Prayer after Augustine : A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition 2017945103, 9780198767176

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CHANGING PARADIGMS IN HISTORICAL A N D S Y S T E M A T I C TH E O L O G Y General Editors Sarah Coakley Richard Cross This series sets out to reconsider the modern distinction between ‘historical’ and ‘systematic’ theology. The scholarship represented in the series is marked by attention to the way in which historiographic and theological presumptions (‘paradigms’) necessarily inform the work of historians of Christian thought, and thus affect their application to contemporary concerns. At certain key junctures such paradigms are recast, causing a reconsideration of the methods, hermeneutics, geographical boundaries, or chronological caesuras which have previously guided the theological narrative. The beginning of the twenty-first century marks a period of such notable reassessment of the Christian doctrinal heritage, and involves a questioning of the paradigms that have sustained the classic ‘history-of-ideas’ textbook accounts of the modern era. Each of the volumes in this series brings such contemporary methodological and historiographical concerns to conscious consideration. Each tackles a period or key figure whose significance is ripe for reconsideration, and each analyses the implicit historiography that has sustained existing scholarship on the topic. A variety of fresh methodological concerns are considered, without reducing the theological to other categories. The emphasis is on an awareness of the history of ‘reception’: the possibilities for contemporary theology are bound up with a careful rewriting of the historical narrative. In this sense, ‘historical’ and ‘systematic’ theology are necessarily conjoined, yet also closely connected to a discerning interdisciplinary engagement. This monograph series accompanies the project of The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Christian Theology (Oxford University Press, in progress), also edited by Sarah Coakley and Richard Cross.

CHANGING PARADIGMS IN HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY General Editors: Sarah Coakley (Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge) and Richard Cross (John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame) RECENT SERIES TITLES

Orthodox Readings of Aquinas Marcus Plested Kant and the Creation of Freedom A Theological Problem Christopher J. Insole Blaise Pascal on Duplicity, Sin, and the Fall The Secret Instinct William Wood Theology as Science in Nineteenth-Century Germany From F. C. Baur to Ernst Troeltsch Johannes Zachhuber Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance Paul L. Gavrilyuk Knowledge, Love, and Ecstasy in the Theology of Thomas Gallus Boyd Taylor Coolman God Visible Patristic Christology Reconsidered Brian E. Daley, S.J.

Prayer after Augustine A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition

JONATHAN D. TEUBNER

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Jonathan D. Teubner 2018 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2018 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2017945103 ISBN 978–0–19–876717–6 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Acknowledgments Books of this sort do not happen without the generous support of many institutions and people. First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to Sarah Coakley, who agreed to direct the doctoral thesis that lies at the heart of this book. Through the entire process she helped me to keep this project on its course, and her guidance and advice were preeminently helpful in making this book a reality. My college mentor John Marenbon offered invaluable expertise in Boethius and, more generally, in medieval philosophy, and he consistently pushed me toward greater clarity and simplicity of expression At the University of Cambridge, I received a Studentship from the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme, where David Ford and his team warmly welcomed me into their circle and offered me opportunities to engage across disciplines of theology and traditions of faith. Since leaving Cambridge, I have often turned to David for conversation and encouragement. Rowan Williams and Lewis Ayres examined an earlier version of this text for my doctoral degree at Cambridge. Their generous and incisive comments were extraordinarily helpful in the completion of this book. While neither of them might agree with everything I have said, I hope they both can recognize in this project the deep appreciation and gratitude I have for their work on Augustine and late antique Christianity. At the University of Virginia, Peter Ochs has supported me both personally and professionally. His keen philosophical insight into the technicalities of scriptural interpretation and the religious practices that are part and parcel of that endeavor improved my thinking on prayer and the Augustinian tradition. This book would likewise have been impossible without the help of many generous scholars and friends. I am particularly grateful to Jim Wetzel, who from a very early stage took an interest in this book. No expression of gratitude can match his intellectual and personal generosity toward me. Many conversations with Luke Freeman, Jamie Dunn, Philip McCosker, Mark Knight, Alex Englander, James Orr, Darren Sarisky, Mark McInroy, Kevin Grove, Alexis Litvine, Damian Valdez, Joe Lenow, Gillian Breckenridge, Matt Puffer, Kirk Essary, and Makrina Finlay have rightly sharpened my understanding of how theology can be historical whilst remaining theology. Just as important were conversations with Denys Turner, Christopher Beeley, Vittorio Montemaggi, Luigi Gioia, Michael Cameron, Frederick Van Fleteren, Paul Gavrilyuk, Christoph Markschies, Thomas Graumann, Chuck Mathewes, Chad Wellmon, Karl Shuve, and Ahmed al-Rahim. I had the opportunity to present parts of this book to the D-Society and Senior Patristic Seminar at the University of

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Cambridge Divinity Faculty, the Analytic Theology Symposium at Southern Methodist University, the Theology, Ethics and Culture program at the University of Virginia, and the History of Emotions Symposium at Western Australia University. I am indebted to all of these readers and conversation partners, whose comments were critical for helping me refine what I thought was at stake in this book. In many cases, these people read my drafts, re-read texts with me, and argued with me about the nature and future of Augustinianism. I remain grateful for the support of the Fernand Braudel Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Laboratoire d’excellence – Religions et Sociétés dans le Monde méditerranéen, in collaboration with Orient et Méditerranée (UMR 8167) at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. Jean-Marie Salamito provided the space and time to revise this book for submission and to begin thinking about my next project. Emmanuel Bermon commented on drafts of my chapters on Augustine and guided me through the labyrinthine world of French academics, and he and his family warmly welcomed Rachel and me into their home during our time in Paris. At the University of Virginia, the Department of Religious Studies, the Medieval Studies program, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture provided me space, conversation, and support for completing this book. The editors of the Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology series, Sarah Coakley and Richard Cross, were continually supportive and encouraging as this book wound its way through the review process. Tom Perridge and Karen Raith were unfailingly helpful and kind throughout the process and made it a pleasure to work with Oxford University Press. I am grateful as well to my friend and colleague Ed Marques, who at the eleventh hour proofread the manuscript. It is Rachel to whom I owe the most. She not only commented on drafts of this book in its many incarnations, but also gracefully guided me to see the import of reading and understanding texts. Above all, it is her love, patience, intelligence, and humor that has made the many years in Cambridge, Paris, and Charlottesville not only possible but also enjoyable. I hope it goes without saying that I am the only person responsible for the many shortcomings of this book. Charlottesville, Virginia August 28, 2017

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Contents Introduction Tradition and Modernity Prayer and the Latin Tradition L’augustinisme and the Augustinian Tradition Augustinianism 1 and Augustinianism 2 Augustinian Christian Existence I What This Study Is Not The Shape of This Study

1 4 7 13 14 16 21 23

PART I A Theological Prelude 1. Learning to Pray Soliloquia 1.1–6: Prayer as Desire for the beata vita De moribus ecclesiae catholicae 1.31.66: Prayer as ‘Conversation’ with God De magistro 1.2: Prayer and the interior homo

2. Prayer as Acceptance of Time Ascents of the Soul from Cassiciacum to Rome De vera religione: Christian Existence in Thagaste Prayer and Christian Existence in De sermone Domini in monte 2

3. Prayer as Reception of the Other Encountering the Problem: Mediation in Enarrationes in Psalmos 1–32 The Process of induere in Expositio Epistulae ad Galatas Praying in Christ: totus Christus in Enarrationes in Psalmos Totus Christus as ‘Grammar’ of Prayer in Psalm 85 Totus Christus as Suffering Community in Psalm 132 Christian Existence as sub specie orationis I

4. Prayer as the Hope of Wisdom Ep. 130: Failing towards the beata vita Deprecari and precari as Structuring Antithesis Participation in De trinitate 4 Faith and Contemplation, scientia and sapientia in De trinitate 13 De anima et eius origine 4: In Defence of Ignorance Prayer as a Practice of Inquiry I

31 37 39 42 45 50 51 55 58 66 67 69 74 78 81 83 85 87 93 97 103 108 110

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Contents PART II

A Historiographical Interlude Harnack, Marrou, and the Italian Sixth Century Transformation of the Western Empire

5. The Augustinianism 1 of the Opuscula sacra Boethius, a Latin Christian Prayer as ‘Putting On’ Christ’s Desires in OSV Prayer and Theological Failure in OSI Conclusion

6. The Augustinianism 2 of The Consolation of Philosophy Interpreting the Consolation The Consolation as Dialogue Prayer in Consolation 5 Prayer as a Practice of Inquiry II Consolation as Augustinian

7. The Augustinianism 1 of the Rule of St Benedict Interpreting the Rule Augustinian Fraternal Relations Pure Prayer in Community Conclusion

8. The Augustinianism 2 of the Rule of St Benedict Interpreting the Rule Redux Benedict the Theologian: RB 3, 7, 71–2 Christian Existence as sub specie orationis II Benedict, the Augustinian Theologian Conversatio as Augustinian

An Ethical Postlude Augustinian Christian Existence II Locating Tradition Between MacIntyre and Stout The Scope and Function of Augustinianism 2 Tradition as Duty

Bibliography Index

115 118 122 127 129 131 135 144 145 147 150 154 159 161 164 167 170 180 184 186 186 189 198 201 206 209 210 213 215 221 223 225 253

Introduction The influence of the theology and philosophy of Augustine of Hippo on subsequent Western thought and culture is undisputed. But in what ways, and according to what paradigm, should his subsequent impact be theorised or expounded? Should the emphasis only be on the history of ideas, for instance, or should a richer mix of theology, philosophy, and practice be at the heart of the investigation? It is the central argument of this study that the notion of the ‘Augustinian tradition’, that is, the history of the reception of Augustine’s own thinking after him, needs to be rethought; and that already in the generation after Augustine in the West, in particular, such a rethinking is already and richly manifest in more than one influential form. The first purpose of this book, then, is a theoretical one: to encourage philosophical, moral, and historical theologians to think about what it might mean that the ‘Augustinian tradition’ formed in a distinctively Augustinian fashion, and to consider how this affects how they use, discuss, and evaluate Augustine in their work. This is best exemplified, I believe, by Augustine’s reflections on prayer and how they were taken up, modified, and handed on by Boethius and Benedict, two critically influential figures for the development of Latin medieval philosophical and theological cultures. But prayer as a ‘tradition’ is a peculiar thing to handle: it is not simply either a theory or a practice, but rather the convergence of theory and practice to form a particular species of tradition—an intellectual-cum-moral tradition. The aim of this work is to analyse and exemplify the particular theme of prayer and the other topics it constellates in Augustine and to show how it already forms a distinctively ‘Augustinian’ concept of tradition that was to prove to have fascinatingly diverse manifestations. One discusses both ‘prayer’ and ‘tradition’ at one’s own risk in the twentyfirst century, as these themes are commonly associated with ‘traditional piety’ and ‘pious conservatism’. True, prayer is in vogue in some intellectual circles.1 1 See, e.g., John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997); Jean-Yves Lacoste, Experience and the Absolute: Disputed Questions on the Humanity of Man, trans. Mark Raferty-Skehan

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It nevertheless strikes many living in modern, secular Europe and North America as a vestige of an outworn Christendom. Add Augustine to the mix, and you may think that any author who would take up such themes, not only in separation but together, is either grossly naïve about his readership or hopelessly nostalgic about his culture. But neither judgement seems warranted. In fact, thinking about the Augustinian tradition from the vantage point of prayer exposes some of the deep ironies of a European history that continues to unfold before us. The first and arguably most elusive irony is that the fecundity of ‘traditional’ Catholicism arguably produced a ‘modern’ culture hostile towards religious belief. This is a contentious matter, as it should be.2 But whether one thinks that a degenerate Christianity brought us secularism3 or that a historically transformed Christianity ushered it in,4 both positions accept that modernity traces its genealogy to certain strands within Western Christianity.5 In this light, it is not inconsequential that one of the first uses of

(New York: Fordham University Press, 2004); and the many works by Jean-Louis Chrétien. As is evident in this literature, provocations of Heidegger taken in a particular Derridian way have motivated Chrétien, Lacoste, and Jean-Luc Marion to reflect phenomenologically on prayer; see Dominique Janicaud, Le tournant théologique de la phénoménologie française (Paris: l’Éclat, 1992). 2 The literature on this is vast and growing at a galloping pace. For the disciplines of theology and religious studies, the following publications (among others) have made signal contributions: Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap Press, 2015); Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap Press, 2007); John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006); Joseph Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas, Dialektik der Säkularisierung: Über Vernunft und Religion (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder Verlag, 2005); Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003). 3 E.g. Milbank (2006) and the ‘Radical Orthodoxy’ school, whose seminal text is Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward, eds, Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (New York: Routledge, 1999). Though controversial, this approach shares much in common with Adolf von Harnack’s theory of ‘kernel and husk’; see his Das Wesen des Christentums, 3rd edn (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012); see also Kurt Nowak, ‘Theologie, Philologie und Geschichte: Adolf von Harnack als Kirchenhistoriker’, in Kurt Nowak and Otto Gerhard Oexle, eds, Adolf von Harnack. Theologe, Historiker, Wissenschaftspolitiker (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 189–237. 4 It is nearly impossible to select any one publication or set of publications that might represent all the varieties of this position, which traces its modern roots to Ernst Troeltsch. See, in the first instance, the collection of translated essays in Religion and History, trans. James Luther Adams and Walter F. Bense (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991). For a more detailed (and challenging) presentation of Troeltsch’s ideas, see Der Historismus und seine Probleme, Ernst Troeltsch Kritische Gesamtausgabe 16:2 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008). For a helpful account of Troeltsch’s theory of religion, see Lori K. Pearson, Beyond Essence: Ernst Troeltsch as Historian and Theorist of Christianity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008); and for an analysis of Troeltsch’s nuanced account of historicism and relativism, see Sarah Coakley, Christ without Absolutes: A Study of the Christology of Ernst Troeltsch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 5–44. 5 See Rowan Williams, ‘Europe, Faith and Culture’, in Faith in the Public Square (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 62–74. For a creative intertwining of the Harnackian and Troeltschian approaches, see Ulrich Schmiedel, Die Verzauberung der Welt: Eine Kulturgeschichte des

Introduction

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‘modern’ (modernus) to describe a post-traditional world is found in the writings of Cassiodorus, a sixth-century Christian statesman, author, and contemporary of Boethius.6 The second irony, which is not ironic to all, is that the gesture of prayer, which is rightly seen as a kind of acceptance of ignorance and failure, has been the occasion for profound and rich philosophical and moral insights.7 This is demonstrated in the embarrassment with which some historians of medieval philosophy treat the discussion of prayer in the final book of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, a text we shall discuss at length in this study.8 But it also belies the condescension with which prayer is met in Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason as mere ‘fetish-making’.9 The Augustinian tradition of prayer, or rather the Augustinian tradition reconceived through the theory and practice of prayer, is thus a promising approach to Western intellectual history, contested and controversial as it is. But, as I will discuss at length in this introduction, it also unveils a theologically and morally rich understanding of ‘Christian existence’ that does not shy away from embracing the Augustinian insight that the Christian life can never escape the contingencies of human history. If we are to take Augustine’s insights seriously, we must also accept the contingencies of our narratives of tradition, and how they have been so deeply formed by patterns of intellectual practice that emerged in the nineteenth century. Although this is not a book on nineteenth-century thought, a discerning reader will observe that some of my arguments hinge on rereading the literature on Augustine, Boethius, and Benedict from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is not an attempt to be reactionary against or even snobbish towards later twentieth- or early twenty-first-century secondary literature. Rather, I hope to demonstrate that telling a story about tradition requires that we attend to and question the terms of our scholarly narratives. Christentums (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2014). There is likely more to be said about a Harnackian approach to the history of Christianity. Indeed, Christoph Markschies has offered one of the most subtle (and eminently defensible) renditions of a neo-Harnackian approach; see his Hellenisierung des Christentums. Sinn und Unsinn einer historischen Deutungskategorie (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012); ‘Does It Make Sense to Speak about a “Hellenization of Christianity” in Antiquity?’, Church History and Religious Culture 92:1 (2012), 5–34; and, most recently, the foreword and conclusion to Gottes Körper. Jüdische, christliche und pagane Gottesvorstellungen in der Antike (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2016), 11–17, 419–31. In many respects, Markschies (2016) puts into action his historiographical reflections of (2012a) and (2012b). 6 See Mark Vessey’s discussion of this commonplace in his introduction to Cassiodorus: ‘Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning’ and ‘On the Soul’ (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004). 7 A recent refusal of this irony is Andrew Prevot, Thinking Prayer: Theology and Spirituality amid the Crises of Modernity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015). 8 This literature will be discussed in Chapter 6. 9 See Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, ed. Allen Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 186 (6:195).

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TRADITION AND MODERNITY Tradition and modernity are, according to Brian Stock, ‘the most troubling concepts in cultural analysis’.10 In fact, the categories of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ have, in their popular forms, co-created themselves: ‘tradition’ is anti-modern just as ‘modernity’ is anti-tradition. Or so we are led to believe by modernity’s early advocates. It is now more likely that we would find people distinguishing between ‘tradition’ and ‘traditionalism’. As Pelikan pithily put it in his Jefferson Lecture, ‘Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.’11 Others want to speak about the distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘traditionalistic’ action.12 For both Stock and Pelikan, modern debates about tradition have underestimated the critical edge and creativity inherent in pre-modern ‘traditions’. The traditioning act, literally to ‘hand on’, necessarily implied change. There could be no coherent sense, then, of a static tradition such as we have codified in ‘traditionalism’. ‘Traditionalism’ was created by modernity, so Stock speculates, in order to claim the ground held by ‘tradition’ in the Middle Ages: the process of taking up our intellectual ‘stock’, modifying it, and passing it on for someone else to improve.13 To speak of tradition in this high-minded way is often to embrace (consciously or unconsciously) a kind of cultural conservatism that leaves little room for marginalised voices. Tradition-talk often glides over the unspeakable ills of our societies, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. My current institutional context at the University of Virginia is an everpresent reminder of the abuse of the word ‘tradition’: it is often a thinly veiled strategy to overcome the fact that slaves built our buildings. My previous academic homes in England and France were no better. But, in the wake of the carnage of the twentieth century, the jury seems to have been reconvened over whether ‘modern’ or ‘traditional’ societies are better carriers of justice. Indeed, the figures Jeffrey Stout dubbed ‘new-traditionalists’ often point to the modern bureaucratic spirit that gave us the Holocaust, social and economic inequality, and, alas, the institutional racism that is, for its beneficiaries, all too easy to ignore.14 One of Stout’s more pugnacious new-traditionalists, John Milbank, has sought to correct these modern evils by a thorough embrace of the Christian (and Platonic) heritage of Western culture. This is, in part, because Milbank believes that tradition lies closest to religion, and that ‘Christianity is 10 Brian Stock, Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 159. 11 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 65. 12 13 Stock (1990), 164. Stock (1990), 165–6. 14 Jeffrey Stout selects Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John Milbank as the representatives of ‘new traditionalism’ (Democracy and Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 2).

Introduction

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the most religious tradition because it is the most traditional tradition’.15 Milbank’s strategy is, it seems, to out-modern the modern: yes, tradition is associated with religion, but religion is exactly what modernity needs to heal its wounds. This is an eccentric position. The figure who is most often discussed in debates about tradition is rather Alasdair MacIntyre, who is rightly credited with the resuscitation and rehabilitation of tradition for many scholars in the social sciences and humanities. By avoiding the rhetorical excesses of Milbank, MacIntyre has given us one of the most refined and generative treatments of tradition, starting with his academic blockbuster After Virtue in 1981. For MacIntyre, modernity is, yes, to blame for many things, but the root cause of our problems is a basic incoherence that emerged as it abandoned its ‘tradition of virtues’. In its early form this was the ground for returning to Aristotle, and in its later mature form, as MacIntyre addressed his many critics, for returning to Aquinas. In either case, modernity needed tradition to recover coherent moral language and culture. In the wake of MacIntyre’s work, Jeffrey Stout sought to bring together modernity and tradition by rehabilitating the tradition of virtues in Emerson, Dewey, and some later pragmatists. Unlike MacIntyre, Stout wanted to hold up democracy and its non-foundational discourse as not only capturing all of the internal goods of the virtues espoused by Aristotle but also as a tradition that gave space to the marginalised to participate in the ‘democratic practice of giving and asking for ethical reasons’.16 One might say that Stout wants to have his cake and eat it too: tradition can be the site of tolerance, inclusion, and social justice.17 In the concluding chapter to this volume, ‘An Ethical Postlude’, I shall discuss my misgivings with both MacIntyre’s and Stout’s concepts of tradition. But for now, it is important to highlight how, from the outset, these two moral philosophers with decidedly modern questions and concerns might inform a historical study of the Augustinian tradition. There are two reasons why I privilege MacIntyre and Stout. First, and most obviously, the category of ‘Christian existence’ is, in its Augustinian form, a thoroughly ethical category (though it is much more than simply an Augustinian ‘ethics’). Among the many treatments of ‘tradition’, MacIntyre and Stout take most seriously the ambiguities and tensions that arise within specifically ethical traditions. Unlike, say, the discussion in the philosophy of science, as represented by Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, and Paul Feyerabend, moral philosophy must always entertain the possibility that there are better and worse heirs to a tradition. Edward Shils has also posited this to be true for ‘intellectual traditions’: ‘Many John Milbank, ‘Tradition: After and Beyond MacIntyre’, in Elisa Grimi, ed., Tradition as the Future of Innovation (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 242–54, 242. 16 Stout (2004), 6. 17 For similar desiderata, see John R. Bowlin, Tolerance among the Virtues (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). 15

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poor intellectuals by their feeble use of their traditions and exercising feeble mental powers could, without concert but by the effect of massive numbers, bring about a decay of their traditions. Intellectuals with greater imaginative, ratiocinative, observational, and verbally and visually formative powers . . . create works which extend and change their traditions.’18 The acceptance of the inability to ensure that a tradition will progress linearly is, to my lights, one of the chief virtues of theories of tradition that are informed by some kind of moral realism. More so than many of his contemporaries, Augustine was aware not only of his own ability to go astray but also, in the aftermath of Rome’s invasion, of the likelihood that all human projects will fail. The effect of this is felt when one reads the Confessions alongside the City of God: we live inside and between multiple traditions that are not self-interpreting. To think about tradition with Augustine is always to keep in mind the fragility of any human project, including the symbolic construction of the Augustinian tradition itself. Second, and less obviously, MacIntyre and Stout attend to the kinematics of tradition, that is, reflection on the motions qua motions of the act of tradition. For both, this is informed by a kind of Hegelianism: for MacIntyre, the historicist Hegel;19 for Stout, the Hegel of pragmatism.20 Their Hegelianisms, different as they are, have generated an appreciation for the historical development of moral communities. Moral reflection is not primarily a process of identifying ‘practical reason’ (à la Kant) but rather of attending to the social life of Sittlichkeit (à la Hegel). As MacIntyre said of Hegel in his A Short History of Ethics, ‘If we wish to understand any concept or explain any belief, we must first locate it in the system of which it is a part; this system will manifest itself both in a characteristic mode of life and in characteristic forms of theorizing.’21 Stout once quipped that MacIntyre had been rewriting A Short History of Ethics for nearly three decades.22 This is nowhere more true than in MacIntyre’s chapter on Hegel and Marx. Even MacIntyre’s characteristic focus on ‘practices’ in After Virtue has an antecedent in A Short History of Ethics.23 As for Stout, the literary evidence of Hegel’s influence is far more diffuse (and explicitly embraced). But Stout’s is self-consciously a pragmatic Hegelianism that likely takes more from Robert Brandom than

18 Edward Shils, ‘Intellectuals, Tradition, and the Traditions of Intellectuals: Some Preliminary Considerations’, Daedalus 101:2, Intellectuals and Tradition (Spring 1972), 21–34, 24. 19 See Robert Stern, ‘MacIntyre and Historicism’, in John Horton and Susan Mendus, eds, After MacIntyre: Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair MacIntyre (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 146–60. 20 See Richard Rorty’s contribution in ‘Pragmatism and Democracy: Assessing Jeffrey Stout’s Democracy and Tradition’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78:2 (2010), 6–13. 21 Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics, 2nd edn (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), 203. 22 23 Stout (2004), 119–20. MacIntyre (1996), 208.

Introduction

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from any one text of Hegel’s.24 But similarly to MacIntyre, Stout refuses an easy recourse to universal and disembodied ‘ideas’ or ‘principles’ to account for moral action. Stout emphasises that there are no objective norms outside of the give-and-take of ‘everyday reasoning’, but rather normative attitudes are produced by making explicit what is implicit in those ‘everyday reasonings’.25 While Stout’s last claim is contentious (and will be contested in ‘An Ethical Postlude’ below), what both MacIntyre and Stout admirably do is to make explicit the implicit ‘motions’ of tradition as it is situated in history. It is ultimately their kinematics of tradition as historically conditioned that I find most generative for my sense of the Augustinian tradition. As I will discuss in more detail in ‘An Ethical Postlude’, my unease with MacIntyre’s and Stout’s kinematics is twofold. First, they overlook the endogenous factors of tradition development. Endogenous change is, as Shils defines it, not ‘forced on them by external circumstances; it is an outgrowth of their own relationship to the tradition’.26 There is likely no pure case of either endogenous or exogenous tradition development, but rather each tradition develops according to endogenous and exogenous factors. The Augustinian tradition, especially in its early years, changed not because some ‘rival’ tradition came along, but instead as an outgrowth of its disciples’ relation to its initial ‘stock’. To be usefully applied to the Augustinian tradition under examination here, MacIntyre’s and Stout’s theories, will require greater attention to endogenous factors. This is, of course, not their problem, but the challenge I have given myself. My second concern is that both MacIntyre and Stout, as well as Shils, treat tradition as if there is only one level. For all three of these scholars, tradition can be ‘horizontally’ diverse, holding together many different parts, and even holding in tension several features of its tradition. But there is no discussion of when a tradition maintains sub-traditions and what kind of relationship might exist between the tradition and its sub-traditions. My overall theoretical task in this study is to establish the usefulness of the distinction between levels within tradition. This, I believe, is especially helpful in the contested, complex, and convoluted Augustinian tradition, as seen from the vantage point of prayer.

PRAYER AND THE LATIN TRADITION But as I mentioned at the outset, prayer is a rich and intriguing subject for an investigation into tradition. Looking at the theme of prayer opens up probing 24

See Stout (2004), 270ff. Stout (2004), 4; see also Nicholas Wolterstorff, ‘Jeffrey Stout on Democracy and Its Contemporary Christian Critics’, Journal of Religious Ethics 33:4 (2005), 633–47, 636. 26 Shils, Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 213. 25

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questions regarding the relationship between beliefs and practices. While prayer plays an important part in the articulation of Christian beliefs, it is also a deeply engrained practice within the traditions of Christianity, arguably the most foundational practice.27 Prayer thus prompts a query regarding praxis and belief, for prayer seems to resist a reduction to either praxis or belief considered alone. On the one hand, a naturalised understanding of prayer—a possible consequence of attempting to analyse prayer solely as praxis—would fail to make sense of the beliefs associated with and, indeed, motivating it. On the other hand, a spiritualised understanding of prayer, which focuses solely on the interior conceptual life of the practitioner— a possible consequence of attempting to analyse prayer solely according to beliefs without reference to the body—would resist any consistent analysis, for there would be no shared points of reference even between two practitioners who share the same doctrinal idiom. Prayer, therefore, is a promising place to start if one neither wants to jettison histories of doctrine tout court, nor to ignore the fact that doctrinal idiom is often motivated by received practices. As several contemporary scholars have suggested more or less directly,28 Christian prayer cannot be separated from the ongoing theological tradition to which it appeals for its doctrinal account. As will become evident, the rapprochement between prayer and doctrine is necessary for a sophisticated reflection on prayer that puts it into its proper theological context. This study is thus concentrated on Augustine’s doctrinal articulation of prayer, which brings together several distinctive features of the Bishop of Hippo’s thought: moral and psychological reflection on desire and patience, doctrinal reflection in and through a Christological idiom, and an historical consciousness grounded in the eschatological fulfilment of beatitude.29 27 Roy Hammerling, ed., A History of Prayer: The First to the Fifteenth Century (Louvain: Brill, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 2008), 2. 28 A few recent examples include: Mark McIntosh, Mystical Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990) and ‘Creation, Courtesy and Contemplation’, in The Beginning and the End of ‘Religion’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Denys Turner, Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Bernard McGinn, Foundations of Mysticism, vol. 1 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (London: SCM, 1991). 29 The topic or theme of prayer in Augustine is discussed en passant by most interpreters, but there have been very few monographs or studies dedicated solely to prayer in Augustine’s thought. Recently, there has appeared a posthumously published work by T.J. van Bavel, The Longing of the Heart: Augustine’s Doctrine of Prayer (Leuven: Peeters, 2009). Other recent studies include: Anthony Dupont, ‘The Prayer Theme in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum at the Time of the Pelagian Controversy: A Pastoral Treatment of a Focal Point of His Doctrine of Grace’, Zeitschrift für antikes Christentem 14:2 (2010), 379–408; Roy Hammerling, ‘St. Augustine of Hippo: Prayer as Sacrament’, in Hammerling (2008); Alessandro Garcea, ‘Prière et silence: quelques considerations autour de Saint Augustin, De Magistro 2’, in Jean-François Cottier, ed., La prière en latin de l’antiquité au XVIe siècle: formes, évolutions, significations (Turnhout: Brepols, Collection d’études médiévales de Nice, vol. 6, 2006), 157–76; Jean-Louis Chrétien, Saint

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Furthermore, the reception of Augustine’s understanding of prayer in Boethius and Benedict reveals previously unexplored continuities within the Augustinian tradition. While it is clear from the above caveats that this study’s historical scope is Augustine and his Nachleben in Boethius and Benedict, ambiguities regarding prayer still abound. We must, therefore, face the problem of definition and demarcation within Augustine’s terminology for prayer before proceeding any further. The Latin word oratio is typically employed as a categorical term for various kinds of ‘petitionary prayer’ (sometimes called ‘impetration’). Augustine outlined the different terminology commonly used for prayer in a letter written to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola (c.416).30 Here Augustine distinguishes, in particular, between precatio, deprecatio, and imprecatio: Many of ours consider precatio and deprecatio the same, and in daily usage this has completely prevailed. But those who have spoken Latin well use precatio for desiring good things, and deprecatio for shunning evils. For instance, precari they say is to desire (optare) good things by prayer (precando); imprecari, which is commonly said, is to curse; and deprecari is to remove evils by praying.31

Augustine goes on to distinguish oratio from adoratio: ‘Certainly, it is one thing to pray (orare), and another thing to adore (adorare).’32 Augustine thus uses precatio as a supplication or desire for something good, deprecatio as a plea for some evil to be removed, and imprecatio as a curse or denunciation of

Augustin et les actes de parole (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002); Duane H. Davis, ‘Prayer and the Dialogical Communion Intrinsic to Augustine’s Confessions’, Josephinum Journal of Theology 1 (1994), 26–35; M.G. Jackson, ‘Prayer and Miracle in the Spirituality of St. Augustine’, PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1986, ‘Faith, Hope and Charity and Prayer in St Augustine’, Studia Patristica 22 (1989), 265–70, and ‘The Lord’s Prayer in St Augustine’, Studia Patristica 27 (1993), 311–21; Timothy Maschke, ‘St Augustine’s Theology of Prayer: Gracious Conformation’, in Joseph T. Lienhard, Earl C. Muller, and Roland J. Teske, eds, Augustine: presbyter factus sum (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 431–46; Gillian Evans, ‘Making the Theory Fit the Practice: Augustine and Anselm on Prayer’, Epworth Review 19:1 (January 1992), 57–68; Gervase Corcoran, ‘Prayer and Solidarity in Saint Augustine’, Downside Review 108:372 (July 1990), 157–74; Monique Vincent, Saint Augustin. Maître de prière (Paris: Beauchesne, 1990) and ‘Le vocabulaire de la prière chez saint Augustin’, in B. Bruning, M. Lamberigts, and J. van Houtem, eds, Collectanea Augustiniana: Mélanges T.J. van Bavel, 2 vols (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990), 783–804; M. Basil Pennington, ‘A Letter on Prayer, Augustine 130’, in Victorino Capánga, Jean Leclercq, and George E. Saint-Laurent, eds, Word and Spirit: A Monastic Review (Petersham, MA: St Bede’s Press, 1987), 92–9; Anne-Marie La Bonnardière, ‘La lettre à Proba (Rom 8,26)’, in La Bonnardière, ed., Saint Augustin et la Bible (Paris: Éditions Beauchesne, 1986), 181–8; Heinrich Stirnimann, ‘Zu Augustinus’ Soliloquia I, 1, 2–6’, in Kurt Ruh, ed., Abendländische Mystik im Mittelalter: Symposion Kloster Engelberg 1984 (Stuttgart: J B Metziersche, 1986), 162–76; J. Oroz Reta, ‘Prière et recherche de Dieu dans les Confessions de Saint Augustin’, Studia Patristica 16:2 (1985), 533–50; and M. Benedict Hackett, ‘Augustine and Prayer: Theory and Practice’, in Second Annual Course on Augustinian Spirituality (Rome: Augustinian Publications, 1976), 173–89. 30 31 ep. 149.13–16. ep. 149.13–16; CSEL 44: 360. 32 ep. 149.13–16; CSEL 44: 360.

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evil. Common in Augustine’s prayer lexicon are also intercessio (a cry for divine mercy on another’s behalf) and invocatio (invitation to God to come into oneself).33 Oratio and its specific deployments arise from the groans and pains of this life. It is thus often expressed through such affective language as clamare (to cry), gemere (to groan), or desidere (to desire), terms which are found consistently throughout Augustine’s work. This is most famously highlighted in his Enarrationes in Psalmos 37: ‘Your very desire (desiderium) is your prayer (oratio); and if desire is continuous, prayer is continuous.’34 Oratio can thus also express the cries, groans, and desires for the beata vita from a place that is recognised as falling short thereof. Precatio and deprecatio will emerge in this study as important bearers of affections as they are distended in time. Augustine’s interest in prayer often migrates towards what might be called its illuminative or transformative aspects. These are no doubt important, and will consume much of the following discussion. But they should not eclipse the important question regarding what would count as an answer to a petition. Indeed, this opens up a critically important part of Augustine’s understanding of prayer, one that shows important divergences from Greek theological traditions’ speculation on prayer. For Augustine, laus is understood as the fulfilment of the desire that oratio expresses. In his second exposition of Psalm 26:7 (27:7), Augustine thus connects oratio and laus: ‘Let us groan now, let us pray now. Groaning is only for the miserable, prayer is only for the destitute. Prayer (oratio) will pass away, praise (laudatio) will take over; weeping will pass away, joy will take over.’35 Laus is often translated simply as praise, and one is not incorrect in doing so, except when it is understood as something distinct from prayer. Oratio and laus are not two distinct temporal activities for Augustine, but rather laus is the fulfilment of the yearnings expressed in oratio, as can be detected in the exposition of Psalm 26:7 (27:7). For Augustine, what counts as fulfilment of prayer is not, as is often assumed, God modifying or changing some state of affairs, but rather a transformation within the supplicant.36 This transformation, critically, orients the Christian towards praise (laus). Laus is, for Augustine, the fulfilment of our petitions, desires, and groaning, a fulfilment that is not truly possible within this age. In other words, laus is the eschatological fulfilment of oratio. 33 Augustine also employs the verbal forms: precari, deprecari, intercedere, and invocare. For a helpful summary of Augustine’s terminology, see: Vincent (1990a); and Rebecca H. Weaver, ‘Prayer’, in Alan Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 670–5. 34 Ipsum enim desiderium tuum, oratio tua est; et si continuum desiderium, continua oratio (en. Ps. 37.14; CCSL 38: 392). See also en. Ps. 85, In 1 Io. 4.6. en. Ps. 37.14 passage is highlighted by Weaver (1999) as well, though she does not quote it in full (671). 35 Gemamus modo, oremus modo. Gemitus non est nisi miserorum, oratio non est nisi indigentium. Transiet oratio, succedet laudatio; transiet fletus, succedet gaudium (en. Ps. 26.2.14; CCSL 38: 162). This passage is also highlighted by Weaver (1999), 671. 36 Chrétien (2002), 193.

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This rendition suggests a particular divergence from a strand in the Greek theological tradition regarding the place of contemplatio in prayer as compared with Augustine’s understanding. In the Evagrian conception of prayer, contemplatio or theoria is understood as the fulfilment of oratio, a notion partly inspired by Origen.37 As is true for so many areas of late antique Christian thought, Origen set the standard for the kind of theological reflection one comes to expect, and his De oratione is no exception for theological reflections on prayer. This model was taken up and furthered by both Evagrius and, particularly in its ethical implications, by Gregory of Nyssa.38 By the late fourth century several Latin theologians had been influenced by the Greek thought of the third and fourth centuries, and undoubtedly by Origen’s influence on Ambrose and Jerome.39 But, for one reason or another, the Latin treatises on prayer stopped short of the theological explorations common in Greek theological traditions.40 Similarly, in some late medieval authors, particularly after the very influential Scala claustralium by the Carthusian Guigo II, contemplatio is considered the height of the prayerful ascent. This understanding is not found, however, in Augustine, nor is there evidence for it in Boethius’ or Benedict’s texts.41 Augustine does, of course, use the term contemplatio, but its most distinctive and fulfilled sense is always in relation to eschatological activity.42 Moreover, contemplatio as a kind of 37 For a recent account of Evagrius’ debt to Origen, see Lorenzo Perrone, La preghiera secondo Origene: l’impossibilità donata (Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana, 2011), 564–87. 38 In Chapter 1, I will directly address Evagrius’ relationship to Origen and discuss what this might indicate about Augustine’s understanding of prayer. 39 While Dominic Keech (The Anti-Pelagian Christology of Augustine of Hippo, 396–430 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)) adds significant complexity to Augustine’s knowledge of Origen’s Christology, it does not seem to alter in any fundamental way our interpretations of Latin treatises on prayer. 40 The four important works within the Latin tradition are: Tertullian, De oratione; Cyprian, De dominica oratione; and Ambrose, De sacramentis and Expositio in Lucam. In Ch. 2 I will consider their influence on Augustine’s thought. 41 In Chapters 7 and 8 I will indicate why I think that what Benedict’s Rule says about ‘pure’ prayer is not Evagrian in influence. 42 In his De quantitate animae, Augustine sets out what might be his clearest and most straightforward definition of contemplation: the delight and enjoyment of the supreme and true God, the breath of undisturbed peace and eternity. Iamvero in ipsa visione atque contemplatione veritatis, qui septimus atque ultimus animae gradus est neque iam gradus, sed quaedam mansio, quo illis gradibus pervenitur, quae sint gaudia, quae perfructio summi et veri boni, cuius serenitatis atque aeternitatis adflatus, quid ergo dicam? Dixerunt haec, quantum dicenda esse iudicaverunt, magnae quaedam et incomparabiles animae, quas etiam vidisse ac videre ista credimus (quant. 33.76; CSEL 89: 222). Contemplation here, as it is elsewhere, is identified as the summit of the life of wisdom (sapientia): O utinam doctissimum aliquem neque id tantum, sed etiam eloquentissimum et omnino sapientissimum perfectumque hominem de hoc ambo interrogare possemus, quonam ille modo, quid anima in corpore valeret, quid in seipsa, quid apud deum, cui mundissima proxima est et in quo habet summum atque omne suum bonum, dicendo ac disputando explicaret (quant. 33.74; CSEL 89: 217). This passage is the introduction to Augustine’s description of the seven degrees of the soul. A distinction is necessary between the kind of contemplation in this life (i.e. mediated by intelligible expressions of divine truth with

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‘adhering’ (adhaerere), as it was to become much later in Meister Eckhart (where the longed-for object is achieved and held onto as a kind of ‘erotic’ relationship with the divine), is not present within Augustine’s work at all. Augustine does often use the verb adhaerere, but it is again descriptive of an eschatological state, whereas his use of participatio is associated with the affective dimensions of one’s longing displayed in oratio. Laus is thus an activity that transcends this age and completes oratio, but it does so through the fulfilment of our temporal desires expressed in oratio. Augustine certainly employs what some have taken to call ‘erotic’ language, but when it appears in his discussion of prayer it is always mediated by a Christological idiom and by corporatist understanding of unity that is eschatologically completed.43 By paying close attention to Augustine’s comments on and his use of prayer, we will thus be able to see a conception of prayer that is distinct from both fourth-century Greek and later Latin variants.44 It is my contention that the Entstehungsgeschichte of Augustine’s understanding of prayer—if we assume the consensus view that Augustine read very little of the Greek theological tradition directly from its sources45—must be seen with respect to the Latin moments of transcendence beyond), and the kind in the life to come (i.e. the permanent, unmediated vision of God). While contemplative moments within this life can transcend intelligible expression, they are momentary, fleeting, and indeed rare, as Augustine’s ascent with Monica at Ostia suggests (conf. 7.17.23). I will consider the contemplative aspects to Augustine’s thought when we turn to our exposition of his relevant texts. 43 It is important to flag the relationship between laus and contemplatio and to point out a possible tension within Augustine’s thought regarding the completion of our desire: above I suggested laus as that which completes oratio, but in both the Greek theological and late Latin contexts contemplatio is some kind of completion. In De quantitate animae, Augustine employs contemplatio as a kind of completion. The difference between laus and contemplatio as a ‘completion’ is important. Augustine placed laus on a continuum within the activity prayer, while contemplatio is within the discussion of the powers of the soul; the former arises from his homiletic and exegetical texts, the latter from his more speculative texts. These differences, however, say nothing about the compatibility and complementarity of laus and contemplatio. Moreover, there could be a fundamental agreement between them vis-à-vis their placement of the completion in the age to come. 44 In recent years, Greek theological conceptions of contemplative prayer have received much attention. Hammerling (2008) dedicates two whole essays to considering the general theological shape of prayer in Evagrius, while the main entry on Augustine restricts itself to his use of the Lord’s Prayer as a sacrament. With the notable exception of van Bavel’s (2009) posthumously published monograph on prayer in Augustine, there are very few discussions of prayer in Augustine’s thought similar to those that investigate the theme in Origen, Gregory Nyssa, or Evagrius. Similarly for the later, early modern discussion of contemplation, there is an overwhelming amount of literature (see McGinn (1991)). While there are broad cultural trends that one cannot ignore in this growing interest in the contemplative tradition of prayer, these concerns are far afield from the current study. For a critique of the perceived drift towards elitism, see Simon Tugwell, Ways of Imperfection: An Exploration of Christian Spirituality (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984). 45 For a summary of the current research on this vast question, see Joseph Lienhard, ‘Augustine of Hippo, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory Nazianzen’, in George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou, eds, Orthodox Readings of Augustine (New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), 81–99.

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tradition. We will, therefore, concentrate in the first place on Augustine’s theological development of the theme of oratio, and then see its Nachleben in two critically important sixth-century thinkers. How Boethius and Benedict take up the topic of prayer will show hitherto unacknowledged lines of continuity in the Augustinian tradition.

L ’A U G U S T I N I SM E AND THE AUGUSTINIAN TRADITION The notion of the Augustinian tradition has, for some time, been a topic of intense and contentious discussion. In the twentieth century, the most sustained discussion occurred in France and revolved around the precise sense of the term ‘Augustinianism’.46 E. Portalié distinguished between augustinianisme and augustinisme: the former is the teachings on grace of the Augustinian Order, whereas the latter designates the philosophical spirit in Augustine’s thought, especially how Augustine conceives of the action of God through the categories of grace and liberty.47 In his article ‘Augustinisme’ for the Dictionaire critique de théologie, Goulven Madec laid out the reigning paradigms. Madec, more simply, divides up the discussion into two broad categories: l’esprit augustinien and crises augustinistes. For Madec, l’esprit augustinien is marked by the themes of Scripture, interiority, and community.48 Within the more narrowly conceived crises augustinistes, Madec revealingly picks out the themes of grace and predestination and of knowledge as the most important Augustinian trajectories over the last 1,500 years. I say revealingly because in his survey of the historical reception of Augustine’s work, he dubs the period that included Descartes,

46 In addition to the more nuanced French discussion, there has also been a consistent interest in anglophone literature in notions of Augustinianism: see, e.g., James O’Donnell, ‘The Authority of Augustine’, Augustinian Studies 22 (1990), 7–35; Charles Mathewes, Evil and the Augustinian Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Stephen Menn, Augustine and Descartes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Arnoud S.Q. Visser, Reading Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of Intellectual Authority in Europe, 1500–1620 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); and Eric Saak, Creating Augustine: Interpreting Augustine and Augustinianism in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 47 Goulven Madec, ‘Augustinisme’, in Madec, Lectures augustiniennes (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2001), 295–311, 295; discussing E. Portalié, ‘Augustinisme’, in Dictionaire theologie catholique, 2 vols (Paris, 1931), 1:2485–561. F. Caryé further distinguished Portalié’s augustinisme, according to Madec, into five subcategories: (1) augustinisme historique, (2) augustinisme courant, officiel, (3) augustinismes partiels, (4) grand augustinisme, and (5) faux augustinismes (predestination, Protestantism, Jansenism, ontologism) (Madec (2001), 295–6). Portalié (1931) is still the most comprehensive treatment of augustinisme. This is the opinion of Madec in ‘Augustinianism’, in André Vauchez, ed., Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, 2 vols (Chicago: James Clarke and Co, 2000), 132–3, 133. This opinion is reiterated by Saak (2012), 4. 48 Madec (2001), 296–7.

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Pascal, and Malebranche ‘le siècle de saint Augustin’. It was during this period, more so than any other, that Augustine’s theological epistemology and teachings on nature and grace became the subject of intense debate. The works of Étienne Gilson and Henri de Lubac have developed both of these strands in especially fruitful ways.49 It has since been common to associate the Augustinian tradition with these particular strands running throughout the history of Latin Christianity and its European heirs.50 In many respects, my plea is to recentralise Madec’s l’esprit augustinien.

AUGUSTINIANISM 1 AND AUGUSTINIANISM 2 Yet while all of these approaches to the Augustinian tradition have yielded much fruit—one only needs to recall the role of Augustine’s work in sorting out the pre-modern understanding of the relation between nature and grace that consumed much energy in the first half of the twentieth century—they leave two important lacunae in their discussion. First, they have largely ignored Italian figures between Augustine’s death and Gregory the Great’s papacy, namely Boethius and Benedict. In this study, I am thus concerned with a terrain that, while very familiar to historians of late antiquity, falls outside the purvey of theorists of ‘Augustinianism’. The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (OGHRA)51 fills some gaps, especially ones between the death of Augustine in 430 and the eleventh century. Yet (and this represents the second lacuna) the OGHRA, like many of its twentieth-century antecedents, focuses on explicit cases of literary borrowing rather than a more inclusive sense of tradition.52 What of the cases where the literary evidence is not explicit but implicit in similar use of themes, motifs, or constellated ideas? Moreover, what of the implicit use of themes in the very earliest years of Augustine’s reception? There are thus sizeable and important lacunae in the literature, and I propose to deal only with an aspect of these larger questions

49 Étienne Gilson, Introduction à l’étude de Saint Augustin (Vrin, 1929) and Henri de Lubac, Augustinisme et théologie moderne (Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1965). 50 Two recent studies affirm this judgement: Lydia Schumacher, Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011) and Keech (2012). Behind these more recent studies sits the very influential O. Rottmanner, ‘L’augustinisme: étude d’histoire doctrinal’, Mélanges de Sciences Religieuses 6 (1949), 29–48. Visser (2011) and Saak (2012) have, however, begun to do the spadework of detecting hitherto unseen aspects of Augustine’s legacy in later European traditions. 51 Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten, eds, The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 52 Pollmann (panel on the OGHRA at the 16th International Conference on Patristics Studies at Oxford University).

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through investigating Boethius’ and Benedict’s reception of Augustine’s understanding of prayer. Through observing the location of prayer within the works of Boethius and Benedict, I begin to identify and characterise their distinctive Augustinianisms. By looking at their theological Augustinianisms through the constellating theme of prayer, I aim to throw new light on the very nature of the term ‘Augustinianism’.53 In particular, I will propose a distinction that, for lack of more appropriate (or aesthetically pleasing) terms, I will label ‘Augustinianism 1’ and ‘Augustinianism 2’. Augustinianism 1 refers to the citation, reference, and particular allusion to a writing from Augustine’s pen. These are the textual particulars that, for most scholars, legitimate the supposition of Augustinian ‘influence’. The OGHRA is focused on this kind of Augustinianism. Augustinianism 2 is the use of certain general orientations and constellations of thought from Augustine without necessarily sharing specific doctrinal positions.54 It is possible to display Augustinianism 2 while simultaneously displaying, say, a debt to Lerinian ‘anti-Augustinians’. While some textual historians dismiss this kind of Augustinianism as ‘impressionistic’,55 it is a curious aspect of Wirkungeschichte which requires more systematic analysis. In this study, I will argue that Boethius and Benedict display both Augustinianism 1 and Augustinianism 2. This will satisfy, I trust, the textual historian’s suspicion of impressionistic readings while also demonstrating, with some specificity and care, two cases of Augustinianism 2. It is ultimately Augustinianism 2 that opens up space for Christian theologians to engage the sources of the Augustinian tradition in a manner sensitive to the demands of both historical and theological readings of texts. As many scholars have insisted, Boethius and Benedict are far from simple cases of Augustinian inheritance: their works are also infused with influences from Greek theological and philosophical thought. Boethius constellates a set 53 J.D. Green, ‘Augustinism’: Studies in the Process of Spiritual Transvaluation (Leuven: Peeters, 2007) has put forth a similar thesis, but much broader in historical scope (from Augustine to Walter Hilton, a fourteenth-century English Augustinian). Also, he has sought to find a more general Augustinian ‘spirituality’ in this time period, whereas I have restricted my analysis to prayer. Another important parallel, which will become more evident in Chapters 7 and 8 on the Rule of St Benedict, is Conrad Leyser, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 54 I must highlight an important debt to Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). One of the more distinctive contributions Ayres has made to conversations regarding the nature and development of doctrine is his use of theological ‘cultures’ (see esp. 436, 444–5). My account of Augustinianism 2 shares much with Ayres’ account of theological cultures, but is much more limited in scope. Like Ayres’ pro-Nicenes, Boethius and Benedict are not identifiably Augustinian simply by a shared commitment to a set of Augustinian propositions. Rather, they share a way of imagining Christian existence that is shaped by an Augustinian theory and practice of prayer. Moreover, it is important to note that I am not herewith claiming that Augustinianism 2 is as comprehensive as Ayres’ pro-Nicene category; in fact, Augustinianism 2 is decidedly within a pro-Nicene culture. 55 See Lienhard (2008), 81–99.

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of Augustinian doctrinal themes around the notion of prayer, but he uses it to overcome a dilemma regarding free will and divine providence. There have been notable scholars who have attempted to argue for an Augustinian56 or Neoplatonic57 Boethius, as there have been those who argue for Boethius’ originality.58 I argue, however, that Boethius’ discussion of prayer in both the Opuscula sacra and De consolatio philosophiae is best understood with respect to Augustine’s constellating theme of prayer, drawing out a hitherto unrecognised continuity between Augustine and Boethius. The theme of prayer in Boethius’ works highlights his simultaneous debt to Augustine and his own philosophical originality. Benedict likewise recognises an Augustinian constellation of themes around prayer, he but intensifies it through his incorporation of the Greek monastic tradition inherited from John Cassian (via the Rule of the Master), and therewith forms the blueprint of monastic life that would come to dominate the next five hundred years of Latin Christianity, the socalled ‘Benedictine Centuries’.59 In a way similar to the battles over Boethius’ influences, Benedict’s Regula has been subjected to intense scrutiny vis-à-vis its relation to the early monastic rules. Again, this current study suggests that the theology of Benedict’s Regula as a whole is illuminated by Augustine’s doctrinal commitments that are constellated around and integrated in the theme of prayer. The exposition of both Boethius’ and Benedict’s texts will, then, concentrate on the unique place of prayer in their works and the original speculation given thereto.

A U G U S TI N I A N CH R I S T I A N E X IS T E N C E I I have used the terms ‘prayer’ and ‘Christian existence’ to talk about the specific content of the Augustinian tradition I am seeking to analyse in ways that suggest specific theological senses, so some clarification of these terms is necessary. For Augustine, prayer is the central and ongoing task of the Christian. In his distinctive understanding, it is: (1) animated by desire and sustained by patience; (2) articulated within a Christological idiom; and (3) directed towards the eschatological fulfilment of

56 The most eloquent and sophisticated Augustinian interpretation of Boethius is Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981). See John Marenbon, Boethius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) for an assessment (154–9). 57 Pierre Courcelle is still the strongest advocate for this position; see Les lettres grecques en occident: de Macrobe à Cassiodore (Paris, 1948), 278–304. 58 Most recently, Marenbon (2003) has advocated an interpretation that highlight’s Boethius’ originality (146–63). 59 David Knowles, Christian Monasticism (London: McGraw-Hill, 1969).

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beatitude that is held in hope in this age. Theoretically, these features come together in Augustine’s theological anthropology and corporate spirituality to form his vision of Christian existence. To put this otherwise: prayer is the enduring medium of Augustinian Christian existence. It is Augustine who originally articulates this particular understanding of prayer in the Latin theological tradition, but, as we will see, this understanding of prayer undergoes variant receptions in Boethius and Benedict, each of whom takes up this particular vision of Augustinian Christian existence and modifies it in ways that have extraordinary influence in the monastic and philosophical discussions in the subsequent Latin tradition. In this study, I shall thus seek to demonstrate that prayer, in both its theory and practice, is a foundational theme that characterises the fundamental orientation of Augustine’s theology as a Christological exercitatio that is eschatologically completed. For Augustine, Christ provides the animus and the eschatologically located beata vita provides the goal of Christian existence. Exercitatio and Christology are only loosely connected to prayer in Augustine’s early work, but as he matures as a theologian (as well as a philosopher) exercitatio, Christology, and prayer are increasingly intertwined. A few words on what I mean by exercitatio and Christology are thus in order at the outset, for these provide the broad outlines of what I am picking out as Augustinian ‘Christian existence’. Augustine uses exercitatio and its verbal form exercere broadly and in a wide range of contexts. Lewis Ayres has noted that it is, in particular, much broader in connotation than exercitatio mentis: ‘In particular we should see that key aspect of exercitatio which involves the training of the intelligence or mind in the context of the training of the body, of the virtues and of society which are its necessary accompaniments (a training often described as being effected by providence or by faith itself).’60 In Augustine’s early works, this exercitatio is structured as an ‘ascent of the soul’, demonstrating a general reliance on a common theme in late antique Platonism as an organising principle for the life oriented towards the beata vita. But the status of ‘ascent’ as an organising principle for the Christian life in Augustine’s later work has come under question, most influentially by Robert Markus. In his Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, Markus advanced the thesis that Augustine’s readings of Paul in the mid-390s modified how he conceived of the Christian’s pilgrimage through this age. Augustine, according to Markus, came through his rereading of Paul to reject any scheme in which there are reliable markers of progress: ‘Human life became a Lewis Ayres, ‘The Christological Context of Augustine’s De trinitate XIII: Toward Relocating Books VIII–XV’, Augustinian Studies 29:1 (1998), 111–39; this part of Ayres’ article is responding to John Cavadini (‘The Structure and Intention of Augustine’s De trinitate’, Augustinian Studies 23 (1992), 103–23) as representative of a predominant way of reading exercitatio in Augustine’s De trinitate. 60

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chronic conflict between sin and grace, and history the theatre in which this conflict was played out on a large scale. Henceforth Augustine could no longer see salvation as an ordered progression towards a distant goal; it was a sustained miracle or divine initiative.’61 I shall not deny that something changed in Augustine’s readings of Paul—indeed, a pivotal text for my account in this regard is his commentary on Galatians—but I draw conclusions different from Markus.62 In particular, I will argue that this ‘change’ or ‘evolution’ in Augustine’s thought highlighted already existing difficulties within an exercitatio located outside faith in Christ. It is thus not disillusionment with ascent, but rather a growing awareness of the need to locate the exercitatio in Christ that is at stake. As is often noted, Augustine’s Christology does not fit very neatly within fourth- and fifth-century Christologies, as he did not dedicate much energy to the technicalities of Christ’s two natures.63 While the question of Augustine’s conformity to fourth- and fifth-century Christological orthodoxy is important, we will focus instead on the ‘ascetical’ and ‘structural’ features, especially as they appear in one of the richest sources for Augustine’s Christology, the commentaries and sermons on the Psalms. By ‘ascetical’ I am simply referring to the sanctifying impulse within Augustine’s Christology, particularly in his exhortation to ‘put on’ Christ; by ‘structural’, then, I am referring to Augustine’s employment of the structural relationship between Christ and his Church in the doctrine of totus Christus. Both of these features will be discussed in depth when we turn to Augustine’s texts. How this Christology and exercitatio relate is important not only for understanding the place of prayer in relation to Augustine’s Christology but also for understanding how prayer informs Christian existence within this world. The movement from the material to the immaterial, a movement Augustine shares with standard Neoplatonic ascents, occurs along the spectrum of Christ’s humanity and Christ’s divinity. Through the doctrine of totus Christus, Augustine sees the Christian’s participation in the Church as her exercitatio. These themes provide the outlines and terms for how I am construing Augustine’s developing understanding of prayer as Christian existence. Despite Christological exercitatio having important antecedents in Ambrose and Hilary of Poitiers, this understanding of prayer is distinctive to Augustine. Especially in his later works, one can detect Augustine pushing beyond his

61 Robert Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, rev. edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), xi. 62 See ‘A Historiographical Interlude’ below for discussion of Markus. My broadly sympathetic yet chastened view of Markus is informed by Robert Dodaro, ‘Augustine’s Revision of the Heroic Ideal’, Augustinian Studies 36:1 (2005), 141–57 and Michael McCarthy, ‘An Ecclesiology of Groaning: Augustine, the Psalms, and the Making of Church’, Theological Studies 66:1 (2005), 23–48. 63 Most recently in Keech (2012), 6–10; also Brian Daley, ‘Christology’, in Allan Fitzgerald, ed., Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 164–9.

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Latin predecessors in ways that would ultimately influence the Rule of St Benedict and Boethius’ theological writings, texts that become foundational for the Latin Christian tradition. Augustine’s originality, I will argue, is in his placing of this cluster of themes in necessary connection to a particular concept of prayer and its communal practice. This view of prayer as the centre of a doctrinal constellation did not emerge immediately in Augustine’s work: it was ramified over several decades of theological investigation. Augustine forged it in and through his thinking about desire and patience, Christ and the Trinity, and the eschatological horizon, all of which interact with philosophical questions of his day. One consequence of this development is that he arrives at a view of prayer that is non-elitist, non-ecstatic, and non-dualist. While this is interesting vis-à-vis Greek theologies of prayer, specifically those from the monastic tradition, Augustine’s distinctiveness should not be understood as ammunition for a polemical West-versus-East disjunction.64 My argument will be differently focused. I will argue instead that prayer in Augustine’s thought constellates and integrates several highly distinctive themes of his own, which when seen together serve to provide Augustine with a novel solution to the problem of knowledge (scientia) and wisdom (sapientia). The question of how one might ‘bridge’ human scientia and divine sapientia sits at the centre of Augustine’s understanding of Christian existence. Underlying Augustine’s arguments, I hope to demonstrate, is a discipline of prayer that employs the full powers of the soul and flows into his understanding of central questions of an ethically robust understanding of Christian existence. When prayer is seen in its epistemic context, a context suggested by the terms scientia and sapientia, questions of illumination and participation also arise. It will be a particular focus of this study to seek to demonstrate the continuities between Augustine’s early work on illumination and how it develops into an understanding of incorporation into the body of Christ and, ultimately, participation in Christ as a practice of patience. Illumination, in particular, has been the subject of many scholarly studies, which offer no sign of abating.65 It has become common practice to see this concept as an 64

Dom Cuthbert Butler’s Western Mysticism: The Teachings of SS Augustine, Gregory, and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life, 2nd edn (London: E.P. Dutton, 1926) was, in its time, an advance on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century thinking about Latin Christianity, but it is now widely recognised as shaped by a polemical quest to define ‘Western’ vis-à-vis ‘Eastern’ mysticism (see Rowan Williams, ‘Butler’s Western Mysticism: Towards an Assessment’, Downside Review 102 (July 1984), 197–215). While the current thesis would concur with Butler regarding the non-elitist character of early Latin contemplative practices, I do not intend to advance this thesis according to Butler’s East–West polemic. 65 See, e.g., Gilson (1929); Ronald Nash, The Light of the Mind: St. Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1969); Jean Doignon, ‘Sur l’illumination’, Bibliothèque augustinienne. Oeuvres de Saint Augustin 4.1 (1986); Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (London: Duckworth, 1987); Gareth Matthews, ‘Knowledge and Illumination’ in Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, eds, The Cambridge Companion to

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epistemological theory.66 While it is, no doubt, epistemic in a general sense, illumination in Augustine’s thought cannot be isolated from the ethical content of concrete practices of a Christian’s life. In this study I will, therefore, seek to place illumination within the context of prayer, which, in turn, reconfigures its relationship with the equally fecund notion of participation. The key, as I will argue, will be to see that both illumination and participation are constellated around a notion of prayer that inculcates not some supernatural vision but patience with this world. I am not herewith suggesting a deflationary reading of illumination and participation, but rather that one must attend to the particular theological and spiritual location that these themes occupy in order to discern the kind of work they are intended to do in Augustine’s thought. When illumination and participation are understood outside the context of the Body of Christ, they tend to be reduced to epistemological projects, whose main purpose is to buttress the philosophically besieged fortress of theology. But when placed within an argument about the Body of Christ, which is in via towards its union with the Head, the epistemic aspects transform the very life one inhabits on one’s way to union with Christ. As I have already intimated, the interest in this study regarding prayer’s place within Augustine’s thought is not simply restricted to a theme that has heretofore been insufficiently researched within the Bishop of Hippo’s thought. It is also an attempt to delineate with some subtlety the contours of the ‘Augustinian tradition’ in its formative years before Pope Gregory I. It is notoriously difficult to get our hands around what the Augustinian tradition is, especially if one attempts to outline the Augustinian tradition by tracing essential or central doctrines from Augustine to his theological successors. There is a venerable modern tradition of dogmatic histories of this sort, from John Henry Newman’s An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, through Adolf von Harnack’s magisterial Dogmengeschichte, to Jaroslav Pelikan’s The Christian Tradition. Newman’s central concerns were doctrines that provided friction between Roman Catholics and Anglicans in the nineteenth century (i.e. papal and Marian dogmas); Harnack’s were the fourth century’s controversies over the Trinity and Incarnation; and Pelikan expanded Harnack’s concerns to include, among others, fundamental themes such as nature and grace. Despite their different interests, they were all committed to telling the story of how Christian doctrines developed through time as an exercise of Christian theology.67 Newman and Harnack were principally textual

Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 171–85; Schumacher (2011). For a general overview of the topic, see Frederick van Fleteren, ‘Illumination’, Augustinus-Lexicon 3 (2004–6), 495–504. 66 This is most pronounced in Nash (1969), Matthews (2001), and Schumacher (2011). 67 See Pelikan’s reflections in Development of Christian Doctrine: Some Historical Prolegomena (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969) and Historical Theology: Continuity and

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historians, both of whom made substantial contributions to editions of important texts from Christian late antiquity; Pelikan expanded his reach beyond Newman and Harnack to include a more integrated approach to texts and councils. But none of the above magisterial historians of dogma concerned themselves with the transmission of these doctrines via Christian practices. The focus on prayer as a constellating and integrating notion, in which the noetic and practical elements are inseparably intertwined, may thus shed new light on the Latin tradition’s reception of Augustinian Christian existence.

W H A T T H I S STU D Y IS NO T Before proceeding to outline the shape of this study, it is worth underscoring three tendencies with which my methodological presuppositions do not concur. First, I am not herein claiming that prayer constitutes the essence of the Latin tradition (à la Harnackian essentialism),68 but rather that prayer qua theory and practice constellates and integrates a cluster of definitive themes within Augustine’s thought (i.e. hope, desire and patience, Christology, and eschatology). While I demonstrate that both Boethius and Benedict build on this doctrinal constellation through their discussions of prayer, they do so within new contexts, alongside new influences, and for different purposes. It is in this sense that Augustinianism 2 is, to some extent, intrinsically provisional, bearing similarity to Michel de Certeau’s ‘tactical behavior’:69 Augustinianism 2 is open to new strategies to navigate the symbolic world with its penchant for ever new configurations. The Latin conception of prayer thus undergoes significant development and modification in Boethius’ and Benedict’s appropriations, which are themselves borne out of the newly emerging conditions of Italy in the sixth century. It is in light of these subtle developments that I believe Boethius’ and Benedict’s Augustinianisms deserve close textual analysis. Second, there is much that this account of prayer in Augustine, Boethius, and Benedict will fail to treat, or will only partially treat, chief among which is the history of ‘spirituality’. This study is not intended to offer an alternative history of the development of Latin ‘mystical’ or ‘contemplative’ theology in Change in Christian Doctrine (London: Hutchinson, 1971), see esp. Pelikan’s discussion of Harnack, 58–67. 68 ‘Für den Historiker, der das Wertvolle und Bleibende festzustellen hat—und das ist seine höchste Aufgabe—ergiebt sich aus diesen Verhältnissen die die notwendige Forderung, sich nicht an Worte zu klammern, sondern das Wesentliche zu ermitteln’, von Harnack (2012), 17; emphasis in original. 69 I owe the relevance of Michel de Certeau to Ayres (2004b), 276. Ayres points to de Certeau, The Practices of Everyday Life, trans. S. Renall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 29–60.

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and through these authors. Aside from the possible eliding of Greek and Latin concepts, which is often an overcompensation for previous polemically driven claims of the cleavage between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ theologies, the discussion regarding the Western contemplative tradition is, at times, a search for the sources of a later variety of ‘mystical’ theology, which is itself a product of later importations of the Greek contemplative tradition. It is, above all, the later importation of Pseudo-Dionysius’ corpus into Latin theology that will shape the discussion of Latin ‘spirituality’ in terms different from those evident in Augustine, Boethius, and Benedict. The full history of ‘spirituality’ is a complex matter, and has been taken up in a magisterial fashion by Bernard McGinn;70 but this study’s scope is narrower both conceptually and historically, and as such will it be unable to produce claims of a more general order regarding ‘Western spirituality’. To some extent, indeed, it questions this notion’s relevance to the texts and periods considered here. Lastly, this study does not plump for either a Platonist or Christian rendering of Augustine and his tradition in the sense that it is either Platonist or Christian. Augustine and Boethius more directly, and also Benedict indirectly, are all indebted to the (nearly inescapable) influence of Platonism. But they are all Catholic Christians, too. While much scholarship over the past one hundred years has been dedicated to the relationship between Platonism and Christianity in the theological sources from both Greek and Latin cultures, this study will only touch on this matter insofar as it is relevant to the articulation of prayer. Indeed, there will be much opportunity to do so, especially in the chapters discussing Augustine and Boethius. The question of the relationship between Platonism and Christianity must be dealt with—as it will be here—in particular cases and specific contexts of the relevant texts. My approach to this vexed question is informed by the work of Robert Crouse. Crouse has argued that Augustine’s Platonism is neither something ‘external’ to his thinking, nor is there an identifiable beginning or ending to his learning from Platonism.71 My supposition is that as Augustine became a more mature theologian he became a better philosopher in the Platonic tradition of philosophising.72 This will be nowhere more evident 70 See McGinn’s projected seven-volume project titled The Presence of God (London: SCM Press), five of which have appeared: The Foundations of Mysticism (1991), The Growth of Mysticism (1996), The Flowering of Mysticism (1998), The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (2006), and The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism (2012); see also Rowan Williams, The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament to St John of the Cross (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1979); and Turner (1995). 71 Robert Crouse, ‘Augustinian Platonism in Early Medieval Theology’, in Joanne McWilliam, Augustine: From Rhetor to Theologian (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), 110–15. See also ‘Paucis mutatis verbis: St. Augustine’s Platonism’, in Robert Dodaro and George Lawless, eds, Augustine and his Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner (London: Routledge, 2000), 37–50. 72 As Pierre Hadot has so eloquently described, to philosophise in the Platonic tradition (among others) is not restricted to a set of themes within the philosophy curriculum; rather, it is

Introduction

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than in De trinitate, Augustine’s crowning dogmatic achievement that is simultaneously one of the more sophisticated examples of late antique Latin Platonism.

THE SHAPE OF THIS STUDY I aim to explore in this study how tradition can be constituted by the reception of a particular theme (i.e., prayer) that carries with it a constellation of interrelated doctrines. This is exemplified in this study by Boethius and Benedict’s reception of Augustine’s understanding of prayer. In Part I, my intention is not to reconstruct Augustine’s doctrine of prayer in toto, but rather to use prayer as an entrance into Augustine’s thought that not only provides a window into the complexities of Augustine’s understanding of Christian existence, but also reveals a formulation of his thought that is porous and open to subsequent transformations. This requires us to push beyond our current methodological criteria for tradition. But without seeing how prayer functions within Augustine’s thought, we might easily miss Boethius’ and Benedict’s Augustinianisms. Therefore, the first part of this study will be dedicated to tracing the development of Augustine’s understanding of prayer. Chapter 1 begins with a reflection on the prayer with which Augustine opens his incomplete Soliloquia. In this work Augustine initiates what I will call the reflexivity of prayer: prayer is a desire to know God and himself, to know God through himself and to know himself through God. In De magistro this reflexivity is expanded to account for a spoken yet essentially silent form of prayer. In these two dialogues that bookend Augustine’s experiment with this genre, prayer emerges as an activity that is bound up with his lifelong pursuit of wisdom. In Chapter 2 I shall then approach his rightly famous discussions of the ‘ascents of the soul’, and how they, too, ultimately bring Augustine to the practice of prayer. In his developing thoughts on the ascent, a development that occurs alongside that of Chapter 1, Augustine makes a shift in the structure of the ascent that has profound and lasting consequences: whereas in De ordine and De quantitate animae ascent is envisioned as the mind’s ascent to vision, in De vera religione the ascent is more properly characterised as the human being’s temporal journey towards the beata vita that is enticed

shaped by the way of life the philosopher has chosen to take up. To live as a theologian and to write theology can, in the Hadotian sense, be just as much philosophy if it is a pursuit of wisdom. See Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, trans. M. Chase (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995) and What is Ancient Philosophy?, trans. M. Chase (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2002).

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by the truth of Scripture. De sermone Domini in monte will emerge as a pivotal text for the development of Augustine’s exercitatio. Written during his few years as a priest in Hippo, Augustine’s commentary on the Lord’s Prayer in the second part is his first attempt at integrating prayer and the ‘ascent of the soul’. These discussions will set the background for my discussion of the totus Christus doctrine in Chapter 3. I will highlight two important developments. First, particularly in his commentaries on the Psalms, Augustine begins to work out his doctrine of the totus Christus through the interpretation of Christ’s cry of dereliction, a quotation from Psalm 21:1.73 This begins to help him make sense of the relationship between the life of Christ and the Christian life. But this development requires a second parallel development. In his commentary on Galatians, Augustine queries the process of ‘putting on’ Christ (induere). Finally, turning to more focused analysis of Augustine’s commentary on Psalms 85 and 132, I will argue that the totus Christus is the ‘grammar’ of prayer, but that the Holy Spirit is the ‘fluency’ that allows the suffering community to actualise the grammar. These reflections on the Holy Spirit will serve as indispensable background for my interpretation of De trinitate 4 and 13 in Chapter 4. In these important books of De trinitate, Augustine proposes Christ as that which ‘bridges’ or ‘heals’ the breach between scientia and sapientia. Indeed, these themes represent a climax within Part I, wherein I offer an interpretation that emphasises prayer in the Christian’s process of ‘putting on’ Christ that brings to effect the movement from scientia to sapientia. It is this movement that is both an ‘ascent’ and a temporally unfolding pilgrimage to the beata vita, animated and sustained by the inseparable operations of the Trinity. In order to draw out these insights, I will frame my reading of De trinitate 4 and 13 in the context of Augustine’s treatise on prayer (ep. 130) and his anti-pelagian writings. As a consequence, we will see patience emerge as the sine qua non of the Christian life and what ultimately grounds Augustine’s doctrine of participation. At the heart of this investigation is my interest in the perplexity of temporal desire for an eternal object. Not surprisingly, Augustine appeals to the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and love—all of which are articulated through prayer. It is, in particular, a hopeful patience that links Christian existence and prayer.74 The force of patience, more so than hope, has been overlooked in discussions of Christian existence and the beata vita, which have traditionally given pride of place to love. I do not intend to displace the virtue of love, but rather suggest how, when faced with the infinite chasm between time and eternity, Augustine responds with particular emphasis on patience.

73 Unless otherwise noted, all references to the Psalms will be according to Augustine’s number. 74 For the deeply intertwined notions of hope and patience see ciu. 19.4.

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Patience and hope as articulated in prayer sit at the center of Augustine’s understanding of Christian existence. In Part II, I will thus turn to suggest how this understanding is picked up by Boethius and Benedict. Christian existence as hopeful patience articulated in the act of prayer informs, I will argue, the relevant Augustinianism 2 advanced in Boethius and Benedict. The history of Augustine’s reception has often focused on Augustine’s strife with the pelagians and semi-pelagians, and on these controversies’ Nachleben in subsequent centuries. This is ultimately what drove, as we shall see in ‘A Historiographical Interlude’ below, Adolf von Harnack’s anti-Italy bias: the semi-pelagian controversy burned brightest in sixth-century Gaul. But Italy is not devoid of any knowledge or relevance to the semi-pelagian controversy. By the end of Part I, I hope to have demonstrated how my account of Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer might include the central concerns of his ‘pelagian’ detractors, but I press forward into Part II with the conviction that Augustine’s Nachleben cannot be reduced to his strife with Pelagius and his followers. This will require that we expand what we consider ‘reception’ to be. In contrast to Caesarius of Arles’ explicit appeal to individual authorities (e.g. Augustine), Caesarius’ Italian contemporaries often chose to highlight patristic consensus that they had themselves constructed.75 Through this practice of consensus construction the specific authorial identities often disappear, a fact that is just as much true for Boethius as it is for the author of the Rule of St Benedict. Yet Augustine’s influence is more than just one among a cloud of witnesses: for Latin theological culture, he has defined the very terms of future controversies. To many, this is tantamount to saying that Augustine provided the Latin West with a ‘world view’. But can one be more specific about this world view supposition? It is this specificity that my Augustinianism 2 attempts to provide. It is, therefore, within the puzzling web of influences and authorities in Boethius’ and Benedict’s work that I will draw out a different kind of Augustinian reception. It is not simply the ideas that travelled from one age to the next, but the practices in which these ideas are cultivated and expressed. Part of the overall narrative of this study is that reception and tradition are not simply constituted by the act of one author reading another author on one specific theme or topic (Augustinianism 1). This study is instead concerned with the formation of tradition that occurs when one author appropriates a previous author’s constellations of themes and concepts in connection with an ongoing communal and institutional practice (Augustinianism 2). In order to articulate this, Part II looks at the process of reception through two men of the first half of the sixth century who are, in some aspects, a study in contrasts. On the one hand, Boethius seems only engaged with Augustine’s texts; on the 75 See Leyser (2000), 99; Éric Rebillard, ‘A New Style of Argument in Christian Polemic: Augustine and the Use of Patristic Citations’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 38:1 (2007), 175–87.

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other hand, Benedict seems only engaged with Augustine’s life. But, as I will demonstrate, the way Boethius engages with Augustine’s texts disturbs this neat text/life boundary, just as Benedict’s engagement with Augustine’s form of life is also an engagement with the central ideas ramified over decades of writing. In the sixth century, there are multiple streams of Augustine’s texts that Boethius and Benedict may have encountered. In Boethius’ case, it is likely that he had access to the majority of Augustine’s works. In Rome in the late fifth and early sixth centuries, Boethius’ sister-in-law, Proba the Virgin, maintained a library with a collection of Augustine’s writings.76 Benedict is a less certain case, but there is still reason to suppose that he had access to Augustine’s works. The first and most probable channel is Eugippius’ Excerpta ex operibus s. Augustini. Eugippius draws from across Augustine’s corpus, and includes many of the now famous passages of Augustine.77 For both Boethius and Benedict, it is not only that the texts were available, but also that they were being discussed, debated, and used by others in the late fifth and early sixth centuries in Rome. Although Augustine spent very little time in Rome, the Città eterna was fascinated by this African bishop, and ultimately shaped how he would influence the subsequent European centuries through the likes of Boethius and Benedict. This study is concerned with Boethius and Benedict as liminal figures, not only in the historical study of theology, but also as cases that reveal, to some extent, the parting of the ways for Augustine’s thought, partly by virtue of their social and intellectual locations, and partly by virtue of appropriations of different aspects of Augustine’s corpus. Whereas Boethius is from one of the grandest families in Italy and a speculative thinker trained in the philosophical traditions of late antiquity, Benedict, it can be said with certainty, is neither of these. But there is another divergence between Boethius and Benedict that reveals a far more consequential fissure within Augustinian ‘Christian existence’: not for any polemical reasons that are detectable, Boethius emphasises 76 John Moorhead in Theoderic in Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) has suggested that Proba, ‘the daughter of the senator Symmachus and hence the sister-in-law of Boethius’, had what must have been one of the finest libraries in Rome, including the works of Augustine, from which Eugippius compiled excerpts of Augustine in his Excerpta ex operibus s. Augustini (207). See also Kate Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 56 (Cooper relies on Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire 2, 907, Proba 1); Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 125. 77 See M.M. Gorman, ‘The Manuscript Tradition of Eugippius’s Excerpta ex operibus sancti Augustini’, Revue Bénédictine 92 (1982), 7–32, 229–65; reprinted in Gorman, The Manuscript Traditions of the Works of St Augustine (Florence: Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2001), 105–67. Recently, David R. Maxwell has argued that De Trinitate, De praedestinatione sanctorum, De haeresibus, and the Enchiridion were widely circulated in the West: ‘What Was “Wrong” with Augustine?: The Sixth-Century Reception (or Lack Thereof) of Augustine’s Christology’, in Martens (2008), 212–27, 215.

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Augustine’s theological anthropology, while Benedict emphasises his corporate spirituality. In Augustine, these were held together in his theory and practice of prayer, but in Boethius and Benedict we can begin to see the gradual (and subtle) separation between these two aspects of Augustinian ‘Christian existence’. What makes this particular fissure within the Augustinian bedrock so theologically and philosophically fecund is what might be called their shared ‘spiritual location’: in their principal works, both Boethius and Benedict are discovered as two people who have gone to the edge of human existence— Boethius as a prisoner awaiting an unjust execution, and Benedict as a monk living in a ‘continuous lent’.78 Neither chooses escape into the theoretical or practical comforts. Rather, they both enter into their earthly ‘deaths’ not in despair but in a hope maintained by patience.

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RB 49.1.

Part I

A Theological Prelude ‘We do not know Augustine if we do not recognize the praying person in him,’ wrote the late T.J. van Bavel.1 Given van Bavel’s insight, one might expect to find in this study a detailed analysis of Augustine’s Confessions, for this famous text is often read as a prayer that excites the understanding and affection for God.2 Indeed, the Confessions play an indispensable role in my account, but one that sits in the background. It is rather Augustine’s productions that reveal him as interlocutor with his fellow Christians that will be privileged; these sources are varied, from sermons and letters to commentaries and monastic rules. In this respect (as well as many others), I have taken to heart Michel René Barnes’ call for a ‘new canon’ of Augustine. Barnes’ theological agenda justly seeks to broaden the textual horizons for Augustine’s trinitarian theology beyond the pages of De trinitate. In a similar spirit, I hope to inspire deeper and more sensitive readings of Augustine’s understanding of Christian existence that look beyond both the classroom-friendly Confessions and the historically privileged pelagian controversy. Leyser is right to suggest that in the Confessions Augustine ‘appears neither as a monk nor as a bishop’.3 Although our age is fascinated with the author (and the authorial selfrepresentation) of the Confessions, it is important to recognise that the centuries following his death remembered Augustine as a bishop and monk, two powerful representations of authority for the late antique Christian.4 Instead of pivoting my account around the Confessions, this exploration into Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer will be, in a sense, bookended by two of Augustine’s most speculative works, Soliloquia and De trinitate. This is intended to chart a line of development from one of Augustine’s earliest works

1

2 Bavel (2009), 1. retr. 2.32. Conrad Leyser, ‘Augustine in the Latin West, 430–ca. 900’, in Vessey (2012), 450–64, 458; Leyser also notes that conf. 11.2.2 is a possible counter-example to this more generally accurate point. 4 See Robert Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 199–211; and Peter Brown, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 57–78. 3

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to his theological masterpiece by way of his thoughts on prayer that are deeply informed by his lifelong practices of prayer. Augustine’s De trinitate has been characterised as an account of the transformation of mortal existence by God as wisdom.5 The account offered here attempts to extend this characterisation by saying more about the underlying dynamics of Christian existence that are the effects of Augustine’s ‘theological anthropology’.6 In particular, I shall emphasise the relatively overlooked virtue of patience that prayer forges in the life of the Christian wisdom-seeker. It is patience that is the missing (and seldom appreciated) key to the relationship between one’s desire for God and the virtue of hope that characterises the Christian life of prayer. Therefore, in what might seem like a surprising interpretive move, it is not the Confessions that provide the existential context, but rather Augustine’s De patientia. In De patientia, a sermon delivered in 418, Augustine declared that ‘patience is the companion of wisdom’.7 Patience, for Augustine, is a virtue of the soul that is also irreducibly embodied.8 This locates patience at the critical juncture between the embodied and psychological aspects of human willing. Patience operates in this place as a ‘filter’ between holy and concupiscent desires.9 Patience is the effect of true love that has been given by the Holy Spirit.10 Part I of this book is, in a sense, an exploration of the connection between patience and wisdom that Augustine suggests in his statement: ‘But from whom comes true wisdom, from him also comes true patience’.11 Patience is thus no less bound up with the missions of the person and the human response in love than wisdom is. In sum, I will argue that patience is the virtue that makes possible the transformations of mortal existence by God as wisdom. Although it is not explicitly suggested, De patientia is anti-pelagian in force. For Augustine, the human agent has no more of a claim over her patience than she does over her righteousness, for both are divine gifts. This touches on a central tenet of Augustine’s anti-pelagian polemic: any spiritual project, if it is to have ultimate significance, will resist efforts of human control. The idea that one can manipulate or control redemption through a series of wellthought-out and rigorously held practices defies Augustine’s own experience and that which he witnesses in his own communities, lay, clerical, and monastic. This is not to anticipate a ‘Christian mediocrity’ that, à la Robert Markus, comes to accept a lower standard of Christian piety, as if Augustine revised his expectations to fit a standard distribution of Christian behaviour.12 5 Rowan Williams, ‘Sapientia and the Trinity’, in Bruning, Lamberigts, and Van Houtem (1990), 317–32. 6 I take as my starting point on this question some aspects of Luigi Gioia, The Theological Epistemology of Augustine’s De trinitate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); this will be particularly evident in Ch. 4 below. 7 8 9 10 pat. 5.4. pat. 8.8. pat. 5.4, 23.20. pat. 23.20. 11 12 pat. 15.12. Markus (1990), 45ff.

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Rather, as Jean-Marie Salamito has convincingly argued, Augustine’s spirituality finds an ‘elective affinity’ with a milieu in which the ‘faithful scrupulously respect the commandments but fail so far to put into practice their counsel’.13 For Winrich Löhr, Salamito’s correction to Markus recognises that Augustine’s anti-pelagian spirituality is ‘a theologically ambitious attempt to think about diversity within the Church itself ’.14 Augustine’s anti-pelagian spirituality is not, then, some ‘stop-gap’ measure; rather, it is an attempt to come to terms with the variety of ways in which God might grace humans with spiritual projects. Patience is, more positively, the condition for opening up space for genuine divine action in the life of the Christian. The earnestness and impatience of spiritual projects built upon models of linear progress find no comfortable home in Augustine’s thought, or not at least after the early 390s.15 But as we shall see, the doctrinal linchpin of this spirituality is what I am calling a ‘pneumatology of failure’ that is based on Augustine’s reading of Romans 8:25–7.16 The riposte to Augustine’s ‘pelagian’ detractors is, on final analysis, a call to receive the unpredictability of the Spirit’s intercession as a gift that sees beyond stilted human wisdom, a plea to accept the failure of human projects as necessary for deliverance of divine grace. This ‘pneumatology of failure’ occurs, however, within a Christology that structures Augustine’s vision of Christian existence. The Incarnation of the Word provides Augustine with the idioms of humility and patience that mark the Christian’s life on earth. The initium of faith, for Augustine, is ‘putting on’ Christ’s humility within the complexities of our everyday existence. Augustine’s theological habitus accepts that humans do not make peace with God or with each other as ‘pure spirits’; rather, we do so within the very limitations and conflicts that can make this life so disagreeable. Patience with our limitations and with those with whom we disagree thus becomes the condition for desire to pass safely into hope, avoiding the delusion that accompanies the struggle for control. In order to attend to Augustine’s works in this theological fashion, one must approach his works as much as possible in a way that corresponds with his own literary production. This is a counter-intuitive point. A theological reading of Augustine requires that we enter into the discovery process with Augustine. Augustine famously said of himself that he thinks as he writes and writes as he thinks.17 As suggested in the prologue to his own reconsideration of his works, one can discern this progress by reading his writings in sequence.18

13 Jean-Marie Salamito, Les virtuoses et la multitude. Aspects sociaux de la controverse entre Augustin et le pélagiens (Grenoble: Éditions Jérôme Millon, 2005), 248. 14 Winrich Löhr, Pélage et le pélagianisme (Paris: Cerf, 2015), 182–3. 15 16 17 See Ch. 2. See Ch. 4. ep. 143. 18 retr. prologue, 3; John Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 9.

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Reading Augustine’s works diachronically (as opposed to thematically) is therefore an important exercise in attempting to think as Augustine thought. Therefore, I will consider Augustine under the heuristic of ‘development’. But development need not imply that Augustine ‘changed his mind’, a conclusion of last resort. Rather, Augustine’s works often reveal a ‘cumulative’ development—that is, new insights frequently add to previous insights rather than replace them, and these can often sit together, if awkwardly at times. A further benefit of this diachronic reading is that one is forced to engage with Augustine’s scriptural commentaries and sermons, works that have traditionally been neglected, at times because commentaries and sermons purportedly do not have philosophical content. The tide has turned on this opinion, as more philosophical interpreters of Augustine are now turning to those neglected sources.19 As I already intimated, Part I charts Augustine’s developing thoughts on prayer from Soliloquia to De trinitate as forged, as best we can tell, by his actual practices of prayer in his monastic community. Therefore, I shall recast Augustine’s scriptural commentary in the context of his practices of prayer, arguing along the way that the act of prayer is intrinsic to the act of interpreting Scripture. But the relationship between prayer and reading is far from simple: Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer emerge from his ongoing engagements with Scripture, and in turn shape those very engagements in the Church’s pilgrimage to the patria. This study thus seeks to emphasise Augustine’s practices of prayer in his influential interpretations of Scripture, an area of thought that has recently received more subtle treatments. As Markus has suggested, the shift between the Christianity of late antiquity and medieval Christianity ‘might be described in terms of the way Christians read their scriptures and the ways in which they read their world in relation to their reading of the scriptures’.20 Indeed, biblical exegesis had a profound

19 See Sarah Byers, Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine: A StoicPlatonic Synthesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 175; Byers, ‘Augustine and the Cognitive Cause of Stoic “Preliminary Passions” (Propatheiai)’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (2003), 433–48, 433–4; ‘Introduction’, in E.M. Atkins and R.J. Dodaro, eds and trans., Augustine: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), xi–xii. Additionally, there is also a growing collection of Augustine scholars who identify with Michel Barnes’ and Lewis Ayres’ ‘New Canon’ scholarship, which has attempted to displace the dominant twentieth-century view of Augustine, often referred to as the ‘de Régnon paradigm’. There is now a generation of scholars who have been trained within the ‘New Canon’ interpretation: see, e.g., Chad Gerber, The Spirit of Augustine’s Early Theology: Contextualizing Augustine’s Pneumatology (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012) and Kari Kloos, Christ, Creation and the Vision of God: Augustine’s Transformation of Early Christian Theophany Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2011). My understanding of the ‘New Canon’ scholarship has been enriched by some comments in Adam Ployd’s doctoral dissertation: ‘Trinity and Church in Augustine’s AntiDonatist Sermons (406–407)’, PhD Dissertation, Emory University, 2013, 9–12. 20 Robert Markus, Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), 45; a now classical statement on the influence of language in the ‘creation’ of the medieval culture, see Erich Auerbach, Literary Language and Its Public in

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effect not only on the development of doctrine but also on the formation of Christian culture.21 But as it articulated its identity,22 the post-Augustinian Latin tradition was not simply a community defined by its texts; it was also a community at prayer, a practice that was inextricably bound up with the ongoing task of the preacher expositing the Word of God. This study thus seeks to account for prayer as a practice that emerges from engagement with Scripture and informs the very practice of Christological exegesis. This practice is central not only to Augustine’s thought, but, as he repeatedly insists, to his life as well.

Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, trans. Ralph Mannheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 21 For an account of this development up to Augustine’s influential homiletical commentaries on Scripture, see Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). 22 Lewis Ayres, ‘Articulating Identity’, in Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth, eds, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 414–62.

1 Learning to Pray Sometime in 386 Augustine sought to retire from his chair of rhetoric in Milan.1 Augustine’s career had started with the best of intentions, but now, exhausted, he was seeking solace.2 Along with some from his Milanese circle, including his mother Monica and son Adeodatus, Augustine settled at Cassiciacum, the country estate of Verecundus the grammarian.3 Scholars confidently date his circle’s time in Cassiciacum from late 386 to early 387, just before Augustine and Adeodatus returned to Milan to prepare for baptism at Easter 387.4 But Cassiciacum’s place in Augustine’s intellectual and spiritual formation is more difficult to discern. The occasional aside or scene setting allows us to glimpse something of the group’s practices of prayer.5 From the very beginning the Psalms were regarded as evoking an attitude of prayer. In Confessions 9 Augustine reflects on his catechesis into praying the Psalms during this period, ‘How I called (vocare) upon you in those Psalms, and how they inflamed me for you!’6 Confessions 9.4.8–9 is a deeply emotional account of how Augustine was first moved by the Psalms at Cassiciacum, reflecting his practice of allowing the language of Scripture to be his words and therewith shape his desires, his ‘unceasing prayers’. But prayer was also practised from the beginning along the typical lines of petitioning. In De ordine 1 and ep. 3 Augustine suggests that each day at Cassiciacum began7 and ended with daily prayers (cotidianis uotis).8 While on retreat Augustine suffered a debilitating toothache, and he asked his friends to pray (deprecari) for him.9 Daily prayers (cotidianis uotis), begging for mercy (deprecari), and calling on 1 conf. 9.2.2; see also Serge Lancel, St. Augustine, trans. Antonia Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002), 99–100. 2 In general, I am reading the Confessions as historically accurate, and able to offer reliable information about Augustine’s life. But to interpret the garden scene as accurate down to every detail seems to test the genre of the work. See James O’Donnell, Confessions, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 2:59–61. 3 4 Lancel (2002), 99–100. See notes at Lancel (2002), 99. 5 George Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 32; Luc Verheijen, Saint Augustine: Monk, Priest, Bishop (Philadelphia: University of Villanova Press, 1978). 6 7 8 9 conf. 9.4.8. ord. 1.8.25. ep. 3.4. conf. 9.4.12.

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God through the language of the Psalms (vocare) seem to form the core of Augustine’s practices of prayer in Cassiciacum. But beyond these overt references to prayer we find in Soliloquia a far richer deployment of prayer as the mind’s desire for knowledge of self and God. In Augustine’s earliest reflections on prayer in Soliloquia, De moribus ecclesiae catholicae, and De magistro, we find Augustine’s first documented approaches to both the theoretical and practical aspects of prayer. Yet even in these early texts written before he was ordained a priest one can detect an evolution of his understanding of prayer. The prayer in Soliloquia evinces familiarity with the reflexivity between one’s desire to know God and one’s desire to know one’s own soul. In De magistro this twofold desire is inflected through Christ’s location within the interior homo. Augustine’s brief stopover in Rome on his way to Thagaste after he and his son Adeodatus were baptised in Milan by Ambrose proves to be an important turning point. It is during this time that Augustine likely wrote the first book of De moribus ecclesiae catholicae, which provides an important glimpse into the way in which Augustine appropriates language from Ambrose’s De sacramentis in order to structure his reflection on prayer in De magistro. By locating prayer in the interior homo, Augustine begins to sketch his understanding of the relationship between prayer, Christ, and illumination. This cluster of themes constitutes the territory on which Augustine works out his unique approach to prayer and Christian existence. It is this sense of prayer that informs Augustine’s early piety and early monastic practices. The term ‘monastery’ imprecisely describes Augustine’s community at Cassiciacum; yet one can readily see that prayer, philosophical discussion, and community began to form habits of reflection that made it increasingly difficult for him to separate the desire that animates ratio from the desire that animates oratio. Augustine’s most developed examples of this tendency would be years in the making—forming an arc of developing Christian Platonism from De vera religione to De trinitate.10 At Cassiciacum Augustine and his conversation partners moved from dialectic to pious citation of Scripture, sometimes in ways that are found aesthetically wanting. Scholars of late antiquity have often remarked on the similarity with ‘a long-established and delightful tradition’ of being ‘delivered from the cares of a public career’ and ‘entering upon a life of creative leisure, dedicated to serious pursuits’.11 Indeed, in the Retractiones, Augustine would refer to Cassiciacum as Christianae vitae

10

Crouse (1992), 111; Crouse (2000), 43. Peter Brown, Augustine: A Biography, rev. edn (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 108. See also H.I. Marrou, S. Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1938); R. Holte, Béatitude et sagesse: Saint Augustin et le problème de la fin de l’homme dans la philosophie ancienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1962); and Ilsetraut Hadot, Arts libéraux et philosophie dans la pensée antique (Paris: Vrin, 2005). 11

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otium, a Christian life of leisure.12 This sort of undifferentiated reflective environment gives Augustine’s time at Cassiciacum a cast of Christian philosophical dandyism.

S O LI L O Q U I A 1.1 – 6: PRAYER AS DESIRE FOR THE BEATA VITA In Soliloquia, one of his earliest writings,13 one can see a particular example of Augustine’s use of prayer. Augustine begins the work with a prayer that is doctrinally structured and expressive of human desire for God and beatitude, and will thus prove helpful as a starting point for identifying the theological location of prayer. Literarily, Soliloquia is a dramatic discussion between ‘Augustine’ and ‘Reason’. Creating a brilliant effect of shifting identity, Augustine seems unclear whether ‘Reason’ is himself or someone else, inside him or outside him.14 The multiple identities become an animating ambiguity to which Augustine continually returns, in order to discern his own good as it is in the life of the Triune God. There are two relevant features to highlight. First, in Soliloquia prayer is the articulation of desire directed towards the beata vita, and this desire for beatitude is placed within a larger web of desires, which are antecedent to, but not disconnected from, the desire for beatitude. And second, Augustine’s prayer anticipates the more robust Christological trinitarian dynamics of prayer in De trinitate: the prayer stretches over five paragraphs, with an invocation, three sections dedicated individually to the persons of the Trinity, one to the Trinity as a whole, and a last section expressing his longing for God.15 In Soliloquia, Augustine struggles to integrate prayer and the mind’s journey to

12

retr. 1.1.1. retr. 1.5; Augustine wrote sol. sometime in the winter of 386 before his baptism at Easter 387. The order of the Cassiciacum dialogues is debated. Joanne McWilliam has suggested the four Cassiciacum works were written from 386 to 387 in the following order: sol. I, c. acad., b. vita, ord., and sol. II (Joanne McWilliam, ‘The Cassiciacum Autobiography’, Studia Patristica 18.4 (1990), 14–48, 21). Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) has suggested more overlap of the various dialogues: in late 386, Augustine wrote c. acad. I, ord. I, and sol. I; winter 386–7, Augustine wrote b. vita; in early 387, Augustine turned back to c. acad. II and III, ord. II, and sol. II (23, n. 37). For a summary of some of the current lines of inquiry, see Brian Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue: The Philosophical Soliloquy in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1–17. 14 ait mihi subito sive ego ipse sive alius quis, extrinsecus sive intrinsecus, nescio (sol. 1.1.1; CSEL 89: 1). 15 Olivier Du Roy, L’intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon Saint Augustin: genèse de sa théologie trinitaire jusqu’en 391 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1966), 196–206, 196–7; for an argument against this reading, see Jean Doignon, ‘La prière liminaire des Soliloquia dans la ligne philosophique des Dialogues de Cassiciacum’, in J. den Boeft and J. van Ort, eds, Augustinian Traiectana (Paris: Études Augustiennes, 1987), 85–105. 13

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God, and these struggles set the agenda for Augustine’s early understanding of prayer, both in its theological location and in its practical embodiment. The invocation at the beginning of Soliloquia frames prayer in what might be called an ‘ascetic agenda’: ‘God, the creator of the universe, grant to me first that I may pray (rogem) to you rightly, second that I may act appropriately (agam dignum) as is pleasing, and finally that you might set me free (liberes).’16 Augustine is not praying to pray correctly, as if he needs to get his technique right; rather, Augustine here is praying both to petition God correctly—in the right spirit, for the right things—and for God to come into himself, both of which are important for understanding the final section of the prayer. It could also be argued that these two senses of rogare—to pray and to ask or invite— become decisive themes within the dialogue itself: Both are necessary to ascertain (or obtain) Truth, with which one may be able to judge whether something is true. In this context, rogare is fundamentally an expression of the desire to know God and the soul, as knowledge in Soliloquia is construed along the lines of assimilation of truth through likeness (similitudo).17 The desire to know God and the soul, what Adolf von Harnack identified as the essence of Augustine’s piety,18 is followed up by a second petition, which is curiously missed by those who follow Harnack. Augustine begs God not only for knowledge, but also for assistance to act appropriately. These two petitions represent two aspects of a standard fourth-century ascetic agenda.19 The desire for God expressed in this prayer is inseparable from moral purification. But there is an even stronger claim buried in this prayer. For Augustine, both cognitive and ethical dimensions must develop in concert with one another. This ascetic agenda is, in the third clause, oriented towards liberation, that is, that God might set the petitioner free. While the expressed goal of his agenda in Soliloquia is freedom in God, this seems to fade behind or simply into Augustine’s understanding of beatitude. To put it succinctly, prayer is presented as an expression of three desires: for rapprochement between the soul and God, for moral purification, and, finally, for beatitude. Prayer’s structuring role becomes more obvious in the final section of the prayer, where Augustine begs (orare) God to make possible the very search for God. The themes of mutual indwelling of God and soul20 and moral purification21 are oriented here towards the goal of being a perfect lover and

16 Deus universitatis conditor, praesta mihi primum ut te bene rogem, deinde ut me agam dignum quem liberes, postremo ut liberes (sol. 1.1.2; CSEL 89: 4). 17 For ‘assimilation’, see sol. 1.6.13; for attainment of truth as the central task, see sol. 1.15.27. Augustine also relies on the assimilation of truth for his (unsuccessful) demonstration on the immortality of the soul (sol. 2.17.32). 18 Adolf von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 5th edn (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1931), 60. 19 20 21 Ayres (2004b), 326. sol. 1.1.5, 6. sol. 1.1.5.

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receiver of sapientia, inaugurating the direction of Augustine’s thought that will crescendo in De trinitate: I beg only of your mercy, that you convert me entirely to you, and let nothing stand in my way as I strive towards you, and I beg that you order me, as long as I drive and drag this body, to be pure and high-minded and just and prudent, and to be a perfect lover of and receiver of your wisdom (sapientia), worthy that you should dwell in me and that I should dwell in your most blessed kingdom. Amen, amen.22

The ultimate desire for beatitude is itself the desire for sapientia, to which the desires for intellectual rapprochement and moral purification are directed. Despite the fact that Augustine’s summary of the prayer is Deum et animam scire cupio, ‘I desire to know God and the soul’,23 it is directed towards and organised according to the final desire for the beata vita. This point is reiterated at the beginning of book 2, when ‘Reason’ asks him to pray as briefly and perfectly (brevissime ac perfectissime) as he can: Deus semper idem, noverim me, noverim te. Oratum est.24 In its most immediate phenomenological form, prayer is the desire to know oneself and God, but it is ultimately oriented towards the beata vita, for beatitude is itself knowledge of self and God. How these two desires fit together will develop as Augustine’s own practices of prayer evolve, but more can be said about the prayer’s object of knowledge, that is, God. The desire to know himself and God in Soliloquia is not simply a general desire for ‘the divine’. Rather, Augustine’s desire for God is grounded in a trinitarian understanding of Christian existence. Dedicating three sections to the Trinity, Augustine clarifies for a discerning reader what he means by ‘God’: first person as Source of Being,25 Creator (out of nothing),26 and Father;27 second person as Wisdom,28 Truth,29 and Life;30 and third person as Sustainer31 and Guide.32 While this prayer certainly has resonances with Neoplatonism,33 it is no less Christian for having them;34 in fact, one cannot miss its thoroughly Christian character in the section devoted to the Holy Spirit, which is littered with references from the New Testament Scriptures.35 In this paradigmatic text of the fusion of Christian and non-Christian sources,36 Augustine provides some clues to how Christian desire is embedded within the ontology of the Trinity—Father as source of Being, Son as Life, Spirit as sustainer. As Augustine develops the idiom of prayer throughout his 22

23 24 sol. 1.1.6; for trin. see discussion in Ch. 4. sol. 1.2.7. sol. 2.1.1. 26 27 28 sol. 1.1.2. sol. 1.1.2. sol. 1.1.2. sol. 1.1.3. 29 30 31 32 sol. 1.1.3. sol. 1.1.3. sol. 1.1.3. sol. 1.1.3. 33 Doignon (1987); Ayres (2010), 35–6; Stock (2010), 7. 34 Some of the language also has important patristic witness, particularly Marius Victorinus and Ambrose of Milan. As Ayres (2010) points out, Victorinus (hymn 3.11) and Ambrose (spir. 2.5.33, 35) employ similar language regarding the third person (36). 35 sol. 1.1.3; this is a point Ayres (2010) has highlighted (35–7). 36 This is a valuable insight from Doignon (1987). 25

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life his language becomes increasingly Christological, a ‘development’ that, as I shall argue in Chapter 3, is not a rejection of either the Spirit’s indispensable role or trinitarian existence as the telos of human existence. Rather it expresses the maturation of Augustine’s Christology, through which one encounters the Triune God. For now, it is critical that one notices the site of this fundamental query regarding the intersection of human and divine existence is prayer. The prayer in Soliloquia thus constitutes the structure and boundaries of prayer, and its necessary connection to the Christian life construed along both intellectual and moral terms. As Augustine discovers on his voyage from Cassiciacum to Thagaste, there is much more to say about prayer.37 Indeed, in Augustine’s encounters with Roman monasticism he confronts the relationship between prayer and contemplatio.

DE MORIBUS ECCLESIAE CATHOLICAE 1 . 31 . 6 6 : PRAYER AS ‘CONVERSATION’ WITH GOD On the occasion of Augustine’s and Adeodatus’ baptisms by Ambrose, Augustine and his companions returned to their ‘intellectual home’ in Milan. Shortly thereafter a new pledge was made: to live together in ‘holy resolution’ in Africa, their ‘earthly home’.38 In an excursus on asceticism in ‘Egypt and the East’ in De moribus, Augustine provides us with a first hint of what he means by contemplation (contemplatio).39 ‘Dwelling in the most desolate places, they enjoy conversation (colloquium) with God, to whom with pure minds (cui puris mentibus) they adhere (inhaerere) and are completely happy (beatissimi) in the contemplation (contemplatio) of his beauty.’40 Augustine goes on to describe the monks’ activity as prayer (oratio).41 But what, then, is the relation between oratio and contemplatio, the means by which they are praying? Answering this question is complicated by the fact that Augustine does not explicitly lay out the relationship between prayer and contemplation. However, these conceptions are in currency in late antique Greek theology, so it is helpful to pause for a moment to reflect on the resonances between Augustine’s account of the monks in Rome and some fourth-century Greek theological accounts of prayer. At this point in Latin culture there was no fixed form of life or rule 37 mor. 1.31.65–33.73; see also O. Perler and J.-L. Maier, Les voyages de Saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1969). 38 conf. 9.8.17. 39 The obvious source for this reflection is Athanasius’ Vita Antonii, the Latin translation of which was extant in Rome (see Lawless (1987), 41, n. 25). Lawless (1987) points out that ‘Augustine depicts eremitic and coenobitic life without using the words “hermit,” “coenobit,” “monk,” or “monastery” ’ (40). 40 41 mor. 1.31.66. mor. 1.31.66.

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for monasteries; each community, in some sense, started afresh.42 The particular practices of the monks Augustine encounters suggests, more specifically, a discussion of prayer and contemplation found in one of the fourth-century masters of prayer, Evagrius Ponticus. For Evagrius, prayer is a ‘conversation’ (ὁμιλία), which is carried out between the mind (νοῦς) and God.43 This is what has become known as Evagrius’ conception of ‘pure’ or ‘imageless’ prayer.44 Although a full account cannot be given of Evagrius’ very complex account of prayer, it is important to stop and reflect for a moment on the location of prayer in the mind (νοῦς or mens). In contrast to Origen, from whom he often seems to borrow,45 Evagrius’ reflections are best characterised as speculative and philosophical rather than exegetical.46 It is the opinion of Brouria BittonAshkelony that it is not Origen but rather Evagrius who inaugurates the reception of this speculative, philosophical approach into Christian reflection on prayer.47 What is then most probably sitting behind Evagrius’ account is Plotinus’ comment in Enneads 5.1.6: ‘Let us speak of [νοῦς] in this way, first invoking God himself, not in spoken words, but stretching ourselves out by means of our soul in prayer towards him, since this is the way in which we are able to pray to him, alone to alone.’48 For prayer to occur through νοῦς suggests, for Plotinus, that prayer is not so much an inferior’s petition of a superior but rather a union of equals.49 Indeed, the νοῦς is what is divine within the human person.50 Two further features of Evagrius’ ‘pure’ prayer as an expression of a Plotinian-inspired ‘conversation’ between νοῦς and God are relevant. First, Evagrius is optimistic about the capacity for the human to engage in such ‘conversation’ with God, but only for those who have purified themselves morally and intellectually, suggesting a monastic context similar to the kind Augustine encountered in Rome. And second, it is a ‘mental process’ in which

42 For a recent account of early Western monasticism, see Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 AD (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 161–72. 43 De oratione 3; this is also found in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 7.39.6); see Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, ‘The Limit of the Mind (ΝΟΥΣ): Pure Prayer according to Evagrius Ponticus and Isaac of Nineveh’, Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 15 (2011), 291–321, 296–7. 44 Columba Stewart, ‘Imageless Prayer and the Theological Vision of Evagrius Ponticus’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 9:2 (2001), 173–204, 190. 45 Stewart (2001), 190. 46 This is the opinion of Bitton-Ashkelony (2011), 292, who relies on Antoine Guillaumont’s classical study Un philosophe au desert: Évagre le Pontique (Paris: Textes et Traditions 8, 2004) discusses Evagrius’ exegetical works (136–40); see also Luke Dysinger, Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 47 48 Bitton-Ashkelony (2011), 298. En. 5.1–9; Loeb: 29. 49 Plotinus discusses what is now called ‘petitionary’ prayer at En. 4.4; for a discussion of Plotinus’ understanding of prayer, see John Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 199–212. 50 Rist (1967), 211.

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the mind is ‘stripped of all images and concepts, so as to attain a formless mode of existence and be in commune with God’.51 ‘Pure’ prayer is, then, prayer with a ‘pure mind’, which resembles Augustine’s mens pura. But Augustine does not have a developed account of what he means by mens pura, so it remains to be seen what might be behind the reference to it at De moribus ecclesiae catholicae 1.31.66. Augustine himself could have picked this up from Plotinus,52 and placed it in the context of monasticism, a move that was not unheard of, as Pierre Hadot has suggested.53 Since there is very little evidence that Augustine directly read Evagrius, it is likely that Augustine’s interaction with this tradition of prayer came through personal contact, and the context of De moribus bears this out; he was personally observing the monks much like he observed Ambrose’s reading habits a few years earlier.54 Be that as it may, it is important to detect how Augustine subtly charts a different path from that of Evagrius. Although the language of mens pura is very important for Augustine, it is also relatively rare. At this point, Augustine’s preferred way to speak about the psychological location of prayer is not settled. Augustine slides freely between mens, animus, and cor.55 With respect to prayer, Augustine’s source of this language is most likely Ambrose’s De sacramentis. In this tract, which was derived from sermons to the newly baptised,56 Ambrose discusses the location of prayer in the cubiculum: ‘First, where ought you to pray? . . . You can pray everywhere and always be praying in your chamber. You have your chamber everywhere. Although you are in the midst of the nations, in the midst of the Jews, you have your secret place everywhere. Your chamber is your mind (mens). Although you are placed among many people, in the inner person (interior homo) you preserve your secret and hidden place.’57 The connection between mens and interior homo is however further complicated by Ambrose’s further description: ‘Stretch out (intendere) the entire soul (animus), enter into the recesses of the heart (pectus), enter with everything . . . Let him see that you pray from the heart (ex corde), so that when you pray from the heart (ex corde) he might deign to

51

Rist (1967), 300; Stewart (2001), 186–91. John Kevin Coyle, Augustine’s ‘De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae’: A Study of the Work, its Compostion and its Sources (Fribourg, Switzerland: The University Press, 1978), 401. 53 ‘Ancient Spiritual Exercise and “Christian philosophy” ’ in Hadot (1995), 126–44. 54 55 conf. 6.3.3. See Byers (2012), 21, n. 88. 56 Although we do not know the exact texts Augustine heard from Ambrose, it is likely that Augustine heard something like the De sacramentis upon his own baptism. 57 Primo ubi orare debeas? . . . Potes ubique orare et in cubiculo tuo semper orare; habes ubique cubiculum tuum. Etsi inter gentes, inter Iudaeos positus sis, habes tamen tuum ubique secretum. Cubiculum tuum mens tua est. In populo licet positus, tamen in interiore homine arcanum tuum secretumque conservas (sacr. 6.3.12; CSEL 73: 76). 52

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hear.’58 The interior homo is thus accounted for in Ambrose’s De sacramentis with a range of terms—mens, animus, pectus, and cor—suggesting a broader, if less conceptually tight, terminology for a similar process to one that Evagrius suggests in his De oratione. The importance of this excursus on the influence of Ambrose and Evagrius (via the example of the Roman monks) is that they serve as background for De magistro, Augustine’s first reflection on prayer, in two respects. First, prayer is fundamentally an act of speech, such as Evagrius’ ὁμιλία suggests, even if it is not reducible to speech. And second, the location of prayer is in the ‘inner person’, the animus, cor, or mens. But to suggest that Augustine is influenced by Ambrose does not ignore the fact that Augustine pushes beyond this great fourth-century authority. It is in De magistro that Augustine first suggests outlines of a unique theory and practice of prayer.

DE MAGISTRO 1.2: PRAYER AND T H E INTERIOR HOMO While it is evident that prayer is no stranger to late antique theological and philosophical thought, Augustine’s own developed reflections on prayer have yet to emerge. What Augustine outlines in De magistro anticipates three interlocking aspects of his mature doctrine of prayer: (1) prayer is a human reflexive act that occurs within the ‘inner person’ (interior homo as mens or cor);59 (2) Christ is located within this ‘inner person’; and (3) the interaction between the act of prayer as a reflexive act within the ‘inner person’ and Christ’s presence there effects some kind of ‘divine illumination’. Augustine’s comments in De magistro are dense; in the nearly thirty years that follow De magistro, Augustine will ramify his doctrine of prayer, bringing these three aspects into tighter relation. Like Soliloquia, De magistro is structured as a dialogue; but instead of moving between the two selves ‘Augustine’ and ‘Reason’, this time it moves between ‘Augustine’ and his son ‘Adeodatus’, in a different kind of dialogue with the self. It was common in antique and late antique literary circles to refer to a friend as one’s ‘second self ’.60 But in light of Augustine’s account of

58 Animo totus intende, intra in recessum pectoris tui, totus ingredere . . . Videat, quia ex corde oras, ut te ex corde orantem dignetur audire (sacr. 6.3.13; CSEL 76: 77). 59 In recent years, there has been much controversy regarding whether Augustine’s homo interior is anything like the modern ‘self ’. This ongoing conversation is well outside the remit of this thesis. However, John Cavadini’s article, ‘The Darkest Engima: Reconsidering the Self in Augustine’s Thought’ (in Augustinian Studies 38:1 (2007), 119–32) has informed how I have translated interior homo as ‘inner person’, avoiding the many (misleading) connotations of ‘inner self ’. 60 Jerome in his letter to Augustine (c.404) repeats this claim (Augustine, ep. 72; Jerome, ep. 105).

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Adeodatus as ‘born after my flesh’, this instance of friendship-as-self would seem to be even stronger. This shift is important, for the reflexivity of Soliloquia’s dialogue between ‘Augustine’ and ‘Reason’ is subtly expanded to a dialogue between ‘Augustine’ and ‘Adeodatus’, and thereby makes relational ‘space’ for Christ to enter the reflexivity of prayer in the interior homo. The question facing the two participants is one of language—when we speak what are we trying to accomplish?61—and serves as departure for Augustine’s comments on prayer. At 1.2, ‘Augustine’ asks ‘Adeodatus’ whether speaking is done for the sake of teaching or reminding. ‘Adeodatus’ offers prayer as a counter-example to the idea that the purpose of language is to teach, for in prayer one is, in some sense, speaking yet not attempting to teach or remind God of anything. As Emmanuel Bermon points out in his commentary on De magistro, this is one of the more curious aspects of the Christian religion—the omniscient and impassible God asks humans to petition him for those things they desire.62 Why would a God who already knows what his subjects desire and is unmoved by their desires ask them to pray? De magistro is Augustine’s first attempt to address such a problem, and ‘Augustine’ responds with an account of prayer as a movement of the rational soul that echoes the language observed in Ambrose’s De sacramentis: I dare say you don’t know that we are instructed to pray ‘in enclosed chambers’ (in clausis cubiculis)—a phrase that signifies the inner recesses of the mind (mens penetralis)—precisely because God does not seek to be taught or reminded by our speaking in order to provide us what we want. Anyone who speaks gives an external sign of his will (suae voluntatis signum) by means of an articulated sound. Yet God is to be sought and entreated in the hidden parts of the rational soul (in ipsis rationalis animae secretis), which is called the ‘inner person’ (homo interior); for He wanted those parts to be His temples. Have you not read in the Apostle: Do you know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells within you and Christ dwells in the inner man (in interiore homine habitare Christum)? Didn’t you notice in the Prophet: Speak in your hearts (cor) to be stricken in your bedchambers; offer up the sacrifice of justice, and hope in the Lord. Where do you think the ‘sacrifice of justice’ is offered up but in the temple of the mind (in templo mentis) and in the chambers of the heart (in cubilibus cordis)? What is more, one should pray where one should sacrifice. There is accordingly no need for speaking when we pray.63

The language here resonates with Ambrose’s De sacramentis—the cubiculum is located in that part of the person which mens, animus, and cor all equally pick out. But within this location, one can see Augustine pushing beyond Ambrose. Following what was observed in Soliloquia, prayer to God is 61 62 63

mag. 1.1. Emmanuel Bermon, La signification et l’enseignement (Paris: Vrin, 2007), 153. mag. 1.2; modified trans. of King (1995), 95–6.

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somehow a reflexive activity: ‘God is to be sought and entreated in the hidden parts of the rational soul, which is called the “inner person”.’ It is not only that prayer ‘occurs’ in the interior homo, a clear point of contact between Augustine and Ambrose, but also that prayer is also directed inward, echoing Soliloquia’s twofold desire to know God and the soul, an aspect that Ambrose did not highlight. If Augustine can be said to give an answer to why one should pray to an omniscient God, it is that we pray in order that we might be led into the interior recesses of our thinking (and feeling) soul, viz., the cubiculum. There the Christian finds a place of intimacy known fully to God; however, it is we, not God, who are estranged from our cubiculum. Seeking God in the rational soul, however, places the use of words in an uneasy place. Drawing on the slightly later De libero arbitrio 3, one can see that Augustine provides an account of how this might occur. Adopting some expressions from Stoicism, Augustine suggests that one’s mind or soul is directed according to the ‘impressions’ it has received.64 A person wills something, then, according to impressions arising from something external through the bodily senses, or according to impressions arising from something that comes to the ‘mind’s attention’ (intentio animi).65 The way something like this occurs is instructive. There are two stages that Augustine sets out. First, he recognises that mind itself comes to the attention of the mind: ‘Coming to the mind’s attention (intentio animi), therefore, is first of all the mind (animus) itself, whereby we also perceive that we live.’66 And second, when contemplating the highest wisdom, which is unchangeable, the mind, which is changeable, looks into itself and, in some way, enters its own mind.67 Therefore, when praying, words are the means by which the mind enters into itself. As ‘Adeodatus’ suggests regarding the paradigm of prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, ‘[Christ] did not teach them words, but the things themselves by the use of words’. As Bermon argues, Augustine is here suggesting that prayer is fundamentally not a sign like speech but an action, for words are the means not the act of prayer: ‘Prayer consists of certain acts of the heart. The words of Christ are taught yet are intended to direct the attention of those who pray with them.’68 The words of prayer are thus an irreducible part of the act, especially the words of the Lord’s Prayer, which directs human thoughts to those things one ought to desire.

64 The most straightforward evidence for this is lib. arb. 3.25.74. Peter King has pointed out that ‘aliquod uisum’ is a technical phrase adopted from Stoicism, as are ‘sumat’ (accept), ‘respuat’ (reject), and ‘tangatur’ (be affected by). (See Peter King, ed., Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy, 2010), 124, n. 121.). 65 lib. arb. 3.25.75. 66 Subiacet ergo intentioni animi prius ipse animus unde nos etiam uiuere sentimus (lib. arb. 3.25.75; CCSL 29: 320). 67 68 lib. arb. 3.25.76. Bermon (2007), 157.

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The reference to the Lord’s Prayer points us to prayer’s complicity with Christ by virtue of his location in the homo interior. This Christological emphasis is a further difference from Ambrose’s De sacramentis. The important point to highlight here is that in his first major reflection on prayer, Augustine doctrinally locates this all-important practice in a discourse on Christ. This implicitly provides another aspect of the homo interior that Augustine addressed in De libero arbitrio 3—the corruption of the mind and its likely misdirection of one attempting to go into herself to find God. In De libero arbitrio, Augustine seems to suggest that human pride in its mental capacity requires the corrective of Christ’s example of humility.69 Christ is not, however, a mere example, as another virtuous example might be for someone looking to live well. Rather, by virtue of Christ’s Incarnation one is able to adhere (adhaerere) to Him, and ‘be so taken into Him by His great radiance that no impressions (uisa) derived from lower things wrench us away from the higher vision’.70 In other words, one’s mind is only able to look into itself and find the highest wisdom if one, somehow, ‘puts on’ the mind of Christ. With this reference to Christ in the interior homo, Augustine anticipates his later, more famous remarks on Christ as the interior teacher.71 The ‘inner person’ is both the place from which prayer is issued and the place in which the mind is illumined. The connection between prayer, Christ, and illumination is only implicit in De magistro, but in De trinitate it will be developed more explicitly.72 In particular, Augustine will have more to say about the process of ‘putting on’ Christ,73 for now, it is important to see that through the theory and practice of prayer Augustine is inquiring into aspects central to his mature conception of Christian existence. Although the account ‘below’ Augustine’s reflexive understanding of prayer is complex, leading one into the thickets of Stoic psychology, Christologically located prayer is not a practice restricted to those who are, like the monks in Rome, ‘dwelling in most desolate places’. In contrast to the strictly monastic context of the form of ‘Evagrian’ prayer observed in Rome, Augustine charts a philosophical account of prayer that can include the practices of all Christians. The paradigm of prayer is the Lord’s Prayer, that which is ‘handed down’ to all Christians as it was at Augustine’s and Adeodatus’ baptism. Already between Cassiciacum and Thagaste, then, Augustine’s doctrine of prayer undergoes significant development. In Soliloquia, prayer was a form for Augustine’s ratio to stretch out to God, but in De moribus ecclesiae catholicae prayer becomes a more robust practice in which the stretching out to God 69 For an extended discussion of Augustine’s early Christology with specific reference to the charge of Photinianism, see Brian Dobell, Augustine’s Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 29–107. See also Goulven Madec, La patrie et la voie. Le Christ dans la vie et la pensée de Saint Augustin (Paris: Desclée, 1989) and O’Donnell (1992), 2:469. 70 71 72 73 lib. arb. 3.25.76. mag. 11.38. See Ch. 4. See Ch. 3.

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requires turning inward. In De magistro Augustine refines this insight: prayer occurs in ‘the inner recesses of the thinking soul’ (in ipsis rationalis animae secretis),74 where it confronts itself as a stranger in its own country. It is by identifying one’s own cubiculum as that which is most strange, most unfamiliar that Augustine pushes beyond Ambrose and begins to imagine how one might come to live with integrity, an account that anticipates, in many respects, the vision set forth in Confessions.75 Although his communities in Cassiciacum and Thagaste were constituted in a monastic-like context, in the years that follow Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer is infused by the formalities of monasticism. In Chapter 2 I will thus turn to another important development that converges on the embodied realities of Augustine’s life as a monk. The soul’s ascent to God, which will be my locus of reflection, informs not only the structure of Augustine’s texts but also how he envisions Christian existence on a trajectory towards the beata vita. The ascent motif (as refined in De vera religione) is integrated into Augustine’s first direct treatment of the Lord’s Prayer in De sermone Domini in monte. In this scriptural encounter, the philosophical beginnings of prayer mature into questions of the structure and orientation of the Christian life.

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mag. 1.2. I owe many of these insights to fruitful conversation with James Wetzel, as well to as his essay ‘Life in Unlikeness: The Materiality of Augustine’s Conversion’ (reprinted) in Wetzel, Parting Knowledge: Essays after Augustine (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013), 97–116. 75

2 Prayer as Acceptance of Time The relationship between the act of saying prayers and the habit of silent prayer is a dialogue between the soul and God. This comprises the central theological correlation of prayer in the form it has been practised and reflected upon throughout the Latin tradition. Augustine’s early more philosophical discussions of prayer suggested a location of prayer in the mind signified by a range of terms (mens, animus, or cor). Following Ambrose’s language from De sacramentis, Augustine presented prayer in De magistro as a reflexive act in the interior homo described as the ‘temple of the mind’ and ‘chambers of the heart’. These early references to prayer seemed to be somewhat disconnected from concerns regarding the orientation and trajectory of Christian existence. But shortly after his ordination in 391 Augustine began to reflect directly on the Lord’s Prayer—‘the most important prayer in the history of Christianity’1— with this concern in mind. Throughout his work De sermone Dominia in Monte Augustine relies upon the motif of ‘ascent’ in order to account for the orientation and trajectory of the Christian life, the story of the Christian’s movement towards the twofold ‘object’ of knowledge of God and beatitude. This aspect of Augustine’s thought has been well studied,2 so here I will concentrate more focusedly on how the theme of ascent impinges on Augustine’s theory of prayer. In order to discern how the Lord’s Prayer in De sermone Domini in monte might form an ‘ascent’, it will be important to see the development of Augustine’s thoughts on ascent from his programmatic remarks in De ordine to his scripturally informed account in De vera religione. This development 1 Roy Hammerling, The Lord’s Prayer in the Early Church: The Pearl of Great Price (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 1. 2 See Frederick van Fleteren: ‘Augustine’s Ascents at Milan: A Reconsideration’, Augustinian Studies (1973), 29–72; ‘Augustine’s Ascents at Milan and the Cassiciacum Dialogues’, Mediaevalia (1978), 29–41; and ‘Ascent of the Soul’, in Fitzgerald (1999), 63–7. Much of Fleteren’s thinking on ascent has been in reaction to Robert O’Connell’s influential work, St. Augustine’s Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386–391 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968) and The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987). More recently, Ayres (2010) has offered an insightful analysis of ascent that seems to side with O’Connell’s Plotinian interpretation (121–41). It is Ayres (2010) that has most fundamentally influenced my own understanding of ascent in Augustine’s work.

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will then set the background for how Augustine structures the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer as an ‘ascent’. Augustine’s ultimate understanding of the ascent of the soul was forged both in his evolving monastic community and in his developing conception of the structure and orientation of Christian existence, but in De sermone in monte, Augustine begins to formulate how prayer, formed through engagement with Scripture, might take on a structural role for the Christian life that is, in turn, informed by Scripture. For Augustine the Lord’s Prayer offers a way of reading Scripture that moves the Christian from the material to the immaterial, the central animus of the ascents of the soul.

ASCENTS OF THE SOUL FROM CA S S I C I A CU M T O ROM E In this section, I am taking as my point of departure some remarks made by Lewis Ayres on two senses of ascent used by Neoplatonist authors. On the one hand, the language of ascent ‘is used to describe the process that results in immediate vision’.3 He cautions us against seeing this as a clear vision of the ‘One’, for Plotinus describes the One as ‘beyond being’. The point is accordingly finessed: ascent is a movement towards some noetic state that paradoxically results from activity becoming passivity.4 To quote Ayres, ‘Thus, in one sense, the final stages of this ascent do not depend on an active seeking to see, but on one’s skill at resting in Nous until the One reveals itself.’5 This understanding of ascent is best contrasted, on the other hand, with ascent as ‘the long process of learning the intellectual disciplines that train the mind to distinguish the character of intelligible reality, the necessary preliminary to resting in Nous’.6 This second sense of ascent has famously been integrated into the discussion of the order of the liberal disciplines, and is the sense in which Augustine’s principal texts on the ascent of the soul are best understood (i.e. De ordine 2, De quantitate animae, De musica 6, De vera religione). As Adolar Zumkeller cautions, it is misleading to think of these two aspects of ascent as completely distinct senses of ‘ascents’, a point that Augustine’s De ordine evinces.7 It is both a diachronic practice and a synchronic action. This twofold aspect will emerge in Augustine’s use of the ascent motif in De sermone Domini in monte, wherein Augustine attempts to make sense of the relationship between ‘temporal’ and ‘eternal’ petitions.

3

4 Ayres (2010), 122. Ayres (2010), 122. 6 Ayres (2010), 122. Ayres (2010), 123. 7 Adolar Zumkeller, Augustine’s Ideal of the Religious Life (New York: Fordham University Press, 1986), 175, 179–81. 5

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While there is much one could say about Augustine’s use of the ascent motif, my immediate purpose is to highlight features of the ascent that are important for De sermone Domini in monte. The asceticism of desire implicit within the ascent of the soul provides a structure for oratio’s desire to move towards knowledge of God and beatitude. De ordine 2 gives a rich example of ratio’s powers creating gradus by which it can ascend to contemplate its own structure. Despite its being earlier than the others, Ord. 2 is Augustine’s most developed account of ascent via ratio’s powers. This ascent begins with ratio’s emergence from speech to dialectic, from which it rises to self-awareness. In this self-awareness, ratio finds delight or pleasure in the disciplines of poetry, geometry, and astronomy by discovering their interior numerum—‘the ideal proportions born of reason’—that they all contain. While rhythm or number is seemingly most intense for our senses in music or geometry, things in which one would take pleasure, it is when one turns to reflect on rhythm or number that reason begins to discover itself.8 In sum, this is a movement from material to immaterial: not simply a flight away from material, but rather a movement into and through the ‘materiality’ of the lower disciplines to the immaterial reality of number or rhythm that structures them.9 If one steps back for a moment and considers the ascent as a whole, the vertical structure comes into view. The movement from material to immaterial is guided by the natural superiority of immateriality over materiality. In De ordine 2, this is achieved by understanding redire/fugere as descriptive of the soul’s original fall to mortalis and its subsequent rise into rationalis.10 In De quantitate animae this vertical structure is nuanced. There, Augustine structures the gradus first as an ascent from higher and lower and subsequently as a movement into the soul.11 It is the body’s subordinate position vis-à-vis the soul and God that implies its verticality.12 The ascent turns inward, however, at the point where desire becomes self-conscious in the fourth and fifth gradus. Whereas in the fourth gradus Augustine employs ascent language (suscipe igitur atque insili quarto gradui . . . 13), in the fifth he shifts towards an interior register (seipsa laetissima tenet14 and in ipsam contemplationem veritatis15). This is an important nuance, as Augustine begins to reflect on the Christian life as a growth into a fuller existence as opposed to some kind of movement from materiality.

8

9 ord. 2.15.43. See ord. 2.11.30–17.46. Nam ut progressus animae usque ad mortalia lapsus est, ita regressus esse in rationem debet (ord. 2.11.31; CCSL 29: 124). 11 The slightly later De musica 6 also presumes a vertical scheme, but with a slight modification: the soul first moves into itself (mus. 6.14.37–42), and then above itself to God (mus. 6.14.43–17.59). 12 13 quant. 33.70. quant. 33.73; CSEL 89: 220. 14 15 quant. 33.74; CSEL 89: 222. quant. 33.74; CSEL 89: 222. 10

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The ascent of the soul is not only vertically structured but also oriented towards a goal. In De quantitate animae there is an ambiguity regarding this ‘goal’: is the goal of visio and contemplatio of the seventh gradus in De quantitate animae coterminous with beata vita? This is a difficult question for Augustine, for whom visio and contemplatio are stable (i.e. permanent) only within the beata vita. On the one hand, Augustine’s description of the soul’s true enjoyment, peace, and eternity certainly suggests a possible description of contemplation in the beata vita.16 Moreover, the view from this ascent allows one to ‘realize how full of truth are the things we are commanded to believe, how excellently and healthfully we are nourished by Mother Church’.17 To recognise (agnoscere) the truth of a doctrine could just as reasonably be construed as intra-temporal as it could reasonably be construed as a kind of understanding available from the ‘perspective’ of eternity. Agnoscere is, however, often associated with direct contact with the object of knowledge, and therefore would suggest that realisation of the truth of doctrine is a deliverance of the beata vita. On the other hand, Augustine seems to presume that the presence of desidere indicates a pre-beata vita state. In the seventh degree one goes beyond simply not fearing death to yearning (desidere) for death and for the union between the soul and truth that death effects.18 This forces the question: how can one yearn for union after union has already been effected? In other words, that the soul is still desidere is an indication of a state prior to the beata vita. This is affirmed by a reference in De ordine 2.19.51, in which Augustine gives a specific description of visio: ‘living well, praying well, and studying well’ (bene vivit, bene orat, bene studet).19 Although the beata vita is, indeed, living well (bene vivit), the further synonymous activities of prayer and study suggest that bene vivit is descriptive of a pre-beata vita state, not unlike that of Augustine’s observations of monastic practices in De moribus ecclesiae catholicae. There are two difficulties with this structure and orientation of the ascent. First, for whom are the ascents of the soul intended? Although it is often assumed that the ascents are strictly an ‘elitist’ strategy, this engenders a fairly complex exegetical question when asked of Augustine’s texts. In De ordine 2 Augustine explicitly restricts the ascent to those with the aptitude and benefit of training in the liberal disciplines,20 that is, those who follow the ‘way of reason’. Like De ordine, which begins with the question of evil and divine order, De quantitate animae is initially prompted by a more general philosophical query into the powers of the soul—the origin, nature, magnitude of the soul, as well as its relation to the body, and nature of its union with and 16

This is largely consonant with the description at b. vita 1.3. Tunc agnoscemus, quam vera nobis credenda imperata sint quamque optime ac saluberrime apud matrem ecclesiam nutriti fuerimus (quant. 33.76; CSEL 89: 224). 18 19 20 quant. 33.76. ord. 2.19.51; CCSL 29: 135. ord. 2.16.44; CCSL 29: 131. 17

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separation from the body. The class of people expected to be able to follow this dialogue profitably is, indeed, small. But those who fall outside this class— those who follow the ‘way of authority’—are not abandoned in the dark corners of a cave. The prime example of this is Augustine’s mother. Monica does not need to concern herself with the pedantries of rhetoric or dialectic, because she knows ‘the divine power and nature of grammar so well, as to possess the grain, as it were, leaving the chaff to the experts’.21 But this does not suggest that Monica knows the depth of the sacred mysteries, for ‘there remains an array of most obscure matters concerning God’.22 There is thus a clear distinction between the kind of knowledge Augustine attains and the kind Monica attains. Although Augustine stipulates at De quantitate animae 33.70 that anybody can see that the soul gives life to the body, he nevertheless maintains the distinction between the two kinds of knowledge, for it matters how one proceeds from this insight. And second, how do purification and reformation happen within a vertically imagined structure? To make this more precise, we must ask ourselves a slightly different question: if one takes purification and reformation in their most self-evident forms, that is, as processes of cleansing and moral improvement that take place over time, how does he square them with a structure of human existence that says nothing about the diachronic or material dimensions of the ascent? Augustine’s interest in the purification process is already more marked in De quantitate animae than it was in De ordine. In the move inward in De quantitate animae, purification of desire becomes explicit. In the fourth gradus, the soul begins to move into self-awareness and acknowledges that it is itself the cause of its delight, and thus begins to withdraw from baser things, that is, the body.23 But the soul cannot simply think its way out of materiality. It requires purification that is found in the justice of God,24 which sustains and orders creation.25 However, it is unclear whether De quantitate animae is envisioned to take place over time, or whether it is a diachronic account of what is essentially a synchronic action. The resolvability of these issues with respect to these early ascents is a moot point, for these two ‘challenges’ are taken up again in Augustine’s Thagastan period. Thagaste is an important transitional period for Augustine—it is not only where he begins to experiment with communal forms of living that will eventually be formalised by his monastic rule, but also where he begins to engage more seriously with Scripture as the starting point of his reflections. In his time in Thagaste, Augustine’s ideas about otium as a ‘contemplative life’ begin to mature beyond that which we observed in De moribus ecclesiae catholicae. Whereas the concern in De moribus suggested issues commonly associated with the deliverance of knowledge, in Thagaste the form of life that is striving 21 23

22 ord. 2.17.45; CCSL 29: 132. ord. 2.17.46; CCSL 29: 132. 24 25 quant. 33.73. quant. 33.74–76. quant. 33.74.

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towards otium through concrete practices of prayer takes a more central role. As Augustine’s own practices of prayer undergo development, so too do his reflections on prayer, as is evident in his newly reimagined ascent of the soul. We find this new account in De vera religione, written at the end of his time in Thagaste (390/1) and just before his ordination to the priesthood in Hippo (391).

D E V ER A R EL I G I O N E: CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE IN THAGASTE Following Monica’s death in the Italian port-city Ostia, Augustine sets up the servi Dei in his parents’ house in Thagaste, and a new period of Augustine’s life begins. This was a period of profound development for Augustine—he concluded De musica 6, began to read Scripture in earnest, contested North African Manichaeanism, and wrote De vera religione, one of the more remarkable pieces in his oeuvre.26 Whether or not Augustine’s Thagastan community technically constitutes a monastery—however precise that term could be for late fourth-century Latin culture27—is immaterial to our concern.28 My argument in this section is that the community at Thagaste was oriented around the notion of otium, Latin for rest or leisure.29 When writing to his dying friend Nebridrius sometime between 388 and 391,30 Augustine suggested that in leisure one would be permitted to become godlike (deificari . . . in otio).31 Augustine goes on to define otium as ‘carefree repose’ (secura cessatio), highlighting his own inability to achieve this with the burden of administrative duties. But one cannot forget the more general context. Otium is explored in and through temporal practices that arise out of concrete practices of oratio— cotidianis uotis, deprecari, and vocare. Just as with his Cassiciacum community, Augustine’s practices of prayer are never less than daily, common prayer. Otium is thus not simply the practices of epistemic deliverance associated with contemplatio; it is also oriented around the concrete daily practices of prayer. Augustine’s time in Thagaste was also marked by more frequent engagement with the broader Christian community. In addition to conversation, prayer, and instruction of the eager, Augustine was also acting as a kind of local ‘spiritual director’, which shifted his orientation away from the insularity 26

27 See Brown (2000), 127–30. Lawless (1987), 48. Lawless (1987), 45–6. 29 I am indebted to the account in Lawless (1987) for an awareness of otium’s connection with Augustine’s understanding of monasticism. 30 Emmanuel Bermon, ‘Introduction’, in Lettres 1–30, Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, 6th edn (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2011), 126–8. 31 ep. 10.2; Lawless (1987), 51. 28

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of the community to his (and its) place within the city of his childhood.32 Indeed, the kind of love (diligere) Augustine understands to animate otium is social: otium is always pursued as a community.33 In De vera religione, one can begin to detect a more ‘democratic’ understanding of progress in the Christian life. While it is still informed by Platonism, ascent is now articulated within the Pauline categories of homo vetus/homo novus.34 In general, Augustine makes greater recourse to scriptural language, echoing not only the distinction between vetus homo and novus homo (Eph. 4:24 and Col. 3:9), but also the phrases vir perfectus (Eph. 4:13), quae facta est ad imaginem et similitudinem (Gen. 1:26), and ut enim finis ueteris hominis mors est (Rom. 6:6). Ultimately, ascent is reliant on a prior conversion to authority, which places all Christians on the same trajectory from belief to understanding.35 The purification that Augustine promotes in De ordine 2 and De quantitate animae is not simply an intellectualist’s mental askesis. Rather, it is descriptive of the shared task of all Christian believers, and orients them equally towards salvation. In the works dating from Thagaste, Augustine’s new understanding of otium thus begins to fall from his life to his page. The shift towards Pauline categories of human stages—homo vetus/homo novus and aetates—in De vera religione brings about a new conceptual map for the ascents. The vertical scheme in the Cassiciacan and Roman ascents of the soul is now replaced by a horizontal scheme. In the summary account of the ascent at 26.49, aetates, ‘ages of man’, replace gradus, ‘degrees of the soul’. In De Genesi adversus Manichaeos (388/9), his Genesis commentary written shortly before De vera religione, Augustine likewise employed aetates in an ascent motif.36 Two features are important to highlight in this development—(1) the ascent is conceived of through the categories of Scripture, and (2) the ascent ‘programme’ has now been explicitly temporalised through the replacement of gradus with aetates. First, in De vera religione Augustine gives Scripture a hitherto unacknowledged place in the person’s movement from the material to the immaterial. This move is inaugurated by Augustine’s insistence that the ascent up the gradus is divided into authority and reason: ‘Authority requires faith and prepares humans to reason.’37 The challenge for Augustine is naturally ‘which authority?’38 In sections 27.50–30.56, Augustine unfolds a similar account of ratio’s powers 32

ep. 20.2; Brown (2000), 125. Coyle has suggested that Augustine’s praise of monasticism following praise for Mother Church is suggestive of the ecclesial connection of monasticism (1978), 70–6; Lawless (1987), 53. 34 35 vera rel. 26.49. vera rel. 24.45. 36 1.23.35–25.43. There is remarkable similarity between the seven-aetates account in Gn. adv. Man. and the one in vera rel., and it is, to some extent, a matter of choice to highlight the latter one here. The one provisional rationale for my focus on vera rel. is that it shares ascensional language with the Cassiciacum and Roman texts. While Gn. adv. Man. can be read as an ascent, there is an obvious lack of ascensional language in it. 37 Auctoritas fidem flagitat et rationi praeparat hominem (vera rel. 24.45; CCSL 32: 215). 38 vera rel. 25.46. 33

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to that found in De ordine. One could, then, get the impression that De vera religione is the apotheosis of the Platonist-inspired ascent by way of the powers of the soul, a judgement held by Van Fleteren.39 In De vera religione, however, Augustine pivots towards the interpretation of allegory as the central action by which the human moves from material to immaterial realities. This is reliably achieved, for Augustine, upon the supposition that material referents of immaterial realities are ‘spoken’ or ‘appointed’ by Wisdom in the Holy Spirit.40 The location of this allegorical operation is, critically, Scripture: ‘Therefore, laying aside and repudiating trifling theatrics and poetics we feed the soul by consideration and discussion of divine scripture.’41 Scripture is thus the site of the soul’s movement from material to immaterial realities, not only as the reliable authority initiating ratio’s powers, but as that which animates and sustains the ascent.42 In other words, Scripture is the ontologically basic reality and vocabulary for Augustine. And second, drawing upon scriptural language, Augustine’s central metaphor for the ascent is aetates. This reveals an important difference, if only in emphasis, between De quantitate animae and De vera religione. Combining the use of aetates with homo vetus/homo novus, Augustine emphasises the temporal framework for the ascent of the soul to God: ‘About these [aetates], however, there is no doubt at all that one person can act out one of them, that is the old and earthly man, throughout the whole of this life.’43 The ascent of the soul is thus now unambiguously an historical process that takes place through the course of one’s life. It is this development that, in particular, begins to address our lingering concerns of the possibility of purification and reformation in the ascent. For purification and reformation to be intelligible as bodily activities, they must fit within a structure of Christian existence that envisions development diachronically. An important consequence of temporalising ascent is that the goal or completion of the ascent is eschatological, reflecting a greater awareness of a Pauline understanding of ‘salvation history’ in which the whole Church is caught up. It is tempting to separate neatly between ‘temporal’ and ‘eternal’ with respect to ‘this age’ and ‘the age to come’. But this would fail to consider—or, at least, render incoherent—Augustine’s definition of ‘eternal’ in the ascent at

Frederick van Fleteren, ‘Vera religione, De’, in Fitzgerald (1999), 864–5. sed credentes tamen, et ubi sit uerum, quod non uenit et transit, sed semper eodem modo manet, qui sit modus interpretandae allegoriae, quae per sapientiam dicta creditor in spiritu sancto (vera rel. 50.99; CCSL 32: 251). 41 Omissis igitur et repudiatis nugis theatricis et poeticis diuinarum scripturarum consideration et tractatione pascamus animum (vera rel. 51.100; CCSL 32: 252). 42 I have argued that De magistro evinces this reliance on Scripture in my ‘Augustine’s De magistro: Scriptural Arguments and the Genre of Philosophy’, Studia Patristica LXX (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 63–72. 43 vera rel. 27.50; trans. Hill (2005), 62. 39 40

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Ostia: ‘for to have been and to be in the future do not apply to her because eternity is simply to be: for to have been and to be in the future are not eternal’.44 While it might be natural to think of the term ‘eternal’ as an everlasting extension of temporality, in light of Augustine’s understanding of ‘eternal’ as ‘no past or future’ it seems incomplete to suggest that everlasting exhausts the sense of the term eternal.45 In De vera religione the temporal and eternal cross in an intriguing way as the homo vetus becomes the homo novus: ‘truly, no one can become the new and heavenly person in this life except through the old person, because he is not only bound to start from him but also has to continue with him until this visible death, though with the old man wearing out along the way, the new getting fitter every day’.46 Within the concept of eternity, there is, on the one hand, some kind of fundamental break or fissure between temporal existence and eternal existence; but, on the other hand, eternal existence is brought about through temporal existence. It is this relationship that is deeply puzzling to Augustine, and one to which Augustine gestures in his comments on the relation between the temporal and eternal petitions in the Lord’s Prayer.

PRAYER AND CHRISTIAN EXISTENCE I N DE SERMONE DOMINI IN MONTE 2 In 391 a brief trip to Hippo turned into a nearly forty-year stay, as Augustine was ordained a priest by Valerius on a trip to visit a friend contemplating a monastic resolution.47 Augustine’s self-understanding as a monk undoubtedly shapes how he thinks about prayer and its place within Christian life and dogma. George Lawless has argued that Augustine’s Thagastan ‘monasticism’ anticipates his four rudiments of monasticism (labour, reading, prayer, and study of the Scriptures) in De opere monachorum.48 But it was not until 397 that Augustine began to write down his account of monastic life, and not until 407 that he offered anything like a ‘theory of the monk’.49 When it came to monastic legislation, Augustine was less concerned with theorising than with the bare essentials demanded by a common life of inquiry. What lies subtly 44 conf. 9.10.24: quin potius fuisse et futurum esse non est in ea, but esse solum, quoniam aeterna est: nam fuisse et futurum esse non est aeternum (Teubner: 113); see also conf. 11.4.6–14.17, esp. 11.11.13: non autem praeterire quicquam in aeterno, sed totum esse praesens (Teubner: 153). 45 Augustine does use the term aeternus to indicate this sense; see ciu. 21.23. 46 47 vera rel. 27.50; trans. Hill (2005), 62. s. 355.2. 48 op. mon. 29.37; Lawless (1987), 50. 49 Lawless (1987), 58; for an overview of the scholarship regarding the dating of the relevant texts, see 148–54; see also Markus (1990), 158–79.

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below Augustine’s literary presentation is the consistent practice of prayer. Even love, which is undeniably large and pervasive in Augustine’s theology, is situated in prayer.50 Prayer is the conduit through which love of God is directed; this insight is discernible in Augustine’s first reflection on prayer. During his early engagements with Scripture in his new role as priest, Augustine offers a commentary on the Matthean account of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7), the ‘perfected model of Christian life’.51 It is here that the dynamics of Christian existence observed in the early ascents of the soul converge with his ongoing reflection and practice of prayer. Indeed, Augustine’s first commentary on the Lord’s Prayer in his De sermone Domini in monte is a kind of petitionary ascent into divine mysteries. Here one can see Augustine integrating both petitionary prayer and the broader sense of prayer as a contemplatio-directed life. Augustine is quick to acknowledge that a petitioner offers God no new knowledge, but rather through the act of petitioning God the petitioner herself is transformed. This transformation is, however, understood according to the model of ascent in Augustine’s earlier works, integrating the Lord’s Prayer into a beatitude-informed ascent. Prayer itself thus becomes a form of ascent. The Lord’s Prayer, alongside the Creed, is a central statement of the Christian’s belief and practices, so it is no surprise that when Augustine took to preaching he often focused on this prayer that has, since its initial promulgation, fallen from the lips of the faithful.52 The Lord’s Prayer, in both its Lukan (Luke 11:1–4) and Matthean (Matt. 6:9–13) versions, is one of the most commented-upon passages of Scripture. No full commentary on the prayer is extant before 200,53 but shortly thereafter commentaries emerged; notable among the earliest are the commentaries of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen. The fourth century experienced what Hammerling calls ‘The Flowering of the Lord’s Prayer Tradition’, which elicited extended comments from several theologians.54 There are, however, two important influences on Augustine’s commentary worth highlighting. First, in his De dominica oratione, Cyprian avoids the language of mens altogether and emphasises prayer as issuing forth from cor. Discussing the Dominical command to pray in the inner chambers (cubicula), Cyprian suggests that prayer is not done with the voice but the heart: ‘because God is a hearer not of the voice but of the heart’.55 And second, in his Expositio evangelii secundum lucam, Ambrose interprets the 50 See T.J. van Bavel, The Rule of Saint Augustine (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1984), 41–65; and Bavel (2009). 51 perfectum uitae christianae modum (s. dom. m. 1.1.1; CCSL 35: 1). 52 53 Hammerling (2010), 87. Hammerling (2010), 17. 54 e.g. Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Didymus the Blind, Ambrose (Hammerling (2010), 45–77). 55 quia Deus non uocis sed cordis auditor est (De dom. or. 4; CCSL 3A: 91); Cyprian also uses pectus, which has, for him, complete semantic overlap with cor: quae Deum non clamosa

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Christian life as a movement through the beatitudes, as Augustine will do in De sermone Domini in monte. Commenting thus on Luke (6:20–2), Ambrose links the beatitudes through an analysis of the virtues: ‘therefore, temperance implies purity of heart and soul, justice implies mercy, prudence implies peace, [and] fortitude implies gentleness’.56 While Augustine draws on these authoritative sources for North African Christianity, he significantly pushes beyond Cyprian’s understanding of cubicula and Ambrose’s diachronic structure for the beatitudes. Following the traditional pattern, Augustine uses Matt. 6:5–857 to outline the proper orientation in prayer at De sermone Domini in monte 2.3.10–14. This orientation has three features: it is (1) internally grounded in the cubicula as cor, (2) open to the transformation of desire (conuersio cordis) and cleansing of reason (purgatio interioris oculi), and (3) oriented towards the ‘vision of a pure heart’. First, in contrast to Augustine’s discussion of the cubicula in De magistro as a kind of catch-all term for animus, cor, and mens, it is now seemingly restricted to cor: ‘What are these chambers (cubicula) unless the very heart (cor), which are also signified in the Psalm, where it is said: “What you say in your hearts, and felt in your chambers”?’58 Two consequences of this location of prayer in the heart (cor) are: (1) it does not diverge from De magistro’s endorsement of silent prayer, and (2) the heart is now the site of askesis. Closing the chambers of the heart indicates that one is to ‘resist our carnal senses so that the prayer of our spirit may be directed to the Father’.59 This askesis, similar to that which is observed in the mental task of ridding oneself of images, is here concerned with the corporeality of the passions. This is not to suggest, however, that Augustine moves from an intellectual to an affective askesis. Rather, this passage highlights, first, that Augustine shows greater reliance on Cyprian’s language (as opposed to Ambrose’s in

petitione sed tacite et modeste intra ipsas pectoris latebras precabatur . . . loquebatur non uoce sed corde (De dom. or. 5; CCSL 3A: 92). 56 luc. 5.68. 57 The text as found in Augustine: ‘And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets that they may be seen by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, enter into your chambers. And, after having closed the doors, pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees you in secret will repay you. And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you, therefore, like them, for your Father knows what is needful for you, before you ask of Him.’ (Et cum oratis, non eritis sicut hypocritae, qui amant stare in sinagogis et in angulis platearum stantes orare, ut videantur ab hominibus. Vos autem cum oratis introite in cubicula vestra et claudentes ostia orate patrem vestrum in abscondito. Et pater vester, qui videt in abscondito, reddet vobis. Orantes autem nolite multiloqui esse sicut ethnici; arbitrantur enim quod in multiloqui suo exavdiantur. Nolite itaque similes esse illis, vobis necessarium sit, antequam petatis ab eo.) I have collated this text from the scattered lines Augustine records in his commentary: s. dom. m. 2.3.10–14: 100–4. 58 59 s. dom. m. 2.3.11; CCSL 35: 101. s. dom. m. 2.3.11.

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De sacramentis) and, second, that cor functions within the remit of mens.60 Although an intellectual/affective disjunction must be avoided, it is important to notice the shift in terminology within the locus of prayer.61 That this is a shift can be seen in Augustine’s affirmation of silent prayer. The immediate context is his commentary on Matt. 6:7–8 (‘And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you, therefore, like them, for your Father knows what is needful for you, before you ask of Him.’). On the one hand, as observed in De magistro 1.2, the omniscience and eternality of God make ‘speaking’ to God awkward, as God already knows all that one might and all that one will say to Him.62 Augustine recognises, on the other hand, that Christ himself is about to speak words. Echoing De magistro, Augustine supposes that these words are intended to teach others how to pray in such a way that they are not merely in the mode of asking God for things, for it is the ‘gentiles’ who attempt to ‘influence God through prayer’ (2.3.12). Rather, the ‘things we carry in our soul (animo gerimus) and the direction of our thoughts (intentione cogitationis), with pure love and single affection’ are the ‘content’ of prayer for Augustine.63 This ‘content’, however, is a product of ‘paring away’ improper desires, returning yet again to his placement of asceticism at the heart of Christian existence. Augustine’s endorsement of silent prayer thus relies on two different commitments: first, to God’s omniscience and eternality, and the ill-fitting petitions corresponding to them; and second, to a process of askesis, wherewith one attempts to rid oneself of all that might distract from praying with the ‘things we carry in our soul (animo gerimus) and the direction of our thoughts (intentione cogitationis)’. The conjunction of petitionary prayer and therapeutic meditation might seem awkward to modern readers, as contemporary discussions tend to focus on one or the other commitment.64 Augustine, however, does not simply conflate them. Rather, there is a productive tension between them, for whatever prayer might be it is never less than the reflexive engagement between God and the soul, one that is oriented towards the desire for the beata vita. In prayer one inevitably encounters the ontological difference between divinity and humanity. This difference manifests itself at the intersection of divine perfections and human imperfections; the topic of prayer has proven to draw out the quandaries that arise in a human petitioning an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God. What alleviates the tension between a classical 60 For a discussion of this theme in Augustine, see Carol Harrison, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 158–93. 61 This same language of cor as the ‘temple of prayer’ can be seen in s. 198.1. 62 63 s. dom. m. 2.3.12–13. s. dom. m. 2.3.12–13. 64 See Vincent Brümmer, What Are We Doing When We Pray: A Philosophical Inquiry (London: SCM Press, 1984) for an analysis of this tradition after Immanuel Kant’s rejection of a petitionary view of prayer in light of a concern to avoid Fetischglauben (17–28).

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doctrine of God that is committed to divine perfections and a common late antique anthropology is a notion of the human as one which undergoes diachronic development, an aspect that emerged in the De vera religione. For someone can petition God honestly and maintain a classic doctrine of God if she has opened up herself to temporal development. Augustine’s anthropology must, therefore, be capable of transformation and change, a feature that is evident in (2) above. In addition to being internally grounded in the ‘chambers’ or heart, prayer transforms desires, and through the transformed desires clarifies our vision: None, save that the very effort we make in praying calms the heart, makes it clean, and renders it more capable of receiving the divine gifts which are poured upon us in a spiritual manner. For God does not hear us because He seeks the favour of our prayers, He who is always ready to give us His light, not that which strikes the eye, but that of the intellect and spirit. But we are not always prepared to receive, attracted as we are to other things and benighted by our desire for temporal things. Hence there takes place in prayer a turning of the heart to Him who is ever ready to give if we will but accept what He gives. And in this turning there is effected a cleansing of the inner eye, consisting in the exclusion of those things which filled our earth-bound desires so that the vision of a pure heart may be able to bear the pure light, radiating from God without diminution or setting; and not only bear it, but also to remain in it, not merely without discomfort but with the unspeakable joy whereby truly and unequivocally a blessed life is perfected.65

These transformations wrought through prayer are far more than simple ‘selfadvancement’: they render one ‘more capable of receiving the divine gifts which are poured upon us in a spiritual manner’. In order to receive divine gifts, one must pray, but in order to pray in such a way to so receive, one must be transformed. This transformation takes place, however, through prayer itself (‘There takes place in prayer a turning of the heart to Him’). The activity of prayer in the manner described above (i.e. in chambers, stripping away improper desires and thoughts) is self-transforming and self-cleansing, giving prayer pride of place within the purification process. Unfortunately, Augustine does not offer much indication of how this process works. But one can discern a critical feature: Augustine’s language of vision and heart suggests that ‘seeing’ or ‘reasoning’ is a faculty of the heart: ut acies simplicis cordis ferre possit simplicem lucem diuinitus. The transformations of desire cleanse reason (Fit ergo in oratione conuersio cordis ad eum qui semper dare paratus est, si nos capiamus quod dederit, et in ipsa conuersione purgatio interioris oculi), and the cleansing that reason undergoes reciprocally sharpens desires, as the heart is now attempting to perceive the ‘pure light’. The transformative effects that desire has on reason and that reason, in turn, has on the perception of the heart are difficult to untangle. For the soul to

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s. dom. m. 2.3.14; consulted ACW 5.

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function properly and strive after God, both reason and passion must be engaged, and each will perform a kind of askesis on the other. Prayer for Augustine is the form in which the mutual askesis of reason and desire occur, and through which one’s desires undergo transformation and, in turn, cleanse reason. Moreover, it is this mutual askesis of reason and desire that makes (3) the orientation to vision possible. The gifts that God gives, according to Augustine, are intended to shape the person in the intellectual and spiritual manner wherewith a ‘blessed life is perfected’. The blessed life (beata vita) is thus the end towards which Christian prayer is oriented, and as such it transforms desires and cleanses reason as it arises from a purified heart. The prologue to the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:5–8) has, then, given Augustine the opportunity to outline the orientation that a Christian must have to prayer, echoing themes and observations from Soliloquia and De magistro. When Augustine turns to the text of the Lord’s Prayer the interaction between passages of Scripture takes the place of the ascensional language observed above in the ascents of the soul. This occurs through Augustine’s synthesis of the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer (after the address, Pater noster qui es in caelis) with the seven beatitudes: (p1) sanctificetur nomen tuum (p2) adveniat regnum tuum (p3) fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra (p4) panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis ipsi hodie (p5) et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos (p6) et ne nos inferas in temptationem videbunt (p7) sed libera nos a malo vocabuntur

(b1) beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum (b2) beati mites, quoniam ipsi hereditate possidebunt terram (b3) beati lugentes, quoniam ipsi consolabuntur (b4) beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt iustitiam, quia saturabuntur (b5) beati misericordes, quia ipsorum miserebitur dimittimus (b6) beati mundicordes, quoniam ipsi deum (b7) beati pacifici, quoniam ipsi filii dei

To structure this as an ascent, Augustine attaches the gifts of the spirit from Isa. 11:2–3 inversely: (g1) timor Dei, (g2) pietas, (g3) scientia, (g4) fortitudo, (g5) consilium, (g6) intellectus, and (g7) sapientia. The particular constructions Augustine uses are supremely important. Carefully staying within the language of Scripture, Augustine uses the conditional construction, ‘Si [gn] . . . est [bn] . . . oremus ut [pn]’,66 implying that if one aspires to have a particular gift, which promises a particular beatitude, then one should pray the relevant

66 s. dom. m. 2.11.38; CSEL 89: 129–30. Petamus is used at the first step, a derivation that does not seem consequential.

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petition. At first glance, this seems dubious. Is Augustine proposing a facile control of God through a reorganisation of Scripture, similar to the divinisation that he finds so appalling in pagan religions? No, one must recall the three tenets of his theory of prayer highlighted above: (1) internally grounded in cubicula, (2) open to the mutual transformations of desire and reason, and (3) oriented towards vision of God and beata vita. The self-evident reading of the conditional—if I pray pn, I will receive gn and bn—seems untenable not only in light of the location (cubicula), but also with respect to the purification of prayer itself. Oratio does not replace the anagogical movement of ratio or animus, but rather assumes the animation inherent in ratio. The animation of the ascent is thus within the internal dynamics of oratio understood to effect a reciprocal purification of desire and reason, which then progresses through the gifts of the Spirit. The anagogic movement of ratio or animus is now assumed by oratio. From this account emerge two features of oratio’s ascent. First, the relationship between time and eternity in De vera religione is picked up by the interpenetration of temporal (p4–p7) and eternal petitions (p1–p3). Just as the homo novus emerges out of the homo vetus, the eternal is figuratively petitioned by the first four petitions. Moreover, the temporal petitions function within the context of the eternal petitions, which are only held in hope. This understanding of the eternal and temporal petitions offers us, secondly, a thicker account of the ‘eschatological’ orientation. The orientation of the ascent is, as it was above, towards sapientia (i.e. deliverance from evil and perfect peace).67 While the full attainment of this wisdom sits outside this world, for deliverance from evil is only achieved when one no longer bears the burden of mortality, sapientia is somehow already present to the ascent, acting paradoxically as that which pushes and pulls while nevertheless absent. Oratio thus encodes the eschatological dynamics of De vera religione by leaving open ‘space’ for temporal purification and providing a figurative presence to sapientia. In De sermone Domini in monte 2, Augustine thus weaves together Scripture to develop an ascent via prayer. While prayer was an important locus for Augustine in Soliloquia and De magistro, here in De sermone Domini in monte 2 prayer does more than carry forward the structure and dynamic of ratio; it is now being developed vis-à-vis practices of reading Scripture. Moreover, in De sermone Domini in monte Augustine sets explicit roles for both reason and desire. As prayer is internally grounded in the ‘chambers’ or heart, it transforms desires, and through the transformed desires cleanses reason. This difference ought not to be read as a rejection of Augustine’s previous position. Rather, it is an advance on how he understands the mind or soul can ascend 67 Si sapientia est qua beati sunt pacifici, quoniam ipsi filii dei uovabuntur, oremus ut liberemur a malo; ipsa enim liberatio libero nos faciet, id est filios dei, ut spiritu adoptionis clamemus: Abba, pater! (s. dom. m. 2.11.38; CCSL 35: 129–30).

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to God. Reason, which in De ordine Augustine thought could ascend to beatitude, in De sermone Domini in monte requires the purification of desire found in the concrete practice of praying the Lord’s Prayer. This is not the last time Augustine will appeal to ascent to think about the Christian life. In his much celebrated De doctrina Christiana, Augustine will once again infuse a familiar ascent motif with an explicitly Christian understanding of learning. The ascent in De doctrina Christiana is not, however, a substantial advance from the ascent in De sermone Domini in monte.68 The central difference between these two texts is that in De doctrina Augustine offers an account of an act of faith that more explicitly operates within a hermeneutical query of Scripture.69 Further differences emerge in the genre and theological context of the two works. Whereas De sermone Domini in monte is a commentary on Scripture itself, De doctrina is a treatise that offers a second-order reflection on the interpretation of Scripture, a kind of manual for preachers.70 De doctrina was written intermittently over the course of thirty years (397–427),71 so it is not surprising that it would engage with a greater range of theological controversies than De sermone Domini in monte, which was written within a fairly narrow timeframe (393/4). By placing De sermone Domini in monte 2 within the context of Augustine’s developing thoughts on ascent, it becomes evident that the desire intrinsic to prayer has taken over the animation of the analogical ascent. After De doctrina Christiana, there are no more unambiguous references to ‘ascent’, but that is not to say that the impulse within ascent—its structure, animation, and orientation—disappears. Indeed, as I will argue in Chapter 3, the prayerful ascent is taken up by Augustine’s all-important totus Christus doctrine. Chapter 3 will thus chart Augustine’s deepening knowledge of Scripture, and how the theory and practice of prayer is refined through those engagements. It will be a particular concern of mine to attend to Augustine’s sermons as prayers. Extending the reciprocity between the Lord’s Prayer as prayer and the Lord’s Prayer as Scripture, Augustine’s sermons hasten the body of Christ, in the terms of the totus Christus, towards Christ its head. 68

See Karla Pollmann, Doctrina Christiana: Untersuchungen zu den Anfängen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Augustinus, De doctrina christiana (Fribourg: Universitätverlag, 1996); and Pollmann, ‘Augustine’s Hermeneutics as a Universal Discipline!?’, in Pollmann and Vessey, eds, Augustine and the Disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 206–31. 69 For a full account of this, see Michael Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figurative Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 215–40. 70 This is a view that has most recently been advocated by James Andrews, Hermeneutics and the Church: In Dialogue with Augustine (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). 71 It is likely that de doct. chr. 1–3 was written between 397 and 401 and book 4 finished between 425 and 427; see Gaetano Lettieri, ‘De doctrina christiana (Über die christliche Wissensaneigung und Lehre)’, in Volker Henning Drecoll, ed., Augustin Handbuch (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 377–93.

3 Prayer as Reception of the Other Through his engagement with Scripture, Augustine’s theory of prayer becomes inextricably bound up with his doctrine of Christ. While some readers attempt to isolate Augustine’s doctrine of Christ or presume some extrinsic framework through which to compare his doctrines with other Church Fathers’ doctrines,1 Augustine’s thinking is always embedded in the relationships and form of life that he lived in the monastery and cathedral. It is true, as Joanne McWilliam has said, that Augustine’s Christology is ‘occasional or episodic’,2 but when seen through the tension represented by the monastery’s refectory and the cathedral’s pulpit, Augustine’s Christology finds not so much doctrinal coherence as it does a kind of unity in the shared orientation of his community, living ‘harmoniously’ in the house with ‘one heart and one soul seeking God’.3 Indeed, 1 William Babcock, ‘Christ of the Exchange: A Study in the Christology of Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos’, PhD Dissertation, Yale University, 1971) has suggested that Otto Scheel, Die Anschauung Augustins über Christi Person und Werk (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1901) and Adolf von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 5th edn (Tübingen: J.C. B. Mohr, 1931) have treated Augustine through the rubric of classical categories of Christology, leading them invariably to ascribe some kind of heretical flavour to Augustine. Two counterexamples, however, are T.J. van Bavel, Recherches sur la christologie de Saint Augustin (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1954) and Étienne Gilson, Philosophie et Incarnation selon Saint Augustin (Montreal: Institut d’études médiévales Albert-le-Grand de l’Université de Montréal, 1947). Lurking behind these interpretations was the assumed normativity of Chalcedonian Christology. Recently, scholars have begun to look at Augustine’s Christology in light of his interpretive practices, doctrines of grace, salvation, and the Church, the result of which has led to a widespread agreement that it is important without consensus on how it is so. Bavel, Cameron, Dodaro, Fiedrowicz, Madec, Studer, and Williams have been at the forefront of the late twentieth-century revision of Augustine’s Christology. For these authors, particularly Studer and Williams, Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos are ‘a major source for understanding the heart of his Christology’ (Rowan Williams, ‘Augustine and the Psalms’, Interpretation (January 2004), 17–27, 20). Out of Augustine’s expansive commentary on the Psalms, as well as conf., ciu., and Io. ev. tr., Williams has highlighted two key aspects of Augustine’s Christology, that is, the Incarnation and totus Christus, both of which are constantly referenced by Augustine in his expositions of the Psalms and sermons. 2 Joanne McWilliam, ‘The Study of Augustine’s Christology’, in McWilliam (1992), 183. 3 Primum, propter quod in unum estis congregate, ut unianimes habitetis in domo et sit uobis anima una et cor unum in deum (reg. 3 1.2; Lawless: 80). I follow Lawless’ translation of ‘in deum’ as ‘seeking God’.

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the centripetal force of the monastery is counterpoised by the centrifugal force of the pulpit, forging Augustine’s unique vision of Christian existence through the convergence of two social worlds, the monastery and the cathedral.4 Augustine’s homiletic material, no less than his ascetical writings, thus ought to be read with his vision of Christian existence informed by the practices of prayer in the background. Emerging from the tension between the pulpit and the refectory, Augustine’s view of prayer is vitally affected by his Christology: it is through reflection on the nature and person of Christ that prayer becomes a corporate practice with redemptive significance. The first half of this chapter will be dedicated to an account of the development of the totus Christus as it emerged from Augustine’s early engagement with the Psalms. The turning point in my account of the totus Christus is his commentary on Galatians. It is here that Augustine alights on to the process of ‘putting on’ Christ (induere), which provides him with an important account of how the Christian is incorporated into the body of Christ, and, furthermore, how the totus Christus tells a story about the Church’s redemption. In the second half, by way of close readings of en. Ps. 85 and en. Ps. 132, I shall argue that the totus Christus provides the form of the Christian’s education into how to pray and live as the body of Christ in this world. For Augustine, an understanding of Christian existence that is defined by human limitations ultimately gives direction and purpose to the twinning of desire and patience in prayer.

ENCOUNTERING THE P ROBLEM: MEDIATION I N ENARRATIONES IN PSALMOS 1 – 3 2 In his early years as a priest, Augustine began to preach the Psalms, a practice to which he would be devoted throughout his life. In the Enarrationes in Psalmos, more so than any other work, one can detect a proliferation of the senses of prayer.5 In her study of prayer in this great work, Monique Vincent has highlighted both the systematic centrality of prayer and its infusion in many other notable facets of Augustine’s thought.6 The initial goal of his sermons, according to Vincent, is to teach the faithful to pray the Psalms.7 4 Lancel (2002) records several controversies within his community that served to ‘distract’ just as much as preaching, judging local cases, and sorting out the church’s inheritances (221–34). 5 Vincent (1990b) has offered an analysis of terms for prayer in Augustine’s en. Ps. that distinguishes between ‘prayers of request’ (deprecari/deprecatio, clamare/clamor, invocare/invocatio) and ‘prayers of praise’ (laudare/laus, benedicere, glorificare, exaltare, magnificare, cantare/ canticum, psallere) (2:783–804). 6 7 Vincent (1990a), 447–9. Vincent (1990b), 783.

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In fact, Augustine’s theology is persistently animated by this kind of pedagogical impulse. In the Psalms commentary, Augustine’s understanding of redemption emerges from his reflection on the Gospel writers placing the words of the Psalms in Christ’s mouth as a prayer from the cross.8 As we will see, Augustine’s understanding of prayer spills over into redemption within the locus of Christ’s mediation. In three early sermons dating between 393 and 395,9 Augustine experiments with the voice of Christ using prosopological exegesis, a method through which the reader seeks to identify the person (prosopon) speaking and the person addressed.10 Commenting on Psalm 3:5, ‘With my voice I cried out to the Lord and he heard me from his holy mountain’,11 Augustine puzzles over how this could be said by Christ. This is particularly vexing for the newly ordained priest. Who, he wonders, is signified by ‘my voice’, ‘the Lord’, ‘me’, and the ‘holy mountain’?12 Augustine knows that soteriological mediation is an action of Christ, but in this verse, is it Christ as human or Christ as divine who is mediating? In Psalm 19, Augustine addresses this in another way, locating Christ’s mediation within the Trinity. Commenting on 19:7, Augustine suggests that ‘He will hear him from his holy heaven’ (Exaudiet illum de caelo sancto suo) signifies not only Christ’s prayer for glorification in the ‘high priestly prayer’ (John 17:1–26), but also the Son’s intercession ‘for us at the right hand of the father, and whence he has poured the Holy Spirit down on those who believe in him’.13 And last, in his first commentary on Psalm 30, Augustine places verses 2–6 in Christ’s mouth. Verse 6, ‘into your hands I commend my spirit’ (in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum) suggests, in particular, a radically different perspective from 19:7. What is Christ’s voice? Is it Christ speaking to himself, is it a conversation between the persons of the Trinity, or is Christ speaking from the perspective of the sacrificed? It will take Augustine several years of experimenting with the voices of Christ in the Psalms for a coherent position to emerge.14 For now, two things are of particular importance to us. First, Augustine’s Psalms commentary, heralded as ‘the highpoint of patristic Psalm-exegesis’,15 is the site of some of the most consequential developments in Augustine’s Christology.16 The issue 8 Michael Fiedrowicz, Psalmus vox totius Christi: Studien zu Augustins Enarrationes in Psalmos (Freiburg: Herder, 1997), 301. 9 Anne-Marie La Bonnardière, Recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1965). 10 Cameron (2012), 171. 11 Voce mea ad Dominum calamavi et exaudiuit me de monte sancto suo (collated from en. Ps. 2.4; CCSL 38: 8–9). 12 Cameron (2012) has highlighted the difficulty of the category of homo dominicus, which is being used in en. Ps. 3, without assuming the author’s use of prosopopoeia (170); see also Fiedrowicz (1997), 238. 13 en. Ps. 19.7; f. et symb. 9.19 most likely informs this reading. 14 Cameron (2012) persuasively charts this development (165–212). 15 16 Fiedrowicz (1997), 11. Keech (2012), 6–9, 208–29.

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of Christ’s mediation is inseparable from the interpretation of the Psalms, and from the very beginning entangles the doctrinal with the scriptural. And second, the voices of Christ are understood as prayers.17 In fact, all of the Psalms are read as prayers, of exaltation and lamentation, praise and request, longing and satisfaction, whether that be from Christ or the Church.18 It is this second feature that creates one of Augustine’s most distinctive and creative doctrines, the totus Christus, that is, the whole Christ, both head (Christ) and body (Church). In this doctrine, prayer becomes the intersection of Christology and soteriology, doctrine and practice. In short, totus Christus is the gathering point of the Christian’s pursuit to pray and live as the body of Christ. In recent years, the rhetorical aspects of the totus Christus have been the subject of fruitful investigation. Building on the work of Michael Cameron in particular, I want to shift the emphasis towards the theory and practice of prayer in Augustine’s reflections on Christ and salvation. In this cursory account of the problem Augustine encountered in his early engagement with the Psalms, one can see an outline of important developments in Augustine’s Christology. In particular, Christ’s mediating prayer must function within a Christology that leads to human ‘incorporation’19 by virtue of a proper understanding of Christ’s two natures. There are three aspects to human incorporation for Augustine: (1) the human must be conceived as open to incorporation in the body of Christ and thus in Christ; (2) Christ must be conceived as open to human incorporation; and (3) human and divine ‘openness’ must somehow hang together in a conception of the Incarnate Word. In order to see the soteriological significance of Christ’s openness in the totus Christus one must first consider how Augustine conceives of human openness. Augustine explores this process in his commentary on Galatians by way of reflecting on the process of ‘putting on’ (induere) Christ within a Pauline trajectory of salvation history. As I will argue, the salvation historical framework of De vera religione and De sermone Domini in monte is recast within the process of induere. While my emphasis will be on some features of prayer, it is by no means inconsequential that Augustine’s doctrine of prayer emerges from his engagement with Scripture.

THE P ROCESS OF I N D U E R E IN EXPOSITIO EPISTULAE AD GALATAS In his commentary on Galatians, the only completed commentary on any of the Pauline literature, Augustine not only exposes his changing conception of 17

18 Fiedrowicz (1997), 178. en. Ps. 30.2, 66.3–5, 146.1; s. 3; Jackson (1986), 96. Notice this is not quite the same as Augustine’s understanding of ‘participation’, a term I will discuss in Chapter 4. 19

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Christ’s mediation, but also offers a glimpse into its relationship to his monastic vocation. Eric Plumer has argued that the audience of the Galatians commentary was Augustine’s growing monastic community in Hippo, and ‘despite the wide differences in form and content between the Commentary and the Rule, the two texts illuminate each other brilliantly’.20 This should come as no surprise, as the intersection of Augustine’s burgeoning conception of monasticism and the development of his conception of Christian existence are enriched and brought into harmony by themes common to asceticism.21 Augustine’s exposition of Galatians is thus a commentary on and in support of his community’s spiritual formation, the central feature of which is the Christian’s assimilation of or, in the words of Galatians, the induere of Christ’s mediation. Augustine’s understanding emerges from a cumulatively building exegesis of Galatians, and a full account of Augustine’s commentary would need to follow Augustine through Paul’s letter. My argument in this section makes three interlocking claims regarding the process of induere: (1) the Christian enters into this human–divine mediation through imitation of Christ’s humility, described as both ‘putting on’ (induere) Christ and ‘participating in Wisdom’; (2) induere is envisioned along a spectrum between faith and sight (per fidem . . . per speciem), out of which arises a dialectic between faith and love; and (3) the dialectic between faith and love is sub gratia, the third of four stages Augustine proposes, consequentially centralising an intensified notion of patience in the process of induere. In the tight interconnection between humility, faith, love, and patience, the mediation of Christ emerges as a diachronic process of ‘putting on’ Christ. This nexus informs how, through sustained practices, we put on Christ’s prayer. In his reflections on Gal. 3:19–28,22 Augustine turns his focus to the humility of Christ, a development which will have lasting effects in his Christology, soteriology, and practice of prayer. Augustine discovers that for Christ to become the ‘supreme example of humility’ it must be by virtue of Christ’s 20 Eric Plumer, Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 5. 21 For an account of how Augustine envisions the monastic life to have the same discursive potential as the sermon, see Thomas F. Martin, ‘ “An Abudant Supply of Discourse”: Augustine and the Rhetoric of Monasticism’, The Downside Review 116:402 (January 1998), 7–25. 22 Quid ergo? Lex transgressionis gratia proposita est, donec ueniret semen cui promissum est, dispositum per angelos in manu mediatrois. Mediator autem unius non est, deus uero unus est. Lex ergo aduersus promissa dei? absit. Si enim data esset lex, quae posset uiuificare, omnino ex lege esset iustitia. Sed conclusit scriptura omnia sub peccato, ut promissio ex fide Iesu Christi daretur credentibus. Prius autem quam ueniret fides, sub lege custodiebamur conclusi in eam fidem, quae postea reuelata est. Itaque lex paedagogus noster fuit in Christo [ . . . ut ex fide iustificemur?]. Posteaquam uenit fides, iam non sumus sub paedagogo [ . . . ?] filios dei esse omnes per fidem, quia induerunt Christum quicumque in Christo baptizati sunt. [non est distantia? from Rom. 10:12?] Iudaei neque Graeci, non serui neque liberi, non masculi et feminae, omnes ergo uos unum estis in Christo Iesu (collected from exp. Gal. 24.2–28.6).

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human nature.23 The consequences of this prove significant. Christ’s mediation is through his becoming human, which in turn enables humans to participate in his divinity. The participation in Christ’s divinity is contingent on his becoming human, an action that is given new emphasis for Augustine as humility. Humans come to participate in divinity (sapientia) likewise through following the example of Christ’s humility, a proposal that anticipates Augustine’s soteriology in De trinitate.24 This establishes for Augustine that following the example of Christ is, first of all, an imitation of his humility. But of what does ‘following the example of humility’ consist? In Augustine’s commentary on Gal. 3:19–20 (exp. Gal. 24.8), it is apparent that simply achieving the same actions of Christ does not count as a sufficient definition for following the example of Christ, a subtle rejection of his earlier emphasis on Christ as a virtuous example.25 Rather, it occurs through some kind of assimilation of Christ. Augustine initially describes this as both ‘participation in wisdom’ and ‘putting on Christ’. In exp. Gal. 27.3 Augustine briefly appeals to ‘participation in Wisdom’ (participatio sapientiae), but this language falls away in favour of ‘putting on’ (induere).26 The key passage for Augustine is Gal. 3:26–7 (‘You are all sons of God through faith, since whoever has been baptised into Christ has put on Christ’). Likely because his audience is his monastic community, Augustine bypasses the reference to baptism, and concentrates on the phrase ‘put on Christ’ (induere Christum). By ‘putting on’ Christ through faith the Christian is made a son or daughter of God, not by nature or supreme power, but rather through participation.27 Glossing this passage Augustine says, ‘[Paul] refers to this grace of faith as something “put on”, since those who have believed in Christ have put on Christ and have thus been made sons of God and brothers of the Mediator’.28 The Christian thus enters into the human–divine mediation through imitation of Christ’s humility by a process of ‘putting on’ (induere) Christ.

23

et ipsa humilitas est accommodata percipiendae gratiae Christi, qui singulare humilitatis exemplum est (exp. Gal. 25.10; Plumer: 171). 24 This will be the subject of Ch. 4. 25 I refer here to Augustine’s early ‘Photinian’ beliefs (conf. 7.19.25); for commentary, see Wilhelm Geerlings, Christus exemplum: Studien zur Christologie und Christusverkündigung Augustins (Tübingen: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1978), 168–99, 148–9 for background. When exactly Augustine held his Photinian views has been the subject of great controversy between Goulven Madec and Robert O’Connell; see O’Connell, ‘Confessions VII, ix, 13–xxi, 27: Reply to G. Madec’, Revue d’Études Augustiniennes 19 (1973), 87–100. 26 This is a point that could only be seen by reading the commentary as a whole; David Vincent Meconi, The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), seems to jump too quickly to the connection with participation (199–200). 27 Bavel (1954), 44–57. 28 Quam fidei gratiam nunc indumentum uocat, ut Christum induti sint, qui in eum crediderunt et ideo filii dei fratresque eius mediatoris effecti sunt (exp. Gal. 27.4; Plumer: 173).

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Augustine goes on to place this Christological mediation in the framework ‘per fidem . . . per speciem’, effectively making induere a diachronic process. Discussing Gal. 4:19, ‘for whom I am again in labour pains until Christ is formed in you’,29 Augustine connects his understanding of Gal. 2:20 and 3:19–28: ‘Now Christ is being formed (formatur) in the inner self (interiore homine) of the believer through faith. Such a person is called into the liberty of grace, is gentle and humble of heart, does not boast about the merits of works (which are nothing) but by means of that very grace begins to have some merit.’30 Faith is thus ‘put on’ under the auspices of ongoing action, that is, being formed (formatur). This formation is achieved through what Augustine calls ‘spiritual love’ (dilectio spiritualis): ‘For Christ is formed in the one who receives Christ’s form, but the one who receives Christ’s form is the one who clings (adhaerere) to Christ through spiritual love.’31 In other words, Christ is formed in the believer by the believer adhering to Christ through ‘spiritual love’. Christ is ‘put on’, not by some deepened understanding of anthropology or metaphysics, but rather through spiritual love of others, further supporting the monastic context, as the opening words of Ordo monasterii state, ‘Before all else, dearest brothers, love God and then your neighbour also, because these are the precepts given to us as first principles.’32 The concrete effects of this spiritual love are revealed contrapuntally by Augustine’s minutely detailed monastic rules for communication with people outside the monastery.33 The reason Augustine places such emphasis—even uncharacteristic strictness—on governing the reception of letters or small gifts is because secret letters or gifts represent unfaithfulness to the very community that is meant to be putting on Christ together; they break down for everyone the diachronic process of putting on Christ.34 This ‘unfaithfulness’ is, in this context, a kind of distraction from the very things given to the monk to love. To put this more positively, the monk grows in faith and love through a lifelong process of tuning one’s attention to those God has given him to love. In other words, 29

Quos iterum parturio, donec Christus formetur in uobis (exp. Gal. 38.1; Plumer: 191). Formatur autem Christus in credente per fidem in interiore homine uocato in libertatem gratiae miti et humili corde, non se iactante de operum merits, quae nulla sunt, sed ab ipsa gratia meritum aliquod inchoante (exp. Gal. 38.3; Plumer: 191–3). 31 Formatur enim Christus in eo, qui formam accipit Christi, formam autem accipit Christi, qui adhaeret Christo dilectione spirituali (exp. Gal. 38.4; Plumer: 193. Modified trans. from Plumer: 194). 32 Ante omnia, fratres carissimi, diligatur deus, deinde et proximus, quia ista sunt praecepta principaliter nobis data (reg. 2 1; Lawless: 74). 33 These rules are, of course, what William Connolly objected to so strenuously as mechanisms of social control and manipulation; see Connolly, The Augustinian Imperative: A Reflection on the Politics of Morality, 2nd edn (London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002). Connolly, it seems, has underestimated the concern Augustine (and many other late antique philosophers) have for attention, for it was Augustine’s pre-converted self in the Confessions who was not lacking the correct stimulus but rather distracted by false stimulae. 34 reg. 3 4.11. 30

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Augustine is concerned to emphasise to his monastic brethren that the chastening of one’s social attention is tantamount to the process of slowly moulding the community ‘to have one heart and one soul seeking God’.35 Moreover, this ‘spiritual love’-turned-(undistracted) ‘love of neighbour’ is derived from a prior undistracted love of God, which is ‘put on’ by faith in the one Christ, returning one conceptually to the faith out of which emerged spiritual love. At first glance, this may seem circular, but it operates along a spectrum that moves from interiore homine to exteriore homine. The movement from faith to love back to faith is, more properly, a dialectic that builds on interior faith issuing forth in the external enactment of love, which enlarges the interior faith and, in turn, issues in further acts of love. The temporal structure of this dialectic leads Augustine to propose yet another periodisation of the Christian life—ante legem (prior to law), sub lege (under the law), sub gratia (under grace), and in pace (in peace).36 It is grace that makes faith possible, and as such the per fidem in which this is understood is identified with the penultimate period, sub gratia. Sub gratia is, then, the stage at which the believer grows in love of God and neighbour, developing ‘spiritual love’. Considering that the context of Augustine’s exposition of Galatians is his monastic community, one can also conclude that Christian existence sub gratia is characterised by sustained practices of prayer. This helps to make sense of Augustine’s emphasis on patience. The process of forming the interiore homine relies for Augustine on the slow, lifelong process of patiently living sub gratia through the life of prayer. This is captured by the emphasis on perseverance, continual labour, sowing—in a word, patience—in the final paragraphs of his commentary on Galatians. Anticipating the language of the ascent at Ostia, Augustine writes, ‘So while we are in this third stage, under grace, we sow in tears as we resist the desires arising from our natural bodies, in order that we may reap in joy when our bodies are transformed.’37 He goes on, ‘For in most cases people find a reward for their labour in the fruit of that labour, but in our case the harvest is promised at the end and so we need to have perseverance.’38 Patience is thus brought into the structure of desire directed towards eternal goods (bonorum aeternorum), the beata vita and visio Dei.39 This anticipates Augustine’s understanding of hope as it is expressed through prayer: hope is the desire for the beata vita that is informed, not solely by a movement from shortage to abundance (desire), but also by the endurance of this world (patience). 35

36 reg. 3 1.2. exp. Gal. 46.4, 6, 9. exp. Gal. 61.8; Plumer: 229. The two expressions italicised pick out two sentiments with which Augustine ‘book ends’ the ‘ascent’ at Ostia (see end of Conf. 9.10.23 ut inde pro captu nostro aspersi quoquo modo rem tantam cogitaremus and end of Conf. 9.10.25 nonne hoc est: ‘intra in gaudium domini tu’? et istud quando? an cum omnes resurgimus, sed non omnes immutabimur?). 38 39 exp. Gal. 61.11; Plumer: 231. exp. Gal. 62.5, 63.11. 37

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Concluding his remarks, Augustine reintegrates patience, diachronic formation, and Christ’s mediation within the structure of desire: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and human beings, Jesus Christ, himself a human being. As for those who follow this rule, he says, may peace and mercy be upon them, upon the Israel of God, that is, upon those who are truly being prepared for the vision of God, not those who are called by this name and yet because of their carnal blindness refuse to see the Lord, whose grace they spurn in their desire to be time-servers.40

This passage is, in a nutshell, the spiritual lesson of his Christological mediation that brought us to the commentary on Galatians in the first place. Augustine’s central concern is with the individual’s ‘putting on’ Christ, a process that does not diverge from the diachronically distended process of the ascents, but rather, as I will argue in Chapter 4, is intensified when placed within his reflections on redemption in De trinitate. Here, it is important to note that the induere of faith occurs over the course of the Christian’s life, centralising humility as the entrance into Christ and intensifying the patience required of the Christian. Augustine’s life, however, is not only set within the centripetal force of the monastery, out of which this very complex understanding of Christ’s mediation emerges. This Christological mediation trickles into the broader community through the sermons of this preacher-monk. In his sermons, Augustine’s understanding of induere takes on a Christological presentation that likewise emphasises humility and patience. This understanding emerges to inform his understanding of how the totus Christus is more than a simple rhetorical trope: it describes, albeit in a theological register, the process of individuals becoming a ‘we’ through the act of communal prayer.41 Indeed, the totus Christus expresses Augustine’s inescapably corporate and ecclesial understanding of the Christian’s union with the divine; but in Augustine’s commentary on Galatians, this corporate vision occurs through the temporally distended process of induere that is embodied in the life of a community.

P RAYI NG I N CHRI S T: TOTUS CHRISTUS I N ENARRATIONES IN PSALMOS Returning to Augustine’s understanding of Christ’s prayer from the cross, some important developments begin to emerge. Taking his cue from Scripture itself, Augustine reads Jesus’ last words, ‘My God, my God, look upon me, why have

40 41

exp. Gal. 63.10–11; Plumer: 235. This concurs with T.J. van Bavel, ‘Church’, in Fitzgerald (1999), 171.

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you forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27:46),42 as expressing Christ’s identity with the unjust. ‘The Lord’s passion, as we know, happened one time; for Christ died, just for unjust.’43 This time the human is incorporated into this mediatorial prayer through a device Augustine explores for the first time in the final words of en. Ps. 17, ‘Whatever is said in this Psalm that cannot strictly correspond to the Lord as head of the Church, refers to the Church. For the whole Christ (totus Christus) is speaking here, in which are all his members.’44 The mediatorial prayer from the cross is read as the voice of both Christ as human and the Church as Christ’s body. Thus Christ is, in Augustine’s second exposition of Psalm 21, speaking in the voice of the Church: And when the Word God became flesh, hung on the cross, and said: My God, my God, look upon me, why have you forsaken me?, For what other reason than that Christ’s body is the Church? Why did he say: My God, my God, look upon me, why have you forsaken me? unless somehow he was intent to make us understand, ‘this Psalm is written about me’? The words of my sins leaves me far from my salvation. What sins of whom it says: He who committed no sin, nor was any guile found on his lips? In what way, then, could he say my sins, except because he himself prays for our sins, and has made our sins his own sins, in order to make his righteousness ours?45

It is Christ as human mediator, into whom the Church enters by ‘putting on’ Christ’s humility, that is emphasised in this interpretation. This entrance into Christ is, furthermore, derived from the Incarnation, which is the divine act of humility par excellence, according to Augustine.46 As observed in the Galatians commentary, if ‘putting on’ Christ’s mediation is more than simply sharing in the same attribute (i.e. humility), how exactly does the Church share in Christ? It is this question in particular that drives Augustine’s further thinking in the Enarrationes in Psalmos. In approaching the totus Christus from this angle, one will readily see that Augustine’s notion of the totus Christus is related to his understanding of the mediation of the Incarnate Word. In the doctrine of totus Christus Augustine ushers the congregation into sharing in Christ’s voice, as both expressive of human life before God and transformative of human life into divine life.47 Augustine discerns the totus Christus doctrine in two ways. First, Augustine appeals to the Caput-Corpus conjunction as a kind of logical entailment: if there is a head, there must be a body that belongs to it.48 And second, 42

43 en. Ps. 21(2).3. en. Ps. 21(2).1. Quaecumque in hoc psalmo dicta sunt, quae ipsi Domino proprie, id est capiti ecclesiae congruere non possunt, ad ecclesiam referenda sunt. Totus enim Christus hic loquitur, in quo sunt omnia membra eius (en. Ps. 17.51; CCSL 38: 102). 45 en. Ps. 21(2).3; modified Boulding trans. 229. 46 Lewis Ayres, ‘Christology as Contemplative Practice: Understanding the Union of Natures in Augustine’s Letter 137’, in Martens (2008), 190–211, 191. 47 48 Fiedrowicz (1997), 147. en. Ps. 139.2. 44

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Augustine sees it as a principle of exegesis that lies within the text. Augustine consistently exhorts those listening to recall that the speaker of the psalm is not a lone individual, but rather ‘a single body: the body of Christ, however, is the Church’.49 It is often very difficult to distinguish in any clear and meaningful way whether the principle of exegesis or the logical entailment provides the initial justification for the Caput-Corpus conjunction. The fundamental role of the Incarnation in Augustine’s thought would seem to suggest a doctrinal commitment over an exegetical finding. But this would overlook the Schriftgedanke that lies at the heart of Augustine’s thought: the ‘logical entailment’ of head and body is at one and the same time a logical rule and finding of exegesis, both of which provide Augustine with the justification to read Christ as head and body in Scripture.50 If it were not obvious from the monastic context of the Galatians commentary, the soon-to-be-written ascent at Ostia should suggest that Augustine does not envision an individualist union with Christ, ‘an alone to the alone’. Rather, Christ’s mediation is for the Church, bringing the Church into its fullness as the body of Christ. The doctrine of totus Christus grows, to some extent, out of a rhetorically inspired exegesis intended to nurture the faithful of North Africa.51 Inspiring this, at times, excessive rhetoric is a more technical process of induere from the Galatians commentary, which provides the structural features that open up Augustine’s Christology to human incorporation through the practice of prayer.52 If totus Christus is the form for the mediation between God and the people of God, it must be grounded in the Incarnation, in which Christ both enables the Christian to believe in the Incarnate Word and instructs her in ‘putting on’ the Incarnate Word.53 Without both being able to believe that the Word became incarnate and that the Incarnation enables that belief, neither will one be able to see Christ in others nor to share in his sufferings. Christ as both head (caput) and body (corpus) thus effects salvation hitherto only implied in the Incarnation:

49 Tamen non unus homo est, sed unum corpus est: corpus autem Christi ecclesia est (en. Ps. 41.1; CCSL 38: 460). Here, in en. Ps. 41.1, Augustine juxtaposes homo (individual) against corpus (body). This type of exhortation can also be seen in en. Ps. 17.2, 59.1, and 90.II.1. These are examples of how Augustine uses this as a ‘rule of interpretation’. Conveniently, he places these, in most cases, very early in his sermons. 50 See Egon Franz, ‘Totus Christus. Studien über Christus und die Kirche bei Augustin’, PhD Thesis, Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn, 1956, 101; Scheel (1901), 283. 51 See Cameron (2012) for an account of the rhetorical features. 52 I have learned much from reading Adam Ployd’s account of the unus homo in the ‘Songs of Ascent’ (Pss. 119–33), but one way to understand my emphasis on induere would be to see it as Ployd’s absent ‘mechanic’ of human incorporation into Christ (see Ployd (2013), 84). 53 Ayres (2010) points out that Augustine develops his Christology through ‘a series of parallels and analogies between Christ’s unification of two natures in his person and the Christian’s growth from faith towards contemplation, from the life of the “old man” to the life of the “new” ’ (169).

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We know him thus as the whole Christ, which means Christ in this universal sense, Christ with his Church. But he alone was born of the Virgin, and he alone is the Church’s head, he who is the mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus. A mediator he had to be, in order to reconcile through himself those who had gone far away from God; for mediation implies two parties.54

Although Augustine at times speaks with confidence in this union of the una persona Christi, una persona Ecclesiae,55 it remains a deeply mysterious union: ‘Christ and the Church, two in one flesh. The fact that they are two points to the distance between us and the majesty of God. They are two undeniably, for we are not the Word . . . But when we consider the flesh, there we find Christ, and in Christ we find both him and ourselves. Small wonder that we find this mystery in the psalms.’56 The Caput-Corpus doctrine is thus not some cipher for the mystery of the Incarnation, but rather it is how the Church enters into the mystery of the Incarnation. Human incorporation into the totus Christus through an interiorisation of humility, furthermore, implies a particular epistemic stance. Augustine’s Caput-Corpus doctrine simultaneously relies on the belief that the Word became incarnate (i.e. Christ’s act of humility), and believing through the Incarnate Word (i.e. the human’s act of epistemic humility).57 Here, the conceptual and experiential cross in Augustine’s Christology: believing as the Incarnate Word in the form of Christ’s body not only makes possible but also completes the belief that the Word became incarnate.58 This epistemic stance is ‘put on’ not instantaneously but over time, highlighting again the necessity of patience. In other words, the epistemic stance develops through the process of faith, and as such is the sense in which ‘faith’ is an epistemic category for Augustine. This is an epistemic rendering of the famous Augustinian formula: per Christum hominem ad Christum Deum.59 Augustine actually had to ‘put on’ Christ’s humility and obedience to believe in the Incarnate Word. Patience is coupled

54

Talem ergo scientes Christum totum atque uniuersum simul cum ecclesia; ipsum autem solum natum de uirgine, caput ecclesiae, mediatorem scilicet inter Deum et homines Christum Iesum: ad hoc mediatorem, ut eos qui recesserant, per se reconciliet; medius enim non est nisi inter duos (en. Ps. 90 (2).1; CCSL 39: 1266; trans. Boulding. See also Babcock (1971), 24–5, where he has suggested that humans’ ascent to God is ‘balanced and paralleled’ by God’s descent to humans in the incarnation of the Word. 55 Hubertus Drobner, ‘Grammatical Exegesis and Christology of St. Augustine’, Studia Patristica 18:4 (1990), 49–63. 56 en. Ps. 142.3 (Boulding trans.); see also Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1994), 179; and Babcock (1971), 19. 57 See conf. 7.20.26. 58 Basil Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 1994), 169. 59 Per Christum hominem ad Christum Deum; per Verbum carnem factum, ad Verbum quod in principio erat Deus apud Deum (Io. eu. tr. 13.4; CCSL 36: 132). For difficulties with this formulation, see Studer (1994), 178–9.

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with humility, providing the conditions in which one may be able to travel from Christ’s human nature to his divine nature, from faith to sight. Moreover, this epistemic stance of patience also grows out of prayer. In the Soliloquia, Augustine presents prayer as the communication of the soul with God through its desires, which might initially seem to conflict with the virtue of patience. However, when incorporated into Christ, patience and desire align, forming two critical poles of Augustine’s thinking about Christian existence. This is particularly evident in Augustine’s monastic legislation. In his vision of monasticism, desire and patience are put into a process of mutual askesis, placing the suggested epistemic stance in continuity with the everyday, concrete practices of prayer. Though Augustine legislates specific times for prayer in the Ordo monasterii,60 his commitment is more generally to the Pauline injunction from 1 Thess. 5:17 to ‘pray without ceasing’.61 For Augustine, human desires pray without ceasing, but these desires are shaped by patiently making the words of the Psalms one’s own. The Psalms thus take pride of place in Augustine’s distinctive vision of Christian existence, extending the role of prayer presented in De sermone Domini in monte to the very form of the Christian’s relationship with the divine.

T O T U S CH R I S T U S AS ‘GRAMMAR’ O F P R A Y E R I N P SALM 8 5 Psalm 85 has long been recognised as an important source of Augustine’s understanding of prayer,62 but it has been overlooked as a source for understanding how the soteriological aspects of the totus Christus are explicitly tied to prayer in a way that provides Augustine with a ‘grammar’ of prayer. In other words, Psalm 85 displays the pedagogy inherent in Augustine’s practice of praying the Psalms, a practice which in turn informs his theory of prayer. As we shall see, learning the ‘grammar’ of the totus Christus does not rid human speech of its contingencies and infelicities, but rather teaches the Christian how one might learn to speak about God to God from humanity’s broken language. Beginning his sermon referencing the totus Christus, Augustine emphasises both the unity of the head and body in Christ and the unity of the Son with the Father: ‘God could have furnished no greater gift to humans than to make his Word, through whom he created all things, to be their head (caput), and to 60

61 ordo reg. 2 2; Lawless: 74. ep. 130. Vincent (1990a), 45–9, 55; the dating for this psalm has been variously given as 401 (La Bonnardière), 412 (Zarb), 414–15 (Rondet), and 416 (Perler), but for our purposes it is only necessary to ensure that it came after the important developments evident in exp. Gal. (see Fiedrowicz (1997), 435). 62

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join them to him as members (et illos ei tamquam membra coaptaret), thus being the Son of God and the Son of Man, one God with the Father, one man with us.’63 This unity that the Son has with both the Father and his fellow human beings provides a theological foundation of prayer: When we speak to God in prayer (deprecari) we do not separate the Son from God, and when the body of the Son (corpus Filii) prays (precari) it does not separate itself from its head, and being the one saviour of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, prays for us (oret pro nobis), prays in us (oret in nobis), and is prayed to by us (oretur a nobis). He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our head (caput), is prayed to as our God. We therefore recognize him in our voices, and our voices in him.64

There is, then, inscribed in prayer a three-part relation between the unity of the Father and the Son and the unity of the Son with humanity.65 In linguistic terms, the Church finds its ‘grammar’, that which provides the rules and principles of its language, in the totus Christus doctrine. Through the Incarnation of the Word, the Church not only learns the ‘grammar’ of God, but is also able to ‘speak back’ through the voice of the totus Christus. But learning to inhabit the voice of the totus Christus is both the work of divine initiative and that which the Church struggles to achieve through its earthly pilgrimage. In paragraphs 4 and 5, Augustine illustrates how, on the one hand, the body of Christ is already holy, but on the other hand, the whole Christ continually cries to God. Discussing the body’s holiness, Augustine says, ‘It is his voice, then, that I recognize when I hear the words, I am holy, but must I exclude mine from his? No; I can be certain that when he speaks, he speaks inseparably from his body.’66 Augustine goes on to highlight the necessity of ‘putting on’ (induere) Christ. This time, however, baptism is expressly emphasised as the modality of induere. This is, perhaps, not surprising, as Augustine is speaking to a mixed congregation. It is, then, the Christian’s baptism, how the Christian ‘puts on’ Christ, that allows Augustine to embolden his listeners to ‘consider where you are, and take hold of the dignity from your head’.67 Through the union between the head and the body, Christ and his church, Christ’s holiness is the church’s holiness, and only by virtue of the church’s collective holiness can one ascribe holiness to the self.

63

64 en. Ps. 85.1; CCSL 39: 1176. en. Ps.; trans. Boulding (2002). One might wonder whether this stress on the unity of the head and the body suggests a blurring of the distinction between Creator and creature (see en. Ps. 37.6, 138.2, 142.3; Io. ev. tr. 21.3). But it is, according to Fiedrowicz (1997), exactly at the points where Augustine asserts the unity that he applies the regula catholica, which states, in this instance, that Christ speaking the Psalms does not question his divine nature (303). 66 en. Ps. 85.4; trans. Boulding (2002), 224. 67 Iam uide ubi sis, et de capite tuo dignitatem cape (en. Ps. 85.4; CCSL 39: 1180). 65

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This confidence that the body is holy by virtue of the union with Christ is, however, placed within a temporally distended framework in the very next paragraph. Speaking about the verse, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, for I have cried to you all day long (tota die)’, Augustine interprets tota die as omne tempus: ‘From the day when Christ’s body began to groan in the press, until the end of the world when the pressures have passed away, this person groans and cries out to God, and we, each of us in our measure, add our own contribution to the clamour of the whole body’.68 The person crying is the whole Christ, the head and the body, so while the body is crying on earth the head is interceding at the right hand of the Father.69 The holiness, then, that the body has by virtue of its unity with its head is, to some extent, incomplete, for the body still cries out for its salvation as the head intercedes for its body. The holiness, while complete within the unity of the whole Christ, is still in formation during this age. This framework of the Christian life as being holy yet in need of mercy is recapitulated in the following two paragraphs as the body’s desire for union, set against its struggle with achieving such union in prayer. On the one hand, the members are in movement towards their head through their affections, their loves: ‘The steps are your affections (Gradus, affectus sunt), the way there, your will. You raise up by loving, and sink down by neglecting to love.’70 But, on the other hand, prayers are ‘for the most part so hindered by the idle thoughts that the heart can scarcely stand before its God’.71 Augustine’s solution for this problem of motivation and distraction is not the techniques of attention common to philosophical reflection—recall that this is a sermon preached before a mixed congregation—but to pray to God simply for God. Alluding to the Lord’s Prayer, Augustine suggests to his congregation, ‘Pray for what the Lord taught you to pray for; pray as your heavenly teacher instructed you, Call upon God as God, love God as God; nothing is better than he is, so desire God himself, hunger for God.’72 Though not explicitly mentioned, the Lord’s Prayer is here presented as something like an ‘exercise manual’ for prayer; it is the practice Augustine recommends to those who wish to speak with the ‘grammar’ of the totus Christus. In the totus Christus, prayer is both a practice of desire and a practice of waiting; it is both an expression of the Church’s holiness and an expression of its sinfulness. This is formed through the Christian making the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer her own.

68 69 70 71 72

en. Ps. 85.5; amended trans. Boulding (2002), 225. en. Ps. 85.5; amended trans. Boulding (2002), 225. en. Ps. 85.6; trans. Boulding (2002), 226. en. Ps. 85.7; trans. Boulding (2002), 226. en. Ps. 85.8; trans. Boulding (2002), 228.

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TOTUS CHRISTUS AS SUFFERING COMMUNITY IN PSALM 1 32 Despite his growing confidence in his pastoral ministry, Augustine’s evolving thoughts on the effects of prayer on his praying community—his monastic community—remain strained between the incompleteness of suffering and the fullness of dwelling together in unity, between the bickering of the refectory and the harmony of the chapel. In his sermon on Psalm 132, which comprises one of his most extensive commentaries on the nature of monastic life, these tensions are brought together in the totus Christus as the form in which the body of Christ learns to live with the inevitably non-ideal nature of community. In learning the ‘grammar’ of the totus Christus, one is not simply learning to speak a language, as we have learned to speak the language of our parents, but also to inhabit non-ideal communities as places where we might ‘dwell together in unity’. By learning a ‘grammar’ through assimilating the Son’s cry to the Father, the Christian is thereby adopting a form of life that is shot through with struggle and suffering. The intertwined practices of desire and waiting in prayer thus manifest themselves—indeed, are proven most salient— in the warp and woof of community life. ‘See how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity’ is Augustine’s refrain in his exposition of Psalm 132. Augustine spends the first half of his sermon cataloguing the various types of vocations and, in a few places, vilifying those he considers to be ‘pseudo-monks’, a polemic that is common throughout much of the extant early monastic literature. It is, however, in his discussion of the second verse—‘Like fragrant oil upon the head, flowing down upon the beard, Aaron’s beard, the oil that flowed down to the border of his tunic’—that Augustine weaves together the strength and suffering represented by the image of the ‘bearded man’ with Holy Spirit as ‘oil’ that flows from ‘head to beard’ in the totus Christus imagery: The fragrant oil is upon the head because Christ is one whole with the Church, and the oil flows from the head. Our head is Christ, crucified and buried, who was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven. And the Holy Spirit came from our head. To what did he come? To the beard. A beard is the sign of strong men; a beard is typical of young, vigorous, energetic, eager people. That is why we say, ‘He’s a bearded fellow,’ when we describe someone of this character. The fragrant oil therefore fell first upon the apostles, upon those who withstood the first attacks from the world: the Holy Spirit came down on them for this reason. Those who first began to live together in unity suffered persecution. Yet, because the oil had flowed down onto the beard, they suffered but were not overcome. Their head had preceded them on the path of suffering, and from him the oil flowed.73 73

en. Ps. 132.7; trans. Boulding (2004), 182.

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Here, Augustine presents the unified community as one unified in suffering. In other circumstances, suffering more often leads to disunity between the smaller and smaller unities that dominate a suffering society. But for Augustine, the community of the totus Christus is held together as a suffering community by the Holy Spirit that flows from the head to the body, providing the comforting balm so important during times of struggle and suffering. The predicament of the ‘bearded man’ is, in Augustine’s sermon, represented by St Stephen. Interpreted as charity in suffering, the story of Stephen’s stoning instructs his listeners in the prayer of Christian community: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you (Matt. 5:44).74 Augustine’s more commonly discussed metaphor of charity ‘gluing’ the body of Christ together is, to some extent, too sensational for the banalities of actual community life as he knew it in his own community. The metaphor in Psalm 132 is rather flowing: charity should not cease to flow or drip in times of suffering. The community-in-suffering learns to pray not only in their suffering but in Christ’s as well: But when the stones rained upon him his charity was not conquered, because fragrant oil had run down from head to beard, and he had heard the head saying, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you (Matt. 5:44). From that same head he had heard something else; from Christ hanging on the cross he had heard the prayer, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23.34). The oil that had flowed from the head to the beard produced a similar effect, for as Stephen was being stoned he knelt and prayed, Lord, do not hold this sin against them (Acts 7:60).75

The dripping of charity in community life is not so easily controlled as a gluestick is: it stops, it starts, it annoys. Community life is more often characterised by bickering than agreement. By reversing Augustine’s statement, ‘Because charity was not conquered, fragrant oil flowed down onto the beard’, we can capture the doctrinal point underpinning it: because the dripping oil of the Holy Spirit was not plugged up, charity flowed during times of suffering. Later in the sermon, Augustine describes this dripping oil as the ‘dew of Hermon, which flows down to the mountains of Zion’.76 Glossing this citation from Psalm 132, Augustine suggests that brothers dwell together in unity ‘only through the grace of God. They do not achieve it by their own efforts, nor is it the result of their own merits; it is God’s gift and comes to us by grace like dew from heaven.’77 The head and the body are thus held together by the gift of the Holy Spirit, represented as both dripping oil and dew from heaven. Both images represent Augustine’s doctrinal claim in the passage just quoted: the Holy Spirit’s role in the life of the community defies the all-too-common 74 75 76 77

en. Ps. 132.8; trans. Boulding (2004), 183. en. Ps. 132.8; trans. Boulding (2004), 183. en. Ps. 132.9; trans. Boulding (2004), 184. en. Ps. 132.9; trans. Boulding (2004), 184.

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attempts of human manipulation of the divine. But equally, the strenuous selfabdication displayed in so much monastic literature is left without a place, for the propulsion of desire still animates the monastic vocation.78 The ‘grammar’ of prayer that exposes and, to a limited extent, regulates the simultaneous claims of desire and patience manifests itself or becomes ‘fluency’ in the struggle of community life. The fluency of prayer is found in brothers learning to dwell together as brothers in unity,79 to share all possessions in common,80 to forgive quickly those who offend, and to dedicate oneself first and foremost to common prayer.81 It is through the give and take of communal prayer—often quite literally the giving and taking of words and gestures, food and drink—that the conflicting claims of desire and patience are transformed, over the course of an entire life, into the process of giving and receiving. The ‘grammar’ of desire and patience is, for Augustine, unrealisable without the fixed abode of the community, without which one would simply be Augustine’s pseudo-monks ‘who wander around . . . with no fixed abodes’.82 Yet, with the fixed abode of community comes strife and conflict and the opportunity to discover the way in which one’s desire and patience must be trained into alignment. The totus Christus as lived reality is thus the form of non-ideal community becoming sanctified; it is not the perfected community yet, but that which is on its way, with all the annoyance and suffering expected of any process of maturation. To ‘put on Christ’ one must learn to ‘put on’ his or her community, to live with the struggles and pains unique to one’s community; the process of induere is, then, a process of ‘deepening human relations’, as George Lawless defines the goal of Augustine’s asceticism.83 Furthermore, the ascetical community is not an exceptional form of Christian existence for Augustine: the monastic community is meant to display itself in the midst of the broader church community, not shut off in a rural convent but rather in the middle of the cathedral’s city life. The monastic community, then, models for the whole Christian body how they might deepen their relations in the midst of struggles, pains, annoyances, and, of course, bickering.84

CHRISTIAN E XISTENCE AS S U B S PEC I E OR A T I O N I S I ‘When praying in Psalms and hymns to God’, Augustine suggests in the Praeceptum, ‘the verse in the heart should be brought forth in the voice.’85 78

79 See en. Ps. 133.1 (continuation of en. Ps. 132). en. Ps. 132.9. 81 82 en. Ps. 132.12. en. Ps. 132.12. en. Ps. 132.3; trans. Boulding (2004), 177. 83 George Lawless, ‘Augustine’s Decentring of Asceticism’, in Dodaro and Lawless (2000), 142–63. 84 Martin (1998). 85 Psalmis et hymnis um oratis deum, hoc uersetur in corde quod profertur in uoce (reg. 3 2.3; Lawless: 84). 80

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Though it is rare for Augustine to clarify the psychology implicit within monastic practices,86 one can now see that, for Augustine in his sermons, prayer is similarly grounded internally, but with necessary external expression. This same dynamic between the interior place of religion and its external expression can be seen, as Henry Chadwick suggests, in the newly discovered Dolbeau sermons: Two themes appear to be recurrent. The first is that true religion is inward and a matter of the heart—outward acts are secondary and a means to a spiritual end . . . A second prominent theme is that true faith will issue in a reformed moral life. Many Christians think it enough to have faith but then live unregenerate lives.87

This dynamic between internally located piety and externally expressed virtue will reappear in the Rule of St Benedict with new emphases and in new contexts.88 It is not irrelevant that these sermons also touch on the theme of deification as a process that comes about through enduring the ‘wine press’ that is this world for Augustine. ‘We carry mortality about with us, we endure infirmity, we look forward to divinity. For God wishes not only to vivify, but also to deify us.’89 This life of mortality—the ‘wine press’—is above all characterised by the life of patiently enduring the world through prayer not only with our lips but in our lives as well. Christian existence, whether it is in the context of an ascetical community or lived ‘in the world’, is, for Augustine, lived sub specie orationis. The conditions of both the monastery and the cathedral thus forged Augustine’s distinctive view of Christological mediation, which gives force and context to the unity of the Holy Spirit. While these doctrinal aspects might seem like epiphenomenal ideology, they are, in fact, the realities in which prayer is grounded for Augustine. For the Bishop of Hippo, nothing short of salvation was at stake in prayer. Through entering Christ’s mediating prayer the Church discovers how Christ’s sacrifice is redemption pro nobis. It is ultimately, however, a pneumatology that highlights the totus Christus as an account of salvation grounded in the Church’s practices of prayer. In Chapter 4, I shall turn to the development of this pneumatologically assimilated Christology that arises in Augustine’s doctrine of the Trinity. In his doctrine of the Trinity, Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer emerge as a philosophically sensitive account of how one’s prayer might be a desire for the beata vita that is inaccessible to our knowledge and love. It is often tempting to forget the ecclesial background to De trinitate; however, by approaching this text with induere and totus Christus the theory and practice of prayer emerge in hitherto unacknowledged ways. 86 Gerald Bonner, Introduction to Augustine, On the Work of Monks, trans. Gerald Bonner, The Monastic Rules (New York: New City Press, 2004), 98. 87 Henry Chadwick, ‘New Sermons of St Augustine’, Journal of Theological Studies 47, pt 1 (1996), 69–91, 80. 88 89 See Chs 7 and 8. s. 23B.1 (Dolbeau 6; Mainz 13); trans. Hill (1997), 37.

4 Prayer as the Hope of Wisdom In the preceding chapters, I have traced the emergence of Augustine’s doctrine of prayer. Initially drawing philosophical inspiration from his early conjectures about ascent, Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer matures in and through his reflection on the Psalms. The ‘grammar’ of Christian existence discovered in the Psalms is inhabited, for Augustine, by appropriating the voices of Christ and his body. By viewing prayer through the historically distended exercitatio, we begin to see, on the one hand, that Augustine adopts a Pauline historico-eschatological soteriology that is shot through with desire, and, on the other hand, that patience emerges as the form the redeemed life takes in this world. Through the practice of prayer, desire and patience converge to form the theological virtue of hope. In other words, prayer is the mode through which Augustine envisions Christian existence as a hope that is caught between desiring the beata vita and waiting patiently for it as a gift. In Josef Pieper’s well-chosen words, ‘In hope, man reaches “with restless heart,” with confidence and patient expectation, toward the bonum arduum futurum, toward the arduous “not yet” of fulfillment.’1 For the pilgrim, prayer and hope are ordered to one another—hope speaks through prayer, and prayer is, as Jean-Louis Chrétien has said, the voyager’s chanson d’espoir.2 Augustine’s mature doctrine of prayer, informed by decades of practice and reflection, draws close to the theological virtue of hope, a conclusion one sees reflected in Augustine’s Enchiridion.3 In the preceding chapters, I have argued that the themes of desire and patience have constellated around a Christologically construed theory and practice of prayer in Augustine’s work. In this final chapter of Part I, I hope to draw these strands together in Augustine’s doctrine of the Trinity, achieving this through a circuitous route that puts more emphasis on the ‘spirituality’ of doctrine than the rigorous manipulation of theological categories. The Christological passages of De trinitate 4 and 13 comprise the heart of this chapter, but they will be framed by Augustine’s reflections on Romans 8:25–7. The starting point of the argument 1 2

Josef Pieper, Lieben, Hoffen, Glauben (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1986), 100. 3 Chrétien (2002), 153–4. ench. 30.114–15.

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is ep. 130, Augustine’s most developed discussion of prayer; here, Augustine responds to the widow Proba’s puzzlement about Paul’s reference in Romans 8, ‘we do not know what to pray for as we ought’, with a pneumatology that emerges out of human failure. The argument then concludes with Augustine’s references to Romans 8:25–7 in De anima et eius origine 4 that will occasion reflection on the connection between this pneumatology of failure and his antipelagian polemics. In De anima et eius origine, Augustine draws out one of the central themes in his debates with the ‘pelagians’, namely, that the Christian must live this life, not some idealised version of life, but one in which human failure is a persistent feature. The regrettable complexity of this chapter is necessitated by the theological flexibility of Augustine’s great dogmatic treatise. The animating question is, however, familiar to us by now: how does the body of Christ make the progression into divine wisdom? Or, in the terms that we will see in De trinitate 13, how is it that people appropriate Christ’s sapientia through his scientia, that is, how does one find Christ’s immortal wisdom through Christ’s mortal knowledge? This argument owes much to the work of Lewis Ayres,4 Robert Dodaro,5 Luigi Gioia,6 and Rowan Williams,7 each of whom draws directly or indirectly on J.-M. Le Blond’s rewarding Les conversions de S. Augustin.8 According to Williams, who is most specific about this reliance, Le Blond has shown that ‘Augustine saw the incarnation as a révélation de méthode spirituelle’. In the anglophone appropriations of Le Blond’s work, the méthode spirituelle has been applied to Augustine’s strategies for reading Scripture.9 Without denying the importance of these insights, I will suggest, following the work of Monique Vincent,10 that it is the mode of reading Scripture as prayer that comprises Augustine’s méthode spirituelle, a point that I have been tracing in nuce from Augustine’s commentary on the Lord’s Prayer through his evolving thoughts on the totus Christus. In this chapter, I will restrict my attention to excavating the role of prayer in the Christian’s assimilation of Christ as scientia and sapientia. Through a greater emphasis on ‘participation’, this excavation will prove to clarify the process of

4 Ayres (1998); (2010), 142–73; and ‘Augustine on Redemption’, in Mark Vessey, ed., A Companion to Augustine (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), 416–27. 5 Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 147–81. 6 Gioia (2008). 7 Williams (1990), 1:317–32; and ‘Augustine’s Christology: Its Spirituality and Rhetoric’, in Martens (2008), 176–89. 8 Jean-Marie Le Blond, Les conversions de Saint Augustin (Paris: Aubier, 1950). 9 Ayres (2010), (2012), and Dodaro (2004) have especially taken this line. 10 ‘Les exégètes modernes nous en apprennent sans doute davantage sur le sens littéral des psaumes, leur genre littéraire, l’époque où ils furent composés. L’exégèse d’Augustin est d’une valeur incomparable quand il s’agit d’alimenter la prière. Ce sont précisément ses conséquences pour la prière chrétienne en général que nous voulons essayer de préciser maintenant’ (Vincent (1990a), 41).

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induere that Augustine highlighted in his commentary on Galatians and that was implied in his totus Christus doctrine. In the Christological passages of De trinitate, ‘participation’, induere, and the totus Christus–three inseparable loci of Augustine’s ‘drama of redemption’–are sewn together through the life of prayer. It must also be stated at the outset that this account is a self-consciously minimalist account of Augustine’s Christological doctrine of participation. As a general note, I think it is imperative that we accept the limitations of Augustine’s Christology. This does not suggest that, in the spirit of Karl Rahner, I opt for a ‘functionalist’ account over and above an ‘ontological’ account.11 Rather, we must be aware of what Augustine’s account does and does not warrant: there are ‘functionalist’ and ‘ontological’ aspects of Augustine’s discourse on Christ, but neither is fully pushed to its conclusion by Augustine himself. For example, as much as we might yearn for an account of the phenomenological, psychological, and existential hydraulics of the process of induere/participatio, Augustine stops short of offering those to us. Instead, Augustine opts to dislocate the reader spiritually in a way not unlike Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or Epictetus’ Discourses.12 What is often viewed as the absence of any technical treatment is typically chalked up to Augustine’s isolation from the major trends of fifth-century Greek theology.13 This misses the point of Augustine’s Christology. Complete and full integrity is possible only in sapiential existence, and Augustine’s discourse on Christ is intended to make sense of the claim that Christ is the wisdom of God even in this fragmented and rarely very edifying world. Christology’s power resides, in other words, in its rhetorical capacity to persuade Christians to live with integrity in a world in which scientia and sapientia are splintered by our mortal existence. In a way that might be underwhelming for the modern reader who desires a how-to guide to participatio, Augustine’s discourse on Christ is pressed into the service of reading Scripture, loving your neighbour, and worshipping God as Trinity. The only plausible way for Augustine to do these things with integrity, so he thinks in the last few decades of his life, is to trust that the Spirit is interceding through his epistemic and moral failures that keep him inexorably tied to Christ’s mortal scientia.

EP. 1 30 : F A I LI N G TO W A R D S T H E B E A T A VI T A In ep. 130 to Proba (c.411), Augustine provides a more pointed discussion regarding the desire for the beata vita expressed in prayer. Proba, the wealthy 11 Karl Rahner, ‘Christology Today?’, in Theological Investigations, vol. 17 (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 24–38. 12 Pierre Hadot, ‘Une clé des Pensées de Marc Aurèle: les trois topoi philosophiques selon Épictète’, Les Études Philosophiques 1 (1978), 65–83; reprinted in Hadot, Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (Paris: Éditions Albin Michel, 2002), 165–94. 13 See Daley (1999).

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Roman widow who fled to North Africa from the Goths, had written to Augustine inquiring about how one ought to pray. Drawing heavily on texts that have been the subject of this study, Augustine wrote to Proba with his most developed theological account of prayer. The letter itself encompasses a wide range of issues within prayer, but my discussion will be restricted to paragraphs 10–15, where Augustine addresses the Pauline conundrum ‘we do not know what to pray as we ought’. The Pauline conundrum is often taken either as the problem that we do not know what to pray or as the problem that we do not know how to pray. Augustine considers both aspects: It is the what of prayer that will help Augustine decipher the how of prayer. In response to this Pauline statement, an important sequence of arguments unfolds: first, in paragraph 10, Augustine offers an account of how the Egyptian ascetical tradition suggests one might maintain the intentio of prayer; second, in the two subsequent paragraphs (11–12), Augustine provides a reading of the Lord’s Prayer that subtly undercuts the psychology of the Egyptian tradition; and last, in paragraphs 13–15, Augustine offers a reading of Romans 8:25–7 that gives his own account of how one might maintain the intentio of prayer. The desire for the beata vita is redirected into the Holy Spirit’s ‘groanings’ that emerge from a posture of patience. Following a standard interpretation of Romans 8:25–7, then, the Holy Spirit provides Augustine with the missing epistemic ‘link’ between human desire as it temporally unfolds and the beata vita that exists a-temporally. While contemplation of Christ is the locus of prayer, the movement from the humanity of Christ to the divinity of Christ is animated by the Holy Spirit. The background to this sequence of arguments is important. Augustine’s initial response to Rom. 8:26 is to suggest to Proba to ‘pray for the happy life, for all human beings desire to have this’.14 As highlighted in De vera religione and De sermone Domini in monte, Augustine emphasises that the beata vita is only realised in the next life.15 A consequence of this eschatological location of the beata vita is that one’s temporal desire for the beata vita shares ambiguously with two species of desire: the desire for a temporal object (e.g. health) and the desire for an eternal object (e.g. knowledge of God). The concepts of health and knowledge express two important facets of Augustine’s understanding of the beata vita, but I shall focus here on the knowability of eternal ‘objects’, for that seems to be Augustine’s concern in ep. 130. Echoing the opening lines of the Confessiones, Augustine writes to Proba, ‘How, after all, do we express, how do we desire what we do not know? For, if we were completely ignorant of it, we would certainly not desire it, and again, if we see it, we would not be desiring it or seeking it with groans.’16 Here is, then, the

14

Ora beatam uitam; hanc enim habere omnes homines uolunt (ep. 130.4.9; CSEL 44: 50). ep. 130.7.14. 16 quo modo enim narretur, quando desideratur, quod ignoratur? nam utique, si omni modo ignoraretur, non desideraretur et rursus, si uideretur, non desideraretur nec gemitibus quaereretur (ep. 130.15.28; CSEL 44: 73). 15

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outline of the epistemic difficulty encountered at the end of Chapter 2. While a temporal object can be reasonably desired (i.e., it is an object that one has the potential, if not actual, capacity to know), an eternal object such as the beata vita falls outside the domain of knowable objects. It is, therefore, initially plausible to conclude that one’s temporal desires will not adequately ‘aim’ at the right object. It is in aid of this epistemic problem, common to theologies of contemplation, that Augustine relies on a doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is important to dwell on this epistemic puzzle for a moment because the beata vita is one of the must curious concepts in Augustine’s oeuvre. For Augustine, the beata vita is domesticated by the suggestion that it is simply a species of eudaimonism appended by ‘an afterlife with continuous personal identity’.17 I take the beata vita to be a state of affairs, and while a temporal state of affairs can be reasonably desired, an eternal state of affairs, such as the beata vita, falls outside the domain of knowable states of affairs. Desires being indexed to the concrete conditions of one’s life, one might initially conclude that one’s temporal desires will not adequately ‘aim’ at the right object if it is somehow outside one’s life. In ep. 130, Augustine takes this a step beyond the discussion in De vera religione and De sermone Domini in monte,18 suggesting that the beata vita is not simply unrealisable in this life, but that it admits of no representation, for the mortal mind cannot imagine the immortal life. It is for this reason that Augustine warns against the temptation to infer from this life to the next.19 There are, then, two relevant types of epistemic failure, subtly related but nevertheless distinguishable. The first kind occurs when one is confusing an imagined beata vita with the true object of desires. A classical example of this type is the misidentification of the beata vita with earthly pleasures, even those that are imagined on a much larger scale than can be achieved under normal circumstances. The second kind of epistemic failure occurs when one is attempting to imagine that which admits of no representation. The classic example of this is drawn from knowledge of God: a simple being (God) is unrepresentable by multiplicity (world). In other words, any attempt to represent, a task that can only happen in the world, would implicate God in multiplicity. Simply put, there is no human way to represent God. Likewise, there is no simple way to represent the beata vita. In ep. 130, Augustine is primarily concerned with the latter type of epistemic failure. The beata vita is, therefore, not so much an issue of the continuity of personality between this life and the life to come, but rather of the existential discontinuity between mortality and immortality, a divide that does not simply map onto this present life and the afterlife. A consequence of this existential dislocation of the beata vita is that one’s temporal desire for the beata vita is radically disturbed.

17

Byers (2012), 72.

18

vera rel. 27.50; s. dom. m. 2.11.38.

19

en. Ps. 86.9.

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In the text of ep. 130, Augustine structures his response to Proba around responding to the claim of Rom. 8:25–7: ‘we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words’. The challenge placed before Christians by Paul’s letter to the Romans had a venerable tradition in Greek theology, one with which, as has been apparent in this study, Augustine becomes acquainted over the course of his career. It is to the discussion I highlighted above regarding the location of prayer that Augustine alludes in ep. 130.10.20 Not only for his fellow Greek-speaking theologians but also for those Latin-speaking theologians who read Greek, Origen’s De oratione influentially locates prayer in the mind (νοῦς, mens).21 While Origen himself takes the puzzling command to pray without ceasing to be possible only ‘if we say that the whole life of the saint is one mighty, integrated prayer’,22 his Egyptian descendants, according to Augustine’s account, provide techniques to keep the mind always in prayer.23 Reflecting a greater acquaintance than he did in De moribus, Augustine writes to Proba, ‘The brothers in Egypt are said to say frequent prayers, but very brief ones that are tossed off as if in a rush, so that a vigilant and keen intention, which is very necessary for one who prays, may not fade away and grow dull over longer periods.’24 In responding to this, Augustine seems to endorse the practice but not the underlying psychology: For to speak much in praying is to do something necessary with superfluous words, but to petition (precari) him much to whom we pray (precari) is to knock with a long and pious stirring of the heart (diuturna et pia cordis excitatione pulsare). For this task (negotium) is very often carried out more with sighs than with words (plus gemitibus quam sermonibus), more with weeping than with speaking (plus fletu quam affatu).25

As Augustine says in the previous paragraph, ‘Much talking is one thing, a lasting love (diuturnus affectus) is another.’26 Critically, it is a lasting love issued from the heart that Augustine proposes as a counterpart to the mind’s intention. For Augustine, then, the act of verbally petitioning God is necessary, but it operates as a discipline of the affections. Mens is attested only once in ep. 130, and Augustine’s use is instructive: We, therefore, always pray with a continuous desire filled with faith, hope, and love. But at certain hours and moments we also pray to God in words . . . the Apostle said, Pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). What else does that mean but, ‘Desire without ceasing the happy life,’ which is none but eternal life, and desire it 20

See discussion of prayer in interior homo as animus, cor, and mens in Chapters 1 and 2. Origen, De oratione 2.4, 12.1; see also Bonner (2004), 94. This point is considerably more nuanced in Origen. 22 Origen, De oratione 12.1; see also Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 7.7. 23 24 ep. 130.10.20; CSEL 44: 62. ep. 130.10.20; trans. Teske (2003), 193. 25 26 ep. 130.10.20; trans. Teske (2003), 193. ep. 10.19; trans. Teske (2003), 193. 21

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from him who alone can give it? Let us always desire this and always pray for this from the Lord God. But at certain hours, by the words of prayer, we call the mind (mens) back to the task of praying from other cares and concerns, which in a sense cool down this desire.27

In contrast to the Egyptian tradition’s use of language to focus the mind on God, Augustine’s use of language renders it not entirely necessary, strictly speaking. Language is meant, more minimally, to redirect, to remind the heart of its desire for the beata vita.28 Although Augustine opts for the heart over the mind here, prayer is no less an epistemic issue than if it were otherwise. Verbal prayer as a reminder to desire one’s true object is, in paragraphs 11–12, further developed through engagement with the Lord’s Prayer. Reflecting directly on the first of two aspects of Rom. 8:25 (what should one pray?), Augustine proposes a different structure for prayer than the one proposed in his earlier commentary. Whereas Augustine structured the Lord’s Prayer in De sermone Domini in monte as a conditional using the beatitudes and Gifts of the Spirit (Si [gn] . . . est [bn] . . . oremus ut [pn]),29 here in ep. 130 Augustine suggests what the petitions ought to remind (admonere) the supplicant of. He goes on, in a fashion similar to De sermone Domini in monte, to parallel the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer with other scriptural passages. But instead of a conditional structure, Augustine opts for the form ‘qui dicit . . . qui aliud dicit quam . . . ’. For example, ‘When one says (qui dicit), “God of hosts, convert us and show us your face, and we shall be saved” (Ps. 79:4), what else is he saying but (qui aliud dicit quam), “May your kingdom come”?’30 Two aspects are relevant, one structural, another doctrinal. First, the purpose of this new structure is not a rejection of the ascent motif Augustine used in the earlier commentary; rather, it is to highlight for Proba that the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer exhaustively encompass every ‘holy petition’.31 These developments will provide the doctrinal foundation for the exercitatio described in De trinitate 4 and 13. And second, the passages Augustine explicitly links with the seven petitions are overwhelmingly Christological.32 This is a significant development, one that might seem counter-intuitive to my argument that the Holy Spirit is critical for Augustine’s Christocentric spirituality. But it is important to keep in mind what was established in Chapter 3: Christ is the locus of prayer. In one of his homilies to those seeking baptism, preached around the same time as ep. 130, Augustine suggests why the Christological location is so important: ‘The words our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us in his prayer give us

27

ep. 9.18; trans. Teske (2003), 192; see also the use of mens in s. 58.1. s. 59.5 explicitly locates prayer in the heart; see also s. dom. m. 2.3.10–14, and the discussion in Ch. 2 above: ‘Prayer and Christian Existence in De sermone Domini in monte 2’. 29 See again my codification of the distinct requests of the Lord’s Prayer in Ch. 2. 30 31 ep. 130.12.22; modified trans. Teske (2003), 194. ep. 130.12.22. 32 Wisd. 23:6, Wisd. 36:4, 36:18, Ps. 7:4–5, Ps. 59:2, Ps. 79:4, Ps. 119:133, Ps. 132:1, Prov. 30:8. 28

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the framework of true desires.’33 The petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are those of the Son for the Father, and to pray rightly one must enter into the very petitions, the very desire of the Son for the Father. Built on the foundation of a Christology, Augustine thus develops an implicitly trinitarian account of prayer as the love of the Son for the Father. What, then, is the role of the Holy Spirit in Christologically located prayer? Although the Lord’s Prayer has answered the question for what one should pray, the second aspect of Rom. 8:26 is still lingering—how ought one to pray? As we saw, Augustine thinks the Egyptian tradition fails on this front. Interestingly, it is the failure of prayer that counter-intuitively suggests to Augustine the agency of the Holy Spirit. Through a brief reflection on Paul’s ‘failed’ prayer in 2 Cor. 12, Augustine highlights that even Paul did not know how to pray because the object of his prayer is such that ‘we cannot think of it as it is’.34 Without belabouring the point, Augustine suggests a strategy common in apophatic theologies: one must negate ‘earthly’ conceptions in order to begin to refer to ‘heavenly’ objects. ‘Whatever comes to mind as we think’, Augustine suggests, ‘we cast aside, reject, disapprove, and know that this is not what we seek although we do not know what sort of thing it is.’35 Paul’s prayer for his ‘thorn of the flesh’ to be removed, just as any other human supplication would, improperly expressed prayer’s desire for the beata vita. It is in this epistemic failure of prayer and the subsequent negations that the Holy Spirit emerges to ‘intercede for us with inexpressible groans’. ‘There is in us, therefore, a certain learned ignorance (docta ignorantia), so to speak, but an ignorance learned from the Spirit of God (docta spiritu dei), who helps our weakness.’ Finally quoting Rom. 8:26–7 in full, Augustine accounts for the Holy Spirit not as one praying as a human would, for the Spirit is ‘immutable God in the Trinity’, but as that which actualises, makes it possible for humans to pray for that which they do not know but wait for in patience: ‘He makes the saints intercede with inexpressible groans, therefore, when he inspires them with the desire for so great a still unknown reality, which await in patience. How, after all, do we express, how do we desire what we do not know?’36 Therefore, only at the intersection of creaturely failure and negation in prayer does the Holy Spirit’s role in prayer become apparent. The Holy Spirit’s location in human failure captures a central feature of Augustine’s doctrine of prayer. The groaning of the Holy Spirit in us, that which emerges through creaturely failure, does not shift the supplicant from mortal to immortal prayer. Rather, remaining firmly planted on this earth, the supplicant waits in patience. Where other theorists opt for accounts of ecstatic prayer that suggest a kind of immortality, albeit a temporary one, Augustine emphasises a patience that chastens the desire of the beata vita. This might 33 35

34 s. 56. ep. 130.14.27; trans. Teske (2003), 197. 36 ep. 130.14.27; trans. Teske (2003), 197. ep. 15.28; trans. Teske (2003), 198.

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seem to represent an important divergence from the ‘ascent’ at Ostia in Confessions 9, but that passage is equally austere evasive either Augustine or Monica having actually achieved some kind of immortal vision.37 This reading of the Spirit ‘leaving behind’ its human supplicants is reflected in Augustine’s theory of participation in De trinitate 4. Just as Augustine’s interpretation of the Spirit’s intercessions is marked by his lifelong practices of prayer, so too are the Bishop’s reflections on participation indelibly stamped by the wisdom of prayer. The desire of prayer is not fulfilled by the acquisition of some object or state of affairs; rather, it is a desire that waits. Turning now to the inner frame, we shall see how the habit of prayer that informs Augustine’s De trinitate critically shifts our understanding of participation in his great dogmatic treatise.

DEPRECARI AND PRECARI AS STRUCTURING ANTITHESIS Luigi Gioia has pointed out that the prologue to De trinitate 4 is remarkable in that Augustine ‘leaves behind for the moment the distance which suits his pedagogical and carefully progressive method of exposition and opens his heart to his reader’.38 Indeed, the prologue to book 4 is a kind of précis to the personal assimilation of Christ through participation. By exploiting the dynamic between deprecari and precari,39 Augustine fills in the concept of induere40 with the more philosophically familiar concept of participation. Augustine writes, ‘So he finds it a relief to weep and implore (deprecari) him over and over again to take pity and pull him altogether out of his pitiful condition, and he prays 37 See Charles Mathewes, ‘The Liberation of Questioning in Augustine’s Confessions’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70:3 (2002), 539–60 for a similar account of the episode at Ostia in conf. 9. 38 Gioia (2008), 40. In ep. 174 (c.425), which he requested be placed at the head of De trinitate, Augustine wrote to his fellow bishop Aurelius suggesting that, among others, the prologue to book 4 was missing at the time of writing the material. While the exact date of the prologue to book 4 is uncertain, it was evidently written with the relevant parts of De trinitate in view, as the prologue serves as a summary statement to the Christology of books 4 and 13. See La Bonnardière (1965), 165–77; cf. E. Henrikx, ‘La date de composition du De trinitate’, in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, vol. 15: La Trinité (Livres I–VIII) (Paris: Desclée-de Brouwer, 1955), 1. Echoing Basil Studer (‘ “Sacramentum et exemplum” chez Saint Augustin’, Recherches Augustiniennes 10 (1975), 87–141, 127–33), Dodaro (2004) has argued, ‘Despite the sophistication of these arguments, no convincing evidence for dating any part of Book 4 has yet been produced’ (156). Gioia (2008) has suggested that the prologue to book 4 was written at the final editing of the work, but I see no reason for such a definite dating, as, according to La Bonnardière’s (1965) suggestions, Augustine could have written it any time after 418. 39 See my discussion in the Introduction for an account of Augustine’s terminology for prayer. For a general account of Augustine’s use of deprecari/precari, see Vincent (1990b), 2:783–804, 784–5. 40 See discussion of exp. Gal. in Ch. 3.

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(precari) with all confidence once he has received the free gratuitous pledge of health through the one and only saviour and enlightener (inluminator) granted us by God.’41 Here, deprecari signifies a prayer for mercy or pardon, for something to be taken away, and precari is more adequately understood as a kind of prayer or supplication for something to be given. It is by deprecari that Augustine asks for pity, and only after he has received his pledge of health does he use precari. Participation is, for Augustine, surprisingly caught between deprecari and precari, rather than some supernatural extension beyond precari. ‘Participation’ is, however, a term with many senses, resulting in myriad confusions in contemporary historical and systematic theology. In the most general terms, participation can be construed along horizontal and vertical axes. The horizontal axis has often been associated with concrete Christian practices such as prayer, baptism, Eucharist, and almsgiving,42 or more radically, with solidarity with the poor and dispossessed.43 The vertical axis is, then, associated with the relationship between God and humans, a relationship that is often signified by ‘divinisation’ or ‘deification’ (deificatio, deificare).44 In both the horizontal or vertical axes participation is construed as a two-part, asymmetrical relation.45 In other words, there are two parts, one of which participates in the other, a one-way relation that can be formulated, as Paul Griffiths highlights, in either direction.46 In horizontal participation, Christians will most often only stress one direction, for example the human participating in baptism (it would be uncommon to hear someone say ‘baptism participates/participated in me’). In vertical participation, however, both directions of the relation are stressed. It is thus common to hear Christians say both that ‘humans participate in God’ and that ‘God participates in humans’. Because of the complexity of vertical participation, Christians often focus on that sense; but in this chapter, I will seek to draw both senses together to 41 flere dulce habet et eum deprecari ut etiam atque etiam misereatur donec exuat totam miseriam, et precari cum fiducia iam gratuito pignore salutis accepto per eius unicum saluatorem hominis et inluminatorem (trin. 4.prol; CCSL 50: 159). 42 Proponents of this sense of ‘participation’ often highlight the ecclesiological foundation. See Reinhard Hütter, Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000). 43 This has most clearly come through certain liberation theologies. See G. Gutierrez and Judith Condor, ‘The Task and Content of Liberation Theology’, in Christopher Rowland, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 19–38. 44 See Gerald Bonner, ‘Augustine’s Concept of Deification’, Journal of Theological Studies 37 (1986), 369–86, and his later, ‘Deification, Divinization’, in Fitzgerald (1999), 265–6. Bonner (1986) was a groundbreaking paper (see Robert Puchniak, ‘Augustine’s Conception of Deification, Revisited’, in Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, eds, Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2006), 122–33). For a bibliography of deification in twentiethcentury Augustine scholarship, see Meconi (2013), xvi–xvii, n. 13. 45 For a very helpful analysis along these lines, see Paul Griffiths, Intellectual Appetite: A Theological Grammar (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press, 2009), 75–91. 46 Griffiths (2009), 78.

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demonstrate that Augustine’s understanding of participation is at once buried in the practices of the Church and a figuration for thinking the divine nature. Within the Latin tradition of vertical participation or deification, Augustine is often considered the beginning of this reflection. But he has an important predecessor in Hilary of Poitiers. It is Hilary who, according to Brian Daley, is credited with the Latin appropriation of the ‘emerging Greek soteriology and eschatology of “divinization”’.47 Hilary develops his thoughts on deification in book 11 of his own De trinitate.48 In discussing 1 Cor. 15:24–8 (Christ’s ‘subjection’ to the Father, a passage that caused much controversy between Eusebius and Marcellus two decades earlier), Hilary transfers this subjection to the human’s order of knowledge—one can only come to the Father through the Son.49 Human transformation or deification will occur in Christ’s transformation of us, that is, the assumed humanity.50 As will be evident, this is an important antecedent to Augustine’s own Christologically located ‘participation’. In recent scholarship, however, Latin theology’s understandings of participation have been read within the context of theosis in ‘Eastern’ theologies. This often invites an implicit claim regarding the absence of or deficiency in ‘Western’ notions of participation.51 As a result of these readings, there is a tendency to test Western notions of deification, and Augustine in particular, against an undeclared standard of ‘Eastern’ understandings of theosis.52 47 Brian Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook on Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 96; see also Michael Durst, Die Eschatologie des Hilarius von Poitiers: Ein Beitrag zur Dogmengechichte des vierten Jahrhunderts (Bonn: Borengässer, 1987), 74–89; for a general background to Hilary’s De trinitate, see Carl L. Beckwith, Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity: From De fide to De trinitate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 48 Quod itaque Deus erit omnia in omnibus, adsumptionis nostrae profectus est. Qui enim, cum esset in Dei forma, repertus est in forma serui, rursum confitendus est in gloria Dei Patris: ut non ambigue in eius forma manens intellegetur, in cuius erit Gloria confitendus . . . Nostra haec itaque lucre sunt et nostri profectus, nos scilicet conformes efficiendi gloriae corporis Dei . . . Ceterum nos in hominis nostri conformem gloriam proficiemus. In agnitionem Dei renouati ad creatoris imaginem reformabimur . . . Consumatur itaque homo imago Dei. Namque conformis effectus gloriae corporis Dei, in imaginem creatoris excedit secundum dispositam primi hominis figurationem. Et post peccatum ueteremque hominem in agnitionem Dei nouus homo factus, constitutionis suae obtinet perfectionem, agnoscens Deum suum et per id imago eius, et per religionem proficiens ad aeternitatem, et per aeternitatem creatoris sui imago mansurus (Hilary, De trinitate 11.49; 462: 380–2). 49 50 Hilary, De trinitate 11.30–49. Hilary, De trinitate 11.30–49. 51 See Andrew Louth, ‘The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology’, in M. Christensen and J. Wittung, eds, Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007), 32–44, 35. 52 After the early twentieth-century drama of East-vs-West theological narratives (e.g. the so-called ‘de Regnon paradigm’), there has been a corresponding reaction that has seen some ‘Western’ theology read through ‘Eastern’ categories, the prime location of which is Augustine’s doctrine of ‘participation’. For an understanding of ‘participation’ in a general category of ‘Pro-Nicene’, see Ayres (2004b), 321–4. Ayres’ account of ‘participation’ seems to rely on the common anthropology that he discerns in ‘dual-focus purification’, which explicitly links Ambrose and Augustine with the ‘Cappadocian’ Fathers (325–35). In another context, Todd

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Augustine’s understanding of participation is Christological, and thus both vertical and horizontal. This is, of course, not a distinctive aspect of Augustine’s understanding of ‘participation’, for both Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa see ‘participation’ in Christ as the intersection of divine–human participation and human–institution participation (i.e. almsgiving, Eucharist, etc.).53 But how Augustine understands participation to be both vertical and horizontal is important, and this matter is made particularly difficult for Augustine by his tendency to shift between discussing aspects of Christ that are grounded in the relationship between the divine persons, and aspects that are grounded in the relationship between God and creation. It is therefore important to stay close to Augustine’s language. Augustine often uses a form of adhaerere or inhaerere to signify human participation in the divine,54 and a form of participatio to signify ‘horizontal’ participation, which through the doctrine of hypostatic union is also ‘vertical’ participation, so there is no fixed meaning to the terms used for participation in Augustine’s work.55 As always, when dealing with an occasional and rhetorically minded theologian, one must be cautious when considering the relevant terminology. My supposition is that, for Augustine, participatio is phenomenologically horizontal but ontologically vertical by virtue of its Christological location.56 However, its ontological verticality is made possible by the intercession of the

Billings has suggested that this is often the fate of John Calvin vis-à-vis the sufficiency of his understanding of participation. See Billings, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 6–14. Both Ayres and Billings, in their own ways, are in dialogue with Radical Orthodoxy theologians, as John Milbank in particular has put ‘participation’ back on the ‘Western’ theological agenda. In a recent exchange between Radical Orthodoxy theologians and Eastern Orthodox theologians, Radical Orthodoxy’s notion of ‘participation’ has received some clarification: Adrian Pabst and Christoph Schneider, eds, Encounter Between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical Orthodoxy: Transfiguring the World through the Word (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009). 53 Ayres (2004b), 302–24. 54 Augustine is following the Latin from Ps. 72:78, ‘inhaerere Deo bonum est’. This is particularly clear in the uses of inhaerere in conf. (see 7.11.17, 8.1.1, 10.17.26, 10.28.39, 10.34.53, 12.9.9, 12.11.12, 12.15.22, 13.8.9). The earlier ascents also use inhaerere language (see, e.g., ord. 2.10.28; quant. 33.76; mus. 6.13.38, 6.13.42, 6.14.46, 6.16.53). The use of inhaerere in vera rel. is peculiar for Augustine (see 3.3, 24.45, 45.83, 50.98, 54.105). The use of adhaerere is relatively rarer: conf. 8.6.15, 10.21.30, 13.19.25; mus. 6.1.1; vera rel. 10.19, 40.76, 41.78, 47.90, 55.113). In trin. 4.15.20, inhaerere is apposite with contemplatio; in trin. 13.17.22, Augustine uses it in explicit reference to ‘inhering to God’. 55 There is much scope for particular work on this term in trin. alone. I have located twenty uses of participatio/particeps: 1.6, 2.6, 3.2, 3.3, 3.9, 4.2, 4.6, 4.8, 4.13, 5.10, 6.5, 7.1, 8.3, 13.9, 14.4, 14.8, 14.12, 14.14, 14.19, 15.3. My purpose in this chapter is not so much to give an exhaustive account of participation in Augustine, but to demonstrate how the theory and practice of prayer takes up this important theological theme. 56 This is the key difference between Hilary and Augustine. While both locate participation in Christ as an eschatological event that is characterised, above all else, through the categories of knowledge and wisdom, Augustine’s use of Christ’s two natures allows for participation to ‘straddle’ this age and the next.

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Holy Spirit, who emerges in the epistemic failure in attempting to desire the beata vita. In De trinitate we can find Augustine sorting through this puzzle via prayerful reflection on participation. In this way, I will argue, Augustine’s use of deprecari/precari in book 4 of the De trinitate provides a ‘key’ to the epistemic problem of scientia and sapientia in book 13, and warrants my more general claim that prayer is the practice of inquiry that transposes one from scientia to sapientia. But, as we will later see, for Augustine the transposition from scientia to sapientia is ultimately completed by the ‘groanings’ of the Holy Spirit in and through creaturely failure.

PARTICIPATION IN D E T R I N I T A T E 4 In his Enarrationes in Psalmos, Augustine metaphysically invests his doctrine of the totus Christus with the process of induere in order to account for how Christ’s justification can actually be redeemed. In De trinitate 4 the process of induere itself is under consideration. At 4.4 Augustine begins to fill out the heretofore elusive process of induere: To cure these and make them well the Word, through which all things exist, became flesh and dwelt among us. Our enlightenment (inluminatio) is, of course, participation (participatio) in the Word, which is, one may know, the life that is the light of humans. Yet we were absolutely incapable of such participation (participatio) and quite unfit for it, so unclean were we through sin, so we had to be cleansed.57

Two features of participation subtly emerge from this passage when seen through the matrix of prayer. First, humanity’s uncleanness is blocking this participation, which is also anticipated by Augustine’s use of deprecari in the prologue. Deprecari is, as was already suggested, a prayer for purification, that is, for a stripping away of uncleanness, a common enough concept in late antique religious and philosophical thought.58 And second, Augustine seems to think of participation as something that partly occurs within time, that is, a part of the diachronically distended act of faith. When discussing precari in the prologue, Augustine glosses the Son, to whom the supplication is addressed, as saluator hominis and inluminator. There, precari is indicative of a state of existence that occurs within this life, or at least through history, and this supplication is achieved through the inluminatio of Christ, indicating that the illumination

57

trin. 4.4; slightly modified trans. Hill (1991), 154–5. See Henry Chadwick, ‘Philosophical Tradition and the Self ’, in G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds, Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2001), 60–81. 58

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has, to some extent, already begun.59 In 4.4 Augustine connects participatio with inluminatio, thereby indicating that he thinks of participatio as something that occurs to some extent within this life. To use Augustine’s language from his Galatians commentary, participatio begins sub gratia. This clarifies two features of induere when understood as participatio.60 Induere requires, in the first place, the purification requested by deprecari; and in the second place, it is merely the beginning of the act of faith that is expressed through precari. Let us look closer at the first. ‘The only thing to cleanse the wicked and the proud man is the blood of the just man and the humility of God,’61 which is necessary in order that humans can ‘contemplate God, which by nature we are not, and we would have to be cleansed by him who became what by nature we are and what by sin we are not’.62 Here, one can see a further expansion of the notion of participatio: Augustine connects the human capacity for participation with human contemplation of God, explicitly highlighting the need for purification. Augustine goes on to account for this cleansing in a style more reminiscent of his homiletic material— namely, Christ’s homeopathic cure: By nature we are not God; by nature we are human; by sin we are not just. So God became a just man to intercede with God for sinful humanity. The sinner did not match (congruere) the just, but human did match (congruere) human. So he applied to us the similarity (similitudinem) of his humanity to take away the dissimilarity (dissimilitudinem) of our iniquity, and becoming a partaker (particeps) of our mortality he made us partakers (participes) of his divinity.63

Lines that have hitherto been implicit are now made explicit. There is a ‘match’ or ‘congruence’ between the humanity of Christ and humans’ humanity; the incongruence, that which needed to be healed, is between Christ’s justice and humans’ sinfulness.64 The cleansing is thus not simply a result of the Incarnation as homeopathic. In other words, purification does not happen simply by God becoming human. Rather, the homeopathic presumes the cleansing powers of the heteropathic: only by virtue of Christ’s dissimilitudinem can 59 This, of course, fits with Augustine’s other references to illumination: sol. 1.6.12–13; mag. 12.40; conf. 4.15.25, 5.6.10, 10.2.2, 10.40.65; Gn. litt. 12.29.57–31.59; trin. 9.6.9, 10.1.2, 12.15.24, 14.7.9, 15.25.44. 60 Whereas in exp. Gal. Augustine follows the Pauline language, here in trin. the language of participatio is preferred. Thus, while induere and participatio are not semantically identical, they do overlap. 61 Porro iniquorum et superborum una mundatio est sanguis iusti et humilitatis dei (trin. 4.4; CCSL 50: 163–4). 62 ut ad contemplandum deum quod natura sumus et quod peccato non sumus (trin. 4.4; CCSL 50: 164). 63 trin. 4.4; modified trans. Hill (1991), 155. 64 For discussion of the specific role of Christ’s justice, see Dodaro (2004), 72–114; for a more general account of congruentia in this passage, see Williams (1990), reprinted and cited from Rowan D. Williams, On Augustine (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2016), 144.

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Christ’s similitudinem implied in his participation effect human participation in his divinity. The heteropathic remedy, however, is grounded in Augustine’s conception of justice and sin, which highlights the ontological difference between God and humanity that is held together in the one ‘person’ of Jesus Christ.65 This ontological difference offers Augustine the opportunity to develop one of his more creative insights. The asymmetry between the single of Christ and the double of humanity evokes the principle of harmony: This match (congruentia)—or agreement (conuenientia) or harmony (concinentia) or consonance (consonantia) or whatever the right word is for the proportion of one to two—is of enormous importance in every construction or better said as accurate joining together (coaptatio) of creation. What I mean by this coaptatio, it has just occurred to me, is what the Greeks call ἁρμονίαν.66

Augustine’s vocabulary here is aesthetical and musical—concinentia and coaptatio, the root of the latter is aptus—which draws on both metaphysical and the ethical discourses.67 Indeed, for Augustine, especially in De musica 6, aesthetic categories rely on metaphysical notions of the proportion inherent in the creation as well as certain ethical norms deemed appropriate for social beings. The healing that Christ provides is not a ‘violent’ heteropathic remedy, but one whose difference calls forth the sameness of the homeopathic remedy. In more strictly theological terms, Christ’s humanity is not some third thing added to humans’ body and soul; rather, Christ’s humanity is a ‘new humanity’ that fully harmonises body and soul.68 Christ’s unity which heals human disunity is a paradigmatic case of 1:2 harmony, the most basic and perfect of all harmonies, according to Augustine.69 This form of purification (mundare) is achieved by a kind of participation, but notice that Augustine does not use the word participatio here. Instead of participatio, Augustine appeals to Christ’s similitudo and dissimilitudo to the human condition. Here, the reader must face the question: does Augustine envision the purification in Christ’s similitudo to be extrinsic to the supplicant? While purification occurs, to some extent, extrinsically by Christ’s justice, it also calls for repentance and moral rectitude, both of which dovetail with inluminatio and participatio understood within the deprecari/precari framework. For, in the first place, repentance is a kind of stripping expressed in deprecari, and, 65 For an account of Augustine’s development in his use of ‘person’, see Hubertus Drobner, Person-Exegese und Christologie bei Augustinus: Zur Herkunft der Formel Una Persona (Leiden: Brill, 1986). 66 trin. 4.4; trans. Hill (1991), 155. 67 See Carol Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Thought of Saint Augustine (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); this is a revealing glimpse into Augustine’s thinking, for Augustine often finds recourse to musical categories when in open reflection such as this. 68 Williams (2008), 180. 69 For Augustine’s detailed account of this proportion, see trin. 4.7–12.

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in the second place, moral action improves over time (de die in diem) as precari is envisioned. While purification is by virtue of Christ extrinsic, it is conceptually intrinsic to human participation in Christ. One can thus tentatively conclude that purification and participation are, to some extent, coextensive processes for Augustine. Through this notion of purification, participation itself undergoes significant modification, a consequence often overlooked.70 In this notion, in fact, Augustine has merged two diverse strands from late antique thought into his Christology. While, on the one hand, Augustine’s conception of participation is developed vis-à-vis negative engagements with Porphyry, his conception of faith is, on the other hand, developed from readings of Paul that shape his interpretation of the Psalms.71 In short, Augustine blends an anti-Porphyrian polemic and a Pauline view of Christ’s mediation. It is difficult to discern which engagement is ‘below’ the other, and it is instructive to see how thoroughly and fundamentally they are intertwined for him. From an early age, Augustine’s fascination with philosophy was guided by the name of Christ, as was evident by his rejection of Cicero’s Hortensius because ‘the name of Christ was not there’.72 Augustine’s later ‘rejection’ of the ‘Platonists’ likewise includes the criterion of the Incarnation.73 Augustine’s direct engagements with philosophers are most often located in a Christological discussion (e.g. ciu. 8–10),74 in part because the kind of ‘philosophy’ Augustine wished to refute was that which appealed to pagan purificatory rites and what might be called theurgical participation. Augustine’s reaction to ‘theurgy’ is most clearly presented in De ciuitate Dei 10.10, where he associates it with the lying of demons. In light of Augustine’s argument there, it would be hard to imagine a reading of Augustine which showed his approval of theurgy. For Augustine, theurgy was associated with divination or even magic, two aspects from which Christian prayer specifically sought to distinguish itself. Theurgy is problematic because it is a mechanism of control. Augustine’s reaction to theurgical participation thus results in his centring both the necessary purification and the subsequent participation in Christ, both of which emerge diachronically in the supplicant’s life. Whereas Porphyry (and other late antique Platonists) thought of participation as vertical, Augustine, with the help of Paul, envisions participation as a horizontal movement through time that, by virtue of Christ’s two natures, is also always ‘vertical’ in potentia. For Augustine, then, Christian participation is most fundamentally a disposition of waiting, of patience in and with this present life. 70 See H.-D. Saffrey, ‘Les débuts de la théologie comme science (IIIe–Vie)’, Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 80 (1996), 201–20; for discussion, see Ayres (1998), 138, n. 76; Gerald Bonner, ‘Christus sacerdos: The Roots of Augustine’s Anti-Donatist Polemic’, in A. Zumkeller, ed., Signum pietatis. Festgabe für Cornelius P. Mayer OSA zum 60. Geburtstag (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1989), 325–39); Dodaro (2004), 94–104. 71 72 73 See Ch. 3. conf. 3.4.7. conf. 7.9.13, 7.21.27. 74 Gioia (2008), 40–67.

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This account of participation is, however, still incomplete. As stated, it inadequately captures the processes by which the Christological dynamic intersects with the human. At 4.5 Augustine thus adds the dynamic of the homo exterior/homo interior vis-à-vis the resuscitation of the soul: However, the longer this life lasts, the more does the body, as outer man, decay whether by age or sickness or a whole variety of troubles, until it comes to the last of them which everybody calls death. Its resurrection is deferred to the end, when our justification will be inexpressibly perfected. For then we will be like him because we will see him as he is (similes ei erimus quoniam uidebimus eum sicuti est). But meanwhile, as long as the body which decays is weighing down the soul, and human life on earth is one long trial, in God’s sight is no man living justified, in comparison with that justice in which we shall be equal to the angels, and with that glory which shall be revealed in us.75

By temporally distending participation, Augustine does not immanentise the eschatological forms of ‘being like’ and ‘seeing like’ (similes ei erimus quoniam uidebimus eum sicuti est). Rather, he associates ‘being like’ and ‘seeing like’ as features of what humans will become in the resuscitated homo exterior, a surprising conclusion for the reader expecting to find a Plotinian detachment from the body.76 Just as participation is anticipated by purification, and to some extent coextensive with it, the homo exterior is anticipated in the homo interior. In other words, participation between humans and the divine is, to some extent, captured by ‘horizontal’ participation that, more often than not, has the appearance of Christian practices (e.g. prayer, almsgiving, fasting). But this only seems to intensify the question regarding how the vertical is held potentially within the horizontal, an answer to which will take Augustine deeper into the Christological mysteries. It is in the homo interior that through prayer one initially ‘puts on’ Christ through faith. ‘So then, the one death of our saviour was our salvation from our two deaths, and his one resurrection bestowed two resurrections on us, since in either instance, that is both in death and in resurrection, his body served as the sacrament of our inner man and as the model of our outer man, by a kind of curative accord or symmetry (conuenientia).’ Recalling the 1:2 harmony, Augustine places the supplicant on a trajectory from the homo interior to the homo exterior, placing the temporal interior regeneration on a continuum with the final exterior regeneration. In other words, the resurrection of the body—when humans will be in pace, the fourth stage in his Commentary on Galatians77—is anticipated by an interior resuscitation that places it on the same trajectory as participation. Participation begins within the human nature of Christ, but is not exhausted by it, just as Christ’s human nature does not exhaust who the person of Christ is. Full participation in 75

trin. 4.5; trans. Hill (1991), 155–6.

76

See en. 1.4.

77

See Ch. 3.

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Christ will be in the unum ‘person’ of Christ, the full and complete unity of divine and human, which, in turn, will effect a unity not only in people individually but in the unum that will be the Church. Augustine’s understanding of Christ’s two natures is thus inextricably embedded in his understanding of the human assimilation in Christ. Homo interior and homo exterior thus have their divine counterparts in Christ as sacramentum and Christ as exemplum respectively. This is seen in Augustine’s explicit correlation of sacramentum/exemplum and homo interior/homo exterior: So then, the one death of our saviour was our salvation from our two deaths, and his one resurrection bestowed two resurrections on us, since in either instance, that is both in death and in resurrection, his body served as the sacrament of our inner man and as the model of our outer man (in sacramento interioris hominis nostri et exemplo exterioris), by a kind of curative accord or symmetry.78

Christ as sacramentum and exemplum is shown here to animate the temporal movement from homo interior to homo exterior, despite the fact that the diachronic process of induere is, to some extent, synchronically conceived by virtue of Christ being himself simultaneously sacramentum and exemplum.79 That participation begins as a process through time does not suggest it is ever other than an act of divine grace: without Christ simultaneously being sacramentum and exemplum, Christ’s simplum could not heal humans’ duplum. As Rowan Williams has pointed out, the theological heart of this harmonious ‘match’ of 1 to 2 is that Christ’s healing simplum is not some ‘extra element alongside the human soul and body (as if the incarnate Word were part of a threefold complex of equipollent elements) but because the soul-body compound is in this case concretely animated and individuated by a single divine agency’.80 In other words, Christ’s single divine agency harmoniously animates the necessarily complex (because temporally enacted) movement from homo interior to homo exterior. This analysis of participation, which reads Augustine’s Christology in De trinitate 4 in continuity with his commentary on Galatians, is the fruit of reading participatio in the light of the antithesis between deprecari and precari in the prologue to De trinitate.81 Once we do this, we see that, for Augustine, 78

trin. 4.6; trans. Hill (1991), 157. Despite Christ’s agency being, then, a-temporal, its animation of induere is not thereby dehistoricised. That participation is a temporal process makes it no less an act of divine grace that effects an eternal state. This is an extremely important point for identifying the kind of Augustinianism found in Regula Benedicti. Although the action of Christ is temporal, there is no reason to suspect this of temporal processes tout court. Another important distinction is from that of Proclus’ ‘unitive participation’ envisioned as a kind of a-temporal participation (The Elements of Theology, props 2 and 3). Augustine understands participation as the movement towards exemplum. What similitudo, one of Augustine’s word for eternal participation, looks like is, it is fair to say, indiscernible to Augustine. 80 81 Williams (2016), 145. trin. 4.prol. 79

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human desire is now seen as a temporal phenomenon that centralises the virtue of hope. As I have suggested, hope is that for which humans simultaneously reach and wait: it is animated by desire and sustained by patience. In the early ‘ascents of the soul’, the desire or striving inherent in ratio was the animating force of the believer’s movement from scientia to sapientia. Patience was, if anything, established as a handbrake in order to prevent desire from careening off track. But through envisioning the ascent as Christologically formed prayer, Augustine centralises the temporal process of ‘putting on’ Christ, which places desire within a process that requires patience for the deliverance of the desired goods (i.e. beata vita and visio Dei). For the believer to ‘put on’ faith, she must assimilate in herself the patient desire that is found in supplication. The purification ‘put on’ by faith is that which is begged for in deprecari, and the participation that results is the life of supplication in precari. In book 13, this movement from deprecari to precari enters the longings of Christ, which provides Augustine with his solution to the problem of scientia and sapientia, albeit a solution that is only eschatologically realised.

FAITH AND CONTEMPLATION, S CI E N T I A AND SAPIENTIA IN D E TR I N I T A T E 1 3 Augustine’s celebrated discussion of scientia and sapientia has rightly received much attention, particularly with how it fits into De trinitate.82 What has been overlooked, however, is the value of the prologue to book 4 for understanding the process of ‘putting on’ Christ as both scientia and sapientia. When faith is placed on the arc between deprecari and precari, it becomes a temporal exercitatio of the soul. But whence does faith receive its faculty of desire? Augustine’s preferred synonym for prayer in the Enarrationes in Psalmos is ‘longing’ (desiderium),83 and this is confirmed in his ep. 130 to Proba, where he suggests, ‘our desire (desiderium) is exercised in prayer’.84 My contention is that the movement from faith in Christ to contemplation of Christ occurs through the temporal process of ‘putting on’ Christ as scientia. When faith and desire are located in Christ as scientia, they grow towards Christ as sapientia. But how exactly does Augustine propose that human supplications can actually enter the longings of Christ? Beginning with the supposition that human supplications are not themselves salvific, where Christ’s longings are, one must look closer at the particulars of the human assimilation of Christ as scientia and how it could ever become sapientia. 82

See Williams (1990), Ayres (1998), Dodaro (2004). Ipsum enim desiderium tuum, oratio tua est; et si continuum desiderium, continua oratio (en. Ps. 37.14; CCSL 38: 392); see also 39.3, 80.7, 86.1 inter alia. 84 ep. 130.8.17; see also en. Ps. 37.14; for commentary, see Chrétien (2002), 171. 83

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The complex relationship between the second and third persons of the Trinity in the assimilation process is displayed by two citations of 1 Cor. 12:8 (‘To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge through the same spirit’), by which Augustine ascribes to the Holy Spirit the animation of the movement from Christ’s human nature to his divine nature. This pneumatological reference is oriented towards the Christological figuration of scientia and sapientia at trin. 13.1. A second reference at 13.24 confirms this reading. Augustine is using this passage to highlight the distinction between scientia and sapientia, and thereby locating this pneumatological reference in Christology. As I suggested when discussing ep. 130, there is a curious and not altogether predictable role for the Spirit in the failure of prayer. But one should be careful not to overplay the Holy Spirit’s role as some kind of extrinsic salve to seal up the epistemic gaps, for it is ultimately Christ, according to Augustine, who heals the breach between scientia and sapientia. Moreover, Christ is the source of the language formally taken up within prayer. In light of the pneumatologico-Christological complex, the driving question of book 13 becomes less opaque. The question is less one of how and in what way faith might ‘achieve’ the goal of sapientia. Rather, it is more a question about how faith operates to ‘receive’ sapientia. It is in this sense that De trinitate 13 has a profoundly anti-pelagian spirit to it: redeeming faith—faith that is ultimately endowed by and with Christ’s sapientia—cannot be produced or manipulated by mechanisms of spiritual or moral practice. The object of faith’s receptivity is ultimately God’s love through the donum of the Holy Spirit, which in turn allows humans to move from ‘vague desire to well-ordered love’ and thereby to find their own agency in the receptivity of divine agency.85 For Augustine, this receptivity cannot be conceived of as anything but passivity outside the new humanity of Christ. The agency of faith is best understood through the kind of agency that arises within the patience of deprecari—the ‘groanings’ of failed prayer—and the desire of precari. How, then, does faith receive sapientia? The short answer should already be apparent from Chapter 3—faith is the mode of ‘putting on’ or assimilating Christ’s desires as one’s own. The long answer emerges in Augustine’s discussion of scientia and sapientia at 13.24–6, which, as we shall see, is crucially related to the understanding of prayer as sustained by patience. The underlying relationship between desire and patience within one’s faith in Christ demonstrates that one is still in the terrain of deprecari/precari. At 13.17, Augustine concentrates, in particular, on the kind of desire that the supplicant assimilates in Christ. Augustine distinguishes between willing virtues such as bravery, moderation, and justice, and the desire for immortality and beatitude. In the former, Augustine believes that willing the right thing and having

85

T.J. van Bavel, ‘The Anthropology of Augustine’, Milltown Studies 19/20 (1987), 25–39, 31.

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the power to achieve it are necessary; in the latter, the power to achieve immortality and beatitude is not available to humans, but has already been achieved in the work of Christ,86 harkening back to the problem of desiring the beata vita encountered in ep. 130. It is this latter desire that is of concern. ‘As for the other things that he does well to want and yet is not able to get, like immortality and true and full felicity, let him not cease to desire them and patiently await them (desiderare non cesset et patienter exspectet).’87 In ep. 130, where the problem of temporal longings for eternal objects is the most acute, Augustine proposes (1) that the supplicant’s desire is itself the prayer,88 and (2) that the prayer, and by extension the desire, is for the beata vita.89 The outline of Augustine’s response to the problem of temporal longings for eternal objects is now becoming clear—he must distinguish between two kinds of desires that, as we shall see, the ‘pelagians’ confuse. On the one hand, desires for virtues such as bravery and justice issue (relatively) straightforwardly from the agency of the human. But on the other hand, desires for immortality and beatitude are filtered through patience: one must both ‘desire without ceasing’ (desiderare non cesset) and ‘patiently await’ (patienter exspectet) these eternal objects. It is the latter that expresses the agency of receptivity that is found in faith, and, as we shall see, in prayer. This formula of desire for eternal objects, however, arises for Augustine not out of some empty epistemic category of ‘faith’, but rather out of faith in the Incarnate Word.90 In his final riposte to philosophical conceptions of the beata vita at 13.12, Augustine explicitly addresses the mode of receiving (recepire) Christ: This faith of ours, however, promises on the strength of divine authority, not of human argument, that the whole man, who consists of course of soul and body too, is going to be immortal, and therefore truly happy. That is why in the gospel it did not just stop when it had said that Jesus gave those who received him the right to become sons of God, and briefly explained what receiving him meant by saying to those who believe in his name.91

This passage highlights what, in more polemical terms, Augustine addressed to Porphyry in De civitate Dei 10. According to Augustine, Porphyry acknowledges the need for grace, but does not recognise it in Christ: ‘If only you had recognised the grace of God through Jesus our Lord! If only you had been able

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87 trin. 13.8. trin. 13.17; trans. Hill (1991), 357. exerceri in orationibus desiderium nostrum (ep. 130.8.17; CSEL 44: 59). 89 Ora beatam uitam; hanc enim habere omnes homines uolunt (ep. 130.4.9; CSEL 44: 50). 90 I am not herewith suggesting that one cannot employ Augustine’s trinitarian theology for an account of knowledge; rather, I am suggesting that whatever epistemology is advanced is directed specifically at knowledge of God. Augustine’s theological epistemology is misunderstood when used, say, to account for one’s knowledge of a cat walking down the staircase. 91 trin. 13.12; trans. Hill (1991), 353. 88

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to see that his very incarnation, by which he assumed a human soul and body, is the supreme example of grace!’92 At De trinitate 13.12, however, Augustine identifies that which is required—namely, believing in his name. The desire for beata vita is directed through faith in Christ, locating the Spirit’s ‘groaning’ on our behalf within a Christology. But faith in Christ does not displace human desires tout court. On the contrary, faith in Christ, which is the mode of ‘putting on’ Christ’s desires, animates the Christian’s true desires for God and the freedom found therein. In other words, Christ’s desires do not directly become the Christian’s desires; rather, the reception of Christ in faith modifies the human desires that are, so to speak, downstream. For Augustine, these downstream desires are no less human desires for having a divine origin. The mode of faith is both the mode of assimilating Christ’s desires and the origin of new human desires, thereby relocating the anthropological problem of temporal longing for eternal objects as a problem of faith in Christ. But how does the modality of faith become contemplative, that is, how does it begin to aim at Christ’s immortal divinity? This relies on Augustine’s account of the temporal work of Christ spanning the time/eternity divide, the most trenchant division between faith and contemplation. ‘That the onlybegotten from the Father is the one who is full of grace and truth means that it is one and the same person by whom deeds were carried out in time for us and from whom we are purified by faith in order that we may stably contemplate him in eternal things’ (eum stabiliter contemplemur in rebus aeternis).93 Augustine describes faith here as the mode of assimilating Christ’s desires and the purification of the human desires necessary for contemplation of eternal objects (in rebus aeternis). But at what point does temporal faith in Christ become contemplation? Christ is himself that which unites temporal action and eternal contemplation, for the supplicant Christ is, in this age, experienced as an object of faith, and, in the age to come, ‘experienced’— surely this word would no longer suit—as an object of contemplation. This transmutation of faith into contemplation directly corresponds to the purification/participation framework in book 4, for the purification wrought by faith occurs through the temporal process expressed by deprecari and precari. By looking at the movement from faith to contemplation through the lifelong practice of prayer, we can now observe a relationship between scientia and sapientia that is, on the one hand, dependent on the communicatio idiomata of Christ’s two natures and, on the other hand, appropriated to the human through the intercessions of the Holy Spirit.94 Ultimately, the 92 ciu. 10.29; see discussion in Dodaro (2004) for an account of Augustine’s insistence (contra Porphyry) on the one mediator Jesus Christ (73–97). 93 trin. 13.24; trans. Hill (1991), 363. 94 Studer (1975) and Dodaro (2004) present similar accounts of the relationship between scientia and sapientia in Christ; the account offered by Dodaro (2004) is closest to this account, as it relies on a ‘dynamic interrelationship between Christ’s two natures’. I differ

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alignment of scientia/sapientia and purification/participation provides the grounds for prayer to become a practice through which one enters into the longings of Christ that usher one into the beata vita.95 Augustine presents a compact statement on Christ’s role in healing this very breach between scientia and sapientia: Therefore, our knowledge (scientia) is Christ, and our wisdom (sapientia) is the same Christ. It is he who plants faith in us about temporal things, he who presents us with the truth about eternal things. Through him we proceed toward him (per ipsum pergimus ad ipsum), through knowledge (scientia) toward wisdom (sapientia), without ever turning aside from one and the same Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.96

In this famous passage, Augustine offers Christ as a kind of metaphysical key to the question of scientia and sapientia. For Augustine, the hypostatic union between the two natures of Christ signifies the union of scientia and sapientia. But the metaphysics of Christ does not itself have curative power for Augustine. Rather, Christ’s union of scientia and sapientia is curative only by virtue of the supplicant’s assimilation of Christ, an assimilation that, as we saw, only goes so far in this life. Humans are ultimately stopped at the door of immortality, and it is only the Spirit that has any hope of carrying humanity over the mortal– immortal threshold. In other words, for this to be a solution for the Church, it must ultimately return to the induere process that ultimately relies on the inexpressible ‘groans’ of the Holy Spirit. Participation occurs in this age through placing faith in the scientia of Christ, but scientia can only become sapientia through ‘failure’, or rather only at the point where the human person reaches her limit and is left with no other device or scheme than to trust that the Holy Spirit’s ‘groaning’ is completing her scientia. This transformation of scientia into sapientia is therefore not immediate, but is rather found within the diachronic distension of faith itself that is not completed until the age to come. The phrase per ipsum pergimus ad ipsum does not imply an immediate vision of sapientia, an interpretation that would emphasise the two uses of ipsum. Rather, through the temporal process of scientia one trusts that one proceeds to sapientia, an interpretation that emphasises pergere. It is not the strength of scientia that allows it to proceed to sapientia; rather, when the Holy Spirit is in play, it is quite the opposite. It is through the weakness or failure of scientia that the Holy Spirit emerges. from Dodaro (2004) in my emphasis on the Holy Spirit as that which appropriates the redemption held within Christ in potentia to the human person. 95 A full account of this would demonstrate that, for Augustine, contemplation of Christ is contemplation of Christ’s divine nature, which is not distinct from the divine nature of the Trinity. Therefore, contemplation of Christ in eternity is contemplation of the Trinity. See Ayres (2008), (2010), 147–55. 96 trin. 13.24; trans. Hill (1991), 263–4.

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This occurs, for Augustine, within the ontology of Christ’s two natures, and the journey between is that for which faith operates. The key is thus the induere of faith as sustained by constant prayer. Augustine’s solution to the problem of scientia and sapientia, at once ontological and phenomenological, is only an ultimate solution when the human striver reaches the limit defined by precari. Just as the Christian advances from deprecari to precari by desiderare non cesset et patienter exspectet, so too does the Christian assimilate Christ’s sapientia through his scientia. Hence, it is in De trinitate 13.24, more so than in any other place, that one can see the inadequacy of Markus’ dichotomy between salvation as an ‘ordered progression towards a distant goal’ and salvation as a ‘sustained miracle of divine initiative’.97 While temporally distended for the Christian who is always in this life distended by her duplum, the pilgrimage from Christ’s human nature to his divine nature is ontologically possible because of Christ’s simplum, but phenomenologically actual because of the Holy Spirit’s intercession. As I argued at the end of Chapter 1, in Augustine’s De vera religione the temporally distended exercitatio falls apart at this exact point because ‘ordered progression towards a distant point’ can only lead to an historical teleology. In other words, one cannot proceed as if Christ’s sapientia is simply otherworldly. Because Christ’s sapientia is immortal divinity, the form progress in this life must take is, curiously, the progress toward failure, through which humans encounter their limits. For Augustine, the Spirit ‘completes’ the transformation from scientia to sapientia, but in an all-too-unsatisfactory way: the Spirit does not offer the Church liberation from the constant struggle of time or the promise that her projects will not falter. No human project, even the project of sanctification, is ever fully guaranteed by the Spirit on human terms. The idea of a ‘guarantee’, like its epistemic counterpart ‘certainty’, attempts to remove the Church from her place in this life, with its limitations, both moral and epistemic.

DE AN IMA ET EIUS ORI GI NE 4 : I N D E F E N C E OF IGN ORANCE Although Romans 8:25–7 decidedly sits on the margins of De trinitate, it should now be apparent how the account of Christological redemption in Augustine’s great dogmatic masterpiece is shot through with the ambiguities and risks of the Spirit’s intercessions. Turning now to De anima et eius origine 4, we will return to the epistemic puzzle that began our inquiry in this chapter. What links De anima et eius origine 4 with ep. 130 is Augustine’s epistemological querying of Romans 8. In the case of this later document (likely written well

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Markus (1988), x–xi.

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after 421), we find Augustine in the middle of a sprawling commentary on the nature and origin of the soul, a debate which has traditionally been associated with the later stages of the pelagian controversy. In the fourth book Augustine is responding to Vincent Victor’s criticisms. But our concern is limited to Augustine’s reflection on what he does not know: the origin of the souls that God has given to human beings after the first man. In paragraphs 9–13, Augustine provides a theological coda of sorts on the state of ignorance in the Christian life. ‘Perhaps you look down on me for my admitting my ignorance,’ Augustine poses to Victor. ‘But I am not going to stop warning or, if you prefer, at least advising you to acknowledge our common weakness in which virtue is made perfect.’98 The common weakness here is ignorance of the origin of one’s soul, a weakness shared, so Augustine’s interlocutor thinks, with the ‘lower’ or ‘irrational’ animals, an accusation that is countered, somewhat surprisingly, with Romans 8:26: Are you perhaps going to judge that I deserve mockery and am like the irrational animals, because I said, We do not know what we should pray for as we ought (Rom. 8:26)? Perhaps that would be more tolerable. After all, it is a correct prayer, not on account of what we were, but on account of what we shall be. Hence, it is certainly much more of a concern that we do not know what we should pray for than that we do not know how we came to be.99

It is thus the apostle Paul who stands in this instance for the Christian inquirer par excellence. Paul’s excellence is not, however, of some ideal type, but rather fitted for this world. Although De anima et eius origine lacks the contextual cues to consider it ‘anti-pelagian’, it shares deeply and in important ways in the milieu of Augustine’s anti-pelagianism. Augustine’s hesitation is informed by his reading of Romans 8:25–7. Later, this will grow into outright hostility with any theory of the human person that divorces its quest for salvation from the contingencies that mark temporal existence. Though it is often limited to moral concerns, especially as it arises within the deeply moral issues of grace for those who acquiesced to torture in the Donatist schism, Augustine’s hesitancy is always related to a broader principle of human existence that includes the intellectual life. As in ep. 130, the Spirit thus plays an elusive role, and his intercession on behalf of human ignorance is not without its risks: Nonetheless, when he said, We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, he immediately adds, But the Spirit makes intercession with ineffable groans. And he who searches hearts knows what the Spirit thinks, for he intercedes for the saints as God wills (Rom. 8:26–7) . . . May the Spirit, then, teach me this as well, when he wills, if he knows it is good for me to know my origin in terms of my soul.100

98 99 100

an. et or. 4.7.11; trans. Teske (1997), 521. an. et or. 4.9.13; trans. Teske (1997), 523. an. et or. 4.9.13; trans. Teske (1997), 523.

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The question of the origin of the human soul is, for Augustine, unknowable for principled theological reasons: the Spirit will teach Augustine what the Spirit wills, when the Spirit wills. The Spirit ‘completes’ human prayer, but stops short of replacing ignorance with knowledge. Just as the ignorance of Paul’s ‘failed’ prayer is a product of his humanity, ignorance of the origin of the human soul is intertwined with what it means to be human. Augustine could have said to Victor what he said to Pelagius: ‘that is not the sort of nature we have at present’.101 To pretend to have knowledge or moral capacity beyond what humans have is tantamount to refusing the means through which God has elected to redeem humanity, for Augustine most of all wants Victor to remember that it is his common weakness with the Bishop of Hippo in which his virtue is made perfect. Augustine is articulating a principle that runs throughout all of his works written in the last decade and a half of his life, a period of time that was consistently scored by his debates with Pelagius and his followers: one cannot pretend to live or think as someone other than what they are. Romans 8:26–7 represents an overlooked principle of Augustine’s resistance against what he took to be Pelagius and his followers’ project of spirituality, and brings to the fore an important connection with his mature doctrine of prayer. In short, Pelagius removes the risk of failure from human ‘spirituality’; he and his followers attempt to control exactly where Augustine places the unpredictable work of the Spirit. They both see Christ as the exemplum, but only Augustine recognises that Christ’s exemplum is a sacramentum that opens up space for the human project of spirituality that necessarily fails. It is, in sum, in the failure of human spirituality that the Spirit intercedes. Pelagius might have been just a little too sane to rest his spiritual programmes on a pneumatology of failure.

PRAYER AS A P RACTICE OF I NQUIRY I In reading Augustine’s account of scientia and sapientia through deprecari and precari, the humility of Christ emerges as the epistemic ‘hook’, and it is the Spirit that ‘reels in’ the Christian into the life of God. The Spirit is, in other words, not some epistemic enabler for Augustine, but is rather the fellow traveller alongside whom humans learn to traverse from Christ’s humanity to Christ’s divinity. As discovered in his incarnate life, Christ’s humility is thus the initium of faith. This recalls the Christological themes that emerged from Augustine’s account of prayer in his Enarrationes in Psalmos. Augustine’s

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totus Christus doctrine originated within Christ’s cry of dereliction ‘My God, my God, look upon me, why have you forsaken me’. Augustine’s early expositions of the Psalms were strained efforts, but by turning his focus to the humanity of Christ, his humility, Augustine was able to conceive of Christ’s words as expressive of redemption. This focus on the human nature of Christ is also important in the prologue to book 4: Such a man, poor (egens) and grieving (dolens) in this way, is not puffed up by knowledge (scientia) because he is built up by charity (caritas), since he has valued knowledge above knowledge (Praeposuit enim scientiam scientiae); he has put knowledge of his own weakness above knowledge of the walls of the world, the foundations of the earth and the pinnacles of the sky; and by bringing in this knowledge he has brought in sorrow, the sorrow of the exile stirred by longing for his true country and its founder, his blissful God (dolorem peregrinationis suae ex desiderio patriae suae et conditoris eius beati dei sui).102

Initially, this passage might seem to conflict with our reading of book 13, for here scientia is opposed to Christ’s virtue of humility. However, Christ’s scientia is itself humility, and entering into Christ’s scientia is ‘putting on’ Christ’s humility. Humility is foregrounded in Augustine’s Christology precisely because the Church enters into Christ by ‘putting on’ or participating in his humanity. But just as Christ was transfigured in the resurrection, so too will the humility of faith be transfigured into the glory of contemplating the Triune God. But in the meantime, Christians live in and with a Spirit that proves unpredictable at best. By drawing together the discussion of Christ’s two natures and the wiliness of the Spirit, Augustine can say that faith in Christ as scientia will, in the age to come, become contemplation of Christ as sapientia, but in the present age presents itself as an ‘emptiness that opens out on to God’.103 This focus on the human nature of Christ is not incidental to the ascetical force of books 4 and 13. It is the human nature of Christ that the supplicant is attempting to ‘put on’, for in Christ faith receives its definition (fidem in Christo esso definitam).104 Humility, expressed by egens and dolens, simultaneously recalls the self-knowledge expressed by deprecari and the state of Christ in his incarnate form. In his expositions of the Psalms, Augustine commonly refers to Christ as the ‘poor man’, and identifies him with the grieving subject in the Psalms.105 This double image is carried through charity as well in Augustine’s citation of 1 Cor. 8:1, ‘knowledge puffs up, but love builds up’. Augustine is identifying both Christ and that which precari desires, for Christ is that which the supplicant desires. But instead of engaging in the dogmatic complexities of this transference, Augustine returns to the diachronic 102 104

trin. 4.prol; trans. Hill (1991), 152. trin. 13.25; CCSL 50A: 417–18.

103 105

Williams (2016), 139. See, e.g., en. Ps. 39.28, 101(1).8, 108.19.

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distension of ‘putting on’ this Christ—dolorem peregrinationis suae ex desiderio patriae suae et conditoris eius beati dei sui. Augustine presents the supplicant as someone who slowly, over the course of a lifetime of failures, ‘puts on’ Christ. For Augustine, the concept of prayer both arises from and brings one back to the temporal process of faith as discovered in the Incarnate Word. Through the person of Christ metaphysical problems are continually given eschatological solutions, which serve to establish two ‘intellectual’ or ‘spiritual’ habits. First, certain metaphysical ‘problems’ or ‘puzzles’ become, for Augustine, eschatological ‘exercises’. In other words, the query regarding scientia and sapientia is pursued as a prayerful movement from scientia to sapientia, which occurs (if it does) through patiently waiting for that which it desires. And, second, derived from the eschatological distension that is created between scientia and sapientia, the virtue of hope emerges as the crucible of patience and desire. The human trajectory from scientia to sapientia, when placed within the context of prayer, is recognised as being animated by desire and sustained by patience. It is thus hope as expressed in prayer that provides the form of the Christian’s inquiry into God. In the epilogue to the final book of De trinitate, Augustine summarises this structure of Christian existence first as a soliloquy to his own soul and second as a prayer to God,106 bringing us back to the Soliloquia with which we began Part I. Thinking about the Trinity is, for Augustine, a practice of inquiry that is placed on a trajectory from deprecari to precari. Striving to comprehend the Trinity is part of earthly Christian existence, but its completion nevertheless eludes the Christian in this age, for human weakness is intrinsic to this earthly comprehension. Indeed, human weakness is to be embraced. Augustinian Christian existence is, however, captured not by one’s earthly capacities (or lack thereof), but by the hope of a divine gift that a person can only anticipate in patience and desire as embodied in the life of prayer. In the conclusion to De trinitate, this human weakness is dramatised in Augustine’s statements of his failure to comprehend the Trinity that responds as prayer (precatio).107 The prayer at De trinitate 15.51 is neither simply a rhetorical flourish nor is it a counsel of despair. Rather, the investigation’s doxological climax still points to that which is beyond human existence, that is, the beata vita. It is this stance of patiently waiting and actively striving for the beata vita—in a word, hope— that Boethius will pick up, expand, and intensify.

106

Edmund Hill’s description of trin. 15.50 and 51.

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trin. 15.50.

Part II

A Historiographical Interlude Part I of this study charted the course of Augustine’s reflections on prayer by attending to his practices of prayer, forged over a lifetime as a monk and bishop. This investigation into his theory and practice of prayer allowed us to forge a connection between participation and patience in order to fill out Augustine’s theological anthropology and corporate spirituality, viz., Augustinian ‘Christian existence’. I have argued that this understanding of Christian existence—from his pious reflections on the Lord’s Prayer via his teachings on the totus Christus to his speculations on the mysteries of the Spirit—kept his thought close to the rough ground of human history. While this focus on prayer proved fruitful, the ambiguities and equivocations of Augustine’s thought never disappeared. And rightly so, for humans can only live in this world, in this age, a fact that Augustine ever more fully embraced over his lifetime. If there is a hint of melancholy in Augustine’s mature thought, it is not because of some great disappointment at a ‘lost future’ in the mid-390s (à la Peter Brown). Rather, Augustine was forced ever more seriously to reckon with his own limitations and mortality in ways that drew a decidedly strict line between him and Christ’s immortal divinity. The complexities and contingencies of human history do not disappear at Augustine’s death. Those who would seek after Augustinian wisdom in the Bishop’s wake found themselves in equally rough territory. According to Augustine’s earliest biographer Possidius, Augustine made no will but ‘desired that his library and manuscripts be carefully preserved for posterity by those succeeding him in the Church’.1 But preserving Augustine’s library would have its difficulties: as Augustine lay dying, Genseric and his Vandal army were encroaching on Hippo Regius. Despite the efforts of Galla Placidia, the regent of the Western Roman Empire in 429, who raised her own army in Italy and convinced her nephew Theodosius II to send units from Constantinople, Genseric had enough motivation and manpower to resist the reinforcements sent from the north shores of the Mediterranean. By

1

Possidius, Vita augustini, xxxi.

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early autumn of 439, Genseric had advanced on Carthage, effectively severing Africa Proconsularis from the Roman Empire. As Prosper of Aquitaine dramatically summarises, ‘Carthage was captured by the Vandals and along with all Africa cast off the might of the Roman Empire with lamentable harm and injury. For thereby it became a possession of the Vandals.’2 Prosper’s account is, we now know, dramatised for his contemporaries who were, no doubt, traumatised by the Vandal invasion of North Africa.3 Like Theoderic in Italy later in the fifth century, Genseric largely left intact structures that represented and facilitated civic life in Carthage.4 But preserved buildings, open markets, and streets without potholes do not make harassment and persecution any less troubling. Possidius and the remnant of Augustine’s community escaped North Africa around 437, bringing with them, so the legend suggests, not only Augustine’s library but also his body.5 While his works continued to disperse throughout continental Europe, Augustine’s body only reached as far as Ravenna, where it lies in the basilica San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro. In Ravenna Boethius, too would meet his tragic death around 525 and consequently be buried in the crypt of the very same basilica. Part I followed the contours of Augustine’s literary career closely, as he travelled from Italy to North Africa. Now in Part II, we shall return to Italy, following both his books and his body to trace two often-overlooked inheritors of Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer. The figures of Benedict of Nursia and Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, the former known to us as a ‘saint’, the latter as a ‘philosopher’, are just two cases of Augustine’s diverse and diffuse reception within the first 100 years after his death. But they represent two particularly difficult cases, both for reasons of their historico-social placement in sixth-century Italy and for reasons of the peculiarities of their authorships. Tracing the particular contours of their thought in relation to the Augustinianism laid out in Part I will be the work of Chapters 5–8. Before that, however, we shall attend to the features that make Boethius and Benedict challenging subjects for Augustinian reception. As evident in the Introduction and again in the ‘Ethical Postlude’, my concern for Augustine’s sixth-century Italian reception is not simply to fill a gap in the scholarship, but

2 Prosper of Aquitaine, The Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, in Alexander Callander Murray, ed. and trans., From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader (Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures, 5) (Peterborough, Ont. and Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2000), 84. 3 A.H. Merrills, ‘Vandals, Romans and Berbers: Understanding Late Antique North Africa’, in A.H. Merrills, ed., Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 3–28, 10. 4 Merrills (2004), 10. 5 See the murals in Chiostro Sant-Agostino, Cortona, Italy for a representation of this legend. See also E.A. Foran, The Augustinians: From St Augustine to the Union, 1256 (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1938), 101ff.

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to reconceive and reconceptualise how the Augustinian tradition held within itself resources for ethically robust theological and philosophical variance. Historical theologians tend to borrow (consciously or unconsciously) conceptual schemes from their philosophical and systematic colleagues for their narratives of doctrinal development. Recent notable exceptions describe a complacency with respect to the theological frames used to tell stories of doctrinal development,6 demonstrating the need for historiographic sensitivity. When historiography is done well it is a practice of pruning or trimming back the (necessary) scholarly overgrowth that accrues but tends to occlude from the reader the perplexities of the historical subject. This scholarly overgrowth is part and parcel of the scholarly community finding the bushes and plants in the overgrown forest. One scholar’s clippings become another scholar’s debris. But, at the end of the day, one is still required to cut away some and leave others. The judgement entailed in this historiographic enterprise is thus not theory building but, more modestly, distinguishing between proffered theories, deciding which ones obscure and which ones reveal the perplexities of the historical subject. In this interlude, I must therefore confront a scholarly bias that makes my account of Boethius’ and Benedict’s Augustinianisms challenging for many historical and systematic theologians. The issue, it seems, revolves around what counts as a significant theological debate. While there have in recent years been several systematic theologians who have attempted to expand the range of suitable loci for theological reflection,7 many historical theologians still maintain a bias that is presented in its clearest (and most magisterial) terms in Adolf von Harnack’s celebrated Dogmengeschichte. In Harnack’s great work we can see the provenance of historical theologians’ and church historians’ habit of ignoring the Italian sixth century for being insufficiently rich theological reflection. In my account of the Augustinian tradition, the Italian sixth century is indeed theologically rich, but its theology was forced to reconfigure itself within the Gothic successor states to the Roman Empire. The challenge is to avoid an overly inflated or deflated Augustinian social vision. The social and political context of the Ostrogothic kingdom led Boethius and Benedict to creatively reconstellate significant features of the Augustinian vision of Christian existence they inherited.

6 See Ayres (2004b), 1–8, 384–429; Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2nd edn (London: SCM Press, 2001), 1–25. 7 There has been a bewildering range of new approaches to systematic theology just since the turn of the millennium. See, e.g., Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Paul Lakeland and Serene Jones, eds, Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005); Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Oliver O’Donovan, Self, World, and Time: Ethics as Theology, 2 of 3 vols published (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013, 2014); Katherine Sonderegger, Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of God, vol. 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015).

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HARNACK, MARROU, AND THE ITALIAN SIXTH CENTURY Boethius and Benedict are not the most obvious heirs of Augustinianism in the sixth century. In fact, the Italian peninsula itself is not often thought of as the locale for consequential doctrinal developments. This scholarly bias did not emerge effortlessly. The scholar who has probably done more than anyone else in cementing the image of fifth- and sixth-century Italy as theologically void is, as I have intimated, Harnack, whose fingerprints can still be found on innumerable themes in the field of ancient Christianity. In his magisterial Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, Harnack advanced two related theses pertinent to our investigations. First, Italy was theologically irrelevant. ‘The position of Italy, i.e., of the Roman Bishop, was wholly peculiar, for the Church of Middle and Lower Italy never played any part in Church history.’8 Harnack’s resolute antiPapist Protestantism surely plays an important role in this judgment, but so do his criteria for legitimate Augustinianism. ‘But in Rome Augustine was held in high honour, without anyone, certainly, saying how far he was prepared to go with him, and doctrines which directly contradicted him were not tolerated’.9 For Harnack, without a debate conducted by the theological authorities (viz., bishops) about Augustine’s core doctrines, there can be no significant sense in which Augustinianism was relevant to the dogmatic culture. Harnack goes one step further and questions, ‘For how many Bishops were there at the beginning of the sixth century capable of understanding Augustinianism?’10 According to Harnack, the Church of the Italian peninsula did not breed a thoroughgoing doctrinal culture. Its importance, Harnack believes, resides in the Bishop of Rome, who was, alas, ‘fettered to the East’ with ‘political and ecclesiastical ties [that] compelled him to look more to the East than the West’.11 For consequential developments in the history of doctrine, Harnack proposes a second thesis: semi-Pelagianism in Gaul and the papacy of Gregory the Great are the only issues worth considering.12 Harnack saw in the semipelagian controversy the seeds of the post-Augustine Western Tradition. It is in this controversy where such theological topoi as ‘nature and grace’ and ‘free will and determinism’ gain their intractable spirit, and begin to put their mark on European intellectual culture. Harnack is, however, less respectful of

8

Harnack, Lehrbuch 2.2, ch. 5; trans. Buchanan (1961), 243. Harnack, Lehrbuch 2.2, ch. 5; trans. Buchanan (1961), 254–5. 10 Harnack, Lehrbuch 2.2, ch. 5; trans. Buchanan (1961), 258. 11 Harnack, Lehrbuch 2.2, ch. 5; trans. Buchanan (1961), 243. 12 David Lambert seems to follow Harnack’s bias in his ‘The Making of Authority: Patterns of Augustine’s Reception, 430–c.700’, in Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten, eds, The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 15–23, 15. 9

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Gregory’s contribution to this culture. Reflecting on the figure of Gregory the Great later in the sixth century, Harnack’s condescension cannot be masked: Gregory has nowhere uttered an original thought; he has rather at all points preserved, while emasculating, the traditional system of doctrine, reduced the spiritual to the level of a coarsely material intelligence, changed dogmatic, so far as it suited, into technical directions for the clergy, and associated it with popular religion of the second rank.13

In comparison with Gaul, then, Harnack could only see in Rome and Italy a decadent theological culture that failed to offer any great ecumenical council, theologian, or doctrine, save those that Harnack found repugnant (i.e., rigid ecclesiasticism and dogmaticism). Even considering the doctrine of grace taught by Gregory, Harnack shows little sympathy, suggesting that it represents ‘how little Augustinianism was understood in Rome, and how confused theological thought had become in the course of the sixth century’.14 Sixth-century Italy is, on final summation, a theological no man’s land, leaving in the Latin West the controversies of Gaul as the only suitable place for historical and theological attention. The vestiges of Harnack’s judgements unfortunately remain, albeit largely unacknowledged, in today’s scholarship of the sixth century. In the last couple of decades, scholarship of the sixth century has conformed to Harnack’s expectations: Gaul has become the locale to think about Augustine’s doctrine of grace as significant ‘for what it reveals about the times and places in which it was played out’.15 Several able scholars have produced notable works that reconsider and advance our knowledge of the episode of Hadrumentum,16 Prosper of Aquitaine’s theology,17 John Cassian’s theological context,18 and many other themes.19 As with the majority of historical theologians today, this scholarship often distances itself from specific theses advanced by Harnack without questioning the general frame of reference taken over from the great church historian. In most cases, this is an entirely appropriate way to proceed in the field of ancient Christianity, and undoubtedly what Harnack imagined his successors were going to do. The figures of Prosper of Aquitaine, John 13

Harnack, Lehrbuch 2.2, ch. 5; trans. Buchanan (1961), 262. Harnack, Lehrbuch 2.2, ch. 5; trans. Buchanan (1961), 262. 15 See Alexander Y. Hwang, Brian J. Matz, and Augustine Casiday, eds, Grace for Grace: The Debates after Augustine and Pelagius (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014), xvii. 16 Donato Ogliari, Gratia et Certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semi-Pelagians (Leuven: University Press, 2003). 17 Alexander Y. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009). 18 Augustine Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St. John Cassian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 19 For full bibliography, see references in Hwang et al. (2014). 14

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Cassian, and Caesarius of Arles (among others) are all deserving of the attention they have recently received. But these are not the subjects of Part II of this study. Rather, I shall turn my attention to that more ambiguous and unstructured world of the Italian peninsula. The remarkable figure who divined what was at stake in this period of the Augustinian tradition was Henri Irénée Marrou.20 En route to crafting the scholarly category of ‘late antiquity’, Marrou argued against both the age’s vehement detractors and its rigid defenders. In place of the reigning narratives of decadence and decline, Marrou suggested that we simply listen to Augustine’s texts before asking him to address our contemporary problems.21 But, as his biographer expertly brings out, Marrou’s hesitation with Henri-Xavier Arquillière’s political Augustinianism was not simply an exegetical quibble. It was born, rather, of his own experience as an officer in the French army during World War II.22 Reflecting on the weeks of June 1940, Marrou wrote, ‘Everything seemed to crumble around us, the order or at least the familiar setting in which we lived, and the homeland, the state, the values themselves that were the most cherished and even the “Christian” civilisation itself.’23 Marrou, already the historian of Augustine’s age, saw in his own crumbling France glimmers of what Augustine must have seen in the aftermath of the sack of Rome in 410.24 There is, however, an important prehistory to Marrou’s approach to the social and political context of Augustine’s thought. Gustave Combès’ 1927 work La doctrine politique de Saint Augustin excavated from Augustine’s City of God an account of the nature and origin of political authority derived from the familial authority.25 While Combès’ interpretation was lauded by Henri de Lubac in his Théologies d’occasion for its emphasis on the scriptural and theological foundations, and even found support from Étienne Gilson for an understanding of natural law that is consistent with Thomas Aquinas,26 Arquillière offered a far more consequential rejoinder to Combès. Arquillière’s L’augustinisme politique: essai sur la formation des théories politiques du moyen âge gave a name to a burgeoning school of interpretation: political 20 See Jean-Marie Salamito’s preface, ‘De l’illusion de la décadence à l’invention de l’Antiquité tardive: ce que nous devons à Henri Irénée Marrou’, in Benjamin Goldlust and François PlotonNicollet, eds, Le païen, le chrétien, le profane (Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2009), 11–20. 21 Henri Irénée Marrou, ‘Théologie de l’histoire’, in Augustinus Magister: Congrès international augustinien (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1954), 193–204; see also Pierre Riché, Henri Irénée Marrou: Historien engagé (Paris: Cerf, 2003), 188–98. 22 Riché (2003), 63ff. 23 ‘La fin du monde n’est pas pour demain’, Lumière et Vie (September 1953); quotation from Riché (2003), 63. 24 Riché (2003), 63. 25 Gustave Combès, La doctrine politique de Saint Augustin (Paris: Plon, 1927), 79; for a summary of Combès’ contribution, see also Michael J.S. Bruno, Political Augustinianism: Modern Interpretations of Augustine’s Political Thought (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 17–20. 26 Bruno (2014), 21–5.

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Augustinianism as distinguishable from theological Augustinianism. By connecting Augustine’s City of God with the interpretations offered by Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Gregory VII, and Giles of Rome, Arquillière argued for continuity between Augustine’s early fifth-century text and its medieval interpreters who argued for a unity of temporal and ecclesial power.27 But Arquillière does not simply conflate Augustine with his medieval interpreters. He is, at times, unjustly accused of collapsing Augustine’s more ambiguous and theologically rich work into the politically reductive ‘two swords’ theory of post-Charlemagne Europe, but Arquillière acknowledged that Augustine’s thought underwent several transformations between the fifth century and the thirteenth century.28 It is, moreover, in the consequential years between Augustine and Gregory the Great, the period under examination in the present book, that the fundamental ambiguities of Augustinianism begin to emerge.29 In the century and a half between Augustine and Gregory, one can witness the tensions of the Augustinian tradition when its insights become engaged in a world different from Augustine’s own. Part II of this work thus represents a climatic move away from Harnack’s Gallic focus and into a domain explored by French scholars of ‘political Augustinianism’. But, alas, these French scholars’ preoccupations with political Augustinianism caused them to overlook the theologically significant works of Boethius and Benedict. Historiographically speaking, the Italian peninsula is a challenging domain precisely because the majority of historical theology of late antique Italy countenances only brief raids on the figures of the sixth century. These incursions into the sixth century can be justified by the seeming lack of sources. Simply put, in the century and a half between the two major Bishops of Rome, Leo the Great (440–61) and Gregory the Great (590–604), there is very little that is truly significant for the classical agenda of historical theology, viz., doctrines of Christ’s nature and the Trinity. Focusing on the Italian reception therefore requires a different focus. The one proposed here is that of prayer and its practical manifestation in Augustinian Christian existence. The theme of prayer not only extends the account of Augustine’s own evolving thought, as charted in Part I, but also indicates that prayer, through an elasticity that can stretch around both theory and practice, provides a suitable case for charting the relationship between a theological tradition and the (very) rough ground of sixth-century Italy. In the case of prayer, one would only need to look closely at how Christians’ distinctive practices of prayer transformed antique life-forms

27 Henri-Xavier Arquillière, L’augustinisme politique: essai sur la formation des théories politiques du moyen âge (Paris: J. Vrin, 1955), 27ff.; see also Bruno (2014), 35–9. 28 Arquillière (1955), 121ff.; see also Douglas Kries, ‘Political Augustinianism’, in Fitzgerald (1999), 658. 29 See Peter Brown’s account of Arquillière in ‘Introducing Robert Markus’, Augustinian Studies 32:2 (2001), 181–7, 184–5.

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and institutions.30 This account suggests that religious devotion slowly transforms political culture over the longue durée (for the better or worse). But there are particular periods where the pieces of a fractured world, with its piety, life-forms, institutions, are radically open for reconfiguration.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE The Gothic sack of Rome in 410, dramatically remembered in the opening books of Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei, often occludes the imaginative powers of many otherwise perspicacious intellectual and cultural historians of the Latin West. Alaric’s invasion of the city of Rome was, no doubt, a traumatic moment for an empire on the precipice of nearly sixty years of crisis, and coping mechanisms were surely required. But this gives both too much and too little credit to Alaric. Long known as an annoyance along Rome’s frontier, the Visigoths were not a completely unexpected invading force. Rather, the Visigothic invasion was more a slow convulsion of the periphery into the centre.31 This is not to deflate the sense of crisis and urgency, as Italy did indeed suffer a very bad half century.32 But the composition of Italy’s crisis is, in a word, complex. In order to appreciate not only the chaotic decades between Augustine’s death and the emergence of the fragile peace and order of Theoderic’s reign during the lives of Boethius and Benedict, we must attend to the shifting role of the political regent in Italy. The last Eastern Roman Emperor was Romulus Augustulus, who was deposed in 476, a hundred years after the Tervingi crossed the Danube.33 Flavius Odovacer took the reins of power as the ‘King of Italy’, though as a client of the Eastern Emperor. Odovacer would, in March 493, be murdered by the Ostrogothic leader Theoderic, who was allowed to enter into Italy with the consent of the Eastern Emperor Zeno (it was one way of getting rid of a persistent irritation). Upon his victory over Odovacer, Theoderic resided over an exhausted Western Empire. If it can be said that Theoderic ‘reigned’, it was over a rump empire that had socially, politically, and economically fractured to such a point that it nearly stretches the late antique definition of political regency beyond recognition. But Theoderic’s mission was never, in the eyes of the Eastern Emperor, to be a co-ruler; he was a temporary custodian of the once-great Western Empire. The sources for Theoderic’s reign are scarce, and are generally 30 See Christoph Markschies, Das antike Christentum. Frömmigkeit, Lebensformen, Institutionen (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2006), 105ff. 31 James O’Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire (New York: Ecco, 2008), 87. 32 O’Donnell (2008), 75. 33 Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), xi.

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products of Theoderic’s boosters (e.g. Cassiodorus). Be that as it may, Theoderic’s rule was, by all existing measures, successful: there were no more nonRoman groups able to challenge the Ostrogoths militarily, the Eastern Empire was happy to have a stable client in Theoderic, and the populations scattered along the Italian peninsula were in no position to reject political stability. The unusual success of Theoderic’s rule—it is often claimed that after Theoderic Italy would not achieve such unity and peace until after World War II—has led many to speculate that Theoderic effectively embodied Romanitas to such an extent that he was accorded the authority of a ‘Eusebian’ or ‘Theodosian’ Christian Emperor. This optimistic rendition, satisfying the desire ‘to imagine a fifth-century Rome where little has changed’,34 is, unfortunately, wish fulfilment. However, it is worth pursuing, for it reveals a common misconception of the early medieval West. Peter Heather has speculated that the Roman elites quickly gathered around Theoderic’s kingship, granting it the aura due a Christian emperor. It is evident that Theoderic himself found this attractive: the mosaics of St Apollinare Nuova portray Theoderic majestically enthroned and sitting opposite Christ the Pantocrator, suggesting that the Gothic rule was directly sustained by Christ.35 Heather proposes that the ‘underlying order in the cosmos, whose structure reflected throughout the one organising principle which had shaped it from primeval chaos’ (as identified by Pythagoras and Ptolemy) was, more or less, maintained by the Roman educated elite. Part of this world view was that this cosmological order had political consequences. Initially, the pagan Emperors represented this cosmological order in their political rule, and this was later taken up (and perfected, according to Eusebius) in the Christian Roman Emperors. Heather argues that the Roman educated elite ascribed to Theoderic the authority of a Christian Roman Emperor, despite his never being granted the privilege by the Eastern Emperor to carry that title.36 The cosmo-political order Heather describes did have resonance in the Eastern Empire, and Heather sees the mosaics of St Apollinare Nuova confirming this eastern imperial theory of governance. But the Western Empire had changed, and there is good reason to suspect that the educated elites were not so eager to ascribe true Romanitas to Theoderic. His Gothic ethnicity was, on final analysis, a stumbling block: on many levels of society, Goths and Romans were dealt with as different classes. It was part of the official ideology that they had separate roles: Goths fought while Romans remained at peace.37 This extended to the legal system itself. While the Italian kingdom had only one legal system, in practice the king appointed both a Gothic and a Roman judge in some cases.38 While the Roman Empire had, in times past, been able to maintain a flexible sense of what

34 36

Brown (2012), 456. Heather (1996), 222–3.

35

Peter Heather, The Goths (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 223. 37 38 Heather (1996), 256. Heather (1996), 257.

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it meant to be Roman,39 the evidence does not suggest that Theoderic was ever granted full status as a Roman. This is confirmed by the suspicions between Theoderic and the Roman Senate that ultimately cost Boethius his life.40 As one of the last truly Roman institutions, the Senate needed to be protected, as Boethius suggests in his Consolation of Philosophy, from the manipulations of the Gothic kingdom. Despite the success of Theoderic’s visit to Rome in 500, which included a speech to the Senate and an audience with the Pope, there is no indication that anyone sought to elevate Theoderic beyond the honorific ‘king’. Theoderic’s Romanitas was, at best, ex officio. It is easy to underestimate the impact a non-Roman king had on the theopolitical mindset of the educated elite. But we must not be fooled into accepting the hagiographic accounts proffered by Theoderic’s court apologists. To grant a Gothic Arian the status implied in the the mosaics of St Apollinare Nuova one would have to thoroughly reimagine the virtues of a king (and, by extension, the cosmic order), for the king himself was no longer part of the ‘true ideology’ of the Empire (i.e. Nicene Orthodoxy). The fissures that emerged between the cosmic and political orders would never be fully sealed back together. This is not to make outlandish claims about whether or not Rome ‘fell’,41 but to state the obvious: the slow internal and external devastation of the Western Empire inexorably changed what was possible to think about the relationship between the cosmic and political orders. If something like a ‘participatory’ scheme that has both theological and political valence is going to have purchase on men and women living in an Italy no longer governed by an ‘emperor’, then it must be reimagined to account for the provisionality and temporality of any political order. The mythos of the Roman Empire had evaporated. The question of what kind of theological doctrine of participation might correlate with the political context of the Italian sixth century is thus of critical importance. A doctrine that more appropriately represents eastern imperial culture will, in the West, prematurely underwrite a sociality that is protected from historical contingencies. The Western Roman Empire saw developments that prevented anything like the kind of cosmological kingship embodied in, say, the Emperor Julian from taking deep roots within its Christian milieu.42 There were, of 39 Walter Pohl, ‘Invasions and Ethnic Identity’, in Cristina La Rocca, ed., Italy in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 11–33, 12. 40 Cf. O’Donnell (2008), 164ff. 41 O’Donnell has characterised the two schools of thought as the ‘Reformation’ and ‘CounterReformation’: Peter Brown has led the ‘Reformation’ against a Gibbon-esque account of the ‘fall’ of Rome, while scholars such as Peter Heather and Bryan Ward-Perkins have pursued a newly invigorated account of Rome’s fifth-century ‘fall’. See O’Donnell’s review of Heather (2006) and Ward-Perkins, Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2005.07.69: http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2005/2005-07-69.html. 42 See Susanna Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), 10.

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course, attempts to institute such a programme, but even those are much more open to contestation than has been previously thought.43 A surprising consequence of applying an ‘eastern’ scheme to the early sixth-century ‘west’ is that it unduly narrows the scope in which a historian might allow a Christian to realise his or her vocation. Christian sociality (if I can be permitted to speak in such a way) must accept the risks of historical contingency: as empires rise and fall and Christian regents come and go, Christian existence must appropriately modify itself. These episodes from the Italian sixth century illustrate how an overly determined doctrine of participation that relies on the framework of cosmological kingship subverts the thoroughly creative act of living Christianly in this world. This is important for my account of the Augustinian tradition because it demonstrates the importance of leaving space within the tradition for successors to realise Augustinianism in new and creative ways. A theological tradition will encounter different socio-political contexts that provide the conditions to reconfigure it, at times by reconstellating its significant features (à la Augustinianism 2). The sixthcentury Western Roman world is undoubtedly a different world from that which provided the backdrop to Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer, as Boethius’ and Benedict’s contexts indicate. Any account of the Augustinian tradition must accept the contingencies of the rough ground of human history, and thus allow for adherents of a tradition to be their own creative agents within that tradition. But exactly how they do that will be the focus of Part II.

43

See Peter Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap Press, 2016), 19–178.

5 The Augustinianism 1 of the Opuscula sacra ‘To you, however, it is to judge whether the seeds sown in my mind by St. Augustine have born fruit.’1 So Boethius concludes his preface to OSI. Augustine is, in fact, the only authority Boethius explicitly mentions in both his theological tractates and the Consolation of Philosophy. The contention that Boethius is Augustinian in his theological tractates is thus not itself controversial.2 Margaret Gibson and John Marenbon have convincingly argued that Augustine provided a model for the OS.3 While both Gibson and Marenbon have suggested only general influence, Henry Chadwick went further, suggesting specific passages borrowed from Augustine, thereby proposing a strong Augustinian interpretation of Boethius’ theological tractates.4 In addition to these general and specific suppositions, Stephen Gersh has suggested that Augustine is a ‘criterial influence’, that is, when Boethius faced a dilemma between Christianity and Platonism or between specific strands of Platonism his criterion was his understanding of Augustine.5 In this chapter I aim to articulate a form of influence that has more in common with Gersh’s rendition. But I contend that one can be

1

OSI, 29–33; Teubner: 166–7. The Augustinianism of the Consolation is, however, a more complex case, to which we shall turn in Ch. 6. 3 Margaret Gibson, ed., Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 214; Marenbon (2003a), 94; see also David Bradshaw, ‘The Opuscula sacra: Boethius and Theology’, in Marenbon, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Boethius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 105–28. 4 Chadwick (1981); in many respects, Chadwick’s work on OS is the finest theological treatment offered to date; however, he has a propensity to determine a specific passage of influence from Augustine when one need not be supplied (see, e.g., 174–222). 5 Stephen Gersh, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism in the Latin Tradition, 2 vols (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 2:652–3, 705–7. In the notes, Gersh has highlighted specific Augustinian influences on Boethius’ understanding of God as intelligible (n. 135, 2:678), God as existence (n. 160, 2:684), God as beauty (n. 164, 2:685), God as unified plurality (n. 180, 2:688), God as form (n. 190, 2:690), God as mind (n. 210, 2:694), God as providence (n. 214, 2:695), God as activity (n. 221, 2:697), God as volition (n. 227, 2:698), God as supreme object of thought (n. 233, 2:699). 2

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more precise: Boethius’ very mode or practice of inquiry is influenced by Augustine’s use of prayer in De trinitate and ep. 130.6 Through easily overlooked references to prayer, Boethius modifies an Augustinian understanding of Christian existence that demonstrates a newly configured constellation of desire and patience in an eschatological trajectory. The eschatologicalism inherent in Augustine’s discussion of illumination and participation is replicated in Boethius’ theological tractates, but, as we will see in OSI, it undergoes refinement with respect to the kind of extrinsic illumination necessary for intellegentia. Prayer is, as I shall argue, the conduit through which Boethius articulates and modifies his Augustinianism. The OS mingle theological authority, philosophical reflection, and doctrinal controversies in ways that were not yet prominent in the Latin West.7 Understanding Boethius as a theologian of a definite philosophical persuasion reveals much about ‘the man who not much later, condemned and imprisoned, would write the Consolation’.8 The philosophical and theological arguments and strategies of the OS thus anticipate the Consolation. Although the fourth opusculum has been variously doubted, it is now widely recognised that, despite the author’s use of a range of genres, all five are genuinely Boethius’9 OSI, II, and V seem to fit comfortably alongside other polemical theological works from the fourth century, such as Gregory of Nyssa’s Quod non sint tres dii or Cyril of Alexandria’s Quod unus sit Christus; and OSIV seems to follow a

6

See Ch. 4. Brian Daley, ‘Boethius’s Theological Tracts and Early Byzantine Scholasticism’, Mediaeval Studies 46 (1984), 158–91. 8 Marenbon (2003a), 66; Chadwick (1981) goes further suggesting that the Consolation is a ‘work written with the consciousness of Augustine standing behind the author’s shoulder, so to speak’ (249). 9 See W. Bark, ‘Boethius’ Fourth Tractate, the So-Called De fide catholica’, in Manfred Fuhrmann and Joachim Gruber, eds, Boethius (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984) for the original argument in modern scholarship for the authenticity of OSIV (232–46). Chadwick (1981) adds to this consensus by suggesting stylistic similarity with Boethius’ other theological works (176). The circumstances of OSIV are, however, uncertain, as it lacked a title until sometime in the tenth or eleventh century. Chadwick (1981) gives evidence for an early Einsiedeln manuscript bearing the title ‘De fide catholica’ (175). In his Boèce. Opuscula sacra. Capita dogmatia (Traités II, III, IV) texte latin de l’édition de Claudio Moreschini introduction, traduction et commentaire (Louvain: Éditions Peeters, Éditions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 2007), Alain Galonnier seems to affirm this tenth-/eleventh-century manuscript as the earliest evidence of OSIV’s title (384–5). The doubts that arose around its authenticity were, in due course, assuaged by E.K. Rand’s work at the beginning of the twentieth century. In Founders of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928), Rand abandoned his previously held view that OSIV was spurious (156–7). Both the first edition of the Loeb edition of OS and Consolation affirmed this view by way of including OSIV. See Chadwick (1981), 302, n. 7; Alain Galonnier, Anecdoton Holderi ou Ordo Generis Cassiodororum: éléments pour une étude de l’authenticité Boècienne des Opuscula sacra (Louvain: Éditions Peeters, Éditions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1997), 1–5, 34–40, 58–73; Galonnier (2007), 380–4. OSIV is now generally accepted as authentically Boethian. For a discussion of the place of OSIII within the OS, see Marenbon (2003a), 87–90. 7

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familiar introductory catechetical pattern found in Augustine’s Enchiridion. Despite our proclivity to set Boethius outside the Latin theological tradition, he is a man very much formed within the Latin theological tradition informed by Augustine’s seminal works. The fact of Boethius’ narrow exposure to the Latin theological tradition makes him an interesting case of reception, for it allows us to detect what Augustine’s influence would look like when placed in conversation with the pagan philosophical traditions.

BOETHIUS, A LA TIN CH RISTIAN A kind of summary statement for the OS as a whole,10 the OSIV (De fide catholica) serves as a good introduction to Boethius’ theological thought, placing him within an Augustinian-influenced late antique Latin Christian milieu. Although OSIV does not engage with speculative metaphysics, sophisticated trinitarian theology, or technical Christological controversies as the other four tractates do, it does present with great clarity a mainstream Latin Catholic Christianity as it would be found in Italy in the late fifth century. Indeed, Alain Galonnier has argued that OSIV fits within a catechetical genre that was common in the first five centuries of Christian literature.11 In the text of the work itself, Boethius winds his way around the heresies of Arius,12 Sabellius,13 Mani,14 Pelagius,15 and Nestorius and Eutyches,16 while also clarifying his methods for reading Scripture in the historical and analogical modes.17 He then ends with three marks of the Catholic Church,18 proclaiming its presence throughout the world and the universality of its teaching, be it the Scriptures or the Fathers of the Church. OSIV is thus an excellent source for locating Boethius in Latin Christian culture. In his influential study from 1981, Henry Chadwick affirmed the relevance of OSIV for identifying Boethius as a Latin Christian.19 ‘Augustine is not

10

Galonnier (2007), 386; Marenbon (2003a), 66–8; and Chadwick (1981), 175–80. Galonnier (2007) cites Irenaeus of Lyons’ Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching; Bachiarius’ Libellus de fide; Tertullian’s Apologeticum; Ambrose’s De fide; Cyril of Jerusalem’s Mystigogical Catechesis; John Chrysostom’s Baptismal Instructions; Nicetas of Remesiana’s Introductio ad competentes; Rufinus of Aquileia’s Commenatarius in symbolum apostolorum; Augustine’s De fide et symbolo, Enchiridion, and De catechizandis rudibus; and in the sixth century, Fulgence of Ruspe’s De fide, Maxence’s Libellus fidei, and Pope Homisdas’ Libellus professionis fidei (377). 12 13 OSIV, 30; Teubner: 196. OSIV, 32; Teubner: 196. 14 15 OSIV, 39; Teubner: 196. OSIV, 110; Teubner: 199. 16 17 OSIV, 199; Teubner: 203. OSIV, 85–90; Teubner: 198. 18 OSIV, 243–56; Teubner: 204–5. 19 See also Fabio Troncarelli, ‘Mentis cogitatio. Un prologo di Boezio in un prologo a Boezio?’, in J. Hamesse, ed., Les prologues médiévaux, Textes et études du moyen âge 15 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 39–86. 11

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mentioned by name, but sentence after sentence echoes his various writings, especially the City of God, the Enchiridion, and some of the letters.’20 And later Chadwick states that in OSIV, ‘Boethius is succinctly summarizing Augustinian teaching’.21 In modern scholarship, the supposition that OSIV was a presentation of Augustinian Christianity goes back to E.K. Rand’s philological study of 1901.22 This comes as no surprise, considering the background and circumstances of Boethius’ education. While there is a considerable amount to query in OSIV, especially its role in an emerging Latin Christian identity, the ending of the tractate is most relevant, as it exposes the deeper and more important appropriation of Augustine’s thought. Boethius, like other Christian writers in previous centuries, lived and wrote within a society saturated with Platonism, features of which emerge even when writing explicitly Christian dogmatics. Whereas Augustine’s Christian Platonism matured over a lifetime of reflection and writing, for Boethius Christian Platonism came naturally, as it was bequeathed to him by his mentor and father-in-law Symmachus. In other words, Christian Platonism was a family trait that Boethius did not have the proclivity to reject. Relative to Augustine, Boethius is less anxious about the pagan influences in his thought, but this aspect of his work seems comparatively light in OSIV. When one takes a step back, and observes the overall structure of OSIV, however, some aspects of a Christian Platonism come to light. The final sentence of OSIV stresses both the distinction between Creator and creature (a distinction that is made with more precision in OSIII) and the fulfilment of eschatological expectations, two features which will reappear in Boethius’ other theological works: And the sole reward of beatitude (beatitudo) is the contemplation (contemplatio) of the Creator (conditor), to such an extent that a creature may look at the Creator, to the end that the number of angels may be restored from these and that heavenly city filled where the Virgin’s Son is King and where will be everlasting (sempiternum) joy, delight, food, labour, and unending praise of the Creator.23

This speculative ending is in continuity with much of Latin patristic literature, but it echoes, in particular, the scheme detected in De trinitate 13. While there are obvious stylistic differences, for Boethius Christian existence is oriented towards an eschatologically fulfilled beatitude. This trajectory, as we have seen, emerged in Augustine’s conception and practice of prayer. In Boethius’ Christological and trinitarian reflections, there is a similar place for prayer. The important point with respect to OSIV is that Christian existence is oriented towards beatitude as envisioned by the authoritative Christian faith.

20

21 Chadwick (1981), 175. Chadwick (1981), 177. E.K. Rand, ‘Der dem Boethius zugeschrieben Traktat de fide catholica’, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, suppl. 26 (1901), 421–4. 23 OSIV, 256–61; Teubner: 205; amended trans. from Steward, Rand, Tester (1973), 71. 22

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In OSIV, then, Boethius offers the outlines of an understanding of Christian existence that coheres with what we observed in Part I of this study. As will be evident in the following sections, Boethius develops more intellectualist approaches to thinking about Christ, the Trinity, and providence, which are important aspects of this soteriological orientation of Christian existence. There are obvious and clear differences between Boethius’ more technical theological and philosophical work (OSI, II, III, and V), and this summary of the Catholic faith. In past ages, these differences have led scholars to presume that the same person could not have written these five tractates.24 While Boethius’ authorship has long been granted to all five tractates, no one has considered how they fit together. Throughout this chapter, I shall argue that the five tractates form a fairly coherent whole by way of their shared eschatological orientation, which manifests itself soteriologically and intellectually. This eschatological orientation is brought to the fore in clearest Catholic terms in the above passage from OSIV, and in OSI and OSV the eschatological frame will be deployed by Boethius’ references to prayer in their concluding sections. In OSV, Boethius will employ prayer as a mode of ‘putting on’ Christ’s desires through the words of the Lord’s Prayer, not unlike Augustine’s own exhortation in ep. 130, a letter with which Boethius was likely familiar.25 And in OSI, prayer will function as the mode of one’s entrance into the divine mystery of the Trinity in a similar way to Augustine’s own recourse to prayer as the hope of wisdom in De trinitate. Both references provide an important Augustinian ‘key’ to deciphering some obscure passages in the Consolation.

PRAYER AS ‘ P U T T I N G O N’ CHRIST’ S DESIRES I N OSV With OSV (Contra Eutychen et Nestorium), Boethius wades into the muddy waters of the Christological controversies of the fifth century.26 This is by far 24 The ninth-century copyist Reginbert of Reichenau excluded OSIV from the set of authentic Boethian writings; this has been superseded by the findings of E.K. Rand in the early twentieth century; see Chadwick (1981), 175–6; and Galonnier (1997), 34–40. 25 See Fulgentius of Ruspe, ep. 4; ep. 3 and 4 are addressed to Proba the virgin (Boethius’ sister-in-law) and alludes to Augustine’s ep. 130 to Proba the widow, the direct antecedent of Proba the virgin; see Antonio Donato, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy as a Product of Late Antiquity (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 18, 168. 26 Regarded by Chadwick (1981) as Boethius’ most original piece (180), OSV is thought to have been precipitated by a letter from an Eastern bishop that was read at a council of clergy (Chadwick (1981), 181; Daley (1984), 167; Marenbon (2003a), 69; Joachim Gruber, Boethius: Eine Einführung (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2011), 50). The identification of the circumstances behind OSV goes back to V. Schurr, Die Trinitätslehre des Boethius im Lichte der ‘Skythischen

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Boethius’ longest tractate, but possibly the most misunderstood, as interpreters and commentators have tended to restrict their attention to Boethius’ definition of a ‘person’. This definition—naturae rationalis individua substantia27— is rightly famous, for it will become the definition de rigueur for much of later Latin thought. While Boethius advances several very influential arguments that anticipate many of the scholastic methods to come, these features are found within a literary context common to late antique Christianity. The literary frame of this tractate suggests that claims of Boethius’ anticipation of Latin or Byzantine scholasticism are often overemphasised. For example, OSV concludes with the recommendation for the reader to pray for the desire to be without the will to sin. This recommendation for prayer is neither a contemplative completion of some intellective ascent nor the demand for some state of affairs. Rather, it is the indication that full and final resolution will not be available until the next age, and this again suggests a specifically Augustinian eschatological orientation. Moreover, Boethius here displays a subtle understanding of grace that coheres with an Augustinian-inspired distension of understanding in which operative grace functions. In other words, the operation of grace does not displace or even complete human action. Instead, it operates alongside human action (in this case, human understanding) and provides the material conditions for apprehension of natural objects and ‘runs ahead’ of it to offer the promise of apprehension of divine objects. This will be more evident in OSI. Boethius’ OSV opens as a letter, recounting a meeting in late 512 or early 513 when a letter addressed to Pope Symmachus was read aloud. The ostensible purpose of this letter was to find a middle way between Eutyches’ monophysitism and Nestorius’ dyophysitism. The narrative style, however, is superseded by a very technical analysis, suggesting that the genre of OSV is the dogmatic letter common in elite Latin theological circles (e.g. Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, and Augustine). The impetus for the original synod that Boethius attended was the Acacian schism separating the Latin Church from the Greek Church, a matter of both personal and professional concern for him. Boethius was obviously unimpressed with the level of critical engagement, both from those soliciting support for the formula, ‘in and from two natures’, and from those questioning the formula.28 And his subsequent discussion is intended to provide

Kontroversen’ (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1935). Boethius was evidently present for this reading, but as he suggests in the preface to OSV did not participate in the debate, as he found the discussion uninformed on many technical matters (OSV pref. 24–31: 207). The historical context is not inconsequential. The debate was part of a strategy to heal the divide between the Greek and Latin Churches, which split over the monophysite controversy in the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon (451). The Patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius, attempted to heal this breach with his Henotikon, but was ultimately unsuccessful. 27 28 OSV, 3.171–2; Teubner: 214. OSV, pref. 28–31; Teubner: 207.

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the theological rigour lacking in the discussion and to chart a middle way between ‘Nestorian’ diphysitism and ‘Eutychianism’ monophysitism.29 Further to this literary and historical context, three theological features of Boethius’ argument are relevant: (1) its authoritative endorsement, (2) its grounding in Christological meditation, and (3) its final admonition to pray. First, Boethius submits the work to John the Deacon, to be judged before sending it along to Symmachus.30 Boethius sought not only his father-in-law, a well-known Christian man of letters, but also a future Pope in John the Deacon, whose Catholic credentials would be hard to doubt. Second, the weakness of the conversation Boethius witnessed inspired him to meditate (meditari) and ruminate (ruminare) on this question until, through the fog of errors, the truth emerged.31 Meditari and ruminare are familiar to Christian and Neoplatonic contemplative traditions, and are evident in Augustine’s discussion of monastic prayer in De moribus.32 And last, further to this ruminative aspect of OSV, in his concluding remarks on Adam and Christ, Boethius recommends the Lord’s Prayer to the reader as a summary of the desire to be without the will to sin (as Christ’s post-Resurrection body is, and as Adam’s might have been had he not sinned).33 While Boethius puts his subtle philosophical mind to the service of creedal orthodoxy, in much the same way that many theologians working in the high scholastic tradition will do, the literary context of this tractate owes much to Augustine’s prayerful inquiry. Though it may anticipate a Latin medieval tradition, OSV is nevertheless grounded in the intellectual practices of late antique Latin theology. It is not, therefore, the well-known metaphysical sections that I shall focus on, but rather the conclusion, in which Boethius broaches the subject of Christ’s will and human appropriation of it. The approach and answer to the question of what kind of ‘will’ Christ assumed is along Augustinian lines,34 so a parallel with the Greek tradition is only by virtue of a shared topic.35 Boethius’ analysis of Christ’s will thus showcases a way of interacting with Augustine’s texts. In the final section, Boethius offers an analysis of three possible states of Christ’s will.36 The first state is that of Adam before he sins: although there is a will to sin, death is not yet in him;37 the second is a hypothetical state in which Adam chooses to abide by God’s commands, 29 See Chadwick (1981) for a detailed discussion of the Christological controversies informing OSV (180–90). 30 OSV, pref. 43–51; Teubner: 208. 31 Meditabar igitur dehinc omnes animo quaestiones nec eglutiebam quod acceperam, sed frequentis consilii iteratione ruminabam (OSV, pref. 31–3; Teubner: 207–8). 32 33 See Ch. 1. OSV, 8.765–70; Teubner: 240. 34 35 Chadwick (1981), 201. See Daley (1984), 184. 36 Chadwick (1981) suggests that Boethius could have taken these options from ciu. 13.23, 14.12–15, Pecc. merit. 1.2–3, s. 116.3, 297.2 (201–2). 37 Unum quidem Adae ante delictum, in quo, tametsi ab eo mors aberat nec adhuc ullo se delicto polluerat, poterat tamen in eo voluntas esse peccandi (OSV, 8.721–4; Teubner: 238).

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and thus never gains the capacity to sin;38 and third is the state after Adam sins, in which he is now necessarily subject to death and the will to sin.39 Following a strategy already once employed in this tractate,40 Boethius analyses these options along a spectrum, with the second option as a middle condition (medius status) between the first and third.41 In this state, Christ would satisfy the condition of assuming a human nature in need of healing.42 Boethius suggests that Christ took on the first option in the Incarnation. Echoing Augustine’s City of God, Boethius writes, ‘In this condition, therefore, Adam was such that he ate and drank, digested the food he took, fell asleep, and performed all the other functions which always belonged to him as man, though they were allowed and brought with them no penalty of death.’43 Boethius goes on to suggest that Christ’s resurrected body would be like that of the first option: ‘after the resurrection he was such that his human body was changed as Adam’s could have been changed but for the bond of his transgression’.44 This, too, could conceivably be cobbled together from passages in City of God.45 Whatever one makes of this position, it is a far cry from the controversy of Christ’s will in sixth-century Greek theology. It is plausible, then, that Boethius’ teaching on the will of Christ is grounded in the context of Augustine’s teachings, but while also developing his own views on Christ’s resurrected body. Because the majority of OSV is dedicated to the ongoing controversy in the Greek East, this is often overlooked. While Boethius does, in fact, respond to the Greek controversy with his own creative solution, the context for his response is nevertheless the Latin West.

Alter, in quo mutari potuisset, si firmiter in dei praeceptis manere voluisset: tunc enim id addendum foret, ut non modo non peccaret aut peccare vellet sed ne posset quidem aut peccare aut velle delinquere (OSV, 8.724–7; Teubner: 238–9). 39 Tertius status est post delictum, in quo mors illum necessario subsecuta est et peccatum ipsum voluntasque peccati (OSV, 8.727–9; Teubner: 239). 40 OSV, 7.655–60; Teubner: 236. 41 Ille vero medius status in quo praesentia quidem mortis vel peccati aberat, potestas vero utriusque constabat, inter utrumque statum est conlocatus . . . Restat igitur tertius status, id est medius, ille scilicet qui eo tempore fuit, cum nec mors aderat et adesse poterat delinquendi voluntas (OSV 8.737–40, 747–50; Teubner: 239–40). 42 OSV, 8.698–702; Teubner: 238. 43 OSV, 8.750–3; Teubner: 240; see Augustine, ciu. 13.23. 44 OSV, 8.763–5; Teubner: 240. 45 This would have to be constructed out of Augustine’s comments on the status of pre-fall humanity, as well as that state humanity will possess after the resurrection of the body. (1) On how the saints’ bodies are better in the next life than they would be in perfect health (ciu.13.20, 14–19; Teubner 1:584). (2) On the state of human passions before the first sin (ciu. 14.10, 20–2; Teubner 2:26). And (3) on the true happiness which is only attainable in the next life (ciu. 14.25, 11–14; Teubner 2:52). These three aspects could, then, be extended to the status of Christ’s resurrected body, presuming that Christ did not undergo another transformation after the ascension, a transformation that Augustine gives no evidence to suggest he did undergo. 38

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This conclusion thus suggests an even deeper connection with Augustine. The Christian ought to desire in his prayers the resurrected will of Christ (i.e., the third option): ‘Which, moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us to desire in our prayers (votis docuit optare), asking that his will be done as in heaven so on earth (ut fiat voluntas eius sicut in caelo et in terra), and that his Kingdom come (ut adveniat eius regum), and that he may deliver us from evil (ut nos liberet a malo). For that most blessed change of those of mankind who faithfully believe wards off all these things.’46 It is common enough to connect these three verses of the Lord’s Prayer, but the only precedent we can be confident that Boethius knows about is in Augustine’s letter to Proba (ep. 130).47 Furthermore, this exhortation to pray the Lord’s Prayer is not some kind of strategy for knowledge acquisition. Rather, thinking the two natures is oriented, for Boethius, in an ethical direction—the Christian can ‘put on’ Christ in this life so that he may enter the full, perfect, and complete life in the age to come. Galonnier affirms this interpretation of lines 768–70: ‘The immutatio of humanity as a result of the fulfilment of God’s will and the arrival of his total rule is placed in an eschatological perspective. Indeed, the transformation of man will only happen when all is consummated.’48 Boethius’ interpretation and use of the Lord’s Prayer and the orientation of prayer elicited therefrom mirrors Augustine’s understanding of induere through praying (deprecari) the words of the Lord’s Prayer. It is therefore not only the eschatological delay that is of significance, but also that the form of hoping for this state of wisdom is found in the practice of prayer. But let us now turn to OSI to look at a more striking (and uncontroversial) example of Boethius’ debt to Augustine, where the eschatological delay of understanding is refined by recognition of the limits of ratio.

PRAYER AND THEOLOGICAL FAILURE IN OSI Boethius’ reflections on the Trinity are, like the other tractates, hard to date with any precision. Viktor Schurr advanced the thesis that OSI and II are linked to the Theopaschism controversy that erupted sometime before 519, when a group of monks travelled to Rome.49 As Schurr has argued, the background for the argument in OSII is concerned with the problem of whether ‘one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh’, which is expressed in the 46

OSV, 8.765–70; Teubner: 240. See Ch. 4; see also Alain Galonnier, Boèce. Opuscula sacra. Volume 2: De sancta trinitate, de persona et duabus naturis (Traités I et V) (Louvain: Éditions Peeters, Éditions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 2013), 271–6, 274. 48 49 Galonnier (2013), 275. Schurr (1935), 136–227. 47

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Epistula Orientalium. It has also been fairly well accepted that OSII was written before OSI, and is likely a kind of rough draft for the longer, more developed OSI.50 On this premise, I shall treat OSI and OSII together as Boethius’ contribution to trinitarian thought. But, as will be evident, the linkage between the two tractates proves consequential for my case of Boethius’ Augustinianism 1 as well as his Augustinianism 2 in the Consolation of Philosophy.51 Boethius’ OSII (Utrum Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus de divinitate substantialiter praedicentur) is more directly reliant on Augustine’s thought than any of the other tractates. Chadwick has even gone so far as to suggest that it is ‘in almost all its particular detail a mosaic of phrases from Augustine, especially De trinitate V and City of God xi, 24’.52 While Chadwick is right to suggest that Boethius relies heavily and, it seems, exclusively on Augustine, we can see that Boethius exerts his own authorship in clarifying Augustine’s rule for substantial predication from De trinitate 5.53 The background to OSII is, in particular, Augustine’s reaction to the Arian position that because nothing is said of God modification-wise, all things are said of God substance-wise. Augustine’s response is to claim that it is true that nothing can be said of God modification-wise, but that does not exhaust all the possible ways of speaking about God. In addition to these two kinds of predication, there is a non-substantial, non-modification way of predication, that is, relation-wise.54 Boethius experiments with this Augustinian innovation in OSII: ‘From these things, then, we understand that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not predicated of the divinity in a substantial manner, but in some other way (alio modo).’55 This form of predication—the alio modo—is Augustine’s ad aliquid, or relative predication.56 In OSI Boethius will further explore predication ad aliquid and its difficulty when placed alongside substantial predication. As one can tell by this cursory comparison, Boethius is attempting to clarify

50 John Mair, ‘The Text of the Opuscula sacra’, in Gibson (1981), 206–13, 211; Marenbon (2003a), 77. The most developed case for this is found in Schurr (1935), 101–4, where he declares that a series of questions that arise when one posits that OSI preceded OSII are settled when one assumes that OSII preceded OSI. 51 See Ch. 6. 52 Chadwick (1981), 212. Schurr (1935) has a slightly different assessment (100). Galonnier (2007) has yet a slightly different opinion (251). 53 This is in agreement with Galonnier (2007), 255. 54 55 trin. 5.5.6; CCSL 50: 210–11. OSII, 3.42–4; Teubner: 184. 56 Quod autem ad aliquid non substantialiter sed relatiue (trin. 5.8.9, ln 3; CCSL 50: 215). For another relevant use of ad aliquid in trin. 5, see 4.6, ln 30; CCSL 50: 210; for another relevant use of relatiue in trin. 5, see 5.6; CCSL 50: 211. This cannot, of course, be solely attributed to Augustine’s influence, as Aristotle described relative predication in a similar way (see cat. 6a36–9). Ayres (2010) has shown that Augustine uses ad aliquid only twice outside De trinitate. If one required any more evidence that Boethius was looking at Augustine’s De trinitate, this would seem to satisfy that need (217). For a general account of Augustine’s account of relation, see Ayres (2010), 211–17 and Roland Teske, To Know God and the Soul: Essays on the Thought of Saint Augustine (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 93–111.

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Augustine’s rule. OSII is thus not simply a mosaic created out of Augustine’s words, but rather a tidier mind reflecting on the somewhat chaotic writing of this privileged Latin father.57 Boethius’ extended reflection on the Trinity in OSI (De sancta trinitate) is more subtly Augustinian. We find little in the way of direct quotation, finding instead an exploration of prayer as a practice of inquiring into God as Trinity. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Boethius explicitly acknowledges the influence of Augustine on these reflections: ‘You must however examine whether the seeds of argument sown in my mind by the blessed Augustine’s writings have born fruit.’58 And similar to OSII, Boethius’ trinitarian reflections are placed within the Augustinian journey from belief to understanding.59 But the full and complete resolution to this inquiry still eludes Boethius here, and Boethius will ultimately appeal to prayer when faced with what he still sees as the aporia of the Trinity. What we make of this will, in large part, be determined by our assessment of both the literary shape of OSI and the cogency of Boethius’ argument. But the cultural context of Boethius cannot be forgotten. Thinking about the Trinity is not primarily about responding to critics, even if they provide the original impetus. Rather, thinking about the Trinity is part and parcel of elite Christian devotion in late antiquity. Thus it should not come as a surprise that both Boethius and Augustine conclude their works on the Trinity with prayer. OSI is not so much a definitive statement on the doctrine of the Trinity as an intellectual exercise through which the mind is prepared to contemplate divine simplicity. In the preface Boethius admits that this is a topic he has long pondered (investigatam diutissime quaestionem),60 and that he presented OSI to John the Deacon as a provisional statement for his affirmation. Boethius is not under the impression that this would be ‘pastoral’ in any sense: ‘The others, therefore, we ignore, as they are unable to understand this work and therefore do not deserve to read it.’61 But neither is Boethius under the impression that either he or John the Deacon have full, complete understanding or divine intellegentia: ‘We should not of course press our inquiry further than man’s reason is allowed to climb the height of divinity. In all the liberal arts some limit is set beyond which reason may not reach.’62 The limitation of human ratio that is inherent in all liberal arts is compared with the challenges inherent

57 The table in Schurr (1935) is helpful for an extended case for this (97–9); Galonnier (2007) also has a useful table setting the passages from Augustine’s trin. beside OSII (253). Galonnier thinks that Boethius’ originality resides in this act of logical clarification: ‘Cette large correspondance, qu’il serait possible d’étendre, ne suffit cependant pas à classer le D.P. parmi les textes totalement démarquées. Les réflexes de logicien que Boèce y laisse apparaître nous l’interdisent, demeurant par le fait même les principaux garants de son originalité’ (254). 58 59 OSI, pref. 29–32; Teubner: 166–7. OSII, 4.66–7; Teubner: 185. 60 61 OSI, pref. 1; Teubner: 165. OSI, pref. 19–21; Teubner: 166. 62 OSI, pref. 21–5; Teubner: 166; modified trans. Steward and Rand (1918), 5.

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to medicine. As when a doctor tries everything he can, he is not at fault for failing to bring a patient back to health, so too should a reader be lenient with Boethius, for he is trying everything he can. But the opening words of the preface suggest that Boethius’ challenge is a bit more than a standard inquiry within the liberal arts, for it falls within the speculative science of theology.63 In his first sentence, Boethius alludes, in a qualified way, to being ignited by the divine light: quantum nostrae mentis igniculum lux divina dignata est.64 Boethius hands this tractate off to John thus hoping that, to some extent, the divine light has ignited his mind. This light is not that which is necessary for all inquiry, and thus intrinsic to human ratio, but is rather that which is given (he hopes) to aid and supplement his inquiry, and thus extrinsic to human ratio. That Boethius is drawing on the kind of divine light that is extrinsic to ratio is confirmed by Boethius’ concluding remarks: If, the grace of God helping me, I have furnished some fitting support in argument (argumentorum adiumenta) to an article which stands quite firmly by itself on the foundation of Faith (fide fundamentis), the joy felt for the finished work will flow back to the source whence its effecting came. But if human nature has failed to reach beyond its limits, whatever my weakness takes away, my prayers will make up (vota supplebunt).65

The subject matter of theology is concerned with intellectual concepts that must be apprehended, according to Boethius, in their pure form without recourse to image. As we will see, this kind of apprehension, that which captures esse, escapes Boethius, but not without great effort. The very process of trying to think the divine, trying to throw one’s ratio beyond its limits, if only briefly, is the task Boethius gave himself, and that which he will ultimately call on prayer to supplement. OSI fits within the literary context of Augustine’s De trinitate, for it, too, is conceived in accordance with Catholic authority, is an aid to ‘think the divine’, and moves towards an ever more central place for prayer, culminating in one of Augustine’s most theologically subtle summaries of Christian faith and existence.66 Authority, meditation, and prayer feature once again in Boethius’ theological work, but this time there is a tighter connection with Augustine’s De trinitate. Most generally, Boethius appeals to the authority of the faith (fide fundamentis), placing his thoughts within the boundaries of a definite community of inquiry. For Boethius, this community identifies with Augustine’s writings, as he has indicated in the preface. But more specifically, OSI is intended as an argumentative aid (argumentorum adiumenta). We should not see it as a definitive doctrinal statement, but as an exercise with God as its object (not unlike Augustine’s De trinitate). It is in Boethius’ appeal to the supplements of prayer 63 65

OSI, 2.68ff.; Teubner: 168ff. OSI, 6.360–5; Teubner: 180–1.

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OSI, pref. 1–2; Teubner: 165. trin. 15.51.

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(vota supplebunt) that his debt to Augustine emerges most specifically. Vota, however, is not a term for prayer that emerged from the texts we looked at in Part I. It is thus necessary to look closer at the argument in order to discern the function of vota within Boethius’ thought. The central thread of OSI is Boethius’ attempt to put ‘sameness’ and ‘relation’ together. Only by tracing the steps of Boethius’ argument can one fully appreciate his prayerful conclusion. Boethius analyses ‘sameness’ according to two senses of ‘number’, one of which entails plurality and another of which does not necessarily entail plurality. In the former, what Boethius calls number itself (numerus ipse), the repetition of unities produces a plural number; in the latter, countable things (res numerabiles), the repetition does not produce plurality.67 The first corresponds to that by which we count, the second to countable things.68 The difference is subtle, but important for Boethius’ argument. It is res numerabiles that Boethius pursues. There are two different cases of res numerabiles: ensis mucro gladius and sol sol sol.69 The first example is of a synonymous case, as the three words for sword all pick out the same object, and the second is a purely iterative case, for the repetition of sun does not imply three suns. Far from being a trivial aside from one of late antiquity’s more pedantic minds, Boethius employs both kinds of res numerabiles contrapuntally, driving himself into a dilemma regarding how to count in the Trinity, the central quandary of the tractate.70 It is obvious how the purely iterative case of saying ‘sun’ thrice is distinct from saying ‘God the Father’, ‘God the Son’, and ‘God the Spirit’, as the name ‘God’ is modified in a new way each time. The synonymous case, however, is a bit less obvious. Boethius claims that ‘brand’, ‘blade’, and ‘sword’ are synonymous (thus identical), but ‘Father’, ‘Son’, and ‘Spirit’ are the same (idem), yet not identical (non vero ipse).71 Lest we think he is simply making a distinction between ‘identity’ and ‘sameness’, Boethius complicates the matter by suggesting that the ‘catholic’ must answer in the negative to the question, ‘Is the one the same as the other?’ (Idem alter qui alter?).72 In other

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OSI, 3.127–9. Boethius makes this clearer with his distinction between enumeration (numeratio) and an iteration of unities (unitatum iteratio). 69 OSI, 3.142–7; Teubner: 172. 70 It is unclear whether these examples are formally parallel to the Trinity such that either one could produce a defence of consistency. For a detailed discussion of what might count as consistency within the Trinity, see James Cain’s response to Peter Geach’s claim that there cannot be a consistency proof for the Trinity: ‘Trinity and Consistency’, Faith and Philosophy 23:1 (January 2006), 45–54. For Geach’s initial statements see Peter Geach, ‘Nominalism’, Sophia 3:2 (1964) reprinted in Logic Matters (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 289–301; and Truth and Hope (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 40–3. See also Michael C. Rea, ‘Relative Identity and the Doctrine of the Trinity’, Philosophia Christi 5:2 (2003), 431–45. 71 72 OSI, 3.164–5. OSI, 3.167–8. 68

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words, Father, Son, and Spirit are the same, but Father is not the same as the Son, and neither are the same as the Spirit. The reason for disquietude is that either Boethius has landed in a contradiction, or he has two senses of ‘sameness’, the distinction between which he is withholding from us. With this puzzle laid out, Boethius moves into his discussion of Aristotle’s categories (substance, quality, quantity, relation, location, time, condition, situation, active, and passive), a subject with which he seems more comfortable. Never at a loss for logical commentary, Boethius discusses each category in turn. It is ‘relation’ that exposes the difficulties Boethius sees with the notion of ‘sameness’ in the Trinity, a fact that is not surprising in light of OSII’s Augustinian emphasis on ‘relation’. One might wonder about substantial predication. But Boethius does not spend very much time on the category of ‘substance’, a curious omission. Yet I think there are two reasons for this. First, he probably takes it as non-controversial that ‘substance’ is most appropriately predicated of God, as he has already discussed ‘divine substance’.73 And second, he has, in OSII, already dealt with substantial predication, taking the traditional stance that what is said of all three is predicated substantialiter, and what is said of the persons separately is predicated alius modus.74 It is this alius modus, where the logical ambiguity lies, that elicits the most commentary from Boethius. The most general point that Boethius is concerned to make concerning ‘relation’ is that it neither augments, diminishes, nor changes the thing about which it is said.75 Boethius experiments with two kinds of relational predication—intrinsic and extrinsic. With respect to intrinsic predication, Boethius uses the example of whiteness and a white thing. If you remove the whiteness, you remove the white thing, for whiteness is accidental to the white thing; without the whiteness it is no longer a white thing. This is contrasted with an extrinsic relation between a master and a slave.76 Unlike the case of a white thing, which is a two-part relation, in the case of master and slave, which is a three-part relation (‘master’, ‘slave’, ‘master’s coercion over slave’), when you remove the slave, you only remove the power of coercion. This power of coercion does not inform the master as an accident, but rather through the slave, who is extrinsic to the master. The argument of the extrinsic example is that ‘relation’ does not modify the thing of which it is said. It is, according to Boethius, in this sense that ‘relation’ applies to the divine, for God cannot have any accidents. Boethius goes on to formulate a more positive account of ‘relation’ through the use of ‘comparison’ (in comparatione): ‘As a whole the predicate relation consists not in that which it is for a thing to be, but in that which somehow

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OSI, 2.92–4; Teubner: 170. OSI, 5.295–7; Teubner: 178.

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OSII, 2.30–33. OSI, 5.283–94; Teubner: 178.

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holds itself in comparison.’77 The critical distinction here is between ‘relation between two things’ and a ‘relative term of two things’. Boethius is, it seems, suggesting the former of the two senses; his examples bear out this reading. If I approach someone on her left, the person will be to the left of me. This person is left of me, not because she herself is ‘left’, but rather because I approached her on her right. The relation, then, exists between us, not of us. ‘Relation’ does not produce a predicate in respect to the property of some thing (secundum rem),78 and thus it cannot alter or change or vary essence (essentiam) in any way.79 When applied to God, a nascent doctrine of ‘real relations’ seems to emerge.80 ‘Relation’ is not a term that is said of Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, but something that exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is easy to think of ‘relation’ as an ascription of some property, for that seems to be the way the other nine categories are used.81 If one failed to catch the distinction between something consisting ‘in that which it is for the thing to be’ and something holding ‘in comparison’ between two things, he could miss a very important nuance in Boethius’ argument (as well as a significant development in the history of trinitarian doctrine). The term ‘person’, which is used with some reticence by Boethius, is that which holds between two persons. This would suggest that ‘person’ is the relation. While this is a weak bearer-term relation—to say someone is to the left of me is not to say much regarding a state of affairs in this world—its purpose is nevertheless important, for it is intended to help one think about how ‘relation’ does not involve change. ‘Relation’, however, does not have to be between two different things, a comment Boethius makes twice.82 Presumably this is to distinguish the two accounts, that of the master and slave (different) and that of two people (same). Relation, when predicated of God, is between two ‘persons’ of the same substance. Boethius further qualifies this by suggesting that no relation can refer to itself (nulla relatio ad se ipsum referri potest).83 In other words, there has to be more than one thing in order for relation to exist. This is complicated by a rather difficult sentence, but one that seems implied by the claim that the persons share the same substance: For every equal thing is equal to an equal thing, and every similar thing is similar to a similar thing, and every same thing is the same as that which is the same; and

77 Quae tota non in eo quod est esse consistit, sed in eo quod est in comparatione aliquo modo se habere (OSI 5.297–9; Teubner: 178). 78 79 80 OSI, 4.275. OSI, 5.307–10. OSI 5.310–16; Teubner: 178–9. 81 See Chadwick (1981), 216–17 for remarks on Boethius’ agreement with Plotinus (En. V.5.10; VI.2.3, 7), Augustine (conf. 6.16.28–9; trin. 5.8.9) and Proclus (In Parm. 1192.1ff.) vis-à-vis the proper application of Aristotle’s Categories. Boethius agrees with them all that the ten categories are proper to material objects. 82 OSI, 5.299–300 and 6.333–5. 83 OSI, 6.333–5; this is an obvious weakness of Boethius’ argument, for there is a reflexive relation that a thing can have with itself.

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in the Trinity there is a similarity of the Father to the Son and of both to the Holy Spirit, just as there is a sameness of that which is the same to that as which it is the same.84

How, then, can relation exist between two objects that are the same without violating the proscription that relation cannot be reflexive? This, it seems, is a difficulty similar in form to the one we saw regarding ‘sameness’: ‘relation’ must be between two things (‘persons’) that are really distinct, yet it is a relation between same and same. Are the persons distinct or the same? It seems that, on pain of equivocation, Boethius needs to pick one side of this disjunction, and accept the consequences that follow in its wake, that is, if Boethius is attempting to rationally comprehend divine simplicity as most scholars assume.85 We have thus encountered the central difficulty of OSI: how can Boethius maintain that relation and sameness are simultaneously true of the Trinity? This challenging puzzle is captured by the relationship that the reflexive ipse and similis each have to idem. The distinction between ipse and similis is, it seems, the kernel of the puzzle. In the first case, there could be a distinction buried between ‘identical’ and ‘same’ (a distinction that is, admittedly, far from obvious). If we look closely at this language compared with OSI 6.333–5, we notice that ipse is used in 6.333–5 and idem in 6.348–52. This affirms the distinction between ‘identical’ and ‘same’: ‘Father, Son, and Spirit are the same (idem), yet not identical (non vero ipse).’86 We might, then, be able to account for Boethius’ contradiction by suggesting that Boethius simply meant that ‘relation’ works between two ‘samenesses’ but not between two ‘identicals’. And in the second case, Boethius could be interpreted as holding a relationship between ‘similar’ (similis) and ‘same’ (idem). At 6.352 ut implies a kind of comparison or connection between how similis (6.349) and idem (6.349–50) operate such that the question has migrated from idem to similis. But does this not simply burden similis with the same weight that was given to idem? Or, alternatively, if similis stands in for only one sense of idem, which one would it be? While the puzzle begins with sameness and opens up to relation, the resolution to relation in either rendition brings us back to the puzzle of sameness. In a rather striking form of reciprocity, the logic of sameness leads to the logic of relation just as the logic of relation leads back to the logic of sameness. Boethius does not, as commentators have highlighted, resolve this puzzle.87 It should now be clear what Boethius meant by argumentative aids

84 Nam omne aequale aequali aequale est et simile simili simile est et idem ei quod est idem idem est; et similis est relatio in Trinitate Patris ad Filium et utriusque ad Spiritum sanctum, ut eius quod est idem ad id quod est idem (OSI 6.348–52; Teubner: 180). 85 e.g. Chadwick (1981), Marenbon (2003a), Bradshaw (2009). 86 OSI 3.164–5; Teubner: 173. 87 Marenbon (2003a) highlights this (86). Chadwick (1981), however, seems to miss the deep contradiction within this tractate, and as a result his conclusion loses some of its force (219).

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(argumentorum adiumenta): they were aids that brought Boethius into the mystery of the Trinity. This is a terminus he shares with Augustine, for De trinitate also ends in acknowledgement of its failure to capture the divine light. Boethius acknowledges that he has failed to capture the divine essence,88 yet he exhorts us to be raised up to simplicity. As Boethius suggests in the concluding sentence to OSI, this is achieved by the supplementation of prayer: ‘But if human nature has failed to reach beyond its limits, whatever my weakness takes away, my prayers will make up.’89 The act of prayer is thus that to which Boethius ultimately appeals to think divine simplicity. It is prayer that extends the mind beyond itself, but without immediate satisfaction. In other words, prayer provides hope to conclude the rational process, but it does not itself deliver the understanding under question. This is a curious conclusion for the man who is attempting to work out the doctrines of the faith rationally, but it reveals an important aspect of the kind of failure that is expected in thinking divine simplicity, and of where it should appear. For Boethius, one does not have the intellectual grounds to declare something unknowable from the outset, an insight that is critical for understanding Latin intellectual culture. Although no Catholic Christian of the sixth century would have asserted that God could be completely grasped by the human mind, exactly how the human mind as the bearer of the divine image fails in this can only be understood in the failure that results from actually attempting to think the divine. Theological failure is not something that can be asserted from any stance outside the actual act of thinking the divine. Rather, failure is only theologically significant when it occurs as an outcome of thinking the divine. To some extent, then, one never arrives at the point of failure, but always moving towards failure. This is an important difference between Boethius’ treatment of prayer’s place in philosophical reflection and pagan discussions. Although Iamblichus in his De mysteriis suggests that prayer ‘completes’ human intellect, he never associates prayer with failure.90 Whereas prayer for the Iamblichan theurgist is a form of success, it remains a failure for Boethius, but a particular kind of failure that somehow more adequately grasps its object. Moreover, the movement towards understanding is not, from the outset, thought to end in ‘mystery’, as the theurgist’s ‘programme’ would have it; rather, ‘successful’ failure is that which can only be discovered at the end of ratiocination. This subtle difference from the pagan philosophical employments of prayer will be critical for deciphering Boethius’ Consolation, his most intricate literary production. 88 Quod si id in cunctis aliis rebus non potest inveniri, facit hoc cognata caducis rebus alteritas. Nos vero nulla imaginatione diduci sed simplici intellectu erigi et ut quidque intellegi potest ita aggredi etiam intellectu oportet (OSI, 8.352–6; Teubner: 180). 89 OSI, 8.364–5; Teubner: 181. 90 myst. 1.15.47–8; see Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1995), 111.

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CONCLUSIO N In Boethius’ two most developed theological statements (OSI and OSV) we have observed the emergence of prayer at the conclusion of the essays. In OSV, Boethius employs deprecari, a word that we have already seen put to theological use in De trinitate. Moreover, Boethius uses it in the context of the Lord’s Prayer, where he invokes (p3), (p2), and (p7).91 He refers to the prayer as vota (desire, wish, request), the same word he uses at the end of OSI. The late antique Latin vocabulary for prayer is, however, extraordinarily broad,92 so it is hard to say too much about a given word’s pedigree based on word choice alone. One must, then, look at its context within the treatises themselves to establish which ‘tradition’ is being invoked. In the case of deprecari– vota in OSV, its Christian context is explicit, for it is attached to the Lord’s Prayer, the paradigm of Christian prayer. The use of vota in OSI is more difficult to discern, especially in light of pagan philosophical uses. As we will see in the references to prayer in the Consolation, a pagan Neoplatonic interpretation is tempting, but ultimately ill-fitting with the plot of the Consolation itself as well as with Boethius’ Christian background, as demonstrated here. Indeed, Boethius ranges broadly intellectually, but never moves outside the boundaries of orthodox Christian belief. Through tracing the golden thread of prayer, we can detect his Augustinian use of pagan Greek sources. The placement of prayer at the end of OSI, then, specifically evokes Augustine’s understanding of prayer in ep. 130: your prayer is your desire, your longing.93 In OSI, Boethius’ longing is to understand, to comprehend the Trinity, but such comprehension is outside the reach of his human capacity. For Boethius, the Trinity brings the mind to the end of its tether, where its only resource is divine assistance, but in true Augustinian fashion, the completion, even with divine assistance, is still not within reach. In the Consolation, to which I will now turn, prayer is placed within a broader context, one in which Boethius explores the boundaries and texture of Christian existence as it attempts to reach up from human ratio to divine intellegentia. And, again, the Augustinian inheritance has to be understood here if we are to discern the place of prayer in Boethius’ thought.

91

92 See Ch. 2. See Introduction. There is reason to think that Boethius would know this letter, as it was written to one of his antecedents in the Anicii family; see Donato (2013), 168. 93

6 The Augustinianism 2 of The Consolation of Philosophy Boethius has a religious problem. In his last and greatest work, The Consolation of Philosophy, the author of the Opuscula sacra and former envoy to the Pope seems to have gone out of his way to avoid anything specifically Christian. Written while in prison awaiting his gruesome execution, the Consolation records a dialogue between a ‘Prisoner’ and ‘Philosophy’. But why ‘Philosophy’? Is not this the very same man who wrote on the Catholic faith, Christ, and the Trinity? It was Bovo of Corvey, the tenth-century Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, who initially highlighted this oddity, pointing out that there were even some parts of the Consolation that appeared to contradict Christian beliefs.1 Not surprisingly, the status of the author’s Christian faith has animated scholarship on Boethius’ work since the tenth century.2 In this chapter, I shall address this problem by looking more specifically at Boethius’ references to prayer. This will not only sharpen the dispute between Boethius’ various religious and philosophical identities, but provide a particularly striking case of Augustinianism 2. Boethius’ Augustinianism 2 does not occlude ‘pagan’ philosophical influence; rather, it provides a frame for such influence to be incorporated. This is most dramatically seen in his comments on prayer, which as we shall see pierce to the heart of Boethius’ conclusion in book 5. Despite the scholarly concern, Boethius expresses little anxiety about the proximity between Christianity and ‘Paganism’ in his thought. Should not the 1 Bovo of Corvey, ‘Mittelalterliche Kommentare zum “O qui perpetua” ’, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, Sacris Erudiri 6:2 (1954), 373–427; see also Claudio Moreschini, A Christian in Toga: Boethius as an Interpreter of Antiquity and a Christian Theologian (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 133. 2 Nearly every major interpretive effort of the last fifty years has tackled this problem: see, e.g., Pierre Courcelle, La Consolation de Philosophie dans la tradition littéraire (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967); L. Obertello, Severino Boezio (Genoa: Accademia Ligure di Scienze e Lettere, 1974); Chadwick (1981); Galonnier (1997); Marenbon (2009); Joachim Gruber, Kommentar zu Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006) and (2011); Joel Relihan, The Prisoner’s Philosophy: Life and Death in Boethius’s Consolation (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007); and Donato (2013).

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author of the Opuscula sacra express at least some guilt in skirting any explicit reference to Christ in the Consolation? We want our authors to be either Christian or pagan, not some muddled hybrid. Part of the problem is that we as readers often insist on some version of the ‘two worlds thesis’—the Christian world and the non-Christian philosophical world—in interpreting Boethius’ major work.3 Whether this is articulated in terms that suggest there is a clear and identifiable boundary between Christian faith and philosophical reason for Boethius, or that the author of the Consolation relies upon sources from either pagan Neoplatonic thought or Christian thought, the two worlds thesis remains.4 But the dialogical form of the Consolation resists any neat either/or. Dialogue allows Boethius to draw together contrasting voices speaking from different literary traditions. This will be seen particularly in how Boethius deploys prayer in book 5 with the effect of constructing an Augustinian understanding of Christian existence that ‘sews’ together Latin Christian liturgical language and Greek pagan philosophical language. Augustine’s influence is not thereby seen on the first level as the indisputable source of Boethius’ language for prayer (à la Augustinianism 1). Rather, Augustine provides Boethius with an understanding of prayer that, on the one hand, can heal the ‘breach’ between human knowledge and divine wisdom, but also, on the other hand, can keep him ‘grounded’ in this world through persevering with a hopeful patience. It is this influence of Augustine that I shall codify as Augustinianism 2. To be more specific with respect to my interpretation of the Consolation, I will argue that Boethius brings ‘Philosophy’ and the ‘Prisoner’, the two characters of Boethius’ dialogue, to the intellectual precipice beyond which only prayer can extend the human powers to comprehend the two truths of divine providence and human free will. Both Philosophy and the Prisoner look up from human ratio towards divine intellegentia.5 The change in body

3 For dissenters from this, see Wayne Hankey, ‘Secundum rei vim vel secundum cognoscentium facultatem: Knower and Known in the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius and the Proslogion of Anselm’, in John Inglis, ed., Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: In Islam, Judaism and Christianity (London: Curzon Press, 2002), 126–50; and Donato (2013). 4 For a rendition of the possible positions, see John Marenbon, ‘Boethius and the Problem of Paganism’, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78 (2004), 329–48 and Donato (2013), 163–5. 5 This metaphor ‘looking up’ from ratio to intellegentia is one that Boethius employs in V, m5: qui recto caelum vultu petis exserisque frontem, in sublime feras animum quoque, ne gravata pessum inferior sidat mens corpore celsius levato (13–15: Teubner, 155). This body position is contrasted with I, m2: nunc iacet effeto lumine mentis et pressus gravibus colla catenis declivemque gerens pondere vultum cogitur, heu, stolidam cernere terram (24–7: 7–8).

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position exhibits the interior change in the Prisoner, proving that Philosophy’s medicines have worked to such an extent that he no longer lies prostrate gazing at the ground but stands looking up. But, on final analysis, it is contact between ratio and intellegentia that is needed for the problem of providence and free will to be fully solved. Alas, this is never achieved within the narrative of the Consolation. Instead, Philosophy exhorts the Prisoner to avoid vices, cultivate virtues, raise his mind in hope, and humbly pray to heaven.6 Prayer, then, in some sense ‘completes’ the argument and drama of the Consolation,7 but this again raises the spectre of the location of prayer within a kind of intellectual failure. How did the Prisoner and Philosophy arrive at such a conclusion in light of Philosophy’s early confidence in her power to heal the Prisoner? As I shall argue, both the argumentative structure and specific references to prayer should be read through those previous references to prayer in Boethius’ his theological works, viz. OSI, that have been shown to draw on Augustine’s theological work. In the case of the Consolation, Boethius’ Augustinianism 2 is an extension of the Augustinianism 1 of the Opuscula sacra. In the Consolation, as in the Opuscula sacra, prayer has an epistemic function (i.e., filling the gap between ratio and intellegentia), and is offered as a provisional solution to the question of how providence and free will can be reconciled. The relationship between the Consolation and the Opuscula sacra is thus the critical juncture for Boethius’ Augustinianism 2.

INTERPRETING THE CON SOLATION Scholarly interpretations of the Consolation have been divided into three sets of interests: the Consolation has been read (1) as a work of literature on the boundary between classical and medieval periods,8 (2) as a series of subtle arguments for the reconciliation of free will and divine prescience,9 and (3) as a source for philological excavation.10 By and large, these three approaches to the Consolation have been applied separately. While these approaches have 6

Consolation 5.6, 47. John Magee, Boethius on Signification and Mind (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 149. 8 See, e.g., Anna Crabbe, ‘Literary Design in the De Consolatione Philosophiae’, in Gibson (1981), 237–74; and C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964; Canto Edition, 1994), 75–91. 9 See, e.g., Magee (1989); R.W. Sharples, Cicero: On Fate and Boethius: Consolation of Philosophy IV.5–7 (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1991); Marenbon (2003a); John Marenbon, ‘La temps, la prescience et le déterminisme dans la Consolation de philosophie de Boèce’, in Galonnier (2003b), 531–46. 10 See, e.g., C. Mohrmann, ‘Some Remarks on the Language of Boethius’, in Fuhrmann and Gruber (1984), 302–10; and Christopher Page, ‘The Boethian Metrum “Bella bis quinis”: A New Song from Saxon Canterbury’, in Gibson (1981), 306–11. 7

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proven to be fruitful, they have all largely ignored the question that appears towards the end of book 5 regarding whether the gulf between human ratio and divine intellegentia can be bridged.11 Joel Relihan offers the only major interpretation to focus specifically on the role of prayer at the end of the Consolation, but his interpretation relies on a controversial reading of the literary and argumentative aspects of the text.12 Sophie Van der Meeren has proposed a more palatable general interpretation of the Consolation that highlights, in part, the importance of prayer.13 My focus will be interpreting Boethius’ comments on prayer in the context of the gap between ratio and intellegentia. This confluence of Christian prayer and the gap between human reason and divine intelligence has a direct antecedent in Augustine.14 To put it in Boethian terms, from the striking of prayer and divine knowledge a beautiful spark of Boethius’ Augustinianism will fly out.15 Only by recognising the Consolation’s place within the form of Augustinianism outlined in Part I can one see that its argument for free will and divine providence is intrinsic to the postponement of completion implied by Philosophy’s last words. The nature of the ending of the Consolation has been at the centre of queries regarding Boethius’ presentation of Christianity (or lack thereof) vis-à-vis a Neoplatonic ‘consolation’.16 Chadwick puts it most forcefully when he writes, ‘Boethius is not in quest of consolation from divine grace in the remission of sins and the promise of eternal life to those redeemed through Christ. His doctrine of salvation is humanist, a soteriology of the inward purification of the soul. The Consolation is a work written by a Platonist who is also a Christian, but is not a Christian work.’17 Through a cluster of various accounts of Boethius’ accommodation of Neoplatonism to Christianity, a scholarly consensus has emerged that suggests that, while the Consolation says nothing that is explicitly Christian, it is indebted to a Latin Christian Neoplatonic tradition.18 These arguments are often pitched as an interpretation of the Consolation as a whole. But while I would not deny that, on final conclusion, the work must be interpreted in its integrity as it has been passed down, this

11 The exception being Magee’s (1989) remarks in his concluding section (142); and more recently Stephen Blackwood, The Consolation of Boethius as Poetic Liturgy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 12 Relihan (2007), xii, 14, 24–33, 40–4, 80–3, 88–92, 127–36; this approach has been met with criticism, see Joseph W. Koterski’s review in Journal of the History of Philosophy 46:3 (2008), 481–2 and Eileen C. Sweeney’s review in Religious Studies Review 36:3 (2010), 234. 13 Sophie Van der Meeren, Lectures de Boèce. La Consolation de la Philosophie (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2012), 187–203. 14 15 See Ch. 4. Echoing Consolation 3.12, 25. 16 For an introduction to this question, see Danuta Shanzer, ‘Interpreting the Consolation’, in Marenbon (2009), 228–54, 240–5; see also Chadwick (1981) and Mohrmann (1984). 17 Chadwick (1981), 249. 18 Chadwick (1981), 247–53; Gersh (1986), 2: 655–64; Relihan (2001), xxiv–xxv; Marenbon (2003), 154–9; Relihan (2007), 127–36.

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question also requires attention to the details of Boethius’ references to prayer, which are the textual loci of this problem. In her seminal article, Christine Mohrmann has convincingly argued that many of Boethius’ references to prayer evoke Roman liturgical language.19 In this chapter, I will take this line of argument a step further and suggest that the force of these references within the dialogical drama of the Consolation is to establish an Augustinian understanding of Christian existence: patiently enduring this life in hope and prayer that is, on the one hand, oriented towards and animated by the goal of union with God, but on the other hand, aware that intellectual completion and satisfaction is forestalled until the age to come. To put it in terms more common in later medieval traditions, divine light informs rational vision, but rational vision never directly sees the divine light in this age. My argument thus hinges on the interpretation of two passages in book 5. In the first (5.3, 33–4), the Prisoner is offering what Philosophy will consider ‘old complaints about providence’, which protest that if determinism is true there is no reason to hope for one state of affairs over another or even to pray or beseech God to realise one state of affairs. The Prisoner puts this most sharply in his comments on prayer. And it is in these passages that a key is given that is crucial to my thesis: Therefore: There is no reason to hope for something or to pray (deprecari) for deliverance; for what would a person hope for or even pray to be delivered from if an unbendable sequence weaves together all the things that could be chosen? Therefore: That one and only avenue of exchange (commercium) between human beings and God will be taken away, the avenue of hope and prayer for deliverance; provided, of course, that for the price of our rightful humility (iusta humilitas) we deserve the return of divine grace (diuina gratia), which is beyond price. This is the only way by which human beings seem to be able to speak with God—by the act of supplication (supplicare)—and to be joined (coniungere) to that inapproachable light even before they succeed in attaining it. Once the necessity of future events is accepted, if these hopes and prayers are then believed to have no force, what will there be by which we can be woven together with and cling (adhaerere) to that most high ruler of all things?20

And Philosophy’s final words that conclude the Consolation: Laws are not unjust, and they assign rewards and punishments to wills that are free of every necessity. God also remains unchanged, looking down from on high with foreknowledge of all things; the ever-present eternity of his vision keeps pace with the future qualities of our actions, dispensing rewards to good people and punishments to the bad. Nor are hopes and prayers (preces) placed in God in vain; they cannot help but be effective, provided that they are blameless. Therefore, all of you: Avoid vices, cherish virtues, raise up your minds to blameless

19

Mohrmann (1984).

20

Consolation 5.3, 33–5; trans. Relihan (2001), 133–4.

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hopes; extend your humble prayers into the lofty heights (humiles preces in excelsis porrigite).21

In book 5 there is thus a linguistic parallel with the preface to book 4 of Augustine’s De trinitate: as I interpreted it Augustine articulates the human relationship with God, and ultimately salvation in God, as a movement from deprecari to precari, the two terms for prayer that Boethius employs in 5.3.22 Mohrmann has pointed out that deprecari, in particular, is ‘extremely frequent in liturgical Latin’.23 As will become apparent within the argument itself, Boethius’ use of prayer frames a discussion of human ratio and divine intellegentia, just as Augustine’s use of deprecari and precari appeared within his discussion of scientia and sapientia. I am not, however, proposing a straightforward case of influence. A more proximate influence is Boethius’ own set of references to prayer in OSI and OSV, which, as we have seen, were influenced by Augustine.24 The Consolation is one step removed from Augustine, but linked to the great African theologian by virtue of Boethius’ employment of what I am calling Augustinianism 2. In this case, Augustinianism 2 is an extension of Augustinianism 1 in the way that paraphrase is an extension of verbatim quotation. The gulf between human knowledge and divine objects of knowledge sparks Boethius’ reference to prayer in OSI. In its conclusion, we observed that Boethius recognises the inadequacy of human reason, and then appeals to prayer to make up this deficiency: ‘But if human nature has failed to reach beyond its limits, whatever my weakness takes away, my prayers will make up.’25 In the conclusion to book 5 of the Consolation, Augustine’s influence will reappear in Boethius’ discussion of human ratio and divine intellegentia, but there it emerges as a feature that constellates (à la Augustinianism 2) the relationship between the epistemic query and the references to prayer.

THE CONSOLATION AS DIA LO GUE How one reads the conclusion to book 5 is largely dependent on one’s understanding of the work as a whole. Interpreters of all stripes have promoted interpretations that take the Consolation ‘as a whole, and as a complex literary artifact, and placed it within its unusual cultural context’.26 While a

21

Consolation 5.6, 44–8; trans. Relihan (2001), 150. Boethius uses the noun prex, but it shares the same root with precari. 23 Mohrmann (1984), 305; Mohrmann’s source for this is M.P. Ellebracht, Remarks on the Vocabulary of the Ancient Orations in the Missale Romanum (Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1963), 144ff. 24 25 See Ch. 5. OSI 8.364–5. 26 Marenbon (2003), 146; Relihan (2007) and Gruber (2011) also promote this strategy. 22

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full interpretation of the Consolation is outside the purview of this study, it is worth dwelling on some formal features of the Consolation, for its dialogical structure proves salient for my supposition that Boethius employs Augustinianism 2 in book 5. The relationship between Philosophy and the Prisoner develops from the opening scene where Philosophy finds the Prisoner writing epic verse inspired by the Muses.27 In book 1, the Prisoner describes Philosophy in magisterial terms, but with an ambiguity that suggests she is not straightforwardly ‘wisdom’: ‘For at one time she would keep herself within common mortal limits, but at another she would seem to strike the heavens with the crown of the top of her head.’28 Indeed, in books 1–3, Philosophy largely guides the conversation, nursing the Prisoner back to health. But in books 4 and 5 the Prisoner begins to take a more active role in the dialogue. Yet Philosophy does not diminish entirely, for she will conclude the work with a notable monologue.29 The genre of the Consolation is one of the persistently debated features in modern scholarship.30 For our purposes, the importance of the genre of the work is limited to whether or not it suggests a complex reading of the characters ‘Philosophy’ and ‘Prisoner’. Marenbon and Van der Meeren have recently revived a more traditional view of the Consolation as a dialogue.31 According to Marenbon, ‘[A dialogical reading] finds internal and formal cues which suggest that, for the alert reader, the Consolation does not unproblematically syncretise (in the manner of pseudo-Dionysius), but it leaves Boethius with his loyalties to both his religion and philosophy intact.’32 While it is true that no one exactly denies that the Consolation is a dialogue, many interpreters (Chadwick included) fail to see the complexity of locating Boethius’ views in either the Prisoner’s or Philosophy’s voice. Relihan has suggested that this dialogue is, in fact, ‘an interior dialogue, between dramatisations of two different aspects of the author’s own self ’.33 Without going as far as his satirical interpretation of the Consolation, where the Prisoner is understood to have escaped Philosophy’s ‘bitter remedy’ and ends up lecturing her on divine providence and freedom, I take from Relihan’s internalisation of the dialogue a helpful clue, one that Van der Meeren also highlights.34 27

Consolation 1.1, 1–14. Consolation 1.1, 2; Relihan (2001), 2; pace Robert Crouse, ‘The Doctrine of Creation in Boethius: The De hebdomadibus and the Consolatio’, Studia Patristica 17 (1982), 417–21, 418. 29 Pace Relihan (2007), who argues for the ironic subversion of philosophy (1–14, 24–33). 30 For a summary, see Shanzer (2009). 31 John Marenbon, Pagans and Philosophers: The Problem of Paganism from Augustine to Leibniz (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 50–1; Van der Meeren (2012), 188. Behind this modern revitalisation of the dialogical interpretation stands E.T. Silk, ‘Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae as a Sequel to Augustine’s Dialogues and Soliloquia’, Harvard Theological Review 32 (1939), 19–39. 32 33 Marenbon (2015), 51. Relihan (2007), 63. 34 Van der Meeren (2012), 188. 28

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For both Relihan and Van der Meeren, the model for the Consolation as an interior dialogue is Augustine’s Soliloquia. If we broaden this supposition to include Augustine’s Cassiciacum dialogues, we can find a relevant parallel with Boethius’ lack of explicit reference to Christ. In an influential 1889 essay, G. Boissier suggests that Boethius’ Christianity can be compared with Augustine’s in his Cassiciacum dialogues, which were written before his baptism. It is this temporal location that has given scholars such as Danuta Shanzer pause with respect to Boissier’s comparison: ‘Augustine’s failure to mention Christ, etc. is explicable by the fact that he was on his way in, so to speak, and in a process of conversion. Boethius was the seasoned veteran of theological tractates at the time he wrote the Consolation, and a documented Christian. So his silence cannot be explained in the same way.’35 But Shanzer’s understanding of Augustine’s lack of reference to Christ fails to appreciate the subtlety with which a non-ordained Christian living in and around Milan in the late fourth century might talk about these matters. Augustine was, in some cultural sense, a Christian long before his baptism.36 While Shanzer’s objection could be defended by recourse to Augustine’s self-presentation in the Confessions, this, too, fails to fully support her strong distinction between Augustine and Boethius. Augustine recounts in Confessions 9.4.7 that the Cassiciacum dialogues were ‘unquestionably devoted by now to your service, but still with a whiff of scholastic pride’. Augustine records also that Alypius ‘disdained to admit [Christ’s name] into our writings, for he wanted them to give off the tang of those lofty cedars of Lebanon, felled though these now were by the Lord’. The problem, so it seems, is not that the absence of Christ’s name was a matter of pre- or post-conversion, but rather of literary snobbery. It is no secret that Boethius is a literary snob. But snobbery, at least in the upper echelons of late antique Christianity, hardly makes one an apostate. In his study of the literary form of the Consolation, Seth Lerer has suggested that Augustine’s Soliloquia and De magistro are models for Boethius’ Consolation.37 It is not only the obvious literary similarities, but also the figuration of internal disputation (Soliloquia) and a presentation of the problems of authority in dialogue (De magistro) that suggest the parallel with the Consolation. ‘De magistro establishes a tension between the demands of linear progression and the need to present complicated arguments in all their apparent circularity. In turn, as discussion begins to favor digression and circumlocution, the student figure fades into undistinguished assent, and dialogue soon cedes to monologue’.38 As we saw in Part I, Augustine used the dialogue form 35

Shanzer (2009), 243. For an account of Augustine’s pre-conversion Christology, see Volker Henning Drecoll and Mirjam Kudella, Augustin und der Manichäismus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 213ff. 37 Seth Lerer, Boethius and Dialogue: Literary Method in The Consolation of Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). 38 Lerer (1985), 56. 36

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in Soliloquia and De magistro to present his very earliest reflections on prayer. It was there that we first observed the philosophical depth with which Augustine would come to treat prayer. For Augustine, prayer did not lend itself to a simple statement about its purpose and importance; rather, it had to be discussed, gestured at, and ultimately, as he discovered later in life, found in moments of its absence. It is not unremarkable that Augustine’s mature reflection on prayer came in the form of a letter to Proba the widow (ep. 130), for prayer was something that had to be worked out in an inquiring state and under other pretences. In Part I of this study I argued that Augustine continually forestalled concrete metaphysical articulations. Instead, he relied on the distension of time in which one might slowly apprentice oneself to eternal Truths through the practice of prayer. It is this, in particular, that I will focus on in the final book of the Consolation: the Prisoner is left with nothing more than the confidence to continue through hope and prayer. Reconciling the two truths of divine causality and human free will was, to some extent, necessary to get Boethius back on his feet. Philosophy herself, possibly won over by the Prisoner’s understanding of human existence sustained by patience, will abruptly end the book evoking a standard catholic understanding of Christian existence: ‘Avoid vices, cherish virtues, raise up your minds to blameless hopes; extend your humble prayers into the lofty heights.’39 The question before us is: how is this ending a resolution to the gulf between human ratio and divine intellegentia? I have suggested that neither the Prisoner nor Philosophy are necessarily equipped to extend from ratio to intellegentia. The gulf between ratio and intellegentia arises in an especially intense fashion in book 5 within the problem of divine prescience and human free will, the problem within which Philosophy offers her analyses of knowledge. In light of ethical and religious concerns, this problem becomes more than an intellectual curiosity. On the one hand, without free will rewards and punishments are pointless, for they will not be won by free and voluntary action.40 On the other hand, there will be no point in praying or hoping if all that we desire is determined by the causal chain that has been set in motion.41 While the ethical aspect is important, especially in light of Boethius’ historical predicament, it is the religious dimension that seems to provide the more interesting dilemma. In the remainder of this chapter I will primarily focus on prayer, as it seems to encompass humanity’s attitude towards the divine, including the fundamental stance of hope.42 As it was in Augustine, the

39

40 Consolation 5.6, 47; Relihan (2001), 150. Consolation 5.3, 29–30. Consolation 5.3, 33. 42 This is the same approach adopted by Alessandra di Pilla, ‘L’elemento della preghiera nella discussione su prescienza e libertà nella Consolatio philosophiae di Boezio’, in Galonnier (2003), 507–29, 508. Magee (1989) similarly focuses on prayer, but his thesis is more narrow in scope. 41

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linchpin is patience: the gulf between ratio and intellegentia is thus bridged by prayer and hope, both of which are grounded in the virtue of patience.

P R A Y E R I N CONSOLATION 5 Prayer, like other actions that presuppose freedom, is unintelligible without some scope of genuine human agency.43 Moreover, without prayer genuine discourse between humans and God is impossible, as the Prisoner expresses in 5.3, 34–6. Prayer, then, is the form through which humans approach God. This approach is expressed in three different ways in the above passage, all of which echo features of prayer highlighted in Part I. First, prayer is an exchange between humans and God (inter homines deumque commercium), where humans request deliverance and God responds in some way.44 Second, prayer is a kind of conversation between humans and God (cum deo colloqui homines posse videantur). This conversation is a means of uniting oneself (coniungere) to the unapproachable light (inaccessus lux). And last, prayer is the means for attaching or joining humans to God (summo illi rerum principi connecti atque adhaerere possimus). All three terms suggest prayer is a medium for union with God. It is, however, important to distinguish the two kinds of prayer implied by these terms. While terms such as commercium and colloqui imply two distinct subjects with a third intermediary, adhaerere suggests a union of two subjects without an intermediary.45 This corresponds with the two basic senses of prayer seen in Augustine’s work, both of which are important, for without deprecari there can be no precari. Prayer is thus, in Boethius, the means by which humans extend towards divine intellegentia, but in order to do so the appropriate faculties must be able to operate on the higher level.46 In other words, human ratio must, to some extent, be capable of extending to divine intellegentia. This capacity is precisely what is lacking at the end of OSI, and what is under consideration in Consolation 5.

Furthermore, as we will discuss below, prayer is shared between the Christian praxis and religious Neoplatonist praxis. 43 Di Pilla (2003), 516. 44 Di Pilla (2003), 520. Gruber (2006) points out that this echoes Paulinus of Nola’s carm. 10.55: [Christus] aeterna iungens homines inter et deum in utroque se commercia (383). 45 Di Pilla (2003) collapses these two formulations into one position in her analysis of prayer (521); Gruber (2006) suggests only one non-Christian reference in this section: Cicero, nat. deor. 1.4 (383). 46 While several have used this to support a ‘Christianised’ Consolation, e.g. C.J. de Vogel, ‘Boethiana II’, Vivarium 10:1 (1972), 1–40 and Morhmann (1984), the immediate purpose of this passage within book 5 is related to ‘Philosophy’s’ argument regarding the hierarchy of knowledge (see Gruber (2006), 383).

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The terms of the problem of prescience are thus set along ethical and religious lines, but it is the epistemic aspects of prayer that are central to the argument of book 5. At 5.4, Philosophy suggests that the foregoing problems have resulted from thinking in terms of the thing being known, as opposed to the knower.47 This ‘modes of cognition’ principle provides a critical step in Boethius’ solution to the problem of divine prescience.48 Philosophy must now describe the different modes of cognition, and she obligingly offers two formulations. The first scala cognitionis divides knowledge into sensus, imaginatio, ratio, and intellegentia.49 In this fourfold division, the higher power includes the lower. Sensus, which knows the figura in subiecta materia, cannot attain to imaginatio, which perceives shape apart from the actual body. Imaginatio can perform the operation of sensus, yet it cannot grasp the individual in light of the universal, for this is reserved for ratio. And ratio, though it can perform the operations of sensus and imaginatio, cannot transcend the boundaries of the material world to gaze on the simple Form, which is reserved for intellegentia. At the end of Prose 4, Philosophy concludes her first description of the four modes of cognitions: ‘For since every judgment exists as an act of the one who judges, it is necessarily the case that all who judge bring their work to completion by their own true powers, and not by a power outside of themselves.’50 It is thus natural that humans would cognise the problem of prescience according to ratio. This form of cognition is, however, deemed unsuitable, as m3 suggests that humans form this problem as a war between two truths: veris statuit bella duobus.51 In the following section, Philosophy presents another division of knowledge. This scale slightly varies from the fourfold division of knowledge in Prose 4. Here in Prose 5, each level seems to be isolated from the one above and below it.52 Sensus belongs only to creatures without movement; imaginatio, to mobile animals; ratio, to humans; and intellegentia, to the divine.53 This, as Magee has suggested, possibly cuts off all access to intellegentia for humans, thereby making the solution impossible.54 The main point of Philosophy’s second division is that intellegentia is superior to the three lower modes, and that, while intellegentia does not apprehend the object as sensus, imaginatio, or ratio, it can nevertheless access all that the lower modes of cognition access. However, it seems that the addition that this second division offers is not a new kind of division; rather, it suggests what kinds of beings these modes of cognition belong to—sensus to molluscs, imaginatio to non-human animals, 47

Consolation 5.4, 24–5. Marenbon (2003) divides the argument of V.3–6 into four parts (128–43). For a different account, see Linda Zagzebski, The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 36–65. 49 50 Consolation 5.4, 28–32. Consolation 5.4, 39; Relihan (2001), 139. 51 52 Consolation 5.m3, 3. Consolation 5.5, 3–4. 53 54 Consolation 5.5, 3–4. Magee (1989), 144. 48

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ratio to humans, and intellegentia to God. Under the second division, it is thus a disagreement between the kinds of beings who do the cognising. In other words, the clash between modes of cognition is, in its most relevant form, a clash between how humans apprehend the problem (ratio) and how God does (intellegentia). The hypothetical clash Philosophy highlights between sensus or imaginatio and ratio seems to suggest that a resolution would require the submission of one mode to another. The order of submission is, for Boethius, patently obvious—the lower must submit to the higher. Just as sense or imagination submits to reason, so, too, must reason submit to the divine understanding: ‘And yet, consequently, were we able to possess the judgment of the divine mind in just the same way as we are partakers of reason, then we would think it most just that human reason surrender to the divine in just the same way that we judged that imagination and sense perception ought to yield to reason.’55 With the second division of knowledge, this is no longer simply a clash between modes of cognition, but rather a clash between human cognition and divine cognition, which forms the premise behind the final section (5.6). Philosophy now needs to explain to the Prisoner how God sees the problem, that is, from the perspective of ‘eternity’. But, as we will see, the solution is not simply for ratio-based cognition to submit to the intellegentia-based cognition as an act of philosophical faith. This possible clash between humans and God reaffirms the importance of prayer in book 5. The dilemma for prayer, just as it is for virtue, arises from the possibility of freedom. But in the case of prayer, it is not external freedom from forces more powerful, but rather freedom from impediments to internal activities of the soul and intellect. The problem of God’s knowledge of human intentions is thus critical to Boethius’ overall argument, which has precedent in Plotinus, who suggested that the activity of the soul is the only part of the human being that is not possibly subject to the will of others more powerful.56 Therefore, the dilemma expressed by prayer is not simply that which provides the possibility to bridge the human/divine gap, but also one that pierces to the core of the dilemma concerning providence and prescience. Prayer is thus not some religious ‘window-dressing’ or a side issue to the philosophical argument, but rather the key to book 5. Whatever the solution is on God’s side, if it is incommunicable to humans,57 virtue, prayer, and hope are irrational pursuits.58 Prayer is the form that the commercium between humans and God takes. But the bridge between humans and God is contingent on the 55

56 Consolation 5.5, 11; Relihan (2001), 143. En. VI.8.6. This is an often overlooked aspect of the problem. There is a significant difference between claiming that all is resolved from the divine ‘perspective’ and arguing that all is resolved in light of a higher cognition. 58 This is a similar conclusion to that which Magee (1989) draws: ‘So long as access to the divine intelligence is preserved for mortals there is cause for mortals there is cause for hope, and 57

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possibility of ratio extending to intellegentia. The analysis of the various modes of cognition, unfortunately, leaves very little hint as to whether this is possible. While some interpreters have here opted for a Neoplatonic understanding, an Augustinian one better fits the evidence, especially in light of an understanding of adhaerere that is aspirational but as of yet unfulfilled. This assessment of the place of prayer in book 5 is further supported by Philosophy’s closing exhortation. On a surface reading, Philosophy can be read as presenting the Prisoner with a final, conclusive argument for reconciling the ‘two truths’, but what she offers him is, on final analysis, much more minimal than it appears.59 Philosophy has not pierced through to intellegentia but, more simply and practically, she has instead restored the Prisoner’s confidence in virtue, prayer, and hope. ‘Nor are hopes and prayers placed in God in vain; they cannot help but be effective, provided that they are blameless.’60 Philosophy can, then, exhort the Prisoner: ‘Avoid vices, cherish virtues; raise up your minds to blameless hopes; extend your humble prayers into the lofty heights.’61 Mohrmann has argued that this passage and Cons. 5.3, 33–6 (discussed above) invoke Roman liturgical language.62 But there is a more proximate source within Boethius’ own oeuvre. The final words of OSI read: ‘But if human nature has failed to reach beyond its limits, whatever my weakness takes away, my prayers will make up.’63 As in the conclusion to OSI, prayer has thus emerged in Consolation in the context of failure; but this failure, like that which was observed in OSI, cannot be affirmed from the outset, for it would place the burden of the epistemic failure outside the human, a kind of blame shifting towards the divine. For the failure to be a human failure it must be at the end of the human’s efforts. Although some have claimed that the Consolation lacks an ending,64 in light of OSI and the other references to prayer in the OS this exhortation would seem to suggest that the investigation in book 5 is oriented towards a profoundly Augustinian conclusion. Identifying the invocation of prayer as a kind of failure does not suggest (à la Relihan) that Boethius the author intended to subvert the whole

the rest of her argument will stand, for it is ultimately in accordance with the activities of the mind that we must measure our freedom and hence our salvation. Prayer will be the key’ (147). 59 The actual solution has no standard interpretation, so I merely suggest a general view of how to look at the problem: Philosophy’s claim regarding God’s eternality (as opposed to his everlastingness), as well as her distinction between simple and conditional necessity, open up the possibility for some human action to proceed from free choice. The actual solution at Consolation 5.6, 30–2 seems to rely on a similar conceptual move to his solutions to the two natures of Christ (OSV 7.649–53) and universals (2InIsag 167.8–12). The analysis of a single event from two angles, which do not formally conflict with one another, is, it seems, the central aspect of Philosophy’s deeper solution. See Marenbon (2003), 125–45; Zagzebski (1991), 36–65. 60 61 Consolation 5.6, 46; Relihan (2001), 150. Consolation 5.6, 47; Relihan (2001), 150. 62 63 Mohrmann (1984). OSI 6.364–5. 64 For this position Gruber (2006) cites Pierre Champage de Labriolle, Histoire de la littérature latine chrétienne (Paris: Société d’édition Les belles lettres, 1920), 784.

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enterprise of philosophy. Rather Philosophy, not being sapientia itself, succeeds in restoring the Prisoner’s confidence in the one practice that ensures commercium and colloqui between God and humans. Yet on the other side, this does not imply that the Prisoner achieved that state which is implied by adhaerere. This second caveat distinguishes my account from Van der Meeren, who has also highlighted the references to prayer in book 5, noting the particular use in Philosophy’s final monologue,65 and, more recently, Stephen Blackwood, who has argued for a continuity of purpose and style between the Consolation and Opuscula sacra, highlighting as well the place of prayer within the former.66 Both Van der Meeren and Blackwood assume that intellegentia is granted, in some respect, to the Prisoner at the conclusion. In the course of book 5, however, intellegentia is reserved for God. The Consolation’s three uses of ictus (5 m2, 5.4, 5.6) suggest that the state of intellegentia is not only above the Prisoner and Philosophy, but is also more specifically identified with God. In all three instances, ictus is given as the mode of ‘seeing’ the past, present, and future non-temporally: quae sint, quae fuerint ueniantque uno mentis cernit in ictu; quem quia respicit omnia solus uerum possis dicere solem. He, in a single stroke of his mind, Sees what is, what was and what will be. Thus you may call him the one and the true sun— His is the vision of everything solely.67

Speaking of intellegentia in 5.4, Philosophy describes how it includes all the powers sensus, imaginatio, and ratio yet supersedes them in its mode of perception: ‘For it perceives reason’s universal and imagination’s shape and sense perception’s material, but not by using reason or imagination or the senses but by the characteristic single stroke of the mind (uno ictu mentis), formally, if I may use the word, seeing all things in advance.’68 And finally, in her closing monologue, Philosophy says of the divine perception that ‘it does not, as you reckon it, switch back and forth in an alternation of a foreknowledge of now this thing, now another; rather, remaining stable, it anticipates and embraces your changes in its single stroke (uno ictu)’.69 Moreover, the final reference to prayer uses the term precis, a simple and humble kind of prayer that extends from one’s desires, a mode of prayer that would befit a man who lost everything but his confidence in hope and prayer. The Prisoner could thus

65 67 68 69

66 Van der Meeren (2012), 201–3. Blackwood (2015), 213ff. Cons. 5 m2, 11–14; trans. Relihan (2001), 130. Cons. 5.4, 33–4; trans. Relihan (2001), 139. Cons. 5.6, 40; trans. Relihan (2001), 149.

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only hope and pray for union, for consummation, for the beata vita. Intellegentia or union with God was never actually given to the Prisoner within the narrative of the Consolation. It is ‘failure’ in the sense that the Prisoner needed to recognise his own finitude before he could, once again, hope and pray.

PRAYER AS A P RACTICE OF I NQUIRY II In Consolation 5 there are two slightly different presentations of prayer, the first of which invokes union language (adhaerere) common to both Platonic and Christian traditions (Cons. 5.3, 33–6), and the second of which invokes a more pedestrian Christianity (Cons. 5.6, 44–7). What, then, is prayer to Boethius? And how are these two kinds of prayer related in the Consolation? An answer to this will indicate what kind of Christian Platonist Boethius is. It is tempting to infer from Boethius’ references to prayer a matrix of religious themes in Neoplatonism—sacrifice, theurgy, prayer, and divination.70 However, this would both stretch the evidence from 5.3 and isolate 5.3 from 5.6 and the conclusion to OSI. While it is conceivable that Boethius was familiar with Neoplatonic attitudes to prayer (i.e. Iamblichus’ De mysteriis and Proclus’ In Timaeum),71 it seems unlikely that his references to prayer are evidence that he adopted the kind of religious Neoplatonism found in these works. Far from evoking some kind of theurgical movement inspired by some of its Neoplatonic advocates, commercium, as Mohrmann has suggested, rather points towards the language of the first Mass of Christmas in the Roman missal: per haec sacrosancta commercia, in illius inveniamur forma, in quo tecum est nostra substantia.72 Although Boethius draws on the notion that the divine–human commercium is mediated, the only form of mediation one can discern from any of his texts is prayer.73 Even if one claimed that he simply isolated prayer from the other Neoplatonic religious practices (sacrifice, theurgy, and divination), Boethius’ comments in book 5 do not lend themselves to a strong Neoplatonic interpretation of prayer. While the first reference to prayer we looked at (5.3, 33–6) suggests that through prayer humans can, in some form, join or cling (coniungere, adhaerere) to God, this second reference (5.6, 46–7) suggests that prayer is an activity of exhortation that is extended over the course of one’s life, just as virtuous living is. Moreover, this second reference puts

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Di Pilla (2003), 527–9. Iamblichus, myst. 1.15, 5.26 and Proclus, in Tim. 1.209, 1.216; behind both of these is Plotinus, En. 4.4. See also Rist (1967), 199–212; John M. Dillon, ed., trans., and comm., Iamblichi Chalcidensis: In Platonis Dialogos Commentariorum Fragmenta (Leiden: E.J. Brill, Philosophia Antiqua, 1973), 407–11; and di Pilla (2003), 512–15, 522–9. 72 73 Mohrmann (1984), 306. Di Pilla (2003), 528. 71

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more weight on prayer as an activity that is done in expectation or hope, as opposed to a method for intellective ascent. The two references to prayer must be understood in light of each other. The connection with Roman liturgical language is sufficient to pick out the source of Boethius’ language but not the direction or force. Part of this can be discerned in attending to Boethius’ own account of commercium: ‘provided, of course, that for the price of our rightful humility (iustus humilitas) we deserve the return of divine grace (diuinus gratia), which is beyond price’.74 Commercium is thus some kind of exchange between humans’ iustus humilitas and diuina gratia, and yet nevertheless still a kind of prayer (deprecari, supplicare, vota). This draws out a point that Augustine makes to Proba the widow, a member of an earlier generation of the Anicii family.75 Prayer is not principally about speaking, but is rather ‘to knock with a long and pious stirring of the heart’.76 ‘For this task’, Augustine goes on to write, ‘is very often carried out more with sighs than with words, more with weeping than with speaking.’77 The commercium is thus grounded in the lifelong iustus humilitas. It is over the course of an entire life that one’s deprecari will be transformed into coniungere or adhaerere, a point that is evident in De trinitate—a work Boethius knew intimately. Book 5 thus seems to rely in subtle ways on an Augustinian understanding of prayer. There is, however, an important difference between Augustine’s account and Boethius’ remarks. Whereas for the Bishop of Hippo prayer is expressed in desire and the intercession of the Holy Spirit, for Boethius prayer is found in the dialectic pursuits of attempting to think the divine, whether that is the simplicity of God or divine providence. While the divisions of knowledge that Philosophy offered did not explicitly posit it, Philosophy’s solution assumed the virtue of patience for human ratio to extend to divine intellegentia, for however it occurs, it is not instantaneous. A settled, trusting spirit, not unlike that which is required by the careful translator and commentator, is the assumed disposition of the philosophiser. Patience is, therefore, the human disposition in which humans pour out their prayers to God, awaiting not immediate illumination but slowly ‘putting on’ Christ’s will and, ultimately, divine intellegentia, states of affairs that will only be realised when the Prisoner passes into the next age. For both accounts, prayer emerges at the edge of human capacity, reaffirming human finitude. The abrupt ending exhorting the ‘Prisoner’ to avoid vice, cultivate virtue, raise his mind to heaven in righteous hope, and pour out humble prayers to heaven is not evidence of an incomplete work. Rather, the ending shows that the final reconciliation of the two truths requires the Prisoner to cling to God 74 76 77

75 Consolation 5.3; Relihan (2001), 134. See Ch. 3. ep. 130.10.20; CSEL 44: 62; trans. Teske (2003), 193. ep. 130.10.20; CSEL 44: 62; trans. Teske (2003), 193.

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through prayer, a process that takes place over the course of his entire life. This is a remarkable suggestion for a man awaiting execution. It is one thing for a bishop in North Africa to suggest such patience; it is quite another for a philosopher waiting to die. But it should not be surprising to learn that the guards charged with watching over the prisoner only saw a man sighing and weeping.

CONSOLATIO N AS AUGUSTINIAN But what kind of Augustinian influence is this? In the Consolation, a work that is delicately constructed around themes that are shared by Christian and Pagan Neoplatonism, Boethius’ Augustinianism is not found principally in his reliance on Augustine as a source for his language. Rather, the themes constellated by Augustine’s understanding of prayer—especially hope and patience—provide Boethius with a thoroughly Christian response to a similar problem that Augustine faced, particularly in De trinitate. Boethius is not, however, a mere slave to Augustine’s thought. He modifies Augustine’s understanding of prayer by stripping away the doctrinal edifice, emphasising the connection with hope and patience. Boethius, furthermore, placed Augustine’s understanding of prayer within a more rigorous dialectical enterprise. In the Consolation, Augustine’s understanding of prayer comes into more intimate contact with the Roman liturgical and pagan theurgical traditions. It is Boethius’ Augustinianism 2 that provides Boethius with the framework to draw on both his Christian identity and his pagan learning. The nature of Boethius’ Augustinianism is therefore caught up in the interaction between Christian and pagan sources. Several learned studies have highlighted that the Consolation is a text deeply enriched by the Neoplatonic philosophical scheme,78 and others have highlighted the Christian and liturgical language lurking in the background.79 The Augustinian interpretation I have advanced places Boethius in the borderland between pagan Neoplatonism and Christianity. But in light of the doctrinally informed account of prayer found in Augustine, the burning question is why Boethius did not explicitly appeal to Christian doctrine to resolve his puzzle with the gap between ratio and intellegentia, as Augustine did in his Neoplatonist-informed Christianity. Augustine’s

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Chadwick (1981), Gersh (1986), Magee (1989), and Relihan (2007). Mohrmann (1984); Robert Crouse, ‘Haec Ipsa Verba Delectant: Boethius and the Liber Sapientiae’, in Angelo Campodonico, ed., Verità nel tempo, Platonismo, cristianesimo e contemporaneità: studi in onore di Luca Obertello (Genoa: il melangolo, 2004), 54–61; Crouse, ‘St. Augustine, Semi-Pelagianism and the Consolation of Boethius’, Dionysius 22 (2004), 95–109; Blackwood (2015). 79

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influence has been variously located throughout the Consolation, but not since Raoul Carton’s essay from 1930 has anyone argued for the Augustinian character of Boethius’ treatment of sensus, imaginatio, ratio, and intellegentia.80 Carton went so far as to suggest that Augustine was ‘a master of Boethius’ thought on the question of knowledge’, and that the Augustinianism of the Opuscula sacra leads directly to the Augustinianism of the Consolation.81 But in keeping with his own Augustinian milieu of early twentieth-century Paris, Carton failed to recognise the qualitative difference between the type of Augustinianism of Boethius and, say, Fulgentius of Ruspe. Boethius’ Augustinianism was not simply limited by Boethius’ other influences, but was of a different order, for Boethius’ Augustinianism was not, strictly speaking, in competition with other influences. The Augustinianism of the Consolation functioned as a second-order frame or constellation through which he aimed to reorder nonChristian thought towards a Christian end. In other words, Boethius’ Consolation evinces not Augustinianism 1 but Augustinianism 2. Boethius’ Augustinianism 2 forces us, then, to reckon with the seeming uniqueness of Boethius’ Catholicism.82 As Thomas F. Curley III memorably concluded his essay, ‘How to Read the Consolation of Philosophy’, ‘The question of Boethius’ personal allegiance to Christianity . . . is certainly in bad taste—it is just not done among gentlefolk to force simplistic statements of belief or unbelief from one another.’83 While Curley’s genteel aside might just as likely have been a rebuke to a pious undergraduate, it nonetheless highlights that the Catholic intellectual in Boethius is not that of Ambrose, Jerome, or even Augustine. Boethius might have been a snob, but that hardly makes him a pagan. Rather, Boethius is able to take from Augustine a certain strategy for addressing a larger philosophical problem, albeit in the method of elite literary culture more common in late antique pagan circles. Moreover, by virtue of this Augustinian reliance he centralises patience, for one does not bridge the gulf between ratio and intellegentia in one pure metaphysical moment or ictus. For humans, it takes place over the course of one’s life and is never complete until the age to come. It is this distension of time between ratio and intellegentia or scientia and sapientia enacted in prayer that marks a distinctly Augustinian strategy in Boethius’ metaphysical inquiries, in which the inquirer himself undergoes transformation. Christian existence is for Boethius, just as much as it was for Augustine, grounded in a hopeful patience. But in Boethius this understanding of prayerful Christian existence is found in the movement of the human mind in dialectic.

Raoul Carton, ‘Le christianisme et l’augustinisme de Boèce’, Revue de Philosophie 30 (1930), 573–659. 81 82 Carton (1930), 634–5. See Donato (2013), 7–44, 163–72. 83 Thomas F. Curley III, ‘How to Read the Consolation of Philosophy’, Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 14:2 (1986), 211–63, 263. 80

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In Chapters 7 and 8, a different kind of transformation of Augustine’s thought will emerge in the Rule of St Benedict. Whereas Boethius foregrounds the philosophical puzzles in Consolation 5, leaving the spiritual practice of prayer to emerge from the fissures of his argument, Benedict is all prayer, all spiritual practice. But an Augustinian vision of Christian existence as a movement from scientia to sapientia will nevertheless emerge in the longue durée of Benedict’s monasticism.

7 The Augustinianism 1 of the Rule of St Benedict Like Boethius, Benedict lived during one of Europe’s great transitional periods. But his contrast with Boethius is nowhere more obvious than in the tenor of his output: one simple rule for monks, a little book (libellus). While the author of the Regula Benedicti (RB)1 emerges no less than Boethius as a reader of Augustine, he reflects a different relationship to Augustine’s authority and is embedded in a different web of influences. The supposition of Boethius’ Augustinianism 2 resides in a subtle mixture of (pagan) philosophical sources on prayer and Boethius’ own comments on prayer in Opuscula sacra (OS) as informed by Augustine. This argument was made in two stages: I established Boethius’ Augustinianism 1 in Chapter 5 and then demonstrated how Boethius transformed his Augustinianism in the Consolation to conclude his great work on a strikingly Augustinian note (à la Augustinianism 2). The case for RB’s Augustinianism will likewise be made in two steps. First, in this present chapter, I shall draw on established cases of RB’s literary reliance on Augustine (à la Augustinianism 1). These instances of literary borrowing address ‘fraternal relations’, a concern shared by both Augustine and Benedict. And second, in Chapter 8, I shall turn to the more contested issue of RB’s theological provenance, and argue that Benedict draws on Augustine’s Christocentric theory of prayer to ‘Christify’ his theory of fraternal relations. Because we are working within one single document that underwent two recensions (RB 8–66 in the first stage; RB Prol.–7 and RB 67–73 in the second stage), the case for Benedict’s 1 The historical figure of St Benedict of Nursia continues to elude our scholarly desire for precise description. Gregory the Great’s portrait of Benedict in his Dialogues is the only extent vita. For treatment of this issue, see Christian Schütz, ‘Benedict, a Spiritual Profile’, The American Benedictine Review 56:3 (September 2005), 265–85; Leyser (2000), 102; ‘Historical Orientation’, in Timothy Fry, ed., The Rule of St. Benedict. In Latin and English with Notes (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1981), 69–79; Robert Markus, Gregory the Great and His World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 68–72. More recently, Adalbert de Vogüé has reiterated his case for the authenticity of Gregory’s Dialogues: ‘New Views on the Rule of the Master and the Dialogues of Gregory the Great’, American Benedictine Review 66:4 (December 2015), 419–32.

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Augustinianism 2 will be more complex and thus advance our theory of Augustinianism 2 beyond what we observed in Boethius’ Consolation. But as we shall see, Benedict’s Augustinianism is no less dependent on a constellation of themes found in Augustine’s reflections on prayer. Throughout these two chapters, I shall therefore turn to reflect on Benedict’s brief comments on the attitude required for prayer in RB 20, a passage that has become the locus classicus for determining the theological provenance of Benedict’s libellus. By most accounts, Benedict wrote his Rule sometime between 530 and his death (between 540 and 560).2 It has been an historical nicety to suggest that he wrote it in 529 just as Justinian closed the School of Athens,3 but the precise dating is difficult to determine. Scholars are certain that it predated 568, when the Lombards arrived in Italy.4 In 577 the monastery at Monte Cassino was sacked, and some monks seem to have brought the Rule to Rome. Most likely it was at this point that Gregory the Great, Benedict’s biographer and most influential advocate, came into contact with the Rule.5 But beyond Gregory’s vita, we know nothing else about the man whose little rule would spread throughout Europe, providing in some cases the foundation for European higher education.6 But Benedict’s Italy was, in many respects, similar to Boethius’. From the available evidence, it seems that the chaos resulting from the collapse of Theoderic’s Ostrogothic regency and the effects of Justinian’s invasion did not substantially change life in the Italian countryside.7 While it would be foolhardy to deny that the chaos resulting from political instability was a factor in the ‘ascetic invasion’ of the sixth century, we must not be so quick to assume that this is the defining environment of RB.8 Before the invasion of 568, the Italian monastic 2 Leyser (2000), 103; Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘La Règle de Saint Benoît’, SC 181 (1972), 2:29–33, and La Règle de S. Benoît, vols I–II, ed. A. de Vogüé and J. Neufville (Paris: Sources Chrétiennes 181–2, 1972), 169. 3 See Herbert B. Workman, The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), 162; I owe this reference to Martha Clare Kilzer, ‘The Place of Saint Benedict in the Western Philosophical Tradition’, The American Benedictine Review 25:2 (June 1974), 174–99, 186. Kilzer supports Workman’s supposition in order to create a picture of how ‘the “school of the Lord’s service” established by the Rule was intended to replace the “schools of philosophy” before St. Benedict’s time’ (188). 4 Markus (1997), 4; Fry (1981), 66. 5 Leyser (2000), 131. It has been debated whether Gregory knew RB at all: K. Hallinger, ‘Papst Gregor der Grosse und der Hl. Benedikt’, Studia Anselmiana 42 (1957), 231–319. Markus (1997), who highlights this article by Hallinger, reports that it is generally agreed that Gregory did know the RB (69, n. 6). 6 Jean Leclercq, L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu: initiation aux auteurs monastiques du moyen âge (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1957). 7 Pohl (2002), 11–33. 8 Pace Williams (1999), 104; the view that Benedict wrote the Rule with the awareness that the barbarians were ‘waiting beyond the frontiers’ seems also to be implied by MacIntyre (2007) in his cryptic reference for a ‘new St Benedict’ (263). For more in-depth studies of Benedict’s language, see Christine Mohrmann, ‘La langue de S. Benoît’, Benedicti Regula (Maredsous: Editions de Maredsous, 1962); ‘Études sur le latin des chrétiens 1’ and ‘Études sur le latin des chrétiens 2’, Latin chrétiens et medieval (Rome: Storia e literatura, 1961), 335–9; Benedict

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communities seem to have been enjoying the peace produced by Theodoric’s political settlement.9 In fact, we can discern a kind of tranquility in RB, one that is concerned with the internal stability and life of the brothers.10 This is further attested by Gregory’s silence on the supposed violence of Italy in his portrait of Benedict. In Gregory’s day there would have been every reason to highlight Benedict’s engagement with the invading parties, for the second book of the Dialogues is an apologetic text intended to establish late sixth-century monastic practices (and Gregory as its definitive observer).11 Moreover, the Rule itself seems to have been written as if the greatest dangers came from within the community. Debunking the presumption that RB was an innovative instrument of reform for society at large, the great French historian of monasticism Adalbert de Vogüé argued that ‘Benedictine monasticism did not emanate from the personality of a creator and it did not arise as the ingenious response to new needs of the Church and society. St Benedict came in the wake of two centuries of cenobitic experience and harvested the fruits. He legislated modestly, without pretensions of originality, making traditional themes and institutions his own.’12 The Rule was, of course, lived during the developing chaos, and the success of the Rule was partly due to how it came to meet the exigencies of Italy under the Lombards, but it was not written under the guise of a prediction for coming chaos. Far from collapsing during the political and social instability of the sixth century, Benedictine communities grew into one of the longest lasting and most stable institutions of pre-modern Europe. Consequently, nearly every strand of Latin theological culture has seen its tradition transmitted through Benedict’s libellus, and the Augustinian tradition is no exception. Despite the widespread confidence in the Augustinian imprint of Benedict’s Rule, no one has provided an analysis that allows one to categorise and assess Guevin, ‘Benedict’s Military Vocabulary Reconsidered’, American Benedictine Review 49 (1998), 138–49. 9 See Heather (1996), 216–58; Moorhead (1992). 10 See RB’s teaching on ‘hospitality’ (chs 53, 56, and 61); these ‘rules’ show steady continuity with Cassian’s inst. 4.7, which suggests a relative constancy of political and social conditions that threaten the monastery from without. There has been considerable work done on the language of RB. For bibliography, see Rudolf Hanslik, ‘Zur Sprache der Regula Benedicti und der Regula Magistri’, in Regulae Benedicti Studia (1971), 195–207. My intention is not to suggest anything so technical as that being advanced by Hanslik, but rather to offer a plausible connection with locutions that preceded Benedict. On the general note of Vulgärlatein, see Auerbach (1965), wherein Auerbach attempts to connect Augustine’s sermo humilis with the humility of the Incarnation (39–42). 11 See Joan M. Petersen, The Dialogues of Gregory the Great in their Late Antique Cultural Background (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), 153–60. 12 Adalbert de Vogüé, Community and Abbot in the Rule of St Benedict, trans. Charles Philippi, 2 vols (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1985). De Vogüé suggests that RB was, in fact, a very important instrument of reform in the Carolingian period. He argues that ‘the grounds on which it fulfilled its role were not its inventive character, but just the opposite, its value as a representative of the whole tradition and the relatively extensive and organized exposition of common doctrine and institutions it furnished’ (18).

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the different kinds of influences that inform RB and its author. Vogüé has attempted to articulate something close to this approach, but he ultimately appeals to a vague metaphor of sentir—having the ‘smell’ or ‘feel’ of Augustine.13 A trio of contemporary commentaries, all of which stand out for their scholarly diligence and wise insights, have more or less followed a pattern set by Vogüé: they have been precise about the influence of Cassian and the Regula magistri (RM) and vague about Augustine’s influence. The commentaries of Terrence Kardong, Michaela Puzicha and Christian Schütz, and Aquinata Böckmann now deserve to stand alongside Vogüé’s, and even to supersede his philologically rich study with insights into the concrete spiritual life of a Benedictine.14 Without attempting to displace the influence of either Cassian or RM with Augustine, I shall draw on these rich studies in order to be more precise about the kind of influence Augustine had on RB. It should come as no surprise that the pre-eminent monastic rule in the West would be informed by Augustine, whom Cuthbert Butler famously called the ‘Prince of Mystics’.15 But until now, the exposition of Augustine’s influence has either been restricted to particular passages here and there (à la Augustinianism 1) or carried forward by vague claims of the Augustinian sentir of Benedict’s Rule. Let there be no mistaking the claim I am making: the essence of RB is without a doubt Benedictine and deeply shaped by Benedict’s own reading of Scripture, but the mode in which those readings are put together to form a conversatio or ‘way of life’ is influenced by a range of monastic legislators and theologians, and not least of all by Augustine.

INTE RPRETING THE RU LE Benedict’s Rule is, in many respects, at the centre of the ongoing reflection on the identity of the Latin theological tradition.16 But how one inquires into this matter has changed over the course of nearly two centuries of modern scholarship on RB. In an article from 1980, Joseph Lienhard set out three methods that have been used: ‘citations and allusions’ in RB, ‘sources’ in

13

Vogüé (1972), 2:33–4. Terrence G. Kardong, Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996); Michaela Puzicha and Christian Schütz, eds, Kommentar zur Benediktsregel (Regensburg: EOS Sankt Ottilien, 2002); Aquinata Böckmann, Christus Hören. Exegetischer Kommentar zur Regel Benedikts. Teil 1: Prolog bis Kapitel 7; Geeint in Christus. Exegetischer Kommentar zur Regel Benedikts. Teil 2: Kapitel 8 bis 51; Mit Christus zum Ziel. Exegetischer Kommentar zur Regel Benedikts. Teil 3: Kapitel 53 bis 73 (Regensburg: EOS Sankt Ottilien, 2011, 2013, 2015). 15 16 Butler (1926), 20. Schütz (2005), 272–6. 14

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modern editions, and Benedict’s ‘world’.17 All three of these methods have been in currency since the early decades of the twentieth century, but the historical critical approach, which combines Lienhard’s ‘citations and allusions’ and ‘sources’, has been the most dominant method in scholarly circles in the post-war period. The scholarship indebted to this combined approach testifies to a nineteenth-century interest in specific citations and allusions, and the compiling of these to assess Benedict’s sources.18 In most cases, the ultimate aim of this scholarship is to establish the uniqueness of Benedict’s Rule, thus the historical critical approach often bleeds over into Lienhard’s third method, Benedict’s ‘world’. As I have suggested, I will consider the citations, allusions, and sources of RB in this chapter and the following, but in Chapter 8 I will do so with an aim to specify how a more general Augustinian sentir might shape Benedict’s libellus. The historical critical approach to Benedict’s Rule produced prodigious scholarship that led to the creation of modern ‘critical editions’ in the early twentieth century, from Butler’s 1935 edition to Adalbert de Vogüé’s and Basilius Steidle’s editions in 1972 and 1978 respectively.19 In these modern editions, the various citations and allusions were baptised as sources, and declared so in various typesettings and footnotes.20 On the foundation of these invaluable artefacts of erudition, a form of inquiry that is more common today arose, namely, an interest in the context and presuppositions of Benedict’s monasticism. In contrast to earlier suppositions of Benedict’s Rule being preeminently ‘Western’,21 scholarship in this third mode began to stress its reliance on ‘Eastern’ sources, excavating the text via John Cassian’s references to Evagrius and a broader Egyptian tradition in his Institutes and Conferences.22 It is this scholarly predilection that is still prevalent today, though it shows signs of waning. In a recent summary of scholarship, Harry Hagan has shown that a reaction to Vogüé’s prioritisation of Cassian, via the slightly earlier Rule of the Master, has been overemphasised.23 It is in this shifting landscape,

17 Joseph T. Lienhard, ‘The Study of the Sources of the Regula Benedicti: History and Method’, The American Benedictine Review 31:1 (March 1980), 20–38. 18 19 Lienhard (1980), 22–5. Lienhard (1980), 25–7. 20 Both de Vogüé’s and Steidle’s editions have four typesettings, providing a modern palimpsest of various sources they see Benedict using; see Lienhard (1980), 26. 21 Butler is often the protagonist of this view; whether it is an accurate reading of his Benedictine Monachism: Studies in Benedictine Life and Rule, 2nd edn (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1924; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock reprint, 2005) is another question (see Williams (1984)). 22 e.g. Aidan Kavanagh, ‘Eastern Influences on the Rule of Saint Benedict’, in Timothy Verdon and John Dally, eds, Monasticism and the Arts (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1984), 53–62; Leyser (2000), 101–28; Columba Stewart, ‘Prayer among the Benedictines’, in Hammerling (2008), 201–21. 23 Harry Hagan, ‘Benedictine Orthodoxy and the Relationship between the Rule of the Master and the Rule of Benedict: A Review of Adalbert de Vogüé’s A Critical Study of the Rule of

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particularly led today by Kardong and Böckmann, that we might be able to reconsider the Augustinian imprint of RB. The consideration of RB’s sources has, however, relied on the doublerecension thesis of the Rule. Since Eduard Wölfflin’s influential 1895 monograph,24 which was followed by Paul Delatte in 1913,25 there has emerged a consensus that the RB was written in two stages. First, RB compiled a list of regulations, drawn heavily from RM. Scholars have located the majority of the evidence for Benedict’s Augustinianism 1 in these regulations. Second, RB was given a more theoretical ‘frame’, in which Benedict drew widely on the theological sources available to him, and where I shall argue Benedict’s Augustinianism 2 resides. This supposition has rested on the fact that chapter 66 ends with the words, ‘We wish this rule (regula) to be read often in the community, so that none of the brothers can offer the excuse of ignorance.’26 Regula is here read to refer to the Rule as a whole, suggesting that, before its expansion at some later point, the Rule ended here.27 Vogüé has furthermore suggested that the first seven chapters were also added later.28 Since the very first commentaries, it has been supposed that RB bears some sort of Augustinian imprint.29 The passages that have long been uncontroversially recognised as Augustinian in influence are all evidenced within the scope of the first recension (chs 8–66): 31.7, 16; 35.13; 36.7–8; 52.1–3; 54.1–3; 64.8, 11, 15.30 All of these passages evince direct literary borrowing, mostly from Augustine’s Ordo monasterii and Praeceptum, but also from various letters and sermons. These findings are the fruit of general source criticism of the text. Throughout the twentieth century, however, the Augustinian imprint was scrutinised more closely by Rudolf Lorenz and Vogüé, who, in addition to these cases of direct literary borrowing, argued for ‘implicit reliance’ due to the

Benedict, Volume 1: Overview, trans. Colleen Maura McGrane (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2013)’, American Benedictine Review 66:2 (June 2015), 124–43, 141. 24 Eduard von Wölfflin, Benedikt von Nursia und seine Mönchsregel (Munich, 1895); cited with discussion in Butler (2005), 168–9. 25 P. Delatte, Commentaire sur la Règle de S. Benoît (Paris, 1913); cited with discussion in Butler (2005), 182–3. 26 RB 66.8. 27 In personal conversation Luigi Gioia has even gone so far as to suggest that it was between the two redactions that Benedict read more widely in Augustine. 28 Adalbert de Vogüé, La communauté et l’Abbé dans la Règle de Saint Benoît (Paris: Descléede-Brouwer, 1961), 33ff. 29 The first commentary was written by Paul the Deacon (c.775), but this was eclipsed by the Carolingian commentary by Benedict of Aniane, Codex regularum (c.817). See Bernard McGinn, Growth of Mysticism, vol. 2 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (London: SCM Press, 1995), 430, n. 106; Butler (2005), 177–83. 30 Vogüé (1972) has identified many more places where there is a shared influence with another monastic legislator or a verbal resonance, and these citations are: Prol. 2, 9–18, 28; 1.9, 10–11; 2.30, 33, 34; 4.1, 27, 42–3; 5.14, 17–19; 6.6; 13.3; 19.7; 20.3–4; 21.1; 28.8; 31.7, 16; 33.3, 6; 34.1, 3–4; 42.3–8; 45.3; 46.3–4; 48.8; 55.20; 57.2, 4–7; 64.12; 71.1; 72.11; and 73.8.

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commonality between RB and Augustine’s rules.31 Augustine’s Praeceptum, from around 397, is in fact the oldest ‘rule’ in the sense of a ‘comprehensive, well-organized, charter for monastic living that contains both spiritual instruction and practical prescriptions’,32 so it is unsurprising that Benedict would appeal to Augustine’s monastic legislation in preparing his own Rule, both in relation to specific pieces of legislation and for the general spirit of the rule.33 The case for Benedict’s Augustinianism 1, which is the focus of this chapter, is grounded in specific locations of Augustine’s influence in the first recension (RB 8–66). Instead of reiterating much of the scholarly consensus, I want to harvest some of these findings as more general claims of Augustine’s influence on Benedict’s Rule by focusing the theme of fraternal relations that runs throughout the text. Understanding the particular shape of Augustine’s influence on the topic of fraternal relations will help us interpret Benedict’s discourse on prayer in RB 8–20. In this chapter, the aim is not to assert that Augustine is the only influence, but that Benedict definitively draws on the works of Augustine (à la Augustinianism 1) in the first recension. While these findings are largely supported by the current scholarly consensus, they will prove to be consequential in how we interpret Benedict’s second recension, or his ‘theological frame’, in Chapter 8 (RB Prol.–7, 67–73). It is in the theological frame that we will discover a different kind of Augustinianism (i.e. Augustinianism 2) that requires that we transcend the methodological constraints of the source critical method. But as we shall see, the Augustinianism 2 of Benedict relies on the findings of Augustinianism 1. For Benedict, the purpose of the theological frame is to provide a spiritual and theological context for the implementation of his specific legislation, and this frame will prove critical for its endurance through European history.

AUGUSTINIAN F RATERNAL RELATIONS In his commentary and critical edition, Vogüé has pronounced that Benedict’s Rule is caught entre le Maître et Augustine—between the Rule of the Master, an early sixth-century monastic text,34 and Augustine’s Praeceptum, Ordo 31 Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘The Cenobitic Rules of the West’, Cistercian Studies 12:3 (1977), 175–83; and Rudolf Lorenz, ‘Die Anfänge des abendländischen Mönchtums im 4. Jahrhundert’, Die Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 77 (1966), 1–61. I am taking the terms ‘explicit citation’ and ‘implicit reliance’ from Mark Vessey’s article, ‘The Forging of Orthodoxy in Latin Christian Literature: A Case Study’, Journal for Early Christian Studies 4 (1996), 495–513, 502. 32 Stewart (2008), 201. 33 See Lawless (1987) for discussion of Augustine’s authorship, specifically reg. 2 (167). 34 It has become consensus that the Regula magistri slightly predates Regula Benedicti. This was questioned by Francis Clark, The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues (Leiden: Brill, 1987) and

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monasterii, and other writings.35 According to most commentators, Benedict’s most famous Augustinianism is found in his emphasis on ‘horizontal’ or ‘fraternal’ relations, as opposed to RM’s Cassian-inspired ‘vertical’ relation between the brothers and the abbot.36 While it is generally accepted that Augustine’s influence resides along these lines, it is nevertheless worth querying these passages closely. There are three features of Benedict’s ‘horizontal’ relations that on initial inspection are not easily reconciled: (1) solidarity of brotherhood, (2) inequality of sick and well, abbot and brother, and (3) the charity that runs between the brothers and abbot. Solidarity is often thought to be opposed to inequality, but in RB love ‘glues’ monastic solidarity together with the special treatment of some brothers, provided each exception is motivated by love for that brother. Each of these aspects of Benedict’s teaching on fraternal relations is influenced in a direct way by Augustine. But Augustine’s influence can also be discerned in the manner in which solidarity and inequality are held together in the reception of the other in love. Basil of Caesarea also emphasises love and brotherhood in his monastic rules. As Jerome Kodell has argued with respect to specifics of how brothers relate to each other, Basil’s emphasis is, more practically, restricted to direct instruction by one’s peers.37 For Benedict, as we shall see, fraternal relations have to do with service out of love for one another, an emphasis he most likely takes from Augustine.

Solidarity in RB 31, 35, 46, and 51 Those of us who do not live in or around any kind of monastery can easily forget that the majority of the brothers’ activities are mundane. Common prayer, discerning the future of the community, and moments of intellectual affirmed by Marilyn Dunn, ‘Mastering Benedict: Monastic Rules and their Authors in the Early Medieval West’, English Historical Review 105:416 (1990), 567–94 and The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 137 and 182–6. However, Clark and Dunn’s thesis has not been widely accepted: see the assessment by Hagan (2015). The opinion of David Knowles, ‘The Regula Magistri and the Rule of St. Benedict’, in Great Historical Enterprises: Problems in Monastic History (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1964), still stands as the consensus, and this has been affirmed by Vogüé (1972) and (2015) and Kardong (1996). 35 Vogüé (1972), 1.34. 36 See C. Lambot, ‘L’influence de Saint Augustin sur la Règle de Saint Benoît’, Revue Liturgique et Monastique 14 (1929), 320–7; Lorenz (1966); Vogüé (1972); Aquinata Böckmann, Perspektiven der Regula Benedicti. Ein Kommentar zum Prolog und den Kapiteln 53, 58, 72, 73 (Münsterschwarzach: Vier-Türme Verlag, 1986); Kardong (1996). 37 See Basil of Caesarea, Basili Regula, ed. Klaus Zelzer. CSEL 86 (1986); The Rule of St Basil in Latin and English: A Revised Critical Edition, trans. Anna M. Silvas (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2013), 13, 303, 64; Jerome Kodell, ‘Mutual Obedience: My Brother’s Need is the Voice of God’, American Benedictine Review 64:4 (December 2013), 404–11, 407.

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brilliance do, indeed, shape the monastic imagination, but Benedict’s Rule also witnesses to the commonplaces of running the pantry, washing dishes, reconciling argumentative brothers, and managing divided loyalties that mark life in this world. And with such mundane tasks come the inevitable grumbling brother. These tasks and their disgruntled practitioners are, in many respects, part and parcel of living in non-ideal communities. More than anything else, kindly service to grumbling brothers puts into practice the central theme of Augustine’s Praeceptum:38 ‘The monks or nuns are to live together in love; that is the reason they have come together.’39 This principle of solidarity is set down from the very beginning of Augustine’s Praeceptum. ‘The chief motivation for your sharing life together is to live harmoniously in the house and to have one heart and one soul seeking God (anima una et cor unum in deum).’40 Grumbling is a relatively common theme throughout monastic literature, and the general source for it is most likely Acts 4:31. What makes Benedict’s approach to grumbling an Augustinian approach is that one overcomes grumbling not simply with a blanket condemnation, but by failing to acknowledge it by promoting kindly service to that grumbling brother. The backdrop for this idealistic beginning is the sobering reality expressed by Augustine’s Enarratio of Psalm 132: the solidarity of the community is found more often than not in learning to suffer one another.41 For Augustine and his monastic community, this extends beyond suffering the insufferable brother to patient reconciliation and fealty to the community. While Benedict does not foreground the idealism of the commonweal with anything like Augustine’s intensity, his Augustinian sobriety is nevertheless present throughout the first recension of his Rule. There are three loci for Benedict’s expression of Augustinian solidarity: forbearance of the grumbling brother, absolute prohibition on lying, and loyalty to the monastic table. First, Benedict adopts Augustine’s legislation regarding reactions to grumbling or obnoxious brothers: If some brother should demand something from him in an unreasonable way, he should not crush him with a rebuke, but deny the obnoxious petitioner in a reasonable and humble manner.42 (RB 31.7) So that at meal time, [kitchen workers] may serve their brothers without grumbling or hardship.43 (RB 35.13) 38 Adolar Zumkeller, Das Mönchtum des heiligen Augustinus (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1968), 190. 39 Terrence G. Kardong, Pillars of Community: Four Rules of Pre-Benedictine Monastic Life (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2010), 170. 40 41 reg. 1.2; trans. Lawless (1987), 81. See Ch. 3. 42 Trans. Fry (1981), 229; Si quis frater ab eo forte aliqua inrationabiliter postulat, non spernendo eum contristet, sed rationabiliter cum humilitate male petenti deneget (Vogüé (1972), 2.556). 43 Trans. Fry (1981), 233; ut hora refectionis sine murmuratione et graui labore seruiant fratribus suis (Vogüé (1972), 2.568).

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In RB 31.7, Benedict is drawing from Augustine’s first Enarratio of Psalm 103: ‘You must turn no suppliant away; even if you cannot give him what he asks, do not treat him scornfully. If you can give, give: if you cannot, be kind to him.’44 For Vogüé, 31.7 particularly reflects the Augustinian principle of humilité avant tout, and this does, indeed, cohere with the general command that runs throughout both Augustine’s and Benedict’s instructions to the various office holders of the monastery. Kardong, more perceptively, highlights that Benedict’s broader concern is that any negative ‘transaction should not be allowed to degenerate into a row’.45 The concern in both Augustine and Benedict that minor infractions not become feuds—no doubt born from their experiences—suggests a real concern, in the very particulars of communal life, that solidarity must be established within the reality of human nature. This logic is extended to RB 35.13, which echoes Augustine’s Praeceptum and ep. 211: ‘Those responsible for food, clothing, or books are to serve their brothers without grumbling.’46 For both Augustine and Benedict, grumbling (murmuratio) is the inevitable though no less irritating outcome of a monastic community.47 Again, the concern is not with the heroic correction of the grumbler, but rather with the forbearance of the recipient of the malcontent’s comments. The theme of correction, however, has its own privileged place in Benedict’s Rule. Benedict’s predecessor who wrote the Regula magistri is widely recognised for legislating a strict discipline for his monks.48 While it distinguishes itself from the Master in its decree that ‘nothing harsh, nothing burdensome’ will be set down,49 Benedict’s Rule does not shy away from legislating disciplinary procedures for a wayward brother. The second locus of Augustinian solidarity is thus found in Benedict’s insistence on the radical honesty necessary for reconciliation. RB 23–8 in many respects represent a standard procedure for dealing with wayward monks that expands upon Matt. 18:15–17. But as Terrence Kardong has pointed out, it is influenced by the Augustinian rules and those downstream from them (e.g. Caesarius’ regula monachorum).50 The feature that distinguishes this concern of RB is Augustine’s insistence on radical honesty: [The brother who commits a fault while at work] must at once come before the abbot and community and of his own accord admit his fault and make

44 en. Ps. 103(1).19; trans. Boulding (2003), 129. Supplicem nullum spernas, et cui dare non potes quod petierit, non eum spernas. Si potes dare, da; si non potes, affabilem te praesta. (CSEL 45.1, 137). 45 Kardong (1996), 262. 46 reg. 5.9; trans. Lawless (1987), 97; Siue autem qui cellario, siue qui uestibus, siue qui codicibus praeponuntur, sine murmure seruiant fratribus suis (Lawless (1987), 96). See also ep. 211.13: siue autem quae cellario siue quae uestibus siue quae codicibus praeponuntur, sine murmure seruiant sororibus suis (CSEL 57, 368). 47 48 Kardong (1996), 294. Vogüé (1985a); Kardong (1996), 22–3. 49 50 RB Prol., 46; trans. Fry (1981), 165. Kardong (2010), 185.

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satisfaction. If it is made known through another, he is to be subjected to a more severe correction.51 (RB 46.3–4)

Benedict is, in RB 46, likely drawing on Augustine’s references to confession of wrongdoing in ep. 211: But any sister who has gone so far in wrongdoing that she secretly receives a letter or any little gifts from a man should be forgiven if she confesses this on her own, and you should pray for her. But if she is caught and proven guilty, she should be more severely corrected according to the judgment of the superior or of the priest or even of the bishop.52

Both Vogüé and Kardong have detected in Benedict’s ‘near fanaticism’ Augustine’s distinctively severe position of lying being always and everywhere morally wrong in De mendacio.53 When set against John Cassian’s more flexible position on lying in his seventeenth conference,54 the case of Benedict’s reliance on Augustine only grows. This seemingly minor textual reliance on Augustine has broad importance for Benedict’s Rule.55 The RB shares with Augustine a process of patiently reconciling wayward brothers, but this process cannot happen if lying’s ‘fissure between thought and utterance’ is allowed to fester in the community.56 As Paul Griffiths notes, Augustine uses the phrase corde veracis to speak of honest speech that is opposed to duplicitous speech.57 It is speech ‘with a true heart’ that is necessary for a community to have ‘one heart and one soul seeking God’,58 and that which is ultimately at stake in the wayward brother’s reluctance to confess completely and honestly. Although Benedict ‘softens’ the Master’s disciplinary tone, he follows Augustine’s ‘hardened’ position regarding lying, for it is yet another symptom of the fractured community. Fissures and fractures plague every community. But not every crack in the monastic foundation is produced by grumbling or lying. Members of 51 Fry (1981), 247; et non ueniens continuo ante abbatem uel congregationem ipse ultro satisfecerit et prodiderit delictum suum, dum per alium cognitum fuerit, maiori subiaceat emendationi (Vogüé (1972), 2.596). 52 ep. 211.11; trans. Teske (2005), 24–5; quaecumque autem in tantum progressa fuerit malum, ut occulte ab aliquo litteras uel quaelibet munuscula accipiat, si hoc ultro confitetur, parcatur illi et oretur pro ea; si autem deprehenditur atque conuincitur, secundum arbitrium praepositae uel presbyteri uel etiam episcopi grauius emendetur (CSEL 57, 365). See also reg. 411: Quicumque autem in tantum progressus fuerit malum, ut occulte ab aliqua litteras uel quaelibet munuscula accipiat, si hoc ultro confitetur, parcatur illi et oretur pro illo; si autem deprehenditur atque conuinictur, secundum arbitrium presbyteri uel praepositi grauius emendetur (Lawless (1987), 92). 53 54 mend. 21.42; Vogüé (1972), 2.595; Kardong (1996), 396. Cassian, Conl. 17.17. 55 See Paul Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004), 25ff.; and for a brief bibliography, see Matthew Puffer, ‘Augustine On the Image of God: An Ethical Analysis’, PhD Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2014, 133, n. 1. 56 57 Griffiths (2004), 25. Griffiths (2004), 30. 58 reg. 3 1.2; trans. Lawless (1987), 81.

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communities also bring with them and create through their forays beyond the walls relationships that divide their loyalties. More so than any other place save the oratory, the refectory symbolises and enacts the solidarity intrinsic to the cenobitic conversatio. For Augustine, the refectory is a place of intense sociality. According to Possidius’ account, Augustine ‘preferred reading and discussion to mere eating and drinking’.59 The importance of Augustine’s table cannot be underestimated, for it brings together not only the monastic bodies for nourishment but their souls for conviviality.60 The third loci of Augustinian solidarity is thus found in Benedict’s insistence that a brother must return for meals: If a brother is sent out on some errand and expects to return to the monastery that same day, he must not presume to eat outside, even if he receives a pressing invitation, unless perhaps the abbot has ordered it. Should he act otherwise, he will be excommunicated.61 (RB 51.1–3)

Augustine’s equivalent legislation more laconically expresses the same regulation: ‘No one should eat or drink outside the monastery without express permission to do so; for this is not in keeping with the discipline of the monastery.’62 Whereas the Master dedicates seven chapters to the question of trips outside the monastery, Benedict opts for the terseness of Augustine’s Ordo monasterii. For both Benedict and Augustine, contact with the outside world is full of temptation and danger, a sentiment that is hardly reconcilable with most contemporary monastic orders. But for them, as well as for monks of later eras, taking a meal with someone is filled with significance that goes far beyond the corporeal need for nourishment.63 It is jarring, to some extent, to hear Augustine in this monastic register, and it is easy to forget that his late antique readers would have appreciated Augustine’s innate desire for order just as much as his passion for grace. For Augustine, the solidarity of a loving community is hard won, and this is nowhere more obvious than in the monastic legislation that was a principal source for Benedict. But fraternal relations are not produced simply by solidarity. They are also, somewhat paradoxically, formed by differences among the brethren that require unequal treatment, differences to which we shall now turn. 59

60 Possidius, Vita augustini, 22. Kardong (2010), 162. Fry (1981), 255; Frater qui pro quouis responso dirigitur et ea die speratur reuerti ad monasterium, non praesumat foris manducare, etiam si omnino rogetur a quouis, nisi forte ei ab abbate suo praecipiatur. Quod si aliter fecerit, excommunicetur (Vogüé (1972), 2.608). 62 Ord. mon. 8; trans. Lawless (1987), 77; Nemo extra monasterium sine praecepto manducet neque bibat; non enim hoc ad disciplinam pertinet monasterii (Lawless (1987), 76). 63 Kardong (1996), 414. It should be noted that Benedict’s meal times are nevertheless quite different in tone from Augustine’s: Benedict’s approach to eating is more ascetic than convivial; Benedict does want readings at meals, but he discourages conversation. What we know about Augustine’s meal times is that he encouraged ‘spiritual conversation’. I am indebted to Sr Makrina Finlay for highlighting this difference for me. 61

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Inequality in RB 36 and 55 Buried deep within the monastic imagination is the call for unity, to live as one, a monos. This monos, so the theory goes, admits of no distinction between the members: brothers are to sing the same verses in the oratory, eat the same food in the refectory, and be held to the same rules everywhere else. Evincing Western monasticism’s reliance on strands of ancient ascetical traditions, the prohibition against certain foods and drink was commonly found in monastic rules. Jerome’s Eastern-style monasticism embodied this ideal by enacting a prohibition on eating meat.64 In Possidius’ portrait, Augustine diverged from this, particularly in his allowing some members to eat meat under certain conditions (infirmity or hosting a guest).65 In the Praeceptum, as in Benedict’s Rule, the question of serving meat is related to a broader set of concerns regarding how and when one might be able to receive treatment not commonly available to the community members. For Benedict, this question is located within his discussion of care of the sick: ‘Care of the sick must rank above and before all else, so that they may truly be served as Christ.’66 In particular, Benedict legislates the following: Let a separate room be designated for the sick, and let them be served by an attendant who is God-fearing, attentive and concerned. The sick may take baths whenever it is advisable, but the healthy, and especially the young, should receive permission less readily. Moreover, to regain their strength, the sick who are very weak may eat meat, but when their health improves, they should all abstain from meat as usual.67 (RB 36.7–9)

There is no single passage from Augustine’s monastic oeuvre that informs Benedict’s legislation here. Rather, it comes from a collection of passages, including references to Augustine’s monastic life in Possidius’ Vita augustini.68 But two passages from the Praeceptum are also relevant: Sick people necessarily take less food so as not to aggravate their condition. During convalescence they are to receive such care as will quickly restore their health, even if they come from the lowest level of poverty in the world . . . When sick people have fully recovered, they should return to their happier ways, which are all the more fitting for God’s servants to the extent that they have fewer needs.69 64

Jerome, ep. 79.6; see also Kardong (1996), 304. 66 Possidius, Vita augustini, 22.2. RB 36.1; trans. Fry (1981), 235. 67 Trans. Fry (1981), 235; Quibus fratribus infirmis sit cella super se deputata et seruitor timens Deum et diligens ac sollicitus. Balnearum usus infirmis quotiens expedit offeratur—sanis autem et maxime iuuenibus tardius concedatur. Sed et carnium esus infirmis omnino debilibus pro reparatione concedatur; at, ubi meliorati fuerunt, a carnibus more solito omnes abstineant (Vogüé (1972), 2.571–2. 68 Possidius, Vita augustini, 22. 69 reg. 3.5; trans. Lawless (1987), 87; Sane, quemadodum aegrotantes necesse habent minus accipere ne grauentur, ita et post aegritudinem sic tractandi sunt, ut citius recreentur, etiam si de 65

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Care of the sick, whether the convalescent or those currently ill with any ailment, even though they are not running a temperature, shall be assigned to someone who shall personally obtain from the storeroom whatever he regards necessary for each individual.70

In both Benedict and Augustine, individual status allows for divergent treatment. In other words, the monos of the monastery must be in perpetual dialogue with the particular needs of the brothers. Here unity is a dynamic interplay between the brothers as opposed to a fixed status that all simultaneously hold. For Augustine, this returns him to the opening variation on Acts 4:32, ‘to have one heart and one soul seeking God’,71 for the community is actively seeking God.72 The central line running throughout Augustine’s monastic legislation is a commentary on the Jerusalem community as described in Acts 4:32–5. But for both Augustine and Benedict, the sharing of goods is not a one-time event, but is rather a continuous and ongoing act that is responsive to the individual needs of the community. This is most obviously seen in the above passages regarding special care for the sick. However, Augustine and Benedict both allow discretion in the abbot’s allocation of goods. For Benedict, this is a matter of enacting the spirit of Acts 4: The abbot, however, must always bear in mind what is said in the Acts of the Apostles: Distribution was made to each one as he had need (Acts 4:35). In this way the abbot will take into account the weakness of the needy, not the evil will of the envious.73 (RB 55.20–1)

Kardong detects in Benedict’s quotation of Acts 4:35, particularly in its use of dabatur, an attempt to highlight distribution as a continued action. ‘This is done to prevent Acts 4:35 from being interpreted as a statement of ideology, which it is not. Rather, it describes a few incidents in the earliest Church that are illustrative of the mutual love that flowed from Jesus’ resurrection.’74 Like the equivalent legislation at 34.1, the attitude towards distribution is not egalitarian simpliciter.75 This attitude is present in Augustine’s monastic legislation as well: humillima saeculi paupertate uenerunt . . . Sed cum uires pristinas reparauerint, redeant ad feliciorem consuetudinem suam, quae famulos dei tanto amplius decet, quanto minus indigent. (Lawless (1987), 86). 70 reg. 5.8; trans. Lawless (1987), 97; Aegrotantium cura, siue post aegritudinem reficiendorum, siue aliqua inbecillitate, etiam sin febribus, laborantium, uni alicui debet iniungi, ut ipse de cellario petat, quod cuique opus esse perspexerit (Lawless (1987), 96). 71 reg. 1.2. 72 Kardong (2010) highlights that Augustine inserted the phrase in deum to Acts 4:32a (171). 73 Trans. Fry (1981), 265; A quo tamen abbate semper consideretur illa sententia Actuum Apostolorum, quia dabatur singulis prout cuique opus erat. Ita ergo et abbas consideret infirmitates indigentium, non malam uoluntatem inuidentium (Vogüé (1972), 2.622). 74 75 Kardong (1996), 449. See Kardong (1996), 285ff.

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Do not call anything your own; possess everything in common. Your superior ought to provide each of you with food and clothing, not on an equal basis to all, because all do not enjoy the same health, but to each one in proportion to his need. For you read in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘They possessed everything in common’, and ‘Distribution was made to each in proportion to each one’s need’.76

Augustine’s legislation here resonates with Psalm 132’s refrain, ‘how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity’.77 The quotation of Acts 4:35 is not exclusive to an Augustinian monastic tradition, as evidenced by Basil’s similar use of Acts 4:35,78 but when Benedict’s use is placed within the overall context of the abbot’s loving discretion the Augustinian imprint becomes more obvious. According to Zumkeller (and affirmed by Vogüé and Kardong), Benedict takes his portrait of the abbot from Augustine, particularly with respect to the Augustinian leitmotif non tam praesse quam prodesse:79 ‘Let [the abbot] recognize that his goal must be profit (prodesse) for the monks, not pre-eminence (praesse) for himself.’80 For both Benedict and Augustine this abbatial wisdom flows from fatherly love, whereas for Basil the abbot–brother relationship is based upon a master–servant model.81 Benedict’s chief divergence from the milieu embodied by both Basil and the Master is thus an Augustinian insistence on fraternal relations that, in the first place, grow out of the solidarity of the brothers, but, in the second place, become enriched by the discretion of the abbot to authorise the Acts 4 community. It is, on final analysis, the charity of the abbot that instills the Augustinian spirit in Benedict’s fraternal relations, a topic to which we shall now turn.

Charity in RB 64 Benedict’s abbot ‘is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery’, as we learn in RB 2, which is the most developed account of the abbot’s role in the community.82 Respect for the abbot comes more from his example than from the awe that his position might inspire. Likewise, his authority is directly 76

reg. 1.3; trans. Lawless (1987), 81; Et non dicatis aliquid proprium, sed sint uobis omnia communia, et distribuatur unicuique uestrum a praeposito uestro uictus et tegumentum, non aequaliter omnibus, quia non aequaliter ualetis omnes, sed potius unicuique sicut cuique opus fuerit. Sic enim legitis in Actibus Apostolorum, quia ‘erant illis omnia communia et distribuebatur unicuique sicut cuique opus erat’ (Lawless (1987), 80). 77 For commentary on Augustine’s en. Ps. 132, see Ch. 3; see also Luc Verheijen, Nouvelle approche de la règle de Saint Augustin (Bégrolles-en-Mauges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1980), 75. 78 See, e.g., Basil, reg. 94; Kardong (1996) suggests that Benedict is likely following Basil in the passage, but there is also influence from Augustine’s reg. 1.3 (449). 79 80 Zumkeller (1968), 202; see s. 340.1 and ciu. 19.19. RB 64.8; trans. Fry (1981), 283. 81 Kardong (2010), 53–6. Basil’s metaphor for the abbot is the all-seeing eye, an image that suggests rigorous surveillance. I am indebted to Sr Makrina Finlay for pointing this out to me. 82 RB 2.2.

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attached to his humility and love for the brethren. When Benedict returns to questions regarding the abbot’s election towards the end of the first recension (ch. 64), we can see the clear influence of the ‘teacher of charity’, as Vogüé refers to Augustine in this context.83 In ch. 64, two of Benedict’s most simple yet elegant passages are significant: [The abbot] must hate faults but love the brothers. (Oderit vitia, diligat fratres) (RB 64.11) Let [the abbot] strive to be loved rather than feared. (et studeat plus amari quam timeri) (RB 64.15)

Fry’s notes in the 1981 English edition and commentary on the Rule suggests a plethora of passages from Augustine’s oeuvre as influences on verse 11— sermon 49, City of God 14, and letter 211, as well as Caesarius of Arles’ Augustine-inspired Rule. In City of God 14, we find the clearest expression of this now commonplace Christian sentiment: ‘He should hate the fault, but love the man’ (oderit vitium, amet hominem).84 Verse 16 is easier to pin down. Both letter 211 and Praeceptum have nearly identical phrases to that which we find in RB. ‘Let [the superior] seek to be loved by you rather than to be feared’ (tamen plus a uobis amari appetat quam timeri), as it is formulated at ep. 211.15; ‘[the abbot] shall strive to be loved by you rather than feared’ (tamen plus a uobis amari adpetat quam timeri), as it is found in reg. 7.3. For both Augustine and Benedict, the central feature of the relationship between the abbot and his brothers is love. In Chapter 8, more will be said regarding the animus of love for the whole community.85 For now, it is key that we focus on how this ought to be read within the theme of fraternal relations among the community as whole. Encoded within Benedict’s teaching on fraternal relations is a dialectic between the solidarity that draws the brothers into a monos and the inequality that discerns the individual needs of the members. What holds the solidarity and inequality together is the abbot’s love for the brethren. As will become more clear when we turn to the nature of Benedict’s Augustinianism 2, the author of the Rule pushes beyond Augustine’s Praeceptum and Ordo monasterii in the identification of the abbot with Christ. This Christology extends, as we have seen in various aspects of Benedict’s fraternal relations, to the sick, the guest, and the poor. To borrow from Rowan Williams, the abbot, the sick, the guest, and the poor are, for all in the community, abbot and brother alike, ‘Christ’s face turned towards him’.86 Charity is the ‘glue’ between RB’s solidarity and its allowances for unequal treatment. For Jerome and his Eastern colleagues, monastic solidarity implied a radical equality between the brothers, and manifested itself in such 83 85

84 Vogüé (1985a), 2:330. ciu.14.6; Teubner (1993), 2:13. 86 See discussion of RB 71–2 in Ch. 8. Williams (1999), 107.

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regulations as universal dietary restrictions. For RB, solidarity would be false if it did not extend special treatment to the sick, the poor, and the stranger. It is ultimately left to the wise discretion of the abbot to institute the most appropriate policies of inclusion, which at times would require unequal distribution of goods. As for Augustine, ‘sharing all things’ does not imply equal allotment. The principle of fraternal relations is one of Augustine’s most profound influences on Western social philosophy, as Troeltsch has highlighted. But fraternal relations are no simple matter: they require the discretion of love, a strand that runs through Augustine’s ‘Christian cultural ethic’.87

PURE PRAYER IN COMMUNITY The establishment of a genuinely Christian cultural ethic, to stay with Troeltsch’s phrase for the moment, requires the life of prayer for both Augustine and Benedict. It is thus no surprise that the first recension begins with Benedict’s compendium on prayer (RB 8–20). Benedict’s account of the time, methods, and locations of common and private prayer is, in many respects, a prototypical feature of all monastic rules, but, again, in a few critical places the author of the ‘little rule for monks’ draws on Augustine’s legislation. There is very little evidence of the specific habits and practices of Benedictine life prior to the end of the eighth century, and it was not until the ninth century that substantial commentaries on the Rule were composed, the most illustrative being Benedict of Aniane’s Concordia regularum.88 Add this historical fact to the reality that Benedict does not offer us anything approaching a theorised anthropology, on which we might draw to infer certain types of prayer.89 Rather, Benedict’s theory of prayer is found, in the very literal sense, in the practice of prayer, for what he says about prayer is exhausted by his legislation in the Rule. Benedict specifically discusses prayer in chapters 8–19 (regulation of the liturgy), 20 (personal prayer), 48 (daily reading and work), 49 (observance of Lent), and 52 (Oratory of the Monastery).90 The limited nature of Benedict’s comments and his reluctance to draw up a theory of prayer to append to his Rule has forced readers into the scholarly underground: the principal means of expounding on Benedict’s comments on prayer has been through his sources. 87 Ernst Troeltsch, Augustin, die christliche Antike und die Mittelalter. Im anschluß an die schrift, De civitate Dei (Munich and Berlin: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1915), 1–7. 88 Butler (1924), 60. 89 R.W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (London: Hutchinson, 1953), 223; pace Butler (1924), 61–2. 90 Stewart (2008), 203.

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In 1923, with the publication of Benedictine Monachism, Dom Cuthbert Butler made a strong argument for John Cassian’s influence, though not without some acknowledgement of Augustine as a definite source in certain key passages. Cassian’s ninth Conference is ‘the source whence St Benedict took his instructions on prayer, and is the authentic commentary on his teaching; so that in it we may securely read his mind’.91 Benedict’s well-known directive that prayer ought to be ‘short and pure’ (breuis debet esse et pura oratio) led Butler to see a definite stream of Cassianic prayer in RB 20. More recently, this passage has been read to invoke Evagrius Ponticus’ doctrine of pure or true prayer,92 but these commentators acknowledge that Benedict had to have received it via Cassian. But even as Butler acknowledges, Augustine’s ep. 130 could have been the source for it.93 There is little doubt that Cassian’s ninth Conference influenced Benedict, but it is equally difficult to accept Butler’s broad generalisation that we may ‘securely read Benedict’s mind’ in Cassian’s ninth Conference. This is revealed as particularly tenuous when one attempts to read Cassian’s four degrees of prayer into such a brief statement, as Butler and others after him have done.94 It is doubly hard to interpret Benedict’s ‘pure’ prayer as bearing all the great weight of Cassian’s contemplative prayer. In recent decades of Benedictine scholarship, there has, however, been a turning away from the Cassianic interpretation in general.95 While there is little reason to think that this scholarly shift away from Cassian requires radical revision of Butler’s thesis, we might profitably attend to specific points where Augustine’s influence peeks out in various places in Benedict’s regulations for prayer. The three passages in Benedict’s compendium to prayer (RB 8–20) that demonstrate Augustinianism 1 are RB 13.13, 19.7, and 20.3–4. But Benedict’s most famous reliance on Augustine’s legislation regarding prayer is, however, found in RB 52. In this chapter, Benedict regulates the oratory, making it explicitly and exclusively a place of prayer or opus Dei: The oratory ought to be what it is called, and nothing else is to be done or stored there. After the Work of God (opus Dei), all should leave in complete silence and with reverence for God, so that a brother who may wish to pray alone will not be disturbed by the insensitivity of another. Moreover, if at other times someone chooses to pray privately, he may simply go in and pray, not in a loud voice, but with tears and heartfelt devotion (sed in lacrimis et intentione cordis). Accordingly, anyone who does not pray in this manner is not to remain in the oratory after the Work of God (opus Dei), as we have said; then he will not interfere with anyone else.96 91

Butler (1924), 63. Stewart (2008), 207; Columba Stewart, Cassian the Monk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 106–7. 93 94 Butler (1924), 62. See, e.g., relevant commentary on RB 20 in Böckmann (2013). 95 96 Hagan (2015). RB 52.1–5; trans. Fry (1981), 255. 92

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Even according to the ninth-century commentary by Smaragdus of SaintMihiel, who was more apt to show continuity with Gregory the Great, this passage was Augustinian.97 But also for modern commentators, this chapter is derived from Augustine’s ep. 211 and reg.98 It is worth dwelling on Augustine’s regulation of the oratory for a moment, for it enlightens the extent to which Benedict’s legislation is not simply one of ‘good order’ but rather a matter of ensuring proper fraternal relations. Augustine’s similar legislation in his Rule links this regulation to a larger spiritual context: Persevere faithfully in prayer (Col. 4:2) at the hours and times appointed. The place of prayer should not be used for any purpose than that for which it is intended and from which it takes its name. Thus if someone wants to pray there even outside the appointed hours, in his own free time, he should be able to do so without being hindered by others who have no business being there. When you pray to God in psalms and songs, the words spoken by your lips should also be alive in your hearts. When you sing, keep to the text you have, and do not sing what is not intended to be sung.99

The regulation of the oratory is, for Augustine, deeply connected with his opening gambit—‘Before all else, live together in harmony (Ps. 67:7), being of one mind and one heart (Acts 4:32) on the way to God.’100 According to Zumkeller, it is in these hours of community prayer that the community consolidates its ‘supernatural love for one another’ and deepens its pursuit of holiness.101 The connection between reg. 2 and Augustine’s opening words is found, for Van Bavel, in Augustine’s ‘basic law of all prayer’: ‘When you pray to God in psalms and songs, the words spoken by your lips should also be alive in your hearts.’102 To borrow from Van Bavel, ‘There has to be harmony between lips and heart, between the exterior and the interior, between theory and practice, the ideal and life.’103 Augustine’s regulation of the oratory thus locates the dwelling together of the non-ideal community life squarely in the oratory. It is here where nothing is to be done but finding unity of voice and heart, and brother and brother. Likewise, Benedict’s Augustinian legislation of the oratory helps to connect the dots within his compendium of prayer. In RB 19.7, Benedict repeats, again almost verbatim, what Van Bavel calls Augustine’s ‘basic law of all prayer’:

97 Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel, Commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict, trans. David Barry (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2007), 445. 98 Vogüé (1972), 2:610–1; Kardong (1996), 416; Puzicha (2002), 552; Böckmann (2013), 630–1. 99 reg. 2.1–4; trans. Trasicius J. Van Bavel, The Rule of Saint Augustine (New York: Doubleday, 1986), 13. 100 101 reg. 1.2; trans. Van Bavel (1986), 11. Zumkeller (1968), 221. 102 103 reg. 1.2. Van Bavel (1986), 62.

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Let us consider, then, how we ought to behave in the presence of God and his angels, and let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices.104 (RB 19.6–7)

While Vogüé sees the harmony of mind and voices being extrapolated from RM,105 most other commentators opt for an Augustinian imprint. Kardong argues for reliance on Augustine’s ep. 211.7 and Enarratio of Psalm 30,106 Böckmann for ep. 130.9 and ep. 48.3,107 and Puzicha for reg. 2.3.108 RB 19.6, which is not traditionally cited as Augustinian, is connected for Puzicha to Augustine’s famous passage in the closing of his City of God: ‘So the monastic community is now the location that is un-attachable from its communion with God, as Augustine formulates it: “There we will celebrate and look, look and love, love and praise.”’109 Common prayer is thus done not only in common with one’s earthly community, but also in communion with the divine object of the opus Dei. For Augustine, as for Benedict, the vox–mens harmony is that which connects corporate spirituality with the divine corporation, and the monastic community is the privileged place for this harmony to be attempted in this age. Puzicha’s insight returns us to RB 20, the locus classicus of Benedict’s compendium of prayer, but we shall now be able to appreciate how it fits within RB’s overall presentation of common prayer as inspired by Augustine. The full chapter reads as follows: Whenever we want to ask some favor of a powerful man, we do it humbly and respectfully, for fear of presumption. How much more important, then, to lay our petitions before the Lord God of all things with the utmost humility and sincere devotion. We must know that God regards our purity of heart and tears of compunction, not our many words. Prayer should therefore be short and pure, unless perhaps it is prolonged under the inspiration of divine grace. In community, however, prayer should always be brief; and when the superior gives the signal, all should rise together.110 (RB 20.1–5)

Benedict’s regulation that prayer should be ‘short and pure’ has rightly received a lot of attention from modern commentators. But for Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel, the command for ‘purity of heart’ and the final passage 104 Fry (1981), 217; Ergo consideremus qualiter oporteat in conspectu diuinitatis et angelorum eius esse, et sic stemus ad psallendum ut mens nostra concordet uoci nostrae (Vogüé (1972), 2:536). 105 106 107 Vogüé (1972), 2:536. Kardong (1996), 206. Böckmann (2013), 106. 108 109 Puzicha and Schütz (2002), 296. Puzicha and Schütz (2002), 295. 110 Fry (1981), 217; Si, cum hominibus potentibus uolumus aliqua suggerere, non praesumimus nisi cum humilitate et reuerentia, quanto magis Domino Deo uniuersorum cum omni humilitate et puritatis deuotione supplicandum est. Et non in multiloquio, sed in puritate cordis et conpunctione lacrimarium nos exaudiri sciamus. Et ideo breuis debet esse et pura oratio, nisi forte ex affectu inspirationis diuinae gratiae protendatur. In conuentu tamen omnino breuietur oratio, et facto signo a priore omnes pariter surgant (Vogüé (1972), 536, 538).

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regarding communal prayer was just as important.111 Purity of heart is, for Smaragdus, a command against duplicity in prayer: ‘let there not be one person in the mouth, and another in the heart’.112 Smaragdus lifts this phrase from RM 48.1–4, but as we have already seen, the evidence for an Augustinian influence is much stronger. Smaragdus’ insights offers a valuable correction to the modern fascination with Cassianic ‘pure’ prayer, and reminds us what we have already observed: Benedict’s intention was the regulation of prayer for the community. For Benedict prayer is oriented to the pledge the brothers make to one another in the words of the Lord’s Prayer, Forgive us as we forgive (Matt. 6:12) in RB 13.13. The final instruction to keep your communal prayers brief and to rise together brings us, on final analysis, to the core of Benedict’s compendium on prayer. Prayer is, for Benedict, as it was for Augustine, that which draws the brotherhood together in vox et mens. In keeping with common sixth-century monastic legislation, Benedict, like Augustine, allows space for private prayer. But the more consequential act is that of the community, when all brothers find ‘how good and pleasant it is to dwell together in unity’.

CONCLUSIO N In his much neglected early work on monasticism, Adolf von Harnack remarked that, in the West, ‘monasticism had a real history . . . monasticism there made history, secular and religious alike’.113 For Harnack, monasticism’s history in the West stood out for its spirit of reform, as it provided a contrapuntal impulse to every significant development in the history of Christianity in Europe. The great (and notorious) German historian treasured monasticism’s ideals first and foremost for its cultivation of what he calls ‘brotherly love’, alighting upon a way in which Benedict continues Troeltsch’s Augustinian ‘Christian cultural ethic’ of fraternal relations. As has now become evident, Harnack and Troeltsch are not the only ones to identify the importance of fraternal relations in the Benedictine tradition. But as we close this first stage of our study of Benedict’s Augustinianism it behooves us to see a cautionary tale in how these giants of Protestant liberalism proceeded from the insight of fraternal relations in the Benedictine tradition. Both Harnack and Troeltsch saw in monasticism a social philosophy that sprang from its principle of fraternal relations, and once it entered the realm of social philosophy 111

Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel (2007), 334–6. Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel (2007), 234. Adolf von Harnack, Monasticism: Its Ideals and History, trans. E.E. Kellett and F. H. Marseille (Oxford: Williams & Norgate, 1901), 64. 112 113

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fraternal relations became a matter of politics. As inspiring (and necessary) as a politics of fraternal relations might be, we must, however, resist the temptation to press too quickly into a social philosophy and politics divorced from the doctrinal idiom that gave it its fecundity in the first place. Prayer and the fraternal relations it effects is, of course, significant for the social philosophy and politics of religious communities, and Benedict’s Rule is foremost in promoting this vision.114 But if Harnack’s insight that Western monasticism had a ‘real history’ is accurate, a richer, more theologically complex account must be told. Indeed, Benedict himself returns to his original body of legislation, framing it with fourteen new chapters and a prologue. As we shall see in Chapter 8, it is in this second recension that Benedict ‘Christifies’ the fraternal relations of his conversatio, forever marking his Rule as a deeply Augustinian text. While the first recension’s synthesis of the major monastic legislation in the West is an unparalleled accomplishment in itself, the Rule’s legacy in subsequent centuries will be carried forward by the theologically suggestive frame Benedict provides in the second recension. As we shall see, the history of Benedictine monasticism begins with Benedict’s own theological framing of his Rule in the spirit of Augustinianism 2.

114 See Michael Banner’s appropriation of Benedictine monasticism to such an end: Christian Ethics: A Brief History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009), 10ff.

8 The Augustinianism 2 of the Rule of St Benedict In Chapter 7, I looked at the evidence for Benedict’s Augustinianism 1 in the first recension of his Rule. Now, in Chapter 8, I shall turn to the Benedictine conversatio as a life of prayer that arises out of a constellation of Augustinian themes. In particular, I hope to suggest a sense in which Benedict has a ‘theory of individual growth’,1 through which I shall deepen my account of Augustinianism 2. In his Dialogues, Gregory the Great famously said of Benedict, ‘The holy man could not teach other than he lived.’2 It is thus in his conversatio that Benedict submerges his theory of the monk in the particulars of how the monk occupies his horarii. In particular, I will argue by reference to Benedict’s use of regula and conversatio that the Rule, despite its many literary borrowings from monastic traditions of the East, is situated within an Augustinian understanding of Christian existence that is constellated around a life of prayer grounded in hopeful patience. In Benedict’s Rule, one can detect an expansion of the form Augustine imagined redemption to take in this life. For the monk as for the lay and clerical Christians, redemption is eschatologically achieved but held in hope until the age to come. The Benedictine, like Augustine’s congregation, finds recourse to the patience found in repetitive, faithful practices of his conversatio.

INTERPRETING THE R U LE REDUX The literary analysis I offer in this chapter is no less dependent on close textual analysis than the analysis of Augustinianism 1 in Chapter 7. However, in this chapter the kind of analysis appropriate to Augustinianism 2 will require a more sophisticated theory of interpretation, and will provide theoretical advances beyond the Augustinianism 2 of Boethius’ Consolation. Far from 1

Southern (1953), 223.

2

Reference from Schütz (2005), 285.

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slavishly following any one source, Benedict’s Augustinianism 2 is crafted out of an elegant synthesis of RM (Regula magistri) and Cassian’s Institutes and Conferences. I will, in particular, argue this case with reference to RB (Regula Benedicti) 3, 7, and 71–2. In these critical passages of the Rule, Benedict’s act of synthesising his predecessor’s monastic legislation emerges as an original and innovative Augustinianism. Both the divergences from RM and Benedict’s inclusion of other material construct an Augustinian Christology in the concrete reality of the monk’s life that takes the shape of a lived theology of prayer. In addition to providing a fresh interpretation of Benedict’s Rule, this will also address the question of Benedict’s supposedly absent ‘theory of spiritual growth of the individual’ that R.W. Southern propounded in 1953 and that has, in many quarters, gone unquestioned.3 Through my interpretation of RB 3, 7, and 71–2, I hope to demonstrate that Benedict’s innovations are, in very subtle ways, Augustinian: they offer a view of Christian existence informed by themes constellated in and around Augustine’s Christology as found in his Enarrationes in Psalmos. As will become evident, resituating RB in such a way is also a study in the developing Latin theological identity vis-à-vis the relationship between ‘Eastern’ sources and ‘Western’ contexts. Recall Lienhard’s three methods: ‘citations and allusions’ in RB, ‘sources’ in modern editions, and Benedict’s ‘world’.4 In this chapter I aim to articulate a form of influence that is similar to this third method but with greater specificity. I take Lienhard’s concept of ‘world’ to be tantamount to what is often vaguely refered to as a ‘world view’. My notion of Augustinianism 2 shares certain features with such a notion, but seeks to delineate more specifically what that ‘world view’ is composed of and how it might function within the scope of both competing influences and the author’s own contributions. These competing influences, for RB, come principally from Greek or Greek-inspired monastic legislators. This Greek depository is, however, often filtered through RM, which is itself a digest of Cassian’s interpretations of some Greek and ‘desert’ fathers. As astute observers are keen to highlight, the Greek monastic tradition often comes to the West in distorted form.5 Much to the chagrin of scholars of Eastern monasticism, this reality often informs why Benedict and his Latin colleagues searched for new methods and approaches to the monastic vocation. What it means for RB to be Augustinian does not, therefore, necessarily conflict with the use of Greek sources (though it can—and we must always leave that possibility open).6 In this chapter I will thus build on the Augustinianism 1 I established in Chapter 7 in order to fill out Benedict’s Augustinianism 2. In addition to the historical context I highlighted in Chapter 7, there is the ‘literary’ or 3

4 5 Southern (1953), 223. See Ch. 7. Kodell (2013), 407. In ‘An Ethical Postlude’ I will address the relationship between Augustinianism 2 and ‘world view’ or ‘conceptual scheme’. 6

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‘discursive’ context, which is far more difficult to assess, but equally important. While the acknowledgement of several different streams of influence has an air of scholarly cautiousness, it can also obfuscate the more challenging question of how RB hangs together as a coherent regula. There are many streams of thought or ‘traditions’ that flow into RB, but to begin to parse the separate strands we need to understand how a sixth-century Roman monastic legislator would think about Christian existence. This is best seen, I believe, in light of the set of themes constellated in Augustine’s understanding of prayer.7 But this is not the kind of influence that the source-critical scholar favours, namely, clear cases of literary borrowing. One must therefore step back from the particulars and discern the ‘frame’ Benedict gives to the rule. While in Chapter 7 Benedict’s Augustinianism 1 was pursued by three particular examples, here in Chapter 8 I will discuss the Augustinianism 2 of the Rule, building on the particulars highlighted in Chapter 7. A monastic rule, like life in general, arises out of particularities, and this is nowhere more evidently the case than in the work of Benedict, who first set down a set of concrete rules and only later came to frame them theoretically. Be that as it may, one of the strengths of the RB is that it is not overly theorised. The kind of theorisation that I am suggesting is, then, only coherent when placed on the foundation of the particulars of the Rule. As Vogüé has been at pains to show, the middle portion is drawn from RM with important additions from Augustine, as we observed in Chapter 7.8 Turning to the theological frame, we find that the first seven chapters of RB provide a kind of theory of monasticism that is deeply indebted to both Cassian and Augustine. In the additional chapters at the end, which are those that are most unlike RM,9 Benedict offers the intensified vision of fraternal relations that we tracked in Chapter 7. Within this new conclusion to RB, chapters 67–70 turn to qualifications that arise according to particular circumstances, and chapters 71–3 form a Christological ‘coda’ to the rule. It is within the scope of these fourteen ‘framing’ chapters that I will argue for an Augustinian understanding of Christian existence constellated around prayer. One must, however, be careful not to elide Benedict’s use of Augustine with that of the Master, Cassian, or even Basil of Caesarea. RB is, no doubt, a brilliant synthesis of the major Greek and Latin monastic rules,10 but the supposition of Augustine’s influence has remained somewhat narrowly defined. It will be my 7 This supposition is similar to ones made by Lorenz (1966); Vogüé (1971), (1977), (1985a); Leyser (2000); and David R. Maxwell, ‘What Was “Wrong” with Augustine?: The Sixth-Century Reception (or Lack Thereof) of Augustine’s Christology’, in Martens (2008), 212–27; as well as Michael Banner, who in both Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and (2009) assumes Benedict’s Augustinianism to great explanatory power. 8 9 See de Vogüé (1972), 33–44. See Claude Peifer’s introduction to Fry (1981), 92–3. 10 See Vogüé (1971), 192–3.

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intention in this chapter to expand this supposition. I shall thus analyse RB 3, 7, 71–2 in order to demonstrate how Benedict emerges through the repetition of material from RM as an innovative theologian. In my textual analysis, I move beyond the oft-cited contribution of Augustine to the RB—namely, that Augustine (particularly through his own Rule) provided the concern for ‘horizontal’ relations between monks. Instead, I shall argue that a subtle understanding of the presence of Christ emerges, one which deeply informs Benedict’s understanding of prayer as the central, ongoing task of the monk.

BENEDICT THE THEOLOG IAN: RB 3, 7, 71 – 2 In this section I will both go a step further than I did in Chapter 7, and be more precise than Vogüé’s Augustinian sentir. I argue that Augustine is not simply an influence alongside either RM or Cassian, but rather Augustine’s Christology plays a structural role requiring excavation and clarification. This can be observed when Benedict the theologian diverges from his main sources: RM and Cassian. Butler has suggested that RB was a genuinely innovative text, especially in its communitarian spirit.11 Vogüé reacted strongly to this, showing how closely RB followed RM. The innovation of RB resides, for Vogüé, chiefly in ‘its value as a representative of the whole tradition and the relatively extensive and organized exposition of common doctrine and institutions it furnished’.12 The argument as set forth here employs Vogüé’s textual insights to demonstrate a strengthened version of Butler’s thesis. In the three textual loci I will discuss one can see that Benedict is presenting a sophisticated picture of Christ’s presence in the interior and exterior lives of the monks that ‘Christifies’ the fraternal relations we observed in Chapter 7. First, in RB 3, Benedict addresses the authority of the abbot. In this treatise on the Council of the Brethren, RB expects the abbot to consult the brethren regarding the res monasterii.13 Second, in RB 7 Benedict offers his now justly celebrated long treatise on humility.14 Evaluating the influence of RB 7, Southern has argued, ‘It would be hard to find anywhere outside the Bible so short a passage which has worked its way so powerfully into Christian thought as this one.’15 And last and most interesting, in RB 71–2, the conclusion of what Vogüé has called Benedict’s ‘appendix’ (RB 67–72), Benedict offers material unique to his Rule but drawn from Augustine’s work more broadly. It is chapter 72, I will argue, that is the crowning theological achievement and summary of the entire text. In this final section, fraternal relations are raised to mutual obedience and charity. These three sections, then, provide 11 13

Butler (1924), 162–4. Vogüé (1985a), 461.

12 14

Vogüé (1961); trans. Charles Philippi, Vogüé (1985a), 18. 15 Vogüé (1985a), 454. Southern (1953), 224.

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this chapter with three starting points to anchor Augustine’s often elusive influence on the Rule. The golden thread that runs through all three sections is an increased interest in the interior life of the monks, especially when compared with RM. Because of the dominant influence of RM, I will first discuss RB within the context of RM. Only then can I take the additional step to highlight how Augustine’s theological sources might be infusing Benedict’s Rule. It is only by seeing Augustine within a matrix of RM and Cassian’s influence that we can recognise Benedict’s supposedly absent ‘theory of growth of the individual’. Benedict cannot be truly ‘Cassianic’ without being more fundamentally Augustinian.

A Humble Union in RB 3 In RB 3, where there is textual evidence that RB has diverged from RM, RB dedicates an entire chapter to the consultation of the brethren, whereas RM simply attaches similar material to chapter two.16 The consultation of the brethren is, in a way, a limit on the abbot’s authority. It is also an important difference between RM and RB. Whereas there is a ‘dominating counsel’ in RM,17 Benedict leaves room for the brothers to express their own opinion in all humility.18 It is, of course, still the abbot who makes the final decision, but the difference lies between the processes of the two rules. In RB the abbot makes decisions in light of the brothers’ insights, while the abbot of RM only asks for input when he thinks someone might give apt counsel. In RB, all are, at the end of the day, equally subjected to the rule, for the abbot, too, must ‘observe every rule’.19 This move not only places both the abbot and the community similarly under the rule, but is also intended to place both under the will of God.20 This equal subordination suggests to us the singular teacher of Christ, while also highlighting the representative role of the abbot.21 Only in this qualified sense can we say that the abbot is the Christological ‘head’ of the monastery, but as we will see this qualified sense is very important. In addition to the externally reconfigured relationship between the abbot and brothers, RB highlights the internal capacities that are required—humility and obedience for the fratres,22 and foresight and justice for the abbas.23 This move towards the interior motivations and affections of the brothers and the 16

17 18 Fry (1981), note to 3.1, 178. RM 2.43–7. RB 3.4. 20 RB 3.11. Puzicha and Schütz (2002), 96–7. 21 Puzicha and Schütz (2002), 99. 22 3.4–5: Sic autem dent fratres consilium cum omni humilitatis subiectione, et non praesumant procaciter defendere quod eius uisum fuerit, et magis in abbatis pendat arbitrio, ut quod salubrius esse iudicauerit ei cuncti oboediant. 23 3.6: Sed sicut discipulos conuenit oboedire magistro, ita et ipsum prouide et iuste condecet cuncta disponere. 19

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abbot is distinctive to RB as compared with RM. The focus of much discussion in RB 3 is on the role of the abbot. Vogüé, in particular, brings out the Christological imagery of the abbot, being both a doctor and an abbas.24 This leads some to conclude that Benedict’s abbot is anti-Augustinian, for ‘the primordial place which [RM and RB] thus recognize in the abbatial office contrasts with the last place which Augustine assigns it in his directory for a superior’.25 This judgement is, however, based on the order of Augustine’s rules. But the supposition that RB and Augustine’s Praeceptum differ with respect to the importance of the abbot simply because the abbot’s description comes later in Augustine’s monastic legislation lacks argumentative strength. The order in itself cannot be read as a prioritisation, for Benedict himself puts some of the most consequential chapters at the conclusion of the work. But it is also significant that Augustine’s monastic legislation was written in a far more ad hoc fashion. There are, however, deeper theological symmetries between RB and Augustine. Through the Incarnation, as I interpreted Augustine in Chapter 3, Christ took on our humanity in order to teach us the requisite humility and obedience suitable to our station. The via humilitatis is, in other words, the way of Christ, which is, in turn, taken on by Christ’s human followers. It is here in RB 3.4–6 that we see an appeal not only to the requisite humility for obedience to the abbas, but also to the necessary foresight (prouidus) and justice (iustum) required of the abbas to make the decisions that the fratres, in turn, must obey.26 The abbatial requirements take on Christological features within the relationship between the head (abbas) and body (fratres). Within this relationship, the abbot acts justly to the brothers, knowing what is best for the brothers through his foresight.27 The abbas–fratres structure not only suggests a structural similarity with Augustine’s Christus totus doctrine, but also maintains the centrality of justice. This aspect is best captured by Robert Dodaro when he writes: Augustine maintains that justice cannot be known except in Christ, and that, as founder (conditor) and ruler (rector), Christ forms the just society in himself. United with Christ, members of his body constitute the whole, just Christ (Christus totus iustus), which is the city of God, the true commonwealth, and the locus for the revelation of justice . . . In Augustine’s view, Christ creates this just society through his mediation of divine humility to human beings through his incarnation.28

The abbot is a kind of ‘head’, not just in the sense that he is the vicar of Christ, but also because he regulates everything with justice and foresight, thereby 24 Adalbert de Vogüé, Rule of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1983), 71. 25 26 Vogüé (1983), 66. Vogüé (1983), 72. 27 28 RB 3.6. Dodaro (2004), 72.

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conserving the just society found in Christ. By connecting these two aspects of Augustine’s Christology, RB confirms its Augustinian ‘shape’: ‘just as it is right for the disciples to obey the master, so too is it proper for [the master] to settle everything with foresight and justice’.29 While the abbot is the ‘head’ of the monastery, he is only so in a derivative sense. The most important motif of RB 3 is, however, omnis. In either its nominal or adjectival form, omnis is used no less than six times within the twelve short verses of RB 3. A consequence of this is that it redirects the abbot’s leadership back to the unity his humility is intended to galvanise. Moreover, it sets up verses 7–8 on the common submission to the Rule and surrendering of individual desires to the common good.30 The omnis motif thus points us back to the solidarity of fraternal relations in RB 31, 35, 46, and 51. Yet the ‘Christification’ of the abbot now significantly transforms the more pedestrian practices of solidarity found in the first recension—for example, suffering the insufferable and speaking forthrightly and honestly with each other—into a holy society unified by the abbot’s humility. By thus attending to the transformation of Benedict’s Augustinianism within the RB one can detect a subtly Augustinian Christology that clarifies a conceptual gap that Vogüé has highlighted in the text of RB 3. However, in disagreement with Vogüé, I have suggested that Benedict is constructing a relation between abbas–fratres developed from Augustine’s totus Christus figuration. This is a subtle instance of Benedict’s Augustinianism 2: Benedict appropriates Augustine’s totus Christus figuration in order to ground the relationship between superior and members in the person of Christ, but the totus Christus never emerges as an explicit touchstone for Benedict. Therefore, far from this being the case of an anti-Augustinianism (à la Vogüé), it is an Augustinian reformation of RM.

Divine Subjectivity in RB 7 In RB 7, ‘On Humility’, Benedict curiously skips over the ‘external’ actions that RM suggests can first make one aware of God’s presence: speech,31 manual labour,32 and walking.33 This first step of humility—‘always keep the fear of God before your eyes’—is also not attested in Cassian’s Institutes, the other obvious influence in this chapter.34 Instead, RB only highlights that our 29

30 RB 3.6. Böckmann (2011), 197. Ad linguae uero eloquia ita nobis agnosciumus Deum semper esse praesentem (RM 10.20). 32 In opere uero manuum nostrarum ita agnoscimus Deum nobis esse praesentem (RM 10.23). 33 In gressu uero pedum nostrorum ita agnoscimus Deum nobis semper esse praesentem (RM 10.24). 34 Steps two through eleven are well attested as influenced by Cassian; see Fry (1981), 196. It is, of course, a familiar Augustinian move, for the first step towards wisdom is the fear of God; see doct. Christ. 2.7.9–10 and Puzicha and Schütz (2002), 153. 31

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thoughts and desires are present (praesens) to God.35 This is a rather striking exclusion, as RB will go on to suggest in detail the ways a monk ought to talk and work. In this very important divergence from RM and Cassian, Benedict creates a distinction of intensity between how one’s internal thoughts and desires are present to God, and how one’s actions are present to God. God is explicitly and immediately perceived to be present internally—to the cogitationes and desideria—but the perception of God’s presence in external actions occurs over the course of a lifetime. This reveals a more subtle understanding of God’s presence than we find in Cassian, thereby opening up a way for the internal to shape the external and the external to inform the internal, both being formed by a growing awareness of the presence of God in all aspects of life. Within this lacuna, one can detect a glimpse of Benedict the theologian working. Whilst still connecting certain kinds of interiority (e.g. a humble attitude) with externality (e.g. obedience), Benedict reconfigures the relationship between internal and external presence, and opens up a more subtle and prolonged way for both to be shaped by the presence of God.36 There is only one occurrence in RB where Benedict uses the form praesentia, but its use is of utmost importance for Benedict’s understanding of ‘presence’.37 In 19.2, he seems to suggest that God is present in a particularly intense way in the divine office.38 When we take this insight from RB 19.1–2 and turn back to Benedict’s exclusion of external actions as present to God, we see that this is not so much evidence of Benedict’s move to interiority (as exclusive of exteriority), but rather suggestive of a more profound unity between internal affections and external actions seen in light of the entire Rule. Benedict suggests that God is present, with the least amount of doubt, in the celebration of the divine office. In other words, Christ is present most clearly in the divine office. But the other appearances of Christ’s presence in the life of the monastery are significant. It has already been noted that the abbot is, for Benedict, the vicar or representative of Christ in the monastery.39 Yet Christ is also diffused throughout the community. Benedict expects that the healthy serve the sick just as they would serve Christ,40 and that guests should be welcomed as Christ.41 In 53.7, Benedict goes on to suggest that Christ is, in 35

RB 7.14, 23. See Southern (1953), 224–5 and John R. Fortin, ‘Saint Augustine’s Letter 211 in The Rule of the Master and The Rule of Saint Benedict’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 14:2 (2006), 225–34. 37 Vbique credimus diuinam esse praesentiam (RB 19.1). All other uses of ‘presence’/‘present’ are forms of praesens: RB 7.5, 14, 23; 43.17; 55.9; 58.19; 59.3; 64.20; 66.2. 38 maxime tamen hoc sine aliqua dubitatione credamus cum ad opus divinum assistimus (RB 19.2). 39 Christi enim agere vices in monasterio creditur (RB 2.2); see also RB 63.13. Again, as with so many other aspects of RB, Vogüé (1985a) is still the authority on this question. 40 RB 36.1–3; compare with RB 19.1. 41 Omnes superuenientes hospites tamquam Christus suscipiantur (RB 53.1). 36

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fact, welcomed in the guest.42 Only a few sentences later in 53.15, Benedict reiterates this by saying that in the poor and pilgrim Christ is particularly welcomed. What, then, is the theological coherence of this multi-located Christ within the framework of a varied intensity of presence? Again, recall the Christology laid out in Chapter 3. Not only do we have here in RB the ‘structure’ of the totus Christus, which gives us a conceptual unification of Christ in the abbot and Christ in the sick, poor, and those welcomed as guests, but there is also a diachronic development of the rapprochement between external actions and internal affections. From the monk’s perspective, external actions are increasingly perceived to be coram Deo. In other words, God’s internal presence allows the fratres to see Christ gradually come to be visibly present in all aspects of the Benedictine conversatio. Both RM and RB take this theme of presence from Augustine’s ep. 211, as John Fortin has argued.43 While Fortin recognised that RM and RB differently appropriated Augustine’s admonition, ‘When you pray to God with psalms and hymns, reflect in your heart on what you speak with your voice’,44 he fails to identify the theological difference that the diverse appropriations reveal. Both use ep. 211 to inform their instructions in praying the Psalms and hymns, but only Benedict uses this reference ‘to articulate a principle that obtains for all the monks whenever and wherever they may be, namely, their need to be constantly aware of God’s presence’.45 In RB 7 one can also detect a process similar to Augustine’s induere Christum, which gives us an open-ended treatment of the presence of monks’ internal affections to God, leaving ‘space’ for external actions to be progressively brought into the presence of God. Traces of Augustine’s Dolbeau sermons can also be seen here. ‘True religion’, as Chadwick summarises the sermons, is primarily ‘inward and a matter of the heart’.46 Through the struggle of the world the internal piety slowly realises itself in ‘a reformed moral life’.47 For Benedict this takes the shape of progressively becoming aware of God’s presence: the awareness of God’s presence is slowly cultivated over the course of the life of humility, the steps of which will lead the monk from detecting God’s presence in the heart and mind to God’s presence in external actions. As is often acknowledged, chapter seven turns out to be one of the most critical sections of the entire Rule, and one of the most influential for Western Christianity. It stipulates the kind of habits—habits of humility—that are required for every activity within the life of a monk. Through Benedict’s distinction between internal and external presence one can see how the

42

Christus in [hospitibus] adoretur qui et suscipitur (RB 53.7). Fortin (2006), 228–31; Böckmann (2011) cites Augustine’s en. Ps. 7.9, 93.14, and 138.5 as possible sources (372–3). A more tenuous source can be found in Augustine’s reg. 2 and reg. 3 where Augustine stresses that a brother’s lust can be ‘seen’ by God. 44 45 ep. 211.7; trans. Fortin (2006), 230. Fortin (2006), 229. 46 47 Chadwick (1996), 80. Chadwick (1996), 80. 43

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unity between the internal and the external is effected in the monk and his community. Benedict seems to assume that the monk is already aware of God somehow being present in his interior life, but nevertheless understands that the monk requires time to recognise the extent to which God is present in the everyday actions of his life. For example, one might not immediately recognise that God is present in the way one consumes food; however, he would slowly over the course of multiple seasons see how it reveals the presence of God. The form of eating, regular prayers, and other similar routine practices for the Benedictine monk are, of course, always already pregnant with the presence of God in such quotidian undertakings. However, humanity’s blindness is such that one is often unaware of this, and only by grace may one come to recognise God’s presence. Indeed, Benedict’s distinction of the internal and external reveals a profoundly important pedagogical point: the monk requires the temporal space to ‘put on’ the Incarnation, the humility of Christ, in order to unify the internal and external. The goal of the entire conversatio is to unify the internal and external. But this is not done overnight or with one single conversio. Rather, it requires the patient chastening of the internal by the external. The internal is, however, never completely exposed. Where RB presses the point that only God knows the thoughts of humans, remind us that, despite the radical exposure one brother has to another, there still remains the ‘privacy’ of the interior life. The three verses from the Psalms cited—7:10, 93:11, and 138:3—affirm this as open only to the divine vision.48 The subtle inequalities we observed in RB 36 and 55 can now be seen in a far more dramatic fashion that, in turn, relativises and repurposes the different treatments as those that are most efficacious for ascending and descending the ladder of humility. Although he never explicitly spells it out for us, Benedict’s implicit theory of the monk rejects both any kind of individualism that isolates and fragments one brother from another and the all-too-common naivety that assimilates all the brothers into one undifferentiated block of humanity. These are mediated, for Benedict, by the figure of Christ who is diffused throughout the monastery and brings all into a common body that stops short of destroying the monk’s subjectivity before God. Just as we saw Benedict ‘Christifying’ solidarity in RB 3, here we can observe a similar, though contrapuntal, Christification of the inequality inherent within Benedictine fraternal relations.

Loving Patience in RB 71–2 In chapters 67–72, Benedict shifts the emphasis from the internal life of the individual monk to his relation to the other brothers and to Christ. Benedict 48 Étienne Reynaud, ‘Les citations psalmiques dans le chapitre VII de la règle de Saint Benoît’, Collectanea Cisterciensia 76 (2014), 16–24.

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thus highlights the reciprocal relations between the brothers,49 out of which emerges the internal state, the zelus bonus that leads to God and eternal life (RB 72.2). The seventy-second chapter, ‘De Zelo Bono Quod Debent Monachi Habere’, is Benedict’s coda, bringing the entire rule to a conclusion. Recall that I described how Benedict recasts the relationship between the abbot and the brothers, making the abbot a qualified ‘head’ to the ‘body’ of the community. I then suggested that through Benedict’s momentary exclusion of external actions there emerged a possibility for unity between perceiving God internally (e.g. in our thoughts and desires) and externally (e.g. in the abbot, the poor, the sick, and the pilgrim). Now in RB 71–2, in Benedict’s most developed theological statement, one can see Benedict integrating the previous insights through a subtle process of interiorising Christ’s love, or, to put it in Augustinian terms, through induere Christum. Benedict opens chapter seventy-one and closes chapter seventy-two with the overall goal of the monk’s life: God and life everlasting.50 This conclusion is a microcosm of the more general movement of the monastic community that is simultaneously towards each other and towards Christ, highlighting the Christocentrism of fraternal relations. This simultaneous movement of brother towards brother and community towards God is achieved under the aspect of obedience. In chapter 3 Benedict emphasised the obedience that is owed to the abbot; now, in chapter 71, this is expanded in an important way. In the earlier section Benedict was concerned with the extremities of the hierarchical relationship—abbot (as Caput) and brothers (as Corpus). This hierarchical relation is complicated at 71.4, where obedience is not strictly vertical but is also encoded within horizontal relations; This is suggestive of Ephesians 5:21, ‘be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ’. With a change of tone, chapter 72 moves into the interior disposition that is not only common to all, abbot or brother, senior or junior, but that which bonds the fellowship in love for Christ. In 72.7, the superiority of the senior is thus qualified—no brother should pursue what he judges to be better for himself, but rather he ought to pursue what is better for others. Commanding and obeying another is to be accomplished in reference to the particularities of the other’s weaknesses of body or behaviour. The apology for mutual obedience in chapter 72 is guided by the mutual love that is experienced between all the members of the monastery, and most of all towards Christ. It is love between the members and for Christ by which Christ leads ‘us together to eternal life’.51 The goal of eternal life that Benedict states at the end is, as suggested above, the same goal he had in mind when he said, ‘we know that it

49 51

sibi inuicem ita oboediant fratres (RB 71.1). nos pariter ad uitam aeternam (RB 72.12).

50

See RB 72.1–2, 11.

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is by way of obedience that we go to God’.52 The monk’s journey of obedience begins with obedience to the abbot but ends with obedience to all the brothers. This effects a transformation of obedience from ‘rule following’ to an acquired skill of constant submission to one another.53 On final analysis, it is the figuration of Christ that draws together in love the obedience to the father with the obedience to the other brothers, for Christ is seen in all. In chapters 71–2 one can see, then, several moving parts that highlight a theologically coherent programme. Mutual obedience, the goal of the monk’s life, is achieved in mutual love: caritas is purely devoted (impendere) to fellow monks; and sincerely and humbly singled out (diligere) for the abbot; but to God, a loving fear (amore Deum timeant) is owed. The unity of these three forms of love is Christ, for not only is he God, but he is also in fellow monks (even the sick, the poor, and the pilgrim) and in the abbot. There is an important difference between Benedict’s discourse on love in RB 72 and Cassian’s in Coll. 16. Whereas Cassian ends his discourse on the practical aspects of how a monastery ought to balance common love (ἀγάπη) for all brothers and particular love (διάθεσις) dedicated to special relationships (Coll. 16.14.1–3), Benedict integrates the common love of caritas and the love of diligere singled out for the abbot in amore for God. This amore is realised, however, through obedience and humility, both of which find their paradigm in the Incarnation. This suggests again a Christological conceptualisation, not because all the parts necessarily reveal an aspect of Christ’s mission, but rather because of their conceptual interdependence. Christ creates the just society in himself, for Christ is, through the Incarnation, the mediation of divine humility. One must ‘put on’ the humility of Christ not only to believe in the mystery of Christ, but also to live in the community formed by Christ: ‘Let them place nothing before Christ who may bring us altogether to eternal life.’54 By the community’s ‘putting on’ Christ it is brought into eternal life. Once again we can detect a fairly explicit allusion to a Christological theme observed in Chapter 3 above—the induere process is ultimately grounded in and oriented towards the Church’s salvation in Christ. It is by becoming the community of love that the Benedictine community actualises the salvation that is potentially in Christ. The Benedictine vision of fraternal love thus emerges from the warp and woof of the monastic conversatio. ‘Through the law, through order and discipline should the monk be nurtured in love,’ as Böckmann memorably summarises how RB 72 crowns the Benedictine way of life.55 The love between 52

scientes per hanc oboedientiae viam se ituros ad Deum (RB 71.2). Gerard Jacobitz, ‘The Epistolary Correspondence of Saints Jerome and Augustine and the Expansion of the Rule of Saint Benedict from 66 to 73 Chapters’, American Benedictine Review 63:4 (December 2012), 384–418, 412. 54 Christo omnino nihil praeponant, qui nos pariter ad vitam aeternam perducat (RB 72.11–12). 55 Böckmann (2015), 332. 53

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the brothers does not magically appear; instead, it comes at great cost to individual brothers and the community as a whole. Fraternal love is, in other terms, the hard-won unity of the body of Christ that is fragile and far from complete. Be that as it may, the fundamental wish infusing Benedict’s Rule is the ‘realization of a Christian community, a community in Christ’.56 As Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel glossed in the ninth century, this community in Christ is found in patience, for charity is patience in this world.57 In RB 71–2, the charity that glues together solidarity and inequality in Benedictine fraternal relations is here Christicly transformed into patience. When placed within its context, the community’s zelus bonus is a product not of effortless graciousness, but rather of ‘patiently supporting each other’s weaknesses’.58 RB 71–2 proposes an appealing vision of mutual obedience and good zeal for each other and Christ, but the reality of how this emerges is far less appealing, for anything that requires patience is bound to be shot through with frustrations and sacrifices. Yet this is exactly where Benedict’s Augustinianism is most intense: the frustrated unity of the Benedictine community is found not in some ascetical athleticism that strives against all obstacles for union with God, but rather in patiently bearing with one another, in accepting one’s limitations and finitude, and allowing the unity, however fragile, to emerge from suffering the insufferable. To put it in doctrinal terms, incomplete union must, in this world, be suffered with patience, for it is only by the extrinsic and final act of Christ’s return that final and complete union will be realised. But in the meantime, the form that fraternal relations takes is loving patience with each other and with the community’s progress towards union with God.

CHRISTIAN E XISTENCE AS S U B SP E C I E O R A T I O N I S II In conclusion to this rereading of RB, let us return one last time to Benedict’s reflections on reverence in prayer in RB 20. As we have observed, Benedict’s phrase, ‘Prayer should be short and pure (breuis debet esse et pura oratio)’ is read by a strong Cassianic interpretation to invoke an Evagrian doctrine of pure or true prayer (filtered, no doubt, through Cassian).59 In light of the foregoing exposition, a surprisingly Augustinian rendition becomes possible. This reading requires, however, that we attend to the way in which Benedict’s

56 Oda Hagemeyer, ‘Ecce lex’, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens 96 (1985), 238–46, cited in Böckmann (2015), 333. 57 58 Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel (2007), 533. RB 72.5. 59 Stewart (2008), 207; Stewart (1998), 106–7.

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‘short and pure’ prayers cohere with the overall conversatio presented in his Rule. In chapter 20, Benedict’s intention is, in the first place, to instill a spirit of humility in the brothers’ prayers,60 and, in the second place, to ensure that one brother’s personal prayer does not disrupt the community.61 This would suggest that Benedict is not directly concerned with the specific practices of prayer, but with that which such practices reflect, namely, the love that one brother has for another. This concern should also be understood with respect to the command to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). This Pauline exhortation is central to Christian monastic life—East and West, past and present— so it is no surprise that prayer would be the central, ongoing task of Benedict’s monk. It might seem as though RB fails to give us an explicit account or interpretation of this passage, but Benedict’s conversatio, as represented by the regula, is itself the interpretation. Everything the monk does is prayer, whether it is oratio, lectio, meditatio, or the opus Dei within and without the walls of the oratory. A life that is so thoroughly routinised by not only the saying of ‘hours’, but also by the Psalms themselves, the prayer text par excellence for Augustine, will begin to be lived and understood as sub specie orationis, that is, all of life is seen in and through the act of discourse with the divine. Whatever the source of ‘pure’ prayer, then, it is employed in a profoundly different way from that found in Evagrius and Cassian. A theology of prayer can, then, be excavated not from Benedict’s particular terms, but rather from seeing the conversatio as a life of unceasing prayer. Moreover, recall Gregory the Great’s summary of Benedict: ‘The holy man could not teach other than he lived.’ Benedict teaches not by advancing a theory of prayer similar to Augustine’s in De sermone Domini in monte or ep. 130, but by a lifelong devotion to the practice of prayer that is animated by desire for Christ’s divinity and sustained by the patience in Christ’s humanity. Benedict’s conversatio places the emphasis on repetition, stability, and endurance, a submersion in an ‘earthly’ time that increasingly perceives the divine presence that gives each repeated action the weight of eternity. While it is the monk’s fervent desire for Christ—his zelus bonus—that animates the conversatio, the monk’s ‘sharing by patience in the sufferings of Christ’ sustains it in this life. Not despite but because of its postponement of transformation until the age to come, the Benedictine conversatio is an intensification of the everyday through slowly, continuously, and patiently entering into the human suffering of Christ so that, in the age to come, one may share in the divine glorification of Christ. This is but a monastic realisation of Augustine’s understanding of participation as growing into Christ through the dynamics of deprecatio and precatio.

60

RB 20.1–2.

61

RB 20.5.

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The Rule of St Benedict is thus best understood according to an Augustinian theory and practice of prayer that cultivates a hopeful patience. Benedict is, through the influence of Cassian and RM, deeply informed by the practices originating in the Egyptian desert. But these practices are given different emphasis when placed within the monk’s conversatio as a patient striving after the eschatological Christ through the concrete life in community that is shaped by the continual life of prayer in the activities of the chapel, the field, and the library. It is, then, in this sense that Benedict’s Christological understanding of earthly existence is lived sub specie orationis. For Benedict as for Augustine, the life lived in a constant prayerful pursuit of the divine bridges the divide between Christ’s human and divine natures. This is the life that the wayfarer experiences in this age. Moreover, in this light, one can see that Benedict, despite his refusal to articulate his metaphysics of the person, provides an account of how one is refused the escapism of premature union with God that is strikingly similar to the conclusion of Boethius’ Consolation. Southern is right that Benedict gives no explicit account of dramatic development from a ‘lower spirituality’ to some ‘higher spirituality’, for there is no dramatic upward impulse within Benedict’s conversatio. Rather, out of the life of prayer and hope union with the divine emerges as if on a moving walkway on which you only discover at the end that it has transported you to the next level. In Benedict’s ‘ladder of humility’, the upward movement is a paradoxical downward movement. To put it in Augustine’s terms, only by imitating Christ’s humility might one find salvation through Christ’s exaltation. The figuration of union as upward motion happens not within the individual monk or community but within Christ; this upward motion marks incremental progress of which the monk may not be fully aware of until he arrives at its completion. But there are important differences from Augustine. Whereas in Augustine induere is, primarily, descriptive of what occurs in baptism, and, secondarily, descriptive of the form of the monastic vocation to ‘put on’ Christ, in Benedict the secondary sense is filled out with the process wherewith the monk becomes increasingly aware of the ‘presence’ of God in the externalities of the monastic life. Just as the process of induere is essentially a communal task for Augustine, for Benedict induere occurs through the coenobium, the life-in-common. But Benedict’s coenobium becomes more thoroughly routinised to such a point that, to quote Fergus Kerr, ‘Relationship with others is the form that our growth in virtue takes: it is more than merely the occasion.’62 For RB the ‘appropriation’ of the divine mediation—the induere of the totus Christus—is more thoroughly grounded in a life of prayer than it is in Augustine. While one does not

Fergus Kerr, ‘Prayer and Community’, in John Coventry and Abbot Rembert Weakland, eds, Religious Life Today (Tenbury Wells: Fowler Wright Books, n.d.), 37–51, 43. 62

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have to look far to find references to prayer in Augustine, in RB prayer so thoroughly infuses the entire Rule that the word is curiously rare. Benedict’s Rule comes to a crescendo in the final lines of chapter 72, making most explicit the orientation of the conversatio towards Christ. In each case, I have suggested that the divergences away from RM and inclusions of other monastic legislation follow an Augustinian Christification of fraternal relations. Benedict thus cleverly weaves this Christologically inspired understanding of God’s presence into the very fabric of Christian existence as an eschatologically oriented life of prayer. This Christological induere is, moreover, a diachronic process, an Augustinian feature that distinguishes Benedict’s Christocentrism from Cassian’s Christocentrism.

BENEDICT, THE AUGU STINIAN THEOLOGIAN One of the most important theological decisions Benedict made in his Rule was to replace the Master’s use of conversio with conversatio. The provenance of this term is most likely Augustinian, but in the spirit of Augustinianism 2, this cannot simply be reduced to another instance of Benedict borrowing from Augustine. Benedict’s Augustinianism is a Benedictine Augustinianism and thus must be understood within the context of RB, for Benedict’s use will differ in subtle ways from the sense which Augustine ascribes to it (a consequence which my category of Augustinianism 2 explicitly embraces). RB uses the term conversatio ten times, but there is not one single instance of it in RM.63 Despite the heavy literary borrowing from RM, this decision radically diverts Benedict from the kind of monasticism that had theretofore been in common currency in Latin culture. Whereas conversio suggests a one-time ‘conversion’ or ‘turning around’, as Augustine fancied his own conversion to Christianity to be at the time he wrote his Confessions, conversatio implies a continual or repeated ‘turning around’, suggesting a lifelong project of ‘conversion’ to Christ, a conception of Christianity Augustine embraced later in his life and which shaped his response to Pelagius and his associates. Benedict’s choice of conversatio is thus not without serious theological consequences, as it diverges from the standard theory of conversion and ascent in the monastic vocation embraced by not only Cassian and RM but also Basil and other Eastern monastic theorisers.64 This theological choice freshly exposes Benedict’s characterisation of his Rule as a beginning of the monastic life: for Benedict, there are only beginnings and middles of the monastic conversatio in this life. To borrow the most obvious (though imprecise) translation of

63

Jacobitz (2012), 407.

64

Jacobitz (2012), 411.

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conversatio, the monastic way of life is akin to a conversation that has a beginning but a never-ceasing ‘turning over’ of the topic. Conclusions, like moral and spiritual perfection, are for the age to come. Benedict’s Rule is thus not just a guide to prayer, but a regula for a conversatio. While his use of regula is, to one extent, the result of a standardised title for the genre, Benedict’s word choice can be further illuminated by an Augustinian use of the term. This will help clarify how a regula is a theological document that implicitly employs a robust metaphysic for a vision of Christian existence that is encoded and enacted in the Benedictine conversatio. It is from this angle that Augustine’s understanding of regula is extraordinarily helpful in sketching Benedict’s vision of Christian existence. Augustine’s understanding of regula is, however, a fairly complicated aspect of his thought: it neither keeps its authoritarian distance, nor becomes a completely internalised ‘spiritual guide’.65 It remains caught between the externalised notion of ‘rules and regulations’ and the internalised notion of ‘principles and guidelines’. As Ayres has identified, the notion of regula fidei has its roots in the second and third centuries’ discussion of the ‘canon of truth’.66 Its function there was to help regulate the interpretation of Scripture. However, as is most obvious in Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos, regula is not exclusively associated with the interpretation of Scripture. Through the act of reading the Psalms as a Church, the community of the Church is established by understanding its unity in Christ its head. As we observed in Chapter 3, this self-understanding is achieved through the Church finding its prayer in Christ’s prayer. It is through this dynamic that the interpretive function of regula becomes itself an ‘ethic’. Through these Christological-hermeneutical manoeuvres, Augustine’s regula gains a wider semantic range, broadening the scope of doctrinal exposition to include what is often fragmented in the modern world between doctrine and ethics. The influence of this on Benedict is, however, slightly complicated by its fifth-century reception. Augustine’s connection between the epistemological and moral senses of regula informs Cassian’s use of regula. As Vessey has pointed out, in agreement with H.J. Sieben and Vogüé, ‘Cassian’s ideas of a universal monastic rule were formed by analogy with the regula fidei’.67 For Augustine the term regula retained its classical character, and now, in the sixth century, it is given a more explicit monastic context, for it is a guide for both 65 I am relying here on Ayres, ‘Augustine on the Rule of Faith: Rhetoric, Christology, and the Foundation of Christian Thinking’, Augustinian Studies 36:1 (2005), 33–49. 66 Ayres (2005), 33. 67 Mark Vessey, ‘Peregrinus against the Heretics: Classicism, Provinciality and the Place of the Alien Writer in Late Roman Gaul’, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 46 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1994), 553–4. Vessey is referring to Hermann J. Sieben, Die Konzilsidee der Alten Kirche (Paderborn, 1979), 149–70; and Adalbert de Vogüé, ‘Les sources des quatre premiers livres des “Institutions” de Jean Cassien’, Studia Monastica 27 (1985), 241–311, 310.

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the cosmic and the mundane aspects of life. Although there is a substantial difference between Augustine’s concept of regula fidei and a monastic regula, we cannot forget the commonality—the monastic regula trains a monk both morally and epistemologically. In Benedict’s Rule, the moral and the epistemological are progressively conflated in the monk’s life that is hastening towards perfection, but always short of it, for no monk ever progresses beyond the guidance of the Rule in this life. Benedict’s conversatio is imagined as this very process of uniting the moral and the epistemic, much like Augustine’s own conception of Christian existence is on a trajectory from deprecari to precari in De trinitate 1368 or the process of induere in Galatians and Psalm 85.69 The conversatio for which Benedict’s regula is intended to instruct is referred to as a scola, and thus calls to mind the ‘professionalisation’ of Christianity. This should not eclipse the fact that Benedict’s regula is always for those who are on their way towards perfection.70 This brings out the two senses of conversatio—it is both a turning around or revolution and a habitual association.71 Benedict’s regula, just like Augustine’s regula fidei, is a yoke not meant to be shaken,72 as if someone might become an ‘expert’ and no longer need to follow the instructions, for the abbot, too, is continuously subject to the rule.73 Benedict’s conversatio relies just as much on the habits of humility as on the cultivation of good zeal. Cultivation of good zeal, zelus bonus, is the telos of the Rule. This good zeal is a product of neither pure willing nor of Christian athleticism, but rather of a lifetime spent in a community dedicated to the slow, continuous shaping and moulding of the passions, a process not unlike that of the lay Christian’s continual reliance on prayer, fasting, confessing, and works of charity. This is pursued, as Benedict says, ‘with the greatest patience’, in showing pure love (caritas) to fellow monks, humble love (caritas) to the abbot, and fearful love (amor) to God. But nothing is preferred to Christ, who will ‘bring us all together to everlasting life’.74 When one looks at the Rule as a whole, a humble Christ that is oriented to his Father in love emerges. Christ is seen not only in the abbot,75 the head of the monastery, but also in the sick76 and the wandering and the poor.77 It is important to see that these ‘diffused Christs’ function in a tightly connected conversatio, and that only with Christ as their ultimate goal do they, too, become Christs for the community. In the spirit of Augustine, it is Christ who is both the way and the goal.78 Furthermore, Benedict’s Rule is an aid, as Augustine’s regula fidei is, for

68

69 See Ch. 4. See Ch. 3. On the use of Scola, see Hadot (1995), 57–60; Hadot, ‘The Sage and the World’, in Hadot (1995), 251–63; and Markus (1990), 73. 71 Benedict does not play with what would seem to be a rather obvious wordplay between conversatio and convertere. He does use convertere: RB Prol.38, 2.18, 7.30, 63.7. 72 73 74 75 RB 58.16. RB 3.11, 64.20. RB 72.12. RB 63.13. 76 77 78 RB 36.1. RB 53.1. RB 72.12, 73.8. 70

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those who are hastening towards the heavenly homeland.79 Benedict’s conversatio, then, preserves the tension between the desire for beata vita and patience with its achievement that we saw in Part I. It is within this structure that the monk learns to participate in the passion of Christ through patience,80 preferring nothing to Christ, who may lead the monks together to eternal life.81 This Christologically structured conversatio is, however, meant to legislate ‘nothing severe, nothing burdensome’,82 relying on the slow, continual growth in desire and patience instead of the athleticism of the desert that captivated the monastic imagination in the fourth and fifth centuries. It seems, then, that an initial case for RB’s Augustinian understanding of Christian existence is within reach when one understands Benedict’s use of regula and conversatio as expressing something similar to Augustine’s regula fidei, but inflected through its monastic reception in the fifth century. Scholars have shied away from making this connection because Benedict does not mention Augustine in the epilogue. Benedict suggests, instead, that one can find profit in reading Cassian’s Conferences and Institutes, the Lives of the Fathers, and Basil of Caesarea’s Rule.83 It is important to pause for a moment and set the omission of Augustine in the context of another, arguably more glaring omission; that of RM. If both Augustine and RM were omitted, might we consider that Benedict is indicating not his sources here, but rather those rules that offer something distinctly different from RB? Be that as it may, it still behooves us to inquire into the omission of Augustine. What does one make of this silence on Augustine’s authority? No one has argued that Augustine simply has no influence on Benedict. To approach this question one must query the very conception of what would count as influence. Benedict’s Augustinianism 2 is not a product of his citations of Augustine, but rather of his constructive use of Augustine’s Christology to inform an understanding of Christian existence that is constellated through the life of prayer. But could Benedict’s Christology be appropriated from Cassian’s work (as opposed to Augustine’s)? Cassian certainly has a Christocentric vision of the monastic life,84 but by virtue of Evagrius’ influence it is differently realised. Cassian’s major works, The Institutes and The Conferences, are modelled on Evagrius’ triology—Praktikos, Gnostikos, and Kephalaia Gnostika. Cassian suggests this framework when he describes the Institutes as dealing with ‘what belongs to the outer man and the customs of the common monastic life’ and the Conferences with ‘the training of the inner man and the perfection of the heart’.85 Cassian takes this tripartite division of the spiritual life and focuses 79 RB 73.8; the Prologue has a similar locution: Processu vero conversationis et fidei, dilatato corde inenarrabili dilectionis dulcedine curritur via mandatorum Dei (RB Prol.49). 80 81 82 83 RB Prol. 50. RB 72.12. RB Prol. 46. RB 73.5. 84 Stewart, Cassian the Monk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 95–9. 85 I owe this insight to Casiday (2007), 252. See Cassian, inst. 2.9.3: siquidem hi libelli, quos in praesenti cudere domino adiuuante disponimus, ad exterioris hominis obseruantiam et

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‘on Christ more than Evagrius had done’.86 What for Evagrius is contemplation of ‘celestial light’ is for Cassian contemplation of ‘the sublime mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation’.87 Christ, then, is the goal of the Cassianic monastic life, and in this sense Cassian’s monasticism is Christologically oriented.88 By contrast, Benedict’s monastic life is Christocentric not only in its goal— contemplation of Christ—but also in its way. The Incarnate Christ, for Benedict, plays a far more consistent role. Christ is perceived not only at the end of the monastic life, as a destination, but also along the way, in the abbot, poor, sick, and pilgrim. For Benedict, one moves from an immanent Christ to an eschatological Christ. Cassian, on the other hand, seems to locate Christ as the transcendent object of contemplation.89 The Christological transcendence in Cassian’s monasticism has commonly been referred to as a ‘vertical’ monasticism: the monastic life is an ascent to the contemplation of the Incarnate Christ. This understanding of the ‘vertical’, which is often contrasted with the ‘horizontal’ (i.e. relations between the brothers), is commonly used by scholars to distinguish between Cassian’s and Augustine’s respective influences in RB. As Casiday summarises, ‘The difference between Augustine’s emphasis on society and Cassian’s on contemplation is striking. These respective themes make themselves felt throughout their writings.’90 This distinction has, however, been called into question of late. Leyser has explicitly pointed out that this more simplistic formulation is misleading, arguing for a conjunction between the Cassianic ‘vertical’ and Augustinian ‘horizontal’ in RB: ‘[Benedict’s] augustinianism . . . is what allows him so lucidly to outline a monastic context for the implementation of the spiritual technique of [Cassian’s] Institutes and Conferences’.91 Vogüé also suggests a kind of conjunction between the ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’, one that reverses Leyser’s emphasis: ‘In RB, two traditional currents converge and, so to institutionem coenobiorum conpetentius aptabuntur, illi uero ad disciplinam interioris ac perfectionem cordis et anachoretarum uitam atque doctrinam potius pertinebunt (CSEL 17: 25). Casiday interprets the other teaching (doctrina) refers to the Conferences (Casiday (2007), 252). 86 87 Casiday (2007), 253. Casiday (2007), 254. 88 For discussion of Cassian’s Christology, see Stewart (1998) and Casiday (2007). 89 One could, however, argue that Cassian, too, relies on an Augustinian way/goal Christology, but this would only seem to prove the point I am making here: Benedict is indebted to Augustine’s Christology. Additionally, Athanasius’ Life of St Antony is Christological in its nature, but the emphasis that Athanasius places on deification seems out of place in RB. See David M. Gwynn, Athanasius of Alexandria: Bishop, Theologian, Ascetic, Father (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 114; Khaled Anatolios, ‘Athanasius’s Christology Today: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ in On the Incarnation’ in Martens (2008), 29–49. 90 Casiday (2007), 66. It would be unfair to ascribe this simplistic distinction to Casiday, for he was attempting to argue that ‘Augustine’s emphasis on love as the cornerstone of monasticism no more made him soft-headed than Cassian was cold-hearted for his emphasis on contemplation’ (66). For a rendition of this distinction, see Vogüé (1971) and (1972). Vogüé himself goes on to correct this view in Vogüé (1985a). 91 Leyser (2000), 107.

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speak, marry. To speak of “marriage” is not too strong, but these “horizontal” relations themselves are regulated with precision on the pattern of hierarchical relations. The horizontal relations are fully integrated into the educational system defined by hierarchical relations.’92 Whereas Leyser stresses that the horizontal relations are the foundation for the vertical relations and argues that the vertical fits therein, Vogüé puts the stress on the vertical relations and argues that the horizontal is regulated thereby. Both Leyser and Vogüé posit that vertical and horizontal relations inform the Rule. Neither Leyser’s nor Vogüé’s position, however, seems able to work without some kind of conceptual framework, one intrinsic to the work and its sources that would lend coherence to the conjunction between the vertical and horizontal aspects. Without this the conjuction remains the interpreter’s. My suggestion here is that one must understand Benedict’s monastic vision diachronically; the brotherhood slowly comes to perceive its identity as bearing Christ in its very body. As we will see, this is part and parcel of the monk’s journey from obedience to the abbot to obedience to all the brothers. In Benedict’s Rule, Christ is thus not simply the goal but also the way: the Benedictine monk not only loves Christ in his contemplation, but also in the abbot, the sick, pilgrims, guests, and all others whom the monk serves. This is, moreover, ‘put on’ over the course of the monks’ conversatio, therewith providing a temporal structure for the union of the ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ aspects of RB. This diffused Christology can be seen in the way Benedict ‘Christifies’ fraternal relations, setting them in a more developed Augustinian spirituality. Augustine’s Christology, particularly that which can be observed in his Enarrationes of the Psalms, infuses the entire dynamic of Benedict’s conversatio as a life lived sub specie orationis, that is, in a constant state of prayer that is animated by desire for Christ and sustained by the patience of Christ. It is in this respect that the Rule is a deeply Augustinian text.

CONVERSATIO AS AUGUSTINIAN Benedict’s theology can only be discerned in and through the life that it brings forth, and any systematic account must acquiesce to this demand, highlighting not the specific terms and their ‘world’, but the ‘world’ that those terms create. It is an Augustinian understanding of Christian existence that I have proposed in this chapter as that which informs the ‘frame’ of the Rule. Through analysis of RB 3, 7, 71–2, I have demonstrated how Benedict laces together several

92

Vogüé (1985a), 474.

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sources to Christologically transform the fraternal relations that distinguish RB from other Latin rules. Here in Chapter 8, I have furthered the claim of Benedict’s Augustinianism by demonstrating that Benedict envisions the monastic conversatio as a life lived constantly sub specie orationis. When seen through the larger picture of the monk’s life, as it is presented in the ‘frame’, Benedict’s Rule emerges as theology that is indebted to an Augustinian understanding of Christian existence. Benedict employs his ‘silent’ Augustine to draw together diverse strands of fourth- and fifth-century monasticism, thereby infusing an Augustinian Christian vision with the monastic practices of the Greek tradition. Similarly, in Boethius, the dynamic of Augustinianism in Benedict’s Rule is not principally one of ‘clash’ or even dialectical contestation. Rather, it arises from reconsiderations of its own material, for the Augustinian tradition moves and expands, not through rationally overcoming its intellectual foes, but through contemplating and puzzling about the strangeness it finds within its own tradition as it progresses over the rough ground of human history. Benedict’s ‘Christification’ of fraternal relations in the life of prayer is one such example, complex and contested though it may be. It is now only left for us to provide a final clarification and analysis of the kind of tradition Augustinianism embodies when seen through the reception of Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer.

An Ethical Postlude In this study I have traced the development of Augustine’s theory and practice of prayer and its appropriation by Boethius and Benedict. But it has also been a study in the formation of tradition that has paid particular attention to the nexus of theory and practice in prayer. Although this study did not capture every significant aspect of Augustine, Boethius, and Benedict, I hope that it is now evident that the theory and practice of prayer runs through some of their most central and most perplexing discussions. Prayer has proved to be a beneficial entrée into this Augustinian tradition not least because of what it allowed us to see afresh in these rather ‘traditional’ figures, who have in their own ways benefited from centuries of scholarship. To conclude this study, I want to turn to the question of tradition that, as I indicated at the outset, provided a theoretical motivation for my thinking about what Boethius and Benedict had in common and how that relates to Augustine. Here, my interest is not so much in picking out defining themes or the essence of the or an Augustinian tradition. Rather, I wish to reflect on the kinematics of tradition, that is, to focus on the actual motions qua motions of the act of tradition. The two interlocutors that prove most fruitful for this are, as I suggested in the Introduction, Alasdair MacIntyre and Jeffrey Stout, both of whom have offered challenges to religious ethicists to broaden their historical horizons. But MacIntyre and Stout were each fundamentally at odds with the other’s critique of the direction within the discipline of ethics that, as they each saw it, cut off important avenues of human flourishing. My aim, vis-à-vis MacIntyre and Stout, is to present a case for an historical approach to Christian existence which can still give rise to meaningful moral and ethical reflection without having to accept (consciously or unconsciously) a Hegelian metaphysics of history. This requires reflecting on the kinematics of the Augustinian tradition as I have told it. Therefore, before I can turn to differentiate my account of ‘tradition’ from both MacIntyre and Stout, I must briefly explicate the ethical valence of the Augustinian ‘Christian existence’ discussed in Parts I and II.

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AUGUSTINI AN CH RISTI AN EXI STENCE I I In Part I, I took pains to demonstrate that Augustine’s development was not merely intellectual, as it so often is portrayed in the vast literature reflecting on Augustine’s ‘evolution’. One must never forget that Augustine’s development was achieved in the concrete context of his social life, that is, his monastic community. Augustine’s theological reflections on prayer, often orally delivered from the pulpit or transcribed in his study, thus developed in concert with his practices of prayer. While the entrance into Augustine in this study has been via textual analysis, an appeal to his social context has been consistently employed to enrich that analysis. In theological and philosophical treatments Augustine’s social world is all too often overlooked, but the blame for this narrow approach can hardly be laid completely at the feet of theologians and philosophers looking for answers. Augustine was always the most interesting man in the room, an assessment that Augustine would share with his theological and philosophical heirs, for he often foregrounded himself and his context in his literary endeavours. But once we start to pay attention to the social world encoded in Augustine’s texts, it becomes a great challenge to ignore the soft rumble of the congregation standing around the preacher’s seat or the gossiping brothers across the table in the refectory. Augustine was certainly living the vita activa, but this did not deter him from reflecting on the proper rules and boundaries of a praying community or its value in his own literary strivings to express the divine. It was a vita activa that was oriented to and thus fundamentally shaped by the vita contemplativa, reminding us of Dom Cuthbert Butler’s famous description of ‘Western’ contemplative life: ‘the contemplative life does not lie in the absence of activity, but in the presence of contemplation’.1 It is no surprise that Pope Gregory I came to see the Bishop of Hippo as a model for a Bishop of Rome.2 One would, however, diminish the person of Augustine if one did not take seriously the philosophical and theological concerns that emerged from his texts in terms approximating his own. Reducing Augustine to his material and social conditions is no less pernicious than a previous age’s idealistic rendering of Augustine as simply the author of The City of God and Confessions. Material and social histories have, indeed, brought forth a more vibrant picture of life in Milan, Cassiciacum, Thagaste, and Hippo, but they should not obscure the fact that Augustine was, to his final day, a Christian lover of wisdom striving towards God in the tradition known as Platonism. The beginning of Augustine’s Platonism was dramatic, giving Augustine scholars much to 1

Butler (1926), 130, 291. Gregory the Great constitutes a complex case, one that could stand as an important foil to my positive case presented in this thesis: Gregory demonstrates Augustinianism 1 without Augustinianism 2 (see Leyser (2000), 131ff.). 2

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reflect on, but his anxiety-ridden ‘conversions’ were only the beginning. The story of Augustine’s Platonism continued beyond his initial encounter in Rome and Milan, beyond his literary experiments in Cassiciacum, even beyond his Pauline awakening. As Augustine sharpened his Pauline-inspired figurative exegesis, settled into his mature Christology, and discovered the richness of a Nicene tradition, this rhetor-turned-preacher developed increasingly sophisticated appropriations of Platonism, be that through positive engagements with Plotinus’ thought, or negative, polemical engagements with Porphyry’s. Augustine’s ethical and social thought must then be placed within the context of late antique Christian Platonism, a tradition that continued to call forth themes that we might today categorise as ‘epistemic’ but that to its adherents were thoroughly ‘ethical’ (while also being epistemic). In this context the epistemological and the ethical are strongly conjoined, constituting the major reason why ‘prayer’ is a thoroughly ethical endeavour for the Christian Platonist. This is most dramatically displayed in the ‘movement’ from scientia to sapientia in De trinitate 4 and 13. Taken in isolation from his broader concern in De trinitate, the epistemic terms scientia and sapientia would be just that—epistemic terms. But when we place them in their theological context, returning Augustine’s doctrine of participation to the contingencies of human history, some second-order virtues emerge, namely, patience and desire. As John Cooper has highlighted, the patient pursuit or desire for union with the divine gave order to the ethical construct of the Platonist ‘way of life’.3 In Chapter 4, where I drew together the corporate spirituality of the totus Christus with the theological anthropology of De trinitate, the theme of patience emerged as the sine qua non of Augustine’s Platonist quest for salvation, a lesson learned equally in the thickets of the Donatist and pelagian controversies and from his own lifelong practice of selfreflection. The figuration of ‘participation’, a staple of Platonist metaphysics, is, for Augustine, thus refracted through the virtue of patience. It is, on final analysis, patience that prevents Augustine’s Platonism from tripping over into a nascent and unconscious ‘Pelagianism’, for the pursuit of wisdom is just as much a gift as the final reception of it is. It is, moreover, this virtue of patience that gives Christic shape to Augustine’s affections or desires for God, for one must slowly, over the course of his or her entire life, learn to ‘put on’ Christ’s humility. The final move in this sequence, and the point at which Augustine definitively diverges from Platonist metaphysics, is the emergence of hope as a product of waiting and striving for the beata vita. The ethical valence of hope has been lately explored, especially over the course of the twentieth century, and Augustine is often taken as its champion. But hope remains a facile

3

John Cooper, Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 384.

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theological construct (and a cheap ploy) when disconnected from the deeply painful and aggravating patience that transforms the desire for a better world into a desire for justice. For Augustine, one can never get around having to put on the humility of Christ: it is through sharing in Christ’s suffering that a Christian learns not only to know the world as it is, but also to live fully in a world that makes no promises for the success of any of our projects—political, spiritual, or intellectual. Ramified over the course of his life, Augustine’s vision of ‘Christian existence’ with all its promise and pitfalls was then left for his readers to take up, modify, expand, correct, or reject. The burden of Part II was thus twofold. I not only aimed to continue to excavate prayer as an ethical category in the works of Boethius and Benedict, but also to connect it to an account of the Augustinian tradition. This required balancing the substantive textual work with a historiographical awareness of antecedent interpretations. As a result, I hope it is evident that interpretations of Boethius and Benedict must be paired with the ways we have learned to read Boethius and Benedict, often extending back to scholarly developments in the nineteenth century. In Part II, I therefore examined how Boethius and Benedict reflected on prayer through the lens of their Augustinianisms; historiographically, this often required going back to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship. In Chapter 5, I argued that Boethius experimented with a conception of prayer in his theological works (Opuscula sacra) that revealed a strong resemblance to Augustine’s own theological and doctrinal uses of prayer. Relying on my reading of the theological works, I turned in Chapter 6 to the Consolation, Boethius’ best-known work, to offer an interpretation of book 5’s curious ending. I have argued that Boethius, like Augustine before him, found that Christian existence was grounded, epistemologically, in ratio striving for intellegentia. In particular, I highlighted how Boethius, too, fell back on the practice of prayer to articulate a theological anthropology that is caught between ratio and intellegentia, arguing that this demonstrated what I codified as ‘Augustinianism 2’. In Chapter 7, I then turned to analyse Benedict’s ‘fraternal relations’, which provided an Augustinian seam to follow through the Rule. Pivoting off this clear case of ‘Augustinianism 1’, I turned in Chapter 8 to three highly contested chapters of the Rule (3, 7, 71–2) as exempla of ‘Augustinianism 2’. Regula Benedicti (RB) 71–2 became, for my reading, the culmination of Augustinian Christian existence. For Benedict, it is ultimately the life of prayer that draws together love for one another into a corporate spirituality. This conversatio arises and is inseparable from Augustinian ‘fraternal relations’. In the Benedictine monk’s conversatio, then, zelus bonus for Christ is always coupled with ‘sharing by patience in the sufferings of Christ’. The analytical aim of Part II was thus to delineate the difference between the Augustinianisms 1 and 2 evident in both Boethius and Benedict, without thereby eliding the very significant differences between these sixth-century

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authors. But in the course of substantive historical work, we began to detect a subtle divergence between their Augustinianisms: Augustine’s ‘Christian existence’, which explicitly held together theological anthropology and corporate spirituality, began to fracture between Boethius’ Consolation and Benedict’s Rule. But fracture was not wholesale, nor even very perceptible. One could even argue, on the one hand, that Boethius’ theological anthropology entailed an implicit corporate spirituality, and, on the other hand, that Benedict’s corporate spirituality entailed an implicit theological anthropology. I employed this (charitable) hermeneutic when reading Boethius and Benedict, and therefore did not emphasise this difference between these two very different heirs of Augustine. But differences nevertheless emerged. The benefit of placing Boethius and Benedict beside one another in a reception of Augustine’s thought is that, firstly, it reveals the diversity of approaches one might take in appropriating Augustine’s theology. One can be ‘Augustinian’ without demonstrating pure devotion to the particular positions Augustine advocated. Neither Boethius nor Benedict would ever be confused with people who sought to model their lives and works solely on the Bishop of Hippo. Secondly, when Boethius and Benedict’s receptions of Augustine are set beside each other the gap between Augustine’s age and the early decades of the sixth century come into view, as well as the gap between the elite intellectual Boethius and the saintly monk Benedict. Therefore, in addition to the more conceptually rich questions regarding Christian prayer, this study also begins to excavate new lines of the Augustinian tradition that trace the development of Augustinian Christian existence along the rough ground of the Italian sixth century.

LOCATING TRADITION As enunciated in the Introduction, the debate about ‘tradition’ is caught up with debates about and even condemnations of ‘modernity’. It is therefore no accident that ‘tradition’ became a contested notion in the nineteenth century in ways it never had been before. The fundamental shifts in historical consciousness that intensified in the wake of the Enlightenment were felt in acute terms in the second half of the twentieth century in the philosophical works of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, two of modernity’s most eloquent critics.4 In the theological literature, however, there has been a tendency since the heyday of modernity itself to suppose that the puzzle of tradition is the puzzle of the development of doctrine, that is, how

4

Stern (1994), 147.

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doctrine has changed and been modified while still accurately expressing the Christian faith.5 In the wake of John Henry Newman’s An Essay in the Development of Christian Doctrine, accounts of doctrinal development began to proliferate in the later nineteenth century.6 Newman-esque theories of doctrinal development were thus a theological strategy for sustaining Christian belief according to the strictures of historical consciousness. With ever increasing historical specificity and conceptual clarity, scholars have unsurprisingly amended, extended, and critiqued Newman’s account.7 What is at stake in doctrinal development is the relationship between the original ‘source’ revelation (i.e. Scripture) and the subsequent appropriations in the works of authoritative theologians (i.e. ‘Tradition’). What it means to discuss ‘Tradition’ was then set out according to concerns regarding the change or ‘development’ of Christian doctrine (e.g. Pneumatology, Christology, Trinity, Atonement, etc.). But the Augustinian tradition—however it is conceived—is not doctrine in toto or in parte, and neither should it be expected to behave as such. The discussion of the development of doctrine must, on final analysis, relate to a question regarding the operation of the Holy Spirit within history and its Church.8 In light of this, it is significant that Augustine explicitly rejected the idea that his work was to be held on the same level as Scripture, for he was effectively rejecting this line of inquiry to investigate the reception of his work.9 The kinematics of the Augustinian tradition must therefore be carefully distinguished from modern accounts of so-called ‘doctrinal development’ in which an anxiety about essence and accretion is at the centre of the reflection. When distinguished from ‘traditionalism’, tradition is the very process by which change occurs. For this reason, as vexing and disconcerting as it might be to some theologians, the anti-modern philosophical interlocutors are a more promising starting point than Newman and his theological heirs. But this concession to the importance of the philosophical analysis of tradition does not imply that my account should be captured by the constraints of later twentieth-century philosophical discussions regarding ‘conceptual

5

See, e.g., Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 128–38. 6 Originally published in 1845; John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 6th edn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989). 7 There is much literature reflecting on Newman’s influential thesis. I have found particularly helpful Nicholas Lash, Change in Focus: A Study of Doctrinal Change and Continuity (London: Sheed and Ward, 1973); see also Maurice Wiles, The Making of Christian Doctrine: The Study in the Principles of Early Doctrinal Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), and the first chapter reflecting on Wiles (1967) in The Remaking of Christian Doctrine (London: SCM Press, 1974). 8 See Ayres (2004b), 427–8 for a sophisticated account of the implications of pneumatological agency for doctrinal development. 9 s. 162C (Dolbeau 10), 15.

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schemes’ or, as it is sometimes more popularly rendered, ‘worldviews’.10 It is within the debate of conceptual schemes that Alasdair MacIntyre’s work on virtue and tradition is rightly located,11 so MacIntyre, too, cannot be taken wholesale as a full ‘model’ for handling late antique religious traditions. Moreover, it is precisely in distinction from MacIntyre’s influential account of tradition that I would like to provide a final clarification. There are two steps in my argument against MacIntyre: first, MacIntyre (by virtue of a quasi-Hegelianism) embraces an exogenous account of the development of tradition, eschewing or downplaying a tradition’s resources for endogenous development; and second, for an endogenous account of tradition development, one needs to embrace something like my Tradition 2 (e.g., Augustinianism 2 for the Augustinian tradition), for it is not the case that traditions develop endogenously without some reconstellation of the tradition.

B E T W E E N M A C I N T Y R E AN D S T O U T My criticism of MacIntyre’s reliance on exogenous factors will not, of course, seem right to anyone who followed MacIntyre’s account of tradition only to the end of his justly celebrated After Virtue. But MacIntyre developed his account of tradition over the course of a decade, beginning with the first edition of After Virtue in 1981 and concluding with his Gifford Lectures published as Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition in 1990.12 In between these two volumes, MacIntyre published Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988), which was intended to respond to certain criticisms of After Virtue. In particular, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? attempted to respond to the charge of historicism within his defence of ethical reflection from the standpoint of a community with its own narratives of the ‘good’ and the ‘end’.13 Not surprisingly, in the wake of MacIntyre’s work, there have emerged scores of articles and books critiquing, extending, 10 I am here referring to Donald Davidson’s influential use of ‘conceptual scheme’ in his 1974 article ‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme’, republished in Donald Davidson, The Essential Davidson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 196–208. The notion of a ‘conceptual scheme’ was very influential in the mid-twentieth-century philosophy of science; see Robert D’Amico, Historicism and Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1989), 32–51. 11 MacIntyre waded into this discussion in his 1977 article, ‘Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science’, republished in MacIntyre, The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 3–23. This article was particularly formative for his argument in After Virtue. 12 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd edn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). 13 See Martha Nussbaum’s trenchant review: ‘Recoiling from Reason: Review of Whose Justice? Which Rationality by Alasdair MacIntyre’, New York Review of Books, 7 December 1989; Jeffrey Stout has waged what has become the seminal response to MacIntyre along these

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and reflecting on the many aspects of MacIntyre’s account of ethical reflection from a tradition-informed particularist standpoint.14 Throughout the course of his writings, MacIntyre’s account of ‘tradition’ has migrated from ‘traditions of practice’ in After Virtue to ‘tradition against encyclopaedia and genealogy’ in Three Rival Versions. What began as a way to understand the rationality of ethical action that relied on endogenous factors expanded to meet the more general ethical malaise (as MacIntyre understood it) of late modernity as an exogenous challenge to ‘the tradition of virtues’. It is this conception of tradition that he went on to construct in Three Rival Versions, partly in defence of his earlier conception and partly in defence of a newly acquired stance within the Catholic religious tradition. Traditions no longer simply arose out of communities of practice, but were intended to ‘defeat’ and ‘overcome’ rival traditions. Spring training was over; it was time to play ball. In Three Rival Versions, the last of his trilogy, MacIntyre’s understanding of tradition is therefore not so much After Virtues’ ‘tradition of practices’,15 which became a catalyst for much ethical reflection in the last two decades of the twentieth century,16 but rather one that could simultaneously critique the ahistoricism of nineteenth-century ‘encyclopaedia’ without succumbing to what MacIntyre perceived as the nihilistic relativism of ‘genealogy’. This famously took the form of adopting ‘Aquinas’ strategy’: The questions and problems which Aquinas posed about Augustinianism to Augustinians and about Aristotelianism to Aristotelians are each initially framed in terms internal to the system of thought and enquiry which was being put in question. Aquinas’ strategy, if I have understood it correctly, was to enable Augustinians to understand how, by their own standards, they confronted problems for the adequate treatment of which, so long as they remained within the confines of their system, they lacked the necessary resources; and in a parallel way to provide the same kind of understanding for Averroistic Aristotelians. So we also need to proceed by raising critical questions for encyclopaedists and genealogists, not in our terms, but in theirs.17

lines in his ‘Virtue among the Ruins: An Essay on MacIntyre’, Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 26:3 (1984), 256–73. 14 The first port of call is the ‘Guide to Further Reading’, in Kelvin Knight, ed., The MacIntyre Reader (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), 276–94. For theological responses in particular, see Max Stackhouse, ‘Alasdair MacIntyre’, Religious Studies Review 18:3 (1992), 203–8; Thomas Hibbs, ‘MacIntyre, Tradition, and the Christian Philosopher’, The Modern Schoolman 68 (March 1991), 211–23, and ‘MacIntyre’s Postmodern Thomism: Reflections on Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry’, The Thomist 57 (1993), 277–97; and John Haldane, ‘MacIntyre’s Thomist Revival: What Next?’ in Horton and Mendus (1994), 91–107. 15 MacIntyre (2007), 187–203. 16 John Horton and Susan Mendus, ‘Alasdair MacIntyre: After Virtue and After’, in Horton and Mendus (1994), 1–15, 10–14. 17 Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 173.

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This ‘dialectical’ understanding of tradition is a species of exogenous tradition development.18 While this was intended to resolve any lingering suspicion of relativism in MacIntyre’s historicism,19 which proposed a programme for discerning ‘superior’ traditions from ‘inferior’ traditions, it is still an open question whether MacIntyre can pacify his critics.20 Be that as it may, the later account curiously lost touch with the endogenous dynamics of practice-based insights that enriched his account in After Virtue. In other words, MacIntyre migrated from an endogenous to an exogenous understanding of tradition in his attempts to escape the charge of relativism. One shortcoming of MacIntyre’s shift to exogenous development is that it minimises the internal possibilities for both Augustinianism and Aristotelianism. The internal dialogues of both traditions have been straightjacketed in order for the healing powers of the Thomist sanatorium to take effect. MacIntyre’s conception of tradition is no longer concerned with a continuity of practice as it was in After Virtue, where he described it as a process of entering ‘into a relationship not only with its contemporary practitioners, but also with those who have preceded us in the practice’.21 Rather, tradition formation is now a matter of teaching students to read texts.22 The classroom pedagogy of Three Rival Versions thus seems to overshadow the workshop pedagogy of After Virtue. This should come as no surprise—how else, MacIntyre might ask, is one supposed to be trained within his or her tradition yet engage other traditions? The only readily available model for this is reading other traditions’ arguments. There is, then, a more important new influence, namely the paradigmatic role Aquinas now plays for MacIntyre. What is implicit in Three Rival Versions but is made explicit in his more recent God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition is: if Aquinas is how one is to overcome ‘encyclopaedia’ and ‘genealogy’, then the student must be trained as Aquinas was, that is, through reading textbooks.23

18

This will be most obvious to a reader who sees MacIntyre’s early work on Hegel and Marx as relevant to his later work: see Alasdair MacIntyre, Marxism and Christianity, rev. edn (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1968); cf. Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 132–4. 19 See Stern (1994). 20 This is a discussion that anglophone responses to MacIntyre have sustained without reference to the sophisticated discussion of historicism in German, a tradition with which MacIntyre is familiar. It is unclear, for example, whether the anglophone charge of relativism is simply a challenge to discern a superior tradition, or a more general charge of whether anyone can step outside his or her historical context to even make this move. The difference between these two conceptions of historicism have been codified in the distinction between ‘historicism 2’ and ‘historicism 3’ in Herbert Schnädelbach, Philosophy in Germany 1831–1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 35–7. 21 22 MacIntyre (2007), 194. MacIntyre (1990), 231–2. 23 Alasdair MacIntyre, God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition (New York: Sheed and Word, 2009), 153; see also Hibbs (1993), 292.

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There are two implicit assumptions of this account that lurk just below the surface and are worth excavating. First, MacIntyre seems to treat the ‘inferior’ tradition as a ‘bounded whole’.24 Whereas the ‘superior’ tradition is openended and capable of incorporating the ‘inferior’ tradition, the ‘inferior’ tradition is bounded with clear-cut edges and thus incapable of modification, whether that is within its own historically contingent growth or by incorporating another (relatively) ‘inferior’ tradition. This is a curious asymmetry. For all the subtlety of MacIntyre’s account of tradition, he seems to ascribe to the ‘inferior’ tradition an unmodifiable form but to the ‘superior’ tradition a flexibility and creativity to adapt to its circumstances. And second, following on from this, there are no ‘levels’ of a tradition (such as in my Augustinianisms 1 and 2). MacIntyre’s ‘Augustinianism’, for example, is the assumption that the relevant features that make, say, Bonaventure’s understanding of the will Augustinian is whether he adheres, more or less, to Augustine’s explicit description of the will (i.e. Augustinianism 1). It is irrelevant whether or not Bonaventure’s conception of the will is related to other themes, the constellation of which is taken from Augustine (i.e. Augustinianism 2). This is in contrast to my examples in Part II, where Augustinianism 2 holds within it the capacity for Augustinianism 1 to sit alongside, say, Cassianism 1 by virtue of a porous, dynamic conception of Augustinianism 2. For MacIntyre, however, it seems that, instead of something akin to Augustinianism 2, an external first-order tradition (e.g. Thomism 1) must do the synthetic work. In casting his focus there, partly as a result of trying to overcome the limitations of his Hegelianism, MacIntyre has thereby abandoned the emphasis on practices that, in his rendition in After Virtue, move a tradition forward and give it an endogenous capacity to respond to new challenges. It is thus my contention—and theoretical offering—that not only MacIntyre but also his eloquent (and, to my lights, persuasive) critic Stout require a distinction within tradition like that between Augustinianism 1 and Augustinianism 2. By drawing this distinction between two levels of tradition, one does not need to appeal only to exogenous factors to account for development and change (a feature of their Hegelianisms). Rather, the Augustinian tradition as I have presented it often develops endogenously: the dialectical contestation and synthesis of tradition is not found in contestation with some external and ‘rival’ point of view, but is rather found within the familiarity of one’s own tradition when reconstellated. Whereas in MacIntyre’s account one needs to ‘overcome’ his rival, in my account the traditioning process occurs as we learn to see the strangeness internal to our own tradition. MacIntyre’s concern for internal ‘incoherence’ that requires an external tradition to overcome is suggestive of a Marxist impatience: one cannot afford to 24

I owe this insight to Ted Smith, New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 26–8.

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wait for the slow and arduous work of a tradition learning to reinterpret itself; one must change the moral order now. It is, in part, this (paradoxical) impatience with tradition that Stout perceived in MacIntyre’s unwillingness to permit liberal democracy as a tradition of virtues.25 But Stout’s work is not a panacea for the kinematics of tradition. Like MacIntyre, but in a more explicit fashion, Stout falls back on a Hegelianism that requires a genuine ‘other’ to make progress. Stout puts this exogeneity to the service of democratic discourse within pluralist societies (a welcome project, indeed). But while this rehabilitation of (pragmatic, ‘expressivist’) Hegelianism diffuses the need prematurely to usher in another tradition to ‘right the ship’—for democratic discourse requires, if nothing else, patience for ‘the practice of giving and asking for ethical reasons’26—it simply relocates the alienation between two parties within the tradition. My concern with Stout’s internalist relocation of the contestation inherent in tradition is that it does not shed the exogeneity of MacIntyre’s account. But there is a deeper problem with Stout’s account, a resolution to which I think is something like Tradition 2. I take it that, in both Ethics after Babel and Democracy and Tradition, Stout wants to avoid norms being objectivised in such a way that his Brandomian expressivist account of ‘giving and asking for ethical reasons’ requires an ‘idea’ or ‘principle’ independent of the give and take of discourse. However, as Nicholas Wolterstorff has pointed out, it is unlikely that all the norms with which we debate are accountable simply as implicit features of everyday reasoning.27 Wolterstorff wants something like explicitly articulated propositions to hold each other accountable. For Wolterstorff ’s Christian tradition, this would take the form of ‘Love your enemies’. This command is not simply something people were employing implicitly, which Jesus only needed to make explicit. Rather, Jesus used it to confront his followers as something they ought to employ that they were not employing. The reason why this ultimately matters for Wolterstorff is that, if norms are simply implicit within human social practices, then Stout’s Christian critics will find his defence of liberal democracy just as objectionable as Rawlsian social contractarianism.28 The problem for Stout is that he is ‘just as incapable as the contractarian of articulating the governing Idea of liberal democracy’.29 But there is another way to find some governing ‘Idea’ than something like Wolterstorff ’s call for an explicitly articulated proposition (e.g. dominical command of Scripture). The rub for Stout, it seems, is not that he must ensure that all norms are generated by the specific process of making explicit what is 25

26 27 Stout (2004), 118–19. Stout (2004), 6. Wolterstorff (2005), 636. Wolterstorff (2005), 642–3; see also Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 326ff. and ‘Toleration and the Goods of Conflict’, in MacIntyre, Politics and Ethics: Selected Essays, Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 205–23. 29 Wolterstorff (2005), 343 (emphasis added). 28

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implicit,30 but rather that democratic discourse does not devolve into a shouting match of norms, a likely outcome if we commonly allowed something like the sectarian command, ‘Love your neighbour’. If, however, the governing idea is not simply implicit within social practices of Tradition 1, but is rather a feature of Tradition 2—for the latter provides the criteria for adoption and modification of the former—then Stout would not require something like Wolterstorff ’s explicitly articulated propositions in order to account for governing ‘Ideas’ that might appease his Christian critics. Tradition 2, arising out of a historically distended Tradition 1, gives Stout something that functions like Wolterstorff ’s ‘governing Idea’ without having to swallow Wolterstorff ’s idealistic proposal. But Stout would have to accept that this kind of deliberation takes place over long stretches of time. For his admirable political aims, this is unlikely to be tolerable. Again, the point is to change the world. But according to my historical analysis, this temporal distension that requires patience is not merely inevitable; it is a felicitous impulse that keeps the discourse running even when it no longer seems to work. The concern that Stout might have with this revised kinematics of tradition is that it seems to play into the hands of MacIntyre, but I am not persuaded that MacIntyre represents a pernicious influence. MacIntyre’s point is that if tradition x has to appeal to tradition y to make its claims coherent, then tradition y supersedes tradition x (i.e. tradition y is ‘rationally superior’ to tradition x). However, my account of Tradition 1 and Tradition 2 is not an evaluation of two different traditions, but a distinction within one tradition. Moreover, the ramification of tradition into two levels provides for the possibility that one might intelligibly borrow from another tradition without thereby sacrificing the integrity of its own tradition. This last point seems to be the greatest weakness of MacIntyre’s understanding of tradition as well as the greatest limitation that Stout imposes on his own understanding of tradition. For MacIntyre, the implicit understanding of tradition as a ‘bounded whole’ makes any borrowing from another tradition a surrendering of its integrity. But when do traditions not borrow from other traditions? If MacIntyre is right, then there would be no tradition with full integrity and therefore no legitimate tradition with which to debate and overcome other traditions. But in riposte to MacIntyre, Stout proposes a pragmatic account that is purposefully avoiding the appeal to some floating ‘Idea’ for its legitimation. However, I do not see any reason why an appeal to a second level within the tradition would violate Stout’s pragmatic strictures. Such an appeal would simply require Stout to consider how his internalist relocation would be improved by making

30 This concern obviously informs Stout’s chief influence: see Robert Brandom, Making it Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).

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the second shift from MacIntyre’s exogeneity to something like the endogeneity of the Augustinian tradition that I have traced in Part II. There are virtues of MacIntyre’s and Stout’s focus on exogenous development that stay entirely within Tradition 1, but their benefits do not outweigh their costs. First, resolving the ‘endless play’ of Tradition 1 in a Tradition 2 could seem to fall victim to infinite regress: would not a Tradition 2 require then a Tradition 3, and a Tradition 3 a Tradition 4 (and so forth until Tradition n)? This is a liability in principle, but not in practice. There’s a limit to the theoretical ‘luggage’ that any one Sittlichkeit will allow. There very well could be Tradition 3 (through Tradition n) operating in one’s ethical calculus. Indeed, one might argue that the Tradition 3 that sits over Augustinianism 2 is something closer to what we might label ‘Christian wisdom tradition’. In other words, Augustinianism 1 and Augustinianism 2 are simply subsets of the Christian wisdom tradition. But people very rarely live robustly ethical lives in a generalised ‘Christian wisdom tradition’. Rather, they inhabit specific strands or traditions—Thomism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, etc. This is one of MacIntyre’s greatest insights. These subsets of the Christian wisdom tradition define the relevant limit of this regress from Tradition 1 to Tradition 2. The second cost, related to the first, is that sticking with Tradition 1 allows for easy narratives of authorial agency and creativity. MacIntyre’s version in particular offers an implicit account of the authorial creativity that can be ascribed to the recipient of traditions: one can make sense of Thomas as both in debt to auctoritas and displaying the independence necessary to make a distinguishable contribution from that auctoritas. But Stout’s account is also similarly enabled: a discourser is not constrained by a potentially unrecognised (and therefore unauthorised) Tradition 2. In both accounts, there is a way out of the determinism implicit in historicist accounts of tradition. Does Augustinianism 2, which, to some extent, posits a ‘subterranean’ influence in a text, curtail the authorial freedom of authors I designate as Augustinian? In other words, how is Augustinianism 2 a legitimate phenomenon below the ‘surface of the text’ yet not a totalising determinism within the author’s text? It is this final question that I will address to conclude this study.

THE S COPE AND FUNCTION OF AUGUSTIN IANI SM 2 One of the difficulties of the supposition of Augustinianism 2 is that it is difficult to identify without some kind of Augustinianism 1. While in the cases I have discussed here Augustinianism 2 was posited only after establishing Augustinianism1, I do not thereby intend to claim that Augustinianism 1 is a necessary condition for Augustinianism 2. The fact that Augustinianism 2 is

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difficult to identify without Augustinianism 1 does not imply anything about the necessity of Augustinianism 1 for Augustinianism 2. I take Augustinianism 1 as a relatively unproblematic entity; thus, I shall concentrate on the scope and function of Augustinianism 2 and then turn to clarify how Augustinianism 2 does not occlude the possibility of authorial integrity. The particular challenge is to elucidate the extent of authorial freedom Augustinianism 2 allows, without which my concept of tradition would simply fall back into the false disjunct between ‘static tradition’ and ‘dynamic modernity’. While Augustinianism 1 is easy to demarcate from other first-order receptions (e.g. Cassianism 1), Augustinianism 2 is less easily demarcated.31 The virtue of demarcation is that a reader can distinguish between what is being appropriated and the author’s own contribution. In recent critical theory, some scholars have highlighted the potential danger of supposing a general mentalité. According to Michel de Certeau, the attempt to identify general ‘mentalities of periods of history’ gave rise to ideas of the collective spirit, which he characterised as false ‘ontologisms’. ‘Not being subject to real control, these underlying regions can be extended, stretched, or shrunk at will,’32 and thus can be dangerous ideological controls of the text by the reader. To what extent, then, can I defend Augustinianism 2 against this criticism? In short, Augustinianism 2 differs in both scope and function from such a false ‘ontologism’ of the text. But let us look more closely at these features. In Part II, I emphasised that Augustinianism 2 does not account for every aspect of Boethius’ Consolation or Benedict’s Rule. Rather, it accounts for a specific cluster of themes constellated around the theory and practice of prayer that are derived from Augustine’s thought. The benefit of this cluster is that it helps one to see that Boethius’ Consolation and Benedict’s Rule, on the one hand, drew inspiration from an Augustinian Christian existence as articulated in prayer, yet did not occlude, on the other hand, the claims of a first-order appropriation from another author or even the generation of the author’s own first-order claims. The scope, then, of Augustinianism 2 is wider than Augustinianism 1 but not identical with the ‘boundaries’ of the text as a ‘world view’ or ‘conceptual scheme’ might be. This differs from Certeau’s ‘discursive unity’ in that its organisational or structural role does not necessarily extend to the text as a whole, for its scope is within the ‘boundaries’ of the text. Furthermore, it must be emphasised that one can maintain without threat of internal incoherence another first-order tradition under the umbrella of Augustinianism 2. This emphasis admits an important corollary that proves the case: one can maintain Augustinianism 1 under a different second-order tradition. 31 This is what I take to be at the heart of Michel Foucault’s critique of ‘discursive unities’; see L’archéologie du savoir (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1969), see esp. part II. Davidson (2006). 32 Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 28.

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This could take Augustine in surprising new directions, which may even be contrary to certain directions he wanted his thought to go. For example, Gregory the Great could be read as employing an Augustinianism 1 to the end of an account of a vision of Christian existence more indebted to Cassian’s emphasis on heaven as the core of the monastic vocation.33 In other words, my account implies that Augustine could be integrated into someone else’s second-order tradition, thereby providing a conception of tradition that could suggest narratives counter to the ones that have been popularly told about, say, Augustine’s dominance of the ‘middle ages’. What, then, does this say about the author’s creative integrity? I have here emphasised that it is, in the first place, the scope of the second-order tradition that ensures my account of Augustinianism 2 is not a totalising ‘lens’ through which one might order the entirety of a text or corpus. If the scope of the appropriated second-order tradition is not identical with the boundary of the text, second-order tradition does not constitute the ‘totality’ of the text. The limited scope of the appropriated second-order tradition suggests that the author still has significant creative freedom in the authorial process, and this creative freedom can cut both with and against the appropriated author’s ‘intentions’ (whatever those might be). This serves to remind one that a grand narrative often conceals more than it reveals, because it fails to see that the act of reception is itself an authorial production. The act of production is, then, an act of trust: one must trust one’s readers, for any attempt to control the interpretation may become yet another text to appropriate, as indeed Augustine’s Retractiones are. To bring this back to matters at hand: Boethius and Benedict can speak both by way of another person’s speech (e.g., Augustinianism 1) and by way of another person’s constellation of themes (e.g. Augustinianism 2), neither of which will wipe out their own authorial integrity. This understanding of authorship highlights, I believe, an overlooked aspect of the way in which Boethius and Benedict are Augustinian, and can additionally provide the outlines of a more general theory of tradition.

TRADITION AS DUTY ‘Traditions, when vital,’ MacIntyre has famously said, ‘embody continuities of conflict.’34 For MacIntyre, tradition’s vitality is born out of conflict or ‘argument’, an idea betraying his latent dialectical Hegelianism. Although my account suggests that tradition is historically extended, it does not centre 33 For a similar reading of Gregory, see Leyser (2000); for a rendition of Cassian as holding heaven as the core of the monastic vocation, see Stewart (1998). 34 MacIntyre (2007), 222.

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conflict in the historical process—that is not my underlying metaphysic of history. Rather, it seeks to discern the formation of tradition through creative variations on a shared set of resources. Through their appropriations of Augustinianism 2, Boethius and Benedict form the outlines of an Augustinian tradition that, finding passage in the theory and practice of prayer, provides the Latin Christian tradition with a vision of Christian existence grounded in the hopeful patience of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. The ramification of this Augustinianism begins, of course, the fracturing of Augustine’s vision of Christian existence, but it is hardly reasonable to blame Boethius and Benedict (or anyone for that matter) for this development. As Shils points out, endogenous change naturally produces ramifications.35 This is not to say that we cannot look back and see where consequential developments occurred. However, we need not evaluate specific figures, for that is often an evasion of our own moral duty: to take up and extend what has been given to us. If it requires repair, we repair; if it requires emendation, we emend; if it requires pruning, we prune. The genealogical exercise, when used only to pick out bogeymen, is a childish game. We need to learn to accept the blame for our traditions and meet their challenges. Our traditions have been given to us to take, to improve if we can, and to pass on to the next generation. How we might do that within our communities is, I hope, made a little more clear from the examples of Boethius and Benedict.

35

Shils (1981), 280.

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Index abbots 171, 177–80, 189–92, 196–7, 203 Adam 133–4 Adeodatus 37, 45–7 After Virtue (MacIntyre) 215–18 Alaric 122 Ambrose of Milan 38, 41–2, 44–9, 50, 59–60, 95, 129, 162 Arquillière, Henri-Xavier 120–1 ascent 49–54, 56–8, 63–5, 200 asceticism 18, 42, 52, 61, 67, 70, 83–4, 88, 111, 176, 198 Auerbach, Erich 34, 166 Augustinianism 1 as an explicit tradition 150, 218, 221–3 and Boethius’ writings 127–44, 147, 164 and the Rule of St Benedict 164–85, 212 Augustinianism 2 and Boethius’ writings 145–64 and the Rule of St Benedict 186–207, 212 as a thematic tradition 221–3 L’augustinisme politique (Arquillière) 120–1 Ayres, Lewis 15, 17, 21, 34–5, 39–40, 41, 50–1, 75–6, 86, 95–6, 100, 103, 107, 117, 136, 202 Barnes, Michel 31, 34 Basili Regula (Basil) 204 Basil of Caesarea 171, 178, 188, 201, 204 Bavel, T.J. van 8, 12, 31, 59, 66, 71, 104, 182 beata vita and ascent 49, 53 and desire 87–9, 96–7, 105–6 and hope 73, 86, 112, 211 and prayer 39–42, 61, 64, 84, 92 beatitudes 59–60, 63–5 Benedict of Aniane 180 Benedict of Nursia 116–17, 163–5. See also Rule of St Benedict Bermon, Emmanuel 46, 47 Bitton-Askelony, Brouria 43 Blackwood, Stephen 158 Böckmann, Aquinata 167, 169, 183, 197 body 8, 17, 54, 99, 116, 146–7, 155 body and soul. See soul Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus 116, 127–31, 145. See also De consolatione philosophiae; Opuscala sacra Boissier, Gaston 152 Bovo of Corvey 145

Brown, Peter 38, 43, 115, 123, 124 Butler, Cuthbert 19, 167, 168, 181, 189, 210 Caesarius, bishop of Arles 25, 120, 173, 179 Cameron, Michael 65, 66, 68–9 Carton, Raoul 162 Casiday, Augustine 205 Cassian, John Collationes 168, 174, 181, 187, 197, 204 comparisons to 119–20, 188, 192–3, 198–201, 202, 204–5 De institutis coenobiorum 168, 187, 192, 204 Cassiciacum 37–9, 49, 152 Cassiodorus 3, 123 Certeau, Michel de 21, 222 Chadwick, Henry 84, 127, 129–30, 136, 148, 194 charity 82, 111, 178–80, 198, 203 Chrétien, Jean-Louis 1–2, 8, 10, 85, 103 Christ body of (Church) 19, 20, 65, 67, 69, 75–83, 85, 86, 191, 195–6, 198, 206 ‘putting on.’ See induere resurrected body 133–4 will of 133–5, 160 Christology 17–20 of Augustine 66–83, 87, 93–108, 187, 206 of Benedict 179, 193–4, 200, 204–6 of Boethius 129, 131–5, 146, 152, 157, 160 of Cassian 204–6 City of God. See De civitate Dei (Augustine) Collationes (Cassian) 168, 174, 181, 187, 197, 204 Combès, Gustave 120 Concordia regularum (Benedict of Aniane) 180 Conferences (Cassian) 168, 174, 181, 187, 197, 204 Confessiones (Augustine) 31–2, 37, 49, 93, 152 Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius). See De consolatione philosophiae (Boethius) contemplation 42–3, 53, 103–8, 205–6, 210 contemplative life (otium) 54–6 conversio and conversatio 195, 199–207 Cooper, John 211 Crouse, Robert 22, 38, 151

254

Index

Curley III, Thomas F. 162 Cyprian 59 Daley, Brian 18, 87, 95, 131, 133 De anima et eius origine (Augustine) 86, 108–10 De civitate Dei (Augustine) and authority 100, 120–1 and Benedict’s writings 183 and Boethius’ writings 129–30, 134, 136 and doctrine 105–6, 179 De consolatione philosophiae (Boethius) and Augustinianism 161–3, 164, 213, 222 background of 124, 127–8, 144, 145–53, 161–2 and prayer 156–61 ratio and divine intellegentia 150, 153–6, 212 De doctrina Christiana (Augustine) 65 De Genesi adversus Manichaeos (Augustine) 56 deification 71, 84, 94–5, 205 De institutis coenobiorum (Cassian) 168, 187, 192, 204 Delatte, Paul 169 De libero arbitrio (Augustine) 47–8 De magistro (Augustine) and Boethius’ writings 152–3 and prayer 23, 38, 42–9, 49, 50, 60–4 De mendacio (Augustine) 174 Democracy and Tradition (Stout) 219 De moribus ecclesiae catholicae (Augustine) 38, 44, 48–9, 53–5, 133 De mysteriis (Iamblichus) 143 De oratione (Evagrius) 43–5 De oratione (Origen) 90 De ordine (Augustine) 37, 50–3, 56, 57, 65 De quantitate animae (Augustine) 52, 53–4, 56, 57 De sacramentis (Ambrose) 38, 44–8, 50 De sermone Domini in monte (Augustine) and ascent 49–52, 58–65 and the beata vita 88–9 and Benedict’s writings 199 and prayer 69, 78, 91 desire and beata vita 87–9, 96–7, 105–6 and patience 73–4, 85, 103, 105, 112, 211–12 De trinitate (Augustine) background of 31–2, 48, 91 and Benedict’s writings 203 and Boethius’ writings 128–31, 136–8, 143, 144, 150, 160, 161 and participation 93–103 and prayer 39–41, 85–7

scienta and sapientia 103–8, 211 and the Trinity 112 De trinitate (Hilary of Poitiers) 95 De vera religione (Augustine) 38, 55–8, 62, 64, 88–9, 108 Derrida, Jacques 1 divine simplicity 137–8, 142–3 doctrine politique de Saint Augustin, La (Combès) 120 Dodaro, Robert 66, 86, 93, 106–7, 191 Enarrationes in Psalmos (Augustine) and induere 97 and prayer 67–9, 103, 110–11, 182–3, 202 and totus Christus 74–8, 187 and unity 172–3, 178 Enchiridion (Augustine) 85, 129, 130 Enneads, The (Plotinus) 43, 156 epistemology 14, 105 Epistulae (Augustine) ep. 3 37 ep. 48 183 ep. 130 86, 87–93, 105, 128, 144 and Benedict’s writings 181, 183 and Boethius’ writings 108, 131 ep. 221 173–4, 179, 182, 183, 194 Essay in the Development of Christian Doctrine, An (Newman) 214 eschatology 12, 21, 57, 95, 106–7, 111, 135, 149, 162, 186, 199, 202 eternity 58, 64, 88–9, 105–7, 196–7 Ethics after Babel (Stout) 219 Evagrius Ponticus 43–5, 181, 204–5 Expositio Epistulae ad Galatas (Augustine) 69–74 Expositio evangelii secundum lucam (Ambrose) 59–60 failure, human and grace 33, 73, 107–8, 132 persistence of 86 and prayer 92, 97, 104, 150, 157 failure and theology 135–43 Fleteren, Frederick van 57 forbearance 172–3 Fortin, John 194 Foucault, Michel 222 fraternal relations 170–80, 184–5, 190–8 free will and providence 146–7, 148, 149, 153 Galatians (Augustine) 69–74 Galonnier, Alain 129, 135 Genseric 115–16 Gersh, Stephen 127 Gibson, Margaret 127 gifts, divine 32–3, 62–3, 112

Index Gilson, Étienne 120 Gioia, Luigi 86, 93 Gnostikos (Evagrius) 204 grace doctrine of (Augustine) 13–14, 33, 73, 102, 105–6, 109, 118–19 doctrine of (Benedict) 175, 183, 195 doctrine of (Boethius) 132, 148, 160 and human failure 33, 73, 107–8, 132 Gregory the Great 14, 20, 118–19, 121, 165–6, 186, 199, 223 Griffiths, Paul 94, 174 Hagan, Harry 168 harmony 99, 101, 182–3 Harnack, Adolf von 2–3, 20–1, 25, 40, 66, 117–19, 121, 184–5 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 6–7, 209, 215, 217–19, 223 Heather, Peter 123 Hilary of Poitiers 18, 95–6 Holy Spirit. See Pneumatology hope and beata vita 73, 86 and patience 32–3, 103, 161, 211–12 and prayer 85, 112, 143, 153, 158–9 “How to Read the Consolation of Philosophy” (Curley) 162 humility 33, 48, 70–4, 75, 77–8, 110–11, 190–2, 200 Iamblichus 143, 159 induere 69–74, 86–7, 93–103, 196–201 inequality, fraternal 171, 176–8, 179 inner person 44–8 Institutes (Cassian) 168, 187, 192, 204 intellegentia and ratio 147–8, 153–4, 161–2, 212 Italy in the sixth century 117–25, 165–6, 213 Jerome 179–80 John the Deacon 133, 137–8 justice 191–2, 212 Kant, Immanuel 3, 6, 61 Kardong, Terrence 167, 169, 173–4, 177, 183 Kephalaia Gnostika (Evagrius) 204 Kerr, Fergus 200 knowledge 41, 103–8, 110–11, 155–6 Kodell, Jerome 171 Lacoste, Jean-Yves 1–2 language in prayer 37–8, 46–7, 50, 61, 90–1 Lawless, George 58, 83 Le Blond, Jean-Marie 86

255

Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (Harnack) 118–19 Leo I (pope) 121 Lerer, Seth 152 Leyser, Conrad 31, 205–6 Lienhard, Joseph 167–8, 187 Löhr, Winrich 33 Lord’s Prayer and ascent 49, 50–1 in Boethius’ writings 133, 135, 144 as a paradigm 47–8, 59–65, 80, 91–2 Lorenz, Rudolf 169 love, fraternal 179–80, 183, 196–8, 203 love, spiritual 72–3 Lubac, Henri de 120 MacIntyre, Alasdair 4–7, 165, 209, 213, 215–21, 223 Madec, Goulven 13–14, 48, 66, 71 Marenbon, John 127, 151 Markus, Robert 32, 108 Marrou, Henri Irénée 38, 120 McWilliam, Joanne 66 meditation 61, 133 Milbank, John 2, 4–5, 96 Mohrmann, Christine 149–50, 157, 159 monasticism evolution of 38, 55–8, 70, 81–3, 165–6, 207 and fraternal relations 170–80, 184–5, 190–2 and the outside world 72–3, 175 and prayer 180–4 Monica 37, 54, 55, 93 Nebridrius 55 Neoplatonism 41, 128, 143, 159, 161 Newman, John Henry 214 North Africa 55, 60, 76, 88, 116, 161 obedience 191, 196–7 Opuscula sacra (Boethius) background of 127–33 and prayer 135, 138–9, 143–4, 147, 150, 157, 212 and the Trinity 135–7, 139–43 and the will of Christ 133–4 Ordo monasterii (Augustine) 72, 78, 169, 170–1, 175, 182 Origen 11–12, 43, 59, 90 Ostia 55, 57–8, 73, 76, 93 Ostrogoths 117, 122–4, 165 otium (contemplative life) 54–6 pagan philosophies 100, 143, 145–6, 161–2 participation 71, 86–7, 93–103, 124–5, 211. See also purification

256

Index

patience and community 83, 198 and desire 73–4, 85, 103, 105, 112, 211–12 and prayer 78, 92–3, 160–2, 200 and spiritual projects 77–8, 162, 195–8, 199 and wisdom 32–3 pelagianism 24–5, 31–3, 86, 104–5, 109, 118, 211 Pelikan, Jaroslav 4, 20–1 petitionary prayer 40, 59, 61–2 Pieper, Josef 85 Platonism, Christian 38, 130, 148, 161–2, 210–11 Plotinus 43, 44, 51, 156 Plumer, Eric 70 pneumatology 33, 84, 86, 110 and knowledge 109–10 and prayer 88–9, 92, 97 in transitions 81–2, 104, 106–8 Porphyry 100, 105 Possidius 115–16, 175, 176 Praeceptum. See Regula: Praeceptum Praktikos (Evagrius) 204 practice 6, 8, 19–21, 25, 32, 34, 209–12, 216–21, 224 prayer and ascent 59, 73 and beata vita 39–42, 61, 84, 92 as communication 154, 156–7 in community 180–4 and contemplation 42–3, 61, 88 and hope 85, 112, 143, 153, 158–9 and human failure 92, 97, 104, 150, 157 languages of 50, 90–1 and patience 78, 92–3, 160–2, 200 psychological location of 43–9, 60–1 transformations through 62–3, 64, 201 Proba (widow) 86, 87–8, 90, 103, 135, 153, 160 Proba (virgin) 26, 131 Prosper of Aquitaine 116, 119 providence and free will 146–7, 148, 149, 153 Psalms 37–8, 67–9, 75–83, 85, 199, 202 Pseudo-Dionysius 22, 151 purification 40–1, 54, 57, 64, 106–7. See also participation ‘putting on Christ.’ See induere Puzicha, Michaela 167, 183 Rahner, Karl 87 Rand, E.K. 130 ratio and intellegentia 147–8, 153–4, 161–2, 212 Ravenna 116 regula as an ethic 202–3

Regula magistri (anon) and Benedict’s writings 170–1, 173, 187–94, 200–4 and Smaragdus’ writings 184 Regula: Ordo monasterii (Augustine) 72, 78, 169, 170–1, 175, 182 Regula: Praeceptum (Augustine) and Benedict’s writings 169–71, 176–7, 179, 191 and community 172, 173 and prayer 83 ‘relation’ and ‘sameness’ 139–43 Relihan, Joel 148, 151–2 Rule of St Benedict (Benedict of Nursia) background of 164–70, 186–9 conversio and conversatio 201–7 and fraternal relations 170–80, 189–98, 212 and prayer 180–4, 198–201 Salamito, Jean-Marie 33 ‘sameness’ and ‘relation’ 139–43 Schurr, Viktor 135 Schütz, Christian 167 scientia and sapientia 103–8, 211 Shanzer, Danuta 152 Shils, Edward 5–7, 224 Sieben, Hermann J. 202 Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel 182, 183–4, 198 solidarity, fraternal 171–5 Soliloquia (Augustine) 38, 39–42, 46–7, 48, 78, 152 soul and body 52, 53–4, 99, 101–2, 105–6 origin of 109–10 Southern, R.W. 187, 189, 200 speech 45, 174 Spirit. See pneumatology spiritual projects and patience 77–8, 162, 195–8, 199 Steidle, Basilius 168 Stephen (saint) 82 Stock, Brian 4, 39, 41 Stout, Jeffrey 4–7, 209, 218–21 Symmachus (Boethius’ father-in-law) 130 Symmachus (Pope) 132–3 Taylor, Charles 213 Thagaste 38, 49, 54–8 Theoderic (the great) 122–4, 165–6 Théologies d’occasion (Lubac) 120 theurgy 100, 143, 161 Thomas Aquinas 216–17 Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (MacIntyre) 215–18

Index totus Christus and community 81–3, 191–2, 194 doctrine of 65, 67, 69, 74–8 and induere 97, 200 and prayer 78–80, 86–7, 111 tradition 4–7, 209–24 Trinity 41–2, 68, 104, 112, 135–44 Troeltsch, Ernst 2, 180, 184 unity, divine and human 78–9, 101–2, 154 unity, internal and external 192–6 Van der Meeren, Sophie 148, 151–2, 158 Vessey, Mark 202 Victorinus, Marius 41 Vincent, Monique 67, 86 Vita augustini (Possidius) 176

257

Vogüé, Adalbert de on Augustinian influences 167, 170–1, 173, 178, 179 on Benedict’s monasticism 166, 169, 191, 192, 202, 205–6 on Regula Magistri 183, 188, 189 vota 138–9, 144, 160 Wetzel, James 49 Williams, Rowan 2, 19, 22, 32, 66, 86, 98–9, 102–3, 111, 117, 165, 168, 179 wisdom 32, 86, 103–8 Wölfflin, Eduard 169 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 219–20 Zumkeller, Adolar 51, 178, 182