Kathleen Lynch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199643936
- eISBN:
- 9780191738876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199643936.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter examines the contests between Protestants and Catholics over the filial claims to Saint Augustine’s religious authority, as they played out in the competing translations of the ...
More
This chapter examines the contests between Protestants and Catholics over the filial claims to Saint Augustine’s religious authority, as they played out in the competing translations of the Confessions into English in the 1620s. This was a constituent part of the battle that raged near the end of James I’s reign to establish religious orthodoxy and to maintain state control over it. The Confessions was not a useful polemical tool, but the chapter details the responsive confessional statements of one of its expert readers, John Donne. The two publications that framed his public life were Pseudo‐Martyr (1610) and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624). In them, Donne challenged Augustine’s resolution of a spiritual crisis with a change of church. Donne complied, but only in respect of the body politic. He became an improbable literary spokesperson for the Protestant nation.Less
This chapter examines the contests between Protestants and Catholics over the filial claims to Saint Augustine’s religious authority, as they played out in the competing translations of the Confessions into English in the 1620s. This was a constituent part of the battle that raged near the end of James I’s reign to establish religious orthodoxy and to maintain state control over it. The Confessions was not a useful polemical tool, but the chapter details the responsive confessional statements of one of its expert readers, John Donne. The two publications that framed his public life were Pseudo‐Martyr (1610) and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624). In them, Donne challenged Augustine’s resolution of a spiritual crisis with a change of church. Donne complied, but only in respect of the body politic. He became an improbable literary spokesperson for the Protestant nation.
Carol Harrison
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198263425
- eISBN:
- 9780191682544
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263425.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, History of Christianity
This book places Saint Augustine's theology in a new context by considering what he has to say about beauty. It demonstrates how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, ...
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This book places Saint Augustine's theology in a new context by considering what he has to say about beauty. It demonstrates how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, temporal realm enabled Augustine to form a positive appreciation of this realm and the saving power of beauty within it. It therefore reintroduces aesthetics alongside philosophy and ethics in Augustine's treatment of God. The book shifts emphasis away from Augustine's early and most theoretical treatises to his mature reflections as a bishop and pastor on how God communicates with fallen man. Using his theory of language as a paradigm, it shows how divine beauty, revealed in creation and history, serves to inspire fallen man's faith, hope, and most especially his love – thereby reforming him and restoring the form or beauty he had lost.Less
This book places Saint Augustine's theology in a new context by considering what he has to say about beauty. It demonstrates how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, temporal realm enabled Augustine to form a positive appreciation of this realm and the saving power of beauty within it. It therefore reintroduces aesthetics alongside philosophy and ethics in Augustine's treatment of God. The book shifts emphasis away from Augustine's early and most theoretical treatises to his mature reflections as a bishop and pastor on how God communicates with fallen man. Using his theory of language as a paradigm, it shows how divine beauty, revealed in creation and history, serves to inspire fallen man's faith, hope, and most especially his love – thereby reforming him and restoring the form or beauty he had lost.
Katrin Ettenhuber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199609109
- eISBN:
- 9780191729553
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609109.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The Introduction situates Donne on Augustine in its main disciplinary contexts: the history of religion and the history of reading. The chapter argues for the importance of attending to the ...
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The Introduction situates Donne on Augustine in its main disciplinary contexts: the history of religion and the history of reading. The chapter argues for the importance of attending to the theological heritage of early modern thought: Renaissance culture saw not only a revival of the classics, but was heavily indebted to the patristic tradition. Among the Fathers, Augustine's influence was paramount, but his doctrinal legacy could be construed in multiple and complex ways. For the preacher and poet John Donne, Augustine's most significant contribution lay in his theory of interpretation. Reading, to Augustine, was more than a simple scholarly technique: it offered an intellectual method, spiritual discipline, and even a form of philosophy. Donne's engagement with Augustinian models of interpretation calls attention to a neglected aspect of Renaissance reading culture, and uncovers a tradition of theological reading that has been obscured, to some extent, by the current scholarly focus on humanist reading practices.Less
The Introduction situates Donne on Augustine in its main disciplinary contexts: the history of religion and the history of reading. The chapter argues for the importance of attending to the theological heritage of early modern thought: Renaissance culture saw not only a revival of the classics, but was heavily indebted to the patristic tradition. Among the Fathers, Augustine's influence was paramount, but his doctrinal legacy could be construed in multiple and complex ways. For the preacher and poet John Donne, Augustine's most significant contribution lay in his theory of interpretation. Reading, to Augustine, was more than a simple scholarly technique: it offered an intellectual method, spiritual discipline, and even a form of philosophy. Donne's engagement with Augustinian models of interpretation calls attention to a neglected aspect of Renaissance reading culture, and uncovers a tradition of theological reading that has been obscured, to some extent, by the current scholarly focus on humanist reading practices.
Teresa Webber
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198204404
- eISBN:
- 9780191676246
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204404.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter looks at the spread and popularity of Saint Augustine's autobiography Confessions in England during the 11th and 12th centuries. It suggests that the textual history of the Confessions ...
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This chapter looks at the spread and popularity of Saint Augustine's autobiography Confessions in England during the 11th and 12th centuries. It suggests that the textual history of the Confessions acts as a reminder of the frail nature of the patristic literary inheritance in the early Middle Ages. It cites evidence indicating that the autobiography had been known in England in the 8th and 9th centuries, though no copies of the complete text nor florilegia containing extracts have survived from that data.Less
This chapter looks at the spread and popularity of Saint Augustine's autobiography Confessions in England during the 11th and 12th centuries. It suggests that the textual history of the Confessions acts as a reminder of the frail nature of the patristic literary inheritance in the early Middle Ages. It cites evidence indicating that the autobiography had been known in England in the 8th and 9th centuries, though no copies of the complete text nor florilegia containing extracts have survived from that data.
DONALD PHILLIP VERENE
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239000
- eISBN:
- 9780191679810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239000.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter examines Saint Augustine's Confessions and Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It investigates what light the Confessions might ...
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This chapter examines Saint Augustine's Confessions and Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It investigates what light the Confessions might throw on how to understand Vico's project. It also discusses Vico's decision not to mention the Confessions in his own autobiography and his efforts to invent the true art of autobiography against the feigned autobiography of Descartes.Less
This chapter examines Saint Augustine's Confessions and Rene Descartes' Discourse on the Method in relation to Giambattista Vico's Autobiography. It investigates what light the Confessions might throw on how to understand Vico's project. It also discusses Vico's decision not to mention the Confessions in his own autobiography and his efforts to invent the true art of autobiography against the feigned autobiography of Descartes.
Katrin Ettenhuber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199609109
- eISBN:
- 9780191729553
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609109.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The Conclusion summarizes the main ideas of the book, focusing on Donne's engagement with the Augustinian theology of charity. In Donne’s, as in Augustine's writing, charity is a Christian virtue, ...
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The Conclusion summarizes the main ideas of the book, focusing on Donne's engagement with the Augustinian theology of charity. In Donne’s, as in Augustine's writing, charity is a Christian virtue, but it is also a potent polemical weapon and a complex habit of thought, which encompasses doctrinal, epistemological, and moral dimensions. The Conclusion also outlines the chronological and thematic development of Donne's Augustinian reading in the sermons preached between 1615 and 1631, stressing the importance of the period 1624/5, when Donne's recovery from a near-fatal illness encouraged him to rethink his relationship with Augustine's texts. The Conclusion re-situates Donne's Augustinianism in the wider context of Renaissance scholarship and re-emphasizes the role of Augustine's thought in Donne's philosophy of time. Her study highlights, for the first time, the depth of Donne's reflections on human and providential history: Augustine's texts help him negotiate the linearity of fallen time and enable glimpses of God's eternal love in the resurrection.Less
The Conclusion summarizes the main ideas of the book, focusing on Donne's engagement with the Augustinian theology of charity. In Donne’s, as in Augustine's writing, charity is a Christian virtue, but it is also a potent polemical weapon and a complex habit of thought, which encompasses doctrinal, epistemological, and moral dimensions. The Conclusion also outlines the chronological and thematic development of Donne's Augustinian reading in the sermons preached between 1615 and 1631, stressing the importance of the period 1624/5, when Donne's recovery from a near-fatal illness encouraged him to rethink his relationship with Augustine's texts. The Conclusion re-situates Donne's Augustinianism in the wider context of Renaissance scholarship and re-emphasizes the role of Augustine's thought in Donne's philosophy of time. Her study highlights, for the first time, the depth of Donne's reflections on human and providential history: Augustine's texts help him negotiate the linearity of fallen time and enable glimpses of God's eternal love in the resurrection.
Stuart Elden
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226202563
- eISBN:
- 9780226041285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226041285.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter discusses the early Middle Ages. It begins with a reading of Saint Augustine’s two cities, and reads him, along with Jerome and Paulus Orosius, in the context of the barbarian invasions. ...
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This chapter discusses the early Middle Ages. It begins with a reading of Saint Augustine’s two cities, and reads him, along with Jerome and Paulus Orosius, in the context of the barbarian invasions. It moves to an analysis of the work of Boethius and Isidore of Seville and their attempts to preserve the classical heritage. The political context of the time is the fracturing of the West following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Yet this time is unfairly characterised as the ‘dark ages’. Christianity was in the ascendant, and there was a flowering of national histories of various Germanic tribes including Gregory of Tours on the Franks; Bede on the English; Isidore on the Goths; and Saxo Grammaticus on the Danes. These texts are not merely accounts of these people, but actively shape their sense of identity and consequent political practice. The chapter also provides an analysis of the land politics inherent in the Beowulf poem, both in terms of the economics of exchange, gifting and inheritance, but also a more ’geopolitical’ sense of conflict over land.Less
This chapter discusses the early Middle Ages. It begins with a reading of Saint Augustine’s two cities, and reads him, along with Jerome and Paulus Orosius, in the context of the barbarian invasions. It moves to an analysis of the work of Boethius and Isidore of Seville and their attempts to preserve the classical heritage. The political context of the time is the fracturing of the West following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Yet this time is unfairly characterised as the ‘dark ages’. Christianity was in the ascendant, and there was a flowering of national histories of various Germanic tribes including Gregory of Tours on the Franks; Bede on the English; Isidore on the Goths; and Saxo Grammaticus on the Danes. These texts are not merely accounts of these people, but actively shape their sense of identity and consequent political practice. The chapter also provides an analysis of the land politics inherent in the Beowulf poem, both in terms of the economics of exchange, gifting and inheritance, but also a more ’geopolitical’ sense of conflict over land.
Alan Mittleman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199297153
- eISBN:
- 9780191700835
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297153.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Religion and Society
For both Thomas Aquinas and Joseph Albo, hope becomes a response to an outpouring of divine presence. This chapter considers the Jewish and Christian traditions from which Aquinas and Albo drew, and ...
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For both Thomas Aquinas and Joseph Albo, hope becomes a response to an outpouring of divine presence. This chapter considers the Jewish and Christian traditions from which Aquinas and Albo drew, and against which Benedict Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche fought, on their own merits. It looks first at hope in the Hebrew Scriptures and in rabbinic Judaism and then in the New Testament and in Saint Augustine. Jewish hope, articulated in the Torah, prophets, and writings, and refracted through the rabbinic literature, is a complex and variegated concept. Jewish hope and biblical hope have to do both with what is termed ‘conserving hope’ as well as with emancipatory hope. This chapter also analyses the shape of hope in early Christianity, the balance between conservation and emancipation, endurance and transformation, private and public, mundane and extra-mundane, and contrasts this with Jewish formulations. It concludes that despite the differences, the underlying structure — the structure of hope as a virtue — is the same for both traditions.Less
For both Thomas Aquinas and Joseph Albo, hope becomes a response to an outpouring of divine presence. This chapter considers the Jewish and Christian traditions from which Aquinas and Albo drew, and against which Benedict Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche fought, on their own merits. It looks first at hope in the Hebrew Scriptures and in rabbinic Judaism and then in the New Testament and in Saint Augustine. Jewish hope, articulated in the Torah, prophets, and writings, and refracted through the rabbinic literature, is a complex and variegated concept. Jewish hope and biblical hope have to do both with what is termed ‘conserving hope’ as well as with emancipatory hope. This chapter also analyses the shape of hope in early Christianity, the balance between conservation and emancipation, endurance and transformation, private and public, mundane and extra-mundane, and contrasts this with Jewish formulations. It concludes that despite the differences, the underlying structure — the structure of hope as a virtue — is the same for both traditions.
Miles Hollingworth
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199861590
- eISBN:
- 9780199345441
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199861590.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
St. Augustine was undoubtedly one of the great thinkers of the early church. Yet it has long been assumed—and not without reason—that the main lines of his thought have been more or less fixed since ...
More
St. Augustine was undoubtedly one of the great thinkers of the early church. Yet it has long been assumed—and not without reason—that the main lines of his thought have been more or less fixed since his death. That insofar as we should be aware of him in the twenty-first century, he is a figure described, if not circumscribed, by his times. A major revisionist treatment of Augustine’s life and thought, Saint Augustine of Hippo overturns this assumption. In a stimulating and provocative reinterpretation of Augustine’s ideas and their position in the Western intellectual tradition, Miles Hollingworth, though well versed in the latest scholarship, draws his inspiration largely from the actual narrative of Augustine’s life. By this means he reintroduces a cardinal but long-neglected fact to the center of Augustinian studies: that there is a direct line from Augustine’s own early experiences of life to his later commentaries on humanity. Augustine’s new Christianity did not—in blunt assaults of dogma and doctrine—obliterate what had gone before. Instead, it actually caught a subtle and reflective mind at the point when it was despairing of finding the truth. Christianity vindicated a disquiet that Augustine had been feeling all along: he felt that it alone had spoken to his serious rage about man, abandoned to the world and dislocated from all real understanding by haunting glimpses of the Divine.Less
St. Augustine was undoubtedly one of the great thinkers of the early church. Yet it has long been assumed—and not without reason—that the main lines of his thought have been more or less fixed since his death. That insofar as we should be aware of him in the twenty-first century, he is a figure described, if not circumscribed, by his times. A major revisionist treatment of Augustine’s life and thought, Saint Augustine of Hippo overturns this assumption. In a stimulating and provocative reinterpretation of Augustine’s ideas and their position in the Western intellectual tradition, Miles Hollingworth, though well versed in the latest scholarship, draws his inspiration largely from the actual narrative of Augustine’s life. By this means he reintroduces a cardinal but long-neglected fact to the center of Augustinian studies: that there is a direct line from Augustine’s own early experiences of life to his later commentaries on humanity. Augustine’s new Christianity did not—in blunt assaults of dogma and doctrine—obliterate what had gone before. Instead, it actually caught a subtle and reflective mind at the point when it was despairing of finding the truth. Christianity vindicated a disquiet that Augustine had been feeling all along: he felt that it alone had spoken to his serious rage about man, abandoned to the world and dislocated from all real understanding by haunting glimpses of the Divine.
Karmen Mackendrick
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226351
- eISBN:
- 9780823236718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226351.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
At the opening of Book 3 of Confessions, Saint Augustine declares: “I was in love with love”. This chapter suggests that Augustine stays in love with love—more exactly, ...
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At the opening of Book 3 of Confessions, Saint Augustine declares: “I was in love with love”. This chapter suggests that Augustine stays in love with love—more exactly, that he seeks a constant and potent seduction of and by his God, and that the Confessions is mutually illuminating when read with contemporary theory on seduction. Augustine's relation to God exemplifies at least three characteristics of seduction: the manipulation of the will beyond a simple opposition of consent and coercion; the persistence of the elusively promising within the representational and discursive; and, relatedly, the necessary incompletion of both meaning and desire. The fires of worldly lust are too easily quenched for one who wants to be seduced, and the complexities of seduction in relation to desire, complexities of coercion and pleasure alike, are fully present in Augustine's complicated quest. This chapter exposes the power of the divine seduction that lies at the heart of Augustine's complex theories of love and subjectivity, desire and submission.Less
At the opening of Book 3 of Confessions, Saint Augustine declares: “I was in love with love”. This chapter suggests that Augustine stays in love with love—more exactly, that he seeks a constant and potent seduction of and by his God, and that the Confessions is mutually illuminating when read with contemporary theory on seduction. Augustine's relation to God exemplifies at least three characteristics of seduction: the manipulation of the will beyond a simple opposition of consent and coercion; the persistence of the elusively promising within the representational and discursive; and, relatedly, the necessary incompletion of both meaning and desire. The fires of worldly lust are too easily quenched for one who wants to be seduced, and the complexities of seduction in relation to desire, complexities of coercion and pleasure alike, are fully present in Augustine's complicated quest. This chapter exposes the power of the divine seduction that lies at the heart of Augustine's complex theories of love and subjectivity, desire and submission.
Nicholas Rescher
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198236016
- eISBN:
- 9780191679162
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198236016.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy, General
This chapter examines the importance of consensus in the pursuit of truth. It discusses the philosophy of prominent exponents and advocates of cognitive consensus including Aristotle and his ...
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This chapter examines the importance of consensus in the pursuit of truth. It discusses the philosophy of prominent exponents and advocates of cognitive consensus including Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics, Saint Augustine, John Stuart Mill, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Jürgen Habermas. It identifies opponents and critics of cognitive consensus that include sceptics, cognitive elitists, and social science critics. This chapter concludes that as far as rational inquiry is concerned, consensus is no more than a regulative ideal that cannot be expected to be achieved in concrete situations.Less
This chapter examines the importance of consensus in the pursuit of truth. It discusses the philosophy of prominent exponents and advocates of cognitive consensus including Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics, Saint Augustine, John Stuart Mill, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Jürgen Habermas. It identifies opponents and critics of cognitive consensus that include sceptics, cognitive elitists, and social science critics. This chapter concludes that as far as rational inquiry is concerned, consensus is no more than a regulative ideal that cannot be expected to be achieved in concrete situations.
Kathleen Lynch
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199643936
- eISBN:
- 9780191738876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199643936.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter examines the contests between Protestants and Catholics over the filial claims to Saint Augustine’s religious authority, as they played out in the competing translations of the ...
More
This chapter examines the contests between Protestants and Catholics over the filial claims to Saint Augustine’s religious authority, as they played out in the competing translations of the Confessions into English in the 1620s. This was a constituent part of the battle that raged near the end of James I’s reign to establish religious orthodoxy and to maintain state control over it. The Confessions was not a useful polemical tool, but the chapter details the responsive confessional statements of one of its expert readers, John Donne. The two publications that framed his public life were Pseudo-Martyr (1610) and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624). In them, Donne challenged Augustine’s resolution of a spiritual crisis with a change of church. Donne complied, but only in respect of the body politic. He became an improbable literary spokesperson for the Protestant nation.Less
This chapter examines the contests between Protestants and Catholics over the filial claims to Saint Augustine’s religious authority, as they played out in the competing translations of the Confessions into English in the 1620s. This was a constituent part of the battle that raged near the end of James I’s reign to establish religious orthodoxy and to maintain state control over it. The Confessions was not a useful polemical tool, but the chapter details the responsive confessional statements of one of its expert readers, John Donne. The two publications that framed his public life were Pseudo-Martyr (1610) and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624). In them, Donne challenged Augustine’s resolution of a spiritual crisis with a change of church. Donne complied, but only in respect of the body politic. He became an improbable literary spokesperson for the Protestant nation.
Thomas L. Humphries
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199685035
- eISBN:
- 9780191765537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199685035.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Theology
This chapter considers a group of theologians who traveled widely and corresponded with each other. They developed a pneumatology which responded to certain anthropological concerns related to ...
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This chapter considers a group of theologians who traveled widely and corresponded with each other. They developed a pneumatology which responded to certain anthropological concerns related to Pelagianism and certain Christological concerns related to Nestorianism. The Scythian monks exchanged letters with Fulgentius of Ruspe. This chapter argues that the Scythian monks are responsible for the Chapters of Saint Augustine, a document which was used at the Synod of Orange. Thus, this chapter closes the arguments made in the previous two chapters concerning the sources of the pneumatology used at Orange. It also shows a third set of Augustinian theologians. Fulgentius of Ruspe presents the fullest reception of St Augustine of all the theologians treated in this book. He understands Augustine’s response to multiple controversies and applies Augustine’s pneumatology to new controversies, including the Christological issues at play in 6th century Nestorianism.Less
This chapter considers a group of theologians who traveled widely and corresponded with each other. They developed a pneumatology which responded to certain anthropological concerns related to Pelagianism and certain Christological concerns related to Nestorianism. The Scythian monks exchanged letters with Fulgentius of Ruspe. This chapter argues that the Scythian monks are responsible for the Chapters of Saint Augustine, a document which was used at the Synod of Orange. Thus, this chapter closes the arguments made in the previous two chapters concerning the sources of the pneumatology used at Orange. It also shows a third set of Augustinian theologians. Fulgentius of Ruspe presents the fullest reception of St Augustine of all the theologians treated in this book. He understands Augustine’s response to multiple controversies and applies Augustine’s pneumatology to new controversies, including the Christological issues at play in 6th century Nestorianism.
Virginia Burrus and Karmen Mackendrick
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230815
- eISBN:
- 9780823235087
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230815.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
In Saint Augustine's texts, bodies consistently evade wholeness, produce excess, affirm, and negate—and approach a God who likewise does all of these things. City of God ...
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In Saint Augustine's texts, bodies consistently evade wholeness, produce excess, affirm, and negate—and approach a God who likewise does all of these things. City of God describes several modes of what we might call corporeal excess—and in so doing, not only tends to textual versions but also pushes into the conceptual excess of paradox. His is a queer apophasis, then—an apophasis of confession, not least. In confession, there is always more to say—and to unsay. One never gets to the bottom of it all, for no utterance is ever quite right. The self eludes language as surely as God does. The fragmentation, the break not only between intention and expression but also between human and divine in the fallen world, produces excess, not merely by adding on lies to the truth, but by keeping us talking (perhaps fictively) toward a God our words can never reach: there is always more to say.Less
In Saint Augustine's texts, bodies consistently evade wholeness, produce excess, affirm, and negate—and approach a God who likewise does all of these things. City of God describes several modes of what we might call corporeal excess—and in so doing, not only tends to textual versions but also pushes into the conceptual excess of paradox. His is a queer apophasis, then—an apophasis of confession, not least. In confession, there is always more to say—and to unsay. One never gets to the bottom of it all, for no utterance is ever quite right. The self eludes language as surely as God does. The fragmentation, the break not only between intention and expression but also between human and divine in the fallen world, produces excess, not merely by adding on lies to the truth, but by keeping us talking (perhaps fictively) toward a God our words can never reach: there is always more to say.
Melissa E. Sanchez
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479871872
- eISBN:
- 9781479834044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479871872.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter analyzes the theological roots of secular understandings of erotic temporality and fidelity. It begins with a discussion of Saint Paul’s Epistles, in which the radical humiliation that ...
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This chapter analyzes the theological roots of secular understandings of erotic temporality and fidelity. It begins with a discussion of Saint Paul’s Epistles, in which the radical humiliation that manifests divine love is necessarily beyond human capacity. It then turns to Saint Augustine’s conviction that the divided human will renders confession incomplete and conversion provisional. Based on the premise that as a human creature he can always change, Augustine’s depiction of faith as a result of miraculous passion is cause for optimism as well as anxiety about who he will be in the future. Salvation for Augustine inheres in the consequent realization that professions of faith are in fact ambivalent prayers for it. Finally, this chapter traces the centrality of Pauline and Augustinian theology to the structure of fidelity in Francesco Petrarch’s secular love lyrics, which limn in excruciating detail the mille rivolte—the thousand turns, revolts, and returns—of his competing attachments to Laura, God, and his own worldly ambition. These poems confront a fragmented self incapable of the conviction and fidelity to which it desperately aspires but does not entirely want.Less
This chapter analyzes the theological roots of secular understandings of erotic temporality and fidelity. It begins with a discussion of Saint Paul’s Epistles, in which the radical humiliation that manifests divine love is necessarily beyond human capacity. It then turns to Saint Augustine’s conviction that the divided human will renders confession incomplete and conversion provisional. Based on the premise that as a human creature he can always change, Augustine’s depiction of faith as a result of miraculous passion is cause for optimism as well as anxiety about who he will be in the future. Salvation for Augustine inheres in the consequent realization that professions of faith are in fact ambivalent prayers for it. Finally, this chapter traces the centrality of Pauline and Augustinian theology to the structure of fidelity in Francesco Petrarch’s secular love lyrics, which limn in excruciating detail the mille rivolte—the thousand turns, revolts, and returns—of his competing attachments to Laura, God, and his own worldly ambition. These poems confront a fragmented self incapable of the conviction and fidelity to which it desperately aspires but does not entirely want.
Mark D. Jordan
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226351
- eISBN:
- 9780823236718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226351.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Benjamin Jowett, in his rendering of the Symposium, concedes the obvious as a condemnation: “It is impossible to deny that some of the best and greatest of the Greeks ...
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Benjamin Jowett, in his rendering of the Symposium, concedes the obvious as a condemnation: “It is impossible to deny that some of the best and greatest of the Greeks indulged in attachments, which Plato in the Laws, no less than the universal opinion of Christendom, has stigmatized as unnatural”. Daniel Boyarin's rereading of the Symposium brings us back to Jowett's claims. Boyarin's (Platonic) Socrates does condemn male–male copulation. This chapter looks at the juxtaposition of Alcibiades's courtship of Socrates with Saint Augustine's account of his “conversion” in Confessions, a piece of relatively early Christian writing full of consequences for Christian sex. In Socratic teaching, there are no unambiguous transits from the love of one body to all physical beauty, then to minds and customs or institutions and knowledge, so that one can swim at last in beauty itself. This chapter perceives in the highly ironized and powerfully seductive exchange between Alcibiades and Socrates with which the Symposium concludes an unsettling of the certainties of all of the prior speeches—not least Diotima's cited doctrine of radical sublimation.Less
Benjamin Jowett, in his rendering of the Symposium, concedes the obvious as a condemnation: “It is impossible to deny that some of the best and greatest of the Greeks indulged in attachments, which Plato in the Laws, no less than the universal opinion of Christendom, has stigmatized as unnatural”. Daniel Boyarin's rereading of the Symposium brings us back to Jowett's claims. Boyarin's (Platonic) Socrates does condemn male–male copulation. This chapter looks at the juxtaposition of Alcibiades's courtship of Socrates with Saint Augustine's account of his “conversion” in Confessions, a piece of relatively early Christian writing full of consequences for Christian sex. In Socratic teaching, there are no unambiguous transits from the love of one body to all physical beauty, then to minds and customs or institutions and knowledge, so that one can swim at last in beauty itself. This chapter perceives in the highly ironized and powerfully seductive exchange between Alcibiades and Socrates with which the Symposium concludes an unsettling of the certainties of all of the prior speeches—not least Diotima's cited doctrine of radical sublimation.
Jonathan Dollimore
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112259
- eISBN:
- 9780191670732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112259.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Saint Augustine has been seen to be one of the few great (male) geniuses who changed the direction of civilisation. This book does not share this view of Augustine or his place in history. From the ...
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Saint Augustine has been seen to be one of the few great (male) geniuses who changed the direction of civilisation. This book does not share this view of Augustine or his place in history. From the point of view of the book, Augustine was the product of a Christian narrative which he powerfully influenced and within which he has been scripted ever since; the synthesis, development, suppression, and innovation which characterised his own work has been continued with its subsequent transmission. Augustine regarded sin as intrinsic to human nature and always bound up with perversion, transgression, and death: the perversion of free will leads man to transgress, and it is transgression which brings death into the world. However, evil is not a force or entity in its own right, nor was it a part of nature; evil should be understood as privation, a lack of good.Less
Saint Augustine has been seen to be one of the few great (male) geniuses who changed the direction of civilisation. This book does not share this view of Augustine or his place in history. From the point of view of the book, Augustine was the product of a Christian narrative which he powerfully influenced and within which he has been scripted ever since; the synthesis, development, suppression, and innovation which characterised his own work has been continued with its subsequent transmission. Augustine regarded sin as intrinsic to human nature and always bound up with perversion, transgression, and death: the perversion of free will leads man to transgress, and it is transgression which brings death into the world. However, evil is not a force or entity in its own right, nor was it a part of nature; evil should be understood as privation, a lack of good.
M. B. Pranger
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226443
- eISBN:
- 9780823237043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226443.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
In a different reading of Saint Augustine's conception of the saeculum, there is a tradition of medieval political thinking that counterbalances the unstable temporality ...
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In a different reading of Saint Augustine's conception of the saeculum, there is a tradition of medieval political thinking that counterbalances the unstable temporality of the terrestrial civitas with the motif of the corpus mysticum, the mystical body of Christ. This chapter focuses on the temporal dimension of the Augustinian model, thus relating the question of politics to that of “finitude”. It examines the specific ways in which Augustine's The Confessions and The City of God address transience. In both works, the individual self and its voice, as well as the body politic and its institutions, depend for their shaky existence—characterized by personal sin and skepticism concerning communal forms—on the sustenance of their Creator, that is to say, on grace and authority. Out of the shifting movements of the city of God, the city of the devil, the image of the city of God, and the image of the city of the devil—and the possible images of those images—one concrete city emerges, the civitas permixta, which rightly lays claim to being secular, historical, and temporal.Less
In a different reading of Saint Augustine's conception of the saeculum, there is a tradition of medieval political thinking that counterbalances the unstable temporality of the terrestrial civitas with the motif of the corpus mysticum, the mystical body of Christ. This chapter focuses on the temporal dimension of the Augustinian model, thus relating the question of politics to that of “finitude”. It examines the specific ways in which Augustine's The Confessions and The City of God address transience. In both works, the individual self and its voice, as well as the body politic and its institutions, depend for their shaky existence—characterized by personal sin and skepticism concerning communal forms—on the sustenance of their Creator, that is to say, on grace and authority. Out of the shifting movements of the city of God, the city of the devil, the image of the city of God, and the image of the city of the devil—and the possible images of those images—one concrete city emerges, the civitas permixta, which rightly lays claim to being secular, historical, and temporal.
Gillian Clark
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190278298
- eISBN:
- 9780190603786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190278298.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
Augustine used different words for love: caritas, amor, bona voluntas. This chapter follows the sequence of his argument in City of God book 14. It asks whether these words mean different kinds of ...
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Augustine used different words for love: caritas, amor, bona voluntas. This chapter follows the sequence of his argument in City of God book 14. It asks whether these words mean different kinds of love; how Augustine understood voluntas, which is often translated “will” but is better translated as “wish” or “choice”; what he meant by saying that all emotions are voluntates; and why he said that all emotions are loves. Focusing on voluntas, the chapter shows how Augustine draws on Platonic and Stoic theory, inflecting them both toward a view of emotion that makes it central both to our lives as humans, with other humans (especially in the form of compassion), and to the other life we will enjoy if a bona voluntas leads us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, according to God.Less
Augustine used different words for love: caritas, amor, bona voluntas. This chapter follows the sequence of his argument in City of God book 14. It asks whether these words mean different kinds of love; how Augustine understood voluntas, which is often translated “will” but is better translated as “wish” or “choice”; what he meant by saying that all emotions are voluntates; and why he said that all emotions are loves. Focusing on voluntas, the chapter shows how Augustine draws on Platonic and Stoic theory, inflecting them both toward a view of emotion that makes it central both to our lives as humans, with other humans (especially in the form of compassion), and to the other life we will enjoy if a bona voluntas leads us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, according to God.
John Davenport
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823225750
- eISBN:
- 9780823235896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823225750.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter relates the concept of “heroic” or “striving” will to a positive attitude toward self-assertion prominent in certain Western thinkers and defends it against ...
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This chapter relates the concept of “heroic” or “striving” will to a positive attitude toward self-assertion prominent in certain Western thinkers and defends it against criticisms found in opposing Eastern traditions. Topics covered range from Hindu and Buddhist teachings through Saint Augustine to Martin Luther, Friedrich Nietzsche, and contemporary Continental thought. Heroic willing is explained in the existential conception of striving will. Comparison and contrast of “Eastern” and “Western” views on heroic willing reveals the possibility of a moderate concept of volitional determination or resolve that is distinct from its corrupt forms as the conatus ascendi or libido dominandi. It is argued that this heroic sense of “willing” was given a bad name by major schools of Eastern philosophy and by several Western thinkers who also saw it as the will to domination. The resources to establish a clearer picture of willing are found in diverse work on ethics and moral psychology in both recent analytic and Continental philosophy.Less
This chapter relates the concept of “heroic” or “striving” will to a positive attitude toward self-assertion prominent in certain Western thinkers and defends it against criticisms found in opposing Eastern traditions. Topics covered range from Hindu and Buddhist teachings through Saint Augustine to Martin Luther, Friedrich Nietzsche, and contemporary Continental thought. Heroic willing is explained in the existential conception of striving will. Comparison and contrast of “Eastern” and “Western” views on heroic willing reveals the possibility of a moderate concept of volitional determination or resolve that is distinct from its corrupt forms as the conatus ascendi or libido dominandi. It is argued that this heroic sense of “willing” was given a bad name by major schools of Eastern philosophy and by several Western thinkers who also saw it as the will to domination. The resources to establish a clearer picture of willing are found in diverse work on ethics and moral psychology in both recent analytic and Continental philosophy.
