felix hominum

St Augustine, Confessions, for Trinity Sunday

Book XIII

Chapter XI

12. Who can understand the omnipotent Trinity? And yet who does not speak about it, if indeed it is of it that he speaks? Rare is the soul who, when he speaks of it, also knows of what he speaks. And men contend and strive, but no man sees the vision of it without peace.

I could wish that men would consider three things which are within themselves. These three things are quite different from the Trinity, but I mention them in order that men may exercise their minds and test themselves and come to realize how different from it they are.

The three things I speak of are: to be, to know, and to will. For I am, and I know, and I will. I am a knowing and a willing being; I know that I am and that I will; and I will to be and to know. In these three functions, therefore, let him who can see how integral a life is; for there is one life, one mind, one essence. Finally, the distinction does not separate the things, and yet it is a distinction. Surely a man has this distinction before his mind; let him look into himself and see, and tell me. But when he discovers and can say anything about any one of these, let him not think that he has thereby discovered what is immutable above them all, which is immutably and knows immutably and wills immutably. But whether there is a Trinity there because these three functions exist in the one God, or whether all three are in each Person so that they are each threefold, or whether both these notions are true and, in some mysterious manner, the Infinite is in itself its own Selfsame object--at once one and many, so that by itself it is and knows itself and suffices to itself without change, so that the Selfsame is the abundant magnitude of its Unity--who can readily conceive? Who can in any fashion express it plainly? Who can in any way rashly make a pronouncement about it?

Chapter XII

13. Go forward in your confession, O my faith; say to the Lord your God, "Holy, holy, holy, O Lord my God, in thy name we have been baptized, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." In thy name we baptize, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

St Augustine, on Good Friday

for us he was unto thee both the Victor and the Victim,
and therefore Victor, because he was the Victim
for us he was unto thee both the Priest and the Sacrifice,
and therefore the Priest, because he was the Sacrifice
...I meditate upon the price of my redemption

Confessions X, xliii

St. Augustine gets his own MySpace page

By Kaitlynn Riely
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- St. Augustine of Hippo just got a whole lot hipper.

The fifth-century doctor of the church, perhaps known best for "Confessions," an autobiographical account of his conversion to Christianity, now has a MySpace page.

Michael Dolan, the director of communications for the Augustinians of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova, said he started the page on St. Augustine's behalf as an engaging way to introduce visitors to St. Augustine and the Augustinians.

"The focus of the page is to give people a deeper sense of who Augustine was, but also to get them engaged in Augustinian spirituality," Dolan told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview.

The popular social networking Web site myspace.com allows users to post pictures and information about themselves on their personal pages. All users -- and now St. Augustine -- can add other users to their list of friends.

As of the afternoon of June 12, St. Augustine had 87 MySpace friends, including two named Pope Benedict XVI; two fellow saints, Sts. George and Brigid; some guy named Josh; and Canadian singer Celine Dion.

From CNS, via the Sheepcat

You can see St Augustine's MySpace profile here.

His interests include:  "praying, writing, reading, rhetoric, preaching, hanging out with friends."

augustine on biblical interpretation...

intus utique mihi, intus in domicilio cogitationis nec hebraea nec graeca nec latina nec barbara veritas sine oris et linguae organis, sine strepitu syllabarum diceret:  'verum dicit'...

Confessions XI.iii

Unless you read a bit of Latin you probably will depend upon a translation in order to understand what Auggie saying here.  He has been writing about Moses, to whom Augustine attributes authorship of Genesis.  Augustine engages a basic question:  how does one hear and understand (audiam et intellegam...), how God in the beginning made the heavens and the earth?   Hmmm, well, a pretty straightforward and simple project of interpretation if there ever was one.

Augustine's first impulse is to address the issue of reaching the author of a text:  what if he were able to converse with Moses, to speak with him?  Would that answer the fundamental question about the origin of creation?  The first problem is language.  If Moses spoke to Augustine in Hebrew, it would be useless, while if Moses were to converse in Latin, then it might be more profitable. (XI.iii)  But then Augustine comes to a foundational question:  how would he know whether or not Moses spoke the truth (...an verum diceret)?

And here at once is the most dangerous and most comforting of realities.  In reading the Scriptures and seeking for meaning, he has to look

intus utique mihi, intinus in domicilio cogitationis nec hebraea nec graeca nec latina nec barbara veritas sine oris et linguae organis, sine strepitu syllabarum diceret:  'verum dicit'...

External forms of assistance in reading the Scriptures are helpful (author, language and context), but the kind of knowing which Augustine searches for will be found 'within' him, in the inward house of his thoughts, where truth ['Truth' - as in the second person of the trinity, in whom 'are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge' X.xliii ] speaks to him without the form [= limitations?] of human language.  Augustine ends this introduction to the question of understanding creation with a rather non-academic sort of plea:  parce peccatis mea - "pardon my sins". 

Mercy comes before knowledge, and understanding the meaning of scripture is dependent upon the presence of the Word.

[Side note:  do you ever just mindlessly close the door to the bathroom, even when you know that no one else is home?  Just wondering...]

I'm going to try to have a further look at Confessions X-XII while over in the middle east, so there might be sporadic bits of this in amongst pictures of bedouin campfires and such...whenever I find an internet connection...

augustine, briefly, on good friday

for us he was unto thee both the Victor and the Victim,
and therefore Victor, because he was the Victim
for us he was unto thee both the Priest and the Sacrifice,
and therefore the Priest, because he was the Sacrifice
...I meditate upon the price of my redemption

Confessions X, xliii

What Augustine read in the books of the Platonists; or, why metaphors don’t raise the dead.

In Book VII of the Confessions, Augustine tells us how he read “certain books of the Platonists, translated out of Greek into Latin.” (VII.ix)  “Therein I read”, he tells us, “that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  He discovered the truth of what we might call the immutable nature of God.  As well, his reading of philosophy lead him to see that these “Platonists” has grasped an important principle:  that God made the world, indeed there is something within God’s own self (Word) which makes creation possible.

“But that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, did I not read there.” (VII.ix)  Drawing from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Augustine tells his readers other things he “did not read” in the books of the Platonists:  “that he made himself of no reputation, and was made in the likeness of men, and humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, whereby God has highly exalted him…” (VII.ix)

This is the scandal for the Platonists, the Gnostics, and all the sects from then ‘til now who would have us believe that the Word was with God, but that he was not made flesh and dwelt among us.  There are those who think the former, without believing the latter.  To know Christ as the Word, without knowing Christ as the Incarnate Word, is an exercise in missing the point. 

They offer little comfort at the graveside:  metaphors don't raise the dead.

Augustine - the Lenten blog project series

Augustine sees Scripture anew

Well, there you have it.  By the end of Book V Augustine has mostly despaired of finding the big T truth from the Manichaeans.  He has run across some sceptics who would argue that we can't really know these sorts of things for sure.  Yet he wants a kind of certainty about these questions.

In Book VI of the Confessions, Augustine tells us that he little by little is becoming acquainted with Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.  It is about this time that Augustine again takes up some reading of the Scriptures.  While the whole book speaks of Scripture, there is a little line in VI.v which has again caught my attention:

I ever believed, both that thou wert God, and hadst a care for us, though I was utterly ignorant, either what was to be thought of thy substance, or what way led or brought back again towards thee.  Seeing therefore mankind would prove too weak to find out the truth by the way of evident reason...for this cause was there need of the authority of Holy Writ.
(VI.v)

Let's take this one step at a time. 

• Augustine believes that there is a "God", but is still thinking somewhat in materialist categories ('what was to be thought of thy substance').  His old sect was materialist:  God is, or has, a 'body', sort of the way we have pictures of a kindly grandpa sitting on a large white throne;
• He believes that this God is not detached ('hadst a care for us').  This God, whomever he may be, must have a relationship to the created world and to humanity.  This God must be different from the absent gods.
• He is unsure of how to be "led or brought back" to this God.  He is at wit's end (the limits of reason) as to how he can know the divine.
• There are limits to natural reason.  This can take two forms:  either one might say that reason is clouded by the Fall, or one might say that unaided human reason is insufficient to grasp the Divine.

Humanity cannot ascend to God solely via reason and intellect. As Donne puts it in the Holy Sonnet, reason proves to be either weak or untrue.  And so we come to the question of "the authority of Holy Writ".  There must be speech from the other side.  As Augustine hears Ambrose expound and preach, he slowly realizes that his own view of God has limited his ability to understand the 'sense' of the Scriptures.  And it is a mutual relationship:  as he grows in understanding the Scriptures, he will come to have a better, truer view of God.

aside #1:  while Plotinus & others would claim to have reached up to the Divine via the Platonic ascent (pure or modified), they always "fall out" of the vision of God.  The relationship cannot be sustained by unaided reason.

aside #2:  many in Anglican circles speak about the relationship between scripture, reason & tradition.  While the three work together, I submit that there is a linear relationship.  It is not a ruling triumvirate.  It is interesting to note that while Augustine addresses scripture and reason in this section, he also draws in what we might see as tradition:  the living teaching of the bishop (Ambrose) faithfully carrying out his calling in the community of the faithful - the Church.  Thus we can see a relationship between all three at work in bk V.

aside #3:  the problem of "authority" is a problem of pride.  Throughout the Confessions the question of Scripture is related to the question of human pride.  I suspect little has changed.

Augustine - the Lenten blog project series

Confessions V: three sorts of journey

In Book V of the Confessions, a remarkable number of events transpire which move Augustine both geographically and spiritually.  In V.i he gives us a hint of what is to come in philosophical terms:  “the whole creation is never slack in thy praises”, which leads the human soul to contemplate nature, and so to raise itself up toward contemplation of God.  The soul leans “itself on those things which Thou hast created” and so also passes over to “Thyself, who hast made them”. (V.i)  This is the basic form of the Platonic ascent, as outlined in the Republic:  we move from shadows to caused things to the cause.  Augustine will find that as he learns more about nature, he will become disentangled from the Manichaeans and so will “rise” up toward God, the source and creator.  There are of course echoes of natural theology and Romans 1 in here.  In V.iii Augustine compares piety with the ‘natural philosophy’ of the day, liberally sprinkling his text with quotes and references from Romans 1.  The philosophers examine nature, and they “discourse truly concerning the creature, but the truth, the Architect of the creature, do they not religiously seek after.”  This is a theme he will repeat later in VII – the “Platonists” understand the Word as Creator, but stumble when they dismiss the Word made flesh. (VII.xx,xxi)

In V.ii Augustine begins to write of what we might call providence.  The God who created has a concern for his creation, and even if the creature is morally or spiritually estranged from Him, He has not “given over” the creature.  Throughout book V he repeatedly writes of incidents which cause him to slowly but surely fall off from the Manichaean heresy.  [I’ll say more about these later.]  In hindsight he attributes these to the principle of Providence.  “Thou dealtest with me therefore, that I should be persuaded to go to Rome.” (V.viii)  The geographic move to Rome was indeed providential:  Augustine left behind the Manichean Bishop, Faustus, he left behind Carthage (to Carthage I came, burning, burning), and he also leaves behind his confidence in the sect to which he belonged.  In his new geographical setting he meets another Bishop – Ambrose, and begins a new stage in his journey.  “To him was I led by thee, unknowing, that by him I might be brought to the, knowing it.” (V.xiii)  Here again Augustine writes as though it was God who was directing these “movements” in his life:  from Carthage to Rome and Milan;  from a bishop of the Manichees to a Bishop of the Church;  from confidence in his sect to skepticism.

He begins a further questioning of things related to Scripture (V.xi) and discovers certain weaknesses in the approach to Scripture which the Manichaeans hold.  He began to listen to the “speech of one Elpidius”, who argued for the Catholic interpretation and position.

And the Manichees’ answer seemed but very weak to me:  they would not give their answer in public for an open hearing, but only in private, among their own followers.  Namely, they said, that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by some unknown persons…but they themselves (the Manichees) failed to produce any uncorrupted version.
V.xi

[note to self:  I wonder what Augustine would have made of the Jesus Seminar?]

He has moved in place;  he has moved philosophically, and now he begins to move spiritually.  In all 3 of these the older Augustine, writing this text, sees the hand of God.  It is a reason for hope.

Augustine - the Lenten blog project series

power, love & glory: Augustine, Confessions IV

All sin is a false imitation of God.  As Augustine wrote in book III, our various faults seek to imitate the goodness of God in some respect.  In book IV of the Confession, Augustine highlights some details of his life after he took up with the Manichaeans:

• he began to teach rhetoric, and was taken up with its power to "overcome others" (IV.ii)
• he kept a mistress, "not joined to me in lawful marriage", but nevertheless he "truly kept the promise of the bed" (IV.ii)
• he recalls the incident of "seeking the prize" in a theatrical poetry competition (IV.ii)

So what is happening?  Augustine is seeking after power, love and glory:  it is a trinitarian way of looking at sin.  As all sin is an imitation of God, so we can also come to understand sin in terms of a false imitation of God the Trinity.  Power, love and glory are for Augustine, ways in which we begin to understand the Father, Son and Spirit.  And so we also come to falsely imitate God in these ways. 

Augustine came to see in rhetoric that one could have power over others:  an imitation of the power of the Father, from whom are all things, and from whom is all power ("you would have no power over me, were it not granted you from above").  He continues to seek after love, seeking in his "faithful" yet non-married relationship a kind of love and mutuality which is a pale imitation of the incarnate love shown by Jesus.  And Augustine begins to seek for that public attention, that self-centered affirmation, that glory which is an imitation of the Spirit.  But of course, the Spirit bears witness to Christ, and does not draw our gaze toward himself.

Seeking for these things (power, love and glory) is in one sense an expected occurrence.  We are made in the image of a God who is Trinity, and both the virtues we have and the faults we have will reflect something of the nature of God the Trinity.  On the negative side, it is easy to see how the temptations to a wrong use of power, love and glory work in our own lives and the lives of those around us.  Yet we desire those things because we are meant to experience them in the context of our relationship with God.  It is perhaps more difficult for us to see how power and glory can be "good", because the major examples we see come from the world of politics or celebrity lifestyle.  Yet Jesus gives his followers authority (power) over the presence and effects of evil (cast them out in my name), and we look forward to being changed from glory into glory.

As we contemplate power, love and glory in God, and as He grants grace for us to imitate Him, we come to experience the fullness of what it is to be made in the image of God:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Augustine - the Lenten blog project series

Why did Augustine fall for the Manichaeans?

Or, how six inches of muddy water can pretend to be as deep as the ocean.

Out of all the religious options on the buffet of beliefs, cults and practices available in the Roman Empire, why did Augustine fall in with the Manicheans?  They were dualists, seeing the basic principle of things as the opposition of good and evil.  But this kind of opposition of good and evil has a particular form, which we will look at later.

For now, in Confessions III.vi Augustine writes that he fell in with these "proud" men, who were carnales nimis et loquaces.  They were "carnal", that is, they were materialists.  The principles of good and evil appeared to him as material principles, and the Manicheaens' explanation of the world was essentially a materialist explanation.  Previously, Augustine noted that he was consumed with his attraction to the physical body - looking at a human being as physical only, without the spiritual.

This type of religion is, I think, at least partly the logical extension of his lust.  It is the religious form of lust.  It is craving a material, physical explanation for good and evil,  thinking that the physical world will provide everything that can satisfy a human being.  Augustine writes in III.vi:  "...sed secundum sensum carnis quaererum" - he was seeking after God only in a physical, material sense, only using the faculties of the body, not the mind.

[note to self: in a sense, this allows one to posit that moral choices are equal to physical conditions, that moral choice has only a material cause, and that what we are is reduced to our physical, material reality]

The Manicheans were also loquaces - they were eloquent, they could speak well.  Augustine already had compared the simple style of Scripture with the eloquence of Cicero, and Cicero won that battle.  Here again, it the the outward beauty of the words, not their content, which appeals to him.  The Manichean's also had this:  they had a "mixture of the syllables of thy holy Name, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter". (III.vi)  That is, they combined the names of the familiar Christian faith with teaching contrary to the Christian faith.  They made the 'Trinity' (or rather a pale generic god dressing up in Jesus' name) a bit more palatable to Augustine.  And palatable is the correct word.  Something can taste good (appealing to the physical senses) without providing any nourishment for the soul.

Augustine - the Lenten blog project series