The Incarnation of the Word: The Theology of Language of Augustine of Hippo 9780567660596, 9780567033826

Citation preview

In homine sentiri humanius credimus quam sentire. ‘For man, it is more human to be seen, than to see.’ DANTE, DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA I.V.1

To my friends and family, and all those who taught me to speak

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book owes a debt of gratitude to several people. The first is Anna Williams, under whose supervision and care the book began as a thesis. Denys Turner allowed it to grow and under his tutelage its thought began properly to flourish. The late Dan Hardy’s intercession at the thesis’s final stages was invaluable, and salvific. The academic and personal hospitality of Lewis Ayres provided security and significant conversation for the thesis in its last stage of development. Bob Dodaro at the Augustinianum in Rome showed hospitality, kindness and substantial academic support to enable the work to take its final shape. I am especially indebted to his person and his generosity. Aimée Heuzenroeder proofread the final draft, and her contributions polished an unfinished work. I take responsibility for any remaining discrepancies of style. It goes without saying in a work of this kind that the companionship of friends and colleagues who remain nameless in the work’s pages is the condition under which it can be completed. In a very Augustinian way, these people form the fabric of the thought that is constructed in the pages of the work. Jesus College Cambridge July, 2006

This page intentionally left blank

INTRODUCTION

This will be a book about Augustine. Principally, it will be a work of interpretation, but as such it proposes to cast light on Augustine as a thinker and the chief drivers of his thought. I will here say some things about a thinker this complex, before entering on something as decisive as an interpretative framework that I suggest can help us re-engage the nature of an Augustinian theology.

Augustine the man Enough has been written on ‘Augustine the man’ to spare me the trouble of engaging the topic here.1 Suffice to say that the reason it is difficult to make sense of this individual is twofold. First, there is the sheer quantity of his work. Augustine wrote, at most recent count, some 5,025,000 words.2 This is a tremendous amount of words even by modern published standards, and so its size in the ancient world is the more gargantuan. Augustine remains the largest single author remaining to us from late antiquity, and the impact of these words has been both decisive and diffuse since he wrote them.3

1

2

3

See most obviously the works of Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber, 1967) and more recently Gary Wills, Saint Augustine (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999). Lancel’s excellent biography in French has been well translated by Antonia Nevill, and stands out in its detailed historical treatment of Augustine the man. See Lancel, S. St. Augustine. Translated by A. Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002). See J. J. O’Donnell, Review of Corpus Augustinianum Gissense a Cornelio Mayer editum. CD-ROM, version 1.0 for DOS or Windows. Basel: Schwabe & Co. AG, 1995 in Augustinian Studies. Accessed at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine/cagreview.html on 14 July 2006. Some indication of the variety and extent of Augustine’s impact can be measured by the fact that, following the beginning of the second Iraq war in 2003, a session was held at the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Conference dealing with Augustine’s theory on just war. It was one of the most packed sessions of the conference, involving academics and members of the military. It was not hard to see each group calling on Augustine for their self-vindication. As recently as today, individuals across the academic, political and military spectrum invoke

1

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

The second reason Augustine is difficult to make sense of is his identity. It is worth noting that Augustine’s self-description in the Confessions has been prominently copied by significant thinkers in following ages. Rousseau’s Enlightment piece, Confessions, was a commentary and indeed attack on Augustinian thought; and Jacques Derrida’s twentieth-century piece, Circumfession, was a direct and deliberate echo of Augustine’s original Confessions. The reason for the continuity is, for some, straightforward: Augustine wrote the first ‘biography’ in the Confessions.4 A perhaps more poignant reason for the continuity is the enigmatic character of Augustine that this work reveals. More insightful than a modern ‘biography’, and more deliberately dialogical and theological, the Confessions reveal a man aware of the sheer mystery of his own identity and that of the human person more generally. Unable to be reduced to simple formulas, Augustine instead chose a form of words and literature that invoked God, himself, and humanity as a whole – as well as his immediate contemporaries mentioned in the work. The complex narrative structure of the piece tells us that Augustine was happy to ‘talk through’ the problem of the human condition and his own engagement with its unfathomable depths, and to do so in some sense prayerfully and in other senses literarily. This tells us at once that Augustine calls any reader of his work to engage his questions with him and, if they are attentive, to be cast upon the same seas that invigorated his life so much, and for so long. The enigma of Augustine the man is thus the enigma of the human condition, and this very deliberately so in Augustine’s mind. ‘I am become a question to myself’ (Quaestio mihi sum), he reflects at one point, and this tells us of his search and his motivation. But it leaves us with another set of questions; namely, ‘What drove Augustine’s theology?’ A simple answer to this question will never be given, and the purpose of the following work is only to outline a key crux to his thought and methodology that has been passed over. That crux is human speech, and language.

Augustine on language The question of Augustine on language has been much treated in various parts of scholarly literature. What follows is a work that complements this literature by filling it out. In short, the work below proposes that, for Augustine, the human

4

Augustine’s thought to underscore their own positions in whatever field they are operative. To consider Augustine’s fourth-century reflections as ‘out of date’ is anomalous, at best. I contest this purely because it is unclear that the Confessions actually is a biography at all, and the character of the work is complex, at best. I leave the argument to other scholars.

2

INTRODUCTION

voice and the act of speech are key points of human relationship to God. As such, human sociality, so much founded on language’s capacity, is a further point of key relationship to God, within which God is mediated to humans individually and as a society. I will outline the methodology of these propositions immediately below, and in particular follow this with some reflections on the relationship of the thesis to Augustine’s wider work and the questions emerging from it. It is to be noted that while this text is specialist in part, and assumes familiarity with Augustine’s thought, its implications are arguably much wider than that. I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions in this regard. It is also to be noted that this work is a proposition concerning how to read Augustine. The implications for filling out a wider Augustinian theology must be done beyond the pages of the present text.

1. Methodology and argument This work proposes to demonstrate that for Augustine there exists a relationship between God and humanity that is mediated principally by language used socially. It is a theme that has not been treated in Augustinian scholarship to date. Its significance bears upon how we read Augustine as a thinker, and where we place emphases in his thought when we read it. As a work, it requires some introduction, and the first part of this introduction concerns what I mean by mediation by language. By examining Augustine’s view of this, I aim to show how language functions as the platform upon which human identity before God is transacted. Since language functions socially, language in its social context is where this transaction between God and humanity takes place. However, this has two further prongs: the first is that human identity, the question of what a human person is, is mediated to the human person primarily through language; the second is that God’s identity is likewise mediated to the human person by language. These two aspects of the question – the issue of God’s identity and of human identity – are not the same. I will argue, however, that Augustine sees the issues of human and divine identity as so intertwined that their separation would hinder the uncovering of either. Even more strongly than this, the connectedness of the two is what propels Augustine’s inquiry into the nature of God and of the human person. This locates the issue of language in theological anthropology: more precisely, it demonstrates that the issue of theological anthropology can only be understood, in Augustine’s terms, with respect to his theology of language. This theological-anthropological concern will be the driving force of this work, and it will also dictate the work’s selection of the texts. Let me turn to 3

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

this question next before making some further clarifications on the conceptual framework of the project.

2. Selection of texts The book will pay closest attention to three primary Augustinian texts: in order, the De trinitate, the De doctrina christiana, and the Confessions. The reason for this selection is that they represent key aspects of Augustine’s thought across an extended period of his life.5 They also contain, from the point of view of this work, the best way to approach Augustine’s theology of language, and this in two respects. First, the texts form a historical and conceptual loop in his thought concerning the issues of language and human identity; second, each of these texts demonstrates a concern with theological anthropology, central to this book. The historical loop formed by these three Augustinian texts functions simply, and as follows. The De doctrina christiana, the Confessions and the De trinitate were composed between the year 395, the earliest dating for Augustine’s commencement of the De doctrina christiana, and 426/7, the latest point at which he is said to have finished this work.6 The Confessions and the De trinitate both fall comfortably between the beginning and end of the De doctrina christiana. There are many scholarly arguments concerning a supposed transition in Augustine’s work in 396 and his letter to Simplicianus, and the historical loop that I have chosen avoids some of the pitfalls presented by that discussion.7 If, that is, the 5

6

7

Presuming the dating of texts to be approximately between 395 and 425. The doctr. chr. was begun in 395 and completed after 425; the conf. are dated to 396/397–401; and the trin. was begun in 399 and completed either in 417 or after 422. For doctr. chr., see C. Kannengiesser, ‘The Interrupted De doctrina christiana’, in P. Bright and D. W. H. Arnold, De doctrina christiana. A Classic of Western Culture (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 3–13; for conf. see J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), vol. 1, xli–lvi; for trin. see R. Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 155–6, esp. nn. 36–8. For issues of dating the doctr. chr., see esp. Kannengiesser, 3–13. I am taking 426/7 as the closing date from S. Lancel, St. Augustine, trans. A. Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002), 534. He dates its commencement at 396/7. For the scholarly discussion, see W. Babcock, ‘Augustine’s Interpretation of Romans (ad 394–396)’, Augustinian Studies 10 (1979), 55–74; J. P. Burns, The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1980), 7–15, 37–44, 111–20; P. Fredriksen, ‘Beyond the Body/Soul Dichotomy: Augustine on Paul against the Manichees and the Pelagians’, Recherches Augustiniennes 23 (1988), 87–114; J. Wetzel, Augustine and the Limits of Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 155–60, 187–90; ‘Pelagius Anticipated: Grace and Election in Augustine’s Ad Simplicianum’, in Augustine from Rhetor to Theologian, ed. J. McWilliam (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), 121–32; E. Katayanagi, ‘The Last Congruous Vocation’, in Collectanea Augustiniana. Mélanges T. van Bavel, ed. B. Bruning, et al. Leuven, 1990. Dodaro makes reference to this

4

INTRODUCTION

De doctrina christiana was begun almost contemporaneously with this alleged transitional moment in his thought, one can assume that it comes close to encompassing it. This is particularly the case insofar as the De doctrina christiana was completed 30 years after the supposed transition itself.8 The conceptual loop in Augustine’s thought on human language and its relationship to God is similarly clear. This work will commence by taking an analogy Augustine makes in Book 15 of the De trinitate between human thought and its transition into speech, and the incarnation.9 This analogy, I will argue, is pivotal for understanding Augustine’s account of theological anthropology and warrants further exploration of the texts in his corpus concerned with language. The De doctrina christiana makes use of precisely the same analogy in discussing the meaning of the incarnation.10 As such, it makes a good starting point for further investigation of the relationship between language, thought and God with which I will argue Augustine’s incarnational analogy in Book 15 of the De trinitate presents us. The Confessions is included as part of this loop because it exemplifies in its form and content precisely the theory that the De doctrina christiana outlines of the relationship between language, thought and God. In this way, the book will form a three-fold progression, beginning at the De trinitate and moving

8

9 10

discussion and its nuances alongside further literature pertaining to it in his Christ and the Just Society, 84, nn. 45–6. Harrison provides an alternative view to the majority of the literature above in her most recent Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology. An Argument for Continuity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). The debate is not one that this work needs to enter, and the contested state of the discussion suggests that its resolution, if achievable, lies in the future. If Augustine had visualized a contradiction in his work begun in 395 and completed some 30 years later after his supposed ‘transition’, one would expect to find it articulated either within that text or elsewhere – in his retr., for example. However, no such exceptional explanation occurs, and we may safely assume that Augustine did not take it upon himself to edit the text for reasons of continuity in his thinking, rather than its opposite. Furthermore, we can assume that except insofar as there is explicit contradiction in the thought of the three texts concerning the character of language, Augustine’s thinking on language’s character either developed more strongly along its earlier (c. 395) lines or did not deviate sufficiently to warrant separate examination. The only real issue of development that could undermine this book’s assertions concerning the nature of speech’s impact upon human identity is that highlighted by Burns in The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace. Burns holds that Augustine’s theory of inner grace developed in such a way as to eliminate, by the year 418, the possibility of the soul’s being affected by external operations such as human speech tout court. I find Burns’s thesis difficult to accept, especially given Augustine’s extensive meditations on styles of rhetoric appropriate for the preacher in Book 4 of the doctr. chr., written in 425. Burns’s thesis would make this meditation by Augustine nothing more than a puppet-show, and I can hardly see why he would have engaged in it. I am thus taking the 1990 article by Katayanagi as decisive in its reading and rebuttal of Burns’s overall view. See E. Katayanagi, ‘The Last Congruous Vocation.’ No further issues of development in Augustine’s thought weigh substantially upon the observations of this book. trin. 15.11.20. doctr. chr. 1.13.12.

5

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

back through the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. It is important to note that the purpose of reading the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions is to elucidate how they bear out the principles elicited from a preliminary reading of Book 15 of the De trinitate. They form part of a demonstration of these principles and an engagement with their depth, in such a way as to enable us to re-read the De trinitate in their light. This reasoning, however, is subordinate to the theological-anthropological concern of this book, and this in particular governs my choice of these three texts. Each of these texts shows a concern for the issue of human identity before God and demonstrates a concern with language as bound up with this identity. The De trinitate is Augustine’s most sustained exploration of theological anthropology, with its examination of the human mind as the image of God in Books 9–15. This exploration is arguably the most well-known part of this text, and is frequently cited as encapsulating Augustine’s vision of human identity.11 However, as I will show in Chapter 1 of this work, the failure of this theological-anthropological procedure in Books 9–15 is resolved by recourse to a linguistic analogy between human speech and the incarnation. It is thus that Augustine’s most cited and explicit work on theological anthropology finds a solution to its dilemma with recourse to the issue of speech: that is, it calls upon an analogy between human speech and the incarnation to exemplify how we might understand our relationship to God and God’s relationship to us. As such, it warrants on its own terms an exploration of the issue of human relationship to God through speech and language. This preliminary analysis of the De trinitate in Chapter 1 leads to the exploration of the second text in the book; namely, the De doctrina christiana, Augustine’s defining text on biblical hermeneutics. It examines, in principle, the issue of biblical speech and how to interpret and communicate its meaning. Augustine’s treatment of the issue of biblical speech also sets as central the issue of social relations, which I term ‘sociality’. This term designates human beings standing in social relationship to other human beings.12 Book 1 is concerned not with language, or its meaning, but instead with the way in which we are to relate to other human beings and objects in the world: the uti–frui distinction and the issue of how we are to love our neighbour before God takes up the majority of this book.13 Augustine focuses it by saying that ‘anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by 11

12 13

E.g. B. Studer, Augustins De Trinitate. Eine Einführung (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2005); J. Brachtendorf, Die Struktur des menschlichen Geistes nach Augustinus. Selbstreflexion und Erkenntnis Gottes in ‘De Trinitate’ (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2000). I treat this term at more length below, Introduction 3. doctr. chr. 1.22.20–1.36.40. Arguably, the discussion of enjoyment begins even earlier at 1.3.7; however, the decisively ethical character of the discussion emerges at 1.22.20.

6

INTRODUCTION

his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbour, has not yet succeeded in understanding them’.14 As a precursor to Augustine’s treatment and interpretation of biblical language, we find Augustine placing the issue of human conduct at the fore. This demonstrates that in order to grasp the meaning of scripture, the word of God, we must understand how it informs our patterns of social behaviour.15 Anthropology – here, explicitly social anthropology – is overlaid with theology, and both find as their mediation point the divine speech which scripture provides. The De doctrina christiana thus provides a ‘textbook’ account of Augustine’s theology of language in its account of how language – here, the speech of scripture and the specific speech of preaching – mediates divine identity to us. As stated above, I will explore the De doctrina christiana to adduce some principles for my exploration of the Confessions. My treatment of the Confessions in Chapter 5 will propose that in this text Augustine exemplifies the principles adduced from the De doctrina christiana. I will propose that the conversion narrative of Books 1–9 bears out Augustine’s concerns with sociality and preaching contained in the De doctrina christiana. Moreover, I will propose that the confessional narrative itself exemplifies how Augustine understands the relationship between divine and human speech to operate. In short, the confessional voice deployed by Augustine throughout the text is one that can only take place in virtue of the pattern of social and linguistic encounters described by Augustine in Confessions 1–9. The narrative thus demonstrates both how a confessional human voice is achieved – through social and linguistic encounter – while also itself being one. The Confessions is a text that, in both form and content, exemplifies Augustine’s theology of language. It is important to note that, in my treatment of Books 1–9 alone, I do not thereby posit some artificial truncation after these books and before the other four, Books 10–13. My purpose in using Confessions 1–9 exclusively is to demonstrate just how much Augustine exemplifies in his narrative the principles of his theology of language, deduced in the De doctrina christiana, and how much they serve to create Augustine’s description of how he can himself move

14

15

doctr. chr. 1.36.40. The translations of the doctr. chr. throughout the text will follow the edition of R. P. H. Green, De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R. P. H. Green (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), unless otherwise noted. I depart from Green to bring out particular emphases in the Latin, and will mark such departures as my own translation. It will be noted that I have chosen the term ‘sociality’ rather than ‘ethics’ to describe Augustine’s concerns here. I do this because I think that ‘sociality’ casts a wider net than ‘ethics’ in its description of how God is mediated to humanity. It draws attention to the broader phenomenon of being in social relationship to other people, of which ethical conduct is a non-exhaustive subset. I explain this principle more generally when accounting for why I have not deployed other Augustinian words for human community to capture the central theme of this book. See my treatment of the term ‘sociality’ below, Introduction 3.

7

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

to confessional speech. The Confessions are to this extent the primary paradigm of a theology of language from Augustine’s perspective. I return in my final chapter to a further examination of the De trinitate on the basis of the principles of a theology of language uncovered in the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions, and in so doing find a clear Augustinian continuity of concern as to the character of a theology of language. The principles adduced within the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions provide the foundation for re-examining the De trinitate. I will thereby demonstrate that Augustine’s theology of language, emerging from a primary concern with theological anthropology, is present in three of his major texts. These texts treat the issues of biblical speech and its communication (De doctrina christiana), human speech before God (the Confessions), and human speech about God (the De trinitate): they thus make evident Augustine’s theology of language, when configured with respect to each of these concerns. This choice of texts and its rationale should go some way to explaining the deliberate absence from the work of texts more ordinarily associated with Augustine’s reflections on language; for example, the De dialectica, the De magistro, the De catechizandis rudibus and the Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium. The De dialectica and the De magistro both form part of Augustine’s earlier reflection on issues more broadly philosophical in their tone.16 While they treat the issue of language from a theological perspective – the De magistro, in particular, does this – neither does so with the aim of grasping how language configures human identity before God. The De magistro, while coming close to doing so with its description of the ‘inner teacher’, Christ, who makes all human speech intelligible, still fails directly to contextualize the issue of human identity – who the human person is before God – beyond describing the idea that it is God who makes our human speech intelligible to one another.17 This concern is distinct from mine. A similar comment could be made with respect to the De dialectica. Concerned primarily with the issue of how dialectic leads us to truth, it does not treat the question of how God approaches us through language, but rather how we might engage the more abstract question of truth by means of interlocution. In these early works, Augustine’s theology of language tells us more about language and less about ourselves as creatures whom God uses spoken language to communicate through. 16

17

It is worth noting that until recently the dial. was not properly considered part of the Augustinian corpus. Only the work of Jackson in his translation of the text has made this demonstration. See B. D. Jackson, Augustine. De Dialectica, trans. B. D. Jackson, ed. J. Pinborg (Dordrecht/Boston: 1975). Provided that Jackson’s observations are right, the text could clearly count as Augustinian. However, its omission from this study has more to do with its date and with its lack of explicit concern with human identity with respect to language. See mag. 11.38–13.46.

8

INTRODUCTION

The De catechizandis rudibus treats the issue of how to communicate the Christian faith to those without any education. While issues of speech and its correct usage thus intervene here, the issue of human identity before God is not central to its concerns. Rather, Augustine provides insight into how we may ourselves use language to communicate the content of the Christian faith to those wishing to be baptized. An excursus on this text would provide further interesting material for philosophical reflection, but it would not provide insight into how Augustine visualizes language itself, and its social context, as mediating God’s reality. This is something that the texts selected do with greater clarity. The Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium provides some interesting reflections on the relationship between the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity and the act of speech in a way highly consonant with this book. The issue of thought’s translation into speech is strongly present here, and examination of these texts would provide ample fodder to strengthen the argument of this work. The paradigm of relationship between language, thought and God that this book will use on the basis of an examination of the De Trinitate is also well laid out within the pages of the Tractatus.18 However, what is not as strongly present in the Tractatus is a theme that this book wants particularly to emphasize: that of sociality – human beings in social relationship to one another – and the transfiguration of human identity in human social relations. The theme that this book will put forward is that because speech is paradigmatic of God’s communication to us, so also the social relationships in which speech occurs are central to the possibility of our transformation before God. In short, the Tractatus does not reflect sufficiently on this aspect of Augustine’s thought to warrant inclusion in this work. Each of these texts I have chosen for inclusion, by contrast, demonstrate that there is a relationship between speech and sociality inherent to Augustine’s thinking about the relationship between God and humanity. The issue of language in their light reaches more broadly than language as an exclusive facet of human beings before God, and enables me to treat instead how the question of sociality and language supervene theologically upon one another in Augustine’s mind.

3. Terminology of the work: ‘language’, ‘linguistic epistemology’ and ‘sociality’ I would like here to explain what I mean, and what I do not mean, by certain terms that I will be using, and to present a rationale for the use of terms that are not Augustine’s own to convey his thought.

18

See, e.g. Io. eu. tr. 1.8ff.

9

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

First, I move freely between the concept of ‘language’ and that of ‘speech’. I do not formally distinguish between these two, except to observe that speech is a phenomenon of the linguistic context in which it is uttered. This is a truism, and doesn’t warrant contestation. A foreseeable problem in the free use of the term ‘language’ in the book, however, would be to construe it as pointing to a particular phenomenon which it does not. For example, it would be mistaken to suppose that in suggesting that the relationship between God and humanity is mediated by language, this would require that I examine the particulars of the speech that Augustine uses to describe God, and to take into consideration, for example, his rhetorical style, the effect of this style, and the traditions which informed it. Such a study would focus more precisely on Augustine’s own use of language, and not on the significance for him of language itself.19 My intention is to highlight the significance of speech – of human utterance – as that which primarily mediates between God and humanity. In this way, this work argues that, for Augustine, speech has a priority over the more general and much discussed phenomenon of language, and my purpose is to highlight this priority and its significance. Because, for Augustine, speech has such a central significance, then so also does the social relation in which speech is uttered. This book will explicate this theme and demonstrate its presence within the Augustinian texts selected. It will hold that speech’s primacy asserts itself over and above concern with the phenomenon of ‘language’ considered more abstractly, in Augustine’s mind; furthermore, it will hold very plainly that Augustine’s concern is with speech’s capacity to enable human interaction with God, rather than any abstract concern with language as a broader phenomenon. Where I use the term ‘language’, I do so simply to provide an alternative term to ‘speech’ and also to underline the fact that speech is a phenomenon of the larger category of language. The second term to which I draw attention is ‘linguistic epistemology’. By this expression I mean simply that, for Augustine, language provides the essential medium through which human beings encounter God. This premise of Augustine’s thought forms the backbone of this work. It also provides the starting point for an examination of the significance of an analogy between human

19

This work has already been well covered. See e.g. J. Finaert, L’évolution littéraire de saint Augustin (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1939). On his preaching and biblical hermeneutics, see e.g. K. Pollmann, Doctrina Christiana. Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustinus, De doctrina christiana (Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag, 1996.); R. Bernard, In Figura. Terminology Pertaining to Figurative Exegesis in the Works of Augustine of Hippo, unpublished dissertation, Princeton University, 1984; M. Pontet, L’exégèse de S. Augustin predicateur (Paris: Aubier, 1944). The topic frequently comes under examination in secondary literature in the context of work on particular words or ideas, e.g sacramentum, exemplum, sapientia and scientia in Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 147–65.

10

INTRODUCTION

speech and the incarnation at De trinitate 15.11.20. This book will argue that, for Augustine, God speaks to humanity not as a ‘voice from heaven’; instead, human beings come to know God through listening and responding to the speech of other human beings. This emphasizes the significance of social relations in Augustine’s account of the human person before God. Whereas several secondary works treat Augustine’s teaching on social ethics and the significance of caritas to this end in his thought,20 none of these has presented an Augustinian theology of language. The third and most significant term to which I wish to draw attention is ‘sociality’. By this term, I mean quite simply the human phenomenon of existing in social relations with other human beings who also contribute substantially to the meaning and development of one’s own life. The Oxford English Dictionary provides this term with the helpfully concise definition of ‘the state or quality of being social’, and I do not wish to push the phenomenon beyond such a definition.21 What I would like to draw attention to is that this phenomenon was, for Augustine, crucial in the mechanics of his thought. This work will show that, inasmuch as the analogy between human speech and the incarnation is a valid and central one for an Augustinian theology, so also is the phenomenon of being in socially embodied human relationship the natural outworking of this analogy. I defined the difference between ‘speech’ and ‘language’ above by saying that the act of speech is a subset of the broader linguistic context in which it is uttered. So also is the act of speech more crucially, for Augustine, a phenomenon of the social context in which it is uttered. This much may seem obvious, but there has not yet been an exploration in scholarship on Augustine of this aspect of Augustine’s theology as a driving mechanism of his thought. A simple riposte to this might be that this is because Augustine never uses such a term, and never himself analyses such a phenomenon. I contend that this is largely because his description of the phenomenon of sociality is caught up in particular Augustinian contexts with different words that, each in their own context, mean different things. Civitas or societas, for example, could be appropriate 20

21

E.g. R. Canning, The Unity of Love for God and Neighbour in St. Augustine (Heverlee-Leuven: Augustinian Historical Institute, 1993). Other works treat Augustine in a social context, without thematically treating the theology behind this, e.g. P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber, 1967). Peter Brown’s classic has since been followed by many like it. See, e.g. S. Lancel, St. Augustine, trans. A. Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002); G. Wills, Saint Augustine (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999); and more recently and less impressively, J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine. A New Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005). The latter work shows a distinct lack of theological perception. See the review by L. Ayres, ‘Augustine on the Couch: James O’Donnell, Augustine, A New Biography’, The Christian Century 123 (7 February, 2006). Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, Fifth Edition, Vol. 2, (Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press, 2002), 2906, ‘sociality’.

11

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Augustinian terms for ‘society’. This is so especially given Augustine’s extensive reflection on the meaning of civitas in the De civitate Dei, and his use of the term societas in the Confessions to describe human society generally, as that into which the human person enters as an infant.22 However, each of these terms are substantives and do not describe the phenomenon of human sociality that is central to this work and projects its course. This phenomenon, I will argue, was central to Augustine’s own theological methodology, and defines the premises upon which he engaged the task of theology. Therefore, rather than concentrating on textual archaeology and seeking to elucidate the difference between Augustine’s use of different terms on different occasions to describe the shape or quality of human society, I use a term that, in its way, covers the phenomenon of sociality at least partially referred to by any one of these terms, without being restricted to any specific field of reference. For example, the term civitas in the De civitate Dei refers to the earthly city of the fallen human self grounded in cupiditas, while the heavenly civitas is a community founded in and characterized by caritas.23 In my use of the term ‘sociality’, I describe the phenomenon that is constant in both the heavenly and the earthly civitates, while being bound to neither particular description under the auspices of caritas and cupiditas. This is because, I would argue, the phenomenon of sociality is the very context in which the transition from the heavenly to the earthly city takes place, and as such resists being substantivized by a term such as civitas. This latter term, in general usage, refers to an ordered entity: it is ordered, in the Augustinian mind, towards heavenly or earthly goals.24 Sociality, by contrast, describes the phenomenon that characterizes the city’s activity, whether it be good or bad. While terms exist within Augustinian vocabulary for the phenomenon of sociality when it is properly conducted – amicitia, for example, which is true friendship bound together by God through ‘the charity poured into the human heart by the Holy Spirit’25 – no such term is capable on its own of acknowledging that Augustine recognized the ability to transit between true and false forms of such phenomena within a single lifetime. A good example of this is Augustine’s friendship with his teenage companion in Thagaste, which is described as being one in which their souls were intertwined in error on account of Augustine’s 22

23

24 25

See, e.g., his comments at conf. 1.8.13 concerning the ‘stormy world of human life’ (trans. Boulding) into which he waded using his basic linguistic intitiation: Sic cum his, inter quos eram, voluntatum enuntiandarum signa communicavi et vitae humane procellosam societatem altius ingressus sum. See, e.g., civ. 14.28. Augustine contrasts the two cities explicitly here, and discusses their differing loves earlier in this book, e.g. civ. 14.7. Or, arguably, a disordered entity as in the case of the earthly city based in cupiditas. Rom. 5.5. See, e.g. conf. 4.4.7.

12

INTRODUCTION

own misguided theological views when associating with the Manichees.26 The friend falls ill and is baptized, and then treats Augustine as an enemy for mocking his salvific baptism.27 Augustine makes the distinction, at this point in the Confessions, between his teenage friendship and vera amicitia, noting that his teenage friendship fell substantially short of the latter.28 Augustine’s confessional recollection of his less-than-ideal friendship, and his identification of real friendship based on ‘the charity poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit’,29 suggest both that Augustine very properly visualizes the possibility of moving between different forms of sociality in a single lifetime and, more significantly, that these different forms of sociality have different status before God. The terms chosen for this work, therefore, are those that define its particular task. They emerge from Augustine’s own thought, and have been deployed to illuminate its contours more lucidly and, in so doing, to capture its features more precisely.

4. Problems concerning language: the Fall and Augustine’s theology of grace It is also worth elucidating some potential problems concerning my use of the word ‘language’ with respect to Augustine’s thought. The first set of comments relates to my remarks above concerning the difference between language and speech; the second has to do with Augustine’s vision of human language after the Fall.

Language: communication and the Fall First, as concerns the distinction between language and speech, this work will primarily be concerned with the act of speech as the mediation between God and humanity. It will hold throughout that speech, human utterance, is the activity that in an almost naked way enables God to communicate to humanity. I use the term ‘naked’ here, because I think that Augustine proposes that bare and even non-referential human utterance – the fact of making noise, rather than not – is what keeps the mind going in its searching after God’s reality. I make this analysis firstly on the basis of Augustine’s incarnational analogy that forms the starting point of Book 15 of the De trinitate, and then more strongly on the 26 27 28 29

conf. 4.4.7. Mecum jam errabat in animo homo ille, et non poterat anima mea sine illo. conf. 4.4.8. conf. 4.4.7. Rom. 5.5. See, e.g. conf. 4.4.7.

13

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

basis of Augustine’s proposition in Book 7 of the De trinitate concerning the word persona as simply ‘any one word’ which enables a conceptual distinction to take place in the mind concerning God’s nature.30 This book attempts, to a limited extent, to account for what precisely Augustine means when he says that ‘any one word’ will do when attempting to understand what the Trinity in its immanent nature is. Of course, as a bare statement, Augustine’s claim in Book 7 concerning the validity of ‘any one word’ to account for the persons of the Trinity is an insubstantial point of reference for understanding his views about language and its relationship to the human person. It functions in the work which follows only as a starting point for further understanding what significance Augustine attached to the statement. From it, the book moves forward to claim that inasmuch as speech and ‘any one word’ will do to describe the nature of the Trinity, then so also is the social context of speech intrinsic to grasping God’s nature. This claim fits also with the context of Augustine’s argument in Book 7, where he says that we use ‘any one word’ purely so that we have an answer to heretics who ask us what the three ‘persons’ of the Trinity are. Augustine’s argument demonstrates that persona has no substantive referential content in terms of the way we ordinarily use persona; however, we have to keep the conversation with heretics going in order that, presumably, we may convert them to understanding.31 Hence, sociality – here exemplified by the fact of keeping a theological conversation going – is paramount to Augustine’s understanding of how humanity relates to God. Even inasmuch as this is a subtle move concerning Augustine’s argument in Book 7 of the De trinitate, the work will bear out that Augustine’s concern with sociality – the human person in relationship to other people – is paradigmatic for how Augustine understands the transformation of the human person in the image of God to take place. This leads to the next and most obvious question concerning this work in relation to Augustine’s thought. Augustine’s account of the Fall was such that after it, in his own words, ‘[linguistic] signs could not be shared by all the nations, because of the sin of human disunity by which each one sought hegemony for itself’.32 He goes on to observe that this pride is symbolized by ‘the famous tower [of Babel] raised towards heaven at the time when wicked men justly received incompatible languages to match their incompatible minds’.33 The tower of Babel universally symbolizes the fact that human minds in a post-lapsarian state cannot communicate to one another using language since, as he explains in the De 30 31 32 33

trin. 7.6.11. See Chapter 1.4 and Chapter 6.3 below for treatment of this. trin. 7.6.11. See esp. Chapter 6.3 below for this. doctr. chr. 2.4.5. doctr. chr. 2.4.5.

14

INTRODUCTION

musica, various and non-compatible human languages were distributed to men so that they would not be able to communicate to one another with ease. Their pride was thus checked by the grace of incompatible and mutually incomprehensible languages, which work against the libido dominandi that is at the heart of the post-lapsarian human condition.34 Nothing that I say in this work will undermine this fundamental Augustinian proposition. Instead, I will emphasize that inasmuch as language is that which emblematizes the Fall and human mortality for Augustine – the difference, for example, between God’s eternity and humanity’s boundedness to mortal temporality35 – so also is language a chief instrument of redemption from this state. That is, the christological analogy between the incarnation and human speech is particularly apposite since, as Augustine says with scripture, God became flesh so that we may become again like God.36 In taking flesh, God takes precisely that aspect of mortal existence, language, which is emblematic of human division from God and human division from one another. The book, however, will not concern itself with the activity of human communication from one person to another. I will not set out here Augustine’s vision of the possibility of one human mind ever fully knowing another by use of language. Augustine’s own thought shows that such communication is impossible.37 Instead, I will argue that the phenomenon of sociality, of which speech is a part, is the context in which the redemptive activity of transformation in God’s image takes place. I will also argue that the act of speech is that which prompts human recognition of God – whether that be via a continued search for God in the structures of the human mind, as in Books 9–14 of the De trinitate; whether it be through an anonymous child’s voice, as in Augustine’s conversion experience in the Garden of Milan;38 or whether it be simply by raising the mind again to prayer, where we beseech God to manifest his grace upon the human mind and heart, and so impart understanding.39 Prayer is what Augustine directs his 34

35 36 37

38 39

de mus. 6.13.41. See also A. Louth, ‘Augustine on Language’, Journal of Literature & Theology 3 (1989), 151–8; and J. Rist, Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 23–40, esp. 36. The irony of Augustine’s statement here is the fact that there is a universally comprehensible sign, namely Babel, which communicates to humanity its own state of linguistic and social disarray. The scriptures, therefore, contain signs which can be universally understood, but which require the type of hermeneutic activity provided by the De doctrina christiana to interpret. My analysis of Book 1 of the De doctrina christiana in Chapter 2 below will show the extent to which Augustine’s biblical hermeneutics exhibit a central concern with sociality via their emphasis upon ethical conduct as crucial to hermeneutics. See trin. 4.20.30. I make reference to this in Chapter 2.3 of the text below. E.g. trin. 4.2.4. Cf. 2 Pet. 1.4. The mag. sets this out quite clearly. Illumination is only possible from Christ, the inner teacher. See mag. 11.38–13.46. conf. 8.12.29. See Chapter 5.2 below. doctr. chr. 3.37.56.

15

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

students of the scriptures to at the end of Book 3 of the De doctrina christiana, and it is with prayer that Augustine closes his De trinitate.40 It is thus not so much that speech enables communication between people, but rather that it directs us towards prayerful communication with God. Even Augustine’s earliest formal work on language, the De magistro, demonstrates that it is not so much human communication with one another through language that an examination of language’s activity reveals, but rather that through language we are forced to consult our inner teacher, Christ, who then mediates understanding to us.41 Human language and the sociality that constitutes it and that it, itself, constitutes, are vehicles through which we are drawn closer to God. In ultimately making some affirmative statements about the phenomenon of human language, the speech and sociality that constitute it, this work does not claim that human people can ever understand one another fully, in Augustine’s vision. It simply says that love (caritas), which can be induced and invoked on account of human speech (preaching, for example), is mediated through human utterance and its social context, and that on this account human speech and its social and linguistic context is an Augustinian sine qua non of the process of sanctification that the incarnation enables.

Language: speech and human redemption I should now make some remarks about Augustine’s theology of grace, and the extent to which this work considers language itself to be redemptive. As should be obvious from the above remarks, this work in no way considers human language itself to be redemptive. Instead, the process of sanctification – and indeed deification – that the incarnation enables is something that language mediates.42 It is by means of human speech that mediates God, that the process of growth towards God, becoming transfigured in God’s image and likeness, takes place. It is one thing to facilitate redemption; it is another to be redeemed. To flesh this out, one may look at Augustine’s reflection on the incarnation in terms of deification in Book 4 of the De trinitate. There, Augustine says, quoting 2 Peter 1.4, that in the incarnation God became a partaker of our mortality and in so doing made us

40 41 42

doctr. chr. 3.37.56; trin. 15.28.51. mag. 11.38. I am taking this notion of deification purely from Augustine’s use of 1 Pet. 2.4 at trin. 4.2.4. For further comments concerning deification in Augustine, see G. Bonner, ‘Deificare’, in Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. C. Mayer (Basel, 1996–2002), 265–7. See e.g., 266: ‘The essence of Augustine’s doctrine of deification is, then, that man’s participation in God through the humanity of Christ without any change in man’s creaturely status: dii enim creati non sua ueritate, sed dei ueri participatione sunt dii (ciu. dei 14.13).’

16

INTRODUCTION

partakers of his divinity.43 Inasmuch as we take Augustine’s christological analogy in Book 15 between the incarnation and the act of human speech seriously, then so also may we view human speech as directed towards a similar end: it seeks to have us become participants in God’s divinity, and seeks to do this in the same way (sicut) as the incarnation enabled this. However, Augustine’s analogy in Book 15 is only an analogy; it relies on the indeterminate strength of the word sicut, ‘just as’, to derive its force. More to the point, the analogy takes its strength from the preceding fact of the incarnation: without the incarnation there would be no broader ontological context in which speech could have this redemptive facility. Speech is therefore not primary to the process of the sanctification or of deification. Rather, the incarnation is primary to both. However, in Augustine’s mind, speech is a means by which the process of transformation in God’s image can be continued. Speech mediates God’s reality and it does so primarily through the mind’s involvement and interaction with speech. I will need to elucidate this statement a little further, by referring to the triad of language, thought and God that I will analyse on the basis of Augustine’s comments in the De trinitate.44 I would like also to do so here with respect to the phenomenon of caritas which, as love, is arguably fundamental to any speech or proposition about God in the Augustinian mind. Could it not be said that, over and above human language, caritas is the means through which human sanctification and transformation in God’s image occurs? Nothing in the pages of this work undermines this proposition. The very weaving of the image of God in the human person that Augustine undertakes in Books 9–15 of the De trinitate begins with Augustine’s unravelling of the proposition that love, amor or caritas,45 is threefold and thus an image of the Trinity. This realization provides the foundation for Augustine’s exploration of the human person as the image of God in the following pages. However, one notes even there that Augustine’s unravelling of the phenomenon of love as central uses language to make its observations. Love, he says, contains the lover, the beloved, and love itself.46 Only through identifying them separately, and naming them as three separate objects, is Augustine enabled to go on and construct the image of the Trinity in the human mind that he does. This is a distinct proposition from saying that the three objects – love, the lover and the beloved – are not there without language. Instead it says simply that only by naming them as three separate objects does Augustine have a material, linguistic 43 44 45

46

trin. 4.2.4. Cf. 2 Pet. 1.4. See trin. 7.4.7. and Chapter 1.4 below. Augustine does not distinguish between these forms of love adequately in the trin., hence I am presuming a workable continuity between them. See also D. Dideberg, ‘Amor’ in Mayer, Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, 294–300. trin. 8.10.14.

17

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

and conceptual framework for inquiring into the human mind as the image of God. Augustine himself describes this process as one of weaving the image of God out of the conceptual material discovered about the Trinitarian nature of love.47 An observation of the materiality of language and the creative process that the mind’s interaction with language enables is therefore not inapposite. This book supposes that Augustine himself operated within the bounds of such a reflective methodology, which is perhaps summarized best by his remarks at the opening of the Soliloquies, one of the earliest of his works: ‘Therefore you must write . . . Entreat of God health and help, that you may the better compass your desires, and commit to writing this very petition, that you may be the more courageous in the offspring of your brain.’48 The putting of thoughts into written words assists the process of intellectual inquiry in Augustine’s mind, and provides ground for its ongoing meditation. This is perhaps to observe nothing more than Augustine’s way around his own ‘writer’s block’. The book will hold, however, that such a startlingly simple observation lies also at the heart of Augustine’s reflective theological methodology: for Augustine, words are the very material objects which enable him to weave something as intricate and sophisticated as the image of God he develops in the latter half of the De Trinitate. They are the simple material building blocks that enable the mind to travel to God. This leads me to say something about the relationship between language, thought and God that will form a central pillar of this work. Even insofar as a demonstrated relationship between language and thought can be shown to be decisive for Augustine – the fact that the writing of words helps thoughts to progress – this does not say anything about God, or about how God is mediated through language. It does not address, specifically, how the process of grace takes place in thought’s meditations on language. The book itself does not propose to contribute to such a discussion in any substantial way. The operations of grace upon the human spirit are, at best, complex; Augustine was as aware of this as any theologian. What marks Augustine, however, is his conviction that grace is the precursor of any transformative speech about God. The Confessions, for example, operate upon the premise that God’s grace is the precondition for any 47

48

trin. 8.10.14. Augustine says that the image of God that he will weave in the Books following will be analogous to the work of a weaver working from a join in his material to continue to create a textile: ‘What has been said [about the threefold character of love] is enough for us to weave together the remainder of what needs to be said, as it were from a warp.’ Ita hoc dixisse suffecerit ut tamquam ab articulo alicuius exordii cetera contexamus. See Chapter 6.4 below. Hill, in particular, is content to translate articulus aliquid exordium as ‘warp’, implying the beginning of a new phase in the construction of a fabric. See E. Hill, The Trinity (New York: New City Press, 1991), 255. sol. 1.1, trans. C. C. Starbuck, in P. Schaff, ed., A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 7 (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1974). Translation adapted by me to accommodate it to modern English usage. See also below, Chapter 2.1, n. 14.

18

INTRODUCTION

human speech in God’s presence: Augustine beseeches God at their outset, for example, to permit him to speak.49 For Augustine, God’s grace is a prerequisite for any human speech about God, and, more pointedly, for any effective communication with God. I have said that grace is, for Augustine, the precursor of any transformative speech about God. This book will emphasize the transformative character of human speech throughout its pages. Augustine’s Confessions are again exemplary here. At the opening of his act of public confession, Augustine says to God ‘the house of my soul . . . lies in ruins: rebuild it’.50 The reconfiguring that Augustine beseeches for his soul is something that at least in part happens through the public act of confession. Otherwise, Augustine would have had little reason either to continue with his confession or, more pointedly, to do it publicly – unless we consider his confessional activity to be purely posturing. Augustine himself does not think this, however, and his remarks at the end of his life concerning this text show the opposite: The thirteen books of my confessions concerning my good deeds and wrongdoings praise the good and the just God, and excite the human intellect and heart toward him. At any rate, this is what happened to me when I wrote them, and happens still when I read them. What others think about them, let them see for themselves: I know them to have pleased many brothers [in the faith] and this they continue to do.51 The purpose of Augustine’s Confessions is to stir the heart and mind towards God. They are thus designed to transform the reader, and Augustine is sensitive to them having done so, for him and for others. This work will elucidate this theme in terms of its treatment of the relationship between language, thought and God. It will not thereby show how God’s grace works through the interplay of the human mind and language; it will instead demonstrate simply that it does work through this activity. More strongly than that, it will claim that in Augustine’s mind human language is a sine qua non of human relationship to God – that through which the mind must pass to engage God – and it will claim that the social context that language constitutes figures in this process of transformation. The purpose of making this observation about the triad of language, thought and God is purely to point out the mechanics of grace on the human side of the operation, the activity that takes place within the human spirit through grace’s sanctifying of the human individual and the 49 50 51

conf. 1.6.7. conf. 1.5.6. retr. 2.6. My translation.

19

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

human community. In outlining such a motor of grace’s operations within the human spirit, the work does not claim to have exhausted the bounds within which Augustine himself perceived grace as taking hold. Quite the contrary; it holds simply that this feature of grace’s operations constitutes a key feature on the human side of how grace manifests itself. This is very different from describing the mechanics of language, thought and God as grace: and it is different in the same way as saying that language’s participation in redemption is different from language itself as redemptive. Language’s relationship to thought is configured incarnationally by Augustine, in the christological analogy of Book 15 of the De trinitate from which this book takes its starting point, in such a way that thought’s interaction with language is, for Augustine, redemptively transformative. Through our social and spoken encounters, God’s grace becomes present to the human mind in such a way that we can verbally articulate this grace. The spoken re-articulation of this grace enables the mind’s movement back to God, and the mind in fact uses speech as the starting point of its ongoing reflection on God’s being. This, at any rate, is the pattern of the Confessions, and forms a good model for how this work views the relationship between language, thought and God in Augustine’s thinking as a whole. The book highlights the significance of this text by treating its narrative chapters in detail in Chapter 5. The pattern above is an anthropology of grace. As such, it is a properly theological anthropology: a description of the human person existing before God. It does not exhaust grace’s operations or much less suggest, for example, that without language there would be no salvation. It simply picks up the fact that, in Augustinian reflection, language – and by this here, I mean speech – is a central component of how God’s grace manifests itself to humanity.52 This is because of God to whom language is capable of directing the mind: and in so directing, it enables encounter with the God of love, caritas, and the transformations of love redemptively requisite for the fallen human person.

52

I make this point to move away from the suggestion that, for example, the speechless or dumb could not be redeemed. Much more powerfully than that, my book suggests that the eternal Word to which the incarnation directs the mind demonstrates just how much those without speech are themselves redeemed. They are redeemed because God has spoken his bodily word, in Christ, to humanity in the incarnation. My emphasis on sociality – human interaction where body language is itself language – removes this potential misconception from a reading of Augustine’s thought.

20

INTRODUCTION

5. The implications of the work: liturgy, ecclesiology and preaching Beyond Augustine’s discussion of preaching in Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana, this work will not reflect explicitly on the importance of speech for Augustine in liturgy, church or preaching. It will not do this because it understands these facets of Christian identity to be the context in which and out of which Augustine speaks, most especially in his writing about the incarnational significance of human speech. I would call to mind here Augustine’s recorded experience of blessed tears in the Confessions on hearing the hymn-singing in Milan;53 the fact that the church dominates his De civitate Dei as he articulates the invisible heavenly city as alone defining the boundaries of the earthly church; and the fact that Augustine’s own preaching, in his sermons, collectively forms the majority of his textual output. Liturgy, church and preaching are thus the proper situations of Augustine’s thought. What this work does do, however, is to demonstrate that these situations of Christian encounter do not, for Augustine, constitute the limit of human engagement with God. Inasmuch as human language is the sine qua non of human encounter with God, then so also does the broader sphere of human social encounter form a place wherein God is primarily operative upon the human person. While the church is the public context in which such activity takes place, it does not constitute its limit: and Augustine’s Confessions are the mainstay of his testimony on this matter. Augustine hears God’s voice at least in contrast to the unsatisfactory speech of the non-Christian community, such as the Manichees who are characterized as ‘babblers’ (loquaces) and who stand in contrast to Bishop Ambrose’s sober and eloquent Christian rhetoric.54 His final prompting to conversion is the sing-song voice of an anonymous child, who is neither within nor outside of the church; this happens despite the fact that Augustine had been provided with example after example of Christian convert by those within the ecclesial community.55 Admittedly, Augustine’s Confessions are those of a Christian man reflecting on a Christian youth: his early stated aversion to philosophy since it lacked the name of Christ is testament to the depth of 53

54

55

conf. 9.6.14. It is the first time in the Confessions that Augustine describes tears as ‘blessed’. Previously, they are scolded by him in some way or represent him being held back from God. See e.g., conf. 1.6.8; 1.13.21; 3.2.2–3.2.4; 4.5.10–4.7.12; 8.6.28–29. His baptism and the liturgical context of the hymns in Milan enable him to cry in a way that is tranformative, in blessedness, for him. The fact that the hymns – liturgical speech par excellence – trigger these blessed tears highlights the significance of such speech and its context for Augustine. e.g. conf. 1.1.1: vae tacentibus tibi, quoniam loquaces muti sunt; cf. conf. 3.5.9, where the Manichees are again loquaces. See Chapter 5.1 below for extended reflection on this. See Chapter 5.2 below for reflection on this.

21

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

his immersion in a Christian culture,56 and Books 1–9 of the Confessions relate primarily that Augustine had always been looking for an intellectually coherent account of the faith owned by his mother and imparted to him through her. However, it also demonstrates the extent to which grace operates outside the context of the ecclesia, even though the publicly confessing ecclesia, the fourthcentury church, is the final destination of the wandering Augustine of Books 1–9 of the Confessions. Augustine’s reflections on the ‘invisible church’ in the De civitate Dei also demonstrate the extent to which Augustine’s recognitions of the failings of the earthly ecclesial community led him to articulate grace’s operations in a way that transcended this earthly ecclesia.57 This is not to say he was not a faithful member of it, and much less that he was anachronistically a secularist. Rather, Augustine’s reflections in the De civitate Dei demonstrate how the ecclesia is able to bring together in an ordered unity people who were previously divided from one another by their differing languages.58 But let us remember that without the proddings of a simple child’s voice in the Confessions, a child who arguably lies outside of the church, who stands definitely outside of the garden in which Augustine was sitting, and who is outside of Augustine’s memory inasmuch as he couldn’t even remember what sort of a chant the child was singing,59 there would have been no conversion in Milan as Augustine described it; there would have been no final recognition of God’s speech to Augustine personally within the pages of scriptural text; and there would have been no confessing Augustine.60 Augustine as a member of the church found the mediation of the simple human voice as central to understanding God’s speech to humanity – and it is for this reason that this work will treat this naked proposition, rather than its connection to liturgy, church and preaching. Further and specific reflection on the relationship 56 57 58

59

60

conf. 3.4.8. E.g. civ. 18.49. See civ. 19.17 in comparison to Augustine’s earlier reflections at civ. 19.7. There is an optimism at civ. 19.18 concerning the possibility of human societal unity which contrasts with his earlier reflections at civ. 19.7 which emphasize society’s inherent division through differences in language. The contrast suggests that membership of the Heavenly City is what enables humans to communicate effectively to one another. See conf. 8.12.29. O’Donnell highlights the extent to which the ambiguity of the voice has led to a history of speculation on the reality of the voice itself – was it an angel or was it just a fantasy? Best evidence seems to be for taking the voice at face-value, and Augustine’s own description in the same way. See O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 62. Of course, this proposition is debatable. On the basis especially of his later views about predestination, Augustine would have been saved by grace even if the ‘child’ had fallen asleep before he or she began singing that day in Milan: if ever there was such a day and such a child. Augustine’s point in that passage, however, is clear – a simple human voice prompts Augustine’s mind to recognition of God’s grace emerging from the pages of the biblical text; and this moment is crucial for him. See my argument in Chapter 5.2 for an elucidation of this.

22

INTRODUCTION

of these themes and their particular presence in Augustine’s explicit writings on liturgy, church and preaching, outside Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana that this work treats, need to follow the explorations in this book. The demonstration of the character and significance of Augustine’s theology of language within the texts I have chosen will enable this, but not complete it.

6. Argument and structure In closing, let me outline the procedure of the book. It will proceed in six chapters. Chapter 1 will examine Book 15 of the De trinitate, and the proposition there concerning the analogy between the incarnation and human speech to which I have referred above. It will also refer to the paradigm of language, thought and God contained in this book and explain the reasoning behind this paradigm. Chapter 2 will examine Book 1 of the De doctrina christiana in order to grasp some fundamental features of Augustine’s thought concerning language and its occurrence in social relations. Chiefly, this chapter will highlight the inherent connectedness between these areas in Augustine’s thought, something brought out principally by the fact that Augustine’s work on scriptural hermeneutics begins with an extended meditation on the character of social ethics. My argument here will also emphasize the centrality of the theological and christological features of Augustine’s thought about language. It will underscore sociality in his thought as a chief point of mediation in the relationship between God and humanity. Chapter 3 will turn to Books 2 and 3 of the De doctrina christiana and examine the relationship between signs and things, and between cupiditas and caritas. The first of these examinations will highlight the eschatological significance of the relationship between signs and things. The second examination, between cupiditas and caritas, will examine the structure of human psychology, as Augustine understands it. I will demonstrate that the relationship within the human soul between cupiditas and caritas is mediated for Augustine through acts of public speech. Chapter 4 will examine the dynamics of Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana from the viewpoint of the significance of public speech. It will pick up on the emphasis in Book 4 on the transformative character of the spoken word. To this end, it will look at the relationship between form and content in Augustinian thought concerning preaching; and then examine the dialogical relationship between speech and Christian community. The language-thought-God paradigm introduced in Chapter 1 will come into play again, this time to highlight the ambiguity between acts of speech and their moral content. This space between 23

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

language and the moral character of the speaker will be highlighted as precisely the place wherein transformative growth towards God occurs. Chapter 5 will take up the Confessions. I will argue that Augustine’s Confessions represents an act of ‘exemplary speech’, inasmuch as the meaning and possibility of confessional speech is something illustrated both by the text itself and by the narrative contained within it. My argument will trace the narrative in terms of Augustine’s resolution of the issues of form and content highlighted in the De doctrina christiana. It will furthermore demonstrate that Augustine’s conversion is mediated socially and linguistically. Chapter 6, the final chapter, will return to the De trinitate. It will examine the text at some of its pivotal points to demonstrate the significance of speech in Augustine’s discussion of the Trinity. It will first examine Books 1–4 and the importance of Christ’s human speech in Augustine’s discernment of the nature of the eternal relations within the Trinity. It will then move to Books 5–7 and examine Augustine’s exhaustion of the conceptual possibilities of speech about God: his realization that no term or idea, such as persona, can on its own adequately refer to God’s Trinitarian reality. It will also highlight his emphasis on speech as that which allows us to communicate to each other about God. In the third section, I will examine Book 8 and the significance of social relations within Augustine’s Trinitarian thought. In my final section, I will look again at the ‘failures’ of Books 9–15 and Augustine’s attempt to discover the image of the Trinity within the human mind. I will emphasize Augustine’s success in demonstrating how language and speech enable us to be renewed in the image of God. The purpose of the work overall will be to describe Augustine’s theology of language. I will return to this theme in my conclusion.

24

1 THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

Introduction The reason for beginning this work on Augustine’s theology of language with the De trinitate, a text not normally seen as manifesting this concern, is because of the focus of Books 9–14 of the De trinitate on theological anthropology, an account of the human person before God. As stated in the introduction to this book, I hold that this theological anthropological concern is crucial to understanding Augustine’s vision of language in the period of the texts chosen for examination here. More pertinently, Augustine’s incapacity conclusively to resolve his exploration of the human person as the image of God except by recourse to a linguistic analogy in Book 15 of the text begs the question of the significance of language in relation both to theological anthropology, and to theology, the human task of understanding God. Implicitly, with recourse to this linguistic analogy, Augustine proposes that human speech is the chief means by which we are to engage theology. It is therefore vital both to grasp the context of Augustine’s analogy in Book 15 of the De trinitate and, further, to situate it through a wider exploration of his literature. Thus in this chapter I will examine Book 15 of the De trinitate with the aim of discerning its problematic and its account of language. I will do this with a view to establishing some foundations upon which Augustine’s theology of language can be uncovered through a reading of the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. Initially, I will make my explorations using the structure of the text’s argument as presented by Edmund Hill in the most recent English translation of the De trinitate.1 I do this not to concur with Hill’s analysis but rather to provide a frame within which to present the view concerning the theology of language that

1

E. Hill, The Trinity (New York: New City Press, 1991).

25

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

I find present within Book 15. I will also take the common-sense view that Book 15 contains the most decisive overview of the argument of the De trinitate. In support of such a view stands Augustine’s summary of the De trinitate’s argument at the outset of Book 15;2 and the absence of revisions to the text’s argument in Augustine’s Retractationes.3 Secondary research into the construction and argument of the De trinitate also suggests that Book 15 was the last book of the work written.4 As such it can be taken as interpretatively pivotal for the rest of the work.

1. De trinitate 15: Hill’s structure Edmund Hill sets up the major moves of Augustine’s argument in the last book of the work in the following way: Prologue – 15.1.1–15.2.3 Chapter 1–15.3.4–15.3.5 Chapter 2–15.4.6–15.7.13

Chapter 3–15.8.14–15.11.20

Chapter 4–15.11.21–15.16.26

Chapter 5–15.17.27–15.20.39

2 3

4

Summary of Books 1–14 of the work Testing of the possibility of directly descrying the divine trinity by inference from our understanding of creation Attempt to gain an indirect vision of the mystery of God through the enigmatic nature of the human mind Inadequacy of the enigmatic character of the mind as a means of gaining indirect insight into the mystery of the nature of God, in particular the procession of the Son from the Father Dissimilarity of the image with respect to the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son

trin. 15.3.4–15.3.5. retr. II.15–16; 24. Cf. P. Hombert, Nouvelles recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2000), 46. See A- M. La Bonnardière, Recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1965), 166. No other discussions of the dating of the work disagree with La Bonnardière on this point. The chronology of the trin. is, however, widely disputed. For an excellent set of references to the various opinions in this regard, see Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 155–6, esp. nn. 36–8. None of the debates concerning the chronology of the text bears significantly on our study here.

26

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

Chapter 6–15.21.40–15.27.49

Epilogue – 15.27.50

General observations concerning the dissimilarity of the image of God in the human mind to the reality of God of which the human mind is the image. Commendation of this image as a means of accessing communion with the divine. Reflection on the meaning of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. Soliloquy with his soul concerning the quest of the work

Prayer – 15.28.515 Hill’s chapter divisions clearly demonstrate his view of the underlying theme of this final book, that of the dissimilarity between the image of God in the human mind and God’s reality. He characterizes this difference so starkly that he entitles this last book of the work ‘The Absolute Inadequacy of the Perfected Image’.6 By this he refers to Augustine’s overarching desire in this book to dissociate the image of God in the human mind from the reality of God that Augustine seeks. In what follows, I will trace the argument of Chapters 2 and 3 according to Hill’s subdivision, and propose that the dissimilarity between God and God’s image in the human mind is something that Augustine’s emphasis on speech and language balances. From here, I will examine some other points earlier in the De trinitate which register the significance of speech and a warrant for further exploration of the theme of language, thought and God in Augustine’s texts.

2. Hill Chapter 2: De trinitate 15.4.6–15.7.13 – God and the ultimate difference between creation and Creator In his Prologue to Book 15 of the De trinitate, Augustine states with reference to Paul’s letter to the Romans that he has been planning to train the reader ‘in the things that have been made’. He has done this, he says, in order that the reader may know God by whom they were made.7 His description here is of the work’s project from Books 9–14, which explores the human person as the 5

6 7

Hill, The Trinity, 395–437. I have paraphrased the slightly longer summaries Hill provides at the beginning of each chapter. Hill provides only the book number and the final Arabic numeral of the CCL edition in his referencing system. I have here used the CCL numbering system and will do so throughout the text. Hill, The Trinity, 395. trin. 15.1.1. Rom. 1.20.

27

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

image of God.8 Despite its scriptural foundation,9 this project stands in apparent contradiction to Augustine’s criticism of the Platonic philosophers in Book 13 of the text, whom he chastises for attempting to know God through the created order alone,10 ignoring the incarnation of Christ and the mediation of the divine word.11 Augustine also acknowledges the extent to which his project has strained his readers’ attention, and actively quotes scripture to defend the project he has undertaken.12 His reckoning with Paul’s letter to the Romans in Book 15 forms the culmination of a wider reckoning in the work concerning how human beings can know God. Augustine begins his discussion by affirming Rom. 1.20. Quite apart from the testimony of the scriptures, Augustine notes that human reason is capable of discerning both that there is a God and that God’s nature is supremely better than all of the greatness of creation: It is not, after all, only the authority of the divine books that proclaims (praedicare) that there is a God. Everything around us also, to which we indeed belong, this whole universe of the nature of things cries out that it has a most excellent founder who also gave us our rational and natural mind by which we see that living things are to be considered as higher than (praeferre) non-living things, things endowed with sense higher than things not, intelligent things higher than non-intelligent, immortal things higher than mortal ones, powerful things higher than powerless, just things higher than unjust, beautiful things higher than those without beauty, good things higher than bad, incorruptible things higher than corruptible, immutable things higher than mutable, invisible things higher than visible, incorporeal things higher than corporeal, blessed things higher than those that are

8 9 10

11

12

trin. 15.6.10. trin. 15.2.3. Cf. Gen. 1.26; trin. 15.6.10. trin. 13.19.24. See also C. Simonelli, La resurrezione nel De Trinitate di Agostino. Presenza, formulazione, funzione (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2001), 38–40, and B. Studer, Augustins De Trinitate. Eine Einführung (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2005), 209–34, esp. 218 and 227–30. See, for example, trin. 4.16.21; 13.19.24 for his criticism of the ‘Platonists’. At trin. 4.16.21, for example, he connects the Platonist search after natural knowledge of God – looking for God ‘in the things that have been made’ – with their incapacity to understand the resurrection. His point is that their theological methodology does not enable them to dismiss Christian claims concerning resurrection of the body. For work on the resurrection in the trin. see Simonelli. Simonelli’s work stands in direct contrast to the more Neoplatonically sympathetic discussions of the relationship between Augustine’s Trinitarian thought and Neoplatonism, for example J. Brachtendorf, Die Struktur des menschlichen Geistes nach Augustinus. Selbstreflexion und Erkenntnis Gottes in ‘De Trinitate’ (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2000), esp. 15–20. My own position also stands generally in opposition to the Neoplatonic sympathies of Brachtendorf. trin. 15.2.3. He quotes Wis. 13.1–5 to defend himself against the charge of having wasted his readers’ time.

28

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

miserable. And so, since we rank the creator . . . above created things, we have to admit that he supremely lives, and senses, and understand all things; and that he cannot die, decay or change; and that he is not a body but the most powerful, just and beautiful, the best and happiest spirit of all.13 Augustine’s language here is revealing. While there is no doubt that it is reason’s activity that judges the relationship between created and uncreated being, the character of reason’s activity is something done first of all in response to the speech of the world. Reason’s affirmations occur because ‘the whole universe of the nature of things cries out (proclamare)’ concerning the excellence of the universe’s founder. Augustine also describes the scriptures as preaching (praedicare) God’s being. Augustine’s linguistic emphases, both in his own use of verbs and his emphasis on speech as God’s means of communication, display the extent to which his consciousness is firmly embedded in a dialogical universe. He visualizes a universe whose speech, natural and scriptural, is capable of being interpreted to reveal the character of the divine being.14 Concerning the speech of the universe and its divine origins, however, Augustine begins immediately to uncover a problem. It is that of the Trinity. While the intellect can understand God as greater than the greatest thing in all creation, it cannot name the Trinity, each of whose persons must simultaneously possess each of the attributes the mind ascribes to God.15 How can any composite analogy be found in the created order for God who, while three, is essentially simple and thus without such parts? Even the human mind, its self-knowledge and its self-love is revealed as simply describing three composite parts of a human being, ‘in man without themselves being man’.16 Any given person of the Trinity, by contrast ‘has [the attributes of God] in such a way that he is them’.17 13

14

15 16 17

trin. 15.4.6. My translation. I will largely follow Hill’s translations in this chapter unless otherwise noted. For a thorough interpretation of this theme in Augustine, see C. P. Mayer, Die Zeichen in der geistigen Entwicklung und in der Theologie des jungen Augustinus (Würzburg: AugustinusVerlag, 1969), and Die Zeichen in der geistigen Entwicklung und in der Theologie des Augustins II: Die antimanichäische Epoche (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1974). The latter work (Die Zeichen . . . II, 156–71) also discusses the theme of time itself as a sign through which we approach God – ‘die Zeit ist nach Augustin das klassische Beispiel eines natürlichen Zeichens’ (Die Zeichen . . . II, 168). All such signs constitute forms of God’s speech, through interpretation of which we draw closer to God. trin. 15.5.7. trin. 15.7.11. trin. 15.7.12. For an interesting discussion of the concept of analogy generally in Augustine. see M. A. Smalbrugge, ‘L’analogie réexaminée’, in Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 69 (1989), 121–34. Smalbrugge deals with the idea of similitudo and ‘natural theology’ in the context of its criticism from Barth onwards, restoring hope to the possibility of Augustinian theologies of image and likeness. His focus is largely s. 52. His article on ‘Le langage et l’être:

29

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Augustine does not lose hope on this account. He presents the analogy that has occupied him most fully throughout the work, that of memory, understanding and will (memoria, intellegentia, voluntas).18 The Father and the Son in the Trinity, he determines, are both wisdom in and of themselves but also relate to one another on the analogy of the way in which memory, understanding and will relate to one another in the human person: God the Father is wise with the wisdom by which he is his own wisdom, and the Son is the wisdom of the Father, which is the Father from whom he is begotten as Son. The consequence is that the Father understands with the understanding by which he is his own understanding – he would not be wise unless he also understood. But the Son is understanding, begotten from the understanding of the Father, which is the Father. The same point could appropriately be made about memory. How can one who does not remember anything, or at least does not remember himself, be wise? It follows then that because the Father is wisdom and the Son is wisdom, the Son does his own remembering just as the Father does; and just as the Father remembers himself and the Son with his own memory not the Son’s, so the Son remembers himself and the Father with his own memory not the Father’s. Again, who will say that there is any wisdom where there is no love? From this we can infer that the Father is his own love just as he is his own understanding and memory.19 From this Augustine hopes to show that the inner workings of the Trinity can be inferred on the basis of the operation of the human mind. The requirement that in order to be wise one must also have understanding allows Augustine to infer that the Father and the Son must stand independently in their possession of wisdom and understanding. The independence of identity of each member of the Trinity is reflected upon in terms of the human mind and its operations, and it seems that Augustine has progressed marginally along the road to constructing a theology on the basis of one of ‘the things that have been made’; namely, the human mind. Augustine is quick to underline, however, just how partial such an understanding of God is. The knock-down blow for any possibility of purely ‘natural theology’ – in this case, theology based upon inferences drawn from the functioning

18 19

La question du dieu personnel et la notion de similitude du langage dans la doctrine trinitaire de S. Augustin’, in Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 72 (1988), 541–56, which attempts to define the analogia entis linguistically, is very much in accord with the thesis concerning language as mediation that I am presenting in this work. trin. 15.7.12. trin. 15.7.12.

30

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

of human consciousness – comes with the distinction between God’s eternal being and the operation of the human mind. The latter, as Augustine notes, is distended in time and space in its operation, with our own thoughts coming to us one after the other in succession. This is in contrast to God’s memory, understanding and will, which are locked in an eternal embrace of all things past, present and future.20 Such a thought is in itself difficult to come to terms with. Augustine points out that the possibility of doing so is made even more remote by the limits upon our understanding of our own mind. Why, for example, do we call foresight that which is in fact memory, as happens for example when we recite a song by memory? The words that we see coming in advance to recite in fact emerge from our memory, and thus depend upon a knowledge of what has gone before in order to condition the possibility of our reciting that which is yet to come.21 The mystery of the human person is a sufficient preoccupation for the human mind, Augustine concludes, before we even make an attempt to understand God who ‘embraces everything that he knows in one eternal, unchangeable and inexpressible vision.’22 It is a preoccupation and a mystery that leaves Augustine to cry out with some relief in the words of the psalmist to the living God, ‘Your knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is mighty and I cannot attain it.’23 Augustine’s resort to the language of biblical praise here is not incidental. It represents a procedure where scripture bridges a discovered lacuna in Augustine’s understanding. He explains with respect to his meditations on human consciousness, that the more that we desire to observe how closely [these operations of our consciousness] happen, the more our language begins to stagger, and our attention fails to persevere until our understanding if not our tongue can arrive at some clear result.24 It is then that Augustine resorts to the language of scriptural praise for God, in his citation of the Psalmist, ‘’Your knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is mighty and I cannot attain it.’ (Ps. 139.6).25 Significantly, the doxology both renders praise for God while simultaneously providing Augustine with knowledge in its statement that God is ultimately incomprehensible to the human mind. It is as such the ‘clear result’ for which Augustine has been waiting. Biblical speech forms the ground upon which Augustine can relate to God. It covers the lacuna 20 21 22 23 24 25

trin. 15.7.13. trin. 15.7.13. trin. 15.7.13. trin. 15.7.13. Ps. 139.6. trin. 15.7.13. trin. 15.7.13.

31

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

between human intelligence and God’s reality, and enables the human person consciously to adopt a form of address that relates to God. Augustine’s proclamation of praise and acknowledgement of God’s ineffability paves the way for the next section of Augustine’s work. He has now established in his reflection that his project of searching for God ‘through the things that have been made’ has had limited success. His task is to come to terms with how the human person can understand themselves in relation to God. While biblical speech has provided a ground for such relationship, the issue of how the human person relates to such speech beyond its simple deployment remains unanswered. Furthermore, the mitigated success of Augustine’s discovery of the image of God in human consciousness – the triad of memory, understanding and will – means that Augustine must determine what the human mind can rest itself upon in order to undertake the task of renewal of this image that he elsewhere determines as the goal of human life.26

3. Hill Chapter 3: De trinitate 15.8.14–15.11.20 Hill’s division of the text follows Augustine’s attempt to come to terms with the human person as the image of God. Augustine examines the Pauline text from 1 Corinthians that states, concerning eschatology, ‘we now see through a mirror in an enigma, but then it will be face to face.’27 Augustine interprets this to mean that the mirror through which the human person gazes is indeed that very image of God in the human person. As he puts it, ‘the only thing which we ever see in a mirror is an image’.28 Augustine also parses the meaning of the term ‘enigma’ (aenigma) with respect to its rhetorical formulation as ‘an obscure allegory’.29 This leads him to conclude that ‘by the word “mirror” [Paul] wanted us to understand an image, and by the word “enigma” he was indicating that although it is a likeness, it is an obscure one and difficult to penetrate’.30 His reading of Paul opens the way for an epistemological solution that will encompass both

26 27

28 29

30

trin. 14.16.22–14.19.26. Cf. trin. 15.3.5. Col. 3.10. 1 Cor. 13.12. Hill’s translation of the biblical text. Unless otherwise noted, all biblical quotations during this book in reference to Augustine’s work are those of the translator of his text. trin. 15.8.14. See also F. Van Fleteren, ‘Per speculum in aenigmate: The Use of 1 Corinthians 13.12 in the Writings of Augustine’, Augustinian Studies 23 (1992), 69–102. trin. 15.8.14. trin. 15.9.15. See H. Lausberg, Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik. Eine Grundlegung der Litteraturwissenschaft (München: Max Hüber Verlag, 1967), 444, §899: ‘Allegorie, deren Beziehung zum gemeinten Entsinn besonders undurchsichtig ist’. Lausberg also cites Quintilian, inst. 8.6.52: allegoria, quae est obscurior, aenigma est. trin. 15.9.16.

32

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

the similarity and the dissimilarity of the image of God in its relationship to its divine archetype. The solution Augustine proposes puts the concept of word at its centre. Reflecting upon how thought operates in relation to speech, Augustine states that thoughts are a kind of utterance of the heart (locutio cordis).31 To his witness he calls several biblical passages, central to which is Jesus’ encounter with the Scribes and Pharisees in the gospel of Matthew.32 The event in question concerns Jesus’ healing of a paralytic man. Augustine notes Jesus’ response to those who criticize his healing, in particular his question to the Pharisees, ‘Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts?’33 Jesus’ remark, for Augustine, summarizes Matthew’s description of the Pharisees who before Jesus’ question ‘said to themselves, This man is blaspheming’.34 The reported speech of the Pharisees is simply the inner speech that Jesus had himself seen and questioned, their non-verbalized reflections. Augustine here follows an interpretation he offers of the phrase in the Book of Wisdom, ‘they said to themselves, thinking unsoundly’.35 For Augustine, the second part of this phrase, concerning ‘their’ thought, explains the reported speech of the first part of the phrase. On Augustine’s exegeses here, reported human speech takes place primarily in the inner heart of the human being.36 Part of Augustine’s purpose in turning to this inward aspect of the human person is to differentiate the operations of the mind from the composite character of actions in the external world. As he points out with respect to speech in the mind, it equates also to mental visualizations, such that at the level of thought a seeing (visio) and a speaking (locutio) amount to the same thing. Hearing (audire) is also equated with seeing (videre).37 This means that in the actual activity of thought the human person approaches more nearly to the simplicity

31 32 33 34 35 36

37

trin. 15.10.18. trin. 15.10.17. Mt. 9.2; cf. Lk. 5.21. Mt. 9.2. Cf. Lk. 5.21: ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?’ (NRSV) Mt. 9.2. Wis. 2.1. trin. 15.10.17. See W. Beierwaltes, ‘Zu Augustins Metaphysik der Sprache’, Augustinian Studies 2 (1971), 183–5, for some good comments on the meaning of the inner heart of the human being. It is ‘das personale und daher rationale intimum des Menschen; es ist einheit des inneren Sinnes: es hört und sieht in einem; es ist das bewegende Element im Transzendieren, die denkende Sammlung auf den Grund der Person; es ist Gewissen und Gedächtnis’ (Beierwaltes, 183). He also brings out excellently the relationship between inner and outer, concerning the word, on which this book will focus: ‘Das innere Wort ist so ermöglichendes Prinzip des äusseren Wortes, logisch und ontologisch eher als dieses’ (183), with reference to s. 288.3: Verbum valet plurimum et sine voce: vox inanis est sine verbo . . . tamquam in cardine cordis mei, tamquam in secretario mentis meae praecessit verbum vocem meam. Cf. s. 119.7; 28.5; 120.3; 121.5; 225.3 and Beierwaltes, passim. trin. 15.10.18. Cf. D. Pintaric, Sprache und Trinität. Semantische Probleme in der Trinitätslehre des hl. Augustinus (Salzburg: Anton Pustet, 1983), 105.

33

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

of God’s being, as three composite activities become unified at the level of thought. More significantly, Augustine’s reflection on the process of thought in terms of ‘inner word’ enables him to construct an account of the human mind that is correspondent in some way to his account of the operation of the Trinity. As he puts it concerning the second person of the Trinity, the Word of God: If anyone then can understand how a word can be, not only before it is spoken aloud but even before the images of its sounds are turned over in thought – this is the word that belongs to no language, that is to none of what are called the languages of the nations – . . . he can already see through this mirror and in this enigma some likeness of that Word of which it is said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1.1).38 Pre-verbalized human consciousness reveals the inner life of the Trinity, in this case the relationship of the Father to the Son, or the Father’s Word.39 As Augustine goes on to point out, though, in order for us to understand one another’s thought, such pre-verbalized utterances must take a material form. He explains how it is that physical gestures and letters of the alphabet each form extensions into the physical world of the inner processes of thought. He interprets Simon Peter’s gesticulation to the beloved disciple in the Gospel of John, for instance, as carrying the meaning of Simon Peter’s reported speech, ‘Who is it that [Jesus] is talking of?’40 These physical extensions of inner processes enable us to enter into discourse with others. The only difference between them, Augustine notes, is that letters are the signs of vocal sounds and hence at a second remove from our inner thought; while physical gestures carry the same weight of speech as actual verbalized utterance, being the signs of things we are immediately thinking of.41 This leads Augustine to a remark that, I will argue, is central to his text and pivotal for his theology of language. He says, concerning the relationship between our physical speech and the incarnation of the Word of God:

38 39

40 41

trin. 15.10.19. Pintaric describes this analogy as the ‘high point of the De trinitate’. Pintaric, 132. Pintaric’s excellent book provides substantive detail of the kind of position for which I will argue in this book, concerning the relationship between the inner and the outer word in Augustine. This exploration is done principally with respect to the trin. I reference significant continuities in my notes. trin. 15.10.19. Cf. Jn 15.19. trin. 15.10.19.

34

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

The vocal sounds of our speech are signs of the things we are thinking of. The word which sounds outside is a sign of the word which lights up inside, which inner word primarily deserves the name of ‘word’. For the word that is uttered by the mouth of flesh is the sound of a word, and it is also called word because of the one which assumes it in order to be manifested outwardly. Thus in a certain fashion our inner word becomes a bodily sound by assuming that in which it is manifested to human senses, just as (sicut) the Word of God became flesh by assuming that in which it too could be manifested to human senses.42 On first appearance, the remark is just the outworking of the process of thought that immediately precedes it. Augustine has been building up the model of the operation of the human mind in terms of the relationship between the Father and the Son, and the analogy between human speech and incarnation follows on from this process of modelling. However, in stating the analogy so explicitly, using the word sicut and not mitigating the analogy’s strength in any way,43 Augustine makes a direct link between the process of thought’s translation into speech and the salvific event of the incarnation. He opens up human discourse and language christologically, enabling them to stand as salvific in a way analogous (sicut) to the historical event of the incarnation of the Word.44 Is this last too strong a claim to make for this text? At least two strong textual reasons suggest that it is not.45 First, Augustine in no way contradicts this analogy at any point during the De trinitate. This is in contrast to Augustine’s treatment of the analogy between the ‘inner word’ (verbum mentis) and the Word of God in the Trinity. There, Augustine points out that while our thoughts are contingent and thus subject to change, no such contingency is operative in God’s being. It is for this reason, he suggests, that the second person of the Trinity is called

42 43

44

45

trin. 15.10.19–15.11.20. My translation. This analogy is not contradicted or mitigated at any stage during Book 15 or elsewhere in the text. See my discussion below. For the definitive discussion of the concept of analogy in the trin. see A. Schindler, Wort und Analogie in Augustins Trinitätslehre (Tübingen, 1965). It is also worth flagging at this stage the extent to which I thoroughly endorse the analysis by Beierwaltes, 179–95. See, for example, 189: ‘Es ist deutlich geworden, dass Trinität, Creation und Inkarnation im Phänomenon der Sprache sich spiegeln und umgekehrt Sprache zur trinitarischen, creativen und inkarnatorischen Analogie werden kann’. Beierwaltes’ analysis is helpful also to the extent that it throws light on the contemporary relationship between philosophy and theology, particularly in regard to issues of language, its foundation and human identity considered in light of this problem. It is worth pointing out that other scholars have also sensed the significance of this analogy at trin. 15.11.20. See, for example, Pintaric, 132, cf. 127–8, who goes on from his description of the inner word as the ‘high point’ of the De trinitate to say that: ‘In der Sprache selbst wird so eine Analogie für die Realität des trinitarischen Gottes gefunden.’

35

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

the ‘Word’ of God, rather than the ‘thought’ of God.46 It is also in contrast to his discussion of the human will as analogous to the Holy Spirit. In this case, Augustine dismisses the possibility of analogy on the basis that ‘one simply cannot read [God’s being] off from those things which we have pointed out in the trinity of our minds’; namely, memory, understanding and will.47 Thus the Spirit does not stand analogous to the will in the human person, and must instead be considered as caritas in his own terms. This is such just as the Father is caritas in his own terms and so is the Son. As with any of the attributes of God, caritas ‘is so possessed in the nature of each that each one who possesses it is what he possesses, an unchangeable and simple substance’.48 Unlike both of the other key Trinitarian analogies in Book 15, therefore, the analogy at De trinitate 15.11.20 stands uncontested in Augustine’s argument in Book 15. It also stands without contradiction in the remainder of the De trinitate. As such, I will argue below, it is crucial for uncovering Augustine’s theology of language. Further, Augustine’s centralization of the concept of ‘word’ (verbum) over that of ‘thought’ provides ground for the ongoing exploration of the meaning of language in Augustine’s work. I will undertake this in the following chapters. It is worth first observing the extent to which the centrality of language as a phenomenon plays itself out even in Augustine’s ongoing discussion in Book 15. As I noted above, his discussion of the analogy between the Holy Spirit and the human will moves away from a discussion of the strength of this analogy. He instead focuses on the character of the names we give to the members of the Trinity.49 In particular, he examines why we should call the Spirit caritas in the same way as we distinctively name the Son wisdom (sapientia).50 Augustine’s focus is thus on the way in which we may correctly name God. His primary interest is in how language mediates between God and humanity, be it speech in general or how a particular form of speech such as naming enables us to engage the reality of God’s being. Augustine’s ongoing discussion in the De trinitate 46 47 48

49

50

trin. 15.15.25. See also my discussion of this in Chapter 6 of this book. trin. 15.17.27. trin. 15.17.28. Augustine eventually rounds to the conclusion that caritas is the most appropriate name for the Spirit since, as he says, ‘What else after all is charity but the will?’ trin. 15.20.38. This conclusion stands so set against the discussion of ambiguity concerning such analogy, though, that it must be read in the light of Augustine’s hesitation rather than this conclusion. See, for example, his immediate mitigation of his entire discussion at trin. 15.20.39. Hill considers this a peculiar move by Augustine, and claims he is forgetful of his actual purpose. See Hill, The Trinity, 418, in his prefatory comments to Chapter 5 according to his subdivision. I would like to claim that this is not so, and Augustine’s ‘forgetfulness’ is implicitly revealing of his theological methodology. trin. 15.17.29–15.20.38.

36

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

bears out the thesis that the theology of language is a fundamental concern of this text. In order to establish this more fully, it will be important first to examine the relationship of De trinitate 15.11.20 to the remainder of the text. I will do this by examining the concept of language as it is expressed elsewhere in the De trinitate. This will provide me with the ground to examine the theme of language elsewhere in Augustine’s corpus.

4. Language in the De trinitate: the tool of transformation and its relationship to the mind Augustine’s views concerning language in the De trinitate can be picked up at three points. The first is a remark that he makes at the end of Book 4; the second, some reflections in Book 7 concerning Trinitarian terminology and speech about God; and the third, his account of the inner word of the mind in Book 15, which I have already briefly examined. I will look at each of these in turn, with the aim of making some preliminary observations concerning the significance of language in the De trinitate. Augustine’s comments concerning language in Book 4 come at the end of his discussion of the Trinity’s operation in time. Augustine wishes to make a distinction between the way in which God is manifest to creation and the way in which God is in God’s own being. In each of God’s manifestations to creation, each of the three persons of the Trinity acts inseparably from the others. This is distinct from the way in which the manifestations take place, which involve creatures distended in time and space.51 The analogy he draws on principally to make his point is that of language, and he says: [O]ur words which consist of material sounds can only name Father and Son and Holy Spirit with their own proper intervals of time, which the syllables of each word take up, spaced off from each other by a definite separation. In their own proper substance by which they are, the three are

51

Augustine importantly observes the particularity of the incarnation as God’s self-manifestation at trin. 4.20.28–4.20.30. In the incarnation, he explains, ‘a man was coupled and even in a certain sense compounded with the Word of God as one person’ (verbo itaque dei ad unitatem personae copulatus et quomodam modo commixtus est homo). The best work on Augustine’s understanding of the incarnation in this context is that of H. R. Drobner, Person-Exegese und Christologie bei Augustinus: zur Herkunft der Formel una persona (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986). None of my views concerning language’s analogy to the incarnation contradict Drobner’s work. They instead illuminate how language continues the work of sanctification of which the incarnation of the Word is a pinnacle.

37

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, without any temporal movement, without any intervals of time or space, one and the same over all creation, one and the same all together from eternity to eternity, like eternity itself which is never without verity and charity. But in my words Father and Son and Holy Spirit are separated and cannot be said together, and if you write them down each name has its own separate space.52 Language, for Augustine, provides the clearest example of what it is for the material universe to be distinct from its creator who is simultaneously three persons and one God. It is by reference to language and its materiality – language as bound by time and space, just as is the human person who uses it – that Augustine captures with clearest precision where the difference between God and embodied humanity lies.53 Language becomes iconic or emblematic of humanity’s difference from God’s eternity. Augustine’s reflections on language find another expression three books later. In an almost offhand remark concerning how we might inquire into the things of God, he says: The total transcendence of the godhead quite surpasses the capacity of ordinary speech. God can be thought about more truly than he can be talked about, and he is more truly than he can be thought about.54 Augustine here articulates a three-tiered scale of transcendence. In it, God exists at the highest level of the scale, while thought and language exist sequentially below God.55 Ideally, then, one approaches God through thought, the second 52 53

54 55

trin. 4.20.30. Cf. C. Ando, ‘Augustine on Language’, in Revue des études augustiniennes 40 (1994) 45–78: ‘Language, like our bodies, is trapped and operates in time, and is thus largely subject to the limitations of the physical world. At the same time, language consists of signs which can cause the mind to think about things other than the sign itself; hence they are also the means by which we can begin to transcend those same limitations’. (Ando, 48). This neatly summarizes some of the concerns of this book concerning language as mediation between God and humanity; and between human beings. See also E. Vance, ‘Saint Augustine, Language as Temporality’, in Mimesis. From Mirror to Method, Augustine to Descartes, ed. J. D. Lyons and St. G. Nichols (Hanover/London, 1982), 20–35; and L. Alici, ‘Linguaggio e tempo in S. Agostino’ in Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter. Akten des VI. Internationalen Kongresses für mittelalterliche Philosophie der Société internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie médiévale, 29. Aug.–3. Sept. 1977 in Bonn, Halbband II, ed. J. P. Beckmann (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), 1037–45. trin. 7.4.7. It is necessary here to footnote the work of R. J. Teske, ‘Properties of God and the predicaments in De Trinitate V’, The Modern Schoolman 59 (1981/2), 1–19 and ‘Augustine’s use of “substantia” in speaking about God’, The Modern Schoolman 62 (1985/6), 147–63. Teske uses the distinction from trin. 7.4.7, that ‘God can be thought about more truly than he can

38

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

rung of the scale. Augustine’s comments later in Book 7 concerning the use of the word persona, however, destabilize this view. Concerning the word persona Augustine says that the term demarcates the character of the persons of the Trinity. Instead, it is simply a convenient space-filler in a discussion of the meaning of God as Trinity. It provides us with something to say when we are asked what it is that the Trinity is: So the only reason . . . for which . . . we say three persons (tres personas), is because we want to have any one word (unum aliquod vocabulum) to serve this signification by which a trinity is understood, lest we fall wholly silent when asked what three things they are, when we have confessed that there are three.56 On this reading, language (and here, principally, speech) is something whose materiality the mind employs to approach the being of God. God remains beyond the grasp of both language and thought. In terms of the three-tiered scale of transcendence that I outlined above, language stands as the mediating feature in the mind’s passage to God. This undermines a simplistic reading of Augustine’s articulation of the relationship between language, thought and God. Rather than the hierarchy between them being sequential in its transcendence, with language at the lowest point of the scale on account of its materiality, language stands as the sine qua non of the possibility of approaching God. The scale is not three-tiered in a sequential way, with materiality at the bottom, thought in the middle and God at the top. It is instead a scale in which thought uses language’s materiality to approach the being of God who is higher than both language and thought. The third significant discussion of language in the De trinitate is in Book 15, and the discussion of the inner word. Augustine says that the inner word of the mind exists in a state of quasi-independence from the speech that expresses it: [The inner word (verbum mentis)] is the word that belongs to no language,

56

be talked about, and he is more truly than he can be thought about’, and which I have phrased in terms of language, thought and God, as a foundation for reflection on divine–human relationship. My own work does not emerge from that of Teske, or follow it in detail; however, Teske’s highlighting of this moment in the trin. as significant in Augustinian thought emphasizes the significance which I place upon it in this book. See also T. J. van Bavel, ‘God in Between Affirmation and Negation According to Augustine’, in Collectanea Augustiniana. Augustine: Presbyter factus sum, ed. J. T. Lienhard, E. C. Muller and R. J. Teske (New York: Peter Long, 1993), 73–97, who draws out this three-tiered distinction with respect to some questions of negative theology. trin. 7.6.11. My translation.

39

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

that is to none of what are called the languages of the nations, of which ours is Latin . . . It is the thought (cogitatio) formed from the thing we know that is the word that we utter in the heart, a word that is neither Greek nor Latin nor any other language.57 The inner word in this way exists prior to the outer form of any given human language in which it is expressed. He goes on to distinguish between the inner word and the language in which it is expressed even more explicitly, saying that the inner word is ‘neither uttered in sound nor thought of in the likeness of sound which necessarily belongs to some language, but . . . precedes all the sounds which signify it’.58 Thought is distinct in qualitative terms from the words in which it is expressed, insofar as it does not possess even any likeness to sound; as well as being temporally distinct from the words that convey thought, insofar as the inner word precedes its verbal expression.59 He draws out the likeness between the inner word of the human person and the Word of God with his remark that just as the inner word is capable of not being followed by an outer ‘work’ (opus), so also was it possible for the Word of God to be without bringing the creation into being.60 Depending on how much weight we put on the continuity between Augustine’s concept of verbal speech and his idea of a ‘work’, we can say that, for Augustine, the inner human word is capable of existing as thought without ever requiring a formal outward expression.61 This lends strength to the view that on his scale of relationship between language, thought and God, we are dealing with precisely three different points on an ontological scale that moves from the material world, represented by language; through to the non-material sphere of

57 58

59

60 61

trin. 15.10.19. trin. 15.11.20. For some discussion of the idea of the inner word, see P. Agaësse, ‘La notion du verbe mental’, Bibliothèque augustinienne 16 (1955) 597–600; G. Watson, ‘St. Augustine and the inner word: the philosophical background’, Irish Theological Quarterly 54 (1988), 81–92; Pintaric, 94–108; Santi, 93–100, who sets Augustine against the background of twentieth-century linguistic philosophy. In this book, I will understand that what Augustine refers to as thought in his description of the three-tiered scale of transcendence at Book 7.3.5 is equivalent to what he describes as the inner word. This is so despite his description of the contingency and instability of the mind’s operations in Book 15. See trin. 15.15.25, and my discussions above and in Chapter 6. Augustine’s articulation of the ‘chopping and changing’ element of human cogitation is a reflection on the instability of the mind’s operation, not a distinction between different types of thought. The inner word can, after all, be mistaken, as he articulates in his discussion of it at trin. 15.11.21–15.15.25. trin. 15.11.20. On the ontological disjunction between external word and thought, and the independence of the mind from its spoken words, see Pintaric, 106–8. See 108–10 for some further outlining of the significance of this thought in the trin.

40

THE PROBLEM OF LANGUAGE IN THE DE TRINITATE

human consciousness, of which thought is the representative; through finally to the ultimately transcendent reality of God.62 The point of making these distinctions on the scale described is to capture what activity takes place in the encounter between the mind and language, which as we have seen above is part of the prerequisite for movement towards God. In terms of what I outlined above, it is the engagement of human consciousness with the material character of speech that enables the mind to move towards God. If language is an object of consciousness, then a correct understanding of language, of language’s relationship to the mind, and of the mind’s relationship to God will assist us to understand how Augustine visualizes the restoration of the fallen image of God in which the mind consists. It is this that the remainder of this work must engage. I will do this first by an exploration of the De doctrina christiana, and then by an examination of the Confessions. An exploration of the different dimensions of Augustine’s account of the relationship between language, thought and God in each of these texts will enable me to return to the De trinitate and to read it in the light of these discoveries.

62

For some good reflections on Augustine’s understanding of language in this context, and also of language’s ultimate failure in attempting to capture the transcendent, see Ando, 45–78.

41

This page intentionally left blank

2 DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1: GOD, SPEECH AND ETHICS

Introduction In this chapter I propose to inquire into Book 1 of the De doctrina christiana by exploring the relationship it articulates between language, thought and God. The central ethical concerns of the book will be situated with respect to this relationship. While the book begins by setting out the major task of the work as to understand the ‘two things on which all handling of scripture depends: the means of discovering (modus inveniendi) what we need to learn, and the means of presenting (modus proferendi) what we have learnt’,1 the discussion moves quickly into distinctions that either relate directly to the ethical aspects of human being, or which bear upon the teleology of human existence. I will focus principally on how this discussion of ethics relates to the language, thought and God distinction; and furthermore, demonstrate the linguistic nature of human and divine sociality. Several scholars give a detailed outline of the book’s argument.2 Here I will make reference only to the work of Press, who notes four general headings in Book 1. These headings fall under Part I of the De doctrina christiana, covering Books 1–3, which seeks to discover what we should understand from scripture. Books 1–3 are governed by two subsequent headings, an exploration of the relationship between things (res) and signs (signa). An exploration of things constitutes the first book, and this is what Press subdivides into four parts: 1 2

doctr. chr., 1.1.1. See below, citing G. A. Press, ‘The Content and Argument of Augustine’s De doctrina christiana’, Augustiniana 31 (1981), 165–82. See also G. Istace, ‘Le livre Ier du De doctrina christiana de saint Augustin’, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 32 (1956): 289–330; K. Pollmann, Doctrina Christiana. Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustinus, De doctrina christiana (Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag, 1996); R. Bernard, ‘In Figura. Terminology Pertaining to Figurative Exegesis in the Works of Augustine of Hippo’, unpublished dissertation, Princeton University, 1984.

43

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Part 1 – How to Discover what is to be Understood in Scripture (modus inveniendi). Introduction to Part I (1.2.2) All doctrine is either of things or signs, but things are learned by means of signs. Things will be discussed first. A. 1.3.3–1.40.44 The Things that are to be Understood in Scripture. 1) 1.3.3–1.5.5 Things for Use (uti) and Things for Enjoyment (frui) 2) 1.5.5–1.10.10 The Only Thing to be Enjoyed is God. 3) 1.11.11–1.34.38 The Route to Happiness, i.e., to God. a) 1.11.11–1.21.19 Articles of Faith b) 1.22.20–1.34.38 Human Conduct 4) 1.35.39–1.40.44 Summary, Conclusion and Transition.3 The ethical concern is thus central, as the movement from the discussion of things and signs plays out the distinction between the use and enjoyment of things.4 This ethical distinction between use and enjoyment persists until the beginning of the summary section noted above, namely De doctrina christiana 1.35.39, something not immediately evident from my précis of Press’s analysis. In section 2 of the argument as laid out above, God is discerned as the only thing that properly can be enjoyed, and from here the discussion moves into how one acquires enjoyment of this highest thing, the goal of human striving. Augustine’s articulation of the ethics of human conduct falls into this more general question of the human search after beatitude, and the book moves towards a rounded exploration of the relationship between the human individual before God and their immediate relations in community. These prove to be the indispensable means through which beatitude is achieved. The idea of a journey, or a ‘route’, as Press has described it, reflects precisely the dialectic between this end of human beatification and the social relations by and in which it is attained. I will use this chapter to engage with this dimension of Augustine’s argument. In presenting my argument, I will follow Augustine’s discussion step by step, 3 4

Press, 170–1. But see R. Williams, ‘Language, Reality and Desire in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana’, Journal of Literature and Theology 3 (1989): 138–50. Williams argues well that the uti–frui distinction has to be interpreted in the context of the biblical hermeneutics which are Augustine’s central concern in the text. I concord wholly with Williams’s analysis, and my chapters below bring this out. It is important to note, however, that the discussion below does not undermine the significance either of the uti–frui distinction or the centrality of the ‘ethical’ in the doctr. chr. It merely resituates how we are to think about this problem.

44

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1

through the first book, to delineate his treatment of the relationship between language, thought and God. Principally, I will argue that the relationship between language, thought and God is a defining feature of the whole first book, and that this is something Press’s analysis, precise as it otherwise is, does not pick up. Press moves straight from a description of the overall project of the work, which is roughly equivalent to Augustine’s own at De doctrina christiana 1.1.1, to the remark at De doctrina christiana 1.2.2, where Augustine makes a distinction between things and signs. There exists, however, a small space of meditation between Augustine’s statement of his project at the outset and this key epistemological distinction between things and signs that becomes formative for the remainder of the text. It is with this small meditation that I will begin my exploration of the mechanics of theological speech, in particular drawing out the difference between Augustine’s own projected task and the three sets of interlocutors whom he identifies in the Preface as the people to whom his work should be addressed.

1. De doctrina christiana Preface and Book 1: the mechanics of theological speech At the opening of Book 1, Augustine describes the task he is about to undertake in Ciceronian terms as a ‘great and arduous burden’,5 showing his awareness of it and his proper temerity before it. He goes on to explain, however, the grounds upon which he is making his discourse: This is a burden great and arduous, and I fear also difficult to sustain if rashly undertaken. Or so I would think if I were depending on my own resources. But since my hope of bringing this task to completion is in him from whom I have already been handed many things in meditation on this matter, I have no need to fear that he will refuse to give the remainder after I have begun to set forth those things already given. For everything which does not expire when it is given away is not yet possessed properly, if it is possessed and not given away. God says, ‘the man who has will be given more’ (Matt. 13.12). He will give to those who have, that is, he will

5

Magnum onus et arduum. ‘Magnum . . . onus’ following the CC reading of the manuscript tradition. If this is correct, Augustine misquotes Cicero, de orat. 10.33. That reads, in Cicero’s description of his task to delineate the ideal orator and mould him in perfect eloquence, ‘magnum opus . . . et arduum’. Five manuscripts (C, P, R2, V) have Augustine follow Cicero exactly. See the CCL edition of trin. for the manuscript citations. Augustine cites the text correctly at civ. 1, Pref.

45

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

supplement and increase what he has given to those who make generous use of what they have received.6 The context of this remark is the Preface, where Augustine is engaged in a discussion with three groups of people: those who have not understood the precepts he is about to give; those who, having understood Augustine’s rules, will try to treat the scriptures according to them but, having failed to do so, will judge Augustine’s pedagogic efforts futile; and those who already believe that they interpret the divine scriptures correctly by some special gift of God, and who thus judge Augustine’s rules as unnecessary for themselves or for anybody.7 To the first two of these groups Augustine gives a curt reply: the fault lies not with Augustine, he says; rather, they should ask God to increase their understanding.8 To the third group, he gives a more extended response, emphasizing most centrally the intercommunal nature of language. Its learning, as he states, requires that it be taught by other people; namely, those from whom we first hear it as infants.9 He then provides extended scriptural examples of the need for learning from one another, culminating in the recognition that all teaching is ultimately from God, regardless of the intermediary through which the teaching is received.10 Augustine’s purpose in each of these responses is to justify his own imminent speech-act, which will take place as he writes the work.11 However, it also establishes the significance of the socially mediated character of speech and language, and its capacity to mediate God, as a foundational point in the work. Augustine expresses succinctly the necessity of our learning from one another, saying that ‘there would be no way for love (caritas), which binds people together in the bonds of unity, to make souls overflow and as it were intermingle with each other, if human beings learnt nothing from other human beings’.12 Language as an exchange between people allows love to be manifest between them, and at the base of all such learning and interchange is God, principally mediated in such discourse.13 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13

doctr. chr. 1.1.1. My translation. doctr. chr. Pref. 2. doctr. chr. Pref. 3. doctr. chr. Pref. 5. doctr. chr. Pref. 7–8. I am conscious, in the use of the term ‘speech-act’, of the obvious resonances with the work of J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962). My use of the term does not owe anything directly to Austin, even though some of what I argue in this book focuses on the performative aspect of speech. See, for example, my analysis of the example of David and Nathan in doctr. chr. 3, in Chapter 3.7 below. There, Nathan’s analogy spoken to David enables David to convict himself, hence accusing him and enabling David to realize his own culpability before God. doctr. chr. Pref. 6. My translation. doctr. chr. Pref. 6–9. The set of scriptural examples that Augustine provides testifies to this. They move through Paul, Cornelius, Philip and the eunuch, then finally to Moses and his

46

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1

The connection between the Preface, as summarized here, and Augustine’s comments at the opening of Book 1, is that Augustine’s point at the outset of Book 1 is precisely to demonstrate and explicate the role of God in his own speech-act in such a way as to accommodate it to his cautionary remarks in the Preface. In the passage cited above, he says that he has no need to fear that God will refuse to provide the resources required to complete his meditation, since God who has already provided will provide even more abundantly for him once he writes, ‘supplementing and increasing what he has already given’.14 At the beginning of the Preface, Augustine describes God prompting him as he reflects on the matters he is about to discuss. The pattern follows the simple one of language, thought and God played out in Augustine’s expression of his theologically creative process: It is my intention to communicate these rules to those with the will and wit to learn, if my Lord and God does not withhold from me, as I write, the thoughts which he regularly supplies as I reflect on these matters.15 God guides Augustine’s thought, which is then communicated through his writing as a literary speech-act. In Book 1, however, where he picks up this thought, he goes on to make an extended theological point concerning what happens when he shares the thoughts God gives him. His curious remark is that ‘everything which does not expire when it is given away is not yet possessed properly, if it is possessed and not given away’.16 He then cites the example of the distribution of loaves to indicate God’s guarantee of multiplying the good of shared thought in outward speech-acts, with the closing remark that

14

15 16

father, Jethro, the latter of whose speech is mediatory of God’s will even despite God’s direct communication with Moses. In each case the emphasis is on God’s mediation through human discourse. doctr. chr. 1.1.1. My translation. This is not dissimilar to the process he describes at the outset of the sol., admittedly written ten years prior to the doctr. chr. He says there, concerning the relationship between the meditating mind and the writing hand, that he should write his thoughts down since memory cannot hold them, and receives the assurance from his dialogue partner of ‘Reason’ that in writing his thoughts down they can become the springboard for yet further thought: ‘Therefore you must write . . . Entreat of God health and help, that you may the better compass your desires, and commit to writing this very petition, that you may be the more courageous in the offspring of your brain.’ The putting of thoughts into written words assists the process of intellectual inquiry and provides ground for ongoing meditation. sol. 1.1, trans. C. C. Starbuck, in P. Schaff, ed., A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 7 (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1974). Translation adapted by me to accommodate it to modern English usage. doctr. chr. Pref. 1. doctr. chr. 1.1.1. My translation. Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo habenda est.

47

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

just like the bread, which increased as it was broken, the material which God has already supplied to me for starting this work will be multiplied, through his own provision, when discussion of it begins. So in this act of service I will not only experience no shortage of material, but rather enjoy an astonishing abundance of it.17 The theological point to be derived from this is Augustine’s understanding of the mechanics of not just his own speech, but also that of theological speech in general. His criticism of the third group of critics in the Preface, the longest part, is directed largely at their pride rather than at their lack of insight into the nature of God. Augustine cites, as one of his positive examples of good teaching, the example of the monk Anthony, ‘who, though lacking any knowledge of the alphabet, is reported to have memorized the divine scriptures by listening to them being read, and to have understood them by thoughtful meditation’.18 Anthony is an example of a person who possesses a charism similar to those claimed by the third group of Augustine’s critics. Yet Augustine’s berating of his detractors is grounded precisely in their inability to acknowledge their speech-acts, or those of others, as coming from God. Quoting Paul, he asks them ‘What do we possess that we have not received from another? And if we have received it from another, why give ourselves airs, as if we had not received it?’19 It is precisely in the act of speaking, and in its social mediation of truth, that Augustine understands God as becoming most intimately present to the mind; and it is this dynamic that Augustine seeks to enact in the De doctrina christiana. The minor set of reflections before he embarks upon differentiating the methodology of his argument at De doctrina christiana 1.2.2 allows him on the one hand to demonstrate that his speech is theologically permissible, given his own criticisms of his detractors; and on the other to delineate his own theological methodology. Describing his own discourse as a gracious gift of God avoids the trap against which he warns his detractors; that is, of not allowing God to be given the glory of theological speech.20 By revealing that it is in and through the very act of theological discourse that God is made increasingly manifest, just as happened at the multiplication of the loaves, Augustine can explicate his methodology as one centred in an understanding of the intimacy of human–divine relationship mediated through speech. Finally, his otherwise curious remark concerning the

17 18 19

20

doctr. chr. 1.1.1. doctr. chr. Pref. 4. doctr. chr. Pref. 8. 1 Cor. 4.7. On Augustine on 1 Cor. 4.7, see P. M. Hombert, Gloria Gratiae. Se glorifier en Dieu, principe et fin de la théologie augustinienne de la grace (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1996). doctr. chr. 1.1.1.

48

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1

correct possession of objects, such that they increase when shared,21 now becomes clear as it emerges that the centre of Augustine’s project is not the possession of an object of thought or speech. It is instead the manifestation of God through that object, and its lightly held transience, that sets Augustine’s agenda in the De doctrina christiana. For Augustine, words and the thoughts to which they allow access are simply the transient means by which God becomes illuminated in the human mind.

2. Things and signs: the possibility of speech about God Having defined the mechanics of theological speech, Augustine moves immediately to define the difference between things and signs. He notes that words are signs whose sole function consists in signifying.22 The summit of Augustine’s definition is his identification of God the Trinity, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, as the only thing which is truly to be enjoyed. This marks an important point, as he denotes that God is the end point of his discussion, as well as its foundation. His definition of God as thing is initially precise: the Trinity is the highest thing and the only thing to be enjoyed. He begins to falter, though, as he discerns that ordinary language breaks down in the attempt to describe this highest thing: The things which are to be enjoyed, then, are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity comprised by them, which is a kind of single, supreme thing, shared by all who enjoy it – if indeed it is a thing and not the cause of all things, if indeed it is a cause.23 Augustine’s struggle is to discern the relationship between the words normally used to describe objects and that which simply defies description, God, being so exalted as to exceed ordinary linguistic possibility. The language of thing (res) and the more explicitly metaphysical language of cause (causa) begin to fall apart, and he therefore resorts to the scriptural language of Paul, stating with him that ‘perhaps the Trinity is better called the one God from whom, through whom, and in whom everything is’.24 Interestingly, this resort to scriptural language enables him to perform the act he previously found himself unable to do: that of naming God. Paul’s definition, that God is the one ‘from whom, through whom and in

21 22 23 24

doctr. chr. 1.1.1. doctr. chr. 1.2.2. doctr. chr. 1.5.5. doctr. chr. 1.5.5. Rom. 11.36.

49

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

whom everything is’, performs exactly the task of naming God’s relationship to the world in causal, instrumental and locative terms. However, Augustine immediately uncovers the extent to which this scriptural language also fails. Having first attempted to define the relationships between the three persons of the Trinity, he asks himself straightaway: Have I spoken something, have I uttered something, worthy of God? No, I feel that all I have done is to wish to speak; if I did say something, it is not what I wanted to say. How do I know this? Simply because God is unspeakable (ineffabilis). But what I have just said would not have been spoken if it were unspeakable. For this reason God should not even be called unspeakable, because even when this is said, something is spoken. And here we have a kind of battle of words, because if what is unspeakable is unable to be said, it is not unspeakable because it can itself be called unspeakable.25 Augustine here encounters and echoes a problem that Plotinus articulates in the Enneads concerning the ineffability of God.26 Plotinus asks how possession of an ineffable object is possible, and determines that it is precisely in the silence of not speaking that the most eloquent statement concerning the being of the One is made: How, then, do we ourselves come to be speaking of [the One]? No doubt we deal with it, but we do not state it; we have neither knowledge nor intellection of it. But in what sense do we even deal with it when we have no hold upon it? We do not, it is true, grasp it by knowledge, but that does not mean that we are utterly void of it; we hold it not so as to state it, but so as to be able to speak about it. And we can and do state what it is not, while we are silent as to what it is: we are, in fact, speaking of it in the light of its sequels; unable to state it, we may still possess it.27 Augustine’s response to his own problem is similar. He says, ‘it is better to evade this battle of words by silence than to try and pacify it with the voice’.28 His

25 26

27 28

doctr. chr. 1.6.6. My translation. In referring to Plotinus here I am not postulating a necessary link between Augustine’s and Plotinus’s thought in this context, as little doubt as there is concerning Plotinus’s general influence on Augustine. The similarity between the problems is noted by Green in his edition of the doctr. chr. (p. 16, n. 14), when he refers to Plotinus’s thought in the Enneads, also without postulating any necessary link between them. The content of my discussion is the similarity of the problem, rather than its etymological origin. Plotinus, Enneads 5.3.14, trans. S. MacKenna, 3rd ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1962). doctr. chr. 1.6.6. My translation.

50

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1

point here is that it is not the act of speaking that names God, and in so doing possesses God’s reality; it is rather that God is perceived emerging even in the silences that exist between spoken words. God, in Augustine’s terms, emerges to human consciousness as more foundational than speech – he is more present in silence; and yet somehow God also encompasses speech, as his reference to Paul above indicates – God is the one ‘through whom and in whom everything is’.29 For Augustine, there exists a tension between the transcendence and ineffability of God, and the fact that God nonetheless contains all that is, including human speech. This tension is resolved, however, in Augustine’s reference to the human voice articulating praise of God: Yet although nothing can be spoken in a way worthy of God, he has sanctioned the homage of the human voice, and chosen that we should derive pleasure from our words in praise of him. Hence the fact that he is called God (deus): he himself is not truly known by the sound of these two syllables, yet when the word strikes our ears it leads all users of the Latin language to think of a supremely excellent and immortal being.30 Far from denying the transcendence of God, Augustine asserts it in the strongest possible terms: terms which, as we have seen above, echo the Neoplatonic account of transcendence in Plotinian thought. He goes on, however, to locate the most intimate relationship between divine and human being within the homage of the human voice: within, quite simply, human speech in praise of God. Thus, humanity exists in a dialectical tension between its own speech-acts and God’s transcendence, towards which doxological speech aspires. His closing remark, that the word ‘God’ (deus) prompts the mind to pursue this reality, furthermore articulates a humanity for whom spoken words are the point of dialogical tension between humanity and God. The purpose of this exegesis of Augustine’s basic speech-theory concerning the divine is to demonstrate the centrality he gives to the act of human speech. Typically, Augustine moves between the realms of the transcendent and the materially immediate in an attempt to understand the relationship between them. One might recall here the opening chapters of the Confessions, as he moves through scriptural address to God to an attempt to reconcile the difference between the transcendent godhead and his own act of speech in making confession.31 At the outset of his text concerning how to speak and how to 29 30 31

doctr. chr. 1.5.5. Cf. Rom. 11.36. doctr. chr. 1.6.6. conf. 1.1.1–1.1.7, esp. 1.1.1–1.3.3, with another paradox concerning speech and silence articulated at the end of conf. 1.4.4 – ‘et vae tacentibus de te, quoniam loquaces muti sunt.’

51

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

interpret speech – scriptural speech, in particular – Augustine is conscious of the paradoxes that attend any speech about God. He also importantly proposes some kind of solution to this paradox; namely, in the fact that the human voice in praise of God stands on the very axis of communion between humanity and God’s transcendence.32

3. Speech theory continued: the Word becomes flesh With the basic problem of speech about God outlined, Augustine moves to consider the relationship between this one Latin word, deus, and the various ways of thinking about God engendered by it. Principally, he asserts that all people agree that God is the highest of all things, and that which they put before, or prefer above (anteponere), all other things.33 Focusing in particular on the Neoplatonists, he moves the discussion into a moral context by pointing out that the human tendency to flee from the intellectually perceptible reality of God comes from the ‘habit (consuetudo) of living in the shadows of the flesh’.34 Augustine describes our return to the reality of God as a journey of purification, a convalescence from this illness made possible by the incarnation of the Word of God. This presents another problem, though, in the question of how God, who is omnipresent, can have ‘come into’ a world in which God already is. Augustine answers this problem with reference to his analogy between human speech and the incarnation that I have already discussed in reference to De trinitate 15.11.20: In what way did God come if not this: ‘the word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ (Jn 1.14)? This was in the same way as when we speak, the word that we carry (gestare) in our heart (cor) becomes sound, in order that

32

33

34

Cf. van Bavel, ‘God in between affirmation and negation’, 73–97. But see my note below concerning this, Chapter 6.3, n. 31. doctr. chr. 1.7.7. It is not strictly clear here whether anteponere should be translated in its transferred sense, as ‘preferred’, or in its more literal sense, as ‘put before’. The discrepancy potentially demarcates an evaluative, as against a more properly ontological, description. At an evaluative level, we would follow the translations of Green, and Hill, Teaching Christianity (De doctrina christiana), ed. J. E. Rotelle (New York: New City Press, 1996), who give translations roughly equivalent to each other, to the effect that God is ‘valued above all other things’. It is not inconceivable, however, that Augustine would wish to see God as primary to human consciousness in an ontological sense also. On this reading, the idea of God is at the most foundational level of consciousness, and God is that which humans most basically seek – even where they do so wrongly, as in the examples Augustine cites in this chapter. I have given both alternatives in the text to account for this potential ambiguity. doctr. chr. 1.9.9. My translation.

52

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1

what we bear in our mind might pass through ears of flesh into the mind of one listening to us. This is called speech. Our thought, however, is not transformed into this same sound, but remaining whole in itself it assumes the form of the voice, by which it insinuates itself into the ears without any diminution to itself. So also the Word of God was not changed into flesh although it was made flesh in order to live among us.35 Just as in the De trinitate 15.11.20, the human speech-act is a central analogy for human–divine relationship. Words, in their outwardly verbalized form, are mediators between God’s transcendence and humanity’s material embodiment.36 The important thing to note about Augustine’s particular use of this image here is the discussion immediately preceding it. Augustine posits an ontological disjunction between thought, or the inner word, and the way in which that thought is expressed. Words are simply clothing for the ontologically separate entity of human thought which, as Augustine states, stands at the same remove from its material form as the Word of God stood in its transcendence from the flesh in which it was clothed. Augustine nonetheless emphasizes the extent of language’s incarnational importance in the preceding discussion. He describes the incarnation as providing us with an exemplum, a pattern of living that we ourselves can emulate.37 Such an exemplum is said to have been in mortal flesh, as the Word of God ‘is said to have come to us by appearing (apparere) in mortal flesh’.38 This appearance resolves the problem of the eternal Word’s spatial participation in time – it is not in a spatial sense that the word came to earth, but by appearing to mortals in mortal flesh.39 More precisely, however, the emphasis is not on the fact of the mortality itself, but instead on the fact that this mortal embodiment is spoken to us.40 Hence Augustine is following a strict equation between the significance of the spoken word and the incarnation, the form of which he has outlined immediately previously. The mind’s access to the realities that the incarnation manifests is primarily linguistic, and it is through language’s mediation that we can access the salvific effect of the Word’s 35 36

37 38 39

40

doctr. chr. 1.13.12. My translation. Cf. Pintaric, 133: ‘Die vox ist als das kommunikative Instrument ein signum des verbum; durch sie wird das ursprünglich einfache verbum intimum verkörperlicht und in die sprachliche Zusammensetzung eingebunden.’ For comment on this and the issue generally in Augustine’s early thought, see also Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . II, 233–49, esp. 240–1 for this section of the doctr. chr. doctr. chr. 1.11.11. doctr. chr. 1.12.12. My translation. doctr. chr. 1.12.12. Non . . . per locorum spatia veniendo, sed in carne mortali mortalibus apparendo. doctr. chr. 1.12.12. Non igitur per locorum spatia veniendo, sed in carne mortali mortalibus apparendo venisse ad nos dicitur.

53

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

incarnation.41 Words, as either exempla themselves or communicating the single exemplum of the life of the incarnate Word, are the means through which we participate in God. The idea makes more sense when seen against the backdrop of the De trinitate, analysed in Chapter 1, and in the context of the ongoing argument in Book 1 of the De doctrina christiana. As Augustine’s comments in the De trinitate show, spoken human words are emblematic of human mortality and, in the finite crescendo and diminuendo of their existence, form the exact model of our own relationship to the eternal God.42 Yet this proposition, that the exemplum for Christian existence is one that we ourselves can take up, effectively states that to follow this exemplum we should ourselves become spoken words. This is a gesture towards the material significance of speech as well as the possibility of reading embodied human lives as themselves linguistic. Sociality forms a pattern of language in which we participate, and by whose interpretative participation we are drawn closer to God. As suggestive a proposition as this is, Augustine appears suddenly to cease following it through. Instead, having asserted the incarnational significance of human speech through its analogy with the spoken word, he turns to reflecting on the incarnation in terms of the application of medicines to a convalescent. He draws an analogy between the medical practice of binding and healing wounds, and God’s use of simultaneous opposition and difference, in the incarnation, to heal our wounds. Doctors, as Augustine points out, sometimes use the forces of opposition to create healing: by placing cold medication on hot wounds, for example, and dry medication on wet ones. They also use the principle of simultaneity, such as when they apply round bandages to round wounds and rectangular bandages to rectangular wounds. It was just so in the incarnation, when the Word’s humility took flesh to defeat our pride, hence applying the principle of opposition to heal sin; and when the death of a mortal, Jesus, was used to free mortals from death, hence applying the principle of similarity.43 Augustine’s consideration of the incarnation along this axis of opposition–simultaneity continues for a further five chapters, concluding at the end of what Press entitles section 3) a), concerning the articles of faith.44 It climaxes on a notable opposition, between those who will find eschatological damnation and those who will 41

42 43 44

Cf. Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . II, 239–48, esp. 246–9, which discusses the issue of relationship between flesh (caro) and verbum. For general description and literature concerning exemplum, see A. Kessler, ‘Exemplum’, Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. C. Mayer (Basel: Schwabe, 1996–2002), 1174–82; and W. Geerlings, Christus Exemplum. Studien zur Christologie und Christusverkündigung Augustins (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1978). trin. 4.20.30. See above, Chapter 1, Section 1.4. doctr. chr. 1.14.13. doctr. chr. 1.14.13–1.21.19. See Press, 171.

54

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1

find beatitude according to whether or not their souls have already died to this world in conformation to eternal truth. What is significant about the climax of the discussion, in line with Augustine’s preceding treatment of the incarnation in medical terms, is that it focuses primarily on embodiment, and on the physical resurrection of the body into an eternal state: This is contained in our faith, and this, we must believe, is the real situation (res): neither the soul nor the human body suffers total destruction, but the wicked rise to unthinkable agony, the good to eternal life.45 Augustine thus moves from a linguistic model of the incarnation to a palpably corporeal one. Words now express the ultimate destiny of embodiment. Rather than abstractly bearing the analogical weight of the incarnation, the particular words that express the faith are now what direct the mind onto embodiment’s eschatological destiny. This is the thing towards which Augustine earlier described humanity’s speech as aspiring. Words, their meaning, and the thought that emerges from them have become a looking glass onto eternally embodied finality.

4. Uti–frui: use, enjoyment and sociality articulated The next stage of Augustine’s discussion plays out this relationship between words, embodiment and sociality much more emphatically. As Press’s analysis shows, Augustine moves from a discussion of the articles of faith to a discussion of human conduct, which in Press’s analysis forms the last substantial part of the argument of Book 1 before the summary, conclusion and transition section at De doctrina christiana 1.35.39. This discussion gravitates around the use/ enjoyment distinction, with particular respect to how the problem of the love and use of things is reconciled to the double commandment of love of God and love of neighbour.46 It culminates in the interesting remark that we should love others with respect to our ultimate eschatological end of enjoying God, and enjoy this pleasure ‘not in the literal sense (proprie) but in a transferred sense (abusive)’.47 The key, of course, is that we allow our eschatological end to inform our present conduct. However, the distinction he makes here concerning the literal and the

45 46

47

doctr. chr. 1.21.19. doctr. chr. 1.22.20–1.34.38. For a discussion of some of the issues at play in the uti–frui distinction, see O. O’Donovan, ‘Usus and Fruitio in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana I’, Journal of Theological Studies NS 33 (1982), 361–97. doctr. chr. 1.33.37.

55

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

transferred sense (abusio) has its echo in Book 3, and his discussion there of the interpretation of figurative signs. Discussing various grammatical tropes found in scripture, Augustine mentions catechresis, known in Latin as abusio. This denotes a term that bears no literal relation to the word from which it derives; such as the Latin for swimming pool, piscina, which is said to derive from the word for fish, piscis. We must interpret the word in a transferred, rather than a literal, sense.48 Similarly, in our ethical conduct, we should approach people in the same way as we approach words, in this case seeing them in their transience against the backdrop of eternity and beatitude to which all embodied conduct ultimately relates. He makes the point explicitly as he rounds off the discussion of the use and enjoyment of things in the world: The chief purpose of all that we have been saying in our discussion of things is to make it understood that the fulfillment and end of the law and all the divine scriptures is to love the thing which must be enjoyed [namely God the Trinity in eternity] and the thing which together with us can enjoy that thing [namely our neighbour] . . . To enlighten us and enable us, the whole temporal dispensation was set up by divine providence for our salvation. We must make use of this, not with a permanent love and enjoyment of it, but with a transient love and enjoyment of our journey, or of our conveyances . . . so that we love the means of transport only because of our destination.49 Humans are to be loved in the same way as language is to be loved: as a transient and temporal means through which our destination of eternal beatitude is reached. However, Augustine’s discourse has now reached a point where humans themselves, and the conduct governing human behaviour, have been positioned as the speech with which God communicates to humanity; a speech operating on an eschatological axis. This movement from speech as the analogy of the incarnation to human conduct, and embodied sociality as the chief means of divine speech, is made plain by the end of the book. Having reached the conclusion of his discussion of human conduct in its relationship to eschatology, he cites the example of the unlettered monastics who are so grounded in the eschatological virtues of faith, hope and love that they have no need of the scriptures, except to instruct others. He describes such people as a fulfilment of the Pauline eschatological saying: ‘If there are prophecies, they will lose their meaning; if there are tongues, they

48 49

doctr. chr. 3.39.40. doctr. chr. 1.35.39.

56

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 1

will cease; if there is knowledge that too will lose its meaning.’50 Their ethical dispositions have made them legitimate speakers of the eschatological future; they don’t need to read the scriptures, because they are already so grounded in the eschatological future that they are living embodiments of scripture’s meaning. The centre of these dispositions, Augustine emphasizes, is their grounding in love (caritas). As he explains, love is the one virtue from among the three Pauline virtues of faith, hope and love, which will not simply abide eschatologically, but will also increase.51 Thus the social reality of the unlettered monks, grounded as they are by love in the eschatological future, becomes the icon of this future. The monks are the embodied reality which the mind apprehends, and by which it is led and directed to the eschatological end of all human endeavour. And as teachers, the monks stand as more than static incarnational representatives of a higher and future eschatological reality. In their lives and in the words that issue from them they are the dynamic means by which God is incarnationally joined to humanity, standing in hermeneutic embodiment of the very scriptural principles that Augustine’s text expounds. With this placement of the unlettered monks at the close of Book 1, Augustine has now traced a movement from speech being understood as the bearer of the incarnation’s meaning to a point in which first human conduct, and then human beings themselves, are found to be the words of God’s speech to humanity. In terms of the language, thought and God distinction that I set out to analyse at the beginning of this chapter, the key to whether something counts as good language may be determined by the extent to which that language, be it social or lettered, lifts the mind to the eschatological future in which God’s love is uninterruptedly present.

Conclusion This chapter set out to understand the relationship in Book 1 between language, thought and God. I have now outlined not only the centrality of this relationship for Augustine’s thought, but also some of its deeper dimensions. Language, firstly, does not simply concern vocally verbalized thought, even though it is verbalized thought that forms Augustine’s primary analogy of the incarnational relationship between God and humanity. Language ultimately concerns eschatology, directing the mind to final embodied human destiny. It extends itself to the social sphere 50 51

doctr. chr. 1.39.43. 1 Cor. 13.8. doctr. chr. 1.38.42. Cf. Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . II, 294–301 for his discussion of the three theological virtues, with some useful references to the historical background of the regula fidei.

57

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

in Augustine’s exposition of human conduct, and in his final example of the monks who are the primary speakers of the eschatological reality towards which humanity is situated. The purpose of language is primarily to draw the mind into conversation with God. This conversation is understood in embodied terms because it concerns one’s physical and social being in the world, and because it is directed towards embodiment in the eschatological future. However, as Augustine’s example of the content of faith and of the unlettered monks indicates, it is not simply language, or even speech, which is central here. All speech, and all language, must be interpreted. The task of this first book of the De doctrina christiana has been to show the extent to which all reading ultimately concerns the eschatological end to which embodied humanity is destined, and the task of the remainder of the De doctrina christiana is to inform the mind of how scripture is to be read, so as to enable the reader towards this eschatological end. The end of Book 1 thus leaves the reader with a reason to continue reading, because correct interpretation of scriptural texts is the process of adjustment of the mind towards both the mind’s and the body’s final eschatological happiness. If Book 1 emphasizes the double commandment of love of God and neighbour as the central tenet of all Christian teaching, Books 2 and 3 will expand upon the training of the mind towards understanding, hearing and interpreting this commandment correctly, and in accordance with the signs of the scriptures. It is significant that Augustine cites the unlettered monks as his paradigmatic example of embodied, teaching humanity at the end of Book 1. His argument in the Preface was precisely with those who claimed to have the same gift as these monks, but whose scorning of Augustine’s speech reflected their lack of humility. This undermined their supposed teaching authority. If the final example of Book 1 is exactly those people who actually embody the virtues mistakenly claimed by Augustine’s opponents in the Preface, the remainder of his work will be a lesson in teaching readers how to become as pious as the exemplary monastics. It is a series of lessons in reading, or in training the mind to apprehend the conversation with God in which embodied humanity inevitably finds itself. Thought, language and God resolve themselves onto a spectrum of desire, which yearns to understand how God has spoken to humanity, and thus how we ourselves should interpretatively respond to God’s speech.

58

3 DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3: LEARNING TO READ

Introduction Books 2 and 3 of the De doctrina christiana may justly be joined together. Both primarily concern signs, after the work’s primary focus, in Book 1, on things. Of these, Augustine is interested principally in the signs in scripture, which we must learn to interpret in order to gain the beatific end of human existence described in Book 1. The set of interpretative keys that Augustine gives in Books 2 and 3 follow on from Book 1 insofar as they are centrally concerned with the reader and interpreter themselves. The central commandment of scripture, as seen in my exposition of Book 1, concerns love for God and love for neighbour. The interpretative guidelines in Books 2 and 3 concern how the interpretation of scripture facilitates this and leads to the eschatological goal of happiness for the human person. It is for this reason that I will regard the question of how we interpret ourselves before God as the primary focus. Rather than understanding these two books as an exposition of either of the general concerns of reading – the text or of the text’s content1 – I will examine their argument in its reflexive capacity. The task thus engages the issue of self-reflection in the literal sense, examining how scripture reflects our humanity back to ourselves.2 I will examine how the argument of Books 2 and 3 informs and reshapes the reader by intersecting the fundamental concerns of how to read a text. I will argue that the principles outlined in these two books provide the guidelines both for how we are to interpret ourselves and 1

2

Standard interpretations of Books 2 and 3 treat them in this way. See the outline by Press, below, as an example of this. For the idea of scripture as a mirror in Augustine explicitly, see en. Ps. 118, 4.3: Omnia, quae hic scripta sunt, speculum nostrum sunt; en. Ps. 30.3.1: Posuit tibi (Deus) speculum scripturam suam; Cf. en. Ps. 103.1.4, describing the gospel as a mirror. Augustine is picking up on Jas 1.23–25. See M. Pontet, 119: ‘[L’]Écriture, reflet de Dieu, est aussi un miroir où l’homme doit se regarder; la comparaison est de saint Jacques et saint Augustin la reprend.’

59

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

how, simultaneously, we are to conduct the intellective conversation with God that I analysed as a premise of Book 1. During the course of the discussion, I will refer to Augustine’s work in the De civitate Dei, to illuminate some components of Augustine’s treatment of signs in Book 3 of the De doctrina christiana.

1. Books 2 and 3: Structure of argument Press’s outline of the argument of Books 2 and 3 is roughly as follows. Because the argument of these two books is long and complex, I provide here first the most general sketch of its progression, followed by a more extended précis of Press’s account, which highlights those aspects of the text on which I will be commenting:3 1) General Outline: Signs, and How to Avoid Misunderstanding Things Because of Them Book 2 2.1.1–2.10.15 Introduction to Books 2 and 3 2.11.16–2.42.63 Remedies for Unknown Signs 2.11.16–2.15.22 Remedies for Unknown Literal Signs 2.16.23–2.38.56 Remedies for Unknown Figurative Signs 2.39.58–2.42.63 Summary, Conclusion and Transition Book 3 3.1.1–3.37.56 Remedies for Ambiguous Signs 3.2.2–3.4.8 Remedies for Ambiguous Literal Signs 3.5.9–3.37.56 Remedies for Ambiguous Figurative Signs 2) Detailed outline: Signs, and How to Avoid Misunderstanding Things Because of Them Book 2 2.1.1–2.10.15 Introduction to Books 2 and 3 2.1.1 Signs are to be considered only as signifying something else, 3

Press, 176–7. I have edited, amended or summarized Press’s presentation of the argument where appropriate for its presentation here. For a more thorough secondary treatment, see Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . II, 302–34.

60

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

not as things in themselves. 2.1.2. They are natural or conventional. 2.2.3 Conventional signs are those which living creatures give to each other in order to communicate their feelings, sensations, or thoughts. 2.3.4. These conventional signs pertain to various senses, but most of them have to do with hearing, and most of these are spoken words. 2.4.5 But sounds pass away quickly; so written words were invented . . . 2.10.15 There are two causes of written things not being understood: they are obscured by either unknown or ambiguous signs. Signs are either literal or figurative. 2.11.16–2.42.63 Remedies for Unknown Signs 2.11.16–2.15.22 Remedies for Unknown Literal Signs 2.11.16 ‘An effective cure for ignorance of literal signs is knowledge of languages.’ Besides Latin, one needs Hebrew and Greek . . . 2.13.19 If one does not know the original languages, then use literal translations . . . 2.15.22 Of the available Latin translations the Itala is the best. 2.16.23–2.38.56 Remedies for Unknown Figurative Signs 2.16.23 Ignorance of figurative signs will be cured in part by knowledge of languages and in part by knowledge of things . . . 2.19.29 Pagan mores involve two kinds of learning (doctrina): (A) of things that human beings have instituted, and (B) of things divinely ordained that human beings have observed and recorded. 2.39.58–2.42.63 Summary, Conclusion and Transition 2.39.58 These pagan studies, or more precisely those which are not superstitious (2.21.32–2.24.34) or unnecessary and excessive (2.25.39), may usefully be pursued by a Christian, but not as though they will lead to happiness . . . 2.41.61 . . . So it is useful to learn all these subjects, but do not get puffed up with pride, for (2.42.63) this pagan scientia is useful, but it is still inferior to scientia of the scriptures. Book 3 3.1.1–3.37.56 Remedies for Ambiguous Signs 3.2.2–3.4.8 Remedies for Ambiguous Literal Signs 3.2.2 Ambiguities may arise from punctuation or pronunciation. Correct the punctuation according to the rule of faith or, if that does not solve the problem, from the context. 3.2.5 If neither process works, then we may use any interpretation that is made known to us. 61

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

3.5.9–3.37.56 Remedies for Ambiguous Figurative Signs 3.5.9–3.24.34 Rules [observationes] for discovering which signs are figurative. (1) 3.5.9 Do not take a figurative expression literally (2) 3.10.14 Do not take literal signs figuratively (3) 3.17.25 Observe social and temporal context of the expressions in question. Some things in scripture are said to all people, but other things are said only to certain groups of individuals. 3.18.26–3.23.33 Likewise there are differences in the times in which particular things were said to different people. 3.24.34–3.37.56 Interpreting Figurative Signs Once having determined whether an expression is figurative or not, then: i) General rule: 3.24.34 ‘it is easy, by employing the rules concerning things (regulae rerum) that I explained in the first book, to reflect upon it under all its aspects until we come to an idea of the truth (sententiae veritatis).’ ii) More specific procedures: 3.25.35–3.25–36 Remember that a figurative sign signifies either contrary or only different things. 3.26.37 Use plainer passages to help interpret more obscure ones. 3.27.38 If two or more meanings are understood from a particular passage, take the one that is in accord with other passages of scripture. 3.28.39 If this does not solve the problem, then explain it by the use of reason, although this is a ‘dangerous practice’. 3.29.40–41 Since those modes of expression that the Greeks called tropes were abundantly used by our authors, they should be learned. iii) Tyconius’s Book of Rules is useful, but also requires supplement. Rules are useful but they can never cover every case of figurative expression. As can be seen from the précis above, the fundamental concern of the two books is signs and their interpretation. Augustine makes a key distinction, first concerning the nature of signs and then concerning the type of signs that exist. The first 62

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

division is between ‘natural’ (naturalia) and ‘conventional’ signs, the latter of which are referred to as ‘given’ (data) signs.4 He then goes on to discuss the latter form of sign, further distinguishing them at two levels. The first distinction is between unknown (ignota) and ambiguous (ambigua) signs; the second distinction is between literal (propria) and figurative (translata) signs.5 His aim is to remove misunderstandings about how to interpret signs. As Augustine says at the outset, the task of such intellectual engagement is divine provision to rescue the mind from boredom and to reinvigorate minds that despise things that are easily found.6 Reading, for Augustine, or rather the task of learning not to misread, is itself part of providence’s plan for human growth towards God.7

2. Signs and things: words and their relationship to thought Augustine begins his discussion of signs with a remark on their contrast to things. He says, noting a change in methodology and focus of the discussion from Book 1: When I was writing about things, I began by warning that a person attending to them should do so only concerning the fact that they exist, and not concerning anything that they might signify beyond themselves. Now that I am discussing signs, I say that a person should not attend to the fact that they exist, but rather, they should attend to the fact that they are signs, that is, that they signify.8 In Book 1, Augustine focused on the character of things. He established there that the highest thing was God, but made clear that he had trouble intellectually fixing the character or location of such a thing. He also realized that ordinary language breaks down in the attempt to describe it.9 Scripture, and more precisely the language of Paul, finally performed the task that more strictly philosophical

4 5 6 7

8 9

doctr. chr. 2.1.2. doctr. chr. 2.10.15. doctr. chr. 2.6.7. For excellent discussion of Augustine and the task of reading, at times complementary to my own, see B. Stock, Augustine the Reader. Meditation, Self-Knowledge and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), esp. 190–206. For reading and the self in this book, see pp. 17; 54–5; 75. doctr. chr. 2.1.1. My translation. doctr. chr. 1.5.5–1.6.6. See my discussion above in Chapter 2.2.

63

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

language failed to engage,10 and on the basis of an account of faith Augustine went on to discuss the mediatory role both of the intellectual content of faith and the text-like character of human social embodiment.11 His remark above indicates that he has now begun more strictly to engage the character of mediation, by examining signs. Signs, Augustine notes, are a particular type of thing. 12 Among things, something qualifies as a sign by virtue of an inherent property that makes it communicate to the mind. In the classic Augustinian phrase, a sign ‘brings something else to mind in and of itself’.13 It is this native quality of communication that makes particular types of things signs. At the outset of his discussion of signs, Augustine lists several types, beginning with natural signs (signa naturalia). These are defined by the fact that they communicate without any intention or desire to do so.14 Smoke, for example, which signifies fire, ‘does not signify fire because it wishes to do so, but because of our observation and analysis of things it is known that there is fire beneath it’.15 Natural signs, for Augustine, are signs by virtue of our having learned to read the world of things in a certain way. Given or conventional signs (signa data) are of a different order, and it is these that Augustine’s discussion will focus on principally.16 These signs exist between living beings because of the desire for an interchange of meaning between such creatures. They belong to the mind in such an intention, emerging by virtue of a movement of the mind (motus animi). They are the property of animals as well as humans.17 Augustine chooses to engage with given signs because the scriptures themselves, containing the signs given by divine influence, were written by humans.18 Hence in order to understand the scriptures we must first understand the nature of human speech. He goes on to note that while most signs exchanged between humans concern the ears, some concern the eyes, and a very small number concern the other senses. While there exist ‘visible words’, such as the hand gestures of an actor enacting a conversation before the eyes of his audience, it is verbally articulated words that predominate among people who wish to exchange thoughts. Words, he points out, can express every other kind of sign, but these

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

doctr. chr. 1.5.5. Cf. Rom. 11.36. See my discussion above in Chapters 2.2–2.4. doctr. chr. 2.1.1. doctr. chr. 2.1.1. My translation. doctr. chr. 2.1.2. doctr. chr. 2.1.2. My translation. doctr. chr. 2.2.3. He notes here that the remarks concerning natural signs are nothing more than cursory and such signs are not the focus of his discussion. doctr. chr. 2.2.3 doctr. chr. 2.2.3.

64

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

signs could not reciprocally enunciate what is meant in spoken words. He finally notes that written words are superior to spoken words since they exist across time and space for a longer period than words which we vocalize.19 Augustine’s thought then becomes almost circular. Having articulated a hierarchy of meaning in which written words are the most capacious form of communication, Augustine demonstrates how the creation of mental images by these words is in fact more enticing, delightful and enduring than the words themselves.20 Images thus begin to receive a priority over words. He cites the example of the image from the Song of Songs in which, for Augustine, the church is addressed and praised like a beautiful woman: ‘Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes ascending from the pool, all of which give birth to twins, and there is not a sterile animal among them.’21 Augustine emphasizes the joy this image creates in him as it conjures the allegorical image of the church’s reformation of men from their errors. This beautiful woman tears men from their errors, and bites and chews them to break down the rawness of their character. The erotically charged character of such an image is hard to mistake.22 Augustine notes simply that it is a universally accepted claim that it is more pleasant to learn lessons presented through imagery and much more rewarding to discover images that are won only with difficulty.23 The substantive difference between images and words, in Augustine’s thought, is that since mental images register themselves in the mind, they have a more enduring force than any physical sign. For Augustine, the soul is immaterial,24 and thus endures for longer than the material form of the written or spoken word. Furthermore, as his particular example here indicates, the mental discernment of a verbally produced image involves one in an intellective conversation in which desire and delight are central components. In what immediately follows, Augustine details the ascent to wisdom that is the goal of reading scripture.25 This ascent involves a transaction of desire as the mind reconfigures itself away from the worldly things in which it has been entangled. The creation of mental images that comes through reading written words forms part of the mind’s enticement 19 20 21 22

23 24

25

doctr. chr. 2.3.4. doctr. chr. 2.6.7–8. Song, 4.2. doctr. chr. 2.6.7. For some good general discussion of the relationship between eros and allegory in medieval writers, see D. Turner, Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1995). Augustine is an important source for these writers. doctr. chr. 2.6.8. The soul’s immateriality is stated by Augustine at trin. 2.8.14; 10.7.10; 12.1.1–12.3.3. See also gn. litt. 7.12ff and an. quant. See also G. O’Daly, ‘Anima/animus’, in AugustinusLexikon, vol. 1, ed. C. Mayer (Basel: Schwabe, 1986–1994), 315–40; and O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 7–79, esp. 21–30. doctr. chr. 2.7.9–2.7.11.

65

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

away from the things of this world – as he will put it later, its purgation from a ‘desire for inferior things’26 – to see the transcendent beauty that is it and the world’s source. It is thus through the discernment of mental images created by the spoken or written word that the mind is drawn into a conversation with God.

3. The pathway to wisdom Augustine details the ascent to wisdom with some precision. Based on a text in Isaiah,27 he describes a seven-stage ascent in which the attainment of wisdom is the end point of human life and of encounter with scripture. The process moves through fear (timor), holiness (pietas), knowledge (scientia), fortitude (fortitudo), compassion (misericordia), purification of the eye of the heart (purgare oculum cordis)28 and then finally to wisdom (sapientia).29 The process of interpretation that he undertakes in the De doctrina christiana comprises largely the third stage, knowledge. The first and second stages, fear and holiness, influence this third stage. As Augustine states, it is at the stage of knowledge that ‘the fear which makes the reader ponder the judgement of God, and the holiness which makes it impossible for him not to admit and submit to the authority of the holy books compel him to deplore his own condition’.30 The human person must lay scripture before them as a landscape for mental exploration, and as something whose authority is to be trusted absolutely. Knowledge comes as these two prior movements create a dialogue of love in the human person concerning their relationship to temporal objects. The human person recognizes that they fall short of scripture’s prescription concerning love of God and neighbour. Prayer and hope at the fourth stage, fortitude, lead the mind to an intermittent but brilliant vision of the eternal Trinity. This is passing, and needs to be solidified through the purification of the mind. This is attained through loving one’s neighbour; compassion, the fifth stage of the ascent. This stage then leads to a final purification, that of the heart as it learns to see God as a more gentle and tolerable light. Purification of the heart enables the person who has undergone these stages to ascend to wisdom. Wisdom is enjoyed by one who is ‘peaceful and calm’.31 This seven- stage ascent is an important moment in the text. Augustine 26 27 28

29 30 31

doctr. chr. 2.7.11. My translation. Isa. 11.2–3. Cf. Stock, 197–200. This penultimate stage does not have a proper name in the text; hence, I have left it in its descriptive form as Augustine himself does. doctr. chr. 2.7.9–2.7.11. doctr. chr. 2.7.10. doctr. chr. 2.7.11.

66

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

describes not simply a hermeneutic of how to describe scripture, but a phenomenology of what happens to a person when she does so. The first stage of the ascent happens on purely psychological grounds, as a person experiences the fear of God. Only at the third stage, that of knowledge, does the mind engage with something external to itself, in the text of scripture. Here, Augustine describes the process that occurs in the space between text and the mind’s encounter of it. It is a transformative stage similar to those of fear and holiness, but now the mind has the content of the text with which to shape itself. Using this, it can be refashioned towards the wisdom that is the end of the seven-stage ascent. It is encounter with the scriptural text that places an end point and a shape on the human narrative that this seven-stage ascent outlines more broadly. Augustine also centralizes sociality in keeping with the concerns of Book 1. From an encounter with the words and language of scripture, the hermeneutic moves outward into human social engagement at the fifth stage of the ascent, that of compassion. This happens as a consequence of the brief engagement with the eternal light of God at the end of the fourth stage. The process is thus: words, God, sociality. This mirrors Book 1 almost precisely. There, Augustine identifies God as the highest thing, and reflects on how words fail to capture this. He then outlines a hermeneutic of social interaction as the text onto which the human person shapes themselves in their eschatological journey. In the seven-stage ascent to wisdom, compassion and the strenuous engagement with love of neighbour is similarly a progression beyond engagement with words and their meaning. By the time the human person reaches compassion, human sociality has become the text onto which the mind shapes itself and with which it interacts. Augustine outlines this movement from words to sociality even more precisely in this seven-stage ascent to wisdom. He situates it within a larger narrative schema of human relationship to God. He makes a distinction between the fifth and the sixth stages of the ascent, the purification of the mind and the purification of the heart. At the fifth stage, the purification of the mind, the human person is occupied strenuously with loving their neighbour. This purification then leads to the sixth stage, at which a person learns to give a priority only to the truth. Here, he does not love even his neighbour more than the truth. The purification of the heart at the sixth stage represents the culmination of all the other purificatory stages, consolidating them and directing them to the pinnacle of the ascent. It embraces both social and intellectual activity, providing a place where mind and heart, sociality and yearning for God are finally fused in a love for God and neighbour that opens the way to perfect human tranquillity in the attainment of wisdom. How, then, does such a complete transformation of personhood actually take place? The best way to understand the process Augustine outlines is to examine 67

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

an example he provides of learning to read scripture, the task of the stage of knowledge and the focus of the De doctrina christiana. For this, I will take Augustine’s description of the relationship between pagan and Jewish signs that he outlines in Book 3, in his account of how to read ambiguous scriptural signs. This example, which demonstrates the relationship between the eschatological end point of reading scripture and the interpretation of signs, also serves to demonstrate the relationship between signs and things, and between signs and the highest thing, God, in whom the mind seeks participation through the correct reading of signs.

4. Signs and things: meaning, interpretation and eschatology In Book 3 of the text, Augustine explains the difference between pagan and Jewish interpretations of signs in terms of their facilitation of worship of the one God. The example comes in his discussion of ambiguous signs, and in this case falls under the cautionary rule of why we should not interpret figurative signs literally.32 The Jews were given signs which, when interpreted figuratively, would eventually lead the mind to worship God; however, the pagan communities which were Christianized possessed signs that were more limiting. Augustine cites a pagan description of the god Neptune, in which Neptune is allegorically configured to represent the watercourses and oceans of the earth: Thou, father Neptune, whose hoary temples resound to the splash of the encircling sea, from whose mighty chin flows the great ocean, in whose hair rivers meander . . .33 For Augustine, such allegorical interpretation directs the mind to worship the creation rather than the creator.34 For that reason, such signs are useless (inutilia), no matter how we use them. They cannot direct the mind beyond the natural world. Jewish signs, by contrast, possess an objective validity that derives from their source, and which is made plain in their eventual Christian use. Since, for Augustine, Jewish signs have a divine origin, a person who worships them does 32

33

34

doctr. chr. 3.5.9–3.9.13. For a good bibliography of the secondary discussion of Augustine on signs, see R. A. Markus, Signs and Meanings. World and Text in Ancient Christianity (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), 121–4. doctr. chr. 3.7.11. The pagan source of this passage is unknown. Green, 144, n. 25, suggests with Riese that it may come from the poem Ponticon (or Pontica). See E. Courtney, ed., The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 456. doctr. chr. 3.7.11.

68

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

so spiritually and freely. Even if such a person is ignorant of the final significance of the objects of worship, he nonetheless unwittingly worships God, to whom all things should be related.35 Such spiritual people (spiritales) included among their number ‘all the patriarchs and prophets and all those in the people of Israel through whom the Holy Spirit provided us with the support and comfort of the scriptures’.36 Augustine’s fundamental concern is the attainment of what he describes as Christian freedom (christiana libertas), which enables the mind to see signs as directed onto the final end of human existence. He centralizes the resurrection of Christ as an overarching hermeneutical principle, describing it as the sign of signs, or ‘most brilliant manifestation (manifestissimum indicium) of our freedom’.37 This means that it is principally in the light of the resurrection that all other signs, pagan and Jewish, are to be read. From the resurrection as hermeneutical principle, the sacraments – and here he mentions baptism and eucharist – take their meaning and receive their place as the primary signs to which all other signs may be reduced.38 For Augustine, the principle that is most clearly exemplified in the sacraments of baptism and eucharist is mortality’s transformation. These sacraments become the means through which mortal embodiment’s transformation is achieved. This general sacramental principle – and there can be little doubt that in its most general form it is this that Augustine refers to here – finds some reflection in Augustine’s remark concerning the removal of pagan signs. He says that

35

36 37 38

doctr. chr. 3.9.13. Augustine simply uses the word illud here to describe God. Qui vero operatur aut veneratur utile signum divinitus institutum cuius vim significationemque intellegit non hoc veneratur quod videtur et transit sed illud potius quo talia cuncta referenda sunt. The use of the impersonal pronoun echoes Augustine’s discussion of God as the highest thing, summa res, to which humanity strives. doctr. chr. 3.9.13. doctr. chr. 3.9.13. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.9.13. For some interesting discussion on the christology of Augustine’s account of sacrament in the doctr. chr., see Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . II, 290–3; cf. 199–278 for the longer discussion of the development and meaning of the concept of sacrament in Augustine of the period before and around the doctr. chr.; and 398–415 on ritual and liturgical applications of the term sacramentum at Augustine’s time. See Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . in der Theologie des jungen Augustin, 287–302, on the scriptural and early Christian sources of the term sacramentum. Cf. also Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 147–81; C. Courturier, ‘Sacramentum et mysterium dans l’oeuvre de S. Augustin’, Études Augustiniennes (Paris: Aubier, 1953), 162–332; H-M. Féret, ‘Sacramentum-Res dans la langue théologique de saint Augustin’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 29 (1940), 218–43, esp. 222–3 on the exegetical sense of sacrament as ‘sign’ (signum); C. Mohrmann, ‘Sacramentum dans les plus anciens texts chrétiens’, Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954), 141–52; T. Camelot, ‘Le Christ, sacrement de Dieu’, in L’homme devant Dieu. Mélanges offerts au Henri de Lubac. Vol. 1: Éxegèse et patristique (Paris: Aubier, 1963), 365–3.

69

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Christian freedom does not simply undermine the belief system of the pagans; it also frustrates and removes the very signs at their centre: As for those whom it found under the influence of useless signs (signa inutilia), [Christian freedom] (christiana libertas) has undermined not only their servile attention to such signs, but it has frustrated the signs themselves and removed all of them, so that the Gentiles might turn away from the pollution of a horde of fictitious gods . . . to the worship of the one God, and no longer live in slavery, even to useful signs, but rather exercise their minds by the discipline of understanding them spiritually.39 The suggestion is clearly that, as well as a change in belief, there has simultaneously been a change in the material order, as the pagan signs themselves have been eliminated. Christian freedom entails a transformation of the material order at the behest of a transformation of the symbolic one. At the outset of his discussion concerning pagan and Jewish signs, Augustine notes that the problem with misunderstanding signs as things is that, in so doing, the mind fails ‘to raise its eye above the corporeal creation to the eternal light which we must absorb’.40 His particular criticism relates to the failure to interpret the meaning of the Sabbath as anything more than a single day in seven, in a cyclical series of similar days. In the De civitate Dei, Augustine further explains the correct interpretation of the Sabbath.41 He describes it as the eschatological rest of the blessed, in which human embodiment is transformed and exists in perfect social relation and perfect relation to God. Understood in these terms, the Sabbath is seen as the culmination of human history, with history divided into seven days according to the seven days of creation.42 We currently inhabit the sixth day, which extends from the time of Christ to the inheritance of our eschatological destiny. This period is the only one that extends indefinitely and

39

40 41

42

doctr. chr. 3.8.12. My translation. Augustine’s focus in the discussion was the statue of Neptune alongside its allegorical interpretation. doctr. chr. 3.5.9. My translation. civ. was begun around 410 and likely to have been written later than Book 3 of the doctr. chr. However, only Books 1 and 2 of the doctr. chr. were circulated in complete form in 397. As Kannengiesser points out, Book 3 may well have stayed in note form throughout the period during which he wrote the rest of his literature, including the civ. See Kannengiesser, 3–13, esp. 10, n. 15. The use of civ. to interpret doctr. chr. 3 is thus not inappropriate, and it is fitting especially in the continuity of reflection on the Sabbath in the civ. civ. 22.30. Day one is the ten generations from Adam to the Flood; day two the period comprising the ten generations from the Flood to Abraham; day three the period from Abraham to David; day four the period from David to the Babylonian exile; and day five the period from the Babylonian exile to the coming of Christ.

70

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

upon which we cannot yet speak or predict any closure.43 Hence, according to Augustine’s exegesis in the De civitate Dei, the sixth day is the period in which we use signs and the symbolic order as a part of a conversation with our final state of transformation. As a means of adjusting towards this future, the mind engages a dialectical conversation between the material world and humanity’s eschatological destination – a future in which, according to the De civitate Dei, there will be a perfectly understood and perfectly operating harmony between physical and spiritual being.44 In De civitate Dei, Augustine’s description of the removal and frustration of pagan signs relates principally to adjusting how we understand human embodiment. This happens such that the symbolic order of Christianity engulfs a previously existing order of signs in which this conversation with the eternal was not facilitated. The Christian order articulates a situation in which the material world is understood in permanent correspondence with God who is at its foundation, and in whom its destiny is also finally enclosed. It is an order that reaches from now to a permanent physical and spiritual embodiment at the end of time. The eschatological perspective that the De civitate Dei outlines does not simply visualize the present and physically embodied world in a transformed relationship to the immaterial and transcendent. Its focus is the final transformation of human embodiment, articulated eschatologically. Augustine provides a more complete description of this embodiment in the closing chapter of the work: All the limbs and organs of the body, no longer subject to decay will . . . be freed from all . . . constraint, since full, secure, certain and eternal felicity will have displaced necessity; and all those parts will contribute to the praise of God. For even those elements in the bodily harmony . . . which . . . in our present state, are hidden, will then be hidden no longer. Dispersed internally and externally throughout the whole body, and combined with other great and marvellous things that will then be revealed, they will kindle our rational minds to the praise of the great Artist by the delight afforded by a beauty that satisfies the reason.45 Reason and embodiment will meet a final perfection, a harmoniously composed state, which will be mentally apprehended and enjoyed. Augustine goes on to

43

44 45

Augustine here follows the biblical saying that ‘it is not known for [us] to know the dates: the Father has decided those by his own authority’. Acts 1.7. civ. 22.30. civ. 22.30. Translation by H. Bettenson, St. Augustine. Concerning the City of God against the Pagans (London: Penguin, 1984), 1087–8.

71

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

explain that in this state, our bodies and minds will enjoy a similar harmonic relationship: ‘we may be sure that where the spirit wills there the body will straightaway be; and the spirit will never will anything but what is to bring new beauty to the spirit and the body’.46 Not only will embodiment and the immaterial spirit of the mind be in perfect harmony, they will continually excel in the creation of yet more beauty for the mind to rejoice in. What this tells us about Augustine’s understanding of the relationship between signs and things is that, for Augustine, symbolic interpretation of the world, of the kind he outlines in the De civitate Dei, is part of movement towards this eschatological state of perfect bliss. It is important that, at the outset of his discussion of how to interpret the figurative signs of Christian revelation, Augustine describes how the mind must first lift itself above (supra) the embodied creation to see the eternal light with which signs reveal themselves to be imbued.47 There is a distance and a difference between the eternal light that the mind absorbs and the sign that is eventually found to reveal it. The mind must cock itself towards the eternal before it recognizes God in the temporal. What Augustine’s eschatological account in the De civitate Dei articulates is a place in which there is no tension between embodiment and transcendence. The embodied state in which we will find ourselves will be in continual perfect and transparent relation to God’s perfection, which will be its foundation. We will not need to lift our heads above the material creation in order to see God, as we now do according to Augustine’s semiotic schema. Instead, God will be visibly present in all physicality and embodiment, which presence will form part of a continual song of praise emerging from us. Signs and their reading form, for now, the perfect mediation between these two states of being. They mediate between our temporally embodied selves and the eschatological future for which we yearn. Signs either are, or emerge from, physically embodied objects in the first instance. They can be words, which extend in space and time; they can be statues, such as those of Neptune; or they can be the verba visibilia of an actor’s hand gestures. In each case, it is the mind’s interpretation of the sign that discerns the sign’s nature. In the case of the pagan statues, it is clear that the mind’s reflection on the immaterial and transcendent God creates a context in which pagan signs are reinterpreted – or, in Augustine’s terms, ‘frustrated (frustrare) and removed’.48 And as this section of my work has argued, such frustration and removal is primarily a hermeneutic task. It is hermeneutic before it is a task concerning the re-ordering of the physical environment. Reflections on God’s transcendence and immateriality force a 46 47 48

civ. 22.30. doctr. chr. 3.5.9. doctr. chr. 3.8.12. My translation.

72

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

realignment of understanding regarding the nature of the physical world, rather than a transformation of the physical world per se. It is the dialogue between the immaterial soul capable, through the mind, of glimpsing the transcendent; and the mind’s understanding of the physical object, from which the sign emerges; that an understanding of the meaning of the sign becomes clear.49 In this way, the activity of reading and interpreting signs undertakes precisely that task of reconciliation between the transcendent and the material that Augustine suggests will occur finally at the end of time. In reading signs with respect to our future resurrection, as Augustine encourages us to do, we adjust ourselves gradually towards the reality of this future. However, such a statement is insufficient as a description of the nature of human eschatological progression. What must be understood is the very content of this reading, and the re-reading that Augustine suggests must happen in the case of signs that are not configured naturally towards humanity’s beatitude. Augustine articulates this content in terms of a distinction between cupiditas and caritas – love and embeddedness in the material world in the case of cupiditas (roughly, cupidity); and yearning for and seeking after the transcendent, as in the case of caritas (roughly, charity). In order to grasp the nature of this progression it will be necessary now to examine the relationship between these two states in the De doctrina christiana, as at their centre lies the meaning and purpose of the eschatological progression towards God which Augustine articulates here and elsewhere in his corpus.

5. Cupiditas and caritas: a transformative dialogue It is not unreasonable to say that at the centre of Augustine’s theological anthropology lies a transformative dialogue between cupiditas and caritas. Love and lust, as caritas and cupiditas may very loosely be termed, find themselves at intersecting but opposing points in an Augustinian ethical spectrum. He begins a discussion of the significance of these two aspects of the human person by centralizing them with respect to scripture’s aims: Scripture prescribes nothing except love (caritas), and condemns nothing except lust (cupiditas), and in this way informs the habits of men . . . There is nothing [in scripture] except the catholic faith in things past, present and 49

Cf. R. Berlinger, Augustins dialogische Metaphysik (Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1962), 28–35. Berlinger interprets Augustine’s concept of word and its relationship to the transcendent in a Heideggerian sense. See esp. 216–37. His account of dialogue is not dissimilar to my own; however, it is more perceptibly influenced by his Heideggerian hermeneutic.

73

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

future. Of past things, there is a narration (narratio), of future things, there is a foretelling (praenuntiatio), and of things present there is a demonstration (demonstratio). But all these things serve to the end of nourishing and strengthening this charity and conquering and extinguishing cupidity.50 Augustine helpfully goes on to give a definition of these two central and intersecting points in an ethical and scriptural spectrum: Charity (caritas) I call the movement of the soul towards enjoying God for God’s own sake and enjoying oneself and one’s neighbour for God’s sake; cupidity, on the other hand, I call the movement of the soul towards enjoying oneself and one’s neighbour and any other bodily thing, on account other than God’s.51 As can be seen from these definitions, central to Augustine’s description is first the notion of intention – the end towards which anything is done or, in his words, ‘enjoyed’; and second, the desire of the soul – here poetically described in terms of the soul’s movement towards what it seeks. In what I will set forth here as the transformative dialogue between cupiditas and caritas, I will make use not only of these two central aspects of Augustine’s definitions of the human soul, but also the means by which Augustine visualizes this dialogue being transacted. The chief clue here is given by the first quotation above, in which Augustine describes the centrality of scripture in this relationship between cupiditas and caritas. Augustine states that scripture ‘prescribes nothing except love and condemns nothing except lust’, saying further that this prescription and condemnation ‘informs (informare) the habits (mores) of men’. He goes on to explain how the habits of men are led astray, chiefly through false opinion in the soul, which then projects onto scripture a desire to read figuratively, thus avoiding the consequences of scripture’s condemnation of error: If an erroneous opinion occupies someone’s soul, then it makes no difference what scripture says – men will judge that scripture is talking figuratively.52 He then outlines the three ways in which scripture speaks, concerning time past, future and present; namely, using narration, foretelling and demonstration.53 The 50 51 52 53

doctr. chr. 3.10.15. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.10.16. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.10.15. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.10.15.

74

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

inference here is that Augustine understands scripture to intersect with the human soul in its narrative, foretelling and demonstrative capacities. This intersection results in an adjustment of the soul’s desire as it is informed by charity over its habit of cupidity. Indeed, it is re-formed by engagement with scripture’s prescriptive norm of caritas. Scripture then informs the outer norms and practices of the human person in virtue of this inner transformation. I will propose here that Augustine sees this intersection as taking place precisely in the intersection between words, as heard and engaged by the reader or listener, and the soul, which is the final recipient of these words through the mind.54 This will require an examination first of the problem that we are meant to engage – namely, that of cupiditas; and, second, of the means through which cupiditas is engaged and overcome.

6. Cupiditas: the problem to be resolved Augustine’s description of the state of the human mind as one of conflict between cupiditas and caritas is extended into a description of cupiditas as possessing an agency unto itself. Immediately following this, Augustine gives a compelling description of cupiditas’s impact upon the human psyche, as it draws the mind away from the love of God and into desire for worldly things: What unbridled lust does to corrupt the mind and body is called wickedness (flagitium); what it does to harm another person is called wrongdoing (facinus). All sins can be divided into these two kinds, but sins of wickedness are of the first order (priora). These, once they have emptied the soul (exinanire) and led it into a state of poverty of some kind, the soul is rushed into wrongdoings, using which wrongdoings either all the impediments of wickednesses are removed, or all aids to these wickednesses are sought for.55 Cupiditas effects the degradation of the soul, that then takes its own destruction upon itself. In the description above, the active form of the verb belongs firstly 54

55

I am not entering into an extended discussion of the nuances between anima and mens, roughly ‘soul’ and ‘mind’, since, for Augustine, the mind is the highest part of the soul. In my analysis the mind is the place where words and their meaning are formatively transacted. See trin. 15.7.11. Cf. L. Obertello, ‘“Per speculum et in aenigmate”: conoscenza di sé e conoscenza di dio nel De Trinitate’, in Interiorità e intenzionalità in S. Agostino. Atti del 1. e 2. Seminario Internazionale del Centro di Studi Agostiniani di Perugia (a cura di L. Alici) (Roma, 1990), 107–31, esp. 111–14. doctr. chr. 3.10.16. My translation.

75

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

to cupiditas, whose agency is then played out by its two particular instantiations, in the form of wickedness (flagitium) and wrongdoing (facinus). These affect the soul in such a way as to drive it to its own destruction, which thus plays out the agency of wickedness and wrongdoing.56 Augustine’s account of the agency of cupiditas is intensified as he describes the difference between our capacity to judge the moral actions of men of the Old Testament from the standards prevailing at our own time. This time using the word libido to describe the detrimental impact upon the psyche of disordered moral behaviour, he notes that it is a tendency of the mind dominated by libido to interpret the scriptures in ways suited to its own actions, rather than being morally reformed by them. A mind under such sway fails to see that the Old Testament prophets and saints could practise polygamy chastely: Those who with unbridled lust (libido effrenatus) either wander through many debaucheries, as people dissolving, or in a single union . . . exceed the amount appropriate to the procreation of children . . . do not believe it possible that men of old were able temperately to make use of many women, serving nothing in such use except the duty fitting to the time of propagating offspring. What they themselves, obstructed by the snares of lust, are unable to do in the case of one woman, they judge to be impossible in the case of many.57 The purpose of the Augustinian distinction here is to make a broader hermeneutical point about how we are to read the sometimes questionable moral actions of Old Testament figures.58 By such an intense description, he also brings out the capacity of the mind to be so dominated by forces of desire that it fails to recognize its own subjugation. Returning to his vocabulary of cupiditas and in line with the form of agency he outlines above, he puts the hermeneutical point succinctly: ‘such misreading can not happen unless through cupidity’s lordship and its seeking of aids in those very scriptures by which it should be driven out.’59 56

57 58

59

Exinanio is frequently used in classical Latin in the sense of militarily laying waste, and complete destruction. See, for example, Cicero’s description of Verres, at div. caec. 4.11: Siciliam provinciam C. Verres per triennium depopulatus esse, Siculorum civitates vastasse, domos exinanisse, fana spoliasse dicitur. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Augustine understands the impact of cupiditas in violent terms for the human person under its sway. doctr. chr. 3.19.28. My translation. The distinction is between figurative and literal reading: reading actions figurate as against reading them proprie. See doctr. chr. 3.11.17–3.37.56. It also comprehends the question of the dispensatio temporalis, how we are to understand God’s action with respect to pre-Christian ages. On this in Augustine generally, with a good list of secondary literature, see K.-H. Schwarte, ‘Dispensatio II’, in Mayer, ed., Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, 491–8. doctr. chr. 3.18.26. My translation.

76

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

Given this problem, what does Augustine propose as a solution? He proposes in the first instance a reflection on the intellectual failings that accompany cupiditas, then calls for reflection on the universality of scripture’s norms. Moving firstly through a description of cultural relativism, he describes how some people have been led to believe that there can be no such thing as justice existing in its own right because of the diversity of historical and social practices: ‘to each race, their practices seem just. And since there is this diversity among peoples, while justice ought to exist unchangeably, it appears obvious that there is no justice anywhere’.60 The problem is the absence of a Platonic form of justice. Justice, which human instinct informs us ought to abide unchangeably, disappears amid the diversity of historical particularity. Augustine describes people holding such a view as intellectually soporific, neither so under the sway of foolishness that they are asleep nor wide enough awake to walk in wisdom’s light.61 To such people he offers hope in the biblical injunction of Tobit, that ‘what you would not have done to yourself, do not do to another’.62 This rule functions in all cultural and historical circumstances, Augustine says, and is in no way susceptible to variation.63 It is thus regulative for the moral life, being the very principle under which the presence of cupiditas and caritas in the soul is regulated: [W]hen this thought (sententia) [of Tobit] is applied to the love of God, all wickednesses die; when it is related to one’s neighbour, all wrongdoings die.64 The importance of Augustine’s foregrounding of this particular ethical injunction is twofold. First, Augustine has set up a moral reference point independent of either of cupiditas and caritas. The commandment of Tobit regulates the presence of either love, filling the soul on hand with caritas when it is followed and also emptying the soul of cupiditas by its observance. The reasons for his establishment of a moral commandment independent of the two loves are doubtless to do with the agency of cupiditas that I have described above. Because cupiditas is capable of deceiving the reader into manipulating the scriptures towards its own end, only the presence of a commandment independent of the desires of the soul could possibly regulate against such self-deception. The second reason Augustine’s placement of this commandment here is significant relates closely to the first. In establishing this particular commandment

60 61 62 63 64

doctr. chr. 3.14.22. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.14.22. doctr. chr. 3.14.22. Tob. 4.16. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.14.22. doctr. chr. 3.14.22. My translation.

77

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

as regulative of the ethical life, Augustine has put it in place of the Platonic form of justice that he described in his account of cultural relativism as lacking to the mind. The justice that the mind sought, in Augustine’s account, was something that should abide eternally, precisely as a Platonic form of this type would do. Instead of such a form, however, Augustine presents the mind with a commandment with which it is to engage dialectically, as it reflects on the nature of particular cultural and historical circumstances. Augustine provides a commandment in place of a Platonic form. Literally, he provides words that are to be reflected on and which reveal an ethical principle as much as they instantiate its validity. The truth of the words is not, by Augustine’s account, present to the mind in an abstract way. It is present only through reflection on their significance with respect to historical and cultural particularity. Thus they are the vehicle for the mind’s movement to participation in God, as God is revealed to the mind as eternal in and through historical particularity: first, through the particularity of speech, in the form of the commandment to Tobit; and, second, in the particularity of the historical circumstances in which this commandment’s validity discloses itself. A dialectic has opened up, in Augustine’s account, between the historically particular and the eternal, precisely through the presence of divine speech in the form of the ethical injunction of Tobit. In this way, Augustine can also be seen dealing with his account of relationship between self and neighbour that I analysed earlier with regard to Book 1. There, I suggested that the relationship between divine and human speech was revealed principally with respect to our socially embodied circumstance. Here, this dialectic is engaged chiefly through reflection on the particular character of ethical injunction in the scriptures. The commandment that words embody takes on the mediatory and material principle through which we see and move towards God in our sociality. In this way, a principle normatively regulates the moral life, and it is in dialogue with this principle that we move closer to God. However, as much as a single commandment is appealing in its universality, the structures of thought and language both possess more texture than a single principle itself can articulate. It is with respect to this thought that I will pause to fill out the remainder of the argument, noting in particular how Augustine’s account of the transaction of desire in the soul is effected with respect to allegory and the moral world that this instantiates. This will demonstrate the continuity in Augustine between inner dialogical and outer public space.

78

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

7. Caritas and cupiditas: the public self and the continuity between inner and outer Augustinian being Augustine’s demonstration of the proof of his position concerning caritas and cupiditas is provided in his extended exegesis of the problem of lust within human psychology. First, he remarks on the difference between ourselves and the saints of the Old Testament, whose temporal and cultural context was different and which thus allowed them to practise polygamy. It is something that we ourselves could never do today: Righteous men of long ago visualised the kingdom of heaven as an earthly kingdom, and predicted it accordingly. In the interests of creating offspring there was a perfectly blameless practice for one man to have several wives . . . Given such social conventions, things that the saints of those ages could do without any lust – although they were doing something which cannot be done without lust nowadays, are not censured by scripture.65 The point is that the righteous (sancti) of the Old Testament were living in a different historical and textual context. In Augustine’s terms, their cultural imagination was different because of the way that they were given to understand the kingdom of God. Augustine goes on to prove his point by saying that, if the advent of the Lord had happened while they were still in this life, they would ‘immediately have castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’.66 His purpose is of course to advocate the righteousness of the figures of the Old Testament, and to avoid our projection onto them of our own disordered desires. As Augustine puts it, there is no difficulty in foregoing something, unless there is lust in practising it (habere),67 and the righteous of the Old Testament possessed many wives on account of a desire to populate the kingdom of God. Therefore they possessed such things propter aliud – on account of something other than the thing itself – and it was for this reason acceptable, especially since it was God on whose account the thing was used. This distinction is explained in terms of the relationship between use and enjoyment that Augustine describes in Book 1: I more greatly approve of someone making use of many [women] for their fertility on account of something else (propter aliud), than I approve of someone enjoying one woman in the flesh, for its own sake (propter ipsam). 65 66 67

doctr. chr. 3.12.20 doctr. chr. 3.18.27. doctr. chr. 3.18.27.

79

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

For in the one case, the use is sought that is in accord with the opportunities available at the time; in the other, cupidity is satisfied, implicated as it is in temporal pleasures.68 God is the only good finally to be enjoyed, since God is the highest thing. To seek to enjoy something other than God on its own account – here, propter ipsam – is to be simply misguided and destined for unhappiness. As if sensing a criticism of his argument, namely that his example is simply unreal, Augustine provides it with some substance by direct reference to ourselves as people embodied within public space. He asks that, if we do not accept the possibility that the saints of the Old Testament could have acted chastely, then we ought to think on the apostles. These people, he says, suffered the same degree of injury and insult as we ourselves might; however, they did not give way to the temptation that these sufferings provided. Instead, they showed themselves martyrs to such temptation, illustrating how such temptations are universal and are thus to be understood as surmountable: [S]uch people [who find this analysis of the Old Testament difficult to believe] may as well say that it is not fitting to honour and to praise good and holy men, just because they themselves, when they are honoured and praised, inflate with pride, so much the more eager are they for the most inane glories when a flattering tongue praises them more frequently and more widely . . . They would do better to believe that our apostles were neither inflated when they were praised by men nor downcast when despised by them. Indeed, neither temptation was absent to these men, for they were both feted by the lauds of believers and were accused by the maledictions of those persecuting them. So just as the apostles experienced all this in accordance with the custom of their times without being corrupted, so these men of old, relating their treatment of women to the conventions of their times, did not tolerate the domination of lust, which lust enslaves all who find this incredible.69 The sense of the example is obvious: we ought not to project ourselves onto the moral situation of others. It is precisely the same hermeneutical principle as that which Augustine brings to bear on his discussion of lust with regard to the Old Testament prophets and saints. However, here Augustine’s mode of demonstration has shifted. Rather than focusing on what he understands to be an unlikely case for demonstration, namely the sexual self-control of the Old 68 69

doctr. chr. 3.18.27. doctr. chr. 3.19.29–3.20.29. My translation.

80

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

Testament prophets and saints, he focuses on the public self and the idea that this particular analogy will be one to which all people can immediately respond. The metaphors he uses to describe our engagement with the public sphere are those of embodiment: he says that people above who are not convinced by the example of the sexual chastity of the Old Testament sancti should see, in the case of the Apostles, ‘how hard and difficult it is not to be seduced by the bait of praise or penetrated by the goads of insult’.70 Food and the surface of the physical body form the topography of his critique. Augustine also uses powerful visual imagery to describe the impact of praise on such people in the first place: They are made light such that the wind of rumour, whether it is seen as favourable or unfavourable, draws them into whatever whirlpools of wickedness and dashes them on the rocks of wrongdoing.71 Such imagery encapsulates the public self. This encapsulation is seen as making the case for the internal self of which cupiditas is a potential master. Metaphor and analogy, facets of language, provide the continuity between inner and outer Augustinian being. Language embodied in public space, concerning public identity but relating to inner well-being, becomes the locus in which the inner space of caritas and cupiditas is demonstrated, and ultimately transacted. This point is made stronger still as Augustine gives an exegesis of David’s conviction of lust in the Old Testament. Citing the visit of the prophet Nathan to condemn David for his adultery with Bethsheba, Augustine explains how it was through analogy that Nathan made his conviction: When [Nathan] came to David to convict him of his sin, Nathan put to him the analogy (similitudo) of a poor man who had one sheep, and a neighbour of the poor man who, although he himself had many sheep, nevertheless served his poor neighbour’s one and only sheep to greet the arrival of a guest. This appalled King David, who ordered the neighbour to be killed and the poor man to be compensated for his sheep four times over – and so condemned himself unknowingly for the sin he knew he had committed.72 David is convicted by Nathan in the same way that Augustine has just convicted his readers of cupiditas, by analogy. Just as Augustine moved to an example that he considered imaginatively persuasive to his readers, so Nathan provides 70 71 72

doctr. chr. 3.19.29. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.19.29. My translation. doctr. chr. 3.21.31. My translation. The David–Nathan encounter is explored more fully at en. Ps. 50 and at s. 13.

81

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

for David an example in which David objectively recognizes wrongdoing and implicitly condemns himself. Such a use of analogy should not necessarily raise attention. What is interesting is that Augustine has deployed an example from the Old Testament in which precisely the same form of transformation takes place in a righteous figure in the Old Testament as he asks his readers to undergo in their reflection on the character of cupiditas. In the case of David, it is the intercession of the speech of the prophet Nathan that provides the context and occasion for his transformation; while in the case of Augustine, it is his drawing out of continuity between the publicly embodied self and the sexually embodied self that demonstrates how cupiditas functions. Not simply a phenomenon of the mind considered as independent from the words that encounter it, it is instead through the very engagement with these words that the presence of cupiditas and the desire for transformation is revealed. The point to be gained from all of this is that words in their material content, for Augustine, provide the context and possibility for an inner and transformative dialogue with God.73 The extent to which this is true may be evinced from both the example of David with Nathan, as well through Augustine’s example of the human person in public space. However, as is clear from both these examples, it is not just the words themselves, but the transformative space that the words open up that is the centre of Augustine’s concern. This outlines, significantly, the difference in Augustine’s mind between literal and figurative reading. Augustine states that the ground upon which we ought to read something figuratively is when a literal interpretation of the text does not yield results that are conducive to the love of God and love of neighbour.74 Hence, as he says, we ought to interpret the Pauline encouragement to pour coals of fire on the head of one’s enemy by understanding the coals as the psychological impact of one’s kindness shown to an enemy, the ‘agonized groans of penitence which cure the pride of a person who regrets having been the enemy of someone who helped him in distress’.75 He goes on to make the more general exegetical point that what matters in interpreting human actions in scripture is not the use made of objects but the user’s desire.76 The point is that, for Augustine, there is a distance between the material content 73

74 75 76

See Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 172–9, who explores the encounter between David and Nathan in exactly these terms. Dodaro usefully illuminates the idea of public speech here with respect to Augustine’s sermon preached at Carthage on 15 July 413, in which Augustine implicitly pleads clemency for repentant Carthaginian rebels under sentence of death from the Roman authorities. Augustine cites the David and Nathan example of a case where God grants clemency to a sinner who has recognized his sin. Augustine uses public speech to attempt to bring about transformation on the part of the Roman officials, as well as pointing to an example of God doing the same, in the case of Nathan and David. doctr. chr. 3.10.14. doctr. chr. 3.16.24. doctr. chr. 3.12.18; 3.12.19.

82

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

of the text – its literal interpretation – and the mind which interprets it. There is a space of desire which exists between these two spheres, and it is precisely this space of desire that allegory permits the mind to engage and to transact within. This transaction happens as the world is textually reconfigured towards the ultimately desirable eschatological end of enjoyment of God and of one’s neighbour in God.77 It is important here to take note of Augustine’s understanding of cupiditas as a motivational force within human psychology. Augustine does not cite his biblical understanding of cupiditas anywhere in the De doctrina christiana. It instead floats as an interpretative category above the biblical text, while also underscoring it. This is doubtless connected to his exegesis of cupiditas more generally. Owing its origin more to Cicero and Stoic philosophy than to Christian technical terminology, Augustine takes 1 Timothy as one of its scriptural foundations: ‘cupidity is the root of all evils’.78 Augustine treats scriptural events as taking place in this light. In the example of David and Bethsheba, for example, he misreads the text in such a way as to present Nathan’s allegory as a reading of cupiditas and David’s acceptance of the allegory as emerging in the light of David’s sexual sin. The allegory speaks not of the murder of Bethsheba’s husband, Augustine insists, but of David’s adultery. For it to have spoken of David’s murder of Bethsheba’s husband, Augustine claims, the allegory would have mentioned the cutting down of the poor man as well as his sheep: David was not asked through this parable concerning the woman’s murdered husband – that is, concerning the cutting down of the poor man himself who had one sheep. This was in order that David might speak the sentence of his condemnation on his adultery alone.79 This remark misreads the biblical text at two levels. The first is at the level of the adultery itself. In the biblical narrative, it is the murder of Uriah that closes the larger narrative of the adultery and prompts Nathan’s visitation of David.80 It is also Uriah’s murder that is the first word of direct prophetic condemnation out of Nathan’s mouth.81 In the biblical narrative, it is Nathan who interprets the parable to David and visits this condemnation on him. It is not, as Augustine states it here, David who reads the parable in his own sexual terms. In his construction of

77 78

79 80 81

Cf. Williams, 138–50. 1 Tim. 6.10. en. Ps. 9.14ff; 90.1.8ff; 110.8ff; 139.1ff; div. qu. 35.1; 36.1. See G. Bonner, ‘Cupiditas’, in Mayer, ed., Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, 166–72. doctr. chr. 3.21.31. My translation. 2 Sam. 11.1–12.1. 2 Sam. 12.9.

83

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

the parable in these terms, Augustine has centralized his own account of cupidity in the dialogue between Nathan and David in a way extrinsic to the text. Such eisegesis should not ordinarily warrant respect. However, Augustine’s reading of the incident frames two important features of his own view concerning desire and the role of words in the transfiguration of desire. The first is the fact that David’s interpretation is primarily an act of self-reading: it represents his condemnation of himself, spoken by himself, in response to allegorical words spoken to him. His act of self-interpretation comes through his reflection on the relationship between literal and figurative embodiment, and he thus stands as the literal example of somebody who reads an allegorical text correctly and responds appropriately in its regard. Augustine observes that David punishes himself, which Augustine takes to be an argument for David’s normative chastity with his many wives.82 Leaving aside the fact that this represents another misreading of the biblical text,83 a second feature of Augustine’s reading is noteworthy. It is the importance of public speech in the allegorical reading that Augustine describes. In Augustine’s exegesis, it is only through the act of public address, David’s being verbally presented with the analogy in the first instance by Nathan, that the possibility of transformation in the light of allegory emerges.84 The importance of public speech for Augustine bears itself out in his ongoing treatment of allegory in Book 3 of the De doctrina christiana. Moving first through the idea that we need to be attentive to the nuances in meaning between words when they are used allegorically, he observes that Christian writers made free use of the figures of speech known in Greek as tropes.85 Listing an exemplary handful of these, he says that the meaning of such tropes is self-evident to all users of popular speech, even when not understood in technical terms.86 Augustine’s point is that meaning is self-evident in popular language and does not require technical grammar to be grasped. He also makes the apparently contrary remark that a knowledge of tropes is necessary to help resolve apparent absurdities in 82 83

84

85 86

doctr. chr. 3.21.31. In the biblical text, David’s lamentation is on account of the loss of the child he would have borne to Uriah. It is not a lamentation of his moral state. See 2 Sam. 12.15–23. See Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 122–33 on Augustine’s view of figurative language in scripture as a means of promoting moral self-insight. For background studies, see J. Pépin, ‘Saint Augustin et la fonction protreptique de l’allégorie’, Recherches Augustiniennes 1 (1958), 243–86, esp. 258–85; Strauss, 130–48; G. Ripanti, ‘L’Allegoria o intellectus figuratus nel doctrina christiana di Agostino’, Révue des Études Augustiniennes 18 (1972), 72–90. doctr. chr. 3.29.40. The phrase, for example, ‘may you flourish’ (sic floreas), is a metaphor used commonly in popular speech; while the Latin word for swimming pool, piscina, derives from the word for fish (piscis), even though swimming pools were not built for fish and do not ordinarily contain them. The word is nonetheless an example of the trope of catechresis. See Chapter 2.4 above, and G. Strauss, Schriftgebrauch, Schriftauslegung und Schriftbeweis bei Augustin (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1959), 113–15; Finaert, 101ff.

84

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOKS 2 AND 3

the literal sense of scripture. The apparent contradiction draws out the fact that there is a dialectic between meaning as it is traversed in popular speech – meaning by implicit common agreement – and meaning as it emerges from technicality, an understanding of the formal grammar of scripture and of language generally. There is a dialectical tension, that is, between the inner surface of language and its outward counterpart, whereby the inner surface or meaning only emerges after a process of dialectical reflection on the form of the outer. Public discussion of meaning is thus one of the points of movement from which the sense of scripture emerges. This scriptural sense will, in Augustine’s understanding, reveal the foundational character of the dialogue between cupiditas and caritas and enable caritas to flourish to the diminishment of cupiditas. The purpose of all I have been presenting here has been to show that, for Augustine, there is a continuity between the inner and the outer self. This is so to the extent that, for Augustine, cupiditas cannot be transformed to caritas without the publicly spoken word. It is not unreasonable to suggest that, for Augustine, it is within the very act of speech that the possibility of transformation before God happens.87 The third book of the De doctrina Christiana reads very much as an incomplete work. Although it has covered the topic of metaphor, ambiguous and unambiguous signs, in some detail,88 Augustine’s final remark is that the task of interpreting signs is an ongoing one and must continue through preaching. His final advice to students of the divine scriptures is that they learn the various technical ways in which tropes operate rhetorically and in which scripture tends to speak. But, most importantly, they must pray for understanding.89 The hermeneutical task, for Augustine, is conducted firstly with regard to the text itself, as students come to grasp its contours and dimensions. It is grasped secondly with regard to their understanding their own speech and its relation to the speech of the text. It is finally conducted as both of these are drawn into conversation with God who is understood to be the foundation of scriptural study in the first instance. This conversation can only happen, however, if such study is accompanied by holiness.90 It is perhaps significant that Augustine does not give any qualification 87

88

89 90

Cf. Pontet, 116, who echoes this thought generally concerning God’s means of communicating to humanity, and of the need for scripture to become speech in preaching or to be configured as address: ‘Puisque l’homme ne peut plus rejoindre Dieu, le Créateur prendra les devants et s’approchera. Il se livrera à l’homme dans un intermédiaire provisoire, le mot. Nous disons “Écriture”, mais il vaut miex penser “Parole”, car Saint Augustin parle toujours de l’Écriture comme d’un texte vivant, actuellement proféré, sortant sans cesse de la bouche de Dieu.’ It in fact covers the majority of the centre of the work. The discussion begins at doctr. chr. 3.5.9 and closes only at the end of the book, doctr. chr. 3.37.55. It also forms the basis for his exploration of the usefulness of the pagan sciences, which forms the last part of Book 2 and the majority of that text, doctr. chr. 2.17.27–2.42.63. doctr. chr. 3.37.56. doctr. chr. 3.37.56.

85

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

as to what such holiness amounts to. The direction of his text suggests that such holiness is instead in development, and is contingent upon the student’s own undertaking of the interrogative and dialectic path that Augustine proposes. It is only through such a path that the transaction of desire within the soul and the eschatological growth that accompanies it finally occurs. Augustine’s closing remark before turning to the next book of his work is that scriptural literature tells his students, ‘God gives wisdom, and from his face there is knowledge and understanding’.91 It is in the next book of his work that he provides a more precise account of the relationship between public speech and the movement towards the presence of God so understood.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have traversed Augustine’s treatment of signs at various levels. The most important insight of the treatment has been that, for Augustine, signs are things whose meanings reveal themselves only through further inquiry. Much more than a trite remark, in an Augustinian context such inquiry is one which God reciprocates with personal address to the seeker. Through the examination of biblical signs, the mind finds itself drawn more deeply into a conversation with God, and through its eschatological yearning for enjoyment of God and of one’s neighbour in God it finds itself blossoming on a path of transformation to its eschatological end. In the next chapter, I will examine specifically the extent to which Augustine understands a particular kind of public speech, namely preaching, as enabling this conversation. Most important to my exploration will be the idea that in the very act of speech, God is made potentially present to the human mind. In what I have shown so far, importance has been placed on the idea of language as a surface capable of being broken open and into, so as to reveal God’s conversation of desire with humanity. Thus far, however, it has been implicit that the mind is already roving in search of the divine beneath the surface of language. What will become clear in the next chapter is the extent to which the act of public speech is meant both to instantiate and enable that search, as much as it is meant to stimulate the mind already in search of God. It is to this task, and an examination of the topography implicit within it, that I now turn.92

91 92

doctr. chr. 3.37.56. Prov. 2.6. I am here using speech and language interchangeably, as noted in the Introduction. It might be stated here also, however, that the church’s preaching is precisely what makes the language of scripture accessible to the church’s members. It is in the active taking up of scriptural language into speech by the church in its preaching and by the believer before God.

86

4 DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 4: THE IMPORTANCE AND CHARACTER OF PUBLIC SPEECH

Introduction Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana was the last book of the work to be completed. Such compositional sequence is in itself unsurprising. What is remarkable is the fact that it was completed, and perhaps even composed in its entirety, nearly 30 years after the book was begun in 395. That is to say, it contains within it the fruit of nearly 30 years’ reflection, public argument and disputation, most of which never appears in any explicit way within the text itself.1 In what follows I will not treat the detail of Book 4 at length. Its themes, and their relationship to the system of classical rhetoric in the context of which Augustine sets his discussion, have already been well treated by others.2 They will be secondary to my concern of grasping the relationship between language, thought and God which is the central concern of this work. Here, I will focus primarily on three issues, using the text as a bridge to the next section of my discussion on the Confessions. These issues will be the relationship of content to form in Augustine’s understanding of language; the priority of the spoken word in Augustine’s presentation of language in Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana;

1 2

For compositional context, see Kannengiesser, 3–13. For example, Pollmann, 225–44, esp. 228–32; M. C. Preus, Eloquence and Ignorance in Augustine’s On the Nature and Origin of the Soul (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 13–41; S. Ijsseling, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Conflict (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1976); L. D. McNew, ‘The Relation of Cicero’s Rhetoric to Augustine’, Research Studies of the State College of Washington 25: 1 (March 1957), 5–13; E. Fortin, ‘Augustine and the Problem of Christian Rhetoric’, Augustinian Studies 5 (1974) 85–100; and esp. E. Auerbach, ‘Sermo humilis’, in Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and the Middle Ages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), esp. 35–47.

87

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

and, related to this, his understanding of the relationship between human community, God and language.

1. Form and content: Augustinian theological anthropology Augustine’s discussion in Book 4 is fundamentally concerned with the relationship between the process of reading the scriptures and that of communicating them. It opens with an explicit reference to the initially envisioned structure of the text, in which Augustine observes that he set out, in the work as a whole, to discern the modus inveniendi and the modus proferendi of scripture. These are the tasks of finding out what needs to be understood within scripture, and of relating how these things discovered may be conveyed to the listening audience.3 He observes that Book 4 will address the remaining task of the modus proferendi, since Books 1–3 have involved extensive exploration of the modus proferendi. Book 4 might thus be seen as the climax of the work, in which Augustine closes his already extensive enterprise with a handbook for the preacher, advising on how to relate the central ideas of Christian thought in the scriptures to those in the preacher’s congregation. More subtle than such a textbook account is the discovery of an implicit anthropology running through the book. This anthropology concerns the relationship between the speaker and the material conveyed. Augustine configures this in terms of a connection between wisdom (sapientia) and eloquence (eloquentia). A speaker should attempt to speak ‘wisely, if not eloquently’, because to do so will be beneficial to his audience.4 He cites Cicero as representative of the classical tradition, and notes with him that while wisdom without eloquence is of minimal value, eloquence without wisdom is of no value whatsoever to the human community.5 As something acknowledged by the classical tradition which was not aware of the wisdom which came down from heaven, Christians who consider themselves servants of this heavenly wisdom should acknowledge this truth all the more strongly.6 Framing his discussion in terms of a relationship between wisdom and eloquence provides Augustine with an occasion to reassert the enterprise of the previous three books. Wisdom, he states, may be understood to exist in a person

3 4 5 6

doctr. chr. 4.1.1. doctr. chr. 4.5.7. Cf. Cicero, inv. 1.1. doctr. chr. 4.5.7. Cf. Jas 1.17.

88

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 4

‘in direct proportion to his progress in the holy scriptures’.7 He further specifies that such progress has nothing to do with ‘intensive reading or memorisation’, but rather with ‘real understanding and diligent searching out of their meaning’.8 A good reader, as he asserts, is someone who ‘remembers the words less closely but penetrates to the heart of scripture with the eyes of his own heart’.9 A concern for external form in language is subsumed under an emphasis on proper interpretation, which we may understand with reference to Book 1 as concerned with the capacity to integrate the eschatological and ethical rules for reading scripture into one’s preaching. Augustine goes on immediately, however, to state the character of the ideal preacher: ‘[best] is the person who not only quotes scripture when he chooses but also understands it as he should’.10 Form and content are, in the case of perfect scriptural communication, coincident to the extent that a good preacher both understands scripture and interprets it correctly, this interpretation being furthermore transparent when it is communicated. Augustine does not rest with this definition, and moves immediately to reassert the absolute authority of scripture. It is an authority that manifests itself even in aesthetic terms. Augustine counsels that a person who cannot treat any given matter eloquently should adhere the more absolutely to scripture, since in doing so he will at least treat a given matter wisely.11 ‘The preacher who cannot give pleasure with his words may give pleasure with his text,’ he states,12 and we have returned temporarily to the absolute authority of scripture maintained throughout his discussion in Book 3. The authority now, however, is located at an aesthetic level. Augustine explains that such authority resides in the scriptures on account of their simultaneous possession of eloquence and wisdom. The coincidence is of a particular kind: not only do the Christian scriptures possess the eloquence of men of oratory, but they possess their own particular eloquence which is remarkable for the extent to which it is ‘neither unduly lacking nor unduly prominent’ in its writings. It is thus a reticent eloquence marked by its humility. Augustine further explains the power of Christian written speech by the coincidence of its subject matter and the words it uses. The words in Christian scriptures, as he explains, ‘seem to be ones not selected by the speaker but ones naturally associated (sponte subiuncta) with the actual topic’. He closes his discussion by stating that Christian speech might be understood as ‘wisdom proceeding from its own home (by this I 7

8 9 10 11 12

doctr. chr. 4.5.7. Augustine states in fact that a man speaks well in accordance with how versed he is in scripture: Sapienter autem dicit homo tanto magis vel minus quanto in scripturis sanctis magis minusve profecit. doctr. chr. 4.5.7. doctr. chr. 4.5.7. doctr. chr. 4.5.7. doctr. chr. 4.5.8. doctr. chr. 4.5.8.

89

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

mean the breast of someone wise) and eloquence, like an inseparable attendant, following on behind without having to be summoned’.13 Augustine’s image is a deeply striking one. Not only does he subvert previous classical descriptions of rhetoric,14 he also locates the power of Christian speech within the words themselves. Christian speech, for Augustine, possesses its own embodiment. Words are humble, they do not draw attention to themselves; and they are humble to the extent that they reveal what they seek to speak of. The object spoken of, however, is elusive. Wisdom remains perpetually beyond the words used to describe it. More precisely, according to Augustine’s picture of wisdom and eloquence as her attendant, wisdom remains in front of the words that seek to capture it and on which the words attend. Eloquence can never contain wisdom, nor can it subordinate wisdom to itself; but it can direct the mind towards wisdom, which can then continue to pursue it. This elusive character of wisdom in Christian language is suggestive of the eschatological future. The wisdom incarnate, ‘come down from the Father’,15 which Christian eloquence pursues, is simultaneously the wisdom that leads humanity back to the Father. This is the christological principle that Augustine has explained in Book 1, with reference to the incarnation.16 Christian speech thereby becomes the transaction point for the embodied eschatological future, and the ostensible centre of an Augustinian account of human identity. However, as is also clear from the same image of servant and master, it is not just the words that perform this task, in Augustine’s understanding. The person to whom the words belong is the transaction’s centre. Wisdom proceeding from its own home is described as wisdom proceeding from the breast of the wise man.17 As in Augustine’s subordination of the words of scripture to the understanding of a person ‘who penetrates to the heart of scripture with the eyes of their own heart’,18 the human individual remains elusively behind even this most evocative of Augustinian images concerning the relationship between God and language. It is not so much that words take on embodiment, for Augustine, but rather that words become the place where human embodiment is symbolized. This insight is important as regards Augustine’s exegesis of wisdom and eloquence in scripture. He moves from his evocative description of Christian

13

14

15 16 17 18

doctr. chr. 4.6.10. My translation. Augustine’s Latin phrase is especially sonorous: Quasi sapientiam de domo sua, id est pectore sapientis, procedere intellegas et tamquam inseparabilem famulam etiam non vocatam sequi eloquentiam. See Pollmann, 228–36; Preus, 13–41; Ijsseling; McNew, 5–13; Fortin, 85–100; Auerbach, 35–47. doctr. chr. 4.5.7. Cf. Jas 1.17. See doctr. chr. 1.10.10–1.11.11. doctr. chr. 4.6.10. doctr. chr. 4.5.7.

90

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 4

language in relationship to God to an exegesis of three scriptural passages that evoke how wisdom and eloquence relate scripturally. The passages in question are Rom. 5.3–5, 2 Cor. 6.11–30 and Amos 6.1–6.19 His purpose in treating these passages is to demonstrate that they show all the features of what is traditionally considered good speech, while nonetheless exceeding these features. When treating Rom. 5.3–5, he observes within it the features of gradatio and the presence of both commata and cola to constitute the body of the text.20 These correspond to Quintilian’s outline of good rhetorical form in Institutio Oratoria, one standard ancient rhetorical textbook.21 Augustine remarks that despite such classical resonances ‘we [Christians] do not say that the apostle followed the precepts of eloquence, but nor do we deny that his wisdom was attended by eloquence’.22 The text is thus not slave to the classical tradition. Rather, its own manner of speaking both contains and goes beyond classical rhetorical technique, and does so while having no formal alignment to the classical tradition. Similarly, when treating the more extended passage in 2 Corinthians, he provides an exegesis of the text in terms of the grammar of traditional rhetoric, and closes with the simple observation that continued examination in these terms would become tedious.23 The wisdom of the text, however, is self-evident: those who are awake, he contends, can see how much wisdom is contained in Paul’s extended outburst.24 Biblical speech, for Augustine, is a unique mode of communication in possession of its own clarity. It communicates a wisdom that both emerges from the text while simultaneously exceeding the form in which it is expressed. Augustine’s exegesis bears upon the account of human identity implicit within his discussion of the Christian scriptures. Rather than perceiving the scriptures as static texts available for redaction, and parsing them as one might parse a text in the classical rhetorical tradition (and in which terms Augustine does treat the Christian scriptures, as a mode of apologetic),25 Augustine treats them as dynamic, summoning the reader into a search for wisdom that moves outside the nominal grammatical boundaries of speech and text. Augustine’s image of wisdom proceeding from its own home as from the breast of a wise man is apposite here. However, it is only partial as regards the full implications of the Augustinian vision of text. The fuller expression of Augustine’s understanding of Christian eloquence is that not only does wisdom lie out in front of the text 19 20

21 22 23 24 25

doctr. chr. 4.7.11, 4.7.12–4.7.13 and 4.7.16–4.7.20 respectively. In simple terms, a colon was a longer clause in a sentence, and a comma its subset. See Quintilian, inst. 9.4.122–9.4.125 for a more extended definition. Quintilian, inst. 9.3.57; 9.4.123. doctr. chr. 4.7.11. My translation. doctr. chr. 4.7.14. doctr. chr. 4.7.12. See, for example, doctr. chr. 4.7.14.

91

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

in which it is contained, it lies even more pertinently in front of the mind that searches for wisdom within the text. Christian scriptures, for Augustine, inspire and invoke a searching after God through the human language in which they are expressed.

2. Community and text: the priority of the spoken word Augustine insists that good speech is learnt not by the acquisition of and meditation on rules of eloquence, but simply by imitation of good linguistic example, according to the inherent ability of any given speaker. He makes this point at the outset of his discussion in Book 4: Infants acquire speech purely by assimilating the words and phrases of those who speak to them; so why should the eloquent not be able to acquire their eloquence not through the traditional teaching but by reading and listening to the speeches of the eloquent within the limits of their ability?26 Language is primarily instantiated by and within linguistic communities, and is a function of their practice. Augustine notes that the art of grammar – the technical teaching of eloquence of the kind that Augustine himself received as a child – would be redundant were children afforded the opportunity of growing up among good speakers. Even if they were not taught what a linguistic solecism was, he claims, they would still identify one in the same way as city folk frequently find fault with the speech of country folk.27 His general point is to undermine the theoretical pursuit of the ancient art of grammar as an end in itself. He cites and succinctly summarizes Cicero’s remark that good speakers observe the rules of grammar because they are eloquent, they do not use them to become eloquent;28 and observes practically that the attempt to meditate on the rules of rhetoric while speaking runs the risk of leading one to forget what one is saying while one is thinking of a clever way to say it.29 Disembodied theorizing, for Augustine, has a place in a disembodied theoretical context, but it does not necessarily contribute to the formation of a good speaker. Thus, as far as Augustine is concerned, meaning within language is something discernible within already existing linguistic contexts. Rather than imposing a given theory of speech, Augustine highlights that what is essential to speech is 26 27 28 29

doctr. chr. 4.3.5. doctr. chr. 4.3.5. doctr. chr. 4.3.4. Cf. Cicero, de orat.1.87; 1.91. doctr. chr. 4.3.4.

92

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 4

something already manifest within speaking communities. Similarly, therefore, what constitutes good Christian speech is to be learnt by the imitation of already existing good Christian speakers. Augustine provides exactly this advice at the outset of his discussion in Book 4,30 and furthermore instantiates it in a more extended discussion, later in the work, of examples of good Christian oratory in the works of Ambrose and Cyprian.31 He cites extended examples of Paul’s writings as exemplifying features of classical rhetoric, embodying the restrained, the mixed and the grand styles of rhetoric respectively.32 Augustine thus treats scriptural and other texts as spoken works. Just as in his exegesis of Rom. 5.3–5, Augustine examines the features of the text as if they were to be spoken – observing, for example, that Paul’s use of the ornaments of ‘cola’ and ‘commata’ is observable since ‘the parts are left hanging by the speaker’s voice until the period is completed by the last clause’33 – Augustine visualizes the scriptures as written by people whose task it was to persuade, just as the orator persuades. Rather than the Christian scriptures being a collection of texts, they are a collection of words spoken by given individuals in accordance with their communally embodied circumstances. This feature of Augustine’s thought becomes clearer as he examines the Old Testament prophets. Citing Amos as his representative of the prophetic tradition, he parses Amos’s writing in much the same way as he does Paul’s texts, highlighting the pre-eminent beauty of the classical form discernible within these texts.34 Having observed ‘how beautiful it is and the way it impacts on those reading and understanding it’,35 he emphasizes its significance in terms of its impact upon a hearer of the text, rather than a reader. He states, in much the same way as he does with Paul, that many more precepts of classical eloquence could be discerned from the text with further examination, but notes furthermore that the ‘effect of eloquence on a person of good character (bonus auditor) is not so much to instruct when painstakingly discussed as to inspire when passionately delivered’.36 Augustine recognizes that the imaginative space between reading and understanding a text is a space traversed by visualizing the words as things spoken by other people – literally, addressed to oneself. Further on in his argument, Augustine observes that the peculiar power of written words is that they ‘grip the reader when they are understood’.37 He 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

doctr. chr. 4.3.4. doctr. chr. 4.21.45–4.21.50. doctr. chr. 4.19.39–4.20.44. doctr. chr. 4.7.11. Cf. Quintilian inst. 9.4.22 and 9.4.122–130. doctr. chr. 4.7.16–20. doctr. chr. 4.7.20. My translation. doctr. chr. 4.7.21. doctr. chr. 4.9.23.

93

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

nonetheless moves seamlessly to describe these in apposition to debates (collocutiones) in which ‘we should not shirk the duty to make plain to the minds of others the truths which we ourselves have perceived . . . with as much effort and argument as may be necessary’.38 Speech is a function of human community, for Augustine, and it is only by visualizing written words as part of an ongoing debate that we will make our meaning clear so as to transmit it to a listener or disputant. Augustine closes his point about clarity of communication with respect not to a reader, whom he has already mentioned, but with respect to ‘the listener or disputant (collocutor) [who] has the will to learn and does not lack the mental capacity to absorb such things’.39 Visualizing all speech, written or spoken, as occurring in a public space commits both author and speaker to be attentive to the communal character of language. This happens most powerfully, for Augustine, when we imagine words in spoken rather than written terms.40 If this is so, it leaves important questions hanging about the significance of the written text. As I stated above, it is decisive for Augustine that there is a leap of the reader’s imagination between written and spoken registers, in order for the reader to grasp a text’s full implications. Augustine comments that Amos’s authority, and that of the canon of scriptural authors generally, comes from our acknowledging that they were ‘eloquent, and not just wise, with a kind of eloquence appropriate to the kind of persons they were’.41 It is the movement from text to verbally embodied community – a community in which the spoken word, and the preacher as eloquent orator, has priority – that fuels Augustine’s imagination concerning textual authority. For Augustine, we are never simply readers of the word. Instead, we are hearers of a canon of scriptural speakers with whom we may dynamically engage in the same way as we do with a disputant in a debate. We are also hearers of the interpreters of scripture – speakers such as Ambrose and Cyprian to whom Augustine directs the aspiring Christian orator. The words of the scriptural speaker and the speaker interpreting scripture become the ground which we traverse as we engage with a greater dialogue with God. What this does not answer, however, is the way in which the speaking of the word may be considered to instantiate human community, and it is to this question that I will turn in the final part of my examination of the De doctrina

38 39

40

41

doctr. chr. 4.9.23. doctr. chr. 4.9.23. Speech, written and spoken, must be understood as dialogical on account of the fact that language is something addressed always to others. It seeks to instantiate communication. I do not wish to ignore here that, for Augustine, many of his debates were written and occurred in his correspondences with disputants, such as Julian of Eclanum. I only wish to emphasize that, for Augustine, even the written word is visualized in conversational terms, such that there is at the very least a disputant on the receiving end of one’s written words and arguments. doct. chr. 4.7.21.

94

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 4

Christiana. I will suggest that Augustine’s reflections on the relationship between spoken words and the community that speaks them registers something of the tension between Christian community and the words which represent it. It is here, in short, that Augustine articulates the basis for a dialogical encounter with God with respect to the human community in which Christian words are spoken and used.

3. Speech and Christian community: a dialogical relationship Augustine’s reflections on the importance of speech in relation to communal embodiment emerge in the clearest way at the end of his discussion in Book 4. He makes the remark that when speaking and attempting to inspire one’s audience to obedience, the most important thing is not the words one uses but the life of the speaker.42 Repeating, further on, his remark concerning the priority of wisdom over eloquence in public speech, he observes that the speaker who cannot speak both eloquently and wisely should strive to speak wisely rather than the reverse:43 If he is not capable [of speaking wisely], a person should seek to live in such a way that he not only gains a reward for himself but also gives an example to others, so that his way of life becomes, as it were, an abundance of words.44 Social comportment is identified as a publicly spoken word. There is a continuity between verbal and social embodiment to the extent that sociality is capable of replacing verbalized speech. Augustine nuances this view considerably. From the outset of his discussion of the importance of the speaker’s life as the ground for conviction in public speech, he focuses on a contradictory position in biblical anthropology. This position suggests that speech can, in and of itself, mediate between God and humanity, regardless of the person by whom it is spoken. Citing Paul’s remark in Philippians – ‘let Christ be proclaimed, whether in pretence or in truth’45 – he goes on to observe that ‘Christ is the truth, and yet the truth can be proclaimed even by 42 43 44

45

doctr. chr. 4.27.59. doctr. chr. 4.28.61. doctr. chr. 4.29.61. My translation. Si autem ne hoc quidem potest, ita conversetur ut non solum sibi praemium comparet sed et praebeat aliis exemplum et sit eius quasi copia dicendi forma vivendi. Phil. 1.18.

95

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

untruth, in the sense that things that are right and true may be proclaimed by a wicked and deceitful heart’.46 To his aid he calls the remark by Jesus in Matthew concerning the hypocrisy of contemporary religious authorities. Jesus instructs his disciples to ‘do what [the religious authorities] say, but do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach’.47 Augustine’s comment on Jesus’ reflections is that there is a distinction between what given persons may do and what they might speak publicly. Jesus’ contemporary religious authorities sought what was ‘their own’ while being forced to teach – thus to speak publicly – what belonged to the chair of Moses which they occupied.48 Words, on this reading, may exist in a separate embodiment of authority from the people who speak them, and may exist in this way independently of a life that is dissonant in its practice with the words in question. This distinction is a key one. I began this work with the proposition that Augustine maintains a distinction between language, thought and God, and proposed furthermore that understanding how this distinction operates would reveal Augustine’s theology of language. It is now clear that Augustine maintains this distinction even to the extent of allowing words of religious authority to stand in abstract relation to those speaking them. A person can, for Augustine, use religious words without inhabiting their meaning. Augustine fleshes out this distinction in terms of ownership. He observes first that it is perfectly legitimate, indeed helpful (utile), for a person to make public use of words which do not belong to him. For example, this is the case when someone borrows a speech composed with eloquence and wisdom by another.49 Augustine states that the only caveat in such a practice is that the speaker should adhere strictly to his role (persona) as one simply enunciating the words.50 He then gives an account of the relationship of spoken words to the speaker, noting that it is both possible and legitimate for ‘a person who is eloquent but evil (disertus et malus) to compose a sermon proclaiming the truth for another, who is not eloquent but good, to deliver’.51 In this case, Augustine explains, the person writing the sermon transfers (tradere) from himself what is not inherently his own – namely the truth which the sermon describes – and the person delivering the sermon receives (accipere) what is already his own, namely this same truth.52 Augustine furthermore stipulates that in such a transaction, the one receiving the words composed by another ‘should pray, before receiving the sermon, that 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

doctr. chr. 4.27.59. doctr. chr. 4.27.59. doctr. chr. 4.27.59. Cf. Mt. 23.2–3. doctr. chr. 4.29.62. doctr. chr. 4.29.62. doctr. chr. 4.29.62. doctr. chr. 4.29.62. Ipse a se ipso tradit alienum, ille ab alieno accipit suum.

96

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 4

those from whom they will get it may be given what they, through them, want to receive.’53 The speaker should pray that the composer of the sermon becomes a participant in the truth which his eloquence has described. In this extended description, Augustine has provided a phenomenology of the relationship between words, their speaker and their hearer. Above all, in Augustine’s discussion, is the notion that truth is an objective principle, which is instantiated regardless of the intentions of a speaker. As Augustine says, ‘Christ is the truth, and yet the truth can be proclaimed even by untruth, in the sense that things that are right and true may be proclaimed by a wicked and deceitful heart’.54 This hermeneutical principle provides Augustine with the scope to describe an economics of spiritual interchange, where words function as an almost neutral principle through which truth and goodness, operative by virtue of words, may become manifest to anyone who hears them. Human intention, in short, cannot diminish the transformative capacity of words, regardless of their origin. Furthermore, Augustine describes how the words themselves become the platform of interchange through which participation in God’s goodness is enabled. Augustine instructs the speaker to pray that he presents the written work effectively, and that those to whom he presents it may absorb it effectively.55 The prayer that Augustine directs the good orator to say implies also that the wicked but eloquent man may be converted through hearing the words he himself has written. Augustine is thus conscious that the public speaking of words creates an interpretative space in which God may be manifest. Given Augustine’s exegesis of cupiditas and caritas in Book 3, this space may be visualized as a platform of exchange where cupiditas is transformed into caritas. This exchange, however, is not automatic. Augustine says of the ineloquent but morally upright orator that he must make the eloquent words composed by the bad man his own, by doing the good that the words commend. ‘People who live aright, according to what they have been unable to write for themselves, make such writings their own.’56 The morally upright orator must accommodate himself to the truth contained within the words written for him by an evil but eloquent man, and inspire the wicked man to do so himself. The process of interchange and transaction between cupiditas and caritas is thus something that physical words facilitate, without actually enacting. This is a vital feature of Augustine’s linguistic epistemology. In his description of Jesus’ contemporary religious authorities, and the distinction between their 53 54 55 56

doctr. chr. 4.30.63. doctr. chr. 4.27.59. doctr. chr. 4.30.63. doctr. chr. 4.29.62.

97

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

words and their behaviour, Augustine says that such individuals ‘seek their own thing’ (quaerere sua) but are not permitted to teach their own thing.57 The ‘sound teaching’ (sana doctrina) of the public religious chair which they occupy, Augustine contends, prevents them from doing this. Similarly, when Augustine permits the borrowing of speeches, he stipulates simply that the preacher adhere strictly to the role (persona) given him in the speech. Words instantiate an identity that it is possible for the mind of the hearer to inhabit, independently of the intentions of the composer of the speech, or even of the speech’s presenter. However, as is clear from both of these examples, as much as a persona or a coherent body of teaching presents a public example which the mind is able to inhabit or to gravitate towards, so also is the individual capable of retreating from this identity as soon as the words are spoken. The distinction between publicly embodied behaviour and the words in question is a key one for Augustine’s phenomenology, and it also provides grounds for a pessimistic reading of the relationship between words and human identity in Augustine’s terms. But, as should also be clear from the description of an economy of spiritual interchange described above, the very fact that these words are spoken publicly creates a beacon towards which the mind can gravitate. Words, and the public identity that they create, present an outward marker with regard to which the inner mind can be transformed. In terms of a relationship between language, thought and God, publicly spoken words and the identity that they instantiate are the very means according to which the mind may enter a conversation with God. The words also provide the texture of the dialogue, and this is particularly the case with Christian speech which, for Augustine, directs the mind towards God. Augustine’s final remarks in Book 4 focus upon the probability of distance between publicly uttered words and the ideals they represent, and the individual or community who utters them. He closes Book 4 with the following reflection: In any case I thank God that in these four books I have been able to discuss, not the sort of person that I am – for I have many failings – but the sort of person that those who apply themselves to sound teaching (sana doctrina), in other words Christian teaching, on behalf of others as well as themselves, ought to be.58 In this literary self-deprecation, Augustine articulates a distance between himself 57

58

doctr. chr. 4.27.59. The key Augustinian distinction is that in seeking their own thing, the religious authorities are not seeking what is of God. doctr. chr. 4.31.64.

98

DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA BOOK 4

and the artifice of which he has spoken. In a way that is typical of literature in general and of Augustine in particular, we are incapable of judging whether this literary self-deprecation is real or postured. This uncertainty, however, represents both the Augustinian dilemma and its solution. The dilemma is that words in and of themselves may stand at a distance from the individual who utters them, and a human life may contradict the words and ideals uttered during its course. The resolution is that, within the Augustinian account of a distance between language, thought and God, the hearer of any such words is summoned to pray for the participation of every person in the realities to which good words gesture. Augustine closes his directive to prayer with the importance of thanksgiving for oratory that moves and inspires the audience to a greater love of God: [The orator] should also give thanks for a favourable outcome of their address to the one from whom . . . they received it, ‘so that anyone may boast in the one “whose hands hold us and our sermons alike”.’59 In an Augustinian vision, Christian speech both emerges from God’s participation in humanity and aspires to human participation in God. This instils it both with optimism and the possibility of human transformation. Prayer may indeed gravitate around a relationship between language, thought and God; however, it is the final level on this tripartite structure, God, who ensures that all Christian speech may be useful (utile), and thus assist humanity towards final and embodied participation in God’s being. Language, thought and God articulate, in Augustinian terms, a dialogical structure in which human embodiment is textured by gradation towards the eschatological future to which all human identity finally aspires.

Conclusion I began this chapter with the remark that it would be a bridge to my examination of the Confessions in the chapter that follows. What has been uncovered here are some fundamental guiding points concerning Augustine’s understanding of the relationship between language, thought and God, which will serve as coordinates for the pursuit of Augustine’s theology of language in a broader way in the Confessions. The relationship between form and content in Augustine’s exposition in Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana demonstrates that Augustine visualizes

59

doctr. chr. 4.30.63.

99

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

human language as the platform of interchange between the human person and God. Furthermore, Augustine constructs biblical speech, in particular, as designed to lead the human mind to God. Augustine’s description of the relationship between eloquence and wisdom in biblical speech revealed an implicit anthropology, in which the human person is at the centre of biblical speech, and is also drawn to God by this speech. In his discussion of language acquisition and biblical speech, Augustine places a priority on the spoken rather than the written word. This is to the extent of characterizing the scriptures in oral, rather than written, terms. This means that, for Augustine in Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana, the written and the spoken word coalesce to the extent that the written word may always be understood as addressed in spoken terms to a reader. His expositions in Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana indicate that through visualizing words in a social context, in which speech plays a primary role, they exist as part of an exchange of meaning between the author and reader. They thus exist in an inherently dialogical framework, whenever a listener or reader receives them. Finally, in Augustine’s distinction between a speaker and the words they use, he opens up a view of language in which words themselves are a platform of interchange between speaker, listener and God. This platform of interchange plays out the relationship between language, thought and God in its dialogical and social aspects. Spoken language, in particular, becomes a ground that the mind can traverse to find the transformative reality of God’s being. This is not to the diminishment of the written word, but rather exemplifies the sociality in which context Augustine understands language to operate. The identity instantiated by spoken and written words furthermore becomes material which the mind uses for transformative conversation with God. With the exhortation to the Christian orator to pray for the recipients of his speech, the composer of his words, as well as for himself, Augustine visualizes a context in which God illuminates the mind through prayer, and words are the means through which we are accommodated to God. A dialogue opens up between language, thought and God, such that sociality and its linguistic setting are the means of God’s transformation of the human person. This discussion sets the scene for the Confessions, to which I now turn.

100

5 CONFESSIONS: SOCIALITY, SPEECH AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY

Introduction In the preceding chapters, I have analysed the relationship between language, thought and God in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana as a means of gaining some preliminary insight into Augustine’s theology of language. In this chapter, I will pick up some of the themes analysed in the De doctrina christiana, with respect to the Confessions. In particular, I will study the Confessions as an act of exemplary speech, demonstrating within its narrative the theology of language whose components the De doctrina christiana lay out. My method will firstly be comparative. I will take two of the chief preoccupations of Augustine’s conversion narrative; namely, his encounter with the Manichees and his encounter with Bishop Ambrose. I will outline Augustine’s description of each to elucidate their differences, and analyse the problem described as the relationship between form and content in speech and sociality respectively. I will then examine the conversion scene in Book 8 and its social precedents to demonstrate the centrality both of the human voice as well as of the social context in which the conversion occurs. This will bear out some of the principles already outlined in my examination of the De doctrina christiana. I will then examine the transition between Book 8 and 9 to bring out the significance of theological speech and Augustine’s development of a theological voice in the Confessions. I will propose that the narrative from Books 1–9 represents Augustine’s synthesis of the social and linguistic aspects of human personhood, and his adoption of an inherently Christian and confessional identity.

101

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

1. The Manichees and Ambrose: a search for linguistic resolution Augustine’s first encounter with the Manichees, during the narrative of his student days at a prestigious school for rhetoric in Carthage, is described in Book 3 of the Confessions. He encounters a problem between the form and content of his studies. Augustine describes how these studies, preparing students for the law courts and reputed as ‘honest’, are in fact a training in deception, ‘more praiseworthy as they are more fraudulent’.1 The difference between the perfect linguistic form which he is being trained to use and the moral context in which this training is taking place is brought out as he recalls the thuggery of fellow students, aptly called ‘destroyers’ (eversores). These people would torture novices in the schoolyard for nothing but malicious delight.2 For Augustine, they are imitators of demonic spirits who have seduced them, and who mock the destroyers for their susceptibility to seduction as well as for their fallen and twisted humanity. The destroyers socially exemplify the linguistic distortion that his education represents. Augustine describes how, in the course of his studies on eloquence, he encounters Cicero’s Hortensius. Augustine is fuelled by it to an ardent search for wisdom: [I]n the usual course of learning I came across a book of certain Cicero, whose tongue is admired by almost everyone, unlike the breast (pectus) from which it comes. This book contains an exhortation to philosophy and is called the Hortensius. This book, indeed, changed my disposition and to you yourself, Lord, it changed my prayers and my petitions, and my desires began also to do otherwise than they had. Suddenly every vain hope seemed to me contemptible, and I desired the immortality of wisdom with a fierce boiling of my heart and I began to rise up, in order that I might come back to you, [o God].3 The immediate impact of Augustine’s encounter with Cicero is that he begins to inquire into the scriptures as part of his search for wisdom. Augustine describes his disappointment when coming across the rhetorically inadequate writings:

1

2 3

conf. 3.3.6. The translations of the Confessions are my own unless otherwise noted. Where they are not my own, they are taken from M. Boulding’s translation, The Confessions, ed. J. E. Rotelle, trans. M. Boulding (New York: New City Press, 1997). conf. 3.3.6. conf. 3.4.7.

102

CONFESSIONS

I determined to set my mind towards the holy scriptures and to see what sort of books they were . . . [But scripture] seemed to me uncouth (indigna), when compared to the dignity of Cicero. Indeed, my pride shunned its manner and my eyes did not see to what lay inside it (interiora).4 Form plays off against content in Augustine’s experience of the scriptures, and he turns instead to the Manichees: Thus I fell in with men proudly delirious, excessively carnal and talkative, in whose mouths were the snares of the devil and artificial mess (viscum confectum) created by a mixture of the syllables of your name and of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the paraclete, our consoler, the Holy Spirit.5 Augustine’s mention of the name of Christ as the first thing he encountered among the Manichees, and as part of the rationale for his association with them, reflects directly his inability wholly to embrace Cicero’s call to philosophy. He says that the absence of the name of Christ from Cicero’s writings held him back.6 Form thus plays off against content again, and in the first instance Augustine moves towards a group who possessed an ideal external form, in that they speak the name of Christ.7 Augustine uses the image of food to illustrate the distinction between Manichean doctrine in its form and content: The Manichees sounded out endlessly and in many ways, but with the voice alone, and with many and giant books! The books were dishes, on which they carried ‘truth’ in to me, a man starving. In place of truth they brought me sun and moon, beautiful creations, but still creations, and not you, o truth . . . And I was hungry and parched not for those highest first works, even, but for your yourself, truth, in whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration. The Manichees placed before me splendid phantasms (phantasmata splendida) on these dishes, in which indeed it was better to love the sun itself, at least the truth seen with these eyes than these false things with a mind deceived on account of these eyes.8 4 5 6 7

8

conf. 3.5.9. conf. 3.5.9. conf. 3.4.8. Cf. Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . II, 200. He observes only the christological continuity of Augustine’s search for the name of God, namely that the Manichees used the name of Christ, and doesn’t dwell on the fact that the Manichees also spoke the name of the Trinity which is a significant component of Augustine’s movement towards the Manichees. conf. 3.6.10.

103

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Augustine’s reference to phantasms is reminiscent of the theory of soul he gives at De musica 6. On his reading there, phantasma are the images created from sense perception, while phantasmata are the phenomenon created when phantasma disagree with one another in what they recall: they are yet a further step away from the real thing recorded either from memory or from immediate sensory experience.9 Augustine’s problem with Manicheism here, therefore, is that their words and teaching drew him away from reality while claiming to hold the ultimate reality. The distinction between form and content is such that it perverts Augustine’s possibility for spiritual nourishment, which will only come when the relationship between form and content leads Augustine’s mind to the truth. Augustine’s description of the Manichees here has its natural counterpoint in Augustine’s first engagement with Neoplatonic literature in Book 7 of the Confessions. There, he reports the following: And when I first knew you, you raised me up, and so that I might see that what I saw was. It existed, while I who saw it did not yet exist. And shining on me furiously you beat back the weakness of my glance, and I quaked with love and dread. I found myself a long way away from you in a region of unlikeness (regio dissimilitudinis), and I heard as it were your voice from high: ‘I am the food of the fully grown: grow, and you will eat me. And you will not transform me into you just as you do the food of your flesh, but you will be transformed into me.’10 This very obviously represents the inverse of Augustine’s experience of the Manichees. Augustine is promised nourishment, and the nourishment he is promised will transform him after the likeness of truth. Even the order of nature has been reversed: Augustine will be transformed after the likeness of what he consumes. This is also the first time that Augustine has been addressed by truth.11 Previously, he reports only his yearning for truth and constructs his participation with the Manichees in these terms. Now, he finds himself in a 9 10 11

See mus. 6.11.32. conf. 7.10.16. Augustine has for the first time in the text actually acknowledged God as speaking to him in such a way that Augustine was, at the time portrayed in the narrative, consciously aware of it. The verb is quite explicit – ‘and when I first knew (cognoscere) you’. conf. 7.10.16. For an extended exploration of this address and the real theological conversation that it represents, see R. Herzog, ‘Non in sua voce. Augustins Gespräch mit Gott in den Confessiones – Voraussetzungen und Folgen’, in P. Habermehl, ed., Spätantike. Studien zur römischen und lateinisch-christlichen Literatur (Göttingen, 2002), 235–85. Herzog examines the fact of the conversation, its psalmic dynamics and literary aesthetics; as well as interestingly drawing out the significance of the conversational aspect of the Confessions with respect to modern discussions of language, 275–85.

104

CONFESSIONS

dialogical conversation with God who is truth. Augustine’s encounter with the Neoplatonists represents a turning point in the confessional narrative, one in which Augustine consciously recognizes himself in a conversation with God, and in which this conversation promises Augustine the nourishment for which he yearns. Augustine goes on to relate a second and more successful attempt to ascend to ‘that which is’ later in Book 7,12 and this report forms the basis of his ongoing intellectual inquiry into the nature of God. It is also replicated in a communal context in Book 9 of the work, with Monica, where, rather than an individual ascent, Augustine ascends with another person and has a vision of community, locating the ascent in an explicitly Christian and less obviously Neoplatonic framework.13 The key both to Augustine’s second successful Platonic ascent and to his later shared ascent with Monica is that both are left with an intense longing for God, which is mediated through the physical world. In Book 7, Augustine’s language engages the aesthetic very directly. He says: Thus I say that truly your invisible things are understood through the things that are made [cf. Rom. 1.20], but I was not able to fix my gaze and driven back by weakness and having arrived back among customary and ordinary things I carried nothing with me save the loving memory and as it were desired the fragrances [of the things] which I was yet unable to consume.14 The next reference to such smells will come in Augustine’s description of baptism, where he reports himself as having been unable to chase after the smells of God’s fragrances that were blowing through Milan with the religio-political events of 386, and in which he could only vicariously participate after his baptism and the hearing of the singing of hymns in Milan.15 The person at the centre of these events, of Augustine’s baptism, and of the events which he relates, was Ambrose. It is to this figure and Augustine’s description of him that I now turn. Augustine’s first encounter with Ambrose is described in the same way as his arrival to Carthage,16 with the addition now that Augustine arrives not merely at a city, but also at a person: 12 13

14 15 16

conf. 7.15.21–7.17.23, esp. 7.17.23. The vision at Ostia, conf. 9.10.23. Boulding gives an excellent footnote in her translation concerning the differing dynamics of that vision from Augustine’s earlier one in Milan in Book 7. See Boulding, 228, n. 103. conf. 7.17.23. conf. 9.7.16. conf. 3.1.1. Veni Carthaginem. Cf. 5.13.23, arriving in Milan and meeting Ambrose: Veni Mediolanum ad Ambrosium episcopum.

105

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

And so I came to Milan, to Ambrose the bishop, known as among the best men in the whole world cultured in your learning, o Lord, whose eloquence thus powerfully ministered the fat of your grain and the joy of oil and the sober drunkenness of wine to your people.17 The apposition of Augustine’s arrival in Milan and his arrival to the person of Ambrose is unique in Augustine’s description of travel within the Confessions to this point. Of the five geographical journeys that Augustine reports, only this one possesses an apposition of person. In the other cases (from Maudara, his first school, to Thagaste for a year in waiting before going to Carthage, where the focus is the intention to send him to Carthage;18 from Thagaste to Carthage, where he lands amid a pit of seething lusts and other adolescent activities;19 from Thagaste to Carthage a second time, to escape grief from the death of a friend;20 and finally from Carthage to Rome, where the statement is simply that he escaped from his mother’s clutches and was then found amid another bout of carnal grief parallel to that at Carthage21), the principal concerns are the activities that took place at his new destination. Ambrose thus represents Milan in Augustine’s own mind and memory, and his encounter is for the first time with a person rather than with a set of experiences. Second, Ambrose as a person, even in the brief description above, stands in direct contrast to all the precedents in the text before him. He is the first person whose speech and eloquence ministers sobriety. Ambrose is thus in contrast with the teachers of Augustine’s youth, who ministered inebriating wine to Augustine in the precious vases of the words they taught their pupils.22 He also stands in contrast to the Manichees through whom Augustine makes the connection to come to Milan. Still at this time an adherent of the Manichean sect, although having become disillusioned with its inability to provide the intellectual answers he was seeking, Augustine explains that it is by using his Manichean network that he solicits the post in Milan. His description, however, is pointed. He says that he garnered his support for the advertised post in Milan from those people in Rome, where he was at that time teaching ‘drunk from Manichaen nonsense’.23 Ambrose, however, ministers ‘sober wine’. Augustine takes this phrase from one of Ambrose’s hymns:

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

conf. 5.13.23. conf. 2.3.5. conf. 3.1.1. conf. 4.7.12. conf. 5.8.15. Except that in Rome he suffers physically on account of his carnal activity. conf. 1.16.26. conf. 5.13.23.

106

CONFESSIONS

Christusque nobis sit cibus Potusque nobis sit fides Laeti bibamus sobriam Ebrietatem spiritus. And let Christ be to us food And faith be to us drink May we drink the sober drunkenness Of the joyful Spirit.24

The paradox has its origin within Philonic ideas.25 For Augustine, the paradox finds expression in a single individual. It is through Ambrose’s preaching that the paradox of God’s existence and the sacramental life of the church become incarnate for him. As other commentators have pointed out, the presence of an Ambrosian hymn amid a passage whose other citations are largely scriptural is high praise.26 However, it also demonstrates the importance Augustine attributed to this person – one whose hymns could capture in a four-line motif some of the mysteries and paradoxes that Augustine explores in the Confessions. The opening chapters of the Confessions could arguably be seen as an exploration of such paradoxes, as Augustine unpacks the relationship between speech and the transcendent God whom his confessional speech addresses.27 In his engagement with Ambrose now, Augustine is describing a person whose preaching and life is expressive of the paradox of God incarnate, and through whom Augustine will come to perceive the character of this mystery. The major contrast that Augustine’s description of Ambrose is setting up, however, is with the Manichean bishop Faustus. Augustine describes earlier in Book 5 that he had longed to meet Faustus, whom he had hoped would resolve some of the intellectual difficulties Augustine had encountered with Manicheism.28 He describes Faustus in precisely the same terms as he has all encounters with moral or doctrinal material to this point, describing his words as vessels on which 24

25

26

27

28

Ambrose, hymn. 1.7.23–6. Cited in O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 2, 322–3. My translation. For the Philonic context, see Y. Lewy, Sobria Ebrietas. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der antiken Mystik (Giessen: A. Töpelmann, 1929), esp. 146–57 and 157–64 for Ambrose and Augustine respectively. See O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 2, 323 for the reference to ‘several writers’ who make this observation. O’Donnell does not tell us who these are. See conf. 1.2.2–1.4.4. For this, see also E. Caldwell, ‘The Loquaces Muti and the Verbum Infans: Paradox and Language in the Confessiones of St. Augustine’, in Augustine: ‘Second Founder of the Faith’, ed. J. C. Schnaubelt and F. Van Fleteren (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 101–11, esp. 101–3. conf. 5.3.3.

107

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Faustus’s teaching is served.29 Describing their first encounter, Augustine observes that Faustus is sweetly garrulous, putting words together in an easy fashion and demonstrating a praiseworthy and captivating capacity with form in his speech.30 He is, however, without substance, and Augustine finds himself frustrated in his attempts to gain an audience with him, and to experience the natural to and fro of intellectual inquiry.31 When he does so, he discovers not only that Faustus cannot answer any of his intellectual questions regarding Manicheism, but that he is educationally lacking. Augustine makes the rather snobbish aside: I experienced [in Faustus] a man experienced of none of the liberal arts except grammar and that to its usual level of use. And because he had read several orations of Cicero, the smallest amount of Seneca, a few of the poets and if any of the books of his own sect, those suitably put together in Latin; and because he preached daily, he acquired some eloquence.32 The scene between them ends humorously, with Augustine teaching Faustus all those parts of a basic liberal arts education in which Faustus was deficient, and the analogy is made very explicitly to Augustine’s education of adolescents in his town.33 As they sit together reading the books which Augustine would provide for his adolescent students, the roles of expected teacher, Faustus, and enthusiastic student, Augustine, have been reversed. Augustine is disappointed and disheartened by the best that the Manichees had to offer; patronizes Faustus’s ability while still enjoying his company; and resolves to wait until a more persuasive intellectual alternative presents itself.34 The comparison with Ambrose could not be stronger and more pertinent. Ambrose is, in the first instance, a man reputed (notus) throughout the world.35 Faustus, too, was a man of high reputation; however, Augustine describes him

29 30

31 32 33 34

35

conf. 5.3.3. conf. 5.6.10 – Expertus sum hominem . . . multo suavius garrientem. Cf. 5.3.3 – Multi implicabantur in eo per inlecebram suaviloquentiae. Cf. Caldwell, 105. Caldwell does not pick up, however, the contrast between Faustus and Ambrose that I point out here. Her focus on language as form also does not allow her to emphasize the significance of social encounter, or more explicitly of language as sociality, which my own work is doing. conf. 5.6.11. conf. 5.6.11. conf. 5.7.13. conf. 5.7.13. See Augustine’s pointedly patronizing remark concerning Faustus: Coepi cum eo pro studio eius agere vitam, quo ipse flagrabat in eas litteras, quas tunc iam rhetor Carthaginis adulescentes docebam, et legere cum eo sive quae illa audita desideraret sive quae ipse tali ingenio apta existimarem. The last comment is telling: ‘I began to read with him the books he wishes, or those which I considered were apt to his ability.’ conf. 5.13.23. In optimis notus orbis terrae.

108

CONFESSIONS

as having only appeared to be of high repute (nominatus apparere).36 Second, while Faustus is in the first instance unavailable to Augustine, Ambrose’s paternal benevolence is the first thing that Augustine notes of him.37 Furthermore, while Augustine experiences in Faustus a man garrulous in his offering of self-knowledge, but difficult to access in order to inquire of properly, Ambrose is presented as a man of reserve with demands on his time, who nonetheless makes himself available to answer questions to those who seek him.38 Ambrose is thus depicted as kind, dignified and reserved, while Faustus is presented as easily self-offering but ultimately lacking substance. Ambrose’s humility and accessibility are also paradigms of scripture, which is open to those who seek it and which is humble in its outward bearing. Augustine describes how no one was forbidden to come to Ambrose, and nor did anyone need to be announced.39 He is thus a paradigm of scripture, displaying a lack of pretension and containing the key to mysteries in humble outward garments. Whereas, finally, the garrulous Faustus is tamed by Augustine and becomes his student, Augustine remains at Ambrose’s feet and continues to learn from him, becoming convinced that it might be possible to unravel the difficulties he has with the Catholic faith.40 At this level, Ambrose also represents an embodied paradigm of the characteristics of scripture, whose mysteries remain hidden and at whose feet the reader or auditor must place themselves.41 The parallel between Ambrose and scripture does not stop here. Earlier in his text, when describing his first engagement with scripture, Augustine says: I determined to set my mind towards the holy scriptures and to see what sort of books they were. And behold, I see them now as something not open to the proud and not uncovered by children, but as humble as one approaches it, exalted as one progresses in it and veiled in mystery. I was not such, then, that I could enter into it or bow my neck to its course. Not indeed in such a way as I speak now, did I then sense them, when I attended to scripture then, but it seemed to me uncouth (indigna), when compared to the dignity of Cicero.42 Augustine analyses his vision of the scriptures as informed by the pride that dominated this period of his life. He describes this pride as a growth, which 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

conf. 5.7.13. conf. 5.13.23. conf. 6.3.3. conf. 6.3.3. conf. 6.3.4.–6.4.5. See Augustine’s description of his first encounter with scripture at conf. 3.5.9. conf. 3.5.9.

109

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

made him flee from scripture’s manner of speaking, and which prevented his eye from penetrating its mysteries.43 When, later in the Confessions, Augustine describes Ambrose, Ambrose functions as the inverse of Cicero. As Augustine says, Cicero’s eloquence was admired, but not the breast (pectus) from which it came.44 Ambrose is a man whose eloquence is adequate, but whose breast (pectus) is virtuous. It is, as Augustine describes it, God’s holy oracle from which the answers concerning scripture emerge.45 Thus Ambrose also represents the resolution of the search after wisdom that Augustine commences on the basis of reading the Hortensius. In social comportment Ambrose is virtuous in a way that Cicero lacked, and yet he provides access to the wisdom to which Cicero’s Hortensius inspired Augustine. Ambrose also represents a resolution to the problem Augustine encountered immediately after the Hortensius inasmuch as he uses the name of God coupled with intellectually coherent doctrinal content. Whereas the Manichees used the name of Christ and for that reason became Augustine’s default position after his disappointment with scripture, Ambrose uses the name of Christ and also provides the possibility of understanding the mysteries of the scriptures. Ambrose is the social doorway to an intellectual mystery that Augustine had been unable to grasp. Where Cicero and the Hortensius represented the first triumph of content over embodied form in Augustine’s educational career, Ambrose is the perfect synthesis of these two, and his life and general comportment form a beacon for Augustine’s search for God. It is, however, with Ambrose’s preaching that the impact of the resolution between form and content that Augustine is searching for begins to be felt. Augustine describes the impact of his listening to Ambrose, an impact which comes about in the first instance through Augustine’s examination of the form of Ambrose’s preaching: And avidly I would listen to him conducting disputes before the people, but my intention was not the right one: I was assessing his eloquence to see whether it matched his reputation. I wished to ascertain whether the readiness of speech with which rumour credited him was really there, or something more, or less. I hung keenly upon his words, but cared little for their content, and indeed despised it, as I stood delighting in the sweetness of his discourse. Though more learned than Faustus it was less light-hearted and beguiling; but such criticisms concerns the style only, for with regard to the content there was no comparison. While Faustus would wander off into Manichean artifice, this man was teaching about salvation in a thoroughly 43 44 45

conf. 3.5.9. conf. 3.4.7. conf. 6.3.4.

110

CONFESSIONS

salutary way, . . . little by little, without knowing it, I was drawing near . . . I was taking no trouble to learn from what Ambrose was saying, but interested only in listening to how he said it – for that futile concern had remained with me, as one desperate, whether there was any way (via) to you, o God, open to humankind. Nonetheless as his words, which I enjoyed, penetrated my mind, the substance, which I overlooked, seeped in with them, for I was unable to separate them.46 Form and content are for the first time reconciled in Ambrose, the public speaker. Through hearing Ambrose’s words, Augustine comes gradually to hear and listen to God’s reality. The citation above comes before Augustine’s later description of Ambrose, in which he expresses increasing confidence in his own capacity to embrace the Catholic faith. Augustine’s reference to his seeking a ‘way’ (via) to God is significant also, inasmuch as it answers the very problem which Augustine suggests that the Manichees and others like them, including scientists and natural philosophers, possessed. Earlier in Book 5, when preparing to describe his first encounter with Faustus, Augustine remarks: [Philosophers] seek these things with their mind, which you gave to them, and they have found many things and foretold many years before, eclipses of the sun and moon, which day, which hour, how much eclipse there would be, and their calculations have not mistaken them . . . [But] when discovering, that you made them, they do not give themselves to you, so that you may preserve what you have made, and what they have made themselves they do not destroy on your account, and they do not slay their own exaltations as if birds and their curiosities as if fish of the sea, with which they walk the secret footpaths of the deep . . . They do not know the way (via), your word, through which you made those things which they number and themselves who number them, and the sense, by which they discern what they number, and the mind, from which they number; and of your wisdom [o God], there is no number.47 Augustine here echoes the opening words of the Confessions, ‘great are you, Lord, and worthy of praise, and of your wisdom there is no number’,48 while registering that the Manichees and natural philosophers and scientists fail to recognize God’s role in the universe’s workings, which they study. In his comment concerning his state of mind before Ambrose – namely, that he did not believe 46 47 48

conf. 5.13.23–5.14.24. Translation taken largely from Boulding, with amendments. conf. 5.3.5. Translation largely that of Boulding. conf. 1.1.1.

111

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

that God had left a way (via) open to humanity – Augustine is describing himself as still in this state of mind. However, the way in which Ambrose’s preaching has begun to open up such a via confirms that, for Augustine, it is through the mediation of external speech such as Ambrose’s preaching that the reality of such a via becomes present. The spoken word, that is, has begun to triumph over knowledge in Augustine’s own mind and in his experience. I have thus now expounded Augustine’s treatment of the relationship between the Manichees and Ambrose. Ambrose represents for Augustine the resolution to several problems of his early life. He is, firstly, the resolution of the relationship between form and content that Augustine has encountered from the beginning of his educational and cultural experience. He is, furthermore, a person in whom the virtues that Augustine seeks are embodied. He is esteemed by the greatest powers in the world,49 and Augustine comments that the only thing that seemed difficult about Ambrose’s way of life was his celibacy, which was perceived by Augustine as a burden.50 While a personal model, therefore – his esteem reflects something of Augustine’s own desire for esteem that he describes in Book 1 of the Confessions51 – Augustine is as yet unable to imitate him fully. The resolution to this conflict comes only through an ongoing engagement with Neoplatonism and then scripture as described in Books 7 and 8, the Neoplatonic aspect of which I have touched on briefly above. I would like finally to examine Augustine’s movement to celibacy and his conversion to Christianity in Book 8, as it is here that the relationship between speech and social embodiment becomes clear.

2. Speech and conversion: the last stage of movement to conversion Augustine’s experience of conversion in Book 8 is prompted largely by a set of auditory and social encounters that create within Augustine the desire and the motivation to accept the celibacy he had found so difficult in Ambrose. Augustine’s progression to the end of Book 7 of the Confessions, at which point he encounters the Neoplatonic books,52 is one dominated by his social contact and his movement within the social circles of Milan. His very arrival at Milan, as pointed out above, happened on account of his Manichean contacts; while his disillusionment with Manicheism came from social and personal contact with 49 50 51 52

conf. 6.3.3. conf. 6.3.3. conf. 1.17.27. conf. 7.10.16–7.17.23. See Chapter 5.1 above.

112

CONFESSIONS

Faustus, the Manichean bishop. Augustine’s personal encounter with Ambrose turned out to be pivotal, and cleared the ground for him seriously to reflect on the Christian faith as a liveable alternative. Even Augustine’s pivotal encounter with the Platonic books happens on account of his being passed the books by someone else.53 Social circles are thus the means by which God operates on Augustine’s soul and moves him to a point where he accepts the Christian vocation for which he has searched throughout the text.54 In the final and climactic movement towards conversion in Book 8, there is a similar profusion of social interaction which prompts Augustine to the garden scene at which his search climaxes and finally resolves. I would like here to examine the dynamics of this climax: to demonstrate the significance of sociality and the human voice within Augustine’s final movement to conversion, and thus the resolution of the narrative section of the Confessions.55 The collection of voices which pre-empt Augustine’s conversion function both as a form of pressure, provoking the internal conflict that the scene in the garden will resolve,56 and as narratival exemplars, representing the desires Augustine himself wishes to fulfil. They are social embodiments of an uptake of Christian faith, and occur in the following order. There is first the story of Victorinus, the Roman orator whose story Simplicianus relates to Augustine.57 There is then the story of the Egyptian monk Anthony, related to Augustine by Ponticianus.58 This narrative contains within it another related narrative, of the conversion of two court officials who were Ponticianus’s colleagues.59 Immediately following Augustine’s hearing of Ponticianus comes the narration of an extended struggle of the will, which leads to the climactic garden scene conversion. I will

53

54

55

56 57 58 59

conf. 7.9.13. Augustine does not name this person, and describes him simply as a ‘certain man grossly swollen with pride’ through whom God gives Augustine the Platonic books. In this I disagree with O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 2, 217–18, who suggests that only the people named in Augustine’s narrative, with the exception of Patricius, were agents of his conversion. There is no question that the passing to him of the Platonic books was instrumental in his capacity to engage the Christian faith intellectually. It is only immediately after his encounter with them that Augustine again turns to Paul and reads him, the first time he has read scripture since a disappointed youth at 3.5.9. Lewis Ayres makes a similar set of observations concerning the narrative surrounding the conversion scene in Book 8. See Ayres, Chapter 1 of Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). Professor Ayres was kind enough to share his manuscript with me during this book’s completion. Ayres emphasizes the idea of exemplum with regard to the procedure I analyse below, while my own focus is that of sociality and the social circumstances that condition Augustine’s conversion. Our readings of this text were arrived at independently and without prior conversation on the issue. conf. 8.12.29. conf. 8.2.3. conf. 8.6.14. conf. 8.6.15.

113

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

examine Augustine’s engagement with the two stories first, and then relate their significance to the conversion in the garden.60 Augustine goes to Simplicianus on account of his good reputation,61 and because of the relationship Simplicianus had to Ambrose before the latter’s conversion. Simplicianus, Augustine relates, had loved Ambrose as a father.62 Augustine seeks someone who, like Ambrose, will be a father figure to him, and he has already noted Ambrose’s paternal kindness to him on their first encounter.63 It is thus a seeking of a model of a model: Augustine goes in search of the father of the father who had welcomed him on his own journey.64 He also seeks him out because he cannot access Ambrose in the public spaces where he is available; consequently, the difficulties he seeks to resolve remain unanswered.65 From Simplicianus, Augustine hears the story of the Roman orator Victorinus who, like Augustine, had developed a sympathy for the Christian faith but had been unable to accept it through public confession and baptism. Victorinus asked Simplicianus rhetorically, ‘Do walls make Christians [what they are]?’66 The story concludes as Victorinus recognizes the connection between his public confession of faith and his actual faith. He recalls Christ’s words concerning the denial of Christ’s name before men, which would merit Christ’s eschatological denial of Victorinus before the angels of God.67 Victorinus then makes a public confession of faith before all the people in the church: an act that he specifically requests.68 The story functions to highlight to Augustine the necessity of baptism, and of public ownership of Christian identity. It also highlights the issue of Christian

60

61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68

That the two stories are ‘frame’ stories for the conversion scene is a commonplace of Augustinian scholarship. See, for example, Caldwell, 106, who mentions them in this way. The significance of external voice as intercession, combined with the social reality from which such voices emerge – both of which themes my work here emphasizes – has not been explicitly picked up by any of the literature I have encountered. conf. 8.1.1. conf. 8.2.3. conf. 5.13.23. conf. 5.13.23. Suscepit me paterne ille homo dei et peregrinationem mean satis episcopaliter dilexit. Et eum amare coepi, primo quidem non tamquam doctorem veri, quod in ecclesia tua prorsus desperabam, sed tamquam hominem benignum in me. G. N. Knauer, ‘Peregrinatio Animae. Zur Frage der Einheit der augustinischen Konfessionen’, Hermes 85 (1957), 226, notes that Ambrose’s welcoming of Augustine was a welcoming of not only his outer journey but also his inner one. This post-reflective comment by Augustine, with its paternal overtones concerning Ambrose’s welcome of Augustine, would put Ambrose in the paternal role of a prodigal son story, reinforcing the modelling for which I am arguing above. Augustine seeks God through his social contexts and encounters, and frames these in biblical and, indeed, Trinitarian ways. Cf. conf. 6.3.3–6.4.4. conf. 8.2.4. conf. 8.2.4. Mt. 10.32-33; Mk 8.38; Lk. 12.8-9. conf. 8.2.5.

114

CONFESSIONS

identity on a parallel with that of Ambrose. Augustine asks, before the beginning of the narrative of Victorinus: ‘In what way, o Lord, did you work yourself into [Victorinus’s] breast (pectus)?’69 The parallel to Ambrose, whose breast was an oracle of the Christian faith, is contained with the reference to Victorinus’s breast. Both men, Ambrose and Victorinus, are converts and take up public vocations that are the outworking of their inner transformation. The issue of conversion, for Augustine, is thus centred on the ability publicly to embody a form of life after an inner transformation.70 The second story that Augustine hears in Book 8 concerns two conversions interposed on one another. The first is that of the Egyptian monk Anthony, who renounces his worldly possessions on hearing a gospel passage;71 the second is the story of two court officials who encounter the story of Anthony’s conversion and are inspired to follow his example.72 The stories are related to Augustine by Ponticianus, a Roman official known to both Augustine and Alypius, by this stage Augustine’s permanent companion.73 On an unannounced visit to their house, Ponticianus spies the Pauline codex which Augustine had been reading. He praises Augustine for his virtue in reading such a book, and goes on to relate the story of the monk, Anthony, who had founded monasticism in Egypt in the previous century. He then tells the story of two court officials, who spy a codex of the life of Anthony in a house they stumble across in a garden and who, on reading it, convert one after the other, determining to renounce their worldly professions and to undertake monastic professions.74 The principal issue at stake is the undertaking of a celibate vocation, as is evidenced by the fact that the fiancées of the two officials also go on to dedicate their virginity to God, on hearing the officials’ decision.75 69 70

71

72

73

74

75

conf. 8.2.4. Cf. Augustine’s remarks at 8.4.9 concerning the idea of conversion stories as publicly powerful. conf. 8.6.14. Ponticianus clearly tells Augustine of the story here at 8.6.14; however, Augustine himself does not mention its salient details until 8.12.29, his own conversion scene. The story would have been known in the ancient world from the vita Antonii attributed to Athanasius. See O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 38. conf. 8.6.15. One of the officials describes their aspirations as to become ‘friends of the Emperor’ (amici imperatoris). For the broader context of such a remark, see F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World: 31 BC–AD 337 (London: Duckworth, 1977), 110–22 and P. Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1950), 182, n. 2. conf. 8.6.14–15. Alypius’s companion has been a constant part of the narrative since 6.7.11 and is the other person aside from Monica whose life Augustine anecdotally recounts in any detail in the Confessions. conf. 8.6.15. The expression is, in fact, et ambo iam tui aedificabant turrem sumptu idoneo reliquendi omnia sua et sequendi te. The presumption that the impact of such an abandonment of the secular was monastic rather than anything else can be made only from the surrounding context. conf. 8.6.15.

115

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

This story provides a set of parallels for the conversion which Augustine himself is about to experience. First, the companions are walking together in a garden when they come across the codex. The story of Augustine’s own conversion, which in the narrative follows immediately on Ponticianus’s visit, takes place on Augustine’s entry to a garden with Alypius. It culminates in Augustine’s seizing a codex and reading it, and finding it inspirational. Augustine is closely followed in this by Alypius.76 Both convert to Christianity and resolve to be baptized. O’Donnell notes several other appositions of context and language:77 the two court officials ask themselves, ‘What are we looking for (quaerere) [in our secular ambitions]?’;78 while Augustine’s words of frustration to Alypius on hearing this story and asking why they themselves have not converted are ‘What are we suffering?’ (pati).79 Both Augustine and the court official are described as entering the possibility of their new life using the verb arripere, ‘to seize’.80 Augustine does this as he takes up the codex which will speak to him; and the court official, as he begins to wonder at the possibility of undertaking such a life as Anthony’s. Both Augustine and the court official indicate their intention to their companion, Augustine by natural signs and the court official by words.81 Augustine’s face becomes tranquil after its turbulence in the preceding chapters, which is sufficient to indicate (indicare) to Alypius that Augustine had reached resolution.82 This communication stands in direct parallel to Augustine’s description of his physical appearance on hearing the story of the two court officials: ‘My brow, my cheeks, my eyes, my colour, the mode of my voice more than my words were expressing my mind, more than what I actually put forth.’83 The key difference between the two encounters, however, is the direction of the activity. Augustine describes his problem as one in which he can neither endure nor end his own suffering; the two court officials, conversely, simply realize the limits of their own worldly ambitions, and determine immediately to give them up. The question of the court officials concerns an outward activity and a forward motion – ‘What are we looking for?’ (quaerere); while for Augustine the question is reversed – ‘What are we suffering?’ (pati). His frustration is with his inability to respond as quickly as the protagonists of the stories told to Augustine before his conversion.

76 77 78 79 80

81 82 83

conf. 8.12.29. For a full list, see O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 40–2. conf. 8.6.15. conf. 8.8.19. conf. 8.6.15 Coepit unus eorum . . . inter legendum meditari arripere talem vitam. Cf. conf. 8.12.29. Codicem apostoli . . . arripui, aperui et legi. conf. 8.6.15. Ait amico suo. conf. 8.12.30. conf. 8.8.19.

116

CONFESSIONS

For Augustine, therefore, the telling of the story by Ponticianus simply prompts within him a moment of crisis, as he asks why such examples should be taking place, and why he and Alypius are not themselves following them. It precipitates Augustine’s sudden and unexpected departure into a garden, with Alypius in train. It is here that the famous conversion scene takes place. The key to this scene is Augustine’s struggle with his will. He describes its external manifestation in the terms above, as natural signs begin to take precedence over his vocal ones, which are at best approximate. His external colouration, his brow and the tone of his voice transform to communicate his struggle. In expressing his frustration to Alypius, asking why they themselves had not undertaken the celibate vocation that is the central issue for him, Augustine reports his words as coming from a frustrated mind. His report of the words themselves is not exact: ‘I said I don’t know what things, whatever things they were, and my frustration burst from me by my outburst, while Alypius stood silently listening to me.’84 There is an extended meditation on the character of the will and its hesitations, taking up the next three chapters,85 before Augustine describes his departure on his own to sit under a tree, where he breaks down in tears. It is only on hearing a voice, similar to a child’s voice, that Augustine is called to attention: I was saying these things and I was crying with the most bitter contrition of my heart. And behold, I hear a voice from a neighbouring garden with words in a song, repeating them often like a little girl or boy, I’m not sure which: ‘Take read, take read’.86 Augustine relates that it is on account of the previous story of Anthony, who had responded immediately to scripture that he had heard and who had been able straightaway to undertake his vocation, that Augustine is drawn to a focused attention. On the basis of Anthony’s model, Augustine returns to where he had been seated and picks up the Pauline codex he had been reading. He reads the words of the chapter that caught his eye, in silence: Not in revelling and drunkenness, not in bedrooms and unchastity, not in pride and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its habits.87

84

85 86 87

conf. 8.8.19. Dixi nescio qua talia, et abripuit me illo aestus meus, cum taceret attonitus me intuens. conf. 8.9.19–8.12.28 conf. 8.12.29. conf. 8.12.29.

117

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Augustine describes himself as instantly released from his hesitations, and able to undertake the vocation he sought. ‘With the end of this sentence, from the light of security that threaded into my heart all the shadows of doubt were dispersed.’88 Augustine resolves to undertake the vocation of celibacy which had previously been so problematic, and considers himself able to convert to Christianity. This passage is perhaps the most famous one in the Confessions and needs no further elucidation from me here. What is vital to understand is that it is only the conglomeration of external circumstances that permit Augustine internally to commit to the way of life he had been seeking. The stories which precede Augustine’s recounting of this narrative function as models of Augustine’s own attempt to commit to Christian faith, and the extended discourse on the will before the garden scene is Augustine’s reflection on his incapacity to do so. However, it is only through the hearing of an external voice – an unnamed, infant’s voice – that Augustine is able to put the various pieces of the story together, and to interpret his circumstances in such a way as to understand scripture as addressed to him directly. Whether or not Augustine read the passage he now describes, and whether or not he would have had a similar experience had he read another passage, is impossible to determine on the basis of the narrative itself. Augustine, however, relates earlier in the Confessions the advice of ‘a wise man’ (vir sagax) who makes the connection between the art of astrology and the sortes Vergilianae, where a person would interpret a randomly selected piece of Virgilian poetry as interpretative for his immediate personal circumstances.89 Augustine’s behaviour here is reminiscent of such a habit. The observation of the unnamed man in Book 4 is that the effectiveness of the sortes Vergilianae is more than likely a function of the human mind than of the astrological art he criticizes there .90 On this basis, Augustine was, by the time of the garden scene, enabled and ready to hear scripture in the way it spoke to him. At this level, it is precisely the activity of external sound – a single, unidentified child whose voice sounds like a congruent and coherent note in the midst of Augustine’s confusion – that creates the possibility of a resolution of his conflict.91 The voice, or Augustine’s response to it and interpretation of it, focuses his intentionality in such a way that scripture then becomes part of his story, as does the embodiment which

88 89

90

91

conf. 8.12.19. conf. 4.3.5. It is Boulding in her translation of the Confessions who makes the link to the sortes Vergilianae. Boulding, 95, n. 12. conf. 4.3.5. He says that such practices work ex anima humana, ‘out of the human spirit’ or ‘emergent from the mind’. Cf. O’Daly, ‘Anima/Animus’. O’Donnell has an important comment where he cites the unlikelihood of such a voice as Augustine heard as being one which he himself constructed. The relevant texts which weigh against the idea of a psychological fantasy when considered in purely Augustinian terms are gn. litt. 9.2.3; ep. 80.3; sol. 12.4.4. See O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 62.

118

CONFESSIONS

he had been seeking. This speaking, however, only comes about on the basis of the various external models to which Augustine has previously had an eye and an ear through the narratival encounters he details in Book 8. Circumstance and external speech create and condition the possibility for the garden scene conversion in a way that Augustine chooses both linguistically to detail92 and also narratively, to highlight by the placement of these ‘modelling’ stories which precede the garden scene.93 Some other points about the conversion narrative are worth noting. The first is Augustine’s breakdown. There is a reversal, during the scene, of Augustine’s usually garrulous nature into one that is disabled by his frustration.94 He listens, enraptured, to Ponticianus alongside Alypius.95 Also, he makes no response to Simplicianus’s narrative – the direction of the speech is into Augustine, and Augustine’s own responses, when they do issue forth, become increasingly incoherent.96 His final departure into the garden is at the beginning of what appears to be a nervous breakdown, with the natural signs of his body expressing more than his frustrated and imprecise speech.97 His extensive meditation on the conflict of the will is accompanied by tearful outbursts concerning his own hesitation, and a bewailing of his condition.98 It is only on hearing the child’s voice that he collects himself again, mentally and physically, and on so doing silently reads the page of Paul.99 This detail is reminiscent of Ambrose, whom Augustine has described as being unusual for the fact that he read without moving his lips.100 It is therefore Augustine’s external environment – the garden, his social encounters and finally the voice of an unnamed child – that conditions the possibility of Augustine’s scriptural conversion. His social and local environs create the circumstances of his conversion, and enable him to embrace the ecclesial community of which he sought membership.101 Scripture and sociality, in Augustine’s description, weave into a harmonious and redemptive pattern.

92 93

94

95 96 97 98 99 100 101

See, for examples, the parallels to which O’Donnell points. It is worth also noting that Augustine’s taking up of the codex and reading it in silence is reminiscent of Ambrose’s habit of reading in silence. The conversion thus represents Augustine’s taking on Ambrose’s Christian embodiment and, in particular, his celibacy. See below. J. Soskice brings this out brilliantly in her article ‘Monica’s Tears: Augustine on Words and Speech’, New Blackfriars 83 (2002), 448–58. She does this especially with her parallels to Augustine’s childhood and his becoming, again in the garden, in-fans, without speech. Now, as becomes clear, scripture does the speaking for him. conf. 8.6.15. Pertendebat ille et loquebatur . . . et nos intenti tacebamus. conf. 8.8.19. Dixi nescio qua talia . . . neque enim solita sonabam. conf. 8.8.19. conf. 8.12.28–29. conf. 8.12.29 conf. 6.6.3. conf. 9.5.13. Augustine seeks baptism in the following book of the work. See conf. 9.5.13.

119

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

3. Transformations in speech: the outcome of conversion The final point worth picking up from this section of the narrative is its outcome. Augustine describes, immediately at the beginning of the next book, a change in his speech to God. At the opening of Book 9, he begins with the statement ‘O Lord, I am your servant, I am your servant and the son of your handmaid. You have broken my bonds; to you I offer a sacrifice of praise.’102 This is the first time for the entire nine books that Augustine has opened his confession with a direct address to God concerning himself, where the address is not narratival or a prayer for God’s redemption.103 This pattern repeats through the opening encomium, in which Augustine invokes God conversationally: he asks God to speak to his soul, and say ‘I am your salvation’,104 which echoes his only other use of this psalmic phrase, at the opening of the text.105 There, however, the question that Augustine poses to God is not ‘What am I?’106 but rather, ‘What are you to me?’107 By the time Augustine has reached Book 9, the relationship between him and God has been established in narratival terms so as to permit Augustine unequivocally to render a positive statement of identity before God. This statement anticipates Augustine’s baptism at Confessions 9.7.16 and summarizes the relationship that his conversion in the garden scene in Book 8 effects. The unified ego at the opening of Book 9 stands out particularly powerfully on the heels of the divided ego whose fluctuations of will were the basis of the extended meditation in Book 8.108 It stands distinct also from the Augustine of Book 7, who was able for the first time to hear God addressing him directly, but was unable to respond.109 The descriptions at that point leave both Augustine and the reader expectant of the eschatological and baptismal future, where Augustine will be able to pursue (currere) the scents of God, which he perceives at Book 7, and which find echo at his baptism in Milan in Book 9.110 Rather than Augustine simply identifying God’s address to him, as happened at Book 7,

102 103

104 105 106 107 108

109 110

conf. 9.1.1. Ps. 115.16–17 (7–8). For example, conf. 2.1.1, where he makes such a petition to God: Recordari volo transactas foeditates meas . . . et corruptiones animae meae. The openings to all the other books are either an address to God, concerning God’s greatness – for example, Book 1: Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde; or simply narratival: for example, Book 3: Veni carthaginem . . . conf. 9.1.1. Ps. 34.3. Dic animae meae: Salus tua ego sum. conf. 1.5.5. conf. 9.1.1. Quis ego et qualis ego? conf. 1.5.5. Quid mihi es? conf. 8.5.10–8.6.13 and esp. 8.9.19–8.12.28. See his comment at 8.5.11 for a poignant description of his divided sexual self, which fits into the larger description of his ‘two selves’ in conflict with one another in this text. conf. 7.10.16. conf. 7.10.16, cf. conf. 9.7.16.

120

CONFESSIONS

he has been able to address God as a conversation partner, and ask that God reciprocate. Augustine describes himself here as for the first time in conversation with God, directly: For my mind was free from the deathly cares of seeking and acquiring and of fluctuating and of scratching my mangy desire, and I chattered away (garrire) to you, my light and my riches and my salvation, Lord my God.111 Augustine has, for the first time in the narrative, entered a conversation with God in which he can initiate the speech, being garrulous and carefree as he talks to God.112 In his innocent and almost childlike way he identifies the God to whom he speaks as precisely his own, on the end of a conversational relationship with Augustine.113 This change throws into relief Augustine’s earlier reports of his own garrulousness. Up until this point in the text, any mention of garrulousness or excessive talkativeness has carried with it wholly negative associations. It is the characteristic with which he describes his endless talking to his fellow citizens and Christians in Book 4, with a mouth full of Manichean error, where his speech implicitly alienates him from his community.114 It also describes Faustus’s eloquence, which is without substance in Book 5;115 and in Book 6 it describes Augustine’s own memory of his verbosity in his Manichean days, as he tries to move towards the Catholic faith. His recollection of this verbosity is tortured.116

111 112

113

114

115 116

conf. 9.1.1. Cf. also Herzog, 235–85. Herzog does not identify the contours of the conversation as I have done above. Augustine’s narrative voice at this point thus coincides with his confessional voice, which opened the text by praising and asking God about God’s identity, also echoing the baptismal language and setting of this ninth book. In Book 1, Augustine’s use of the phrase ‘Say to my soul, “I am your salvation”’ (dic animae meae: salus tuae ego sum) is followed by the statement: ‘Let me run after [your] voice and let me seize you’ (curram post vocem hanc et apprehendam te). This latter is a baptismal phrase. It is echoed in Book 9 as he weeps on hearing Ambrose’s hymns after baptism and recalls the political events of 385 in which he did not run after God, as Ambrose has the Song of Songs describing the neophyte as doing. See conf. 9.7.16, non currebamus post te, and O’Donnell Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 114; cf. Ambrose, myst. 6.29. Augustine continues in Book 1, conf. 1.5.5.: ‘Do not hide your face from me: let me die, lest I die, so that I may see it’ (moriar, ne moriar, ut eam videam). Again, the baptismal overtones of death and resurrection to eternal life resound here. O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 72, himself points out that Book 9 is thematically the book of death and rebirth. The opening of Book 9 and Augustine’s invocation at the beginning of the Confessions thus pair with one another. conf. 4.15.26. Dicebam parvulis fidelibus tuis, civibus meis, a quibus nesciens exulabam, dicebam illis garrulus et ineptus: ‘cur ergo errat anima, quam fecit deus?’ conf. 5.6.10. Expertus sum hominem . . . multo suavius garrientem. conf. 6.4.5. Tanto igitur acrior cura rodebat anima mea, quid certi retinerem, quanto me magis pudebat . . . tam multa incerta quasi certa garrisse.

121

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

In Book 7, it describes his presumptuousness on reading the Neoplatonists, where he says that he prattled to others about Christ as if he knew something about Christ’s identity,117 and yet lacked the tears of confession which would lead him to understand that Christ himself was the person of truth (persona veritatis).118 The apposition of the text is quite deliberate: Augustine has previously described how he and Alypius stood on either side of a christological controversy, sharing mistaken views about Christ’s identity. Augustine describes how he conceived of Christ as a man with a certain great excellence of human nature, to be preferred to other men simply because of his greater participation in wisdom, later identifying this view as Photinian;119 Alypius, on the other hand, believed that the Catholic church conceived of Christ in Apollinarian terms, as God alone who did not take human flesh.120 Augustine’s mistake was precisely his objectification of the person of Christ: he presents him in an accusative-infinitive construction (ipsum hominem . . . arbitrari) – and has as yet not made the journey through the tears of confession that will enable him to address Christ directly.121 It is only at Book 9.1.1 that Christ is addressed in the vocative (Christe Iesu), and this for the only time in the whole Confessions.122 From here, Augustine describes himself as chattering away to God,123 and the only other reference to garrulousness in the text henceforth has a wholly positive implication. It describes those who, searching through scripture, plumb its depths and bring out its hidden fruit, chatter like joyful birds who have flown the nest and are plucking from the fruitful boughs of God’s words.124 Between Books 8 and 9, therefore, loquacity has taken on a thoroughly positive and theologically endorsed meaning.125 117 118 119 120 121

122

123 124

125

conf. 7.20.26. Garriebam plane quasi peritus. conf. 7.20.26. conf. 7.19.25. conf. 7.19.25. conf. 7.19.25. Quia itaque vera scripta sunt totum hominem in Christo agnoscebam, non corpus tantum hominis aut cum corpore sine mente animum, sed ipsum hominem, non persona veritatis, sed magna quadam naturae humanae excellentia et perfectiore participatione sapientiae praeferri ceteris arbitrabar. See O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 74. See also the translation by J. Gibb and W. Montgomery (Cambridge, 2nd edn., 1927; repr. New York, 1979), who make this point explicitly, which O’Donnell quotes without reference. A search of the Brepols database bears the point out; however, that database is deficient for placing the vocative phrase in the genitive, hence christi iesu. There is no manuscript support for this according to the CCL edition of Skutella. George Lawless confirmed these researches of mine and this notable feature of Augustine’s address in Book 9, in a conversation with him at the Augustinianum in Rome, May 2006. conf. 9.1.1. conf. 12.28.38. Vident in eis latentes fructus et volitant laetantes et garriunt scrutantes et carpunt eos. It is worth recalling here the pithy remark of E. R. Dodds, concerning Augustine’s generally chattering style in the Confessions. He observes, comparing Augustine to his Neoplatonic

122

CONFESSIONS

One would do well to ask why and how such a transition occurs. Between Books 8 and 9, Augustine has described how his own narrative and the text of scripture coincide. External markers form and create this possibility for Augustine, and it is through scripture’s intercession that the connection between Augustine’s own situation and the words of scripture become apparent. Augustine hears the prompting of external circumstance in such a way as to weave the words of scripture into his own narrative. This conversion brings Augustine knowingly into a conversation with God, which he expresses narratively and in such a way that the outset of the work (Augustine’s opening speech to God and interrogation of theological methodology) finds reflection in Augustine’s speech concerning himself at the opening of Book 9.126 For the first time in the Confessions, the confessing Augustine and the narrated Augustine coincide in a single, unified voice. Furthermore, Augustine’s description of himself at the outset of Book 9 is that he was garrulous, not to his social contemporaries – those to whom he had previously been loquacious and about which fact he felt shame – but instead to God. Christ is addressed, directly and in the vocative, and the incarnation is seen not as an objective event able to be rendered according to one theory or another, but rather as that which guarantees and controls the possibility of confessional speech. This is not to say that Augustine is failing here to make a Trinitarian distinction concerning the operation of the divine economy, which he will reflect on in a later work such as the De trinitate. It is rather to highlight that Augustine’s construction of identity between Books 8 and 9 changes so that he explicitly enters into a conversation with God, making the distinction between God as the end of his address and Christ as the means through which the address is made. When reflecting upon his transition Augustine makes the following telling statement: And this was the whole of it: not to want, what I was wanting, and to want instead, what you [o God], were wanting. But where and how did this happen at such an age, and from what depth and what hidden depth was it evoked in my heart in that moment of the liberation of my will, such that

126

intellectual heritage, that ‘Plotinus never gossiped with the One, as Augustine gossips in the Confessions’, ‘Augustine’s Confessions: A Study of Spiritual Maladjustment’, The Hibbert Journal 26 (1928), 459. Dodds’s remark applies to the whole of the Confessions; my comments above observe the point in the narrative where loquacity for the first time receives this theological endorsement. This loquacity, at the very least, distinguishes Augustine from the average Neoplatonist and resists any temptation to over-emphasize Augustine’s heritage from this tradition. See n. 113 above.

123

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

I should bow my neck to your light yoke and my shoulder to your light burden, Christ Jesus, my advocate and my redeemer?127 Augustine does not provide an answer to this question, and instead simply describes his experience of salvation – ‘suddenly how sweet to me it became to be free from the sweetnesses of trifles, and at the same time to fear, that such joys would be taken away’.128 He describes how he enters the certain joy of God, and in so doing is able finally to make the first person address. Christ, however, whom he addresses and whom the scriptural verse he has read in the previous book instructs him to ‘put on’ (induere), remains elusive, and there is no sense in which Augustine has tracked down and located an object which he can name as Christ.129 His only possibility, witnessed in his form of speech, is to address God, and in so doing to address God confessionally and with the scriptural conversation that he now willingly and knowingly invokes.130 This provides two important insights. First, it demonstrates that, through the procedures and encounters that lead him to this point in Book 9, Augustine is looking for a means of speaking to God. This means is achieved firstly as he understands God speaking to him, through his encounter with the Neoplatonist literature in Book 7. It is further achieved as Augustine makes the identification between his own narrative and scripture as addressed to him, in the conversion scene in Book 8. It is achieved finally as Augustine takes on a properly confessional voice at the opening of Book 9, with the declaration of his own identity before God and God’s identity to him. The narrative and Augustine’s confessing voice move to an increasing harmonic of certainty, such that at the opening of Book 9 Augustine can boldly say ‘I’ (ego) before God. The second insight that Augustine’s movement into Book 9 provides is that it demonstrates that it is a transition from Augustine’s objectification of Christ, as he describes himself as doing at Book 7 after reading the Neoplatonists, to his identification of Christ as himself God and the means and way to salvation. 127 128 129

130

conf. 9.1.1. conf. 9.1.1. Some secondary literature suggests that it means baptism; this is not obvious from the context, however. See O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 69 on ‘induite’ and ‘statim quippe . . . diffugerunt’. Cf. esp. P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) 349, n. 43. Brown equates the use of the phrase in connection to Ambrose whom he considers uses it referring to baptism, for which O’Donnell finds no support in his references. That the intention may have been eventually to seek baptism only becomes clear in the next chapter when he announces his decision to Monica, at which point it is still simply a resolve. See also O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 71, on ‘ut nec uxorem’. My argument here echoes O’Donnell’s closing comment on ‘induite’ at 8.12.29. O’Donnell, Augustine. Confessions, vol. 3, 69.

124

CONFESSIONS

Between Books 7 and 8 Augustine has moved from seeing Christ as an object – a man among other men – to seeing him as the very means by which his salvation is achieved. It is for this reason that he can address Christ, in the vocative, for the only time in the narrative. This bears further upon Augustine’s approach to scripture and his christology. Whereas in Book 3, in his first engagement with scripture, Augustine describes himself as not such a person that he could enter into it or bow his head to its yoke,131 in Book 9 it is now Christ to whom he has bowed his head and whose yoke he has put on, and whom he addresses. That is to say, as much as scripture admonishes and addresses Augustine,132 it does so only as a means for establishing a relationship of first order and conversational address to God. The world of external speech, ultimately, functions like Christ simply as a via through which the salvific path may be entered.

Conclusion In this chapter concerning the Confessions I have argued that speech and external circumstance provide a key means through which Augustine’s outcome of conversion in Book 8 of the work is finally reached. Through social circumstances, the speech that occurs in it, as well as through scripturally mediated speech, Augustine is led to a point at which he is able to identify and to accept the salvation he has striven for. From this, he develops a form of speech in which he is in direct conversation with God. In this, he claims his identity as a Christian both in the narrative and in the actual speech-act of confession. The narrative and the voice of the narrator thus work on each other to create a unified identity, which is inherently Christian and, as such, confessional. What I have said above lays the foundation for a revisiting of the De trinitate. In particular, it sets the scene for a centralizing of De trinitate 15.11.20, and its analogy between human speech and the incarnation of the Word of God to which I drew attention in my first chapter. The Confessions contains a narrative of past events, presented as such; however, it is also a very precise and deliberate act of speech whose methodology draws attention to reflection upon its own meaning.

131

132

conf. 3.5.9: non eram ego talis, ut intrare in eam possem aut inclinare cervicem ad eius gressus. Compare conf. 9.1.1: et hoc erat totum nolle, quod volebam, et velle, quod volebas. Sed ubi erat tam annoso tempore et de quo imo altoque secreto evocatum est in momento liberum arbitrium meum, quod subderem cervicem leni iugo tuo et umeros levi sarcinae tuae, Christe Iesu, adiutor meus et redemptor meus? Again, Augustine is here addressing God in the vocative, Christe Iesu. It is Christ, not scripture, to whom he has lowered his neck. conf. 8.12.30. Augustine uses the word admonitio when describing what happened to Alypius in Book 8 and his own decision to follow Augustine: sed tali admonitione firmatus . . . sine ulla turbulenta cunctatione coniunctus est.

125

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Augustine’s opening encomium to God, which I have not explored here, is one such moment in the text.133 There, Augustine reflects on the very possibility of address to God. The narrative unfolds to a point where Augustine describes a transformation of identity that is simultaneously reflected in a change of voice. Augustine is capable in Book 9 of engaging God directly in conversation, as well as understanding his own speech, past and present, as inherently in dialogical relationship to God. My task, as I turn back to the De trinitate, will be to demonstrate the way in which this pattern unfolds itself in that text, illuminating the possibility of a constructive account of the image of God: not one that is governed by an account purely of methodological discovery of the divine, but one which, in the very process of speaking, effects that same discovery.

133

conf. 1.1.1–1.6.6.

126

6 DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

Introduction The work has now come to its final conclusion, which as I argued at the outset was to be a re-reading of the De trinitate and Augustine’s theology of language on the basis of the principles uncovered from a reading of the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. As I proceed now into this re-reading, I would like to establish those principles and outline briefly how they have emerged. I will do this by a brief summary of the preceding chapters and their significance.

Summary of procedure of work De trinitate – the question The work began with an examination of Augustine’s De trinitate. On the basis of the failure of the image in Book 15, I argued that the positive force of the analogy between human speech and the incarnation was sufficient to warrant an investigation of Augustine’s linguistic epistemology in the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions, among whose principal concerns were the phenomena of language and human speech as that which composes it. By exploring the linguistic epistemology I would, I proposed, be able to unpack the soteriological analogy contained at De trinitate 15.11.20, which remained, at the end of De trinitate 15, the strongest analogy besides Augustine’s more measured acceptance of the other analogies between the human mind and God.

De doctrina christiana I divided my examination of De doctrina christiana into three parts, exploring the Preface and Book 1; Books 2–3; and Book 4 respectively. From each of these I gleaned different features of Augustine’s concern with the incarnation and its meaning. From Book 1, I centralized Augustine’s concern with the socially 127

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

mediated character of human language and the possibility of conversation with God. Human community and the linguistically mediated social relations that compose it were found to be the central means by which God communicates to humanity. An analysis of the procedure of Book 1 found Augustine repeating the analogy of De trinitate 15.11.20, between the Word incarnate and the spoken human word, but then moving the force of the spoken word into a context which placed human conduct as a central measure and medium of speech between God and humanity. The axes and dimensions of such social conduct were then uncovered to be principally eschatological: words and speech are simply the means of directing the human mind to the ultimate eschatological end of human embodiment, to which all speech and all social conduct, for Augustine, is ordered. Augustine’s example of the unlettered monks as the paradigm teachers of the meaning of the scriptures centralized social embodiment as the chief means through which God communicates to humanity. Through socially embodied circumstance and social example we come closer to the eschatological end of human beatitude to which all scripture and its proper interpretation is directed. My reading of Books 2 and 3 dealt with the extent to which Augustine’s treatment of the question of biblical signs was governed ultimately by the task of ‘self-reading’. Placing the question of theological anthropology thus at the centre, it unpacked the various dimensions of Augustine’s account of self-reading. These included the means by which Augustine understands signs to mediate eschatological embodiment, reshaping and reconfiguring an account of identity in such a way as to create an external transformation at the behest of a prior inward one. The level of symbol and the dialogue conducted in it in this way mediated not simply between God and humanity, but also between humanity and humanity’s eschatological future with God. The question of how humanity progresses to this eschatological future with God was uncovered through an examination of two key components of Augustine’s account of human identity; namely, the relationship between cupiditas and caritas. While it was discovered also that, for Augustine, the possibility of inferring and understanding these two components of human identity depended in the first instance upon engagement with scripture, an external object, the possibility of actually engaging the dialogue between cupiditas and caritas was found to take place more principally in the act of speech, or address. While, that is, the mind should interpret scripture according to the Augustinian norms given in De doctrina christiana, Augustine prioritized the concept of address as the means through which one is transformed towards the eschatological future. Augustine displayed the prioritization of the verbal and the spoken over the simply written and read through his own conviction of his reader as possessing cupiditas, in an analogy that drew specifically upon the idea of embodiment in public space. For Augustine, the primary criterion for 128

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

engaging in a dialogue with God was the outwardly addressed word of physical speech, which then enabled the inner dialogue to be transacted. From this point, Book 3 was found to lead naturally into Book 4, and the character of the publicly addressed scriptural word, in preaching. In my examination of Book 4 I looked at two features of Augustine’s account of preaching. The first was the relationship between the content and form of Christian speech. Augustine’s characterization of the scriptures as themselves possessing a form of embodiment – they were humble and eloquent – revealed Augustine’s dynamic account of language, such that not only did words possess embodiment, but also were themselves the place where human embodiment is transacted. Augustine’s account of scriptural speech contains an implicit description of the human person also seeking God by means of the language used by scripture and preaching. God is thus mediated through language and, specifically, through engagement with the language of scripture. I then examined Augustine’s account of language acquisition, which focused on language acquisition as taking place within speaking communities. Augustine’s description of the scriptures revealed that he visualized these in spoken terms; for him the key frame of reference was not reading and understanding, but hearing and speech. Augustine’s account of words thus placed a priority on the physically articulated speech taking place in the communities which gave language form. He visualized language, and specifically the language of scripture, in these communally embodied terms. Moving to an examination of his actual account of preaching and the community it creates and addresses, I observed that despite Augustine’s emphasis on the connection between the verbally and communally embodied, there still exists for him a distance between the words a preacher uses and the identity of the preacher himself. Words to this extent exist in their own embodiment of authority, one that is capable of standing apart from the intentions or moral life of any given speaker. This insight opened up the thesis established in my reading of the De trinitate, articulating a separation between language, thought and God. For the Augustine of Book 4 of the De doctrina christiana, words and their impact are given licence not by any account of human identity, but rather by God, who as truth stands as the objective moderator, arbiter and inspirer of human action through human speech. The distance which Augustine described between human beings, their words and the truth to which they aspire through language was bridged by prayer. For Augustine, the presence of God as the ultimate arbiter and operator of the impact of speech gave grounds for optimism concerning human language and human identity, which is linguistically mediated. Through human speech, and principally because of the objectivity of words and their distinction from the speaker and from God, space remains for the interaction of desire which 129

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

is ultimately transformative for the human person, as described in my account of Books 2 and 3.

Confessions My examination then moved to the Confessions, which I proposed to explore under the heading of ‘exemplary speech’. By this, I meant that within the narrative of the Confessions was an account of language that exemplified Augustine’s concern with the relationship between language, thought and God. I examined the narrative of the first nine books of the work, focusing principally on the relationship between form and content implicit within that narrative. I determined that Augustine narrates the problem of relationship between form and content in speech and sociality as being present from his experience of education and culture as a young man. Augustine’s encounter with the Manichees during this period was governed largely by his concern with the external form of speech. While having been inspired by Cicero’s Hortensius to pursue wisdom, he was unable to follow this vocation philosophically there on account of the absence of the name of God within Cicero’s text. The Manichees, by contrast, provided exactly this speech while providing doctrine which was fundamentally perverse. Through his association with the Manichees, the dialectic between form and content was taken one step further as Augustine became disenchanted with their teaching and waited to find an intellectually coherent account of the relationship between God and humanity. This came in the form and figure of Ambrose, who was presented as the inversion of the Manichean Faustus. Through Ambrose’s social bearing and his teaching, Augustine realized the intellectual possibilities of participation in the Catholic church, and he began to draw closer to the possibility of conversion which would take place in Book 8. I analysed Augustine’s movement to this final moment of conversion and discovered that, for Augustine, the setting of the social and linguistic context by which he was surrounded was instrumental to his conversion’s final possibility. The final intercession of a child’s voice in the garden in Milan provided an occasion for Augustine’s embrace of the Christian faith, and manifested the importance of the external world for the inner transformation that his conversion represented. I went on to examine the outcome of this pivotal moment from the point of view of the opening of Book 9. This text represented the first unifying of Augustine’s confessional and narratival voices in the work, and thus represented the moment at which Augustine’s relationship with God embodied a properly conversational framework. As such, the opening of Book 9 was the paradigm of confessional speech and an emblem of the relationship between language, thought and God which the work in general terms has been discussing. The Confessions exemplified an Augustinian theology of language in 130

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

formal and interpersonal terms. It showed the character of the Augustinian theological subject, and what it means to say ‘I’ before God, as well as narrativally illustrating the dynamics with regard to which such a subject operates.

Outline of chapter: implications of principles uncovered for a reading of the De trinitate Having thus exposed the principles of an Augustinian theology of language from the point of view of the relationship between language, thought and God within two of Augustine’s texts, I would like now to consider the implications of these principles for a reading of the De trinitate. I will do this in four parts. First, I will examine Augustine’s treatment of scripture in Books 1–4 of the De trinitate, to demonstrate the centrality not only of scriptural text but more principally of the verbally articulated words of Christ in forming Augustine’s Trinitarian account. Second, I will examine Augustine’s treatment of the issue of metaphysical speech about God in Books 5–7, which ends in Book 7 with his discussion of persona as a term for talking about the members of the Trinity. My purpose here will be to show that far from indicating a failure of language to speak about God, Augustine’s argument demonstrates its absolute centrality. Language is literally the material object which provides us with the possibility of approaching God. I will then focus on Book 8, and demonstrate how, for Augustine, the social feature of human relationship to God is centralized in such a way as to make human social relations not simply a sine qua non of relationship to God, but also a foundation for understanding the nature of the Trinity. In my final section, I will turn again to Book 15, and examine the tension evoked between the apophatic and kataphatic accounts of God that have emerged in this work with respect to language. I will propose that reading Augustine in a dialogical way with respect to this tension between the apophatic and the kataphatic is basic to the possibility of understanding how the human person, for Augustine, relates to God in Trinitarian terms. My analysis of Book 15 will of course have an eye to the steps of Book 9–14 which have preceded it, but these books of the work will not be of central focus. The procedure will thus be as follows: Books 1–4:

Augustine’s treatment of scripture and the significance of Christ’s speech for his Trinitarian thought Book 7.6.11: Persona and the failure of language? Book 8: The threading of the image of God and the social element of Augustine’s vision Books 9–15: The images of God and the possibility of theology 131

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

1. Books 1–4: Augustine’s treatment of scripture and the significance of Christ’s speech for his Trinitarian thought Books 1–4 of the De trinitate centre on Augustine’s attempt to demonstrate and to make sense of the credally formulated doctrine of the Trinity through an investigation of scripture. Augustine begins the work with a credal citation of the Christian faith, which also includes numerous references to scripture as well as to Christian authors outside of the biblical canon, whose thought has substantively contributed to reflection on the doctrine of the Trinity.1 The work then explores the equality of the persons of the Trinitarian God, as evinced in scripture. Augustine’s problem in the first instance is to demonstrate the equality of the Son, whom scripture describes as having been incarnate, to the Father who is God eternally. He manages this problem by developing the Pauline hermeneutical principle that Christ possesses two natures: as God, he is equal to God, while in his incarnate form as a servant he is less than God. Augustine explains as follows: And so it is not without reason that scripture says both; that the Son is equal to the Father, and that the Father is greater than the Son. He is understood to be the one on account of the form of God (forma dei), and the other, on account of the form of a servant (forma servi), and these two without any confusion. And this rule is set forth through all the scriptures, for the purpose of solving this question, from one chapter of the apostle Paul, where this distinction is most clearly commended. He says: ‘Who being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal to God, yet, he emptied himself taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, in condition found as a man’ (Phil. 2.6). The Son of God is equal to the Father by nature, and less than the Father by condition (habitus). In 1

trin. 1.4.7. The credal references encompass the Nicene creed, the African creed and the Roman-Milanese creed. It also contains reference to the Quicunque vult or Athanasian creed; however, Hill, following J. N. D. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed (London: A&C Black, 1964) claims that this was probably a post-Augustinian text. See Hill, The Trinity, 255, n. 1. Scriptural references in Augustine’s opening statement of faith at 1.7 include 1 John, Psalms, Acts, Hebrews, Matthew, Galatians, Mark, Luke, and John. Augustine also makes reference to the writings of others, notably at trin. 1.4.7: Eusebius of Vercelli’s work on the Trinity and Ambrose. Augustine thus visualizes himself as a commentator on scripture and tradition, both credal and interpretative, and the work of trin. which he will commence as commentary and contribution to that interpretative tradition. Cf. B. Studer, ‘Das Nizänische Consubstantialis bei Augustinus von Hippo’ in Logos. Festschrift für L. Abramowski (Berlin: William de Gruyter, 1993), 402–10; P. Gemeinhardt, ‘“Geboren aus dem Wesen des Vaters . . .”. Das Glaubensbekenntnis von Nizäa und Augustins neunizänische Theologie’, Studia patristica 38, ed. M. F. Wiles and E. J. Yarnold (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 153–68.

132

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

the form of a servant which he took he is less than the father; in the form, however, of God in which he was even before he accepted the form of a servant, he is equal to the Father.2 A clear example of Augustine’s application of this principle comes as he treats the eschatological meaning of some scriptural statements. Treating the conflict between the scriptural statements that Christ is simultaneously the Son of Man who will come to judge the world,3 and the Johannine statements of Christ that he did not come as judge, but rather his words will themselves judge the world,4 Augustine says: Thus you can have it both ways: both ‘the Son of man will judge,’ and ‘the Son of man will not judge’. The Son of man will judge, to verify the text, ‘When the Son of man comes, then shall all the nations be herded together before him’ (Mt. 25.32), and the Son of man will not judge, to verify ‘I shall not judge’ (Jn 12.47), and ‘I do not seek my own glory, there is one to seek it and to judge’ (Jn 8.50). For insofar as at the judgement it will not be the form of God but the form of man that is manifested, not even the Father will judge. From this point of view it says, ‘The father does not judge anyone, but has given all judgement to the Son’ (Jn 5.22).5 Augustine here wrestles with the eschatological proposition concerning the identity of the Son in relation to mankind and to God. He has already ceded that as man, Christ is less than God, but as God, Christ is greater than man and equal to the Father. His resolution to the problem is to say that insofar as Christ will judge the world as God, then so also will the Father judge the world with him, since the Son is equal to the Father. The crucial point to observe, however, is that for Augustine eschatological judgement centres on the very speech of the incarnate Christ. This is such that Christ’s words represent the Father’s judgement, as well as being identified with Christ himself: If then the Son does not judge, but the word the Son has spoken does, and if the reason why the word the Son has spoken judges is that the Son has not spoken as from himself, but the Father who sent him has given him commandment what to say and how to speak; then it is of course the

2 3 4 5

trin. 1.7.14. For example, Mt. 25.32. See trin. 1.13.29. Jn 12.47. See trin. 1.12.26. trin. 1.13.29. Hill’s translation. Translations from this point in the chapter will largely follow Hill’s text, unless otherwise noted.

133

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

Father that judges, whose word it is that the Son has spoken, whose Word (verbum) indeed is the Son himself. The Father’s commandment is not something different from the Father’s word; it is the same thing that he called ‘commandment’ one minute and ‘word’ the next.6 An alignment takes place here between the concepts of verbum, word, as the speech spoken by the human Christ; and verbum as the second person of the Trinity. Augustine makes this point even more starkly later. Opening the second book of the De trinitate, he puts the point baldly concerning Christ’s teaching, saying that the two are directly continuous: For just as [in the form of God] the Son is not one thing and his life another, but the Son simply is his life; so also the Son is not one thing and his teaching another, but the Son simply is his teaching.7 Christ and his words, in this case articulated as his teaching, are ontologically identical such that they cannot be separated. This claim makes clear sense in the light of this work and also of Augustine’s treatment of the problem in these books of the De trinitate. Treating the relationship between Christ’s words and that to which they direct the mind, in Book 1, Augustine says the following: If you insist that ‘It is not I who shall judge, but I shall judge’ is simply a contradiction in terms, then what are we to say to that other remark, ‘My doctrine is not mine’ (Jn 7.16)? He did not say ‘This doctrine is not mine,’ but ‘My doctrine is not mine.’ What he called his own he said was not his own. How else can this be true except by calling it his own in one respect and not his own in another? His own in the form of God, and not his own in the form of a servant. By saying ‘it is not mine but his who sent me’, he directs our attention (nos facere recurrere) to the Word. The Father’s doctrine is the Father’s word, which is his only Son.8

6 7 8

trin. 1.12.26. trin. 2.2.4. Ipsa doctrina filius est. trin. 1.12.27. I have translated qui here as ‘which’ instead of Hill’s ‘who’. I do this to emphasize that Augustine does not personalize the identity of the second person of the Trinity. He is instead concerned with the idea of ‘word’ and ‘speech’ as that which mediates between God and humanity, and this is the general point he is making in this section of the text. An impersonal reading of qui is suggested also by the fact that Augustine describes the second person of the Trinity as doctrina at trin. 2.2.4, cited above. Doctrina is hardly a personal substantive.

134

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

The identity that exists between Christ’s words and the godhead of the Trinity that they mediate exists by virtue of that to which the words themselves direct our attention. Christ’s words, in their contrariness, force us to see through his humanity to his divinity,9 a resolution effected principally by reference to the Pauline hermeneutical principle that Augustine has been at pains to emphasize in his scriptural exegesis. Using this principle, we see through Christ’s humanity to his divinity, a divinity which will only be fully grasped by us eschatologically.10 In terms of the principles that this book has so far been outlining, this position taken by Augustine is illuminating in two senses. The first is the simple one that words themselves interpretatively mediate between God and humanity. I have already outlined this principle in some detail in my earlier comment on the De doctrina christiana, in regard to the task of reading and being read by scripture; and also with a focus on the social context of such mediation in the Confessions. In the context in which this argument of Augustine’s appears in the De trinitate, the two features of these previous exegeses receive a third, and more significant component. It is that there exists a doctrinal component to words’ mediation of the relationship between God and humanity, which the De trinitate particularly emphasizes. Augustine’s focus on the words of scripture as explaining the nature of Trinitarian relationship to humanity extends as far, in his exegesis above, as centralizing the words of the incarnate Christ as those which mediate between God and humanity. This, in turn, mediates how God relates to humanity across time; namely, through the missions of the different persons of the Trinity. The words of the incarnate Son describe these missions at the same time as the Son’s incarnate presence is itself one of those missions. Thus, for Augustine, the paradox between Christ’s statement that he himself will not judge the world, but rather his words will, makes sense only in the context of other words of the incarnate Christ; namely, those explaining that Christ was sent by the Father. Spoken human words become the entry point for the mind to glimpse God’s nature: first as salvific, inasmuch as it sends the Son to restore fallen humanity; and, second, as diverse while equal, in that there is an ultimate identity in essence between the Son and the Father, both of whom are God. This is not yet strictly to indicate that God is Trinitarian; however, it points to the mysterious complexity of the being of God. It does so in the same

9 10

Cf. s. 288, PL 38, 1307 for Augustine expressing the same thought. Cf. Berlinger, 221–32, esp. 225–6, with a particular focus on the relationship between faith and knowledge (‘Glauben und Wissen’). Berlinger is right to say, concerning the significance of words in general and of Christ’s words in particular, that ‘. . . der Ursprung des Lehrens und Verstehens ist das Wort’, highlighting the mediatory and double character of the spoken words of Christ. He does not register the eschatological context of these words of Christ, however, only quoting excerpts from Augustine’s own texts which do, for example, en. Ps. 123.2.

135

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

way that Augustine will ultimately determine the eternal relations of the Trinity; namely, through the words of the incarnate Christ.11 Second, the relationship between our attention being directed to the Son’s relationship to the Father and the Son’s two natures, co-equal with the Father and yet also entering time, is situated primarily eschatologically. It is no coincidence that, for Augustine, his exegesis of the nature of the Trinitarian God as demonstrated from scripture, which is the premise of this first book of the De trinitate, has eschatology as its primary focus. Questions concerning the unity of the three persons of the Trinity are dealt with peremptorily at the outset of the discussion,12 and from here the discussion turns to eschatology, this being the central focus of Augustine’s treatment of the Pauline hermeneutical principle that deals with the two natures of Christ. Augustine does this because it is Pauline texts concerning the handing over of the kingdom of earth to God eschatologically that create the most confusion concerning the two natures of Christ.13 Augustine delineates the difference between Christ’s speech as incarnate human being and his final role as eternal judge of the world. He observes that those words he spoke as incarnate human being, servant of the Father, he spoke while being less than the Father. In his role as eschatological judge of humanity, however, he will deliver the Father’s judgement to the nations gathered before him.14 At this stage, for Augustine, only those who have understood the principle of Christ’s two natures – namely, that Christ was manifest in human form so that we might one day see him in his full godhead, thus attaining the vision of God – who will be admitted entry to the beatitude of the eternal vision of God.15 Augustine puts this point quite plainly in exegeting the Johannine farewell discourse: ‘I came forth from the Father’ (Jn 16.26), that is, surely, ‘It was not in the form in which I am equal to the Father that I was manifested, but in another guise, namely as less than he in the creature I took on’; and ‘I have come into this world’, that is, ‘I have shown the form of a servant, which I emptied myself to take (Phil. 2.7), even to the eyes of sinners who love this world’; and ‘Again I am leaving this world’ (Jn 16.26), ‘from the sight of those who love the world I am removing what they have seen’, and ‘I am going to the Father’ (Jn 16.26), ‘I am teaching my faithful ones that I can only be fully understood in my equality with the Father’. Those who believe this will be considered worthy of being brought from faith to sight,

11 12 13 14 15

See below for this. trin. 1.4.7–1.6.13. See esp. trin. 1.8.15–1.8.16. trin. 1.13.29. Cf. Mt. 25.32. trin. 1.10.21.

136

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

that is to the vision to which he brings us when he is said to ‘hand over the kingdom to God the Father’ (1 Cor. 15.24). For Augustine, this possibility of being led from faith to sight comes about principally through our engagement with the words of Christ. Explaining this, Augustine again elides the concept of Christ’s physical speech with his being as the eternal second person of the Trinity, such that human words form the mediating axis between God and humanity: [Christ] said as much in the words, ‘These things have I spoken to you in comparisons; the hour will come when I shall speak to you in comparisons no more, but shall tell you openly about the Father’ (Jn 16.25), that is, there will be no more comparisons when there is direct vision face to face. That is what he means by ‘I shall tell you openly about the Father’, as though to say ‘I shall show you the Father openly’. He uses the word ‘tell’ (nuntiare), presumably, because he is the Father’s Word. He goes on to say, ‘On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say that I will beg the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because you love me and have believed that I came forth from the Father and have come into this world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father (Jn 16.26).’16 Through our engagement with Christ’s human words, we come to perceive the eschatological mystery of the eternal Word made flesh. We understand as well that the mystery will not culminate until Christ comes as judge of the world. In the meantime, we are left to engage with this mystery through Christ’s words and Christ’s speech, seeing these mortal words as revealing shades of eternity that will be made plain eschatologically, when we pass from speech and symbol to eternal vision.17 It is through the preaching of the church, however, that our temporal engagement with this mystery first occurs. Augustine describes this process in Book 4,

16 17

trin. 1.10.21. Hill’s translation, modified by me. Cf. Smalbrugge, ‘Le langage et l’être’, 555. He contextualizes the general problem I have been uncovering in the context of the idea of ‘person’: ‘[L]a Revelation de la personne divine nous fait entrevoir l’être tel qu’il est. Et tel qu’il est, cela veut dire qu’il s’est allié au langage contre le nihil. Tel qu’il s’est incorporé dans notre langage. C’est en cette alliance que le rapport langage-être trouve son equilibre. Et ainsi, c’est dans la notion de la personne divine que le langage trouve la juste distance entre est, est, et non, non, entre l’humain et divin, entre le présent et l’eschaton.’ The particular value of Smalbrugge’s reading is that he recognizes the connection between language, person and eschatology; also, the fact that the notion of person is something that in Christian terms is only revealed eschatologically. In the meantime, language enables us to be drawn towards this eschatological transformation.

137

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

also in the culmination of the discussions of the missions of the Son and the Spirit. He says: When the Son of God was manifested in the flesh, he was ‘sent into this world’ (Jn 16.28), ‘made of woman in the fullness of time’ (Gal. 4.4) . . . When however he is perceived by the mind in the course of someone’s spiritual progress in time, he is indeed said to be sent, but not into this world; for he does not then appear perceptibly, that is, he is not present to corporeal senses. Of us too it can be said that when we grasp some eternal truth with the mind as far as we are capable of it, we are not in this world; and the spirits of all just men, even while still living in the flesh, are not in this world insofar as they have a sense of (sapere) divine things.18 Augustine is anxious here to make a distinction between the ontological fact of the incarnation – the appearance of God in flesh in the course of history, from the womb of the virgin – and the act of cognition when any given individual grasps some aspect of eternal truth. According to what I have argued above, such an act of cognition happens principally on account of engagement with the words of scripture and with the tradition of Christian thought that articulates the fact of the incarnation.19 It is not insignificant that Augustine inserts a Pauline and Johannine refrain between these two moments, the ontological and historical fact of the incarnation and the recognition of God that takes place in the mind of the individual. The refrain concerns the human mind which is closed to God in the darkness of its folly, and its need to be opened through the folly of preaching: For because in God’s wisdom the world could not know God by wisdom (since ‘the light shines in darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it’ (Jn 1.5)), it was God’s pleasure, to save those who believe by the folly

18 19

trin. 4.20.28. Augustine treats something like this thought in div. qu. 42: Quemadmodum dei sapientia dominus Jesus et in utero matris et in caelis? Quomodo verbum hominis, quod etsi multi audiunt, totum audiunt singuli. ‘In what way was the wisdom of God both in heaven and in the womb of his mother? In the same way that the word of God, which many people hear, each person also hears in its entirety.’ This analogy between the incarnation and human words, and in particular our access to eternity through human speech, is recurrent as a pulse throughout Augustine’s work. See, for example, f. et sym. 3f: and doctr. chr. 1.12.13, which text I treat above. See also Pintaric, 96–101, esp. 96, n. 106, who observes some of the historical precedents to the idea, for example, Tertullian, adv. Prax. 5; 7. For a significant comment on the potential problems of the view, see D. W. Johnson, ‘“Verbum” in the Early Augustine (396–397),’ Recherches Augustiniennes 8 (1972), 49. I am making the case here, against Johnson, that the view continues throughout Augustine’s work and is defining for it. Cf. C. P. Mayer, Die Zeichen . . . II, 240.

138

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

of preaching (1 Cor. 1.21), that the Word should become flesh and dwell among us (Jn 1.14).20 This passage forms the natural link between the objective fact of the incarnation, which Augustine states with reference to Paul’s remark in Galatians that the Son was sent to be made of woman in the fullness of time, and cognition of God’s reality in which Augustine describes the human person as being ‘not in this world’. Preaching, that is, inasmuch as it gives insight into the nature of God, lifts human persons out of ‘this world’, and locates them somewhere between the world into which the light of God came without being recognized, and the next world where God will be fully visually apparent. Words, in short, form the bridge between this world and the next, creating the possibility of the mind’s cognition of eternal reality. And, as I have argued it here as well, Christ’s words are a particular form of such speech in that they give locatable material insight into the particular relations of the Trinity itself. Preaching in the first instance is the key; meditation on the words of Christ is a second stage, which enables the mind conceptually to configure and reflect upon the mystery of the Trinity’s relationship to time that the incarnation communicates.21 The words of the incarnate Christ also provide insight into the Holy Spirit as a person of the Trinity. Having arrived at a concluding discussion of the meaning of the missions of the persons of the Trinity in the New Testament, Augustine makes the following remarks concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit: By saying then, ‘Whom I will send you from the Father’ (Jn 15.26), the Lord showed that the Spirit is both the Father’s and the Son’s. Elsewhere too, when he said, ‘whom the Father will send’, he added, ‘in my name’ (Jn 14.26). He did not however say, ‘whom the Father will send from me’ as he had said ‘whom I will send from the Father’ (Jn 15.26), and thereby

20 21

trin. 4.20.28. Cf. Beierwaltes, 189. See also, esp. D. Pirovano, ‘La parola di Dio come “Incarnazione” del Verbo in Sant’Agostino’, in Augustinianum 4 (1964) 77–104, esp. 85–92 for an exploration of the theme of the significance of preaching as ‘incarnation’ and Christ’s own words as leading us to God. He observes the theme in Augustine’s sermons, his tractates on John and commentaries on the psalms. Perhaps most important is his comment: ‘Ora, a ben vedere, è questo che Agostino vuol dirci, quando parla della parola di Dio che realizza tra noi una presenza del Verbo analoga a quella che si realizza nell’incarnazione. La differenza fondamentale, che igli non ignora, sta nel fatto che nella parola di Dio e presente solo quacosa della Verità del Verbo, mentre in Cristo e presente il “Verbum totum”, e vi è presente attraverso un tipo del divino con l’umano del tutto particolare’ (103–4). In the actual incarnation, its historical and physical fact, the ‘whole Word’ is revealed, i.e. God is wholly in Christ; while through preaching, the truth concerning the reality of the Word is gradually disclosed. This to some extent treats the problem concerning Drobner that I noted above in Chapter 1, n. 51.

139

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

he indicated that the source of all godhead, or if you prefer it, of all deity, is the Father. So the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son is traced back, on both counts, to him of whom the Son is born.22 Again, for Augustine, Christ’s spoken words form the mediation point for interpreting the being of the Trinity.23 Significantly, for Augustine there is no reason in this text other than the simple and spoken words of Christ for arguing that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. He has put the point more clearly earlier on. Pointing out the distinction between knowledge of God in time, and knowledge of God in eternity, Augustine says: But when the Father is known by someone in time [as distinct from either the Son or the Spirit], he is not said to have been sent [in the way that the Son and the Spirit are variously described in scripture]. For he has not got anyone else to be from or to proceed from. Wisdom says, ‘I went forth from the mouth of the Most High’ (Sir. 24.5), and of the Holy Spirit he says, ‘He proceeds from the Father’ (Jn 15.26), but the Father is from no one.24 Christ’s words, now understood as the words of Wisdom herself, are seen as regulating knowledge of the processions and internal workings of the Trinity. Augustine’s statement that ‘the Father proceeds from no one’ is certainly, for him, a straightforward ontological fact. But it is also one to which he reasons on the basis of scriptural words. For Augustine, there is no scriptural text that suggests that the Father originates anywhere; more to the point, in scripture the second person of the Trinity, as either Wisdom or as the incarnate Son, describes the relations of the Trinity so as to indicate that the Son and the Spirit proceed from or are sent by the Father. There is thus an absence of speech concerning the Father’s missions on the one hand and a presence of speech concerning the missions of the Son and the Spirit on the other, that go to construct an account of Trinitarian relationship. And, significantly, the speech on which all of this centres – the kataphatic moment in the discourse, where God’s being is affirmatively described – emerges from the Son, as either incarnate Word or as Wisdom proceeding from the mouth of the Most High, in Sirach’s description of the matter. Christ’s speech, therefore, is pivotal to our understanding of the nature of God. It provides the literal foundations for reflection on the meaning of the relations of 22 23

24

trin. 4.20.29. In particular, Christ’s words in the Johannine farewell discourse. Johannine material is the chief interpretative source for Augustine’s discussion of the Holy Spirit. See also his discussion of the Spirit as caritas or dilectio at trin. 15.17.31–15.20.38. The Johannine letters, esp. 1 Jn 4.8-16, are a principal source of this discussion. trin. 4.20.28.

140

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

the Trinity. Even though Augustine will later meditate on the appropriateness of particular names for the second and third persons of the Trinity – namely, ‘wisdom’ for the Son25 and ‘gift’ for the Spirit26 – it is the words of Christ describing their internal relations that remain foundational to these descriptions. The Son, for Augustine, is ‘born’ or ‘begotten’ of the Father from eternity, an interpretation Augustine makes early on in the text on the basis of Johannine words of Christ about himself, which then become foundational for his hermeneutic henceforth in the work.27 For the Spirit’s procession from the Father, it is Christ’s words in John, describing the Spirit as proceeding from the Father (Jn 15.26), that for Augustine demonstrate (docere) this character of relation between the Father and the Spirit.28 Christ’s action in breathing on the disciples and saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ (Jn 20.22) after his resurrection is interpreted furthermore as articulating the Spirit’s procession from the Son as well as from the Father.29 Christ’s Johannine words thus provide key starting points for reflection on the relationship between eternity and time, such that, for Augustine, it is the hermeneutical moves made in the light of the Johannine text that provide the incision between eternity and time that his hermeneutic requires.30 Having thus exposed the centrality of Christ’s words and something of the relationship between divine and human speech in Books 1–4 of the De trinitate, I would like now to examine Augustine’s movement through Books 5–7 of the text. I will argue that the climax of this discussion at Book 7.6.11 represents a formalization of the significance of human speech which Augustine has described concerning the incarnate Christ, such that the very human phenomenon of language is what allows a bridge between the divine and the human in Augustinian terms.

25 26 27

28

29 30

Esp. trin. 7.3.4–7.3.5; and see also trin. 15.17.29; 15.17.31. Esp. trin. 15.17.31–15.20.39. trin. 1.12.26. The Johannine texts in question at trin. 1.12.26 are Jn 12.49-50, ‘I have not spoken as from myself’; Jn 5.36, 14.31, ‘the Father has given me’, Jn 5.26; ‘Just as the Father has life in himself, so has he given the Son to have life in himself’. Each of these texts Augustine interprets as Christ speaking about his birth in eternity. He reinforces and restates the principle at trin. 2.1.3, at which point it becomes hermeneutically foundational for interpreting Christ’s human actions. trin. 4.20.28. Cf. trin. 5.14.15 and trin. 15.25.45: De utroque autem procedere sic docetur quia ipse filius ait: De patre procedit . . . trin. 15.25.45. Cf. trin. 4.20.29. Something like the general position I have been arguing for here concerning human speech and our knowledge of the relations within the Trinity is outlined in Pintaric’s sketch diagram, ‘Skizze der Referenzbeziehung’ at Pintaric, 134.

141

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

2. Book 7.6.11: persona and the failure of language? In this section of this chapter, I will focus mainly on Augustine’s conclusion of the broader argument of Books 5–7, which begins as an engagement with the Arian controversy. I do not intend to engage the quality of Augustine’s treatment of this problem here, and my purpose in focusing principally on the conclusion is a way of highlighting what I understand to be Augustine’s chief aims within the discussion; namely, an elucidation of Trinitarian grammar. I will thus only introduce the general problem with which Book 5 begins as a way of moving the discussion forward to its climax in Book 7. I will contend that Augustine, in his examination of the linguistic possibilities of reference to God, leaves us in a position where we are bound to the very act of speech as the continuing possibility of theological reflection. To this extent, I will emphasize that the apparent failure of language and linguistic description in Books 5–7 is, in fact, part of a more fundamentally affirmative theology in which the act of speech provides the starting point for the possibility of reflection on the nature of God and, ultimately, the reality of participation in God’s being.31 Augustine’s initial engagement with the Arians’ critique of the Christian faith takes up the Arian insistence that the Son’s being begotten of the Father implies modification within God.32 Augustine sets the concept of relation within the Trinity against the existence of these relations within eternity, attempting thereby to undermine the Arian proposition. The foundation of the discussion is Augustine’s contention that ‘not everything that is said of [God] is said substancewise’,33 and in particular, the name of Father applies to the first person of the Trinity only in relation to the second, the Son.34 These names, Father and Son, 31

32 33 34

This argument stands against the view of van Bavel, ‘God in between affirmation and negation’, 73–97. Van Bavel wishes to push Augustine into the league of apophaticism, even despite his concession of describing Augustine as aphaeretic rather than apophatic (Van Bavel, 85). My own position stands against both views, since they push Augustine closer in his thought to silence than to speech. It is difficult to hold such a view of a man whose work constituted a staggering 5,025,000 words over roughly 30 years, and as such stands as the greatest surviving literary figure of antiquity. Even though the devoutly apophatic medieval Denys the Carthusian had a similar literary output in quantity terms, the contours of Augustine’s thought are to emphasize the significance of speech and the materiality it represents, rather than God’s departure from such materiality. It is thus incarnational in a way that apophaticism and aphaereticism are not: God emerges through language and in virtue of its presence, rather than because of God’s absence from it. Cf. Pintaric, 82–93 and passim. For this figure concerning Augustine’s literary output, see O’Donnell, Review of Corpus Augustinianum Gissense a Cornelio Mayer editum. CD-ROM, version 1.0 for DOS or Windows. Basel: Schwabe & Co. AG, 1995 in Augustinian Studies. Accessed at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine/cagreview.html on 14 July 2006. This is the opening of his argument at trin. 5.2.3–5.4.6. trin. 6.4.6. Note that he qualifies this statement at trin. 6.2.3, by saying that when the Father is called Father, he is called so with the Son, thereby affirming that when a member of the Trinity is

142

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

do not themselves describe substantive qualities of these persons. The fact of the Son’s being begotten of the Father, for Augustine, only affirms that the Son proceeds eternally from the Father, and does not entail that there is a change in God. There cannot be a change in substance in eternity, and the Father and the Son remain distinct entities while nonetheless being identical in substance.35 The real significance of Augustine’s discussion as it continues is its focus on language. Augustine’s chief purpose is to discern the grammar of Trinitarian relationships – how, that is, we may refer to the Trinity in our own discourse. This leads him through meditation on the meaning of individual names of the Trinity, and the extent to which any of them properly apply to the member of the Trinity to which they refer.36 His answer is always the same. Our words serve only to effect distinction for us concerning the members of the Trinity. At no point do the different names of each member of the Trinity denote a difference in substance between them. His chief meditation in this regard is on the Pauline text describing Christ as the ‘power of God and the wisdom of God’.37 For Augustine, this does not indicate that God’s wisdom is separable from his power, nor that any member of the Trinity is wiser or more powerful than any other. Each, for Augustine, is wholly and substantively wisdom in himself and power in himself.38 Augustine continues to emphasize that the purpose of such language concerning God is to distinguish the relationships within God, themselves eternal. The relationships are not differentiations in substance between members of the Trinity.39 As he moves through this discussion in Book 7, he comes to ask himself the propriety of using a term such as persona to describe the persons of the Trinity. Augustine cites such language as standard Trinitarian grammar.40 He finally answers in a way he has already foreshadowed at the outset of the discussion,41 when he says that

35 36 37 38 39 40

41

named, every person is implicitly invoked. This remains so despite each member of the Trinity being able to be named individually and separately, as he will later go on to argue. See trin. 6.3.4–6.10.12. trin. 6.5.7. This discussion emerges principally in Book 6 and goes on into Book 7. 1 Cor. 1.24. See trin. 7.1.1–7.2.3. This is the outcome of his discussion as he reaches it at trin. 7.1.2–7.2.3. trin. 7.2.3. This discussion begins in Book 7 at 7.4.7; however, it has been foreshadowed at the outset of the longer discussion of Books 5–7, at 5.8.10. Augustine’s citation of persona as standard Latin Trinitarian grammar is controversial. See R. Dodaro, ‘Quid deceat videre (Cicero, Orator 70): Literary Propriety and Doctrinal Orthodoxy in Augustine of Hippo’, in Orthodoxie, Christianisme, Histoire/Orthodoxy, Christianity, History, ed. S. Elm, É. Rebillard and A. Romano (Rome: École française de Rome, 2000), 57–81, especially 73–80. Marius Victorinus had used subsistentia to describe the threeness of the Trinity (adv. Arium 1.41), and Augustine here is contesting that usage and arguing in favour of a consensus for persona as the standard Trinitarian term. See trin. 5.8.9.

143

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

we require these terms, not because they possess substantive referential content concerning the members of the Trinity, but rather because we need some kind of term to use when we talk about the Christian faith. We must be able to respond when asked what we mean when we say that the one God consists also in ‘three’. As we saw in Chapter 1, Augustine’s point is straightforward: So the only reason . . . why we do not call these three together one person, as we call them one being and one God (una essentia et unus deus), but say three persons while we never say three gods or three beings, is that we want to keep at least one word for signifying what we mean by trinity, so that we are not simply reduced to silence when we are asked three what, after we have confessed that there are three.42 The purpose of the term is, in short, to keep a conversation about God going when we are talking to heretics. It serves as a strategy for avoiding being communicatively inept when responding to theological questions. By having a term, and we note that for Augustine it is simply unum aliquod vocabulum, ‘any old word’, we manage to continue to engage our interlocutor’s attention and also to have objects of speech with which we may refer to the distinctive members of the one God who is also three.43 At the same time, it is a term which, since it is neither deus nor essentia, enables distinction from the term unus by which we usually name the fact that God is one. We thus possess two words which, as distinct, indicate substantive unity and simultaneous difference in God. Grammar is the foundation for our capacity to think about God as Trinity.44 This is an important point. It represents Augustine’s basic case concerning the metaphysical possibilities of thinking about God as Trinity. He is not, on the one 42 43

44

trin. 7.6.11. Emphasis mine. Contra W. Collinge, ‘De Trinitate and the Understanding of Religious Language’, Augustinian Studies 18 (1987), 132. He says simply that ‘silence does nothing to ward off bad answers’. This is a thin reading of Augustine’s strategies, even though it is in their general frame of reference. For a modern analysis of the issue of ‘grammar’ in Augustine’s Trinitarian thought, see Collinge, 125–50, esp. 129–33. His analysis is in a thoroughly Wittgensteinian mode. This, while procuring the fruits of such analyses of Augustine’s thought – especially as regards the need for practice in the development and deepening of faith – he also risks losing the distinction between language, thought and God which this book maintains as essential for a proper understanding of Augustine. I also disagree with Collinge’s view that Augustine should have studied the developing awareness of doctrine per se better to express his Trinitarian thought (131). Collinge’s comment is obscure: what would such study involve? He fails to pick up the dynamic character of Augustine’s Trinitarian thought, and the fact that it sees itself as dynamically exploring and contributing to a tradition which seeks to understand a mystery which doctrine only partially expresses. See my comments above at Chapter 6.2, n. 1, on trin. 1.4.7.

144

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

hand, especially concerned by the thought that we may not give substantive or predicative weight to the term persona when we use it to refer to God. In fact, his argument in the immediately preceding passage disqualifies the possibility that we should do so. There is no correlation in Augustine’s mind between what we might ordinarily mean when we say ‘person’ and what we might mean when we use it to refer to God.45 He is at the same time explicitly and particularly concerned that we should have a word – indeed, in his language, ‘any old word’ (unum aliquod vocabulum) – with which we may interpret the nature of identity and difference within the Trinity. At a conceptual level, Augustine does not resolve the problem of how we may reflect on the mystery of there being three ‘persons’ in one God. He systematically evacuates the term of the meanings we ordinarily associate with persona, to the point where we are left with nothing but the word itself. However, he leaves us with one solid anchor: the fact of speech, of human utterance, and this very word persona itself, on which we may hang our conceptual reflection about God. This conceptual anchor is at the same time the possibility of our ongoing conversation about God. Language is itself the material thing onto which the mind locks when it seeks to reflect on God’s nature, and Augustine reduces it to its basic content to allow it do so.46 This thought makes sense when we consider it in the light both of the De trinitate and of the De doctrina christiana. When we reflect upon Augustine’s remarks earlier in Book 4 of the De trinitate concerning the difference between our naming of God and God’s actual being, which exists in unchangeable eternity,47 we observe that there is continuity between his meditation there and his reflection in Book 7. In Book 4, he emphasizes that it is precisely language’s distension across time and space that registers its difference from God, and it

45

46

47

See trin. 7.6.11. This is a significant point, and despite an extended argument with Professor Denys Turner on this matter I cannot see how it can be otherwise stated, in Augustinian terms at this stage of Augustine’s argument. Far from being a simple nominalist, however, Augustine will go on to develop an account of how we might know about the being of God in a way that irreducibly concerns people as we ordinarily encounter them. He does this in his exploration of human psychology as a potential framework for helping understand the mystery of the Trinity. Cf. Pintaric, 123. See also the very excellent article by Smalbrugge, ‘Le langage et l’être’, 541–56, esp. 554: ‘. . . Dieu ne s’est pas disjoint de notre langage, comme peut l’être un predicat quelconque. Il n’est pas un predicat quelconque de notre langage, mail il est le seul à avoir montré que le predicat “être” appartient a priori au langage. C’est cette proximité du langage et de l’être dont nous parle analogia entis. Elle représente en quelque sort une assurance que nous ne fabulons pas, mais que nos méditations concernent en bien effet l’être divin.’ Smalbrugge’s attempt to redefine the concept of analogia entis in terms of the phenomenon of language is not dissimilar from the task of describing language as mediation in the way that I do in this book. trin. 4.20.30.

145

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

stands as emblematic of the difference between the created order and God.48 In the De doctrina christiana, he emphasizes that the incarnation represents precisely God’s embodiment in time and space and identity with creation, in virtue of the incarnation whose best analogy is the act of human speech.49 Thus the thought that he should be using ‘any one word’ in the De trinitate as the reference point for our understanding the nature of identity and differentiation within the Trinity is not simply unsurprising, it is borne out by the larger collection of his thoughts on language. In particular, it is borne out by his reflection on the incarnational character of human speech. It furthermore aligns strongly with the general tendency of his argument in Books 5–7 of the De trinitate. His reasoning behind using the word persona does not ultimately lie in the particularity of this term, but rather in the fact that by using one term, albeit any term, we can keep the conversation with a theological interlocutor going. Through the phenomenon of language and, more broadly, of conversation, we can communicate the mystery of the Trinity to those to whom we speak. This completes a brief foray into the chief components of Augustine’s discussion in Books 5–7 of the De trinitate. It should be noted that Book 7 also represents the climax of Augustine’s apophatic moments in the text, his recognition of the difficulty of speaking about God with any language at all. He has thus far given voice to the idea of the difficulty of speaking about God at least three times, including the comments in Book 7 cited above. The first are the remarks he makes in Book 5 which are prefatory to his final conclusion in Book 7. He says there, that when we are asked ‘three what?’ in reference to the Trinity: Human speech (eloquium humanum) labours under a great dearth of words [to explain ‘three what’]. However, we say ‘three persons’ not in order to describe any particular thing, but in order not to be reduced to silence.50 This thought is very obviously the precursor to his final answer on the subject in Book 7. Yet here he also says that the Christian authors who used these terms did so because of the failure of language, not because of a failure of their mind or their knowledge. Thus, as he says in his second apophatic gesture in the work, the authors whose tradition of usage he cites ‘were able to find no more suitable way of expressing in words what they understood without words’.51 The mind transcends words and is able to glimpse what words can only inadequately

48 49

50 51

See my exegeses in Section 1.6 above for this. See doctr. chr. 1.13.12 and my Chapter 2.3 above. The most obvious example of this thought is, however, trin. 15.11.20, which began the investigation of this work. trin. 5.9.10. My translation. trin. 5.9.10.

146

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

express. This anticipates his third apophatic remark, in Book 7, and which I cited in my first chapter, namely that ‘God can be thought about more truly than he can be talked about, and he is more truly than he can be thought about’.52 Augustine expresses a form of apophaticism, recognizing that human language fails theologically, but that it will not be reduced to complete silence. Instead, the very act of speech instantiates the ongoing possibility of theology, and words in their very material utterance continue to form the bridge between us and God. Thus Book 7 does not, ultimately, represent for Augustine the failure of human language before God. Instead, it outlines the necessity of language for us to commune with and participate in God’s being. It outlines, furthermore, the mode in which language enables this. By its very presence as a phenomenon and our use of it in acts of speech, we implicitly engage with God who, for Augustine, is mediated by such acts. And yet Augustine’s exegesis demonstrates as well the extent to which such engagement must also be a conscious activity. Augustine’s stripping bare of the very foundations of the language we use to speak about God is as much a conscious exercise in learning to see God as mediated through the act of speech as it is an exercise in understanding the grounds upon which this happens. His discovery of persona as conceptually bare is, furthermore, much more than a technical discovery of God’s capacity to mediate himself through speech. It is a discovery that happens in the context of differentiating the term persona, of which Christian doctrine says there are three in God, from the term essentia or deus against which persona stands to differentiate what there are three of within God. It is thus a theological exercise in linguistic epistemology, an attempt to grasp insight concerning God using chiefly the phenomenon of language as the means to do this. It is such an exercise in an explicitly doctrinal context, undergirded by the Trinitarian credal formula, and it uses language as the exemplar of the content of that doctrine. Having completed this exegesis of the basis principles of Book 7, I would like now to move onto Book 8 and examine Augustine’s progression from the conclusions of Book 7. Although leaving us with the apparently unsatisfactory position of a single word, persona, evacuated of its normative meaning, as a hook and anchor for ongoing theological reflection, he holds the presence of this and ‘any one word’ as that which saves us from theological silence. I would now like to examine his exposition of ‘love’ as a single word that represents a phenomenon which is itself inherently Trinitarian. I will do this partly because it is this exploration that immediately follows Book 7 in the text, and partly also because in Augustine’s examination of ‘love’ he brings out the social context in which words, and ‘any one word’, must operate.

52

trin. 7.4.7.

147

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

3. Book 8: the threading of the image of God and the social element of Augustine’s vision Augustine moves from the position reached at the end of Book 7 concerning the unspeakability of God to a position, at the end of Book 8, from which he can begin to thread within the human mind an ‘image’ of God that is emblematic of the Trinity. The image of ‘threading’ to describe what Augustine does in Book 8 is appropriate since, at its close, he uses the image of a ‘warp’ upon which he will weave the remainder of his account of the human person as the image of God.53 The ‘warp’ describes what Augustine discovers in Book 8. The explorations of Book 8 thus substantively enable reflection upon the mystery of God’s being as Trinity. The way Augustine arrives at this foundational ‘warp’ for exploring the human person in Trinitarian terms is twofold. On the one hand, he emphasizes our knowledge of God as fundamental to us. I will call this our natural knowledge of God. This natural capacity to know God is something akin to the broken image of God in the human person. On the other hand, he emphasizes the role of our encounter with scripture and more primarily, of our social relations, to refashion this broken image. This reading of Book 8 will bear out the theme of sociality that I have already treated in this work, and sociality’s role in our engagement with God. Augustine begins the examination of Book 8 with a summary of the book that has preceded it. He summarizes the achievements of his metaphysical examination of the Trinity, having discerned the substantial equality of the persons in God, while nominating also the contingent necessity of having ‘any one word’ by which we may name these persons.54 He commits himself to continuing to search out understanding of the credal mystery with which his book commenced, by turning inward (modo interiore . . . tractare), nonetheless asserting the necessity of remaining doctrinally bound to the credal precepts with which he began. These form anchors for him, such that ‘just because a thing is not yet clear to our understanding, we must not therefore dismiss it from the firm assent of our faith’.55 The credal ground with which he began and which he exposed in the first seven books will remain the topic under discussion, albeit now by a different method, as he begins a move inward to the human mind to attempt to unlock this ground.56 53

54 55 56

trin. 8.10.14. Ita hoc dixisse suffecerit ut tamquam ab articulo alicuius exordii cetera contexamus. trin. 8.1.1. trin. 8.1.1. For some discussion of the character of internality in Augustine, see the collection of papers in L. Alici, ed., Interiorità e intenzionalità in S. Agostino. Atti del 1. e 2. Seminario Internazionale

148

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

This opening passage to the book is significant inasmuch as it reminds us that Augustine is concerned to remain in a dialogical mode with his credal material. The turn inward is regulated by the creed which stands as a boundary marker to his investigation. He emphasizes this as he begins to unlock the conditions of the human mind for belief. We could not, he says, believe that the virgin Mary was not a virgin in the way we ordinarily understand that term, without departing from the faith.57 As much as we might have different views about the other contingent features of a human person such as Mary – for example, the colour of her hair or the complexion of her face – we cannot depart from the basic conceptual understanding of Mary’s virginity that the creed communicates. The creed forms a boundary marker which informs our conception and, in its content, informs us of what is necessary to think in order for salvation to occur. To understand the meaning of the term ‘virgin’, Augustine defers both to common usage, what we ordinarily understand by ‘virgin’, as well as to the notion of genera and species under which our understanding ordinarily functions.58 This notion of boundary marker, and the fact that it is connected to something internal to us, explains the general principles of the rest of Book 8. Augustine’s procedure is to discover and explore the ground upon which we may know God, having previously exposed the limits of such knowledge when reflecting metaphysically on the problem in Book 7. This precept governs his thought in Book 8. His uncovering of fixed conceptions (infixae notitiae) that exist within our minds has as its precursor the question of whether something can be loved while not being known.59 This leads him to reflection upon how we know God. He takes the creed, which exemplifies ‘material or physical facts (aliqua corporalia) we read or hear about but have not seen’60 as the point of departure for his reflection. He then asks a question about the apostle Paul; namely, how do we love him? He says that we do so in terms of what we are, and more precisely, ‘we believe about him what we experience in ourselves, in terms of the species and genus of which every human nature is equally included’.61 He thus sets up a dialogue between what is internal to us and something external to us. The two poles are represented by the fixed notions which are present to our minds and regulate our

57 58 59

60 61

del Centro di Studi Agostiniani di Perugia (a cura di L. Alici) (Roma: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1990). Very obviously, my work has sought to emphasize the dialogical relationship between inner and outer in Augustine, rather than provide an extensive meditation on the character of Augustinian interiority. trin. 8.4.7. trin. 8.4.7. trin. 8.4.6–8.4.7. The question of how something can be loved while not being known is posed at 8.4.6 and the articulation of ‘fixed notions’ occurs at 8.4.7. trin. 8.4.7. trin. 8.5.8.

149

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

thought concerning what a ‘virgin’ is; and the facts concerning human history and occurrence as articulated in the creed or the description of another human individual such as the apostle Paul. This starting point, however, is not sufficient for Augustine to answer a very particular question. How can we either know or love that which we are not ourselves, and which we cannot identify within our experience?62 This is a crucial question as far as our knowledge of God is concerned, since from Augustine’s exposition thus far we have run out of metaphysical possibilities for gaining insight into God save through the very fact of language. This leads him to examine more closely what we love when we love the apostle Paul, since on the basis of the principles Augustine has already expounded, when we love Paul we obviously respond to something that we know. He observes that what we love about Paul is the fact that he was a man with a just mind.63 While, however, we have a mind like Paul and can thus resonate with his human identity, we may find it difficult to love Paul while we do not ourselves possess a just mind. The problem is thus that of how like may know unlike. Since it is possible, Augustine observes, for the unjust man to love the just man whom he seeks to emulate, the unjust man must in some sense know what justice is. Augustine explains this with respect to the inner truth (veritas interior) of the form of justice that the mind beholds and which is the archetype recognized behind its particular instantiation in a just man such as Paul. He puts the point thus: [A] man who is believed to be just is loved and appreciated according to that form and truth which the one who is loving perceives (cernere) and understands (intellegere) in himself (apud se); but this form and truth cannot be loved and appreciated according to the standard of anything else.64 The capacity to love the just man is innate in every individual on account of something within human intelligence that recognizes the superior form of justice, and is sparked to its love through encounter with a material instantiation of it in a figure such as Paul. The reason to follow Augustine’s argument in some detail, as I have just done, is to highlight the dialogue that Augustine is setting up between the immanent and the transcendent. This has as its axis the social world in which just individuals are found. On the one hand, Augustine states that in order for us to recognize 62

63 64

This is the question Augustine poses at trin. 8.4.6: ‘What I am asking is whether something can be loved which is unknown, because if it cannot then no one loves God before he knows him’ (diligi autem quod nescitur, quaero utrum possit quia si non potest, nemo diligit deum antequam sciat). trin. 8.6.9. trin. 8.6.9.

150

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

justice, we must have some intuitive grasp of the object we recognize. For Augustine, this is the inner truth of the mind, and the grasp and vision of the form of justice is purely intellective. On the other hand, Augustine notes that this very recognition must first be prompted by something external to the mind; namely, another individual such as Paul who so embodies justice that we immediately recognize him as an instance of a just mind.65 During his discussion, Augustine also posits a definition of the just mind, on the basis of which he thinks we might find the source of our thoughts about the just man. The definition is simply a variation on a traditional definition of justice, and describes the just mind as one ‘which knowingly and deliberately, in life and conduct, gives each man what is his own’.66 We recognize the truth of such a definition, for Augustine, on the basis of the transcendent reality of justice to which it points. Thus Augustine is articulating a position in which the human person is called into dialogue with the immaterial and transcendent form of the good through the reminders given to it by the physical world. Speech and the social world, in the form of either a definition of justice to which the mind can assent or a person whose life embodies justice, form the basis for our conversation with that which we cannot see and that which we as yet are not: God, whom we desire to see; and justice, whose form we seek to emulate. This is an important point as far as my work is concerned. It backs up the basic principles I have been articulating concerning the relationship between the social world and the speech that takes place within it; and our relationship to God facilitated in this environment. Augustine’s focus on the apostle Paul as a figure who instantiates justice is juxtaposed to a definitional account of justice that, in a more abstract form, we can seek. Paul, however, takes a precedence in Augustine’s discussion. His social example is the paradigm of the principle of justice that Augustine uses to bring out his point concerning the transcendence of the good. It is significant that Augustine earlier asserts that only a privileged few may see the form of justice present to the inner truth of the mind.67 Augustine’s 65

66

67

It is worth also noting that during his discussion, Augustine posits a definition of the just mind, wherein he thinks we may find the source of our thoughts about the just man in the first place. This definition – namely, that the just mind is one ‘which knowingly and deliberately, in life and conduct, gives each man what is his own’ (trin. 8.6.9) – is something whose truth we only recognize, in the same way as we recognize that Paul is a just man. The same principle of a recognition of the transcendent truth from which such a principle comes is still operative here, and in this case it is a verbalized definition rather than a person who leads us to recognize truth in its transcendent reality. trin. 8.6.9 Hill makes the comment concerning Augustine’s variation on a traditional form of justice. See Hill, The Trinity, 257, n. 31. trin. 8.6.9: ‘What is [the mind] seeing . . . when it sees and says what a just mind is, and does not see it anywhere but in itself, though it is not itself a just mind? Or is perhaps that it sees the inner truth present to the mind which is capable of beholding it? Not all are so capable,

151

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

discussion in this section does not explicitly resolve this problem. Instead, he comes around to the conclusion stated above, that anyone who loves justice does so in virtue of that transcendent truth which grounds material particulars. His procedure, however, is clear: he observes the foundational character of the transcendent form of justice that the mind recognizes, while at the same time acknowledging that because we are ourselves not yet just we require the social mediation of the transcendent form in order that we may become just: Why then do we love another man whom we believe to be just, and not love this form in which we see what a just mind is, so that we too may become just? Or is it perhaps the case that unless we also loved this form we would in no wise love him whom we love and appreciate by this form, but that as long we are not just we love it less than is necessary for us to be able to become just ourselves?68 It is through the social mediation of the form of justice, reflected in Augustine’s extensive discussion of the just man rather than competing definitions of justice, that we are enabled to draw closer to this transcendent form that our minds seek. For Augustine, this transcendent form is epistemologically foundational for the human person, and we are inherently made aware of it through our reflections on being in a social world. It is important to realize, however, that Augustine’s account here is not focused on Paul as an individual whom Augustine meets in the social world. Instead, it focuses on the description of the apostle Paul in the scriptures. At this level, Augustine’s account bears out even more strongly the significance of speech, in this case writing, in the mediation of God’s reality to humanity. In Augustine’s description of his inspiration by the apostle Paul, he cites an extended passage from 2 Corinthians in which Paul gives an apostolic autobiography. I will cite the passage in full, beginning with Augustine’s introduction and followed by Augustine’s response to it, to give some sense of the interaction between the two: After all, why is it . . . that we catch fire when we hear and read: ‘Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation. Giving no offense in anything that our ministry may not be criticised, but in all things commending ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in need, in difficulties, in blows, in prisons, in riots, in labours; in vigils, in fasts, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in goodness, in the Holy Spirit,

68

and of those who are, not all are what they behold, that is to say, they are not just minds in the same way as they see and say what a just mind is.’ trin. 8.6.9.

152

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; with the weapons of justice in the right hand and the left, with glory and obscurity, with ill-repute and good repute, as seducers and yet truthful, as ones who are ignorant and yet known, as dying and behold we are alive, as coerced and not done to death, as sad but always rejoicing, as poor but enriching many, as having nothing and possessing all things’ (2 Cor. 6.2-10)? What is it that fires us with love for the apostle Paul when we read this, if not that we believe he himself lived like that? But that God’s ministers should live like that we do not believe on hearing it from someone else, we observe it within ourselves, or rather above ourselves in truth itself.69 Augustine describes his inspiration as taking place purely on the basis of a hearing of scripture – a rhetorically carefully composed piece by Paul, which Augustine refers to elsewhere70 – and from this he enters into a dialogue with the transcendent truth to which the words inspire him. Words thus mediate a social and a divine reality, made believable on account of our inherent ability to recognize the form of the good, or ‘truth . . . within ourselves, . . . above ourselves in truth itself’. Significantly, it is here that the division between words and the social reality they communicate begins to break down. Augustine’s belief that Paul lived justly is guaranteed only by the fact that his autobiographical words stir him to a love and recognition of the transcendent truth; the transcendent truth in turn guarantees the reality of Paul’s self-description. This in turn creates a further reciprocity, in the growth of the individual towards that form which they love and to which the words inspire him or her. Augustine describes how: [W]e are stirred all the more largely to the love of that form by the faith with which we believe that someone lived like that, and by the hope that does not allow us to despair of ourselves living like that, men though we are, seeing that other men have lived like that; so that we desire this all the more ardently and pray for it all the more confidently.71 The words of Paul and the belief that it is possible to have lived in this way is what makes it possible to visualize such a life and believe in the transcendent reality on which it was based. The impact of such words is, furthermore, socially 69 70

71

trin. 8.9.13. Notably at doctr. chr. 4.42.120, where Augustine cites this as an example of preaching in the ‘grand style’ (grande genus dicendi), the style for the treatment of weighty matters which derives the beauty of its expression ‘from the power of its subject matter, not the pursuit of elegance’. trin. 8.9.13.

153

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

and theologically creative. The dialogue between ourselves, and the transcendent truth to which Paul’s words point us, increase our faith and our hope. They thus increase our capacity to participate in God. Augustine summarizes: Thus on the one hand love of that form we believe they lived up to makes us love their life, and on the other belief in their life stirs us to a more blazing charity towards that form; with the result that the more brightly burns our love for God, the more surely and serenely we see him . . .72 The social world mediated by speech and by testaments of life such as that of the apostle Paul form the arena in which our love for God is fostered and our vision of God developed. Speech mediates the possibility of ongoing instantiations of the form of justice towards which Paul’s words point,73 as we seek to emulate him in our own conduct. Speech and sociality at this level become exponentially continuous with each other, creating the possibility for an ever-deepening conversation with God through the ongoing development of forms of life and speech grounded in God’s transcendent reality. This bears out a key theme for my work. In the work, I have emphasized the relationship between language, thought and God as paradigmatic for understanding Augustine’s theology of language. Augustine’s reflections on Paul here demonstrate how far this paradigm stretches. More than simply a ‘model’ for grasping how humanity relates to God, the paradigm represents a phenomenology for divine and human relations, and human social relations, each considered in their own right. The fact that it is acts of perceptive imagination on the part of the viewer, hearing of someone like Paul, that creates the possibility of visualizing new forms of community, means that human imagination in and of itself can be considered crucial for the theological enterprise. More than a static model concerning how humanity relates to God, the model of language, thought and 72 73

trin. 8.9.13. The general set of thoughts here concurs with a useful comment by Agaësse, commenting on Augustine’s articulation of the mental word (verbum mentis) in trin. 9.7.13: ‘L’âme en effet est changeante; bien plus, comme [Augustine] remarque dans la suite [de trin. 9.7.13], elle est altérée et cachée en quelque sorte par un revêtement d’images sensibles auxquelles elle s’est assimilée’. Agaësse, 598. Agaësse takes Augustine’s comments on Paul in Book 8 as a starting point for his reflections on the meaning of the inner word, and it is from here that his comment derives. My observations concerning sociality above extend Agaësse’s description of the transformation of the soul into the social arena in whose context such transformations take place. The soul is transfigured according to its ‘nature changeante’ with respect to its recognition of the eternal form of justice. This recognition has been prompted by the description of Paul – Agaësse’s ‘images sensibles’. This transfiguration then enables the soul to interact anew with the social arena from which it has come, now transfigured by the form of justice it has perceived through Paul. This process of growth constitutes Augustinian Christian discipleship, on my reading.

154

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

God as I have presented it here represents a phenomenology of how the ordinary activities of human social interaction can become the ground for an increasing awareness of God’s presence within the human community. It is at the same time a description of how social embodiment constitutes the theological ground for visualizing new forms of community in which God may be manifest. Augustine emphasizes sociality all the more strongly towards the end of Book 8, before he reaches the conclusions above. Having established, through his initial discussion of the apostle Paul, that ‘whoever loves men should love them either because they are just or in order that they might be just’,74 Augustine centres on love as the only issue with which we have to occupy ourselves ‘in this question about the trinity and about knowing God’.75 He first makes a distinction between true love – dilectio or caritas76 – and cupiditas, identified as an improper form of love.77 He examines the commandments and observes that it is sometimes scriptural shorthand to cite just one component of the commandment to love God and neighbour, with the component cited embracing the whole. The commandment to love God thus embraces love of neighbour, since God has commanded that we do this. Reciprocally, when scripture commands only love of neighbour, we also love God. As Augustine explains using a passage from 1 John, ‘“God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God”, so it follows that above all he loves God.’78 There is reciprocation between social embodiment and love of God such that in order to love God, we must primarily discover such love in our love of neighbour. Augustine cites Christ as the paradigm model of perfect love and justice, since Christ laid down his life for his friends. In so doing, Christ exemplified the scriptural commandment to love God and neighbour. It also demonstrated his love of justice and his despising of mortal things.79 Social comportment is thus paradigmatic of the fulfilling of scripture’s commandment, 74 75 76

77

78 79

trin. 8.6.9. trin. 8.7.10. Equivalents in the trin. See my article, ‘The Concept of Person in Augustine’s De Trinitate’, Studia Patristica (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming), n. 14: ‘Dilectio and caritas are equivalents in the trin. insofar as Augustine uses them interchangeably when discussing especially 1 John, which describes God as love. See for example his discussion at trin. 15.17.31 where Augustine uses caritas and dilectio interchangeably with respect to precisely the same biblical quotation (1 Jn 4.7-8). By the time he rounds on the discussion again at trin. 15.14.37, exactly the same sense of the word love is used with respect to caritas that has predominantly been the focus of dilectio at trin. 15.31. The Corpus Christanorum notes to Augustine’s text demonstrate the extent to which these terms are equivalents with reference to the same biblical passage, and seem to suggest that Augustine may have had differing versions of the same text available to him.’ trin. 8.7.10: Ea quippe dilectio dicenda quae vera est, alioquin cupiditas est; atque ita cupidi abusive dicuntur diligere quemadmodum cupere abusive dicuntur qui diligunt. trin. 8.7.10. Cf. 1 Jn 4.16. trin. 8.7.10.

155

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

and forms the example through which we engage the meaning of justice and of human relationship to God.80 Augustine goes on to demonstrate that sociality is his primary emphasis in expounding 1 Jn 4.16, a text which becomes central for Augustine’s discussion: There you are, ‘God is love’ (I Jn 4.16). Why should we go running round the heights of the heavens and the depths of the earth looking for him who is with us if only we should wish to be with him? Let no one say ‘I don’t know what to love.’ Let him love his brother, and love that love; after all, he knows the love he loves with better than the brother he loves. There now, he can already have God better known to him than his brother, certainly better known because more present, better known because more inward to him, better known because more sure. Embrace love which is God, and embrace God with love.81 It is from our social context that our dialogue of love with God emerges, and it is through a primary attention to this context that we are enabled and equipped more deeply to love God. Bringing the emphasis on sociality home further, and in a way that Hill notes is not native to the scriptural text he is citing,82 Augustine quotes the Johannine saying that ‘whoever does not love the brother whom he sees cannot love God whom he does not see’ (1 Jn 4.20). Augustine puts the point starkly – ‘the cause of his not seeing God is that he does not love his brother.’83 Sociality, for Augustine, is the sine qua non of the possibility of movement towards God. More precisely, however, Augustine does not simply say that the fact of sociality is the ground upon which we move towards God. It is instead our mental attention to the love that we possess that is the ground for our transformative passage towards God. Augustine finally articulates it in terms of vision: ‘if a person were to love with spiritual charity the one he sees with human vision (visus humanus), he would see God who is charity with the inner vision (visus interior) which he can be seen by’.84 The movement inward to see God is regulated in the first instance by a mental attentiveness to the way in which we participate in our outward social world. This dialogue between inner and outer is the primary tuning mechanism for our movement towards the final and beatific vision of God.85 80 81 82 83 84 85

On exemplum, see Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 147–59. trin. 8.7.11–8.8.12. See Hill, The Trinity, 257, n. 43. trin. 8.8.12. trin. 8.8.12. It may be objected here that I am eliding Augustine’s account of inner vision with the eschatological vision to which human life strives. On the basis of this text alone, that would be a valid

156

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

This is not, however, the end of Augustine’s argument. Augustine completes the task of Book 8 by turning to the very phenomenon of love as inherently Trinitarian. He observes, in completing his exposition of the Johannine identification of God with love, that love itself contains a lover, an object of love, and the phenomenon of love that exists between them.86 This picks up on his initial observation of the dynamism of the concept of love which, as he says, requires an object in order to be itself, which object he has just expounded as our brother whom we are commanded by scripture to love.87 At a surface level, therefore, Augustine is gazing through the word ‘love’ to unpack its phenomenology and observe its Trinitarian character. This appears to be only a small step forward from Book 7, in which Augustine meditated on the meaning of the word persona as exemplifying the Trinity. However, this movement now has behind it the depth of the exploration he has just conducted, an exploration that has insisted on the essential character of love’s enactment within a social setting.88 Inasmuch as Augustine has again found that ‘any one word’ can form a starting point for Trinitarian reflection, he has done so now by highlighting the fundamentally social character of love as that which allows us insight into God’s being. This is such that, in gazing into the depth of the Trinitarian mystery through the tripartite structure of love, we do so with respect firstly to our embodiment in, and acquaintance with, the social arena in which we encounter the phenomenon of love. Augustine’s reflections in Book 8.8.12–8.9.13 represent his assertion of the primacy of social space for the possibility of conscious interaction with God.89

86 87 88

89

accusation. However, the general tenor of Augustine’s remarks in this work as a whole and in his texts elsewhere are quite clear in the assertion that God cannot be beheld for any length of time on this side of mortality. Whatever the purpose of such ‘inner vision’ of God is, it can only have as its ultimate aim the vision of God in eternity. Augustine’s remarks in doctr. chr. 2.7.9–2.7.11 concerning the seven-stage ascent to wisdom, discussed in Chapter 2 above, bear my point out. There, misericordia, or compassion, is the fifth and penultimate stage of the ascent. The sixth is the purification of the heart. I would suggest that Augustine is outlining something moving between these fifth and sixth stages of purification in his comments here in Book 8 of the trin. trin. 8.10.14. trin. 8.8.12; Cf. 1 Jn 4.16. More than a baroque digression, as Hill’s text would characterize it, Augustine’s treatment of the words caritas and dilectio is an exploration of the reality within which the Trinitarian phenomenon of love may be identified. This entails that by the time he encapsulates the meaning of Trinitarian relations within the phenomenology described by the word ‘love’, Augustine has behind him the reflection on the necessity of sociality in order for us to proceed to God. See Hill, The Trinity, 257, n. 41. In his description of the outset of Augustine’s discussion of sociality at 8.8.12, Hill does not observe that Augustine’s definition of love as explicitly Trinitarian at 8.9.13 is a development of his initial remarks at 8.8.12. See Hill, The Trinity, 251. In the earlier passage, Augustine is content to observe that within words such as ‘love’ there is a duality always present: ‘[Charity always implies an object of love] just as a word indicates something and also indicates itself,

157

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

This ends our exposition of Book 8. In it, I have emphasized Augustine’s account of the social nature of our relationship to God and the necessity of our attentiveness to that social context in order for us to move towards God. In my return to Book 15, I would like to focus on how this set of reflections contributes to the possibility of reading Augustinian theology in dialectical terms. In particular, I would like to propose that Augustine’s exploration of the image of God in Books 9–15 composes a theological ‘word’ that we use to engage our dialogue with God. Augustine closes his exposition of Book 8 by describing the discovery of love as inherently Trinitarian as the ‘warp’ (exordium) on which he will weave (contexere) his ongoing theological inquiry.90 It is thus that sociality and the phenomenon of love are the starting points for his exploration of the human mind as the image of God. This exploration is a weaving of the components of the mind as the image of God, such that Augustine’s own theological speech is part of the vehicle we use to follow the transformative via to the restored image of God in the human person.

4. Books 9–15: the images of God and the possibility of theology Augustine’s arrival at Book 15 of the De trinitate is conditioned by his progress through the five previous books, Books 9–14. He summarizes this progress at the outset of Book 15. His possibility of reaching Book 15 emerges from his explorations in Books 9–14, and the theology of ‘image’ provided in Book 15 has the set of reflections in these previous books underlying it. Importantly, the attempts to discern the image of God within the tripartite structures of the mind in Books 9–14 are all considered incomplete. Memory, understanding and will are the chief structures Augustine uses to make this attempt.91 As he states it in Book 14, however, it is not the mind’s remembering, understanding and loving itself which constitutes the image of God, but the mind’s remembering, understanding and loving God which makes it the image of God.92 This is a crucial

90 91 92

but does not indicate itself as a word unless it indicates itself indicating something.’ This ‘something’ in love’s case is one’s brother, and from here his exposition of sociality commences. By the time of 8.9.13 and the conclusion of the text, Augustine has observed the Trinitarian nature of love by observing not just the lover and the beloved, but the very phenomenon of love itself which binds them. Through a meditation on the social in 8.8.12–8.9.13, which is the centre of his discussion in this section, the word ‘love’ has been revealed in its Trinitarian dynamic. The movement is thus from a broadly social phenomenon, that of human interaction, to speech as an iconic embodiment of that phenomenon. trin. 8.10.14. Tamquam ab articulo alicuius exordii cetera contexamus. Augustine selects these at trin. 10.11.17. trin. 14.12.15.

158

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

point; Augustine is articulating that the purpose of searching for the image of God, indeed the purpose of searching for God, is the Pauline one of seeking to have our broken image renewed and restored after God’s likeness. We are to be ‘renewed in the recognition of God according to the image of him who created him’.93 As Augustine puts it: The man who is being renewed in the recognition of God and in justice and holiness of truth by making progress day by day, is transferring his love from temporal things to eternal things, from visible things to intelligible things, from carnal things to spiritual things; he is industriously applying himself to checking and lessening his greed for the one thing and binding himself with charity to the other.94 Being transformed into God’s likeness comes first from an identification of God as distinct from the things of the world. Augustine’s description here builds on his discovery of the transcendent form of justice, which he describes in Book 8 of the text, and which I treated above. Binding oneself to charity, as Augustine describes it above, is a further outworking of the theme of Book 8, and all in all Augustine’s summary of being renewed in the recognition of God represents a description of the theme of ‘loving love’ and thus loving God, unlocked in that book. One might well question, then, the purpose of the five books between Augustine’s identification of the traces of the image of God in the word ‘love’, and his summary of Books 9–14 at the outset of Book 15. If Augustine had already found the answer to the question of how to know and love God in Book 8, why lead us through the laborious procedure of Books 9–14 before settling again on Book 8 again at these reflections’ end? I suggest that Augustine’s purpose in the procedure from Books 9–14 is not so much one of discovery, but one of identification of the mind in such a way that he can bring it into conversation with the doctrinal account that has been the governing thesis of the De trinitate. The text begins with a statement of the credal position of the church concerning God’s being as Trinity, which Augustine then moves to justify on the basis of scripture.95 This is the theme of his work from Books 1–4. He then explores the foundation for speech about God as Trinity in Books 5–7, culminating in the discussion of persona that I discussed above. Book 8 represents an exploration of the foundation for exploring the meaning of the Trinity with respect to the phenomenon of love. I emphasized the importance of Augustine’s remarks concerning sociality in this discussion. Books 9–14 pick up the theme of love 93 94 95

trin. 14.16.22. Rom. 12.2; Col. 3.9. trin. 14.17.23. The credal statement is at 1.4.7. Augustine begins scriptural validation of the creed at 1.6.9.

159

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

and use it to construct a Trinitarian account of the mind. The discussion of the work is thus governed by Augustine’s credal statement at the opening of the text, and each section of the work is an exploration of this Trinitarian creed in different modes.96 Book 15 represents Augustine’s attempt to demonstrate that the image of God in the human mind can exist in such a way that it can properly be called an ‘image’. Thus, having observed the limits of his procedure in Books 9–14, he wishes to show that the human mind can reflect God in a way that the various trinities of the mind in Books 9–14 fail to do.97 As noted above, this failure is based in the fact that none of the images he explores in Books 9–14 explore the mind in its capacity to know or remember God. Book 15, by contrast, establishes two accounts of the mind which directly reflect the doctrine of God with which the text begins. The first is the image of the inner word, which image I explored briefly in Chapter 1. The second is the image of the Spirit as analogous to the human will and, more precisely, to caritas, which Augustine describes as the will in the human person.98 I will examine both of these images briefly and examine their construction of human identity in dialogical conversation with God understood as Trinity. The first image of God is the exploration of the inner word, which I detailed in the first chapter and which contains an incarnational analogy that was the starting point for the reflections of the present text. I will cite here an extract from this passage which follows the analogy between the incarnation of the Word of God and human speech, illustrating the centrality of this inner word as an articulation of the image of God: And so we must come to that word of man, the word of a rational animal, the word of the image of God which is not born of God but made by God, the word which is neither uttered in sound nor thought of in the likeness of sound which necessarily belongs to some language, but which precedes all the signs that signify it and is begotten of the knowledge abiding in the consciousness, when this knowledge is uttered inwardly just exactly as it is. 96

97

98

My division of the text in these terms principally follows Hill, The Trinity, 21–7. I do this only to enable myself to emphasize the prevalence of Augustine’s credal statement as a governing feature of the work. I do not concur entirely with Hill’s vision of Book 15 as concerned only with the inadequacy of the image of God that Augustine has constructed. My book instead emphasizes that Augustine’s whole procedure is designed to enable the human person constructively to engage the Trinitarian mystery using the tools he provides during the work. This represents a success, and not a failure, on Augustine’s part. Cf. Pintaric, 132: ‘Die Analyse der Analogienabfolge erweist die “verbum-mentis”-Analogie des 15. Buches von De trinitate als den Höhenpunkt des Werkes: Diese ist gegenüber den Analogien aus den Büchern 8–14 . . .’ Cf. Pintaric, 76–82. trin. 15.20.38. Quid est aliud caritas quam voluntas?

160

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

. . . So when that which is in the awareness is also in a word, then it is a true word, and truth such as a man looks for so that what is in awareness should also be in word and what is not in awareness should not either be in word . . . In this way this likeness of the made image approaches as far as it can to the likeness of the born image, in which God the Son is declared to be substantially like the Father in all respects.99 Inner thought or cognition, the ‘word that precedes all human speech’, is the place that most truly reflects John’s description of the procession of the second person of the Trinity from the Father. The inner word, in Augustine’s description of it, is ideally that place where there is a pure synthesis between thought and knowledge, between knowledge and object known, such that it literally images the perfection of the second person of the Trinity’s identity with the Father. The second image that Augustine develops to fill out the image of the Trinity in the mind is that of the will as analogous to the Holy Spirit in the eternal operations of the Trinity. Augustine describes this at the end of a long digression concerning the proper name for the Holy Spirit, immediately following his exegesis of the inner word as the analogy of the Son to the Father in the human mind. He determines on scriptural grounds that the most appropriate word for the Spirit is caritas or dilectio, love, and that this is analogous to the will of the human person in the memory, understanding and will triad he has been discussing. As he puts it, dilectio is a description of our will and our love at its most effective (valentior).100 He uses this analogy to assert the supremacy of the image of memory, understanding and will in the human mind and says the following: Anyone who has a lively intuition of [memory, understanding and will] (as divinely established in the nature of his mind) and of how great a thing it is that his mind has that by which even the eternal and unchanging nature can be recalled, beheld, desired – it is recalled by memory, beheld by intelligence, embraced by love – has thereby found the image of that supreme trinity. To the memory, sight, and love of this supreme trinity, in order to

99 100

trin. 15.11.20. trin. 15.21.41. Cf. 15.20.38, where Augustine makes the analogy between the human and divine will in conversation with the Eunomians. Augustine’s actual statement at trin. 15.21.41 places amor in apposition to dilectio, rather than caritas: De spiritu autem sancto nihil in hoc aenigmate quod ei simile videretur ostendi nisi voluntatem nostram, vel amorem seu dilectionem quae valentior est voluntas. I am presuming a continuity between his use of amor and his use of dilectio and caritas here since he makes no noticeable distinction between amor and dilectio in his discussion here. See also D. Dideberg, ‘Amor’ in Mayer, Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, 294–300.

161

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

recollect it, see it, and enjoy it, he should refer every ounce and particle of his life.101 Augustine closes with a warning concerning the dissimilarity of this image of God from its actual model, God, and proceeds from here to assert that one should also note ‘how great the dissimilarity is in whatever similarity there may be’.102 He thus leaves the question of the image in a dialectical tension, between what is asserted and found to be in as close a likeness as possible to God as this likeness has been discerned through his investigation, and the unlikeness to God which is the other theme running throughout this final book of the work. Crucially, he says that the key to recognizing the image of God as the image of God is to see it in terms of the one who implanted it in the mind. Given Augustine’s procedure to this point, where he has progressively built up this picture of the mind in terms of the relationship between memory, understanding and will, this point in Book 15 represents Augustine positioning all of these investigations and the image they have discerned in a direct conversation with God. Augustine articulates his vision of the mind so as to make the mind a Trinitarian object of reflection, and asserts that in reflecting on this Trinitarian object par excellence as a likeness to God, the mind will be drawn more deeply into God’s life. The human mind and a scriptural-dogmatic account of God as Trinity have become mutually intertwined so that, for Augustine, as the mind reflects on itself as Trinity, so also does it become closer to God.103 I point this out to show the extent to which Augustine, in his procedure in the De trinitate, is concerned as much with how the mind works and knows things as he is with an account of modelling the mind after God’s image.104 Memory, understanding and will are explored not as part of an introspective search for self-knowledge, but rather as part of a conversation with the creed whose presence regulates Augustine’s inquiries. Augustine’s principal reason for asserting memory, understanding and will as the paradigm with which he will continue his search for the image of God in the human mind is the extent to which he sees the normative operations of memory, understanding and will as reflecting

101 102 103

104

trin. 15.20.39. trin. 15.20.39. Cf. Collinge, 144. Collinge’s analysis of the exercitatio animi function of Books 9–14 of the trin. is not inaccurate. My point concerning Book 15, however, is the need for the concept of image to be grounded within the scripture and doctrine from which it begins. That seems to be the purpose of this last book of the work. To that extent, it correctly recapitulates the exercitatio animi function of Books 9–14. For this, see Ayres, ‘“It’s Not for Eatin’ – It’s for Lookin’ Through”: memoria, intellegentia, voluntas and the Argument of Augustine’s De trinitate IX–X’. Chapter 6 of Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

162

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

the intercommunion and mutual identity of the persons of the Trinity. During a complex and not especially clearly reasoned justification of this paradigm for understanding the Trinity, Augustine says: Therefore whatever understandable thing I remember and will I also understand in consequence. My will also contains my whole understanding and my whole memory while I use the whole of what I understand and remember. Therefore since they are each and all and wholly contained by each, they are each and all equal to each and all, and each and all equal to all of them together, and these three are one, one life, one mind, one being.105 This assertion occurs in Book 10, well before Augustine has begun an inquiry into the mind’s capacity to know the external world with respect to its facilities of memory, understanding and will. It is not a model that arises from introspective gazing into the mind, but rather one whose pulse comes from the Trinitarian creed that shapes the description he gives of the mind in Trinitarian terms. Augustine’s movement through the following texts consists largely of an unwrapping of the operations of the mind in terms of the memory, understanding and will paradigm, firstly with regard to operations of the mind concerning the external world – he begins with the activity of sight106 – and moving finally to the mind’s reflection on itself in terms of memory, understanding and will.107 As already stated, Augustine discerns finally the necessity of consciously reflecting upon this model of the mind in terms of the archetype on which it is based; a failure to do this renders only a meaningless self-reflexiveness that fails to restore the mind to the image of God that it seeks. Book 15 demonstrates the extent to which Augustine’s procedure climaxes in an intertwining of God and the human, such that the image of God he has developed in the mind finally finds a fusion with the Trinitarian doctrine of God that has been the regulative feature of the text. This is balanced, however, by the emphasis on the dissimilarity between the image of God unfolded climactically in Book 15 and the actual being of God that has been Augustine’s discussion in the text. He says that among the reasons why the inner word cannot be considered a true image is that, for us, there is a difference between being and knowledge: ‘it is not the same thing to be as to know’.108 With God, however, being and knowledge are identical.109 Similarly, we are not only capable of being ignorant of the object

105 106 107 108 109

trin. 10.11.18. trin. 11.2.2. trin. 14.10.13. trin. 15.15.24. trin. 15.14.23.

163

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

of knowledge of which we utter a word and therefore of being mistaken; but even worse, also capable of lying and therefore of bringing a deliberate distance between the object of thought and the will. God does no such thing, however, and as Augustine puts it, ‘it shows the great power of the Word that he cannot lie, because there cannot be any “yes and no” but only “yes, yes; no, no”’.110 There is a certainty between God and his utterance of himself that encompasses his being, his knowledge and his will, all of which stand distinct from the human person’s demonstrable capacity to lie, to be mistaken, and to be simply forgetful concerning even the things uttered in the mind which are perfectly correspondent with the objects of thought.111 This is an important stage of Augustine’s reflections on the dissimilarity of the image of God from its archetype inasmuch as it sets up the basic difference between human frailty, be it moral or mortal, and the inability to conceptualize God in such terms. Augustine uses scripture to justify the fullness of connection between, for example, the Son and the Father, such that, as he says, ‘the Word . . . cannot do anything except what it sees the Father doing’.112 Hence the speech of Christ is to be identified with the speech of God, and through it we come to meditate on and gain insight into the being of God. However, there is a further element of Augustine’s distinction between the image and the archetype which has its centre in language. Augustine says, concerning the vicissitudes of human thought, that the reason that the second person of the Trinity is called the ‘Word’ of God rather than the ‘thought’ of God is precisely to avoid any analogy between even considered human reflectiveness and the intimacy and certainty of relations between the persons of the Trinity. Using a citation from Virgil to make his point, he explains: [The second person of the Trinity] is called God’s Word without also being called God’s thought, to avoid the assumption that there might be in God anything like a chopping and changing element, which will now receive, now regain a form in order to be a word, and which can lose it too and so somehow roll formlessly around. It was an outstanding master of words, one who knew them well and had looked closely into the bias of thought, who said in his poem, ‘and to himself he rolls his mind around (volutare) the varied course of war’ (aen. 10.159–60), that is to say, he thinks about it.113

110 111 112 113

trin. 15.15.24. trin. 15.15.24. trin. 15.15.24. Cf. Jn 5.19. trin. 15.15.25.

164

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

The picture of Aeneas musing on the prospect of war in Latium represents the perfect description of the flux of human thought, what Augustine calls the ‘chopping and changing’ element of human reflection. It represents, quite simply, the mind’s volubility. Augustine’s insistence that the second person of the Trinity is referred to as verbum in order to avoid association with such mutability brings out a point crucial for this work. I argued earlier in this chapter that the very materiality of speech creates the possibility of human reflection on God. In what Augustine says here in Book 15, the very concept of verbum is that towards which we are to address our reflection on God’s being. More powerfully, the concept of verbum is what creates certainty concerning God’s being. God’s word, that is, has a conceptual certainty and a concrete materiality not suggested by the idea of God’s thought, which in an Augustinian mind represents only the transience normative in a world of contingencies.114 This suggests again that it is language’s materiality that, in an Augustinian framework, presents the possibility for thinking on God. Even where Augustine deliberately emphasizes the dissimiliarity of the image of God in the human person from its divine archetype, language remains the anchor that, conceptually, connects God and humanity unequivocally. In the description above, verbum functions as a crossover point that the mind can traverse even in the characteristic uncertainties and vicissitudes that Augustine represents the mind as possessing. Augustine does not suggest that this reduces language to something static. Instead, he insists simply that our reflection on God is to be conditioned by a distance and dissimilarity that the notion of a certain word embodies; namely, God on whom the mind thinks. We recognize our own fragility and uncertainty by contrast with God whose certainty the materiality of speech registers. Reflection on this contrast at the same time draws us closer to God, whose own spoken word is certain in a way that ours is not. It is not so much that, for Augustine, God exists in the materiality of speech, but that through speech and reflection on it we are capable of reflection on God. Word and speech form the structure with respect to which the mind gravitates in order to reflect transformatively on the nature of the divine being.115

114

115

For some good further reflection on Augustine’s use of verbum as distinct from other concepts, see Watson, 89–91. Watson usefully points out the Stoic and Neoplatonic background to the concept, observing that these form Augustine’s basis for the use of verbum, which Augustine then extrapolated theologically. The particular materiality of speech, to which I refer above, has a Stoic heritage. (Watson, 88). Watson also points to the historical context of the Synod of Sirmium (351), which condemned the use of the Stoic logos prophorikos as a description of the second person of the Trinity. Such an application would have rendered God analogous to the world of contingencies in a way antithetical to Augustine’s thought. Cf. Pintaric, 132: ‘In der Sprache selbst wird so eine Analogie für die Realität des trinitarischen Gottes gefunden.’

165

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

It is in his reflections on the disanalogy between the image of memory, understanding and will that Augustine makes perhaps the sharpest and most crucial distinction between the image of God in the mind and the archetype of which it is an image. Describing the simplicity of God, he observes that the composite nature of human identity means that we must possess the attributes of memory, understanding and will without actually being them. This is not the same for God, who is simultaneously any of the attributes he is described as possessing. As Augustine puts it, ‘in a nutshell’ (breviter): [W]e can say: ‘It is I who remember, I who understand, I who love with all three of these things – I am not either memory or understanding or love, but have them.’ This can indeed be said by one person who has these things and is not himself these three things. But in the simplicity of that supreme nature which is God, although God is one the persons are three, Father and Son and Holy Spirit . . . [That triad in God is not] like this image, man, which is not one person having those three things; on the contrary, it is three persons, the Father of the Son and the Son of the Father and the Spirit of the Father and the Son.116 The difference between God and the human person is that God is simultaneously God’s attributes, even while being three persons. The human person, however, must always possess the attributes with which they are described and can never be any or all of them. He or she must always understand themselves as an identity constituted by these attributes. These attributes and this difference become the ground on which the human person reflects on themselves in analogy and in disanalogy to God. This represents perhaps the most crucial distinction that Augustine makes in the text between God and the human person. Ultimately, it is God’s paradoxical simplicity that delineates God from the human person and removes the possibility of any real analogy between God and the mind seeking God. Yet, there is a crucial and missing clause in what Augustine has said above. What he fails to articulate is that it is the actual activity of human reflection on God, in terms of likeness and unlikeness, that forms a crucial part of the meaning of searching for God’s image. Augustine has already spent five books building up a structural account of the human mind in order to be able to crown it with the image of God in the human mind as inner word and caritas, such that God and the human person can nominally enter into conversation with each other. He puts the point somewhat baldly at the very close of the text, when asserting the need for the mind to reflect theologically on its own construction in order to be able to approach God:

116

trin. 15.22.42–15.23.43. The emphasis is Hill’s.

166

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

But as far as concerns that supreme, inexpressible, incorporeal and unchangeable nature and the perception of it in some measure or other by the understanding, there is nothing on which the human mind could better practice its gaze (provided of course that it is governed by the rule of faith) than on that which man has in his nature that is better than the animals, better even than the other parts of his own soul; and this is the mind to which has been allotted a kind of power to see invisible things, and to which the senses of the body also bring all things for judgment as it presides, so to say, in the innermost and uppermost place of honour, and which has nothing above it to whose government it is subject except God.117 It is the mind’s reflection on itself when fully discerned that enables it to reflect upon God, inasmuch as for Augustine there is nothing between the mind and God. The procedure from Books 9–14 thus makes sense in terms of a discernment of the mind in its fullest capacity, so as to be able to see God and God’s difference from it. It is in this final move, however, the assertion and recognition of the dissimilarity between image and archetype, that the creative tension in the Augustinian procedure lies. It is not so much that Augustine discards as valueless the mind whose picture he has discerned, but rather that, having observed it in toto, he is then able to distinguish between image and archetype in a way that allows for a proper refashioning of the mind towards its end of complete likeness to God. Thus far I have emphasized the significance of words as the bridge to God. This emerges from an Augustinian articulation of the relationship between the inner word and its outwardly verbalized speech that sees the act of speech as analogous to the incarnation of the divine Word. If what I have said above is also true, then it is as much the reflection on words in their dissimilarity from God whom words communicate as it is a recognition of the continuity between words and the divine being that forms the activity of relationship between God and humanity. Augustine remarks that the image of God that he has discerned should be utilized as a means through which we may glimpse the divine being. He does this using the Pauline image of now seeing through a glass darkly before ultimately seeing God face to face eschatologically. He emphasizes again that we must do more than simply look at the mind in its own terms: Those who do see through this mirror and in this puzzle (cf. 1 Cor. 13.12), as much as it is granted to see in this life, are not those who merely observe in their own minds what we have discussed and suggested, but those who

117

trin. 15.27.49.

167

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

see it precisely as an image, so that they can in some fashion refer what they see to that of which it is an image, and also see that other by inference through its image which they see by observation, since they cannot see it ‘face to face’ (1 Cor. 13.12). For the apostle did not say ‘We now see a mirror (videre nunc speculum)’, but ‘We see by a mirror (videre per speculum)’ (1 Cor. 13.12).118 It is the mind’s capacity to refer the activity of self-reflection to God that makes the discernment of the image of God in Books 9–15 worthwhile. More than a reflection on its own thought and thought about its own content, the mind’s activity so constructed becomes part of a conversation that engages the being of God whom the mind seeks. It is this end point in God, who stands above both the mind and human description of it, that furthermore defines the value of the reflective theological venture. Human exploration of the mind and description of such activity become a pathway for discerning the divine archetype towards which all intellectual activity ultimately strives, for Augustine.119 It is for this reason that I would finally like to suggest that the value of Books 9–14 is in its own building up of a ‘word’ concerning the relationship between God and humanity. It is not so much that the project of Books 9–14 is an artificial one, based on conjecture concerning the nature of the mind. Augustine’s insights concerning how we intuit and interact with the world around us using memory, understanding and will make for compelling epistemological reading. It is rather that in his account of the mind in terms of memory, understanding and will Augustine sets up an account that is already in dialogue with the doctrine and the creed it sets out to understand. It is, therefore, as much a constructive as a descriptive project. Augustine’s remarks at the end of the text, that we are to utilize this image he has created,120 demonstrates the extent to which it is the activity of reflection that is at the centre of the mind’s capacity to see God. This activity transcends any description of the mind and is to some extent 118

119

120

trin. 15.23.44. My translation. Hill mistakenly translates videre nunc speculum as ‘we now see in a mirror’. He seems to do this to emphasize the contrast between seeing through a mirror such as the image of God in the human person, and a merely self-reflective gazing at the mind against which Augustine counsels. The Latin doesn’t require this to be emphasized, and the key is that the mirror is more like a looking-glass, to be seen through to a further reality, than a mirror. See also Ayres, ‘“It’s Not for Eatin’ – It’s for Lookin’ Through”: memoria, intellegentia, voluntas and the Argument of Augustine’s De trinitate IX–X’. Pace Obertello, 107–31. Like most of those focusing on Books 9–14 of the trin. to the exclusion of Book 15, Obertello fails to mention the need for us to be searching for God in order for the concept of image to become properly effective. Obertello’s comments stand, however, as a good examination of the significance of Augustine’s description of the human mind in Trinitarian terms. trin. 15.27.49.

168

DE TRINITATE AND THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

independent of it, regardless of whether or not the mind actually functions in the terms that Augustine has described. Put quite simply, the fact that Augustine is still speaking about the mind he has described means that in the act of speech there exists the possibility for ongoing reflection that again engages with what is spoken. Such reflection lifts up the mind to the transcendent Trinity whom it seeks. The actively spoken word concerning the mind as the image of God is what prompts our conversation with God whom Augustine’s procedure seeks in the first instance. Theological speech breeds theological reflection, and this activity draws us closer to God. I pointed out at the beginning of this section that Augustine’s affirmation of the image of God as that to which all men seeking God should dedicate their whole being is one that recalls the descriptions of Book 8. It also recalls his encounter with the apostle Paul that inspired him to a love of justice and desire to seek after the perfect form in God which it brings to mind. His description at the end of the text of the mind’s activity as still independent of the descriptive self-discovery recalls that, even despite the establishment of analogy between God and the human mind, it is only in the activity of the mind’s encounter with God through the ‘word’ of this analogy that makes the analogy useful. Put in simple terms, Augustine’s description of the mind in Books 9–14 is part of an exercise in creating something useful (utile), which will move us on towards our eschatological goal of enjoying God permanently and having the vision of the undivided Trinity face to face.121

Conclusion I have now successfully established that Augustine’s emphases in the De trinitate are those that exist elsewhere in his work and, more importantly, that they may be seen as representing a climax of the themes I picked out in the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. The significance of human speech as articulating a bridge between the divine and the human was brought out particularly with regard to the human person of Christ, who is the Word made flesh and thus embodies in his language the bridge between divine and human on which this work has generally focused. The significance of language as a phenomenon was emphasized in my reading of Books 5–7, in which I registered Augustine’s position as a ‘formal demonstration’ of the principle of speech as the bridge between divine and human. This formal demonstration of the significance of speech as a 121

My reference to the concept of uti–frui here, and its expression in Book 1 of the doctr. chr. in terms of that which is utile as leading us ultimately to eternal enjoyment of God, is deliberate. Cf. O’Donovan, 361–97.

169

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

bridge between God and humanity developed Augustine’s emphasis on the significance of Christ’s speech as providing insight into the relations within the Trinity. To this extent, Books 5–7 represent a development of the thesis of Books 1–4 into a thesis concerning the church’s formal language about the Trinity – his focus on the word persona – and the phenomenon of speech itself as the means through which we approach God. This section of my argument, particularly as regards Augustine’s description of the need to keep the conversation with heretics going and to defend the intellectual credibility of the Christian faith, could be seen as the beginning of an attempt to defend the pure theological value of the phenomenon of human conversation. In the third section of the chapter, I emphasized the significance of human sociality in our attempt to reach God, noting that both speech and the sociality that is its context form a crucial part of human conversation with God. Such speech and sociality were evinced in scripture’s descriptions of the apostle Paul and their inspirational impact, which Augustine describes. Such speech also included definitions of justice that prompted the mind to acknowledgement of the transcendent good to which such definitions point. Speech and social example were seen as continuous with one another in their creation of a deepening conversation with God. In my final section, I pointed out that despite Augustine’s crowning of the concept of ‘image’ in Book 15, there exists a dialogical tension that operates, on the one hand, with respect to the scriptural and credal definitions of the Trinity with which Augustine operates in the text, and, on the other, with regard to the dissimilarity between God and the image Augustine describes in Book 15. This dialectical tension represents the reality of human encounter with God. I finally emphasized that it is the mind’s activity with regard to the affirmed image and likeness of God, and its conscious recognition of the difference between this likeness and its archetype, that represents the true shape of human conversation with God. Such a conversation is both apophatic and kataphatic, drawing on what we can affirm about God through scripture and doctrine; and the difference we must recognize between God and all such speech. Such tension represents the creative possibility of all linguistic and social encounter with God. In the conclusion to the work, I would like to bring together the threads of the theology of language that this exploration of Augustine’s texts represents.

170

CONCLUSION: THE THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE OF AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

This work has now explored the relationship between language, thought and God in three of Augustine’s major works, the De trinitate, the De doctrina christiana, and the Confessions. It has done this with the purpose of uncovering Augustine’s theology of language, and the centrality of sociality for Augustine’s thought on the identity of the human person before God. In my conclusion, I will make some summary remarks concerning the value of the book’s explorations. I would like to suggest that the strength of the work lies in its character as an interpretative proposition. In the book, I have taken three major works of Augustine and demonstrated the extent to which they are consonant with a particular thesis: namely, that language and the very act of speech is the chief mediation point between God and humanity in Augustine’s thought. The three works selected were such as to represent some chief veins of Augustine’s thought. They are three of his best-known works. Augustine’s thought on language in its mediatory role between God and humanity was suggestive but incomplete in the De trinitate. This warranted the more detailed investigation of the theme of language, thought and God in the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. This investigation thus sought to bring out some of the depth in this otherwise simple idea that human speech mediates between God and humanity. Such depth included observing Augustine’s intense interest in sociality and his centralizing of social relations as a means of attaining the eschatological end of beatitude. Book 1 of the De doctrina christiana demonstrated how sociality is itself a form of speech, and part of the language with which we interact as we move towards our end of eschatological beatitude. Books 2 and 3 of the same text demonstrated the self-reflexivity of reading scripture, as scripture becomes the speech we use to interpret what it is to be a human person. Book 4 exemplified the necessity of public speech in order for the transformative conversions towards God to take place. Speech and sociality were thus emphasized in an expository fashion, as Augustine’s book on Christian teaching brought out the centrality of 171

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

the theme of speech and sociality in his thought on Christian scripture, reading and preaching. An examination of the Confessions demonstrated that, for Augustine, sociality is the very context in which the transformative passage to God takes place. Augustine’s narrative of conversion demonstrated this. More significantly, however, the Confessions demonstrated what it means to speak in Christian terms, as one addresses God and the Christian community simultaneously in a public act of literary confession. Augustine’s choice to make such an act can be seen as literature in narrative and exemplary terms, as Augustine’s confessional persona becomes a means of our own entering into conversation with God in similar confessional terms. Augustine’s remarks in the Retractationes concerning the edifying value of his Confessions for his readers should not be passed over in this regard.1 Even in Augustine’s own day, and for Augustine himself, the piece of literature that is the Confessions had become a means through which human conversation with God was enacted. Intentional or otherwise, Augustine creates with the Confessions a form of speech and identity which we ourselves can use to approach God. His theology of language in the Confessions is thus exemplary as much as it is narratival. My revisiting of the De trinitate suggested that the theme of language, thought and God was as doctrinal in its significance as it was purely interpretative. Augustine sees the figure of Christ as the Word who speaks and whose speech enables us verbally to fix our understanding of the Trinity. Such understanding, using words such as ‘procession’ and ‘sending’ concerning the Son and the Spirit’s relationship to the Father and to each other, is primarily linguistic in character. Augustine’s emptying language of any formal content when describing God, in his discussion of persona in Book 7, entailed that the act of speech is itself what enables us to interact with God. Such an act occurs invariably in a social context, such that sociality then becomes exemplified as the setting in which our relationship to God is played out. Augustine’s exploration of the phenomenology of love as a Trinitarian social paradigm formed the map for his construction of human identity in Trinitarian terms, describing the mind as the image of God. This image forms a word between God and humanity, using which thought can interactively engage God in order to become renewed in God’s image. Augustine’s act of theological speech in the De trinitate thus becomes part of the material that we use in order to be transformed again in God’s likeness.

1

See retr. 2.6: ‘The thirteen books of my confessions concerning my good deeds and wrongdoings praise the good and the just God, and towards him excite the human intellect and heart. At any rate, this is what happened to me when I wrote them, and happens when I read them. What others think about them, let them see for themselves: I know them to have pleased many brothers [in the faith] and this they still continue to do.’ My translation.

172

CONCLUSION

How does such an exploration of the relationship between language, thought and God describe an Augustinian theology of language, and what would such a theology of language look like? On the basis of what this work has uncovered, an Augustinian theology of language would be inherently social in character, and would emphasize the significance of human social relations for our transformative passage to God. In the De trinitate, Augustine describes Christ as simultaneously becoming a road (via) for us in time by his humility, while being an eternal abode for us in his divinity. This interchange is described with the paradox that by pressing on we imitate Christ who abides motionless; we follow him who stands still; and by walking in him we move towards him.2 With the christological insight of the relationship between language, thought and God it becomes easy to see that, for Augustine, such pressing on and imitation occur precisely as we engage socially and reflect on this sociality, the language that constitutes it and the language that it, itself, constitutes. There cannot be a context, given Augustine’s emphasis on the significance of human speech per se as that which enables access to God, in which God cannot be revealed. It is in the reflective process, however, as we enter and withdraw from our language and the social settings that constitute it, that the passage or transformative via to God is opened up. It is, in short, through prayer seen as reflective engagement on ourselves as creatures of language, whose sociality is itself linguistic, that our lives are transformed in God’s image.

2

trin. 7.3.5. Hill nicely phrases the Latin in these terms. Nos autem nitentes imitamur manentem et sequimur stantem et in ipso ambulantes tendimus ad ipsum quia factus est nobis via temporalis per humilitatem quae mansio nobis aeterna est per divinitatem.

173

This page intentionally left blank

BIBLIOGRAPHY

General Abbreviations CCL CSEL NRSV PL

Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout) Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna) The Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version Patrologia Latina

Primary Sources Works by Augustine and Abbreviations* an. quant. = De quantitate animae: PL 32.1035–1080, CSEL 89.131–231. cat. rud. = De catechizandis rudibus: PL 40.309–48, CCL 46.121–78. civ. = De civitate Dei: PL 41.13–804, CSEL 40/1.3–660, 40/2.1–670, CCL 47.1–314, 48.321–866. conf. = Confessionum libri tredecim: PL 32.659–868, CSEL 33.1–388, CCL 27.1–273. dial. = Augustine. De dialectica, translated with introduction and notes by B. D. Jackson from the text newly edited by J. Pinborg. Dordrecht/Boston: 1975. div. qu. = De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus: PL 40.11–100, CCL 44A.11–249. doctr. chr. = De doctrina christiana: PL 34.15–122, CSEL 80.3–169, CCL 32.1–167. en. Ps. = Ennaratio(nes) in Psalmos: PL 40.231–90, CCL 46.49–114. ep. = Epistula(e): PL 33.61–1094, CSEL 34/1.1–125, 34/2.1–746, 44.1–736, 57.1–656, 58.XCIII, 88.3–138. 175

BIBLIOGRAPHY

f. et sym. = De fide et symbolo: CSEL 41.3–32. gn. litt. = De Genesi ad litteram: PL 34.245–468, CSEL 28/1.3–435. Io. eu. tr. = In Iohannis euangelium tractatus CXXIV: PL 35.1379–1976, CCL 36.1–688. mag. = De magistro: PL 32.1193–1220, CSEL 77/1.3–55, CCL 29.157–203. mus. = De musica libri sex: PL 32.1081–1194, M. Jacobsson, Aurelius Augustinus De musica liber VI: a critical edition with a translation and an introduction, 6–116. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2002. retr. = Retractationes: PL 32.583–656, CSEL 36.(1-)7–204, CCL 57.(1-)5–143. s. = Sermo(nes): PL 38.23–1484, PL 39.1493–1638, 1650–2, 1655–7, 1657–9, 1663–9, 1671–84, 1695–7, 1701–6, 1710–15, 1716–18, 1719–36, CCL 41.3-633 (= s. 1–50). s. dom. m. = De sermone domini in monte: PL 34.1229–1308, CCL 35.1–188. sol. = Soliloquorum libri duo: PL 32.869–904, CSEL 89.3–98. trin. = De trinitate: CCL 50.(3-)25–380, 50A.381–535. * These are the standard abbreviations of Augustine’s work cited in the AugustinusLexikon, ed. C. Mayer, vol. 2, Basel: Schwabe, 1996–2002; pp. xi–xxiv. In the work itself, I use the full title only in the main text of the argument. In the footnotes, I use the abbreviated form of the text consistently.

Translations of works by Augustine Against the Academicians and The Teacher. Translated with introduction and notes by P. King. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1995. The Confessions. Edited by J. E. Rotelle. Translated by M. Boulding. New York: New City Press, 1997. The Confessions of Augustine. Translated by J. Gibb and W. Montgomery. 2nd edition. Cambridge, 1927. Reprinted New York, 1979. De Doctrina Christiana. Edited and translated by R. P. H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Soliloquies. Edited by P. Schaff. Translated by C. C. Starbuck. In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 7. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1974. St. Augustine. Concerning the City of God against the Pagans. Translated by H. Bettenson. London: Penguin, 1984. Teaching Christianity (De doctrina christiana). Edited by J. E. Rotelle. Translated by E. Hill. New York: New City Press, 1996. The Trinity. Translated by E. Hill. New York: New City Press, 1991.

176

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works by Other Ancient Authors and Abbreviations* Ambrose, hymn. = Hymnus. Walpole, A. S. Early Latin Hymns. Cambridge, 1922. —— myst. = De mysteriis: Ambrosius. De sacramentis et de mysteriis. Über die Sakramente. Über die Mysterien. Übersetzt und eingeleitet von J. Schmitz. Freiburg: Herder, 1990. Cicero, de orat. = De oratore: Cicero. De oratore I–II. Edited by E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham. Translated by E. W. Sutton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942. —— de orat. = De oratore: Cicero. De oratore III. De fato, Paradoxa Stoicorum, De partitione oratoria. Translated by H. Rackham. London: W. Heinemann Ltd, 1942. —— div. caec. = In Q. Caecilium divinatio and In C. Verrem actio prima. Edited with introduction and notes by John R. King. New revised edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912. —— inv. = De inventione: Cicero. De inventione, De optimo genere oratorum, Topica. Edited and translated by H. Hubbell. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968. Marius Victorinus, adv. Arium = Adversus Arium: Marius Victorinus. Traités theologiques sur la Trinité. Edited by P. Henry and P. Hadot. Sources Chrétiennes, 68. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1960. Plotinus, Enneads. Translated by S. MacKenna, 3rd edition. London: Faber and Faber, 1962. Quintilian, inst. = Institutio oratoria: The Institutio oratoria of Quintilian. Translated by H. E. Butler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958–60. Tertullian, adv. Prax. = Adversus Praxean: Adversus Praxean liber: Tertullian’s Treatise Against Praxeas. Edited and translated by E. Evans. London: SPCK, 1948. Virgil, aen. = Aeneid: Virgil. Aeneid VII–XII. The Minor Poems. Translated by H. Rushton Fairclough. New and revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934. * Abbreviations follow those given in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Editus iussu et auctoritate consilii ab academiis societatibusque diversarum nationum electi. Index librorum scriptorum inscriptionum ex quibus exempla afferuntur. Editio Altera. Leipzig: Teubner, 1900.

177

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary Sources Books Alici, L., ed. Interiorità e intenzionalità in S. Agostino. Atti del 1. e 2. Seminario Internazionale del Centro di Studi Agostiniani di Perugia. Roma: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1990. Andresen, C. Bibliographia Augustiniana. 2nd edition. Darmstadt, 1973. Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. Berlinger, R. Augustins dialogische Metaphysik. Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1962. Bernard, R. ‘In Figura. Terminology Pertaining to Figurative Exegesis in the Works of Augustine of Hippo.’ Unpublished dissertation. Princeton University, 1984. Brachtendorf, J. Die Struktur des menschlichen Geistes nach Augustinus. Selbstreflexion und Erkenntnis Gottes in ‘De Trinitate’. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2000. Brown, P. The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988; London: Faber, 1989. ——Augustine of Hippo. London: Faber, 1967. Burns, J. P. The Development of Augustine’s Doctrine of Operative Grace. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1980. Canning, R. The Unity of Love for God and Neighbour in St. Augustine. Heverlee-Leuven: Augustinian Historical Institute, 1993. Courcelle, P. Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin. Paris: E. de Boccard, 1950. Courtney, E., ed. The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Deely, J. Four Ages of Understanding. The First Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Dodaro, R. Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Drobner, H. R. Person-Exegese und Christologie bei Augustinus: zur Herkunft der Formel una persona. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986. Duchrow, U. Sprachverständnis und biblisches Hören bei Augustin. Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 5. Tübingen, 1965. Finaert, J. L’évolution littéraire de saint Augustin. Paris: Belles Lettres, 1939. 178

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Geerlings, W. Christus Exemplum. Studien zur Christologie und Christusverkündigung Augustins. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1978. Harrison, C. Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology. An Argument for Continuity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ——Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. ——Beauty and Revelation in the Thought of Saint Augustine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Heidegger, M. Being and Time. Translated by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. Oxford, Blackwell, 1967. Hombert, P. M. Nouvelles recherches de chronologie augustinienne. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2000. ——Gloria Gratiae. Se glorifier en Dieu, principe et fin de la théologie augustinienne de la grace. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1996. Ijsseling, S. Rhetoric and Philosophy in Conflict. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1976. Kelly, J. N. D. The Athanasian Creed. London: A&C Black, 1964. Kirwan, C. Augustine. London: Routledge, 1989. La Bonnardière, A-M. Recherches de chronologie augustinienne. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1965. Lancel, S. St. Augustine. Translated by A. Nevill. London: SCM Press, 2002. Lausberg, H. Elemente der literarischen Rhetorik. Eine Grundlegung der Litteraturwissenschaft. München: Max Hüber Verlag, 1967. Lewy, Y. Sobria Ebrietas. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der antiken Mystik. Giessen: A. Töpelmann, 1929. Madec, G. S. Augustin et la philosophie. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1996. Markus, R. A. Signs and Meanings. World and Text in Ancient Christianity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996. Mayer, C. P. Die Zeichen in der geistigen Entwicklung und in der Theologie Augustins II: Die antimanichäische Epoche. Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1974. ——Die Zeichen in der geistigen Entwicklung und in der Theologie des jungen Augustinus. Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1969. Millar, F. The Emperor in the Roman World: 31 BC–AD 337. London: Duckworth, 1977. O’Daly, G. Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. O’Donnell, J. J. Augustine. A New Biography. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005. 179

BIBLIOGRAPHY

——Augustine. Confessions. 3 volumes. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Pintaric, D. Sprache und Trinität. Semantische Probleme in der Trinitätslehre des hl. Augustinus. Salzburg: Anton Pustet, 1983. Pollmann, K. Doctrina Christiana. Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustinus, De doctrina christiana. Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag, 1996. Pontet, M. L’exégèse de S. Augustin predicateur. Paris: Aubier, 1944. Preus, M. C. Eloquence and Ignorance in Augustine’s On the Nature and Origin of the Soul. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985. Rist, J. M. Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Santi, G. Dio e l’uomo. Conoscenza, memoria, linguaggio, ermeneutica in Agostino. Rome: Citta Nuova, 1989. Schindler, A. Wort und Analogie in Augustins Trinitätslehre. Tübingen, 1965. Simonelli, C. La resurrezione nel De Trinitate di Agostino. Presenza, formulazione, funzione. Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2001. Stock, B. Augustine the Reader. Meditation, Self-Knowledge and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Strauss, G. Schriftgebrauch, Schriftauslegung und Schriftbeweis bei Augustin. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1959. Studer, B. Augustins De Trinitate. Eine Einführung. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2005. Turner, D. The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ——Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1995. Wetzel, J. Augustine and the Limits of Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Wills, G. Saint Augustine. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999.

Articles Agaësse, P. ‘La notion du verbe mental.’ Bibliothèque augustinienne 16 (1955): 597–600. Alici, L. ‘Linguaggio e tempo in S. Agostino.’ In Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter. Akten des VI. Internationalen Kongresses für mittelalterliche Philosophie der Société internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie médiévale, 29. Aug.–3. Sept. 1977 in Bonn. Halbband II, ed. J. P. Beckmann, 1037–45. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981. 180

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ando, C. ‘Augustine on language’. Revue des études augustiniennes 40 (1994): 45–78. Auerbach, E. ‘Sermo humilis’. In Auerbach, E. Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 35–47. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965. Ayres, Lewis. Chapter 1 (untitled) of Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming. ——‘“It’s not for eatin’ – it’s for lookin’ through”: memoria, intellegentia, voluntas and the Argument of Augustine’s De trinitate IX–X’. Chapter 6 of Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming. ——‘Augustine on the rule of faith: rhetoric, christology and the foundation of Christian thinking’, Augustinian Studies 36 (2005): 33–49. ——‘Augustine on the couch: James O’Donnell, Augustine, A New Biography’. The Christian Century 123 (7 February 2006). Babcock, W. ‘Augustine’s interpretation of Romans (ad 394–396)’. Augustinian Studies 10 (1979): 55–74. Bavel, T. J. van. ‘God in between affirmation and negation according to Augustine’. In Collectanea Augustiniana. Augustine: Presbyter factus sum, ed. J. T. Lienhard, E. C. Muller and R. J. Teske, 73–97. New York: Peter Lang, 1993. Beierwaltes, W. ‘Zu Augustins Metaphysik der Sprache.’ Augustinian Studies 2 (1971): 183–5. Berrouard, M.-F. ‘Le repos de Dieu au septième jour, prophétie du Christ.’ In Bibliothèque augustinienne 72, 749–51. Paris, 1977. Bonner, G. ‘Deificare’. In Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. C. Mayer, 265–7. Basel 1996–2002. ——‘Cupiditas’. In Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, ed. C. Mayer, 166–72. Basel: Schwabe, 1986–1994. Caldwell, E. ‘The Loquaces Muti and the Verbum Infans: paradox and language in the Confessiones of St. Augustine’. In Augustine: ‘Second Founder of the Faith’, ed. J. C. Schnaubelt and F. Van Fleteren, 101–11. New York: Peter Lang, 1990. Camelot, T. ‘Le Christ, sacrement de Dieu’. In L’homme devant Dieu. Mélanges offerts au Henri de Lubac. Vol. 1: Éxegèse et patristique, 365–3. Paris: Aubier, 1963. Collinge, W. ‘De Trinitate and the understanding of religious language’. Augustinian Studies 18 (1987): 125–50. Courturier, C. ‘Sacramentum et mysterium dans l’oeuvre de S. Augustin’. In Études Augustiniennes. H. Rondet, et al. 162–332. Paris: Aubier, 1953. 181

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dideberg, D. ‘Amor’. In Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, ed. C. Mayer, 294–300. Basel: Schwabe, 1986–1994. Dodaro, R. ‘Quid deceat videre (Cicero, Orator 70): literary propriety and doctrinal orthodoxy in Augustine of Hippo’. In Orthodoxie, Christianisme, Histoire/Orthodoxy, Christianity, History, ed. S. Elm, É. Rebillard and A. Romano, 57–81. Rome: École française de Rome, 2000. Dodds, E. R. ‘Augustine’s Confessions: A Study of Spiritual Maladjustment’. The Hibbert Journal 26 (1928): 459–73. Duchrow, U. ‘Der sogennante psychologische Zeitbegriff Augustins im Verhältnis zur physikalischen und geschichtlichen Zeit’. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 63 (1966), 267–88. Féret, H-M. ‘Sacramentum-Res dans la langue théologique de saint Augustin’. Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 29 (1940): 218–43. Fortin, E. ‘Augustine and the problem of Christian rhetoric’. Augustinian Studies 5 (1974): 85–100. Fredriksen, P. ‘Beyond the body/soul dichotomy: Augustine on Paul against the Manichees and the Pelagians’. Recherches Augustiniennes 23 (1988): 87–114. Gaeta, G. ‘Le “Regole” per l’interpretazione della Scrittura da Ticonio ad Agostino’. Annali di Storia dell’Esegesi 4 (1987): 109–18. Gallagher, K. T. ‘Wittgenstein, Augustine and Language’. The New Scholasticism 56 (1982): 462–70. Gemeinhardt, P. ‘“Geboren aus dem Wesen des Vaters . . .”. Das Glaubensbekenntnis von Nizäa und Augustins neunizänische Theologie’. Studia patristica 38, ed. M. F. Wiles and E. J. Yarnold,153–68. Leuven: Peeters, 2001. Hanson, R. P. C. ‘The filioque clause’. In Hanson, R. P. C. Studies in Christian Antiquity, 279–97. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985. Herzog, R. ‘Non in sua voce. Augustins Gespräch mit Gott in den Confessiones – Voraussetzungen und Folgen’. In Spätantike. Studien zur römischen und lateinisch-christlichen Literatur, ed. P. Habermehl, 235–85. Göttingen: 2002. Istace, G. ‘Le livre Ier du De doctrina christiana de saint Augustin’. Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 32 (1956): 289–330. Johnson, D. W. ‘“Verbum” in the Early Augustine (396–397)’. Recherches Augustiniennes 8 (1972): 25–53. Kannengiesser, C. ‘Augustine and Tyconius. A conflict of Christian hermeneutics in Roman Africa’. In Augustine and the Bible, edited and translated by P. Bright, 149–77. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999. ——‘The interrupted De doctrina christiana’. In Bright, P. and D. W. H. 182

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnold, De doctrina christiana. A Classic of Western Culture, 3–13. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. Katayanagi, E. ‘The last congruous vocation’. In B. Bruning, et al., eds. Collectanea Augustiniana. Mélanges T. van Bavel. Leuven, 1990. Kessler, A. ‘Exemplum’. In Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. C. Mayer, 1174–82. Basel: Schwabe, 1996–2002. Knauer, G. N. ‘Peregrinatio Animae. Zur Frage der Einheit der augustinischen Konfessionen’. Hermes 85 (1957): 216–48. Louth, A. ‘Augustine on language’. Journal of Literature & Theology 3 (1989): 151–8. McNew, L. D. ‘The relation of Cicero’s rhetoric to Augustine’. Research Studies of the State College of Washington 25: 1 (March 1957): 5–13. Madec, G. ‘Foris admonet, intus docet.’ Note complémentaire de l’édition du De Magistro dans la Bibliothèque augustinienne, 540–3. Paris, 1976. Mohrmann, C. ‘Sacramentum dans les plus anciens texts chrétiens’. Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954), 141–52. Morgan, E. ‘The concept of person in Augustine’s De Trinitate.’ Studia Patristica. Leuven: Peeters. Forthcoming. Müller, C. ‘Der ewige Sabbat. Die eschatologische Ruhe als Zielpunkt der Heimkehr zu Gott.’ In Die Confessiones des Augustins von Hippo. Einführung und Interpretation zu den dreizehn Büchern, ed. N. Fischer and C. Mayer, 603–52. Freiburg: Herder, 1998. Norohna Galvao, H. de. ‘Beatitudo’. In Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, ed. C. Mayer, 624–38. Basel: Schwabe, 1986–1994. O’Daly, G. ‘Anima/animus’. In Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 1, ed. C. Mayer, 315–40. Basel: Schwabe, 1986–1994. O’Donnell, J. J. Review of Corpus Augustinianum Gissense a Cornelio Mayer editum. CD-ROM, version 1.0 for DOS or Windows. Basel: Schwabe & Co. AG, 1995 in Augustinian Studies. Accessed at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/ augustine/cagreview.html on 14 July 2006. O’Donovan, O. ‘Usus and fruitio in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana I’. Journal of Theological Studies NS 33 (1982): 361–97. Obertello, L. ‘“Per speculum et in aenigmate”: conoscenza di sé e conoscenza di dio nel De Trinitate.’ In Interiorità e intenzionalità in S. Agostino. Atti del 1. e 2. Seminario Internazionale del Centro di Studi Agostiniani di Perugia (a cura di L. Alici), 107–31. Roma, 1990. Pépin, J. ‘Saint Augustin et la fonction protreptique de l’allégorie.’ Recherches Augustiniennes 1 (1958), 243–86. Pirovano, D. ‘La parola di Dio come “incarnazione” del verbo in Sant’Agostino’. Augustinianum 4 (1964): 77–104. 183

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Press, G. A. ‘The content and argument of Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana’. Augustiniana 31 (1981): 165–82. Ripanti, G. ‘L’Allegoria o intellectus figuratus nel doctrina christiana di Agostino’. Révue des Études Augustiniennes 18 (1972): 72–90. Schöpf, A. ‘Die Verinnerlichung des Wahrheitsproblems bei Augustin’. RE Aug 13 (1967): 85–96. Schwarte, K-H. ‘Dispensatio II’. In Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, ed. C. Mayer, 491–8. Basel: Schwabe, 1996–2002. Smalbrugge, M. A. ‘L’analogie réexaminée.’ Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 69 (1989): 121–34. ——‘Le langage et l’être: la question du dieu personnel et la notion de similitude du langage dans la doctrine trinitaire de S. Augustin’. Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 72 (1988): 541–56. Smolak, K. ‘“Sic itaque audiar!”’ Zum Phänomen “Sprache” in Augustins Confessiones’. Augustinus 39 (1994): 509–17. Soskice, J. ‘Monica’s tears: Augustine on words and speech’. New Blackfriars 83 (2002): 448–58. Studer, B. ‘Das Nizänische Consubstantialis bei Augustinus von Hippo’. In Logos. Festschrift für L. Abramowski, 402–10. Berlin: William de Gruyter, 1993). Teske, R. J. ‘Augustine’s use of “substantia” in speaking about God’. The Modern Schoolman 62 (1985/6): 147–63. ——‘Properties of God and the predicaments in De Trinitate V’. The Modern Schoolman 59 (1981/2): 1–19. Van Fleteren, F. ‘Per speculum in aenigmate: the use of 1 Corinithians 13.12 in the writings of Augustine’. Augustinian Studies 23 (1992): 69–102. Vance, E. ‘Saint Augustine, language as temporality’. In Mimesis. From Mirror to Method, Augustine to Descartes, ed. J. D. Lyons and St. G. Nichols, 20–35. Hanover/London: Published for Dartmouth College by the University Press of New England, 1982. Watson, G. ‘St. Augustine and the inner word: the philosophical background’. Irish Theological Quarterly 54 (1988): 81–92. Wetzel, J. ‘Pelagius anticipated: grace and election in Augustine’s Ad Simplicianum’. In Augustine from Rhetor to Theologian, ed. J. McWilliam, 121–32. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992. Williams, R. ‘Language, reality and desire in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana’. Journal of Literature and Theology 3 (1989): 138–50.

184

INDEX

Locators ending with ‘n’ refer to footnotes. adultery 81, 83 agency 75–6 allegory 65, 78, 83–4 Alypius 115–17, 119, 122, 125 Ambrose of Milan compared to Victorinus 115 personality of 109–10, 114, 119 preaching of 101, 105–8, 110–12 rhetoric of 21, 93–4 amor 17, 161n. 100, 182 Amos 93–4 Anthony 48, 113, 115, 117 anthropology, theological 3–6, 8, 20, 25, 73, 88, 128 aphaereticism 142n. 31 apophaticism 142n. 31, 146–7 apostles 80–1, 91, 168 archetype 150, 163–4, 166–7, 170 Arianism 142 Augustine of Hippo baptism of 105, 120 confessional persona of 172 continuity of concern in 8 conversion of 7, 15, 21–2, 24, 101, 112–14, 116–19, 124–5, 130 encounter with Ambrose of Milan 111–13 encounter with Manichees 102 garrolousness of 121–3

language of 29, 105 personality of 1–2 search for truth 104–5 self-description 2 teenage friendships of 12–13 theological methodology of 3, 12, 18, 48 ‘transition’ of 5n. 8, 123–4 travels of 106 vision of the scriptures 109–10 on writing 102–3 authority of scripture 89 of speech and speaker 96, 129 teaching 58 Babel, Tower of 14 baptism 13, 69, 105, 114, 120, 124n. 129 beatitude 44, 55–6, 136, 171 boundary marker 149 caritas and civitas 12 and cupiditas 23, 73–5, 77, 79–81, 85, 97, 128, 155 and eschatology 57 and God 17, 36, 166 and Holy Spirit 36n. 48, 161 and language 16, 46

185

INDEX

caritas (continued) and social ethics 11 and will 160 Carthage 82, 102, 105–6 catechresis 56, 84n. 86 celibacy 112, 115, 117–18 Christ Augustine using name of 103 and hypocrisy 96 as inner teacher 8, 16 and the Manichees 110 natures of 132–3, 136, 173 as paradigm of love 155 and the Pharisees 33 resurrection of 69 speech of 24, 114, 131–7, 139–41, 164, 170, 172 teaching of 134–5 words of 140 Christian faith 9, 113–15, 118, 130, 132, 142, 144, 170 Cicero 83, 88, 92, 102–3, 108, 110 civitas 11–12 cognition 138–9, 161 commandments 58–9, 77–8, 133–4, 155 communication 8, 13, 15–16, 29, 64–5, 91, 94, 116 community Christian 23, 95, 172 human 7, 20, 88, 94–5, 128, 155 speaking, see speech, and community compassion 66–7, 157 conduct, human 7, 44, 55–8 confession public 19, 114 tears of 122 Confessions (Rousseau) 2 Confessions of St Augustine blessed tears in 21 grace in 18–19 identity in 123 language in 5, 51–2, 130 narrative voice in 121n. 113 opening enconium of 111, 125–6

relationship with De doctrina christiana 7 selection of 4 speech to God in 120–1 cultural relativism 77–8 cupiditas Augustine on 84 and caritas 23, 73–5, 77, 79–81, 85, 97, 128, 155 and civitas 12 effect on human psyche 75–7, 83 function of 82 Cyprian 93–4 David 81–4 De catechizandis rudibus 8–9 De civitate Dei civitas in 12 eschatology in 72 ‘invisible church’ in 22 Sabbath in 70–1 De dialectica 8 De doctrina christiana argument of Book 1 43, 54 argument of Books 2 and 3 60–2 Book 3 of 85 Book 4 of 87 cupiditas in 83 date of completion 4–5 interpretation in 66 and interpretation of scripture 128 prayer in 16 Preface 46–9 De magistro 8, 16 De trinitate argument of Book 15 26–7, 32, 158, 160, 163 centrality of 6, 125, 169 Corinthians in 32–3 image of God in 18 Incarnation in 13, 16–17 language in 25, 37, 39 prayer in 16 scripture in 131–2

186

INDEX

selection of 4 structure of 159–60 debates 94 deification 16–17 desire 82–4 dilectio 140, 155, 157n. 88, 161 eloquence 88–97, 100, 102, 106, 108, 110, 129 Christian 90–1 embodiment 38, 55, 58, 70–2, 81–2, 84, 90, 99, 118, 128–9, 157 enjoyment 44, 55–6, 79, 83, 86 eschatology and Augustine’s conversion 120 in De trinitate 135–7 and denial of Christ 114 and destiny 70–3, 99, 169 embodiment in 58 and enjoyment 55 and growth 86 of Paul 32, 56–7 and scripture 68, 89–90, 133 and social conduct 128 and virtue 56–7 eternity 38, 56, 137–8, 140–3, 145, 157 ethics 7n. 15, 43–4, 77–8, 89 Eucharist 69 Faustus 107–11, 113 fear and wisdom 66 food 81, 103–4, 107 fortitude 66 freedom, Christian 69–70 God apophatic and kataphatic accounts of 131 attributes of 166 conversation with 58, 60, 66, 82, 85, 94, 105, 121, 123–6, 128–9, 151, 154, 166, 170, 172 as highest thing 67

and human mind 28–32, 38, 41, 127, 167, 169 image of 18, 24–5, 27–8, 32–3, 41, 126, 131, 148, 158–60, 162–9 ineffability of 32, 50–1 and language 8, 18–19, 22, 43, 45, 51–2, 57–8, 86, 96, 98–100, 141, 146–7, 154, 171 love for 154–6 manifestation of 37 as object of enjoyment 56, 80, 86 origins of 140 relationship with humanity 3, 6, 10, 53, 130, 135, 156, 167–8 relationship with world 49–50 speech of, see speech, divine transcendence of 51–3, 72, 159 Word of 36, 40, 128, 134, 164–5, 182 grace 5n. 8, 13, 15–16, 18–20, 22 grammar 91–2, 108, 143–4 healing 33, 54 heretics 14, 144, 170 hermeneutics 6, 10, 15, 44, 67, 69, 72, 76, 85, 132, 141 holiness 66–7, 85–6, 159 Holy Spirit and amicitia 12 and the Trinity 139–41 and will 36, 161 humility 58, 89, 173 identity of Christ 122, 133 Christian 21, 101, 114–15, 125 of God 3, 121n. 113, 124 human 3–6, 8–9, 90–1, 98–9, 128–9, 150, 166, 171 of preacher 129 transformation of 126, 128 within the Trinity 145 images 65–6, 170 immanence 150

187

INDEX

Incarnation Augustine’s consideration of 54–5, 123 and cognition 138–9 and human relationship to God 52 and language 5–6, 10–11, 13, 15, 17, 34–6, 52–4, 57, 125, 127, 146, 160, 167 inner vision 156–7 inner word 34–5, 37, 39–40, 53, 154n. 73, 160–1, 163, 166–7 intention and acts 74 and language 97 and signs 64 just war 1n. 3 justice 77–8, 150–6, 159, 169–70 kataphaticism 131, 140, 170 knowledge of God 140, 148–50, 163–4 self- 29, 63, 109, 162 and wisdom 66–8 language acquisition of 92, 100, 129 after the Fall 14–15 Augustine on 2, 8–10, 14, 23, 25, 36 biblical 6–8, 32, 91, 100 Christian 90 and community, see sociality, and language confessional 8, 24, 107, 123, 130 failure of 131, 142, 146 and human identity 6, 81, 98 and inner word 40 materiality of 18, 38–9, 54, 131, 145–6, 165 moral content of 23–4 nature of 64–5 popular 84–5 and preaching 7, 9

and redemption 16 of scripture, see scripture, language of social context of 14–15, 46 and speech 8, 10–11, 13, 100 theology of 3–4, 7–8, 11, 23–5, 34, 36–7, 96, 99, 101, 127, 130–1, 147, 154, 170–3 and thought 18–20, 33–4, 41, 43, 45, 53, 57, 96, 98–9, 154, 171 libido 76 linguistic epistemology 9–10, 97, 127, 147 loquacity 122–3n. 125 love of neighbour 55, 67, 82, 155 phenomenology of 157n. 88 Scriptural injunction to 6–7, 58–9, 66, 73, 77–8, 155 threefold character of 18n. 47 transformations of 20 and the Trinity 17–18, 147, 152–8, 166, 172 of the unknown 149–50 lust 73–4, 76, 79–81; see also cupiditas Manicheism 13, 21, 101–4, 106–8, 110–13, 121, 130 Mary 149 meditation, on words of Christ 139 memory human 166 and the Trinity 30–2, 158, 161–3 metaphor 81, 85 Milan 15, 21–2, 105–6, 112, 120, 130 modus inveniendi 43–4, 88 modus proferendi 43, 88 Monica 105, 115, 124n. 129 mortality 15–16, 53–4, 157 Nathan 81–4 Neoplatonism 51–2, 104–5, 112, 122 Neptune 68, 70, 72 Old Testament 76, 79–82, 93

188

INDEX

paradox 51–2, 107, 135, 173 Paul in 1 Corinthians 32 in 2 Corinthians 91, 152–3 and Augustine’s conversion 113n. 54, 115, 119, 169 hermeneutics of 132, 135–6 and image of God 159, 167–9 and the Incarnation 139 love for 149–53 and love of enemies 82 and preaching 95 rhetoric of 93 understanding of God in 48–9, 51, 63, 143 persona and language 131 and public speech 96, 98 and the Trinity 14, 24, 39, 143, 145–7 persona veritatis 122 phenomenology 67, 97–8, 154–5, 157, 172 philosophy 21, 28, 35n. 44, 102–3 Plotinus 50–1, 177 polygamy 76, 79 Ponticianus 113, 115–17, 119 prayer 15–16, 27, 66, 85, 96–7, 99–100, 102, 120, 129, 153, 173 preaching Augustine’s account of 21, 129 and caritas 16 and conversation with God 86, 137–8 form and content in 23, 89, 111 and the human mind 138–9 and the Incarnation 139 and interpretation of signs 85 language of, see language, and preaching and scripture 29, 89 pride 14–15, 48, 54, 61, 80, 82, 103, 109, 113, 117 public self 79, 81

public space 78, 80–2, 94, 114, 128 public speech 97–8 purification 52, 66–7, 157 reading 63, 82–4 self- 128 redemption 15–16, 20 reflection 59, 167–9, 171 rhetoric 5n. 8, 90–3, 102 Rome 106 Sabbath 70–1 sacraments 69 sanctification 16–17, 37n. 51 scripture and Augustine’s conversion 103, 118–19, 123–5, 153 and embodiment 109, 129 language of 7, 31–2, 49–50, 52, 56, 63–4, 67, 85, 89, 91, 129 modes of speech in 74–5 reading of 43–4, 56–8, 65, 67–8, 88–9, 171–2 as spoken word 100 and the Trinity 132 sight 136–7, 161, 163 signs ambiguous 60–1, 68 conventional 61, 63–4 and eschatology 73 figurative 56, 60–2, 68, 72 natural 64, 116–17, 119 pagan and Jewish 68–72 and preaching 85 relationship with things 23, 43–5, 49, 63–4, 72 of the scriptures 58–9, 68, 128 types of 62–3 Simplicianus 4, 113–14, 119 sin 14, 75, 81 social relations 6–7, 9–11, 23–4, 44, 148, 171 sociality in Augustine 11–12, 171

189

INDEX

threading 131, 148 Tobit 77–8 Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium 8–9 transcendence 39, 41, 51, 53, 71–3, 150–3, 170 Trinity and Christ’s words 135 enjoyment of 49 equality of persons 132, 163 and human thought 161–2 immanent nature of 14 and language 24, 49, 170 and love 157 missions of persons 135–6, 138, 140 naming of persons 36–8, 141, 143–4, 164 relationship between persons 135–7, 139–43, 148, 170, 172 understanding of 29–30, 34–5, 131 tropes 62, 84–5 truth objectivity of 97 transcendent 151–4

sociality (continued) definition of 6, 11 different forms of 13 form and content in 130 and language 16, 43, 56, 92–4, 100, 127–9, 151, 154, 171 and preaching 7 and relationship to God 3, 14, 78, 95, 112–13, 131, 148, 155–6, 158, 170, 172 and scripture 119 in Tractatus 9 use of term 7n. 15 and uti–frui 55 and wisdom 67 societas 12 Soliloquies 18 sortes Vergilianae 118 soul Augustine’s definition of 65, 74, 104 effect of cupidity on 75–6 speech about God 51, 131 biblical, see scripture, language of Christian 89–90, 93, 98–9, 129 and community 93–5, 129 divine 7, 22, 29, 56–8, 78, 141 exemplary 24, 101, 130 form and content in 130 and identity of speaker 97–100 learning 92 public 23, 82n. 73, 84, 86, 95, 171 theological 45–6, 48–9, 101, 158, 169, 172

understanding human 166 and the Trinity 30–2, 158, 161–3 uti–frui distinction 6, 44n. 4, 55, 169n. 121 utterance, human 10, 13, 16, 145 verbum, see God, Word of Victorinus 113–15 virginity 138, 149–50

teleology 43 Thagaste 12, 106 theology 7, 11–12, 25, 30, 131, 147, 158 of language, see language, theology of natural 29–31 thought flux of 165 and speech, see language, and thought

warp 18, 148, 158 wickedness 75–7, 81 will and caritas 160 conflict of 119 and God 30–2, 158, 161–2 human 166 and the Trinity 30–2, 158, 161–3

190

INDEX

wisdom ascent to 65–7, 86, 88–9, 157 Augustine’s search for 102 Book of 33 of Christ 122

and eloquence 88–9, 91, 95–6, 100 in the Trinity 30, 36, 90 in writing 91–2 worship 68–70 writing 18, 61, 65–6, 93–4, 100

191