastated, the groaning and silent body, the body which nevertheless speaks. Or rather, an empire speaks through it. Crucifixion – prior to its role in a nascent Christian imagination – was no senseless suffering waiting to be made symbolic. Its suffering was signification. (Of what, exactly, we return to below.) What this historical aspect brings into view, for my purposes, is a set of constructive-theological questions about what Augustine calls ‘the Lord’s cross’ (crucem domini), indeed, questions the scriptural accounts invite us to imagine Jesus himself having to face: What do you do when you find your very body conscripted to mean and to speak – that is, to serve signifying purposes beyond, even against, your own? And conscripted in this way not by God, but by the demands of the dominant, by those who rule, with their enduring need 8

K.M. Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments’, The Journal of Roman Studies 80 (1990), 44-73. 9 Quintilian, Declamationes 274, in The Lesser Declamations, Vol. 1, ed. and trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA, London, 2006), 259: Quotiens noxios crucifigimus celeberrimae eliguntur viae, ubi plurimi intueri, plurimi commoveri hoc metu possint. Omnis enim poena non tam ad delictum pertinet, quam ad exemplum. 10 On the notion of crucifixion as ‘penal liturgy’, a term from Michel Foucault which is usefully appropriated, see Joel Marcus, ‘Crucifixion as Parodic Exaltation’, Journal of Biblical Literature 125 (2006), 73-87. Cf. John Granger Cook’s fine article, ‘Crucifixion as Spectacle in Roman Campania’, Novum Testamentum 54 (2012), which underscores that grasping the fact that crucifixion was a public spectacle provides scholars with “additional tools for understanding the scandalous nature of Paul’s gospel of the crucified Christ” (68). 11 D. Allen, ‘Envisaging’ (2000), 149 (emphasis added).

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to produce and make coherent a particular arrangement of social and political life? What do you do with this type of signification which – ‘restless fluidities in meaning’ notwithstanding – came into being precisely to hold your captive flesh in place, pin down its unruly potential to signify, and use this signifying potential to satisfy the immense storytelling needs of empire? And finally, how might this ‘official’ meaning, the signification sanctioned by the dominant, stand in relation to whatever other meanings you might wish to discern in your own flesh? Such questions have often been important for those whose lives have been made to inhabit symbolic forms across the ages like ‘slave,’ ‘woman’, ‘savage’, ‘queer’, ‘black’. They are not questions a historian asks qua historian. Rather, they are questions which historical work can help emerge into view, in this case by rendering a clearer picture of how crucifixion functioned in Roman culture. And so also, help to emerge as salient for theological thinkers, especially for those who, with Augustine, think the restless relation of thing to sign lies at the heart of what it means to be human. Nevertheless, the set of core questions above – of the dynamics of signification under conditions of domination – is yet to appear as a site of sustained inquiry among Augustine’s modern inheritors, or what we might call the modern Augustinian tradition of political theology.12 By rethinking Augustine’s theory of signs in the direction marked by this series of core questions, the present essay aims to lay groundwork for future constructive encounters between Augustinian politics and theologies of liberation, or what Charles H. Long calls, with greater precision, ‘theologies opaque’.13 12 The term ‘political theology’ has a contested and complex history which need not derail us here. I simply refer to that broad trajectory of ongoing Augustinian inquiry into the nature and task of modern political life which ranges widely, but which might be traced, at the very least, to two important studies early in the twentieth century: John Neville Figgis, The Political Aspects of S. Augustine’s ‘City of God’ (London, 1921); and Henri-Xavier Arquillière, L’augustinisme politique: Essai sur la formation des théories politiques du moyen-âge (Paris, 1933). For a more thorough recent overview, see Michael J.S. Bruno, Political Augustinianism: Modern Interpretations of Augustine’s Political Thought (Minneapolis, 2014), esp. 1-13. 13 Such encounters are often staged in a flat-footed way as the clash of the eschatological tension Augustinianism preserves between earthly and heavenly cities and the supposed collapse of that tension in liberationism’s urgent engagement with the demands of the present. See for example Bruno’s treatment of Gustavo Gutierrez in Political Augustinianism (2014), 59-60. Charles Long elaborates the term ‘theologies opaque’ in what is now Chapter 12, ‘Freedom, Otherness, and Religion: Theologies Opaque’, of Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion (Aurora, 1999). I return to it below. Justo L. González has recently published an interesting book entitled The Mestizo Augustine: A Theologian Between Two Cultures (Downers Grove, IL, 2016). But the framework of mestizaje (‘intermixture’) upon which he relies does not allow the central conflict with which I am concerned here – namely, the violent asymmetry of power which enables the symbolic use of the dominated body to serve the selfdeceptions of the dominator – to come into view as a problem for thought. For an exploration of why mestizaje tends to function this way, see Néstor Medina, Mestizaje: (Re)Mapping Race, Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism (Maryknoll, NY, 2009), esp. 47-50.

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Methodologically, this places me not among historians aiming to reconstruct how Augustine thought, but among theological ethicists who try to think about the present in Augustinian ways, while I freely concede both the contested nature of that distinction, and the commonly-noted dangers of anachronism in the latter sort of work.14 If that means the essay occupies an uneasy position within some conceptions of patristics (and for others simply outside it), then it is no less the case that, in its attempt to bring Augustine’s thought into encounter with theologies opaque, especially Black religious and political thought, and in its insistence upon the centrality of slavery to how Augustine thinks, the essay sits no less uneasily within Augustinian political theology itself. Working at this vexed crossroads of patristics, Augustinian political theology, and Black thought, the first two sections propose two key reasons Augustinians may wish to consider the set of questions raised above. Then I turn in the end to a more direct meditation upon the significance, for such questions, of Jesus’s words at the last supper. There I develop a constructive theological interpretation of those words informed both by the Augustinian theory of signs sketched above and by some aspects of Black religious thought.

I First, understanding the implications of the contention made above, that the cross did not become symbolic with Jesus, depends in key part upon grasping the intimate connection in the Roman social imaginary between crucifixion and slavery – or more precisely, between the crucified body and the body of the slave. I underscore the latter way of putting it to emphasize that I am not proposing slavery as a magic interpretive key to the exclusion of other factors like gender and sexuality, or honor and shame, or punishment as part of state terror.15 Rather, the enslaved body is itself a nexus where such factors necessarily converge (and indeed, wherever the enslaved body does not function this way 14

As Charles Mathewes puts it, ‘By using the phrase “the Augustinian tradition”, I mean to draw guidance from Augustine’s thought, without being trapped in the historical cul-de-sac of debates about what Augustine “really meant”.’ Mathewes, A Theology of Public Life (Cambridge, 2007), 19. Cf. Eric Gregory, Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship (Chicago, 2008), 7-8. For one insightful discussion of the complex negotiations between what ‘the historical Augustine’ said and meant, and how the Augustine of political Augustinianism animates and inspires wide-ranging engagements with modern projects (liberalism, populism, civic republicanism, and so on), see Peter Iver Kaufman, ‘Christian Realism and Augustinian (?) Liberalism’, Journal of Religious Ethics 38 (2010), 699-724. 15 On crucifixion in relation to gender and specifically masculinity, see Brittany E. Wilson, Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts (Oxford, 2015), 201-13. On the interrelation of sexualized dishonor and state violence, see David Tombs, ‘Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse’, USQR 53 (1999), 89-110.

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indicates how conceptually distinguishing ‘slave societies’ from ‘societies with slaves’ remains relevant).16 In Felicity Harley’s recent article in the Journal of Early Christian Studies, entitled ‘Crucifixion in Roman Antiquity: The State of the Field’, it is no accident that the example which both opens and concludes her article is the mime performance of the crucifixion of Laureolus, fugitive slave turned notorious bandit.17 Most cases of Roman crucifixion involve enslaved people and noncitizens (peregrini). Writing nearly twenty years ago, Jean-Jacques Aubert called the link between slaves and crucifixion ‘a point so well established and documented that it is unnecessary to dwell on it, as recorded cases would add up ad nauseam’.18 More recently, our historical understanding of crucifixion in the Mediterranean world has been greatly expanded, rendered in increasingly granular complexity, yet this basic connection between the Roman practice of crucifixion and the bodies of the enslaved has not been overturned.19 This does not imply all victims of crucifixion were enslaved people. The person whose crucifixion is under consideration here, Jesus of Nazareth, by all available evidence, was not.20 But we are concerned with precisely the symbolic 16 Comparative scholarship of slavery continues to employ Moses Finley’s classic distinction, but has largely shifted toward speaking of the two as ideal types, locating particular societies on a spectrum between them, with various gradations and shades, rather than as a tidy binary in the way Finley and some inheritors tended to. See Noel Lenski and Catherine M. Cameron (eds), What Is a Slave Society? The Practice of Slavery in Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2018). 17 Felicity Harley, ‘Crucifixion in Roman Antiquity: The State of the Field’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 27 (2019), 303-23. 18 Jean-Jacques Aubert, ‘A Double Standard in Criminal Law? The Death Penalty and Social Structure in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome’, in Specvlvm Ivris: Roman Law as a Reflection of Social and Economic Life in Antiquity, ed. Jean-Jacques Aubert and Boudewijn Sirks (Ann Arbor, 2002), 113. 19 A classic, influential treatment of the subject is chapter 8, ‘The Slaves’ Punishment’, of Martin Hengel, ‘Mors turpissima crucis: Die Kreuzigung in der antiken Welt und die “Torheit” des “Wortes vom Kreuz”’, in Rechtfertigung, Festschrift für Ernst Käsemann, ed. J. Friedrich, W. Pohlmann and P. Stuhlmacher (Tübingen, Göttingen, 1976), 125-84, translated into English by John Bowden as Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (London, Philadelphia, 1977). Felicity Harley’s review article (citation above) notes that Hengel’s volume has now been decisively superseded by four recent works on crucifixion in Roman antiquity: David Chapman, Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament II/244 (Tübingen, 2008), which reaffirms but does not dwell upon the connection to the enslaved body on page 44; David Chapman and Eckhard Schnabel, The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/344 (Tübingen, 2015); John Granger Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/327 (Tübingen, 2014); Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background and Significance of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament II/310 (Tübingen, 2011). 20 Winsome Munro has argued Jesus of Nazareth was in fact a slave, though most have not found the case persuasive. See W. Munro, Jesus, Born of a Slave: The Social and Economic Origins of Jesus’ Message (Lewiston, NY, 1998), and for a counter-argument, see Jennifer Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford, 2002), 100-1.

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dimensions of crucifixion, as that distinctive penal practice which Valerius Maximus infamously called the servile supplicium – the ‘slave punishment’ – and further with the theological significance of those symbolic dimensions. Thus, the crucial upshot is in view when Aubert writes, ‘crucifixion of nonslaves represented … a conscious attempt to treat them as slaves and implied for the victim a total loss of legal status’.21 More recent cultural histories of slavery in Rome have not only reaffirmed the general link above, as when classicist Myles Lavan writes, ‘Crucifixion was the conventional method of executing slaves’, but the further point about nonslaves: ‘even if it was sometimes inflicted on non-citizens and even citizens of lower social standing (humiliores), it was always regarded as a characteristically servile punishment’.22 In other words, the oft-noted element of extreme shame and humiliation is coextensive with the fact that to crucify was, among other things, to recast the victim’s body as a slave body. It is this signifying act – a collapse of the all-important distinction between a free body and a slave body – which the crucifixion of nonslaves implied generally, and which the ‘Christ hymn’ of Philippians 2 seems to authorize for Christian thought as a context for interpreting Jesus: the crucified one who is not a slave, but ‘takes the form of the slave’.23 For the mature Augustine, the Philippians 2 hymn, especially the ‘form of the slave’ (forma servi), would come to be vitally important, providing what Lewis Ayres calls Augustine’s “Panzer text”, a kind of “tank” he trundles onto the battlefield of doctrinal struggle, mowing down all heterodox positions in its path.24 I return to the forma servi in Augustine in a moment, but grasping how it functions there requires two further clarifying remarks here. First, the history of Christian theological uses of the ‘form of the slave’, including Augustine’s, must be situated within, and not as an exception to, an enduring intellectual habit among masters ancient and modern, namely, of finding slaves “good to think with”.25 Less bloody than crucifixion, using slavery 21

J.-J. Aubert, ‘A Double Standard in Criminal Law?’ (2002), 114 (emphasis mine). Myles Lavan, Slaves to Rome: Paradigms of Empire in Roman Culture (Cambridge, 2013), 124-5. 23 For a helpful overview of the sprawling critical landscape addressing Philippians 2:5-11, see Gregory P. Fewster, ‘The Philippians “Christ Hymn”: Trends in Critical Scholarship’, Currents in Biblical Research 13 (2015), 191-206. While many New Testament scholars have examined the close relation of crucifixion and slavery in the passage, David P. Moessner applies the very point I’ve been making in this section – that to crucify is to recast the victim’s body as an enslaved body – to the specific context of Philippians 2: ‘The agent[s] of Christ Jesus’ crucifixion … treated him as “the form of a slave” (2:7b – μορφή δούλου) when they crucified him’. See ‘Turning Status “Upside Down” in Philippi: Christ Jesus’ “Emptying Himself” as Forfeiting Any Acknowledgment of His “Equality with God” (Phil 2:6-11)’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 31 (2009), 140. 24 Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge, 2010), 144-6. 25 J. Albert Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions (Minneapolis, 2006), 26. 22

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metaphors to reflect on various matters of the human condition nevertheless performs the same logic: the body of the enslaved exists as an object to serve the purposes of the master, including intellectual, theological, literary, or conceptual purposes. As Sandra Joshel points out, this includes not only when the slave serves conceptually as the ‘other’ to the master, but just as frequently in moments when “the freeborn implicitly or explicitly identify with slaves and their condition”.26 One might object that in the Stoic examples discussed by Joshel, the enslaved person is always castigated by the metaphorical use (the glutton denounced as a ‘slave’ to food, etc.), whereas the Christian ‘form of the slave’ metaphor celebrates the enslaved person as a virtuous model of humility and obedience. But whether castigated or celebrated, actually-existing enslaved people still remain silent, buried beneath ‘the slave’ – figural bodies silenced which nevertheless speak, or rather, masters speak through them.27 Second, the signifying effect discussed in this section – crucifixion as recasting the crucified as a slave body – is all the more significant when we note how deeply unstable, and therefore how anxiously policed, was this all-important border between the free body and the enslaved body in the late Roman period. The conflict between legal text and social reality underscores this point, as Susanna Elm points out: ‘In fact, the picture of slavery in later Roman Empire was highly complex: the clear positions of the Roman law, positing and preserving the deep divide through birth between bodies as property and free human beings, was always confronted with a reality in which this divide was crossed and re-crossed … by the time of Augustine … a great number of persons lived in a grey zone, in hybrid states as neither true slaves nor really free’.28 That reality, the historical instability of the border between slave and free, is the context in which Jennifer Glancy proposes we understand the two widelydiscussed Divjak letters in which Augustine addresses the slave system. His opposition to the slave traders sweeping through North Africa, Glancy argues, was rooted not in objection to ‘the institution of slavery itself’, as evidenced by his citing scriptural tradition to enjoin slaves to submit to masters, but rather, a deep ‘disquiet at the prospect of blurring distinctions between slave and free’.29 This is not to suggest an individual shortcoming, but to the contrary, to underscore how embedded Augustine was in the historical situation posed by the 26 Sandra R. Joshel, ‘Slaves and Roman Literary Culture’, in Cambridge World History of Slavery, Volume 1: The Ancient Mediterranean World, ed. Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge (Cambridge, 2011), 230 (emphasis mine). 27 Jennifer Glancy’s work has been especially powerful in underscoring how the absence of enslaved voices in the historical archives bears witness to this erasure and silence, producing real epistemic limits for the historical researcher of slavery who must hear only the masters’ side of the story. See J. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (2002), 130. 28 See Susannah Elm, ‘Sold to Sin Through Origo: Augustine of Hippo and the late Roman Slave Trade’, SP 98 (2016), 11-2. 29 J. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (2002), 71-2.

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‘grey zone’ Elm described, how “the confusion of the categories of free and slave crystallizes a fundamental anxiety in the ancient world over the stability of the slave body”.30 II And that brings us to the second reason political Augustinians might take up the core questions I raised in my introduction: the wider problem of slavery in Augustine’s own thought.31 Recent years have seen renewed scholarly attention to how widely and deeply images of slavery permeate Augustine’s writings – posing difficult, complex questions which I have engaged, primarily from the angle of their significance for modern Augustinian political theology, in a recently completed dissertation project.32 Although the emphases and methodologies of these emerging works vary widely, what unites them, as I see it, is (a) the distinct sense that the question of slavery in Augustine is more complex than previously thought, (b) that it extends far beyond De ciuitate Dei XIX.1517, the passage upon which previous scholarly attention has primarily and narrowly been focused, and (c) that getting a handle on slavery will not simply clarify his position on one particular social institution, but shed new light on key concepts of his thought – original sin, the will, citizenship, humility, virtue. Partaking of the logic of ‘thinking with slaves’ mentioned above, figures of the enslaved appear widely in Augustine’s discussions of these themes and more. My work has emphasized how difficult it is to disentangle, in Augustine’s moral and political thought, slavery as res from slavery as signum. In other words, I have argued that it is not as easy as interpreters have sometimes assumed to separate Augustine’s justification of slavery the institution (as a necessity of human life under sin) from the key concepts in his thought which he used slavery metaphors to articulate – the very concepts which political Augustinians reappropriate for contemporary life. Generally, Augustinians lament the former as unfortunate residue of Augustine being a man of his age, while declining to examine how that context – Augustine’s enmeshment in a 30

Ibid. 72. For an introduction to the topic: Margaret Mary, ‘Slavery in the Writings of Saint Augustine’, The Classical Journal 49 (1954), 363-9; Gervase Corcoran, O.S.A., Saint Augustine on Slavery (Rome, 1985); Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge, 1996); Katherine Chambers, ‘Slavery and Domination as Political Ideas in Augustine’s City of God’, The Heythrop Journal 54 (2013), 13-28; and of particular importance despite its brevity: John M. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge, 1994), 236-9. 32 Susanna Elm is currently working on a book concerning related themes, but with a rather different toolkit than mine, as is Toni Alimi, a doctoral candidate at Princeton. See Susannah Elm, ‘Sold to Sin Through Origo’ (2016), and Matthew Elia, ‘Ethics in the Afterlife of Slavery: Race, Augustinian Politics, and the Problem of the Christian Master’, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 38 (2018), 93-110. For a brief discussion of De ciuitate Dei XIX, see 103-4. 31

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slave society – has shaped the theological and political concepts they wish to apply to our age. To sketch one brief example, we might reconsider how Augustine repurposes the “form of the slave” language of the New Testament mentioned above. Familiar for its crucial conceptual role in the christology developed in De Trinitate books 1 and 2, the notion of Jesus as slave is also precisely what grounds Augustine’s instructions to actual enslaved people in his exposition of Psalm 124: “Perhaps it happened that you, having become a Christian, found yourself subject to a human master. That is as it should be … [Christ] does not try to turn slaves into free men and women, but bad slaves into good slaves”. Concerned that Christian slaves would nevertheless go fugitive, Augustine grounds his call to obedience by placing it in the very mouth of Christ: “If in such a house there were an unbelieving slave and Christ were to convert him, he would not say to him, ‘Leave your master, for now you have come to know him who is your true master’. No, that is not what Christ has said; rather he commands, ‘Do your duty as his slave … Follow my example in being a slave, for I went before you in submitting to evil men’”.33 An issue for constructive appropriations of Augustine, then, is the possibility that certain slave metaphors in Augustine present not merely a neutral depiction of social reality, but rather a particular way of encoding that reality, one which risks aligning Christian thought with the moral vantage of the masters, for whom fugitive slaves are fitting emblems of disorder, sin, and pride, while obedient slaves signify order, virtue, and humility. This alignment with the position of the master poses normative questions for Christian citizenship in political orders premised upon unjust domination, I argue in the broader project, especially for those of us who, by way of whiteness, maleness, class status, and otherwise, have inherited the afterlife of the master’s position in the present, and thereby profit from how modern Atlantic slavery’s legacies yet shape our common life.34 Of course, it lies beyond my scope to reproduce the evidence for that argument here. Instead, I want simply to flag that, since I began presenting these claims in public a few years ago, I have been often met with variations upon a single, reasonable response: If it is right and needed to problematize certain metaphorical uses of slaves, as you say, what are we supposed to do now with that language we have inherited? This paper is, in key part, a response to that question. My proposal is neither that we excise such language from our theological lexicon, nor that we find in it a reason to stop engaging Augustine’s resources for contemporary concerns; to the contrary, I propose we let ourselves be troubled and stay troubled, then draw from his own theory of signs to revisit 33

En. Ps. 124.7. For a starting place, see Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and SelfMaking in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1997). 34

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the practices of signification itself, and from there generate something like what follows in part III. III What I offer here is not a description of Augustine’s views on the cross, which have been explored by others at great depth elsewhere, so much as a constructive experiment in the sort of fluid, hermeneutical layering across vast historical distances which Augustine himself so often practiced.35 As Jürgen Hammerstaedt’s overview shows, Augustine’s meditations upon the cross often stitched together prefigurative images from the Hebrew scriptures, historical events familiar to Roman hearers, nautical metaphors from everyday life, and more.36 And so, reading Augustine beyond himself, building speculatively from his notion that all symbolic forms rearrange themselves when the decisive symbol of the cross appears, we might constructively revisit the meaning-making performance Jesus enacts on the night he was betrayed. On that night, we might wish to say, Jesus improvises within the signifying possibilities of the Passover meal he has inherited as a child of Israel. He knows what is to come. He is not trying to ‘find’ meaning in the otherwise meaningless violence that awaits him. Instead he seems keenly aware that for those seeking his death, the violence of the cross is not meaningless at all, but already highly charged with narrative power, with value, with desire. The cross, he understands, is already a dense site of Roman meaning, a privileged space set up precisely for acts of imperial signification. His broken flesh, he understands, is already scripted – typecast within a melodrama about order and obedience, a moralizing spectacle about the threat of seditious bodies, now split apart before the eyes of the crowd. When Jesus draws his friends close at the table and raises a loaf of bread, the sentence ‘This is my body’ interrupts that bland story. ‘This is my body’ ruptures that brutal symbol of the transformation of disobedience into obedience, disorder into order – that whole symbolic order of slavery which early Christian thought would, at times, inherit, recalibrate, and in that way, preserve. In saying, “This is my body”, Jesus steals from empire the right to route their signifying labors through his captive flesh. It is as though he says: You will not use my body that way. (If there can be natural signs, and given signs, as in 35 For an excellent introduction to the literature, see Jürgen Hammerstaedt, ‘Crux’, in Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. Cornelius Mayer (Basel, 1986), 143-52, esp. the bibliography provided on page 151. 36 Augustine spoke of the cross as a boat amid ‘this river of the horrible wickedness of the human race’, and as wood which we must reach out and ‘grasp’ so that we are not ‘pulled down by so vast a whirlpool of this world’. See ep. 138.17.

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Augustine’s account, perhaps there can also be taken signs.37) His flesh instead opens toward something else – an elsewhere his imperial masters neither anticipate nor contain within their existing structures of meaning. The meaning of Jesus’s flesh will not be order, but feasting and forgiveness; not spectacle, but covenant. By improvising upon, and in this way sanctifying the Passover form of symbolic activity he inherited, Jesus participates in Israel’s fugitive theft of the master’s meanings, accedes to the divine demand for new signs to bloom within deathly spaces, and invites us into spaces like the table gathered and the sea parted, where violence is not romanticized or redeemed, but unmade on the basis of what it tried to thwart: unsanctioned communion, a being-with prior to and against every symbol of death.38 In the cross Jesus seized upon a symbolic instrument designed for his death, stole its meaning away from the masters, and resignified it. With this act, God sanctifies and blesses all those in our world who seize upon symbolic instruments designed for their death – including New World signifiers like Blackness – and instead open them up in new ways, stealing their meaning from the self-deceptions of masters who knew not what they did when they made them. ‘There is absolutely no evidence from the long and dismal annals of slavery’, writes Orlando Patterson, ‘to suggest that any group of slaves ever internalized the conception of degradation held by their masters’.39 This unknowingness indexes an excess to the symbol itself. An inexhaustibility and an ‘exhorbitance’ – to invoke Nahum Chandler – this openness of the sign, with its unfinished quality, recalls the Augustinian restlessness above.40 On the move beneath and beyond their ‘official’ meaning, signs – to repurpose Rowan Williams – ‘refuse to stay still’.41 Receiving that resignifying potential within the specificity of New World afterlives of slavery, within the persistent gestures of dispossession going under the heading ‘race’, drives us to think with Charles Long about the opacity of the sign in the religions of the oppressed: “The oppressed must deal with both the fictive truth of their status as expressed by the oppressors, that is, their second creation, and the discovery of their own autonomy and truth – their first creation”.42 Can a sign’s fictive truth be unmade? Bent toward discovery? “Blacks, the colored races, [were] caught up into this net of the imaginary and symbolic consciousness of the West, rendered mute… But” – and everything hangs on this but – “even in these symbolic structures 37

For the notion of ‘taken’ signs, I thank Ashleigh Elser. I owe the phrase ‘unsanctioned communion’ to a conversation with Willie James Jennings. 39 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA, 1986), 97. 40 Nahum Chandler, ‘Of Exorbitance: The Problem of the Negro As a Problem For Thought’, Criticism 50 (2008), 345-410. 41 R. Williams, On Augustine (2016), 46. 42 Charles Long, Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion (Aurora, CO, 1986), 184. 38

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there remained the inexhaustibility of the opaqueness of this symbol for those who constituted the ‘things’ upon which the significations of the West deployed its meanings”.43 That opacity in the symbol – considered in its deep grounding in the openness of language, grounded in the sort of restless creatures we are – is what critics of so-called identity politics have never understood in Black theology. If we revisit the moment when James Cone declared that “God is Black”, and later, that the cross is a lynching tree,44 and if we think about how racial ‘blackness’ was forged as a symbol of enslavement, only to be stolen, bent, and remade into Blackness as a signifier of belonging, perhaps then we can say that Cone’s utterance is not only near to the heart of Christ’s own symbolic practice, but something like an Augustinian resignification beyond Augustine – a remaking of signs through the break of the shadows, in fugitive flight from the master’s house. Augustine glimpsed in signs a restlessness and an errancy he could not fully describe from within the grip of mastery, but the gift of his account is precisely how incompleteness itself is the ground of hope – signs held open toward unthinkable futures, remade beyond what you can see.

43

Ibid. 184. James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY, 1970). James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Maryknoll, NY, 2013). 44

Augustine on Justice, Mercy, and Freedom Montague BROWN, Saint Anselm College, Manchester, NH, USA

ABSTRACT The tradition of faith seeking understanding is foundational to the Catholic intellectual tradition. Reason helps to explain the faith by providing data from our experience and analogies from the world; but, more importantly, faith increases our understanding – as grace to enlighten the intellect and will, and as content to inform and enrich our lives. Augustine is a great exemplar of this intellectual tradition. In Tractate 33 of his Tractates on the Gospel of John, through commenting on the scene in which the Scribes and Pharisees challenge Jesus to judge the woman caught in adultery (Jn. 8:3-11), he sheds light on the relation between justice (a demand of reason) and mercy (the undeserved gift of revelation), deepening our appreciation of the depths of God’s mercy and deepening our understanding of the moral life for the individual and community. This essay has four sections. The first considers briefly the approach Augustine takes in his Tractates, which, in its focus on Scripture and pastoral concerns, opens up theological and philosophical insights not always as forthcoming in his more systematic works. The second section focuses on the passage in Tractate 33 where Augustine, commenting on the pericope adulterae, shows us how Jesus brings both justice and mercy to the woman and to her accusers. The third section places the insights of this passage in the broader context of Christ’s overall mission. In the concluding section, we consider how revealed truth about justice and mercy opens to us the fullness of the moral life, giving us a signal example of the riches that revelation brings to our understanding.

We hold by faith that God is both just and merciful. All of us will be judged according to our deeds, and God always offers us the grace to be saved. So much does our judge love us that he died so that we might not come to judgment but may live in Him. This affirmation of both justice and mercy, however, is not so easy to understand, for it is not at all clear why intentional wrongdoing should be forgiven. In the Catholic intellectual tradition of faith seeking understanding, both faith and reason are essential. Reason is often invoked to support or explain the faith by providing data from our experience or analogies from the world. But, more importantly, faith advances reason both in giving grace to enlighten the intellect and will and in providing us with revealed content to deepen our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. Augustine is steeped in this tradition. In commenting on the scene in which the Scribes and Pharisees challenge Jesus to judge the woman caught in adultery

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(Jn. 8:3-11), Augustine sheds light on the relation between justice (a demand of reason) and mercy (the underserved gift of revelation) in an exemplary case of faith illuminating reason, of grace perfecting nature. Augustine’s brilliant commentary on this passage exemplifies how the revealed truths of scripture – in this case, Jesus’ words and actions – deepen our understanding of the demands of the moral life and of its perfection for the individual and community. This essay has four sections. The first considers briefly the approach Augustine takes in his Tractates, which, in its focus on Scripture and pastoral concerns, opens up depths of theological and philosophical insight not always as forthcoming in his more systematic works. The second section focuses on the passage in Tractate 33 where Augustine, commenting on the pericope adulterae, shows us how Jesus brings both justice and mercy to the woman and to her accusers. The third section places the insights of this passage in the broader context of Christ’s overall mission. In the concluding section, we consider how revealed truth about justice and mercy opens to us the fullness of the moral life, giving us a signal example of the riches that the revelation brings to our understanding. I That we must believe in order to understand is a fundamental theme in Augustine’s works and indeed in the Catholic intellectual tradition. We find it early and late. In the opening book of On Free Choice of the Will, he cites Isaiah 7:9 – ‘Unless you believe, you will not understand’ – and insists on this as the proper order of intellectual seeking.1 It features in the Confessions, City of God, and On the Trinity, and it is the often invoked in the Tractates.2 What distinguishes the Tractates is that they are mostly preached homilies, and despite this, or perhaps because of it, they are deeply theological.3 His immediate 1

Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will 1.2, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis, 1993), 3. See, for example, Confessions 1.1, City of God, 8.1, and De Trinitate 15.2. John Paul II underlines this tradition. ‘Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves’. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), 1. 3 Douglas Milewski agrees with this assessment. ‘The 124 Tractates on the Gospel of John represent one of Augustine’s most audacious projects as they endeavor to combine a high level of exegetical skill and sophisticated doctrinal content within the unpredictable, popular setting of a diversified and boisterous Christian community’. Douglas Milewski, ‘Augustine’s 124 Tractates on the Gospel of John: The Status Quaestionis and the State of Neglect’, Augustinian Studies 33 (2002), 61-77, 65. There has been some debate about whether the tractates were preached or dictated. The general consensus is that the 124 tractates divide into two groups: 1-54 and 55-124, with the first group (which includes those we are studying) being preached in person and the second possibly dictated, although some argue that they were first preached (Ibid. 65-9). Gerald 2

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audience is his Christian congregation to whom he speaks as bishop, and so his focus is on making the good news as clear and compelling as possible rather than on convincing unbelievers about its truth by adverting to philosophical arguments.4 At the same time, Augustine does not water down the content. He says that there is something for everyone in the Scriptural readings from John and in what he will say about them. Each person should take from them what he or she can. As he says at the beginning of Tractate 34, no one understands the mysteries of the faith presented in John’s gospel completely, yet all get something from reading John, and something from listening to Augustine commenting on John.5 The depths of the faith’s mysteries are indeed great, yet it is not an esoteric faith. The Gnostic belief that the real faith is for the elite, the highly educated, the enlightened few, has been the source of many heresies. The humility required to believe is the same for the philosopher and the theologian as for the simple, uneducated manual laborer. It is generally agreed that there are times in Augustine’s writings when his Platonism steers him a bit off target in his explication of the faith, more in his early works than in his later.6 Because the Tractates are commentaries on Bonner emphasizes the spontaneous character of Augustine’s sermons. ‘Augustine’s sermons are characterized both by their profundity and by spontaneity, for the preacher, as a general rule, delivered extempore whatever the Lord put into his mouth – quod Dominus donaverit (Aug., Serm., 151, I, I) is Augustine’s own description of the method’. Gerard Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies (Norwich, 2002), 145. At the conclusion of his article, Milewski notes: ‘Modern research for the most of the past century has primarily addressed the central issues of genre, date and composition. Missing, for the most part, are studies of what Augustine actually had to say about the Fourth Gospel’. D. Milewski, ‘Tractates on John’ (2002), 77. The present essay is a small contribution to understanding Augustine’s theology in the Tractates. 4 Bonner mentions the extremely adept shorthand writers who took down Augustine’s sermons as they were being preached; see G. Bonner, Augustine of Hippo (2002), 145. 5 Augustine explains near the beginning of Tractate 1: ‘I have no doubt that there are among you some who have the ability not only to grasp an explanation but also to understand it before the explanation is made. I shall not cheat those who can grasp it: but at the same time I am apprehensive about wasting the attention of those who cannot. Ultimately, God’s mercy will be present so that there will perhaps be benefit enough for all, and each person will grasp what he can. In fact, the speaker, too, says what he is capable of saying. For who can say it as it is?’ St Augustine, Tractate 1.1, Tractates on the Gospel of John, trans. John W. Rettig, FC 78 (Washington, DC, 1988), 42. Non dubito in numero uestro quosdam, a quibus possit non solum expositum capi, sed et antequam exponantur, intellegi; non fraudabo eos qui possunt capere, dum timeo superfluus esse auribus eorum qui non possunt capere. Postremo aderit misericordia Dei, fortasse ut omnibus satis fiat, et capiat quisque quod potest: quia et qui loquitur, dicit quod potest. Nam dicere ut est, quis potest? (Tractatus I.1, CChr.SL 36, 1). 6 See for example, Augustine’s basic distinction between temporal and changing (material) and eternal and unchanging (immaterial) goods in On Free Choice of the Will 1.16 and 2.16, and his reference to the self being the mind in Confessions 10.6. This contrasts with, for example, his recognition of the preciousness of time because it is essential for preaching and the Eucharist in Confessions 11.2. Most basically, Platonism, with its insistence that true reality is the immaterial and unchanging is not compatible with the central importance of creation, history, the Incarnation, and the sacramental Church. Robert O’Connell emphasizes the role neo-Platonism plays in the

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Scripture and addressed to the faithful, they tend to stay very much on target in terms of doctrinal content. His purpose is to confirm his audience in the good news of the mercy and love of God. And he is being led by the gospel, by the spirit and words of Christ to a deeper understanding of the human condition for his audience and for himself. II In Tractate 33, Augustine comments on the passage in John, in which the authorities of the day, the Scribes and Pharisees, attempt to catch Jesus in an injustice or hardness of heart in order to have grounds for accusing him of breaking faith. Observe now how the gentleness of the Lord was tested by his enemies. ‘Now the Scribes and the Pharisees brought to him a woman caught in adultery, and they set her in the midst and said to him, “Master, this woman has just now been caught in adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such a one. What, therefore, do you say?” Now they were saying this testing him, that they might be able to accuse him’.7 thought of Augustine, sometimes dominating his theology: see Robert J. O’Connell, ‘The Riddle of Augustine’s Confessions: A Plotinian Key’, International Philosophical Quarterly (1964), 32772, and St. Augustine’s Platonism (Villanova, 1984). Pierre Courcelle agrees: see Late Latin Authors and their Greek Sources, trans. H.E. Wedeck (Cambridge, MA, 1969), 79-92. Others emphasize the transformational character of Christianity on Augustine’s Platonism, which is more in line with my position. Thus, Thomas Aquinas: ‘Whenever Augustine, who was imbued with the doctrines of the Platonists, found in their teaching anything consistent with faith, he adopted it: and those things which he found contrary to faith he amended’. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, qu. 85, a. 5, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 5 vol. (Allen, TX, 1981), I 427. Henri de Lubac concurs: ‘We can only marvel at the assimilative power of Christian Life as manifest in his [Augustine’s] attitude, and conclude with Mgr. Regis Jolivet that by means of Augustine’s comments on Plato “it was not Augustine who became a neo-Platonist, but Plato who became a Christian”’. Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York, 2016), 225. Etienne Gilson also insists on the prevalence of Christianity over neo-Platonism in Augustine’s thought: ‘the reading of Plotinus has sufficiently drawn his attention to the incapacity of unaided reason fully to discover truth.’ Etienne Gilson, ‘Forword’, in St. Augustine, City of God, trans. Walsh, Zema, Monahan and Honan (Garden City, NY, 1958), 33. Carl Vaught makes a similar point: ‘In this book I develop the view that Augustine’s thought tilts in the direction of Christianity, however Neoplatonic it may be’. Carl G. Vaught, Encounters with God in Augustine’s Confessions: Books VII-IX (Albany, NY, 2004), 140, note 4). In his Covenantal Theology, Donald Keefe focuses on the role Christianity plays in Augustine’s view of Platonism, and the need to continue the metaphysical conversion from a philosophical and cosmological understanding of reality to a properly theological and historical one. See Donald J. Keefe, Covenantal Theology: The Eucharistic Order of History, 2 vol. in 1 (Novato, CA, 1996), Chapter IV: ‘The Augustinian Covenantal Theology’, 477-640. For more on this debate, see Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, Los Angeles, 2000), 496-8. 7 Augustine, Tractate 33.4, Tractates on the Gospel of John, trans. John W. Rettig, FC 78 (Washington, DC, 1993), 53; Nunc iam adtendite, ubi ab inimicis tentata sit Domini mansuetudo. Adducunt autem illi scribae et pharisaei mulierem in adulterio deprehensam, et statuerunt eam

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Augustine reads this as a challenge to the compatibility of justice and mercy. He quotes a passage from Psalms about the qualities of the Messiah: ‘Gird your sword upon your thigh, most mighty one; in your comeliness and beauty, exert yourself. Proceed prosperously, and reign because of truth and gentleness and justice.’8 How in this test situation can Jesus exemplify all three qualities; in particular, how can he honor gentleness – that is, be merciful – without violating justice? The authorities challenge him to make a judgment: to stone or not to stone. His mission of mercy is threatened if he judges that the adulteress should be stoned, in which case those who follow him because of his meekness and kindness will turn away. His mission of justice to fulfill the law is threatened if he judges that she should not be stoned, for the Law given by God to Moses commands this punishment; and if Jesus disobeys the law and thus the Giver of the Law, then he, too, is a sinner and subject to punishment. As Augustine writes, ‘if he orders her to be stoned, he will not have gentleness; if he judges that she be pardoned, he will not keep justice.’9 In either case, His mission from the Father to give the Spirit is dead, which is what the Scribes and the Pharisees want. In what he does and says, Jesus maintains both his mercy and his justice, not by watering down either one, but by deepening their essential meanings.10 in medio, et dixerunt ei: Magister, haec mulier modo deprehensa est in adulterio. In lege autem Moyses mandauit nobis huismodi lapidare; tu ergo quid dicis? Haec autem dicebant tentantes eum, ut possent accusare eum (Tractatus XXXIII.4, CChr.SL 36, 307). Much has been written on this passage, both on its place in the Gospel of John, and on the interpretation of the passage. In a very thorough account of recent scholarship on the place of the pericope adulterae in the Gospel of John, Chris Keith argues that most of the evidence and scholarship based on textual analysis suggests that the passage has been imported from elsewhere. He concludes: ‘Scholars have applied almost every type of major biblical criticism to the passage, ranging from seemingly endless text-criticism to more modern approaches that emphasize the power structures at work in both in and out of the biblical texts. Some issues, such as the thesis that PA was not originally in the Gospel of John, appear settled’. Chris Keith, ‘Recent and Previous Research on the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8.11)’, Currents in Biblical Research 6 (2008), 377-404, 396. Although agreeing in general with Keith’s conclusion, Jennifer Knust does allow that for Irenaeus, whose interest is primarily doctrinal, the issue of the passage’s origin would not have been that important. ‘According to Irenaeus there are principles of the gospel – there is one God and Jesus is the Christ as the Hebrew prophets proclaimed – and four different Gospel books, each of which contain the gospel message (Aversus haereses 3.11.7-9). In other words, a teaching by or about Jesus could be considered “gospel” whether or not it was found in a Gospel book’. Jennifer W. Knust, ‘Jesus, an Adulteress and the Development of Christian Scripture’, in A Tall Order. Writing the Social History of the Ancient World: Essays in Honor of William V. Harris, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 216 (Berlin, 2005), 59-84, 62. 8 Ps. 44 (45):4-5, in Augustine, Tractate 33.4, 53; Accingere gladio tuo circa femur tuum, potentissime; specie tua et pulchritudine tua intende, prospere procede, et regna propter ueritatem et mansuetudinem et iustitiam (Tractatus XXXIII.4, CChr.SL 36, 307). 9 Augustine, Tractate, 33.4, 54; si eam iusserit lapidari, mansuetudinem non habebit; si eam dimitti censuerit, iustitiam non tenebit (Tractatus XXXIII.4, CChr.SL 36, 308). 10 The mission of Jesus is key. God’s mercy is not something we could come up with on our own on any grounds of justice as we understand it, for God’s mercy is wholly undeserved. De Lubac emphasizes the centrality of mercy in Augustine’s thought: ‘In his [Augustine’s] works,

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Thus does faith illuminate reason: the truth of revelation, which ultimately is the person of Jesus, reconciles justice and mercy and, through doing so, clarifies and expands our understanding of the truth and moral responsibility.11 Jesus responds to the challenge with two actions and two teachings. Twice, Jesus bends down and writes on the ground. Augustine does not comment on the first time, but begins by quoting Jesus’s verbal response after he stands up: ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her’.12 With these words, Jesus defends the woman and himself, and ultimately even his accusers, which is the wholly unexpected merciful turn, unforeseen in our understanding of justice. His words demand their free and honest reflection on their own sins and justice. ‘Oh, response of wisdom! How he did send them into themselves! For they were slandering without, not examining themselves within. They saw the adulteress; they did not look closely at themselves. Transgressors of the Law, they desired the Law to be fulfilled’.13 That is, they desired, paradoxically, their own destruction. In this scene, this event, Jesus appeals to each person’s conscience, which is the heart of morality, the foundation of the Law.14 However, he does not follow up his perfect refutation with divine as in the whole theological tradition deriving from him, the idea of grace brings to mind more directly the idea of mercy rather than that of liberality, the idea of forgiveness rather than that of a mere gift’. Henri de Lubac, Augustinianism and Modern Theology, trans. Lancelot Sheppard (New York, 1969), 87-8. 11 Pope Benedict XVI emphasizes the role of truth in integrating justice and mercy in authentic living. ‘Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. John 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development. For this reason the Church searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is manifested. This mission of truth is something that the Church can never renounce. Her social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it is a service to the truth which sets us free’. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), 9. 12 Jn. 8:7, in Augustine, Tractate 33.5, 55; Qui sine peccato est uestrum, inquit, prior in illam lapidem mittat (Tractatus XXXIII.5, CChr.SL 36, 308). 13 Augustine, Tractate 33.5, 55; O responsio sapientiae! Quomodo eos intromisit in se? Foris enim calumniabantur, seipsos intrinsecus non perscrutabantur; adulteram uidebant, se non perspiciebant. Praeuaricatores legis legem impleri cupiebant (Tractatus XXXIII.5, CChr.SL 36, 308). 14 The moral law is ultimately be found in a person, in a living conscience that guides us. This is what Jesus is and what he seeks in us. Most radically, as scripture tells us, truth is a person: ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ (Jn. 14:6). In the full sense, only the event, most specifically the personal event, is true. This theme of truth as a person is central to the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar. In his Theo-logic, Balthasar opens with reference to this text. ‘Jesus is the truth as the one sent by the Father. The point is not that Jesus bears witness to the Father as the truth . … The point is rather that as the one sent, indeed, sent to save the world (Jn 12:47), and thus the one who reveals the will, the disposition, and the work of the Father, Jesus is the truth. Is, not merely bears witness to’. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory, vol. 2, Truth of God, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco, 2004), 13. John Henry Newman notes that assent is not only by a person but also ultimately to a person. He draws an analogy between the assent of a child to his or her mother and the assent that is faith. Both assents are certain; but neither can be explained by the truth and logical force of the propositions assented to. The child assents to what

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humiliating power, as the reader might secretly wish, given that the Scribes and the Pharisees are clearly hypocrites who deserve punishment. Quite unexpectedly and to the contrary, he bends down for the second time and writes on the ground, which both appeals to their consciences (their deep understanding of justice) and treats them mercifully, sparing them the condemnatory stare of the fully righteous man.15 In place of the Law written on stone for hearts of stone (their hearts filled with self-righteousness), Jesus invites them to accept the living love of God, which can only be embraced freely by hearts of flesh, human hearts of mercy. ‘O Jews, you heard, O Pharisees, you heard, O teachers of the Law, you heard the guardian of the Law; but you have not yet understood the Law-maker’.16 Moses was the guardian of the law; the man writing on the ground before them is the lawmaker. They can only hear if they turn to the spirit of God within them – the same spirit that is in the man before them and offered to them by his mother tells him because she is true. ‘Her veracity and authority is to him no abstract truth or item of general knowledge, but is bound up with that image and love of her person which is part of himself, and makes a direct claim on him for his summary assent to her general teaching’. John Henry Newman, Grammar of Assent (Garden City, NY, 1955), 35. As John Paul II emphasizes in Veritatis Splendor, the moral life is ultimately the personal commitment to following a person. ‘Jesus himself is the living “fulfillment” of the Law inasmuch as he fulfills its authentic meaning by the total gift of himself: he himself becomes a living and personal Law’. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor (6 August 1993), 15. Only a free event can ground a free event. Jesus is this free event underlying all creation, moral action, and salvation. He is the principle of our freedom. And not only is Jesus free, but Jesus is perfectly good. So in giving obedience to Jesus, one is neither enslaving oneself, nor is one acting arbitrarily. ‘Following Christ is thus the essential and primordial foundation of Christian morality’ (Ibid. 19). 15 There have been many suggestions about what, if anything, Jesus wrote on the ground. Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman explore a number of these interpretations, beginning with Ambrose of Milan and including Augustine, in ‘Earth Accuses Earth: Tracing What Jesus Wrote on the Ground’, Harvard Theological Review 103 (2010): 407-46. They mention Keith’s essay on the pericope adulterae, but take a different interpretative angle on the issue. ‘This essay takes a different tack, however, asking not what Jesus wrote or why he was represented writing but what claims about Jesus’ writing can reveal about the assumptions brought to bear on this passage and its text’ (413). As for Augustine’s interpretation of the passage, they write, ‘Implicit throughout Augustine’s exegesis of the passage is the view that, acting as God, Jesus inscribed judgment into the earth with his finger, a perspective Augustine shared with his teacher Ambrose and his contemporary Jerome’ (419). Their emphasis is on judgment here. Knust makes a similar point in another essay: ‘Jesus did not simply doodle in the dust, an option recommended by some modern interpreters; he wrote their sins upon the earth, showing that the Jews, unlike the Christians, were “sterile stone” that could not bear divine fruit’. Jennifer Wright Knust, ‘Early Christian Re-Writing and the History of the Pericope Adulterae’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 14 (2006), 485-536, 513. There is certainly something to be said for this interpretation, but I am emphasizing the mercy of the move, as indeed of the whole passage. If there is someone accused, it is the reader – that is, everyone, Jew, Christian, or unbeliever. It should be noted that Knust, later in the essay, does expand the point Augustine is making to include Christians as well as Jews: ‘Augustine presents sinning Jews and sinning Christians as morally equivalent’ (519). 16 Augustine, Tractate 33.5, 55; Audistis, Iudaei, pharisaei, audistis, legis doctores, legis custodem, sed nondum intellexistis Legislatorem (Tractatus XXXIII.5, CChr.SL 36, 308).

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this man.17 Their repentance and goodness of life are what Jesus wants, not their condemnation and punishment. ‘What else did he signify to you when he wrote on the ground with his finger? For the Law was written by the finger of God; but because they were hard men, it was written on stone. Now the Lord was writing on the ground, because he sought for fruit’.18 The Law-maker wants only for the law of love to live and grow in the hearts of his people. Thus, Augustine sees the writing on the ground as akin to planting a seed. But it is also an act of mercy, a further invitation to his accusers freely to seek forgiveness for their sins. He does not stare at them with righteous anger, which would have been just and might be the expectation of the reader; rather, he frees them (and the reader) to reflect on what matters most in human action. Augustine emphasizes this point. ‘But when the Lord had struck them with the shaft of justice, he deigned not to watch them collapse, but with his view turned away from them’.19 Again, he sought their free goodness, not their forced and fearful humiliation. What the first stooping down to write (the one before his words) signified Augustine does not say. Perhaps it was preparation for them to listen to his words and receive them – an invitation to wonder, to question. ‘Why does he not answer us? What is he doing? How humiliating for a teacher to bend down in front of his students?’ They were undoubtedly thrown off by this strange and unexpected reaction to their challenge, which created an opening in their train of thought into which his strange words might penetrate their fixed minds and hard hearts.20 Thus, Jesus defends the woman caught in adultery and turns the tables against her accusers, who are also his accusers. They hope to catch Jesus in an unresolvable dilemma between the demands of justice and mercy; instead, he has caught 17 ‘But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law … The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.’ Gal. 5:18, 22-3 (unless otherwise noted, all biblical citations from NRSV). 18 Augustine, Tractate 33.5, 55; Quid uobis aliud significat, cum digito scribit in terra? Digito enim Dei lex scripta est, sed propter duros in lapide scripta est. Nunc iam Dominus in terra scribebat, quia fructum quaerebat (Tractatus XXXIII.5, CChr.SL 36, 308). 19 Augustine, Tractate 33.5, 56; Dominus autem cum eos illo telo iustitiae percussisset, nec dignatus est cadentes adtendere, sed averso ab eis obtutu (Tractatus XXXIII.5, CChr.SL 36, 309). 20 This is our constant condition in this life: we have settled on our understanding (individual or communal) of truth and justice, which is always limited. The need to remain open to conscience – which is ultimately to remain open to God – is critical. Newman holds that conscience tells us immediately of God, even more than theoretical reason abstracting from sense experience. ‘As then we have our initial knowledge of the universe through sense, so do we in the first instance begin to learn about its Lord and God from conscience’. J.H. Newman, Grammar of Assent (1955), 68. For Keefe, consciousness is ultimately conscience. ‘The world of human experience is concretely historical, and so is man’s moral and salvific encounter with the historical world. This encounter is simultaneous with the existential self-awareness that is the moral conscience’. Donald J. Keefe, ‘Essay on the Relation of Faith to Reason’, Saint Anselm Journal 12 (2016), 81-127, 102-3.

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them, or rather the truth has caught them, which amounts ultimately to the same thing, since Jesus is Truth, living and personal.21 Whoever throws the first stone while a sinner violates the Law and is therefore subject to the Law. He who advocates stoning for sinning, while sinning himself, should himself be stoned. Only the just man has the right to judge. Augustine comments, ‘This is the voice of justice. Let the woman who has sinned be punished, but not by sinners; let the Law be fulfilled, but not by transgressors of the law. This is certainly the voice of justice’.22 This lesson the Scribes and Pharisees learn, as each goes away beginning with the elders. In his responsive challenge, Jesus invites the person without sin to be the first to cast a stone, that is, to lead the way in justice. But the just way turns out not to be the condemnation of the woman but the reflection on and repentance for one’s own sinful actions deserving of condemnation. The elders are first to depart, leading the way in repentance and humility of heart. This is what Jesus in his mercy seeks: not our condemnation, but our repentance and constant conscientious effort to be good. Thus Jesus at once insists on justice and gives mercy, even to those who do not deserve it – first to the woman and then to the Scribes and Pharisees. (The sin of the Scribes and Pharisees in seeking to destroy Jesus is graver, for they intend to destroy perfect innocence and goodness.) Jesus, because he is just and has no sin, is the fitting judge of the woman and of the Scribes and Pharisees. Augustine suggests that she must have been trembling before him, for he has the adequate wisdom to judge (as knowing all) and the right to judge (as being perfectly good). As Augustine puts it so memorably: ‘There were left [but] two, the pitiable woman and Pity’.23 Jesus does not condemn her, but neither does he excuse her behavior. He is merciful but still insists on justice. ‘“Has no man 21 This is truth as historical, free, and personal, not the universal and necessary conclusions of philosophy (Plato’s transcendent Forms, Aristotle’s universal and unchanging species). Moral action is always particular and free. There is always the danger of theology being understood in the terms of philosophy, according to our concepts. On historical reality, Keefe writes: ‘The pagan seers had held such vagrant and shifting time-bound phenomena to be intrinsically meaningless and so to be unintelligible until referred to a timeless norm, and Christian theologians are continually in danger of returning to that pagan refusal of the Good Creation whose goodness is its historicity, its freedom, its transcendence of all the ideal categories of autonomous rationality which would imprison it a priori in logical necessity’. D. Keefe, Covenantal Theology (1996), 479. Augustine’s close attention to scripture in the Tractates avoids this reductionism of the free moral act to abstract rule. As Joseph Ratzinger puts it, ‘One could very well describe Christianity as a philosophy of freedom. For Christianity, the explanation of reality as a whole is not an all-embracing consciousness or one single materiality; on the contrary, at the summit stands a freedom that thinks and, by thinking, creates freedom, thus making freedom the structural form of all being’. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J.R. Foster (San Francisco, 2004), 156. 22 Augustine, Tractate 33.5, 56; Haec uox iustitiae est; puniatur peccatrix, sed non a peccatoribus; impleatur lex, sed non a praeuaricatoribus legis. Haec uox omnino iustitiae est (Tractatus XXXIII.5, CChr.SL 36, 309). 23 Augustine, Tractate 33.5, 56; Relicti sunt duo, misera et misericordia (Tractatus XXXIII.5, CChr.SL 36, 309).

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condemned you?” She answered, “Lord, no man.” “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, sin no more”’.24 It is a prime example of that most fundamental of moral principles: hate the sin; love the sinner. Sin is bad and always to be condemned and avoided. But mercy for the person comes first, for the Lord seeks repentance and life, not despair and death. III In the rest of Tractate 33 and in the next few Tractates, Augustine applies the lesson of this scene to the Christian message in general, with implications for understanding the fullness of moral living. Just as the woman caught in adultery really had committed a serious sin, an act clearly unjust and deserving of punishment, so our sins are serious injustices deserving of punishment. Nevertheless, the Lord, who is truth and justice, is merciful. Indeed, Augustine will stress in Tractate 36 the priority of mercy over judgment; for the Father sent the Son to redeem the world, not to condemn the world. As Augustine says, ‘Christ has come, but first to save, afterwards to judge, by adjudging punishment for those who were unwilling to be saved and by leading those to life, who, by believing, did not spurn salvation. Thus the first dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ is medicinal, not judicial’.25 Just as Jesus insists on the freedom of conscience of the Scribes and Pharisees who accuse the adulteress and seek his destruction, so he insists on the freedom of all people to accept his mercy or to reject it. Though grace must precede repentance, no one is forced to repent. And it is only the actual rejection of mercy which is subject to judgment. Christ’s very mission of salvation would be impossible were not mercy prior to judgment. Augustine: ‘For if he had come first to judge, he would have found no one to whom to grant the rewards of justice; but mercy first, judgment afterwards’.26 However, although mercy is God’s abiding intention, we must not presume on the kindness of God, and Augustine warns that there are two great dangers which accompany us throughout this life: hoping and despairing. He does not mean to reject the theological virtue of hope, without which we would despair; the danger lies in our casual hope that God will always forgive us. ‘Who is 24 John 8:10-1, in Augustine, Tractate 33.6, 56; “Nemo te condemnauit?” Respondit illa: “Domine, nemo”. Et ille: “Nec ego te condemnabo … Vade, deinceps iam noli peccare” (Tractatus XXXIII.6, CChr.SL 36, 309). 25 Augustine, Tractate 36.4, 84; Venit Christus, sed primo saluare, postea iudicare: eos iudicando in poenam, qui saluari noluerumt; eos perducendo ad uitam, quie credendo salutem non respuerunt. Prima ergo dispensatio Domini nostri Jesu Christi medicinalis est, not iudicialis (Tractatus XXXVI.4, CChr.SL 36, 325). 26 Augustine, Tractate 36.4, 84; Nam si primo esset iudicium, nulla esset misericordia; sed primo misericordia, postea iudicium (Tractatus XXXVI.4, CChr.SL 36, 309).

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deceived by hoping? He who says, God is good, God is merciful; let me do what I please, what I feel like; let me relax the reins of my desires; let me fulfill the cravings of my soul. Why this? Because God is merciful, God is good, God is gentle. These men are imperiled by hope’.27 We should never sin or intend to sin in the future. But in the presumptive hope that God will always forgive me when I sin, I in some way condone those future sins, thus intending them implicitly and thereby sinning. On the other hand, we are also in danger of despair, of giving up all hope for the future. ‘But by despair, they who, when they have fallen into grave sins, think to themselves that they cannot be forgiven even though they are repentant, decide that they are without a doubt destined for damnation, and say to themselves, Now we must be damned: why not do as we want?’28 Despair closes us off from God’s mercy and thus, also, from the demands of justice. For if we believe we are hopelessly corrupt and bound for damnation, we will cease to care about being good. Grace is always given. Salvation is always on offer, whether to the woman caught in adultery, to the thief on the cross, or to us. Our lives in this world fluctuate between these two dangerous states of mind. ‘The mind fluctuates between hope and despair. It must be feared lest hope slays you; and when you hope for too much from mercy, you fall into judgment. Again, it must be feared lest despair slays you; and when you think that you cannot now be forgiven for grave sins you have committed, you do no penance and you encounter the Judge’.29 We must not close off repentance, whether we do so from a presumptive hope or from despair. God in his mercy has provided help to combat both dangers. For those in despair, he offers forgiveness and salvation. Augustine quotes Ezekiel: ‘On whatever day the wicked man is converted, I shall forget all his iniquities’.30 And he has mercifully provided us with a guard against false hope in the fact, obvious to anyone who reflects (believer or not), that we do not know how long we have to live. As Augustine says, God has guaranteed mercy to all those who repent, 27 Augustine, Tractate 33.8, 58; Sperando qui decipitur? Qui dicit: Bonus est Deus, misericors est Deus, faciam quod mihi placet, quod libet; laxem habenas cupiditatibus meis, impleam desideria animae meae. Quare hoc? Quia misericors est Deus, bonus est Deus, mansuetus est Deus. Spe isti periclitantur (Tractatus XXXII.8, CChr.SL 36, 310). 28 Augustine, Tractate 33.8, 58; Desperatione autem, qui cum inciderint in grauia peccata, putantes sibi non posse iam igosci paenitentibus, et statuentes se ad damnationem sine dubio destinatos, dicunt apud seipsos: Iam damnandi sumus, quare non quod uolumus facimus? (Tractatus XXXII.8, CChr.SL 36, 310). 29 Augustine, Tractate 33.8, 58; Inter spem et desperationem fluctuat animus. Metuendum est ne te occidat spes, et cum multum speras de misericordia, incidas in iudicium; metuendum est rursus ne te occidat desperatio, et cum putas iam tibi non ignosci quae grauia commisisti, non agas paenitentiam, et incurras in iudicem sapientiam (Tractatus XXXII.8, CChr.SL 36, 310). 30 Augustine, Tractate 33.8, 59; In quacumque die iniquus conuersus fuerit, omnes iniquitates eius obliuiscar (Tractatus XXXII.8, CChr.SL 36, 311). See Ezek. 18:21-2, 33:14-5; again the mercy of God is expressed in a clear and compelling way in Ezekiel.

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but he has not promised anyone long life. Indeed, given our sins and our need to choose freely to repent, this fact is an act of mercy on God’s part. ‘Because of those who are endangered by hope and deluded by delays, he has made the day of death uncertain. You do not know when the last day will come. Are you ungrateful because you have today, in which you may be corrected?’31 Though God’s mercy precedes our salvation, we must do all we can to be good. We must not be caught in our past sins, and if we sin today we must repent and strive to be better tomorrow. ‘A period of time for correction is bestowed on you; but you love procrastination more than amendment. Were you evil yesterday? Be good today. And have you spent this day in wickedness? At least change tomorrow’.32 As mentioned above in Tractate 36, Augustine underlines the priority of God’s mercy. It is ultimately even deeper than what is portrayed in the scene with the woman caught in adultery. For in that case, the Scribes and the Pharisees only intended the demise of the Lord (specifically the end of his mission), and they repented, at least for a time, of the evil they had intended. Thus, Jesus forgives their wicked intentions. But in the end, the Lord’s mercy is deeper even than that. The mercy of the Incarnation is deepened by the fact that Christ is rejected by his people, unjustly condemned, and put to death. His enemies do, in the end, intend and succeed in killing him, through what Augustine says is the most painful and humiliating of all death – crucifixion. Still, the Lord’s mercy is not dead. Even though all injustice has been done to him, he prefers mercy to judgment. His free acceptance of suffering and death, wholly undeserved, work the salvation of those who kill him and continue to celebrate his death. All this he chose in order to have mercy on us. ‘Therefore, he who came judged no one and suffered evil men. He endured unjust judgment that he might give a just one. But, that he endured unjust judgment was a part of his mercy’.33 Thus, mercy has priority over judgment.

IV. Conclusion As Augustine suggests before commenting on Jesus’ handling of the case of the adulteress, Jesus is at once true, gentle, and just. ‘He brought truth as a 31 Augustine, Tractate 33.8, 59; Propter illos ergo qui desperatione periclitantur, proposuit indulgentiae portum; propter illos qui spe periclitantur et dilationibus illuduntur, fecit diem mortis incertum. Quando ueniat ultimus dies, nescis. Ingratus es, quia hodiernum habes, in quo corrigaris? (Tractatus XXXII.8, CChr.SL 36, 311). 32 Augustine, Tractate, 33.7, 57; Largitur tibi spatium correctionis; sed tu plus amas dilationem quam emendationem. Malus fuisti heri? Hodie bonus esto. Et hodiernum diem in malitia peregisti? Uel cras mutare (Tractatus XXXIII.7, CChr.SL 36, 310). 33 Augustine, Tractate 36.4, 85; Qui ergo ideo uenit, neminem iudicauit, et malos passus est. Pertulit iniustum iudicium, ut ageret iustum. Sed in eo quod pertulit iniustum, misericordiae fuit (Tractatus XXXVI.4, CChr.SL 36, 326).

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teacher; gentleness as a deliverer, and justice as a defender’.34 We have seen how he defends and delivers the woman caught in adultery, himself, and even the Scribes and Pharisees. He does so by teaching the truth, more precisely, by living the truth. The only real truth is living truth – free truth. Adequate metaphysical truth about the way the world is must include the truth of human persons. It is impossible to explain the person by impersonal causes, however subtle. Moral truth must include the free action of the person.35 It is impossible to capture the fully moral life by universal precepts, however extensive and subtle. Such is the problem with making the law (divine, natural, or human) the instrument of judgment. This is not to say that the law is bad, or that there are not many true statements about what is always wrong and what constitutes good action.36 In fact, Jesus claims to come to fulfill the law. Paradoxically, Jesus invokes the justice of the law to have mercy on the Scribes and Pharisees. And the gift of the law to the Jews was itself an act of mercy. ‘What other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today’ (Deut. 4:8). This is only to say that moral action is free and personal. This is always true for Jesus. It was at least temporarily true for the Scribes and Pharisees who left in humility rather than exercise punishment in accordance with the written law. And it is true for us, when we live in the truth, which is to live in Christ, when Christ illumines our intellect and will.37 Augustine presents a condensed version of his illumination theory in Tractate 34, where he comments on Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world.38 We 34 Augustine, Tractate 33.4, 53-4; Ergo adtulit ueritatem ut doctor, mansuetudinem ut liberator, iustitiam ut cognitor (Tractatus XXXIII.4, CChr.SL 36, 307). 35 Keefe emphasizes the priority of free personal responsibility to universal law. ‘The rule of law is the radical expression of the dignity, freedom and personal responsibility out of which all law arises, and which it is the duty of all law to foster and defend’. Donald J. Keefe, ‘The Law and the Covenant: An Overview of Law and Freedom’, Patenting of Biological Entities, ITEST Proceeding, 1996 (St Louis, 1997), 57-118, 60. 36 Both John Paul II, in Veritatis Splendor (1993), 40-4, and Benedict XVI, in Encyclical Letter Deus est Caritas (25 December 2005), 28-9, insist on the importance of the natural law. 37 Conscience, according to Newman, is the voice of God speaking to the individual. It represents a kind of experiential verification of the natural law in us, a law that is ultimately the voice of a lawgiver, a person. ‘Conscience is not a long-sighted selfishness, nor a desire to be consistent with oneself; but it is a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ…’. John Henry Cardinal Newman, ‘Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s Expostulation of 1874’, in Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Considered (London, 1900), chapter 5, ‘Conscience’, II 248. John Paul II reflects on the uniqueness of Christian morality: ‘The Christian, thanks to God’s Revelation and to faith, is aware of the ‘newness’ which characterizes the morality of his actions: those actions are called to show either consistency or inconsistency with that dignity and vocation which have been bestowed on him by grace. In Jesus Christ and in his Spirit, the Christian is a “new creation”, a child of God’. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (1993), 73. 38 For more on Augustine’s illumination theory, see Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will, 2.10-3, and Confessions, 7.17.

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know truth in Christ (who is the light of wisdom for the intellect), and we live morally in Christ (who is the fountain of love for the will). ‘Mouths seek a fountain; eyes, light. When we thirst, we seek a fountain; when we are in darkness, we seek a light … Not so with God; light is the same thing as fountain; he who shines for you that you may see also himself flows for you that you may drink’.39 Christ offers us the light of wisdom for the intellect and the fire of love for the will so that we can live intelligently and virtuously in history, which is the only reality there is. Reality is not a Platonic transcendent abstraction, but the historical creation in Christ, in which all moral activity occurs.40 It is by being truth that Jesus reconciles those people in the scene and continues to reconcile those of us in this present life. As Saint Paul says in Ephesians: ‘For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace’.41 In this passage, Paul is explicitly referencing the reconciliation of Jews (those under the law) and Gentiles (those not under the law). In our passage, Jesus reconciles the Scribes and Pharisees (those under the law) with the woman caught in adultery (she who broke the law). More deeply, He who is under the law (the new law of love) – that is, Jesus – reconciles those not under the new law (both the woman and the Scribes and Pharisees and us in most of our choices). As Augustine says, it is not a matter of what we or others have done or even fail to do at the moment, but what we do and intend to do from now on. ‘Were you evil yesterday? Be good today. And have you spent this day in wickedness? At least change tomorrow’.42 Only the free choice to lead a good life – inspired by the illuminating grace of God – can make that life a reality. How is it that we are to act? What are we to say? We are to act and speak as Jesus did in our passage and always does: that is, freely, justly, and mercifully. According to James, ‘So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment’.43 The law of freedom is life in Christ. As God always gives us the opportunity to be converted, so we should 39 Augustine, Tractate 34.5, 64; Fontem fauces quaerunt, lumen oculi; quando sitimus, quaerimus fontem; quando in tenebris sumus, quaerimus lumen ... Non sic apud Deum: quod lumen est, hoc est fons; qui tibi lucet ut uideas, ipse tibi manat ut bibas (Tractatus XXXIV.5, CChr.SL 36, 313). 40 On Augustine’s theory of illumination, Keefe writes, ‘Augustinian illumination … refers to the objectively real, free condition of the possibility of our intellectual knowledge of historical reality’. D. Keefe, Covenantal Theology (1996), 478. 41 Eph. 2:14-5. 42 Augustine, Tractate, 33.7, 57; Largitur tibi spatium correctionis; sed tu plus amas dilationem quam emendationem. Malus fuisti heri? Hodie bonus esto. Et hodiernum diem in malitia peregisti? Uel cras mutare (Tractatus XXXIII.7, CChr.SL 36, 310). 43 Jas. 2:12-3.

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also offer the same to our fellow human beings. This is what Jesus in his mercy seeks – not our condemnation, but our repentance and constant conscientious effort to be good. And it is what we should seek for each other and ourselves – not judgement, blame, or revenge, but the mercy we have been shown. As Augustine says of Jesus’s way, ‘mercy first, judgment afterwards’.44 But of course, the only way we can remain in this humble and merciful state is by knowing justice and the truth about ourselves, which is that we do not fulfill the demands of justice. It is truth that reconciles justice and mercy – the truth that is Christ, in whom we are truly human.

44 Augustine, Tractate 36.4, 84; Nam si primo esset iudicium, nulla esset misericordia; sed primo misericordia, postea iudicium (Tractatus XXXVI.4, CChr.SL 36, 325).

Unity and Division in Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei Kristiaan VENKEN, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

ABSTRACT At the beginning of the fifth century, in response to pagan accusations that Christians were responsible for the fall of Rome in 410, Augustine wrote his De ciuitate Dei, a magnum opus on the origin, development and final destination of two cities, the ciuitas Dei and ciuitas terrena. There have already been many studies on the significance of these two cities, and the political importance of Augustine’s view on them. The importance of order has also already been investigated as a guiding principle for Augustine’s thinking. This paper aims to examine how unity and division, as aspects of order, can be found in De ciuitate Dei, especially in passages where Augustine refers to both cities themselves. For this purpose, those text fragments were looked up in De ciuitate Dei where Augustine uses key terms for unity and division as characteristics of order and disorder: unitas and concordia for unity, diuisio and discordia for division. These passages were arranged according to the dimensions of order and peace indicated by Augustine in De ciuitate Dei 19.13. Terms for both unity and division were found at all levels of order that Augustine identified, with the social dimension being the most common. Specific stories from the Bible or from Roman history where concordia, unitas, discordia and diuisio occur have significance for the ciuitas Dei or the ciuitas terrena or their relationship, especially the story of Cain and Abel, where the fratricide also serves as a model for the antagonism between the two cities. Terms for unity and division turned out to be valid aspects of order and disorder in De ciuitate Dei. They occur in all Augustine’s dimensions of order and thus indicate what ciuitas Dei and ciuitas terrena stand for: unity is a fundamental characteristic of the ciuitas Dei, and division or lack of unity of the terrena ciuitas. Moreover, the presence of such a dividedness in the terrena ciuitas is the cause of problems in society and of the difficult coexistence between the ciuitas Dei and the terrena ciuitas.

De ciuitate Dei: Augustine’s magnum opus In 410, the unthinkable happened. The barbarians had overrun Italy, and Alaric’s Goths sacked Rome. Pagan critique blamed the Christians for this catastrophe. Because the pagan cult had been abolished, Rome would have lost the protection of its traditional gods. Moreover, Christians would only be loyal to their religion, and not to the society in which they lived. Augustine answered to both critiques by writing his City of God. First, he denied that Rome’s gods had always defended Rome. Disasters in Roman history proved that they did

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not protect their city. Moreover, these gods had been an evil for Rome because their bad example had stimulated immorality, which had weakened the city. Second, Augustine challenged the accusation that Christians were not loyal to Rome, and for this, he presented his theory of two cities. Christians, indeed, are oriented to God. Their loyalty to God, however, does not prevent them from being loyal to the earthly institutions to which they belong. The result was a work of twenty-two books, written over a period of more than fifteen years. In 427, when Augustine published his ‘revisions’ (Retractationes), a review of his works, he only indicated relatively few, minor corrections to De ciuitate Dei, together with an overview of its structure.1 The structure reported is the following. The first part of De ciuitate Dei provides a refutation of the necessity of pagan religion and philosophy for earthly success and wellbeing (books one to five), or for eternal happiness and everlasting life (books six to ten). The second part of De ciuitate Dei is a treatment, in three series of four books, of Augustine’s theory of the two cities, the City of God (ciuitas Dei) and the earthly city (terrena ciuitas), in their origins, evolution and eternal destination. A clear idea of the concept of these cities, and of their citizens, is found in book fourteen. This text indicates what Augustine means with the two cities. These are not cities in the classical definition of the word, but rather ‘two orders of human society’ distinguished by their loyalty, either to God or not. On earth, these two cities are embodied in the many nations that exist in different times and places: Thus it is that, though there are a great many nations throughout the world, living according to different rites and customs, and distinguished by many different forms of language, arms and dress, there nonetheless exist only two orders, as we may call them, of human society; and, following our Scriptures, we may rightly speak of these as two cities. The one is made up of men who live according to the flesh, and the other of those who live according to the spirit. Each desires its own kind of peace, and, when they have found what they sought, each lives in its own kind of peace.2 I divide the human race into two orders. The one consists of those who live according to man, and the other of those who live according to God. Speaking allegorically, I also call these two orders two Cities: that is, two societies of men, one of which is predestined to reign in eternity with God, and the other of which will undergo eternal punishment with the devil.3

In his discussion on the meaning of res publica, Augustine refines its definition. With the classical definition of a populus based on a common understanding 1 See Retr. II, 69. Also in his letter to Firmus Augustine indicates how De ciuitate Dei is built up, there with a little more detail, see Ep. 1A*, 1. 2 De ciuitate Dei 14.1, R.W. Dyson (ed.), Augustine. The City of God against the Pagans, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, 1998), 581. All further quotations from De ciuitate Dei are also taken from Dyson. 3 De ciuitate Dei 15.1.

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of justice, the Roman republic could not be called a real res publica. Augustine therefore uses the criterion of a common love. In this way, the Roman republic could be called a res publica,4 and Augustine additionally has a criterion to distinguish the City of God and the earthly city: the Heavenly City is characterized by a love of God, the earthly city by selfishness, a love of self: “Two cities, then, have been created by two loves: that is, the earthly by love of self extending even to contempt of God, and the heavenly by love of God extending to contempt of self”.5 Analysis of De ciuitate Dei in terms of keywords for unity and division Unity is a characteristic of order and can be expressed in different terms, related to order, such as unitas and concordia,6 synonyms or near synonyms for peace.7 The different dimensions of peace that Augustine uses, in De ciuitate Dei 19.13 for example, are therefore suitable to study the different aspects of unity in Augustine’s magnum opus: The peace of the body, therefore, lies in the balanced ordering of its parts; the peace of the irrational soul lies in the rightly ordered disposition of the appetites; the peace of the rational soul lies in the rightly ordered relationship of cognition and action; the peace of body and soul lies in the rightly ordered life and health of a living creature; peace between mortal man and God is an ordered obedience, in faith, under an eternal law; and peace between men is an ordered agreement of mind with mind. The peace of a household is an ordered concord, with respect to command and obedience, of those who dwell together; the peace of a city is an ordered concord, with respect to command and obedience, of the citizens; and the peace of the Heavenly City is a perfectly ordered and perfectly harmonious fellowship in the enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things lies in the tranquillity of order.8 4

See De ciuitate Dei 19.21. De ciuitate Dei 14.28. 6 Augustine uses several words that have a meaning similar or very close to ordo, such as unitas, concordia, pulchritudo, conuenientia, contextio, see Anne-Isabelle Bouton-Touboulic, L’ordre caché. La notion d’ordre chez saint Augustin, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 174 (Paris, 2004), 21. 7 See Margaret Atkins, ‘Pax’, in Robert Dodaro, Cornelius Mayer and Christof Müller (eds), Augustinus-Lexikon 4 (Basel, 2016), 566-74, 568. 8 De ciuitate Dei 19.13. The Latin text has: Pax itaque corporis est ordinata temperatura partium, pax animae inrationalis ordinata requies appetitionum, pax animae rationalis ordinata cognitionis actionisque consensio, pax corporis et animae ordinata uita et salus animantis, pax hominis mortalis et Dei ordinata in fide sub aeterna lege oboedientia, pax hominum ordinata concordia, pax domus ordinata imperandi atque oboediendi concordia cohabitantium, pax ciuitatis ordinata imperandi atque oboediendi concordia ciuium, pax caelestis ciuitatis ordinatissima et concordissima societas fruendi Deo et inuicem in Deo, pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis. The Latin text is from Bernardus Dombart and Alphonsus Kalb (eds), De ciuitate Dei. Libri XIXXII, CChr.SL 48 (Turnhout, 1955), 678-9. 5

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Thus in terms of peace and order, four individual and five interpersonal dimensions can be identified,9 plus a tenth, which expresses the peace of all things of creation. Based on these aspects of peace, a total of seven dimensions was identified for examination: unity or division of the individual man, between man and God, between men, of the household, of society, of the Heavenly City, and of all things. With the objective of assessing Augustine’s vision of unity and division in general, and within or between the earthly city and the Heavenly City in particular, the occurrence in De ciuitate Dei of key terms for these concepts was examined, by means of a keyword study in De ciuitate Dei. Diuisio and discordia were used as keywords for division, unitas and concordia were chosen as terms for unity, each with related terms derived from the same root.10 The following sections present the results for the different keywords with respect to unity and division for the indicated dimensions.11 In principle, the dimensions where the keywords are more common are dealt with first and in more detail.12 A first section explains the results regarding humanity, the earthly city, and the celestial city with its relationship to the earthly city. After that, the results are discussed in relation to the family, to man, individually and in his relationship to God, and to creation. This is followed by an overview of the use of unity and division outside the dimensions indicated above.

9 See M. Atkins, ‘Pax’ (2016), 568-9. For concordia and discordia, similar dimensions can be identified: M.-F. Berrouard distinguishes five areas of concordia and discordia: in all creatures, in men, in society, in the family, in the Church, and additionally three other fields where concordia applies: the unity and trinity of God, concordia as a work of mercy and in the Kingdom of God, and the concordance of Holy Scripture, especially between the Old and New Testaments, see Marie-François Berrouard, ‘Concordia – discordia’, in Cornelius Mayer (ed.), Augustinus-Lexikon 1 (Basel, 1994), 1107-11. 10 The keywords for unity, unitas or concordia, were chosen based on their analogy and relationship to ordo, as indicated above on the basis of A.-I. Bouton-Touboulic, L’ordre caché (2004), 21, discordia as a natural opposite of concordia, as indicated by M.-F. Berrouard, ‘Concordia – discordia’ (1994), 1107-11, mentioned above. Diuisio was used as a logical counterpart to unitas. The keyword study was performed with the online version of the Corpus Augustinianum Gissense, www.cag3.net, using wildcards and logical operators to search for related forms of the keywords. In what follows, when the keywords are mentioned as search terms, this implies these related forms as well. 11 With these keywords and related forms, one hundred and fourteen passages were identified, eleven containing discordia and related terms, thirty-one concordia, seventeen unitas, and fifty-five diuisio. 12 Twenty passages relate to mankind as a whole, twenty-four to the earthly society, twenty-six have a religious meaning. Furthermore, there are eighteen text fragments, six each, that refer to the family or household, the elements of creation, and the Heavenly City. In two passages the chosen keywords relate to the individual human being. Additionally, the keywords concordia and diuisio are used in a broader context: concordia eight times to indicate a logical agreement between topics, diuisio sixteen times for division of material goods or as a tool for classification.

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Unity and division of mankind, the earthly city and the Heavenly City With the confusion of tongues, mankind became divided: the nations were distributed over the earth according to language (Gen. 11:1-9). This division was a punishment for man’s pride.13 His common language, an instrument of command, was taken away: “Let us, then, search among those peoples of mankind who were, we gather, divided in those days into seventy-two nations and the same number of languages, to see if we can find among them the City of God on pilgrimage here on earth”.14 All men share the same nature. Because all men descend from the first man Adam, they are all related to each other as well, joined by family links of some kind. These two facts, common nature and kinship, should be an incentive to come to unity in situations of conflict: “God chose to create the human race from one single man. His purpose in doing this was not only that the human race should be united in fellowship by a natural likeness, but also that men should be bound together by kinship in the unity of concord, linked by the bond of peace”.15 In all mankind, distributed throughout the earth among different peoples with all kinds of different customs and habits, Augustine distinguishes only two kinds, which, according to biblical language, he calls two cities: the city of the people who live according to the flesh, and the city of the people who live according to the spirit, each in its own kind of peace.16 In this way chapter 14.1 ends with a hint to the two cities to which Augustine devotes his De ciuitate Dei, the City of God and the earthly city. With the Babylonian confusion of tongues, people around the world became divided according to language. With the miracle of Pentecost, people of all nations and languages who believe in Christ were reunited again: Christ “sent the Holy Spirit, as He had promised; and the greatest and most striking signs of the Spirit’s coming to those who believed was that each one of them spoke in the tongues of all nations. In this way, it was shown that the unity of the 13 Pride is the root of all sins (De musica 6.40), and sin is a breach of order, an inordinatio (Ad Simplicianum 1.2.18), see R.A. Markus, ‘De ciuitate dei: Pride and the Common Good’, in Joseph C. Schnaubelt and Frederick Van Fleteren (eds), Augustine: “Second Founder of the Faith”, Collectanea Augustiniana (New York, 1990), 245-59, 247-8. In his Confessions (Confessiones 10.64) Augustine indicates a movement “from more overt to the more concealed forms of pride” (R.A. Markus, ‘Pride and the Common Good’ [1990], 249). Augustine’s notion of pride thus evolved from an individual perspective to the social approach in Augustine’s later works, where pride is seen as the “sin of isolation” (ibid.). This social view is present when Augustine describes the two opposing loves (duo amores … alter socialis, alter priuatus; De Genesi ad litteram 11.15.20), which will characterise the two cities in his City of God (De ciuitate Dei 14.28). This social dimension also prevails in De ciuitate Dei, see R.A. Markus, ‘Pride and the Common Good’ (1990), 251. 14 De ciuitate Dei 16.9. 15 De ciuitate Dei 14.1. 16 Ibid.

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Catholic Church would be fulfilled in all the nations, and that she would therefore speak in all tongues”.17 Emblematic for the division in the earthly city is Rome’s beginning, when Romulus killed Remus: “Thus, the strife that arose between Remus and Romulus showed the extent to which the earthly city is divided against itself”.18 Throughout its history, Rome has always been characterized by conflict and division. Roman history shows further proofs of dividedness and discord. An example of this is republican Rome, where social injustice developed into discords and internal disputes, and finally lead to secession: Thereafter, the patricians treated the common people as their slaves, and dealt with their lives and bodies after the fashion of the kings, driving them from their fields, and lording it over those who were destitute of land. The common people, oppressed by these cruelties, and especially by high rates of interest, and at the same time bearing the burden of taxation and military service in the ceaseless wars, withdrew under arms to the Sacred Hill and the Aventine, and so presently secured for themselves the Tribunes of the People and other rights. But the end of discord and strife on both sides was brought about only by the second Punic War.19

Regarding unity in the earthly city, Augustine twice repeats Scipio’s analogy between a concord state and a piece of music.20 A piece of music consists of different tones that form a harmonious whole through moderation. Likewise, a state consisting of different groups of people can be brought to concord by means of reason and moderation: Among the different sounds of lyres or flutes and the voices of singers, a certain harmony must be maintained which the cultivated ear cannot bear to hear disrupted or discordant; and such harmony, concordant and consistent, may be brought about by the balancing of even the most dissimilar voices. So too, when the highest, lowest and, between them, the intermediate orders of society are balanced by reason as though they were voices, the city may embody a consonance blended of quite dissimilar elements. What musicians call harmony in singing is concord in the city, which is the most artful and best bond of security in the commonwealth, and which, without justice, cannot be secured at all.21 17

De ciuitate Dei 18.49. In addition, Augustine refers briefly to Pentecost in chapter 19.6, in connection with the positive meaning of fire there. Augustine also devotes thirteen sermons to Pentecost, see 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, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 177 (Leiden, 2014), 90. See also E. Lamirande, ‘L’annonce de l’unité dans l’universalité. Un aspect de la théologie augustinienne de la Pentecôte’, Spiritus – Cahiers de spiritualité missionnaire 19 (1964), 157-74, 158, quoted in A. Dupont, Preacher (2014), 90, n. 1: “Augustine’s reflections on Pentecost mainly develop the theme of diversity or catholicity in unity”. 18 De ciuitate Dei 15.5. 19 De ciuitate Dei 3.17, Augustine quoting Sallust, Hist. frag., I,11. 20 In De ciuitate Dei 2.21 and 17.14. 21 De ciuitate Dei 2.21, Augustine quoting Cicero, De resp., 2,69.

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The final sentence is an introduction to the main argument of the chapter, namely the characterization of a commonwealth (res publica), the definition of a people (populus), and to determine whether injustice or justice – even perfect justice – is needed to govern a state. The definition of a people as an “assembly united in fellowship by common agreement of what is right and by a community of interest”,22 according to Augustine, is not tenable, for this requires justice. Perfect justice exists only in Heavenly Jerusalem,23 and a nation that does not worship God is unjust anyway, for it does not give to God what is due to Him. Thus, Rome could never be considered a real res publica, in virtue of Christian teaching. In De ciuitate Dei 19.24, therefore, Augustine will propose a new “more modest definition [...], one which demands some justice but not perfect justice”,24 a new definition in line with his idea of the two orientations of the people who define the two cities: a people is “an assembled multitude of rational creatures bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love”.25 Augustine comes to this definition because he realizes that perfect justice on earth is not possible. With this characterisation he avoids to make a judgement in the dispute that he quotes from Cicero in De ciuitate Dei 2.21, whether justice or injustice is necessary to govern a state. Through his examples from the history of the Roman republic he indicated that the unity in the state was lost through injustice. It was not the end of injustice but an external threat that restored unity, as happened in republican Rome between the second and third Punic wars: “The cause of this happy state of affairs, however, was not the love of justice, but the fear of an uncertain peace while Carthage remained standing”.26 This was also the reason why Scipio opposed Cato when the latter wanted to see Carthage destroyed, because Scipio feared the consequences of the feeling of security. This indeed became true: after the destruction of Carthage the internal concord in Rome was broken again, and riots and civil wars arose.27 Finally, because of their lust for domination, some got the upper hand, the rest was brought to a state of subjugation.28 This desire to rule, identified in De 22

De ciuitate Dei 2.21. See Richard J. Dougherty, ‘Christian and Citizen: The Tension in St. Augustine’s De civitate dei’, in Joseph C. Schnaubelt and Frederick Van Fleteren (eds), Augustine: “Second Founder of the Faith”, Collectanea Augustiniana (New York, 1990), 205-24, 208, quoting from De ciuitate Dei 2.21 and 19.24. 24 Donald X. Burt, ‘Friendship and the State’, in Joseph T. Lienhard, Earl C. Muller and Roland J. Teske (eds), Augustine. Presbyter Factus Sum, Collectanea Augustiniana (New York, 1993), 249-61, 250. 25 De ciuitate Dei 19.24. 26 De ciuitate Dei 2.18. 27 See De ciuitate Dei 1.30. 28 Ibid. Augustine here uses the word ‘slavery’ (seruitus), to indicate the situation where Rome was governed by a single ruler, see Gerard Wijdeveld (ed.), Aurelius Augustinus. De stad van God (Amsterdam, 1983), 1207, n. 73. 23

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ciuitate Dei as the lust for domination (libido dominandi), is “the pride that in its most aggravated condition seeks unity and absolute power over all things temporal”.29 The divided earthly city contrasts with the united Heavenly City. On earth, both cities, the earthly city and the earthly part of the Heavenly City, have the same origin. Both started in the first man Adam. All are descendants from Adam, so all citizens of either city descend from Adam. Augustine describes this at the end of book twelve: For the time being, however, since we must bring this book to a close, let us merely say that in this first man, who was created in the beginning, there arose – not, indeed, overtly, but in the foreknowledge of God – the two societies or cities to which the human race belongs. For from that first man all other men were to come forth: some to share with the wicked angels in their punishment and others to be associated with the good angels in their reward, but all according to the hidden but just judgment of God.30

All men were created to belong to the City of God. But after this common origin soon a distinction occurred between the citizens of both cities. Abel was a citizen of the City of God. Cain, who killed his brother Abel, by doing so, belonged to the earthly city. The city he founded was an early embodiment of the earthly city: “The first founder of the earthly city, then, was a fratricide; for, overcome by envy, he slew his brother, who was a citizen of the eternal city and a pilgrim on this earth”.31 The duty of the City of God on her pilgrimage on earth is to call on the name of God. The first time that this is mentioned in the Bible is when Cain’s brother Seth – his name means ‘resurrection’ – invokes the name of God. This one man Seth reflects the unity of the Heavenly City: But why does he go back to the capitulation at this point, after the mention of the son of Seth, the man who ‘hoped to call on the name of the Lord God’, if not because this is a fitting way of presenting the two cities: the one beginning with a murderer and ending with a murderer (for Lamech also confesses to his two wives that he has slain a man), and the other beginning with a man who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God? For the supreme task, in this world, of the pilgrim City of God, its whole task during this mortal life, is to call upon God; and this fact is commended to us in the person of the one man who was certainly ‘the son of the resurrection’ of Abel, who was slain. In this one man, indeed, is signified the unity of the whole Supernal City: a unity which is not yet completed, but whose completion in time to come is prefigured by this prophetic foreshadowing.32 29 Michael Foley, ‘The Other Happy Life: The Political Dimensions to St. Augustine’s Cassiciacum Dialogues’, in Richard J. Dougherty (ed.), Augustine’s Political Thought, Rochester Studies in Medieval Political Thought (Rochester, NY, 2019), 36-52, 42, referring to De uera religione 45.84. 30 De ciuitate Dei 12.28. 31 De ciuitate Dei 15.5. 32 De ciuitate Dei 15.21.

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The fratricide of Cain inflicted upon Abel shows the hostility between the earthly city and the City of God and gives the reason why both cities are so fundamentally opposed against one another: the evil in Cain does not support the good in Abel: the strife which arose between Cain and Abel demonstrated the hostility between the two cities themselves, the City of God and the city of men. The wicked, therefore, strive among themselves; and, likewise, the wicked strive against the good and the good against the wicked. But the good, if they have achieved perfection, cannot strive among themselves.33

So, while there is unity in the Heavenly City,34 there is division inside the earthly city, and opposition between the City of God and the earthly city. The citizens of the City of God on earth, however, and the citizens of the earthly city share the same time and space, and thus they need to cooperate.35 Therefore, the citizens of the City of God make use of earthly structures and temporary goods, and obey earthly laws in view of earthly peace: So also, the earthly city, which does not live by faith, desires an earthly peace, and it establishes an ordered concord of civic obedience and rule in order to secure a kind of co-operation of men’s wills for the sake of attaining the things which belong to this mortal life. But the Heavenly City – or, rather, that part of it which is a pilgrim in this condition of mortality, and which lives by faith – must of necessity take use of this [earthly] peace also, until this mortal state, for which such peace is necessary, shall have passed away. Thus, it lives like a captive and a pilgrim, even though it has already received the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as a kind of pledge of it. But, for as long as it does so, it does not hesitate to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the things necessary for the support of this mortal life are administered. In this way, then, since this mortal condition is common to both cities, a harmony is preserved between them with respect to the things which belong to this condition.36

Unity and division of the individual person, the family, God and God’s relation to man, and creation Augustine also discussed the other dimensions of peace in relation with unity and division. On each of these levels, both unity and division are mentioned. With respect to the individual, Augustine indicates how the cooperation of 33

De ciuitate Dei 15.5. See De ciuitate Dei 15.21, quoted above, indicating that the unity of the City of God on earth remains imperfect until completion in heaven. 35 See R.W. Dyson, The Pilgrim City. Social and Political Ideas in the Writings of St Augustine of Hippo (Woodbridge, 2001), 47: “[T]hese ‘cities’, as we know, are not confined to any particular place or time”. 36 De ciuitate Dei 19.17, continuing the analogy with the household, and the order of commanding and obeying in the earthly city. 34

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body, mind and spirit was disturbed by original sin.37 The hierarchy of the body, where every part or member knows its due place, is a model for the harmonious hierarchy in the City of God.38 The few references of unity and division in the configuration of a family or household are mainly used to imply that their characteristics are also valid on a higher level, such as the nation, or the world. Two fratricides are a model for division: the murder of Remus by Romulus indicates the division inside the earthly city; and the killing of Abel by Cain refers to the division between the earthly city and the City of God.39 With the analogy between a city of many households of several citizens and a world of numerous kingdoms of many people, Augustine indicates that peace is possible in such a configuration, at least theoretically: But, on the other hand, if men were always peaceful and just, human affairs would be happier and all kingdoms would be small, rejoicing in concord with their neighbours. There would be as many kingdoms among the nations of the world as there are now houses of the citizens of a city.40

Unity and division also play a role on a religious level. Unity is the characteristic of God and ideally also of everyone who is connected with God. Dividedness is the mark of those who are opposed to God or separated from Him. The unity of God, Who is one,41 contrasts with the illogical division of the gods in the traditional Roman religion that attributes all sorts of works and responsibilities to all kinds of gods.42 Unity in the Church implies to have Christ as the foundation, and to be united with Christ through the sacrament(s). Being a Christian requires to live a good life. The unity of the Church is under pressure by heresies, schisms, and by the presence of unclean people.43 Creation shows both unity and division as well. There is a unity of creation as a whole, and particularly of the light that was created. “One day”, the specific wording used in the Book of Genesis (Gen. 1),44 instead of counting these 37

See De ciuitate Dei 14.16. See De ciuitate Dei 22.30. 39 See De ciuitate Dei 15.5. 40 De ciuitate Dei 4.15. This chapter discusses how Rome became a world empire by waging wars. The ideal world consists of many small kingdoms living side by side in peace. The second-best scenario is when an empire has grown by waging just wars caused by the injustice of its enemies. The worst situation is when an unjust nation rules over righteous people. 41 See De ciuitate Dei 11.24. 42 See De ciuitate Dei 4.10 and 7.23 (the attribution of several parts of creation to different gods), 6.1 (different works attributed to different gods) and 7.24 (the arbitrary multiplication of the number of gods). 43 See De ciuitate Dei 21.21 (Christ as the foundation of the Church), 21.25 (the sacramental unity with Christ), 21.26 (how to live as a Christian) and 15.27 (threats to the internal unity of the Church). 44 The expression ‘one day’ is “[n]ot [used] however, in English translations of Gen. 1,5ff”, R.W. Dyson, The City of God (1998), 461, n. 29. 38

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days separately, refers to this unity. The light of creation symbolizes the good angels that are part of the City of God: There is no doubt, therefore, that if the angels belong to the works of God completed during these six days, they are that light which received the name ‘day’, and whose unity is indicated when it is called, not ‘the first day’, but ‘one day’. Nor is it otherwise with the second day, and the third, and so on. Rather, the same expression ‘one day’ is repeated until the number is made up to six or seven, so that there should be a sevenfold knowledge: that is, of the six days during which God made His works, and the seventh when God rested.45

Creation also contains a division, namely between light and dark, this is between good and evil, between the good angels and the wicked ones. This division takes place in the heavenly part of creation. Later the earthly part of creation will join one of both sides: Thus, even if another kind of light is to be understood in that passage of the Book of Genesis where it is said, ‘God said, Let there be light, and there was light’ [Gen. 1:3]; and even if another kind of darkness is signified where it is written that ‘God divided the light from the darkness’ [Gen. 1:4]: we, nonetheless, understand by these words [light and dark] the two companies of angels. The one company enjoys God; the other is swollen with pride. To the one, it is said, ‘Praise ye Him, all His angels’ [Ps. 97:7]; the prince of the other says, ‘All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ [Matt. 4:9] The one burns with the holy love of God; the other smoulders with the impure love of glory.46

Concordia and diuisio beyond the dimensions of peace Two of the keywords, concordia and diuisio, also occur in contexts that cannot easily be connected with the dimensions of peace of De ciuitate Dei 19.13. Contrary to the previous points, where concordia was used positively and diuisio mainly in a negative sense, in this case both terms have a positive meaning.47 Concordia is used to refer to the logical or chronological correspondence between sources or data, the agreement between various texts in Scripture or Bible, and disagreement in what pagan oracles announce about Christ.48 Concordia is a proof of truth for a given source, missing concordia an indication of unreliability.49 Diuisio is used, in a logical sense, as an instrument of classification,50 and to indicate material division, of spoils, territory, and 45

De ciuitate Dei 11.9. De ciuitate Dei 11.33. 47 A possible exception being De ciuitate Dei 17.17, where Augustine quotes Matt. 27:35, describing how Christ’s clothes were divided when He was crucified. 48 All of these cases, except one, use the term concordantia instead of concordia. 49 See De ciuitate Dei 19.23. 50 In total seven occurrences in De ciuitate Dei. 46

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property. Correct material division is constitutive for an organisation,51 and a means to preserve peace. Because of an acceptable division of the territory between Abraham and Lot, disputes were avoided between their respective families, and between themselves; it also secured peace between their people: Abraham and Lot therefore separated to avoid strife and discord between their servants; otherwise, human nature being what it is, quarrels might have arisen between themselves also. [...] Perhaps this was the origin of the peaceable custom among men whereby, when any land is to be shared, the elder makes the division and the younger has the choice.52

Goods in the Heavenly City have a different nature than goods in the earthly city. This implies a fundamental distinction between the division of goods in the Heavenly City and in the earthly city. In the Heavenly City the goods are unlimited and increase through distribution or division. Conversely, goods in the earthly city are limited: they decrease by division, which causes competition between people for scarce earthly goods.53 Conclusion: unity of ciuitas Dei, division of ciuitas terrena, and opposition between both By means of four keywords: unitas, diuisio, concordia, and discordia, the occurrence of unity and division in Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei was investigated for the different dimensions that Augustine indicated for peace in the same work. Unity and division occur in all these dimensions, but most prominently on the social level, this is between people within the city and within humanity, or with respect to religion and in the relationship between man and God. The other contexts: within man, the family, the Heavenly City, and creation receive less attention. In addition, concordia and diuisio are also technical terms used to represent correspondence, classification or material division. For each of Augustine’s dimensions of peace, the keywords for unity generally describe the ideal situation, terms for division indicate how this prefect situation has become corrupted since the Fall and by a wrong orientation of man. Unity is a characteristic of the City of God. It mirrors the unity of God, of creation, and the harmony in the body. Division is typical for the earthly city. 51 See De ciuitate Dei 4.4, where Augustine compares a kingdom with a gang of robbers. Both organizations are not so very different, having a similar set of four house rules, one of which is the agreement on the division of property, – loot in case of a robbers’ gang. 52 De ciuitate Dei 16.20. According to Seneca, Controuersiae VI, 3, such a custom would have been prescribed in Roman law for the division of inheritances, see G. Wijdeveld, De stad van God (1983), 1237, n. 79. 53 See De ciuitate Dei 15.5. See also Patricia MacKinnon, ‘Augustine’s City of God: The Divided Self/The Divided Civitas’, in Dorothy F. Donnelly (ed.), The City of God. A collection of critical essays (New York, 1995), 319-52, 340.

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It becomes visible in a world of nations distributed per language and in the conflicts in human societies. As a fundamental opposition between good and evil, division also marks the relation between the City of God and the earthly city and their respective citizens. The biblical story of Cain and Abel plays a decisive role in Augustine’s argumentation about the identities of both cities. Cain’s tendency to kill is a characteristic of the earthly city. The fratricide refers to the enmity between the earthly city and the City of God. Abel’s line, continued in his brother Seth, indicates the orientation of the ciuitas Dei towards God. In De ciuitate Dei, Augustine thus endeavoured to make a distinction in human society between two groups of people, those directed towards God, and those directed towards earthly things. In Augustine’s magnum opus, division proved to be a characteristic of the earthly city, and unity of the Heavenly City. The fact that the terms for unity and division appear in all areas that Augustine foresaw for order and peace suggests that he saw unitas and concordia indeed as terms to describe order. Discordia points to disorder, as well as diuisio where applicable to the dimensions of peace. On the other hand, diuisio can equally indicate a logical division, and in this sense, it refers to order as well. By giving explicit feedback to both cities through Bible stories and accounts from Roman history where terms for unity and division occur, Augustine indicated that unity and division are fundamental characteristics of the Heavenly City and of the earthly city respectively.

Charity and Pastoral Power: A Reconsideration of Political Augustinianism Jonathan TEUBNER, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia, and Humboldt Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

ABSTRACT Scholars of political Augustinianism have interpreted Augustine’s ‘Christian emperor’ as someone who exercises pastoral care (e.g., Williams, 1987; Milbank, 1990; Dodaro, 2004; Kaufman, 2017). This central historical claim of political Augustinianism is established, in part, by associating Emperor Theodosius’s confession and repentance with Pauline humility in ciu. 5.26. By comparing what Augustine finds praiseworthy in Theodosius’s acts of love in ciu. 5.25 with his own love-driven actions in ep. 185 (De correctione Donatistarum) and his comments on the relationship between charity and correction in the recently discovered Erfurt Sermons (esp. s. 350D/Erfurt 2), I contend that the association between the Apostle and Emperor must be extended to consider the ways in which Theodosius is portrayed as taking up Pauline correctio cum caritate. Through the association of Theodosius with Pauline correction, Augustine has subtly incorporated a coercive pastoral rule in the Emperor’s vocation, one that sits awkwardly beside his positive appraisal of Theodosius as a humble ruler. In conclusion, I offer some programmatic suggestions about how we might recast political Augustinianism in light of the deeply ambivalent nature of love for Augustine.

In this essay, I aim to complicate a certain understanding of Augustine’s portrait of the Emperor Theodosius I in the concluding paragraphs of book five of the City of God. For the better part of the last two decades, it has been common to call upon an image of ‘pastoral’ authority or power to describe Augustine’s ideal emperor.1 The bluntest presentation of this comes from the pen of John Milbank. According to Milbank, Augustine’s ‘Christian emperor must try, as far as possible, to exercise a pastoral rule’.2 This was given deeper expression by Robert Dodaro, who gave us a picture of Theodosius as a kind of moral 1 See, inter alia, Rowan Williams, ‘Politics and the soul: a reading of the City of God’, Milltown Studies 19/20 (1987), 55-74 [reprinted and lightly revised in R. Williams, On Augustine (London, 2016), 107-29]; John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford, 1990), 407, 418-22; Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge, 2004); and Peter Iver Kaufman, Augustine’s Leaders (Eugene, 2017). 2 J. Milbank, Theology and Social Theory (1990), 419; emphasis mine.

Studia Patristica CXVII, 121-129. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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derivative of the Apostle Paul.3 The link between Theodosius and Paul is, for Dodaro, humility in practice. Both Theodosius and Paul displayed the virtue of humility through confessing and repenting of their sins, and Augustine was keen to highlight this vision of humility as a social virtue. While I have no significant reservations with Dodaro’s account of Paul as optimus uir, I think the connection between Theodosius and Paul is cast too narrowly. When we look at the full portrait that Augustine draws of Theodosius, we find not only the virtue of humility in correction but also a highly suggestive example of charity. It is this virtue of charity that I want to expand on. As is widely appreciated, Augustine appealed to a Pauline caritas to underwrite his justifications for coercion, and I think we ought to consider what it might mean to associate Theodosius with such understandings of caritas.4 In conclusion, I turn to reflect briefly on what I think this might mean for political Augustinianism as a moral or ethical discourse. The case of Theodosius At City of God 5.26, Augustine portrays Theodosius as an example of a ‘happy’ (felix) emperor. Theodosius’s political success is to a certain extent undeniable: he ruled over the Roman Empire from 379 to 395 and was the last to lay claim to both the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire. But Augustine’s case for Theodosius’s felicity comes down to two episodes. In the first episode, Theodosius is shown as loving his captives from the battle of Frigidus with ‘Christian charity’; and in the second, Theodosius is displaying humility in submitting to the church’s correction for the Massacre of Thessalonica that his Gothic troops carried out. The second episode has been given much more attention by political Augustinians than the first. This is, no doubt, in part because of the centrality that Augustine gives to humility, not only here in the City of God but throughout his writings.5 Dodaro, in particular, has pressed this interpretation into the service of an anti-Pelagian reading of the City of God. There is of course warrant for reading the City of God within the context of the Pelagian controversy, for the bulk of it was written while Augustine was in the throes of his disputes with Pelagius and his followers. We are continually finding 3

R. Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society (2004), 191-5. I am in Allan Fitzgerald’s debt for his gentle reminder of Peter Brown’s sense of coercitio in conversation that followed the conference. In keeping with Brown, I use coercitio here to mean correction or admonition with overtones of force behind. But it does not necessarily mean ‘coercion’ as understood in English. See P. Brown, ‘Religious coercion in the Later Roman Empire: The Case of North Africa’, in P. Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (New York, 1972), 301-33, 274-5; and P. Brown, ‘Saint Augustine’s Attitude to Religious Coercion’, Journal of Roman Studies 54 (1964), 107-16. 5 See Michael Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere (Oxford, 2012), 151-4. 4

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more ways in which Augustine’s flagship ‘political treatise’ is no less mired in the gritty theological disputes than De trinitate. Like Augustine’s own career, the City of God is polemically unwieldy. But if we momentarily shift the focus from the second to the first episode, themes from the Donatist controversy come into view. As I have already intimated, the portrait of Theodosius was not only about his humility in submitting to the church’s correction, of accepting his own limitation and need for grace. It was also a story of Theodosius’ Christian love and charity. Just before the well-trod passages of Theodosius’ correction, Augustine reports that Theodosius discovered the sons of his enemies (Eugenius and Arbogast) had taken refuge in a church, ‘even though they were not yet Christians’. Wishing the sons to be Christian, Theodosius ‘loved them with Christian charity’ (Christiana caritate dilexit).6 While Augustine is relatively terse regarding the specifics of Theodosius’ ‘Christian charity’, he reports that Theodosius ‘did not deprive them of their property’ but rather ‘added to their honor’. This suggests that Theodosius was somehow materially supporting the sons of his enemies. Augustine’s correspondence with Macedonius, the vicar of Africa, can further illuminate this brief passage. In his final letter to Macedonius (ep. 155), which was likely written around the same time he was drafting book five (414), Augustine argued that a statesman’s ‘primary objective in governing piously should be to assist his subjects to love God’.7 He goes on to stipulate that this could be achieved through assisting ‘those in material need or disciplining those who undermine public security’.8 The convergence of correction and charity in ep. 155 points us to a rather different representation of Paul than we find in Dodaro. Instead of a Paul as paragon of humility, we find Paul the disciplinarian lovingly correcting his congregations. Weaponizing caritas The most prominent discussion of coercive correction or ‘discipline’ comes in Letter 185 to the military tribune Boniface, which was written soon after the circulation of book five of the City of God, so it is timely for the purposes of this essay. The issue that is immediately at stake in this letter is the use of coercion. I am less interested here in how and to what extent Augustine justifies coercion tout court than the vision of pastoral discipline that he draws from a certain representation of Paul as ideal pastor. In particular, in Letter 185 Augustine defends his own coercive tactics through an interpretation of Paul’s conversion.9 6

Ciu. 5.26; trans. WOA, 180. Ep. 155.12; R. Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society (2004), 210. 8 Ep. 155.12; R. Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society (2004), 211. 9 Jennifer Ebbeler, Disciplining Christians: Correction and Community in Augustine’s Letters (Oxford, 2012), 187; for additional discussion, see P. Brown, ‘St. Augustine’s Attitude to Religious 7

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As opposed to Peter and the other disciples, who were called ‘by words alone’ (solo uerbo), Paul was ‘laid low by [Christ’s] power’ (potestate prostrauit).10 For Augustine, Paul’s coercive tactics are, in part, justified by the evangelical impact Paul had. ‘It is amazing’, Augustine writes, ‘how that man who came to the gospel, forced by bodily punishment, labored more for the gospel than all those who were called only by words’.11 Augustine suggests that Paul positively benefited from the way he was brought into the church – he did more than all the other disciples not in spite of but because of being ‘compelled to come in’. While he does not doubt that instruction is preferable to punishment,12 Augustine is at pains to establish that coercion is necessary for many, including the Apostle Paul.13 The permissibility of coercive tactics hinges, in this part of Letter 185, on the precise relationship between fear (timor) and love (caritas). Drawing on 1John 4:18 (‘Fear does not exist along with love, but perfect love casts out fear’), Augustine distinguishes between the ‘better person’ (melior), who is guided by love, and the ‘less good’ (inferior), who must first be guided by fear. This is much the same point Augustine made nearly a decade earlier in his Tractatus in Iohannis epistulam, where he declares, ‘Fear as it were prepares a place for charity. But when charity has begun to take up residence, the fear that had prepared a place for it is driven out’.14 Paul begins as an inferior – the least of all the apostles – but over time grows in love to be among the meliores. The correctio cum caritate that comes in the form of blindness is necessary, so Augustine suggests, for Paul to be able to labour ‘more for the gospel than all those who were called only by words’. Speaking directly of Paul, Augustine writes, ‘Though greater fear drove him to love, his perfect love casts out fear’.15 Coercive tactics are all along the way oriented toward love, and indeed driven Coercion’ (1964), 107-16 and Frederick H. Russell, ‘Persuading the Donatists: Augustine’s Coercion by Words’, in William E. Kingshirn and Mark Vessey (eds), The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus (Ann Arbor, 1999), 115-30. 10 Ep. 185.22: et tamen cum Petrum et alios Apostolos solo verbo vocasset, Paulum, prius Saulum, ecclesiae suae postea magnum aedificatorem sed horrendum antea vastatorem, non sola voce compescuit, verum etiam potestate prostravit atque… (CSEL 57, 20-1). 11 Ep. 185.22: … mirum est autem, quo modo ille, qui poena corporis ad evangelium coactus intravit, plus illis omnibus, qui solo verbo vocati sunt, in evangelio laboravit (CSEL 57, 21); trans. WOA II/3, 192. 12 Ep. 185.21: Melius esse quidem quis dubitauerit ad deum colendum doctrina homines duci quam poenae timore uel dolore compelli? (CSEL 57, 19); trans. WOA II/3, 191. 13 Ep. 185.13, 19, 21, 26. 14 Ep. Jo. 9.4: ‘timor non est in caritate’. Sed in qua caritate? non in inchoata. In qua ergo? Sed perfecta, inquit, caritas foras mittit timorem. Ergo incipiat timor: ‘quia initium sapientiae timor Domini’. Timor quasi locum praeparat caritati. Cum autem coeperit caritas habitare, pellitur timor qui ei praeparavit locum (SC 75, 384); trans. WOA III/14, 135. 15 Ep. 185.22: quem maior timor compulit ad caritatem, eius perfecta caritas foras mittit timorem (CSEL 57, 21); trans. WOA II/3, 192.

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by love. It is in this sense that, for Augustine, the dominical command to ‘compel them to come in’, its fearful tactics notwithstanding, is ultimately a strategy of love. As we will see, the recently published Erfurt sermons offers an account of the relation between the practices of correction and caritas. How to do things with alms Caritas has, to say the least, a generous semantic range in Augustine’s corpus. I think it is the better part of wisdom not to spend too much time attempting to parse Augustine’s meanings outside the context of use. But one sense of caritas that I think first emerges in Cyprian, and that Augustine then takes up, is the social practice of almsgiving (eleemosyna, misericordia). When linked to almsgiving, we can get a more concrete sense of what it would mean to practice caritas. But it also complicates the theological category of caritas, a category that we are often led to believe is basically unsullied,16 and places this more ambivalent caritas at the heart of our corporate existence. The use of alms as a tool of power or even coercion is not unprecedented. In the context of the Donatist controversy, almsgiving is a material manifestation of a caritas that is meant to foster the unity of the church. This was, to a certain extent, a page out of Cyprian’s book – the bishop of Carthage distributed alms to those who remained loyal to him.17 Material assistance is not, then, an innocent practice, and I do not imagine Augustine ever envisioned it to be. As I have suggested, the recent discovery of the Erfurt sermons offers us a picture of how caritas, almsgiving, and correction might inter-relate.18 In Erfurt 2 (Sermon 350D), in particular, we can better appreciate the relationship between 16

See, e.g., Marcel Neusch, Saint Augustin. L’amour sans mesure (Paris, 2001). Cyprian, ep. 5.1.2, 12.2.2; for commentary, see Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, 1992), 90. 18 Isabella Schiller, Dorothea Weber and Clemens Weidmann, ‘Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten: Teil 2 mit Edition dreier Sermones zum Thema Almosen’, Wiener Studien 122 (2009), 171-213. Erfurt 2, 3, and 4 are, according to Peter Brown, ‘model sermons that were written for his own clergy to preach on a regular basis’ (Peter Brown, The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity [Cambridge, MA, 2015], 89). This is not wholly supported by I. Schiller et al., ‘Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten’ (2009): ‘Wurden auch die drei Erfurter Almosen-Predigten von Augustinus knapp hintereinander gewissermaßen als Grundkurs über tätige Nächstenliebe gehalten? Wohl nicht, denn das Fehlen jeglichen Verweises von einer Predigt auf eine der anderen beiden, etwas in der Form qui heri adfuistis, schließt ihre Zusammengehörigkeit zwar nicht aus, macht sie aber sehr unwahrscheinlich und in Ermangelung äußerer Zeugnisse jedenfalls unbeweisbar’ (172-3). And: ‘Die Texte könnten beispielsweise in zeitlicher Nähe zueinander, doch für unterschiedliche Personengruppen entstanden sein; mit einiger Sicherheit lässt sich demnach nur sagen, dass sie noch zu Augustins Lebzeiten zu einem Corpus de eleemosynis zusammengefasst wurden’ (174). Brown’s speculation that these were model sermons captures the sense that Erfurt 2, 3, and 4 represent Augustine’s generalizable position on almsgiving. Whether Brown needs to support this by the supposition that they were model sermons 17

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almsgiving and correction as acts of caritas. The central theme of Erfurt 2 is the relationship between two types of active caritas – the practice of almsgiving and the reciprocal practice of affection and virtue.19 Without denying that material support is essential to faith,20 Augustine argues that correctio is a higher good than simply providing material support: correction can lead someone to eternal life whereas material support cannot.21 The relationship between correction and the distribution of alms is further elaborated toward the end of Erfurt 2. Almsgiving is, in this context, analogized by the example of parents denying food to their child. When parents deny food to a child for reasons of health or discipline, they are doing so out of love. Likewise, Augustine suggests that the outright refusal of alms can itself be an act of mercy.22 In this sense, the omission of alms functions as a kind of instrument for correction. However, Augustine stops short of collapsing alms and correction tout court. It is more compassionate, Augustine argues, to correct a pilgrim’s wrongdoing than to provide food and a place to rest.23 While there is is a different question, one that is unlikely to be answerable with the kind of internal and external evidence for dating these sermons that is currently available. 19 S. 350D.2 (Erfurt 2): Nam etiam ipsae quae corporalibus necessitatibus et temporali vitae praebentur eleemosynae eo animo atque intentione faciendae sunt, ut illi in quos fiunt deum diligant cuius munere fiunt (I. Schiller et al., ‘Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten’ [2009], 184); see also editors’ comments at 177. 20 S. 350D begins with the emphasis on faith needing to be expressed in caring for the poor and this should provide the background for all Augustine’s further commentary on the comparatively higher good of correcting wrongdoing. See, e.g., s. 350D.1 (Erfurt 2): Fidei fructus est bene facere egenti, quia infructuosa fides est ita credere in deum, ut opera misericordiae neglegantur… Merito scriptum est quoniam fides sine operibus mortua est in semetipsa, unde etiam tales daemonibus comparantur; quibusdam enim de fide gloriantibus et a bono opera vacantibus ita loquitur apostolus Iacobus: Tu credis quoniam unus est deus, bene facis. Et daemones credunt et contremiscunt, ut nihil | distare videatur inter timorem patientis et gratiam fidelis hominis, nisi quia illius facta mala sunt, huius autem bona, cum ex eadem credulitate utrumque procedat, sicut ex eadem aqua pullulat et horror spinarum et fructus uvarum (I. Schiller et al., ‘Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten’ [2009], 184). 21 For Augustine, this is, as it is for the broader Platonist tradition, an issue of whether there is any equivalence possible between ‘matter’ and ‘spirit’. Augustine addresses the exchange between bishop and church directly in s. 350E. 22 S. 350D.4 (Erfurt 2): Nam primo erga se ipsum homo misericors memor divini praecepti quod dictum est: Miserere animae tuae placens deo, ut deo placeat saepe ieiunat et, cum diligere proximum tamquam se ipsum iubeatur, esurienti proximo panem ministrat, sibi denegat castigans scilicet corpus suum et in servitutem redigens, ne forte aliis praedicans ipse reprobus inveniatur. Sed forte hoc in se ipso facere misericordiae est, in alio autem crudelitatis? Quid ergo? Cum esurientibus parvulis cibus saepe a parentibus non praebetur vel propter valetudinis rationem vel propter disciplinae severitatem vel propter magni alicuius reddendam ab omnibus ieiunii hu | miliationem, numquid non etiam tunc parentes in filios magis misericordes sunt (I. Schiller et al., ‘Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten’ [2009], 186-7). 23 S. 350D.3 (Erfurt 2): Compara nunc eum qui panem suum frangit esurienti, et eum qui animam suam impertit credenti, compara eum qui pro temporali vita inopis impendit aurum, et eum qui pro aeterna vita fratris impendit se ipsum: Si recte misericors est et dicitur et habetur qui peregrinum tecto indigentem inducit in domum suam, mensa ministrat saturitatem, lecto

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a distinction between alms and correction, it is clear from this passage that they function within a unified vision of the pastoral office. For Augustine, alms are intimately tied to correction through their shared end of unifying the body of Christ. Theodosius’ Pastoral Power We can return now to Augustine’s portrait of Theodosius. Augustine’s ascription of acts of love to Theodosius portrays the emperor in a pastoral role. But what might it imply to associate Theodosius with Pauline caritas? On the whole, I think it is right to see Augustine judging Theodosius on a Pauline scale. Yet, it is overly tidy (and maybe even a bit sanitized) to excise the functions of Paul that are, to say the least, less than palatable to us today. Paul’s example of humility and Theodosius’ penitence are surely laudatory. But Theodosius is also portrayed as dispensing correction and charity on a Pauline model. Theodosius’ efforts to love his captives with Christian charity is no less correctio cum caritate than the tactical giving and withholding of alms. Moreover, there is warrant for interpreting Augustine’s claim that Theodosius was not ‘depriving them of their property but rather adding to their honors’ (nec priuauit rebus et auxit honoribus) as a tactical giving and withholding of material support that we see in the example of Cyprian. In short, Paul is not simply an exemplum of humility for Theodosius, but, for better or worse, the very model of charity in practice.24 Theodosius’ positive use of Pauline caritas puts in a slightly different frame Augustine’s concise statement of the happy emperor in City of God 5. Augustine characteristically positions the emperor’s humility between pride and obsequiousness, anchoring it in the emperor’s remembrance of his humanity. But this vision of humanity is predicated on a specifically pastoral conception of political power: ‘if they make their power the servant of God’s majesty, using it to spread the worship of God as much as possible; if they fear, love, and worship God; if, more than their own kingdom, they love the one where they do not fear to have co-rulers’.25 It is within this frame that the double-edge of quietem, quanto amplius misericors | invenitur qui per vias iniquitatis errantem revocans et adsumens introducit in domum dei, membris incorporate Christi, ubi reddatur iustitiae refectione recreatus, peccatorum remissione secures! (I. Schiller et al., ‘Sechs neue Augustinuspredigten’ [2009], 186). 24 Ciu. 5.26: Inimicorum suorum filios, quos, non ipsius iussu, belli abstulerat impetus, etiam nondum Christianos ad ecclesiam confugientes, Christianos hac occasione fieri voluit et Christiana caritate dilexit, nec privavit rebus et auxit honoribus (Augustinus. De Civitate Dei, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, Teubner (Berlin, 1993), 239-40); trans. WOA, 180. 25 Ciu. 5.24: Sed felices eos dicimus, si iuste imperant, si inter linguas sublimiter honorantium et obsequia nimis humiliter salutantium non extolluntur, et se homines esse meminerunt;

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caritas’ correction is discernible in the emperor’s vocation. ‘If they grant pardon not to let wrongdoing go unpunished but in the hope of its being corrected; if they compensate for the harsh decisions they are often compelled to make with the leniency of mercy and the generosity of beneficence’.26 Mercy and correction, leniency and harshness go hand in hand. Just as Theodosius’ own sanctification was a product of correction and mercy, so too is the sanctification of Theodosius’ captives who had taken refuge in a church.

Love in the Ruins Political Augustinianism is, on the whole, a discourse dominated by moral theologians who are invested in responding to contemporary questions relating to the value and place of Christian commitment in today’s world.27 These studies are often distinguished from those that investigate Augustine’s political and social thought in the context of late 4th and early 5th-century North Africa. Both approaches – ‘rational’ and ‘historical’ reconstructions, if you may – have tended to privilege Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei as a source for, on the one hand, Augustine’s mature political theory as well as, on the other hand, reasonably developed accounts of moral life and action in the early 5th century.28 In recent years, these ethical and historical silos have started to breakdown alongside a growing interest in Augustine’s sermons and letters as important sources of Augustine’s political thought and action.29 But old habits die hard: political Augustinians often pick and choose what they find ‘usable’ in Augustine’s thought, excising those aspects that are less

si suam potestatem ad Dei cultum maxime dilatandum maiestati eius famulam faciunt; si Deum timent diligunt colunt; si plus amant illud regnum, ubi non timent habere consortes (ed. Dombart and Kalb, 237); trans. WOA, 180. 26 Ciu. 5.24: si eandem veniam non ad inpunitatem iniquitatis, sed ad spem correctionis indulgent; si, quod aspere coguntur plerumque decernere, misericordiae lenitate et beneficiorum largitate compensant; trans. WOA, 180. 27 For a recent overview of political Augustinianism, see Michael J.S. Bruno, Political Augustinianism: Modern Interpretations of Augustine’s Political Thought (Minneapolis, 2014). 28 For a seminal account of the difference between ‘rational’ and ‘historical’ reconstructions of a figure’s thought, see Richard Rorty, ‘The historiography of philosophy: four genres’, in Philosophy in History: Essays on the historiography of philosophy (Cambridge, 1984), 49-75. Rorty points, at the outset, to P.F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (London, 1966) as representative of rational reconstruction and Quentin Skinner as advocating historical reconstruction (‘Meaning and understanding in the history of ideas’, History and Theory 8 [1969], 3-53). 29 See, inter alia, R. Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society (2004); Joseph Clair, Discerning the Good in the Letters & Sermons of Augustine (Oxford, 2016); Sarah Steward-Kroeker, Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine’s Thought (Oxford, 2017); and P.I. Kaufman, Augustine’s Leaders (2017).

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acceptable to late modern readers.30 A case in point is Augustine’s discussions of ideal rulers. On normative grounds, I can readily see the attractiveness of such surgical operations: humble rulers willing to admit mistakes would indeed be a welcome addition to our public life, while those rulers that might use the awful and terrifying power of pastoral control and authority are less attractive. But this not only obscures the real perplexities that sit at the centre of the Bishop of Hippo’s moral thought and action, it cuts short an important source of why, despite the very best intentions, our efforts at loving our neighbour can go so terribly wrong. As we can observe in the cursory outline of Augustine’s work given here, the tissue between coercion and correction is thin. In sum, I contend that political Augustinianism would be wise to consider how Augustine’s love-ethic not only inspires humble action but also underwrites our impulses to control and dominate others, and to incorporate this more ambivalent love-ethic into their proposals. The very fragility of an Augustinian love-ethic is far more interesting and, I might add, more relevant to contemporary politics. However, this requires a renewed effort to bring into conversation so-called ‘rational’ and ‘historical’ reconstructions of Augustine’s political thought: We must attend to the social world and the manifold compromises one makes with it alongside the theological visions that inform and underwrite Christian practices, practices that are just as much marked by sin as the people practicing them.31 A political Augustinianism that takes this seriously would not only be more faithful to its inspiration, but would also more closely approximate the practice of politics in a conflict-ridden world.

30 This is a constituent feature of ‘Augustinian Liberalism’ as defined by Eric Gregory; see E. Gregory, Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship (Chicago, 2008), 298. 31 For a recent theological analysis of Christian practices as equally informed by sin as any practitioner, see Lauren Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practices: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin (New Haven, 2018).

Commitment to Public Life and Adherence to God According to a Letter from Nebridius to Augustine (ap. Aug., Ep. 5) Emmanuel BERMON, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France

ABSTRACT According to the testimony of Possidius, when he returned to Thagaste, Augustine settled in his domain and there, ‘in the company of those who were attached to him, he lived for God, in fasting and prayers and good works, meditating day and night in the Law of the Lord’ (Vita Aug. 3, 2). The very short Letter 5 of Nebridius leads us to qualify this idyllic picture. Nebridius reacts strongly to news from Thagaste that he considered alarming: Is it true, my dear Augustine? Do you devote your energy and your patience to the affairs of your fellow citizens (negotiis ciuium) without receiving in turn the rest you are longing for ? Who are these people who disturb you, you who are so good, pray? (…) Let them at least hear me. For I will proclaim and testify that you love God and desire to serve him and cling to him. For Augustine, the return home was therefore accompanied by a commitment to the public life of his city. But what forms did this public engagement take? Were the ‘negotia ciuium’ that disrupted Augustine’s leisure the municipal charges (munera publica) that Roman legislation imposed on the sons of curiales, as recently argued? If this interpretation is not retained, how is it possible to understand the word ‘cives’?

1. The foundation in Thagaste of a religious community In 388, after his journey to Italy, Augustine returned home to Thagaste1. As Serge Lancel puts it: ‘after his dreams in Milan, and the successful but brief experience at Cassiciacum, a practical possibility was forming of realizing the plan for a communal life which, for him, had become inseparable from a Christian life’.2 For this purpose, surrounded by Adeodatus, Alypius, Evodius, and 1 I have pleasure in thanking professors Anthony Dupont, Gert Partoens, and Markus Vinzent for publishing the present paper in this Studia Patristica volume dedicated to Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei and related issues. My research has benefited from the reports of three referees, whom I also thank. Finally, I am grateful to Timur Uçan for reading through the paper and ensuring it a linguistic upgrade. 2 S. Lancel, Saint Augustin (Paris, 1999), 189 (English translation by A. Nevill [London, 2002], 130).

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Severus, ‘he decided’, as Possidius says, ‘to settle in the house and on the lands that belonged to him’ (Vita Aug. 3, 1). The historical importance of this new life has been well characterized by Pierre Monceaux: the ‘House of Thagaste marks a transition between the studious villa of Cassiciacum and the actual monasteries that will appear in Hippo’.3 According to the testimony of Possidius, Augustine lived there ‘for God, in the company of those who were attached to him, in fasting and prayers and good works, meditating day and night in the Law of the Lord’ (Vita Aug. 3, 2). Letter 5 of the correspondence of Augustine leads us to qualify this idyllic picture. It is a very short letter from Nebridius, Augustine’s great friend (whom he shared with Alypius)4, which testifies to the fact that Augustine’s return home was accompanied by an engagement in the public life of his homeland. But what forms did this public engagement take? This is the question. 2. An exhortation to return to leisure Nebridius, who was then living in Carthage, far from his friend, reacts strongly to some news from Thagaste that he considered alarming. Here is the letter: Is it true, my dear Augustine? Do you devote your energy and your patience to the affairs of your fellow citizens, while you do not receive in turn that rest that you desire so much? Who are these people who disturb you, you who are so good, I ask you? I believe that they are people who do not know what you love, what you covet (concupiscas). Is there no one among your friends who makes them know your desires? Neither Romanianus nor Lucinianus? Let them at least hear me. For I will proclaim, I will testify, that you love God, that you desire to serve him and cling to him (illi seruire atque inhaerere). I would like to invite you in my country home and have you rest here. For I will not be afraid of being called your seducer by your fellow citizens whom you love too much and by whom you are loved too much.5 3 ‘Saint Augustin et saint Antoine. Contribution à l’histoire du monachisme’, Miscellanea Agostiniana 2 (Roma, 1931), 60-89, 74-5. The character of Augustine’s community at Thagaste has been a matter of dispute, see F. Navarro Coma, ‘La Correspondencia entre Agustín y Nebridio. La cronología de la ep. 4’, in G. Bosch Jiménez et al. (eds), Santos, obispos y reliquias (Álcala de Henares, 1998), 267-80, 272-3, n. 51; Ch. Köckert, ‘Augustine and Nebridius (Augustine, epp. 3-14): Two Christian Intellectuals and Their Project of a Philosophical Life’, Revue des Études Augustiniennes 62 (2016), 235-62, 237, n. 13. 4 On Nebridius, see Saint Augustin, Lettres 1-30/Epistulae I-XXX, Traductions, introductions et notes de Serge Lancel et collaborateurs. Introduction et notes des Lettres 1-14 par Emmanuel Bermon, Bibliothèque Augustinienne 40A (Paris, 2011), 213-9. 5 Itane est, mi Augustine? Fortitudinem ac tolerantiam negotiis ciuium praestas necdum tibi redditur illa exoptata cessatio? Quaeso, qui te tantum bonum homines interpellant? Credo qui nesciunt, quid ames, quid concupiscas. Nullusne tibi est amicorum qui eis amores referat tuos? Nec Romanianus nec Lucinianus? Me certe audiant. Ego clamabo, ego testabor te deum amare, illi seruire atque inhaerere cupere. Vellem ego te in rus meum uocare ibique adquiescere. Non enim timebo me seductorem tui dici a ciuibus tuis, quos nimium amas et a quibus nimium amaris.

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In this fine apology of Augustine, there are several remarkable expressions, which show that Nebridius shares with his friend a common lexicon. I report them quickly. (1) ‘Quid concupiscas’ : Nebridius attests here that ‘concupiscere’ can (very rarely) be taken in good part.6 Augustine himself says so in the City of God, where he quotes Wisdom 6:21: ‘concupiscentia sapientiae perducit ad regnum’ (ciu. 14, 7, 2). One remembers the passage of the Confessions which describes the effect produced on the young Augustine by the reading of Cicero’s Hortensius: ‘… immortalitatem sapientiae concupiscebam aestu cordis incredibili et surgere coeperam, ut ad te redirem’ (Conf. 3, 4, 7). (2) ‘Deo seruire’: in a passage of the Confessions where he mentions his intention to return to Africa with his friends, Augustine writes: ‘We were looking for where we could serve you more usefully (quisnam locus nos utilius haberet seruientes tibi)’ (Conf. 9, 8, 17). In the City of God, he specifies that at the time of their return, Alypius and he were ‘not yet clerics, but already servants of God’ (‘uenientes enim de transmarinis me et fratrem meum Alypium, nondum quidem clericos, sed iam Deo seruientes’) (22, 8) – an affirmation echoed by the expression ‘deo pariter seruientes’ used by Possidius (Vita Aug. 3, 1).7 The terms ‘servants of God’, as we know, were also used to refer to monks.8 In any case, the expression was flexible enough to bring together the existence then led by Augustine in Thagaste and that of Nebridius, who, at the same time, was serving God with his people in Carthage (see Conf. 9, 3, 6: ‘… tibi seruientem in Africa apud suos…’). (3) As for the expression ‘deo inhaerere’, it is for Augustine himself a standard definition of happiness, like other formulations such as ‘to have God’ (De beat. uit. 2, 11), ‘to enjoy God’ (ciu. 8, 8), ‘to contemplate God’ (ciu. 10, 16, 1)9, etc. Its distinctiveness is however its scriptural resonance. It refers to Ps. 72:28: ‘Mihi autem adhaerere deo bonum est’ (LXX : ‘ἐμοὶ δὲ R. Teske’s translation modified (The Works of Saint Augustine, Letters 1-99 [Hyde Park, NY, 2001], 24). 6 As one of the referees for this paper puts it: ‘That Augustine understood the art of giving the words he received from the Latin tradition also a different content than the existing one can be seen from the example of the word concupiscentia: desire can also focus on God and is not limited to the sensual domain, of which Augustine and his circle of friends turn away.’ 7 As P. Brown states, ‘these servi Dei had owed their position in the Latin church less to any connexion with an organized monastic life, than to the pressure of a fashion in perfection. They produced some of the most remarkable men of their time’ (Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. A New Edition with an Epilogue [Berkeley, Los Angeles, 2000], 125). 8 See G.P. Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule (Oxford, 1987), 47 sq.; D.E. Trout, ‘Augustine at Cassiciacum: otium honestum and the social dimension of conversion’, Vigiliae Christianae 42 (1988), 132-46, 141. 9 On these definitions, see Ch. Tornau, ‘Happiness in this Life? Augustine on the Principle that Virtue Is Self-sufficient for Happiness’, in Ø. Rabbås et al. (eds), The Quest for the Good Life: Ancient Philosophers on Happiness (Oxford, 2015), 265-80, 265-6.

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τὸ προσκολλᾶσθαι τῷ θεῷ ἀγαθόν ἐστιν’)10 – a verse that runs through the whole work of Augustine.11 But the notion of ‘adherence to God’ is also Platonist (see Republic 10, 611e, the famous passage on the sea-god Glaucos) and Neoplatonist (although the verb used in philosophical Greek is not the same as in Ps. 72:28). Plotinus often uses ‘ἅπτομαι’ and its compounds (‘συνάπτομαι’, ‘ἐφάπτομαι’) about union with the One, to which man must reach (cf. Enn. VI 9 [9], 8, 8-10; 9, 50-5; 10, 14-7). The same terminology is found in Porphyry (Sent. 40, 67-8; De abst. 2, 49, 1). This terminology which is dual as it is both Biblical and Platonist, explains the strategic role of Ps. 72:28 in Augustine’s controversy with Neoplatonist philosophers on final ends, especially in Book 10 of the City of God (10, 1-3; 10, 6; 10, 16, 1; 10, 18; 10, 25).12 Yet, the question remains: what exactly was happening in Thagaste, that justifies the intervention of Nebridius in the affairs of his friend? 3. The situation in Thagaste 3.1. An attempt to detach Augustine from a local grip? According to Serge Lancel, the reaction of Nebridius testifies to one’s error of appreciation about the very nature of the new foundation of Augustine. It shows that Nebridius encountered difficulties ‘to understand the great existential difference that distinguished Thagaste from Cassiciacum’13 and to agree to the fact that Augustine’s retreat was no longer just an otium for the pursuit of philosophical wisdom.14 ‘He was counting on the help of Romanianus and Lucinianus – probably the brother of Licentius – to succeed in detaching [Augustine] from what he considered a local grip’.15 10

On the history and the Greek and Latin translations of this verse, see S.D. Sfrizo, Adhaerere deo. L’unione con Dio. Filologia e storia di una locuzione biblica (Brescia, 1980). 11 ‘There are more than 50 quotations of this verse in Augustine, the earliest of which is mor. 1. 26 (388 AD)’ (Ch. Tornau, ‘Happiness in this Life?’ [2015], 266, n. 9). ‘The earlier ascents also use inhaerere language (see, e.g., ord. 2.10.28; quant. 33.76; mus. 6.13.38, 6.13.42, 6.14.46, 6.16.53)’ (J. Teubner, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition [Oxford, 2018], 96, n. 54). See also De mor. cath. eccl. 31, 66; De lib. arb. 2, 19, 52 (Voluntas ergo … cum inhaeret incommutabili bono … tenet homo beatam uitam: eaque ipsa uita beata, id est animi affectio inhaerentis incommutabili bono, proprium et primum est hominis bonum) (and R. Holte, Béatitude et sagesse : Saint Augustin et le problème de la fin de l’homme dans la philosophie ancienne [Paris, 1962], 220, n. 1); De diu. quaest. LXXXIII, 54, De eo quod dictum est: “mihi adhaerere Deo bonum est”; Conf. 13, 2, 3; 13, 8, 9… 12 ‘[Augustine] feels he is on common ground with the Platonists when he defines the ultimate or highest Good in the language of Psalm 73:28’ (G. O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God [Oxford, 1999], 128). 13 S. Lancel, Saint Augustin (1999), 189. 14 Ibid. 190. 15 Ibid. 190.

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Francesco Navarro Coma proposes a similar interpretation. He perceives in Letter 5 a ‘deep and latent conflict’ between Nebridius and Augustine:16 while the former retired to his lands where he abandoned the civic obligations to which he was in principle bound as a curial – following a common ploy in late antiquity – the latter, Augustine, was involved in public life, probably under the patronage of Romanianus.17 As he puts it: When the two friends were in Italy, the common desire to escape the municipal munera united them. Both of them finally reached their goal, but they did so in opposite ways: Augustine entered the Church and Nebridius retired to the country. As a result, while Augustine will come to serve the community – but now as a future bishop and monk – Nebridius will have no interest in it whatsoever.18

In short, Navarro Coma draws a sharp opposition between ‘a Neoplatonist philosopher separated from the world’, namely Nebridius, and ‘a Catholic in the service of his community’, namely Augustine, who is involved in public life, probably by teaching and performing pastoral duties beyond the circle of close friends. In such a context, one is tempted to see Nebridius as a follower of the Plotinian ethics of ‘escape’.19 3.2. Augustine under the weight of the ‘munera publica’? Claude Lepelley recently offered a new interpretation of Letter 5.20 According to him, the insistence of Nebridius concerning the fact that it was the fellow citizens of Augustine who disturbed his leisure implies that the occupation imposed on him was civic, that is to say profane. What were these negotia ciuium for which Augustine was disturbed? I quote Lepelley at length: The answer is easy for those who know the civil legislation of the time. Patricius, Augustine’s father, was a small notable of Thagaste, but he was curial, that is to say, decurion, a member of the council of the city. The family, as Possidius says in his Vita Augustini, was honourable (parentes honesti) and of curial rank (de numero curialium) (Vita Aug. 1). But the legislation forced the sons of curiales to assume in their turn the municipal duties (munera publica) received by their fathers: they were hereditarily bound to the curia (obnoxii curiae), if they did not enjoy immunity. This immunity was granted to those who performed an official task in the service of the imperial state or 16

F. Navarro Coma, ‘La Correspondencia’ (1998), 267. Ibid. 270. 18 Ibid. 275. 19 On this topic, see D. O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford, 1995), 108-10 (‘The Ethics of Escape and the Ethics of Giving’). 20 See ‘Les munera publica pesant sur les fils de curiales : le témoignage d’une lettre de Nebridius, correspondant de saint Augustin’, in J.-N. Guinot and F. Richard (eds), Empire chrétien et Église au IVe et Ve siècles. Intégration ou « concordat » ? Le témoignage du Code Théodosien (Paris, 2008), 431-42. Lepelley does not mention Navarro Coma’s article (‘La Correspondencia’ [1998]). 17

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of the civic community. In addition to the military, the imperial officials and the veterans, the official physicians of the cities (archiatri), and the public professors paid by the cities, grammarians and rhetoricians possessed an immunity. Augustine had been professor in Thagaste for one year, in 373-374, then public rhetorician in Carthage from 374 to autumn 386. He was later public rhetorician in Milan from autumn 384 to autumn 386. Except during the year 383-384, when he was a private teacher in Rome, he was perfectly in good standing, enjoying immunity from his hereditary municipal obligations. But after his conversion in August 386, he resigned in the autumn of his Milan professorship. From then on, he was no longer entitled to any immunity. His return to his small hometown of Thagaste symbolized (…) his desire to renounce any human ambition henceforth, but it entailed meeting problems.21

In short, since Augustine was no longer a professor and not yet part of the clerics (who were eligible under certain conditions for immunity), he was included in the category of uacantes, to whom the imperial laws always sought to impose munera – and Alypius and Evodius were in the same situation as him. ‘It was therefore perfectly normal’, concludes Lepelley, ‘that Augustine was reminded of his hereditary obligations, and the letter of Nebridius attests that this was the case’.22 I am no historian, but this interpretation seems to me to call several objections. First of all, Lepelley says nothing about the situation of Nebridius, who was in principle subject to the same strain as his friend. Should we think that he enjoyed the preferential treatment that he was soliciting for his friend? Or was he exempted for health reasons (we know from Letter 10 that he was sick)? On the other hand, could Augustine free himself from biding laws by simply going to Carthage, as his friend invited him to do? But above all, at the end of his letter, Nebridius blames the love that exists between Augustine and his fellow citizens. This unrestrained love is cause, in his eyes, of this deplorable situation. When he says ‘nimis amas’, Nebridius clearly means that it depends on Augustine to recover the freedom he has alienated. In short, the testimony of Letter 5 seems to invalidate the rigorous interpretation made by Lepelley of the constraints weighing on the curiales and to support the opinion of historians who have a more ‘lax’ understanding in this matter.23 3.3. Fellow citizens (ciues) and co-religionists However, how should we respond to the argument on which Lepelley bases his interpretation, namely the double occurrence of the term ‘ciues’, instead of ‘faithful’ or ‘brothers’, which one might expect to find? On this point, we must return to the testimony of Possidius, which is important, even if it is idealized. 21

C. Lepelley, ‘Les munera publica’ (2008), 435. Ibid. 436. 23 See for example W.H.C. Frend, The Donatist Church (Oxford, 1952), 232-3, and C. Lepelley himself in Cités de l’Afrique romaine, 1 (Paris, 1979), 286-7. 22

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For Possidius writes: ‘Ac placuit ei percepta gratia cum aliis ciuibus et amicis suis Deo pariter seruientibus ad Africam et propriam domum agrosque remeare’ (Vita Aug. 3, 1). As Mandouze pointed out, ‘Possidius still used, in reference to the community of Thagaste, the terms ciues and amici to designate the Deo pariter seruientes’. Later, ‘it is the word fratres that usually refers to the monks, when their reciprocal relations are at stake: this is a natural consequence of the fact that, having become institutions, the Augustinian monastic communities admitted of course other “postulants” than fellow citizens and friends of Augustine’.24 Therefore, ‘cives’ does not necessarily have a secular meaning. But we can also refer to another text which contains an a priori surprising use of this same word. It is the long opening prayer of the Soliloquies. Reason commits Augustine to summarize his prayer by saying to him: ‘Do not worry about attracting a crowd of readers; that will be enough for a small number of your fellow citizens’ (Sol. 1, 1, 1). This passage is interesting because it discloses the existence of what literary criticism calls an ‘horizon of expectation’, even for these philosophical reflections which were conducted alone. The ciues in question are in the first place Alypius, Licentius, and Trygetius, but they must also be Romanianus and the friends and relations of Thagaste with whom Augustine was in touch (and who were not all Christians) and that he met again on his return to his homeland.25 Letter 5 suggests that, at this time, he was the subject of solicitations from these people, that were unwelcome and perhaps inappropriate, although we unfortunately cannot know what they really were. No doubt it was not easy to be a monk in one’s own country. Anyway, since, ‘for Augustine, monastic life always had a social dimension’,26 it is normal that he had already been concerned about the ‘affairs’ of his fellow citizens – and we do not have to assume that these affairs were civic duties. If the monastery, then the Church of Hippo, had not been opened on the city, it would be difficult to understand the theological importance taken later by the paradigm of the ‘city of God’ (for it is grounded, from a semantic point of view, on a political and secular entity, that is the condition for its possibility). To conclude, we can quote once again Monceaux – despite all that the letter of Nebridius leaves in the dark. If, as one of his sermons teaches us, Augustine thought of transferring his monastery to Hippo at that time, and if he went there in early 391 for this purpose (see Serm 355, 1, 2, and Ep. 21, 3), it is perhaps because, ‘in spite of all his charity and his local patriotism, he found that his fellow citizens abused a little of his time and his helpfulness’.27 24

A. Mandouze, Saint Augustin : L’aventure de la raison et de la grâce (Paris, 1968), 211,

n. 5. 25

I have not found other attestations in Augustine of such ‘non-profane’ usage of ciues. G.P. Lawless, Augustine of Hippo (1997), 52. 27 P. Monceaux, ‘Saint Augustin et les monastères africains : III, Monastères d’hommes à Hippone’, Revue des cours et conférences 21, 2e série (1912-1913), 719-34, 720. 26

Freedom from Grim Necessity: Correcting Misreadings of Augustine on Torture Paul R. KOLBET, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, USA

ABSTRACT Appeals have been made to Augustine authorizing torture based on a perceived affinity with the realist tradition of political philosophy and a passage in his City of God (19.6) where a wise judge is said to torture out of grim necessity. Recent scholarship, however, has shown Augustine’s parable of the torturing judge to be no defence of torture, but rather to be an especially noteworthy moment in the larger proptreptic that is the City of God. The torturing judge read in its full context exposes the limits of Stoic philosophy by depicting its inability to supply either happiness or security. Augustine’s other writings show his deep familiarity with torture as it was practiced in his day, his rejection of it, and his consistent appeals to other disciplinary and rhetorical forms of persuasion that he believed were both more effective and more humane. While other longstanding arguments about Augustine’s politics continue unabated, no appeal can be made to Augustine’s life or thought to authorize torture under any circumstances.

Augustine of Hippo has become something of a whistle-stop in the histories of torture as the thinker who first theorized it within a broader philosophy of state coercion.1 In a 1953 essay that powerfully shaped subsequent portrayals of Augustine’s politics, Reinhold Niebuhr embraced Augustine as ‘the first great “realist” in western history’. Niebuhr applauded Augustine’s sober analysis of social reality in his City of God because it accounted for ‘the social factions, tensions, and competitions which we know to be well-nigh universal on every level of community’.2 Augustine’s emphasis on ‘power and interest’ was a ‘wholesome corrective to Cicero’s and modern Ciceronian moralistic illusions’.3 While distancing himself personally from what he took to be the unethical implications of Augustine’s view by characterizing Augustine’s realism as ‘excessive’, 1

Gillian Clark observes, ‘Late Antiquity is notorious for legitimized violence and Augustine is notorious for arguments in its support…. Augustine, the advocate of salutary pain, the theorist and supporter of legitimized violence, sometimes allowed his logic to lead to appalling conclusions’ (‘Desires of the Hangman: Augustine on Legitimized Violence’, in H.A. Drake et al. (eds), Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices (Aldershot, 2006), 137-46 at 137 and 146. 2 Reinhold Niebuhr, ‘Augustine’s Political Realism’, in Christian Realism and Political Problems (Fairfield, CT, 1977), 119-46 at 120-1. 3 Ibid. 127.

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Niebuhr still presented Augustine as ‘a more reliable guide than any known thinker’ in addressing contemporary ‘perplexities’.4 Niebuhr’s Augustine received extensive scholarly fortification in Herbert Deane’s The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine. Deane’s Augustine is an Augustine who sharply breaks with the illusions and ideals inherent in classical Greek and Roman philosophy and produces ‘a completely amoral account of what a populus or a res publica is’.5 According to this Augustine, ‘The heavy hand of the state and its dreadful instruments of repression are necessary because they are the only methods by which sinful men can be restrained; the fear of punishment is the only safeguard of general peace and security’.6 Torture is one of those necessary instruments. According to Deane, ‘although he knows that the necessities that confront the governor or the judge often compel him to act with harshness or cruelty’, Augustine teaches that the Christian remains ‘“sinless”, although miserable, when he orders that the accused man whose guilt has not yet been determined or even the completely innocent witness be put to torture’.7 The ‘use of torture to obtain information from accused persons and witnesses is a grim necessity of criminal justice; the judge who orders the use of torture is not committing a sin and is not to be condemned’.8 Deane harnessed an impressive number of texts of Augustine to substantiate this Augustine, but none more effectively than the conflicted torturing judge of City of God 19.6, whose final plea is ‘from my necessities deliver Thou me’.9 When read as an excerpt from his lengthy, demanding, and complicated, City of God, Augustine’s account of the intractable moral contradictions confronting the Roman judge appears to give voice – in the most unforgettable manner – to the very grim necessities inherent in political life Augustine is said to have accepted. According to the parable, the dilemma for those who judge is that although they are charged with administering justice, they ‘cannot see into the consciences of those whom they judge’. They are thereby ‘compelled to seek the truth by torturing innocent witnesses’. Augustine entertains no illusions, for all 4

Ibid. 127, 146. Herbert A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (New York, 1963), 122. Deane thanks Niebuhr in the Acknowledgements for reading the manuscript in advance and supplying comments (xiv). 6 H. Deane, Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (1963), 138. 7 Ibid. 226. 8 Ibid. 302 n. 61. 9 Cited in full, H. Deane, Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (1963), 135-6. In a classic essay on just war theory, Robert Markus invoked City of God 19.6 in a noticeably similar manner, ‘no political thinker, not even excepting Hobbes, has ever given a more powerful or more disturbing description of the contradictions inherent in human society than Augustine gives in this image of the conscientious judge…. These are the necessities the just man may not avoid, but will pray to God to be delivered from’ (‘Saint Augustine’s Views on the Just War’, Studies in Church History 20 [1983], 1-13 at 10-1). So also G. Clark, ‘Desires of the Hangman’ (2006), 144-5. 5

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that, that torture produces the truth that justifies its use. At the end of the day, after he has ‘condemned and put to death’, a judge ‘still does not know whether it was a guilty or an innocent man that he put to death, even though the very reason he tortured him was to keep from unknowingly putting an innocent man to death’. Augustine asks of this harrowing situation, ‘In the midst of these dark shadows of the social life, will the wise man (sapiens) serve as a judge or will he shrink from doing so? Clearly he will serve. The claim of human society, which he finds it unthinkable to ignore, constrains him and draws him to this duty’. These horrors of political life do not occur ‘from any will to inflict harm’, but are dually driven by the ‘the inescapable necessity (necessitate) of ignorance’ and ‘the inescapable necessity (necessitate) of judging’.10 Deane admits that ‘this conception of the [nature of the] state [and its coercive structures] strikes us as essentially “modern,” and we may be surprised to find it in a Christian philosopher of the fifth century’. This is so much the case that readers ‘may wonder whether I am talking about Augustine, or about Hobbes, or Machiavelli’.11 According to Deane, ‘both Augustine and Hobbes’ understood the ‘task of the State’ as ‘to maintain peace by employing its overwhelming powers of coercion to hold in check the warring aspirations of selfish men’.12 Augustine is only strikingly modern, however, because Deane’s analysis has smuggled into it a number of later assumptions none more consequential than his substitution of the modern ‘state’ for Augustine’s res publica. Malcolm Schofield has shown how any number of assumptions about the personal quality of rule informing Roman notions of res publica have little in common with the impersonal nature of power in the modern state: ‘In truth the emergence of the concept of the state is a topic for historians of Renaissance and early modern, not ancient, political thought’.13 In his own effort to avoid ‘an anachronistic view of the political arena’, Rowan Williams remarks accordingly, ‘[W]e cannot really say that he [Augustine] has a theory of the state at all’.14 10

Augustine, ciu. 19.6 (CChr.SL 48, 670.1-671.44); trans. Babcock, WSA 1/7, 360. H. Deane, Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (1963), 117. 12 Ibid. 235. See also Deane’s assertion ‘that, like Hobbes, he [Augustine] is so keenly aware of the need for a strong power to restrain the boundless appetites and ceaseless conflicts of men’ (144). For an argument that Augustine is far more skeptical about punishment inflicted by civil authorities leading to true justice than the interpreters who place him in the realist political tradition suppose, see Peter Iver Kaufman, ‘Augustine’s Punishments’, Harvard Theological Review 109 (2016), 550-66. 13 Malcolm Schofield, ‘Cicero’s Definition of Res Publica’, in J.G.F. Powell (ed.), Cicero the Philosopher: Twelve Papers (Oxford, 1995), 63-83 at 67. For an account of early modern innovations, see Quentin Skinner, ‘The State’, in T. Ball, J. Farr and R.L. Hanson (eds), Political Innovation and Conceptual Change (Cambridge, 1989), 90-131. For a better-attuned treatment of how the topic would be approached in Augustine’s time, see Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge, 2004). 14 Rowan Williams, On Augustine (London, 2016), 110, 127. 11

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Contemporary studies in the following decades, including during the vexed arguments after the terrorists attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, have followed Deane’s account of a torture authorizing Augustine, often nearly word for word. For example, according to Rebecca Gordon, for Augustine ‘Torture, while an imperfect guarantor of truth, was the only possible remedy for society’s “indispensable” need to bring criminals to justice…. For this reason, he considered state torture a human evil but not a sin’.15 Describing what he calls Augustine’s ‘non-ideal theory of justice’, Terrance McConnell concludes that although ‘the practice of torturing the accused will result in punishing many innocent people’, the ‘state is justified in having such a practice’ in the interest of society as a whole.16 John Parrish contends that Augustine ‘takes for granted that the Christian who has truly been called to a life of political action will undertake to perform even these extremely dubious actions [torture and execution] given the weight of his responsibility for the public good’.17 Paul Weithman asserts, ‘There are also ample grounds for describing Augustine as a political realist. He recognizes that those in authority must sometimes do things they regret, such as torturing the innocent (ciu. 19.6)’.18 Recent developments in the specialist literature have not received sufficient attention. They have not only proven that Augustine consistently opposed the use of torture, but also supplied newer historically informed readings of the very texts invoked by previous scholarship to allege the opposite point. For example, Robert Dodaro footnotes City of God 19.6 in support of his description of Augustine’s ‘strong, vocal, opposition to the use of torture either during interrogation of persons suspected of criminal acts, or as punishment for those convicted of crimes’.19 In his study of Augustine’s letters, Joseph Clair concludes, ‘Augustine abhorred the conventional use of torture to extract and certify confessions’.20 John von Heyking observes, ‘Most commentators have taken Augustine’s violent rhetoric at face value, and they have often failed to examine the details…. [Augustine] was fighting a losing battle with imperial authorities who 15 Rebecca Gordon, Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States (Oxford, 2014), 19-20. 16 Terrance C. McConnell, ‘Augustine on Torturing and Punishing an Innocent Person’, The Southern Journal of Philosophy 17 (1979), 481-92 at 482. 17 John M. Parrish, ‘Two Cities and Two Loves: Imitation in Augustine’s Moral Psychology and Political Theory’, History of Political Thought 26 (2005), 209-35 at 232. For an extended version, embedded within a larger argument, see John M. Parrish, Paradoxes of Political Ethics: From Dirty Hands to the Invisible Hand (Cambridge, 2007), 70-102. 18 Paul Weithman, ‘Augustine’s Political Philosophy’, in D.V. Meconi and E. Stump (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2014), 242. 19 Robert Dodaro, ‘Between the Two Cities: Political Action in Augustine of Hippo’, in John Doody, Kevin L. Hughes and Kim Paffenroth (eds), Augustine and Politics (Lanham, MD, 2005), 102-3. 20 Joseph Clair, Discerning the Good in the Letters and Sermons of Augustine (Oxford, 2016), 90 n. 42.

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showed no reluctance to use capital punishment, which Augustine consistently opposed, and inhumane torture methods’.21 What of the grim necessity constraining the torturing judge of City of God 19.6? In an important article, Veronica Roberts Ogle has demonstrated ‘the impossibility of the conventional reading of this passage’.22 By situating Augustine’s parable within the whole context of the City of God and, additionally, in regard to Augustine’s known advice to judges, Roberts Ogle quite rightly reads the parable not as judicially prescriptive but as a memorable, rhetorically powerful, component of Augustine’s overall protreptic showing the limits of Roman Stoicism.23 In this way, ‘by inverting the classic Stoic scenario’ about whether the wise man can be happy while being tortured, Augustine brilliantly ‘calls the very terms in which the Stoics think about necessity into question’.24 Rather than ‘a good reason to use torture’, the parable, therefore, supplies ‘a good reason to avoid it’.25 This unhappy judge experiences torture as ‘grim necessity’ because he is unable through Roman philosophy to become free of either his duty or his ignorance. One of the factors differentiating newer scholarship is a better appreciation for the highly rhetorical form of Augustine’s writings. Augustine has been proven to be far more indebted to classical philosophy, especially its rhetorical tradition and literary forms, than was assumed by Herbert Deane and similar writers.26 Augustine indeed writes, ‘What is more hideous than a hangman? What more cruel and horrible than that soul? Yet he holds a necessary post among the laws themselves and is placed into the order of a well-regulated city’.27 This text appears to justify capital punishment philosophically. It is instead merely an argument following the conventions of classical dialogue where examples are not freestanding but seek to prompt a single specific thought, in 21 John von Heyking, ‘Augustine on Punishment and the Mystery of Human Freedom’, in Peter Koritansky (ed.), The Philosophy of Punishment and the History of Political Thought (Columbia, MO, 2011), 54-73 at 60. 22 Veronica Roberts Ogle, ‘Sheathing the Sword: Augustine and the Good Judge’, Journal of Religious Ethics 46 (2018), 718-47 at 720 n. 3. 23 V. Roberts Ogle’s approach accords with a rising consensus about the genre of the City of God and that individual passages should be interpreted in light of the norms of this known literary tradition. As J. von Heyking states, ‘recall that City of God is protreptic – that is, its argument is meant as a spiritual exercise and not, strictly speaking, a summary of doctrine’ (‘Augustine on Punishment’ [2011], 68). 24 V. Roberts Ogle, ‘Sheathing the Sword’ (2018), 729. A better context for Augustine’s parable would, therefore, be Cicero’s debate whether the wise man could be happy while tortured in the infamous burning bronze bull of the tyrant Phalaris (Cicero, Tusc. Disp. 2.7.17-8). 25 V. Roberts Ogle, ‘Sheathing the Sword’ (2018), 732. 26 See Paul R. Kolbet, Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal (Notre Dame, IN, 2010). 27 Augustine, ord. 2.4.12 (CSEL 63, 154.30-155.2); cited by H. Deane as evidence of the executioner being ‘an indispensable element in the order of a well-regulated state’ (Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine [1963], 141-2).

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this case, to awaken the reader to perceive the existence of divine providence. Augustine’s opposition to capital punishment is consistent and evident in his letters and sermons. In all likelihood confronting powerful judges in Carthage, Augustine insisted, ‘Do not condemn people to death, or while you are attacking the sin you will destroy the man. Do not condemn to death, and there will be someone there who can repent…. Do not have a person put to death, and you will have someone who can be reformed’.28 Likewise, the many passages employing the imagery of torture must be interpreted in light of the rhetorical aims, implied audience, and occasion for each one.29 A passage such as the City of God 19.6 may appear to endorse torture because it has other rhetorical aims. Augustine’s real position is unmistakably clear in letters and sermons addressed to real people in concrete life and death situations. After a group of Donatists were convicted of murdering the priest Restitutus and beating another priest gouging out his eye and cutting off his finger, Augustine interceded on behalf of his enemies pleading with the imperial commissioner to refrain both from torture and capital punishment: ‘It is not that we would prevent criminals from losing the freedom to commit crimes, but we want it rather to be sufficient either that, alive and with no part of the body mutilated, they be taken from mad restlessness and steered to the peace of good health by the restraints of the law or that they be assigned to some useful work away from their evil works’.30 He continues, ‘Be angry at wickedness in such a way that you remember to be humane, and do not turn the desire for revenge upon the atrocities of sinners, but apply the will to heal to the wounds of sinners. Do not undo your fatherly diligence that you preserved in the inquiry when you obtained their confession of such great crimes not by limbs stretched upon the rack, not by iron claws furrowing the flesh, not by burning with flames….’31 Passages in Augustine’s sermons that invoke torture often only succeed rhetorically because of the evident moral revulsion shared by the preacher and the congregation. Augustine exclaimed: ‘After all, who would want to see an executioner at his savage work, a man, bereft of all humanity (humanitas), tearing furiously at a human body? Who would enjoy observing limbs wrenched apart by the machinery of the rack? Who would not oppose the natural shape of a man being violated by human technique, bones disjointed by being stretched, laid bare by the flesh being clawed off them? Who could fail to be horrified?’32 28 Augustine, s. 13.8 (CChr.SL 41, 182.172-5); trans. Hill, WSA 3/1, 312. For other texts opposing the death penalty, see epp. 100, 103, 104, 133, 134, 139, 153, 185, 204, 10*.4, s. 302. 29 Michael Lamb argues for greater attention to rhetorical contexts in order to avoid distorting the interpretation of Augustine’s political thought, see ‘Beyond Pessimism: A Structure of Encouragement in Augustine’s City of God’, Review of Politics 80 (2014), 591-624. 30 Augustine, ep. 133.1 (CSEL 44, 81.14-8); italics mine; trans. Teske, WSA 2/2, 203. For other passages as explicit in their rejection of torture, see epp. 91.9, 104.17, s. 355.5. 31 Augustine, ep. 133.2 (CSEL 44, 82.1-7); trans. Teske, WSA 2/2, 203-4. 32 Augustine, s. 277A (MA 1, 243.11-15); trans. (altered) Hill, WSA 3/8, 47. For discussion and illustrations of torture instruments to which Augustine refers, see Hubertus R. Drobner,

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Whenever Augustine addressed letters to specific situations involving judicial torture or capital punishment, he commonly opposed both, counselled restraint, and suggested that more merciful forms of discipline would lead to better outcomes. Augustine opposed the judicial ‘rigidity of the Stoics’ (duritiam Stoicorum) to the ‘mercy of Christians’ (misericordiam Christianorum). He contended that it is no virtue to want ‘the mind of the wise person … to be absolutely as hard and inflexible as iron’.33 Augustine promoted compassion (compassio) as a virtue and defined it as ‘a kind of fellow-feeling in our hearts for the misery of another that compels us to come to his aid if we can’.34 Christian mercy itself opens possibilities unimaginable when constrained by what appear to be grim necessities but are not. In the words of Roberts Ogle, ‘In arguing for humanitas, Augustine liberated judges from the antinomies of a Stoic mindset, bringing mercy and justice together in the humane work of correcting human beings’.35 Augustine insisted that torture’s brutal instruments fail to disclose the truth because human hearts are opaque to all except God: ‘Very often there is a use of scourges and whips of all kinds, of hooks and fire, to extract a verbal confession…. In vain is the body mangled and entrails laid bare, while the charge is denied and the conscience remains closed’.36 The very rationale mandating and justifying the use of torture, that it will disclose the truth unknowable otherwise, is undermined by Augustine’s contention in many contexts that ‘We cannot see into the human heart nor bring it out into the open’.37 Torture’s calculated violence fails to remedy human ignorance and does not produce the certainty it promises. Augustine’s counsel was to renounce the hubris of feeling entitled to the assurance that comes from certain knowledge: ‘we live in uncertainty…. We live beset with uncertainties, holding one thing only as certain, that we shall die, but without even the certainty of when that will be’.38 To cultivate the faith, ‘“Stretch Yourself on the Rack of your Heart” (S. 13:7): Reality, Spirituality and Emotions in Augustine’s Imagery’, Journal of Religion & Society, Supplement 15 (2018), 28-33. For torture itself, see Ramsey MacMullen, ‘Judicial Savagery in the Roman Empire’, Chiron 16 (1986), 43-62. 33 Augustine, ep. 104.16 (CSEL 34/2, 593.13-20); trans. Teske, WSA 2/2, 53. 34 Augustine, ciu. 9.5 (CChr.SL 47, 17-9); trans. Babcock, WSA 1/6, 284-5. For a philosophically precise exposition of Augustine’s counter to Stoic critiques of compassion and Augustine’s promotion of the utility of what she calls “painful other-regarding emotions”, see Sarah Byers, ‘The Psychology of Compassion: Stoicism in City of God 9.5’, in James Wetzel (ed.), Augustine’s City of God: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2014), 130-48. 35 V. Roberts Ogle, ‘Sheathing the Sword’ (2018), 732. J. von Heyking also discusses Augustine’s advice to judges and likewise emphasizes Augustine’s attention to the personal virtue and moral character of the judge (‘Augustine on Punishment’ [2011], 62-4). 36 Augustine, s. 29A.3 (CChr.SL 41, 379.60-7); trans. Hill, WSA 3/2, 121. 37 Augustine, s. 279.10 (MA 1, 590.5); trans. Hill, WSA 3/8, 66. For the opacity of human hearts and the persistence of human secrets, see Paul R. Kolbet, ‘An Augustinian Theology of the Heart’s Privacy’, Journal of Religion and Society, Supplement Series 15 (2018), 1-20. 38 Augustine, en. Ps. 38.19 (CChr.SL 39, 419.4, 20-1); trans. Boulding, WSA 3/16, 190.

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intelligence, and humility necessary to make good decisions with such limited knowledge required a personal asceticism that Augustine promoted to judges by exploiting the very language of torture. He instructed them that the first imperative is to ‘sit in judgment on yourself’. This requires as extensive of a deliberative process as they would require in any other case: ‘If you have taken your seat on the bench in your mind, if you have stretched yourself on the rack of your heart before your very eyes, if you have applied to yourself the harsh tortures of fear – if that is how you have heard it then you have heard the case well’. This very tortuous interior exercise loosens the force of necessity and enables judges to eschew torture: ‘See how you have interrogated yourself, you have heard the case, you have passed sentence, and yet, all the same, you have spared yourself. Hear the case of your neighbour in the same way’.39 Once torture and the death penalty are set aside, Augustine contended that a number of corrective measures could be used therapeutically. In tougher cases (which he encountered repeatedly), Augustine believed that much like a father lovingly disciplines his children, fines and beatings with wooden rods could be rehabilitative without being inhumane.40 Augustine and other bishops employed such methods in their episcopal courts.41 Even in his arguments supporting the civil coercion of Donatists and Pagans, Augustine repeatedly pleaded with authorities to refrain from torture, including lead-tipped whips which he reminded officials could inadvertently lead to death.42 His arguments on the moral value of specific forms of coercion remain controversial, but torture was never a coercive instrument he commended against the Donatists or anyone else for that matter.43 In his own practice, Augustine’s preferred mode of correction, was, by far, the spoken word used to maximal effect.44 The bishop’s public and private rhetoric could be scathing. He told his own congregation, ‘I take you from behind your back, and put you down in front of your eyes. You will see yourself and 39

Augustine, s. 13.7 (CChr.SL 41, 181.149-182.163); trans. (altered) Hill, WSA 3/1, 312. See J. von Heyking, ‘Augustine on Punishment’ (2011), 61. On the kind of disciplinary beating Augustine experienced as a boy (conf. 1.9.15-10.16) and its broader application, see Theodore S. De Bruyn, ‘Flogging a Son: The Emergence of the pater flagellans in Latin Christian Discourse’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 7 (1999), 249-90. 41 Leslie Dossey, ‘Judicial Violence and the Ecclesiastical Courts in Late Antique North Africa’, in R.W. Mathisen (ed.), Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2001), 98-114. 42 Augustine, epp. 91.9, 104.17, 10*.4. 43 For a massive study of violence associated with Augustine and the Donatists, see Brent D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge, 2011). Shaw’s lengthy, learned, and deeply sad book, shows Augustine’s theorizing to be far less a singular driver of violence than it has been presented to have been. Instead, the vast majority of violence had far more ordinary and pedestrian sources than the influential and eloquent bishop’s study (see especially 30-1, 779). 44 Most conspicuous in his thirty-nine years of constant preaching in multiple North African cities and regions, see P. Kolbet, Augustine and the Cure of Souls (2010), esp. 167-97. 40

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bewail yourself!’45 He could also be gentle and sweet if that would have a better effect, ‘Do you not know that you were made in the image of God, O precious soul of the Church redeemed by the blood of the stainless Lamb? Consider how valuable you are’.46 Even as he chastised his own congregants, he told them that they were not to despair because God had established in the church sacred words, ‘a daily medicine for our saying “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” so that washing our faces with these words we may approach the altar, so that with faces washed by these words we may share together in the body and blood of Christ’.47 To the extent that Augustine believed in transformative power in this world, it happened most through word and sacrament in local congregations. As much as Augustine thought about violence and its limits and possibilities, the former teacher of secular rhetoric thought about words more. He is the one who insisted, ‘But it is a mark of greater glory to slay wars themselves by word rather than human beings by sword’.48 The vast quantity of Augustine’s preserved writings, their highly rhetorical nature, and their deep connection to ancient contexts and people that continue to recede from view, make it difficult to establish what his singular position was or would be on issues that continue to matter. Other longstanding arguments about Augustine’s politics, as a consequence, continue unabated such as assessing the extent that Augustine’s Christianity supplies analytic resources that can contribute to the reform of human society, its economies, and structures.49 No longer, however, can any appeal be sustained to Augustine’s life or thought to authorize the torture of human beings under any circumstances.

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Augustine, s. 17.5 (CChr.SL 41, 241.120-1); trans. Hill, WSA 3/1, 369. Augustine, en. Ps. 66.4 (CChr.SL 39, 861.27-9); trans. Boulding, WSA 3/17, 314. 47 Augustine, s. 17.5 (CChr.SL 41, 241.129-35); trans. Hill, WSA 3/1, 369. 48 Augustine, ep. 229.2 (CSEL 57, 498.3-4); trans. Teske, WSA 2/4, 113. 49 Note the contrast between Eric Gregory, Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship (Chicago, 2008) and Peter Iver Kaufman, On Agamben, Arendt, Christianity, and the Dark Arts of Civilization (London, 2020). 46

Composition and Change in De ciuitate Dei: A Case Study of Computationally Assisted Methods Eva Elisabeth HOUTH VRANGBÆK, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Kristoffer L. NIELBO, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

ABSTRACT De ciuitate Dei is widely acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of theological literature. Augustine himself has on multiple occasions evaluated the work and commented on its structure. In this paper, we will examine the structural dynamics of De ciuitate Dei as a case study for how automated approaches can benefit Augustine studies. Our aim is to investigate a path in computational techniques that we call assisted close reading. This approach can be said to represent a middle road between distant reading and close manual reading. By examining the informational flow of De ciuitate Dei, we will evaluate the algorithm’s ability to detect the structural composition of the book. Because De ciuitate Dei’s structure is well established, the quality of the results and the algorithm’s sensitivity to the finer aspects of the text can easily be assessed. The results obtained were robust and they reveal that the algorithm is sensitive to topical changes at multiple levels. Where the results diverged from the common acknowledged structure of the work, this divergence always followed a shift in topic and hinted at the exploratory value of the techniques. We conclude that the positive outcome from this case study proves the value of computational techniques within patristic research. This paper can be seen as an exploratory stepping stone to the development of computationally assisted methods within patristic studies, and how they can grow from within Augustine research and not imposed in a fast and precipitate way.

Augustine in a New Age When it comes to researching ancient texts, Augustine scholars are very privileged, since we have an astonishing amount of rich detail regarding the circumstances of many of Augustine’s writings. De ciuitate Dei is no exception. We know in detail when the twenty-two books were composed (in some cases, we can locate this to a specific six-month period). We know how Augustine’s evaluated De ciuitate Dei later in life, his opinion on its structure, and even his considerations about its publication format: whether it should be published in one collected volume, in two collected volumes (books 1-10 and books 11-22) or in five minor volumes (books 1-5, 6-10, 11-14, 15-18 and

Studia Patristica CXVII, 149-163. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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19-22).1 Although access to the complete works of Augustine, both in physical form and in digitised editions, over the last few decades has made it easier to work with Augustine’s lesser-known works, sermons, etc., De ciuitate Dei, together with Confessiones, rightly remains one of the most studied of all of Augustine’s numerous works.2 Isidore of Seville famously wrote that the man who claims to have read all of Augustine is a liar.3 It has since been commented that Isidore’s remark most likely refers ‘not to the number of the saint’s works but to their accessibility in the early middle ages. No library in the early middle ages contained all of St. Augustine’s works.’4 This is obviously not a problem today. Wherever we may be, we can go online and read Augustine’s writings, if time permits it.5 But whether Isidor’s comment refers to the accessibility or to the number of works makes no difference. Augustine wrote nearly five million words in his lifetime, and it is not merely the number but also the several different settings and purposes that pose a problem. There are simply too many words, meanings, contexts, settings and genres to overcome – also in a modern research context. As one of the lucky few who has testified to having read all of Augustine, James J. O’Donnell remarks: ‘Isidore of Seville said that the man who claims to have read all of Augustine is a liar and now, having indeed turned over all those pages and passed my eyes over all those words, I know and feel the truth of that more than ever.’6 It would not be rash to suggest that some or perhaps several of the disagreements among Augustine researchers arise precisely because scholars work from different areas of expertise. Put simply, we have not all studied the same texts closely, and it is impossible to have a detailed overview of the finer aspects and notions in all – or even half – of the texts.7 The field of patristics, and in this case Augustine research, can benefit from some of the computational techniques that have become established in both the humanistic and theological disciplines.8 Computational techniques allow the 1

Retr. 2.43; 17-34; ep. 1A* (1), CSEL 88, 7-9. Hubertus R. Drobner, ‘Studying Augustine: An overview of recent research’, in Robert Dodaro and George Lawless (eds), Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner (London, 2000). 3 Isidore of Seville PL 83, 1109A: Mentitur, qui te totum legisse fatetur. 4 Joseph F. Kelly, ‘Late Carolingian Era’, in Allan Fitzgerald and John C. Cavadini (eds), Augustine through the ages: an encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, 1999), 127. 5 E.g. CAG-online: https://cag-online.net/, a text critical version that requires a paid license. Or freely available versions from Migne Patrologia Latina: http://www.augustinus.it/ or http:// patristica.net/latina/. 6 James J. O’Donnell, ‘Augustine’s Idea of God’, in Everett Ferguson (ed.), Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity (New York, London, 1999), 21. 7 H.R. Drobner, ‘Studying Augustine’ (2000), 19-20. 8 Within Augustine research, the only study thus far to use distant reading is that by the German scholar Christopher Nunn, who tentatively ‘mines’ literary and biblical references in Augustine’s correspondence with women, see Christopher Nunn, ‘References in the Correspondence of Augustine. Chances and Boundaries of digital “Distant Reading” Processes’, REAug 62 (2016), 223-33 (doi: 10.1484/J.REA.4.2017033). 2

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reader to explore and visualise aspects and themes of a text and detect hidden structures in large text corpora. Digital Humanities, and its antecedent Humanities Computing, have developed into niches in most humanistic and theological research domains. However, this development, which is also apparent for researchers in ancient texts and patristic studies, has not been entirely unproblematic and has been the subject of an often heated debate.9 Part of this debate centres on a central methodological construct of Digital Humanities referred to as distant reading or macroanalysis.10 According to this construct, Digital Humanities enables a nomothetic mode of research i.e. a method that extracts general patterns and quantifiable evidence from large collections of text, as opposed to a traditional idiographic (human) mode that relies on a close reading of a few texts.11 It would be tempting to try to resolve some of the disagreements within Augustine research with a quick and supposed objective method, which is offered by distant reading. But, in our opinion, this would not represent the most fruitful path for much humanistic and theological research. We believe that the distinction between nomothetic and idiographic approaches in this context is artificial. We find that the true value of computational techniques depends on their productive integration with deep domain expertise in, as in our case, the field of patristics. The purpose of using these techniques on a text by Augustine in this paper is to examine how the computational techniques can be adapted to and assist conventional Augustine research. In the following, we will offer a case study on how computational techniques can be integrated and adapted to a specific research field, in our case the De ciuitate Dei. This paper is a first attempt to integrate two research fields by testing whether an algorithm can be trained to detect similar results as an Augustine researcher. If successful, such integrated methods together with some of the useful distant reading-methods could create a fruitful soil for a lot of further perspectives within Augustine research and patristic research in general. It could be genre detection, citation detection, advanced indexing, stylistic studies, studies of comparison and studies of continuity/discontinuity within an authorship. With a corpus of Augustine texts, a multitude of studies is ready to be explored.12 9 E.g., Digital Humanities Wars, the issue of distant reading and scale, see Nan Z. Da, ‘The Digital Humanities Debacle. Computational methods repeatedly come up short’, Chronicle of Higher Education (2019), retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Digital-Humanities-Debacle/245986. 10 Matthew Jockers, Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History (Champaign, IL, 2013), 31. See also Matthew Jockers, ‘On Distant Reading and Macroanalysis’, retreived from http://www.matthewjockers.net/2011/07/01/on-distant-reading-and-macroanalysis/#footnote 11 M. Jockers, Macroanalysis (2013), 48. 12 Another experiment would be to analyse entropy, i.e. the coherence in the word-flow of an author. With this we can measure what could be called a creativity-level in Augustine’s use of words from his early to his late writings. This experiment has been done with the Danish poet, theologian and mythographer N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872) in Kristoffer L. Nielbo, Katrine F. Baunvig, Bin Liu and Jianbo Gao, ‘A Curious Case of Entropic Decay: Persistent Complexity in Textual Cultural Heritage’, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 34(3) (2019).

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The two major obstacles for a successful implementation is, in general, the lack of programming skills among domain experts and the lack of good digitized versions of the texts. Within the field of Augustine, the problem of digitised texts does not pose a hindrance, it is merely the question of which and the quality of the version. The linguistic barrier with Latin does not either pose a problem any more. The field of computer research in ancient texts has grown to an extent where tools for ancient languages are well-established. Natural language processing tools have already been developed not only for Greek and Latin but also for Arabic, ancient Chinese, Hebrew and many more.13 The lack of programming skills among patristic scholars poses a greater problem, for example the risk that computer experts drive patristic research in an inexpedient, even perfunctory, direction, without the possibility for Augustine experts to critique or validate the findings. In this paper, we argue for the approach, which we will name assisted close reading, in order to stress the close connection between traditional non-digital research and computational analyses. Assisted Close Reading In this paper, we propose an approach that we call computationally assisted close reading.14 We have developed an algorithm that imitates an expert reader in order to detect significant points of change in the informational dynamics of De ciuitate Dei, to identify where we find the most significant changes in the book.15 This approach represents a middle road between distant reading and close manual reading, and its methodological value depends on the approach’s capacity to facilitate analysis of small collections of texts.16 Our specific application of this approach to De ciuitate Dei can be thought of as a case study to qualitatively test how sensitive automated close reading is to the finer aspects of a text, both at a confirmatory and an exploratory level.17 With the term 13 See the Classical Language Toolkit (CLTK), http://docs.cltk.org/en/latest/index.html. CLTK is a natural language processing toolkit for classical languages. Natural Language Processing is a form of language technology where a programme can recognise spoken or written human language (in opposition to computer language which consists of binary numbers). 14 An approach also used in Kristoffer L. Nielbo et al., ‘Automated Compositional Change Detection in Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum’, https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02084682/ document (2019). 15 For technical details on methods, see Appendix A. 16 See a study on computational narratology and story arcs on a single novel in: Qiyue Hu et al., ‘Dynamic evolution of sentiments in Never Let Me Go: Insights from multifractal theory and its implications for literary analysis’, https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02143896/document (2019). 17 Importantly, all experiments make extensive use of adaptive filtering in order to model the continuous flow of information experienced by a reader, see Jianbo Gao, Jing Hu and Wen-wen Tung, ‘Facilitating Joint Chaos and Fractal Analysis of Biosignals through Nonlinear Adaptive Filtering’, PLoS ONE, 6(9):e24331 (2011).

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confirmatory we mean the testing of results which are known from past research in order to examine whether the algorithm can detect similar results. With exploratory we mean the algorithm’s ability to assist researchers in exploring new insights. Our goal is to test whether these computerised methods are suitable within the field of Augustine research. We will therefore run experiments on composition, topic and change in De ciuitate Dei, exploring how an algorithmic technique can, through analyses of information streams, detect the structure of the work. We have chosen De ciuitate Dei since it is well-studied text with an established and almost undebated structure, and it is therefore particularly suitable for our purposes.18 In what follows, we present results from three experiments with De ciuitate Dei’s lexical content, which examine the structure of the work and the dynamics within the two main parts:19 In experiment one, we establish a baseline by examining the lexical impact of significant keywords in the dynamic evolution of De ciuitate Dei. In experiment two, we show how the informational dynamics in a latent semantic model of De ciuitate Dei supports reader expectations of specific points of change in the text.20 In the third and last experiment, we explore the bipartite split of the work in an early and a late collection of books. The second and third experiments apply a latent semantic model, which was trained on the co-occurrence structure of the complete works of Augustine.21 This model of Augustine’s collected writings is then sequentially applied to De ciuitate Dei in small sections of 250 words and its response is monitored in terms of information novelty (i.e. the section’s reliable difference from the 18 We are using a digitised version of Augustine’s collected works from J.P. Migne Patrologia Latina, which can be found here: http://www.augustinus.it/ (last accessed 10/4/2020). For our further investigation of computational techniques and Augustine’s works, we will use a text critical edition. However, for the purpose of our current experiments, the non-text critical edition is sufficient. 19 The lexical content refers to the fact that the ‘text’ we are working with has been pre-processed, leaving only content words / lexical words and omitting the most frequent function words (pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions), this is one of the most basic standard procedures in computational methods esp. when we are examining the topical structure. 20 A so-called co-occurrence structure is a technical term from computational linguistics which describes how lexical entities (words) co-occur (appear together in the text) based on a distributional semantic approach which supposes that the meaning of words in a given text is context-dependent. Co-occurrence structure thus simply means a contextually measured structure based on word distribution. This approach is highly relevant when searching for topical structures, because within computational linguistics a topic is defined as a collection of words that co-occur. 21 A latent semantic model is a statistical topic modelling which cover a large range of unsupervised algorithms that can discover latent semantic variables in an extensive bodies of text, see e.g. David Blei, ‘Probabilistic Topic Models’, Communications of the ACM 55 (2012), 77-85 (doi: 10.1145/2133806.2133826). That the model is latent means that it is unsupervised, i.e. we let the algorithm determine the output based on computation. For further about topic modelling see notes 29 and 30 infra.

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preceding section) and resonance (i.e. the degree to which subsequent sections conform to the novelty).22 Lexical Impact of Keywords Computation of word frequencies is not alien to the field of Augustine studies and, for many years, it has been performed manually in order to uncover structures and patterns concerning specific notions in selected texts.23 As a simple computationally assisted approach, it is efficient, flexible and naturally scalable, making basic word searches or counts an obvious starting point when applying computational techniques. In order to improve the semantic precision of word counts, text normalisation techniques (e.g. lemmatisation) can be essential.24 If properly guided by domain expertise, a small set of keywords can reveal basic semantic structures, as we can see from Figure 1.25 In this experiment, we examine the lexical impact of three selected keywords, which represents a simple transformation of word frequencies designed to enhance the visual identification of trends. From Figure 1, a person who has read De ciuitate Dei can discern the semantic progression of the book, and an experienced reader can easily spot the wellknown structure of the work. The top graph shows the occurrences of all plural forms of ‘Deus’. The frequent occurrence of ‘dii’ (the gods) in books 2-10 is unsurprising and conforms to our expectation based on our knowledge of books 1-10 which describe the Roman religion and philosophy, mentioning of ‘the gods’ is therefore frequent. This high frequency first begins in book 2, which is easily explained by the fact that book 1 is more about Roman history than Roman religion. The theme of Roman Gods (dii) is more persistent in books 2-5 and eventually fades out in book 11, at which point the second part of the work begins. The middle graph shows the occurrences of the lemmatised word Christus and exhibits a useful indication of where this topic is relevant. The bottom graph shows the occurrences of the lemma iudicium and, from this graph, we 22 Alexander T.J. Barron, Jenny Huang, Rebecca L. Spang and Simon DeDeo, ‘Individuals, Institutions, and Innovation in the Debates of the French Revolution’, arXiv:1710.06867 (2017); Nielbo, Vahlstrup, Gao & Bechmann, ‘Sociocultural trend signatures in minimal persistence and past novelty’, Manuscript submitted for publication (2019). 23 See e.g. Leo Ferrari, ‘Paul at the Conversion of Augustine’, AugSt 11 (1980), 5-20. 24 We have used the natural language processing programming tool kit for classical languages CLTK, Kyle P. Johnson et al., ‘CLTK: The Classical Language Toolkit’, (2014-2019) (doi: 10.5281/ zenodo), https://github.com/cltk/cltk (last accessed 10/4/2020). See further in Appendix A. 25 Keyword searches in digitised texts have proven attractive for research. One proof of this is the popularity of Google’s Ngram Viewer, which has provided the basis for a multitude of studies: https://books.google.com/ngrams (it should be noted that this search tool assumes a relatively naive and atomistic theory of semantics).

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Figure 1: Lexical impact of plural form of Deus (upper), singular forms of Christus (middle), and all forms of Iudicium. Lexical impact is a transformation of a word’s relative frequency distributed over multiple parts of a text (see Appendix A). The continuous line is generated using a normalized adaptive filter on the raw lexical impact scores.

can see how the frequency of this term coincides with the books that have eschatology as their main theme. Tellingly, by searching for the single word iudicium, it is possible to sense how, in book 19, Augustine is somewhat hesitant in starting the topic of the end time. At the beginning of book 19, a fairly high occurrence of the lemma iudicium can be seen by the high grey spikes. Here, Augustine is indicating the content of the following books. Yet it is only in book 20 that the theme is treated specifically. Such visualisations of the lexical impact can be used in a confirmative and explorative way. On a confirmative level, the value can be obvious, but, on an explorative level, the methods of lexical impact have extraordinary value as a complete index for the studied texts.

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Detection of Informational Change In our second experiment, we examine informational change points in the De ciuitate Dei’s co-occurrence structure by focusing on two processes of reader retention: novelty and resonance.26 The first process, novelty, is the degree to which the co-occurrence structure of any given section of text deviates from the preceding section and, as such, captures a reader’s attention. Novelty signifies that something significantly new is introduced. The second process, resonance, measures the degree to which the novelty of any given section shapes subsequent sections, which creates continuity and coherence in the text.27 To further imitate the hierarchical levels of abstraction on which an expert reader processes information (e.g. while reading a sentence of De ciuitate Dei, the reader can simultaneously recall content from the preceding sentence, paragraph, and chapter and predict the content of subsequent sentences, paragraphs and chapters), we have applied an adaptive function to the raw novelty and resonance signals at two levels of granularity (fine and coarse). Explained in psychological terms, these two filtered signals capture attention at different levels of encoding.28 As for the more technical details of this experiment, we now employ a method which belongs to the area of topic modelling.29 A topic model uncovers topics in a text based on a probabilistic formalisation of semantics i.e. the topic modelling clusters similar words together based on probability. More specifically we employ a so-called latent Dirichlet allocation, which represents a (section of) text as a distribution over a small set of latent variables or topics.30 The use of an LDA approach is necessary for this analysis because we conceive the meaning of a word to be more than just 26 A quick illustration of novelty and resonance would be to imagine our test on an encyclopaedia. An encyclopaedia has a very high novelty rate, because new topics are constantly introduced, and, therefore, it has a low resonance rate, because there is little coherence between the different entries in the encyclopaedia. 27 As such, resonance is a function of the novelty and a second variable, transience, of each section in De ciuitate Dei (see Appendix A). 28 Recently, dynamical systems approaches have shown that such adaptive functions hold great promise for modelling sociocultural data. J. Gao, J. Hu, X. Mao and M. Perc, ‘Culturomics Meets Random Fractal Theory: Insights into Long-Range Correlations of Social and Natural Phenomena over the Past Two Centuries’, Journal of The Royal Society Interface 9 73 (2012), 1956-64; Kristoffer L. Nielbo, Katrine F. Baunvig, Bin Liu and Jianbo Gao, ‘A Curious Case of Entropic Decay: Persistent Complexity in Textual Cultural Heritage’, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 34(3) (2019). 29 Roughly the same technique is employed when a reader app as Kindle, Goodreads or Issuu can suggest further reading to a user based on previous readings, because the algorithm in the application can scan other content which is similar to the previously read material. 30 David M. Blei, Andrew Y. Ng and Michael I. Jordan, ‘Latent Dirichlet Allocation’, The Journal of Machine Learning Research 3 (2003), 993-1022. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) is a variation of Latent Semantic Analysis which belongs to the area of topic modelling, and the LDA was specifically developed by Prof. David M. Blei in 2003.

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Figure 2: Novelty (left column) and Resonance (right column) for De ciuitate Dei in sections of 250 words. Upper rows are the raw signals, middle rows are fine granularity filtering () and lower rows are coarse granularity (). For resonance at fine and coarse levels ▼ indicate local maxima and the global minimum respectively.

atomistic representations of lexical impact. We instead view a word’s meaning as context-dependent and therefore determined by its co-occurrence with other words. This distributional view of semantics has been very successful in modelling word meaning in a range of language-related tasks.31 The most obvious trend we observe is that novelty increases as a function of time, that is, De ciuitate Dei progressively introduces new concepts and themes (left column). Yet this novelty is not uniformly distributed. The early books display a sharp drop in novelty, which is counterbalanced by an increase in novelty towards the middle books and finally a high level of novelty in the latter books. In the resonance signal in the right column, we notice two distinct patterns of change.32 31 Gemma Boleda, ‘Distributional Semantics and Linguistic Theory’, Annual Review of Linguistics 6(1) (2020), 213-34. 32 It is important to point out that what we represent as points (i.e. specific sections of text) are actually parts of a continuous process and that the extreme therefore evolves over multiple sections.

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Another observable trend is the global minimum in resonance at the coarse level of granularity (the bottom-right graph). This global minimum divides De ciuitate Dei into two main parts: an early part (books 1-10) characterised by a persistent decrease in resonance, and a late part (11-22) characterised by an initial increase in resonance followed by a more or less stable level of resonance. This global minimum is precisely at the very beginning of book 11 and thus splits the book up in exactly the same two parts as Augustine himself describes. From this, it can be concluded that the major shift in topic of De ciuitate Dei also is detectable for the algorithm, which already is apparent at this coarse level. At fine granularity (the middle-right graph), the signal displays five local maxima (indicated by dots), which designate points at which the thematic content both deviates from preceding content and shapes subsequent content. These points indicate significant changes in books 2, 5, 15, 19 and 20 all of which comprise major shifts in topics and mode, and thus represent change points in the ‘narrative’ of De ciuitate Dei. The first local maximum between book 1 and 2 is not found in the commonly acknowledged structure, but here the algorithm finds a topical change, which is also apparent for a manual reader. Where book 1 has a variety of themes such as suicide, rape and other things related to the sack of Rome, books 2-5 centre primarily on Roman history and its religion. The three middle maxima, which fall at the beginning of book 5, 15 and 19, are all strikingly similar to Augustine’s own division of the work, and shows how the algorithm truly is able to understand shifts in topics. According to Augustine himself book 19 initiates the last division of De ciuitate Dei, our programme, however, also detected a change between book 19 and 20. A change that actually is registered to be more significant than the one between 18 and 19. This subdivision of the last part of De ciuitate Dei coincides with the results indicated in experiment one, where iudicum becomes increasingly used during book 20. That Augustine first has some digressions and after an introduction is rather slow to start his treatment of the end times, is also the common experiences of the manual reader. The three middle local maxima at fine granularity together with the minimal point from the graph below strikingly fit the traditional division of De ciuitate Dei in five parts, as indicated by Augustine himself in letter 1A*. The two points that deviate from Augustine’s own division are easily explainable and only shows that at this granularity the algorithm further subdivides the already established structure. We need an algorithm that can emulate a reader and thereby find the same structure as we expect. Here, the algorithm identifies all the established division points and thus fulfils its purpose, and where the algorithm deviates from the structure, it points to the fact that it also is capable of detecting other changes that can help navigate both smaller and larger text corpora.

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Bipartite Resonance Structure To understand how the bipartite structure is detected, it is important to remember that resonance is a function both of novelty and transience. While novelty is interesting because it captures the reader’s level of surprise, it is only half of the ‘reader retention story’. To have an impact, the novelty of any given section needs to resonate with and shape the following section of content. The text must have resonance in order to capture the reader with novelty. Resonance dynamics in the early part of De ciuitate Dei can be a result of either a persistent decrease in novelty or an increase in transience. The raw novelty signal (top-left graph in Figure 2) indicates an early drop in novelty followed by a short burst that is countered by an equal increase in transience. This appears to be in accordance with the reader experience noted by many readers. When reading books 1-10, Augustine’s rather extensive account of the vices of Roman culture becomes slightly monotonous compared with other more progressively composed parts of the book. To further confirm the difference between the two main parts of De ciuitate Dei observed in our second experiment (books 1-10 and 11-22), we conducted a third experiment. Since the relationship between novelty and resonance indicates two distinct dynamic patterns, we modelled the relationship using a simple linear model between the two (standardised) variables for each part (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Linear models fitted to Resonance on Novelty for the early parts (black stars) and late parts (grey circles) of De ciuitate Dei. Segmentation is based on the global minimum of resonance in figure 2.

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From a comparison of the two models, it can be observed that novel concepts and themes are much more persistent in the late part of De ciuitate Dei and that the novelty of early sections tends to cluster around a small range of low values, which aligns well with our previous interpretation. The latter main part of De ciuitate Dei appears to be more dynamic and less monotonous than the former. To further test the observed difference, we conducted a statistical one-way repeated measures analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in order to compare differences in resonance as a function of the parts (early/late) while controlling for novelty.33 Here, we found a significant difference between the parts: F(1, 880) = 65.3, p ⪡ 0.0001, which confirms that the late part of De ciuitate Dei is indeed characterised by a far greater level of resonance than the early part. Concluding Remarks In this study, we examined the compositional dynamics of De ciuitate Dei with the assistance of computerised methods. By examining the informational flow of De ciuitate Dei, we evaluated our algorithm’s ability to detect the structural composition of the book. The approach which we called computationally assisted close reading proved to be very useful and to have further potential. We discovered a significant coherence between Augustine’s own division of the work and our results, which were only seasoned by minor divergences that, on closer inspection, provided appropriate topical divisions in the text. The algorithm was shown to be highly sensitive to shifts in topics, and, when verified, the results proved to be robust. Our experiments discerned a bipartite structure that discriminated between two significantly distinct parts of De ciuitate Dei. This division, found between book 10 and 11, coincides with the commonly acknowledged main division of the work. In experiment three, the two main parts were compared and proved to be significantly different in their resonance. At fine granularity in experiment two, the three middle local maxima together with the minimal point at coarse granularity fit the traditional division of De ciuitate Dei in five parts, as indicated by Augustine himself in letter 1A*. The additional two points that deviate from Augustine’s own division shows that at fine granularity the algorithm further subdivides the already established structure. The algorithm emulated a reader very well in finding the same structure as we expected. In this case, it detected all four traditional division points and thus recognized the five-fold structure. The two further subdivisions point to the fact 33 An analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) is a statistical tool that combines analysis of variance (ANOVA) with linear regression analysis. The ANCOVA explains two different variants, in this context, novelty and resonance. The experiment thus compares novelty and resonance in order to measure these two variants in both the late and the early part.

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that the algorithm is also capable of detecting other changes that can help navigate both smaller and larger text corpora exploratively. The use of computational techniques thus proved that it is possible to approach the experiments at both confirmative and explorative levels. These experiments can be seen as a stepping stone to the further developments of computationally assisted methods within modern patristic scholarship. And if any of the readers of De ciuitate Dei might have found the latter books of part one to be more monotonous than other parts of the work, this article offers them a graph to explain why. Appendix A: Methods Data Our study uses De ciuitate Dei in Latin, separated into 22 books, and further divided into sections of 250 words for length normalisation. Before our analysis, the high frequency words34 and non-alphabetic characters were removed from the text, and all remaining characters were lower-cased.35 Finally, the texts were lemmatised using the backoff chain lemmatiser from the Classical Language Toolkit.36 Lexical Impact Lexical impact (ख) is a simple transformation of term frequency (tf ) in order to display the impact of a word ( ) throughout a document:

for word

and tf is the relative word frequency:

where f is the empirical frequency of word 34

.

See http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/stopwords. Linguistic normalization is often used in computationally assisted analysis in order to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. Lemmatization and removal or weighting of high frequency words are useful normalization techniques for information retrieval, see Christopher Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan and Hinrich Schütze, Introduction to Information Retrieval (New York, 2008). 36 Kyle P. Johnson et al., ‘CLTK: The Classical Language Toolkit’ (2014-2019) (doi: 10.5281/ zenodo.3445585). 35

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Novelty and Resonance For estimates of Novelty and Resonance, a latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model37 was trained on the complete works of Augustine using the same preprocessing pipeline as mentioned in the Data section. This was done to emulate a reader with complete knowledge of Augustine’s work. Grid search was used to determine the topic parameter from 5 to 100 in steps of 5 using coherence as the evaluation metric. Novelty (घ), transience (ञ) and resonance (ज) were estimated for a window ( ) of 25 sections based on the following equations:38

Where s is a K-dimensional document distribution in the LDA model and DKL is the Kullback-Leibler divergence:

Nonlinear Adaptive Filtering Nonlinear adaptive filtering39 is used because of the inherent noisiness of semantic signals. First, the signal is partitioned into segments (or windows) of length = 2n + 1 points, where neighbouring segments overlap by n + 1. The time scale is n + 1 points, which ensures symmetry. Then, for each segment, a polynomial of order D is fitted. Note that D = 0 indicates a piecewise constant, and D = 1 a linear fit. The fitted polynomial for ith and (i + 1)th is denoted as where . Note the length of the last segment may be shorter than . We use the following weights for the overlap of two segments:

37 38 39

David M. Blei et al., ‘Latent Dirichlet Allocation’ (2003), 993-1022. Alexander Barron et al., ‘Individuals, Institutions, and Innovation’, ArXiv:1710.06867 (2017). Jianbo Gao et al., ‘Facilitating Joint Chaos’ (2011).

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where can be written as where denotes the distance between the point of overlapping segments and the centre of . The weights decrease linearly with the distances between points and the centre of the segment. This ensures that the filter is continuous everywhere and that non-boundary points are smooth.

Augustine’s Roman Heroes: The Contest of Classical and Christian Virtue Richard J. DOUGHERTY, University of Dallas, Irving, TX, USA

ABSTRACT A lively debate has spanned generations concerning how best to understand St Augustine’s view of his pagan predecessors and sources. Much of that contention has focused on the issue of the so-called “splendid vices” of the ancients – the seemingly praiseworthy actions the ancients undertook that do not readily or recognizably coincide with Christian teaching. This essay aims at addressing that issue, but from a different angle, by focusing on the real appreciation Augustine has for both classical writers and ancient historical figures, primarily among the Romans. It is true that, in the end, Augustine finds them all wanting in one way or another, either because their actions or their intentions fall short of the qualities of true virtues. Yet, it is often too easy to dismiss the real appreciation Augustine expresses, routinely and profoundly, for the guidance and insight to be gained by a serious and careful encounter with the ancients. Whether it be in his tributes to Cicero, Marcus Varro, the Platonists, or Sallust, Augustine does not shy away from acknowledging the depth of thinking and care in writing found in his pagan predecessors, fulfilling his own recognition in De doctrina christiana (and elsewhere) of the manner in which everything can in fact be out to its proper uses as aids to salvation. Similarly, the experiences of self-sacrificing Roman political and military figures, while ultimately insufficient guides for Christians, provide truly useful examples of the capacity for human action and responsibility in serving goods that transcend immediate self-interest. Augustine does conclude that the writings and actions of the ancients are all lacking in some ways, some more significant than others, but one should not dismiss too quickly the degree to which he does express an admiration for their efforts, and that Christians have much to learn – even if by way of appropriation – from the writings and selfsacrifices of their pagan predecessors.

One of the long-standing debates in Augustinian scholarship is the question of how to understand Augustine’s treatment of the moral actions of classical actors, in particular whether he considers those actions to be truly virtuous. On the one side are those who find him as a defender of the ancients, asserting that pagan actions are fairly seen to be virtuous, whether they be acts of justice, magnanimity, courage, or self-sacrifice; one would be hard-pressed to describe these as anything other than virtuous. On the other side are those who find Augustine as a critic of ‘so-called’ pagan virtue, who note that notwithstanding

Studia Patristica CXVII, 165-176. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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the remarkable feats of many ancient political leaders, thinkers, and warriors, their accomplishments are not rightly understood by Augustine as virtuous, as they have no intimate connection with what is understood to be true virtue, virtue which is connected in some significant manner to belief in and worship of the true God.1 While this raises a matter of critical importance in Augustine, we will turn to this question only after examining some of the ways in which Augustine engages with, and shows appreciation for, his pre-Christian exempla. My interest is in understanding the uses Augustine makes of this question through looking primarily at the textual evidence provided in De ciuitate Dei, with some substantial glances elsewhere. The conclusion, with hopes of not prejudicing the force of the analysis, is that while in the end Augustine does hold the pagan virtues to not be virtues in the full sense, or not ‘true virtue’, that too often defenders of that position overlook the very real appreciation Augustine has for the actions and teachings of pagans, or of non-believers more broadly. A judicious assessment of Augustine’s project demands a recognition of that profound indebtedness he expresses on numerous occasions and in so many ways. And, importantly, his employment of such sources is not solely in the service of his larger argument, or utilized simply for the manner in which they further his philosophical, theological, or political project. The interest of this essay is not in tracing the influence of pagan authors, or the sources of the passages used by Augustine from such authors, but rather to emphasize the appreciation Augustine had for the contribution of various figures among his predecessors. Accounts of such encounters have rightly emphasized the importance of his predecessors for Augustine’s work; the research work of Harald Hagendahl and others is central to examining the question of sources, as is Gerard O’Daly for The City of God specifically.2

Roman Authorities Augustine’s employment of or extended colloquy with Cicero is well-trod ground, but it is worth considering a few key passages in light of this slightly different perspective. Perhaps the crucial passage is of course the discussion in Confessions of the Hortensius, but there are two passages in the early books of The City of God that bear special attention first. In Book 2, Augustine employs the Ciceronian account of political regimes found in his De re publica, wherein Scipio’s description of the variety of regimes serves as a propaedeutic to Augustine’s investigation into the purported justice of the Roman political 1 Brett Gaul gives a then status quaestionis of the debate in his excellent ‘Augustine on the Virtues of the Pagans’ (Augustinian Studies 40 [2009], 233-49). 2 Harald Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics, 2 vol. (Göteberg, 1967); Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God: A Reader’s Guide (Oxford, 1999).

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order.3 Augustine cites Scipio’s account without criticism, seeming to accept it as a reasonable way of distinguishing between and among political orders, with its primary focus on the relative goodness or injustice of each regime.4 Indeed, he goes on to quote another passage from Cicero’s De re publica, from Book 5, at length, where Cicero in his own name assesses the character of the Roman Republic, and with the help of the poet Ennius (another ‘authority’) helps describe the decline of Roman morals and greatness.5 Augustine feels no need to correct or cabin in Cicero’s ‘confession’ (‘fatebatur’) of the state of Rome, though of course here it does serve his purpose.6 In the early chapters of Book 5 of De ciuitate Dei Augustine does, importantly, distance himself from Cicero on the question of free will. Cicero asserts (in the mouth of an interlocutor in De natura deorum and in his own name in De divinatione7) that freedom of the will is incompatible with the notion of divine prescience or foreknowledge, a position Augustine explicitly rejects here as the most patent madness (‘apertissima insania est’).8 But one should not overlook the praise explicit even in his criticism; Cicero, Augustine says, insists there is a conflict between free will and divine power, and so, ‘being a great and learned man’ (‘vir magnus et doctus’) he opts for human freedom, as one should.9 If there is in fact a conflict between the two claims, in other words, the truly courageous choice to make, the one made by Cicero, is to vindicate human freedom.10 Of course Augustine ends up critiquing the false choice Cicero presents, holding that there is no such conundrum, as the religious mind ‘chooses both, confesses both, and confirms both by the faith of godliness.’11 Yet, he shows an appreciation for the fact that Cicero is adamant in rejecting the claim on behalf of fate – an argument Augustine himself has just addressed – and his parallel argument in defense of voluntarily chosen human action. That most crucial part of Augustine’s teaching he sees as vindicated in Cicero’s 3 De ciuitate Dei, 2.21 (quotations are from R.W. Dyson’s translation, Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans [Cambridge, 1998]). 4 Importantly, Augustine says almost nothing about what is a crucial part of Scipio’s comments in De re publica – the important distinctions between the rule of one, the few, and the many; this is a crucial issue, of course, for Cicero and for Aristotle and many others in the ancient world. 5 De ciuitate Dei, 2.21.78-9. 6 See Hagendahl’s comment: ‘Cicero’s work was of the same importance for his criticism of the Roman State as Sallust’s Catilina and Historiae for his conception of Roman history’ (Augustine and the Latin Classics [1967], 543). 7 Both works are cited by name in De ciuitate Dei, 5.9. 8 De ciuitate Dei, 5.9, Dyson, 198. 9 De ciuitate Dei, 5.9, Dyson, 198-200. 10 In De doctrina christiana Augustine speaks of the astrological prognosticators, of whom he says ‘whenever a free man goes in to one of these astrologers, he pays him money in order to come out the slave of either Mars or Venus, or rather of all the constellations’ (2.21.32, Teaching Christianity, trans. Edmund Hill [Hyde Park, NY, 1990], 145-6). 11 De ciuitate Dei, 5.9, Dyson, 200.

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willing assertion of human freedom, which assists Augustine’s larger goal but also reflects the reality of the human condition as he understands it. The Confessions passage on Cicero’s Hortensius is, for good reason, much discussed, and there is significant dissension about the meaning of Augustine’s encounter with the text.12 Hortensius is unfortunately largely lost to us, of course, but there are over 100 extant fragments, including those from Augustine.13 But however one stylizes the authority of the work for Augustine, no doubt it holds a place of reasonable importance for his intellectual development, and he thought enough of the Hortensius to apparently have circulated it to his interlocutors at Cassiciacum.14 The appreciation for Cicero is striking, especially if one agrees with James J. O’Donnell, who calls Augustine Cicero’s ‘most imaginative disciple’.15 O’Donnell notes that Augustine’s reliance on Cicero is relatively novel; ‘There seems no satisfactory study of the readership of Cicero’s philosophical works in antiquity and late antiquity’, and thus ‘Augustine’s intensity of attention may have been more idiosyncratic than we have assumed’.16 Certainly the Somnium Scipionis from Book 6 of Cicero’s De re publica is cited and preserved in various forms, but that is for other reasons, in particular its usefulness for Neoplatonism (e.g., Macrobius). Augustine’s fondness for Cicero’s works, notable in both its ubiquity across his writings and in his willingness to accord him the honor of educating him, is sustained in reference to Cicero’s depth as well as his deft mastery of language.17 Yet, even the riches of Cicero disappointed Augustine, for the absence in Hortensius of the name of Christ was jarring enough that he notes his own turn to reading the Scriptures, driven on now by the love of wisdom. The fact that the encounter with Scripture was not immediately satisfactory, though, Augustine attributes in part to an earthly pride, not heeding the (yet unknown to him) warning of St Paul against deceptive philosophy.18 The reference to the problem of philosophic pride occasions a turn to examine Augustine’s account of philosophy found in De ciuitate Dei. There, in Book 2, in the context of critiquing the claim that the gods were responsible for the earthly success of Rome, Augustine first notes how the gods brought immorality into the city by means of the sacrilegious rites they demanded of 12 Robert P. Russell, in ‘Cicero’s Hortensius and the Problem of Riches in Saint Augustine’, ably considers multiple interpretations (Augustinian Studies 7 [1976], 59-68). 13 See Cicero, Ciceronis opera, ed. Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Muller, Vol. IV.3 (Leipzig, 1888), 312-27. 14 See the Contra Academicos, 1.1.4. 15 James J. O’Donnell, Augustine, Confessions (Oxford, 1992), II 162. 16 Ibid. II 163, note 2. 17 See, for example, his praise of Cicero in De magistro, 5.16, and Contra academicos, 1.3.7, where he refers to ‘Cicero noster’ (J.J. O’Donnell, Augustine, Confessions [1992], II 164); in De ciuitate Dei Augustine quotes Lucan praising Cicero’s eloquence, evidence of admiration for both writers simultaneously (14.18). 18 Confessiones, 3.8, citing Colossians 2:8-9.

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the populace. But maybe, he suggests, the Romans can at least claim that their philosophers have introduced principles of morality? Augustine takes the issue seriously, and though he dismisses the political efficacy of their teachings, being ‘not the precepts of gods, but the inventions of men’, he praises what they were able to discover in natural philosophy, morals, and logic, at least as long as they did not resist divine providence by pride.19 He makes mention of no philosophers in particular here by name, though the subsequent discussion in the chapter does suggest the Romans would have been better off following Plato or Cato; it is worth noting that his criticism is punctuated by utilizing a quote from Terence in lodging a critique of Rome.20 The fuller development of the proper approach to philosophy in Books 8-10 clearly suggests a connection with this earlier passage in Book 2, for when Augustine turns to discuss Plato in particular in 8.4 he begins with the same tripartite division of philosophy.21 As the most illustrious student of Socrates, and one whose significance can be seen in the fact every contemporary wants to be known as a Platonist (8.12),22 Socrates is appreciated for having brought attention to questions of morality, even if in the end his teaching about the final good is unclear.23 But Plato and the Platonists are worthy of an extended analysis, both because their teachings are so well known and because they are so close to the Christian understanding.24 Without doing too much – but some – injustice to the argument, Augustine’s critique of the Platonists, including Apuleius, Porphyry, and Plotinus, is at one and the same time critical and appreciative. As O’Donnell describes it: ‘He has, as always, high praise for the Platonists mixed with specific and unyielding criticism; we find it hard to take him seriously on both counts at once, but in the face of the consistency of his statements over many years (the difference separating his most Plotinian or Porphyrian remarks at Cassiciacum and his most cautious rectifications in Retractationes forty years late is slight) […], he must be given the benefit of the doubt’.25 Bearing in mind the tribute to Plato in the opening chapters of 19

De ciuitate Dei, 2.7. He uses Terence’s Eunuchus, 3.36, 42. Augustine’s use of such authors is highlighted in Michael Foley’s multi-volume edition of the Cassiciacum dialogues (New Haven, 2019-). 21 He does not connect this division with Socrates in 8.3, although he is showing there some real appreciation for Socrates. 22 Augustine mentions here by name Plotinus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Apuleius, though noting that they are all defective in upholding the rites honoring the many gods (‘diis plurimis’). 23 Presumably Augustine is indebted here to Cicero for the understanding that Socrates brought philosophy ‘down from the heavens’ (Tusculan Disputations, 5.4.10; De ciuitate Dei, 8.3). 24 De ciuitate Dei, 8.6-10; Augustine notes that the Greeks have celebrated the Platonists and the Romans have eagerly translated them into Latin (8.10). 25 J.J. O’Donnell, Augustine, Confessions (1992), II 414. The relative praise of Porphyry is also tempered by the fact that Porphyry’s teaching seemed to appeal to the danger of curiosity, as O’Donnell points out in his comments on the treatment of the opening of Book 3 of the Confessiones, 3.2.2. 20

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Book 8, Plotinus is then praised for having understood Plato better than anyone else,26 and in Book 10 Porphyry is recognized for his natural theology which, though flawed by its promotion of theurgy and the role of demons, in many ways far surpasses much of philosophic thought otherwise (including that of Plato himself; 10.30).27 Earlier in De ciuitate Dei Augustine has focused more attention on Roman historical figures. In Book 1, for example, in addressing the mixed history of the Roman gods in providing protection to Rome, Augustine notes the example of Marcus Regulus, the Roman general captured by Carthage in the First Punic War. Regulus agrees to return to Rome and argue for an exchange of prisoners, and swears an oath to the Roman gods that if he fails he will return to Carthage; he goes to Rome, argues against the exchange, as he thinks it not beneficial to Rome, and returns and is put to death by the Carthaginians. The point of this ‘most noble instance’ (‘viris nobilissimum exemplum’; 1.15) of Roman selfsacrifice is of course that the gods did not protect Regulus, but we also should not overlook the respect Augustine expresses for Regulus’ act. Regulus is depicted as perhaps the most notable of the Romans, and importantly not tainted with the charge of suicide that so many of his fellow citizens suffered from.28 In Book 5 especially of De ciuitate Dei we are presented a panoply of Roman notables, all of whom sacrificed tremendously for the good of the city. Augustine mentions first the case of Junius Brutus, who oversaw the execution of his own sons for their supposed role in a conspiracy to restore the monarchy after the banishment of Tarquinius Superbus. He did this, we are told by Virgil, out of a love of his country and for the good of the city as they saw it.29 Titus Manlius Torquatus, like Brutus, slays his son for not following orders and thus undermining order in the military. Furius Camillus comes to the defense of Rome, even after he has been banished from the city by ungrateful Romans. Mucius Scaevola famously opposes Lars Porsenna in the most courageous manner, compelling Porsenna to abandon his oppression of the Romans and seek peace instead. Marcus Curtius is sacrificed to the gods when the Romans are told by an oracle that the city must offer its best thing, which they (mistakenly?) take to be Curtius himself. The Decii and Marcus Puvillus undertake remarkable acts in defense of the city; Regulus is again cited for his heroism; Lucius Valerius and Quintius Cincinnatus are noted for their personal 26 De ciuitate Dei, 9.10; in Contra Academicos (3.18.41) Augustine notes the merit others accord Plotinus as a reader of Plato. 27 De ciuitate Dei, 10; Augustine identifies the rejection of the Incarnation as a major impediment to Porphyry’s rapprochement with Christian teaching (10.29). 28 For a fuller account of Augustine’s use of Regulus, see Richard J. Dougherty, ‘St. Augustine and the Problem of Political Ethics’, in Augustine’s Political Thought, ed. Richard J. Dougherty (Rochester, NY, 2019), 25-7. 29 See the passing reference in the Aeneid, 6.820; Augustine discusses Brutus in similar terms in 3.16.

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poverty, refusing to sap the public treasury for their sustenance.30 Augustine punctuates virtually every example he provides here with a plea to Christians to see how much more they have to gain through adherence to the Christian teaching, and how in some ways the Romans embodied a kind of disdain for mere life.31 In perhaps the most remarkable comment, Augustine in Book 3 comes – hesitantly, one must say – to the defense of even Tarquinius Superbus, the last monarch of Rome. Considered by most a tyrant, Augustine says he was driven out of Rome for a crime he did not commit – the violation of Lucretia (the act was done by his son). What Augustine says, in fact, is that ‘we do not know what he would have done if the evil deed of his son had been brought to his notice’.32 (After all, it was not as if the Romans were incapable of punishing their own sons, as we see with Junius Brutus and Torquatus.) Back in Book 5 Augustine also writes about Marcus Cato and Julius Caesar, and gives something of a defense of both of them; this is a bit muddier, though, for he is quoting Sallust and it is somewhat unclear where he is speaking in his own name and where he is simply presenting Sallust’s judgment.33 But it is more remarkable given Cato’s suicide that he doesn’t make a clearer condemnation of him. This is especially true given his extended criticism in Book 1 of Lucretia, criticized by Augustine for her suicide despite that suicide being the proximate cause of the overthrow of the monarchy and establishment of the Roman republic.34 The fundamental point being made here is that these are all Romans who have undertaken significant actions for the good of the city, and they should be recognized as such both by the Romans and by critical observers. In the end, though, as we come to see, too often Roman actions are motivated by the love of praise or glory, or are animated by the libido dominandi, the lust for ruling which he says comes to be characteristic of Rome as a whole.35 And that limitation on the intention and execution of their acts provides the source of a capstone statement with which Augustine concludes his analysis here: 19.19: 30

These figures are all treated consecutively in 5.18. Augustine cites Scriptural passages from Matthew 10:28 and 8:22, along with Psalm 116:2 to highlight this point. 32 De ciuitate Dei, 3.15. Augustine notes here that though the Romans gave him the title of the Proud, that is a descriptive most especially apt for Rome in general. 33 Sallust is another source we could cite here for our thesis of Augustine’s appreciation for pagan thinkers. On Augustine’s reasons for using the works of Sallust, see Donald Earl, The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (Ithaca, 1967): ‘Sallust had not merely painted a picture of moral decline much to Augustine’s taste and purpose, but of all Roman writers he had given the most extensive and direct discussion of the nature and effects of “virtus”’ (127). 34 On the significance of the Lucretia story, see, e.g., Eleanor Glendinning, ‘Reinventing Lucretia: Rape, Suicide and Redemption from Classical Antiquity to the Medieval Era’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 20 (2013), 61-82. 35 The danger of being dominated by the ‘libido dominandi’, in all of the senses that could have, is ubiquitous in De ciuitate Dei. 31

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‘Moreover, however much we may praise and proclaim the virtue which serves the glory of men without true godliness, it is not for one moment to be compared with even the first and least virtue of the saints who have placed their hope in the grace and mercy of the true God’.36 An appreciation of pagan learning Augustine’s appreciation for the goods of human existence, provided to us by others, can be identified in numerous places in his corpus. One striking example appears in his introductory comments in De doctrina christiana, in the context of commenting on those who may criticize him for deigning to lay out the rules and methods for the interpretation of Scripture: [F]or those who rejoice in having received a divine gift, and are proud of understanding and commenting on the holy books without the aid of such rules as I have undertaken to pass on here, and who therefore reckon that what I have wished to write is quite superfluous; this is how their objection is to be met: they should recollect that, though they are quite right to rejoice in a splendid gift from God, it was still from human beings that they have learned, at the very least, how to read and write.37

Augustine is certainly not here rejecting the claim that expressions of faith, or the appreciation of tremendous capacities for knowing and discerning may very well be specific grants remarkably bestowed upon someone by God, but he is indicating that such is not the way the vast majority of people come to know. The bulk of mankind, he seems to suggest, get their education and formation not through exposure to divinely revealed truths, but through the much more mundane, painstaking even, tutelage of human teachers. This point Augustine does not take to be problematic, or the result of some failure of evangelization to inculcate the teachings of the revealed Word; rather, practically speaking the method and much of the substance of a general education comes through a kind of natural knowing, or natural capacity for knowing. It is not the intention of Sacred Scripture, he notes, to teach people how to learn the alphabet, and thus how to read. In Book 2 of De doctrina christiana Augustine also reflects on the importance for the Scriptural exegete of the knowledge of history, partly to understand internal references in the sacred writings and partly to refute false claims made by opponents of the revealed word.38 The acquisition of what in the modern 36

De ciuitate Dei, 5.19. De doctrina christiana, Prologue, 4 (Teaching Christianity, trans. Edmund Hill [Hyde Park, NY, 1990], 102). 38 The false views that need correcting concern the age of Christ when he was put to death, and the question of whether the teaching of Scripture was somehow derived from the writings of Plato (2.27.41-2.28.44). 37

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world we have come to call secular knowledge is not to be shunned, Augustine holds out (‘the kind that is learned apart from the Church at school’39), for it can serve multiple purposes. There was in the early Church some degree of antagonism toward the classical authors, whether it be in Tertullian or Jerome, and yet this does not tell the whole story. The Christian approach to the Greeks is not wholly unified, and we see evidence of this early on. Augustine, for instance, here in the De doctrina christiana, defends the usefulness of adopting pagan learning: If those, however, who are called philosophers happen to have said anything that is true, and agreeable to our faith, the Platonists above all, not only should we not be afraid of them, but we should even claim back for our own use what they have said, as from its unjust possessors. It is like the Egyptians, who not only had idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel abominated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and fine raiment, which the people secretly appropriated for their own, and indeed better, use as they went forth from Egypt. In the same way, while the heathen certainly have counterfeit and superstitious fictions in all their teachings, and the heavy burdens of entirely unnecessary labor, which every one of us must abominate and shun as we go forth from the company of the heathen under the leadership of Christ, their teachings also contain liberal disciplines which are more suited to the service of the truth, as well as a number of most useful ethical principles, and some true things are to be found among them about worshiping only the one God.40

If the pagan authors have discovered any truths, that is, they really are Christian, or at least that part of their teaching is Christian, and so should be justly appropriated. Thus in Book 8 of De ciuitate Dei he wonders whether Plato, who taught so many things consonant with the Faith, was not exposed to the Old Testament in his travels to Egypt and elsewhere.41 Turning our attention back to De ciuitate Dei, in Books 6-7 Marcus Varro is identified as a particularly insightful interpreter of Roman society.42 In his forty-one books of ‘Antiquities’ Varro lays out in revealing fashion the true nature of the Roman religion, first addressing the human and then divine things, ‘because cities came into existence first and divine things were instituted by them subsequently’ (6.4, 244). The gods he recognizes as a creation of the city, or a human invention: ‘Just as the painter exists before the picture and the builder before the building, so do cities precede the things instituted by cities’ (6.4, 245). Varro would have written of the gods first had he been writing of the ‘whole nature of the gods’, suggesting that he is in fact writing only about some portion of the gods. As Augustine notes, Varro said he was writing of the divine nature but not ‘the whole’ of it, that is commonly understood to mean 39 40 41 42

De De De De

doctrina christiana, 2.28.42. doctrina christiana, 2.40.60, Hill 160. ciuitate Dei, 8.11-2. ciuitate Dei, 6.2-4.

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‘some part’, but ‘he can also be understood to mean ‘none’; for ‘none’ is neither ‘the whole’ nor ‘some part’’ (6.4, 245). Augustine’s attention to the precision of Varro’s language is a sign of the healthy respect he has for Varro as a writer – he refers to Varro as ‘most acute and learned’ (6.8, 256) – a respect which does not appear to be based entirely on Varro’s usefulness for his argument here against Roman civil theology.43 Varro’s teaching about the three theologies is also important for Augustine. The distinction drawn between and among the mythical (or, as Augustine prefers, fabulous), the natural, and the civil theologies serves as a means of subtly critiquing Roman religious practice, for Varro virtually identifies the civil with the mythical in that both rely on the accounts of the gods produced by the poets. Revealing the true nature of civil theology (and Augustine does want to treat Varro as a ‘political man’; 7.23, 295) compels one to turn to the natural theology as the only legitimate approach to investigating the truth about the divine nature. Varro’s careful analysis of the Roman teaching on the gods reveals some hidden facts, such as the discovery of Numa’s books and his hydromancy (7.35), and an underlying perception that Varro knew much more than he could publicly reveal or openly assert.44 Of course, to state openly that one is bound by the dictates of civil theology is, in some sense, to liberate oneself from those strictures, and Augustine’s deep appreciation of Varro acknowledges the efforts Varro endured to disengage himself from the contemporary ethos, at least philosophically. Varro is also used as something of an authority in De doctrina christiana, in order to refute the pagan teachings about the nine Muses being the daughters of Jupiter and Memory. Augustine cites Varro – ‘and I do not know anyone more learned or curious about such matters’ – as his source for the account of the nine being simply sculptural replications of the original assertion of the existence of three Muses, given their names subsequently by Hesiod.45 Something of the inventiveness of Augustine’s reading can be seen in the passage from Book 2 of De doctrina christiana, cited above, where he suggests that Christians ought to plunder the ‘Egyptian gold’ of classical learning in order to put it to their own, proper end. This lesson is to be learned from reading his predecessors in the Faith, who have shown more exactly how that can be accomplished: 43 On the reasons for Augustine’s choice of Varro, see E.L. Fortin, ‘Augustine and Roman Civil Religion: Some Critical Reflections’, REAug 26 (1980), 238-56, 254: ‘Augustine could simply have discerned in Varro’s forgotten classic the most complete and most searching analysis of Roman religion ever produced by a Latin writer, along with a ready-made critique of that religion which could be exploited for a newer and higher purpose’. 44 Augustine suggests that Varro accepted monotheism, and notes that he carefully avoids explications of the stories of Tellus and the Great Mother, and the mutilation of Attis (7.24-6). 45 De doctrina christiana, 2.17.27; Augustine does hint that perhaps Varro did not relate the full story himself (De doctrina christiana, 2.18.28).

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Can we not see how much gold and silver and fine raiment Cyprian was crammed with as he came out of Egypt, that loveliest of teachers and most blessed of martyrs? Or Lactantius, or Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary, not to mention the living? Or countless Greek writers?46

And of course these writers were themselves following the example of Moses, ‘of whom it is written that “he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians”’.47

Conclusion The outset of this essay raised the question of Augustine’s understanding of classical virtue and its standing in light of Christian teaching. The emphasis here on the benefits to be gleaned from taking seriously the position of the ancients, in thought and action, is not meant to undermine the conclusion that Augustine does draw, that they are not particularly persuasive and are insufficient guides for Christians. We have noted above Augustine’s concern with the Roman love of praise: ‘There are, then, those who bridle their baser desires by means of the desire for human praise and glory, and not with the faith of godliness and the love of intelligible beauty given by the Holy Spirit. These are not, therefore, yet holy, they are only less vile’ (‘… sed minus turpes sunt’).48 In Book 2 of De ciuitate Dei, in which Augustine is treating the failure of the Roman gods to inculcate virtue in their worshippers, he has the occasion to note the teaching of Plato. Plato (made a ‘demi-god’ by Labeo), in banishing the poets from the city as ‘enemies of the truth’49 (2.14, 66), proved to be a better exemplar of virtue than the gods themselves.50 Not only should the Romans have heeded the advice of Plato in inculcating virtue in their citizens, but they should also have realized the honors due to one such as Plato rather than to the gods. Christians, of course, do not consider Plato to be a god or a demi-god, for he could not be compared to the angels, prophets, or apostles, nor even ‘to any Christian man’; nevertheless, he is entitled to such a rank in the eyes of the pagan world (2.14, 67).51 This comparison can be seen as a reflection of 46 De doctrina christiana, 2.40.61, Hill 160. One might anticipate that Augustine would also mention Ambrose in this context, given his appreciation of him; Hill suggests this was written, then, before Ambrose’s death in 397 (Hill 168, note 126). 47 Ibid.; the internal reference is to Acts 7:22. 48 De ciuitate Dei, 19.13. 49 See Plato’s Republic, 397-8, 567-8, and 605, among other passages. 50 Note Augustine’s awareness of this teaching in the Republic; Augustine also notes that Plato was ineffective in persuading his fellow Greeks against writing such things – a sign of the relative weakness of philosophy or reason alone (seen in De ciuitate Dei, 2.7). 51 See also De ciuitate Dei, 10.11, Dyson 408; ‘any little old Christian woman’ would agree with Porphyry’s remark referred to there. Augustine also raises here the question of historians and

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what Augustine has to say about the grand Roman historical figures, who may serve as something of an exemplum for Christians but always in a limited sense; their dedication to the good of their city is ultimately supplanted by the Christian martyrs, whose sacrifice outpaces even the angels.52

poets being barred from speaking of Romulus’ fratricide; this may be related to Cicero’s curious omission of the act in his account of Roman history in Book II of the De re publica. 52 Robert Dodaro notes that Augustine’s use of the word ‘hero’ is reserved for those who become deified by the Romans; Augustine more commonly refers to ‘vir optimus’ (Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of St. Augustine [Cambridge, 2004], 36-7, note 42).

Augustine’s Motivations for his Refutation of Porphyry and Theurgy in The City of God Laela ZWOLLO, Lelystad, The Netherlands, The Netherlands Centre of Patristic Research and Centre of Studies on Early Christianity; Research Fellow, Tilburg School of Theology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT Why does Augustine, a Christian Platonist, single out the Neo-Platonist philosopher Porphyry for an especially lengthy and vehement refutation in his City of God? This article will argue that the answer to this question should be sought in the contemporary context as well as in certain personal reasons that become especially evident in Augustine’s discernible anger at the philosopher’s treatment of theurgy.

While carrying out my research on Augustine’s relationship to Plotinus’ philosophy,1 I noticed a striking difference between Augustine’s treatment of Plotinus (ca. 204/205-270) and that of Porphyry (232 - ca. 3052) in The City of God (ciu.).3 Augustine’s tone changes; it is full of anger, addressing Porphyry repeatedly with the familiar tu as if he expected him to be reading ciu., even though this philosopher had been dead for at least a century.4 Augustine’s discussions of Porphyry’s standpoints are exceptionally lengthy. 5 This study explores the many different motivations of Augustine in his dealings with Porphyry in ciu. and focuses primarily on his refutation of this philosopher’s involvement with theurgy in book X. Augustine’s discussion of theurgy is related to his other refutations in ciu., such as those of traditional Roman religion (in books I-VI) and also reveals important information about his relationship to 1

Laela Zwollo, St. Augustine and Plotinus: The Human Mind As Image of the Divine, Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 151 (Leiden, 2018), 56-9. 2 The exact years of his birth and death seem to be disputed. 3 De ciuitate Dei, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CChr.SL 97 [ciu. I-X] and 98 [ciu. XI-XXII] (Turnhout, 1955). Saint Augustine, The City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson with a new Introduction by G.R. Evans (London, 1972). 4 Ciu. X.26-9. E.g., ‘Quid adhuc trepidas, o philosophe, aduersus potestates et ueris uirtutibus et ueri Dei muneribus inuidas habere liberam uocem?’ ‘Why do you still tremble, my dear philosopher, to raise your voice without restraint against the power who are envious of genuine virtue and of the gifts of the true God?’ (X.26). The translation used here is Bettenson’s, see note above. Books VII-X were written in 417. The whole work is dated 412-426/427 (see The City of God, trans. H. Bettenson [1972], vii-viii). 5 E.g., ciu. X.9-30.

Studia Patristica CXVII, 177-190. © Peeters Publishers, 2021.

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other Platonists in late antiquity. The main questions raised here seek to better understand the extensiveness and vehement tone of the church father’s rebuttal of this particular philosopher and his engagement with theurgy. Because this paper represents the onset of a new research project,6 it is of an exploratory nature, inevitably discovering more questions than answers. There is a great deal of scholarly literature on ciu., much on Porphyry,7 as well as on Augustine’s treatment of Porphyry in ciu.8 However I have yet to find any studies which directly address most of the critical questions I pose here regarding Augustine’s motivations for his treatment of Porphyry. The best and the most extensive treatments are hardly more than a summary of the relevant content in books VIII and X. Thus the otherwise excellent articles of Volker Drecoll, Therese Fuhrer and R. Russell do not sufficiently analyze the relevant passages in these books. Nor do they question Augustine’s political agenda, the historical setting, or why Augustine’s refutation is so furious and lengthy beyond proportion. Aaron P. Johnson, whose monograph is considered the most recent and thorough summarization of Porphyrian studies,9 characterizes Augustine’s reports on Porphyry in ciu. – as many other scholars do – as a manipulation of Porphyry’s ideas in order to promote his polemically and rhetorically charged agenda.10 Johnson’s study does not refer to Augustine’s ambiguous relationship to Platonism or take account of the libri platonicorum question, two perspectives which appear to me to be relevant here. Likewise it does not consider the political or theological context in which ciu. was written or Augustine’s personal motivations beyond his ambition to win the debate. The passages on Porphyry in ciu. contain many problems and paradoxes. 6 This project, focused predominantly on Augustine’s refutations of Porphyry in the context of theurgy, pursues Augustine’s motivations from other perspectives, such as his legislative/ political influence as well as the pedagogical method of refutation in ciu. The monograph currently in progress is entitled: Porphyry Through the Eyes of Augustine in The City of God: Rerouting Platonism. 7 E.g., Gillian Clark, ‘Augustine’s Porphyry and the Universal Way of Salvation’, in G. Karamanolis and A. Sheppard (eds), Studies on Porphyry (London, 2007), 127-40; Aaron P. Johnson, Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre: The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity. Greek Culture in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2013); Eyjólfur Emilsson, ‘Porphyry’, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 Edition), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ win2019/entries/porphyry/ 8 E.g., Volker H. Drecoll, ‘Augustin und Porphyrios’, in Irmgard Robert-Männlein (ed.), Die Christen als Bedrohung? Text, Kontext und Wirkung von Porphyrios’ Contra Christianos (Stuttgart, 2017), 275-88; Therese Fuhrer, ‘Die Platoniker und die civitas dei (Buch VIII-X)’, in Christoph Horn (ed.), Augustinus, De civitate dei (Berlin, 1997), 87-108; R. Russell, ‘The Role of Neo-Platonism in St. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei’, in H.J. Blumenthal and R. Markus (eds), Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought: Essays in honour of A.H. Armstrong (London, 1981), 160-79. 9 A.P. Johnson, Porphyry (2013), 142, 25, 30, 66-7, 141, 268-9, 300. 10 For examples illustrating the manner in which Augustine quotes Porphyry in ciu. see also: G. Clark, ‘Augustine’s Porphyry (2007), 127-40.

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This paper will commence with brief, descriptive expositions which are essential for determining Augustine’s motives in his treatment of Porphyry. Section one will deal with the work ciu. itself, the main theological context (1.1), as well as the general political-historical framework (1.2). Another context of importance here is Augustine’s treatment of Platonism in this work (1.3), in which his rebuttal of Porphyry is embedded. Section two will focus on the treatment of Porphyry in ciu., beginning with a short introduction (2.1) on the identity and background of this philosopher. Then I will turn to Augustine’s refutation of theurgy, which will serve as the departure point for my subsequent analyses (2.2). Following a synthesis of the many motives of Augustine’s treatment of Porphyry in ciu. (3), I will pose two questions about Augustine’s harsh and lengthy refutation of this philosopher regarding ulterior motives and the cause of his resentment (4). A clarification of these questions will then be attempted.

1. De ciuitate Dei contra paganos 1.1. The Theological Context The title of Augustine’s classic monument ciu. refers to his doctrine of the two cities: the heavenly and the earthly. The temporal earthly city – the world in which we live – is described in stark contrast to the heavenly one, which is the destination of saintly humans in the afterlife, the perfect and eternal abode of God and the angels.11 From the title alone, the reader anticipates a theological exposition on the potentials of these cities and the extent to which both cities play a role in human lives. Augustine does not disappoint and indeed, in his typically elongated and exploratory manner, he enriches his theology with vivid descriptions, quotes and comparisons. We can assume that one of the primary purposes for this work was pedagogical, possibly even catechetical: to explain to Christians the operation of redemption, why/how only Christ provides this and to touch upon all aspects of Christian life. His doctrine of the two cities, spread throughout the many ruminations in this work, requires a piecing together to arrive at the gist. This fact itself seems to indicate that Augustine’s motivations for composing this work were likely to have been manifold. The subtitle of De ciuitate Dei: contra paganos, points to one of these various motives: Augustine’s confrontation with opponents. Especially in books I-VI, he directly addresses the exponents of traditional Roman religion. For after the plundering and defeat of the city of Rome in 410, they blamed this tragedy on the Christians – or the Christian rule – having oppressed and subsequently 11 A. Dupont and G.W. Lee, ‘Augustine’s Two Cities Revisited. Contemporary Approaches of De ciuitate Dei’, Archive of the History of Philosophy and Social Thought 61 (2016), 79-105.

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neglected the veneration of their ancient gods (ciu. I-II.1-2, etc.).12 Augustine’s aim is to refute these claims by demonstrating that the worshipping of Roman gods rarely ever prevented disasters in Rome’s long, war-ridden history. On the contrary, their gods had been instrumental in inspiring self-indulgence, greed, savage immorality and acts of injustices. Christians, on the other hand, have patiently endured the wickedness of the corrupt state in the hope of gaining a place in the heavenly one (II.19). 1.2. The Historical-Political Context of De ciuitate Dei The reader of ciu. books I-VI is hence immediately plunged into the historical setting13 of this work. Adherents of pagan religions had been gradually and increasingly oppressed since Emperor Constantine’s rule (313-336) and significantly, the edicts listed in the Theodosian Codex disclose that a number of Augustine’s opponents had been disadvantaged under reinforced legislation before and still during the writing of the ciu.14 The Christian state, however, had not only ‘outlawed’ the ancient imperial Roman religion (in 392) but also particular Christian groups who were ‘in error’ – such as Arians, Manichaeans, and Donatists and later, Pelagians (from 418 onward).15 These were not fringe groups; our sources inform us that they had in a significant way stirred up chaos and friction in society or even used violence (such as the Donatists) to make their voice heard.16 Each of these groups had its own long history of confrontation with orthodox Christians. The Manichaeans had also been proscribed by the pre-Christian Roman state. Yet we should not be misled by these rulings of Christian emperors which seemed to have commanded authority and thorough effectiveness, as their actual impact is not clear. The heretical Christian groups, as well as the avid practioners of ancient Roman religions – the targets of this legislation – were still robust in Augustine’s day. This fact justifies in part the length of ciu. Augustine obviously felt that much needed to be said in defense of the orthodox Christianity which was being supported by federal legislature – much more than in the past. He complimented Emperor Theodosius for his courage to have declared Christianity the imperial religion and for having passed laws to restrict the antagonists of the Christian creed (V.26). 12 Ernest L. Fortin, ‘De Civitate Dei’, in Allan Fitzgerald et al. (eds), Augustine Through the Ages (from now on: AttA) (Cambridge, 1999), 196-202; G.J.P. O’Daly, ‘Civitate Dei’, in C. Mayer et al. (eds), Augustinus Lexikon I 5/6 (Basel, 1992), 969-1010. 13 General ancient history resources: i.e., Henk Singor, Constantijn en de christelijke revolutie in het Romeinse Rijk (Amsterdam, 2014); Mark Edwards, Religions of the Constantinian Empire (Oxford, 2018). 14 See e.g., Maria E. Doerfler (volume editor), Church and Empire (Minneapolis, 2016) for English translations of many of these edicts, along with excerpts of speeches from debate opponents. 15 Anthony Dupont, ‘Augustine of Hippo as Politician. Political Practices at the Service of Christian Ideals’, in id. (ed.), Doctor Pacis. Augustine’s Thinking on Peace (Bogotá, 2018), 15-48, 24. 16 A. Dupont, ‘Augustine of Hippo as Politician’ (2018), 24-40.

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Thus after addressing the advocates of ancient Roman religion and substantiating his thesis on the failures of these cults, Augustine focuses upon other illustrious pagani, those pertaining to the Greek philosophical tradition. That the Platonist tradition is given much detailed attention in book VIII is no surprise, as it is most dear to this church father, being known (to us at least) as the ancient Christian Platonist par excellence. Noting that there are philosophers who side with the adherents of the ancient Roman religions, he sets out to examine their views (VIII.13). 1.3. Augustine’s Confrontation with Platonism In the exposition on the history of Greek philosophy, we can easily detect that the bishop of Hippo did not regard these pagans, in particular Plato (II.14) or most of his followers (VIII.9), as an urgent problem or even a direct threat. As we will see below, the Neo-Platonist Porphyry, who is dealt with extensively in book X and brought up again in books XII, XIII, XIX and XXII, was an exception to this. Augustine and his Christian contemporaries had obvious objections to Platonists, especially those Platonists who were likely familiar with Christianity but failed to see the profound wisdom in Christ’s Incarnation. They missed his lessons on the importance of humility and selflessness, of recognizing one’s sins and doing penance, in order to have one’s sins forgiven.17 In Augustine’s view, following Christ was the most optimal way to purify one’s soul and truly ascend to God. These goals were also of crucial importance to Platonists, he recognizes, and consequently, there are many similarities between these philosophers and Christians, as he shows us especially in books VIII and X.18 One of the similarities is the way they conceive God.19 No other philosophers embrace conceptions so close to those of the Christians that their teachings can easily be harmonized with Christian doctrine (VIII.5 and 10). Compliments are dealt out to Porphyry, who was the most knowledgeable philosopher (XIX.22-3) and to Plotinus, who was renowned for his excellent interpretation of Plato (IX.10). Augustine expresses much praise for the fundamental principles of Plato’s philosophy, such as the immaterial human mind, the doctrine of archetypal Ideas (VIII.6) and the prominence of Virtue, Wisdom and Love of God, whose essence is immaterial (VIII.7). Platonists, like Christians, knew that imitating and loving God would bring happiness in this life (VIII.7 and 10). Augustine’s formulations of these concepts resemble those in Plotinus’ Enneads.20 17

Ciu. X.22, 24, 29; Confessions VII.9.13-4. L. Zwollo, St. Augustine (2018), 59-67. 19 Ciu. I.36; VIII.10, VIII.12. 20 L. Zwollo, St. Augustine (2018), 70-1; e.g., God as Light (IX.10), on Providence (X.27), Goodness and Beauty in God (X.14), the vision of God and that loving God leads to happiness (X.16). 18

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Although Augustine could have attacked this particular Christian-era pagan philosopher for many conceptual differences,21 dissecting his teachings to expose errors was not one of the church father’s urgent priorities. Attacking the philosophy of Porphyry was. The question is: why? 2. Augustine’s Treatment of Porphyry in De ciuitate Dei 2.1. A Brief Introduction to Porphyry22 Porphyry, a pupil of Plotinus, enjoyed notoriety in his lifetime as a scholar and a prolific publicist. He not only edited his teacher’s main work, The Enneads, and published it, but also composed works explaining his teacher’s thought.23 His explanation of Aristotle’s logic was widely consulted.24 Many of his works dealt with allegorical readings of Greek poetry and mythology which reflected his deep appreciation for the Greek literary and intellectual heritage – yet not without criticism.25 He possessed a vast knowledge of demonology and religions of his day.26 Almost all that survives of Porphyry’s works, however, are fragments. 27 For the bulk of his oeuvre was destroyed through various imperial anti-pagan measures, such as book burning. The destruction of his works occurred during Constantine’s rule and then again, not long after Augustine’s death.28 Studying Porphyry thus entails piecing together a large number of fragments, as a massive jigsaw puzzle in which many pieces are missing. In addition, many of the Porphyrian fragments are problematic due to their provenance from the apologetic works of Christian authors, such as Eusebius, Jerome and Augustine, which have a decidedly polemic character. These authors debate Porphyrius’ arguments which seem to be quoted from a document which is likewise problematic and controversial, known as Against the Christians.29 Some regard Porphyry’s 21

L. Zwollo, St. Augustine (2018), 72-3. E.g., E. Emilsson, ‘Porphyry’ (2019). 23 Sentences; The Life of Plotinus. 24 Introduction to the First Five Categories of Aristotle. 25 E.g., On the Cave of the Nymphs, Homeric Questions, etc. 26 E.g., On Abstinence, Commentary on the Timaeus, etc. 27 For a complete discussion of the fragments, see A.P. Johnson, Porphyry (2013), 21-49, 146-85 and 307-30; Ariane Magny, Porphyry in Fragments Reception of an Anti-Christian Text in Late Antiquity (London, 2014). 28 During the reign of Constantine: as suggested in Athanasius [Decrees of Nicaea 38, Opitz (1934), item 33] that they were prohibited in 324-325 [M. Edwards, Religions (2018), 64]; Later, Theodosius II apparently ordered every copy burned in 435 and again in 448. For other historical sources, see A. Magny, Porphyry (2014), 12. 29 See I. Robert-Männlein, Die Christen als Bedrohung? (2017). Udo Hartmann provides a state of the art on these questions: ‘Auf der Suche nach Platons Politeai?’, in ibid., 207-35, 208-9; See also A. Magny, Porphyry (2014). 22

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allegations against Christians as having possibly fueled Diocletian’s Great Persecution.30 Lactantius, for instance, suggests that Porphyry had been present at the court of Diocletian in Nicodemia prior to the emperor’s issuing one of his edicts to persecute the Christians around 302-303.31 If this were true, he would have witnessed these repressive measures first-hand (to which Augustine seems to allude in ciu. X.32). Porphyry lived in the late third-early fourth century when the Christian population in the Roman Empire had been steadily increasing, about a decade before Constantine succeeded to the imperial throne and established his rule favoring Christianity. At this time, Porphyry earned the reputation of ‘the enemy of piety’. The topic of the alleged treatise Against the Christians leads us inevitably back to one of the sources of the surviving fragments, ciu., which provides us with important, albeit questionable information on its content. In ciu., Augustine confronts Porphyry’s critique of Christianity, casting a sharp eye on his arguments against the fundamental elements of Christian faith, such as whether a deity can be human (XIX.22-3) and the credibility of resurrection (XII.27, XXII.25). 2.2. Reproaching Porphyry for his Approval of Theurgy Augustine’s main focus is not only Porphyry’s writings refuting Christians, but also those on various religions, demonology and especially on the practice of theurgy.32 In a nutshell, theurgy entails rituals in which benevolent demons – δαίμονες – are called upon to aid the seeker of truth in order to experience the divine. Although Augustine acknowledges that Porphyry was not an advocate of theurgy,33 and even refers to this philosopher’s critique of these practices (ciu. X.29), he attacks Porphyry in an unordinary rancorous tone on this topic for several chapters. One of his main arguments involves Porphyry’s singular approval of theurgy: namely that it was not useful for philosophers 30 For a more nuanced clarification, see Elizabeth De Palma Digeser, ‘Philosophy in a Christian Empire, From the Great Persecution to Theodosius I’, in Lloyd Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010), I 376-96. 31 Lactantius does not mention the name of the philosopher to whom he attributes the author of three books against Christians and of another on abstinence (Institutiones Divinae V.2.2.11). A.P. Johnson argues that this philosopher was not Porphyry [Porphyry (2013), 20, note 99]. 32 Ciu. VIII.14, 17 and 22; IX.10 and 17; X.9, 11, 24, 29 and 32; and XIX.22-3. R. Dodaro, ‘Theurgy’, in AttA (1999), 827-8; Augustine also refers to theurgy in the Dolbeau Sermons 26.36-63; De vera religione 4.7, Confessiones X.42.67; ep. 187.6.21, ep. 233-5, De trinitate IV.10.13-15.20. 33 See e.g., A.P. Johnson, Porphyry (2013), 144 on Porphyry’s refusal to be an advocate of theurgy, which was recognized in later antiquity. Supposedly, Porphyry originally agreed with his teacher Plotinus, who dismissed magical practices and found intellectual contemplation the only road to experiencing God. Yet, Porphyry’s attitude changed when he saw that theurgy could be useful for purifying the lower region of the rational soul [e.g., R. Dodaro, ‘Theurgy’ (1999), 827].

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like himself, but only for persons incapable of contemplation (X.9, 11, and 27). In spite of Porphyry’s hesitancy on this subject, Augustine perceives Porphyry’s claim as having had a snowball effect of encouraging his pupils to embrace theurgy and to develop misleading doctrines (X.28-9). He is appalled at Porphyry for having failed to warn his students explicitly against the dangers of invoking δαίμονες, and to alert them of the fact that demons were not in the least interested in the purification of the soul (X.19). Furthermore, Augustine insists that theurgical practices cannot be ascribed to Plato but are derived from the writings of Chaldean masters (X.27). In addition, he accuses Porphyry of having feared to defy these entities openly and to oppose his fellow Platonists who were theurgists (X.24). Moreover, Porphyry’s pride had blinded him from perceiving the contradictions in his writings. For example, Porphyry posited that ascending to God entailed transcending all matter (VIII.5) (a view which Augustine held as well). Yet δαίμονες, by virtue of their existence in the invisible, physical realm, being of a material nature, could not possibly bring a person to God.34 On the side, we might ask why Augustine is dwelling on Porphyry here at such length and not (also) addressing Porphyry’s younger colleague, Iamblichus (ca. 240-ca. 325).35 This well-known Platonist was an outspoken theurgist and emphasized the necessity of intermediaries to assist in divine contemplation. Iamblichus and Augustine shared the conviction that the human soul, in her predominant focus upon the temporal and changeable, is distinguished from God, who is immaterial, eternal and immutable. As such, the soul is too weak to contact God on her own volition and is therefore in need of assistance with the ascent to the Father.36 Iamblichus would have then been a more appropriate debate opponent. The above points are the most essential ones in Augustine’s critique of rituals involving demons. His critique of Porphyry goes further than this however.37 It is important to connect Augustine’s treatment of Porphyry with one of the already mentioned motives for writing ciu.: the accusations of proponents of traditional Roman religion who claimed the sack of Rome in 410 to be a direct consequence of the Christian rule. Because Christian emperors had prohibited the ritual worship of their divinities, pagans believed that the gods had felt neglected and therefore had not protected them from this disaster. 34

Ciu. IX.18; X.9 and 27. Iamblichus is mentioned only once by name in ciu. VIII.12. He seems to have been Porphyry’s student at one time. Yet they had major disagreements, especially regarding theurgy [see A.P. Johnson, Porphyry (2013), 21, note 115]. 36 Ciu. IX.17; Iamblichus: De mysteriis e.g., I.3, I.7. See also Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, the Neo-Platonism of Iamblichus (Kettering, 2014). 37 E.g., Laela Zwollo, ‘Superbia and Augustine’s Opponents in The City of God: Roman Emperors and the Neo-Platonist, Porphyry’, forthcoming in ETIAM Journal of the Augustinian Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2021. 35

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These claims impelled Augustine to devote the first six books of ciu. to the thesis that the theology of ancient traditional Roman religion was not sufficiently morally grounded to have prevented its ancient capital from being devastated. He explicates this by enumerating many historical instances in which Rome had been defeated, long before Christian rule. These vignettes from the past further substantiated his claim that Roman gods were not true divinities, but merely demons pretending to be gods. Demons, he writes, aim to misrepresent truth and lead seekers as far away from it as possible. They seek to inspire the individual to self-pride, to rise above others, amass power, glorify oneself and use war as an instrument.38 In doing so, they encourage the spirit of division instead of the unity of love (XIII.1). Nor are they oriented to the Justice of the Omnipotent (XII.8). The veneration of demons explained for Augustine why and how the ancient Romans had achieved their dubious power and glory. He linked the corruption and lust for power of certain pre-Christian emperors to the workings of the demon-gods, essentially disguised cohorts of Satan, as depicted in the bible (V.21).39 In his attack on Porphyry on the subject of theurgy, Augustine directly connects the demons in Neo-Platonist theurgy to the Greco-Roman ‘fake gods’, being in fact – nefarious demons.40 He also associates the spirits which NeoPlatonist theurgists called upon with those generally involved in sorcery.41 The Perils of Theurgy Augustine warns his readers that theurgy presents dangers, if only that of contacting an evil demon instead of a benevolent one. Adhering to the ancient belief in the presence of invisible spirits which permeated the air everywhere 38

E.g., ciu. II.20, III.23-30, IV.4, IV.32. Augustine deemed the course of Roman history as having been guided by divine providence in ciu. (e.g., I.1, II.3, VI.35) and not by the power of demons. 40 Porphyry’s On Abstinence 2.37-8 claims as well that some gods were really only δαίμονες, quoting Plato’s Symposium. Porphyry differentiates δαίμονες in the context of theurgy, as some being evil in e.g., On Abstinence 2.38-43. Augustine recognizes Porphyry’s differentiation in ciu. X.9. Apuleius, the Platonist poet, distinguished theurgy from magic, but Augustine did not find this convincing (VIII.19). 41 Ciu. VIII.19, X.9.1-2; X.16.2; Neo-Platonists placed great importance on ‘returning to the Father’, as Augustine recognized repeatedly in ciu. Why then would Augustine associate the invocation of demons of post-Plotinian Platonists to assist in the ascent to God with the practices of sorcerers and diviners? The answer to this question is complex, requiring more space than the present paper allows. It will be raised again in my forthcoming comparative study on Augustine’s exposition on miracles and his treatment of theurgy in ciu. Declaring sorcery as a disruptive, hence, undesirable element in society was not exclusive to Christian legislation. Magic, astrology and divination had already been prohibited since the pre-Christian era. E.g., Stephen Benko, Pagan Rome and the Early Christians (Bloomington, 1984), 104-8, 128-32. 39

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(VIII.22), Augustine was convinced that this danger was real and justified. His church regularly performed exorcism rites on pre-baptismal catechumens. 42 In this context, he points to Christ as the only dependable intermediary to the transcendent. Because Christ is divine, and the divine is perfectly free from sin, there is absolutely no chance of trickery, illusion or encouraging sin when calling upon him for assistance.43 As the ultimate example of humility, Christ is the King of the City of God, where pride and satanic influences are nonexistent (XIV.13). As for Augustine’s conflation of the demons in theurgy with the ancient gods of the Romans, he points out repeatedly in books I-VI of ciu., that, in contrast to Christ, the gods – such as Jupiter and Mars – did nothing but encourage sin.44 The Roman Empire had become ‘great’ by waging war upon peaceful, neighboring nations, plundering and stealing from them, forcing them into slavery and then claiming their superiority as benefactors.45 Thus the ‘glory’ of the Roman Empire had rested upon battle triumphs, and as such, the interest for true justice or the common good had been minimal.46 When Constantine came to power, Augustine writes, Christians were not only relieved that persecution had come to an end. They also hoped that the warmongering and cruel punishments – characteristic of some non-Christian rulers – would be replaced with humane and fair legislation (V.24). Augustine’s concerns with the dangers of theurgy can likely also be linked to the years in which he composed ciu., which were especially anxiety-ridden (XIX.7-8). For refugees from the city of Rome were arriving to Hippo in North Africa and relaying their experiences of the Visigoths violently plundering and destroying their surroundings (I.1, II.2). The preoccupation must have been great: will the Empire recover? How long will it take the Germanic aggressors to reach Africa and do the same? The invaders made victims of all citizens, Roman pagans as well as Christians. Thus the plundering of the city of Rome in 410 symbolized for many the downfall of the glorious, millennium-aged empire. Prior to this, Augustine had been dealing with the violence of Donatists. Now the continued threat of barbarian invasions demanded constant vigilance and the protection of the imperial borders. Because daily life during this era 42 William Harmless, ‘Baptism’, in AttA (1999), 84-91, 85-7. Exorcism is mentioned in ciu. X.22 and XXII.8. 43 Ciu. X.22, 24, etc. Augustine also attributes to angels (the Judeo-Christian equivalent of ‘benevolent δαίμονες’) an intermediary role between God and humans. He distinguishes them from δαίμονες employed in theurgy in that they do not demand services in return, such as sacrifices. Nor does Christ. Augustine argues that Christ sacrificed himself for the sake of humanity, which makes him far superior to any δαίμων or god (ciu. X.15-7, 25-26; XI.4.7-9, 11-3, 15-20, 26, 28-9, 32-3; XII.9). 44 E.g., ciu. IV.3, 13, 23-9, 32. 45 Ciu. V.1, 21; Augustine asserts that divine providence allowed this to happen. 46 Ciu. V.13-4, 17, 19; John Cavadini, ‘Pride’, AttA (1999), 679-84, 681; Porphyry’s On Abstinence 2.40 also describes the evil effects of maleficent demons in this way.

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was filled with insecurity, calling upon heavenly entities for assistance was likely a common practice. Augustine wanted to make sure that the right intermediary was called upon. Seeing how non-Christians were blaming the Christians for this catastrophe, the escalating friction between these two factions was clear: those who venerated Christ as peacemaker and those who venerated the gods – the latter of which were seen by their opponents as evil demons. Hence, the shock and the awareness of present imposing dangers possibly contributed to Augustine’s determination to condemn Porphyry, the scholar of demonology and theurgy, for his failing to rule out highly untrustworthy intermediaries.47 3. Augustine’s Motives From the various contexts discussed above, we can ascertain that Augustine’s refutation of theurgy in ciu. had a double aim: it extended to his condemnation of the ancient pagan religions, whose gods were deemed false and nefarious, and it rejected the views of those Platonists who embraced a philosophical demonology and supported the veneration of the ancient deities. Although Porphyry himself was not an advocate or a practitioner of theurgy, he was deemed to be an appropriate target by Augustine for the following reasons: his expertise on pagan religions and demonology; his having been an influential scholar whose works were apparently still being widely read; and, in spite of his expertise, his judgment of Christianity was fallacious and thus altogether harmful. Augustine was concerned that Porphyry’s readers would become enticed by his support of trusting demons who, in his mind, were directly linked to the malaise of his era: the veneration of the ancient gods (demons) who deceived and delighted in turmoil and violence. Ancient pagan religions – and by implication, the demons consulted theurgically – were, in the eyes of Augustine and many other Christians, unreliable in inspiring people to do genuine good. Due to their potential to perpetuate evil, they would never transform the Roman Empire into a thriving kingdom of peace for which the Christians hoped in the ultra-tense age in which Augustine lived. Furthermore, it was for Augustine completely out of the question that δαίμονες, even the ‘philosophical’ ones, 47

Although I cannot provide a direct reference to justify this conjecture, there are passages in ciu. XIX which do point to this – inferring that some of the blame of the malaise of his day could be attributed to Porphyry or his followers. Book XIX treats the two cities and substantiates his view that life in the earthly city can never be truly perfected (XIX.1-11). Here he refers to the disasters of the period in which he lived (7-8). Continuing this line of thought in chapter 9, he repeats allegations made against Porphyry or later Neo-Platonists in books VIII-X. The philosophers who worship angels or demons, he deems, pertain only to the earthly city and not the heavenly one.

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might be capable of assisting the seeker of truth and peace to reach the ultimate destination, the heavenly City of God. Only Christ could do this. 4. More Questions and Afterthoughts Many questions about this matter persist, especially concerning the two characteristics of Augustine’s treatment of Porphyry in ciu. which were mentioned in the introduction. The first is Augustine’s sometimes hostile tone towards Porphyry (X.27-9). Plato, Cicero and Plotinus, who were thoroughly pagan (and in Plotinus’ case – had lived in the Christian era), were not the recipients of such a degree of indignation in ciu. to the extent that Porphyry was. The second characteristic is its disproportionate length when compared to his treatment of other Platonists or ancient scholars. Thus the overriding question here is: were there additional motives behind Augustine’s hot temper and his extensive refutation of Porphyry? I believe that there were, as I will discuss below. The matter becomes especially intriguing when we consider the well-known, complex issue as to which authors of the libri platonicorum Augustine had read before his conversion to orthodox Catholicism (Confessions VII). Modern scholarship has declared this question as basically aporetic; nonetheless most believe that it was either Plotinus or Porphyry or both.48 The crux of the matter here is the general assumption that Porphyry had probably been on Augustine’s list of literary favorites at that time.49 Based on his comparison in Conf. VII.9.13-4 between what he had read in the Gospel of John (1:1-5) and what he had read in the libri platonicorum, Augustine concluded (then, as well) that Christianity and Platonism had much in common.50 He claimed that his great enthusiasm for Platonism dimmed once he realized that these philosophers made no mention of Christ (ibid.). However, his enthusiasm did not entirely wane, as strong Plotinian and Porphyrian influence can be detected in many of his major doctrines, including his later ones.51 Thus if Porphyry had been one of the inspiring Platonists Augustine had read 48

E.g., Ronald Rombs, Saint Augustine and the Fall of the Soul (Washington, 2006), 26-32; L. Zwollo, St. Augustine (2018), 18-21, 43-4; C. Tornau, ‘Saint Augustine’, in Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (November 2019), ‘4. The Philosophical Tradition; Augustine’s Platonism’: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/?fbclid=IwAR2PuXYXKh7qzob3xKObvr1T pX8ZdOAc2Y2MSxgP_bc27gX8TJ12x56gh_g 49 In my estimation it is possible that Augustine had read (at the very least, i.e., in addition to the works he mentioned in ciu.): Porphyry’s summary of Plotinus’ philosophy, Sentences, and his commentary on Aristotle’s work, Categories. These are among Porphyry’s pedagogical works which Augustine would likely have found instructive. C. Tornau notes that Augustine had also perhaps read Symmikta Zetemata [‘Saint Augustine’, (2019)] 50 Ciu. VIII.6-8, X.2; Conf. VIII.2.3. 51 L. Zwollo, St. Augustine (2018), chapters 6-10. In works as De genesi ad litteram and De trinitate.

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in his early career who eventually motivated him to continue his search for truth in orthodox Christianity bearing a certain Platonist ring, why would he have harbored such resentment towards this philosopher in ciu.? I conjecture that Augustine’s long and heated exposition on Porphyry expressed his strong, personal need to distance himself from this philosopher, as well as from later Neo-Platonists. His personal engagement is not only evident in his emotional tone but also in his resorting more than once to the tu-form in addressing Porphyry (X.26-9). In his harsh critique, there could have been a degree of shame from his past playing a role, comparable to the shame we can detect in Augustine’s earlier exorbitant refutations of Manichaeism which were obvious attempts to distance himself from his Manichaean past (Conf. III-V). As for Porphyry, Augustine’s underlying shame could have been due to the memory of the fervent admiration which he had felt for this philosopher in his younger years.52 It appears that at some point in his career, perhaps after the writing of Confessions, Augustine had read more of Porphyry’s works and had come to the realization that this philosopher had taken a turn away from the original interpretations of Plato. This would have been particularly evident in Porphyry’s promotion of the meaningfulness of the ancient gods and δαίμονες.53 Augustine argues that demons have a materialistic nature and contrasts the theurgists’ view with the immaterial orientation of Plotinus, Porphyry’s teacher (an orientation which was also his own) (ciu. IX.17-8). Plotinus only sporadically employed the names of the gods as allegorical examples to help explain his conception of the Godhead and did not emphatically advocate their veneration or approve of practicing magic or theurgy.54 Augustine, then, came to the realization that the philosophical tradition he favored had become tainted by the inclusion of theurgy.55 In his view, the corruption of this tradition began with the fame and influence of Porphyry, and not 52 I have not been able to locate passages which underpin this hypothesis or serve as a convincing inference. To supplement this assertion, it would be helpful to determine which works of Porphyry Augustine had read, not just prior to his conversion (see note 49) but also at the time of writing Conf. Was he already familiar with Porphyry’s anti-Christian writings or those on demonology and theurgy while composing Conf.? [Does Conf. VII.9.15 indicate his awareness of Porphyry’s demonology or the theurgy of post-Plotinian Neo-Platonists? In this passage, while discussing the contents of the Platonist books he had read, he quotes Rom. 1:23 which mentions idols, diverse images of birds, four-footed beasts and creeping creatures.] Could he have perhaps realized sometime after writing Conf. that the theurgy of the philosophers could be associated with sorcery? (see note 41). 53 L. Zwollo, St. Augustine (2018), 438, 445-8. 54 Ibid. 58-9, note 76. Enneads IV.4, 40-4. 55 Conf. was written ca. 397-401. There is no mention of demons here, not even in the context of his critique of Platonism. His first treatise on demons was De divinatione daemonum (ca. 406), yet he does not explicitly mention Porphyry or Greek philosophers in this treatise. Nor is there any mention of Porphyry’s anti-Christian writings in Conf.

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Iamblichus.56 He found Porphyry’s strong interest in demonology and Chaldean oracular literature not only disreputable to the tradition, but also full of philosophical contradictions. Hence post-Plotinian Platonists no longer led seekers of truth to divine wisdom,57 but to curiositas (X.9). Therefore he wished to disassociate himself from this novel Platonist movement, which he believed had come about under the influence of the demons themselves whom these Platonists contemplated, admired or called upon (X.24, XIX.23). The demons were to have encouraged not only faulty doctrines but also the hatred of Christ and his followers, as he perceived in Porphyry’s anti-Christian treatises. The length of Augustine’s treatment of Porphyry could have likewise been related to his personal need to distance himself from the later Neo-Platonist tradition as a whole. As we have seen, his arguments against both Porphyry and theurgy are complex and multifaceted. Augustine may have reasoned that the only way to defeat such a great scholar is by demonstrating his own scholarly prowess, which demands thoroughness and precision, thus great length. I hope to have shown here that for Augustine the casus Porphyry was a weighty issue which went far beyond the ambition just to win the debate. His motivations were driven by a number of diverse considerations: personal, psychological, moral, theological, political and societal. One of his highest priorities, which has up until now gone unnoticed, was the safeguarding of peace and justice, an urgent issue – not just for himself or his diocese – but for the whole empire.58

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And thus not Apuleius – whose demonology he extensively discusses in ciu. VIII. Similar to the Platonist Academic tradition, which had deviated from Plato’s teachings, due to its skepticism towards obtaining true knowledge and its materialist, anti-transcendence orientation. 58 Many thanks to Dr. Giselle de Nie for her friendly assistance and commentary on an earlier draft of this paper. 57