Augustine in Context 1107139104, 9781107139107
Augustine in Context assesses the various contexts - historical, literary, cultural, spiritual - in which Augustine live
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augustine in context Augustine in Context assesses the various contexts – historical, literary, cultural, and spiritual – in which Augustine lived and worked. The essays, written by an international team of scholars especially for this volume, provide the background against which Augustine’s treatises should be read and interpreted. They are organized according to a rationale that moves from an introduction to the person (the so-called personal context) to the contexts of Augustine’s works and ideas, starting from the intellectual setting and extending to the sociopolitical realm. Collectively the essays highlight the embeddedness of Augustine in the world of late antiquity and the interdependence of his discourse with contemporary forms of social life. They shed new light on one of the most important figures of the western canon and facilitate a more enlightened reading of his writings. Tarmo Toom is an Associate Professor of Historical Theology at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies, Arlington, VA, and a Professorial Lecturer at Georgetown University. He has authored three books and edited two, the latest of which is Patristic Theories of Biblical Interpretation: The Latin Fathers (Cambridge University Press, 2016). His primary research areas are patristic hermeneutics and the philosophy of language (particularly those of Augustine), Trinitarian theology, early Christian creeds, and Constantine. He is a member of the North American Patristics Society and the International Association of Patristic Studies.
Augustine in Context Edited by
tarmo toom John Leland Center for Theological Studies, Arlington, VA, and Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 4843/24, 2nd Floor, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, Delhi – 110002, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107139107 doi: 10.1017/9781316488409 © Cambridge University Press 2017 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2017 Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Inc. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data names: Toom, Tarmo, 1961– editor. title: Augustine in context / edited by Tarmo Toom. description: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. identifiers: lccn 2017026221 | isbn 9781107139107 (alk. paper) subjects: lcsh: Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354–430. | Church history – Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600. classification: lcc br65.a9 a87 2017 | ddc 270.2092–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026221 isbn 978-1-107-13910-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of Contributors
page viii
Acknowledgments
xii
General Abbreviations
xiii
Abbreviations of Augustine’s Works
xvi
Introduction: A Chronological Chart
xviii
1
Augustine in Context and Augustine on Context Tarmo Toom
part i life
1
11
2
Biography in Late Antiquity Arthur P. Urbano
13
3
Augustine on Himself Annemaré Kotzé
22
4
Possidius on Augustine Erika T. Hermanowicz
30
5
Augustine in Roman North Africa (Thagaste, Carthage) Gareth Sears
37
6
Augustine in Higher Society (Rome and Milan) David M. Gwynn
44
7
Augustine as a Bishop (Hippo) Andrea Sterk
51
v
vi
CONTENTS
part ii literary and intellectual contexts
59
8
Language James Clackson
61
9
Classical Literary Culture in North Africa W. Martin Bloomer
68
10
Education, Grammar, and Rhetoric Yun Lee Too
79
11
Scripture and Biblical Commentaries Stephen A. Cooper
86
12
Latin Christian Literature I (Polemical and Theological Writings) Josef Lössl
94
13
Latin Christian Literature II (Moral and Spiritual Writings) David G. Hunter
102
14
Letter Writing and Preaching Jaclyn Maxwell
111
15
Philosophical Trends in Augustine’s Time Giovanni Catapano
119
part iii religious contexts
127
16
Roman Religion Jeffrey Brodd
129
17
Manicheism Nicholas Baker-Brian
137
18
Ecclesiological Controversies Alden Bass
145
19
Soteriological Controversies Dominic Keech
153
20
Trinitarian Controversies Mark Weedman
161
21
Monasticism/Asceticism Marilyn Dunn
169
part iv political, social, and cultural contexts
177
22
Imperial Politics and Legislation in Roman Africa Dean Hammer
179
23
War Alexander Sarantis
187
CONTENTS
vii
24
Religious Violence Despina Iosif
195
25
Relationships in Augustine’s Life Geoffrey Nathan
203
26
Popular Culture and Entertainment Jerry Toner
211
part v reception
219
27
Augustine’s Reception of Himself Johannes Brachtendorf
221
28
Reception of Augustine during His Lifetime Mathijs Lamberigts
230
29
Reception of Augustine in Hadrumetum and Southern Gaul Alexander Y. Hwang
238
A Note on Augustine’s Works
246
Further Reading
247
Index
261
Contributors
ni cho l as baker- br ian Senior Lecturer in New Testament and Early Christian Studies, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK. His publications include Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire: A Study of Augustine’s Contra Adimantum and Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered. a l d e n ba s s Assistant Professor of Theology at Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA. Currently, he is working on a translation of a Donatist sermon collection, the Vienna Homiliary. w . m a r t in bl o o m e r Professor of Classics at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA. His publications include The School of Rome: Latin Studies and the Origins of Liberal Education. He is also the editor of A Companion to Ancient Education. j o h an n e s b r a c h t e n d o r f Professor and Chair of the Philosophical Foundations of Theology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. His publications include Die Struktur des menschlichen Geistes nach Augustinus: Selbstreflexion und Erkenntnis Gottes in “De Trinitate” and Augustins “Confessiones.” j e f f r e y b r o d d Professor of the Department of Humanities and Religious Studies, California State University, Sacramento, CA, USA. He is a co-author of Invitation to World Religions and a co-editor of Rome and Religion: A CrossDisciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult. g i o v a nn i c a ta p a n o Associate Professor of Medieval Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy, and Applied Psychology at the University of Padua, Italy. His publications include Il concetto di filosofia nei primi scritti di Agostino (Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 2001) and Agostino (Carocci, 2010). viii
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
ix
j am e s c l ac k s o n Professor of Comparative Philology and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, UK. His publications include Language and Society in the Greek and Roman Worlds. He is also the editor of A Companion to the Latin Language. stephe n a . c oo per Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, USA. His publications include Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and Augustine for Armchair Theologians. m a r il y n du n n Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow, UK. Her publications include The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages. david m. gwynn Reader in Ancient and Late Antique History in the Department of History, Royal Holloway University of London, UK. His publications include Christianity in the Later Roman Empire. dean hammer John W. Wetzel Professor of Classics and Professor of Government at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, USA. His publications include Roman Political Thought: From Cicero to Augustine. He is also the editor of A Companion to Greek Democracy and the Roman Republic. erika t . he rmanowicz Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. Her publications include Possidius of Calama: A Study of the North African Episcopate. david g . h unter Cottrill-Rolfes Chair of Catholic Studies in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA. His publications include Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy. He is also a co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies. a l e x a n d e r y. hw an g Independent researcher who teaches at the Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH, USA. His publications include Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine. He is also a coeditor of Grace for Grace: The Debate after Augustine and Pelagius. des p ina i os if Faculty of Hellenic Open University and of College Year in Athens, Greece. Her publications include Early Christian Attitudes to War, Violence, and Military Service.
x
LIST OF CONT RIBUTORS
d ominic k eech Vicar of the Parish of St. Nicholas, Brighton, in the Diocese of Chichester, UK. His publications include The Anti-Pelagian Christology of Augustine of Hippo, 396–430. a n n e m a r é ko t zé Associate Professor at the University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town, South Africa. Her publications include Augustine’s Confessions: Communicative Purpose and Audience. m a thi j s l a m b e r i g ts Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies and Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He is a co-editor of Ministerium sermonis: Philological, Historical, and Theological Studies on Augustine’s Sermones ad populum and The Uniquely African Controversy: Studies on Donatist Christianity. j o s e f l öss l Professor of Historical Theology and Intellectual History in the Department of Religious Studies and Theology at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. His publications include Julian von Aeclanum: Studien zu seinem Leben, seinem Werk, seiner Lehre und ihrer Ü berlieferung. He is also a co-editor of Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity: The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition between Rome and Baghdad. j a cl y n m ax we l l Associate Professor of History at Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA. Her publications include Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and his Congregation in Antioch. g e o ff r e y n a t h a n Honorary Senior Lecturer in Roman History, School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales, Australia. His publications include The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity and the Endurance of Tradition and, with S. Huebner, Mediterranean Families in Antiquity: Households, Extended Family, and Domestic Space. a l e x a n d e r s ar a nt i s Lecturer in Early Medieval History and Archaeology at Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK. His publications include Justinian’s Balkan Wars: Campaigning, Diplomacy and Development in Illyricum, Thrace and the Northern World A.D. 527–65. He is also a co-editor of the two-volume War and Warfare in Late Antiquity. g a r e t h s e a r s Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology, School of History and Cultures, University of Birmingham, UK. His publications include The Cities of Roman Africa. a n d r e a s t e r k Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Her publications include
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
xi
Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity. jerry toner Fellow and Director of Studies at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, UK. His publications include Popular Culture in Ancient Rome and A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity. yun l ee too Independent scholar. Her publications include The Idea of the Library in the Ancient World and Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity. tarmo toom Associate Professor of Historical Theology at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies, Arlington, VA, USA, and a Professorial Lecturer at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA. His publications include Thought Clothed with Sound: Augustine’s Christological Hermeneutics in De doctrina Christiana. He is also a co-editor of T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology. a r t h u r p . u r b a n o Associate Professor in the Department of Theology, Providence College, Providence, RI, USA. His publications include The Philosophical Life: Biography and the Crafting of Intellectual Identity in Late Antiquity. m a r k w e e d m a n Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Johnson University, Knoxville, TN, USA. His publications include The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers.
Acknowledgments
It has been a privilege and honor to work with the renowned scholars whose work appears in this volume from various countries: Australia, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Italy, South Africa, and the United States. Without their expertise this volume would not be what it has turned out to be. As editor of this volume, I deeply appreciate their heroic effort to write relatively short articles on enormously large topics. Everyone who has ever attempted to write such essays knows how much time and work it actually takes. I thank Cambridge University Press for accepting this volume into its illustrious series “Writers in Context,” and especially Beatrice Rehl, Director of Publishing, Humanities, and Srilakshmi Gobidass and Karthik Orukaimani, Project Managers, for their expert advice and assistance throughout the process of producing this book. I am also much indebted to Laura Morris, who got this project off the ground and is now acquisitions editor for religious studies at Brill. Tarmo Toom
xii
General Abbreviations
Ad Turb.
Ad Turbantium
Adv. Ar.
Adversus Arrium
Adv. Iud.
Adversus Iudaeos
Adv. Pel.
Dialogus adversus Pelagianos
AE
L’Année épigraphique
Alex.
Historiae Alexandri Magni
Amic.
De amicitia
ANRW
Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rö mischen Welt
Apol.
Apologeticum
BCTH
Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques
Caes.
De Caesaribus
Carm.
Carmina
Catech.
Catecheses
CCL
Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina
Chron.
Epitome chronichorum
CIL
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CJ
Codex Justinianus
Comm.
Commentarius, commentarii, commonitorium
Comm. in Matth.
Commentarius in Matthaeum
Comm. in Rom.
Commentarii in Romanos
Conl.
Collationes
CSEL
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
CTh
Codex Theodosianus xiii
xiv
GENERAL A BBR EVIATIONS
C. Ar.
Contra Arrianos
C. Don.
Contra Donatistas
Dim. temp.
Dimidium temporis
Enn.
Enneads
Ep. ad Dem.
Epistola ad Demetriadem
Ep. ad Ruf.
Epistula ad Rufinum
Ep. ex.
Epistulae extra collectionem
Epi.
Epitome
Exc.
Excerpta
Fid.
De fide
FC
Fathers of the Church
Gub. Dei.
De gubernatione Dei
Hex.
Hexaemeron
H. E.
Historia ecclesiastica
Hist. Laus.
Historia Lausiaca
ILAlg.
Inscriptions latines d’Algérie
ILS
Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae
In Apoc.
Commentarius in apocalypsin
In Cant.
Homiliae in Canticum Canticorum
In Eccl.
Commentarius in Ecclesiasten
In Eph.
In epistulam Pauli ad Ephesios commentarius
In Gal.
In epistulam ad Galatas commentarius
In Phil.
In epistulam ad Philippenses commentarius
In Ps.
Tractatus super Psalmos
Inc.
De incarnatione
Inst.
Institutiones
Inv.
De inventione
MGH AA
Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores antiquissimi
Mort.
De mortalitate
Nat. Hist.
Natural History
Nest. cap.
Nestorii blasphemiarum capitula
NVal
Novels of Valentinian III
Orat.
De oratore
Or. deit. fil.
Oratio de deitate filii
G ENERAL A BB REVIATI ONS
Patient.
De patientia
Pers.
De Bello Persico
Prom.
De promissionibus
Q.
Quaestiones
Reg.
Liber regularum or Regula
Sac.
De sacerdotio
Sc.
Scilicet
Sirm.
Sirmondian Constitutions
Spec.
De spectaculis
Strom.
Stromata
TAPA
Transactions of the American Philological Association
Unit. eccl.
De unitate ecclesiae
Vand.
De bello Vandalico
Vir. ill.
De viris illustribus
Vit. Ant.
Vita Antonii
Vit. Aug.
Vita Augustini
Vit. Const.
Vita Constantini
Vit. Macr.
Vita Macrina
Vit. Mart.
Vita Martini
Vit. Mos.
Vita Moysis
Vit. phil.
De vitis philosophorum et sophistarum
xv
Abbreviations of Augustine’s Works
adv. Ar.
Adversus Arium
bapt.
De baptismo
b. vita
De beata vita
cat. rud.
De catechizandis rudibus
civ. Dei
De civitate Dei
cons. Ev.
De consensu Evangelistarum
conf.
Confessiones
corrept.
De correptione et gratia
c. Acad.
Contra Academicos
c. Ar.
Contra Arianos
c. Aux.
Contra Auxentium
c. ep. Pel.
Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum
c. Faust.
Contra Faustum manicheum
c. Gaud.
Contra Gaudentium
c. Jul.
Contra Julianum
c. litt. Pet.
Contra litteras Petiliani
div. qu.
De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus
doc. Chr.
De doctrina Christiana
Emer.
Gesta cum Emerito
en. Ps.
Enarrationes in Psalmos
ench.
Enchiridion
ep.
Epistulae
ep.*
Epistulae Divjak 1987
fid.
De fide xvi
ABB REVIATIONS OF A UG USTINE ’ S W OR KS
gest. Pel.
De gestis Pelagii
gr. et lib. arb.
De gratia et libero arbitrio
mag.
De magistro
nat. et gr.
De natura et gratia
ord.
De ordine
pecc. mer.
De peccatorum meritis et remissione
praed. sanct.
De praedestinatione sancorum
persev.
De dono perseverantiae
reg. 3
Regula: praeceptum
retr.
Retractationes
s.
Sermones
s. Dom. mon.
De sermone Domini in monte
sol.
Soliloquia
spir. et litt.
De spiritu et littera
syn.
De synodis
virg.
De sancta virginitate
xvii
Introduction A Chronological Chart
Date
Augustine
Christianity in North Africa
Larger Christianity
311 Donatus consecrated Synod of Rome as a rival bishop of Carthage Council of Arles (against Donatists) Council of Nicaea
313
314
325 330
The Edict of Toleration The “Edict” of Milan
Constantinople becomes the new capital Constantine baptized; Constantius II (until 361)
337
First conversions of Goths by Ulfilas Synod of Rome Council of Sardica/ Philippopolis Council of Sirmium
340 341 342–3 351 354 355
Roman Empire
Birth Council of Milan
Council of Béziers
356
xviii
Constantinople becomes the new capital of the Roman Empire
INTR ODUCTION: A CHR ONOLOGICAL C HART
xix
(cont.) Date
Augustine
Christianity in North Africa
360
Synod of Alexandria Parmenian becomes the Donatist bishop of Carthage (until 392) The Rogarist schism
362 363
364 365
370–1
372–3
374
378
Roman Empire
Councils of Sirmium, Seleucia, and Rimini, Hilary writes his On the Trinity Councils of Niké and Julian the Constantinople Apostate (until 363)
359
366
Larger Christianity
Latin version of Acta Archelai Pope Damasus (until 384)
Studies in Madauros, Thagaste, and Carthage (until 370) Death of Augustine’s father Patricius, birth of Augustine’s son Adeodatus Reads Cicero’s Hortensius, becomes a Manichean auditor
Ambrosiaster (370s or 380s)
Death of Athanasius The first antiManichean edict issued by a “Christian” Emperor Valentinian I Ambrose becomes the bishop of Milan
Teaches rhetoric in Thagaste and Carthage until 383 The Claudianist schism
Visigoths defeat Romans at Adrianople
xx
I N TROD UCTION: A CHRONOLOGI CA L C HART
(cont.) Date
Augustine
Christianity in North Africa
Larger Christianity
Theodosius I (until 395) Christianity proclaimed the sole religion of the Empire
379 380
381
Writes his first work: On the Beautiful and Fitting (lost)
Councils of Constantinople and Aquileia A Roman Synod, Pope Damasus’ Tomus, Jerome commissioned to revise vetus latina
382
383
384
385
386
387
Roman Empire
Fascination with skepticism, moves to Rome Moves to Milan
Tyconius writes his Book of Rules
Meets Ambrose, Augustine’s mother Monica arranges his engagement Faustus exiled Studies the books of the Platonists and the letters of the Apostle Paul, adopts the ascetic way of life, retires to Cassiciacum Baptism, death of Monica
Valentinian II (coemperor of the west) Altar of Victory controversy in Rome Jovinian in Rome
Priscillian is executed, Jerome settles in Bethlehem
INTR ODUCTION: A CHR ONOLOGICAL C HART
xxi
(cont.) Christianity in North Africa
Date
Augustine
388
389
Returns to Africa, establishes a monastic community, On Free Will (finished 395) On the Teacher
390 391
Adeodatus dies Ordination
392
Debate with Fortunatus, Explanations of the Psalms (finished 420) On Faith and The Council of Creed Hippo, the Maximianist schism The Donatist Council of Bagai Becomes a (co-) bishop of Hippo
393
394 395
396
397 398 399
400
Larger Christianity
Roman Empire
Manicheans expelled from Rome Council of Carthage Aurelius becomes the bishop of Carthage Primian became the Donatist bishop of Carthage (until 412)
Edict against “paganism”
Synod of Rome (Jovinian condemned) The first Origenist controversy
Arbogast defeated Honorius becomes the western emperor (until 423) Vandals enter Gaul
On Christian Teaching (finished 426–7), To Simplicianus Confessions (finished 400) Against Faustus On the Trinity (finished after 419) Pope Anastasius condemns Origenism
xxii
I NT ROD UCTION: A CH RONOLOGICAL C HART
(cont.) Date
Augustine
401
On Baptism, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis (finished 414) Escapes assassination Debate with Felix
403 404
Larger Christianity Pope Innocent (until 417),Rufinus translates Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History
Capital of the western empire moved to Ravenna
Vandal invasion of Gaul
Tractates on the Gospel of John (finished 420)
407 408 Honoratus founds Caelestius and a monastery in Pelagius come to Lérins Carthage Council of Carthage (against Donatists and Caelestius)
410
411
413 415
416
417
Roman Empire
An anti-Donatist “Edict of Unity”
405 406
Christianity in North Africa
City of God (finished 427) On Nature and Grace
Rome withdraws from Britannia Theodosius II (until 450) Rome sacked by Alaric
Pelagius acquitted at Hypatia murdered the Synod of Diospolis Councils of Carthage Orosius writes his History against and Milevis Pagans (against Pelagius and Caelestius) Count Boniface sup- Pope Innocent pressed Donatists I condemns Pelagius and Caelestius; Pope Zosimus (417–18) rehabilitates them
INTR ODUCTION: A CHR ONOLOGICAL C HART
xxiii
(cont.) Date
Augustine
418
On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin
419 421
426
427
429
430 431
Larger Christianity
Roman Empire
Council of Carthage Pope Zosimus con(against Pelagius) demns Pelagius and Caelestius; Julian of Eclanum disagrees Julian of Eclanum exiled
Enchiridion, Against Julianus Pope Celestine (until 432)
422 425
Christianity in North Africa
On Grace and Free Will Eraclius named asAugustine’s successor Debate with Revolt of Count Cassian wrote his Maximinus, Boniface Conferences 13 (or Retractations in 430s) Disagreement Vandals enter On the with Augustine in North Africa Predestinatiothe monasteries of n of Saints southern Gaul and The Gift of Perseverance Death Council of Rome Possidius authors the Council of Ephesus; Prosper defends Life of Augustine Augustine (until 437)
Note: The dates of some of Augustine’s better-known works are taken from the website of Zentrum für Augustinus-Forschung at http://augustinus.de/bwo/dcms/sites/bistum/extern/zfa/augustinus/ werke/werkechrono.html.
1
m Augustine in Context and Augustine on Context Tarmo Toom
Augustine has had a formative role for Christianity and Christian culture. Everyone who has something to do with western thinking and/or theology has been influenced by him in some way, either directly (through Augustine’s works) or indirectly (through the works of those who have read Augustine). David Tracy has assessed, “In one sense, any western Christian thinker (and a good number of post-Christian secular thinkers) is a part of the history of the effect of the texts of Augustine.”1 Some 5 million words from Augustine’s pen are extant, which is vastly more than we have from any other writer from antiquity. It is not to say that others have not contributed to the shaping of western Christianity but rather that only a few have been as influential as Augustine has been. As Phillip Cary once remarked, much of what people say or think as Christians carries a little tag, “Made by Augustine.”
augustine in context: some guiding principles The very act of writing an introduction is creating a context – a context of convictions and circumstances that have generated the project Augustine in Context. To paraphrase a contemporary literary theorist, the idea or impetus behind this volume is “to map the contours of the discourse environment in which [Augustine’s writings were] produced and consumed.”2 Thus a key assumption in envisioning this book has been that context, which relates
1
2
D. Tracy, “Charity, Obscurity, Clarity: Augustine’s Search for a True Rhetoric,” in W. Jost and M. J. Hyde (eds.), Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our Time: A Reader, Yale Studies in Hermeneutics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 254–74, at 260. G. Castle, The Literary Theory Handbook, in Blackwell Literature Handbooks (Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2013), 122–3.
1
2
TARM O TOOM
communicative actions and their surroundings to literary texts, is crucial for comprehending any text. Cambridge’s prolific series “Literature in Context” seems to be guided by certain interests and presuppositions in recent literary studies, such as those of New Historicism, which take texts to be inseparable from the context in which they were written (i.e., a “thick description”). That is, texts are perceived primarily as the products of the social circumstances of their creation. Consequently, historical contexts are not perceived as textindependent “backgrounds,” some sort of external restrictions on linguistic utterances, but rather as part of the literary phenomenon itself. They are con-“texts” that help to determine the semantic coordinates of what has been said. Extending this series, its underlying assumptions, and guiding principles to religious studies (in this case, to Augustine), certain parallels between the two respective disciplines, literary studies and patristics, can be detected. In the second half of the twentieth century and as far as methodology is concerned, first social history and then cultural anthropology dominated the field of patristics – hence the heightened attention to contextual studies (i.e., to social and religiohistorical rather than to theological research). Scholarly trends have emphasized the embeddedness of early Christian authors in the world of late antiquity, the interdependence of their discourse with the social forms of life, and their sharing of the common “presupposition pools” with the larger culture. Christian history and culture have been increasingly seen as part of and deeply situated in Roman history and culture. This means that recently the early Christian texts have been studied as literature – a particular medium of communication vis-à-vis a message with an extrasystemic reference – that provides a key to the social realities of the time. Here is how Augustine in Context proceeds. Part I intends to introduce Augustine. The first question to be asked is, “How do we know about him?” and “What might be the implications of knowing him the way we do?” Most of Augustine’s later biographies are based on his Confessions (his early life until becoming a bishop) and Possidius’ sympathetic Vita (his life as a bishop and his controversies). Accordingly, Part I examines Augustine’s life and public career from his birth and upbringing until his death. Although literary studies (e.g., New Criticism) have made it sufficiently clear that an author’s biographical data are not absolutely necessary for understanding his or her texts – in fact, they might be quite irrelevant (see below) – various author- and context-oriented approaches have strongly disagreed with this contention.
A U G U ST I NE I N CON T EX T A N D A U G U S T I N E O N C O NT E X T
3
Augustine was a man of words and, therefore, particular attention is given to language and literary contexts. Since Augustine is mostly known for his writings and ideas rather than for his personal qualities, Part II investigates the contexts that concern Augustine’s literary activity and thought. For deeper understanding and better appreciation, his intellectual quests and pursuits should be understood in the light of the existing intellectual culture and his texts in the web of interrelationships with other writings of the period. Part III attempts to remind the interpreters of Augustine that he always strived to “know God and the soul [de Deo, de anima]” (Sol. 1.2.7). So did many others, but with rather different results. Therefore, it is important to consider the contexts of competing worldviews without which it would be virtually impossible to understand certain (reactionary) emphases in Augustine’s deliberations. Because his contribution to and impact on his contemporary and subsequent (philosophical) theology definitely outweigh his contribution to and impact on any other field of study, heightened attention is given to the religious contexts of his treatises. Such “privileging of religion” is justified, I believe, by Augustine’s own privileging of religion. After all, most people are not reading Augustine to find a fourth-fifth century understanding of family and economics. Fewer still seek out Augustine’s texts in order to get an idea about imperial correctional facilities or healthcare systems. Rather, most people are reading Augustine for the subject matter that he discusses, for certain “big questions” of theology and philosophy, that is, for religious insight. Yet the bishop of Hippo and his numerous religious writings have still to be located within a society/culture of late antiquity with everything it had to offer because particular circumstances definitely shaped his personality, convictions, and literary output. Social conventions and expectations just have to be in place for any meaningful communication to happen. Even the somewhat rebellious Augustine could not entirely free himself from such things or make his texts immune to what was going on around him. In a sense, Part IV continues Part III by extending the investigation to some other aspects of the social reality of Augustine’s time. No one escapes the impact of sociopolitical realities, no matter whether that impact is appreciated or dreaded. Augustine’s activities, too, are inevitably embedded in the circumstances of his time. Several previous volumes in the series “Literature in Context” have a section on reception history of a given author. Because of the recent publication of a major work on Augustine – The Oxford Guide to the
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Historical Reception of Augustine3 – it does not make good sense to attempt it again on a much lesser scale. However, because this megastudy does not say much about the very beginning of the reception history of Augustine,4 Augustine in Context attempts to fill the gap and focus on the beginning of this complicated process. Accordingly, Augustine is placed alongside his contemporary friends and foes who read him either with great enthusiasm or with deep suspicion. Although by the sixth century and for many Augustine had become Saint Augustine, the early reception of him may provide an interesting corrective to the widespread but naive impression that his authority was never questioned. This volume attempts to assist its readers in moving away from a still widespread perception of the “canonical” Augustine as a self-standing, transhistorical intellectual giant who was somehow above the mundane realities of his time. The essays in this volume are about the context of Augustine and not about Augustine per se. The “Guidance Notes for Volume Editors” says, “The volume should not focus on accounts of the individual’s actual work, but instead offer accounts of contextual issues, bringing in the work as necessary for illustration purposes.” That is, the goal is to provide a set of possible contexts that are reconstructed – with some obvious exceptions in Parts I and V – from sources other than Augustine’s works and yet pertinent for understanding his works. This is deliberate. In many cases, it helps to avoid the tendency of circular reasoning, where a context is reconstructed from Augustine’s works and then his works are interpreted in the light of the context thus reconstructed. (This happens frequently in the case of ancient texts, especially when little or no comparative material is extant.) Augustine in Context is written by experts in their fields and is intended for the larger audience, yet without ignoring the many scholars and students of Augustine. It provides a set of “glasses” (i.e., various contexts) through which the works of Augustine can be seen or “spaces” in which one can ponder about Augustine. In other words, the intention is not to put together another improved Companion to Augustine for Augustinian scholars. Rather, the overall idea is to supply a set of possible (historical) contexts (none of which is the “master context,” as the singular of the word “context” in the title might 3
4
K. Pollmann and W. Otten (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, 3 vols. (Oxford University Press, 2013). The unfortunate concept of a borderline, which is often employed for separating the “original text (or context)” from its subsequent reception, is critically assessed by B. W. Breed, Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History, Indiana Series in Biblical Literature (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014). Augustine started the reception of “Augustine,” for his later writings were simultaneously both a “reception” and a new “original.”
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suggest) that are pertinent for understanding the literary output of the bishop of Hippo. In a sense, this book is a prolegomenon for reading Augustine’s own works, that is, for a more nuanced reading of his works. Perhaps it should also be clarified that neither the number nor the order of essays pretends to exhaust the possibilities. Neither do they suggest a hierarchy of importance or a claim to be comprehensive. Nevertheless, the organization of essays does have a rationale that moves from an introduction of the person (the so-called personal context) to the contexts of Augustine’s works and ideas, starting from the intellectual setting and extending to the sociopolitical realm. The grouping of topics into Parts II, III, and IV should also not give an impression that these thematic sections are somehow self-standing and independent entities. To have a section on political and social contexts is not to contend that politics and social circumstances would exist apart from culture or, for that matter, religion5 or nationality. The grouping also attempts to avoid, despite a separate section of religious contexts (e.g., Part III), a stark separation between “religious” and “secular” spheres, ideas, and material culture. The essays, which at times inevitably overlap, are not edited for better coherence and consensus. Productive differences of opinion are deliberately allowed to stand because disagreement provides the necessary energy for generating further debate and research.
some further issues In the 380s, Ambrosiaster was adamant, “For to take things out of context is to sin” (i.e., it is to commit a hermeneutical “sin”) (comm. on 1 Tim 8–9). Indeed, there is much to gain from contextual study of ancient texts. For example, it tends to eliminate various anachronistic readings and prevents forcing Augustine to answer the questions he never raised. It is believed to provide both constraints on and possibilities for the meanings of his utterances. Nevertheless, there are some issues related to the concept of context that deserve mention for further consideration. First, among theorists, there is really no consensus about what context as such is. Augustine in what? “Widely accepted standard definitions or theories on the context are not on the market.”6 While everyone seems to 5
6
T. A. Lewis, Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion and Vice Versa (Oxford University Press, 2015), 125–7. J. Meibauer, “What Is Context? Theoretical and Empirical Evidence,” in R. Finkbeiner et al. (eds.), What Is Context? Linguistic Approaches and Challenges, Lingustik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 196 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2012), 9–32, at 9.
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acknowledge that context refers to the various aspects that are relevant for understanding a text or an utterance, defining “context” is usually confined to mere listing of its component parts. Yet how many textual and extratextual component parts need to be considered in order to have a context? How do we select them from a wide spectrum of possible contextual cues and on the basis of what to determine their relevance? In brief, context proves to be a rather elusive concept when one attempts to define it. Second, contexts – whatever they are taken to be – are never objectively given, fixed, and ready to be used for everyone who would like to operate with them. This means that at least contexts for ancient writings are always reconstructions of later readers, and because of fragmentary evidence, they can never be reconstructed in their totality. As such, reconstructed contexts remain ever-mutable entities, already and inevitably contaminated with the presuppositions, biases, and interests of the one who reconstructs them for his or her own particular purposes. This amounts to saying that describing various contexts for Augustine’s life and work may generate a false yet convenient feeling of assurance that finally one has found an objective interpretative device. However, such hermeneutical optimism needs to be tamed by careful acknowledgment of the provisional character of any reconstruction of a context. Third, how much weight should be given to historical contexts for construing a meaning of a text? Although contextual interpretation has been emphasized, practiced, and highly praised for quite some time, it rests on certain philosophical assumptions about how meaning is constituted and raises, for example, the issue of the hermeneutical normativity of “original contexts.” Yet an “original context” is arguably not some sort of super criterion for interpreting ancient texts because what an utterance meant in its historical context is not all that a given utterance can and has to mean. If one is to follow Grice, texts have context-independent semantic meanings and context-dependent pragmatic meanings.7 This distinction helps, at least, to understand the irrefutable fact that there are a whole lot of utterances and texts that communicate extremely well, although no one knows and will never know what their “original context” was. Is it not the case that Augustine’s Confessions, for example, can be deeply meaningful even for the readers who know absolutely nothing about the text’s provenance and the historical circumstances of its composition? This text “speaks to” and 7
H. P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation,” in H. P. Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 22–40. Pragmatics is a subdiscipline of linguistics that assesses the context-dependent aspects of meaning.
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mesmerizes its readers even if they do not know the very century in which it was composed or by whom it was composed. “Classical” texts are particularly prone to multicontextualism. In short, finding a text meaningful does not necessarily presuppose the knowledge of the “original context” or the provenance of the text. Searching for the meaning of a text on a postcompositional level can yield equally remarkable results. Breed remarks, “The truth is that texts always leave their contexts, especially their putative original contexts, and contexts never seem to do anything to stop them. Actually, the situation is even worse: original contexts simply disappear into the mists of time while the texts romp around in the present.”8 Furthermore, the “original context” is often believed to offer an important clue about authorial intention, and authorial intention is believed, in turn, to govern the meaning of a text or utterance. Yet again, literary studies have strongly questioned the age-old conviction that authorial intent always controls the meaning of a text. It has been proposed that what matters are the intrinsic and structural aspects of a literary work rather than its intended meaning and extratextual reference (e.g., Formalism). Augustine, for example, knew very well that often it was impossible to appeal to authorial intention. He wondered in civ. Dei 20.19, “We, who do not know what they [i.e., the addressees of the Book of Revelation] knew, are not able to arrive at the apostles’ meaning even with an effort, and no matter how much we desire to do so.” Again, “Which of us can discover [the meaning of the text of Genesis] with such assurance that he can confidently say, ‘This is what Moses meant and this was his meaning in that narrative’ . . . I cannot see in Moses’ mind that this is what he was thinking when he wrote this” (conf. 12.14.33). While Augustine never questioned the hermeneutical priority of authorial intention or the fact that texts referred to something, he was very much aware of the complications that these notions entailed.9 Whether one likes it or not, often an appeal to what is taken to be the authorial intent in the historical “original context” proves to be nothing but guesswork. Fourth, the series “Literature in Context” also seems to give a definite preference to the contexts of a given author. Yet various possible contexts of readers may prove to be equally important. Even Augustine knew that the context of a reader mattered for discovering the meaning of an utterance. For example, in s. Dom. mon. 2.7.26, he argues that for eastern Christians the designation “daily bread” (Mt 6:11) cannot mean the Eucharist because they 8 9
Breed, Nomadic Text, 93. T. Toom, “Was Augustine an Intentionalist? Authorial Intention in Augustine’s Hermeneutics,” Studia Patristica 70(18) (2013), 185–93.
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just do not celebrate the Eucharist daily. In this case, the context of the readers/interpreters restricts the semantic realm of a phrase. Likewise, the meanings of Augustine’s own texts always evolve in the particular reading process and by particular readers, who carry their own interpretative contexts with them and consequently approach texts with their concerns and questions. Thus the contexts of an author are not the only ones that matter. The contexts of readers, too, have a determinative role for establishing meaning(s). “Understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well.”10
augustine on context Although not sharing the ideologies behind New Historicism or any other modern “school,” Augustine likewise emphasized the importance of context(s) and contextual interpretation. True, his deliberations concerned mostly the interpretation of Scripture, but they can also be applied to the reading of any ancient text, including his own. First, Augustine advises an interpreter to consider the literary context of a word or an utterance. “The context of the scriptures customarily illuminates a given passage, when the words adjunct to the text in question are carefully examined” (div. qu. 69.2). Likewise, in doc. Chr. 3.2.2, he admonishes the interpreter to consider “the preceding and following passages” in case a statement is unclear or ambiguous – just like Cicero had instructed him, “[I]t must be shown that from what precedes and follows in the document the doubtful point becomes plain” (Inv. 2.40.117). For example, in doc. Chr. 2.12.18 and in order to determine how the particular word “calf” needs to be translated in Wisd 4:3, Augustine investigates the “words that follow.” Or, in s. Dom. mon. 1.16.44, the meaning of the designation “the rest” in 1 Cor 7:12 is ascertained by the next sentence. Again, detecting a contradiction between 1 Jn 1:8 and 3:9, he takes the phrase “He who has been born from God does not sin” as referring to a particular sin – a violation of charity (ep. Jo. 5.1–2, 7) – because the whole epistle “commends charity” (5.4; cf. 6.4). For reading Augustine’s own treatises, this means that his statements, too, have to be considered in their immediate literary setting (i.e., in the intratextual context or cotext). Progressively, they have to be considered also in the ever-enlarging settings of the particular treatise (i.e., in the infratextual 10
H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd edn., trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989; reprint, New York: Continuum, 1995), 296.
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context), Augustine’s other treatises, Latin Christian literature, the literature of late antiquity, and so on (i.e., in the intertextual contexts) and finally also in the extratextual contexts (if these are not already bracketed together with a text). Second, an interpreter also has to consider the situational context of an utterance. The larger life setting – or as the rhetorical manuals called it, circumstantiae – may provide a key for a more adequate understanding of what is said. For example, if one hears the words, “Quit pulling my leg!,” one needs to know the life situation of this utterance for comprehending the request. One needs to know whether someone wants someone else to quit teasing him or her, whether people are wrestling, or whether there is an ongoing rescue operation. Situational context makes an utterance semantically specific and indicates how it is to be understood at that moment. In s. Dom. mon. 1.20.65, Augustine contends that the punishments mentioned in the Old Testament cannot be understood unless one becomes aware “of the mentality and the particular times that marked these deeds.” Similarly, he urges, “We must pay careful attention to what befits places and times and persons, in order not to judge behavior rashly as infamous” (doc. Chr. 3.12.19). Third, a personal context proves to be important as well. Because the intention of an author was given such importance for determining the meaning of a text, for adequate interpretation, ancient rhetoricians urged consideration of the whole life of an author. They stressed the importance of what can be called “personal context.” Cicero wrote, “One ought to estimate what the writer meant from his other writings, acts, words, disposition, and in fact his whole life” (Inv. 2.40.117). He elaborated, “For it is easy to estimate what is likely that the writer intended from the complete context and from the character of the writer [ex persona scriptoris], and from the qualities which are associated with certain characters” (Inv. 2.40.117). Augustine, for example, knew, on the basis of other canonical texts what Jesus, the evangelists, or Paul was likely to say, and often this helped him to make a decision about the intended meaning of an utterance. Obviously, the more information one has about the author and the greater the number of available writings, the easier it is to determine the author’s “personal context.” Perhaps a special difficulty with (ancient) written texts should be pointed out here as well. Namely, there is a certain immediacy to oral communication – the context is present at hand, and the way something is said directs the hearers’ understanding. Participants in a conversation construct context in the process of communication. Even if misunderstanding occurs, they can always ask for a clarification. Just as Augustine says, “[Moses] is not now
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before me, but if he were, I would clasp him and ask him” (conf. 11.3.5). That is, in oral communication, the linguistic medium is never separated from the person using it. There is no such thing as a living discourse that would exist independently of the speaker and the context of the utterance. But things are rather different in the case of written texts, where everything, including life situation, authorial intention, tone of voice, and other such interpretative clues, is not easily accessible and sometimes not available at all. This posits an extra difficulty for interpreters of written texts, especially anonymous and ancient texts. Periods, commas, question marks, and grammatical constructions can be of some help here, but in the case of written text, an interpreter does not have the help of the supplementary “illocutionary acts” (i.e., the nonlinguistic communication devices). Augustine realizes that when authorial intention is not explicitly stated and when contextual clues, such as phrasing (doc. Chr. 3.2.2–4.8), intonation (civ. Dei 16.6; doc. Chr. 3.3.6), and gesticulation (en. Ps. 34[2].11) happen to be unavailable, an interpreter cannot have any extra help from such illocutionary acts. For Augustine in Context, the first, the literary context, is relatively less important because the current volume does not assess Augustine’s works (except some essays in Parts I and IV). The second, the situational (or historical) context, is the center of attention in Parts II, III, and IV. The third, the personal context, is reconstructed in Part I.
PART I
m life
2
m Biography in Late Antiquity Arthur P. Urbano
In the Preface to his Life of Augustine, Possidius (d. after 437) recognized that the task of writing about the life and character of his friend was part of an esteemed literary tradition: “We have read and ascertained that this indeed was done frequently before us by most religious men of the Holy Mother Catholic Church” (vit. Aug. Praef.). Possidius’ literary predecessors composed books recounting the lives of individuals not only to inform readers but also to provide them with inspirational models of faith and Christian living. Indeed, Augustine himself reveals in the Confessions – his own life story – how biographical literature affected young, educated men of the Latin-speaking world, such as himself. In Book 8, he recalls an encounter with the court official Ponticianus, who told him about the conversion of two colleagues. They became “stripped of the world,” abandoning their current life and career after reading the recently published and translated Life of Antony by Athanasius of Alexandria (conf. 8.15). The life story of the socalled father of Christian monasticism also inspired Augustine – though scholars are uncertain as to whether he ever actually read the Life – and countless others who abandoned their families, careers, and other worldly distractions to dedicate their lives to God in deserts and monasteries and atop mountains and pillars. In the famous account of his moral conversion in the garden in Milan, Augustine describes his own experience by alluding to Antony’s calling, who similarly heard the words of Scripture speaking directly to himself (conf. 8.12.29; vit. Ant. 3–4). Possidius was correct that Christians had developed a tradition of lifewriting. Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Jerome, and Sulpicius Severus are just some examples of Christian biographers. In fact, the period known as late antiquity saw a proliferation of life-writing by Christians and “pagans.” However, this spate of literary production drew on much older models from classical Rome and Athens. Ancient biography was a literature of praise and 13
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self-formation, an instrument for promoting ideas and building intellectual identities.
an elusive genre In a recent study, Tomas Hägg defined ancient biography as “a literary text of book length telling the life story of an historical individual from cradle to grave (or a substantial part of it).”1 At first glance, biography might seem to be a straightforward literary genre, but scholars have struggled with categories and definitions posed by the surviving ancient examples. I begin by briefly presenting four problems scholars face. First: When were the first biographies written? Much of the earliest material from classical Greece has not survived, is extant in fragments, or is known by title only. The biographical anecdotes about Aesop, the poets, and rulers that survive in Greek literature provide some insight into the origins of biographical writing, but the nature of the evidence makes it impossible to see a nascent genre prior to the fourth century BCE. Second: Did readers have the same expectations of biography as they did of history? Scholars have grappled with the distinction between “history” and “biography” as ancient genres. Arnaldo Momigliano suggested that ancient historians were expected to tell “the truth,” while biographers “forgot about truth when they came to write encomia and idealized biography.”2 In particular, he noted differences in the way Xenophon (430–354 BCE) wrote history and biography. Nineteenth-century historian Jacob Burckhardt accused Eusebius of Caesarea of being “the most objectionable of all eulogists,” referring to his Life of Constantine.3 Yet Plutarch (ca. 45–120 CE) distinguished history and biography, the latter describing “the signs of the soul” rather than cataloging achievements (Alex. 1). Ancient authors and readers simply did not have the same positivistic expectations as modern historians. Third: How do you know a biography when you see one? Establishing a clear-cut definition of biography as a literary genre in terms of content, form, and function has proven surprisingly elusive. Friedrich Leo attempted to classify ancient biography according to two types: the Peripatetic (or Plutarchian) type, arranged chronologically, and the thematic Alexandrian 1 2
3
T. Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), ix. A. Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 102. J. Burckhardt, The Age of Constantine the Great, trans. M. Hadas (New York: Pantheon Books, 1949), 260.
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(or Suetonian) type.4 His system quickly breaks down, however, when the texts are studied closely. Hägg suggested that biography was more recognizable by its content than form, and Richard Burridge described it as “a genre capable of flexibility, adaptation and growth.”5 Focusing on function, Charles Talbert proposed a classification on the basis of a text’s propagandistic aims and social contexts.6 Fourth: How many subjects? Biographies could be about one subject or many. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives offers comparisons of Greek and Roman subjects on the basis of their virtues and vices. The collective biographies of Philostratus, Diogenes Laertius, and Eunapius of Sardis present multiple biographical accounts of varying lengths, the logic of organization revealing the work’s overall purpose.7 Christian examples of collective biographies include the anonymous History of the Monks in Egypt and Jerome’s On Illustrious Men. Collective biographies mapped and defined communities – whether philosophic or monastic – forging bonds of continuity between disparate individuals and establishing lines of traditional authority.
the beginnings of greek and latin biography To understand the development and functions of biography in late antiquity, it is necessary to consider the beginnings of biography in the Greek- and Latin-speaking worlds. Late antique authors read these early biographies and modeled their own works on them. Momigliano credited the Socratic circle – especially Plato and Xenophon – with significant contributions to the development of biographical writing, as the historical Socrates became a “vehicle for ideas,” a site for contemplating philosophical truths.8 As philosophical schools multiplied in the Hellenistic period, biographies served as platforms for competition as authors promoted the teachings and intellectual lineages of particular philosophers. In the Latin-speaking west, the biographical 4
5
6
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F. Leo, Die griechisch-rö mische Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form (Leipzig: Teubner, 1901). R. A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Greco-Roman Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 77. C. H. Talbert, “Biographies of Philosophers and Rulers as Instruments of Religious Propaganda in Mediterranean Antiquity,” in H. Temporini and W. Haase (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rö mischen Welt, vol. 2, pt. 16/2 (New York: W. de Gruyter, 1978), 1619–51. See P. Cox Miller, “Strategies of Representation in Collective Biography: Constructing the Subject as Holy,” in T. Hägg and P. Rousseau (eds.), Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 31 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 209–54. T. Hägg, and P. Rousseau, “Introduction: Biography and Panegyric,” in Hägg and Rousseau (eds.), Greek Biography and Panegyric, 4.
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tradition emerged from the memorialization of prominent politicians. Cornelius Nepos (ca. 100–27 BCE) and Marcus Terentius Varro (ca. 116–27 BCE) were among the first Latin biographers. Jerome cites both as literary predecessors in On Illustrious Men, a collection of brief sketches of Christian figures from the New Testament to the end of the fourth century CE (including himself). Two works of collective biography – one Greek and one Latin – have stood out as paradigms for the genre. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives pairs and compares prominent historical figures from the Greek and Roman worlds, cataloging their virtues and vices. Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars offers portraits of the Julio-Claudian emperors in a thematic arrangement. These served as models for Eunapius and the often-tabloid Historia Augusta. Another important example of collective biography, Diogenes Laertius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (third century CE), reads as a philosophical history told through the vehicle of biography. It traces the origins, successions, and divisions among the major schools through anecdotes and bibliographies of major teachers. The period known as the “Second Sophistic” (ca. 50–250 CE) witnessed a resurgence in Greek literary, philosophical, and oratorical cultural production. Flavius Philostratus (ca. 170–247 CE) defined the era largely through the means of biography. His Lives of the Sophists, a collection of accounts of sophists from classical Athens to his own day, has been called “the biography of a cultural movement.”9 His Life of Apollonius of Tyana, one of the longest extant ancient biographies, presents the Pythagorean philosopher as the holy man par excellence. At the turn of the fourth century, the work would be cited in the fierce polemic between Christians and “pagans” in the treatise Against Hierocles attributed (perhaps falsely) to Eusebius of Caesarea.
the proliferation of biographies in late antiquity Late antiquity witnessed profound political and cultural changes within and on the frontiers of the Roman Empire. It also saw a robust proliferation of biographical production similar to the Hellenistic period. The rise of Neoplatonism and Christianity as major intellectual forces led to a competition that once again used biography in individual and community formation. Intellectuals and rulers remained the subjects of late antique biographies, but Christian authors introduced new subjects – male and female ascetics, bishops, and martyrs – who, while different in many regards, 9
Hägg, The Art of Biography, 350.
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were not entirely different from the traditional cast. Christian authors drew from the familiar conventions of ancient biography as well as from biblical models, especially the gospels, which bear similarities to biographies. Christian biographies began to appear in the latter half of the third century. The Life and Passion of Cyprian – what many consider to be the first Christian biography – combines elements of martyrdom account and biography. While the work briefly mentions Cyprian’s early life and education, the focus is on his priestly career and martyrdom – the event that exemplified his heroic virtue. At the turn of the fourth century, on the cusp of the Great Persecution, Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 265–339) included a biographical account of Origen in his Ecclesiastical History. It is the longest treatment of an individual in the work. As heir to Origen’s intellectual legacy (and his library), Eusebius placed him at a crucial position in Christian history, presenting the ascetic teacher as a model Christian and philosopher. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Eusebius composed his life of Origen around the same time the Platonist philosopher and critic of Origen, Porphyry of Tyre, published The Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Works, intended to promote Plotinus’ writings and new interpretation of Plato. The young Augustine would be swayed by Porphyry’s characterization of Plotinus as a Plato redivivus (c. Acad. 3.18.41). However, an older Augustine would have a more ambivalent attitude. Both Origen and Plotinus had been students of the philosopher Ammonius Saccas, and both were pivotal in establishing the two most influential intellectual movements of late antiquity. Their biographers labored to safeguard and promote their masters’ teachings in a fierce struggle, initiating what Averil Cameron has characterized as a “war of biography.”10 The spread of monasticism across the Roman world in the fourth century provided a new class of subjects for biographies. Athanasius’ Life of Antony tells the story of Christianity’s “proto-monk.” The work follows the patterns of Greek biographical writing but also diverges in interesting ways. In the Prologue, Athanasius exhorts his readers to imitate the virtue and ascetic discipline of the Egyptian monk and even suggests in the Conclusion that Antony could be an inspiration to nonChristians (vit. Ant. 94). The biography recounts Antony’s youth and calling to the monastic life. It describes in detail his ascetic practices, struggles with demons, teaching, and miracles. Antony emerges as both 10
A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse, Sather Classical Lectures 55 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 145.
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a Christ figure and a modified philosopher-type, a new paradigm of the Christian wise man. Published in the 360s, the Life of Antony was translated into Latin within a decade and then into Syriac and other languages, providing a practical and literary standard for the monastic life. It also inspired a burst of biographical production lauding male and female ascetics and whole monastic communities. In the 370s, Jerome wrote a competing Life of Paul of Thebes claiming that Paul, not Antony, was the first Christian monk. He also composed biographies of the monks Malchus and Hilarion. Collective biographies also appeared, offering abbreviated glimpses of the lives of ascetics in various regions. The anonymous History of the Monks in Egypt described the “many fathers living the angelic life as they continued to advance in the imitation” of Christ (hist. mon. Prol. 5). Palladius’ Lausiac History, written in the 420s, offers brief anecdotes of about seventy ascetic men and women in Palestine, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Later collective biographies, such as Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Religious History and Cyril of Scythopolis’ Lives of the Monks of Palestine created textual communities out of geographically and chronologically disparate ascetics. Some women appeared among the male cast of subjects. Christian biographers seemed more willing than their Neoplatonist counterparts to discuss the lives of women. Palladius included “women far advanced in years and illustrious God-inspired mothers who have performed feats of virtuous asceticism” (hist. Laus. Prol. 1). Among these was Melania the Elder (hist. Laus. 46; 54), a wealthy and well-read Roman widow who adopted the ascetic life and established a monastery for women and men in Jerusalem with Rufinus of Aquileia, whose Latin translation of the History of the Monks in Egypt (ca. 403) introduced many western Christians to the eastern ascetics. Both Melania and her granddaughter, Melania the Younger, were acquaintances of Augustine. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina memorialized his eldest sibling and the ascetic community she established on the family estate. Though untrained in Greek learning, Macrina was educated on Scripture and became a teacher to her younger brothers, even leading her Athenseducated brother Basil to “a mode of living that would, without pediment, lead to virtue” (vit. Macr. 6). Less prominent are the women ascetics of Syria in Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Religious History. Theodoret makes a point of including male and female paradigms of the Christian ascetic life, which he calls “the highest philosophy.” The inclusion of women in the rolls of Christian biography is tempered by the nearly ubiquitous qualification that they transcended an inherently inferior female nature. Palladius famously remembered Melania as “the female man of God” (hist. Laus. 9), and
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Gregory pondered whether it was even appropriate to call his sister “woman” (vit. Macr. 1). Leading Neoplatonists, continued to produce biographies well into the sixth century. Porphyry and Iamblichus of Chalcis (ca. 240–325) penned lives of the philosopher Pythagoras. Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean Life presented the ancient philosopher as the inventor of philosophy. The work served as the introduction to a ten-volume compendium of philosophical texts in the curriculum of Iamblichus’ school at Apamea. Interestingly, it has been suggested that Athanasius’ Life of Antony may have drawn on tropes from these Pythagorean lives.11 At the turn of the fifth century, as Augustine was completing his Confessions, Eunapius published the Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists. A work highlighting some two dozen sophists, philosophers, and physicians from the third and fourth centuries, it represents a Greek intellectual world struggling to find its place in a Christian empire and facing antipagan laws. The short biographical sketches construct Plotinus’ succession through Porphyry to Iamblichus and his students, promoting a Neoplatonism intertwined with theurgy. The work also offers a picture of philosophical and rhetorical education at Athens, where both Christians and “pagans” continued to teach and study. The longest accounts are dedicated to Eunapius’ beloved teacher Chrysanthius and Sosipatra, the widow of the philosopher Eustathius, who headed a philosophical circle in her home. Eunapius also complains of the men in black robes, Christian monks, who were supplanting philosophers as teachers of virtue (vit. phil. 6.11.7). In the Christian west, Sulpicius Severus’ Life of Martin, published in 396, greatly influenced subsequent biographical and hagiographical traditions. The Life of Martin celebrates the ascetic and bishop of Tours. Sulpicius promises his readers a model of wisdom and divine excellence in Martin, contrasting him with classical models (vit. Mart. 1). Martin’s miracles and impulse to eradicate “paganism” form the core of the work. In this regard, it differs from the philosophical-oriented biographies of the east. Though these were not lacking in miracle stories, they engaged more directly with philosophical themes. The Life of Martin would be the first in a series of biographies dedicated to western bishops. Paulinus of Milan composed a Life of Ambrose in the first quarter of the fifth century. This was followed by Possidius’ Life of Augustine. 11
S. Rubenson, “Antony and Pythagoras: A Reappraisal of the Appropriation of Classical Biography in Athanasius’ Vita Antonii,” in D. Brakke et al. (eds.), Beyond Reception: Mutual Influences between Antique Religion, Judaism, and Early Christianity, Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity 1 (New York: Lang, 2006), 191–208.
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the functions of biography Like other types of literature, biographies played multiple overlapping functions. First, authors presented their subjects as paradigms of virtuous living to be imitated – to what degree authors expected readers to imitate extraordinary subjects is debated. The Neoplatonist Marinus structures the biography of his predecessor Proclus according to a hierarchy of virtues. In the Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa offers his subject as a model of the “perfect life” (vit. Mos. 1.15). A second related purpose was encomiastic, as is evident from the origins of biography in the works of Isocrates and Xenophon. Biographies produced in philosophical schools or monastic communities promoted doctrines and practices. Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus serves as an explication of philosophical doctrine that is set out in the appended writings, the Enneads. Athanasius addresses a monastic audience of some sort in the Prologue and Conclusion of the Life of Antony and encourages them to use the biography as a guide to their own practice. Biographers often engaged in competition with colleagues and rivals to establish their authority over memory and tradition. Plato’s and Xenophon’s contrasting portraits of Socrates witness to the fractioning of the Socratic tradition. In this regard, self-reference became a rhetorical tool for establishing a biographer’s authoritative position. Porphyry mentions himself some two dozen times in the Life of Plotinus as he stakes a claim to a privileged relationship with his teacher. Theodoret likewise called attention to his personal acquaintances and encounters with the monks of the Syrian hinterland from the time of his youth. Corporate identities and traditions were built through the production and consumption of biographies. Lives often map out lines of intellectual or institutional succession across scattered anecdotes about teachers and students, giving an impression of unified, self-evident communities. This can be seen in the collective biographies of Eunapius and Theodoret. Lastly, biography was an arena for competition among Greek philosophers and Christians. This competition was not simply a defining of religious difference but an assertion of intellectual and moral authority and exertion of educational and cultural influence. Biographies attest to intersecting discourses. The production of biographies constituted a practice whose long history from classical Athens to late antique Gaul (and beyond) demonstrates the power of exemplary lives in shaping individuals, communities, and societies. When Augustine would take up the task of life-writing in the Confessions, his subject would be himself. It is not surprising that stories about his childhood, education, and professional accomplishments follow the literary
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conventions of biography. Augustine traces the roots of his faith in ancient Israel and the apostolic church and refutes the errors of other schools of thought. While he presents his own life as a model, he is not the confident, victorious sage of the biographical tradition. Peter Brown called the Confessions the “self-portrait of a convalescent.”12 Augustine’s interior landscape is not the well-tended garden of a Plotinus or Antony, but the wild and overgrown field of a flawed and fallen life. His life is exemplary in its inherent imperfection and gracious restoration as it is drawn into the Divine Life.
12
Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, new ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 171.
3
m Augustine on Himself Annemaré Kotzé
Around the year 397 CE, in the port city of Hippo in North Africa, the man who would later become known as Saint Augustine started writing what would turn out to be his most popular work for millennia to follow, the Confessions. At this stage, he was about forty-three years old; this was ten years after his conversion to catholicism1 and only two years since he became the bishop of Hippo. The Confessions is widely known as “Augustine’s autobiography,” and because of its unprecedented introspective character, we know more about the inner life of this man from antiquity than about that of any before him. The work also provides a wealth of information about events during Augustine’s infancy and childhood, his adolescence, and the start and progress of his career up to about his thirtieth year.
the nature of the confessions Despite the easily accessible nature of many passages, the Confessions is an unusual “autobiography,” very different from what many would expect of an autobiography today. It is a complicated ancient text from a world that even specialized researchers understand only partially. However, it is conceivable that even to the readers of Augustine’s day the work may have seemed an unusual way to present a life story: it starts as a hymn of praise and continues as one long prayer from the beginning to the end. In this prayer, the voice of the speaker confesses his sins to God, as the title may lead readers to expect, but he also confesses his faith and his gratitude for God’s guidance throughout his life. The hymn-like prose changes only gradually and almost imperceptibly into more of an “autobiography” when Augustine starts to “confess” – in the seventh paragraph of Book One – that he does not know whence he came into this 1
Augustine’s conversion is from a Manichean form of Christianity to Catholicism.
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A U G U ST I N E O N H I M S E L F
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world. As the confession progresses, various events are highlighted, allowing the reader to hear the story of Augustine’s life, but only as an incidental by-product of the confessing prayer. For Augustine, telling the story of his life never takes precedence over the central line of the probing and intimate prayer. Moreover, after the climactic representation – in Book Eight of the Confessions – of his conversion in the garden in Milan (when Augustine is about thirty two years old) and a short survey of the time immediately after (in Book Nine), the reader hears no more about Augustine’s life or career, even though there are four very long books (of the thirteen that make up the total) to follow. Book Ten is still “autobiographical” in the sense that Augustine sets out to satisfy requests from those who want to know “what he is like now” (conf. 10.3.4), but there exists a gap of ten years between the events narrated in Book Nine and the “now” of Book Ten. In addition, in Books Eleven to Thirteen, the subject of Augustine’s confessional prayer is the interpretation of the creation story in Gen. 1. Although the first-person narrative is maintained, the autobiographical element is all but absent from the last three books. “Augustine’s autobiography” must be read carefully: Augustine’s primary intention may not have been to write the true story of his life. The episodes he depicts are selected with very specific purposes in mind, prominent among which is the aim to demonstrate God’s presence throughout his life: the story is presented to illustrate how God determined the trajectory of Augustine’s development from nominal catholicism, through becoming enamored with philosophy in general (at reading Cicero’s Hortensius), converting to Manicheism, and discovering Neoplatonism before eventually being converted, baptized, and officially (re)joining the catholic church. The term “conversion story” is a more apt description of (the first part of) the Confessions than the term “autobiography.” Moreover, the elements that constitute the conversion story are regularly alternated with reflective passages where Augustine appeals to God for answers about such issues as the nature of God and of human beings, the nature of sin or of evil, or the errors of other groups, religious or philosophical. This feature is also foreign to autobiography today. Readers should bear in mind that the work is in the first place a rhetorical and literary masterpiece and not a historical document (it is recognized as one of the greats of world literature). In fact, after Courcelle’s magisterial work,2 demonstrating the extent to which the Confessions makes use of motifs and strategies from antecedent literature, a storm broke loose in scholarship concerning the historicity of the work: if the story of Augustine’s quest for truth had so many 2
P. Courcelle, Les Confessions de saint Augustin dans al tradition litté raire; anté cé dents et posté rité (Paris: É tudes augustiniennes, 1963).
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parallels in earlier “pagan” and Christian writings, did this imply that it could no longer be regarded as the true version that it had hitherto been assumed to be? Still, modern biographies lean heavily on the Confessions in their attempts to reconstruct the life of the historical Augustine. From a reading of the work there does emerge a relatively detailed picture of Augustine growing up, maturing, and achieving profound religious insights, insights that have since continued to shape western religious thought. Not only specific events in his life but also aspects of his inner life and thought, especially his wrangling with vexing philosophical and religious questions, are portrayed vividly. Moreover, the approval of the Confessions that Augustine cites in retr. 2.32 may be an indication that the main line of the story did not entail gross distortions but corresponded to what was known about his life at that stage. Neither the issue of the historicity of the Confessions nor the widespread perception during the previous century that the work was incomplete or badly composed is at the center of Augustinian scholarship any longer. But of the many meticulously wrought arguments about the coherence of a work now regarded as a well-constructed composition (of which that by Stock is one of the most persuasive3), none has won absolute dominance. As O’Donnell rightly perceives, there is no one key that will unlock the meaning of a work as multidimensional as the Confessions.4 An important result of Courcelle’s research is that it has definitively demonstrated the extent to which the Confessions has to be read as a product of the literary conventions of its time. Within the framework of New Historicism, the philosophical and religious discourses of the Roman Empire and North Africa at the turn of the century also have come into focus as an essential part of the context within which scholars read the Confessions. The sections that follow briefly survey, first, the religious and philosophical landscape where the Confessions originated and then some of the conventions that may have informed the author’s literary choices. It should become clear that what Augustine says about himself may be completely misunderstood if the work is read without some appreciation of what he may have tried to achieve with its publication.
the world where the confessions originated Although a reconstruction of the socioreligious or literary context where the Confessions functioned originally is extremely difficult, even partial insights 3
4
B. Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1992), vol. 1, xxiii.
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make possible a more nuanced understanding. Proper cognizance, for example, of the religious rivalry that still dominated the scene in North Africa and in Hippo during the years when the work was composed is crucial for understanding important levels of meaning in the Confessions. This rivalry defined the climate within which Augustine himself, during his student years, was converted to Manicheism (a form of Christianity he adhered to for at least nine years) to no negligible extent because of this group’s proselytizing drive in North Africa specifically adapted to win over catholic and Donatist Christians. Manichean criticism of the Old Testament and catholic belief in general and the seemingly sensible answers to fundamental questions had resonated with young Augustine’s own problems with catholicism. The environment of the bishop of Hippo by the end of the fourth century CE would also still have been characterized by such rivalry and competition for adherents among three more or less equally strong groups: Donatists, Manicheans, and catholics. In such an atmosphere, it is conceivable that the Confessions may, among other things, have aimed at helping catholics ward off insistent Manichean proselytizing or at winning over Manicheans (and others) to catholicism. Neoplatonism was another powerful discourse in the fourth century CE. Although criticism of Neoplatonists (as of Manicheans) features strongly in the Confessions, the work also demonstrates how the conceptual apparatus of Neoplatonism enabled Augustine to move beyond the materialistic framework of Manichean thinking and find a way to understand the God of catholicism, a process aided by his exposure to Ambrose’s circle in Milan and the latter’s method of biblical exegesis. Also, an appreciation of the way in which the Confessions engages with Neoplatonic concepts and how these function to create meaning in the work is crucial for understanding what the work is designed to communicate. So is a grasp of the way in which Augustine manipulates the literary conventions of his time. In the following paragraphs, some conventions of ancient (autobiographical) writing and of apologetic, paraenetic, and protreptic literature are cursorily considered and their relevance for understanding the Confessions explored.
the confessions as a literary work of art How trustworthy is Augustine’s rhetoric in the Confessions? The following brief exploration tries to put this question in perspective by focusing on the aims that the work may have tried to attain in its original context and demonstrating that “a true account” of his life may not have been what the
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author set out to provide nor, importantly, what his audience may have expected. As dictated by the conventions of its time, the Confessions is in some respects closer to what modern readers may associate with a fictional literary creation. The opening words, “Great are you, O Lord, and truly praiseworthy,” constitute an allusion to a number of Psalms from the Hebrew Scriptures and set the tone for a work that is steeped in (biblical) quotations and allusions. The intertextual relationships between the Confessions, the Bible, and numerous other ancient literary works constitute part of a framework without which the work cannot be understood. When the narrator speaks, for example, in the words of Paul from the New Testament, a dimension is added to the prose that subtly alters the interpretation potential. Another essential aspect of understanding the Confessions is insight into the conventions of ancient autobiography. No technical term for autobiography existed in the ancient GrecoRoman world, but autobiographical content or first-person narration appeared in various doses and guises in works as diverse as epic and lyric poetry, historiography, dialogues, speeches, and letters. While the frank introspection of the Confessions is unique in the ancient world, the work does take its place in a long line of first-person narrations used for apologetic, protreptic, or paraenetic purposes, as well as in a series of conversion narratives; it consciously employs devices from this tradition. Autobiographical works that may have formed the horizon of expectations of Augustine’s readers and influenced his choices include, for example, the Apology of Socrates, Isocrates’ Antidosis, and Plato’s Seventh letter5; the self-presentation of the apostle Paul; and conversion stories such as those of Hilary of Poitiers in his On Trinity, Justin Martyr in the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, and Cyprian of Carthage in his Letter to Donatus. Courcelle identifies the presentation of the life as a quest in search for truth in the latter three (and other) works as an important influence that shapes the presentation of Augustine’s life in the Confessions.6 Moreover, an investigation of the communicative aims of the work also contributes to a more nuanced understanding. The next section takes a look at such aims as well as the intended audiences of the work. 5
6
A. Kotzé, “Perspectives on Three Instances of Greek Autobiographical Writing from the Fourth Century B.C.E.,” Classical World 109 (2015), 39–67. Courcelle, Les Confessions, 91–100.
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intended audiences and communicative aims Although the prayer stance Augustine employs throughout the Confessions creates a communication situation in which a human audience is excluded, the fact of its publication makes clear that it was meant to be read or heard by a human audience. The narrator also makes increasingly clear as the work progresses that he is, in fact, preoccupied with the human reader, to the point of making explicit how his work should be read or not. Various intended audiences, each associated with specific communicative aims, have been ascribed to the Confessions in centuries of scholarship. These audiences and associated communicative aims may be categorized as follows: first, an audience of advanced fellow catholics whose belief and commitment are confirmed in a type of paraenetic discourse; second, those skeptical about Augustine’s sudden conversion to catholicism to whom the work speaks in the form of an apologetic address; and third, readers who, like the young Augustine, leaned toward Manicheism and to whom the work makes a protreptic appeal.7 For very long, scholars assumed that the work was primarily intended for a circle of insiders with whom Augustine wished to share his intimate thoughts. The aim to encourage such readers to persevere in the Christian way of life would have been consistent with the conventions of paraenetic texts. Paraenetic aims in the Confessions are especially visible from Book Ten onward, where there is a turn exclusively toward brothers in the faith; much in the last four books would have intensely interested such readers. While, in my judgment, they do not constitute the primary focus of the first nine books of the work, such an audience certainly forms an important segment of the intended audience of the whole. Also, those distrustful about Augustine’s conversion are generally regarded as an important intended audience. It must be kept in mind that Augustine left Africa an active, even aggressive Manichean and returned after five years as a catholic baptized in faraway Italy. Moreover, the conversion had coincided with the appearance of Augustine’s name on a list of outlawed Manicheans in Carthage.8 The aim to explain, defend, and justify his actions (an apologetic aim) is assumed by most scholars to be one of the important reasons for writing the Confessions. BeDuhn carefully 7
8
Mainstream definitions contrast paraenetic literature as that aimed at insiders in order to confirm their belief with protreptic literature, which aims to convert outsiders. J. D. BeDuhn, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma I: Conversion and Apostasy, 373–388 C.E., Divinations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 219.
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demonstrates Augustine’s manipulation of his presentation in order to depict himself as disillusioned with Manicheism long before his official conversion and so provide an answer to those suspecting him of converting for the sake of expediency or of crypto-Manicheism.9 What is more, autobiographical narration with an apologetic aim is perfectly in line with antecedent autobiographical narrations where the aim to defend or justify a way of life was an essential feature from the beginning. Yet, unlike his predecessors, who explicitly use the need to defend their way of life as an excuse for writing about themselves in a context where this was not deemed appropriate, Augustine does not make this aim explicit; the stance of the sinner who needs to confess precludes the excuse of being forced to write an apology. Further, in the light of recent research on Manicheism, scholars point out the presence of Manichean elements throughout the Confessions10 and the possibility that the work may also have been aimed at converting Manichean readers (and other outsiders) to catholicism, a protreptic aim.11 The Confessions also shares this aim with antecedent autobiographical writing.12 I have also argued that the conversion story in Books One to Nine is well suited to exhort a reader with Manichean sympathies to participate in Augustine’s introspective search for the ultimate truth and to find it, with him, in catholic Christianity.13 It may be assumed that the numerous echoes of Manichean concepts throughout the text would have appealed to readers with a Manichean background in special ways. The realization that Augustine himself as an active Manichean converted many to Manicheism, who may at the time of writing of the Confessions still have been Manicheans, also makes it conceivable that he feels the responsibility to save such readers from what he now regards as an erroneous way of life. Augustine’s desire to convert potential Manichean readers is most unambiguously expressed in the urgent and almost explicit appeal to Manicheans in conf. 9.4.8–11. Two contrasting perspectives on the man Augustine emerge from considering the varied intended audiences and associated communicative purposes of the work. On the one hand, its apologetic aims point to an Augustine 9
10 11
12 13
J. D. BeDuhn, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma II: Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–401 C.E., Divinations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 314–402. See especially BeDuhn, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma II. A. Kotzé, Augustine’s Confessions: Communicative Purpose and Audience, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 71 (Leiden: Brill, 2004); and BeDuhn, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma II. Kotzé, “Perspectives,” 39–67. Kotzé, Augustine’s Confessions, 117–67.
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manipulating the presentation of his life in a self-serving manner. On the other hand, a deep concern for Manichean readers (present throughout and emerging poignantly in conf. 9.4.8–11) points toward an Augustine not primarily concerned with his own image but also with the well-being of his audience.
conclusion One of the most important aspects readers of the Confessions have to take into account today is that this is a difficult and multidimensional work from an era about which as much (or more) is unknown than is known. Despite the fact that there is much with which they can instantly identify, the book is no simple or straightforward read. A nuanced understanding of the Confessions and an informed reading of its contents will be achieved only by those recognizing the literary sophistication of the work and willing to invest considerable energy toward understanding the context where it originated.
4
m Possidius on Augustine Erika T. Hermanowicz
Possidius and Augustine were friends for almost forty years. They were together at Hippo in 430, in the months before Augustine died. Possidius prayed over his body at the funeral and helped bury him.1 These were no ordinary times. Possidius was at Augustine’s monastery because he had fled his own city of Calama just as the Vandals arrived. The Vandals continued eastward and besieged Augustine’s city, too, and the bishop’s final days were occupied with weeping over the fate of Africa as much as over his own sins. Hippo eventually fell to Vandal control, as did Carthage. After Augustine’s death, Possidius was able to return to Calama, where he presided as bishop, but in 437 the Vandals expelled him from his city for resisting the new administration’s policies.2 It is not known where Possidius went, but it was during these tumultuous years (ca. 432–9) that he wrote a biography of Augustine. The Vita Augustini (henceforward Vita) tells us many things about Augustine that we would not know if we were to rely on Augustine’s works alone. Possidius portrays a man continually at work. Of this characteristic we were aware, but Possidius says that Augustine spent entire days arbitrating disputes and that these obligations occasionally forced him to forgo the day’s meals. The regret was not hunger so much as missing friends at table whose company he relished. Each man who dined with Augustine was given a set number of drinks but would lose them if caught uttering oaths. The spoons were silver, but other tableware was of more humble manufacture. The same applied to clothing and victuals: decent and appropriate, not too grand, but not too humble either. Books were read aloud at meals, a common activity 1
2
I have used the critical edition by A. A. R. Bastiaensen, Vita Augusini, Vita di Cipriano, Vita di Ambrogio, Vita di Agostino, 2nd edn., Vite dei santi 3, Scrittori greci e latini (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori editore, 1981). Possidius’ exile is recorded in Propser’s Epitoma Chronicon, in T. Mommsen (ed.), Chronica Minora saec. IV.V.VI.VII, vol. I, MGH AA 9 (Berlin: Wiedmannos, 1892), 475.
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among the elite in antiquity, and Augustine delighted in their learned interpretation. His aversion to gossip prompted him to display an inscription on the dining table that read: “Whoever loves to denigrate with gossip the life of those not present / he should know that, at this table, his own life is unworthy” (22.6). Possidius once made the mistake of engaging in such banter with fellow bishops and was rebuked by an exasperated Augustine who threatened either to remove the verses from the table or leave the room if the nonsense did not stop. The moment strikes one as delightfully intimate, especially as Possidius chides himself for forgetting monastery rules as well as his own dignity. For most of its existence, the Vita has been read in just this light – a guileless and straightforward biography written by an admiring friend who, as Peter Brown once intimated, only vaguely understood that he kept company with a genius. Whatever Possidius’ background and education (we know nothing about him before he became bishop), the fact is that for years he breathed the scholarly air of Augustine’s monastery and throughout his career believed in the efficacy of legal and scriptural documentation. A letter of Augustine’s discovered in 1975, whose addressee is almost certainly Possidius (the salutation is missing), makes clear by its contents that Possidius had inquired about Augustine’s latest literary productions, even down to the number of lines composed.3 The book you are reading now seeks to contextualize the life and works of Augustine, but Possidius’ Vita as well emerges from a specific context that consciously seeks to shape how we read Augustine and his books. To return, therefore, to the lively scene in the monastery’s dining room, we notice that what maintains the diners at an appropriate level of decorum, even of holiness, is the well-ordered correctness of recited and inscribed texts. Inattention invites unsavory behavior, such as Possidius’ mindless chattering. Thus the Vita is about the power of the written word, composed by a bookish man who believed Augustine’s legacy must be secured through linking the holiness of his person with the correctness of his texts. The 430s saw critics and invaders alike threatening Augustine’s legacy, and Possidius’ response to these was not naive. The Vita’s aggressive agenda sought to defend the man and preserve his texts in the midst of a crumbling world. 3
P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (London: Faber & Faber, 1967 [rev. ed., Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000]), 412. For Possidius’ letter to Augustine, see M.-F. Berrouard, “L’activité littéraire de saint Augustin du 11 septembre au 1er décembre 419 après la Lettre 23* A à Possidius de Calama,” in Les lettres de saint Augustin découvertes par Johannes Divjak (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1983), 301–27.
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Most modern editions of Possidius’ Vita do not include the Indiculum, a catalogue of Augustine’s books, letters, and sermons that Possidius appended to the Vita and that he directs the reader to consult.4 The Indiculum broadly arranges Augustine’s works by topic, such as books against the “pagans,” the Manicheans, and the Donatists. The Indiculum was probably not Possidius’ own creation but rather a catalogue already in existence, housed at the library of Hippo and used in the 420s by Augustine to aid in the writing of his own Retractationes, which is an essay listing and reviewing his own books in chronological order.5 The preexistence of the Indiculum means that Possidius wrote the Vita to expand on the Indiculum and not the other way around. What this means is that the Vita’s structure and contents are patterned after a book catalogue. The order of composition (Vita follows Indiculum) is most evident in the first half of the biography. Here Augustine defends catholic belief against heretical foes: Manicheans, Donatists, “Arians,” and Pelagians. The presentation is by subject and largely coincident with the arrangement of the Indiculum. Augustine is portrayed in the midst of doctrinal conflict as calm, returning patience for the rudeness and threats he received. Possidius reports that the treatises he wrote to confound heretics were products of enormous labor, meditations lasting through “days and nights,” a description apropos of great biblical scholars. The writings began to have effect. Augustine’s books, letters, and sermons inspired Manicheans to abandon their beliefs and Donatists to repudiate their own clergy’s violent methods and return to “peace and unity” (10.5). Charisma wedded with ceaseless labor is evident but remains subordinate to what this combination engendered: the creation of correct texts that promoted, even constituted, catholic orthodoxy. Augustine challenges erroneous beliefs with circulated letters. He invites rivals to public debates and insists that stenographers record the proceedings. He writes books whose readership and influence reach across the sea (“transmarine” is a favored word but, as we shall see, inaccurate). Close affiliation between Augustine the man and his books is further achieved by the language Possidius employs to compose the Vita itself: 4
5
The only recent publication of Possidius’ Vita to include the Indiculum is the German edition by W. Geerlings, Possidius Vita Augustini (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2005). The “when” and “who” of compiling the Indiculum are subjects of continuing conversation. Critical discussions include A. Wilmart, “Operum S. Augustini Elenchus a Possidio eiusdem discipulo Calamensi episcopo digestus,” in Miscellanea Agostiniana, vol. II (Rome: Tipografia Vaticana, 1931), 149–233; and G. Madec, “Possidius de Calama et les listes des oeuvres d’Augustin,” in J.-C. Fredouille et al. (eds.), Titres et articulations de texte dans les oeuvres antiques (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1997), 427–45.
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words, phrases, and sentences are taken from Augustine’s own texts to fashion biographical scenes enlivened by crowds and the pulse of human activity. Because the Vita’s structure has as its organizing principle the catalogue of Augustine’s texts as arranged in the Indiculum, Possidius’ extensive use of Augustinian quotation is a brilliant stroke to place the two texts – biography and book catalogue – in a dialogic relationship. To append lists of literary works as a conclusion to biographies, especially lives of philosophers, is a tradition that dates back to at least the fourth century BCE, but Possidius is doing something far more significant in terms of literary construction. What one finds of Augustine’s life can be confirmed by the content of his books, to the very words themselves; likewise, the catalogue of texts is readily visible and proven acceptable through the record of his face-to-face interactions. The man conjures his books, and the books create the man. Possidius believed they had to be closely intertwined for both to survive. The reasons why Augustine’s biographical persona and literary oeuvre required close stitching together are discernable in part through the political disturbances that marked the final years of Augustine’s life. The Vita shows Augustine presciently racing to correct the books he wrote, revise others that were released before Augustine considered them ready for public airing, and finally, as a gift to a less-educated audience, to offer a collection of what he considered the most important excerpts from both Testaments with prohibitions and admonitions to live acceptable lives. On his deathbed, he repeatedly ordered “that the church library and all of its books must be diligently preserved for posterity” (31.6). He and Possidius knew that destruction of his books was a real possibility, for he uttered this directive while a Vandal army was encamped before his city. Only fifteen years earlier, Jerome’s monastery in Bethlehem was attacked by a mob, allegedly supporters of Pelagius. His compound suffered extensive fire damage, including, quite possibly, the contents of his library. Augustine was horrified. For Possidius, it was a warning.6 Thus, writing the Vita as a link to Augustine’s books was designed to ensure preservation. The plan worked. Despite the frequent separation of the Vita from the Indiculum by later copyists, readers at some medieval libraries consulted the Indiculum in order to search for Augustine’s volumes in the collections of other monasteries. We do not have all of Augustine’s work, but a great 6
Augustine’s remarks about the attack on Jerome’s monastery are in gest. Pel. 66. For discussion, see J. Lössl, “Who Attacked the Monasteries of Jerome and Paula in 416 A.D.?” Augustinianum 44 (2004), 91–112.
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E R I KA T. HE R M A N O W I C Z
deal of it survives, and Possidius’ role in its preservation should not be overlooked.7 For Possidius, the relationship between books and their author flowed in both directions, for it was the contents of his books that “by the gift of God it is known what sort of man [Augustine] was and how great he was in the church, and in these [books] he is found by the faithful to live always” (31.8). The assertion that texts informed the author and vice versa combats another threat to Augustine’s legacy. Augustine had plenty of critics during his lifetime, but in the 430s the stakes were higher. Some in Gaul and Italy thought Augustine’s beliefs about grace were incorrect, and the new regime in Africa dismissed Augustine’s writings on the Trinity. Not restricting themselves to doctrinal matters, Augustine’s detractors had also thrown barbs of a more personal nature, such as womanizing, crypto-Manicheism, and ignoring rules established at church councils. We know from the Vita that even Augustine’s congregation at times accused the clergy at Hippo of rapaciousness. Clearly, the routine business of being a bishop could get messy, which is why the middle chapters of the Vita depict Augustine doing everything an exemplary bishop should, such as emphatically adhering to council decisions. An entire chapter of the Vita is dedicated to elaborating on the pains Augustine took to ensure that his contact with women was minimal. He refused inheritances that excluded rightful family heirs and paid scant attention to money matters save to instruct reliable staff to oversee church funds. “He made no will,” says Possidius (31.6), claiming that a poor man had no need for such a document, but what that statement means is that Augustine never enriched himself because of his clerical position, nor did he transfer money slated for church use to his family’s patrimony. All these may be perfectly true, although Augustine had more direct control over Hippo’s finances than Possidius admits, but the vignettes do not constitute a random “snap shot” of daily life at the monastery. This is biography as defense. It was mentioned earlier that Possidius’ dispatch of Augustine’s texts across the sea and to the east is exaggerated, but the boast offers an additional clue as to the nature of the Vita’s literary agenda. Augustine’s readers spanned the Latin-speaking territories, but Possidius claimed that Augustine’s books were translated into Greek. The assertion is unsubstantiated. In 415, Pelagius (hence 7
F. Dolbeau, “La survie des oeuvres d’Augustin,” in D. Nebbiai-Dalla Guarda and J.-F. Genest (eds.), Du copiste au collectionneur: mélanges d’histoire des textes et des bibliothèques en l’honneur d’André Vernet (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), 3–22. See, in the same volume, an account of the transfer of Augustine’s texts, perhaps his entire library, out of Vandaloccupied Africa in J.-P. Bouhot, “La transmission d’Hippone à Rome des oeuvres de saint Augustin,” 23–33.
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the Pelagian “heresy”) defended himself in front of John, the bishop of Jerusalem. One of Pelagius’ accusers present was Orosius, an ally of Augustine’s and frequent resident at Hippo’s monastery. The proceedings became muddled because of John’s difficulty with Latin and Orosius’ deficiencies in Greek.8 Did Augustine thereafter commission some of his anti-Pelagian works to be translated into Greek? We think not. In any event, Possidius refers to Augustine’s “phantom” Greek books midway through his excursus on the Donatists in a chapter about how the church was significantly aided by those trained at Augustine’s monastery and who now were being appointed to clerical office. The message seems that as Augustine’s men moved to occupy churches across Africa, Augustine’s books spread abroad, too. A possible solution to the mystery of Augustine’s Greek texts may be found in Possidius’ comparison of Augustine with some of the greatest scholars Rome ever produced. As noted earlier, book lists were often appended to lives of philosophers, and certainly the genesis of the Indiculum and Retractationes emerges from established literary tradition. Indeed, that first catalogue of Augustine’s books (what became the Indiculum) has a number of counterparts, including library catalogues found in Egypt.9 But there is more to it. The book catalogues probably best known to Augustine were those of Eusebius and Jerome. The library at Hippo owned a Latin translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, the sixth book of which enumerates the works written by Origen (see Paulinus of Nola, ep. 3). Jerome also lists Origen’s books in ep. 33, as well as Varro’s. In addition, Jerome wrote a treatise about ecclesiastical writers, On Famous Men, greatly appreciated by Augustine (ep. 40 and 79), which catalogues these authors’ books and was itself modeled after Cicero’s Brutus. Did Jerome’s work inspire Augustine to write his Retractationes? Did Possidius claim that Augustine’s books became Greek to assert equality with Jerome? Finally, was Possidius’ overwhelmingly textual approach to Augustine indicative of an ambition to assure him an equal “brightness” within a constellation of literary greats?10 8
9
10
The proceedings are recorded in Orosius’ Liber apologeticus de arbitri libertate. For the English translation, see Iberian Fathers: Pacian of Barcelona and Orosius of Braga, trans. C. L. Hanson, Fathers of the Church Series 99 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1999). G. W. Houston, Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 130–79. M. Vessey, “Jerome’s Origen: The Making of a Christian Literary Persona,” Studia Patristica 28 (1993), 135–45; and M. Vessey, “Conference and Confession: Literary Pragmatics in Augustine’s ‘Apologia contra Hieronymum,’” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993), 175–213.
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ERIKA T. HERMANOWICZ
In the ancient world, a paradoxical quality is attributed to only the best scholars: the ability to read and write without end, so that words actually become incapable of articulating the vast amount of text one man has consumed and produced. Jerome said this about Varro and Origen (ep. 33). Augustine spoke of Varro in a similar fashion in civ. Dei 6.2: “A man who read so much that we marvel that he had any time for writing; who wrote so much that we find it hard to believe that anyone could have read it all.” Jerome, Augustine believed, had also read nearly everything (c. Iul. 1.7.34). But who would say this about Augustine? Possidius, of course, who reports that “so many works were dictated and edited by [Augustine] . . . that scarcely is any of even the most learned men sufficient to read through and know all of them” (18.9). The quantity of Augustine’s oeuvre necessitated the joining of the Indiculum to the Vita, for only by reading the list of Augustine’s works could one acquire a sense of the enormity of what he had produced. Likewise, Augustine’s work was not available to Greek readers until decades after his death, but Possidius’ aim to secure Augustine a place among the greatest exegetes may have served as the impetus to create for him just such an audience. The goal to preserve Augustine’s books was to our great fortune largely realized. Possidius, of course, did not know what would become of Augustine’s library, and the uncertainty makes the Vita a haunting work. A dying Augustine weeps alone in his room, while Possidius and other clergy who had fled their sees wait out the Vandal siege in Hippo’s monastery. The invading army does what advancing armies do: pillage, burn, and terrorize. Possidius inserts a letter of Augustine’s at the end of the Vita, long in proportion to the length of the biography, that begs clerics to stay at their posts and not abandon their congregations. All that Augustine sought to achieve – a cadre of well-trained clergy and celibates as well as a library of excellent books – was in acute danger of scatter and destruction. Possidius’ assurance that Augustine’s accomplishments remained intact, even to the point of an invitation to write to Hippo for copies of books from Augustine’s library when Hippo is reported abandoned and partially destroyed, is startling for its improbability. The effect elicits a terrible longing. The immediate proximity to all those books makes unbearable the thought of them forever gone.
5
m Augustine in Roman North Africa (Thagaste, Carthage) Gareth Sears
In many ways, putting Augustine into the context of the late Roman city in Africa is unproblematic. Although any assessment of these urban spaces that did not make copious use of Augustine’s experience would be poorer for it, we are not reliant on him. Archaeological excavations conducted over the last two centuries, the products of what was still a flourishing epigraphic tradition into the fourth century, and perhaps to a lesser extent literary sources beyond Augustine, could make up for the gap. There is a perhaps unsurprising imbalance between the information that we have for Thagaste (modern Souk Ahras) and Carthage. We would expect the metropolis of Africa to be better understood than the much smaller Thagaste, and the small amount of excavation at Thagaste and the few references to the city in non-Augustinian literary works make reconstructing life at the city difficult; we will rely on inscriptions. For Carthage, although there has been much excavation at the city over the last 150 years, and particularly good-quality archaeological work since the 1970s, there are lacunae in our knowledge. Much of the central portion of the city is badly understood, while reuse of material from the site since late antiquity has meant that there are not as many fourth-century public inscriptions from the city as one might expect. Augustine’s home town, Thagaste, was located at a nodal point of a road system that linked Carthage to the east, Hippo Regius (Annaba) to the north, and the capital of Numidia, Cirta (Constantine), to the west. A milestone with a dedication to Constantine I as a junior emperor, dated between 306 and 312, has been found in the vicinity of Souk Ahras (AE [1987], 1053). The city’s councilors may well have been responsible for this dedication of loyalty to a new regime. Thagaste was also close to the upper reaches of the Bagradas River, the region’s main nonseasonal water course that flowed into the Mediterranean between Carthage and Utica. 37
38
GARETH SEARS
While plenty of fragments of Thagaste are known – in particular, elements of domestic occupation (i.e., mosaics, pottery, lamps, and the like) and cemeteries in which were found several dozen funerary inscriptions – the forum, spectacle buildings, and temples have not been located, so it is very hard to assess independently of Augustine how well the city was doing in the later fourth century.1 Thagaste had been promoted to the rank of municipium (CIL VIII 5145 = ILAlg. I, 875), a settlement with a Roman constitution, during the early empire, with the citizens being enrolled into the Roman tribe Papiria, which suggests that the early imperial Thagastan elites would have provided the town with the trappings of urbanity that can be seen even in small towns in the dense urban landscape further down the Bagradas River. Evidence of a bath house and inscriptions that record the elite paying for building work, spectacles, banquets, and wine for the people confirm, in part, what we might expect (ILAlg. I, 876–7).2 The later fourth century to early fifth century was a time of change in many African cities as some bath houses, spectacle buildings, and temples were abandoned.3 Some forums were already undergoing radical change, with the focus of some towns shifting to churches built on the fringes of the urban area or in the necropoleis.4 Elsewhere, however, public buildings were being maintained and statues of emperors were being set up. What was the case at Thagaste? At least one set of baths was still in operation, for Augustine’s incipient adulthood was noted by his pleased father there (conf. 2.3.6). Romanianus, Augustine’s kinsman who paid for some of his studies, may have paid for banquets, the setting up of statues, and bear hunts at the city (c. Acad. 1.2, 2.2). If he did, the town’s inhabitants presumably still had a taste for such attractions, but we do not know how frequent such gifts were, nor in what spaces they occurred. While the spectacles might imply the existence of an amphitheater, fights could be put on in temporary structures as well. A fragment of a late monumental building inscription mentions a [Cor]nelius Romanianus (ILAlg. I, 879), who could be Augustine’s 1
2
3
4
N. Benseddik, “À la recherche de Thagaste, patrie de saint Augustin,” in P.-Y. Fux, J.M. Roessli, and O. Wermelinger (eds.), ‘Augustinus Afer’: Saint Augustin: Africanité et Universalité: Actes du Colloque International, Alger-Annaba, 1–7 Avril 2001 (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 2003), 413–36, at 413. Ibid., 415; C. Lepelley, Les Cités de l’Afrique Romaine au Bas-Empire, Tome II: Notices d’Histoire Municipale (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1981), 178–80. G. M. Sears, Late Roman African Urbanism, British Archaeological Reports International Series 1693 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007), 78–116; A. Leone, The End of the Pagan City: Religion, Economy, and Urbanism in Late Antique North Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 21–3, 27–82. T. W. Potter, Towns in Late Antiquity: Iol Caesarea and Its Context (Sheffield: University of Sheffield, Ian Sanders Memorial Committee, 1995), 64–79.
AUGUSTINE IN ROM A N N ORTH AFRICA (THAG A STE, C ARTHAGE) 39
Romanianus or a relative. Augustine’s focus on Romanianus to the almost total exclusion of the rest of the Thagastan elite might be the typical product of a client praising a patron, but it might point to a wider phenomenon where a handful of powerful notables increasingly came to dominate each city. It is difficult to be sure what Thagaste’s Christian topography would have looked like in Augustine’s youth. Relatively few purpose-built churches are known from mid-fourth-century Africa, so it is by no means certain that there would have been a large church decorated with mosaics and marble at the city. One Christian dedication is known, and a no longer extant church may have been excavated at the turn of the twentieth century (ILAlg. I, 927).5 The absence of Christian epitaphs from our records reminds us that a Christian cemetery has not yet been excavated. It is difficult to judge how the elites and others expressed their religious, ethnic, and social identities in the fourth century. However, some remarks can be made. Thagaste is a Libyan toponym, and there is no evidence of Roman colonization, so the number of individuals with Italian heritage must have been small. Epitaphs do show inhabitants with Libyan or Punic names (e.g., CIL VIII, 17232; ILAlg. I, 918–19); Augustine’s mother, Monica, had a Libyan name, and his son Adeodatus’ name was a Latin translation of a Punic theophoric name. While most elite men who we know about had “Roman” names, some of these names were characteristically RomanoAfrican. Names such as Saturninus, Optatus, and Rogatus that are found throughout Africa appear in Thagastan epigraphy, although not in the numbers we find elsewhere (CIL VIII, 17232, 5146; ILAlg. I, 911b). Some of the cults were typical of Roman Africa and had their origins in the pre-Roman period. There are few indications of the cult of Saturn, the great god of Roman Africa and the Roman reflection of the Punic Baal Hammon, at Thagaste, but an unlocated temple is likely, and an altar from nearby Henchir Aïn Souda was set up to Mars on the advice of Saturn (CIL VIII, 17313). By Augustine’s day, at least one aspect of the traditional Saturn cult had stopped throughout Africa; few dedications to the god are known for the fourth century (two of the last are from 302 CE: AE [1995], 1788 from Sitifis, 323 CE: BCTH [1968], 253 from near Vaga). Some Thagastan cults were classically Roman rather than Romano-African, for example, a dedication to Jupiter Optimus Maximus Stator and Juno Augusta Regia by a priest of the imperial cult and his wife (CIL VIII, 5142 = ILAlg. I, 867). Elite self-representation in public media seems to have emphasized “Roman-ness,” but Augustine’s chastisement of Maximus of Madauros for 5
Benseddik, “À la recherche de Thagaste,” 430.
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G A RETH SEARS
mocking the native names of many Christian martyrs shows that he was alive to the non-Roman origin of many Africans and could at least be tactically proud of it (ep. 16.2; 17.2). The elite set up public inscriptions in Latin, some seem not to have spoken the native languages, and by the fourth century, some elite families sent their sons for a Roman education at Madauros and/ or Carthage. Many of these individuals and their families hoped that they would move into imperial administration. Carthage was built on a very different scale than Thagaste. The layout of the fourth-century city was largely the product of the act of colonization under Caesar and Augustus that established a new Roman foundation on the rubble of the old Punic center. Many public buildings date to the second century and later, and the city was renewed with imperial money after a great fire in the reign of Antoninus Pius. The new bath complex on the coast that was built as a result was the largest in the empire outside Rome, and it made use of the Hadrianic 130-km-long aqueduct that brought water from springs on Mount Zaghouan to provide water for this luxurious statement of the city’s wealth and power. The aqueduct and the Antonine Baths were still working during Augustine’s time at the city. Other bath houses dotted the city, and some were repaired or built during the fourth century.6 By the fourth century, however, Carthage had a circus, a theater, an amphitheater, and an odeon for recitals. The great African orator and novelist Apuleius of Madauros had spoken in the theater in the late second century (Florida 18.3), and the martyr Perpetua and her companions had died in an amphitheater at the city on the junior emperor Geta’s birthday in 203 CE (Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis). Many buildings were restored in the reign of Constantine I, according to an inscription of 324 set up by the proconsul Maecilius Hilarianus (CIL VIII, 12524),7 presumably to repair damage sustained in 310, when the troops of Emperor Maxentius took the city from the African governor and attempted usurper Domitius Alexander (Zosimos, Nova Historia II.14.3–4; Aurelius Victor, Caes. 40). The spectacle buildings remained venues for self-promotion in the fourth century, suggesting their enduring popularity. The man who backed Augustine for the chair at Rome, Symmachus, set up statues in the amphitheater during his tenure as proconsul of Africa in 373–4, and one of his successors, Virius Audentius Aemilianus, re-erected statues in the theater between 379 and 383 (CIL VIII, 24584; 2458–9). Lead curse tablets from the amphitheater and circus against beast fighters and charioteers, respectively, 6 7
Sears, Late Roman African Urbanism, 38. Lepelley, Les Cités de l’Afrique Romaine, 14.
AUGUSTINE IN ROMAN N OR TH AFRI CA (TH A GASTE, C ARTHAG E) 41
also show the hold that the entertainment had over some Carthaginians.8 Indeed, the priest Salvian of Marseille claimed that the Carthaginian populace was too busy at the theater and circus to defend the city, but such stories were a trope of the Roman period designed to show Roman moral corruption and need not necessarily be believed (Salvian, Gub. Dei. VI.12 and VII.17). The continued popularity of the games past the fall of Carthage to the Vandals can be seen in the poetry being written in the city under the patronage of the Vandal kings – many mention pantomimes and charioteers.9 There is plenty of evidence of refurbishment and expansion of houses in the period but also of new quarters being laid out at the turn of the fifth century – some of which were destroyed when the city walls were built in 425. During most of Augustine’s life, the city was not walled; it was only as the Vandal threat in the western Mediterranean increased that the walls were constructed.10 Some of the wealth for building projects derived from Carthage’s centrality to the shipping of grain from Africa to Rome, and considerable building work on warehouses was undertaken in the area of the southern harbors in the third quarter of the fourth century.11 Not only was Carthage the largest city in western Africa, but it was also the regional center of power. By the fourth century, not only was the governor of Africa Zeugitana based there, but the vicar of the Diocese of Africa was also there. Both had offices staffed by members of the African elite, but the African elites would also have gathered at Carthage to seek the opportunities presented by being in close proximity to some of the most important people in the empire. Many of the sons of the elite, like Augustine and his friends, also went there for the highest levels of education, and Augustine taught there before leaving for Italy. Augustine records the violence of one group of students in the Confessions, but more sedate epitaphs in praise of deceased students who made the journey to the city are known (conf. 3.3.6; AE [1904], 58, 81). Ecclesiastical power was also concentrated at the city. Carthage’s bishop was at the center of African Christianity both within the province of Africa Zeugitana, over whose bishops Carthage held primacy, and also more widely 8
9
10 11
E.g., D. R. Jordan, “New Defixiones from Carthage,” in J. H. Humphrey (ed.), The Circus and a Byzantine Cemetery at Carthage, vol. I (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 117–34. E.g., A. Riese, Anthologia Latina sive Poesis Latinae Supplementum, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Lipsiae B. G. Teubneri, 1869–1870), nos. 293, 306. Sears, Late Roman African Urbanism, 39–40. Ibid.
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within Africa; councils were regularly held at Carthage, bringing clergy to the city in great numbers. Although the imperial and ecclesiastical provinces within late Roman Africa generally accorded with each other, the bishoprics of the eastern fringe of Africa Zeugitana, including Thagaste and Hippo Regius, were in the ecclesiastical province of Numidia. Numidia’s primate, unlike those of other ecclesiastical provinces, was not fixed at one see. Instead, he was the longest-serving bishop in the province and reflects a clear deference to the aged. North African epitaphs disproportionately were dedicated to the memory of the old within the community. For instance, at Thagaste, sixteen of the forty-five individuals whose age at death is known (and the vast majority of Thagastan epitaphs did include the age of death) were older than seventy at death (for epitaphs, see CIL VIII, 5149ff and 17220ff). Only two children under the age of ten were likewise commemorated. This pattern is not the product of a community whose members lived disproportionately to old age but reflects the choices made by Thagastans as to who was worthy of an epitaph. Carthage’s dominance over African ecclesiastical politics was partly a reflection of practicalities – the city was undoubtedly one of the first locations where a Christian community formed in Africa, and as the largest city in the region, it contained more Christians than any other see. However, the effectiveness and intellect of some of the bishops such as Cyprian, the Donatists Donatus and Parmenian, and Augustine’s friend Aurelius helped to cement the power of the city’s bishopric. For most of the fourth century, there were at least two bishops at the city at any one time because the groups known to scholarship as “catholics” and “Donatists” led their churches from the city: other minor and more transitory sects were also based there. The most important council held in Africa that judged the arguments of the “Donatists” and “catholics” about which was the true catholic church, took place in Carthage at the Baths of Gargilius in 411. The baths themselves have not been located, but they must have been large because hundreds of bishops were present at the council. The growing power of the churches was coupled with a concomitant decline in the influence of traditional religions, although this is sometime exaggerated for the fourth century – many of the excavated churches from the city actually date to the Vandal period and later. The temple of Cybele and Attis was restored between 331 and 333 (CIL 8.24521), but that is the extent of recorded building work on the temples during the fourth century. While Augustine records that festivals in honor of Caelestis were still popular at Carthage during his stay there, the temple of the goddess had been abandoned by the time that Bishop Aurelius set up his cathedra in it in
AUGUSTINE IN ROM A N N ORTH AFRICA (THAG A STE, C ARTHAGE) 43
399–400; it was totally destroyed in 421 (civ. Dei 2.4 and 26; Quodvultdeus, prom. 3.38.44).12 Pressure on the traditional cults in the late fourth century might have been responsible for the hiding of a group of statues of gods and goddesses in a room not far from the Antonine Baths, some of which had been damaged, although Leone has recently questioned whether the statues may not have been a stockpile brought together for reuse or resale rather than a cache hidden for protection from Christian fanatics (see Augustine, ep. 50, for the destruction of a statue of Hercules).13 The Christian groups and traditional believers were not alone in Carthage. The city had a Jewish population and a community of Manicheans as well. The clear categories of “Christian,” “heretic,” “Jew,” and “pagan” that are presented by our Christian writers may have been more fluid in practice. The frequent criticism of Christian writers of those who went to church, temple, and the games demonstrates that many church goers had a more flexible approach to their beliefs than the clergy (e.g., Tertullian, spec., especially 25; Augustine, s. 51). The continuities that ordinary Africans saw between the supreme Romano-African god Saturn and the Christian God might be seen in the snobbish comment of Augustine that many Christians believed that they were worshipping Saturn when they went to church (cons. Ev. 1.21.29–30). Carthage then was flourishing in Augustine’s day; the reality of life at Thagaste is less clear. Undoubtedly Augustine’s works add to our knowledge of the cities. His incidental mentions of life in the cities, for instance, his description of Alypius’ arrest following an alleged theft from the street of the silversmiths below Carthage’s forum (conf. 6.9.14), flesh out our image of the city. However, the examination of a multiplicity of perspectives and source materials for these towns is healthy; the position of a Christian bishop on the games, for instance, was clearly different from the many Christians and pagans who flocked to them. The danger of over-reliance on Augustine’s writings is that it produces pictures of Augustine’s Carthage and Thagaste when other sources might emphasize different features.
12 13
Ibid., 42–3. Leone, The End of the Pagan City, 164–6.
6
m Augustine in Higher Society (Rome and Milan) David M. Gwynn
In 383, at the age of twenty-nine, Augustine sailed from Carthage and left North Africa behind. His destination was Italy, the original heartland of the Roman Empire and a powerful lure for an up-and-coming provincial teacher with ambitions of grandeur. The western aristocracy was united through a shared culture, or paideia, achieved through reading and imitating the great Latin authors of the past from Plautus and Cicero to Horace and Virgil. This paideia defined the educated elite, Christian and non-Christian alike, and skilled teachers were in high demand. Success in Italy held out to Augustine the promise of wealth and political office, the patronage of the leading families of the Roman west, and potential advancement to the court of the emperor himself. During the closing decades of the fourth century, however, Italy was also fraught with political and religious turmoil. The wider changes transforming the Later Roman Empire in this period were reflected in the shifting fortunes of the two great Italian cities: Rome and Milan. Rome was no longer the home of the emperors yet still possessed its ancient fame, and alongside a growing Christian presence there remained a strongly traditional senatorial aristocracy. Milan did not share the same glorious history but was now the chief western imperial residence and a leading episcopal see, although doctrinal conflicts within the Milanese Church troubled even so influential a bishop as Ambrose. This was the complex world that awaited Augustine when he arrived in Rome to take up his duties instructing the children of well-born families in the paideia expected of Roman high society.
rome The emperors had moved the center of government away from Rome in the third century, well before the foundation of Constantinople (dedicated in 44
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330) as the new imperial city in the east. Nevertheless, Old Rome remained the symbolic capital of the empire. Three decades after Augustine’s short Roman sojourn, the psychological shockwave created by Alaric and the Goths sacking the city in 410 spread across the Mediterranean and helped to inspire Augustine back in North Africa to write the City of God. In the 380s, Rome was still flourishing, her urban landscape dominated by the monuments of past triumphs. Historian Ammianus Marcellinus, an Antiochene Greek who came to Rome at almost the same time as Augustine, was dazzled by what he beheld. There was the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline hill, the Theater of Pompey, the Pantheon, or the Forum of Trajan, “a creation which in my view has no equal under the heavens and which even the gods must agree to admire” (Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 16.10). As a follower of the old Roman gods, Ammianus makes no reference to the Christian shrines that also now adorned Rome. Yet the rise of Christianity in the years following Emperor Constantine’s “conversion” in 312 had significantly altered the physical appearance of the city. The riches provided by imperial patronage and the rapid growth in Christian numbers had made the construction of large churches both possible and necessary. After he defeated his rival Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in October 312, Constantine immediately began to pour resources into building projects that would reflect Christianity’s status as the emperor’s favored religion. Constantine’s first Roman church was located on the Caelian hill, on ground cleared when the barracks of Maxentius’ horse guards were demolished. Originally referred to as the Basilica Salvatoris and the Basilica Constantiniana, this church has come to be known as St. John in Lateran. Still more impressive was the church of St. Peter, by far the largest Christian structure existing at that time, erected on the Vatican hill west of the Tiber River over the tomb of the chief of Christ’s apostles. Both churches were richly endowed with gifts and land (recorded in detail in the Liber Pontificalis, the history of the early bishops of Rome) and offered visual confirmation of Christianity’s new prominence within city and empire. The social prestige of Christianity in fourth-century Rome expanded alongside the religion’s increasing physical presence. While the Roman see did not possess the later authority of the medieval papacy, the bishop of Rome was an important figure in church politics and an influential patron whose wealth provided a crucial source of charitable support for the urban poor. Damasus (bishop 366–84), who held the episcopate during Augustine’s stay in Rome, was an active figure in Roman high society and was memorably described by his opponents as the auriscalpius matronarum (“the ladies’ ear-tickler”).
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Christianity was spreading through the senatorial aristocracy, raising the question of whether Christian belief could be combined with the classical paideia of the elite. This question troubled a number of contemporaries, including Augustine himself, but most educated Roman Christians seem to have been happy to reconcile their paideia with their religion. The silver Proiecta Casket, part of a hoard of silver artifacts found buried on Rome’s Esquiline hill, provides evidence of that reconciliation. The late-fourthcentury casket appears to have been a wedding gift to the couple depicted surrounded by a wreath on the lid, and the casket’s front face displays Venus on her cockle shell studying herself in a mirror. Yet below the goddess runs the inscription that gives the casket its name: “Secunde et Proiecta vivatis in Chri(sto)” (“Secundus and Proiecta, may you live in Christ”). Both the giver and the recipients of the casket were members of the Roman aristocracy, and none saw any conflict between the invocation of Christ and the imagery of Venus as the traditional personification of love and beauty. The Christian conversion of Rome’s senatorial elite is revealed most vividly through the letters of Jerome, whose activity in the city overlapped with that of Augustine. Slightly older than the North African with whom he is often compared, Jerome shared a similar educational background and studied in Rome as a young man before traveling to the Greek East. He returned to the city in 382 as an established authority on asceticism and scriptural exegesis. He won the favor of bishop Damasus, at whose request Jerome began the translation of the Vulgate Latin Bible, and Jerome attracted a devoted circle of female students from aristocratic families. The peak of his popularity coincided with Augustine’s arrival in Rome. Jerome’s distinguished pupils studied scriptural texts in Greek and even in Hebrew, embraced his ascetic lifestyle, and in turn helped to promote Christianity among the educated elite. Jerome, however, also found himself the focus of a rising tide of criticism. The ascetic values that he championed clashed with the traditional aristocratic emphasis on marriage alliances and luxurious display, and the hostility climaxed after one of his students, the young widow Blaesilla, died in 384 due in part to her commitment to Jerome’s teachings (see Jerome, ep. 39). Driven from Rome in 385, Jerome settled in Bethlehem, where he was joined by Blaesilla’s mother, Paula, and her other daughter, Eustochium. He continued to correspond with his Roman supporters, and early in the fifth century he composed one of the most powerful evocations of the Christian transformation of the ancient city. “The gilded Capitol today looks dingy; all the temples in Rome are covered with soot and cobwebs. The city is shaken to its foundations, and the people hurry past the ruined shrines and pour out to visit the martyrs’ graves” (Jerome, ep. 107.1, in 403).
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Nevertheless, the spiritual legacy of Old Rome had by no means entirely disappeared. As Jerome’s somewhat rhetorical account indirectly confirms, the new churches were on the edges of the city, where St. Peter and his fellow martyrs were buried. The center of Rome was still the domain of the traditional gods and goddesses, whose temples overlooked the forums and markets in which daily life continued. And an important bloc within the senatorial aristocracy remained committed to preserving their ancestral rites and customs. The best-known representatives of this so-called last pagan generation are Quintus Aurelius Symmachus and his friends Vettius Agorius Praetextatus and Virius Nicomachus Flavianus. It was Symmachus, as urban prefect for 384, who petitioned the young Emperor Valentinian II in Milan to restore the Altar of Victory that had originally stood in the Roman Senate House. His Third Relatio included a famous plea for religious harmony. “We gaze at the same stars, we share the same sky, the same universe surrounds us. What does it matter what philosophy we each adopt to search for the truth? Not by a single route alone is it possible to reach so great a secret” (Symmachus, Relatio 3.10). Symmachus’ heartfelt petition was denied through the opposition of Ambrose, and the Altar’s fate came to symbolize the changing religious world of fourth-century Rome. Augustine thus arrived in Rome during a crucial formative period, as the classical city gradually gave way to its medieval Christian successor. His short stay in 383–4 coincided with both Jerome’s promotion of asceticism and the Altar of Victory debate. In his Confessions, however, Augustine shows no awareness of such wider issues. His stay in Rome receives only the briefest of descriptions, and Augustine’s sole concern was with his students, who behaved badly and avoided paying their fees. Then he heard that a teacher of rhetoric was to be appointed at Milan. “An oration I gave on a prescribed topic was approved by the then prefect Symmachus, who sent me to Milan. And so I came to Milan to Ambrose the bishop” (Augustine, conf. 5.13.23). Paideia cut across religious differences, uniting Symmachus and Ambrose in a shared cultural matrix and bringing the North African Augustine to the western imperial court.
milan In comparison with the vast antiquity of Rome, the North Italian city of Mediolanum (Milan) was a rapidly expanding metropolis offering high risks but equally high rewards. Valentinian II became emperor in the west at the age of twelve, following the murder of his half-brother Gratian in August 383. The usurper Magnus Maximus controlled Britain and Gaul, threatening civil
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war, and the young Valentinian’s power was far from secure. His mother, Justina, wielded considerable influence, while the regime also depended heavily on the support of Ambrose. The first Christian bishop known to have been of senatorial birth, Ambrose had held the see of Milan since his popular election in 374. His authority was reflected in the part that he played in rejecting Symmachus’ petition over the Altar of Victory, although the theological differences between Ambrose and the “Arian” Justina added a further layer to the tensions simmering within the city when Augustine took up residence there in autumn 384. Even amid such dangers, the imperial court held a strong appeal for an ambitious teacher and orator like Augustine. Proper instruction in the culture of paideia was essential for children of the aristocracy, and emperors always required spokesmen to celebrate their achievements (and deflect criticism) in the appropriate style. Education was therefore an important avenue for social mobility in the Later Roman Empire. Augustine’s own rapid advance from Thagaste through Carthage and Rome to Milan was exceptional, yet still more remarkable was the career of his older contemporary, Ausonius of Bordeaux. Appointed by Valentinian I to tutor his son Gratian, Ausonius was honored after Gratian became emperor in 375 first as praetorian prefect of Gaul and then in 379 with the exalted office of consul. Sadly, Gratian’s murder highlighted the instability of imperial favor, although Ausonius was able to retire peacefully to his estates, and few practitioners of paideia could hope to scale the same heights. Augustine swiftly established his position in Milan, attracting students and benefiting from a circle of influential friends. His mother, Monica, came to join him, as did his elder brother, Navigius, and two cousins, suggesting that the family hoped to share in his prosperity. On January 1, 385, Augustine delivered a panegyric to celebrate the consulship of Flavius Bauto, the leading general at the western court. The speech itself is lost, but Augustine could look forward with confidence to the promise of worldly success. “If I press for nothing more, I should at least be able to obtain a governorship. I would need to marry a wife who would bring me a small dowry, so that the expense would be no burden, and this would be the limit of my desires” (Augustine, conf. 6.11.19). Such public prominence, however, in turn bound Augustine more closely to the threatened regime of Valentinian II. These were nervous times for the imperial court, and Magnus Maximus would indeed invade Italy in autumn 387, not long after Augustine’s baptism. The 380s were also a period of religious turmoil for Milan. The city did not have Rome’s long history or traditional senatorial aristocracy, and conflict
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between Christians and non-Christians was not a significant feature of urban life. But divisions within the Milanese Christian community had been a concern for many years, and in 385–6 they came to a head. Theological controversies over how to understand the doctrine of the Trinity had disturbed the Church ever since the reign of Constantine. Ambrose was a strong defender of the creed proclaimed by the Council of Nicaea in 325 that upheld Father and Son as homoousios (“of one essence, consubstantial”) with each other. Yet Auxentius, his predecessor as bishop of Milan, had been a leading supporter of the doctrine that described the Son only as homoios (“like”) the Father and subordinate to the Father’s divinity. This Homoean doctrine had been imperial orthodoxy across the middle years of the fourth century but was regarded by opponents such as Ambrose as heretical and “Arian” (after Arius, the Alexandrian presbyter condemned at the Nicene council). Ambrose, who had worked hard to secure his position in Milan since his election in 374, now faced opposition from Valentinian II’s mother, Justina. An adherent of Homoean Christianity, Justina demanded that her fellow believers should be granted a church in which to worship (Theodosian Code 16.1.4, issued in January 386). Ambrose responded by occupying the church in question, the Basilica Portiana, which stood just outside the city walls and may have been the church known today as San Lorenzo. There his congregation sang hymns and he preached sermons until, after two short “sieges” by the imperial garrison that began in the Holy Week of Easter 386, Justina backed down. Ambrose reinforced his victory later that same year with the triumphal discovery of the relics of Gervasius and Protasius. The bodies of these two brothers and martyrs, who became the patron saints of Milan, were located at exactly the time when Ambrose sought relics with which to consecrate the newly completed church that was to bear his name. As he described the event in a letter to his sister, Marcellina, “We found two men of amazing stature, such as were produced in the old days.” The bodies were carefully raised, and a vigil was held, and then “on the following day we transferred the relics to the basilica which is known as the Ambrosian. During the transfer a blind man was healed” (Ambrose, ep. 22.1–2). The miracle confirmed the relics’ authenticity, just as their discovery and the public procession to the Ambrosian Basilica reaffirmed Ambrose as bishop and defender of the true orthodox faith. All these dramatic events took place while Augustine lived in Milan. He greatly admired Ambrose, whose sermons played an important role in Augustine’s spiritual development. When he first arrived in the city, the new teacher and orator came to church to study Ambrose’s rhetorical
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technique rather than to listen to his message (conf. 5.13.23–14.24), but gradually Augustine came to absorb Ambrose’s lessons on Christian Neoplatonism and the allegorical reading of Scripture. Later in the Confessions, Augustine refers to both Justina’s attack on Ambrose (9.7.15) and the relics of Gervasius and Protasius (9.7.16). As in Rome, however, Augustine himself is never directly involved. His mother, Monica, stood with Ambrose’s followers during the “Siege of the Basilica,” Augustine did not. He remembered the excitement that gripped Milan at the time, but his purpose in recalling this episode in the Confessions is to explain the introduction of the eastern custom of singing hymns and psalms into the western churches. His account of the discovery of the relics and the subsequent miracle does not entirely correspond with that of Ambrose, presumably because Augustine heard the story secondhand. Always there is a sense of distance separating Augustine’s personal experiences and struggles from the life of the city unfolding around him. When Augustine’s search for peace in God reached its climax in the garden of his Milanese home, he was moving in the highest social circles of the western Roman Empire. From relatively humble North African beginnings, he had come to Rome and then to the imperial court at Milan, and the prospect of a glorious secular career lay stretched out before him. This was the career that he abandoned, resigning his teaching position and being baptized at the hands of Ambrose at Easter 387. What part the political, social, and religious tensions of the preceding years played in Augustine’s decision is a question that we will never be able to answer. The personal theological and ascetical journey that Augustine presents to us in the Confessions happened against the background of a rapidly changing Roman world, yet this background is not acknowledged to play any major role in his inner conflict. By accepting baptism and committing himself to a devout Christian life, Augustine renounced the paideia of his previous profession and turned his back on the high society within which he had once desired to belong.
7
m Augustine as a Bishop (Hippo) Andrea Sterk
Writing to Archbishop Atticus of Constantinople around 420, Augustine referred to a rumor apparently spreading in Constantinople that he had died (Augustine, ep. 6.1*). He makes light of the confusion, excusing the likely reason for the apparent snub. Though his colleague Aurelius of Carthage had received a letter of greeting from Atticus, the eastern patriarch felt it beneath his dignity to address the bishop of an unimportant African town.1 This exchange puts Augustine the bishop in the broader context of the Christian Roman Empire in the first quarter of the fifth century. Despite his growing reputation in the west, among eastern contemporaries he carried no such weight. Yet Augustine’s long episcopate in Hippo illumines larger realities shaping the church, the empire, and their interrelation in the century after Constantine. Conversely, his own tenure as a bishop is best understood in the broader contexts of episcopal developments in the Roman Empire and the distinctive setting of the church in North Africa.
the episcopate in the roman empire By the third century, the monepiscopate, in which one bishop served one community, had become the dominant ecclesiastical institution and a focus of unity for the church in the Roman Empire. From a position of equality, with deacons and presbyters complementing the teachers and prophets in the early Christian communities, the episkopos (“overseer”) emerged as not only the administrative leader but the primary teacher of truth. His duties included preaching to the congregation, teaching and baptizing catechumens, celebrating the Eucharist, supervising priests and deacons, and caring 1
P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, new ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 465.
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for widows, orphans, and consecrated virgins. He also dispensed church funds to the poor and sick; oversaw charitable work on behalf of captives, prisoners, and strangers; and represented the church before local and imperial officials.2 With the legislation of the Christian Emperor Constantine and the exponential growth of the church in the post-Constantinian period, bishops came to play much greater roles in imperial politics. Constantine and his successors also accorded bishops legal privileges and new or enhanced judicial powers. The grant of legal status to the bishop’s tribunal (audientia episcopalis) was not completely new. Bishops were already expected to serve as arbiters and peacemakers in their communities, but imperial legislation sanctioned and increased the scope of their judicial activities.3 The bishop’s court provided obvious advantages: it was free, quick, and relatively uncorrupt. Unlike provincial governors or civil magistrates, bishops served for life and were generally well integrated into their communities. Known as “lovers of the poor,” they assumed traditional civic roles as patrons of their cities.4 The increased importance of bishops in imperial and local politics corresponds with new canons about their election. From at least the third century, a bishop was to be chosen by the entire Christian community based on his good conduct and exemplary character. To demonstrate consensus, bishops of neighboring churches would lay hands on him in prayer. By the Council of Nicaea in 325 the rule was one city, one bishop (canon 8), but there was considerable diversity in rank among bishops, most often corresponding with their city’s status in civil affairs. The leading bishop of a province, who came to be known as the “metropolitan bishop,” presided at provincial councils and oversaw ordinations (Nicaea, canon 4). Canonical legislation on episcopal elections became more rigid, though irregularities persisted.5 The prestige that came with imperial patronage along with bishops’ expanding administrative roles raised tension between their worldly 2
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D. Gywnn, “Episcopal Leadership,” in S. F. Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 876–915, at 877–80. C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 37 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 242–52. Chronologically, the relevant laws are CTh 1.27.1 (318), Sirm. 1 (333), CTh 16.2.23 (376), CTh 16.11.1 (399), CJ 1.3.7 (398), CTh 1.27.2 (408), and NVal 35.1.1–2 (452). P. Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Hannover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002), 1–44. P. Norton, Episcopal Elections, 250–600: Hierarchy and Popular Will in Late Antiquity, Oxford Classical Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); for relevant canons, see Appendix, 246–59.
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responsibilities and their spiritual duties. Still, spiritual and ascetic virtues were not necessarily incompatible with episcopal office. As the monastic movement spread, increasing numbers of monks were chosen as bishops. Those who became bishops from worldly careers might adopt ascetic lifestyles. Others founded monastic communities from which they recruited clergy. Yet social background became an increasingly important consideration in episcopal appointments.6 Most bishops were recruited from the curiales, municipal elites in towns and cities of the empire. Bishops of large cities shared the education and culture of their “pagan” counterparts, which prepared them for civic leadership. On the whole, however, bishops’ education and social class varied greatly from region to region.
augustine’s africa: bishops, councils, churches Augustine’s episcopate was inextricably intertwined with what contemporaries called “the church of Africa,” centered in the region between Hippo and Carthage. From at least the time of Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage functioned as the honorary head of all the African churches. Cyprian convened church councils, inviting bishops from Numidia and Mauretania as well as Africa Proconsularis to attend.7 The convening of regular church councils in Carthage became an important strategy of Aurelius of Carthage and Augustine in their joint efforts to strengthen and unify the catholic church of Africa. Bishops from all the African ecclesiastical provinces met to resolve doctrinal, liturgical, and disciplinary matters and to solidify their positions. Carefully prepared transcripts of the councils, modeled on meetings of the Roman senate, reveal their concerns and decisions.8 Well versed in Roman law, leading bishops were dispatched to the imperial court in Ravenna, where they sought legislation supporting catholic interests in Africa – most often protection against or repression of Donatists and “pagans.” The collective action of these African bishops made them a formidable force in the western church and empire. Less visible in Augustine’s writings is the largely equal rivalry of Donatist and catholic churches through much of his ecclesiastical career. 6 7
8
Rapp, Holy Bishops, 172–207. E. Rebillard, “The West (2): North Africa,” in S. Harvey and D. Hunter (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 303–22, at 308–9. J. Merdinger, “Councils of North African Bishops,” in A. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 248–50.
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Archeological evidence has given us a clearer picture of the relative wealth of the Roman province, the progress of Christianization, and the hardly distinguishable characteristics of the two churches.9 Unique among provinces of the Latin west, Roman Africa saw the rise of a distinctly Christian landscape with hundreds of churches dotting both towns and countryside. The catholic or Donatist identities of these churches are impossible to determine, but both communities were committed to building; even smaller cities and villages took pride in the construction of their churches. This evidence of competition helps explain the sheer number of African bishops in late antiquity. Over 560 bishops, around 280 from each side, arrived at the Council of Carthage in 411. This was more than double the number in urbanized Italy and four times the number in Gaul in roughly the same period. In Africa, bishops presided not only over cities and towns but also over villages and estates.10 The city of Hippo Regius, where Augustine served as priest and bishop from 391 to 430, was the second largest port city on the Mediterranean coast of Roman Africa.11 Located 300 kilometers west of Carthage on a rich alluvial plain, Hippo (Punic for “harbor”) sustained a population of farmers who comprised much of Augustine’s congregation. The city exported tons of grain and olive oil to Rome annually, making it one of the trading hubs of the Mediterranean and enabling Augustine to stay in touch with the wider world in a way the landlocked city of Thagaste could not. Hippo also boasted a rich “pagan” past. It was home to a great theater, a classical temple, two public bath complexes, and the largest Roman forum in North Africa. While a small Christian quarter had emerged, classical municipal life and institutions continued almost unchanged through the fourth century. Yet Hippo was also the gateway to the largely inland province of Numidia, a far different world. Even in the mountain villages of Augustine’s diocese, Punic rather than Latin was spoken, and the social and economic needs of the Numidian hinterland differed greatly.12 The Divjak letters offer a window onto the darker realities of Roman Africa in the later years of Augustine’s episcopate: the poverty of peasants, the corruption of officials, and the failure of Roman laws. 9
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P. Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 332–6. Ibid., 330–1; and L. Dossey, Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 47 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 125–44. For details on the city, see J. Merdinger, “Roman North Africa,” in W. Tabernee (ed.), Early Christianity in Contexts: An Exploration across Cultures and Continents (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014), 223–60, at 249–51. Dossey, Peasant and Empire, 101–24.
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augustine’s tenure as bishop Augustine’s election and long tenure as bishop in Hippo reflect broader developments in the history of the episcopate. Though the canons on episcopal elections required three officiating bishops and the approval of the metropolitan, in practice, the voice of the plebs continued to play an important role. Both Possidius in his Vita (4.2) and Augustine in a later sermon (s. 355.2) described his seizure and forced ordination as a priest. In 395, Bishop Valerius negotiated with Aurelius of Carthage to have Augustine appointed his coadjutor in Hippo fearing he might otherwise be kidnapped by another church seeking a bishop. The people also pressed him to accept episcopal ordination (Possidius, Vita 4.8), though contrary to the canons. Such incidents were not unusual. As a member of the curial class, Augustine’s social background was also typical for bishops of this period. He represented a level of education that had become desirable for episcopal candidates, a standard he continued to uphold in his own choice of clergy and bishops. He viewed rhetorical ability as the prime attribute of an effective preacher and complained that curiales were increasingly unwilling to accept ordination (Augustine, ep. 22*). Though he followed an ascetic regimen and required his priests to remain celibate, Augustine did not view monastic life as adequate preparation for bishops; he even questioned the suitability of good monks for clerical office because they “may lack the necessary education or the requisite integrity of character” (ep. 60).13 In Hippo, Augustine filled the preaching, teaching, and liturgical roles that had come to characterize the episcopate. It was the bishop’s duty and special privilege to preach to his congregation, though Augustine also preached as a priest and would later invite his own priests to preach on occasion. Augustine’s sermons, preached in several different churches, shed light on his routine as a bishop as well as his style as a preacher.14 It was customary to preach on Sundays as part of the Eucharistic celebration, but Augustine regularly preached on Saturdays as well. The liturgical calendar posed additional demands for sermons, as did Augustine’s travels to other cities. Preached extemporaneously and in a conversational tone, his sermons were recorded by stenographers, who transcribed them and included titles, dates, locations, and circumstances of delivery. They were eventually revised 13
14
G. Demacopoulos, Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 83–7. On the setting and delivery of Augustine’s sermons, see E. Rebillard, “Sermones,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 773–92.
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by Augustine and included in his library. As for liturgical responsibilities, he celebrated Mass daily in the morning, though not many Christians attended weekday services.15 Infant baptism was not common, but Augustine instructed and baptized catechumens, a process he described in a separate treatise (De cathechizandis rudibus) and referred to in his sermons. Several of his letters and sermons also reveal his pastoral concerns. While letters to men most often addressed theological questions, letters to women contained more practical advice, especially encouraging ascetic practices.16 Augustine also offered advice to women religious (ep. 211). The task of supervising clergy became increasingly onerous. When Augustine became bishop in 396, he moved some monks from the monastery he had established as a priest into the bishop’s palace. There they lived by the same rules, ate simple meals together, and showed hospitality to visitors (s. 355.2). Patronized by Aurelius of Carthage, this “monastery of clergy” (monasterium clericorum) became a prime source of bishops for Numidia (Possidius, Vita 11.1–4). Augustine’s original cohort was recruited from his friends in Thagaste, but soon men of diverse social backgrounds came into his episcopal household. Letters and sermons from the last decade of his life reveal constant problems, from the financial peccadilloes of his clergy to the scandalous conduct of his episcopal appointees.17 Such behavior required intervention on multiple levels. Through letters abroad and journeys in his province, Augustine labored to resolve embarrassing situations. Indeed as bishop he traveled a great deal, spending as much as a third of his time outside Hippo. Augustine traveled regularly to Carthage, a ten-day journey by land, to participate in the councils of the African church. His speech at the first plenary council, held in Hippo in 393 while he was still a priest, marked him as the primary spokesman for the African church for decades.18 Yet his vast literary output obscures the roles played by Aurelius of Carthage, his lifelong friend Alypius, and other influential African bishops. Augustine was a team player who collaborated with colleagues to implement legislation at the local level and hammer out positions that would be defended at the imperial court. He was involved not only in deliberations on the Donatists but later against Manichees and Pelagians as well. 15
16 17
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E. Rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 67–70. Demacopoulos, Five Models, 92–6. Augustine’s s. 355 and 356 detail financial affairs of his clergy. Ep. 209 and ep. 20* relate the abuses of Antoninus of Fussala, a monk from his own monastery whom he had appointed (Brown, Augustine, 468–9). Rebillard, “North Africa,” 315.
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While earlier bishops focused almost exclusively on the needs of their congregations, imperial legislation had brought bishops into the civic domain. In episcopal courts they were expected to arbitrate, impose settlements between consenting parties, and pronounce judgments. Augustine complained of the burden of these duties on numerous occasions. Mobbed by litigants – “pagans” and “heretics” as much as catholics of all classes – he arbitrated lawsuits for hours each day (Possidius, Vita 19.1–5).19 He heard cases concerning property, contracts, slaves, and accusations of adultery, and he mediated disputes between landowners and tenants and family quarrels over inheritances. He was also empowered to hand down sentences ranging from fines, to excommunication (for Christians), to corporal punishment.20 Not all bishops had formal training in Roman law, and Augustine was unusual in consulting legal experts, but his judicial work in Hippo reflects “a legally minded episcopal culture” that helped the catholic church rise to dominance in Africa.21 Besides administering justice, Augustine assumed a wide range of social and economic responsibilities. Chief among the bishop’s duties was care of the poor (pauperes), a group that included not only beggars but also an expanding population of “middling” persons in need of protection.22 Augustine preached often about the destitute poor and the need for almsgiving by the rich, and when church funds were low, he had holy vessels melted down to provide for captives and the needy (Possidius, Vita 24.11–15). Yet he also intervened on behalf of a broader group of unfortunates who came to Hippo from smaller towns and villages seeking the church’s protection. Many from the intermediate classes, even landowners and merchants, faced rising debt due to the greatly increased tax burden. Some fiscal debtors sought temporary sanctuary in churches, only to be forcibly removed by tax officials. Both individually and in concert with the African bishops, Augustine brought such injustices before the imperial court. In several letters (ep. 1*, 22*, 28*) he petitioned the emperor to respect the right of sanctuary for those being pursued by imperial officials. At the Council of Carthage in 401, the 19
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21
22
Understandably, when he chose a successor late in life, he delegated these judicial responsibilities to him (Augustine, ep. 213.5). See Brown, Augustine, 189–90, 222, and 411. For specific cases, see N. Lenski, “Evidence for the Audientia Episcopalis in the New Letters of Augustine,” in R. W. Mathisen (ed.), Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 83–97. E. Hermanowicz, Possidius of Calama: A Study of the North African Episcopate, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 11, 13, and 19, where she notes that the use of legal protocols was common to Donatist and catholic bishops. Brown, Poverty and Leadership, 46–66.
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bishops appealed to Emperor Honorius to provide for each African city a defensor civitatis who would challenge tax abuses and protect the civil rights of the less fortunate; in 420, Augustine reiterated this request for his own city of Hippo (ep. 22.4*). He also dealt with slaves on multiple levels – adjudicating legal cases, witnessing their manumission, even appealing to the emperor regarding the horrors of the North African slave trade (ep. 10*).23 In general, in the 420s, both Augustine and the African bishops appealed with greater urgency in cases of taxation, sanctuary, and slavery. Such efforts show how the role of the bishop had expanded since the early fourth century. Alongside their spiritual, moral, and new judicial authority, bishops had gained access to the highest corridors of power. By effective lobbying at the imperial court, Augustine and his colleagues had defeated their Donatist rivals and brought imperial intervention against the Pelagians. They also confronted injustices, appealing on behalf of Africa’s poor and suffering. Yet many of their petitions received no response. Despite their newly acquired privileges, fifth-century bishops were still powerless to control tax collectors in their cities and marginal to the vast Roman administrative machinery.24 Augustine’s late letters show with extraordinary poignancy the burdens of his episcopate in Hippo Regius. As an old bishop, he remained not only the spiritual leader of his church but also the patron of an entire urban population, fully engaged in addressing the social ills of his age.
23
24
On sanctuary, defensores civitatum, slavery, and manumission, see Dodaro, “Church and State,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 176–84, at 178–9; Rapp, Holy Bishops, 239–42, 253–60. Facing an “oppressive and resolutely profane” imperial administration, the catholic bishops were still “little men with little power” (Brown, Augustine, 470).
PART II
m literary and intellectual contexts
8
m Language James Clackson
Augustine spoke and wrote in Latin, but he grew up in a multilingual society and was familiar with at least three other languages, Greek, Punic, and Hebrew. Like most members of the elite in the western half of the Roman Empire, he gained his knowledge of Greek primarily from school, and his recollections of the difficulties of learning the language in his Confessions (1.14) were shared by other schoolchildren, as attested by surviving ancient schoolbooks, one of which bears testimony to the fact that there were “difficult dispositions with regard to the hard work of literary study.”1 Despite his early antipathy to the language, as a professor of rhetoric, Augustine had undoubtedly been educated to a standard where he was able to engage with Greek texts directly in the original. There is debate about how much Greek was in use as a spoken language in the area around Carthage in the later empire. The North African author of the Latin Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (an account of the martyrdom of early Christians at the turn of the third century including an inset narrative attributed to the Perpetua) was conversant with Greek, and one passage of the Passio relates how Perpetua spoke Greek with several church elders. However, this does not prove that Greek was widely spoken in the province2 but may rather represent the impact of the language of the New Testament on nascent Christian communities.3 Although Augustine himself (doc. Chr. 2.12.18) states that many of the early translations into Latin were made by those 1
2
3
The quote is taken from the bilingual Colloquium Stephani (E. Dickey, [ed.], The Colloquia of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 49 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012], vol. 1, 229). As supposed by J. Amat, “Le latin de la passion de Perpétue et de Félicité,” in L. Callebat (ed.), Latin vulgaire, latin tardif IV: Actes du 4e Colloque international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif, Caen, 2–5 septembre 1994 (Hildesheim: Olms/Weidmann, 1995), 445–54. See J. Clackson, “Originality and Pastiche in the Passion of Perpetua.” Rationes Rerum 5 (2015), 79–98.
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who were unable to fully comprehend Greek phrases or idioms, scholarly work on the surviving Old Latin texts of the gospels4 shows that the translators were able to appreciate nuances in the Greek, some of which were missed in Jerome’s translation. Augustine also had some knowledge of Punic, a Semitic language spoken by the Carthaginians before the Roman conquest, which still survived in smaller towns and among members of his congregation. By the fourth century CE, Punic had virtually no written tradition, and educated Romans, such as the grammarian Maximus of Madaura (who may have been Augustine’s former teacher), looked down on the language and its speakers. Although Augustine rebuked Maximus for his condescending attitude (ep. 17), his own Punic was far from perfect: he reports that he himself confused the Punic words for “pity” and “piety” (mag. 13.44). Augustine’s tolerant attitude toward the local language was not shared by all Christian writers; Jerome had little time for the language spoken in northern Syria, probably a dialect of Aramaic, which he refers to as a “barbarous half-language” (ep. 7.2). The view that Punic was in some way substandard to Latin no doubt contributed to its rapid demise in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. The fate of Punic is mirrored by that of most of the local languages spoken in the Roman Empire, which had all disappeared from the epigraphic record by the fifth century and which go largely unnoticed and unrecorded in our surviving Latin and Greek texts. There was no attempt to make a written version of the Bible in Punic and no mention of the language after Augustine until the eighth century.5 The first attempts to set down the Latin language to writing were made in the seventh century BCE, and although the development of literary culture in Latin was only to take place 400 years later, by Augustine’s day, the everchanging spoken idiom had deviated considerably from the written form of the language. Schoolchildren were taught to write in a Latin that would have been far removed from everyday speech, and grammarians formulated spelling rules and laid down precepts for which word forms and constructions were acceptable and which were not.6 Learning to write consequently also meant learning a completely different register, and texts written by those with little education or comments by grammarians 4
5
6
P. Burton, The Old Latin Gospels: A Study of Their Texts and Language, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). P. Brown, “Christianity and Local Culture in Late Roman Africa,” Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968), 85–95, at 93. The extant work by Latin grammarians from the third to sixth centuries CE is collected in eight volumes by H. Keil, Grammatici Latini (Leipzig: Teubner, 1855–80).
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and others reveal some of the fault lines between the written and the spoken. The treatment of initial aspiration provides a good illustration of the separation between speech and writing. By the fourth century CE, Latin speakers of all classes had ceased to pronounce the sound h at the beginning of words in everyday speech, and the sound does not survive into the Romance languages derived from Latin. The tendency to drop h is first noticed by Roman writers in the first century BCE, and we know that the change was fairly general already in republican Rome by the fact that some speakers, aiming not to sound uneducated, overcompensated by putting h at the beginning of words that had never had it. Through our knowledge of etymology, it is possible to identify words such as anser (“goose”) that originally would have had an initial h and others such as humerus (“shoulder”) that would not. A few words, such as (h)arundo (“reed”) and (h)arena (“sand”), are spelled both with and without h because the grammarians do not agree on which form is preferable. Trained scribes were taught when to write h at the beginnings of words, even if the speakers who were dictating to them left it out (and some examples of corrections can be found in the writing tablets from the Roman military camp at Vindolanda on Hadrian’s wall, written in the early second century CE). By the time of Augustine, learning to write in the educated Latin of the grammarians (what is termed “Classical Latin”) was consequently analogous to learning a foreign language, and Augustine says as much in his conf. 1.13, “For those first rudiments, to read, to write and cipher, I accounted no less painful and troublesome than [learning] the Greek” (translation by William Watts). In several places in his writings, Augustine took issue with the grammarians’ insistence on the correct form of words in preference to their communicative function and effect. In conf. 1.18.28–19.30, he notes that some people were more afraid to drop the h of homo (“human”) than to say that they hated somebody. In doc. Chr. 2.13, he refuses to stigmatize the nonclassical construction inter hominibus (“between men”) (rather than the classical inter homines) and the longer form ossum (“bone”) rather than the classical os (Ibid., 4.10.24).7 Augustine justifies the use of the preposition with the ablative (as in inter hominibus) because it causes no difference in meaning, and he recommends the form ossum because it avoids any confusion with the word ōs (“mouth”). In s. 37.14, he comments on the variants neat and neiat 7
Augustine makes the same observation in other places. For a discussion, see J. N. Adams, Social Variation and the Latin Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 14–5.
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(“she spins”), stating that “as long as everyone is being instructed, grammarians should not be feared.”8 Augustine’s statements about “correct” Latin appear radical when set alongside the bulk of contemporary grammatical writings, which set down inter as a preposition taking the accusative case, castigate the form ossum, and give rules for which words to write with i between two vowels. It is noteworthy that Augustine does not himself use the nonclassical forms that he defends, although they are common in contemporary inscriptions, medical writings, and some of the “Old Latin” versions of the Bible. Thus he uses the ablative singular osse (“bone,” from os) in the City of God instead of the form osso (as from ossum), which is found in medical texts.9 As argued by Burton,10 Augustine does not seek to challenge the authority of the grammarians for the learned writer or reader, believing authority and tradition to be good things, but he thinks that, for those with lower levels of education, understanding the message is more important than the correction of error. Augustine was not alone in his desire to bridge the gap between speech and writing in order in favor of a better understanding by a wider proportion of the population; other Christian writers were also aware of the need, and some, such as Jerome, explicitly comment on their own attempts to select a word or form that will be more familiar to the audience, although none of Augustine’s contemporaries go so far in their defense of stigmatized forms.11 There are also ample precedents from earlier authors and intellectuals for a more flexible attitude toward spelling and for tolerance for forms that were stigmatized by grammarians but avoided ambiguity for readers. Thus Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Augustus aimed for clarity in his writing (Life of Augustus 86), and Julius Caesar, who composed a treatise on language in two books, also aimed for simplicity and an avoidance of unusual or ambiguous forms.12 Adams gives further examples of the avoidance of grammatical niceties by writers of technical treatises, such as Vitruvius on 8 9 10
11
12
Translation is taken from Adams, Social Variation, 114. For citations of relevant passages, see the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. P. Burton, Language in the Confessions of Saint Augustine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 176–7. R. A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 70–95; J. Herman, “Spoken and Written Latin in the Last Centuries of the Roman Empire: A Contribution to the Linguistic History of the Western Provinces,” in R. Wright (ed.), Latin and the Romance Languages in the Middle Ages, Romance Linguistics (London: Routledge, 1991), 29–43, at 32–5. See the discussion in the forthcoming G. Pezzini, “Caesar the Linguist: The Debate about the Latin Language,” in L. Grillo and C. Krebs (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Julius Caesar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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architecture, or the authors of medical works, who needed to be understood by people who had perhaps not gone very far in their own education (note the presence of the nonclassical ossum in medical works).13 Many literary figures in the early empire had expressed scorn for the grammarians, who were generally of lower social status and seen primarily as schoolmasters. Although by the time of the later empire grammarians were drawn from all social classes, they were still for the most part situated at a social level well below the aristocracy.14 Augustine’s ideas about the nature of language and the logical features of discourse draw partly from the Roman grammatical tradition and partly from the Stoic and Epicurean philosophical schools, both of which had developed extensive philosophical accounts of the function and nature of language. The original Greek texts of much of Stoic and Epicurean linguistic philosophy do not survive, although more is coming to light with the ongoing recovery of the Epicurean Philodemus from carbonized scrolls excavated in the Italian city of Herculaneum. Several Roman works on rhetoric, including Cicero’s Brutus, Orator, and De oratore and Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, do survive, and these reveal the effect of the Greek philosophical schools on Roman linguistic thinking.15 Augustine certainly had access to a much wider range of ancient writing on language and rhetoric than we do, including the work of the Stoic Chrysippus, which now survives only in fragments. Augustine may also have been aware of Plato’s dialogue Cratylus, written before the birth of Epicurus and Zeno (the founder of Stoicism) and which was a fundamental text in setting out the opposition between the view that words were “conventional” or “natural” signs. In one view, later adopted by the Epicureans, the link between the sound of a word and its meaning was arbitrary, and the significance of any particular sequence of sounds was agreed by convention in a community. The Stoics adopted a more naturalist view of language, arguing that there was a link between the forms of words and their meanings, although avoiding the strong form of naturalism that was already satirized by the etymologies given by Socrates in the Cratylus.16
13 14 15
16
Adams, Social Variation, 848. Kaster, Guardians of Language, 99–134. See E. Rawson, Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London: Duckworth, 1985), 117–31. One of the best surviving expositions of the Stoic view is given in Augustine’s De dialecta, 9–10. See the discussion in A. A. Long, “Stoic Linguistics, Plato’s Cratylus, and Augustine’s De dialecta,” in D. Frede and B. Inwood (eds.), Language and Learning: Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 36–55.
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To a modern audience, it is perhaps surprising that despite the wealth of ancient work on linguistics and philosophy of language, some of the basic technical terms that we use to describe languages have no simple equivalents in Latin and Greek. Take, for example, the word for “word.” Greek logos is usually translated as “word,” most famously at the beginning of the Gospel of John, but it had a wider range of uses than English “word.” It can be used of an argument or, as is general in Stoic linguistic theory, to refer to a sentence. Greek writers on language sometimes used the term lexis to mean “word,” and lists of foreign or unusual words were generally termed lexeis (plural of lexis). It is from this that our terms such as “lexicon” and “lexical” derive; lexis could, however, also be used to refer to an expression (its normal meaning in Stoic linguistic writings) or an author’s style. The term lekton, literally meaning “something said,” could also mean “word,” but it had a special meaning for the Stoics, who used lekton to refer to “the meaning or fact or truth or falsehood that we express or understand by means of spoken or written language.”17 Greek grammarians also used two further technical terms, onoma (literally “name”) and rhēma (which correspond broadly to our “noun” and “verb”), although in some earlier writers on language, such as Plato and Aristotle, the two terms might be used to refer to “word” and “expression,” respectively. Roman grammatical terminology took over the Greek distinction between nouns and verbs as nomen and verbum, but they lacked the wider range of words available to the Greeks, and verbum could also be used in many of the senses of logos (as in the Latin Vulgate’s translation of the beginning of the Gospel of John) and lexis and was in general the default word for “word.” The apparent confusion in the linguistic terminology generally causes little problem for the readers of ancient grammars, whose works abound in lists and definitions, so it is possible to ascertain what they mean by a technical term by the surrounding examples and context. Thus, in mag. 2, when Augustine asks Adeodatus how many words there are in a line of Vergil, the question and answer serve to illuminate what sense of verbum is used in the passage. In a culture where there was normally no graphic indication of where an individual word began and ended – there were no spaces between words in ancient texts – the question is in any case less straightforward than we might think. The few surviving ancient Greek and Roman texts that separate words through a punctuation mark generally count groups such as preposition and noun or verb and pronoun as a single unit. Augustine’s own development of a philosophy of language therefore requires him to clarify a Latin terminology 17
Long, “Stoic Linguistics,” 46.
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for language, a challenge that he rises to in the De dialecta through the creation of new technical senses for the terms dictio and dicibile. In conclusion, Augustine’s career as a rhetorician meant that he was very well acquainted with the large body of ancient work on grammar and the philosophy of language. He stands apart from his contemporaries and predecessors in his attitudes toward foreign languages, his acceptance of linguistic variation, and his ability to think through grammatical and linguistic questions afresh.
9
m Classical Literary Culture in North Africa W. Martin Bloomer
In the five and a half centuries that the province had been Roman before Augustine’s time, writers in North Africa were steeped in Roman literary culture (and Greek and, for some, Punic).1 Authors from this region contributed to the development of Latin literature, from the mid-secondcentury BCE playwright Terence whose works became school texts down to Augustine and beyond him to the poet Dracontius among others. Indeed, for the second and third centuries CE, it has been argued that Roman literature was North African literature; that is to say, the major authors of this period who have survived were Romans living in North Africa.2 It will not do, therefore, to try to characterize the hold of classical literary culture on some North African writer as if one were detecting which few of the classical authors were still known many centuries after their deaths in some purportedly isolated English monastic community of the Middle Ages. Furthermore, the classical literary culture of the later Roman Empire was not limited to the authors who would become the school canons of later periods, including our own.3 1
2
3
For possible connections with African texts and traditions, see the richly documented study of D. Selden, “Theoretical Approaches,” in B. T. Lee et al. (eds.), Apuleius and Africa, Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies 18 (London: Routledge, 2014), 203–326. J. Farrell, “Apuleius, Africa, and the Latin Canon,” in Apuleius and Africa, 106–24. Augustine’s African accent was criticized during his stay in Italy (ord. 2.16.45). On scholarly efforts to identify a specifically African literary culture, see K. Vössing, “Saint Augustin et la culture antique – traditions et ruptures,” in P.-Y. Fux et al. (eds.), Augustinus Afer. Saint Augustin: africanité et universalité; Actes du Colloque international, Alger-Annaba, 1-7 avril 2001, Paradosis 45 (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 2003), vol. 1, 158. What Augustine read has been famously explored by H. I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de culture antique (Paris: E. Boccard, 1949); H. Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics, Studia Graeca et latina Gothoburgensia 20 (Gothoburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1967); and J. J. O’Donnell, “Augustine’s Classical Readings,” Recherches Augustiniennes 15 (1980), 144–75. For his complex relationship to Virgil, see S. MacCormack, The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 26 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). P. Courcelle, Lecteurs païens et lecteurs
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The richness and variety of the literary culture of North Africa of the second to fifth centuries, of course, comes after Quintilian, the great authority on the classical (Latin) literary canon, active at the turn of the first century CE. His list has directed, again since the Renaissance, the idea of a classical canon. One could add to the authors he approved the chief figures who subsequently entered the canon, but one must also offer a strong second and double supplement. The first supplement would be the later literary greats Martial, Tacitus, and others, plus the Christian greats, Minucius Felix, the North Africans Tertullian and Lactantius, and of great significance but not high style, the martyr Perpetua, as well as so-called minor authors, e.g., Ausonius, contemporary with Augustine and not for his period or for many centuries really a minor figure. The second supplement should include intellectuals who did not come to be celebrated as literary stylists, including philosophers, theologians, rhetoricians, and other technical writers. But let us add not only all the not-so-greats but all that has not survived, individual works like the very great Cicero’s protreptic to philosophy, the Hortensius, and such a magnum opus as, for instance, the poetry of Virgil’s friend Varus and all the other works we know only by report.4 Often scholars have approached the question of the presence and influence of classical literature on Augustine (as on many a later author) by reconstructing a list of reading, what the author read in school, what he had in his library, and what books his books clearly made use of. Such a list reflects the canon making of ancient (and medieval) literary practice and school curricula. Of course, the lists change in very interesting ways. But the whole approach verges on the anachronistic and piecemeal.5 Thus, to plumb the literary culture before Augustine, I will not redescribe, for instance, the use in the immediately preceding centuries of school authors known to Augustine. Instead of such survey archeology, I shall try two exploratory trenches. In the late third century, two authors show remarkable uses of and attitudes toward the old literary culture. These two
4 5
chrétiens de l’Énéide. l. Les témoinages littéraires (Paris: De Boccard, 1984) remains a valuable guide. See also S. Freund, Vergil im frühen Christentum: Untersuchungen zu den Vergilzitaten bei Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Novatian, Cyprian und Arnobius, Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums 1 (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2000). For Lactantius, see J. Bryce, The Library of Lactantius, Harvard Dissertations in Classics (New York: Garland, 1990). For Tertullian, see T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). B. T. Lee et al. (eds.), Apuleius and Africa, reviews and for the most part demolishes the issue of a literary culture interested in its own North African identity. See H. Bardon, La littérature latine inconnue (Paris: Klincksieck, 1952). In contrast, see Vössing, “Saint Augustin et la culture antique,” 153–66, for a reconstruction of Augustine’s literary training and the milieu of the Roman schools in Africa.
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Christian authors, Arnobius of Sicca Veneria and Commodian, who at the least was influenced by the writings of Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, and may well have lived there, share a professedly polemical attitude toward the substance of classical literature. In addition, Arnobius explicitly criticized the form of this literature, which, in turn, Commodian’s chosen style implicitly and performatively criticizes. Both ridicule, in rather sophisticated literary ways, the stories of the old gods. I bring them together not to allege any Africitas of style or attitude but to consider them as indices of the variety of literary culture in the province of North Africa a generation or two before Augustine. Arnobius has not earned the title of the “Christian Cicero,” which his student Lactantius would, and yet there is a rush and energy to his writing animated by his faith in Christ as savior and his disbelief in human conventions. He discovers an argument and rides it hard. He varies the articulation of his point, crushes his imagined opponents with arguments ad absurdum and, it is true, with long lists of words or examples. It must have been something to hear.6 Jerome wrote that he had been a rhetorician,7 and his work, while strongly critical of the pretensions of grand style, is written in a sophisticated, rhetorical, even arresting Latin. At times, the sentences hold one breathless as his sarcasm, rhetorical questions, and almost fantastical imaginations of scenes and situations roll on and on. The second author here considered, Commodian, also produced convincing, argumentative literature, but his verse form is decidedly not the quantitative hexameter read and taught in schools. Scholars have had difficulty in determining exactly what it is, but his aesthetic choices reflect an effort to write in a popularizing form.8 He himself says he writes in middling style, and he seems to address the ordinary – the traditionalist who has not thought 6
7 8
A far more pessimistic view is found in the valuable chapter, “Latin Apologists and Roman Culture,” of M. Edwards, Religions of the Constantinian Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 39. See also M. B. Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); M. Edwards at al. (eds.), Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). For the development of a Christian literature in the old forms, see F. Young, “Classical Genres in Christian Guise; Christian Genres in Classical Guise,” in F. Young et al. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 247–58. Jerome, vir. ill. 79. See also Jerome’s negative judgment at ep. 58.10. For a trenchant review of the early scholarship, see E. H. Sturtevant, “Commodian and Medieval Rhythmic Verse,” Language 2(4) (Dec. 1926), 223–37. For further insight into the verse form, see L. Callebat, “Tradition et Novation dans la poésie de Commodien,” Pallas 13 (May 1966), 85–94; and K. M. Abbott, “Commodian and His Verse,” in Classical Studies Presented to B. E. Perry, Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 58 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1969), 272–83.
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about his religious practices and the Christian initiand who needs doctrine laid out, simply. Persuasion and didacticism and not any inability or some unrecognized reflex that reproduced contemporary linguistic usage seem to have guided his choice of form. Both these authors innovate in a way that directly and even avowedly takes issue with the practice and precepts of classical literature while making great use of classical literature. They model a new practice with the old literature and not any abandonment or retrenchment. The Roman gods take direct hits.9 Arnobius especially anticipates the long list of minor deities that Augustine would ridicule at civ. Dei 6.9. This apologetic theme necessitates a criticism of the inherited literary canon (and of real-life religious practices, especially sacrifice). No inherent reason forced a writer of the third or fourth century to feel that, as a writer or thinker, he or she was engaged in an activity separate from the practice of Virgil or Horace. Undoubtedly the first authors of the imperial age represented their activity and works as secondary to the great achievement of the late republicans and Augustans, but this dynamic of belatedness is already evident in Horace and Virgil. The Latin author has always been entering a genre already well established and masterfully executed. Arnobius, however, represents something new: the Christian has almost a parallel literature, a second set of stories and styles that allegedly is at odds with the old, traditional set. Arnobius reports that the traditionalists find the Christian set rudely expressed and their readers stupid to be fooled by such stories. Arnobius’ work was entitled Contra Gentes, according to Jerome, or Contra Nationes, according to the single manuscript that transmitted the text to the Carolingian world.10 Further in his text he simply refers to the nonChristians as “you” and the Christians as “we.” He thus evades the divisive reification of name calling, which will help him in his ultimate task, which is to reunite you and us as Roman Christians. But he opens by stressing a divide between two aggrieved parties: he takes the stance of the defendant’s lawyer answering a charge already made. The charge, the chief source of division, is a literary problem or a problem of literary hermeneutics even if the traditionalists seem only to be engaged in name calling. 9
10
For Arnobius’ answer to the criticism that Christianity undermined the Roman Empire, see H. Inglebert, “Arnobe et l’histoire de Rome,” in L’Afrique du Nord antique, cultures et paysages. Actes du colloque de Nantes (Mai 1996) (Besançon: Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l’Antiquité, 1999), 151–64. On the manuscript tradition, see Y.-M. Duvl, “Sur la biographie et les manuscrits d’Arnobe de Sicca; les informations de Jé rome, leur sens et leur sources possibles,” Latomus 45 (1986), 69–99.
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The traditionalists have accused the Christians of stupidity (stultitia)11 and in particular credulity (credulitas). The real charge is credulitas, which does not put the Christians in good company. When Glaucus, the love-smitten Cyclops in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, tries to stay the fleeing Scylla (13.743), he tells her of his earlier life as a mortal fisherman. He managed to catch many fish by net or by hook or by a third means, “their credulity drew them to the curved hook” (aut sua credulitas in aduncos egerat hamos). The independent minded Scylla is of course unmoved. Credulitas is a serious charge. Fables make clear the difference. The fabulist Phaedrus has many of his fables turn on the distinction between credere and non credere.12 When the wolf asks the heron to stick her long neck down his throat to remove a bone, the right moral is, don’t believe him. The animal, the subhuman, the fool credunt. Men, especially the learned, judge. It could be that Arnobius has been influenced by Stoic ideas about withdrawing judgment from commonly received ideas (doxa in Greek, fama in Latin), but his rhetoric appeals to wider cultural norms. The charge of credulity is serious then from the point of view of the sophisticated textuality that underlay elite culture and also more broadly the attitudes that the popular form fable communicated,13 but credulity in this context has an important, particular consequence. Faith in the Christian stories neglects the gods and provokes their anger. Credulitas leads to neglect of religion, which leads to harm, iniuria – military losses, plague, etc. Such is the line of argument that Arnobius will address. At the heart of the trouble for Christians is a neglect of the old literature that is attendant on neglect for the gods. One solution, here not taken, would be to abandon, expurgate, bowdlerize, or allegorize the old stories, all of which approaches had already been essayed by one philosopher or another. Arnobius does not propose that classical literature be abandoned. It should not be believed, or, more precisely, its literary artifice should not pass as argument. In rhetorical terms, he is presenting his opponents’ charge, which is a form of occupatio or anticipatio, that wonderfully Ciceronian mode of representing the grounds of debate in terms of one’s own choosing. 11
12
13
O. Nicholson, “Arnobius and Lactantius,” in Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, 259: “The Christians were frankly stupid; stultitia, said their persecutors, had laid hold of them (so Galerius: Mort. 34.2; cf. Inst. 5.18.12).” W. M. Bloomer, Latinity and Literary Society at Rome (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 73–109. An important Stoic principle instructs that one withdraw assent from doxa (see, e.g., Sextus Empiricus 41C).
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He expresses the mutual recriminations of traditionalist and Christian in a series of elegant chiasmi, beginning (1.57) “You do not believe our writings” and your writings we do not believe. [You say] “We have made up fictions about Christ” – and you publish abroad silly fictions about your gods. And no god has slipped down from heaven to contrive your practices with his own hands or in like fashion undermined our practices and devotions. “Men wrote your writings.” And yours were written by men, expressed in human speech; and whatever you have in mind to say about our writers, bear in mind and remember the same can be said in like measure about yours. You wish to be taken as true what is contained in your writings; and what has been written in ours you must declare to be true. You condemn our practices on the charge of mendacity and mendacity is our charge against yours.14
One chiasmus follows another in this paragraph, where “you” and “we” jostle about “writings.” The effect is to establish reciprocity as well as antagonism. “We” and “you” are brought into juxtaposition, almost into a balance where we do not yet know which scale will fall down with the weight of truth. The passage does not make doctrinal or methodological differences clear. Rather, the reader hears two parties wrangling, Christians on one scale of the balance, the traditionalists on the other. But the litigants are united as members of the chiasmus, belief, and writings. The solution to this dilemma, to this hanging scale, is far more radical than the clear denunciation of one party and celebration of the other. This scene of balancing will lead to the common ground by which Arnobius will prevail and unite. His first step to draw together the positions is to redefine credulitas. This is in keeping with rhetorical principles: as a strategy of defense, the orator can redefine the crucial element or term of law.15 Arnobius again accomplished more than a trick of rhetoric. He offers a universalizing hermeneutics: here is the development of his thought, which moves from the first axiom, the impasse that is the manifestation of disagreement, to an explanation of motive:
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A critical Latin edition: H. Le Bonniec, Contre les gentils. Arnobe; texte établi, traduit et commenté (Paris: Les Belles Lettres), 1982. So the student assigned the imaginary law case of declamation could defend the son accused of ingratitude to a father by trying to redefine pietas. See Bloomer, Latinity and Literary Society at Rome, 140–2, and the fine analysis of the vertical pietas (relations of father and sons) in G. Brescia and M. Lentano, Le ragioni del sangue. Storie di incesto e fratricidio nella declamazione latina, Studi latini 71 (Naples: Loffredo, 2009).
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We trust our writings and you trust your writings. Why do you not trust our writings and why do you trust your writings? Answer 1: plain language and Answer 2: vetustas/antiquity.
What is nicely avoided in this reduction is any particular that might stir up animus, e.g., such a formulation as the Christians tell of recent epiphany in poor language, whereas the old authors write, in good literary fashion, of the gods’ (mis)adventures. He will come like Commodian and later Augustine to make fun of the particular functions, lusts, and adventures of the old gods, but now with a certain clinical detachment he presents the problem as one of hermeneutics. The question of what texts to believe becomes the sole issue; only a method of reading separates the two parties. Arnobius solves this problem (of his own framing) by presenting a hermeneutics divorced from literary form (the response to antiquity as authority is almost subsumed as a necessary consequence of his new theory). This is fairly radical for the ancient world. The philosophical tradition had developed an antirhetorical theory if not exactly use of language.16 Arnobius goes further. On several occasions he indicts the old authors for their faith in rhetorical figures. He advocates positively for an interpretation of texts based solely on their truth content. This helps him with vetustas as well. He illustrates abundantly that antiquity is no guarantor of truth. Indeed, his illustrative capacity, his amplificatio, is a magnificent skill in finding embarrassing examples. In his contrastive thinking, he has also to show that plain language and modern times are or can be positive. For the latter, he will argue that the speed and degree of the spread of belief are a proof for Christianity and in particular that the veracity of the recent miracles is special proof. This part of his argument is in fact extremely interesting: he thinks that miracles are a sponsio – the legal term for guarantee – of the veracity of the Christian writings. At 2.11.17, he derides philosophers’ skill in syllogism and rhetoric. He maintains “[t]hat author is not to be deemed good who produces spotless speech, rather value the author who proves what he promises by the surety of divine works” (Ille est dicendus auctor bonus, qui sermonem candidule prompsit, sed qui quod pollicetur divinorum operum prosequitur sponsione).17 Of course, this makes for a problematic hermeneutics: an appeal to nontextual factors (be they the author’s conviction or other witnesses or revelation) can reassure that the text is serious, but they contribute nothing 16
17
Plato’s comparison of rhetoric with cookery set the tone. More broadly, see T. Gould, The Ancient Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Lewis and Short define candidule as “sincerely,” citing Arnobius. This is clearly wrong.
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to the validity of textual science. Arnobius, like many a rhetorician, is far better at undermining a case: he succeeds in discrediting the traditionalists by demonstrating that their texts and their interpretations depend on conventions, the formal language invented by men and received ideas – old stories. His positive achievement may simply be only that all human beings should be careful where they put their faith. His immediate target is the canon of classical literature. He might have singled out poetry for its fictions – Plato had established the contours of this long-lived criticism – but Arnobius in fact develops a universal criticism of texts that leads also to a certain harmony between the old literature and the new. His critique applies to all writings because he demonstrates that language itself is conventional.18 Arnobius attacks traditionalists’ faith or pride in grammar and rhetoric on five different occasions (1.59; 2.4; 2.11.17; 2.19; 3.19). He most directly indicts human confusion of linguistic artifice with reality in an attack on the inconsistency and conventionality of grammatical gender (1.59.7): But if you look to the truth, no utterance is by nature whole and complete, similarly none is faulty and deficient. For after all what natural reason or law has been written in the fundamental make-up of the universe so that a wall is named as a masculine object and a seat as feminine since these do not have gender differentiated as male and female nor can the most learned of the learned teach me what this grammatical masculine and feminine is or why from these two articles one should designate the male sex and the second should be assigned to the group of females.
The great late-republican scholar Varro had listed words with two genders (very often words he found employed by an early writer with a different gender from that used in his day). To judge from later grammarians who share these examples (and who probably did not read Arnobius), Varro is the ultimate source.19 Varro, however, did not see in the variety of linguistic form an essential arbitrariness. Rather, words changed their form either by voluntary or involuntary forces. Originally, the relation of form to content, the 18
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For a thorough description of the issues of language, see A. Viciano, Retórica, filosofia y gramática en el Adversus nationes de Arnobio de Sica, Patrologia 3 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1993). On his attack on grammatical gender, see E. Schwentner, “Arnobius über das grammatische Geschlecht,” Wörter und Sachen (1939), 92–3; G. E. McCracken, “Arnobius Adversus Genera: ‘Arnobius on the Genders,’” Classical Journal 42(8) (1947), 474–6; and more broadly, A. Corbeill, Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). Arnobius may not have read Varro. On the scarcity of Varro’s works during this period and indirect citations of his authority, see A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 620.
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word to its thing, had been transparent. Arnobius’ attention to changes or inconsistencies in the gender of nouns could owe something to the situation of his schooling, where the Latin of the school texts was not the Latin of the community,20 but the stimulus to his thinking, the spirited defense of a Christian literature of low stylistic polish, has led to a fundamental revision of his great classical precursors, Cicero (De natura deorum especially) and Varro (probably the De lingua Latina, channeled into later grammatical writers). Grammatical gender, like the silly gods of the traditionalists, emerges as a conventional act of humans giving names to things and then mistaking the name for a real thing. Arnobius’ rhetorical tour de force and spirited polemicism have perhaps obscured his serious purpose. In traditional Roman terms, he practices a literary or intellectual evocatio, that old Roman military practice where the enemies’ gods were called out of their shrines and brought over to the Roman side. Arnobius has shown that the gods are only voces, “words.” In his criticism of the gods and of their literary presentation, he had been anticipated (the chronology is likely) by Commodian, whose Instructiones begin with a series of short poems ridiculing the major divinities. Like Arnobius, Commodian shows wide literary learning. Influences on his poetic diction include what was probably already a school text, the Distichs of Cato, and the poets Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and others, including Valerius Flaccus.21 Still he can be quite prosaic, and this quality, along with his unclassical meter, has led to a misappraisal of his work. Here he demythologizes the Roman god Silvanus (who may not seem all that important but who was widely depicted in art and literature, his statues commonplace as he marked the borders of estates and fields – Dolabella says that every estate had three).22 Commodian begins his fourteenth poem with a typical 20
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This was not a situation peculiar to North Africa. See J. N. Adams, The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC–AD 600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). The gap between spoken and written Latin helped drive the institution of grammar. The Distichs was, after Virgil and Ovid, Commodian’s third most common source (I. Oppelt, “Ein Baustein der Dichtungen Commodians; die Disticha Pseudo-Catonis,” Paradeigmata Poetica Christiana. Untersuchungen zur christlichen lateinischen Dichtung, Kultur und Erkenntnis 3 [Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1988], 138). For discussion of individual sources, see J.-M. Poinsotte (ed.), Commodien Instructions. Collections des universités de France. Série latine 392e (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2009), xxxvii–xlvi, and his commentary. Opelt’s Paradeigmata Poetica Christiana discusses all the correspondences of the Distichs and Commodian. P. F. Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 51–2, judges from the inscriptions and monuments that he was the second most popular god in the city of Rome, after Jupiter. For his cult in North Africa, see Dorcey, The Cult of Silvanus, 62–7. On Commodian’s practice of
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rhetorical question (also typical is his habit of calling his pagan reader stupid, here at 1.14.6): In turn for what reason did Silvanus seem a god? Perhaps you like the fact that he could play the pipe well?23
Commodian continues to consider what benefit the alleged god has brought men. His answer or his focus on wood (timber) has puzzled some, but he is probably responding to the iconographic element of the god holding a cypress tree (cf. Virgil, Georgics 1.20). This allows the poet then to mock men worshipping wood – they believe the wooden tablets that depict the god (or perhaps the wooden curse tablets, one of which has been found in North Africa). All of this is typical of the demythologizing tradition and one strain in that the iconoclastic tradition, which mocks human beings’ confusion of material for the divine, the bronze (statue) for Athena, here the wood for a forest god. Commodian’s prosaic expression is in fact argumentative and didactic, as in Lucretius or Horace’s Epistles and Satires (the last an especially appropriate generic model). A particular source for the diction is the collection of aphorisms used in Roman schools, the Distichs of Cato (1.27): Don’t esteem a man for a tongue smooth as silk: The pipe sounds sweetly while the bird catcher snares the bird.24
It is not just that the first half of the second line has been transformed by Commodian to bene fistula cantat. He replaces canit with cantat because he pays particular attention to the ends of his lines, the fifth and sixth feet look like the traditional dactylic hexameter, and to Commodian’s ear perhaps they sounded the same. He likes to end with a three syllable word followed by a disyllable. The trisyllable need not be a quantitative dactyl, but the final disyllable is always a quantitative spondee or trochee; i.e., the penultimate syllable is always long. So whereas he does not really care to make the opening word a proper dactyl or spondee, he is concerned to end the line as a line ended in Virgil and the other hexameter poets. One cannot conclude that he was trying to write hexameters and missed the mark or that he did not
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demythologization, see the case study of Jupiter: E. Heck, “Iuppiter-Iovis bei Commodian,” Vigiliae Christianae 30(1) (1976), 72–6. Siluanus unde deus iterum apparuit esse? /inde forte placet, eo quod bene fistula cantat? Noli homines blando nimium sermone probare; /Fistula dulce canit, volucrem dum decipit auceps.
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know that what he was doing was different.25 The schools taught prosody and versification, but a verse system that does not have phonemic support will change.26 No doubt Commodian’s freer verse reacts to the collapse of diphthongs and long vowels. In addition, however, his neglect of the rules seems related to his new message. The “Arians” wrote rhythmic hymns, and Augustine a rhythmic poem in response.27 Perhaps Commodian exploits, like Arnobius, the change in linguistic practice and a polemical, apologist resistance to the old canons and the pride in literary stylistics. Commodian uses the Distichs elsewhere, and their didacticism has more broadly influenced his verse.28 In the poem on Silvanus, the point of the original aphorism from the Distichs, the deception worked by the sweet sound, has recommended its reuse. If we remember the point of the Distich, the diction in Commodian has greater resonance: we recognize the deceit in sweet sounds. More broadly his prosiness can be found in the Distichs, and the declaration of a mediocre (middling and humble) style derives from Roman satire and in particular Horace. The Christian apologist Commodian found in the traditions and forms of Roman satire much that was useful for the criticism of social conventions and for a plain exhortation to the virtuous life. To rescue the traditionalist from stupidity and to turn the canon to good use amount to the same thing; for this salvation, what is needed is a new form, a new rhetoric divorced from surface glamour. Augustine thus joined a tradition of lively invective against the traditionalists. His uneasy attraction to the old literature was also part of this tradition (and not simply a biographical fact of his early schooling). He could have learned as well from his local literary precursors that literature itself could at the same time call for and exemplify a style that sought to reflect the novelty of the new religion while it bound together its readers into a new society.
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Poinsotte, Commodien Instructions, xii, makes the point clearly. At Instr. 2.19.7, Commodian takes over a line of the Distichs; at 3.17.2, only changing the final word damna to damnans. To import a real hexameter apparently did not upset his rhythm. M. L. Gasparov, A History of European Versification, trans. and ed. G. S. Smith et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). C. Lambot, “A Hymn of Augustine,” Revue Benedictine 47 (1935), 312–30. Opelt, Paradeigmata Poetica Christiana, 139–41, notes the selective appeal of the Distichs’ didactic form and diction, especially the imperatives (she demonstrates as well Commmodian’s significant omissions of some of the Distichs’ favorite expressions).
10
m Education, Grammar, and Rhetoric Yun Lee Too
[S]uddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or a girl (I do not know which), saying and repeating over and over again “Pick up and read, pick up and read” . . . So I hurried back to the place where Alypius was sitting. There I had put down the book of the apostle when I got up. I seized it, opened it and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit: “Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts.” (Rm 13:13–14)
This passage is perhaps the most cited one from conf. 8.12.29 because it presents the moment of Augustine’s moral conversion. I have put it at the start of my piece on the author because it thematizes the author’s concern with textuality: that is, for him, conversion takes place through his reading of a text, namely, a passage from Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans. It matters what one reads and how one reads – and especially so for Augustine, first, as a student of rhetoric and, later, as a foremost teacher of rhetoric in Roman Africa. After his conversion, his aim, as I have argued elsewhere,1 became to distinguish God’s Word from the everyday discourse of the world. Thus this chapter seeks to explore the intellectual milieu in which Augustine, as a foremost practitioner of public language, worked by looking at the educational, rhetorical, and grammatical influences on him. Augustine underwent a conventional acculturation into the verbal culture of his day, which regarded ability at oratory as key to later subsequent wealth and honor in public life. He underwent a classical Roman training, studying the authors that anyone learning the art of public speech would have been reading and emulating. Born in Thagaste, he was sent to school at Madaura 1
See Y. L. Too, The Idea of Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 218–52.
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at the age of eleven, where he learned Latin literature and, in particular, Virgil’s Aeneid (conf. 1.14.23), which was a key text in the curriculum of the time. Because he was of the upper classes (i.e., the honestiores), his first language would have been Latin. He declares an aversion to the Greek language and its literature, which rather than taken literally might be read as a subsequent rejection of the immorality represented in Hellenic literary culture, beginning with Homer’s account of the gods (1.13.20; cf. also 14.33 and 16.25), although it is the case that his work was markedly influenced by Plato’s thought. In antiquity, learning literature involved the student in an enactment of the narrative and the emotions depicted in a text. The pupil literally became what he read in this pedagogy. So, by his own account, he would have been caught up in the depiction of erotics in the text, which, in turn, led him to sexual exploration at the age of sixteen (2.2.20). Enacting Aeneas’ own story in the Aeneid, Carthage (cartago) was for the young Augustine the “cauldron (sartago) of illicit loves,” and he entered into a relationship with a woman there. One notes that in this world language is instantiated – as denoted by the similarity of cartago and sartago – for good or bad. Being taught enabled one, in turn, to teach. And so he began his teaching career back at Thagaste in 373–4, where he taught grammar (4.4.7). The following year found him in Carthage, running a school of rhetoric and dealing with unruly students. After eight years, he moved to Rome, where he had to deal with students who defaulted on their payments. Looking back on this career in the Confessions, he presents himself as someone whose life consisted “of being seduced and seducing, being deceived and deceiving,” by language and by women and so, as someone enacting his desire, “to love and to be loved” (2.2.3, 4.1.1). The life of rhetoric was a life of seduction and deception, opposed to the life of the Word of God, which constituted his world after his baptism in 387. It was in 384 that Symmachus, who was prefect of the city, chose Augustine to be the imperial professor of rhetoric at Milan and, therefore, the prominent representative of verbal culture in late antique North Africa, who was likely to move into a political position. Yet, for Augustine as a Christian, the figure of the teacher was radically reimagined. All teaching occurs through words or other signs (mag. 1.1–10.31), but God makes these signs understood (doc. Chr. 2.24.37). As a Christian, he would espouse Christ as the Inner Teacher, who instructs the soul, according to Miles Burnyeat.2 Because no human teacher can teach 2
M. F. Burnyeat, “Wittgenstein and Augustine De Magistro,” in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 61 (1987), 1–25, at 5; cf. Augustine, mag. 11.38.
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another, or more precisely, because no human teacher can teach another one to understand something, it takes the Inner Teacher to facilitate understanding. This line of thought follows De magistro, a dialogue written in 389 before his ordination to the priesthood, which dramatizes a conversation between Augustine and his son Adeodatus. Furthermore, signs and words are the vehicles of teaching, but not all teaching occurs through them because God is the ultimate teacher (cf. mag. 10.31).3 Originally, all of rhetorical culture was in conflict with Christian culture. Augustine spent time at Carthage learning the handbooks of rhetoric, which would have its uses even for him as a converted Christian. In conf. 4.2.2, he states that he left his “chair of lies (cathedra mendacii)” when he resigned his chair of rhetoric (9.2.4–5). Rhetoric is fundamentally amoral and therefore, in Augustine’s implicit binary logic, immoral. The time that Augustine spent in Manicheism after his discovery of Cicero’s Hortensius, which led him to be interested in philosophy while at Carthage (3.4.7), was also fundamentally involved in rhetoric in that the sect was a religion of the book, as Brian Stock observes.4 Yet despite the absence of concern for morality where rhetoric was concerned, Augustine understands the capacity of rhetoric and grammar to be used as tools for Christianity. Henri Marrou declared that the church could not disregard what was being taught in the “pagan” schools,5 and rhetoric was one of the arts included later in Augustine’s canon of liberal arts.6 Joseph Mazzeo notes that Cicero’s view that rhetoric should teach (docere), delight (delectare), and persuade (flectere) is expressed in doc. Chr. 2.16.23–5 and 2.29.45.7 In any case, Cicero and Quintilian provided some means for Augustine to accommodate them because these authors at least believed that rhetoric should be practiced by the virtuous person, but now as understood by Augustine in Christian terms, and Cicero’s mark on Augustine was also a philosophical one given the effect of the Hortensius on him. Certainly, Dave Tell argues that the practice of rhetoric is justified for Augustine if it is used 3 4
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Burnyeat, “Wittgenstein and Augustine De Magistro,” 8. B. Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1996), 44–5. H. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. G. Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956), 421. P. Burton, “The Vocabulary of the Liberal Arts in Augustine’s Confessions,” in K. Pollmann and M. Vessey (eds.), Augustine and the Disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 141–64. J. Mazzeo, “St. Augustine’s Rhetoric of Silence,” Journal of the History of Ideas 23(2) (1962), 175–96, at 183; cf. Stock, Augustine the Reader, 191. W. Wiethoff, “The Merits of ‘De Doctrina Christiana’ 4.11.26,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 15(3–4) (1985), 116–8, argues that Augustine rhetorically embellishes Christian teachings to make them attractive to their audience.
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for good ends.8 According to doc. Chr. 2.37.55, rhetoric is to be employed foremost not for ascertaining meaning but for setting meaning forth once it has been determined. Sarah Byers observes that Augustine notes with pleasure when Scripture follows the rules of style set by these classical writers on rhetoric at, for instance, en. Ps. 71.2 and 67.16, in commenting on repetition in the Psalms, treating a topic that Cicero (cf. Orat. 3.53.203 and 3.54.206) and Quintilian (Inst. 9.3.66–74) did in their works on rhetoric.9 In this Augustine demonstrates a need for Scripture to conform to non-Christian protocols of rhetoric because the goal of Christian writing, both scriptural and his own, was to persuade (e.g., doc. Chr. 4.2.3). But Apuleius, a North African rhetorician of the second century CE (ca. 125–80), was of marked importance when thinking about the Christian author. Like the former, he was born in Numidia and studied at Carthage, where he was celebrated with a statue. Augustine himself declares that Apuleius is especially known to him as an African because he was also an African. “Apuleius, after all, in order to speak of one in particular who was an African is better known to us Africans” (ep. 138.19).10 Harald Hagendahl and Peter Sanlon note that the two authors shared a common rhetorical style.11 Yet Apuleius is not so much a rhetorical guide, as Cicero and Quintilian were, as an important rhetorical counterpoint for Augustine, representing interests that were opposed to Christianity. In his civ. Dei 4.2, Augustine cites Apuleius’ De Mundo to provide support for the view that the earthly life is subject to change and devastation. And because Apuleius represented himself as a magician and a sophist, Augustine had to distance himself from him. Augustine refers to the magician’s De deo Socratis in discussing the demonology he dismisses (cf. civ. Dei 8.22). In civ. Dei 18.18, he cites the transformation of Apuleius into an ass and comments that he does not know whether such metamorphoses are fact or fiction. Augustine refers constantly to his predecessor, who represented a lifestyle opposed 8
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D. Tell, “Augustine and the ‘Chair of Lies’: Rhetoric in the Confessions,” Rhetorica 28 (2010), 384–407, at 388. J. Leinenweber, Letters of Saint Augustine (Tarrytown, NY: Triumph Books, 1992), 222, notes that Augustine regards Cicero as “the greatest master of Roman eloquence.” S. C. Byers, Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine: A Stoic-Platonic Synthesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 13. See V. Hunink, “‘APULEIUS, QUI NOBIS AFRIS AFER EST NOTIOR’: Augustine’s Polemic against Apuleius in ‘De Civitate Dei,’” Scholia: Studies in Classical Antiquity 12 (2003), 82–95. H. Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics, Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 20 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1967), vol. II, 686; and P. Sanlon, Augustine’s Theology of Preaching (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2014), 38.
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to the Christian one he was following in order to refute the latter’s views.12 In the classical curriculum, grammar was the twofold subject concerned with the correct parts of speech and with literature that preceded rhetoric. Henri Marrou declares that the student encountered the primary school teacher (grammatistēs), who taught basic literacy, before the grammarian (grammatikos), the teacher of literature, who was followed by the rhetor, the sophistēs or rhetor. Of the seven liberal arts, grammar, along with dialectic and rhetoric, deals with language, whereas the other group deals with numbers. But the division of the liberal arts was not so distinct because they had affinities with others across the divide. Grammar was also concerned with sound, its material, and therefore, it had affinities with music, one of the arts concerned with numbers (cf. Augustine, ord. 2.9). In retr. 1.6, Augustine mentions that he had written an early work on grammar now lost to us, perhaps an Ars (pro fratrum mediocratate) breviata, which would have been indebted to prior and contemporary grammarians such as Donatus and Charisius.13 Yet, of conventional grammar and its teaching, Augustine was critical. The arts of grammar are concerned with falsehoods (cf. conf. 1.13.22), whereas children remained ignorant of salvation while learning the rules governing letters and syllables (conf. 1.18.29).14 In Sol. 2.11.19, Augustine establishes that the fabulous and apparently false things he has been dealing with pertain to grammar. Despite this, grammar itself is ethically neutral and acts as a custodian over language: the grammarian was the custos vocis articulatae, the “guardian of articulate speech” (Sol. 2.11.19).15 Grammar was of importance to Augustine, and he was regarded as a grammatical authority. He offered his friend Nebridius advice on verbal forms of which the latter was uncertain (ep. 3.5).16
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14 15
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See N. Shumate, “The Augustinian Pursuit of False Values as a Conversion Motif in Apuleius’ ‘Metamorphoses,’” Phoenix 42(1) (1988), 35–60. A. Luhtala, Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity: A Study of Priscian’s Sources, Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science Series III, Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 107 (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 2005), 138; also V. Law, “St. Augustine’s De grammatica: Lost or Found?” Recherches augustiniennes 19 (1984), 155–83; as well as V. Hunink’s review of G. Bonnet, Abrégé de la grammaire de Saint Augustin. Collections des universities de France (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2013), in Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2014), at www.bmcreview.org/2014/03/20140361.html (accessed October 2015). Burton, “The Vocabulary of the Liberal Arts in Augustine’s Confessions,” 145. See R. Dodaro, “The Theologian as Grammarian: Literary Decorum in Augustine’s Defense of Orthodox Discourse,” Studia Patristica 38 (2001), 70–83, at 73; cf. Stock, Augustine the Reader, 135. J. Gavigan, “St. Augustine’s Friend Nebridius,” Catholic Historical Review 32 (1946), 47–58, at 48.
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According to retr. 1.6, Augustine finished writing one book on grammar, later lost from his bookcase, and then began working on five other disciplines, dialectic, rhetoric, music, geometry, arithmetic, and philosophy, which are the canon of the seven “liberal arts.”17 He had an interest in encyclopedic work, which was influenced by Neoplatonism and authors such as Marius Victorinus and Martianus Capella.18 In ord. 2.16.45, Augustine speaks of the “nearly divine power” of grammar and proposes that it has both a soul, which his mother Monica allies herself with, and a body, which the rhetoricians grasp at. In De doctrina Christiana, he states that grammatical skills set the sharp-eyed reader apart from the lazy reader who did not pay close attention to the text and was therefore deceived by it (2.31.48). Not reading carefully, that is, without knowledge of grammar, can lead to incorrect belief (3.33.46).19 Stock observes that also in De dialectica, Augustine dealt with grammar as well as dialectic and rhetoric so that it could help with problems of interpretation.20 In cat. rud. 9.11–16, a work dealing with how one should begin religious education, Augustine proposed that those who came from “the most well-visited schools of grammarians and orators [quidam de scholis usitatissimis grammaticorum oratorumque venientes]” could move to a better understanding of biblical texts. Grammar was thus seen as a propaedeutic for scriptural study.21 This field of study is removed from the purely linguistic arena to one that is predominantly hermeneutical, and Augustine’s view that grammar assisted the understanding of God anticipated Wittgenstein’s view that theology is grammar. The “treatment of Scripture (tractatio scripturarum)” in the first three books of De doctrina Christiana reveals why grammar was so important for correct understanding of Scripture. Catherine Chin observes that the “treatment of Scripture” here has much in common with the late antique grammatical analysis of texts known as tractatio.22 The schools of grammar taught the resolution of verbal ambiguity, proper word division and word usages, and Augustine espoused this in his use of grammar in scriptural study. Book Two of De doctrina Christiana treats grammatical issues, whereas Book One deals with distinguishing between “things” and “signs” (1.2.2). Chin notes that Augustine compares the work of the Roman litterator or grammaticus to
17 18 19
20 21 22
Burton, “The Vocabulary of the Liberal Arts in Augustine’s Confessions,” 141. Luhtala, Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity, 138. See M. McCarthy, “‘We Are Your Books’: Augustine, the Bible and the Practice of Authority,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 75 (2007), 324–52, at 331. Stock, Augustine the Reader, 138. Ibid., 383, n. 111. C. Chin, “The Grammarian’s Spoils: De doctrina Christiana and the Contexts of Literary Education,” in Augustine and the Disciplines, 169.
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his own task of scriptural exegesis in De doctrina Christiana.23 The use of grammar enables the transfer and dislocation of knowledge from the secular to the religious, from Egypt to Israel.24 For Augustine, the grammarian was the authority on discourse and on meaning. Dodaro discerns that Augustine used this role of the grammarian as the watchman over articulate language in order to advocate what he regarded as orthodox doctrine.25 So the theologian rebuffs the Manichean Faustus on various inconsistencies within the Old and New Testaments, which he regards as a theologically unified text. He also takes issue, for instance, with verbal license (licentia verborum), so Plotinus is faulted for using language that threatens religious orthodoxy. But the authors of the Bible are permitted verbal license where it supports a reading of virtue in the text: accordingly, Augustine defends Gen 29–30 and the patriarchs where Faustus sees the text, which, for example, presents Jacob as having four wives, as spurious (cf. c. Faust. 22). Grammar becomes theology because it is about meaning and interpretation, and one becomes a good reader of Scripture by being an adept manipulator of grammatical rules. In Augustine’s life education, rhetoric and grammar remained constant pursuits. Grammar was an important tool to aid understanding for his “pupils” in school and in church. While the preconversion Augustine saw teaching as occurring through language alone, the postconversion Augustine understood the role of God as acting in someone coming to an understanding of what language conveys. Likewise, the preconversion Augustine understood rhetoric as a tool for deception, whereas the Christian author viewed rhetoric as taught by pagan authors as a discourse that needed to convey morality. Grammar helped the Christian Augustine with understanding and explanation of scriptural texts no less than with pagan literature. What we have, then, is not only the conversion of the author but also the conversion of education, rhetoric, and grammar to Christian goals. To use one of Augustine’s own images from De doctrina Christiana Book Two, he spoiled the Egyptians, as did the Israelites in taking vessels, gold, silver ornaments, and clothes for their own use while leaving behind the idols and heavy burdens that they otherwise hated (2.40.60). These tools should be taken away from the “Egyptians” for the sake of preaching the gospel and therefore for a Christian use.
23
24 25
C. Chin, Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World, Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2013), 88. Chin, “The Grammarian’s Spoils,” 182. Dodaro, “The Theologian as Grammarian,” 75–80.
11
m Scripture and Biblical Commentaries Stephen A. Cooper “What are those things in your pack?” demanded the Roman proconsul of Africa, Vigellius Saturninus, to a group of Christians arrested in July of 180 CE. “Books, and letters of Paul, a just man,” a certain Speratus responded. This interrogation scene in the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs provides the first evidence of a Latin Bible, for Greek had been the first language of Christians in the western empire and lingered in the Roman church well into the third century. While it is unclear that the bilingual Tertullian possessed all the Scriptures in Latin, the writings of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (248/9–258), evidence the existence of a Latin Bible.1 Yet we must not be deceived by the singular form of the term with which we denominate the pre-Vulgate Latin translations of the Bible: Vetus Latina, or “Old Latin.” Jerome in his Novum opus Preface to the Vulgate gospels said of the Vetus Latina that “there are almost as many originals [exemplaria] as there are copies.” Only in 405 did Jerome complete the Vulgate he had begun by revising the Vetus Latina gospels for Damasus in 384.2 A Vulgate edition of the epistles was similarly made around 400, probably by Jerome’s friend Rufinus of Syria. Augustine’s life coincided with the “Golden Age of Latin Christian literature,”3 but when he was born (354), there was just the beginning of a Latin tradition of biblical commentary. Only one Latin author, Victorinus, the martyr-bishop of Petau (283–304), had left a significant legacy of exegetical works. How different the situation at the end of Augustine’s days! Within his lifespan, Latin biblical exegesis burgeoned, with eleven other authors producing works on biblical books. A survey of these commentators 1 2
3
H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 3–18. See C. B. Tkacz, “Labor Tam Utilis: The Creation of the Vulgate,” Vigiliae Christianae 50 (1996), 42–72. A. di Berardino (ed.), Patrology, The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1992), vol. 4.
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and their exegetical works illuminates the context of Augustine’s own labors in the field of biblical exegesis. We divide the Latin commentators of the early church into two categories: those who wrote before Augustine’s decisive conversion in summer 386 (Victorinus of Petau, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory of Elvira, Marius Victorinus, Ambrosiaster) and those whose works were (mostly) composed thereafter. This latter group encompasses the well-known figures of Augustine’s world: Ambrose, Jerome, Tyconius, Rufinus, Pelagius, and Julian of Aeclanum. Also in this group is the pithy commentator on the fourteen-letter Pauline canon known as the Budapest Anonymous from the location of the manuscript preserving the work. Tyconius’ commentary on Revelation, composed before his famous Liber regularum (written ca. 392), is unfortunately lost but has been partially reconstructed from quotations in later commentaries.4 Of all these authors, only two rival Augustine in volume of exegetical works: Victorinus of Petau and Jerome of Stridon. Jerome’s work in its quantity and quality is without parallel or peer, owing to his knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic, his personal contacts with Greek exegetes, and his access to Eusebius’ library in Caesarea that housed Origen’s Hexapla. Into Jerome flowed the interpretative methods of both secular – historical, literary, and philological – studies and theological interpretive traditions of literal and figurative reading.5 Ambrose and Rufinus of Aquileia also read Greek, which defined (in different ways) their impressive exegetical corpora. Rufinus is distinct in that his commentaries are all translations of Origen’s works, most important, his mighty tome on Romans, the only complete commentary we have from the great Alexandrian.6 The direct impact of Greek exegetes made itself felt in Ambrose’s exegetical œuvre, which is also exceptional among Latins as a very substantial corpus consisting almost entirely of homilies or texts composed from homilies. In their level of coverage of the biblical texts, these can be divided into those that are topical homilies – such as his great treatments of the patriarchs and other figures from the Hebrew Bible – and those that resemble commentaries in being systematic treatments of a full unit of a biblical text. His On the Six Days goes verse by verse through Gen 1, and 4
5
6
See R. Gryson (ed.), Tyconii Afri Expositio Apocalypseos, CCL 107A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). For the exegetical œuvre of Jerome, too complex to discuss here, see D. Brown, Vir Trilinguis: A Study in the Biblical Exegesis of Saint Jerome (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992). See Thomas Scheck’s Introduction, in Origen, Commentary on the Epistles to the Romans, FC 103 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 2 vols.
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On Paradise continues the close treatment of the text. The method of continuous commentary is also the rule in Ambrose’s lengthy expositions of select psalms (Exposition of Psalm 118 and Interpretation of Twelve Psalms of David).7 This mode of treatment contrasts with that of On Isaac and the Soul, which is rather an exegetical essay and treats Sg. 1–8 more completely than the relevant passages in Genesis. His only full treatment of a New Testament work is his commentary on Luke in ten books. Ambrose’s unacknowledged use of Origen’s homilies on Luke stimulated Jerome to translate this latter work to embarrass the bishop of Milan, whom he despised.8 There is little wonder that Origen was the main source for the first Latin commentator, Victorinus of Petau.9 Victorinus was bishop of Poetovio,10 and his Greek was better than his Latin, as Jerome tells us, such that “his works, grand in their meanings, appear rather paltry through the arrangement of his language” (vir. ill. 74). Jerome also says there that Victorinus composed works on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Matthew, and Revelation, drawing heavily on the commentaries of Hippolytus and Origen (ep. 36, 16; in Eccl. 4, 13–16). Only the commentary on Revelation survives, largely because Jerome reissued it, correcting its style, moderating the chiliasm, and adding material from Tyconius’ commentary on Revelation.11 The disappearance of Victorinus’ other works cannot obscure the fact that they influenced many fourth- and fifth-century authors of Italy, Africa, Gaul, and Spain. Victorinus’ exegesis incorporated historical and literal analysis along with allegorical readings of the sacred text. His Commentary on Revelation opens without preface – an element developed by literary scholars and used by most biblical commentators – but later fills in historical details, e.g., that “John was on the isle of Patmos, condemned by Caesar Domitian to the mines” (in Apoc. 10.3). He does not quote the whole biblical text but skips through it, giving brief explanations of words, phrases, and occasionally longer units. He decodes the apocalyptic symbolism of Revelation, quotes other scriptures – Matthew and Isaiah are favorites – to clarify points, 7
8
9
10 11
See H. G. Reventlow, History of Biblical Interpretation: From Late Antiquity to the End of the Middle Ages, trans. J. O. Duke, Resources for Biblical Study 61 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), vol. 2, 45–86. S. M. Oberhelman, “Jerome’s Earliest Attack on Ambrose: On Ephesians, Prologue,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 121 (1991), 377–401. See M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio, premier exégète latin (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 1993), 2 vols. Modern Ptuj in Slovenia, formerly Petau in Styria. Both editions have been edited by Johannes Hausleiter for the Vienna Corpus, CSEL 49.
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and draws attention to significant matters of belief and practice. His interpretation of the opening vision of the “seven stars” (Rev 1:20) is important for the principle of generalizing the message of Paul’s letters. The seven letters in Rev 2:1–3:22 address seven congregations, but “not because they are the only churches or the leading churches . . . Paul has taught that seven churches mean all churches, and that the seven churches mean the one catholic church.” The apostle Paul addressed only individuals in his other letters in order to establish this symbolism of the number seven (in Apoc. 1.7). The first of a series of fourth-century commentators, Hilary of Poitiers, profited from Victorinus of Petau’s work. Hilary’s exegetical compositions arose in the context of the trinitarian controversy. His Commentary on Matthew was composed before his exile (356–61) to the east, and his later works were written during or after his exile, when he became proficient in Greek and got acquainted with Origen’s works. These later compositions include a commentary on Psalms and a translation of Origen’s homilies on Job (Jerome, vir. ill. 100). Hilary’s Commentary on Matthew employs the traditional idea of two levels of meaning: “The word of God is rich . . . and very necessary to any progress, whether it is understood simply or looked at more deeply” (comm. in Matth. 12, 12). Jesus’ deeds too must be read so as to reveal the “inward meaning” and the “spiritual understanding.” His approach to the Psalms is Christocentric: “The things said in the Psalms ought to be interpreted in accord with the gospel message, so that no matter by what mouth the Spirit of prophecy has spoken, the whole thing would pertain to the knowledge, glory, and power of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (in Ps., Prol. 5). Although Hilary grants that the superscriptions to individuals psalms have a historical meaning relating to the events and their times, “through the corporeal meaning of the superscriptions the spiritual purport of the psalm makes itself understood” (ibid., 22). This work’s lengthy Prologue, filled with information about various numerological symbolisms in the Psalms, bespeaks Hilary’s use of Origen’s work. Another Latin veteran of the Nicene cause who composed biblical commentaries was Gregory of Elvira, “the most important and best-known Spanish author prior to Isidor of Seville.”12 Gregory’s commentary on the Song of Songs, the first in Latin and difficult to date, shows the influence of Origen, probably through the translations of Rufinus and Jerome. Gregory’s commentary extends only to Sg. 3:4 and is entitled Epithalamium (“wedding song” in Greek; cf. Origen, in Cant. 1.1). His approach is that of Origen – the impossibility of a literal interpretation (defectus litterae) indicates the need 12
Di Berardino, Patrology, vol. 4, 85.
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for a “spiritual understanding” – yet this work is not slavishly dependent on the previous treatments by Hippolytus and Origen.13 Marius Victorinus, a professor of rhetoric in Rome, also made a splash in the trinitarian controversy shortly after his conversion in 355 or 356, with dense philosophical treatises and hymns. In 363, he turned his hand to compose works on the Pauline epistles (Jerome, vir. ill. 101), the first in Latin. Extant are commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, and Philippians, but internal references indicate he also commented on Romans and the Corinthian correspondence. Marius characterizes his work as commentatio simplex (in Eph. Prol. Book II) or expositio simplex verborum (in Eph. 1:11; in Gal. 4:18).14 He maintains a progressive exposition of the text, consisting largely of paraphrase and summary, and provides brief clarifications of syntax or vocabulary when necessary, occasionally with consultation of the Greek. This method of expository paraphrase was at home in the schools of grammar and rhetoric, both Latin and Greek. His Prefaces are a model of brevity in presenting the summa – “sum and substance” – of Paul’s message in each epistle. Yet Marius’ literal-historical approach did not inhibit him from including philosophical digressions (in Eph. 1:4–8; in Phil. 2:6–11, in Gal. 4:6) to expound on the deep matters of God and the soul intimated by the apostle. Fully competent in Greek, Victorinus apparently wrote his commentaries without consultation of Greek exegetes. For this Jerome lambasted him in the Preface of his own commentary on Galatians as “completely ignorant of Scripture.”15 Part of Jerome’s harsh judgment comes from his conviction that comparison of exegetical opinions is the essence of a learned commentary. Within less than a half century after Victorinus’ treatment of the Pauline corpus, six other Latins produced exegetical works on this most popular part of the Bible for commentary: Ambrosiaster (thirteen epistles), Jerome (Galatians Ephesians, Titus, Philemon), Augustine (Galatians and Romans), the Budapest Anonymous (fourteen epistles), Rufinus (Romans), and Pelagius (thirteen epistles). Excepting the translations and adaptations of Origen by Jerome and Rufinus, “a thread of continuity amid the variations from one commentator to the next in this Roman tradition is the style of 13
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See D. Gianotti, “Gregorio di Elvira interprete dei Cantico dei Cantici,” Augustinianum 24 (1984), 421–39. See S. Cooper, Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 110–26. St. Jerome: Commentary on Galatians, trans. A. Cain, FC 121 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 57. Cain’s introduction provides an excellent account of Jerome’s method and sources.
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commentary,” as Theodore de Bruyn has well observed.16 Despite differences of form and quantity of comment, these commentaries all share Victorinus’ aim of reproducing a clear account of the apostle’s teachings and the situation of the believers addressed in his epistles.17 These commentators use the basic approach of the grammarian – the clarification of verba and res, or language and subject matter – to render an expository paraphrase of a lemmatized text and apply to the Pauline Corpus the grammarian’s principle of interpreting “Homer from Homer.”18 Compared with the commentators influenced by Alexandrian exegesis, they adduce fewer outside Scriptures. This is very evident in the case of the Roman presbyter we call Ambrosiaster, whose works were issued anonymously and circulated widely because of their ascription to Ambrose.19 This publicityeschewing commentator was familiar with Victorinus’ work and had by 384 composed the first complete Latin commentary on the Pauline canon.20 His basic method consists of explanatory paraphrase, where he occasionally draws on other Pauline letters or Acts of the Apostles to establish the historical context. In a rare methodological remark, Ambrosiaster acknowledges the role of both history (historia) and text (litterae) in making exegetical decisions (in this case, to accept the reading of Gal 2:5 without the negative particle). On Rm. 5:14, he invokes Tertullian, Cyprian, and Victorinus of Petau as witnesses to the antiquity of Vetus Latina readings against those who would revise them in light of recent Greek copies (Jerome). Ambrosiaster’s Questions on the Old and New Testaments, transmitted under Augustine’s name, is not altogether a work of exegesis. Many of its “questions” are polemical and doctrinal treatises, and most of the exegetical ones are directed to a single passage or verse. A few questions, such as Q. 111 (Ps. 23) and Q. 112 (Ps. 50), are mini-commentaries, much like the homilies of Ambrose or Jerome on the Psalms that quote and comment on a given psalm text completely. 16
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T. S. de Bruyn, Pelagius’s Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 2. On this literal style, see M. Simonetti, Lettera e/o allegoria: un contributo alla storia dell’esegesi patristica, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 23 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum, 1985), 237–54. C. Schäublin, “Homerum Ex Homero,” Museum Helveticum 34 (1977), 221–7. See D. Hunter, “The Significance of Ambrosiaster,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 17 (2009), 1–26. See the Introduction in T. S. de Bruyn, Ambrosiaster’s Commentary on the Pauline Epistles: Romans, Writings from the Greco-Roman World (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2017).
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The last two original Latin commentators on Paul, Pelagius, and the Budapest Anonymous, produced commentaries of great concision. Pelagius’ work, composed between 405 and 410, is the most compact of the continuous commentaries. Taking the Vulgate as his basis, he treats the entire text of the epistles with brisk explanatory remarks. Pelagius used the works of Ambrosiaster, Rufinus’ Origen on Romans, and the even more compact commentary of the Budapest Anonymous.21 This recently discovered work, the first to include Hebrews, was composed between 396 and 405 by a Latin competent in Greek, a reader of Origen, and a follower of Antiochene exegesis. The commentary’s form is a radical innovation.22 The biblical text is not quoted in short units, but the comments are sprinkled in like scholia, generally after sizable chunks of the commented work. Philippians, for example, contains nine such insertions of comment. The author shows his keen historical sense in his remark on the apostle’s greeting to the Philippians “with their bishops and deacons”: “Note that he calls priests [presbiteros] ‘bishops.’” The comments occasionally extend beyond one or two sentences, rarely more than three or four, such as when needed to clarify the meaning of “born of a woman” in Gal 4:4, a passage ripe with possible misunderstandings. Another set of exegetical works written with a decided bent toward literal interpretation are the commentaries of Julian of Aeclanum on Job, the minor prophets (extant on Hosea, Joel, and Amos), and the Song of Songs (fragments in Bede).23 These were likely composed in the 420s in Sicily in the period after Julian found temporary refuge with Theodore of Mopsuestia. He also translated Theodore’s Commentary on Psalms 1–40. Julian used the Vulgate and pursued the Antiochene version of literal commentary. His treatment of the minor prophets is less compact than Ambrosiaster, resembling in its comprehensiveness Theodore’s commentaries on the minor Pauline letters, which were translated into Latin between the fifth and seventh centuries.24 G. de Plinval has enumerated Julian’s exegetical principles in three points: to recover the intentio auctoris, to explain difficult passages in light of clear ones, and to reinforce the “real meaning of the text independent of all subjective or symbolic interpretation.”25 Although Plinval 21 22
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De Bruyn, Pelagius’s Commentary, 7. H. J. Frede (ed.), Ein neuer Paulustext und Kommentar, Aus der Geschichte der lateinischen Bibel 8 (Freiburg: Herder, 1973, 1974), vol. 2, 217–26. See Y.-M. Duval, “Iulianus Aeclanensis restitutus. La première edition – incomplète – de l’œuvre de Julien d’Éclane,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 25 (1979), 162–170. R. Greer, Theodore of Mopsuestia: The Commentaries on the Minor Epistles of Paul, Writings from the Greco-Roman World 5 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), xii. G. de Plinval, “Julien d’Éclane, devant la Bible,” Recherche de science religieuse 47 (1959), 345–66.
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maintains that Julian’s exegetical works show “no trace of his doctrinal polemic,” Julian’s commentary on Job (3.4) seems to contain a reference to the Pelagian controversy: “The life of holy Job is praised so that the good of human nature might be acknowledged.” It is a sign of the ground covered in this period that the Latin tradition began with the Alexandrian-influenced Victorinus of Petau and Hilary, moved to the development of a native Latin literalism by Victorinus and Ambrosiaster, then to a blend of allegorical and historical approaches in Jerome, and finally to reach Julian of Aeclanum and the full importation of the Antiochene approach into the Latin exegetical tradition. Even if Augustine in the end turned out to be “an heir of the Alexandrian tradition,” as Richard Norris has maintained,26 it is surely no accident that his exegetical writings display a broad knowledge of the variety of forms of scriptural commentary.
26
R. A. Norris, “Augustine and the Close of the Ancient Period of Interpretation,” in A. J. Hauser and D. Watson (eds.), A History of Biblical Interpretation, vol. 1: The Ancient Period (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 380–407, at 406.
12
m Latin Christian Literature I (Polemical and Theological Writings) Josef Lössl
Three areas spring immediately to mind when considering the context of Augustine’s intellectual endeavor with a focus on polemical and theological writings in early Latin Christian literature: (1) Tertullian, Cyprian, Novatian, and the third/early-fourth-century apologists, (2) the aftermath of the “Arian” controversy that saw the rise of writers such as Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose of Milan, and (3) Augustine’s own time with its various controversies against Manicheans, Donatists, Pelagians, and writings related to the ongoing discussions about the nature of God and Christ in the aftermath of the Council of Constantinople (381) and in the run-up to the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451).
from tertullian to lactantius Born around 170, Tertullian, a resident of Carthage in Roman North Africa, wrote his main extant works in the years between 196 and 212.1 The breadth, depth, and impact of his thought on later writers are proverbial. Augustine, who seems not to have liked him personally and treats him as a heresiarch and founder of the sect of “Tertullianists,”2 nevertheless had to admit to his enormous influence and never hesitated to borrow from the many sound bites he had coined, among them, for example, the saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church (Tertullian, Apol. 50.13).3 1
2
3
See T. D. Barnes, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 57–114. See F. Chapot, “Tertullian,” in A. D. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 822–4, at 823. The motif is frequently used by Augustine in his sermons (e.g., s. 22.4.4; 286.4.3; 301.1.1).
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Tertullian’s work was characterized by the need to delimitate Christian teaching and practice against Judaism and “pagan” religion as well as against variations within Christianity. As a dominant literary figure, Tertullian, although – seen from a later perspective – not entirely “orthodox” himself, nevertheless assumed a decisive position in formulating what became orthodox doctrine in Latin Christianity. He wrote apologies such as the famous Apologeticum, doctrinal works directed against heretics (e.g., Against Marcion, Against Praxeas, and Against the Valentinians; and even a work entitled Prescriptions against All Heresies is attributed to him) and also works on ascetic and ritual practice (e.g., On Baptism or On Monogamy). It was in his polemical writings that Tertullian developed Latin theological terms and concepts that make him the single most important early Christian theologian in Latin before (and arguably even beyond) Augustine. In his Prescription against All Heresies, he holds the term traditio and the concept of a baptismal formula or “symbol” against the constant tendency to creatively vary and innovate Christian teaching. Ironically, in doing so, he became himself one of the great innovators and creative theologians in early Christianity. In Against Praxeas, he argued against modalism, the powerfully attractive and deceptively simple teaching that there was no differentiation in God and that God, Father and Son, was simply one. Instead, he taught that there was a dynamic threeness in God, notwithstanding God’s oneness. In order to express this concept, he used the term substantia, a first in Latin theology. In his view, God was one substantia, though constituted of three. At this stage, Tertullian still avoided the term persona, but the scene was set for later developments in Latin trinitarian theology. Finally, in The Resurrection of the Flesh and The Flesh of Christ, he argued that in becoming man Christ really took on human flesh and that it was only because of this salvific act that the human flesh too would rise from the dead and attain eternal life. It must be appreciated that Tertullian made this intervention in an intellectual climate dominated by teachings that tended to exclude the flesh from salvation.4 Cyprian of Carthage provided the model of an African bishop and a considerable body of polemical and theological works. He influenced several competing Christian traditions, above all the Donatist and the catholic churches of North Africa. He had become bishop of Carthage only a few years after his conversion around 246 and led the church through the Decian persecution in 250. In the years following the persecution, 4
C. Moreschini and E. Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson), vol. I, 332–41.
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a controversy broke out triggered by Novatian, who attacked the bishop of Rome for not being rigorous enough in excluding Christians who had lapsed during the persecution.5 In his work On unity, Cyprian took a decisive stance in favor of the bishop of Rome and emphasized the importance of the church as an institution and the bishop as its authoritative leader: “Outside the Church there is no salvation,” and “one cannot have God as father if one does not have the Church as mother” (Cyprian, unit. eccl. 6).6 Other works by Cyprian include a personal apology, To Donatus (one could see it as an early type of “confessions”), a collection of biblical testimonies on various questions, To Quirinus, works on the Lord’s Prayer, on mortality, on almsgiving, on idolatry, and several more. During the Great Persecution toward the end of the third century and in the early fourth century, two Latin apologists rose to fame whose works would greatly influence Latin theology during the decades to come, Arnobius and his pupil, Lactantius. Both were North African professors of rhetoric who became Christians relatively late in their lives and whose works are influenced by “pagan” philosophical teachings. Arnobius, for example, whose main extant work Against the Nations dates between 304 and 310 (during the Diocletianic persecution), seems to have believed in the mortality of the human soul, which is overcome by merits accrued during a person’s earthly life. With this he stood against the Neoplatonism of his time and its leading figure, Porphyry (who also openly polemicized against Christians and seems to have played an intellectual role in the Great Persecution), and links up with a more materialist tradition represented by Epicureanism and its main Latin protagonist, Lucretius.7 Far more influential than Arnobius’ work was that of his pupil, Lactantius, entitled Divine Institutes.8 This work is crucial for understanding the development of Latin theology during the transitional early fourth century, especially since Lactantius rewrote it a few years later (ca. 313) and dedicated it to the newly acceded Emperor Constantine, who had recently come out in favor of Christianity shortly after his victory in the battle at the Milvian
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8
V.-E. Hirschmann, Die Kirche der Reinen. Kirchen- und sozialhistorische Studie zu den Novatianern im 3. bis 5. Jahrhundert, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 96 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 1–83. See P. B. Hinchliff, Cyprian of Carthage and the Unity of the Christian Church (London: Chapman, 1974). On this and many other questions, see M. B. Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 3–19. A. Bowen and P. Garnsey, Lactantius. Divine Institutes, Translated Texts for Historians 40 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003).
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Bridge in 312. Although very philosophical, even Gnostic,9 in outlook – an Augustinian concept of grace, for example, was alien to him – his polemical attitude toward “paganism” nevertheless contained many affinities with Augustine’s later work, especially the City of God, where he can be found cited a number of times,10 not only passages from the Divine Institutes but also from some of his other extant works such as The Workmanship of God, The Wrath of God, and The Deaths of the Persecutors.
milestones of the latin fourth century Lactantius’ profile remained rather strong in early-fourth-century Latin theological literature partly because of his links to Constantine, who employed him at his court (as tutor to his sons),11 partly because of the apparent lack of other high-profile theological writers in Latin during his lifetime. He died around 325, the year when the Council of Nicaea triggered a theological debate that was about to change Christianity forever. The impact of that debate, which was centered around the “heretical” teachings of Arius and the refusal of his adherents as well as a whole range of other theologians in the east to accept the Council’s formula that the Logos or Son (i.e., Christ) was “consubstantial (homoousios)” with God the Father, was at first not very strongly felt in the Latin west. It was only after the death of Constantine in 337 and the accession in the east of his son, Constantius II, who supported or at least accommodated the opponents of Nicaea, that the Latin Church was gradually dragged into the conflict. Influenced by Nicene exiles such as Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra, it eventually sided with the Nicenes.12 Outstanding among the Latin authors who first did so was Hilary of Poitiers. Protesting against the new regime, he was exiled to Phrygia, where he rallied support, learned Greek and eastern theology, especially Origen, and wrote On the Trinity, commentaries on Matthew and the Psalms, and polemical works On the Synods and against various representatives of the 9
10
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A. Wlosok, Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 1960), 9–45. For details, see M. P. McHugh, “Lactantius,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 489–90. On his potential influence on imperial policy and legislation, see E. De Palma Digeser, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 56–147. On Athanasius and Marcellus in the west, see S. Parvis, Marcellus of Ancyra and the Lost Years of the Arian Controversy, 325–345, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 179–99.
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imperial party (e.g., Auxentius, bishop of Milan, Dioscorus, Ursacius, and Valens), including the emperor himself (Against the emperor Constantius). He assumed a similar role for the west as Athanasius represented for the east, a champion of the Nicene cause. He died in 367–8.13 Another champion of the Nicene cause in the west was Ambrose of Milan. He had been a provincial governor before he was controversially appointed bishop of Milan as head of the minority Nicene party in that city, replacing the above-mentioned Auxentius.14 His struggle for the Nicene cause was still ongoing when Augustine spent time in Milan between 384 and 387. Around this time (during the 380s), he wrote On the Faith,15 On the Holy Spirit, and On the Incarnation of the Lord. All three works engaged with crucial and controversial theological questions of the day (the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, and the full humanity of Christ against the “heresy” of Apollinarius). In them, Ambrose also made extensive use of Greek sources, especially works of Athanasius, Didymus, and Basil of Caesarea. This made him one of the key mediators of Greek Nicene theology in the Latin west. His strength lay in using this theology, in its Latin form, which he had created, to help establish Nicene Orthodoxy politically in the west (both in secular and ecclesiastical terms) and push back the “Arian” (= Homoean) faith that had found the support of several emperors from Constantius II to Valentinian II. Augustine experienced Ambrose firsthand during his residence in Milan between 384 and 387 and writes, in conf. 5.13.23, how he enjoyed “the sweetness of his oratory.” Drawing, among others, on Greek sources including, for example, Philo of Alexandria, Ambrose presented homilies on all manner of Old Testament topics, from Paradise and Cain and Abel to Elijah and the book of Tobit.16 Other Greek sources used by Ambrose include Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea. Beyond that, Ambrose wrote works on the ascetic life, e.g., On Virginity, on catechesis (e.g., On the Christian Mysteries), numerous letters, which he himself carefully edited and published as a collection, and hymns, some of which have survived until today.17
13
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16 17
R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 459–506. N. McLynn, “Ambrose of Milan,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 17–19 at 17. The definite article is deliberate here. What is meant is not faith in the modern sense, but the doctrine expressed in the creed. Moreschini and Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, vol. II, 275–8. See Moreschini and Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, vol. II, 271–3 and 280–6.
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Ambrose died in 397, shortly after Augustine had become bishop of Hippo. It was only then that Augustine began to refer more openly to him in his works, for example, for the first time, in Confessions.18 After that period, references occur more frequently, and during the Pelagian controversy, Augustine copiously cites Ambrose (alongside Cyprian) as an episcopal peer, especially against the deposed and exiled bishop Julian of Aeclanum.19 While Hilary and Ambrose became models for the later bishop Augustine, another theologian who flourished around the middle of the fourth century resembled him in his African origins and his background as philosophically inclined rhetor, properties that also link him with Lactantius, namely, Gaius Marius Victorinus. Victorinus was already of advanced age when he became a Christian around 355. Active in Rome and highly acclaimed, he had written works on grammar and rhetoric and translated philosophical texts, including Aristotle’s Categories and works by Plotinus and Porphyry. After he converted to Christianity, he wrote commentaries on the Pauline epistles20 and commentarial works on the Nicene Creed, especially the concept of homoousios, which were at the same time polemical against its opponents, perceived by Victorinus to be Arius himself and his adherents. They include four books Against Arius, a treatise On the Necessity of Accepting Consubstantiality, and Hymns on the Trinity.21
theological and polemical writing during augustine’s own flourishing Much of the literature produced during Augustine’s flourishing (386–430) is known to us through his engagement with it, be it Manichean, Donatist, Priscillian, Pelagian, “pagan,” “Arian,” or other. Only some of this literature can be briefly mentioned here. From the 370s or 380s dates Tyconius’ Book of Rules,22 a complex work on biblical hermeneutics that strongly influenced Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine. Around the same time, the author of an extensive commentary on the Pauline epistles and of Questions on the Old and New Testaments was 18 19
20
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McLynn, “Ambrose of Milan,” 18. E. Dassmann, “Ambrosius,” in C. P. Mayer et al. (eds.), Augustinus-Lexikon (Basel: Schwabe, 1986), vol. 1, 270–85; E. Dassmann, “Cyprian,” Augustinus-Lexikon 2 (1996), 196–211. See S. A. Cooper, Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 16–126. Moreschini and Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, vol. II, 262–8. P. Bright, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic, Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 2 (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988).
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active in Rome. His real name is lost, and instead he is known in modern scholarship as “Ambrosiaster.”23 Subscribing by and large to a literal exegesis, he interprets the biblical texts with reference to historical, political, and personal issues. Apparently also in the early 380s, Pelagius arrived in Rome from Britain. He was to write an influential Pauline commentary, too, as well as letters and ascetic writings. His works On Nature and In Defence of Free Will were to become foundational for a serious alternative to Augustine’s theology.24 Shortly after Pelagius, in 383, Jerome of Stridon arrived in Rome and began a long and in many ways notorious career not so much as a theologian than as a polemicist and exegete. An early work of his is the Debate between a Luciferian and an Orthodox, in which the fault lines between Nicene and anti-Nicene positions are explored in view of rebaptism, a practice that Jerome argued never existed in the orthodox tradition.25 Later, around 415, Jerome was among the first to engage polemically with Pelagianism in his Dialogue against the Pelagians. Jerome’s initiative in this regard in fact predates that of Augustine.26 Another important role in Latin theology during Augustine’s time was played by Jerome’s erstwhile friend and later enemy Rufinus of Aquileia, who flourished around 400. His translations of major Greek theological works had a deep impact on the theology of the Latin west. He translated Origen’s First Principles into Latin alongside works supporting Origen, such as the first book of Eusebius’ and Pamphilus’ Defense of Origen. He justified his work in an Apology and affirmed his own orthodoxy in works such as his Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, including against enemies such as Jerome, who accused him of trying to conceal the “heretical” nature of Origen’s teaching by sanitizing his translations.27 An author who should perhaps also be mentioned here, who is only known through Augustine’s own works, is Julian of Aeclanum. He wrote polemics against Augustine, in defense of Pelagius and Caelestius after their condemnation in 418, and in doing so also touched on various theological
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S. Lunn-Rockliffe, Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 11–88. G. Greshake, Gnade als konkrete Freiheit: eine Untersuchung zur Gnadenlehre des Pelagius (Mainz: Grünewald, 1972), passim. Canellis, “Saint Jérôme et les Ariens,” 155–94. B. Jeanjean, “Le Dialogus Attici et Critobuli de Jérôme et la prédication pélagienne en Palestine entre 411 et 415,” in A. Cain and J. Lössl (eds.), Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 59–72. Moreschini and Norelli, Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, vol. II, 321–5.
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topics, for example, on the creed and on specific questions regarding creation, Christology, and marriage.28 Augustine’s exceptionally close and detailed engagement with Julian’s works cannot hide the fact that, in general, as Michael Williams has put it, he “was not a great reader of his Christian contemporaries.”29 Still, in a wider cultural sense, all the literary output both of his time and of the centuries before him is very much mirrored in his work, and this is certainly true in the case of Latin Christian theological and polemical writings.
28 29
M. Lamberigts, “Iulianus Aeclanensis,” Augustinus-Lexikon 3 (2008), 836–47. Williams, “Augustine as a Reader,” 227.
13
m Latin Christian Literature II (Moral and Spiritual Writings) David G. Hunter
Several distinct streams of tradition nurtured the moral and spiritual writings of Latin Christianity in Augustine’s day. First, there was the native Christian literature of North Africa, represented most clearly by Tertullian and Cyprian, but also present in a variety of pseudonymous texts, often attributed to Cyprian, such as The Single Life of the Clergy and The Hundredfold, Sixtyfold, and Thirtyfold Reward (the former attacked unmarried clerics who lived in “spiritual marriage” with unmarried women; the latter presented a hierarchy of merits from martyrs to virgins to sexually continent married persons).1 The North African literature included numerous acta of the Christian martyrs, much of it preserved in fourth-century Donatist circles.2 Similar rigorist ideals appeared in the writings of the third-century Roman presbyter Novatian, who established an ecclesial tradition that persisted for centuries. But the context of Augustine’s thought was also shaped by the moral and spiritual writings of Greco-Roman philosophy. Augustine himself attested to the influence exerted on him by Cicero’s Hortensius, an exhortation to pursue the philosophical life, and later by the “books of the Platonists.”3 In the early 380s at Milan, Augustine also encountered Christian Platonism in the sermons and ascetical treatises of bishop 1
2
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The dates and provenance of these texts remain unknown. Neither De singularitate clericorum nor De centesima, sexagesima, tricesima is available in a published English translation. A useful collection of the Donatist documents can be found in M. A. Tilley (ed.), Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa, Translated Texts for Historians 24 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996). Augustine spoke of Cicero’s Hortensius in conf. 3.4.7–8 and the Libri platonicorum in conf. 7.9.13–15.
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Ambrose. The later years of the fourth century and early years of the fifth also saw a proliferation of the literature of asceticism and monasticism, for example, the letters and treatises of Jerome, Pelagius, and their supporters, as well as in Latin translations of monastic lives and rules, many reflecting eastern Christian traditions. Some of these traditions differed from the views taken by Augustine himself, but all of them deserve further attention here.
earliest latin christian literature From its inception, Latin Christian literature was profoundly concerned with moral and spiritual issues. The earliest extant Christian Latin texts (e.g., the Acts of the Martyrs of Scilli and the Passion of Perpetua) show that martyrdom loomed large in the Christian imagination, especially in North Africa, and subsequent North African writers confirm this. The earliest known Latin Christian author, Tertullian of Carthage, emphasized the need for Christians to remain faithful in times of persecution and eventually argued that flight from persecution was not acceptable (On Fleeing during Persecution). Living in ancient Carthage, a center of Roman culture in the early third century, Tertullian was especially preoccupied with the issue of how Christians should differentiate themselves from their non-Christian contemporaries, and he wrote treatises rejecting remarriage after the death of a spouse (To His Wife, An Exhortation to Chastity, On Single Marriage), endorsing fasting on special days (On Fasting), and forbidding penance for serious sin (On Penance, On Purity). His essays on idolatry (On Idolatry) and on the military crown (On the Crown) also attempted to persuade Christians to detach themselves from any activities that might entail worship of pagan deities. While Tertullian’s gradual involvement in the “New Prophecy” (i.e., Montanism) rendered him suspect to later generations, his influence on subsequent Latin literature remained profound, especially through intermediaries such as Cyprian and Jerome. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was another pivotal figure in the mid-third century who helped to define North African notions of penance and the purity of the church. But Cyprian also addressed specific moral issues, such as the behavior and comportment of Christian virgins (The Dress of Virgins) and the practice of almsgiving (On Works and Almsgiving). The latter treatise, as well as Cyprian’s essay On Mortality, was written in response to a plague that raged in Carthage in 252–4. Cyprian saw the sufferings of the plague, like those of martyrdom, as an opportunity for Christians to practice
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detachment from the world, to engage in acts of charity, and to embrace the life to come: What greatness of soul it is to fight with the powers of the mind unshaken against so many attacks of devastation and death . . . to rejoice rather and embrace the gift of the occasion, which, while we are firmly expressing our faith, and having endured sufferings, are advancing to Christ by the narrow way of Christ, we should receive as the reward of his way and faith.4
The other third-century century author whose writings shaped the context in which Augustine’s thought emerged was the Roman presbyter Novatian. Like Tertullian before him, Novatian represented a rigorous stream of tradition in the western church. Elected bishop of Rome in opposition to Cornelius, he resisted what he perceived to be excessive laxity in receiving penitent sinners into the church. He specifically opposed the granting of penance to Christians who had lapsed during the persecutions of the mid-250s. But Novatian also wrote treatises on matters pertaining to sexual morality (The Good of Purity) and attacking Christian attendance at public shows, athletic competitions, and gladiatorial combats (On the Public Games). In the former work, Novatian articulated a hierarchy of degrees of sexual purity (pudicitia): the highest level was perpetual virginity, the second was sexual continence within marriage, and the third was marital fidelity. Such hierarchies became a staple of western ascetical theology, although, as we will see later, they were challenged by a succession of Christians in the later fourth century. Despite (or perhaps because of) his rigorism, churches that followed Novatian remained active well into the fifth century, especially at Rome. His moral writings, which were heavily influenced by Tertullian and Cyprian, often circulated under the name of Cyprian, which helped to ensure their continued influence.5
the emergence of latin christian platonism: ambrose of milan In his Confessions, Augustine noted that reading the “books of the Platonists” had great influence on him during the years in Milan that preceded his 4
5
Cyprian, mort. 14 (R. J. Deferrari [trans. and ed.], Saint Cyprian: Treatises, FC 36 [New York: Fathers of the Church, 1958], 210). A new English collection of Novatian’s writings has recently been published: J. L. Papandrea (trans. and ed.), Novatian: On the Trinity, Letters to Cyprian of Carthage, Ethical Treatises, Corpus Christianorum in Translation 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015).
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conversion and baptism in 387. He had read works of Plotinus and, perhaps, of Porphyry that had been translated into Latin by the Roman rhetor Marius Victorinus, whose dramatic conversion at Rome was still remembered a generation later.6 But in these years Augustine was also attending the sermons of Ambrose, and there he encountered moral and spiritual teaching deeply influenced by Ambrose’s own reading of Platonic philosophy, as well as the bishop’s familiarity with Origen, the Cappadocian fathers, and Philo. Ambrose’s sermons, which he revised for publication after delivery, sometimes incorporated material verbatim from the writings of Plato and Porphyry, a fact that encouraged Augustine, among others, to believe that there was little that separated Christians and Platonists on fundamental questions such as the nature of God, the soul, and the ascent of the mind to God.7 For example, Ambrose composed several biblical commentaries based on his oral preaching, such as The Six Days of Creation, On Paradise, On the Patriarchs, and a series on King David, among others. Employing the allegorical method he had learned from Philo, Origen, and the Cappadocians, Ambrose was able to turn the biblical stories into moral lessons and symbols of the spiritual life. Among the best known of these is the treatise On Isaac, or the Soul, in which he employed verses from the Song of Songs to portray the marriage of Isaac and Rebecca as an allegory of the spiritual union between God and the soul and the relation between Christ and the church. At the same time, he incorporated into his interpretation excerpts from Plato and Plotinus (unacknowledged) in a manner that gave a distinctively Platonic cast to the union of God and the soul.8 In addition to his exegetical writings, which must certainly be considered “moral” or “spiritual” works, Ambrose composed a number of books that 6
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The Milanese presbyter Simplicianus had told Augustine the story of Victorinus’ conversion (conf. 8.2.3–5). On the content of the Libri platonicorum, see J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), vol. 2, 413–26; vol. 3, 12–20; and P. Courcelle, Les Confessions de saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire: Antécédents et postérité (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1963), 31–58. The foundational study of Victorinus remains P. Hadot, Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1971). Ambrose’s debt to the Platonic philosophers, as well as to Philo, has been amply demonstrated in the following studies: P. Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustine. Nouvelle edition augmentée et illustrée (Paris: Boccard, 1968), 93–138, 311–82; H. Savon, Saint Ambroise devant l’exégèse de Philon le juif (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1977); G. Madec, Saint Ambroise et la philosophie (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1974). P. Hadot, “Platon et Plotin dans trois sermons de saint Ambroise,” Revue des études latines 34 (1956), 202–20. On Ambrose’s originality despite his reliance on other sources, see G. Nauroy, “La structure de De Isaac vel anima et la coherence de l’allegorèse d’Ambroise de Milan,” Revue des études latines 63 (1985), 210–36.
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can properly be considered “ascetical” treatises. His earliest literary product, issued in 377 but based on earlier sermonic material, was the threebook treatise Concerning Virgins; this was followed the next year by a short treatise On Virginity, in which he defended himself against the charge that he had been too zealous in his promotion of virginity. In the same year he also produced a short treatise for widows (On Widows). Concerning Virgins is characteristic of Ambrose’s habit of taking material from earlier writers (usually unacknowledged) and weaving it into a synthesis that was uniquely his own. In this case, he borrowed extensively from a letter to virgins composed by Athanasius, as well as from writings of Cyprian.9 Ambrose’s deep interest in the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a model for consecrated Christian virgins became a focal point of his later writings and exerted an enormous influence on subsequent Marian theology in the west.10 The next section of this chapter looks more closely at the literature produced within the ascetic and monastic movements. Here it must be noted that Ambrose was an ardent supporter of early western monasticism, both in his preaching and in his practice. In his Confessions, Augustine noted that Ambrose had nurtured a monastery for men outside of Milan.11 He also eagerly supported the consecration of young women to lives of perpetual virginity, as attested in his later sermons, The Education of a Virgin and An Exhortation to Virginity.12 Ambrose also promoted the practice of appointing monastic candidates to the office of bishop, something that was a novelty in his day. For example, in one of the last letters of his life, Ambrose praised bishop Eusebius of Vercelli for being the first in the west to combine “the restraint of the monastery and the discipline of the church”; that is, for living as both a bishop and a monk.13 Ambrose’s famous treatise On Duties, which he modeled on Cicero’s book with the same title, promoted the ideal of an ascetic clergy.
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Y.-M. Duval, “L’originalité du De virginibus dans le mouvement ascétique occidental. Ambroise, Cyprien, Athanase,” in Ambroise de Milan: XVIe Centenaire de son election épiscopale (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1974), 9–66. For a good overview of Ambrose’s Mariology, see C. W. Neumann, The Virgin Mary in the Works of Saint Ambrose, Paradosis 17 (Fribourg: University Press, 1962). Augustine, conf. 8.6.15. On the significance of the ritual of consecration of virgins, see D. G. Hunter, “Sacred Space, Virginal Consecration, and Symbolic Power: A Liturgical Innovation and Its Implications in Late Ancient Christianity,” in J. Day et al. (eds.), Spaces in Late Antiquity: Cultural, Theological, and Archaeological Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2016), 89–105. Ambrose, ep. ex. 14.66 (CSEL 82.2: 270): monasterii continentia et disciplina ecclesiae.
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latin monastic and ascetical literature The later years of the fourth century and early years of the fifth century saw a great proliferation of Latin moral and spiritual writing. Much of this literature was produced to provide spiritual direction for men and women engaged in lives of ascetic renunciation, whether in the context of organized monasteries or, more often, in the context of withdrawal within private households or estates. In addition to Ambrose, other prominent western proponents of asceticism and monasticism included Jerome, Pelagius, Paulinus of Nola, Sulpicius Severus, and John Cassian. A wide variety of genres characterized these ascetic and monastic writings. Biographical texts were especially popular, beginning with the Greek Life of Antony, the Egyptian hermit, that was composed in approximately 356 by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. This vita was quickly translated into Latin and numerous other ancient languages. Augustine testified to the influence of the Life of Antony on western Christians in his Confessions.14 Among western Christian authors, the monk and presbyter Jerome of Stridon stands out for the extent, variety, and sheer vehemence of his ascetical writings. In addition to his biblical commentaries and translations, he composed several lives of monks: the Life of Paul, the Life of Hilarion, and the Life of Malchus. The first of these, the life of Paul of Thebes, appears to have been a literary effort to upstage the Life of Antony by presenting Paul as the first to undertake the life of a hermit. Many of Jerome’s letters were also mini-treatises that addressed issues in the ascetic life, often offering guidance to virgins and widows, who had become his literary patrons. Perhaps the most famous of these is Letter 22 to Eustochium, the virgin daughter of Jerome’s devoted friend Paula, outlining an educational program for the incipient ascetic. Other notable epistles were his Letter 107 to Laeta (another letter of instruction for the training of a virgin), Letter 108 to Eustochium (a consolation on the death of her mother, Paula), and Letter 52 to Nepotian (an essay on how to combine the monastic life and service in the clergy).15 Jerome, however, had a tendency to treat his rivals with contempt, and his Letter 22 to Eustochium contained passages of bitter sarcasm directed against the Roman clergy, whose way of life he thought too soft. Not surprisingly, Jerome faced opposition from the clergy 14 15
Augustine, conf. 8.6.14. Two of these letters have recently received new editions, translations, and commentaries by A. Cain: Jerome’s Epitaph on Paula: A Commentary on the Epitaphium Sanctae Paulae, with an Introduction, Text, and Translation, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Jerome and the Monastic Clergy: A Commentary on Letter 52 to Nepotian, with an Introduction, Text, and Translation, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 119 (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
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on the death of Pope Damasus in 384, and he was soon forced to leave Rome for the east. In addition to his monastic biographies and letters, Jerome also authored polemical works that defended his ascetical views, especially on the value of sexual continence, against Christians such as Helvidius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius, who sought to moderate the ascetic enthusiasm that was widespread in the west and to make marriage a respectable option for Christians. Jerome would have none of it. His two books, Against Jovinian, composed in 393, took an uncompromising stand against the monk Jovinian, who had argued that marriage and celibacy were equally valuable vocations and would merit equal reward in heaven. Jerome’s treatise Against Helvidius argued strenuously for the perpetual virginity of Mary against Helvidius’ claim that Mary and Joseph produced other children after the birth of Jesus. Jerome’s Against Vigilantius combined a defense of sexual continence with a vigorous apology for the cult of relics. Jerome’s overly zealous defense of asceticism and his tendency to speak about marriage with great hostility provoked opposition from many of his contemporaries, including his former friend, Rufinus of Aquileia, and Augustine. The Good of Marriage and On Holy Virginity were Augustine’s efforts to promote celibacy while acknowledging the value of marriage.16 Jerome may have thought it desirable to flee to the east, but other Christian ascetics remained in the west and established their own indigenous forms of monastic life. Among the best known was Martin of Tours, whose life story was recorded by the Gallic presbyter Sulpicius Severus. Sulpicius composed a Life of Martin in 396, a year before the saint’s death; he followed this during the next decade with several letters, a book of Dialogues, and a Chronicle, which provided further stories about his monk-hero turned bishop. One of the more intriguing aspects of Sulpicius’ work is the extent to which it reveals tensions between ascetics, such as Martin and Sulpicius and many of the bishops in Gaul.17 Paulinus of Nola, a long-time friend of Sulpicius, was another advocate of ascetic renunciation. After the death of his young son, Paulinus repudiated his secular career and, after adopting a life of sexual continence with his wife, Therasia, devoted himself to fostering the cult of St. Felix at Nola. He is the 16
17
For a comprehensive account of the “ascetic debates,” see D. G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). On this aspect of Sulpicius’ work, see C. Stancliffe, St. Martin and His Hagiographer: History and Miracle in Sulpicius Severus, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).
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author of fifty-one extant letters to many notable Christians, including Jerome and Augustine. He also developed the genre of Christian poetry, composing a significant corpus of poems (carmina), the largest portion of which were natalicia, written to commemorate the death of St. Felix on January 14.18 Among the most influential Latin writers on asceticism and monasticism was the eastern monk John Cassian. Born in Scythia (part of modern-day Bulgaria and Romania), John was well educated in Greek and Latin. He traveled widely in the east and became well acquainted with eastern forms of monasticism, especially from a sojourn in the Egyptian desert of Scetis and Nitria. John eventually came west and founded a monastic community in Gaul near Marseille. His major writings on the ascetic life are the Institutes, a book of guidelines for the formation of monastic communities, and Conferences, a record of his conversations with desert fathers on the spiritual life. Cassian’s monastic writings became well known in the west partly because they were mentioned with approval in the Rule of St. Benedict.19 They became a major source of knowledge of eastern monastic traditions in the west. Although Cassian has sometimes been seen as a source of the “semi-Pelagian” heresy (i.e., the view that human beings could take initial steps toward God by their unaided free will), scholars are now more inclined to stress his insistence that God’s grace is absolutely necessary for anything pertaining to salvation.20 Augustine’s own work as a moral or spiritual writer was influenced by the contexts described in this chapter, but he also stood apart from them in significant ways. Although he was deeply sympathetic to the ascetic life – even to the point of establishing a clerical monastery at Hippo – as a bishop Augustine devoted himself to shaping the lives of his lay congregation, primarily through his preaching. His writings on marriage and virginity shared the common view that celibacy constituted a superior way of life. But Augustine also argued that no celibate Christian could ever claim to be superior to a married one: there were virtues that were more important than sexual abstinence, and often these virtues lay
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The best introduction to the literary work of Paulinus is D. Trout, Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, Poems, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 27 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Benedict, Reg. 73. E.g., A. Casiday, Tradition and Theology in St. John Cassian, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 103.
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hidden even from those who possessed them.21 But perhaps the greatest contrast between Augustine and other spiritual writers in this context was his insistence on the weakness of human nature and the absolute necessity of divine grace to heal and direct the human will toward God. In contrast to an ascetic writer such as Pelagius, who emphasized the strength of human nature and the power of human will to choose the good,22 Augustine argued that any virtuous thought or action must be attributed to God’s grace alone.
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Augustine had in mind virtues such as obedience, humility, and especially readiness for martyrdom. As he argued in virg. 44.45, “How can the virgin know whether perhaps she is not yet a Thecla [a virgin martyr], but the married woman is already a Crispina [a married martyr]?” See, e.g., Pelagius, ep. ad Dem. 2.1: “Whenever I have to speak on the subject of moral instruction and the conduct of a holy life, it is my practice first to demonstrate the power and quality of human nature and to show what it is capable of achieving” (B. R. Rees [trans.], The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers [Woodbridge: Boydell, 1991], 36).
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m Letter Writing and Preaching Jaclyn Maxwell Although usually overshadowed by more famous theological works, the collections of letters and sermons from late antiquity have attracted more attention in recent years due to growing interest among scholars in the social and cultural context of the church fathers. In addition to providing insight into the life and thought of important theologians, the letters and sermons of Augustine and his contemporaries are particularly valuable for how they reflect the day-to-day life of a bishop: the guidance and discipline of the laity and clergy, as well as the administrative work of maintaining correspondence with a broad network of contacts. Augustine’s intellectual legacy might surpass that of most other thinkers of his time, but his correspondence and preaching allow us to understand him as a bishop operating within the larger framework of the religious and cultural transformations taking place during the fourth and fifth centuries. Late antique letters vastly outnumber their classical predecessors, with collections surviving from both “pagan” and Christian authors, including correspondence among bishops, monks, emperors, orators, and political officials.1 Augustine’s epistolary corpus includes just over 300 letters, the majority coming from his time as bishop of Hippo. His correspondence includes letters exchanged with other well-known figures of his time, such as Jerome and Paulinus of Nola. This period was also the “golden age” of Christian preaching throughout the Roman Empire, as Christian leaders aimed to attract more adherents and promote their understandings of orthodoxy against their rivals.2 Augustine’s is the largest collection of
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C. Sogno, B. K. Storin, and E. J. Watts (eds.), Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016). The designation “golden age” occurs in the subtitles of volumes three and four of J. Quasten’s Patrology (Westminster: Christian Classics, 1991–2).
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sermons in Latin, numbering over 500 and spanning his ecclesiastical career from his ordination as presbyter in 391 to his death in 430. In addition to his works, numerous sermon collections from across the Roman Empire have been preserved, from the Coptic sermons of Shenute of Atripe in Upper Egypt to the Eusebius Gallicanus collection composed in fifth- and sixth-century Gaul.3 Letters and sermons were originally produced in much greater quantities than the texts we have today. For instance, given that he preached every Sunday and on festivals, Augustine alone must have preached several thousand sermons; we have no idea how many letters he wrote but did not copy and archive.4 The same goes for all the authors whose works survive, plus the countless bishops who preached regularly to their congregations and maintained correspondences, but, because they were less impressive rhetoricians, their words were not preserved. Fifth-century church historian Socrates Scholasticus provides an anecdote that reminds us of the lost unremarkable sermons from the “golden age” of preaching: the bishop Atticus of Constantinople started off memorizing sermons he had written beforehand, later graduating to extemporaneous speaking. Despite this improvement, “His discourses, however, were not such as to be received with much applause by his auditors, or to deserve to be committed to writing” (H.E. 7.2). This must have been especially conspicuous given that one of the bishop’s recent predecessors had been John Chrysostom, who had earned his nickname “Goldenmouth” for his eloquence. Neither letters nor sermons can always be pinned down as belonging to distinct genres. For instance, lengthy letters might be indistinguishable from treatises.5 If recited, a letter could function as an oration or sermon.6 In general, though, letters differ from other types of texts insofar as they are written messages conveyed from sender to recipient(s).7 Sermons as 3
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D. Brakke and A. Crislip, Selected Discourses of Shenoute the Great: Community, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); L. Bailey, Christianity’s Quiet Success: The Eusebius Gallicanus Sermon Collection and the Power of the Church in Late Antique Gaul (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). On the “new” letters and sermons discovered since the 1970s, see P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, new ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 441–81. B. Neil, “Continuities and Changes in the Practice of Letter-Collecting from Cicero to Late Antiquity,” in B. Neil and P. Allen (eds.), Collecting Early Christian Letters from the Apostle Paul to Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 3–17, at 14. P. Allen, B. Neil, and W. Mayer, Preaching Poverty in the Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Realities (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlaganstalt, 2010), 44–53. R. Gibson and A. D. Morrison, “What Is a Letter?,” in R. Morello and A. D. Morrison (eds.), Ancient Letters: Classical And Late Antique Epistolography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 1–16.
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a genre can also be ambiguous. Although related to classical oratory, the liturgical context and the focus on Christian doctrine distinguish sermons from other types of public speaking. Sermons evolved from earlier, smallerscale discussions within Christian communities, influenced by both Jewish teaching and classical rhetoric, later reaching larger audiences in the churches built following the “conversion” of Constantine.8 Some sermons could be categorized as scriptural commentary, hagiography, or theological treatises, whereas Syriac sermons are similar to hymns.9 Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms provides another example that is difficult to categorize: part of the collection was written in the style of homilies but not delivered as such, whereas the other part consists of actual homilies.10 Ultimately, the categorization of a letter or a sermon has more to do with its original purpose than with the style or length of the text.
classical rhetoric and christian contexts During the second half of the fourth century, increasing numbers of bishops came from local elite families and were educated in classical literature, rhetoric, and philosophy. As these men became increasingly influential as both patrons and spiritual leaders, their education and social standing merged with the spiritual authority of their episcopal office.11 Bishops drew on their classical educations when communicating with their friends, colleagues, and government officials. They followed the conventions of letter writing, often including classical as well as Christian references. Certain types of letters, such as recommendations, were (and still are!) largely formulaic and remained recognizable across “pagan” and Christian authors: all followed the rules of polite correspondence in order to build and maintain 8
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A. Stewart-Sykes, From Prophecy to Preaching: A Search for the Origins of the Christian Homily, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 3–24; W. Mayer, “Homiletics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 565–83, at 568–71. On Syriac chanted homilies, see Mayer, “Homiletics,” 570. On sermons and commentaries, see P. Rousseau “Homily and Exegesis in the Patristic Age: Comparisons of Purpose and Effect,” in A. J. Quiroga (ed.), The Purpose of Rhetoric in Late Antiquity, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 72 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 11–29. A. Olivar, La Predicación Cristiana Antigua, Biblioteca Herder 189 (Barcelona: Herder, 1991), 933. C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 37 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 172–207. On the common culture based on classical education, see S. Elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 49 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 6–14, 21–6, 479–82.
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social networks.12 Episcopal letters were not noticeably different in form, but they often addressed new concerns: advocacy for certain theological positions, intercession in episcopal elections, and matters related to clerical discipline.13 Likewise, rhetorical training, which dominated traditional Greek and Roman advanced education, became especially important for preachers who needed to hold their congregations’ attention, convey information about theological beliefs, and convince their congregations to live accordingly. The techniques of Christian oratory were essentially the same as ever, but the context of the speeches and the urgency of the message were new. The stakes of preaching were high: the defense of orthodoxy and salvation of their listeners. Although some Christian authorities viewed the use of rhetoric with suspicion, others understood that this skill was necessary for effective communication with the laity. Ambrose of Milan worried that persuasive rhetoric could mislead people to believe in false doctrines. Instead, he advised preachers to follow the model of the gospels and speak in plain language and, above all, to keep the attention of their listeners.14 In the final book of On Christian Doctrine, Augustine defends the usefulness of traditional rhetorical training for Christian orators in order “to teach, to delight, and to persuade” (4.17.34). Christian orators, however, should not follow Cicero’s instructions to link the low, middle, and high style with the relative importance of the topic because, for Christians, all preaching related to the grand topic of salvation. Instead, different styles should be used for teaching, praising, or persuading following Paul’s letters and subsequent Christian authors as models (4.18.35–21.50). Like Ambrose, Augustine emphasizes the importance of keeping the listeners’ attention, advising preachers to seek feedback from their audiences. For preachers, tears were a better response than ovations: “they indicated by applause that they were being taught or pleased, but tears indicated they were persuaded” (4.24.53). Similarly, John Chrysostom’s treatise, On the Priesthood, advises preachers on how to interpret their congregations’ reactions and warns them not to get sidetracked seeking applause (sac. 5).15 Despite the pitfalls created by 12 13
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R. Rees, “Letters of Recommendation and the Rhetoric of Praise,” in Ancient Letters, 149–68. On Augustine’s deviation from convention in his letters of rebuke, see J. Ebbeler, Disciplining Christians: Correction and Community in Augustine’s Letters, Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 56–62. T. Graumann, “St. Ambrose on the Art of Preaching,” in Vescovi e Pastori in Epoca Teodosiana, Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 58 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1997), 587–600. On sermons’ references to applause, see Olivar, La Predicación, 834–67.
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rhetorical skill and fame, successful preaching often helped to establish a bishop’s authority and factored into the career advancement of those who participated in the “nexus of rhetorical performance, social status, patronage, and material benefits.”16
letters as social networks The letters surviving from late antiquity reveal much about the authors’ social circles and how they used these connections to build patronage networks. Most collections include “pagan” and Christian correspondents, which allows us to compare how the writers expressed their religious identities in different contexts. Educated bishops highlighted their classical educations and/or their expertise in Christian matters, aiming to establish a common ground with their correspondents.17 Augustine’s letters focused on Christian topics, but by conforming to the style expected of educated correspondents, his education and social status were unmistakable. Although his biographer, Possidius, reports that Augustine refused to write letters interceding with civil authorities for his friends, several letters of recommendation survive in his collection. Éric Rebillard has observed that Augustine’s ability to influence government officials was due as much to his “social capital” from his renown among the educated as to his standing as bishop.18 Studies of individual letter collections besides Augustine’s have focused on letters as social performances that aimed to project the writer’s authority. Jerome, famous for his attacks against doctrinal enemies, used his correspondence to promote himself as the preeminent exegete of his time, a model ascetic, and defender of orthodoxy.19 In a less combative case, Paulinus of 16
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P. Van Nuffelen, “A War of Words: Sermons and Social Status in Constantinople under the Theodosian Dynasty,” in L. Van Hoof and P. Van Nuffelen (eds.), Literature and Society in the Fourth Century AD: Performing Paideia, Constructing the Present, Presenting the Self, Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava, Supplementum (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 201–17, at 203. A. M. Schor, “Becoming Bishop in the Letters of Basil and Synesius: Tracing Patterns of Social Signaling across Two Full Epistolary Collections,” Journal of Late Antiquity 7(2) (2014), 298–328; A. M. Schor, “Patronage Performance and Social Strategy in the Letters of Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus,” Journal of Late Antiquity 2(2) (2009), 274–99, at 277–83. É. Rebillard, “Augustine and the Epistolary Rituals of the Social and Cultural Elite of his Time: A Processual Analysis of the Relations between Bishop and City in Late Antiquity,” in Transformations of Religious Practices in Late Antiquity, Collected Studies (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), 89–114, at 107. A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis, and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiquity, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 30–67.
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Nola’s letters provide more examples of a bishop drawing on both classical traditions and Christian innovations.20 Recent volumes by Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil represent the ongoing work of scholars on these questions, bringing together information from letter collections of various authors from across the Roman world.21
the preacher’s audience Despite the uncertainty about exactly how broadly letters circulated, they mostly remained within literate circles. The potential audience of sermons, however, was quite different, but there has been much debate over the extent to which they reached ordinary, uneducated laypeople. Ramsay MacMullen has argued that theological discussions and sermons were only meant for, and were only of interest to, upper-class Christians. He points to the disproportionate focus on the wealthy in many late antique sermons, arguing that this reflected the socioeconomic groups attending the sermons – mostly rich people. Even when ordinary laypeople attended church for festivals, the sermons were not aimed at them.22 Wendy Mayer and others have argued that sermons were not restricted to an elite audience. Although the preachers’ rhetorical skills were rooted in elite culture, the primary purpose of these skills was to communicate with and persuade the public.23 The advice in treatises on preaching and the descriptions of popular eloquent bishops by biographers and historians from this period support the view that sermons addressed the general Christian populace. The texts themselves also reflect the original context of the preachers addressing their congregations, with direct comments about the presence of a broad spectrum of society.24 A comment by Basil of Caesarea directly acknowledges the 20
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C. Conybeare, Paulinus Noster: Self and Symbols in the Letters of Paulinus of Nola, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 19–35. P. Allen and B. Neil, Collecting Early Christian Letters and Crisis Management in Late Antiquity (410–590 CE): A Survey of the Evidence from Episcopal Letters (Leiden: Brill, 2013). R. MacMullen, “The Preacher’s Audience (AD 350–400),” Journal of Theological Studies 40 (1989), 503–11; R. MacMullen, The Second Church: Popular Christianity AD 200–400, Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplement Series 1 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 14–32, 104–11. W. Mayer, “John Chrysostom: Extraordinary Preacher, Ordinary Audience,” in P. Allen and M. Cunningham (eds.), Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, New History of the Sermon 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 109–14; J. Maxwell, Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and His Congregation in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 65–7. On references within sermons reflecting the interaction of preachers and audiences, see R. J. Deferrari, “St. Augustine’s Method of Composing and Delivering Sermons,” American Journal of Philology 43(2) (1922), 97–123, and 43(3) (1922), 193–219.
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socioeconomic diversity of his listeners: “many artisans, employed in manual labors and who earn just enough at their daily work to provide for their own nourishment, are surrounding me and obliging me to be brief, so I will not keep them too long from their jobs” (hex. 3.1). John Chrysostom also recognized the working layperson’s time constraints: “I urge you to go to church at dawn and confess and give thanks, pray . . . Let each one leave the church and take up his daily tasks: one hastening to work with his hands, another hurrying to his military post, and still another to his position in government” (catech. 8.17). If these descriptions of their congregations are accurate, then the sermons can be seen as reflections of communication that went far beyond the theologians’ inner circles. Furthermore, some sermons indicate that the church fathers were not undisputed authorities but, instead, often struggled to persuade their congregations with varying rates of success.25
behind the scenes: messengers and note takers Letters and sermons were composed or performed for specific, immediate audiences, but they also reached secondary audiences because these texts circulated more broadly in this period and later on. Outside the imperial postal system, ancient letters were delivered via private couriers. Bishops’ letters were often carried by other clergymen and sometimes by monks and laymen and women.26 Ancient letters were not considered to be private correspondence – in addition to the messengers themselves, the recipients could read letters out loud to their friends or in public or even circulate the letters to others.27 As a result, correspondents conveyed sensitive information via the messengers themselves. When concerned about a letter’s authenticity, ancient correspondents could look for the writer’s handwriting or signature.28 The breakdown in the communication between Augustine and Jerome provides a well-known example of how the system was not always reliable: one letter from Augustine did not reach Jerome until nine years after it was written, but it had circulated widely in Italy and beyond. Another letter took a year to reach Jerome.29 25
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É. Rebillard, “Interaction between the Preacher and His Audience: The Case-Study of Augustine’s Preaching on Death,” in Transformations of Religious Practices, 27–36; Maxwell, Christianization, 144–68. P. Allen, “Christian Correspondence: The Secrets of Letter-Writers and Letter-Bearers,” in H. Baltussen and P. J. Davis (eds.), The Art of Veiled Speech: Self-Censorship from Aristophanes to Hobbes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 209–32. Ibid., 212. Ibid., 213–19. Ibid., 219.
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Most sermons that survive from late antiquity were delivered extemporaneously and recorded by shorthand writers, notarii, who were employed by Augustine and other leading bishops.30 Bishops who were traveling, ill, or in exile wrote (or, rather, dictated) sermons in the form of letters to be read out loud by others in their churches.31 Sermons could also be recorded and then circulated to others. Augustine was willing to let others present his sermons, particularly when preachers were not up to the task of composing their own. Preachers who might be at a loss for words could “take something eloquently and wisely written by others, memorize it, and offer it to the people in the person of the author” (doc. Chr. 4.29.62). Later, in the sixth century, Caesarius of Arles also composed sermons for fellow bishops in Gaul, Italy, and Spain, drawing on existing sermons by Augustine, Ambrose, and others.32
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Deferrari, “St. Augustine’s Method,” 105–9. Ibid., 101–3. Bailey, Christianity’s Quiet Success, 1–38.
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m Philosophical Trends in Augustine’s Time Giovanni Catapano Augustine lived in one of the most homogeneous periods of the history of philosophy. In his time, the philosophical schools, which had animated the Hellenistic age with their vivid and bitter debates, were virtually reduced to a single one, the Platonic. Platonism had gradually incorporated conceptual elements and doctrinal instances of the rival schools, especially of the Peripatetic and the Stoic. At the same time, from Plotinus (205–70) onward, Platonism had taken on a new form, currently called “Neoplatonism,” the main exponents of which were, immediately after Plotinus, Porphyry (ca. 234–305) and Iamblichus (ca. 245–325).
greek neoplatonism Neoplatonism is first and foremost the so-called doctrine of the three hypostases, according to which the material universe comes from three supreme incorporeal causes, which Plotinus called, respectively, “One [hen],” “Intellect [nous],” and “Soul [psychē].” The One is an absolutely simple principle that coincides with the Good and is unknowable, ineffable, and infinite. The Intellect proceeds by emanation from the One and, by turning to it, is determined into the multiplicity of the intelligible Forms. The Intellect therefore coincides with the world of Ideas and thinks eternally itself. From the Intellect, again by emanation, proceeds the Soul, which is similar to the Intellect because of thinking but differs from it because the Soul’s thinking is discursive. The Soul is lower than the Intellect as the Intellect is lower than the One; that is, as the effect is inferior to its cause and as the image is inferior to its model. From the Soul, finally, proceeds the matter of the corporeal world, on which the Soul projects the forms that give rise to the bodies. This metaphysical scheme, formulated by Plotinus, for instance, in the treatise On the Principal Three Hypostases (Enn. 5.1 [10]) and 119
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exegetically based on an innovative reading of Plato’s Parmenides, was implemented by later Neoplatonists with some changes, which will lead, especially in the thought of Iamblichus and Proclus (412–85), to the distinction of a multiplicity of intermediate levels. A second feature of Neoplatonism is the mystical concept of humankind’s ultimate end. The human being is the temporary result of the union of a rational soul with a body, a union described in Platonic terms as a “fall” of the soul. The soul must recover from this fall and return to the divine world from which it comes, ascending the hierarchy of hypostases up to join the One through an ecstatic experience that exceeds all intellectual knowledge. According to Plotinus, this ascent is in the power of the soul because a part of the soul has never descended into the body and always remains in contemplation of the intelligible Forms. Philosophy is sufficient for the return of the soul, although, as Porphyry already noted, only a few are able to be philosophers. Beginning with Iamblichus, however, the Neoplatonists were convinced that philosophy cannot be sufficient for any soul to purify itself from contact with the bodies and to join the divine and that for this purpose everyone needs to resort to the practices of polytheistic worship and the rituals of theurgy (animation of statues, magic formulas, etc.). Neoplatonism thus ended by providing a philosophical justification to ancient “paganism” in a more or less explicit opposition to the Christian faith. The main opponents of Christianity in late antiquity had in common the Neoplatonic philosophy. This is the case of Porphyry (whose attitude toward theurgy was nevertheless swinging) and of the Emperor Julian, called the Apostate (331–63), who was tied to the school of Pergamum, a continuation of the Neoplatonic school founded by Iamblichus in Apamea. A third characteristic of Neoplatonism is the harmonization of Aristotelianism with Platonism through the practice of commenting on Aristotle’s texts in preliminary function to the study of Plato’s dialogues. This trend, inaugurated by Porphyry, was mainly carried out by the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria starting from Ammonius, the son of Hermeias (435/45–517/26). Porphyry was the first Platonic philosopher to engage systematically in commenting on not only Plato’s dialogues but also Aristotle’s treatises in an attempt to show the compatibility between the two greatest Greek philosophers. Even the work by Porphyry that was most successful in posterity is somehow linked to the project of making use of Aristotle’s logic. It is the Isagoge, a short treatise in which Porphyry aims at exposing by way of introduction (eisagōgē) the Peripatetic teaching on five concepts: genus (genos), species (eidos), difference (diaphora), property
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(idion), and accident (symbebēkos). Knowledge of them is considered by Porphyry preparatory to the Aristotelian doctrine of categories, as well as to the accuracy of definitions and in general to the logical processes of division (diairesis) and demonstration. The Isagoge will be given the fate of acting, throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, as the standard introduction to philosophical studies, even and especially when philosophy came to consist mainly in the analysis of Aristotle’s texts. After Porphyry, the idea of a substantial agreement between Plato and Aristotle – an idea already present in the so-called Middle Platonism, i.e., imperial Platonism before Plotinus – was so widespread in the philosophical circles that sometimes it is hard to tell whether certain commentaries on Aristotle’s treatises are the work of a Platonist or a Peripatetic. This is the case of the commentaries by Themistius (ca. 317–88), of which survive the paraphrases to Posterior Analytics, Physics, De Anima, De Caelo, and Metaphysics Lambda. Perhaps Themistius, who was a senator and an adviser to various emperors in Constantinople, was neither a Platonist nor an Aristotelian, but an intellectual who simply considered himself a philosopher and substantially conceived philosophy as an exegesis of Aristotle reconciled with Platonism. Themistius certainly was not a “Neoplatonist” because there is no trace in his writings of accession to the Plotinian doctrine of the three hypostases. Some details in his paraphrases place him quite close to “Middle Platonism” and show that Plotinus’ reformation of Platonism, however deep, did not make the previous forms of Platonism bow out. During Augustine’s life, one of the two major Neoplatonic schools of late antiquity was founded, that of Athens. In this town, where Platonism was born eight centuries before, Plutarch, the son of Nestorius,1 became the leader of a school that lasted up to 529, when Emperor Justinian closed all the non-Christian schools in Athens. We know Plutarch’s teaching only indirectly. In particular, Proclus attributes to him the merit of putting forward the following interpretation of the hypotheses discussed in Plato’s Parmenides (137c ff): the first hypothesis concerns the One; hypotheses 2–5 concern the realities that come from the One; that is, Intellect, Soul, the sensible things, and matter; the last four hypotheses show that if you deny the existence of the One, you must also deny the existence of all the other realities.
1
Not to be confused with Plutarch of Chaeronea, who lived between the first and second centuries CE.
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When Plutarch of Athens died, in 432, Syrianus took over. Among the philosophical works of Syrianus, who died a few years later, there survive only portions of his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in which Syrianus rejects the Aristotelian denial of the separate existence of Forms and numbers. Neoplatonism in Athens will have its most glorious season with Proclus, the successor of Syrianus, and will conclude with Damascius (ca. 462–after 538) and Simplicius (ca. 480–560). The other great ancient Neoplatonic school, that of Alexandria, flourished about a century later than that of Athens, thanks to the abovementioned Ammonius. A “pagan” school of Neoplatonic philosophy already existed in Alexandria before Ammonius, with Hierocles and Hermeias, Ammonius’ father. Both Hierocles and Hermeias had studied in Athens, under the guide of Plutarch and Syrianus, respectively. Ammonius himself studied in Athens at the school of Proclus. Neither Hierocles nor Hermeias, however, dedicated themselves to the exegesis of Aristotle. As for the famous Hypatia, who was a teacher of Synesius of Cyrene and was killed by a group of fanatical Christians in 415, it is not even certain that she was a Platonic philosopher in the strict sense. Rather, her intellectual interests were of mathematical and astronomical kind. It was Ammonius, therefore, who began the Alexandrian tradition of commentaries on Aristotle, aiming at showing the agreement (symphōnia) between Aristotle and Plato. Ammonius used the Proclean method of dedicating each lesson to a single portion of text and discussing first its doctrinal sense (theōria) and then its literal expression (lēxis). Among Ammonius’ students, the most original on the theoretical level was John, called “Philoponus” (ca. 490–570). His wide production is marked by a radical turn. In 529, the same year of Justinian’s Edict, he published a treatise, On the Eternity of the World against Proclus, followed a few years later by another treatise, On the Eternity of the World against Aristotle. In these and other writings, Philoponus passes from Ammonius’ Platonism to a Christian worldview based on the idea of creation from nothing. He claims not only that the world is not eternal and had a temporal beginning but also that this was the true doctrine of Plato’s Timaeus, and therefore, Aristotle is in contradiction with both Plato and the truth. After the sixth century, “pagan” Platonism totally disappeared.
latin philosophy in late antiquity So far we have briefly described the situation of Greek philosophy from the third to the sixth century. To complete the picture, we should add – but we
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cannot do that here – the philosophically interesting parts and aspects of the work of ancient Greek Christian writers, from Clement of Alexandria and Origen, through the Cappadocian Fathers, up to the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, without forgetting contemporaries of Augustine such as Nemesius of Emesa and Synesius. In the same period, the philosophical literature written in Latin is well below both in quantity and quality, with the exception of Augustine, who is the only Latin author in late antiquity (along with Boethius and far more than him) to whom historians of philosophy are used to reserve a great attention. Late ancient Latin philosophers share with their Greek colleagues some features, starting with the fact of having Platonism as a common denominator. Latin authors, too, use commentary as a literary genre for philosophy, but only Boethius (ca. 476–525) will undertake a systematic project to translate and comment on the works of Plato and Aristotle in order to show their harmony, a project that will be realized only for the first treatises of the Organon. Compared to the Greek Platonists, Latin philosophers tended to attribute a greater role to the liberal arts and less to the religious practices of polytheism. But perhaps the most striking difference is the absence of Latin schools of philosophy in late antiquity. Plotinus did teach in Rome, but in Greek. Nowhere in the Roman Empire was an institutionalized teaching of philosophy in Latin, apart from those philosophical concepts that were taught in the schools of rhetoric. Latin philosophy was the result of the otium of individual intellectuals, who addressed themselves to a few men of position lacking in deep philosophical skills. The first significant representative of Latin Platonism is an African of the second century, Apuleius of Madaura, the author of the famous novel Metamorphosis (better known as The Golden Ass). His two-book work, On Plato and His Doctrine, is a “Middle Platonic” handbook of philosophy. After a brief biographical profile of Plato, Apuleius’ handbook systematically exposes the Platonic doctrines according to the tripartite division of philosophy into natural (Book I), moral (Book II), and rational (missing). The exposition of natural philosophy starts (chap. 5) with the enunciation of the Three Principles theory (God-matter-Forms), a distinguishing feature of pre-Plotinian Platonism, which centers around the Timaeus instead of the Parmenides. Apuleius develops Plato’s thoughts concerning the kinds of rational beings – another topic of Platonic natural philosophy – in a treatise, On the God of Socrates. Below the gods, who are the supreme living beings and are divided into invisible and visible ones (the celestial bodies), and above humans, who have the primacy among terrestrial beings, Apuleius, following Plato, places the demons, who live in the air region and have
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intermediate characteristics between the divine and the human, sharing immortality with the gods and passion with human beings. The demons, divided into various types and called by different names, are the object of religious veneration and make divination possible. The Platonic allegiance of these writings did not prevent Apuleius from referring to Aristotle and Theophrastus in another treatise (On the World, generally regarded as authentic) in order to describe the structure of the cosmos. Aristotelian and Peripatetic logic, as well as Stoic logic, is the background of the work Peri Hermeneias (On Interpretation), attributed to Apuleius by Cassiodorus (ca. 485–580) and today ranked among Apuleius’ dubia. To a kind of Platonism similar to that of Apuleius belongs Calcidius’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Although dating from the fourth century, this work still reflects an interpretation of Plato based on the Three Principles theory (called deus, silva, and exemplum in chap. 308) rather than on the doctrine of the three hypostases. The text consists of a prefatory letter addressed to a certain Osius, followed by the translation of, and then by the commentary on, a portion of Plato’s dialogue (17a–53c). The commentary is divided into two parts. The first part (chaps. 1–118) is characterized by the presence of mathematical sections, which depend on the lost commentary on Timaeus by the Peripatetic Adrastus of Aphrodisias (second century CE). The second part (chaps. 119–355) starts with a large section on the four kinds of living beings (among which are the demons) and concludes with a long discussion on matter. We know nothing about Calcidius, but we can infer that he was a Christian as his dedicatee Osius or at least sympathized with Christianity. The great fortune of Calcidius’ commentary will take place in the twelfth century. Some echo seems to be found in the Disputatio de Somnio Scipionis by Favonius Eulogius, a Carthaginian pupil of Augustine. Neoplatonism makes its influx in Latin literature with the work of Marius Victorinus, who was born in Africa in the late third century and died shortly after 362. A renowned professor of rhetoric in Rome, to the point of being elevated to the senatorial order and honored with a statue in Trajan’s Forum in 354, he converted to Christianity shortly after this date, and in 362 he resigned because of an edict of Julian the Apostate forbidding Christians to teach. Only three pre-Christian works by Victorinus survive: an Ars grammatica, a commentary on Cicero’s De Inventione, and a manual On Definitions. Augustine tells us that Victorinus had also translated “some books of the Platonists” (conf. 8.2.3) (probably some treatises of Plotinus and writings of Porphyry such as On the Return of the Soul). Victorinus’ translation of Porphyry’s Isagoge has partially survived thanks to the fact that
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Boethius used it in his first commentary on the Isagoge. But it is in the writings composed by Victorinus after converting that we can appreciate his deep familiarity with Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s Platonism. Without ever mentioning these philosophers, Victorinus heavily drew from their thought to build an anti-Arian and pro-Nicene doctrine of the Trinity. The outcome is a theological system with strong metaphysical connotations, expressed in a difficult language. Victorinus Trinitarian theology is contained in nine treatises: a (fictitious) exchange in three letters with an Arian named Candidus (treatises 1–3); four books, Against Arius, the first of which is divided into two parts (treatises 4–8); and a treatise, On the Necessity of Accepting Homoousios. Victorinus conceives reality as a chain, the summit of which is God. Below God are the “things that really exist,” or intellectibilia (including the World Soul), the “things that merely exist,” or intellectualia (including the individual souls), the “things that are not really non-existents” (bodies, which are composed of matter and form), and finally, the “things that are not,” that is, matter. God is a pure act of being (esse) and expresses himself in the acts of living (vivere) and understanding (intellegere). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from each other depending on which of these three acts predominates in each divine person. An example of “pagan,” or at least not explicitly Christian, Neoplatonic work is the Commentary on the Dream of Scipio by Macrobius, who lived between the fourth and the fifth century. The text commented on by Macrobius is a portion of Cicero’s lost dialogue, On the Republic, in which the character of Scipio Aemilianus tells that his adoptive grandfather Scipio Africanus appeared to him in a dream. After predicting Aemilianus’ future glories and untimely death, Africanus showed to his nephew the celestial spheres and revealed that the gods will reward the virtuous politicians with a perpetual dwelling in the Milky Way. Cicero’s Dream offered to Macrobius the opportunity for a two-book discussion on psychology, ethics, and astronomy. The philosopher most cited, along with Cicero, is Plato, whose Myth of Er in the Republic Macrobius parallels with Cicero’s Dream. Macrobius mentions Plotinus several times, whereas he mentions Porphyry only twice (1.3.17; 2.3.15), but it is often via Porphyry that Macrobius interprets Plotinus. This can be seen, for example, in the classification of the grades of virtue, which is attributed to Plotinus in 1.8.5 but is actually conceived in the manner of Porphyry’s Sentence 32. Macrobius’ accession to the doctrine of the three hypostases is clear in 1.14.6–7. A generic Platonic coloring, but with no clear evidence of Neoplatonism in the proper sense, is found in a work composed in the fifth century by a lawyer
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who practiced his profession in Carthage, the “pagan” Martianus Capella. Books 3–9 of his Marriage of Philology and Mercury summarize the content of seven liberal arts: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. What is of particular philosophical interest in this work, which will be widely read in the Middle Ages, is the book dedicated to dialectic (4), in which Macrobius gathers the basic concepts of ancient logic in an orderly fashion.
PART III
m religious contexts
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m Roman Religion Jeffrey Brodd For purposes of this chapter, the term “religion” refers to practices and perspectives relating to beings or forces deemed by the worshiper to be deserving of reverence. This definition is deliberately broad in scope, designed to encompass magic, astrology, and – quite significantly for studying Augustine – various forms of philosophy. The category “beings or forces” intentionally is not limited to deities; objects of Roman worship spanned a wide spectrum, from major gods such as Jupiter, to natural forces such as the mildew that could ruin crops, to certain human beings, notably emperors whose degree of power made them godlike and worthy of worship. Roman religion was complex, just as the category “Roman” is itself complex, referring both to a city and to a territory that, over the course of several centuries of expansion, became a vast empire. For the more than 1,000 years leading up to the time of Augustine, the city of Rome maintained a special significance in matters of Roman religion. But interaction with new cultures brought on by territorial expansion also had a marked effect. Various forms of foreign practices and perspectives were incorporated while, simultaneously, through the process generally known as “Romanization,” the religiosity of Rome the city was imposed to some extent on the populations of newly acquired lands. For the reader of Augustine, it is helpful to consider some circumstances regarding the history of religion in the late imperial period. When Augustine was born in 354, roughly half the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were Christian, and traditional Roman religion was on the wane. In the early 390s, a series of laws enacted by Emperor Theodosius officially outlawed most forms of traditional practice, such as animal sacrifice. Thinking back fifty years prior to the birth of Augustine, we can glimpse how astonishing was the fourth century with regard to religion. In 304, Christians – who at that time made up less than 10 percent of the total 129
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population – were in the throes of the Great Persecution, during which thousands were put to death. Things changed suddenly when, in 312, the Emperor Constantine attributed his success in the pivotal battle of the Milvian Bridge to Christ. In 313, Constantine and co-emperor Licinius issued the so-called Edict of Milan establishing religious tolerance and ending persecution of Christians. From this point onward, except for a brief interruption during the reign of Emperor Julian (361–3), a Neoplatonist and fervent devotee of the old gods, Christianity had the upper hand, and “paganism” gradually lost out. From Augustine’s perspective, then, Roman religion had to some extent become a relic of the past. Yes, the sack of Rome by the Goths in 410 would prompt him to set forth rigorous criticism in his monumental City of God. But, in the words of Augustine biographer Peter Brown, the “pagan past had somehow lost its soul by the late fourth century.”1 It will be helpful, though only for the sake of convenience, to parse Roman religion into four subcategories: traditional religion of the state and public sphere, traditional religion of the domestic and private sphere, the mystery religions, and religious philosophy. Religion of the Roman state emerged with the early rise of the city. Foundational aspects, such as the temple of Jupiter “Best and Greatest” on the Capitoline Hill and the notion of imperium as god-given right of military command, were already in place by the beginning of the republican period. Jupiter and many of the other deities likely were objects of worship among the Latin peoples from very ancient times. Some of the Olympian deities – along with this designation of their mountain home – seem to have been imported by way of contact with Greeks and their religious ideas, but because the Latins shared a common Indo-European heritage with the Greeks, the cultures independently shared to some extent a common pantheon of gods. The Romans did readily borrow myths from the Greeks, and therefore, many of their own deities eventually came to resemble their Greek counterparts. Mars, for example, who probably originally was primarily a god of agriculture, came to resemble the Greek Ares, god of war. Venus came to resemble Aphrodite, who was herself an import to Greece from the east. Some important Roman deities did not have Greek counterparts, for example, Janus, the two-headed god of beginnings. Religion of the Roman state was based on the basic idea that the welfare or peace of Rome – the pax Romana – depended on good relations with the
1
P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 189.
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gods – pax deorum (“peace of the gods”). Along with demonstrating the close link between religion and politics, something the Romans took for granted, this idea incorporated the important notion of religio, the Latin root of our term “religion,” but with a more limited meaning, emphasizing scrupulous attention to correct performance of rituals. Religio reflects the Roman tendency toward orthopraxis – right practice – as opposed to orthodoxy. Perspectives – doctrines, myths, and attitudes – mattered, but for the most part, practice mattered more. Another notable general feature of Roman religion is its relative lack of emphasis on moral issues. Like most aspects of Roman life, state religion was highly traditional, rooted in mos maiorum, the ways of the ancestors. Religious practices took place in spaces and at times that were sanctioned by time-honored traditions. The Roman calendar, divided into months mostly named for divine beings (the final four months were simply numbered seven through ten, as we can readily observe in our modern version), specified dates when all major religious festivals took place. Most temples, along with various other places, were designated as templum, thus allowing for certain religious practices within their precincts; the Senate House was one such templum. The area of the city of Rome enclosed within the pomerium was considered sacred. Roman colonies tended to be designed to follow this basic spatial pattern and often included as their centerpiece their own version of the Capitoline temple. Religion of the Roman state was quite thoroughly institutionalized, with several colleges of priests and various religious offices. The Pontifical College was headed by the pontifex maximus, who counted among his duties the oversight of the Vestal Virgins. They were in charge of maintaining the sacred fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum; it was believed that Rome would suffer terrible consequences if ever the fire were to be extinguished. The Virgins themselves were sworn to celibacy, violation of which resulted in being ceremonially buried alive in the city’s walls. The College of Augurs was in charge of auspicium – the reading of divinatory signs, especially by observing the flights of birds. Another important form of divination involved the Sybilline books, which were overseen by a third major college of priests, the Quindecimviri sacris faciundis, the “fifteen men [originally two] to perform sacred actions.” These oracular books were associated with the Sibyl of Cumae, who plays an important role in Virgil’s Aeneid. Divination also was a regular part of animal sacrifices, during which the entrails, especially the liver, of the sacrificed animal were examined by haruspices – specialists in this art who, tradition dictated, had to be Etruscan.
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The two most prominent practices of Roman state religion were prayer and sacrifice, often performed together and always undertaken with utmost care for correct procedure. Sacrificial offerings of wine, incense, or grain were very common; more lavish rites, for relatively important occasions, involved the sacrifice of animals. The suovetaurilia, to cite a very lavish example, was the sacrifice of three animals, a pig (sus), a sheep (ovis), and a bull (taurus); it was usually offered to Mars for agricultural or military purposes. Unlike Mars, Jupiter received oxen, which also were sacrificed to the divi – deceased rulers who had officially been granted divine status. Julius Caesar, Augustus, and many of their successors achieved this status, as did some of their wives. One of the best-preserved buildings in the Roman Forum today is the temple of Emperor Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina. Sacrifices and other forms of worship sometimes were performed directly to living emperors, although this varied depending on the emperor and the place; inhabitants of the Roman east were more apt to do this, probably because of cultural traditions predating Roman control. A more common practice involved sacrifice – of a bull rather than an ox – to the genius, or guardian spirit, of the emperor. The triumph was another form of worship involving the emperors or, during the republican period, the conquering generals. This was the only day on which the general or emperor was allowed to don his military gear within the pomerium, and he was made to resemble Jupiter by having his face painted red. The triumph brought together many aspects of state religion – prayers, sacrifices, a procession along the Sacred Way leading up to the Capitoline Hill, and the ritual execution of the conquered enemy – while also showing once again the thoroughgoing interrelationship of religion and politics. Roman religion of the domestic and private sphere included widely varying phenomena, all with the purpose of enhancing the welfare of the family or individual. Worship in the home was performed by the father of the household, the paterfamilias, who was the eldest male and whose wife and descendants, along with slaves and belongings, made up the familia. He offered daily prayers and sacrifices at the lararium, the household shrine that typically displayed images of the household divinities: the lar (plural, lares) with cornucopia, symbol of plenty; the family genius, often portrayed as a serpent; and sometimes the penates, gods of the pantry. In this way, the role of the paterfamilias paralleled that of the pontifex maximus, an office that the emperors from Augustus down into the Christian era chose to occupy.
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Physical health and recovery from illness and injury were major concerns of the private sphere. Various practices were employed, the most famous involving worship of Aesculapius (Greek Asklepios), son of Apollo and god of healing, who was brought to Rome from the Greek sanctuary of Epidauros in 292 BC. The sanctuary of Aesculapius on Rome’s Tiber Island was one of many around the Greco-Roman world, Epidauros being the largest. The healing processes of the sanctuaries typically involved a combination of what we might call early medical science and religious practices, the latter featuring visitations by the god in dreams, prompted by prayer and offerings. The many sculptured body parts that have been found at the sanctuaries suggest that worshipers thanked Aesculapius by giving these anatomical offerings, probably in correlation to the body part in need of healing. Naturally, death was another concern that was dealt with through religious means. The Romans worshiped the departed spirits of their family members out of both respect and fear. In keeping with the idea of mos maiorum, ancestors were objects of respect and reverence. But the dead also were to be feared, so the religious practices served also to appease the departed spirits, the manes, so as to protect the living. The common legal prohibition of burial within a city, and Rome was one such city, is in keeping with this fear of the dead. These twin motives of fear and respect lie behind Roman practices such as feasting at the burial site on the occasion of the funeral and on the ninth day. Disposal of the body involved either cremation or, with growing frequency from the mid–imperial period onward, burial of the corpse. In either case, the burial site was often equipped with a tube for purposes of pouring libations of wine into the grave. Major annual festivals, the Parentalia in mid-February and the Lemuria in mid-May, served to honor the departed spirits of the ancestors. Regarding beliefs about an afterlife, the evidence suggests that only a minority held out hope for anything beyond mere subsistence. Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” in the final book of De republica describes an afterlife of rewards based on righteous living, and so too does Virgil’s Aeneid. The typical Roman, however, might well have held less optimistic views about the afterlife, as suggested by a relatively common tomb inscription: NF F NS NC (abbreviation for “I was not, I was, I am not, I do not care”). Two other prominent forms of domestic religion of the private sphere were magic and astrology. The practice of magic aimed at coercing supernatural beings or forces to fulfill the private needs of
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the practitioner. Magic thus contrasts with most other forms of Roman religion, which tended to operate on the principle that petitioning a supernatural power in the proper manner might effect divine favor – depending on the divine will. The effectiveness of magic depended solely on the proper performance of the magical practices. Various beings and forces were coerced through magical practices, although often they were powers associated with the underworld. Magic was employed for a wide variety of purposes, very commonly to induce romantic love or, through curses, to harm a rival. Astrology was based on the idea that the alignment of the stars determined events on Earth. It aimed to discern the future rather than to try to determine the course of events, and thus also contrasted with most other forms of religion. Mystery religions, most of them having originated in Greece or other regions in the east, became during the imperial period very popular throughout Roman lands. A mystery religion is characterized by a rite of initiation, a closed – and typically close-knit – community, emotional involvement on the part of the initiate and, so the evidence suggests, hope for a better afterlife. Initiates of the mystery religions were sworn to secrecy, a consequence of which is that we know very little about the mysteries’ central acts or purposes. We do know, however, that they were very popular, and therefore, the emotional and perhaps soteriological appeal must have been quite strong. A very ancient and in some ways prototypical mystery religion was the cult of Demeter and Persephone celebrated on an annual basis at Eleusis, nearby Athens. The cult attracted emperors and others from among the Roman population who were wealthy enough to make the journey. Four other mystery religions are especially notable forms of Roman religion. The mysteries of Isis and Osiris, based on the ancient Egyptian myth of the sister-brother/wife-husband, were celebrated in Rome at a major temple complex in the Campus Martius. The cult also was present in Pompeii, where there was a centrally located temple that is still well preserved today. Mithraism, while drawing on ancient Persian elements, seems to have been invented in Roman territory during the late republican period. Apparently admitting only men, the cult was very popular among soldiers and seafaring men. Many Mithraic sanctuaries, structures designed to resemble caves while at the same time, based on the astral symbols on their ceilings, the entire cosmos, have been found across the Roman world. Each sanctuary seems originally to have contained remarkably similar iconography, most notably a painting or sculpture of the
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tauroctony, a scene depicting Mithras in the act of sacrificing a bull. The mysteries of the Greek god Dionysos (or Bakkhos), Bacchus in Latin and sometimes (by Augustine, for instance) identified with the Roman god Liber, also became very popular in Roman lands. In fact, in 186 BC, the Roman Senate enacted laws restricting the cult’s practices because they had become a threat to Roman order. Evidence for the popularity of the Dionysian mysteries is widespread, including the famous wall paintings in the Villa of the Mysteries (the Villa Item) at Pompeii and many sculptural reliefs adorning sarcophagi of the late Roman period. The mysteries of Cybele, who in Rome became known primarily as Magna Mater, are especially interesting given that worship of the goddess was also state sanctioned, the result of an interpretation of the Sibylline books in 204 BC that compelled the Romans to welcome the goddess into the city. The Romans likely had not anticipated the (to them) outrageous behavior of the Galli, the priests of Cybele, some of whom, as part of their initiation, had castrated themselves out of devotion to the goddess. Such behavior was far removed from mos maiorum, even though traditional procedures had been followed in bringing Cybele to Rome in the first place. The last of our four subcategories, religious philosophy, is in some ways the most important for the reader of Augustine’s works. The most prominent philosophies among the Romans were Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Platonism. Cicero, whose works Augustine knew well, was deeply interested in all three, resulting in an eclectic perspective. Augustine himself was so immersed in the thought of the Neoplatonist Plotinus that it would be impossible to separate this Platonic influence from the rest of his intellectual outlook. Plotinus was a mystic, and he regarded the highest reality, which he called “the One,” as being forever transcendent of the human being, even of the philosopher’s keenest intellectual reach. The One is the highest of three hypostases or essential substances. Nous, the Greek term for “mind” or “intellect,” is the second realm; this is basically equivalent to Plato’s realm of the Forms or Ideas. The third hypostasis is Soul, in which the souls of individual human beings participate. For Plotinus, evil is the result of the complete absence of the goodness of the hypostases in the purely physical and bodily realm. The human soul’s true calling is to return through mystical union to the One, its true source and ultimate destiny. Meanwhile, the soul is trapped in the body and the physical world, both of which are hopelessly blemished. The philosopher can make life better by striving to purify the soul from the tarnishing effects of body and world. Plotinus, along with
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his follower Porphyry, thus advocated an ascetic lifestyle. Two notable later Neoplatonists, Iamblichus and the Emperor Julian, incorporated ritual practices of theurgy into their religious philosophies, something that Augustine, and probably even Plotinus before them, would have found deplorable.
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m Manicheism Nicholas Baker-Brian Writing with the benefit of hindsight at the beginning of a new century (ca. 400 CE), Augustine reviewed his near-decade-long commitment to Manicheism in his Confessions with considerable disappointment. According to the view of the religion offered there, Augustine claims to have been misled by the Manicheans on the basis of their teaching relating to Jesus, the Holy Spirit (as the Paraclete [Jn 14:17]), and their broader claims of teaching the truth about religion (conf. 3.6.10): In their mouths were the devil’s traps and a birdlime compounded of a mixture of the syllables of your name, and that of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that of the Paraclete, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. These names were never absent from their lips; but it was no more than sound and noise with their tongue. Otherwise their heart was empty of truth. They used to say “Truth, truth,” and they had a lot to tell me about it; but there was never any truth in them.
Augustine’s judgment about the teachings of the religion of Mani being different from those which were publicly promoted by the followers of this apostle from faraway Mesopotamia applied equally to the principal personalities in the Manichean church of North Africa, foremost among them being Faustus, the Manichean bishop of Milevis. Augustine’s assessment of this important religious figure lay at the root of his wider discontentment with Manicheism. Looking back at the time when he finally met Faustus, Augustine tells his readers that “[a]lthough I admired his soft eloquence, nevertheless I came to discern his doctrines to diverge from the truth of matters about which I was keen to learn” (conf. 5.3.2). Hindsight is an indispensable evaluative tool in the formulation of an author’s assessment of his or her past, and Augustine makes full use of it to rewrite his engagement with Manicheism in the Confessions and also in the 137
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host of other works that he composed at the turn of the fifth century with the express purpose of defaming his former religion (including his On the Nature of the Good, Against Faustus, and Against Secundinus). In a series of recent studies, Jason BeDuhn has demonstrated the important role that Augustine’s criticisms of Manicheism played in shaping his own public personality as an emergent figure of authority in the catholic church.1 In broad terms, therefore, Augustine molded an impression of his former Manichean self in order to promote his mature catholic self. An awareness of the full extent of this process has only recently come to light, the catalyst for which (as in so many areas in the study of Augustine) was Peter Brown’s biography published in 1967.2 Brown’s treatment of Augustine’s years with the Manicheans, stretching from the mid-370s into the mid-380s, stands out for a number of reasons, one of the most important being Brown’s efforts to take Manicheism seriously as a religion rather than as a Christian heresy, the former assessment being one of Augustine’s main legacies in his memorialization of Mani’s religion. Brown’s study also sought to explain why Manicheism was so attractive to Augustine – foremost among the reasons being that Manichean theology offered a unified and robust explanation for the dilemma of individual souls cast adrift in the world – as a late gnosisinspired religion3 – coupled with offering believers an intense, communal sense of belonging to a select (nay, elite) religious group: the latter point proved very important for Augustine and his coterie of ambitious associates – including Romanianus and Alypius – as they climbed the career ladder of the late Roman world. The sense of cultural privilege accorded to Augustine by Manicheism was a feature of the religion’s appeal to many in late antiquity. In Augustine’s case, Manicheism offered him and his friends an opportunity to participate in a religion that took a leading role in shaping the contours of how Christianity came to be practiced in the period. Central to this appeal lay the rigor of Manichean teaching on core issues such as asceticism and the scripturalization of religious truth.
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2
3
J. BeDuhn, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma 1: Conversion and Apostasy, 373–388 C.E., Divinations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010); J. BeDuhn, Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma 2: Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–401 C.E., Divinations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo. A Biography (London: Faber & Faber, 1967; new ed. 2000), 29–49; cf. N. J. Baker-Brian, “Modern Augustinian Biographies: Revisions and Counter-memories,” Journal of Ancient Christianity 11 (2007), 151–67. N. J. Baker-Brian, Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 7–15.
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In the case of the former, Manicheism foregrounded the manipulation of believers’ bodies as vessels of salvation in its religious practice and encouraged in relation to this practice an uncompromising ethical stance regarding the role of Manicheans in the world.4 Furthermore, Manicheism led the way in the “Cultural Revolution” of the period whereby the enshrining of ideas in texts and the enshrining of texts in canons became indispensable to the identities of late antique religions.5 Augustine valued both of these concerns, the former at some distance from his actual lived experience as a Manichean: he never joined the ranks of the Elect, the ascetically virtuous body of adherents who metabolized souls in their own bodies, choosing instead to remain a Hearer charged with the provision of alms to the Elect. With reference to the core issue of scripturalization, as an aspiring author in his youth, Augustine read voraciously, in which case the appeal of a religion that produced richly ornamented books was of paramount interest to him.6 By joining the Manicheans of the Roman world, Augustine could believe himself to be at the center of these seismic changes affecting the character of Christianity, importantly, however, without having to renounce his “worldly” ambitions, such as a successful career and opportunities for intimate companionship. Both asceticism and scripturalization are features of Augustine’s experience of Manicheism that can be traced all the way back to the ideas, teachings, and writings of Mani himself. Born and raised (216–ca. 276 CE) a speaker of Syriac in the early Sasanian Empire, Mani taught, wrote, and traveled across late antique Iran and the extent of its Empire, very likely also reaching India at an early stage of his religious career.7 He was driven onward by the belief that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ and that this sense of vocation would lead to the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises regarding the dispatching of the Paraclete at the end of his time. The closeness of Mani’s own sense of vocation to the parameters reportedly set by Jesus in Christian traditions is most apparent in Mani’s premier 4
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J. BeDuhn, The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000), 163–233. G. G. Stroumsa, The Making of the Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity, Oxford Studies in the Abrahamic Religions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 25–32. G. Clark, “City of Books: Augustine and the World as Text,” in W. E. Klingshirn and L. Safran (eds.), The Early Christian Book, CUA Studies in Early Christianity (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 117–38. M. Deeg and I. Gardner, “Indian Influence on Mani Reconsidered: The Case of Jainism,” International Journal of Jaina Studies 5 (2009), 1–30; cf. C. I. Beckwith, Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 97–9.
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work, his Living Gospel.8 While recollections of Mani in Manichean literature tend toward hagiographic idealism when relating his successes in converting the monarchs and vassal rulers of western Asia, it is apparent that he had some success in obtaining patronage from the shah of Iran, Shapur I (reigned 240–70 CE).9 During his lifetime, Mani established those elements which Augustine in the fourth century would have recognized as forming the core features of the Manichean religion. These included establishing the principles for the central role of texts – his own writings! – in conveying Manichean teachings and the communal structure for his church comprising Hearers in service of the Elect. By the end of his life, Mani had established a network of religious communities spread across the Sasanian Empire. He also commissioned his earliest followers with the responsibility of spreading his “wisdom” into the Roman world, with nascent settlements emerging during the late third century in both Syria and Egypt. Thus, during his time as a Manichean, Augustine was heir to the industry of early Manicheans such as Adda, a high-ranking follower of Mani from Palmyra who pushed deep into Roman territory in the 260s, and was responsible for settling a community of Manicheans in the multifaith city of Alexandria. When Augustine became an apostate from Manicheism at the end of the fourth century, it was against the ghosts of Manichean endeavor from the third century that he would rail and initially make his mark as a vehement polemicist in the service of catholic theology. Augustine’s work, Against Adimantus, was an early instance (ca. 394) of his anti-Manichean polemic that challenged Adda’s Marcionite-inspired treatise known by the title, The Disputations. This significant little work marked a turning point in the consolidation of Augustine’s catholic treatment of the Bible via its establishment in the Latin exegetical tradition of the principle of concordia between the Old Testament and the New Testament.10 One of the main reasons why Manicheism moved fairly rapidly beyond Mesopotamia was that Mani himself appears to have made a conscious effort not to tie the identity of his revelation and his church to any particular ethnic marker, for example, empire, community, or language. This idea was 8
9
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See the translations of this fragmentary text in I. Gardner and S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 156–7. I. Gardner, J. BeDuhn, and P. Dilley, Mani and the Court of the Persian Kings: Studies on the Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 87 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 15–51. N. J. Baker-Brian, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire: A Study of Augustine’s Contra Adimantum (Lewiston, NY: Mellen 2009), 9–79.
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undoubtedly encouraged by Mani’s own sense of universalism and the correlative ambition he had for the worldwide expansion of his teachings. This idea is most prominently expressed in his well-known attempt to establish a Prophetology – a schematic chain of historically contingent prophetic authorities revealing related teachings – outlined for the first time by Mani in his Shābuhragān, the work that he wrote for the edification of Shapur I in the 240s.11 Here Mani invoked his esteemed predecessors – Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus – noting that they had brought their “wisdom and deeds” to specific regions during specific times in the history of the world. While Mani notes in the treatise that he brings wisdom to Babylonia in “this final era,” a closely related text very likely from the Shābuhragān has Mani claiming, “My religion is of the kind that it will be manifest in every country and in all languages, and it will be taught in far-away countries.”12 This sense of universalism seems to have been acquired by him from a number of sources, influences that, in turn, were shaped by the dominant intellectual and apologetic ideals of the third century, as evidenced most keenly in the religious appropriation of post-Hellenistic philosophy and its concern with rediscovering an ancient, universal “wisdom.” Mani’s universalism appears to have been influenced by his repudiation of Jewish traditions arising in the main from his readings of Paul and Pauline-inspired theology. However, it was also a feature of Syro-Mesopotamian theology, as evident in the teachings ascribed to Mani’s older contemporary, Bardaisan of Edessa, as seen, for example, in the work of a disciple of Bardaisan, The Book of the Laws of the Countries.13 Therefore, Manicheism lent itself by design to becoming easily disembedded from its localized Iranian-Mesopotamian origins.14 This meant that from the beginning the religion of Mani could move across a wide range of borders and boundaries, real and imagined, and its ideas lent themselves to relatively untroubled cultural and linguistic translation. 11
12
13
14
Testimony and translations of his fragmentary work are supplied in J. C. Reeves, Prolegomena to a History of Islamicate Manichaeism, Comparative Islamic Studies (London: Equinox, 2011), 98–105. S. N. C. Lieu, “‘My Church Is Superior . . . ’: Mani’s Missionary Statement in Coptic and Middle Persian,” in L. Painchaud et al. (eds.), Coptica, Gnostica, Manichaica: Mélanges offerts à Wolf-Peter Funk, Bibliothè que copte de Nag Hammadi, Section “Etudes” 7 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 519–28. There is also a translation of this fragmentary text in Gardner and Lieu, Manichaean Texts, 109. H. J. W. Drijvers, The Book of the Laws of Countries: Dialogue on Fate of Bardaisan of Edessa, Semitic texts with Translations 3 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1965), with a new introduction (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2006). J. BeDuhn, “Mani and the Crystallization of the Concept of ‘Religion’ in Third Century Iran,” in Gardner, BeDuhn, and Dilley (eds.), Mani and the Court of the Persian Kings, 247–75.
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Thus, within two generations of Mani’s death in the state prison of Shapur I’s son, Bahram I (reigned 271–4 CE), the Manicheans of Egypt were translating Syriac Manichean literature into Greek and Coptic: to this material they were also contributing their own devotional and historical portrayal of Mani’s religion from their experiences as Manicheans in a RomanEgyptian environment. It is these Coptic-speaking Egyptian Manicheans who were responsible for producing the literary monuments of “western” late antique Manicheism, e.g., the famous Coptic Manichean Psalter, edited in the 1930s by Charles Allberry15; the Manichean Homilies, which included a “crucifixion” last days cycle of Mani’s imprisonment and death16; and the two voluminous Hadith-style collections of Mani’s teachings17 entitled, The Kephalaia of the Teacher18 and The Kephalaia of the Wisdom of My Lord Mani.19 Added to this remarkable collection of religious literature is the equally remarkable fact that in recent decades scholars have been presented with the personal letters of Egyptian Manicheans from the Roman-period village of Kellis, located in the Dakhleh Oasis, that emerged from archaeological work at the site beginning in the late 1970s. Among this material is to be found the correspondence of a family of Manicheans (the letters relating to the figures called Makarios and Maria) living religious lives of domestic routine during the middle of the fourth century.20 This evidence portrays believers of both genders engaged in Manichean-tinged lives. Their concerns are quotidian and familiar – matters of earning a living, gathering food (very occasionally as religious alms for the Elect, although very occasionally not), avoiding falling ill, and overseeing their children’s education (here we see a definite concern with Manichean religious literature) are paramount in these letters.21 Although Augustine’s own experiences as a Manichean were 15
16
17
18
19 20 21
C. R. C. Allberry (ed.), A Manichaean Psalm-Book. Part II, Manichä ische Handschriften der Sammlung A. Chester Beatty 2 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 1938). N. A. Pedersen (ed.), Manichaean Homilies, with a Number of Hitherto Unpublished Fragments, Corpus fontium Manichaeorum, Series Coptica 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006). T. Pettipiece, Pentadic Redaction in the Manichaean Kephalaia, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 66 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 7–13. I. Gardner (ed.), The Kephalaia of the Teacher: The Edited Coptic Manichaean Texts in Translation with Commentary, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 37 (Leiden: Brill 1995). See Gardner, BeDuhn, and Dilley, Mani and the Court of the Persian Kings, passim. A selection of these letters can be found in Gardner and Lieu, Manichaean Texts, 272–81. J. BeDuhn, “The Domestic Setting of Manichaean Cultic Associations in Roman Late Antiquity,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10 (2008), 259–74; M. Franzmann, “Augustine and Manichaean Almsgiving: Understanding a Universal Religion with Exclusivist Practices,” in J. van Oort (ed.), Augustine and Manichaean Christianity: Selected Papers from the First South African Conference on Augustine of Hippo, University of Pretoria, 24–26 April 2012, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 37–49;
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fundamentally different from those of the Manicheans in Kellis – for instance, no other member of his biological family appears to have been a Manichean, and he lived as a Manichean Hearer in largely urban settings – it is nonetheless appropriate to see in the lives of the Manicheans of Kellis a sense of the dutifulness and loving kindness to other believers that certainly appealed to Augustine and his close friends. In light of the relative wealth of Coptic Manichean literature from Egypt, the evidence for Latin Manichean literature from nearby Roman North Africa looks impoverished. A small number of Manichean works in Latin have survived from late antiquity. Among the most interesting is the socalled Tebessa Codex, a treatise-cum-letter dated in broad terms to the late fourth or early fifth century. This is a rare example of a work of Manichean apology in which the author defends the nature of the “work” (labor) performed by the two grades of the Manichean church, namely, the Hearers and the Elect.22 The tone of the treatise indicates that Manicheans were key players in the broader debate about the efficacy of Christian ascetic practices occurring during the late antique period. It is in the context of what remains of Manichean literature that we should acknowledge the importance of Augustine as an ancient catholic author writing against Manicheism. Augustine’s anti-Manichean works can be viewed from a number of perspectives ranging from the traditional to the more nuanced and subversive. According to the traditional viewpoint, Augustine’s treatises against Mani, Manichean theology, and the ideas of his followers (Adimantus) and later teachers (Faustus) comprise a robust defense of catholic Christian theology in their rebuttal of a narrow range of “Manichean” concerns, for example, religious dualism, the nature of the soul, and antinomianism. However, looking at those same works in the context of recent developments in the study of both Augustine and Manicheism, it is apparent that the parameters of the catholic theology advanced by Augustine against Mani were themselves still being negotiated in Augustine’s own work as a result of those ideas being drawn into dialogue with the teachings of Manicheism. Indeed, as BeDuhn has highlighted so convincingly in recent times, Augustine was not able to confine easily his “Manichaean past” to oblivion: instead, it leaked
22
N. J. Baker-Brian, “‘Putrid Boils and Sores, and Burning Wounds in the Body’: The Valorization of Health and Illness in Late Antique Manichaeism,” Harvard Theological Review 109 (2016), 422–46. M. Stein (ed.), Manichaica Latina 3.1. Codex Thevestinus, Abhandlungen der NordrheinWestfä lischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 27 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006). See also the English translation in Gardner and Lieu, Manichaean Texts, 268–72.
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through into the time of his “catholic self,” informing the direction of his theology and the types of decisions he made as a rising figure in the Christian church of North Africa.23 According to this view, then, in the writings of the catholic Augustine, we can still claim to apprehend the concerns of a Latinspeaking Manichean.
23
In addition to the two major works listed in note 1, see also J. BeDuhn, “‘Not to Depart from Christ’: Augustine between ‘Manichaean’ and ‘Catholic’ Christianity,” in van Oort, Augustine and Manichaean Christianity, 1–18.
18
m Ecclesiological Controversies Alden Bass By the time Augustine was ordained by the Caecilianist faction of the African Church in 393, the Christian fellowship of Roman Africa had been riven for eighty years. Christian families were divided, husband against wife and parent against child; members of Augustine’s own family were Donatists.1 Augustine assumed leadership at a pivotal moment, when his patron, Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, undertook major reform of the African Church. While still a novice priest, Augustine was invited to keynote the Caecilianist Council of 393 on the subject of church unity. Little did he know that efforts to heal the African schism would consume the best years of his life. He would eventually write nineteen treatises, pen numerous letters, and deliver sermon after sermon refuting Donatists. His zeal would take him across the Maghreb, traveling on camelback to distant capitals in order to debate dissident bishops and promote the Caecilianist cause. Yet, for all his labor, Augustine never seems to have grasped the core concerns of the Donatist party.2 Formed by the European allies of the Caecilianists in Italy, he scorned the Donatists as hopelessly provincial, rude folk blindly following their bishops, whom he stigmatized as demagogues.3 Even Tyconius, the brilliant Donatist theologian whom he admired, Augustine declared “insane” (absurdissimi cordis) (doc. Chr. 3.30.42). Unable in the end to “reasonably” persuade the Donatists, Augustine resorted to the physical force of the Roman imperium to compel submission. 1
2
3
For instance, his cousin Severinus (ep. 52.1). His own mother may have grown up Donatist (see G. Clark, Monica: An Ordinary Saint, Women in Antiquity [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015], 136–8). This point is well made in R. Eno, “Some Nuances in the Ecclesiology of the Donatists,” Revue des études Augustiniennes 18 (1972), 46–50. See E. Clark, “On Not Retracting the Unconfessed,” in J. Caputo and M. Scanlon (eds.), Augustine and Postmodernism: Confessions and Circumfession, Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 222–43, at 230.
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Regrettably, much of what is remembered about the Donatists reflects Augustine’s prejudices – their fierce sectarianism, puritanism, and barbaric violence. The truth is more complex. The Donatists preserved a form of pre-Constantinian African Christianity approved by the majority of North African Christians in the fourth and early fifth centuries. Highranking officials and the Romanized elite were counted among their number, as were Punic speakers and the poor.4 There were demagogues, but many bishops were erudite, charismatic, and popular. Some of the brightest, such as Petilian and Macrobius, were actually converts from the Caecilianists. The party’s namesake, Donatus the Great, was a prophet, scholar, and saint whom Augustine once compared to Cyprian (s. 37.3). The impact of Donatist theology and scholarship extended beyond Africa. All the fourth-century Africans listed among Gennadius of Marseilles’ “illustrious men” were Donatists (vir. ill. 4, 5, 18). Donatist biblical scholars produced some of the first Latin chapter divisions, as well as biblical study aids used for centuries in Europe.5 Tyconius composed the first Latin work of biblical hermeneutics, the Book of Rules, and his Apocalypse Commentary became the basis for all major western works on Revelation until modernity. Nowhere is their influence plainer than in the work of Augustine himself, who was stamped by Donatist thought in ways which remain underappreciated.
church of martyrs, church of traitors: the origins of the schism (305–47) The schism was triggered by Diocletian’s anti-Christian campaign of 303 CE. Imperial officials confiscated copies of Scripture and liturgical artifacts. Resistors were imprisoned or executed. Those who surrendered books were called traditores, or “handers-over.” The head of the African Church, Mensurius of Carthage, perhaps hoping to spare his flock further punishments, had compromised by handing over books resembling Scripture. The action placated the Romans, but those who had suffered for the faith felt betrayed by his collaboration. After the persecution, Mensurius selected a local deacon named Caecilian as his successor, a man criticized for his lax discipline of the lapsed and discrimination against the confessors. This move further alienated the traditionalists, and seventy bishops, led by the 4
5
Regarding the social makeup of the Donatists, see É. Rebillard, “William Hugh Clifford Frend (1916–2005): The Legacy of The Donatist Church,” Studia Patristica 53 (2013), 55–71. Several of these study aids are preserved in the “Donatist Compendium.” See R. Rouse and C. McNelis, “North African Literary Activity: A Cyprian Fragment, the Stichometric Lists and a Donatist Compendium,” Revue d’histoire des textes 30 (2000), 189–238.
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Numidian primate Secundus, marched to Carthage to oppose Caecilian. Before they could intervene, Caecilian was ordained by a local bishop, Felix of Aptunga. Felix was an accused traditor. Had this dispute occurred a century earlier, it probably would have been resolved internally, but the emperor’s “conversion” opened a new avenue of ecclesiastical arbitration. Constantine, in an effort to repair the damage done by the persecutions of his predecessors, sent imperial funds to churches across the empire. The African donation was addressed to Caecilian, offering de facto imperial approval of his ordination. The antiCaecilianist bishops petitioned the emperor to hear their charges against Caecilian and recognize their candidate, Majorinus. Constantine obliged, suspending Caecilian and arranging for an episcopal hearing at the Lateran in 313; Caecilian was cleared, along with Felix. The anti-Caecilianists appealed the decision, noting that Pope Miltiades was himself a traditor. Constantine again accommodated and called an ecumenical council at Arles the following year. By this time, Majorinus had died and been replaced by a charismatic young bishop from rural Numidia named Donatus. In the aftermath of the persecution, Donatus had distinguished himself by traveling across the land, rebaptizing and restoring fallen clergy. He was a reformer, “well endowed with knowledge and eloquence and all the teachings of the law” (Augustine, s. 37.3). Though excommunicated as a schismatic by the Gallic council in 314, Donatus went on to lead the opposition party for the next thirty-five years. Both factions, “Caecilian” and “Donatist,” called themselves the Catholic Church of Africa. Much later, in the fifth century, Augustine would counter the Donatist claim with two main arguments. First, the Numidian bishops who led the original opposition were hypocrites, guilty not only of betrayal but also murder. Contemporary court records corroborated his charge (Gesta apud Zenophilum 1). Thus, he argued, the dissident bishops had no special claim to sanctity. There was no real difference between the parties except the stubbornness of the dissidents. “We are brothers,” he wrote, “we call upon one God, we believe in one Christ, we hear one gospel and respond with one ‘Amen’ . . . why are you outside and I am inside?” (Augustine, en. Ps. 54.16). The second point was that the universal church could not be confined to North Africa. He chided the bishops as “frogs shouting at the edge of a pond: ‘We are the only Christians’” (en. Ps. 95.11). The Donatist church was indeed out of communion with much of western Europe because of their acceptance of the traditores; they did, however, claim fellowship
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with eastern churches and even had the recognition of some councils (Gennadius, vir ill. 18). More important, the Donatists denied Augustine’s geographic definition of “catholicity.” For them, catholicity was defined historically, and they – not the traditores – were in continuity with the prophets, martyrs, and saints of old – the “custodians of the law” (c. lit. Pet. 1.18–20). Divine law was the heart of traditional African Christianity. The law was given to Adam by God and passed down generation to generation by the righteous until it was recorded as Scripture (Tertullian, adv. Iud. 2). The written law is the material record of God’s will, almost worthy of worship in its own right (cf. Optatus, c. Don. 7.2). The “children of Abraham” live in fidelity to God’s command in order to witness his power to the fallen world. Like ancient Israel, called to be a “holy nation and a kingdom of priests,” the church has been entrusted with the law (Acta Saturnini 17). Obedience entails suffering because the divine law inevitably conflicts with human law, which is associated with death, evil, and the demonic. Crucially, it is faithfulness to the law in the face of the world’s opposition that defines God’s people. This theology was challenged by the Constantinian settlement, which blurred the boundary between the church and the world. Such is clear from a letter written to Augustine by a local aristocrat asking if the Sermon on the Mount’s ban on retributive violence defied imperial law (ep. 136.2). Augustine saw no necessary conflict between “the kindly harshness” of Roman law and Jesus’ teachings – the noble patrician could retain his allegiance to the fatherland even as a Christian (ep. 137 and 138). The Donatists roundly disagreed. The ascension of a Christian emperor did not end the primeval struggle between the righteous and the world. Jesus’ prophecy held in the fifth century as in the first: “I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you . . . If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (cf. Augustine, c. Gaud. 1.29). Patient suffering was the sign of God’s Spiritus Sanctus and the identifying badge of the sancti (Tertullian, patient 1). This theology helps make sense of the hard line taken against the traditores. To surrender the Scripture books to the “world” was to compromise the identity and mission of the church. In giving up the Scripture, they had forfeited the Holy Spirit who indwelled it. Bereft of the Spirit, traditor bishops could not grant absolution in baptism or transmit the Spirit. Nor could they rightly teach or interpret Scripture, a task requiring the Spirit’s enlightenment. “How can they give what they do not have?,” asked the Donatist bishop Parmenian (Optatus, c. Don. 5.6). Without the vivifying
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Spirit, the bishops and all who were connected to them were withered branches. Life could be restored through baptism or the imposition of hands by those bishops still possessed of the Spirit. Such had always been the African conviction (Cyprian, ep. 75.11). Augustine was unfamiliar with the traditional theology, at least in the early years, and he confused their pneumatology for Puritanism – hence his campaign to expose the sins of the earliest dissident bishops.6 The Donatists did not think that a bishop had to be sinless in order to administer the sacrament; rather, they insisted that bishops be free from public sins. If a congregation continued to fellowship with a notoriously sinful priest, they implicitly shared his guilt. In order to maintain the integrity of the church’s witness, Christians had to separate themselves from known sinners, especially clergy. It was not the holiness of the individual ministers that validated the sacraments, but the sanctity of the whole church manifesting the visible spiritual “gifts” (Optatus, c. Don. 2.9). Augustine, by contrast, asserted that Christ alone has the power of absolution. By this logic, even the baptism of heretics was acceptable (though undesirable), a stark reversal of the Cyprianic tradition. With regard to the traitorous Numidian bishops reported by Optatus, the Donatists did not deny their sin but rather pointed out that they repented and were readmitted to the priesthood by the archbishop’s imposition of hands (Augustine, ep. 43.3.6). The real crime of Mensurius and Caecilian was impenitence.
patient church, persecuting church: the schism hardens (347–90) A key turning point in the schism was the Macarian persecution of 347. From this point forward, the Donatists accused Caecilianists of being not only unapologetic traditores but also persecutores in league with empire and the devil. The African Church, though divided, enjoyed relative peace for over twenty years after Constantine abandoned attempts to end the schism in 321. Unification efforts were renewed in 347 by his son, Constans, who sent two notaries, Paul and Macarius, to unify the churches by carrot or by stick. Donatist bishops virulently objected to unification with the traditores as a mortal sin, spurning the notaries’ aid package as a demonic bribe and resisting imperial enforcement. In the melee, the bishop of Bagai was killed 6
For instance, Augustine did not know the precedent for rebaptism in the works of Cyprian, accusing Donatus of innovation (retr. 3.20.3).
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and his congregation massacred; other protestors were also murdered. Bishops, including Donatus the Great, were rounded up and sent into exile. Whole churches converted. The Donatists blamed Caecilianist bishops for the persecution. If patience was a sign of the Spirit, then coercive violence, a radical form of impatience, was a token of the devil’s presence (Tertullian, patient 5). Membership in the Christian community was voluntary, and the Donatists’ high view of free will informed their theology of martyrdom. Augustine defined charity as unity, but his Donatist interlocutor, Petilian, countered that charitable union must be uncoerced: “Love does not persecute, nor does it provoke emperors to take the lives of others” (c. lit. Pet. 2.79.173). At the Council of Carthage, Petilian and his 280 fellow bishops would make this the singular mark of catholic truth: the real church “suffers persecution but does not persecute” (Gesta conlationis Cathaginiensis anno 411, 3.258). Thus the site of conflict shifted. The struggle against the world was now waged within the church. Tyconius called it the “civil war” (bellum intestinum) (Gennadius, vir. ill. 18). Yet the battle was merely the latest installment in the perennial struggle of the righteous typified by the fraternal rivalries of the Old Testament: Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. This fight was even more dangerous now that the enemy appeared not as a representative of Rome but as a vicar of Christ; the devil’s assault was enhanced by deception. Augustine would later describe the church as a corpus permixtum, composed of saints and sinners together, but Tyconius called it the corpus bipertitum, the twosided body (reg. 2, 7). Both sides wore the name Christian, but only one side actually belonged to Christ. The rest, like the world outside, were sons of the devil. The Macarian mission ultimately failed, only widening the ecclesial rift. In 361, the exiled bishops were sent back by the “pagan” emperor Julian in the perverse hope that the church would destroy itself. Under the leadership of Donatus’ successor, Parmenian, the movement entered a new phase. Distinctive rituals of purification were developed to separate Donatist-defined holy space from the “world” (Optatus, c. Don. 6.2-6). There was a renewed commitment to the pre-Constantinian church calendar, the Old Latin Scripture, and traditional rites such as public confession (exomolegesis) and adult baptism. Parmenian’s reforms were accompanied by internal divisions; dissenters such as Tyconius were excommunicated, and whole groups, such as the Rogatists, the Urbanists, and the Claudianists, broke off. The most serious fissure occurred in 393, when nearly a fourth of the Donatist bishops rejected Parmenian’s successor, Primian, a crisis
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that threatened to recapitulate the original schism. These divisions weakened the dissident church, paving the way for the Aurelian reforms of Augustine’s day.
church defiant, church triumphant: the final years of the schism (390–420) Augustine’s objection to Donatism was not purely intellectual – people were actually dying. Though Donatist leaders opposed coercion theologically, ordinary Donatists did not always eschew it in practice. Some supported nativist coups such as the uprising of Firmus in the 370s and of Gildo in the 390s; at least one bishop, Optatus of Thamugadi, was executed for treason. Closer to home, Augustine had witnessed riots and mobs. Several of his brother bishops had been attacked, including his friend Possidius of Calama (Augustine, c. Cresc. 3.46.50). Augustine himself had been subject to an assassination attempt, foiled only by the ineptitude of his guide, who led him down the wrong path and away from the planned ambush (Dolbeau s. 26). “Their madness endeavors to slay us,” Augustine wrote, “that they may feed the lust of their own cruelty” (ep. 185.2.11). Recent scholarship has shown the narrative of bloodthirsty Donatists to be exaggerated or even “fictive.”7 Donatist and Caecilians were probably equally violent; such was the culture. However, Augustine used the specter of violence, particularly that of the “circumcellions,” to lobby Emperor Honorius to take action against the Donatists. Backed by Bishop Aurelius, Augustine oversaw a powerful network of friends and former students including Alypius, Evodius, and Possidius.8 After nearly a century of ineffective leadership, the Caecilianists presented a well-organized front with imperial support. On their advice, Emperor Honorius opted to have “Donatism” legally classified as a heresy that could then be prosecuted under existing antiheresy laws. A council was called in Carthage in 411 to settle the matter. Bishops from across Africa traveled to Carthage to participate, over 570 in all, each side nearly equal in number. The outcome of the council was foreordained – the judge Marcellinus was a Caecilianist and 7
8
B. Shaw, “Bad Boys: Circumcellions and Fictive Violence,” in H. A. Drake (ed.), Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 179–97. See also P. I. Kaufman, “Donatism Revisited: Moderates and Militants in Late Antique North Africa,” Journal of Late Antiquity 2 (2009), 131–42. For a detailed look at the backstage political machinations, see E. Hermanowicz, Possidius of Calama: A Study of the North African Episcopate in the Age of Augustine, Oxford Early Christian Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 156–220.
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friend of Augustine. Though the council was ostensibly a debate to decide the “true church,” the Donatists treated the event as a martyr trial.9 In a savvy act of political theater, the bishops refused to sit down for three days, recalling Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man who does not sit in the council of the wicked” (Augustine, c. lit. Pet. 3.96.107). The Donatists were ably represented at the conference and offered compelling evidence for their confession. Nevertheless, Donatism was declared a heresy and made a criminal offense. Their assemblies were proscribed, their property confiscated, and individuals were heavily fined. The Caecilianists enjoyed a brief political victory under Augustine’s leadership, but the Donatists’ Bartelbian resistance well represents the spirit of ancient African Christianity. Augustine’s last recorded interaction with the Donatists was a refutation of Gaudentius of Thamugadi, who in 420 declined to surrender his basilica and threatened to burn the building down with himself and his congregation inside. In a letter to the magistrate justifying his actions, Gaudentius defiantly emphasized their refusal to be coerced: “We will die in the persecution freely for God’s sake . . . We rejoice in the world’s hatred, and we will not succumb to its pressures, but rejoice” (Augustine, c. Gaud. 1.26). Though Augustine never again directly engaged the Donatists, his vociferous attack on the doctrine of free will in his later years reflects a lingering preoccupation with his old foes, whose insanity he was never really able to penetrate.
9
T. Graumann, “Upstanding Donatists: Symbolic Communication at the Conference of Carthage (411),” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 15 (2011), 329–55.
19
m Soteriological Controversies Dominic Keech Between 412 and his death in 430, Augustine engaged in a series of public disputes about the nature of human salvation that have been given the coverall title of the Pelagian Controversy. These debates centered on at least four distinct but interrelated series of propositions that emerged in succession from the teachings of Pelagius and Caelestius, two ascetics based in Rome at the turn of the fifth century. The first of these is found in a denial of inherited culpability for Adam’s sin and an account of baptism as a rite of entry to godly – and, at length, heavenly – life for believers.1 To this opinion of Caelestius, exposed at a Carthaginian synod in 411, Augustine supplied a twofold response: Adam’s sin is transmitted by coitus and results in a fatal self-love, but baptism, for both adults and infants, brings about a remission of inherited guilt and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who empowers true desire and restores true freedom.2 The second proposition lies in Pelagius’ optimism about the capacity of humans to fulfill the commandments of God because their will remains substantially intact in its freedom even after Adam’s sin. Augustine responded to Pelagius’ work De Natura in 415 by enlarging his description of the effects of the Fall on the will and the absolute necessity of grace to enable it both to desire and to carry out the good.3 The third proposition is found after 418 in the anti-Augustinian works of bishop Julian of Eclanum, who developed Pelagius’ teaching on the limits of sin and the possibility of naturally righteous living. Augustine refuted his charges in minute detail, a project left still unfinished when Augustine died in 430.4
1 2 3 4
Augustine, gest. Pel. 11.23; pecc. mer. 1.30.58. Pec. mer. 2.4.4; Spir. et litt. 29.50 and 30.52. Nat. et gr. 22.24 and 26.29. The title of this unfinished project is Contra Iulianum Opus Imperfectum.
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The fourth proposition arose during the last four years of Augustine’s life, in the questioning of monks in North Africa and Gaul. Reading Augustine’s doctrine of human impotence and divine grace, they petitioned him for a justification for moral endeavor and its expression in the monastic life.5 Augustine replied with the hardest teaching of all: the moral life and spiritual progress of the Christian are never chosen or fulfilled except by the predestining will of God himself.6 Reconstructing the various contexts of these debates will always be colored by the fact that Augustine and his supporters supply the most substantial evidence of them. Furthermore, the saturating effect of Augustine’s soteriology on western theological sensibility makes impossible any really unAugustinian account of the circumstances of its formulation. When a historian of theology has some measure of faith in Augustine’s account of sin and redemption, this condition is only heightened, and such is the case here. Nonetheless, having admitted that the recoverable surroundings of these debates will be illuminated by an Augustinian light (or covered by an Augustinian darkness), the remainder of this chapter will consider them in three key areas, each a nexus of anxiety at the turn of the fifth century. They concern the interpretation of Scripture, the interpretation of baptism, and the interpretation of history. In each, the reception of Confessions plays a vital part.
the interpretation of scripture The second half of the fourth century was a period of intense interest in the interpretation of Scripture, particularly the exegesis of Paul, in the western church. This “exegetical turn” was in significant part enabled by Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia, who from the 380s until 410 published Latin translations of numerous Greek authors, including Origen. In addition to translating many of his works on the Old Testament, Rufinus also furnished the west with an abridged translation of Origen’s unparalleled commentary on Romans. Within the same time frame, Jerome published his Vulgate edition of Scripture and provided his readers with an invaluable tool for comparing variant readings of Scripture by translating Origen’s Hexapla. These extensive new resources compelled Latin readers to develop their critical approach to the scriptural text, allowed them to compare the traditions of western exegesis with those of their Greek counterparts, and gave them 5 6
Augustine, ep. 214–15 and 225–6. The titles of these treatises are De Praedestinatione Sanctorum and De Dono Perseverantiae.
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unprecedented ease of access to one of the most splendid minds in the history of biblical interpretation. From this exegetical renaissance emerged a series of commentaries on the Pauline corpus: Marius Victorinus on Ephesians, Galatians, and Philippians (and probably Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians) after 362; Ambrosiaster on Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians before 384; Jerome on Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus shortly after 386; and Augustine in two commentaries on Romans and one on Galatians in 394–5. Rufinus’ version of Origen on Romans was published in 405–6 and was followed by Pelagius’ commentary on the same epistle, sometime between 406 and 410. This abundance of comparative commentary revealed strikingly different interpretations of some of Paul’s most difficult texts concerning the nature of salvation. These included the discussion of sin in Rm 5:12–17, especially verse 12: “in whom [sc. Adam] all have sinned”; of humanity under the law and under grace in Chapter Seven, and of election in Chapter Nine. Reading and counter-reading flowed into letters and tractates, notably Augustine’s letter, Ad Simplicianum, of 396, on the punishment of sin, and election; the Liber de Fide of Rufinus the Syrian, in large part arguing through Romans and Genesis against a doctrine of inherited sinfulness; and the anonymous “Pelagian” text against predestinarianism, De Induratione Cordis Pharaonis, after 404. This was a period of fertile cross-pollination. However, the terms of these exchanges were abruptly changed in 399 when Rufinus published a translation of Origen’s De Principiis, the application of his exegesis in a systematic theology of universal redemption. The publication ended the alliance between Rufinus and Jerome and exposed Origen once again to charges of heresy, not least because Rufinus’ abridgment of the text softened and excised historically divisive passages. The following year, Pope Anastasius reiterated the condemnation of Origen and proscribed the use of his works.7 Although the papal decree brought the Origenist controversy to a partial close in the west, it also exposed the want of an authoritative steer on the development of orthodox doctrine from scriptural exegesis, in a church spanning three continents and with increasingly sophisticated means of communication at its disposal. Augustine had begun an answer to that question in 397, exploring the fundamentals of language, interpretation, and desire in De doctrina Christiana. He suspended its completion while another project occupied his attention: a little before 400, the Confessions were published. This was 7
Jerome, ep. 95.
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an experimentation in exegesis never before attempted, which applied the same hermeneutic to both Scripture and the life of a human person, resulting in a single narrative of universal and individual salvation. Its immediate reception took place against a hiatus, as western Christians pondered the recent invigoration of their literary culture and questioned the boundaries of its future development. The Confessions astonished, delighted, and divided its readers as they accompanied Augustine on a journey toward beatitude through the gift of grace.8
the interpretation of baptism In a century of advancing Christianization, individuals, families, and households from every layer of society sought membership of the church, and for a wide variety of reasons. Responding to these conversions challenged the pastoral and didactic capacity of clergy, for whom the effective rhetoric of mass catechesis became a very practical concern. Conveying – and eliciting – a fully Christian faith from powerful converts presented a particularly subtle set of demands as aristocratic families became catholic but retained many of their roles in the traditionally pagan institutions of society and state. Of the wealthy Roman aristocrat, supported by huge generational wealth, active at the Forum and present at the circus, the question circulated: what kinds of discontinuity did baptism require, and what kinds of discontinuity did it effectually convey? One response to this quandary came from within the milieu it concerned, in the form of a new asceticism: domestic, lavishly euergetist, frequently organized by influential women, and given articulation by their attendant chaplains. It created a new kind of patrician celebrity in the heads of paramonastic houses: Marcella at Rome and Paula at Bethlehem, both attended by Jerome; Melania the Elder at Jerusalem, with Rufinus of Aquileia; and Melania’s friends Paulinus and Therasia at Nola. The movement they represented aimed at an “intense Christianity”9 for the morally and intellectually serious, a reversion to the experience of pre-Constantinian faith through the desertification of the salon. Augustine’s gathering at Cassiciacum briefly attempted a similar scheme in a more moderate vein, and he remained on
8
9
Augustine notes general applause for the work at retr. 2.6.33; he records Pelagius’ contrary response in persev. 20.53. W. A. Löhr, Pelagius, Portrait of a Teacher in Late Antiquity, Alexander Souter Memorial Lectures on Late Antiquity 1 (Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen School of Divinity, History and Philosophy, 2007), 4.
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friendly terms with members of the great ascetic households throughout his life. Before 410, Pelagius lived at Rome, where he appears to have circulated as a spiritual director among the city’s ascetic grandees. He knew Sixtus, to be Pope Sixtus III; Paulinus of Nola; and Pammachius, Paula’s son in law and Jerome’s friend. In this network, he was few removes from acquaintance with Augustine himself. The contours of his ascetic teaching are known from few sources but are marked by optimistic rigorism: even after habituation to sinful acts, the will remains fundamentally good and may obey the commands God has given for its correction10; remitting actual sins, baptism repristinates the will for the fulfillment of the law and the imitation of Christ and sets the virtuous believer on the way to everlasting life.11 Characterizing Christian life as an arena for moral perfection, his scheme offers little remedy to the persistence of postbaptismal sin except the graces of nature and the divine law. The lapsed and repentant lie outside his vision of the church, a pure society comprised of integri Christiani.12 At the level of personal morality, Pelagius articulated a puritanism whose ecclesial parallel continued to flourish in North Africa. For the Donatist church, lapsing from the faith in time of persecution caused a separation that no repentance could repair: only those who remained within the succession of the faithful could be assured of their status as catholic Christians. Augustine wrote repeatedly against their schism from 400; by 415, imperial legislation had begun to curtail their influence, and Pelagianism became the focus of his polemic. Against the Donatists, Augustine pilloried the geopolitical fantasy that catholicism remained in Africa alone and insisted that the church is home to both sinner and saint in a single society of continuing reconciliation.13 Later, against Caelestius and Pelagius, Augustine would advance on this insight: through baptism, grace purges the compulsive guilt of concupiscence and initiates an interior conversion to the love of God within the mixed economy of the church.14 Because its initiative is divine, this process is not linear or proved by the performance of righteous acts but ineluctably mysterious. For both the individual and the church, a moral chiaroscuro presently persists.15 10 11 12
13 14 15
Pelagius, ep. ad Dem. 3.2–3 and 16.1–3. Comm. in Rom. 6. P. Brown, “The Supporters of Pelagius,” in P. Brown (ed.), Religion and Society in the Age of Augustine (London: Faber & Faber, 1972), 192. Augustine, bapt. 4.10.15–17. Gest. Pel. 12.27–8. Spir. et litt. 34.60; gr. et lib. arb. 23.45.
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In the wake of Augustine’s argument with Pelagius and his allies, the reception of his earlier work was turned back on him. From 420, Julian of Eclanum took issue not only with Augustine’s teaching on inherited sin but also with his description of conversion by grace, the substance of his Confessions written twenty years before. For Julian, the concupiscence conveyed to the descendants of Adam through intercourse and the will requiring the initiative of grace for its freedom belied Augustine’s persistent tendency to Manicheism.16 Julian leveled his criticism at the claims of Augustine’s polemic but implicitly also at those of his self-disclosure, calling into question the nature of his own, much publicized faith. Augustine responded exhaustively to Julian, but their dispute would remain unresolved. He died before completing his answer; and the specter of Augustine, the Manichee baptized, was not quite put to rest.
the interpretation of history In 410, Alaric’s Vandal army sacked Rome. Although the damage to the city was limited, the attack was a blow to the preeminent symbol of the Empire’s stability, now undergoing Germanic mass migration. Many of the city’s aristocracy retired to their country estates, away from the likelihood of further disruption. Among the refugees were some of the citizens who had sponsored the “urban desert”: Pinianus and Melania the Younger moved to their estate at Thagaste; Rufinus of Aquileia landed on Sicily. Pelagius and Caelestius also settled in Africa, where Caelestius petitioned the church in Carthage for presbyteral ordination. His request was refused, and in 411, his opinions were interrogated by Paulinus of Milan at a diocesan synod. This provided Augustine with the impetus for his first attack on Caelestius’ errors in 412, De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de baptismo parvulorum. For Augustine, surrounded by the fallout of 410, Rome’s problems had become pressingly local. News also reached him of conflicting rationalizations for the sack of the city, in “pagan” protests against the rejection of the pantheon, and Christian doubt about the power of their prayers.17 For catholics, the threat to a Christian imperial order called into question the accumulated confidence of the fourth century and cast a shadow on the seemingly progressive achievements of providence. 16
17
Augustine, c. ep. Pel. 2.1.1–2.4; the issue recurs throughout c. Jul. 6 and Contra Iulianum Opus Imperfectum. S. 105 and 296.
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In 417, Augustine commissioned the Spanish priest Orosius to compile a chronicle to furnish his own work with examples. The Liber historiarum adversus paganos revived the optimism of Eusebian historiography, delineating a clear divine purpose in the succession of history and in the empire’s eventual guardianship of the church. Completing the City of God in the late 420s, Augustine wrote otherwise, disappointing all bids for an easy retrospect on Rome’s fall. Drawing on the ideas of the Donatist Tyconius, his history concerned two cities: earthly and heavenly, imperceptibly mixed in time but destined for different eternities. God’s inscrutable judgment ordains their membership, and its mysteriousness forbids the reading of ambiguous historical events in any simple story of progress or decline.18 The City of God echoed Augustine’s doctrine of predestination on the grandest scale. But for many of Augustine’s readers the practical implications of this teaching for Christian life, and especially monastic practice, remained unclear. In 426 and 428, Augustine responded to the monks of Hadrumetum and then Marseilles, who were confused at the circularity of his reasoning and its potential for moral quietism. Augustine restated his insistence: grace begins faith, enables perseverance, and fulfills its own work in the Christian irrespective of individual merit.19 By the power of grace, true freedom puts ascetic practice to good ends; as such, it is a tool of God’s work in his people.20 Yet the grace that predestines for salvation, that draws the heavenly city through time to beatitude, is untraceable: predestination to salvation or condemnation is not given to humans to know, even as it may be working within them.21 Only in eternity will history finally yield its meaning, when the work of grace in God’s elect is revealed. To defend his position, Augustine cited his own consistency: writing to Simplicianus and in the Confessions he had always taught the same doctrine.22 Indeed, the Confessions recorded his own experience: Augustine the man proved his theology. Now, in hindsight, he could trace a clear and graceful line from his conversion to old age, knowing God’s grace and teaching it as such. In the same vein, in his earlier anti-Pelagian works, he had traced a clear line of orthodoxy about original sin from Scripture, through Cyprian and Ambrose, to himself. Under pressure from the Emperor Honorius, Pope Innocent I eventually ceded to Augustine’s history 18 19 20 21 22
Civ. Dei 20.2 and 22.1–2; the themes are pervasive. Persev. 32–3.13. Corrept. 14.43, 15.46; 22.57–62. Persev. 11.25. Retr. 2.1.18; praed. sanct. 4.8; persev. 20.52–5.
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of doctrine in 417. Pelagianism was decreed heresy, and Augustine’s doctrine was endorsed as the pattern of orthodoxy. In all of this, there was a profound paradox. By his own account, the grace Augustine labored to defend could admit of no such historical analysis, either in his own work or in the tradition of the church. At the end of his life, Augustine’s doctrine of predestination brought his theology to an irresolvable impasse.
retrospect In the time of Augustine’s maturity, Christians in the west were confronted by significant change in the church, Roman society, and the politics of the entire Empire. Through networks of common friendship, correspondence, and publication, their spokespeople grappled with three areas of uncertainty. The springtime of Latin exegesis exposed the need for a common hermeneutic, by which a reading of Scripture could authoritatively inform moral choices. The normalization of baptism called for a reassessment of sacramental initiation, which would articulate the distinctiveness of Christian identity for a developing Christian culture. Later, the vicissitudes of time demanded a renewed understanding of history, by which the Christian hope would speak intelligibly to the challenges of cotidian experience. Pelagius, Caelestius, Julian, and the monks of Hadrumetum and Marseilles all proposed solutions to these perplexities from within the Christian tradition. Over twenty years, Augustine made of these a synthesis of error, to which his doctrine of sin and grace could be the only corrective. It furnished his age with a theology of salvation both monumental and intimate, distorting the memory of its critics as it achieved much of the authority it claimed. Its difficult grandeur and its God of a mysteriously irresistible love remain Augustine’s most problematic legacy.
20
m Trinitarian Controversies Mark Weedman The Homoean (homoios) party of the west emerged during a time of relative political stability during the 350s. As the Emperor Constantius consolidated power during that era, he began to exert influence on church matters, most notably in a series of councils that were designed to minimize the influence of Athanasius and to assert a theological formula that could be widely accepted.1 Though theological and political alliances shifted frequently throughout the decade, the Homoeans coalesced as a distinct group at two councils at the end of the period, Sirmium 357 and Rimini/ Seleucia 359. The statement issued by the first of these councils, Sirmium 357, actually reads more like an initial “position paper” rather than a welldeveloped theological statement or creed.2 Contemporary sources tend to agree that the Sirmium manifesto was produced by a relatively small number of participants. However, the theologians and bishops who produced that document became the leaders of Homoean party, including Valens and Ursacius, who had been responsible for Athansius’ exile in the mid-350s. Perhaps because of who composed the document, the Sirmium manifesto quickly became notorious among the Homoeans’ chief opponents and serves as a valuable entry point to the Homoean controversy in the Latin west.
hilary of poitiers and the latin response to sirmium 357 The Sirmium manifesto staked out two theological positions that became especially important for Homoean theology as a whole. In the first place, the 1
2
For this point and additional bibliography, see L. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 134. For that term, see D. H. Williams, Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Arian-Nicene Conflicts, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 19.
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creed explicitly subordinates the Son to the Father on the basis of the names “father” and “son.” The rationale for this subordination lies in the difference between the Father and Son. In a move that is at once traditional and that will become a focus of a later anti-Homoean polemic, the creed asserts that the Father as Father surpasses the Son: because the Father is, by definition, unbegotten, the begotton Son must be subordinate.3 In the second place, the Sirmium manifesto goes to some lengths to deny the use of substance language when speaking of God. In a passage that will generate much discussion, the authors assert But as for the fact that some, or many, are concerned about substance, which is called ousia in Greek, that is, to speak more explicitly, homoousian or homoiousian as it is called, there should be no mention of it whatever.4
This prohibition on substance seems primarily to have been about setting aside the debate about the Son’s “substance” that has grown since the Council of Nicea in 325. One of the most important rhetorical moves of early Homoeanism was to assert that the Nicene emphasis on substance obscured a true understanding of the relationship between the Father and the Son; i.e., that they are “like” each other but not equal in nature. Once we remove substance language from the conversation, we can then set aside the unresolvable ontological questions about the divine nature. And once we set aside those unresolvable questions, we can focus on the witness of the Bible, which the Homoeans believe offers a clear account of how the Father is greater than the Son. The Sirmium 357 statement had an almost immediate impact on the Latin pro-Nicenes, and several pro-Nicene theologians offered forceful responses to it. Hilary of Poitiers calls Sirmium 357, “The Blasphemy,” and along with Hilary, Phoebadius of Agen and Marius Victorinus produced full-length rebuttals of its creed within a year or two of its being published.5 Both Phoebadius and Victorinus focus their response on the Homoean prohibition of substance language. For his part, Phoebadius argues that prohibiting substance talk introduces an artificial separation between the Father and the Son. According to Phoebadius, whatever we predicate of the Father we can predicate of the Son, including that which belongs to the Father’s substance. Thus the Homoean prohibition on substance language prevents us from
3 4 5
Hilary of Poitiers, syn. 11 (PL 10:489). Ibid. (PL 10:488). For discussion of these responses, see M. Weedman, The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 89 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 51–73.
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describing the divine properties that belong to the Son.6 Victorinus’ response to Sirmium 357 is more technical but follows a similar trajectory. Victorinus argued that because God is simple, and because the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, they must be equal in order to preserve divine simplicity; on the basis of divine simplicity, the Father and Son must have a “complete identity between power, substance, divinity and act.”7 Thus both Victorinus and Phoebadius affirm the priority of substance language in describing the relationship between the Father and Son because such language is a theological necessity. For both theologians, the only way to capture the sharing of properties between Father and Son is by employing substance language. Phoebadius and Victorinus respond to the early Homoeans from a classically Latin perspective, one informed by Latin theologians of an earlier generation, especially Tertullian and Novatian.8 A much different approach to Sirmium 357 comes from the pen of Hilary of Poitiers. Hilary stands as one of the most important witnesses to Latin Trinitarian theology prior to Augustine, and the categories he establishes in his response to the Sirmium manifesto became some of the most important to Latin pro-Nicene thought as a whole. Hilary’s first emerged as pro-Nicene polemicist in mid-350s by opposing a series of councils led by Valens and Ursacius that were designed to condemn Athanasius. It was only after the publication of the Sirmium Creed, however, that Hilary began to work out his mature response to the Homoeans in a document known as De synodis. Hilary wrote De synodis from exile in Cappadocia, where he had just come into contact with the theology of the Homoeousian party and gained a new perspective on the Homoeans. Hilary’s De Trinitate is his most famous Trinitarian work, but almost all of the themes and categories of that work are established in the earlier De synodis. The significance of the Homoeousian Party’s influence on Hilary’s mature Trinitarian theology lies both in his defense of substance language and in his understanding of the broader polemical context of Homoeanism as a theological and political movement. As their name indicated, the Homoeousians believed in the necessity of substance language to describe the Father–Son relationship, but they equally believed that the substantial relationship between the Father and Son should not be taken to mean that Father and Son were identical, which is why they preferred homoiousios over 6 7 8
Phoebadius, c. Ar. 8.3–5 (CCL 64:31). Victorinus, adv. Ar. IA.9 (CSEL 83:67). Weedman, The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers, 51–73.
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the Nicene homoousios. Hilary’s response to the Sirmium manifesto conveys both these concerns. Taking his cue from the Homoeousians, Hilary argued that the biblical names “father” and “son” reveal both the substantial relationship between them while also forcing us to recognize their distinction. The names “father” and “son” must be real names, Hilary contends, because the only way it makes sense to confess God as Father is if he is eternally Father of a Son. And on analogy with human fathers and sons, a father who (eternally) begets a son does so substantially, by giving birth to a son who shares the father’s nature. The name “father,” therefore, reveals a substantial relationship between Father and Son. The Father, as father, gives birth to a Son who shares in the divine nature. Homoeans err, accordingly, because they take the names “father” and “son” as titles instead of real names, which is why they fail to recognize the substantial relationship between the Father and the Son.9 Hilary’s emphasis on the natural quality of the divine names and on the substantial relationship that these names indicate is the hallmark of Hilary’s mature Trinitarian theology, becoming the central argument in De synodis and in his later, highly influential De Trinitate.10 The utility of the concept lies not just in its affirmation of the substantial relationship between the Father and the Son but in its equally strong affirmation of the distinction between the Father and Son: the Father gives birth to a Son who shares in the divine nature, but the Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father. So, while it is no surprise that Hilary offers one of the earliest defenses of homoousios in Latin Trinitarian theology, he does so by denying the possibility that substance language can indicate the identity of the Father with the Son. Hilary affirms homoousios by recasting it as a synonym for homoiousios. Because equality does not exist without a shared substance, but neither does it exist within an identical substance, we can only use homoousios once we affirm the distinction of the Father and the Son.11 Herein lies Hilary contribution to Latin Trinitarian theology: his conviction was that refuting the Homoeans required a robust defense of substance language coupled with his equally robust assertion that the substantial relationship between the Father and the Son should not be expressed as identity. For Hilary, the danger of Homoean theology was not just that the Homoean denial of substance language inevitably led to the subordination of the Son to the Father. An equal danger was that if his Latin colleagues readmit substance 9 10 11
Hilary, syn. 20 (PL 10:496). Weedman, The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers, 136–56. Hilary, syn. 72 (PL 10:527).
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talk improperly, the result will be modalism, which for Hilary is as problematic as the substance-denying subordinationism of the Homoeans.
the council of ariminum and flourishing of homoean theology (360–81) About two years after publication of the Sirmium manifesto, Emperor Constanius called two councils, one in the east and one in the west, to settle the burgeoning debate between the Homoeans and their opponents. Constantius favored the Homoeans, but at the western council, held at Ariminum in 359, the anti-Homoeans made a strong showing. Contrary to the emperor’s wishes, the council initially rejected suggestions that substance language be banned, and they ultimately sent a delegation to Constantius with orders to defend their decision to resist the Homoeans. That delegation, however, succumbed to political and personal pressure and very quickly compromised. When the delegation returned, having affirmed a Homoean Creed that contained no mention of substance, most of the remaining proNicene bishops capitulated, affirmed the same Homoean Creed, and denied the validity of substance language altogether. That capitulation, along with a similar conciliar decision in the east, gave the Homoeans political and theological supremacy throughout the Empire.12 Homoean supremacy did not go entirely unchallenged in the following decades. The most famous example of this resistance is Hilary of Poiters’ failed campaign against the Homoean Bishop Auxentius of Milan. In 364, Hilary, back from exile, appeared in Milan and attempted to have Auxentius deposed on a charge of heresy.13 The attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful, and although pro-Nicene activity did not fade away, the Homoeans remained in control of important sees such as Milan and continued to produce theological treatises, though the evidence for these is fragmentary and difficult to date and synthesize.14 It is also worth noting that the Homoeans of this era continued to deny the validity of substance language. In 366, for example, Valens and Ursacius requested that Germinius of Sirmium confirm whether or not he was teaching that the Son was like the Father in all things. Their worry was that such a teaching would include substance, because “all things” is broad enough to include substance, which would put Germinius outside the Homoean faith. Interestingly, Germinius 12 13 14
For a full account of these proceedings, see Williams, Ambrose of Milan, 22–37. Hilary records the full episode in his Liber Contra Auxentium (PL 10:605ff). See Williams, Ambrose of Milan, 83–5.
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made no attempt to deny the charge, which may mean that the Homoean coalition was never very “orthodox” theologically, but the episode is also a good illustration of how central denying substance language remained to Homoean thought.15 Another sign of the vibrancy of both the Homoean and pro-Nicene communities during this era is that Homoean/pro-Nicene polemics continued to develop. Although it is probably wrong to make too strong a distinction between first- and second-generation Homoeans, we can recognize a shifting emphasis in how Homoean theologians attacked the pro-Nicenes in the decades following the councils of 359–60. The Homoeans quickly recognized that Hilary’s generic model of the Trinity actually worked better for their side than for his. The obvious problem is that while the divine names imply a substantial relationship between the Father and Son, they also imply a beginning in time for the Son and the subordination of the Son to the Father.16 Hilary had attempted to address this by maintaining that the Son was eternally begotten, which may have solved the problem on a technical level but did not overcome the conceptual dilemma. The Homoeans could easily claim – and apparently did – that we should adopt the analogy fully or not at all. Either the divine names indicate the substantial relationship between the Father and the Son and the subordination of the Son or they do not indicate a substantial relationship at all. Accordingly, the most important advance in Latin pro-Nicene theology leading up the Council of Aquileia was an attempt to reframe Trinitarian theology to allow for a substantial relationship between the Father and the Son without falling into the trap posed by the material analogy with earthly fathers and sons. Ambrose of Milan’s treatment of eternal generation in his De fide, especially in the later books that were written just before the Council of Aquileia in 381, is indicative of the direction that pro-Nicene theology would take.17 Ambrose’s initial forays into the Homoean controversy were tentative, but once he came to terms with the specifics of Homoean thought, he began to attack it in ways that pushed pro-Nicene thought away from the Father/Son analogy. Ambrose’s solution to the dilemma of how to relate the Father and the Son on the level of substance is to suggest that begetting is not a quality of the divine nature or power but of his “property” (proprietas) as
15
16 17
See M. Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident 335–430, Patristica Sorbonensia 8 (Paris: Éditions de Seuil, 1967), 290. See, e.g., Hilary, Trin. 12.22 (CCSL 62a:596). For the composition of Ambrose’s De Fide, see Williams, Ambrose of Milan, 141–61.
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Father.18 Ambrose’s intent here is to distinguish what it means to be Father from the divine nature itself. Fatherhood, for Ambrose, is somehow integral to what it means to be God, but the Father’s status as “father” tells us nothing about the divine nature itself. Likewise, sonship is integral to the divine nature, but the Son as son tells us nothing about the divine nature. This move is a clear break from Hilary’s assertion that divine names reveal the divine nature, and it has crucial implications for pro-Nicene thought as a whole. Separating the name from the substance allowed pro-Nicenes to continue to use the names to distinguish the Father from the Son without having to invoke substance. The Son can participate in the divine substance and still manifest different properties from the Father because “unbegottenness” and “begottenness” are properties and not indicative of substance.19 At the same time, this move also allowed pro-Nicenes to assert the substantial relationship and full equality between the Father and the Son on the basis of categories other than the divine names.20
the pro-nicene victory at the council of aquileia 381 While the Homoeans dominated the political and theological landscape during the 360s and 370s, the pro-Nicenes also remained a potent force, both politically and dynamically. A key moment in the final rise of the proNicenes was the ascension of Gratian, the young, somewhat irresolute emperor who controlled much of the western empire in the 370s. Gratian may have been sympathetic to the pro-Nicene cause to begin with, but after Ambrose became bishop of Milan in 374, the two developed a close working relationship. Ambrose ultimately used that relationship to summon the leading Homoean bishops, most notably Palladius of Ratiaria, to stand trial at a council in Aquileia in 381. Ambrose served as the council’s instigator and, in the eyes of his Homoean opponents, its chief litigator, and under Ambrose’s guidance, the council deposed Palladius and other Homoean bishops. There is a tradition in scholarship of referring to the Council of Aquileia as the moment when the pro-Nicenes finally supplanted the Homoeans in the west, and it is true that after Aquileia the Latin Homoeans were no longer a viable political force. However, this view does not do justice either to the scope of the trial or to the resiliency of the western 18 19 20
Ambrose, fid. 4.8.82 (PL 16:633). Ibid., 4.8.87 (PL 16:634). See, as one example of several, in ibid., 4.11ff (PL 16:643).
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Homoeans. The Homoeans were strong enough in 381 that Palladius had to be summoned under false pretenses.21 Palladius himself survived Ambrose and apparently remained active as an anti-Nicene polemicist to the end of his life, along with several of his colleagues.22 Homoeanism continued to challenge pro-Nicene thought well into the fifth century. This resiliency may be the legacy of the Homoeans in the west. For more than twenty years, they were the dominant ecclesiastical force in the western part of the Empire, controlling key churches and establishing a robust theological system. Their theological system was so robust, in fact, that it pushed the Latin pro-Nicenes first to adopt eastern theological categories and then to redevelop those categories in response to Homoean attacks – a process that would only end several decades later with Augustine.
21
22
See H. O. Maier, “Private Space as the Social Context of Arianism in Ambrose’s Milan,” Journal of Theological Studies 45 (1994), 72–93. For Palladius’ career and western Homoeanism after Aquileia, see Scolies ariennes sur le concile d’Aquilée, ed. and trans. R. Gryson, Sources Chrétiennes 267 (Paris: Éditions de Cerf, 1980).
21
m Monasticism/Asceticism Marilyn Dunn When Augustine was born in 354 CE, Christian monasticism was already assuming its main lines of development. Its origins are traditionally located in Egypt at the beginning of the fourth century: the earliest written use of the word monachos for “monk” is found in a complaint lodged with an imperial official in 324 by a villager who had been rescued by a deacon and a monk when he was attacked by a neighbor. The earliest monks, evidently familiar figures on the Egyptian rural scene by the 320s, were individuals who withdrew from society and rejected sexual relations to lead lives of Christian contemplation. The most famous of these hermits or anchorites (from anachōrēsis, “withdrawal” or “retreat”) was St. Antony the Great, the son of a prosperous Christian Coptic farmer: he renounced the world as a young man, retreating first to the burial ground at the edge of his village and then further into the Egyptian desert, where he lived a solitary life of prayer and contemplation until his death, allegedly at the age of 104. Early Egyptian monasticism drew much of its spiritual inspiration from the speculative work of the Alexandrian theologian Origen (d. 253/4), whose teaching was transmitted to the Copts of the Nile delta by Hieracas of Leontopolis in the early fourth century. Origen taught that human souls were preexistent intelligences that had grown cold and fallen away from God, while human bodies, originally good in themselves, were now the place of their confinement. He maintained that the nous, or intelligence, the highest part of the soul and seat of participation in God’s image, might be freed from the desires and urges associated with the flesh and reunited with God in a recreation of the state of Adam before the fall. Antony’s ascetic thinking, communicated in a series of seven letters, is framed within Origenist paradigms of alienation from and return to God. Antony taught that the Holy Spirit had sent people “a rule for how to repent in their bodies and soul until 169
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they had taught them the way to return to God their creator.”1 This was to be achieved “through many fasts and vigils, through the exertion and exercises of the body, cutting off all the fruits of the flesh.”2 Such transformational asceticism, founded on mastery of the body and passions and rejection of sexuality, was widespread in the third and fourth centuries: Hieracas had preached that the married would not enter heaven, while the continent were regarded as elite in the early Syriac Church. Antony’s retreat to the desert did not prevent visitors arriving in the area to await his spiritual guidance; it is to these and to other imitators that his letters were addressed. Individual ascetics settled in other areas such as the “mount” of Nitria, Scetis, and Kellia, all in Lower Egypt, forming groups of several thousand monks who lived independently of each other but who could seek wisdom – a “word” – from the more charismatic and experienced solitaries. Our picture of the lives and teachings of these hermits has been shaped by their representation in late-fourth-century texts, such as the Apophthegmata Patrum (the Sayings of the Fathers), the Latin History of the Monks of Egypt, and Lausiac History. It has also been formed by the Life of Antony – the (disputed) work of Athanasius of Alexandria – written in the 350s. In this classic of spirituality, a variety of themes jostle with each other: it makes some reference to Antony’s Origenist ideas while privileging other elements, notably anti-“Arian” propaganda. The Life’s mythologizing of the desert draws attention away from other ascetic individuals who practiced continence and also scriptural study and meditation, another fundamental of the Origenist program, in their own homes, and it obscures a reality in which monks and “apotactics” or renunciants of various kinds were familiar figures not just in the cities of Egypt but also in smaller towns and villages. Egypt also saw the growth of the first real Christian communal monasticism in the 320s. It was largely shaped by the work of Pachomius (d. 346/7), a convert to Christianity who had originally acted as “steward” to a group of hermits, looking after their everyday needs. Pachomius gradually developed the idea of fully communal monasteries enclosed by a wall and containing a church, kitchen, refectory, workshops, and dormitories or cells that housed a few monks under a house master. He aimed to create a koinonia, or community, like the Jerusalem community described in Acts, in which all possessions were held in common and the believers were as “one heart and one soul.”3 The Pachomian koinonia developed as a chain of monasteries in 1
2 3
Letter 1, in Samuel Rubenson, Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995), 198. Ibid. Acts 4:32.
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Upper Egypt situated along the banks of the Nile in which monks worked at crafts and agriculture. It inspired the formation of other Coptic communities, such as the White Monastery headed by Shenoute of Atripe. The idea of monastic community was given an additional dimension in Cappadocia in the 370s by the work of Basil, bishop of Caesarea (d. ca. 378). Basil was familiar with both Stoic philosophy and Origenist theology and had visited Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Syria in the 350s. Taking as his watchword the scriptural injunction to love God first of all and then one’s neighbor,4 he envisioned monasteries as sources of charity for the Christian community as a whole. Basil demanded not only disposal of an individual’s property on entry to a community but also that its members should work – not just to support the ascetic group but also to provide alms for the Christian poor. Rejecting hyperasceticism, he blended practical service with moderation in diet and askēsis (“training,” “self-discipline”), with a contemplative element more usually associated with the eremitic life, and with a system of spiritual perfection through confession to a senior. Latin translations of the Life of Antony appeared in the 350s and 370s. These texts had enormous impact in the west, initially among high-ranking Roman women such as Melania the Elder and her friend Paula. Melania would become a leading exponent of and supporter of Egyptian Origenism, and both she and Paula founded monasteries in the Holy Land. Before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine learned about Antony from a friend. His Confessions suggest that he had, up to then, been completely ignorant of Christian asceticism and monasticism, but that the Life’s account of Antony’s inspiration by the Gospel made such an impression on him that his decision to accept Christianity was partly based on it. Earlier, Augustine had lived with his mother, his son, and group of friends with whom he pooled his resources.5 After his conversion, he created a house monastery – a type of ascetic retreat springing up throughout the Roman Christian world – in his former family home in Thagaste where, once more, he lived with a group of friends. George Lawless considers that this group practiced what Augustine would later characterize as the four elements of monastic life: manual labor, reading, prayer, and scriptural study.6 The community moved to the grounds of the church at Hippo after Augustine was forcibly ordained priest in 391. 4 5 6
Mt 22:37–40. Augustine, conf. 8.6, 12; 6.14. George Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 50.
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Augustine became bishop of Hippo in 395–6, and it is thought that around 397 he composed the text known as the Praeceptum (or Regula Tertia) for the guidance of the “garden monastery” he had left. This generally accepted dating would make the Praeceptum the first western monastic rule and perhaps the first monastic rule in a formal sense, even if Augustine did not label it as such.7 The original Pachomian “rules” may have been in the form of letters and specific instructions: the early koinonia is likely to have been run by visitation and assemblies, while the Pachomian legislative texts creatively rendered into Latin by Jerome in 404 are of indeterminate date. Basil’s ascetic works were framed as questions and responses, originally dealing with issues affecting the wider Christian community as well as monastic groups; they emerged in several recensions, and Rufinus of Aquileia only began his Latin version of one of these in 397. So Augustine’s integrated set of spiritual and practical instructions may break new ground. The Praeceptum innovates in other ways. Soon after his conversion, in The Ways of the Catholic Church and the Manicheans, Augustine composed a eulogy of monasticism in Egypt and the east in which he seems to be thinking of the koinonia. Before his conversion, he had conceived of the soul in Neoplatonist or Plotinian terms as ascending toward God. In framing his rule, he reversed the order of heart and soul in Acts’ description of the Jerusalem community, adding the phrase in Deum, which might be translated as “seeking” or “tending toward” God. The opening of the Praceptum announces that the community is to “have one soul and heart seeking God.” The Praeceptum aimed at achieving what twentieth-century anthropologist Victor Turner characterized as communitas, a condition in which selfhood is dissolved in the mystical union of a group of people.8 Augustine visualizes a gradual progression toward this state: [Y]ou will know the extent of your progress as you enlarge your concern for the common interest instead of your own private interest; enduring love (caritas) will govern all matters pertaining to the fleeting necessities of life.9
7
8
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Conrad Leyser, “Augustine in the Latin West,” in M. Vessey (ed.), A Companion to Augustine, Blackwell Companion to the Ancient World (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), 450–64, places it in the 420s. Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures (Chicago: Aldine, 1969). Augustine, Reg. 3.5.2; Lawless, Augustine of Hippo, 95.
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While aiming to abolish all distinctions of social rank, he also counts understanding of those who find it difficult to sustain more austere circumstances as a sign of spiritual progress, as individual concerns dissolve in a transcendent unity sustained by mutual forgiveness and restraint in speech. Ultimate authority is vested in a priest, but the community’s superior, who exercises practical control in everyday matters, is to be obeyed as a father. Nevertheless, he is instructed to serve in love rather than dominate in power, while obedience to him is to be based on compassion. This conception of authority is highly individual yet also characteristic of the relatively unhierarchical nature of early monastic communities. Pachomius himself lived under the supervision of a house master, while authority in the koinonia could be extremely fluid, shifting between house masters, weekly servers, stewards, heads of monasteries, and community “fathers.” Even Basil, who considered obedience unto death the primary monastic virtue, nevertheless instructed the community superior – described simply as is qui praeest (“he who is in charge”) – to be meek and lowly of heart. The Praeceptum reminds community members that they are “no longer slaves under the law, but a people living in freedom under grace.”10 The role of grace in relation to asceticism would be fiercely debated in the early fifth century, with Augustine himself playing the decisive part. Jerome led the assault: first on the British ascetic Pelagius in Rome and then on the Origenist-inspired writings of Evagrius Ponticus, who died in Kellia in 399, just as Origenism was also coming under attack in Egypt. Jerome castigated both Pelagius and Evagrius for what he deemed overemphasis on human potential in the ascetic life, expressing particular scorn for Evagrius’ objective of freedom from passions – apatheia – as a prelude to union of the nous with God. Augustine would insist on the need for both the enabling and the cooperative grace of God. Evagrian thought was refashioned for the west by the work of John Cassian, who composed the Institutes and Conferences between 420 and 430, bringing a version of transformational asceticism to western monastic communities. Without once mentioning Evagrius, whose controversial terminology he neutralized in Latin expressions, Cassian attempted to show that both God’s grace and human effort played a part in monastic life. Yet there remained a considerable gap between his technologies of individual spiritual progress and Augustine’s desire to create a community in which the boundaries between individual souls would be dissolved.
10
Augustine, Reg. 3.8.1; Lawless, Augustine of Hippo, 103.
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The fifth century saw significant developments in western monasticism. Despite their different spiritual emphases, Augustine and Cassian had both advocated the idea that members of religious communities should work. By contrast, the monasticism created in northern Gaul by Bishop Martin of Tours (d. 397) attracted high-status males and did not prescribe manual labor: manuscript copying sufficed. The southern Gallic monastery of Lérins, home of two of Cassian’s dedicatees, was similarly refined, and many of the aristocrats who became monks there would return to their native regions as bishops. Monastic life expanded along with Christianity, and some monasteries grew up around churches and relic shrines. Families placed children in communities sometimes for education but often as oblates. Not all communities sought, or could afford, a life of contemplative otium (“ease” or “leisure”): the monks of the Burgundian Jura communities founded in the late fifth century tilled their own fields. By the early sixth century, one of these monasteries had created the first recognizable monastic dormitory. Augustine’s “garden monastery” disappears from sight with the Vandal capture of Hippo in 430, but the Praeceptum survived. Excerpts are embedded in a very different work, the Rule for Virgins, completed by Bishop Caesarius of Arles in 532. In the 380s, Jerome had begun to advocate enclosed virginity as the essential pattern for female religious life, but Augustine stands apart from this developing paradigm. Historians debate his attitude toward women;11 however, his sister was head of a nunnery that appears to have used a rule for women identical to, or minimally different from, the Praeceptum.12 It allowed nuns to leave their buildings in groups to go to the baths, to the laundry, and to an external church under the same conditions of mutual watchfulness as monks. By contrast, Caesarius declared that there were many differences between male and female monasteries and created the strictest conditions of enclosure to protect the nuns’ virginity. Caesarius’ use of the Praeceptum provides us with other indications of the evolution of monasticism. Augustine’s original vision of communal life as “one soul and heart seeking God” has been transmuted into “one soul and heart in God.” The purpose of Caesarius’ nunnery was to provide liturgical 11
12
See E. Ann Matter, “De cura feminarum: Augustine the Bishop, North African Women and the Development of a Theology of a Female Nature,” Augustinian Studies 36(1) (2005), 87–98, and the references given there. Gerald Bonner et al. (eds.), Saint Augustine: The Monastic Rules, Augustine Series 4 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2004), 37–44, translation at 132–44. The bracketed sections are probably mainly later interpolations.
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intercession for himself and the city of Arles. There seem to have been few officials in Augustine’s monastery, while Caesarius wrote for a community of around two hundred nuns, where the superior is assisted by a greater number of officials – even if their hierarchy is nowhere nearly so clearly defined as in the Benedictine Rule, written a few decades later. The suite of quotations from the Praeceptum in Caesarius’ Rule for Virgins is preceded by a similar set from another “Augustinian rule,” the so-called Ordo monasterii, or Regula secunda. While it is no longer regarded as Augustine’s own work, this juxtaposition suggests that it was linked to the Praeceptum at an early date.13 However, one of the points on which it differs from the latter – and where Caesarius quotes from it – is in its unqualified insistence on obedience to a superior and a prior, something more in tune with post-Augustinian developments in monastic life. This trend would emerge clearly when, around 550, Benedict of Nursia composed a Rule defining obedience, humility, and silence as the essential monastic virtues and creating a simple but effective hierarchy of monastic officials headed by a powerful abbot. His sparse reminiscences of Augustine center on the Praeceptum’s reference to the Jerusalem community’s pooling of possessions. Benedict’s prescription of obedience to abbatial authority would provide a template for monastic community in the “mixed rules” produced in seventh-century Francia and England. The combination of Ordo monasterii followed by Praeceptum is also found in a seventh-century manuscript, at the head of a rule speculatively attributed to Eugippius, founder of a southern Italian community in the early sixth century. There is no formal proof of this attribution. As a whole, the text shows many characteristics of the “mixed rules” of the seventh century, including a focus on obedience to the abbot, and it appears to have been designed for the cells or dependencies of a larger monastery.14 However, the presentation together of the text of the two rules is significant. While there 13
14
Luc Verheijen, La Règle de Saint Augustine, 2 vols. (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967), argues that Ordo Monasterii is the work of Augustine’s friend Alypius, with liturgical instructions based on the usages of Bethlehem (see vol. 2, 216 for a summary). But its vision of the monastic life differs from Augustine’s, while the significant seasonal variations in the length of the night office indicate more northerly origins. There is no testimony to the existence of the liturgical prescriptions before the seventh century. MS Paris BN lat. 12634. See Fernando Villegas and Adalbert de Vogüé, Eugippii Regula, CSEL 87 (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1976); but also Marilyn Dunn, Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), 184–5; and M. Dunn, “Columbanus, Charisma and the Revolt of the Monks of Bobbio,” Peritia 20 (2008), 1–27, esp. 19–27.
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are early medieval copies of the Praeceptum on its own, the manuscript would play an important role in the onward transmission of Ordo monasterii and Praeceptum as a pair. This grouping would emerge as the key text of the canonical reform of the eleventh century, when it would be referred to simply as the “Rule of St. Augustine.”
PART IV
m political, social, and cultural contexts
22
m Imperial Politics and Legislation in Roman Africa Dean Hammer* In a technological age that has shrunk the passage of vast distances to a matter of hours, it is difficult to imagine North Africa’s place in the Roman Empire. In the fourth century, the Empire extended from northern England down to North Africa (present-day Morocco, northern Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya), sweeping across both continents to the Black Sea, Syria, and Egypt. Depending on where the emperor sat, it could take a quarter of a year for someone from the imperial court to travel to North Africa. The emperor never made the trip during Augustine’s lifetime. Amid all the troubles, particularly with the migrations and invasions of the Huns, Goths, and Vandals that would eventually lead to the collapse of the western Empire, the relatively stable provinces of North Africa did not occupy much of the emperor’s time: some soldiers garrisoned along the desert frontier, banditry and raids from nomadic tribes on the frontier, and a tradition of threats of (and attempts at) secession in the fourth and fifth centuries with a few insurrections to be suppressed. North Africa was on the periphery, an “untroubled backwater,” as Errington describes it.1 But it was an area of which the emperor was acutely aware because of its importance to grain shipments. The capital of the African Province, Carthage, had been rebuilt by Julius Caesar and emerged as one of the largest, most prosperous, and most cosmopolitan of cities in the Empire. Other cities dotted the coast with vast, irrigated, fertile fields pressing against them. Games and baths were part of city life, with large theaters and amphitheaters. The population was diverse, comprised of the descendants of Roman veterans who had received * My thanks to J. E. Lendon, Andrew Merrills, and Brent Shaw for their helpful comments. 1 R. M. Errington, Roman Imperial Policy from Julian to Theodosius, in Studies in the History of Greece and Rome (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 71.
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land for their service, wealthy senators and equestrians with large land holdings, Jews, as well as large indigenous populations of native North Africans (including the Berbers) and Carthaginians (Dido’s people, originally from Phoenicia). Latin had penetrated much of North Africa, though other languages, especially the Carthaginians’ Punic, remained. Members of the North African elite, Augustine among them, were exposed to a strict and severe Roman formal education emphasizing grammar, expounding phrases from literary works (Virgil chief among them), and finally rhetoric.2 It was a relatively insular area with a tradition of religious and political autonomy. What we know about the operation of Roman power on the periphery suggests three fundamental ways in which imperial politics and legislation were felt in North Africa. First, imperial policy affected the administrative organization and operation of cities, towns, villages, and estates. Second, imperial policy saw North Africa as a source of revenue for the Empire and cheap grain to feed the urban plebs of Rome. Finally, imperial politics was as much influenced by as influenced North Africa as a battleground in the Christianization of the Empire.
administration North Africa first became part of Rome with the conquest, and then destruction, of Carthage in the Third Punic War (146 BCE). By Augustine’s time, the basic unit of civil government was the province. Each province had a praeses, a governor (except for Africa Proconsularis, which followed custom dating back to the republic of its official, a proconsular governor from a senatorial family) who was responsible for administering the province. Under Diocletian (284–305 CE), the provinces were grouped into dioceses, of which Africa was one. Each diocese (with the proconsular governor of Africa Proconsularis exempted) was supervised by a deputy of the praetorian prefects (vicarius), who handled appeals and oversaw administration. The dioceses together made up the praetorian prefectures. After Constantine’s death in 337, the prefectures were divided among his three surviving sons (Gaul; Italy, Illyricum, and Africa; and the East). The Roman Empire is frequently regarded as a bureaucratic state in which substantial power and discretion lay in the hands of the administrative agents of government. Scholars often note a change in the nature of the imperial regime beginning around the time of Diocletian, from “Principate” to 2
P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), 36–92.
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“Dominate,” the emperor no longer the princeps (“first citizen”) but now the dominus (“master”) governing a bureaucracy that was answerable solely to him. But this paints too tidy a picture of the operation of power. Whatever the centralizing aspirations of the emperor, any sort of uniformity or even central control was frustrated by a number of factors. First, policy was often guided by specific requests or situations. A number of groups could press their cases: administrative officials, local councils, guilds, delegations, and ecclesiastical authorities. Imperial laws were issued, depending on the status of the recipients, by way of decrees (decreta), edicts (edicta), letters (epistolae), or replies to specific questions or requests for specific instructions (rescripta). Only in particular important cases, especially after division of the Empire in 364 by Valentinian I, were laws issued simultaneously to all the praetorian prefects. Second, there were overlapping governing bodies. The cities of North Africa always enjoyed a large degree of autonomy so that town councils, whose members were called “decurions” (decuriones), enforced laws, collected taxes, oversaw contracts, and provided entertainment. But there were also imperial officials, whose powers with respect to the cities were rarely clear. And there emerged a new elite: the clergy. This meant that an individual or group could shop around, finding a patron with one official if denied help by another, ultimately weakening any centralized social or political control. Finally, the distances made uniformity difficult to enforce. Emperors simply did not know the peculiarities of different provinces. A crafty provincial official could skirt imperial directives or provide incomplete information. The persuasiveness of information often depended on friendship (amicitia). But there were few opportunities for provincial officials to cultivate such connections, leaving them unprotected from the arbitrary exercise of imperial power.
land and tax policy North Africa was an area of extraordinary wealth that the empire exploited through land and tax policy. One of the most significant land policies regarded the large holdings of imperial land. These policies rested on two earlier laws: a first-century CE law, the lex Manciana, and then a more general extension of the principles by Hadrian in the lex Hadriana de rudibus agris in the early second century CE. The laws were aimed at creating a revenue source by promoting the cultivation of unused imperial lands.
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The coloni, or tenant farmers who occupied these lands, were in essence sharecroppers, paying a portion of their crops in rent but given particular tax incentives for planting specific crops and guaranteed the land in perpetuity as long as they met the specific terms of the lease. Although the imperial government maintained ownership of these extensive holdings, the structure of land tenancy, in which rent was paid to the imperial treasury (fiscus) in cash, encouraged intensification of agriculture for profit and production for the Mediterranean market. Through these policies, North Africa emerged as an important revenue source for the Empire and source of grain for the Roman plebs, setting the stage for a collection system operated by conductores (i.e., rent collectors for the imperial lands) and susceptores (i.e., town councilors responsible for collecting the land tax) that was as cruel as it was corrupt. The corruption was an artifact of both policy and distance. The Empire chose not to administer the collections centrally, so not only were the offices for sale (with an actual price list),3 fostering venality, but the salaries of the collectors were effectively based on commission: they earned whatever they could get after paying the imperial treasury. Regardless of the imperial edicts issued to control corruption (e.g., CTh 8.10.1–4 in 316, 344, 400, 412), the enforcement of these provisions ultimately depended on the same local members of the elite who benefited from the system. The provincial governor, who was ostensibly the connection to the emperor, was almost completely dependent on the local officials, possessing neither the staff nor the power nor even the inclination to reform the system. Rome’s cruelty resulted from an extractive center with a brutal penal code. The emperor would set out the revenue requirements for the praetorian prefects, which would then be divided up among the city councils by the provincial governors. The cities had jurisdiction and control over the outlying rural territory, including the lower-status villages and towns, from which they extracted tribute, collected taxes, and required manpower and services. Members of the council were responsible for collecting the imperial revenue; shortfalls had to be made up by them personally. And so the tax collectors would roam the countryside, like the mafia, shaking down cultivators and artisans, taking a cut for themselves, and making an example through violent displays of those who did not or could not comply. There were few protections. Those unable to pay might be tortured, sold into slavery, or compelled to sell their children, even though the last was 3
R. MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 124–70.
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prohibited by imperial law. The wealthier landowners were often able to protect themselves through their local influence, while the peasants were plundered4 despite imperial edicts trying to prevent this shift in burden (CTh 13.10.1, 8). One consequence of imperial policy was that there was both an influx of wealth and a society divided between the wealthy landowner elite, the peasant farmer, and the utterly impoverished who either flocked to the cities or remained a cheap source of agrarian labor. The divide had a further consequence. In a world without anything like a modern social safety net, the town councils had always been the protectors of the urban people, using its revenues to provide buildings, theaters, and sometimes subsidized bread prices. But North Africa had a singular situation: common throughout (and against imperial policy) was the election of bishops in rural villages and estates. Ecclesiastical authorities, especially the numerous rural bishops (in the competition between Donatists and catholics), became almost a second government, acting on behalf of the poor, providing revenues for buildings and social services, as well as aiding the coloni of different estates to claim the status of municipia, selfgoverning communities, for their estates.5 The result was not just the emergence of a new ecclesiastical power, but one that also gave rural areas substantial influence. These local developments were both a result of and drove a larger imperial policy toward Christianity.
ecclesiastical policy When Constantine I (306–37) became the first Christian emperor, the immediate impact was to extend tolerance of Christianity, still a minority religion, across the Empire. He returned property to the churches and exempted them from taxes. The fiscal officer (rationalis) of Africa was required to provide an allotment of revenue to Caecilian, the bishop of Carthage, for the clergy of the diocese of Africa. Later, every city was required to pay corn and other provisions to the churches to support the poor. Constantine also granted clergy immunity from curial duties (which led decurions to move into the clergy) (CTh 16.2.9) and presided over the First Council of Nicaea (325) in which the Nicene Creed was declared as the doctrine of Christianity. 4 5
Brown, Power and Persuasion, 28. Ibid., 89; L. Dossey, Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 47 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 125–44.
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But there was nothing like consensus, even within Christianity: the Nicene Creed, which declared that the Son in the Trinity was of the same substance as the Father, was prominent in the west, but the Homoeousian view that the Son was like (but not the same substance as) the Father largely prevailed in the east. And there was no shortage of flourishing religious movements and sects: local “pagan” rituals and cult practices (practiced in different forms by both the traditional Roman aristocracy and peasants), Manicheism (which attracted Augustine before his conversion), Pelagianism (which spread around Carthage when Pelagius fled to Carthage after the sack of Rome in 410), and Homoeanism or “Arianism” (which came to North Africa by way of the Goths and Vandals). But the struggle that dominated North Africa was within the catholic church, between what were called the Donatists (pejoratively named after their leader, Donatus, though they referred to themselves as catholics) and the catholics. Donatists emerged from the Great Persecution of Diocletian (303–5). Christians were required to turn over their Scriptures to show their repudiation of their faith. Comparatively, the persecution was much less severe toward the African Christians, though it fed into their distrust of the imperial court and their own loyalty toward past martyrs. The Donatists, who had embraced the martyrdom of the persecution, refused to recognize the authority of or any baptism by traditores (“surrenderers”), leaders who had surrendered to the persecution. Caecilian, the bishop of Carthage, was seen as illegitimate by the Donatists because he was consecrated by Felix of Abthungi, who was considered a traditor. In 347, responding to Donatus’ petition to be recognized as the legitimate bishop of Carthage, Constans sent two commissioners (Paulus and Macarius) to North Africa to settle the doctrinal dispute. But the commissioners encountered violence from the agonistici (“Combatants” or “Holy Fighters”), violent rural zealots who came to be associated by opponents with the Donatists. Macarius responded by ordering the Donatists to unite with the other catholics, setting off another round of persecution against the Donatists that lasted until the reign of Julian (360–63). Julian sought to return the Empire to paganism, including decreasing the influence of Christian teachers of rhetoric by outlawing them (CTh 13.3.5 [362]). After his short reign, the emperors, though restoring the connection of Christianity to the Roman state, moved reluctantly toward any larger statement of the role of Christianity in the Empire. The push for establishing a unified Christian doctrine was, in fact, driven by ecclesiastical authorities, such as Ambrose, who resided in the imperial court at Milan, and later Augustine from Hippo. There was a lot at stake. There was theological
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doctrine that did not admit of compromise. And there was also power. Imperial recognition had enormous impact on who would receive particular tax privileges. And recognition had significant impact on the competition for local influence with Christianity spread into rural areas and the role of ecclesiastical authorities in local life increased. In the political struggle, Ambrose and Augustine had the inside track in access to and influence over the emperor. Although a minority in North Africa, Augustine’s brand of catholicism held sway in the rest of the western empire. In 391, Theodosius issued a general ruling banning “the polluted contagion of heretics” (CTh 16.5.20; also, CTh 16.5.29: heretics banned in North Africa from imperial service [395]; CTh 16.5.35: Manicheans condemned [399]). The catholic bishops at the council at Carthage in 403 drafted a petition to Septiminus, the proconsular governor of Africa, requesting direct imperial involvement in the suppression of the dissidents. To the emperor, the controversy could not help but seem peculiar; the Donatists said they were catholics and sounded a lot like them. Dissatisfied with the official response, the catholic bishops went directly to the court at Ravenna, armed this time with reports of violence, determined to demonstrate that the Donatists were not just a dissenting view but also a violent and dangerous threat to the Empire.6 Most significantly, they tarred the Donatists with the brush of the agonistici and/or circumcelliones (roving groups who were comprised of the most marginal in society). The agonistici, who were recruited from the itinerate circumcelliones (though not identical with them), directly and violently confronted (thus agonistici) impurity: beating creditors, freeing peasants condemned to slavery, threatening landowners, attacking clergy, disrupting the actions of imperial officials, and punishing those they felt had betrayed them. The catholic clergy achieved some results in their appeal to the emperor. In 405, the imperial government under Honorius, at the urging of Augustine, associated the Donatists with “seditious mobs” (CTh 16.5.38), stripped the Donatists of property rights (CTh 16.6.3), and prohibited rebaptism (CTh 16.6.3). Additionally, in 408, Honorius grouped together Donatists, Jews, and heretics, declaring them a “pestilence and a contagion” (CTh 16.5.44). Although the emperor spoke, the rigor and reach of imperial repression seemed half-hearted for the North African clergy. In a critically important council at Carthage in 411, Honorius acceded to the lobbying of the catholic authorities, setting up a hearing presided over by 6
B. D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 508–43.
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Flavius Marcellinus, a Roman official reporting directly to the emperor. The Donatists and catholics were brought together in a meeting of such public interest that it had to be held in the largest venue in Carthage, the public building attached to the baths. The result of the contentious meeting was the first imperial public condemnation of the Donatists as dangerous heretics, resulting now in the full force of imperial repression with laws in 412 and 414, though they were laws issued by an emperor distracted by the fall of Rome. The emperor laid out fines for individuals who did not join the catholic church (CTh 16.5.54); landlords allowing rebaptism were subject to having their estates confiscated (CTh 16.5.54); and Donatists were also denied the power to enter into contracts (CTh 16.5.54). African bishops, driven by Augustine, responded as well to the acquittal of Pelagius in the east in 415, holding two councils (at Carthage and Milevis) to ask the pope to condemn Pelagius. By 425, an imperial edict announced that if heretics “cannot be recalled by reason from their pernicious false doctrine, at least they may be restrained by terror” (CTh 16.5.63). But orthodoxy was short lived. Augustine’s home, Hippo Regius, was under siege by the Vandals when he died in 429. By 442, Valentinian III recognized Vandal control of the territory with Homoeanism as its official religion. In fundamental ways, though, the Vandal kingdom continued Roman forms of municipal organization, land exploitation, and economic relations with the Mediterranean. Imperial policy toward North Africa was of two minds. In part, it reflected the long-standing tendency in Roman administration to incorporate and coopt different traditions of governance rather than stamp them out; in part, it reflected the move toward more centralized, authoritarian rule. The paradox of imperial politics toward North Africa was that the political elites in North Africa were not closely tied to imperial politics. Instead, it was the clergy who looked to imperial help to solve ecclesiastical disputes, ultimately obtaining the full force of imperial law to suppress dissent.
23
m War Alexander Sarantis Augustine did not devote a work specifically to war. His reflections on the subject are instead scattered throughout writings predominantly devoted to theological themes, including The City of God and Contra Faustum. These ideas have nevertheless had a profound influence on later attempts at reconciling Christian doctrine with the need to fight wars. Augustine is particularly well known for his contribution to what has become known as the “just war theory”: the idea that wars should be fought only as a last resort and only if sanctioned by the correct authority, with a just cause (to protect innocent people and their property) and with rightful intention. This chapter will explore views about war in the fourth- to sixth-century late Roman world, the extent to which it was glorified or condemned, and the circumstances under which it was considered justifiable. It will examine the imperial ideology of victory and secular writings about the Roman army and war. It will also survey social and cultural attitudes toward violence, as well as the attempts by Christian authors to bring together Roman military ideology and their religious beliefs. It will conclude by asking to what extent these ideas and cultures contradicted or corroborated Augustine’s viewpoint and why this might have been the case in light of his life and experiences. From the third century, the Roman Empire endured invasions by and fought wars with more dangerous opponents than it had faced during the Principate. Rival states included the Sassanian Persian Empire in the east and larger, more cohesive Germanic groups, such as the Goths, in the north. Responses to these military threats and to financial and political crises included the division of the Empire into first four and later two parts, the accession of a series of soldier-emperors, the recruitment of larger and more tactically diverse armed forces, the division of these into mobile field and static frontier units, and the development of a more centralized administration designed mainly to exact resources to pay and provision the army. 187
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The billeting of frontier, barbarian federate, and field armies on civilian populations resulted in a blurring of the military and civilian worlds of the Empire in some areas. Meanwhile, the professionalization of the military high command, along with the tendency for emperors to come from the army, culminated in separate military and civilian career paths and the militarization of the civil service.1 Very broadly, two attitudes toward warfare can be discerned in this militarized late Roman Empire: one enthusiastic and tending to glorify it and the other more critical and cautious regarding the circumstances under which it could be justified. First, a militaristic ideology of imperial triumph intensified in late antiquity.2 Soldier emperors from 284 to 395 were expected to win wars along frontiers against barbarian tribes and Persian armies and against rivals within the Empire. The propaganda that accompanied their triumphs included monumental arches and columns. The Arch of Galerius in Thessaloniki, commemorating Galerius’ victory over the Persians in 298, and the Arch of Constantine in Rome, celebrating Constantine’s victory over Maxentius in 312, are outstanding examples. Even when emperors stopped participating in military campaigns after 395, they continued to be associated with military victories, the column of Arcadius at Constantinople apparently marking the defeat of Gainas and the Gothic rebels in 400. Portable propaganda tools included coins and silver plates. While coins did not usually refer to specific military campaigns, their regular inclusion of the goddess Victory advertised the relationship between emperors and military success. Imperial military prowess was also eulogized by panegyricists such as Themistius. In his oration delivered in 379 on the impending war with the Goths, he boasted to the newly crowned emperor Theodosius I, “What do we suppose those damned villains will suffer, when they see you readying your spear and brandishing your shield, the lightning flash from your helm gleaming close at hand” (Themistius, Or. 14.181). That war was something to be glamorized can also be seen in secular military histories produced by authors such as Ammianus Marcellinus and Procopius. These works were written in the style of the great classical Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, with flowery descriptions of glorious sieges and battles in exotic landscapes, designed 1
2
On war in late antiquity, see A. D. Lee, War in Late Antiquity, Ancient World at War (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); P. Sabin et al. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), chaps. 7–12. On imperial victory ideology, see, for example, M. McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West, Past and Present Publications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
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to entertain an elite audience who were presumably hankering after tales of daring and bravado. These works also described non-Roman barbarians in terms that legitimized and encouraged violence against them. For example, Ammianus refers to the Goths in the Balkans in 378 as “savage beasts that had broken their cages, pouring, raging over the wide extent of Thrace” and whose actions “were frightful to see and to describe” (Ammianus, 31.8.9 and 7). Some Christian writers sought to adapt this rhetoric of glorified violence and imperial victory to a Christian context. This is especially apparent in The Life of Constantine. Allegedly written by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, this portrays the emperor as Moses, waging wars of conquest against barbarians and non-Christian political rivals in the name and with the support of God. Prior to the Battle of the Milvian Bridge against his Tetrarchic rival Maxentius, Constantine received from God “a cross-shaped trophy formed from light, and a text attached to it which said ‘by this conquer’” (Eusebius Vit. Const. 1.28). Here God was not merely supporting Constantine but actively encouraging him to go to war with Maxentius. The ensuing battle was won, thanks to Divine Providence, God playing a direct role, drawing Maxentius from the gates of the city prior to his death by drowning in the Tiber River. Other passages reinforce the message that Constantine’s military victories were not necessary evils but positive events, acts of Christian compassion, ordered and supported by God to rescue populations from tyrannical and non-Christian oppressors. Along with his descriptions of the labarum standard and crosses painted on Constantine’s soldiers’ shields, The Life of Constantine can thus be viewed as an early description of Christian “Holy War.” The notion of divinely inspired imperial victories over barbarians and nonbelievers also had an impact on imperial propagandistic imagery by the sixth century. The Barberini Diptych, for example, famously portrays an emperor (probably Anastasius or Justinian) trampling barbarians under the feet of his horse, overlooked by Christ, who is holding a cross and scepter and surrounded by angels. At a local level, saints also came to be viewed as sponsors and protectors of Roman communities in military encounters. This was especially prevalent in the east, where victories in sieges in the sixth and seventh centuries were attributed to St. Demetrius at Thessaloniki and the Virgin Mary at Constantinople. Militaristic imagery used in descriptions of warrior saints and the battle against demons are further examples of the influence of Roman militaristic ideology on late antique Christian culture. The force supposedly used against “pagans” and “pagan” temples by monks in Syria, circumcellions in Africa, and St. Martin of Tours in Gaul
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shows that some Christians were happy to adopt violent means to ensure the triumph of Christendom in the earthly realm too.3 Away from imperial military and Christian contexts, violence was a regular feature of late Roman civil society. Even though most Mediterranean provinces were sheltered from the warfare of frontier regions, life in a late Roman city still featured levels of violence that would be unthinkable in the modern western world. Wild beast fights and chariot racing were brutal popular entertainments, whereas mob violence directed at imperial authorities or between rival religious groups periodically rocked cities such as Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria. Torture and executions were features of late Roman legal hearings. These might also be categorized as a form of popular entertainment considering that they were held in public. The picture painted thus far of a militaristic world in which war and violence were glorified should not be overstated, however. More restrained and pragmatic approaches to warfare and violence can also be discerned. In a secular context, Roman republican views on the need to justify warfare and violent punishment continued to inform the behavior and ideas of emperors and their panegyrists, as well as Christian and secular writers. According to the late republican senator Cicero, war was only necessary when all other forms of persuasive action had failed and when a peaceful solution was the aim, usually the restoration or maintenance of social and political order and stability.4 Starting with the imperial military context, aggressive, expansionist wars of conquest were rare in late antiquity. Warfare was instead usually retaliatory or defensive, emperors and contemporary commentators justifying military campaigns as protecting Roman interests and righting wrongs. Ammianus thus explains most fourth-century military campaigns as responses to outrages committed by barbarian groups or the Persian Empire. His account of Constantius’ defeat of the Limigantes on the Middle Danube in 357 portrays it as retribution for their abandonment of lands given to them by the imperial authorities, disruptive behavior, and an attempt on the emperor’s life (Ammianus, 19.11). Classicizing histories also spend time ruminating on the moral justification for violence and the importance of well-managed military campaigns. Preventing troops from
3
4
H. A. Drake (ed.), Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), chap. 15 and part IV. G. M. Reichberg et al. (eds.), Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), chap. 5.
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committing atrocities on campaign in order to win over local hearts and minds is one example of this (e.g., Procopius, Vand. 3.16.1–8). A similarly pragmatic attitude can be discerned in military manuals. Vegetius’ De Re Miltari, for example, advises generals to only fight battles when there is a high chance of success and to win wars by indirect means such as attrition tactics whenever possible (1.1). Brave, headlong charges after defeated, retreating foes were ill advised because of the potential for counterattacks and ambushes. In other words, fighting was to be measured, disciplined, and a last resort rather than an impulsive act instigated for personal fame. Themistius’ orations glorified not only military successes but imperial clemency, restraint, and the peaceful outcome of political conflicts. This can be seen in his praise for the emperor Theodosius I two years before his peace treaty with the Goths in 383: “The very sight of you is enough to dispel all fear from the spirit. So even he who was among your enemies . . . now approaches unarmed and without his sword . . . knowing that you will not want to treat him as an enemy” (Themistius, Or. 15.190). Such measured attitudes are also apparent from secular authors’ discussions of violence in civil society. The latter was founded on an age-old legal system that prohibited violent behavior and the private ownership of weapons and supported the republican ideal of social order and hierarchy. Thus mob violence was condemned by secular authors such as Procopius when writing about the Nika riot of 532 in Constantinople and Libanius in his description of attacks on pagan temples by groups of Christian monks in Syria in the 380s (Procopius, Pers. 1.24; Libanius, Or. 30). The outrage expressed by these authors would suggest that civil disorder was not a regular occurrence. While torture and executions were acceptable facets of the judicial system, they were condemned when used unjustly. Ammianus Marcellinus’ tirade against Maximinus, the deputy Prefect of Rome, whose brutal crackdown on members of the senatorial classes accused of witchcraft, adultery, and poisoning, is a good example of the outrage that could be felt at perceived tyrannical behavior by Roman officials. “Maximin poured out the natural cruelty implanted in his heart, as often happens with wild beasts in the amphitheatre” (Ammianus, 28.1.10). Ammianus suggests that Maximinus and his officials were exploiting the system to bring down members of the elite on trumped-up charges. By contrast, he believes that the later execution of Maximinus was a just end for someone who had caused such harm to others (28.1.57). In other words, violent punishment was acceptable, provided that it was meted out in accordance with the law, sanctioned by a legitimate
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authority, and used only when mercy and pardoning were impossible (19.12. 17–18). There were also limits to the sorts of violent popular entertainment that could be enjoyed by the late Roman public. Even though wild beast fights and chariot racing continued to be attended by large audiences, other, more savage spectacles, including gladiatorial fights, died out in late antiquity. This was at least partly thanks to the influence of the church.5 Indeed, there was a pacifist strand of Christian thinking on war and violence that differed from the “Holy War” rhetoric of The Life of Constantine. Prior to the reign of Constantine, the majority of early Christian writers had adopted an approach to violence in accordance with the New Testament. In the eyes of authors such as Tertullian, Origen, and Justin Martyr, writing at a time when Christians were still being persecuted, it was better to allow oneself to be martyred than to harm or wreak vengeance on one’s enemies.6 Despite these views, pre-Constantinian Christian thinkers did not reject all violence, acknowledging that wars were an inescapable part of the human condition and that Christians could be soldiers. War was thus something to be accepted, but not celebrated or encouraged. These ideas continued to exert an influence on Christian writers in the fourth and fifth centuries, even if they moved further away from their predecessors’ “turn the other cheek” ethos. Christian accounts of “pagan”/Christian violence refused to condone Christian violence against “pagans” and their property unless it had been provoked by the “pagans” in the first place.7 Ambrose, bishop of Milan (374–97), was perhaps the most important influence on Augustine’s writings on just war, similarly encouraging mercy over punishment and arguing that violence was only necessary when used to defend Christians and/or reclaim their territory. Ambrose also wrote about the significance of the rightful intention of those carrying out violent acts.8 This brings us back to Augustine and his views on the just war. It is well established that these were influenced by a mixture of Neoplatonic and Ciceronian political philosophy and Christian theology. Therefore, of the two general strands of thinking on war and violence in late antiquity outlined thus far, Augustine fell very much within the second, more pragmatic and 5
6 7
8
T. Sizgorich, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam, Divinations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 116–17. Reichberg, Ethics of War, chap. 6. M. R. Salzman, “Rethinking Pagan-Christian Violence,” in Drake, Violence in Late Antiquity, 265–86, esp. 283. L. J. Swift, “St. Ambrose on Violence and War,” TAPA 101 (1970), 533–43.
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peaceful tradition. Even if he did appear to justify wars to convert nonbelievers and expand the Christian state in his works in the late 390s, this was not representative of the majority of his writings in earlier and, certainly, later periods of his life.9 Within the earthly city, Augustine believed that rule of law, order, and hierarchy needed to be maintained and respected. War and violent legal punishments were essential to this end. But, at the same time, the earthly city was ultimately of little consequence compared with the spiritual city according to his City of God. Fighting wars was merely a necessity imposed on some men and nothing to be proud of or vaunted as a source of personal glory. It was precisely the latter attitude that differentiated the selfish earthly from the God-loving heavenly city. That Augustine’s writings on war aligned more closely with a republican and New Testament rather than imperial military or Old Testament standpoint is understandable given his secular and Christian rather than imperial or military background. His father was a civilian official, and he received a traditional education before following a career first as an academic and then as a churchman. In doing so, he spent most of his life in Africa, a province unaffected by the warfare and militarization mentioned earlier. Only at the end of his life, in 430, did the Vandal invaders arrive at the gates of Hippo, by which point he lay on his deathbed. He thus embodied Peter Brown’s “World of Late Antiquity,” straddling Roman secular and Christian traditions and spending his life learning, contemplating, teaching, and preaching, ultimately more concerned with spiritual than earthly matters. He was not, like St. Severinus, an inhabitant of a militarized northern frontier province, nor, like Procopius or Ammianus, was he close to imperial or military authority. His more detached approach to earthly issues such as war and violence can also be explained by the fact that military events in the west during his lifetime were detrimental to the Roman Empire. Civil wars, barbarian invasions, and the sack of Rome in 410 did not provide him with the material to write about glorious, divinely sanctioned Christian Roman victories, even if he had wanted to. Augustine lived on the cusp of major changes to the political and cultural landscape of the western Roman provinces. In the subsequent world of early medieval Germanic Christian kingdoms, armed conflict and violence impinged on the lives of civilian provincial communities to a far greater extent than they had done in the civil society of the Roman Empire. The need 9
R. A. Markus, “Saint Augustine’s Views on the ‘Just War,’” in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and War: Papers Read at the Twenty-First Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Second Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 20 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 1–13, esp. 7–9.
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to square the violent lifestyle of medieval elites with Christian beliefs would ultimately result in the Crusades. The ideology that underlay these Christian Holy wars owed as much to Augustine’s concept of the just war as it did The Life of Constantine’s suggestion that war could be a divinely sanctioned and positive missionary act.
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m Religious Violence Despina Iosif *
Bring them back like sheep, by fear or even the pain of the whip if they show symptoms of resistance. – Augustine, ep. 185.6.23
Late in the fourth century, somewhere in Egypt, Copres and a Manichean teacher were two religious rivals who had a public debate on the validity of their religious claims. At the end of it, although the Manichean teacher allegedly hesitated at first, they both agreed to step into the fire in order to find out who was on the side of the truth. It was believed that the divine protection kept the one siding with truth unharmed. The crowd that had gathered around them cheered ecstatically “Burn the charlatan alive!” as the Manichean teacher was burned (History of the Egyptian Monks 10.30). This episode was not an exceptional one at the time. Life in the Mediterranean world in late antiquity was not easy; this was a harsh and cruel world by modern standards. There was a widespread sense of insecurity (Epistle to Diognetus 10), and the lower classes were at the mercy of the powerful (Epistle of Barnabas 20). Officials and judges often accepted bribes and abused their power (Aristides, Apology 15). There was little protection against random attacks from gangs, robbers, and barbarians and, in some parts, even wild beasts (Gerontius, Life of Melania 19, History of the Egyptian Monks 4.3). Some ambitious bishops resorted unashamedly to violence against competitors for office, whereas some unwilling candidates mutilated parts of their bodies to avoid ordination (Cyprian, On the Unity 8, Lausiac History 11). Women from the lower classes (i.e., most women) had little protection against checks to verify their virginity when unmarried, as well as against rape (Cyprian, ep. 61.3–4; Gregory Thaumaturgus, Canonical * I am more than grateful to Professor Stavros Perentides for giving some invaluable bibliographical advice.
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Epistle 1). Mental disorders were typically recognized as demon possessions.1 At the same time, stretching on the rack, furrowing of human flesh with iron claws, scorching with flames, and beating with rods were all accepted modes of correction commonly used by parents in chastising their children, by schoolmasters, and by bishops, as Augustine remarked neutrally in his works (ep. 133.2 and conf. 1.14.23). The necessity of violence was taken for granted. The value of one’s body and the amount of violence those in power could inflict on it depended greatly on the social class in which the individual belonged. Social status mattered when it came to the exercise of violence and coercion. In addition, just a few generations earlier, “pagans” generally expected Christians to conform to the established religiosity and to participate, even if passively, in the traditional sacrifices in honor of the gods for the sake of securing divine protection. Christians responded in various ways: some sacrificed with pomp, some sacrificed reluctantly under torture or in fear of torture, some fled, some sent their slaves or pagan friends to sacrifice for them, most bribed to avoid any trouble, only a few resisted until the end, and even fewer suffered martyrdom (Lactantius, Epi. 54). The arrogant Christian attitude, frequently called obstinatio (“obstinacy”) in contemporary sources, made conservative “pagans” feel deeply disrespected and wonder whether, for some reason, Christians hated the human race (Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Suetonius, Nerο 16.2). In fact, Christians violently disrupted the precious agreement that their forefathers had established with the gods. As a result, it was occasionally decided that Christians deserved nothing but coercion or, better still, death (Lactantius, Epi. 55). Christians felt unnecessarily stigmatized and victimized, hated by the entire world, Jews and “pagans” alike (Tertullian, Apol. 1). Their apologists tried hard to reassure “pagans” that Christians did not disturb the status quo. Instead, they taught love toward enemies and respect toward human life by condemning abortions, the widely practiced exposure of unwanted infants, as well as the popular entertainment of watching the pointless bloodshed of gladiatorial shows.2
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2
D. Iosif, “‘I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightning from Heaven’: Illness as Demon Possession in the World of the First Christian Ascetics and Monks,” Mental Health, Religion and Culture 14(4) (2011), 323–40. D. Iosif, “‘The Present and Future Worlds Are Enemies to Each Other’: Early Christian Aloofness and Participation in the Pagan World,” in R. Alston et al. (eds.), Cults, Creeds and Identities in the Greek City after the Classical Age, Groningen-Royal Holloway Studies on the Greek City after the Classical Age 3 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 289–308.
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Christian propaganda had various effects on “pagans”: some converted to Christianity, some remained indifferent, whereas still others tried to protect their cause by means of violence and coercion. Some excluded Christians against their will from social life – from houses, baths, and the forum (Letter of the Churches of Vienna and Lugdunum to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia). At times, they gathered in gangs to stone Christians or to destroy Christian property and burn Christian writings (Arnobius, Against the Heathen 3.7; Augustine, ep. 91). Usually, it was a public spectacle. Domestic violence in former “pagan” households increased as well, especially against women. From the correspondence of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, we learn about a Christian woman who was dragged by her “pagan” husband to offer sacrifice. She screamed, “I didn’t do it; you made me do it!” (Caldonius, ep. 18, to Cyprian). From the apocryphal literature we learn how the “pagan” husband of Xanthippe locked her up when he discovered that she was mesmerized by the teaching of Apostle Paul (Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena).3 We also learn how another “pagan” husband grabbed his Christian wife by the hair and kicked her when he found out that she had secretly converted to Christianity. Then their “pagans” neighbors seized her, undressed her in public, and finally burned the couple’s house down (Acts of Philip). Some “pagans” handed Christians to the Roman authorities, who usually wished to avoid all the drama and upheaval and creating unnecessary heroes and pleaded with the Christians to reconsider (Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs 11). The few bloodthirsty officials vented “their anger as if they had a rabid hunger for wounds as food and for entrails now open . . . amid the red of the blood the bones gleamed white” (Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs 11). Officials were not more violent toward Christians; they treated them as any other common criminal. Torture was a standard part of legal procedure. Reports of torture may seem today gruesome and ugly but were at the time legally sanctioned and socially acceptable, an efficient device for extorting “the truth” and achieving justice.4 It was not the physical torture itself inflicted in public on Christian bodies but the scorn toward it that amazed “pagans,” led to numerous conversions, and became one of the most important factors in the final triumph of Christianity. (Another highly significant factor was the Christian willingness to give money to charity.) Christian martyrs gave the unexpected impression 3
4
Likewise, Thaïs, a former courtesan, was locked in a cell by her Christian mentor Paphnutius, according to the Life of Thaïs 2. A. L. Lowell, “The Judicial Use of Torture, Part I,” Harvard Law Review 11(4) (1897), 220–33.
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that they “acted like estranged from their own bodies” (Passion of Maximian and Isaac 5). They retained their calm as if they felt no fear of death, no pain whatsoever, and sometimes even laughed out loud at torturers and executioners (Passion of Maximian and Isaac 9). Christians joyfully died on the cross, in the arena, in the mines, and in prisons. The conditions in Roman prisons were awful. In most places, food was not provided and thus prisoners depended entirely on kind visitors (Lucian, ep. 21.2, to Celerinus, in the correspondence of Cyprian). Imprisoned Christians also had to endure the annoying “pagan” visitors who came just to bully them (Lausiac History, Apollonius). Leaders reassured their congregations that torture, and not jewelry, luxurious garments, and makeup, adorned the body (Cyprian, On the Dress of the Virgins 6). They taught that the bodies of Christians had to suffer hard in this world (Cyprian, On the Mortality 9). Furthermore, they contended that persecutions were approved by God, that they were highly profitable as proof of faith, and that they were not the end but a mere transit to the most wonderful afterlife (ibid., 22). At the same time, they argued against “pagans” that coercion did not guarantee the desired religious choices (Tertullian, To Scapula 2.1–2). One can imagine that Christian martyrs must have felt great emotional pressure to conform to the high expectations of their religious leaders and show in public no fear toward force. It is fascinating that once persecutions ceased, it became an admirable practice among Christian circles to exercise violence against their own bodies in search for a delightful afterlife: pillar saints exposed their bodies without mercy to harsh climatic conditions and insects, and ascetics and monks retired into tombs or inflicted punishments on their own bodies in order to avoid lustful thoughts and to show that they despised the material world and depended wholly on God (Lausiac History 11). The author of the Lausiac History, for example, admired Macarius from Alexandria for becoming tyrannical to his own flesh. At the same time, monks and ascetics imagined demons physically harassing them, with or without weapons, or them attacking demons (History of the Egyptian Monks 15.3). In addition, nasty pranks against novice monks by their superiors were very common in the desert as a deliberate test of the valuable Christian virtues of obedience and humiliation (ibid., 24). As Christians grew in confidence as well as numbers, they gradually turned against “pagans.” One may recall the shocking destruction by the Alexandrian mob of the Serapeum in 391, as well as the notorious murder of the pagan philosopher Hypatia in 415. “Pagan” gods started to seem all
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the more unable to defend themselves and their adherents. “Why do you (i.e., Christians) have to resort to violence?” was a famous but desperate “pagan” outcry of the time (Libanius, Or. 30.29). Augustine preached in Carthage to great crowds amid passionate cheers of “down with the Roman gods” (s. 24.6). He was fully aware that formerly Christians were “objects of continual dread” (ep. 185.3.13). However, he was not much motivated in reversing the roles and in directing his congregations to seek revenge against “pagans.” Unlike his teacher, Ambrose, bishop of Milan, Augustine did not consider the destruction of idols and the forced closure of “pagan” temples as totally justified (Ambrose, Death of Theodosius 38). He usually felt uneasy, or rather uneasy, when Christians destroyed “pagan” temples. Moreover, he resisted capital punishment for “pagans” who attempted to restore their cult and who even committed violence against Christians (Augustine, ep. 91.9; 104.1, c. litt. Pet. 1.9.15, and c. Gaud. 1.38.51). Augustine probably could see that “pagan” piety was already in decline; it was a lost cause. In no time Christians turned mainly against other Christians who were perceived to be “heretics.” Two “pagans,” Celsus and Ammianus Marcellinus, were perfectly accurate in their observation that Christians were more vicious against other Christians than against “pagans” (Origen, Against Celsus 5.63; Ammianus Marcellinus, Roman History 22.5.4). “Heretical” Christians saw (or at least reported that they saw) their houses robbed, razed to the ground, and burned and their stored crops wasted. They suffered beatings, had lime and vinegar cast into their eyes or their eyes dug out, and had their tongues or fingers cut off. They were being bound to the mill and compelled by blows to keep it working, or they were forced to commit suicide. At times, they were denied bread, which was vital for their survival. And all this happened to them through the hands of other Christians (Augustine, ep. 185.4.15, as well as ep. 7.30, 111.1, 133.1, and c. litt. Pet. 2.84.184). The bishop of Hippo Diarrhytos, not far from Hippo Regius, kept his Christian rival in jail for years and tried desperately to have him executed (Conference of Carthage 10.142). The Sermon on the Passion of Saints Donatus and Advocatus ends with the following chilling words: “To be slain as an adversary of the pagans is a victory; to be killed by the enemy [i.e., Christians of other persuasions] in our combat is triumph” (14).5 5
See also the Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs in M. A. Tilley, Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa, Translated Texts for Historians 24 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), 25–49.
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At the time of Augustine, Donatists were recognized by other Christian bishops as the most serious threat to the church in North Africa.6 A contemporary of Augustine, Optatus of Milevis, called Donatists “mad” repeatedly in his works, as did Augustine (Optatus, Against the Donatists 2.5; Augustine, ep. 185). However, this was completely in line with the common trend – a religious enemy was traditionally called “mad.” Optatus wrote about how Donatists expelled the other Christian communities from their own homes amid panic and bloodshed, mutilated men, raped innocent maidens, dragged married women, tore out fetuses, slew infants, destroyed altars, sold ecclesiastical vessels in the market to pagans or melted them down, and refused to allow Christians who did not share their theological perspective to be buried (Against the Donatists 2.18–19, 6. 1–2, 6.5–7). Donatists, it was rumored, often hired bands to help them commit atrocities. The identity of these hired bands, called circumcelliones in the sources, is not altogether clear. They may have been extremists with an agenda or beggars and seasonal agricultural laborers who claimed to represent the interests of the poor and the oppressed, urged the cancellation of debts, and engaged in, spontaneously or for pay, acts of vandalism.7 Emperor Constans actively repressed them in the middle of the fourth century. Imperial legislation against Christian dissidents has been thoroughly examined by modern scholarship. There is little doubt that imperial legislation triggered even greater public hostility toward religious enemies. It has been proposed for more than three decades now that Christianity prevailed primarily due to the constant brutal actions of Christian emperors and bishops.8 Augustine was fully aware that many were indeed “persuaded” to convert to mainstream Christianity as a result of imperial and ecclesiastical coercion (ep. 185.7.29). It is undeniable that toward the end of his life, Augustine hardened his stance toward Donatism and even started having dreams of Donatists being burned in hell (ep. 185.8.32). In his ep. 185 (416), Augustine wrote that emperors were to enforce the Christian laws with suitable vigor and that Donatists deserved to perish if they did not comply. Eight years earlier, in a letter to Vicent, Augustine admitted that he was aware of the fact that he 6
7
8
For a thorough discussion, see B. D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). B. D. Shaw, “Who Were the Circumcellions?,” in A. H. Merrills (ed.), Vandals, Romans and Berbers (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 227–58. R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire A.D. 100–400 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 1–31.
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had changed his mind as far as coercion was concerned. The reason was that the struggle with the deviating groups had crescendoed (ep. 93). However, it was not such a dramatic change as it is often assumed. It was probably as early as 399 when Augustine first declared in his ep. 51.3 that he would gladly accept state interference against Donatists.9 I would like to counter the recent tendency in scholarship in trying to detect gradual change toward absolute hatred in Augustine’s works. In his c. litt. Pet. 1.29.31, written between 401 and 405, Augustine stated that he did not expect a solution in the conflict with the Donatists to be reached through coercion but rather through love. And in his ep. 87.8–9, which may have been written as late as 411, Augustine admitted, among some unyielding remarks against Donatists, that he regretted the fact that the Donatist debate was not always conducted in moderation and compassion that ought to be typical of Christians. One should also challenge the widely held, yet unfounded, view that Augustine was the predecessor of the Inquisition. In antiquity, the utility of fear and coercion was taken for granted. Fear of God was also deemed as essential for societies to be able to operate since the time of the early Christian leaders (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.7), if not before. Augustine was true to his times when he wrote that fear was good because it led to the truth, that many had found advantage in being first compelled by fear or pain, so that they might afterwards be influenced by teaching (ep. 185.6.21). And this was especially true for the uneducated lower classes, which constituted the majority (ep. 93.5.6). Even Apostle Paul had experienced a forcible conversion.10 Entire cities turned to mainstream Christianity under the influence of fear, and former Donatists confessed that “it was Christian duty to inflict annoyance upon them in order to prevent them from perishing” (ep. 93.1.2). Now they are more than grateful (ep. 185.6.23 and ep. 93.5.16–17). The Vandal invasion in 430 brought an abrupt end to the Donatist controversy. Violence was not sporadic during Augustine’s lifetime; it was unremarkable and embedded in everyday life. Augustine was far more subtle about the application of coercion against religious deviants than most in his days. He was in favor of mildness in executing a sentence and thought that coercion 9
10
As early as the second century, Christian theologians, such as Justin, thought that the internal problems of Christianity should be made public and even brought to the attention of the Roman emperor. See D. J. Kyrtatas, “Christians against Christians: The Anti-Heretical Activities of the Roman Church in the Second Century,” Historein 6 (2006), 20–34, at 28. P. Brown, “St. Augustine’s Attitude to Religious Coercion,” Journal of Roman Studies 54 (1964), 107–116, at 110.
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was meaningful only if followed by education. Many of Augustine’s contemporaries kept pursuing a more rigid line and did not share his genuine concern for intellectual persuasion and moral example. “For if they were only being terrorized and not instructed at the same time, this would be an inexcusable tyranny on our part” (ep. 93.1.3).11 Augustine was shaped by his world, like everyone, and a book that places Augustine the man firmly in his African homeland and culture was much needed.
11
See the perceptive article of P. van Geest, “Quid dicam de vindicando vel non vindicando (Ep. 95, 3). Augustine’s Legitimation of Coercion in the Light of His Roles of Mediator, Judge, Teacher and Mystagogue?,” in C. Geljon and R. Roukema (eds.), Violence in Ancient Christianity, Victims and Perpetrators, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 125 (2004), 151–84.
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m Relationships in Augustine’s Life Geoffrey Nathan Any detailed map of the Roman Empire will include the intricate spider’s web of roads crisscrossing the lands under its dominion. It served as a network for making trade, travel, communication, and political unity not just possible but also feasible. Crisscrossing every province, these thoroughfares intersected at cities and towns of varying size and importance. At one such junction lay the city of Thagaste, Augustine’s birthplace. Resting in a fertile basin surrounded by densely wooded hills and gentle mountains, it is a region well suited for habitation. Despite its natural resources, however, Thagaste was a Numidian backwater (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 5.4.4), whose inhabitants were originally from Berber stock. Later, it probably possessed a more mixed populace, with a local elite partially descended from ex-soldiers of the Severan age (CIL 8:17214 = ILS 443). Augustine’s gens name Aurelianus suggests that his father’s family was at least part Latin.1 But he preferred his native African heritage (ep. 17.2), even if he apparently spoke neither Punic nor any of the indigenous dialects (ep. 209.3). Family and friendships created another important network among the elites of the empire. The plural “elites” is used deliberately; the honestiores (the “better” class) was itself tiered. In addition to the thinly spread senatorial and imperial aristocrats, whose estates checkered the Empire’s most fertile regions, a host of regional and local elites – particularly the curiales (or city notables) – served as the social sinew holding the Roman state together. The curial class dominated life at the local level; its ranks closed to those below (with the exception of soldiers). It was possible, however, for a humble member of the honestiores to advance to higher station. Augustine himself, before his retirement in 387, had delivered panegyrics to Valentinian II in 1
G. Bonner, St. Augustine: Life and Controversies (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1986), 36–7.
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Milan. He had also been engaged to marry an heiress, which would have likely earned him a governorship or senatorial standing (conf. 6.15.25).2 Family was the most important factor in defining a person’s status. This was not merely social and economic, although these advantages were most tangible in day-to-day life. There were also legal differences between the humiliores (the ”masses”) and the honestiores. Augustine, by virtue of his birth, could expect education, inherited wealth and position, and important friendships to maintain or enhance his station. Often as important as family were the social relationships one would cultivate from an early age. The formal bond of amicitia (friendship) ideally characterized relations between all elites. This meant not only showing hospitality and friendliness toward one’s social equals but also entailed certain obligations. So, for example, the “pagan” senator Symmachus could claim amicitia with a de facto opponent, Ambrose of Milan, and write friendly letters seeking news and favors.3 While such friendships might prove mutually beneficial, many also had an emotional and personal component that transcended this ancient form of social networking.
the family of aurelius augustinus Augustine’s family was typical of Rome’s local notables. His “pagan” father, Patricius, was a curialis (Possidius, Vit. Aug. 1), with a Christian wife, Monnica, many years his junior.4 This age discrepancy mirrored marriage patterns common in the Roman world.5 Augustine was likely to have been their second or even the third child because his parents had been married for some time before his birth in 354 (estimates range between six and nine years depending on the meaning of Monnica being “of full marriageable age” [conf. 9.9.19]). Augustine had one unnamed sister and one brother, Navigius. It is possible that he had more siblings – he makes a vague comment about the widowed mother of his nephew, which may refer to a second sister (ep. 356.3) – but none are explicitly attested. As with most families, 2
3
4
5
See P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, new ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 79–80. N. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 22 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 264–75. L. B. Zaidman, “Pandora’s Daughters and Rituals in Grecian Cities,” in P. S. Patel (ed.), A History of Women in the West, vol. I: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1994), 338–76, at 365. For late antiquity, see V. Vuolanto, Children and Asceticism in Late Antiquity: Continuity, Family Dynamics and the Rise of Christianity (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 97–101.
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we can occasionally infer tensions between siblings (conf. 9.9.28), and Navigius plays an unsympathetic interlocutor in his brother’s early works (ord. 1.2, 5; c. Acad. 1:2, 5–6; and especially b. vita 1.6 and 2.14). That he was probably older, married, and had children suggests that he would become responsible for his family’s affairs, at least as a curialis.6 We lastly hear from his childhood of a paternal grandmother who lived with Augustine’s parents when they were first married. This, too, was common. But she had died before her grandson had come of age. By the time Augustine was old enough to be self-aware, his was a single-family household – a nuclear family that current scholarship considers the norm in the Roman world.7 Augustine’s was also an elite family, even if among its lower ranks. Patricius served as a member of Thagaste’s town council (conf. 2.3.5), himself the client of a powerful and wealthy landowner, Romanianus.8 Despite some modern opinions9 and Augustine’s own declarations of poverty (s. 356.13), his family was not poor. Such claims seem to stem from the difficulties his parents had in providing for his education (conf. 2.3.5). But a limited financial liquidity, consistent with income primarily generated from land ownership, is a more likely explanation for these difficulties. The fact that both he and Navigius received formal educations – including studying in neighboring Madaura and Carthage – indicates the family’s relative wealth. That he also grew up in a household with many servants also indicates affluence (conf. 1.19.30; 9.9.20).10 Despite the religiously “mixed” marriage, Monnica raised her children as Christians, over Patricius’ misgivings (conf. 1.11.17; 3.4.8). That included a Christian education, with Augustine and his siblings all becoming catechumens. Eventually, Patricius himself converted, receiving baptism shortly before his death in 372 (ibid.). But while such marriages were more common 6
7
8 9
10
J. Robbins, Prodigal Son/Elder Brother: Interpretation and Alterity in Augustine, Petrarch, Kafka, Levinas, Religion and Postmodernism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 47–8. R. Saller and B. Shaw, “Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers, and Slaves,” Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984), 124–56; cf. D. B. Martin, “The Construction of the Ancient Family: Methodological Considerations,” Journal of Roman Studies 86 (1996), 39–60. See also S. Huebner and G. Nathan (eds.), Mediterranean Families in Antiquity: Households, Extended Family and Domestic Space (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016). Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 41. For example, A.-G. Hamman, La vie quotidienne en Afrique du Nord au temps de Saint Augustin (Paris: Hachette, 1979), 100. See B. Shaw, “The Family in Late Antiquity: The Experience of Augustine,” Past and Present 115 (1987), 3–51, at 8–10.
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with the legalization of Christianity and Augustine’s mother took her faith seriously, religion did not always take a central place in family life. Many accepted the religion, even as they continued with many of the customs that traditionally were a part of family life: Christianity’s impact on most families was negligible.11 Patricius’ conversion, for example, was likely to have been pro forma. Religion aside, the traditional components of a typical Roman household were in evidence. Augustine draws a strong distinction between his father and mother. On the one hand, Patricius is described as ill-tempered, crude, and apparently less than faithful. On the other, Monnica is devout, loving, and dutiful to her husband. These characterizations probably had some basis in reality, but they also articulated stereotypes of patriarchal Roman families, where the paterfamilias had authority over his familia (those under his legal control) and his domus (household). A darker side of this potestas is reflected in the casual comments about marital infidelities (probably with household slaves, also common) and domestic violence. In the case of the latter, women of Thagaste talked openly about their husbands’ physical abuse and in turn assumed that, because of his violent temper, Patricius beat Monnica as well (conf. 9.9.21). Both violence and infidelity Monnica supposedly bore with saintly silence (conf. 9.9.20), but both express a Roman marriage’s inherently patriarchal nature. Little wonder Augustine would years later answer the question “Can’t a man do what he wants in his own home?” with a resounding no (s. 224.3). Such authority and its enforcement also extended to others in his household. When domestic servants caused problems between Augustine’s mother, father, and grandmother, Monnica and her mother-in-law became reconciled and brought it to the attention of Patricius, who then had the slaves whipped (conf. 9.9.20). The scutica (whip) was a common implement found in almost every Roman household. Despite this authority, Patricius seems to have been a distant figure; an embarrassing trip to the public baths where his father coarsely joked about young Augustine’s sexual development is his solitary anecdote of paternal interaction (conf. 2.3.6). Monnica remained the foremost influential individual in Augustine’s life, an important relationship that scholars in general
11
J. Evans Grubbs, Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The Emperor Constantine’s Marriage Legislation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 330–42; A. Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 257–65; and G. Nathan, The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity and the Endurance of Tradition (London: Routledge, 2000), 185–9.
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have noted in the Roman family.12 Her attentions could be overbearing, so much so that he deserted her in Carthage, stealthily escaping to Rome (conf. 5.8.15). That said, until her death, she remained more devoted to Augustine than any of her other children. She lived with him wherever he resided, including in Carthage when he openly professed Manicheism (conf. 2.11.19). Her piety aside, her living arrangements were common, just as his widowed grandmother’s were years before. As he grew older, the nature of Augustine’s family relations changed. Escaping the onerous duties of serving on Thagaste’s senatus, he became a teacher in Carthage and later in Rome. Such was his fame that he secured an official position in Milan as its official rhetor. It is there that we start hearing again of family: his mother came to live with him and secured a wedding match; his illegitimate but much-loved son Adeodatus was there as well, apparently receiving a formal education (conf. 9.6.14). Other family appears: his cousins Rusticus and Lartidianus and his brother were apparently living with him, at least temporarily. Their presence signifies Augustine’s rise in the world. It was incumbent as a successful relative to use his position to further the fortunes and careers of his relatives. This was familial obligatio and pietas. His mother was introduced to Ambrose, bishop of Milan, for example, by which she increased her own standing in the Christian community (conf. 6.2.2; 9.7.15). Such help continued as bishop of Hippo. His sister was entrusted with running a convent in Hippo – probably close to his own monastery. Her death sparked a crisis that led to Augustine writing his so-called Rule (Possidius, vit. Aug. 26; Augustine, ep. 211). Two and possibly more of Augustine’s nieces also lived in the convent. Other family members benefited as well. One of his nephews, also named Patricius (apparently Navigius’ son, based on Roman onomastic practices), received a place in Augustine’s monastery (s. 356.3), and he secured for another nephew a subdeaconship with the bishop of Milevis (Mila). Even in the common and religious life, he “maintained to the last the natural clannishness of Africans.”13 One last person must be included in Augustine’s circle of family: his concubine of fourteen years. Although concubines traditionally were exslaves or free women of low station, this one bore him his son. Augustine also claimed an extremely close bond with this woman. That said, it was clear she 12
13
Thus notably S. Dixon, The Roman Mother (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 168–209. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 194.
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was “temporary” by virtue of her status. Augustine discusses his feelings and desire for her but never says anything about who she was. When Monnica arranged a marriage for her son, he sent her packing (while keeping Adeodatus). A de facto wife for her entire adult life,14 she returned to North Africa and took a vow of chastity (conf. 6.15). Having to wait two years until his marriage, Augustine immediately took a second concubine. We never learn either woman’s name. There are two lines of thought about Augustine’s concubines: either that he followed the centuries-old custom about the dispensability of concubines or that he consciously agonized in his repudiation.15 Ultimately, the rationale is less important than the ease with which it was done. Concubines could be easily jettisoned, and both Roman traditional attitudes regarding such women and Christians took this for granted (the latter of whom could justify the action as moral improvement through formal marriage [see, for example, Jerome, ep. 69.3, or Leo I, ep. 167.13]). They became metaphors for Augustine’s lust, as his famous prayer for chastity implied (conf. 8.7.17).
friends, amici, and patrons Of his social connections, the blurry distinctions between public and private were even more blurred in the ancient world. This was particularly true for Rome’s highest orders, whose lives often vacillated between extended otium (leisure) and occasional public services. Only the curiales were legally required take on the financially onerous duties of serving on their local town councils.16 Regardless of status and obligation, however, friendships among elites were used for securing offices, honors, and support in personal difficulties. But they could be more: friends were those with whom one shared common experiences and mutual interests. Among the educated, those interests centered on intellectual and religious pursuits. As Augustine’s intellectual hero of youth wrote, a friend should be a second self (Cicero, amic. 7). Augustine’s friendships evolved as his life progressed. As a youth, he socialized with the sons of other notables, getting into trouble and apparently 14
15 16
R. J. O’Connell, “Sexuality in St. Augustine,” in R. J. Neuhaus (ed.) Augustine Today, Encounter Series 16 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 60–87, at 77–8. K. E. Power, Veiled Desire: Augustine on Women (New York: Continuum, 1996), 104. See A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic and Administrative History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964), vol. 2, 737–57.
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enjoying immunity (conf. 2.4.9). While a student at Carthage, he became enamored of Manicheism and had a number of friends who were coreligionists. It is no accident that Augustine chooses not to name those from his former life, but by his own admission, they helped to secure a teaching post for him in Rome. He also accepted their hospitality at Rome itself and used their connections to get the attention of the Urban Prefect Symmachus in 384, who, in turn, would recommend Augustine’s teaching appointment in Milan (conf. 5.13.23). His use of people more powerful than himself is indicative of a social arrangement as important as amicitia: patronage. Patronage technically was a relationship between social unequals but nevertheless common among the elite. For example, the above-mentioned Romanianus (perhaps a distant relative [Augustine, ep. 26]) seems to have subsidized the cost of Augustine’s studies in Carthage (c. Acad. 2.2.3). In return, Augustine dedicated and directed De vera religione to his benefactor. Augustine also seems to have created such relationships where none existed.17 For example, he clearly exaggerated his acquaintance with Ambrose, suggesting a mentor-protégé relationship that probably did not exist.18 In office as a bishop, Augustine had the opportunity to correspond with imperial officials – some quite important – on matters concerning the church’s needs. Although these were not the requests of a client to patron, we see interesting parallels. Many of his surviving letters show that like his secular life, his personal relationships with the powerful were not as deep as he implies. In most of his communications with state officials, he had to carefully construct his letters to suggest a sociability that did not technically exist.19 Augustine did, however, cultivate a number of friendships that had an honest emotional and intellectual component to them, ones he mentions by name. Alypius, probably several years younger than Augustine, was also a native of Thagaste. A lawyer who worked for the treasury in Rome, he maintained a lifelong friendship that included converting to Manicheism with Augustine, being baptized with Augustine and his son in Milan, and 17
18
19
C. Lepelley, “Spes saeculi. Le Milieu sociale d’Augustin et ses ambitions séculiers avant sa conversion,” Atti della Academia della Scienze di Torino 120 (1986), 99–117. G. Nathan, “Being a Bachelor in Late Antiquity: Desires and Social Norms in the Experience of Augustine,” in S. Huebner and C. Laes (eds.), Singles and the Singles Life in Antiquity (Cambridge: CUP, 2018). B. Shaw, “Augustine and Men of Imperial Power,” Journal of Late Antiquity 8(1) (2015), 32–61.
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returning to North Africa to take up the monastic life with his friend. Augustine called Alypius his soul friend (conf. 9.4.7) – a second self. Another friend, Nebridius, was about the same age, from Carthage, had a similar trajectory to Augustine’s (including a live-in mother), and a teacher of grammar (conf. 8.6.13). Evodius and Severus, friends from childhood, probably rounded out his closest intimates, although there were several others both before and after his baptism (e.g., Possidius). All four of these men were bachelors from North Africa’s curial order. All began their adult lives as midlevel professionals. All were interested in pursuing the intellectual and spiritual life. And all save Nebridius (who died young [conf. 9.3.4]) ended up becoming bishops of regional North African cities. In short, Augustine cultivated his amici from the same social and geographic milieu as his own. Augustine’s friends and acquaintances reflected his own life cycle: some were made and lost as his circumstances in life changed. But some of his friends also changed to meet those circumstances. Augustine’s physical and emotional proximity to family and friends is complex and does not always provide a clear picture. That has to do in part with impressions and thoughts coming from Augustine but also from his critical and introspective mind. His thoughts on his father, for example, would have been almost unutterable in the ancient world – an offense to filial piety. This makes his observations powerful and rare but also anachronistic. In sum, he showed himself willing to comport to many of the rhythms and patterns of family life and traditional friendship (both personal and formal). And while his personal path may have been somewhat unusual and his selfanalysis unmatched in antiquity, Augustine of Hippo was no maverick when it came to the conventions of sociability.
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m Popular Culture and Entertainment Jerry Toner It is easy to be dazzled by the intellectual brilliance of Augustine. But however great the heights to which he rose, Augustine started life as “a poor man born of poor parents” (s. 356.13). Education had allowed him to escape from the grinding poverty that was the lot of most in the Roman world, but Augustine never forgot his roots, and his work often displays an understanding of the needs of ordinary people, who constituted the bulk of his flock. This chapter aims to give an overview of the popular context within which Augustine operated and show some of the ways in which his works were specifically targeted at a broad audience.1 Augustine’s world was a world of need. The substantial majority who worked the fields depended on the bounty of the harvest to feed their families. He notes that agricultural laborers would sing with “transports of joy” when the harvest was abundant (en. Ps. 99.4). He recognizes the uncertainties of old age, which meant that most people would seek to have plenty of children (s. 32.25). He understands, too, the financial pressures people faced and the risks this forced some to take, “What do not merchants endure?,” he asks: the pain of being away from home, rough seas, winds, and storms (s. 38.6). And he sympathizes with the sheer dread that life in an uncertain world could generate: “What fear there is of the countless accidents that threaten the body – of heat and cold, storms, rain, lightning, thunder, hail, earthquakes and chasms in the earth, of being crushed by falling buildings, or run down by frightened wild animals or even by vicious domestic ones” (civ. Dei 22.22). 1
For an introduction to ancient popular culture, see J. P. Toner, Popular Culture in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Polity, 2009).
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But his sympathy had its limits. This ordinary world came with its own practices and beliefs, many of them relics of a “pagan” past, and these offered a rival source of identity to that sanctioned by the catholic church. Popular pastimes competed with the church for people’s attention and often succeeded in enticing believers away from Augustine’s edifying sermons. We therefore find a keen sense in his work of the need to turn people away from these traditional rival attractions and focus their attention on the far more pressing matters of the Christian life. The games in particular held a strong grip on many people’s interest.2 Augustine did not see the lavish public entertainments, whether animal hunts, gladiatorial combats, chariot racing, or the theater, as harmless fun. Games were part of the classical heritage. They expressed a strong sense of local pride in the ability of the city’s leading men to put on such shows for the benefit of its people. As Augustine notes at one point, crowds of people “will fill the circus tomorrow, celebrating by their shouting the birthday of the city” (en. Ps. 39.6). Of course, civic dignitaries paid for such expensive games because it brought them great popularity: “Whoever loves a charioteer or beast-fighter wishes also that all the people love him” (en. Ps. 33.6). The games, therefore, provided a rival source of local leadership to that of the church. Moreover, the virtues on display in the games – the skill and bravery of the competitors – also helped to recreate the common militaristic values on which the Roman Empire was based. This was an identity founded on a level of violence that sat very uneasily with the more gentle tenets of the Christian faith, and it is no surprise that the Council of Carthage in 397 CE banned even the sons of clergy from attending the spectacles. The games posed a real threat because the degree of popular passion for them was such that it seemed to offer a parallel faith to Christianity. Augustine famously describes how his friend Alypius, who hated the gladiatorial combats, was reluctantly taken to see some. As soon as he saw the blood, he was hooked. He had become one of the fanatical crowd, watching and shouting with excitement (conf. 6.8). Augustine describes how the fans of a charioteer were totally absorbed in the spectacle: “They don’t exist except in the fellow they are gazing at,” he complains and goes so far as to compare their addiction to the circus to what it is like to be in the presence of god (s. 90A.8ff = Dolbeau 2
See R. Lim, “Augustine and Roman Public Spectacles,” in M. Vessey (ed.), A Companion to Augustine, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 138–50.
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11.8ff). For such people, “a pantomime is more pleasing than is God himself” (en. Ps. 32). Popular entertainments formed social bonds between members of the audience that might threaten the relationships formed between members of the Christian community. Augustine describes how groups of people would form friendly associations by following the same charioteer or hunter or actor (cat. rud. 25.49). He complains that “those who watch the actors, love one another at the same time; those who get drunk together in taverns love one another; those who commit crime together love one another” (s. 332.1). This kind of popular camaraderie often seems to have been based on shared knowledge. The crowd knew how to appreciate a skillful charioteer, a brave gladiator, or a thoroughbred racehorse. Placing a bet on the outcome of a contest was a way for gamblers to publicly assert their faith in the superior quality of their own knowledge about the entertainment on offer. Such competitive friendship generated its own force and helped to bind those watching the event. After all, the power of this peer pressure was such that Alypius had even altered his personality in a way that fitted in with the expectations of those around him. For us today it might seem uncontroversial that being a member of the crowd at the games was only one source of social identity, but for Augustine this kind of alternative society posed a direct threat to the cohesion of the church community. Augustine’s sensitivity to this competitor social world was exacerbated by the fact that for all the Christian church’s attempts to portray itself as utterly dominant, his world was still one of considerable religious diversity. The average believer inhabited a religious marketplace in which the offering of the Christian church had to compete side by side with many other traditional forms of religious observance. Festivals continued to provide a very different form of celebration from that of the Christian mass. Augustine describes the revelers at the New Year fun of the Kalends: “Transported by worldly and carnal joy, they celebrate to the sound of frivolous and obscene songs and by dissolute feasting and licentious dancing” (s. 198.1).3 He gives us other glimpses of how raucous these festivals could be. In 404, in Carthage, he harangued his churchgoers in a sermon delivered before that evening’s festivities: “Are you going to swap good-luck presents today with a pagan? Are you going to gamble with a pagan? Are you going to get drunk with a pagan?” (s. 62.2 = Dolbeau 198.2). 3
On the Kalends, see L. Grig, “Interpreting the Kalends of January in the Late Antiquity: A Case Study for the Late Antique Popular Culture?,” in L. Grig (ed.), Popular Culture in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 237–56.
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Clearly these traditional religious festivals were widely seen as an opportunity for unrestrained excess and were deeply ingrained in the popular religious calendar. This sermon, the longest of Augustine’s that survives, was itself an attempt to keep his flock inside the church and away from the fun. It can be argued that these festivals were not particularly religious, representing something more like secular parties, which just happened to have distant roots in “pagan” religion. This is perhaps most clear in the dressing-up which happened in the Kalends. Caesarius, for example, sees this as the most reprehensible characteristic of the Kalends, a time when even some Christians would “assume false shapes and unnatural appearances” (s. 192.2). This kind of masquerade had little to do with religion and more to do with ideas of carnival and world-turned-upsidedown entertainment. Be that as it may, festivals such as the Kalends represented a rival source of social identity, community and ideas concerning the New Year to that offered by the church and, in Augustine’s eyes, therefore needed to be condemned. Other more overtly “pagan” religious practices continued to attract Christian adherents. Some Christians made propitiatory prayers or sacrifices. Others used incantations or charms or consulted oracular diviners. Magic, in particular, seems to have been used to help heal illnesses. For many, it probably seemed sensible to use a range of tactics to combat disease. Augustine complains that “there are plenty of bad Christians who pore over astrological almanacs,” but when other Christians raised objections, these so-called Christians would retort, “These precautions are necessary for the present time. We are of course Christians, but that is for the eternal life . . . the life we are engaged in now does not concern Christ” (en. Ps. 40.3).4 Augustine is at pains to emphasize that Christian belief replaced all aspects of “paganism” and was not something other-worldly or something that could be simply practiced on a part-time basis. He seems to have been fighting a widespread view that such religious purity was not something that could be expected of ordinary people. This is an objection that Augustine raises himself in a sermon against the spectacles in the city of Bulla Regia: he describes how people object to his view, saying, “It’s all very well for you to abstain from these things, you clergy, you bishops, but not for us lay people” (s. 301A).5 Similarly, he complains how in Carthage, when the “pagan” temples were still open, Christians thought it was acceptable to eat 4
5
See E. Rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity: North Africa 200–450 CE (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 72. Ibid., 73.
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sacrificial meat because they knew the gods of the temples were mere stones or because they simply were carrying out an obligation to a patron (s. 62). All these popular activities posed, in Augustine’s eyes, a moral risk. They could easily tempt the average believer away from Christian righteousness and toward the “wicked pleasures” of the games and other entertainment (en. Ps. 40.5). Augustine knew that simple poverty could always encourage immorality: as he asked of his flock, had they not lied in business that they “had paid such a sum for this merchandise,” although they had not really, and that “you wish to deceive and carry out false transactions. How do you accomplish this? You use false scales” (s. 302.16; en. Ps. 61.16). But popular leisure activities took such moral risk to a far higher plane. The games, in particular, are perceived by Augustine as a profound moral danger because of their unchecked passion and inhumanity, which were themselves linked to the traditional gods and festivals. Augustine was shocked to recall how in his youth he took pleasure in the obscene and filthy shows (civ. Dei 2.4). He thought it insane that people were prepared to spend such vast sums on providing games when there were poor to be fed. “They are all mad,” he said, “the performers, the spectators, and the host” (en. Ps. 149.6). Early Christian attitudes had often displayed isolation from the more sensual society that surrounded them. But by Augustine’s time Christianity had adopted and adapted many of these previously “pagan” practices for its own purposes. Texts, such as Clement’s Christ the Educator, for example, written in the late second century CE, gave guidance to lay Christians on how to cope with the many sensual temptations presented by living in a “pagan” world and set down limits on active Christian engagement with it. Augustine did not preach about such principles of the everyday Christian life, and his work lacks guidance on practical matters of family life, financial or sexual morals, or abstinence from drink.6 But he does give general advice on the need to limit luxury, “Enjoy luxuries, but give to the poor the necessaries of life; enjoy costly foods, but give the common food to the poor” (s. 61.12). Yet he gives no concessions to what he sees as the continued dangers of traditional civic leisure: “A good Christian refuses to go to the theater. The check that he places on his desires by not going to the theater is a cry towards Christ” (s. 88.17). For him, the massive expenditure on the games was simply morally incompatible with the presence in the city of the starving poor. 6
See H. Müller, “Preacher: Augustine and His Congregation,” in Vessey, A Companion to Augustine, 297–309, at 306–7.
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Augustine understood that civic habits needed to change if Christianity was to systematically destabilize traditional Roman notions of the good citizen. But the image of the adult at play in the games also served Augustine as a powerful metaphor for the position of the individual struggling toward salvation against the distraction of earthly temptations. All Christians were now to be seen as God’s children in need of his guidance and correction. The fascination of the games that drew in the young Alypius served to emphasize just how dangerous earthly temptations were and how the weak human individual needed the help of the church to overcome them. Augustine’s use of the theater also served to contrast his pre- and postconversion self. But Augustine could not always be as morally stern as he was in his attitude toward the games. He needed to popularize the Christian message. Partly this reflected the fact that the audiences for his sermons included many ordinary listeners who lacked high-level theological knowledge. His sermons were therefore designed to please and had a popular rhetorical style, full of alliteration, rhyme, and strong antithesis, all designed to appeal to a largely oral culture.7 Partly, also, this reflected the fact that the popular majority in every North African city followed Donatism, which placed greater emphasis on the melodramatic stories of its martyrs. But above all, the Christian church had to spread its message in the face of continued widespread adherence to traditional “paganism.” Not only did this process represent a Christianization of the popular, but it also was a popularization of the Christian. Christianity came to offer an alternative festival calendar to the traditional festivals such as the Kalends. In the feast days of the saints, entertainment and piety were mixed in the same way as had been done in “pagan” holidays. Miracles were widely reported and appealed to the popular taste for the sensational as well as to the need for practical help. Augustine recorded seventy miracles in just two years at Hippo (civ. Dei 22.8.20). Some “pagan” practices could be saved by being put toward a Christian purpose. Music, for example, had always been associated with the sensuality of “pagan” ritual. Augustine described how listening to singing “the gratification of my flesh often leads me astray.” But he also realized that the word of God would be better remembered by the ordinary worshiper if it were sung (conf. 10.33.49–50). And music could even help win back “heretics,” with Augustine’s Psalm against the Donatists aimed at the “ignorant and uneducated” in order to fix correct doctrine in their minds (retr. 1.20). 7
Ibid., 297–309.
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What Augustine’s sermons also show is that there was no simple division between complex, elite theology and the popular understanding of doctrine. Ideas flowed both ways.8 Ordinary people themselves often became passionate about religious ideas. A famous quote of Gregory, late fourth-century bishop of Nyssa, neatly captures this new found democratization of theology: If you ask how much a loaf of bread costs, the answer is, “the Father is greater and the Son inferior.” And if you say, ‘”Is the bath ready?,” the reply is that the Son is from nothing. (Or. deit. fil.)
Gregory is clearly mocking such popular theology, but religion had always played a critical part of ordinary life, whether in forms such as divination, amulets, or dream interpretation. Now people turned their attention to assimilating new Christian forms of religiosity in order to ensure that they continued to benefit from the patronage of the church. Whether through bishops such as Augustine or through the feast days associated with the cult of the saints, Christianity now offered a range of conduits through which its wealth could reach down to the poorest in society in the same way that the games and other civic gifts had traditionally channeled some of society’s wealth from the richest down to the ordinary citizen. It is easy to interpret this process as simply the Christian masses being managed by the powerful church leadership into participating in specified new forms of religious practice. Augustine’s world, in this view, is one where ordinary people simply submitted to the inevitable triumph of a hegemonic Christian culture. But that does not do justice to the active role that popular opinion and desires played in the formation of these new types of religiosity and the dynamic cultural interchange this necessitated. It does not do justice for the need for preachers to express complex theological ideas in a format that was readily accessible to a lay audience. It ignores the fact that leaders such as Augustine had to entice their flocks to join and then stay within the church. Donatism and traditional “paganism” continued to offer viable alternatives to Christianity, and the deep-rooted belief in the power of magic to influence the supernatural meant it would be difficult for Christianity to persuade most people that it held a monopoly on religious power. Augustine, with his intellect and rhetorical skills, undoubtedly held the upper hand in this relationship with his people, but this does not mean that they played no active role at all. People gave feedback to their preachers. Sometimes they stifled a yawn and paid no attention; other times they went 8
On popular theology, see J. Maxwell, “Popular Theology in Late Antiquity,” in Popular Culture in the Ancient World, 277–95.
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so far as to riot about theological controversies. They had to be persuaded to accept what the church promulgated, and their own preferences were themselves able to shape what it was they were offered. They also resisted some of Augustine’s urgings, in particular, to give up the games, especially the less violent theater and circus. However much Augustine’s fulminous rhetoric tried to impose his stern views, for many people the entertainments continued to represent an acceptable part of civic life that no amount of sermonizing was going to make them abandon.
PART V
m reception
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m Augustine’s Reception of Himself Johannes Brachtendorf testimonies of augustine’s reception of his own work Augustine’s literary corpus is among the largest of ancient literature. In addition to hundreds of letters and sermons, he wrote ninety-three independent works,1 which were divided into 252 books. Unique about his literary achievements is the fact that Augustine, like no other author before him, cites his own writings. In the works composed later, he frequently refers to his own earlier treatises in order to represent, explicate, and critically evaluate their contents. In this regard, he is a commentator on himself. Such self-reception is most clear in his Reconsiderations (Retractationes) (426–7), which is a novelty in the literary history of antiquity. Augustine undertakes a critical retrospective look at his literary compositions since the time of his conversion to catholic Christianity (386). The evidence of a critical self-reception can be found in the Confessions (Confessiones) (ca. 397–400), in a letter to Marcellinus from the year 412 (ep. 143.2), in On Nature and Grace (De natura et gratia) (415), in Retractationes (426), and in On the Predestination of the Saints (De praedestinatione sanctorum) (429).
the reception of on the beautiful and the fitting (de pulchro et apto) in confessiones Confessiones is strikingly similar to Retractationes2 in that both provide a public acknowledgment – Confessiones as confessions about his lifestyle 1 2
This is according to Augustine’s own count in the Retractationes. This parallel was already noted by A. von Harnack, Die Retractationen Augustins, Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch
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until 387, Retractationes as confessions about his life as an author after 386. In Confessiones, Augustine critically evaluates, for the first time, an earlier work, that is, his (lost) essay, De pulchro et apto (380–1) (cf. conf. 4.20–7). He informs his readers about the time of its composition (380–1), the circumstances surrounding its origin, his own motivation as the author, and the contents of this treatise. The tenor of his self-evaluation is clearly negative. Augustine had composed this treatise before his conversion to the catholic church, during the period in which he was still a Manichee. Now he recognizes the errors in this early writing, for example, the assumption that evil is a substantial reality and the conviction that God is a mind (mens) like the human mind (mens humana). Both convictions are typical for the Manichean Augustine. Through his encounter with Neoplatonism, Augustine became aware of the fact that evil (malum) was merely a privation of good and that God, being immutable, represented a higher reality than the mutable human mind. According to his self-representation in Confessiones, Augustine was indeed seeking God at the time of composing De pulchro et apto, but he had not yet found the right path.
a letter to marcellinus (ep. 143 [412]) Augustine’s friend, a high Roman official, Marcellinus, had requested an explication of certain statements in the bishop’s treatise titled, On Free Will (De libero arbitrio). In his response, Augustine explains I freely confess, accordingly, that I endeavour to be one of those who write because they have made some progress, and who, by-means of writing, make further progress . . . For, if God permit me, as I desire, to gather together and point out, in a work devoted to this express purpose, all the things which most justly displease me in my books, men will then see how far I am from being a partial judge in my own case. (ep. 143.2)3
Obviously, Augustine does not claim that all his works contain only truths that are certain. His occasional inattentiveness or ignorance may have caused some imprecise or even false statements that are to be corrected either by
3
historische Klasse 2 (Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1905), S. 1096–131, S. 1096. See also G. Madec, Introduction aux “Révisions” et à la Lecture des Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, Collection des é tudes augustiniennes, Sé rie Antiquité 150 (Paris: Institut d’é tudes augustiniennes, 1996), 12–13; G. Bardy (ed.), Les ré visions: texte de l’é dition bé né dictine, Bibliothèque Augustinienne, Oeuvres de Saint Augustin 12 (Paris: Desclé e, de Brouwer, 1950), 15–17; A. Fitzgerald, “Retractationes,” in A. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 723a–4b. English translation: www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102143.htm (accessed January 17, 2017).
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others or by himself. Moreover, the letter to Marcellinus demonstrates that by 412 Augustine had already planned to compose a separate work in which he had collected all the statements within his writings that he deemed worthy of critical appraisal.4 Fourteen years later, this project came to fruition as Retractationes.
augustine’s defense of de libero arbitrio in de natura et gratia (415) Beginning in 410, Augustine became immersed in a disputation with Pelagius over the doctrine of grace. This conflict with Pelagius gave Augustine’s De libero arbitrio a renewed relevance because Pelagius referred to this work in order to support his own position. According to Pelagius, humans, by means of reason and free will, can choose between a life in faith and a life in sin. Even original sin does not render it impossible to live a good life, if one only so wills; it merely makes such a life more difficult. According to Pelagius, grace is the Jewish law, the call to repentance by the prophets, and the message of Jesus Christ. God’s grace is found in God’s exhortation to return to the path of righteousness and to live a good life. To legitimate his understanding, Pelagius draws on passages from Augustine’s De libero arbitrio: “Whatever the cause of the will is, if it cannot be resisted there is no sin in yielding to it; but if it can be resisted, let someone not yield to it, and there will be no sin.”5 Augustine reproaches Pelagius, however, for rendering God’s grace futile by reducing it to an exhortation to be good. If it is merely a matter of an exhortation, then humans in principle could be good without God’s grace. Grace would be inconsequential. Thus, according to Augustine, grace is absolutely necessary for humans to be good because humans are no longer capable of turning to the good of their own accord. In De natura et gratia and in De libero arbitrio, Augustine also explains that grace follows a human decision to be good and assists one to bring such a decision to fruition (gratia subsequens et cooperans). The fact of the matter is that even when humans decide to have faith and want to be good, they just do not possess the strength to carry their decision out. Due to the weakness of their postlapsarian nature, they need divine assistance. Nonetheless, in De natura et gratia, Augustine 4
5
See also Madec, Introduction aux “Révisions,” 18–19; Bardy, “Introduction” to Les ré visions, 17–19. Augustine, lib. arb. 3.170 (English translation P. King, On the Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and the Free Choice, and Other Writings, Cambridge Text in the History of Philosophy [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010]).
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emphasizes that he has maintained both elements in his De libero arbitrio – the necessity of grace and human personal responsibility. He writes, “In such terms did I exhort them, as well as I could, to live righteously; nor did I make the grace of God of none effect, without which the now obscure and tarnished nature of man can neither be enlightened nor purified.”6 Therefore, Augustine’s self-reception in De natura et gratia is essentially a defense of his statements in De libero arbitrio against Pelagianism.
augustine’s comprehensive self-reception in retractationes Augustine opens his Retractationes (426) with a declaration that, for a long time, he has planned to rigorously examine – like a judge – his own works. Initially, he intended to scrutinize his books, letters, and sermons. But in Retractationes he only addresses his books, deferring the critique of his letters and sermons to the composition of other works (e.g., Against Heresies [De haeresibus] and Against Julian, an Unfinished Book [Contra Julianum opus imperfectum]). However, his death in 430 prevented him from finishing the envisioned plan. Retractationes is composed for the readers of his published writings, beginning with the dialogues, which he composed in 386 as a catechumen in Cassiciacum, and ending with the treatises written for the monks in Hadrumetum – namely, On Grace and Free Will (De gratia et libero arbitrio) and On Admonition and Grace (De correptione et gratia) (ca. 426). On the whole, Augustine interprets his literary career as a progression toward betterment (in melius proficientem).7 It is for this reason that he treats his works in their strict chronological order. He believes that whoever reads his writings in chronological order will recognize how he has advanced in his writing (scribendo profecerim).8 Thus the chronology given in Retractationes serves the purpose of being a useful reading tool. Augustine offers information about the time of composition of his works, as well as the context in which his treatises were written. Also, he points out, if necessary, any errors so that the reader would not be left with a wrong understanding of things. He also provides extensive explanations and justifications of his works in the light of possible misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
6
7 8
Augustine, nat. et gr. 8 (English translation www.newadvent.org/fathers/1503.htm [accessed January 17, 2017]). Augustine, retr., Prol. 3. Ibid.
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Retractationes is divided into two books. While the first book is dedicated to works that Augustine penned before becoming a bishop (from 386 to 396), the second book is dedicated to works composed after his consecration (from 396 to ca. 426). In Book One, twenty-six works are discussed; in Book Two, more than twice as many – sixty-seven. Nonetheless, the first book is considerably more extensive than the second. Augustine was apparently of the opinion that his earlier works required much greater explication and correction than his later ones. Whereas the second book of Retractationes contains almost exclusively exegetical corrections, the first book offers, in addition, doctrinal (self-) defenses and self-critiques. Therefore, the first book is longer than the second, even though it assesses less than half as many works. Unfortunately, the reader of Retractationes who hopes for assistance in his or her interpretation of Augustine’s major later works will be disappointed. Augustine comments only on relatively inconsequential exegetical matters found in The City of God (De civitate Dei), On the Trinity (De Trinitate), and On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram). Among the works that receive most of his attention in Book One are De libero arbitrio, On the Two Souls (De duabus animabus), On True Religion (De vera religione), On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (De sermone domini in monte), and On the Advantage of Believing (De utilitate credendi). Other works, which Augustine takes up in greater detail, include the Commentary on Statements in the Letters to the Romans (Expositio quarumdam propositionum ex epistola apostoli ad Romanos) and his early dialogues from Cassiciacum. Doctrinally, several thematic foci can be identified. The first among them is Augustine’s disagreement with the Platonists. He repeatedly criticizes his earlier writings because they contained too much praise for Plato and the Platonists (retr. 1.1.4).9 But later he realized that in several respects their philosophy did not match well with Christian doctrine. For example, Christ’s claim that “my kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36) or the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come” (Mt 6:10), could not be understood on the basis of Plato’s notion of an “intelligible world,” as Augustine clearly assumed in his early writings (retr. 1.3.2). Instead, these statements are to be interpreted eschatologically. Moreover, Augustine is critical of his adoption of the Platonic doctrine of anamnēsis, for instance, in his Soliloquia. When uneducated people give right answers to skillfully posed questions, it is not because they remember something they knew beforehand, 9
Cf. Bardy, “Introduction” to Les ré visions, 126–72.
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as Plato believed, but because the presence of the light of eternal reason allows them to recognize unchanging truths (retr. 1.4.4, 8.2). Retrospectively, Augustine also rejects the Platonic doctrine of the world-soul that still occurred in his On Music (De musica). Augustine’s second thematic focus is on eschatology. In numerous places, he laments the lack of clarity in his early works concerning the differences between the Christian vision of the life beyond and the Platonic vision of the life beyond, in particular, that of Porphyry. Porphyry believed that the beatific afterlife was a life intended for the soul alone and therefore he claimed that one had to flee the body (omne corpus esse fugiendum) (retr. 1.4.3). In contrast, Christianity taught the resurrection of the body and the renewal of the sensible world at the end of time (retr. 1.3.2, 4.3, 11.2–3, 13.4, 14.2). Twice in Book One of Retractationes Augustine refers to civ. Dei 22, where he explains that existence in the afterlife consists of a happy life of both the soul and the perfected body (retr. 1.17, 26 to question 47; cf. civ. Dei 22.29). This more positive view of human corporality, or bodiliness, is further articulated in Augustine’s revision of his earlier statements regarding the original human condition in paradise. In his early writings, Augustine was of the opinion that the procreation of children was a consequence of the fall to sin. In Retractationes, however, he contends that even if the fall had not occurred, humans in paradise would have begotten offspring in order fulfill God’s mandate to be fruitful and multiply. Thus sexuality is not to be coupled with a corrupted form of human existence, as he had previously maintained. Rather, it belongs to the perfection of human life before the fall (retr. 1.13.8, 19.5, 19.9). Augustine’s third thematic concern is the relationship between freedom, sin, and grace. This issue has special significance for Augustine. In Retractationes, he discusses no other work as extensively as his De libero arbitrio (retr. 1.8). He elaborates on his self-defense against Pelagianism that he had begun in De natura et gratia. First, he lists all the passages in De libero arbitrio that contained optimistic Pelagian-sounding statements about the power of free will (cf. retr. 1.8.3). To begin with, he reminds his readers that De libero arbitrio was not directed against Pelagians, who did not acknowledge the importance of God’s grace in their understanding of the free choice of the will (liberum arbitrium voluntatis). Instead, it was directed at Manichees, who claimed that evil did not result from the free choice of the will but was effectuated by the God of darkness, who was understood to be material. Augustine is adamant about the fact that he highlighted free will (liberum arbitrium) in order to counter the Manichean understanding of it. The main issue in the disputation with the Pelagians – the role of God’s
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grace – was not even the topic in De libero arbitrio. In addition, the fact that he hardly mentioned God’s grace in this work should not substantiate any Pelagian ideas.10 In order to prove his point, he mentions all those passages in De libero arbitrio that supported his most significant anti-Pelagian thesis – namely, that the free will can only will the good if the liberating grace of God precedes it. He concludes, contrary to Pelagius’ claims, that De libero arbitrio does not support Pelagius’ views at all. Rather, it already argues in an antiPelagian manner, long before Pelagianism was around. “Observe how long before the Pelagian heresy had come into existence we spoke as though we were already speaking against them” (retr. 1.8.6). Consequently, Augustine emphasizes the agreement between De libero arbitrio and his later antiPelagian doctrine of grace.11 The retractatio to Augustine’s first commentary on the Letter to the Romans (retr. 1. 22) revolves around certain passages that Augustine retrospectively would like to interpret differently. Of particular significance is the topic of the election by God’s grace (electio gratiae) (cf. Rm 11:5). Augustine argues that he had not yet sufficiently examined the consequences of such an election at the time of composition of this early work. He had believed that it resulted from a preceding human achievement, that is, in having faith. Later, though, he realized that faith, too, was part of God’s gracious gifts. “But that the merit of faith itself is also a gift of God, I did not think should be inquired into, nor did I say it.”12 Therefore, in Retractationes, Augustine emphasizes that even the merit of faith derives from the mercy of God. All in all, however, Augustine does not discredit his earlier doctrine of grace, which he developed on the basis of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. He even contends repeatedly that the theses in his Expositio are perfectly fine. He merely admits that he had not grasped this matter deeply enough in that treatise.
10
11
12
“In these and similar statements of mine, because there was no mention of the grace of God, which was not the subject under discussion at the time, the Pelagians think or may think that we held their opinion” (Augustine, retr. 1.8.4). In truth, Augustine overstates the agreement between De libero arbitrio and his later thinking on sin and grace. For a critical view on Augustine’s self-interpretation see J. Brachtendorf (ed.), “Introduction,” in Augustinus, De libero arbitrio/Der freie Wille, Augustinus Opera/Werke (Paderborn: Schö ningh, 2006), 28–40; and J. Brachtendorf, “Augustins De libero arbitrio und die Selbstrezeption in Augustins Spätwerk,” in N. Fischer (ed.), Die Gnadenlehre als “salto mortale” der Vernunft? Natur, Freiheit und Gnade im Spannungsfeld von Augustinus und Kant (Freiburg im Breisgau: Alber, 2012), 50–68. Sed fidei meritum etiam esse donum dei, nec putavi quaerendum esse, nec dixi (retr. 1.22.3).
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augustine’s self-correction in de praedestinatione sanctorum In the final testimony to his literary self-reception, in De praedestinatione sanctorum (429), Augustine’s doctrine of grace stands again in the foreground. He judges his earlier interpretation to be not only incomplete but explicitly erroneous. Departing from the Apostle Paul’s statement in 1 Cor 4:7, “For what have you that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?,” Augustine writes It was chiefly by this testimony that I myself also was convinced when I was in a similar error, thinking that faith whereby we believe in God is not God’s gift, but that it is in us from ourselves . . . For I did not think that faith was preceded by God’s grace, so that by its means would be given to us what we might profitably ask . . . And this my error is sufficiently indicated in some small works of mine written before my episcopate.13
For the first time, Augustine concedes that his earlier doctrine of grace contained some errors. Although he does not name the particular works, he must have had in mind his Expositio and perhaps even his De libero arbitrio. Augustine initially held the idea that one’s consent to the Gospels – that is, one’s decision to believe – is one’s own moral achievement, which is then rewarded by the dispensation of God’s graceful assistance. If the statement of the apostle in 1 Cor 4:7 is taken seriously, however, then this thesis proves to be wrong. Grace, argues the more mature bishop of Hippo, in no way succeeds the human decision to believe. Rather, it precedes it by bringing this very decision about.14 Grace is not first imparted on the condition that a person has, by the power of his or her liberum arbitrium, chosen the good. Rather, to receive grace is the very precondition for having faith. Thus grace is not dependent on one’s achievements, on one’s attaining merit by one’s moral effort of choosing the good. Instead, God dispenses his grace freely and unconditionally. To believe that humans could, of their own accord, divest themselves of their evil will and decide to have faith is the most manifest and grave error that Augustine charges his early writings of having propagated.
conclusion Reflecting on his own work is characteristic of Augustine the writer. His concern for delineating, explaining, and correcting his earlier publications is 13
14
Augustine, praed. sanct. 7 (English translation www.newadvent.org/fathers/15121.htm [accessed January 17, 2017]). Ibid.
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initially evident in Confessiones. In Retractationes, Augustine realizes the given task in a comprehensive sense, though he had already announced his project fourteen years earlier in a letter to Marcellinus. Undoubtedly, Augustine sought to guarantee for the ensuing ages a controlled reception of his writings, free from any misunderstandings. He shaped, so to speak, his own inheritance. Because it was not ultimately about Augustine himself, however, but about knowing and sharing the truth, he did not hesitate to read his own works critically and to point out and correct his past errors. At times, such corrections concerned mere trivial matters, as the second book of the Retractationes amply illustrates. At other times, though, his corrections concerned the foundation of his theology – in particular, his doctrine of grace. The generally accepted thesis that Augustine steadily developed his theology of grace from his earlier works to his later works can be traced back to Augustine’s self-interpretation. His self-reception in the Retractationes demonstrates that his anthropology and eschatology changed as well. In the place of his early platonic spiritualism came a more holistic view of humanity with a more positive conception of human corporality/bodiliness. Augustine’s self-reception cannot be reduced to the discussion of his De libero arbitrio because the process already begins in Confessiones with a critique of his early Manichean work De pulchro et apto. Moreover, Retractationes encompasses not only De liberao arbitrio but also all Augustine’s works. Nevertheless, De libero arbitrio plays a central role in Augustine’s self-reception. Marcellinus’ questions concerning this treatise provided the occasion for Augustine’s plan of a critical review of the entire work. Furthermore, in De natura et gratia, he defends De libero arbitrio in particular, and in Retractationes, he dedicates most of his attention to the same work again. Finally, Augustine most clearly makes De libero arbitrio, along with Expositio, an object of self-critique in one of his last works, De praedestinatione sanctorum.
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m Reception of Augustine during His Lifetime Mathijs Lamberigts One of the intriguing things about Augustine is the fact that already during his lifetime clergy and laypeople not only admired him but also critically read and refuted him. He was both a source of inspiration and a stumbling stone for people in Africa, Italy, and elsewhere. In this chapter, I will deal with specific personalities who, in one way or another, interacted with Augustine or with each other either in support of Augustine or in criticizing him. When Augustine entered into the service of the church of Hippo, he was immediately confronted with the Donatist controversy. In vain, he tried to contact the Donatist bishop Emeritus of Caesarea in Algeria (Augustine, ep. 87.6). It was only at the conference of Carthage in 411 that Augustine would meet this bishop. Years before that meeting, however, Augustine was (theologically and ideologically) attacked not only by the Donatist clergy but also by the African layperson Cresconius, well versed in grammar and literature, teacher and defender of his church and its leaders, especially the Donatist bishop Petilian, who had been attacked by Augustine. Whether Cresconius acted at the request of Petilian is unclear. In about 400–1, Cresconius wrote a letter, addressed to Augustine, though probably intended for Donatist communities. Indeed, only three years later, Augustine received the letter and reacted with his Against Cresconius (four books). In the letter, Cresconius discredited Augustine as a human being (Cresc. 1.5), orator (1.4; 2.11), and bishop (3.91–4; 4.79). Moreover, Cresconius reminded his readers of Augustine’s dubious past, a telling proof that Confessions was known in the Donatist circles. In his attacks, Cresconius made clear that his church was right, that Augustine’s attacks revealed that Augustine was a wrangler. At the same time, the letter clearly shows that Donatists at this point in time avoided the dialogue so much asked for by the catholics. 230
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When in 411 the Donatists were compelled finally under state pressure to debate with the catholics, Emeritus emphasized the importance of correct procedures (Acta 1.22, 24, 26, 33, 47, 77, 80), thus making of the case a formal lawsuit under imperial jurisdiction. For Emeritus, the catholics were the accusers, the Donatists the defenders: the catholics were therefore obliged to prove that the Donatists were legally guilty (3.15, 37, 39, 43, 49, etc.). The Donatists lost the lawsuit but spread the rumor that the imperial commissioner was corrupt (Emer. 2). Augustine tried to dialogue with Emeritus but, even when physically present at the meeting in September of 418, the latter decided to remain silent, simply referring to the Acts of 411, suggesting that his party was urged to cede because of violence (Emer. 3). The verbiage of 411 had been replaced by a kind of protesting mutism. Starting a dialogue was not easy. Augustine would experience it in his correspondence with Jerome (ca. 347–420).1 The two never met each other in person, although both lived in Rome from 383–4. Augustine, whom Jerome considered his junior, was the first to contact Jerome, but his first letter, ep. 28 (written in about 394–5), never reached Jerome. Augustine’s critiques as formulated in that letter would return later. These critiques were not appreciated by Jerome, who had already gained a reputation as a biblical scholar and promoter of the Vulgate project and of asceticism. Moreover, Jerome tried to disseminate his works in Africa, just as he had done in Italy and Gaul previously (cf. Jerome, ep. 27* among the letters of Augustine, written ca. 392). In 397, Augustine repeated his critiques in a letter that would only reach Jerome in about 402, after having circulated among others in Rome. Augustine disagreed with Jerome’s interpretation of Gal 2:11–14 (Jerome had suggested that Paul was lying here; ep. 40.3–6; cf. ep. 28.3–4). When Augustine insisted in asking for a reply (ep. 67.2), Jerome’s answer was clear: his position was correct, and Augustine, who was still a youngster in the field of Scripture, should not challenge him, an old man. Jerome refused to reply (Jerome, ep. 68.2 among the letters of Augustine), but Augustine repeated his critique with regard to Jerome’s appeal to the Hebrew text while translating Scripture. Jerome should base himself only on the Greek Septuagint (ep. 71.4, cf. ep. 28.2), suggesting that Jerome’s translation had caused unrest (ep. 71.5). Jerome’s reaction was cold, hard, and direct. First, Jerome bitterly complained that ep. 40 had found its way around Rome and Italy but had not come to him alone (ep. 72.1 among the letters of Augustine). He therefore refused to answer and even implied that some of Augustine’s 1
A. Fürst, “Hieronymus,” in C. P. Mayer (ed.), Augustinus-Lexikon (Basel: Schwabe, 2004–10), vol. 3, fasc. 3–4, 317–36.
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positions were heretical (ep. 72.3 among the letters of Augustine). He explicitly asked Augustine to stop pestering him. Moreover, Augustine’s approach was injuring their friendship. Jerome paternalistically asked Augustine to stop his provocations. He added that he never spent any effort on reading the few works of Augustine present in Bethlehem (ep. 72.5 among the letters of Augustine). Augustine was offended, waiting in vain for an answer concerning his critique with regard to Gal 2:11–14 (ep. 73.1, 5). Augustine was willing to ask forgiveness (ep. 73.3, 9) and accepted Jerome’s superiority in biblical matters (ep. 73.5). Finally, Jerome discussed the interpretation of Gal 2:11–14. He mentioned that he had given the interpretations as offered in the past, as Augustine should have noticed (ep. 75.4 among the letters of Augustine). In favor of his own interpretation, Jerome quoted scriptural texts at length (ep. 75.7 among the letters of Augustine), concluding that Paul’s reprimand of Peter was in fact a useful lie (ep. 75.8–11 among the letters of Augustine). Augustine’s view that Paul’s reprimand was sincere was rejected as dangerous and in favor of the heretical Ebionites (ep. 75.12–13, 16 among the letters of Augustine). Jerome did not accept Augustine’s reservation with regard to his own translation, based on the Hebrew text (ep. 75.18–21 among the letters of Augustine). In ep. 81 (among the letters of Augustine), Jerome invited Augustine to put aside their quarreling but never replied to Augustine’s long ep. 82 (written 404/5), in which Augustine took up again his own views. In the end, neither Jerome nor Augustine changed his mind.2 When the two men restarted their correspondence during the Pelagian controversy, Jerome verbally joined Augustine while, with respect to content, he held fast to differing opinions. In this regard, Marcellinus, a learned catholic layman, appreciated by Augustine, should be mentioned. He had played a key role at the conference of Carthage (411), proclaiming the catholics the winners. Marcellinus’ murder in 413 was a great shock to Augustine.3 Augustine dedicated the first two books of De civitate Dei to Marcellinus, for Marcellinus had participated in discussions between intellectuals, including the non-Christian Volusianus, who maintained that the decline of the Roman Empire was caused by Christianity (ep. 136.2–3 among the letters of Augustine). Marcellinus was searching for an answer about the origin of the human soul. Augustine expressed his uncertainty about this matter (ep. 143.5–9). Marcellinus also consulted Jerome, who opted for the 2
3
A. Fürst, Augustins Briefwechsel mit Hieronymus, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband 29 (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1999), 86–7. See M. Moreau, “Le dossier Marcellinus dans la Correspondance de saint Augustin,” Études augustiniennes 9 (1973), 3–181.
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idea that God creates a new soul for every newborn baby. The latter, however, advised Marcellinus to consult Augustine (cf. ep. 165.1 among the letters of Augustine). When Augustine, in turn, asked Jerome, through the mediation of Orosius, for advice about the origin of the soul (ep. 166), Jerome did not want to discuss the matter (ep. 172 among the letters of Augustine). He praised Augustine for his refutation of the Pelagians and mentioned his own Dialogue against the Pelagians (ep. 172.1 among the letters of Augustine; cf. also ep. 195 among the letters of Augustine). Jerome was not very much interested in philosophical and theological issues (cf. in Eccl. 1.13; 8.16ff; ep. 39.2.3; 130.16.3ff), and one cannot see any impact of the many anti-Pelagian works sent by Augustine on Jerome’s own work.4 Jerome maintained that infants were not guilty (adv. Pel. 3.6; ep. 39.2.3; 85.2.1; 85.5.1), defended the creationist position with regard to the soul, but approved Augustine’s idea about the relation between original sin and baptism of children (3.17–19). His view on the relation between grace and free will was nearer to the positions of the so-called Semipelagians than to those of Augustine (adv. Pel. 1.5; 2.6; 3.1, 10; ep. 130.14ff). Augustine no longer dared to criticize Jerome, to whom he marginally appealed during the controversy with Julian,5 without respecting the context of Jerome’s work.6 The exchange of letters does not reveal a deep friendship between these men.7 Just like Jerome, Orosius, Augustine’s messenger to Jerome, was not of great help in the Pelagian controversy. Orosius’ mission to the east (415), meeting Jerome and informing the east about Pelagius and his ideas, became a disaster, for he did not master the Greek language and did not have the theological expertise to attack Pelagius. As a result, the bishops refused to condemn Pelagius at Jerusalem (July 28, 415) and set him free at the Synod of Diospolis in December 415. Orosius, accused of unorthodoxy, had to defend himself with his Liber apologeticus (415). After his return to the west, he wrote his History against the Pagans, a work in which he considered the time of the Empire as a period of peace, thanks to Christianity, not really a proof of keen insight in the events of the day. The same is true for his opinion that in the tempora Christiana wars will come to an end, for the Roman Empire will guarantee peace and promote Christianity. Needless to say, such a view did not please Augustine.8 At the same time, a good friend and great connoisseur 4 5
6 7 8
Fürst, “Hieronymus,” 331–2. M. Lamberigts, “Augustine’s Use of Tradition in the Controversy with Julian of Aeclanum,” Augustiniana 60 (2010), 33–6. Fürst, “Hieronymus,” 322. Fürst, Augustins Briefwechsel mit Hieronymus, 220–30. H. Inglebert, “Orosius,” in Augustinus-Lexikon, 2014, vol. 4, fasc. 3–4, 398–403, at 401.
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of Augustine such as Quodvultdeus (d. 454), a companion in the struggle against the Pelagians, did not share the great optimism of Augustine with regard to the future of the church. Substantially quoting from De civitate Dei, he still emphasized an inner link between the Empire and the church, thus suggesting that a fall of the Empire could herald the end of the church.9 For this reason, Quodvultdeus invested much time in calculating the date of the end of the world, which he thought would come soon, something Augustine always had evaluated as useless and impious.10 Paulinus of Nola (ca. 354–431), born into a wealthy aristocratic family, gave up his political career because of the political turbulences of the time. After the loss of their son, he and his wife Therasia decided to live an ascetic life, giving away much of their property. They were equally praised by Augustine (civ. Dei 1.10), Ambrose, and Jerome.11 Paulinus and his wife settled in Nola, where he became bishop and promoter of the veneration of Saint Felix, with Nola becoming a religious pilgrimage center. Paulinus’ poems on Felix were distributed in Gaul, Dacia, and Africa.12 Paulinus and Augustine corresponded for about twenty-five years and shared a deep friendship. Augustine sent copies of his works to Paulinus for the sake of distribution in Italy. Paulinus had good contacts with other Africans such as Alypius (cf. ep. 3) but also with the Pelagian circles. He wrote a wedding song at the occasion of the wedding of Julian of Aeclanum with Titia, daughter of Aemilius of Benevent (carm. 25). Pelagius and Julian probably read works of Augustine in Nola. Paulinus promoted the diffusion of Augustine’s antiManichean works in Gaul and Spain. However, with regard to topics under discussion during the Pelagian controversy, Paulinus’ position was not very clear. He accepted the consequences of the fall but stressed the importance of our merits in order to receive eternal life. Paulinus had not well deliberated views on issues such as the relation between free will and grace.13 When Augustine warned Paulinus of the Pelagian heresy (ep. 186, written 417), Paulinus did not reply, an indication that he disagreed. 9
10
11
12 13
H. Inglebert, “Un exemple historiographique au Ve siècle. La conception de l’histoire chez Quovultdeus de Carthage et ses relations avec la Cité de Dieu,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 37 (1991), 307–20. S. Petri, “Quodvultdeus of Carthage,” in K. Pollmann and W. Otten (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), vol. 3, 1629–30, at 1630. S. Mratschek-Halfmann, Der Briefwechsel des Paulinus von Nola. Kommunikation und soziale Kontakte zwischen christlichen Intellektuellen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002), 90–8. Ibid., 583ff. D. E. Trout, Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 232–4.
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It was in Paulinus’ region, Campania-Apulia, that one will find the strongest reaction against the condemnation of Pelagius in 418. Julian of Aeclanum (ca. 380–454), Augustine’s most clever opponent, refuted Augustine’s work, gave up his career as a bishop of Aeclanum, and went into exile. Apart from some sympathetic reception of Julian’s ideas in Praedestinatus, most of his anti-Augustinian ideas are preserved in the works of Augustine himself. When Julian married Titia, Paulinus wrote a wedding song. Julian’s father asked Augustine to send a copy of his De musica (Augustine, ep. 101.4). Augustine praised Julian’s intellectual skills and invited him to Africa, which Julian did in about 409–10 (Ad Florum 5.26), but he never met Augustine. Julian had read Augustine’s early works. Under bishop Innocent of Rome, he became bishop of Aeclanum. Like Paulinus, Julian was said to be a man with a concern for the poor (Gennadius, vir. ill. 46). Julian’s theological positions were characterized by a fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature (both body and soul) because it was created by a good God.14 He was positive about procreation and sexual intercourse (Ad Turb. frg. 28–9), for without sex there would be no procreation (Ad Florum 3.167; 3.212). Like Jerome (and Ambrose), Julian was a convinced adherent of creationism: God creates a soul for every newly born baby. He excluded the existence of “original sin,” for otherwise one must accuse God, the creator of a guilty soul. Julian neither denied the human capacity to sin nor the need for grace, but he rejected the idea of an inherited, innate sin (Ad Florum 3.31; 3.136). Sin is the result of individual human beings’ personal will, an idea Julian had found in the young Augustine (1.24; 1.44; 1.47). Moral weakness can be overcome with the help of God’s grace as revealed in natural laws, the biblical Law, and the redeeming and sanctifying grace of Christ (1.94–5). Julian was not an opponent of grace per se but of an irresistible grace (ep. ad Ruf. 1.28). Further, fair judgment and honest justice will give to every person what each one deserves, a very classical idea (Cicero, quoted in Ad Florum 1.35, 38; 1.131; 3.2). Original sin thus questioned God’s goodness and justice, the nature of human beings, their freedom and responsibility, and reduced Christ’s grace to a kind of blind fate. It condemns the goodness of marriage, for through procreation guilt was transmitted to babies, even in case the parents were Christians (Ad Turb. frg. 283–4; 292). Julian recognized the necessity of the baptism of children (frg. 16), invoking Chrysostom when enumerating the many goods baptism offered to babies (frg. 312). However, he rejected Augustine’s view on concupiscence, concupiscence being absent 14
For what follows, see M. Lamberigts, “Iulianus Aeclanensis,” in Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 3, fasc. 5–6, 836–47.
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in Christ, thus making of Christ a truncated human being, an inefficient redeemer, and a worthless ethical model. Julian tried to defend his case but was not heard in the east (Mercator, Nest. cap. 1.2.12), where the Council of Ephesus (431) condemned him, while in the west appeals to the Roman bishops Sixtus, a former Pelagian (Prosper, chron. 439), and Leo I (Quodvultdeus, dim. temp. 6.12) remained unsuccessful. But also in Gaul, disagreement with Augustine’s view was present. John Cassian (ca. 360–435) promoted Egyptian wisdom and asceticism in southern Gaul. Cassian, much respected by Leo the Great, who asked him to refute the Nestorian views, published his On Incarnation. Cassian only mentioned Augustine once (inc. 7.27). Cassian, not a great supporter of the bishop of Hippo, described him as a “priest of Hippo”! In the case of Leporius, who had to leave Gaul for Africa because of his sympathy for Pelagian views, Cassian minimized the role of Augustine in Leporius’ “conversion,”15 simply mentioning that Leporius’ Libellus had been approved by all the African bishops (inc. 1.7). In conl. 13, Cassian criticized Augustine’s ideas about nature and free will, but Augustine’s name is not mentioned. Cassian did not accept Augustine’s division of humanity into (a few) elect and (most) damned. For Cassian, 1 Tim 2:4 made clear that God wants all human beings to be saved through Christ, thus rejecting Augustine’s interpretation of this verse. The God of Augustine was just when condemning people, while that of Cassian was frustrated when a soul was lost (conl. 13.7.3). Augustine’s approach was characterized by a kind of Gnadenmonergismus, whereas Cassian clearly opted for a more humanistic approach.16 Cassian recognized the impact Adam’s fall had on his progeny, but as a creationist, he could not accept the extreme consequences of Augustine’s doctrine.17 Further, in opposition to Augustine, he described the cooperation between grace and free will in a mysteriously synergetic way, considering the precise relation between grace and free will as an insoluble question. For Cassian, imbedded in the eastern tradition, the goodness of nature continued to exist after the fall in such a way that God reinforces good desires with his grace. 15
16
17
R. Goodrich, Contextualizing Cassian: Aristocrats, Asceticism, and Reformation in Fifth Century Gaul, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 224–5; R. Goodrich, “John Cassian,” in The Oxford Guide, vol. 3, 1221–3, at 1222. D. Ogliari, Gratia et certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 169 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 403. Ibid., 406.
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These few examples make clear that even during his lifetime Augustine was often subject of critique not only among his opponents but also among his “friends.” Even sincere friendship did not prohibit his friends from holding quite different opinions with regard to important issues, such as the future of the church and the nature of church-state relations. With regard to theological issues such as original sin and grace, the differences in opinion and the resistence were even much more outspoken.
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m Reception of Augustine in Hadrumetum and Southern Gaul Alexander Y. Hwang
Augustine was a well-known and respected leader in the west, but there were reservations about some of his teachings, in particular, his views on predestination produced in the context of his struggle against the Pelagians. Hadrumetum and southern Gaul were two places where the reception of Augustine and his teaching on grace were the subject of disagreements, which came to be known as the semi-Pelagian or Augustinian controversy.1 The varied reactions to Augustine reflect their respective perceptions of the bishop of Hippo in light of their own sense of tradition or rule of faith.2
hadrumetum While Christianity had an early presence in Hadrumetum (now Sousse, Tunisia), its monastic community was established relatively later.3 Monasticism in North Africa is first attested in Augustine’s community in Hippo, which inspired the foundations of other communities associated with Augustine. In addition, there were other monastic communities 1
2
3
For a discussion on the various terms used to denote this controversy, see A. Hwang, Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 2–5. For a discussion of the rule of faith in the Augustinian controversy, see A. Hwang, “Prosper, Cassian, and Vincent: The Rule of Faith in the Augustinian Controversy,” in R. Rombs and A. Hwang (eds.), Tradition and the Rule of Faith in the Early Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 68–85. A. Evers, Churches, Cities, and People: A Study of the Plebs in the Church and Cities of Roman Africa in Late Antiquity, Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion 11 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 21.
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founded independently of Augustine in Carthage and Hadrumetum mentioned by Augustine. There is no information about the monastic community in Hadrumetum apart from the incident involving the disagreements over Augustine’s doctrine of grace. The appearance of Augustine’s letter to Sixtus (ep. 194) around 426 in the monastery caused fractious disagreements among certain monks.4 Unsatisfied with the responses of bishop of Evodius of Uzalis and a respected priest on the issue raised by the monks, Valentine, the abbot, allowed three monks to travel to Hippo.5 Augustine became personally involved, writing three letters and three treatises, including On Grace and Free Will (De gratia et libero arbitrio) and On Admonition and Grace (De correptione et gratia), and spent considerable time personally instructing some of these monks on two separate occasions.6 The main concerns of the monks had to do with grace and free choice, the role of good works on the day of judgment, and the efficacy of rebuke. The incident provides some insight to the reception of Augustine by a monastery unaffiliated with the bishop of Hippo in his native North Africa. Although located in an important city in North Africa and in close proximity to Carthage, the monastery appears to have been rather isolated from the affairs of the North African church. The monastery was not connected with the bishop of Hadrumetum but was instead associated with the bishop of Uzalis. Among its members were some learned men and others with little education.7 They had a very modest library, which did not include any of the documents from the Pelagian controversy or Augustine’s writings. The one book that is known to have been available in their library was, in keeping with the African context, Cyprian’s On the Lord’s Prayer (De dominica oratio), which figured prominently in Augustine’s strategy in explaining his doctrine.8 The monastery also did not follow a rule, at least a written one, until Augustine sent a Regula at the request of Valentine.9 Before the appearance of Augustine’s letter in the monastery, Augustine was known only by the reputation of his character.10 The initial reaction to Augustine’s letter to Sixtus was mixed: some, including Valentine, 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Augustine, ep. 194. Valentine, ep. 216.3. Augustine, corrept. 16.49. Valentine, ep. 216.2. Augustine, ep. 215.3. Valentine, ep. 216.6; Augustine, reg. 3 (Praeceptum). Valentine, ep. 216.1.
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troubled by the contents of the letter, questioned if it was actually written by Augustine.11 They assumed that Augustine was an orthodox bishop, but the teaching on grace seemed to be at odds with what they believed was the correct view on grace. Not all the monks were persuaded by Augustine’s intervention, and some left the monastery as a result. He may have been a respected figure whose views on grace represented the church of North Africa, but these monks did not accept his authority over them and remained convinced that Augustine and, by extension, the North African church were simply wrong on the question of grace concerning the more practical, if not simpler, issues of grace and choice, good works in salvation, and the efficacy of rebuke. Nothing is known of the monks who left the monastery, and the lack of any further documented disturbances suggests, at least in the monastery, that the matter was resolved. Ironically, it was De correptione gratia, which was intended to end the affair, that served as the occasion for the eruption of the controversy in southern Gaul.
southern gaul Southern Gaul refers to the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis, which included the cities of Marseilles, Lérins, Arles, and Orange. At the center of this conflict were Marseilles and the monastic community on Lérins. Augustine was revered by the Gauls as a bishop and a teacher, and like him, they were opposed to the Pelagians, but Augustine’s alternative doctrine to the Pelagian view of grace, predestination, was a matter of great concern.12 There was a wide interest in Augustine’s doctrine among the laity, clerics, and monks. Those who led the opposition to Augustine’s doctrine of predestination, the doctores Gallicani, were well-known figures and respected for their ascetic piety and authority, some of whom were bishops, while those who defended Augustine, the Augustinians, were more modest in number and prestige.13 At the heart of the dispute was the reception of Augustine in southern Gaul by the general public, with each side trying to convince those educated and otherwise how the bishop and his teaching on predestination were to be understood within the catholic faith. 11 12
13
Ibid. Prosper and Hilary noted the admiration and agreement of the doctores Gallicani on Augustine’s teachings, except on the issue of predestination; see Prosper, ep. 225.9 and Hilary, ep. 226.9; R. Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in FifthCentury Gaul (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989), 123–4. For the doctores Gallicani designation, see Hwang, Intrepid Lover, 2.
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The appearance of Augustine’s De correptione et gratia in southern Gaul only intensified the debate. This led two Augustinians, Prosper and Hilary, to appeal to Augustine directly in letters, which detailed the criticisms of his doctrine, including predestination and its usefulness in preaching, and the embarrassing issue of Augustine’s earlier statements on predestination that seemed to contradict his present view.14 The bishop of Hippo then replied with On the Predestination of the Saints (De praedestinatione sanctorum) and On the Gift of Perseverance (De dono perseverantiae), with the intention of clarifying his teaching in hopes that these “brothers” would come to a fuller understanding and progress to the truth of predestination. Understandably, Augustine’s rather condescending treatise was not well received by the doctores Gallicani, who, in turn, began writing against Augustine’s doctrine. The Augustinians in Marseilles were a small group of admirers consisting of laypersons, save one deacon. Prosper was among the refugees from Aquitaine who settled in the city in the wake of the Vandal invasions and soon became an ardent follower of Augustine.15 Prosper soon became acquainted with a fellow admirer of Augustine, Leontius, a deacon who had visited Augustine on at least one occasion. Perhaps through Leontius’ connection, Prosper came to know of Hilary, for whom Augustine was known and beloved by his family – his parents, brother, and brother’s wife.16 This group of admirers and defenders of Augustine, described by Prosper as a “few intrepid lovers of perfect grace,” are the only Augustinians that can be positively identified, though of course there must have been others.17 For Hilary, Augustine was a family friend whose authority was beloved and revered out of personal affection and loyalty. Hilary accepted and defended Augustine’s teachings as the true expression of the faith and deferred to his authority on the controversial questions, a view we can assume was shared by his family as well as Leontius. Prosper had never met the bishop of Hippo and only knew of him through his writings and the documents related to the Pelagian conflict. From these sources, Prosper 14 15
16 17
Prosper, ep. 225; and Hilary, ep. 226. For a study of Prosper, see Hwang, Intrepid Lover, and L. Valentin, Saint Prosper d’Aquitaine: Étude sur la littérature latine ecclésiastique au cinquième siècle en Gaule (Paris: Picard, 1900). Hilary, ep. 226.10. Prosper, ep. 225.7; see A. Hwang, “Pauci perfectae gratiae intrepidi amatores: The Augustinians in Marseilles,” in A. Hwang et al. (eds.), Grace for Grace: The Debates after Augustine and Pelagius (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 35–50.
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arrived at the conclusion that Augustine was a catholic doctor, first and foremost among the bishops of the Lord, the greatest man in the Church today, and the leader in the church’s opposition against the Pelagians.18 Augustine was for Prosper the most authoritative bishop in the church, and his teaching on grace defined the church’s position and was defended as such.19 Two of the most prominent voices of opposition in southern Gaul to Augustine’s doctrine of grace came from the monastic communities in Marseilles and Lérins – linked by correspondence and mutual appreciation and practice of Eastern-style monasticism.20 John Cassian, founder and abbot of the monastery in Marseilles, objected to Augustine’s doctrine because it conflicted with his own scriptural interpretation and tradition, namely, authority and sanctity of the desert fathers. Vincent of Lérins’ objection centered on tradition, namely, the consensus of the church, broadly conceived. Cassian arrived in Marseilles from the east, around 415, to establish a monastery.21 He had spent more than twenty years among the monastic communities in the east. In Bethlehem and then in Egypt he came under the influence of the eastern monastic tradition, primarily through Evagrius Ponticus, who was the chief expositor of Origen’s ascetic theology with its deeply optimistic view of human nature.22 Cassian sought to bring this tradition to his monks through his Institutes (De institutis coenobiorum) and Conferences (Collationes). In the course of writing his Conlationes, Cassian found an opportunity to address the controversy over Augustine’s doctrine of grace, which his monks were engaged in. In conl. 13, Cassian asserted that the reason for the diverse ways salvation is attained was a mystery, claiming Rm 11:33 and rebuking those who delve too much into this mystery, i.e., Augustine and his followers.23 Later in the same conference, Cassian claimed that “all the 18 19
20
21
22
23
Prosper, ep. ad Ruf. 3, 4, 18. Prosper’s enthusiasm and high estimation of Augustine’s authority would later be tempered by his growing appreciation of papal authority; see Hwang, Intrepid Lover, 187–232. For studies on the monasticism of Cassian and the Lerinians, see A. de Vogüé, Histoire littéraire du mouvement monastique dans l’antiquité. Première partie, Le monachisme latin, 12 vols. (Paris: Éditions du cerf, 1991–2008), vols. 6 and 7. For Cassian, see C. Stewart, Cassian the Monk, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). On the extent and limits of Cassian’s use of Evagrius, see S. Marsili, Giovanni Cassiano ed Evagrio Pontico: dottrina sulla carità e contemplazione, Studia Anselmiana philosophica theologica 5 (Rome: Herder, 1936); and S. Driver, John Cassian and the Reading of Egyptian Monastic Culture, Studies in Medieval History and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2002). Cassian, conl. 13.17.2–3.
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Catholic fathers,” who lived and taught the perfection of heart, that is, the desert fathers, held that God’s grace and the integrity and autonomy of the human free will were both involved in the process of salvation and the Christian life.24 Moreover, criticizing Augustine and the Augustinians, Cassian warned that any contrary views resulting from human reasoning or argumentation should be avoided, lest it lead to the destruction of the faith.25 Cassian appealed to the consensus of the desert fathers for his particular view on how grace and human will work together. All these fathers lived and taught the life of perfection and did not just engage in idle disputation. The inference was that Augustine was not to be counted among these catholic fathers and was merely an idle disputant. Augustine’s doctrine could not make an exclusive claim on Scripture for his position, nor could his doctrine claim tradition, since all the catholic fathers were unanimous in their endorsement of Cassian’s view. Thus Augustine’s doctrine could only claim its origin in human argumentation and reasoning and not in Scripture or tradition. Apart from instructing his monks to avoid the views of Augustine in conl. 13, Cassian was otherwise unconcerned with Augustine and the controversy. Vincent’s reception of Augustine was more nuanced. Vincent was a member of the monastic community on Lérins, founded by Honoratus and conceived on a model of eastern-style monasticism.26 Although it is difficult to assess the extent or nature of the specific model and influence, Honoratus and his community identified with eastern monasticism and drew their inspiration from the desert fathers.27 Despite its proclaimed affinity to the isolation of the islands, the Lerinian community was engaged with the wider world.28 Vincent was a careful and critical reader of Augustine and considered him to be a doctor of the church. His opposition to Augustine’s doctrine of 24 25 26
27
28
Ibid., 13.18.4. Ibid., 13.18.5. Hilary of Arles wrote a life of Honoratus (Sermo de vita sancti Honorati), and Eucherius praised the community in his In Praise of the Desert (De laude eremi). On the controversial question of the existence of a “rule of Lérins” and influence of the Rule of Pachomius, see D. Ogliari, Gratia et Certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 169 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003), 113–15. The Lerinian expression of asceticism spread through their writings and by the appointment of its monks to episcopal office; see A. Hamman, “The Turnabout of the Fourth Century: A Political, Geographical, Ecclesiastical, and Doctrinal Framework of the Century,” in A. Berardino (ed.), Patrology (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), vol. 4, 1–32, at 26.
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predestination is well known through his list of objections (Objectiones), a series of statements against Augustine’s teachings on predestination, and his Commonitorium, a much longer work with the purpose of communicating what he had faithfully received from the holy fathers in order to produce a handbook or guide for determining orthodoxy and heresy.29 Much less known is Vincent’s positive use of Augustine’s writings in the Excerpta.30 Vincent began by establishing the definition of catholicity as what has been believed “always, everywhere, and by all” (semper, ubique, ab omnibus) and labels teachings that do not meet the test of catholicity as novelties, such as the teaching of Augustine, caricatured in chapter twenty-six.31 Although not mentioned by name, it becomes clear that Augustine’s doctrine of predestination is the novelty Vincent was concerned with refuting. Only fathers who lived, taught, and died according to the holy catholic faith are to be believed, and only those opinions of these fathers are to be followed, which the fathers held as “indisputable, certain, and established.”32 Augustine was a doctor of the church, but as with other doctors, God’s providence allowed him to produce a new dogma to test the faith of the admirers of the doctor.33 While Vincent was convinced of the error of Augustine’s predestinarian dogma, he was able to appreciate Augustine’s authority and orthodox teachings, even some aspects of his doctrine of predestination. The Excerpta was a florilegium of statements on Christology and Trinity drawn from a variety of Augustine’s writings, including works on predestination. In arguing against a Pelagian Christology, Vincent made use of Augustine’s doctrine of predestination, specifically, the bishop’s example of Christ’s predestination.34 Whereas Augustine saw the predestination of Christ as an example of how God predestines the elect, Vincent affirms only the singular predestination of Jesus. For Vincent, Augustine’s doctrine of predestination was in error when it was applied to humans but orthodox
29
30
31 32 33 34
Vincent, comm. 1.1. For the most recent treatment, see T. Guarino, Vincent of Lérins and the Development of Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013). The list of objections is contained in Prosper’s Answers to the Vincentian Articles (Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincentiarium), as well as in Vincent’s Commonitorium and Excerpta. On the Excerpta, see A. Casiday, “Vincent of Lerins’s Commonitorium, Objectiones, and Excerpta,” in Grace for Grace, 131–54. Vincent, comm. 2.5, 26.4, 8–9. Ibid., 27–8. Ibid., 10.7–8. Vincent, exc. 8; cf. Augustine, praed. sanct. 15, and persev. 24.
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when it came to explaining the Incarnation.35 Vincent was among the Gauls who respected the authority and doctrines of Augustine and were able to distinguish and appreciate the orthodox elements in his doctrine of predestination from the novel ones. The reception of Augustine in Hadrumetum and southern Gaul took a variety of forms. There were those who accepted the authority and catholicity of Augustine and his doctrine in toto, some who admired and respected the bishop of Hippo but did not regard all his teachings as authoritative, others who were less impressed by the bishop and did not recognize his authority or catholicity, and still others who remained uncommitted or else uninterested. Although the Council of Orange II (529) is credited with finally resolving the Augustinian conflict, the debates over how Augustine and his teachings were to be understood within the catholic faith continued along the same lines of reception first articulated in Hadrumetum and southern Gaul.
35
The Excerpta ends by affirming Augustine’s statements on Trinity and Christology as expressions of all the holy fathers (exc. 10).
A Note on Augustine’s Works
For the works of Augustine, their chronology, and translations into various contemporary languages, see the following (alphabetically): Alici, L., A. Pieretti, and A. D. Fitzgerald (eds.). Agostino: dizionario enciclopedico. Rome: Città Nuova, 2007, 43–67; Augustine’s letters on pages 68–74 and Augustine’s sermons on pages 75–101. Drecoll, V. H. (ed.). Augustin Handbuch. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007, 253–61. Drobner, H. R. The Fathers of the Church, trans. S. S. Schatzmann. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007, 424–53. Fitzgerald, A. D. (ed.). Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999, xxxv–xlii (xliii–il); Augustine’s letters on pages 299–305 and Augustine’s sermons on pages 774–89. Harmless, W. (ed.). Augustine in His Own Words. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010, xxvii–xlii. http://augnet.org/default.asp?ipageid=1095. http://augustinus.de/einfuehrung/werke-mit-werkeliste?showall=&start=1 and http://augustinus.de/einfuehrung/werke-mit-werkeliste?showall=&start=2. Keller, A. Translationes Patristicae Graecae et Latinae. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1997–2004, vol. 1, 89–151. Lancel, S. Augustine, trans. A. Nevill. London: SCM, 2002, 533–6. Mayer, C. P. (ed.). Augustinus-Lexikon. Basel: Schwabe, 1986–1994, vol. 1, xxvi–xli; 1996–2002, vol. 2, xi–xxx, Augustine’s letters on pages 1028–36; 2004–2010, vol. 3, xi–xxxii. Pollmann, K., and W. Otten (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, vol. 1, xiii–xvi. Trapè, A. “Saint Augustine: Writings.” In J. Quasten and A. Di Berardino (eds.), Patrology. Westminster: Christian Classics, 1991, vol. 4, 355–403. Vessey, M., and S. Reid (eds.). A Companion to Augustine. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, xxiv–xxxv.
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part i: life Biography in Late Antiquity Cox, P. Biography in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 5. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Hägg, T. The Art of Biography in Antiquity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Hägg, T., and P. Rousseau, Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 31. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Momigliano, A. The Development of Greek Biography, expanded edn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Urbano, A. P. The Philosophical Life: Biography and the Crafting of Intellectual Identity in LateAntiquity, Patristic Monograph Series 21. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013. Williams, M. S. Authorised Lives in Early Christian Biography: Between Eusebius and Augustine, Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 2008.
Augustine on Himself BeDuhn, J. D. Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma I: Conversion and Apostasy, 373–388 C.E., Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma II: Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–401 C.E., Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Brown, P. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, new edn. London: Faber & Faber, 2000.
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Courcelle, P. Les “Confessions” de s. Augustin dans la tradition littéraire: Antécédents et postérité. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1963. Kotzé, A. Augustine’s Confessions: Communicative Purpose and Audience, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae. Leiden: Brill, 2004. O’Donnell, J. J. Augustine: Confessions. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, 3 vols. Augustine: A New Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Stock, B. Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Possidius on Augustine Clark, G. “City of Books: Augustine and the World as Text.” In W. E. Klingshirn and L. Safran (eds.), The Early Christian Book. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007, 117–38. Early Christian Biographies, Fathers of the Church Series 15, trans. R. Defferari. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001. Hermanowicz, E. T. Possidius of Calama: A Study of the North African Episcopate at the Time of Augustine, Oxford Early Christian Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. “Catholic Bishops and Appeals to the Imperial Court: A Legal Study of the Calama Riots in 408.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 12 (2004), 481–521. Vessey, M. “The History of the Book: Augustine’s City of God and Post-Roman Cultural Memory.” In J. Wetzel (ed.), Augustine’s City of God: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 14–32. Latin Christian Writers in Late Antiquity and Their Texts, Variorum Collected Studies Series. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Weiskotten, H. T. The Life of Saint Augustine: A Translation of the Sancti Augustini Vita by Possidius, Bishop of Calama. Merchantville, NJ: Evolution Publishers, 2008 (first published in 1919).
Augustine in Roman North Africa (Thagaste, Carthage) Benseddik, N. “À la recherche de Thagaste, patrie de saint Augustin.” In P.Y. Fux, J.-M. Roessli, and O. Wermelinger (eds.), “Augustinus Afer”: Saint Augustin: Africanité et Universalité: Actes du Colloque International, Alger-Annaba, 1–7 Avril 2001. Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 2003, 413–36. Humphrey, J. H. (ed.). The Circus and a Byzantine Cemetery at Carthage, vol. I. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988. Leone, A. The End of the Pagan City: Religion, Economy, and Urbanism in Late Antique North Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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Lepelley, C. Les Cités de l’Afrique Romaine au Bas-Empire, vol. II: Notices d’Histoire Municipale. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1981. Potter, T. W. Towns in Late Antiquity: Iol Caesarea and Its Context. Ian Sanders Memorial Committee, Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield, 1995. Sears, G. M. Late Roman African Urbanism, British Archaeological Reports International Series 1693. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007. Stern, K. B. Inscribing Devotion and Death: Archaeological Evidence for Jewish Populations of North Africa. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Augustine in Higher Society (Rome and Milan) Brown, P. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Cameron, A. The Last Pagans of Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Cameron, A. Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Curran, J. R. Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century, Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Krautheimer, R. Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Matthews, J. Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, A.D. 364–425. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 (reprinted with postscript in 1990). McLynn, N. B. Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 22. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Salzman, M. R. The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. Williams, D. H. Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian Conflicts, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.
Augustine as a Bishop (Hippo) Brown, P. Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. Hannover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire, Curti Lectures 1988. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Chadwick, H. The Role of the Christian Bishop in Ancient Society, Protocol Series of the Colloquies of the Center 35. Berkeley, CA: Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenism and Modern Studies, 1979.
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Demacopoulos, G. Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Hermanowicz, E. Possidius of Calama: A Study of the North African Episcopate, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Lamoureux, J. C. “Episcopal Courts in Late Antiquity.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995), 143–67. Lenksi, N. “Evidence for the Audientia Episcopalis in the New Letters of Augustine.” In R. W. Mathisen (ed.), Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, 83–97. Rapp, C. Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 37. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Sterk, A. Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
part ii: literary and intellectual contexts Language Adams, J. N. Social Variation and the Latin Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Amat, J. “Le latin de la passion de Perpétue et de Félicité.” In L. Callebat (ed.), Latin vulgaire, latin tardif IV: Actes du 4e Colloque international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif, Caen, 2–5 septembre 1994. Hildesheim: Olms/ Weidmann, 1995, 445–54. Brown, P. “Christianity and Local Culture in Late Roman Africa.” Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968), 85–95. Burton. P. The Old Latin Gospels: A Study of Their Texts and Language, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Language in the Confessions of Saint Augustine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Clackson, J. “Originality and Pastiche in the Passion of Perpetua.” Rationes Rerum 5 (2015), 79–98. Dickey, E. (ed.). The Colloquia of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, vol. 1. Herman, J. “Spoken and Written Latin in the Last Centuries of the Roman Empire: A Contribution to the Linguistic History of the Western Provinces.” In R. Wright (ed.), Latin and the Romance Languages in the Middle Ages, Romance Linguistics. London: Routledge, 1991, 29–43. Kaster, R. A., Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 11. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
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Long, A. A. “Stoic Linguistics, Plato’s Cratylus, and Augustine’s De dialecta.” In D. Frede and B. Inwood (eds.), Language and Learning: Philosophy of Language in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 36–55. Pezzini, G. “Caesar the Linguist: The Debate about the Latin Language.” In L. Grillo and C. Krebs (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Julius Caesar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Classical Literary Culture in North Africa Edwards, M., et al. (eds.). Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Fux, P.-Y., et al. (eds.). Augustinus Afer. Saint Augustin: africanité et universalité; Actes du Colloque international, Alger-Annaba, 1–7 avril 2001, Paradosis 45. Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 2003, vol. 1. Lee, B. T., et al. (eds.). Apuleius and Africa, Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies 18. London: Routledge, 2014. MacCormack, S. The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 26. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Simmons, M. B., Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Education, Grammar, and Rhetoric Burton, P. “The Vocabulary of the Liberal Arts in Augustine’s Confessions.” In K. Pollmann and M. Vessey (eds.), Augustine and the Disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 141–64. Chin, C. “The Grammarian’s Spoils: De Doctrina Christiana and the Contexts of Literary Education.” In Pollman and Vessey, Augustine and the Disciplines, 167–8. McCarthy, M. “‘We Are Your Books’: Augustine, the Bible and the Practice of Authority.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 75 (2007), 324–52. Stock, B. Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Too, Y. L. The Idea of Ancient Literary Criticism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
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Scripture and Biblical Commentaries Everett, F. The Bible in the Early Church, Studies in Early Christianity 3. New York: Garland Press, 1993. Gamble, H. Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Geerlings, W., and C. Schulze (eds.). Der Kommentar in Antike und Mittelalter: Beiträge zu seiner Erforschung, Clavis Commentariorum Antiquitatis et Medii Aevi 2. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Hauser, A. J., and D. Watson (eds.). A History of Biblical Interpretation, vol. 1: The Ancient Period. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. Kannengiesser, C. (ed.). Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity, Bible in Ancient Christianity Series 1–2. Leiden: Brill, 2006, 2 vols. Lössl, J., and J. W. Watt (eds.). Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity: The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition between Rome and Bagdad. Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2011. Simonetti, M. Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis, trans. J. A. Hughes. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994. Young, F. M. Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Latin Christian Literature I (Polemical and Theological Writings) Bastiaensen, A. “Augustin et ses prédécesseurs latins chrétiens.” In J. den Boeft and J. van Oort (eds.), Augustiniana Traiectina: Communications présentées au colloque international d’Utrecht, 13–14 novembre 1986. Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1987, 59–72. Dihle, A. Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Justinian. London: Routledge, 1994. Edwards, M. “Augustine and his Christian Predecessors.” In M. Vessey and S. Reid (eds.), A Companion to Augustine. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 215–26. Garnsey, P. “Lactantius and Augustine.” In A. K. Bowman and F. Millar (eds.), Representations of Empire: Rome and the Mediterranean World, Proceedings of the British Academy 114. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, 153–79. Quasten, J. Patrology, vol. 2: The Ante-Nicene Literature after Irenaeus and vol. 4: The Golden Age of Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, trans. P. Solari. Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1992, 1995. Stock, B. Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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Tilley, M. A. “Understanding Augustine Misunderstanding Tyconius.” Studia Patristica 27 (1993), 405–8.
Latin Christian Literature II (Moral and Spiritual Writings) Brown, P. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, 2nd edn. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Burns, J. P., and R. M. Jensen, Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of its Practices and Beliefs. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014. Courcelle, P. Les Confessions de saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire: Antécédents et postérité. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1963. Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustine, nouvelle edition augmentée et illustrée. Paris: Boccard, 1968. Decret, F. Early Christianity in North Africa, trans. E. Smither. Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011. Harrison, C. Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity, Christian Theology in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Hunter, D. G. Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Rist, J. M. Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Letter Writing and Preaching Allen, P., and M. Cunningham (eds.). Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, New History of the Sermon 1. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Morello, R., and A. D. Morrison (eds.). Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Neil, B., and P. Allen (eds.). Collecting Early Christian Letters from the Apostle Paul to Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Olivar, A. La Predicación Cristiana Antigua, Biblioteca Herder 189. Barcelona: Herder, 1991. Sogno, C., B. K. Storin, and E. J. Watts (eds.). Late Antique Letter Collections: A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016.
Philosophical Trends in Augustine’s Time Catapano, G. “Philosophia.” In R. Dodaro, C. Mayer, and C. Müller (eds.), Augustinus-Lexikon. Basel: Schwabe, 2016, vol. 2, fasc. 5–6, 720–42.
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Courcelle, P. P. Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources, trans. H. E. Wedeck. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969. Gersh, S. Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986, 2 vols. Gerson, L. P. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 2 vols.
part iii: religious contexts Roman Religion Beard, M., et al. (eds.). Religions of Rome, vol. 1: A History and Religions of Rome; vol. 2: A Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Brodd, J., and J. L. Reed (eds.). Rome and Religion: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult, Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplement Series 5. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Dillon, J. M., and L. P. Gerson (eds.). Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2004. Meyer, M. W. (ed.). The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. Rives, J. B. Religion in the Roman Empire, Blackwell Ancient Religions. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. Rüpke, J. (ed.). Religion of the Romans, trans. R. Gordon. Cambridge: Polity, 2007. Wallis, R. T. Neoplatonism, 2nd edn. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1995.
Manicheism Baker-Brian, N. J. Manichaeism: An Ancient Faith Rediscovered. London: T&T Clark, 2011. BeDuhn, J. D. Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma 2: Making a “Catholic” Self, 388–401 C.E., Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma 1: Conversion and Apostasy, 373–388 C.E., Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. Gardner, I., and S. N. C. Lieu. Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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Ecclesiological Controversies Alexander, J. “Donatism.” In P. Esler (ed.), The Early Christian World. London: Routledge, 2000, vol. 2, 952–74. Dossey, L. Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 47. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Dupont, A., et al. (eds.). The Uniquely African Controversy: Studies on Donatist Christianity, Late Antique History and Religion 9. Leuven: Peeters, 2015. Frend, W. H. C. The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952. Edwards, M. (ed.). Optatus: Against the Donatists, Translated Texts for Historians 27. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998. Miles, R. (ed.). The Donatist Schism: Controversy and Contexts, Translated Texts for Historians: Contexts. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016. Shaw, B. Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Tilley, M. The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997. Willis, G. G. Saint Augustine and the Donatist Controversy. London: S.P.C.K., 1950.
Soteriological Controversies Bonner, G. St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies, 3rd edn. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2002. Cary, P. Inner Grace: Augustine in the Traditions of Plato and Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Clark, E. A. The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Evans, R. F. Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals. London: Black, 1968. Markus, R. A. The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Weaver, R. H. Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, Patristic Monograph Series 15. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996.
Trinitarian Controversies Ayres, L. Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Barnes, M. R. “The Fourth Century as Trinitarian Canon.” In L. Ayres and G. Jones (eds.), Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric an Community. London: Routledge, 1998, 47–67.
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Gryson, R. (ed.). Scolies ariennes sur le concile d’Aquilée, Sources Chrétiennes 267. Paris: Éditions de Cerf, 1980. Hanson, R. P. C. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988. Meslin, M. Les Ariens d’Occident 335–430, Patristica Sorbonensia 8. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1967. Williams, D. H. Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Arian-Nicene Conflicts, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Weedman, M. The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 89. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Monasticism/Asceticism Bonner, G., et al. (eds.). Saint Augustine. The Monastic Rules, Augustine Series 4. Hyde Park. NY: New City, 2004. Dunn, M. The Emergence of Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. Lawless, G. Augustine of Hippo and His Monastic Rule. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. Rousseau, P. Basil of Caesarea, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 20. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 6. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Rubenson, S. Letters of St Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995. Verheijen, L. La Règle de Saint Augustine. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967, 2 vols.
part iv: political, social, and cultural contexts Imperial Politics and Legislation in Roman Africa Brown, P. Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. Cherry, D. Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Dossey, L. Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 47. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Errington, R. M. Roman Imperial Policy from Julian to Theodosius, Studies in the History of Greece and Rome. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
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Jones, A. H. M. 1964. The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social Economic and Administrative Survey, 1st American edn. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964, 2 vols. Shaw, B. D. Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
War Lee, A. D. War in Late Antiquity, Ancient World at War. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. Reichberg, G., et al. (eds.). Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Markus, R. A. “Saint Augustine’s Views on the ‘Just War.’” In W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and War: Papers Read at the Twenty-First Summer Meeting and the Twenty-Second Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, Studies in Church History 20. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983, 1–13. Russell, F. The Just War in the Middle Ages, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thoughts, 3rd series, 8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Sabin, P., et al. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Sarantis, A., and N. Christie (eds.). War and Warfare in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives, Late Antique Archaeology 8. Leiden: Brill, 2013, 2 vols. Sizgorich, T. Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam, Divinations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
Religious Violence Brown, P. “Religious Coercion in the Later Roman Empire: The Case of North Africa.” Historia 48 (1963), 283–305. Drake, H. A. (ed.). Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Geljon A. C., and R. Roukema (eds.). Violence in Ancient Christianity: Victims and Perpetrators, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 125. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Iosif, D. “The Present and Future Worlds Are Enemies to Each Other.” In R. Alston, O. M. van Nijf, and C. G. Williamson (eds.), Cults, Creeds and Identities in the Greek City after the Classical Age, Groningen-Royal Holloway Studies on the Greek City after the Classical Age 3. Leuven: Peeters, 2013, 289–308.
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“Illness as Demon Possession in the World of the First Christian Ascetics and Monks.” Mental Health, Religion and Culture 14(4) (2011), 323–40. Kyrtatas, D. J. “Christians Against Christians.” Historein 6 (2006), 20–34. Shaw, B. D. Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Tilley, M. A. Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa, Translated Texts for Historians 24. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996.
Relationships in Augustine’s Life Bonner, G. St. Augustine: Life and Controversies. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1986. Brown, P. Augustine of Hippo, new edn. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Fredriksen, P. “The Confessions as Autobiography.” In M. Vessey (ed.), A Companion to Augustine, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 87–98. Huebner, S., and G. Nathan (eds.). Mediterranean Families in Antiquity: Households, Extended Family and Domestic Space. Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2016. Lepelley, C. “Spes saeculi. Le Milieu sociale d’Augustin et ses ambitions séculiers avant sa conversion.” Atti della Academia della Scienze di Torino 120 (1986), 99–117. Nathan, G. The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity and the Endurance of Tradition. London: Routledge, 2000. Shaw, B. “The Family in Late Antiquity: The Experience of Augustine.” Past and Present 115 (1987), 3–51.
Popular Culture and Entertainment Brown, P. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, Haskell Lectures on History of Religions, New Series 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire, Menaheim Stern Jerusalem Lectures. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. 2002. Grig, L. (ed.). Popular Culture in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Rebillard, E. Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa 200–450 CE. Itacha, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012. Toner, J., Popular Culture in Ancient Rome. Cambridge: Polity, 2009.
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part v: reception Pollmann, K., and W. Otten (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 3 vols.
Augustine’s Reception of Himself Bardy, G. (ed.). Les révisions: texte de l’édition bénédictine, Bibliothèque Augustinienne, Oeuvres de Saint Augustin 12. Paris: Desclée, de Brouwer, 1950. Brachtendorf, J., “Augustins De libero arbitrio und die Selbstrezeption in Augustins Spätwerk.” In N. Fischer (ed.), Die Gnadenlehre als ‘salto mortale’ der Vernunft? Natur, Freiheit und Gnade im Spannungsfeld von Augustinus und Kant. Freiburg im Breisgau: Alber, 2012, 50–68. Brachtendorf, J., and V. Drecoll (eds.). Augustinus, De libero arbitrio, Augustinus Opera/Werke. Paderborn: Schö ningh, 2006. Fitzgerald, A. “Retractationes.” In A. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999, 723–4. Harnack, A. von, Die Retractationen Augustins, Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch historische Klasse 2. Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1905. Madec, G., Introduction aux “Révisions” et à la Lecture des Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, Collection des études augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 150. Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes, 1996.
Reception of Augustine during His Lifetime Fürst, A. Augustins Briefwechsel mit Hieronymus, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband, 29. Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1999. Goodrich, R. Contextualising Cassian: Aristocrats, Asceticism, and Reformation in Fifth Century Gaul, Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Inglebert, H. “Un exemple historiographique au Ve siècle. La conception de l’histoire chez Quovultdeus de Carthage et ses relations avec la Cité de Dieu.” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 37 (1991), 307–20. Lancel, S. Actes de la Conférence de Carthage en 411, Sources Chrétiennes 194, 1972, vol. 1. Moreau, M. “Le dossier Marcellinus dans la Correspondance de saint Augustin,” Études augustiniennes 9 (1973), 3–181. Mratschek-Halfmann, S. Der Briefwechsel des Paulinus von Nola. Kommunikation und soziale Kontakte zwischen christlichen Intellektuellen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002.
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Ogliari, D. Gratia et certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 169. Leuven: Peeters, 2003. Trout, D. E. Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Reception of Augustine in Hadrumetum and Southern Gaul Guarino, T. Vincent of Lérins and the Development of Christian Doctrine, Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013. Hwang, A. Intrepid Lover of Perfect Grace: The Life and Thought of Prosper of Aquitaine. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009. Mathisen, R. Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in FirthCentury Gaul. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989. Ogliari, D. Gratia er Certamen: The Relationship between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semipelagians, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium 169. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003. Stewart, C. Cassian the Monk, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Weaver, R. H. Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy, Patristic Monograph Series 15. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996.
Index
Adam, 148, 153, 155, 158, 169, 236 Adeodatus, 39, 66, 81, 207, 208 Alexandria, 120, 122, 140, 169, 190 Alypius, 43, 56, 79, 138, 151, 209, 212, 213, 216, 234 Ambrose, 19, 25, 44, 47–50, 87–8, 91, 94, 98–9, 103, 104–6, 114, 118, 159, 166–8, 184, 185, 192, 199, 204, 207, 209, 234, 235 Ambrosiaster, 5, 87, 91–3, 100, 155 Ammianus, 45, 188, 190, 191, 193, 199 Ammonius, 120, 122 Antony, 13, 17–21, 107, 169–71 Apuleius, 40, 82–3, 123–4 aristocracy, 44, 45–9, 65, 158, 184 Aristotle, 66, 99, 120–4 Arnobius, 69–78, 96, 197 asceticism, 18, 46, 47, 103, 107–10, 138, 139, 156, 169–73, 231, 236 Athanasius, 13, 17, 19, 20, 97, 98, 106, 107, 161, 163, 170 attitude, 17, 62, 64, 70, 97, 120, 174, 191, 193, 196, 216 audience, 4, 20, 25–9, 33, 64, 66, 113, 116–18, 189, 211, 213, 217 Augustine Ad Cresconium, 230 Ad Simplicianum, 155 Confessiones, 2, 6, 13, 19, 20–9, 41, 47, 49–50, 61, 80, 99, 104, 106, 107, 137, 154, 155, 158, 159, 221–2, 229, 230 Contra Faustum, 138, 187 Contra Secundinum, 138 De bono conjugali, 108 De civitate Dei, 45, 64, 97, 130, 159, 187, 193, 225, 232, 234 De correptione et gratia, 224, 239 De dialectica, 84
261
De doctrina Christiana, 84–5, 99, 114, 155 De dono perseverantiae, 241 De duabus animabus, 225 De Genesi ad litteram, 225 De gratia et libero arbitrio, 224, 239 De haeresibus, 224 De libero arbitrio, 222, 225, 226–8, 229 De magistro, 81 De musica, 226, 235 De natura et gratia, 221, 223–4, 226, 229 De peccatorum meritis et remissione, 158 De praedestinatione sanctorum, 221, 228, 229, 241 De pulchro et apto, 221–2, 229 De sancta virginitate, 108 De sermone Domini in monte, 225 De Trinitate, 225 De utilitate credendi, 225 De vera religione, 225 Enarrationes Psalmos, 88, 113 Expositio quarumdam propositionum ex epistola apostoli ad Romanos, 225 Psalmus contra partem Donati, 216 Regula (Praeceptum), 172, 175, 239 Retractationes, 32, 35, 221–3, 224–7, 228–9 Soliloquia, 225 Aurelius of Carthage, 42, 51, 53, 55, 56, 145, 151 authority, 4, 15, 20, 45, 46, 48, 58, 64, 69, 74, 83, 85, 113–16, 138, 160, 173, 175, 184, 187, 192, 193, 206, 240–2, 244, 245 Auxentius, 49, 98, 165 baptism, 48, 50, 56, 80, 100, 105, 148–9, 150, 153, 154, 156–60, 184, 185, 186, 205, 210, 233, 235 Basil of Caesarea, 18, 98, 116, 171, 172, 173 bath, 38–40, 42, 43, 54, 174, 179, 186, 197, 206, 217
262
IND E X
Benedict of Nursia, 109, 175 biography, 13–23, 26, 30–4, 36, 138 body, 84, 120, 133, 135, 170, 196, 198, 211, 226, 235 Boethius, 123, 125 Caecilian, 146–7, 149, 183, 184 Caelestius, 100, 153, 157–60 Caesarius of Arles, 118, 174–5, 214 career, 2, 13, 17, 22, 23, 31, 48, 50, 53, 67, 80, 100, 108, 112, 115, 138–9, 188, 193, 224, 234, 235 Carthage, 27, 30, 37–8, 39–43, 44, 48, 53–8, 61, 80–3, 94, 95, 103, 126, 147, 150, 151, 158, 179, 180, 183–6, 199, 205–7, 208–10, 212–15, 230, 232, 239 Cassiciacum, 156, 224, 225 catholic church, 13, 22, 23, 25, 27–8, 42, 53–4, 57, 89, 95, 138, 147, 156, 157, 158, 172, 183–6, 212, 221, 222, 230–1, 232, 244–5 celibacy, 108–10, 131 child, 20, 22, 42, 44, 48, 61, 62, 83, 108, 142, 145, 148, 174, 182, 196, 204–7, 210, 211, 216, 226, 233, 235 Chrysostom John, 112, 114, 117, 235 Cicero, 8, 9, 23, 35, 44, 65, 69, 70, 76, 81–3, 102, 106, 114, 124–5, 133, 135, 190, 208, 235 Hortensius, 23, 69, 81, 102 clergy, 32, 34, 36, 42, 43, 53, 55, 56, 106, 107, 111, 147, 149, 156, 181, 183, 185, 186, 212, 214, 230 coercion, 151, 196–7, 198, 200–2 Commodian, 69–71, 74, 76–8 community, 16, 18, 41–3, 49, 51, 52, 65, 68, 76, 109, 134, 140, 150, 170–6, 207, 213–14, 238, 239, 240, 243 concubine, 207–8 congregation, 34, 49, 51, 54, 55, 62, 109, 149, 150, 152 Constantinople, 44, 51, 94, 121, 188, 189–91 convention, 3, 17, 21, 24–6, 27, 65, 70, 74–6, 78, 113, 210 conversion, 13, 22–3, 26–8, 45, 46, 79, 85, 87, 90, 95, 105, 113, 147, 156–60, 171–2, 184, 197, 201, 206, 216, 221, 222, 236 council Aquileia, 166, 167 Arles, 147 Carthage, 150, 151, 185–6, 199, 212, 230, 232 Chalcedon, 94 Constantinople, 94 Diospolis, 233 Ephesus, 94, 236 Hippo, 56
Jerusalem, 233 Milevis, 186 Nicaea, 49, 52, 97, 183 Orange II, 245 Rimini, 161 Seleucia, 161 Sirmium, 161–5 creed, 49, 98, 99, 100, 101, 161–3, 165, 183, 184 Cresconius, 230 culture, 1–5, 44, 48, 53, 57, 62, 66, 68–70, 72, 79–81, 103, 116, 129, 130, 151, 156, 160, 171, 182, 187, 189, 202, 216, 217 curiales, 53, 55, 203, 208 custom, 47, 50, 180, 206, 208 Cyprian, 17, 26, 42, 53, 70, 86, 91, 94, 95–6, 99, 102, 103–4, 106, 146, 148–9, 159, 195, 197–8, 239 death, 2, 30, 42, 97, 103, 104, 107, 108, 112, 125, 130, 133, 142, 148, 153, 156, 169, 173, 180, 189, 193, 196, 198, 205–7, 224 dialectic, 83–4, 126 doctrine, 20, 49, 71, 85, 95, 113, 114, 119, 120–5, 131, 137, 152, 154–5, 159–60, 183, 184, 186, 187, 216, 217, 223, 225–6, 227–9, 236, 239–45 donatists, 25, 32, 35, 42, 53, 56, 94, 145–6, 147–52, 157, 183–6, 200–1, 216, 230–1 agonistici, 184, 185 circumcelliones, 151, 185, 189, 200 claudianists, 150 rogatists, 150 urbanists, 150 Donatus, 42, 146, 147, 149–51, 184 edict, 122, 124, 130, 181, 182, 183, 186 education, 17, 19, 20, 31, 40, 41, 48, 53, 55, 62, 64, 65, 84–5, 106, 113–15, 142, 174, 180, 193, 201–7, 211, 239 Egypt, 15, 18, 35, 85, 112, 140, 142, 143, 179, 195, 242 emperor Anastasius, 189 Antoninus Pius, 40, 132 Augustus, 40, 64, 132 Constans, 149, 184, 200 Constantine, 14, 37, 40, 45, 49, 51–2, 96–7, 113, 130, 147, 149, 180, 183, 188, 189, 192, 194 Constantius II, 97–8, 161, 165, 190 Diocletian, 146, 180, 184 Gratian, 47, 48, 167 Hadrian, 63, 181 Honorius, 58, 151, 159, 185–6
IND E X
Julian, 120, 124, 136, 150, 184 Julius Caesar, 64, 132, 179 Justina (empress), 48, 50 Justinian, 121, 122, 189 Magnus Maximus, 47, 48 Maxentius, 40, 45, 188, 189 Theodosius I, 129, 185, 188, 191, 199 Valentinian I, 48, 181 Valentinian II, 47–9, 98, 203 Valentinian III, 186 entertainment, 41, 181, 190–2, 196, 212–18 epicureanism, 96, 135 Eunapius of Sardis, 15, 16, 19, 20 Eusebius of Caesarea, 13, 14, 16, 17, 35, 87, 98, 100, 189 Eustochium, 46, 107 Evagrius Ponticus, 173, 242 evil, 23, 135, 148, 189, 222, 226, 228 Evodius of Uzalis, 151, 210, 239 faith, 13, 21, 22, 70, 72–5, 98, 140, 146, 154, 156–8, 206, 212–13, 223, 227–8, 241, 244–5 family, 3, 18, 34, 48, 57, 132–3, 142, 143, 145, 171, 180, 203–8, 210, 215, 234, 241–2 Faustus of Milevis, 85, 137, 143 Felix of Apthunga, 147, 184 festival, 42, 112, 116, 131, 133, 213–16 flesh, 79, 95, 169, 170, 196, 198, 216 free will, 100, 109, 150, 152, 222–4, 226, 227, 233, 234, 236–7, 239, 243 friend, 4, 13, 30, 31, 41, 42, 47, 48, 56, 69, 83, 86, 100, 107–9, 113, 115, 117, 138, 143, 151–2, 156–7, 171, 196, 203–4, 208–10, 212, 222, 233, 237, 241 games, 41, 43, 104, 179, 212–13, 215–18 Gaul, 20, 34, 47, 48, 54, 88, 108–12, 118, 154, 174, 180, 189, 231, 234, 236, 238, 240–2, 245 Gennadius of Marseilles, 146, 148, 150, 235 gods, 43, 45, 47, 70, 71, 72–4, 76–7, 80, 123, 124, 125, 129–31, 132, 196, 198, 199, 215 goths, 45, 130, 179, 184, 187–9, 191 grace, 34, 97, 109–10, 153–4, 155, 156, 157–8, 159–60, 173, 221, 223–4, 226–9, 233, 234–7, 238–43 grammar, 67, 75, 80, 81, 83–5, 90, 99, 126, 180, 210, 230 grammarian, 62–5, 66, 75, 83–5, 91 Gregory of Nyssa, 18, 19, 20, 217 guilt, 149, 153, 157, 235
263
Hadrumetum, 159, 160, 224, 238–9, 245 heresy, 35, 98, 109, 138, 151–2, 155, 160, 165, 227, 234, 244 hermeneutics, 71, 73–5, 99, 146 Hilary, 241–2 Hilary of Poitiers, 26, 87, 89, 93, 94, 97, 99, 162–7 Hippo, 22, 25, 30, 32, 34–6, 37, 42, 51, 53, 54–8, 109, 171, 174, 184, 186, 193, 199, 207, 216, 230, 238–9 homoeans, 161–6, 167–8 homoousios, 49, 97, 99, 125, 164–5 honestiores, 80, 203–4 Horace, 44, 71, 76, 77, 78 Iamblichus, 19, 119–20, 136 identity, 140, 148, 160, 163, 164, 200, 212–14 infant, 56, 153, 196, 200, 233 inscription, 31, 37–9, 40, 46, 64, 133 Italy, 27, 34, 41, 44, 48, 54, 88, 117–18, 145, 180, 230, 231, 234 Jerome, 13, 15, 16, 18, 33, 35–6, 46–7, 62, 64, 70, 71, 86–93, 100, 103, 107–9, 111, 115, 117, 154–7, 172, 173, 174, 208, 231–5 Jerusalem, 18, 156, 170, 172, 175, 233 Jovinian, 108 Julian of Aeclanum, 87, 92–3, 99, 100, 101, 153, 158, 160, 224, 233–6 Lactantius, 69, 70, 96–7, 99, 196 language Hebrew, 26, 46, 61, 87, 231, 232 Punic, 39–40, 54, 61–2, 68, 146, 180, 203 Syriac, 18, 113, 139, 142, 170 law, 19, 53, 54, 57, 73, 75, 129, 135, 147–8, 151, 155, 157, 173, 181–3, 186, 191, 193, 200, 223, 235 legislation, 52, 53, 56, 57, 157, 180, 200 leisure, 174, 208, 215 Lérins, 174, 240, 242, 243 library, 17, 32, 33, 35–6, 56, 69, 87, 239 literature, 2–4, 7, 9, 13–14, 20, 23, 25, 68–73, 75–7, 78, 83, 85, 86, 94, 97, 99, 102–3, 106–7, 113, 123, 124, 140, 142–4, 197, 221, 230 love, 46, 72, 80, 134, 150, 153, 157, 160, 172, 173, 196, 201 Macrobius, 125–6, 146 Madaura, 79, 205 magic, 120, 129, 133–4, 214, 217 manicheism, 23, 25, 27–8, 34, 81, 137–44, 158, 184, 207, 209
264
INDEX
Marcellinus, 151, 186, 221–3, 229, 232–3 Marius Victorinus, 84, 87, 90–1, 93, 99, 105, 124–5, 155 marriage, 46, 101, 102–5, 108, 109, 126, 204, 205–8, 235 Marseilles, 159, 160, 240–2 Martin of Tours, 19, 108, 174, 189 martyr, 16–17, 40, 46, 47, 49, 69, 86, 94, 102–4, 148, 152, 184, 197–8, 216 Melania the Elder, 18–19, 156, 171 Milan, 13, 23, 25, 44, 47–50, 80, 98, 102, 104, 106, 130, 165, 184, 204, 207, 209 military, 63, 72, 76, 103, 117, 130, 132, 187–91, 193 monastery, 18, 30, 31, 33–6, 56, 106, 109, 171, 172, 174–6, 207, 239–40, 242 monasticism, 13, 17, 103, 106, 107, 109, 169–75, 238, 242, 243 Monica, 39, 48, 50, 84, 204–8 morality, 81, 85, 104, 157 mother, 13, 18, 39, 46–50, 96, 106, 107, 171, 204, 205–7, 210 music, 83, 84, 126, 216, 226 Navigius, 48, 204–5, 207 Nebridius, 83, 210 neoplatonism, 16, 19, 23, 25, 50, 84, 96, 119–22, 124, 125, 222 Novatian, 94, 96, 102, 104, 163 Numidia, 37, 42, 53, 54, 56, 82, 147 Optatus of Milevis, 148–9, 200 oratory, 79, 98, 113, 114 ordination, 52, 55, 81, 112, 147, 158, 195 Origen, 17, 35–6, 87–91, 92, 97, 98, 100, 105, 123, 154–5, 169–71, 192, 199, 242 Orosius, 35, 159, 232–4 orthodoxy, 32, 49, 98, 100, 111, 114, 115, 131, 159, 160, 186, 244 pagans, 13, 16, 19, 20, 32, 43, 53, 57, 189, 192, 196–200, 233 paideia, 44, 46, 47–8, 50 Palladius, 18–19 Palladius of Ratiaria, 167–8 Parmenian, 42, 148, 150–1 Patricius, 204–7 patronage, 41, 44, 45, 52, 115, 140, 209, 217 Paul, the apostle, 9, 26, 79, 86, 88–93, 114, 141, 155, 197, 201, 227, 228, 231–2 Paula, 46, 107, 156, 157, 171 Paulinus of Nola, 35, 107, 108, 111, 116, 157, 234–5
pelagianism, 100, 157, 160, 184, 224, 226, 227 Pelagius, 33, 34, 35, 87, 90, 92, 100–1, 103, 107, 110, 153–4, 155, 157–8, 160, 173, 184, 186, 223–4, 227, 233–5 persecution, 17, 95–6, 103, 104, 130, 146–7, 149–50, 152, 157, 184, 198 Petilian, 146, 150, 230 philosophy, 3, 18, 19, 23, 47, 65–7, 69, 81, 84, 102, 105, 113, 119–24, 129, 130, 135, 141, 171, 192, 225 piety, 62, 199, 207, 210, 216, 240 Plato, 15, 17, 20, 26, 65, 66, 75, 80, 104–5, 119–25, 135, 225–6 platonism, 102, 119, 120–2, 123–5, 135 Plotinus, 17, 19, 20–1, 85, 99, 105, 119–21, 123, 124–5, 135–6 Plutarch, 14–16, 121–2 politics, 5, 42, 45, 52, 131, 132, 160, 180, 186 pope Anastasius, 155 Damasus, 45, 46, 86, 108 Innocent I, 159, 235 Leo I, 208, 236 Miltiades, 147 Sixtus III, 157, 236, 239 Porphyry, 17, 19–20, 96, 99, 105, 119–21, 124–5, 136, 226 Possidius of Calama, 2, 13–14, 19, 30–6, 55, 56–7, 115, 151, 204, 207, 210 Indiculum, 32–6 Vita Augustini, 2, 30–6, 55, 56–7 poverty, 54, 205, 211, 215 prayer, 22–3, 27, 52, 96, 132–3, 158, 169, 171, 208, 214, 225, 239 preaching, 51, 55, 85, 105, 106, 109, 111–12, 114–15, 116, 193, 241 predestination, 159–60, 221, 238, 240–1, 243–5 priest, 39, 41, 51, 54–6, 92, 131, 135, 145, 148–9, 159, 171, 173, 236, 239 Proclus, 20, 120, 121–2 Proconsularis, 53, 180 Procopius, 188, 190–1, 193 property, 57, 152, 171, 183, 185, 187, 192, 197, 234 Prosper of Aquitaine, 236, 241–2 punishment, 9, 57, 146, 155, 190, 191–3, 198, 199 purity, 103–4, 214 Quintilian, 65, 69, 81–3 Quodvultdeus, 43, 234, 236
IND E X
rhetoric, 25, 47, 61, 65, 72, 73–5, 78, 79–85, 90, 96, 99, 112–14, 123, 124, 126, 156, 180, 184, 189, 192, 218 ritual, 95, 120, 131, 132, 136, 150, 184, 216 Roman Empire, 16, 24, 44, 48, 50–2, 61, 62, 68, 111, 112, 123, 129, 179, 180, 187, 188, 193, 203, 212, 232, 233 Romanianus, 38–9, 138, 205, 209 Rome, 13, 35, 40, 41, 44–8, 50, 54, 63, 80, 96, 99–100, 104, 105, 108, 129–35, 153, 156, 173, 180, 184, 193, 207, 209, 231 Rufinus of Aquileia, 18, 87, 89–92, 100, 108, 154–7, 158, 172 sacrifice, 71, 129, 131–2, 196, 197, 214 salvation, 78, 83, 95, 96, 109, 114, 139, 153–6, 159–60, 216, 240, 242, 243 school, 8, 15, 16, 19–21, 61, 65, 68–71, 76–8, 79–85, 90, 119–23 Scripture/Bible, 8, 13, 18, 26, 46, 50, 62, 64, 82, 84–5, 86, 87, 88, 91, 140, 146, 148–9, 150, 154–5, 156, 159, 160, 162, 184, 231, 243 New Testament, 16, 26, 61, 85, 88, 91, 99, 140, 192, 193 Old Testament, 9, 25, 85, 91, 98, 99, 140, 150, 154, 193 Vetus Latina, 61, 64, 86, 91, 150 Vulgate, 46, 66, 86, 92, 154, 231 sermon, 32, 49, 55–6, 102, 104–6, 111–13, 116–18, 145, 148, 199, 212, 213–18, 221, 224, 225 sex/sexuality, 75, 170, 226, 235 sin, 5, 8, 23, 30, 103, 150, 153–5, 157–8, 159–60, 223, 226, 233, 235–6 slavery, 58, 182, 185 Socrates, 15, 20, 26, 65, 123 soul, 3, 14, 80, 84, 88, 90, 96, 104–5, 119–20, 121, 124–5, 130, 135–6, 138, 139, 143, 169–71, 172, 173, 174, 210, 225–6, 232, 233, 235, 236 spectacle, 38–9, 40, 192, 197, 212, 214 speech, 26, 48, 56, 62–3, 64, 73, 74, 79, 83, 114, 173
265
suffering, 58, 103, 104, 148 Sulpicius Severus, 13, 19, 107, 108–9 Symmachus, 40, 47–8, 80, 204, 209 Syria, 18, 62, 171, 179, 189, 191 teacher, 20, 44, 47, 48, 49, 51, 62, 79, 80–1, 83, 122, 142, 143, 184, 195, 199, 207, 210, 230, 240 temple, 38–9, 42–3, 45, 46, 47, 54, 130, 131–2, 134, 189, 191, 199, 214, 215 Tertullian, 43, 69, 86, 91, 94–5, 102–4, 148–50, 163, 192, 196, 198 Thagaste, 37–40, 42, 43, 48, 54, 56, 79, 80, 158, 171, 203, 205–7, 209 theater, 38, 40–1, 152, 179, 183, 212, 215–16, 218 Themistius, 121, 188, 191 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 18–19, 20 torture, 190, 191, 196–8 traditores, 146–50, 184 translation, 18, 35, 39, 46, 61, 62, 66, 86, 87, 89–91, 100, 103, 107, 124, 141, 154–5, 171, 231, 232 Trinity, 26, 34, 49, 97, 98, 99, 125, 166, 184, 225, 244 Tyconius, 87, 88, 99, 145–6, 150–1, 159 Vandals, 30, 41, 179, 184, 186 Varro, 16, 35, 36, 75–6 Victorinus of Pettau, 86–9, 91, 93 village, 53–4, 57, 142, 169, 170, 180, 182, 183 Vincent of Lérins, 242, 243–5 violence, 41, 146, 148, 150, 151, 184, 185, 187, 188–94, 195–9, 201, 206, 212, 231 Virgil, 44, 69, 71, 76–8, 80, 131, 133, 180 virginity, 98, 104, 105–6, 108, 109, 174, 195 war, 17, 48, 130, 150, 180, 187–94, 233 wealth, 22, 40, 41, 44, 45, 54, 66, 79, 143, 156, 181–3, 204, 205, 217 women, 18–19, 34, 56, 80, 102, 106–7, 117, 156, 171, 174, 195, 197, 200, 206, 207–8