Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia

By Allan D. Fitzgerald

The definitive reference work on Augustine that scholars, from all fields of theological study, describe as "superb" and "indispensable" for students, scholars, libraries, and anyone interested in studying Augustine. While the work provides exhaustive resources on Augustine's own life and his theological and pastoral work, it also provides an exceptional wealth of information about scholarship, past and present on the great theologian. Moreover, it documents the influence of Augustine on the Catholic Church, the Reformation and on great thinkers and theologians such as Kierkegaard, Luther, Erasmus, and Calvin. Topics range from archeology to martyrdom, from imagination to Augustine's personal friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Apr 9, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467427197

Book preview

Augustine’s Works (Abbreviations, Titles, Editions, and Translations)

1. The seven books have the following individual abbbreviations: 1: Qu. Gen.; 2: Qu. Exod.; 3: Qu. Lev.; 4: Qu. Num.; 5: Qu. Deut.; 6: Qu. Josh.; 7: Qu. Judg.

Sources

P. Abulesz, S. A. Augustini De Genesi contra Manicheos libri duo. De octo quaestionibus ex Veteri Testamento (diss., Vienna, 1972).

R. Anastasi, Aurelii Augustini Psalmus contra partem Donati (Padova, 1957).

Bazant = J. L. Bazant-Hegemark, Aurelii Augustini Liber ad Orosium contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas, Sermo adversus Iudaeos, Liber de haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum (diss., Vienna, 1969).

M. P. Ciccarese, Il Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum di Agostino, Atti dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Memorie 8.25.3 (1981), 283–425.

M. Clark, Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings. The Classics of Western Spirituality (Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1984).

M. Dods, ed., The Works of Aurelius Augustinus, 15 vols. (Edinburgh, 1871–76).

F. Dolbeau, Augustin d’Hippone. Vingt-six sermons au peuple d’Afrique (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1996).

R. Giomini, A. Augustinus. De rhetorica Studi Latini e Italiani 4 (1990): 7–82.

H. Keil, Grammatici latini 5 (Hildesheim, 1961; Lipsiae, 1868).

G. Lawless, Saint Augustine and His Monastic Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).

M. A. Lesousky, The De Dono Perseverantiae of Saint Augustine (Washington, D.C., 1956).

M. F. McDonald, Saint Augustine’s De Fide Rerum Quae Non Videntur (Washington. D.C. 1950).

F. O’Brien, Sancti Aurelii Augustini Sermo De patientia (Washington, D.C., 1970).

J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions 1–3 (Oxford, 1992).

M. Pelegrino, Possidio. Vita di S. Agostino (Alba, 1955).

B. D. Jackson and J. Pinborg, Augustine, De Dialectica (Dordrecht/Boston, 1975).

A. Riese, Anthologia latina 1/2 (Amsterdam, 1964; Lipsiae, 1906).

L. Verheijen, La Regie de saint Augustin (Paris, 1967).

A. Zegg, S. Aurelii Augustini De sermone Domini in monte libri duo (diss., Vienna, 1969).

Augustine’s Works (Dates and Explanations)

Sources

P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, 1967/1969).

A.-M. La Bonnardière, Recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris, 1965).

G. Madec, 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); first published in Le Ritrattazioni: introduzione generale (Rome: Città Nuova Editrice, 1994).

J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

O. Perler and J. L. Maier, Les voyages de saint Augustin (Paris, 1969).

Most of these dates should be regarded as approximations; the literature indicated can provide the level of certainty. The dates in the last column depend on H. J. Frede, Kirchenschriftsteller Verzeichnis und Sigel. 4. aktualisierte Auflage, Vetus Latina 1/1 (Freiburg, 1995).

A

Abortion Augustine, in common with most other ecclesiastical writers of his period, vigorously condemned the practice of induced abortion. Procreation was one of the goods of marriage; abortion figured as a means, along with drugs which cause sterility, of frustrating this good. It lay along a continuum which included infanticide as an instance of lustful cruelty or cruel lust ( nupt. et conc. 1.15.17). Augustine called the use of means to avoid the birth of a child an evil work: a reference to either abortion or contraception or both ( b. conjug. 5.5).

Augustine accepted the distinction between formed and unformed fetuses found in the Septuagint version of Exodus 21:22–23. While the Hebrew text provided for compensation in the case of a man striking a woman so as to cause a miscarriage, and for the penalty to be exacted if further harm were done, the Septuagint translated the word harm as form, introducing a distinction between a formed and an unformed fetus. The mistranslation was rooted in an Aristotelian distinction between the fetus before and after its supposed vivification (at forty days for males, ninety days for females). According to the Septuagint, the miscarriage of an unvivified fetus resulted in a fine for the attacker; but if the fetus were vivified, the punishment was a capital one.

Augustine disapproved of the abortion of both the vivified and unvivified fetus, but distinguished between the two. The unvivified fetus died before it lived, while the vivified fetus died before it was born (nupt. et conc. 1.15.17). In referring back to Exodus 21:22–23, he observed that the abortion of an unformed fetus was not considered murder, since it could not be said whether the soul was yet present (qu. 2.80).

The question of the resurrection of the fetus also exercised Augustine, and sheds some light on his views on abortion. Here again he referred to the distinction between the formed and unformed fetus. Though he acknowledged that it was possible that the unformed fetus might perish like a seed, it was also possible that, in the resurrection, God would supply all that was lacking in the unformed fetus, just as he would renew all that was defective in an adult. This notion, Augustine remarked, few would dare to deny, though few would venture to affirm it (ench. 33.85). At another point Augustine would neither affirm nor deny whether the aborted fetus would rise again, though if it should be excluded from the number of the dead, he did not see how it could be excluded from the resurrection (civ. Dei 22.13).

→ Ethics

BIBLIOGRAPHY

John T. Noonan, An Almost Absolute Value in History, in The Morality of Abortion, ed. John T. Noonan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970); P. Sardi, L’aborto ieri ed oggi (Brescia, 1975); O. Wermelinger, Abortus, AugLex, 1:6–10.

JOHN C. BAUERSCHMIDT

Abraham The first of the three major patriarchs of Israel, followed by Isaac and Jacob, Abraham received God’s covenantal promises to be the father of many nations and the one in whom all nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:1–3). Abraham figures prominently in Christian writings in the effort to claim Christianity as the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. Like many early church writers, Augustine follows Paul in regarding Abraham as the spiritual father of Christians, who follow his example of faith and thereby become heirs to God’s promise to Abraham. Throughout his writings Augustine favors certain scriptural phrases involving Abraham, such as the bosom of Abraham, which, as in Luke 16:22, alludes to a place of rest in God (e.g., conf. 9.3.6), and the seed of Abraham, which demonstrates the unity of Christians since Christ is the seed of Abraham (cf. Gal. 3:16). Augustine comments more extensively on particular events in Abraham’s life, especially the nature of God’s promises to him (civ. Dei 16.16–24), the fulfillment of those promises through the miraculous conception and birth of Isaac to the aged Abraham and the barren Sarah (civ. Dei 16.25–26; s. 2.1), the distinction between Isaac the son of the promise and Ishmael the son of the flesh (civ. Dei 16.26, 32; exp. Gal. 40), and, following Romans 4:3, the exemplary justification by faith of Abraham before circumcision and the law (civ. Dei 16.23; s. 2; bapt. 4.24.32). He also discusses Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac to emphasize how Abraham, a model of faith and devotion to God, was justified by the faith manifested in his actions (civ. Dei 16.32; s. 2.9). Augustine further claims that Abraham did not hesitate to enact God’s command to sacrifice Isaac because he had faith that God would cause Isaac to rise again (civ. Dei 16.32; s. 2.1). Moreover, he interprets Abraham as a type fulfilled in Christ: as Abraham offered his son Isaac as a sacrifice, so God offered Jesus. Augustine also defends Abraham against Manichean charges of impropriety and immorality, particularly regarding Abraham’s child with Hagar (c. Faust. 22.30–32) and his referring to Sarah as his sister (22.33–40). Finally, Abraham is significant to Augustine’s idea of the city of God, since the divine promises in Christ are more fully revealed in the time of Abraham (civ. Dei 16.12).

→ Genesi ad litteram, De

BIBLIOGRAPHY

T. Klauser, Abraham, RACh, vol. 1 (1950), 18–27; C. Mayer, Abraham, AugLex, vol. 1 (1986), 10–33; L. J. Van der Lof, The ‘Prophet’ Abraham in the Writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Augustine, Augustiniana 44 (1994): 17–29; L. J. Van der Lof, Abraham’s Bosom in the Writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian and Augustine, AugStud 26, no. 2 (1995): 109–23; R. Wilken, The Christianizing of Abraham: The Interpretation of Abraham in Early Christianity, Concordia Theological Monthly 43 (1972): 723–31.

JODY L. VACCARO

Abstinence → Fasting

Academicos, Contra (Against the Skeptics) (late 386/early 387). The discussion of book 1 is proleptically summed up in the prefatory letter to Romanianus: Manicheism has been left behind and philosophy embraced, but neither philosophical nor religious answers are in sight. The dialogue proper opens with a debate about the requirements for happiness — must one attain truth to be happy, or is a wholehearted, lifelong searching sufficient? Augustine declares no position at this point. The rejection of Manicheism implies that of astrology and all divination because they often result in error, while true knowledge is comprehension which never errs ( c. Acad. 1.6.18ff.). The debate is adjourned by Augustine, content at this stage to find consensus on the absolute importance of at least the search for truth.

The address to Romanianus at the beginning of book 2 serves as a summary of that and the third book (2.1.1–2.3.9). He is told that knowledge is the possession of the few and that, because the arguments of the New Academy seem invincible, divine help should be sought so that the study of philosophy may have a successful outcome. Just as by the end of book 1 the way is cleared for the life of philosophy, so the ringing declaration of this preface that knowledge is not to be despaired of will be substantiated in books 2 and 3 (2.3.9: nec cognitionem desperandam esse; see 2.7.18).

The discussion resumes at 2.4.10. Licentius and Trygetius have been reading the books of the Aeneid, which tell of the Trojans wandering in search of their promised land. This theme of in via is strong in these books. Another important aspect of book 2 is the introduction of two themes to be further developed. The first, that of food, is initiated by Licentius, who marvels at his hunger even when his mind is fixed on poetry (a cipher for philosophy). The second, mater nostra (the church), is combined with the satisfaction of that hunger as Mother makes her first Cassiciacum appearance, urging the debaters, who were already at the house, to come in to lunch (2.5.13: mater nostra — nam domi iam eramus — ita nos trudere in prandium coepit …). This summons to lunch is the second mention of food in Against the Academics. The first was a laconic indication at the end of book 1: It was announced that lunch was ready (1.9.25: prandium paratum esse nuntiatum est …). What interpretation, if any, should be put on the urgency here of she began to push us and already at the house? In the interval between the two lunches the position of the Old Academy has been explained and that of the New Academy promised. The difference between the two, Augustine says, is an extremely pertinent matter (2.5.13: ad rem maxime pertinere negare non possum).

After lunch Augustine begins in earnest to deal with the questions which concern our life, our morals and our souls. The discussion turns to the position of the New Academy and its resort to probable knowledge, or what-is-like-truth. How, Augustine asks, can something be recognized as like truth if truth itself is not known? But showing the inconsistency of the Academics does not establish the attainability of truth, and Augustine confesses that to this point he has not arrived at certainty and that he needs to be persuaded that truth can be found if he is to have the courage to continue to seek it (2.9.23). He suggests that the Academics did not mean what they said, but had a definite teaching about truth and were opposed to imparting it indiscriminately to minds ignorant or uncleansed (2.13.29: … utrum tibi videantur Academici habuisse certam de veritate sententiam et eam temere ignotis vel non purgatis animis prodere noluisse …). Augustine will try to demonstrate that it is much more probable both that the wise man can arrive at truth and that one should not always withhold one’s assent (2.13.30: si autem demonstrate potuero multo esse probabilius et posse ad veritatem pervenire sapientem et adsensionem non semper esse cohibendam …).

Book 3 opens with an acknowledgment of the role of fortune in the search for wisdom. Augustine goes on to compare fortune to the mother’s breasts, to the ship necessary to cross the sea, to the wings of Daedalus, or to some hidden power (3.2.3: Arbitror, inquam, si quidem per illam [fortunem] erit talis, qualis eam possit contemnere … nam sic etiam parvis nobis ubera sunt, quibus efficitur, ut sine his postea vivere ac valere possimus … aut aliqua occultiore potentia). This elision from fortune to a hidden power is the first step in the body of the text (as distinct from the prefaces) toward stating the necessity of divine help in attaining wisdom. At the same time Augustine moves the discussion from the philosopher to the person who is wise. The first seeks truth, the second possesses it.

Augustine sets forth in the third book the skeptics’ position and its logical inconsistency: no one can have certain knowledge, and yet one can be wise. The wise person therefore knows nothing with certainty (3.4.10: … et esse posse hominem sapientem et tamen in hominem scientiam cadere non posse — quare illi sapientem nihil scire adfirmarunt …). Alypius indicates the Academics’ last line of defense — assent can still be withheld. How can truth be so definitively shown that it is recognized as such and compels assent? It is at this point that Alypius compares the elusiveness of the attainment of truth to the capture of Proteus, and he acknowledges the need for help beyond the human. The suggestion that a numen is necessary to capture Protean truth is strongly endorsed by Augustine, who has come to see that to withhold assent because of doubt is not the best defense against error because, in that very withholding, error may rush in (3.15.34; Olivier du Roy’s view that Augustine’s submission to the authority of the church was probabilisme should be noted [49ff.]). Doubt and wisdom are not incompatible (3.15.34: Nihil autem quod dubium non sit invenio. At invenit sapiens ipsam, ut dicebamus, sapientiam), and there comes a point at which one should accept the teaching of others.

Augustine illustrates his point by an extended metaphor. He tells of a rustic encountered at a fork in the road by two travelers, one a confirmed skeptic, the other excessively trusting (3.15.34: pastori …vel cuipiam rusticano). There is nothing in the unassuming appearance of the countryman to encourage the more skeptical to trust him when, in response to a question put by ille credulus, he indicates the road to take. And he is remarkably taciturn, his assurances restrained (you will in no way go wrong; 3.15.34: si hac ibis, nihil errabis) and supported by no arguments. The trusting traveler jumps to a decision: He speaks the truth, let us go this way (3.15.34: Verum dicit, hac eamus). Soon after, in the teeth of all prudent expectation, by chance, he is refreshing himself at his journey’s end (3.15.34: vel casu). (See O’Connell 1968, 76–77, 238–39, and passim for fortune/Providence in Augustine’s early writings.) But his cautious companion accosts and is misled by an apparent sophisticate, and wanders still, unable to find anyone to tell him his destination (3.15.34: urbanus equo; circumiit silvas nescio quas nec iam cui locus ille notus sit, ad quem venire proposuerat, invenit). Augustine goes on to say that he approves neither stubborn skepticism nor rash assent. Nevertheless, he shortly afterward asserts that There is no doubt that we are impelled in learning by the twofold weight of authority and reason (3.20.43: Nulli autem dubium est gemino pondere nos impelli ad discendum auctoritatis atque rationis).

To read the depiction of the initially unprepossessing, but ultimately trustworthy, guide as a metaphor for the Catholic Church is to reflect Augustine’s early estimation of the Christian Scriptures as inferior in style and content to the philosophical writings that inspired him, and therefore as unlikely to lead to wisdom (Ambrose talks of the church as the authoritative teacher which uses everyday speech [De Isaac 8.64], and P. Alfaric points out that the Latin translation used in North Africa was particularly barbarous [72]). But he had come, in listening to Ambrose, to see them as rich in spiritual meaning (conf. 5.14.24; 6.3.3–5). What did Augustine see of chance in his acceptance of Catholic authority? Almost certainly the fact that his encounter with a credible church in the person of Ambrose and other Milanese Christians had been brought about by circumstances which had nothing to do with his intellectual search.

Why did Augustine accept the authority of Christ? We cannot know for certain, but, among the factors contributing to what was surely complex motivation, psychological weariness must have played a part. Uncertainty had become a burden to him (conf. 6.5.7). The point of the story of the two travelers is that the authority of one is trusted, and that trust is rewarded. Calmed by the decision taken, Augustine will turn his attention to a closer examination of Catholic teaching in De beata vita.

→ Cassiciacum Dialogues; Neoplatonism; Plato, Platonism; Skeptics, Skepticism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Editions

BA 4 (1939), 14–203; CCL 29 (1970), 3–61; CSEL 63 (1922), 3–81; NBA 3 (1970), 21–165.

Translations

ACW 12 (1951); FC 1 (1946).

Studies

P. Alfaric, L’évolution intellectuelle de S. Augustin. du manichéisme au néoplatonisme (Paris: Nourry, 1918); A. J. Curley, Augustine’s Critique of Skepticism: A Study of Contra Academicos (New York: Peter Lang, 1996); J. Doignon, Leçons méconnues et exégèse du texte du ‘Contra Academicos’ de saint Augustin, REtAug 27 (1981): 67–84; J. Doignon, Allégories du retour dans le ‘Contra Academicos’ de saint Augustin, Latomus 52 (1993): 860–67; T. Fuhrer, Augustinus Contra Academicos (vel de Academicis). Bücher 2 und 3 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997); J. Heil, Augustine’s Attack on Skepticism: The ‘Contra Academicos,’ HThR 65 (1972): 99–116; C. Kirwan, Augustine against the Skeptics: The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley, 1983); D. L. Mosher, The Argument of St. Augustine’s ‘Contra Academicos,’ AugStud 12 (1981): 102–13; J. Mourant, Augustine and the Academics, RechAug 4 (1966): 94–96; O’Connell, 1968; G. Reale, Agostino e il ‘Contra Academicos,’ in L’Opera Letteraria di Agostino tra Cassiciacum e Milano (Palermo: Edizioni Augustinus, 1987), 13–30; O. du Roy, L’intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin. Genèse de sa théologie trinitaire jusqu’en 391 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1966); B. R. Voss, AugLex, 1:45–51.

JOANNE MCWILLIAM

Academics One of the three major schools of philosophy in the Hellenistic period, along with the Stoics and Epicureans, the Academics were the successors of Plato, teaching in the Academy, the school he founded. In the Hellenistic period this school became known for its skepticism, which it wielded as a weapon in debate with other schools, especially the Stoics. In surveying these debates Augustine always has quite definite sympathies: dismissive of the Epicureans because of their ethical hedonism, respectful of the Stoics because of their rigorist ethics but critical of their empiricism and materialism, and approving of the Academics’ skepticism insofar as it was used to refute the empiricism and materialism that Stoics and Epicureans had in common.

The history of the Academy, closely bound up with its relation to skepticism, is associated with five major figures.

1. Plato, its founder, left a wide variety of writings, including many Socratic or aporetic dialogues which have a skeptical flavor — they are inconclusive, full of dialectic and debate, questions and refutations, arriving in the end at no settled position. How this complex legacy of Plato was interpreted in the years immediately following his death is not well known, but in any case the philosophical system we now know as Platonism is not evident in any writings until the rise of Middle Platonism hundreds of years later.

2. Archesilaus (or Archesilas), fifth head of the Academy (ca. 273–242 B.C.E.), took a skeptical turn, primarily in reaction against the claims to scientific certainty made by Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. Archesilaus argued on the contrary that a wise man, lacking any such certainty, will withhold assent from claims to truth. This is the characteristic skeptical posture of epoche or suspense of judgment.

3. Carneades, head of the Academy until 137 B.C.E., earned a reputation as a virtuoso skeptic, ready and able to demolish arguments on both sides of every question. He refined the skeptical art of refutation and continued the Academy’s attack on the Stoic position as represented by Chrysippus, the great systematizer of Stoic doctrine.

4. Philo of Larissa (not to be confused with Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish exegete and Middle Platonist) headed the Academy from about 110 to 79 B.C.E. He represented a more moderate form of skepticism which allowed the wise man, while withholding his assent from all claims to certainty, to be guided by the persuasive or the probable in the conduct of ordinary life.

5. Antiochus of Ascalon, a student of Philo, broke away from him in 87 B.C.E. to establish what he tendentiously named the Old Academy — in contradistinction to the New Academy, his label for the skeptical period from Archesilaus to Philo, which he regarded as a deviation from the original Platonic doctrine. (Later writers sometimes prefer to date the New Academy from Carneades and designate Archesilaus the head of the Middle Academy.) Augustine was quite unsympathetic to Antiochus because his putative return to Plato and the Old Academy was in fact more like a capitulation to Stoicism. As Cicero shows, Antiochus’s doctrine was an eclectic mix of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, and in epistemology, at least, Zeno (i.e., the Stoic position) predominated.

Cicero was a student of both Philo and Antiochus, and portrayed the debate between their two versions of Academic philosophy in his dialogue Academica, which is the prime source of Augustine’s knowledge of the Academics. Cicero himself argued in favor of the skeptical position of the New Academy.

The key point of debate between Academics and Stoics (and subsequently between Philo and Antiochus, the New Academy and the Old) was Zeno’s claim to base certainty and scientific knowledge on a specially privileged type of sense datum, the cognitive impression, or kataleptike phantasia, which he proposed as the criterion of truth. This criterion shows up as Zeno’s definition in Contra Academicos 2.5.11–2.6.14 and 3.9.18–21. Following Cicero, Augustine uses visum to render phantasia (sense impression) and percipere or conprehendere to render the notion that it is cognitive or grasps the truth. The skeptics’ strategy was typically to accept Zeno’s criterion of truth and then argue that there was nothing in existence that actually fit it. Hence the skeptical implication: the proper thing for a wise man to do is to withhold assent from all claims to truth and certainty.

→ Neoplatonism; Plato, Platonism; Skeptics, Skepticism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Burnyeat, ed., The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley, 1983); J. Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy (Göttingen, 1978); A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, eds., The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1987), an anthology of ancient texts with translations, historical commentary, and extensive annotated bibliography; J. O’Meara, ed., Against the Academics (Westminster, 1950), translation of Contra Academicos with introduction and extensive scholarly notes; H. Tarrant, Scepticism or Platonism? The Philosophy of the Fourth Academy (Cambridge, 1985).

PHILLIP CARY

Acies mentis (gaze of the mind). The Greek equivalent (ὄϕις) of the phrase acies mentis is found in Plato (e.g., rep. 7.533d). The term is also found in Cicero ( de or. 2.160; Tusc. 1.73; leg. Man. 4.368) and is taken up by Plotinus in his Enneads (1.6.7–9), a treatise Augustine read shortly before his conversion. The phrase would have been found almost certainly in Porphyry’s lost De regressu animae. It is also used by Ambrose of Milan ( De Cain et Abel 2.1.5; 2.6.19 — the phrase oculus mentis occurs far more often). Marius Victorinus prefers the terms intellectus and oculus cordis. In all these authors, acies mentis and equivalent phrases (oculus mentis, oculus cordis, intellectus) designate the highest part, function, or act of the human intellect, that which intuits truth directly. Acies mentis is part of the philosophical-theological vocabulary current in Augustine’s time.

Acies mentis occurs not infrequently in Augustine’s works. Equivalent words or phrases such as oculus mentis (eye of the mind), acies animi or animae (gaze of the soul), acies cordis (gaze of the heart), and intellectus (intellect) occur even more frequently. Throughout Augustine’s works, acies mentis has a technical meaning: the human intellect in its highest act or function of intuiting truth. Acies mentis is equivalent to intellectual vision by which human beings can intuit truth directly. Corporeal and spiritual vision are two other types of vision. According to Augustine, every person in this life has an indirect vision of the divine, that is, the principles of truth. Christ (Verbum) is the true light who enlightens every man who comes into the world (John 1:9). Some perceive these truths clearly, others not as well, each to the extent his mind has been trained (exercitatio animae). What is more, through acies mentis an elect few have intuited the divine, the Word of God itself, directly but fleetingly, in this life. Such vision was accorded to Augustine himself shortly after reading the Platonist books in 386, and a second time shortly before Monnica’s death in Ostia in 387 (conf. 7.10.16–7.17.23; 7.20.26; 9.10.23–26).

In Augustine acies mentis is frequently associated with the ascent of the soul to God. Before his conversion his acies mentis required training and purification to grasp the concept of spiritual existence (conf. 7.1.1; 7.2.3; 7.8.12). Acies mentis is the capacity by which humans see the true greatness of their souls (quant. 30.61). It will enable some few to see God at the apex of their seven-stage ascent (quant. 33.76; in 387–88). Augustine thought that humans could acquire such direct vision permanently in this life. Circa 393 he abandoned this position after a thorough reading of Paul’s epistles to the Romans and Galatians. Later he clearly held that the saved will see God in the next life by acies mentis, not by corporeal vision (ep. 147). This doctrine is of the utmost importance in the history of Western Christian theology, since by it Augustine, like Plotinus and Porphyry, defines human happiness in terms of satisfaction of the human intellect, rather than in terms of any other human power such as the will. Likewise, De Trinitate teaches that acies mentis needs purification to enable it to see God per speculum et in aenigmate in this life and facie ad faciem in the next (trin. 15.21–23). Faith can provide such purification. De Trinitate 8–14 comprises a training of the mind (exercitatio animae) necessary to see even a distant image of God in this life. But the necessity of mental training is postulated in various forms throughout Augustine’s works (e.g., vera rel. 3, 54).

→ Contemplation; Mysticism; Vivendo Deo, De

BIBLIOGRAPHY

P. Hadot, Plotin ou la simplicité du regard, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1973).

FREDERICK VAN FLETEREN

Acta contra Fortunatum →  Fortunatum, Acta Contra

Adam and Eve Augustine offers an extended discussion of Adam and Eve in books 6–11 of De Genesi ad litteram, and a scattered account in books 12–14 of De civitate Dei. He explains that in an earlier work, De Genesi adversus Manicheos, he had overemphasized a figurative or spiritual interpretation of Genesis ( Gn. litt. 8.2). In the later works he aims at a literal (though certainly not prima facie ) interpretation.

Genesis offers two accounts of the creation of the first people. Augustine harmonizes them by holding that Adam and Eve were made in their primordial causes on the sixth day of creation, and then later were made living individuals (Gn. litt. 6.5–18). Genesis 1:27 says human beings were made in the image of God. This means, not that God is corporeal, but that the human intellect is a reflection of God. This original creation includes the body too, for God made them male and female, and gender is a function of the body. Augustine often sees women as inferior to men, but in interpreting Genesis 1:27 he stresses a fundamental equality in that both are made in the image of God.

The second Genesis account begins with the creation of Adam’s body from the (literal) earth. God produced all humanity from a single person so that we would feel the unity of kinship (civ. Dei 14.1). Adam’s was a natural body, not an incorruptible body such as will be granted to the blessed. It was both mortal and immortal. If the first people had obeyed God, they would never have died. They did not, and death was the result (Gn. litt. 6.25).

Next, God breathed life into Adam’s body. Augustine leaves many complex questions unresolved, but does conclude that Adam’s soul is not from the substance of God, nor from matter or an irrational soul, so we can say with assurance that it is created from nothing (Gn. litt. 7.28). (The question of the origin of Eve’s soul leads, in book 10, to an inconclusive debate between the traducianist view that people’s souls are generated through their parents and the view that each soul is produced ex nihilo for each new body.)

Eve was made from Adam’s rib. God produced the woman this way to emphasize the union of man and wife. Eve was necessary to Adam so that the two could be fruitful and multiply, not in some spiritual sense but quite literally. Augustine insists that Adam and Eve would have procreated sexually, but without that uncontrollable passion which is a result of the fall. It is the loss of control which entails shame in postlapsarian intercourse (Gn. litt. 9.3; civ. Dei 14.22–24).

Unfallen, Adam and Eve would have lived in unalloyed happiness (civ. Dei 14.10). Ignorance and hardship are the result of sin (lib. arb. 3.18.52.178–79). Besides raising children, their duties were to cultivate paradise and guard it. Adam would have been a farmer, taking delight in working the earth and led by his association with the works of God to contemplate the divine itself (Gn. litt. 8.8–9). The first people were to guard paradise for themselves, i.e., not fail in obedience and lose it (8.10). If they had not sinned, in due time their corruptible bodies would have been changed into incorruptible, spiritual bodies, and they would have enjoyed eternal blessedness (Gn. litt. 9.3; civ. Dei 13.23). But they were made from nothing, and so it was possible for evil to arise in them. They lost paradise for themselves and their children, so that it could only be restored by Christ, the second Adam.

→ Anthropology; Jesus Christ; Genesi ad litteram, De; Genesis Accounts of Creation; Original Sin; Redemption

BIBLIOGRAPHY

G. Bonner, Adam, AugLex, 1:63–87; D. Cerbelaud, Le nom d’Adam et les points cardinaux, VigChr 38 (1984): 285–301.

KATHERIN A. ROGERS

Adeodatus (372–ca. 389). Adeodatus was the son of Augustine by a woman he met in Carthage around 371, his unnamed concubine to whom he was faithful for about fifteen years. Born in Carthage in 372 ( conf. 4.2.2), Adeodatus (Given by God, perhaps a common name in North Africa) came with his parents to Italy and participated in the conversations at Cassiciacum ( b. vita 6). His abilities were a source of great satisfaction to Augustine ( conf. 9.6.14; b. vita 12 and 18). In Milan he was baptized by Ambrose at the same time as Augustine and Alypius (24–25 April 387). Augustine’s De magistro (389) is proposed as the record of a conversation between Augustine and Adeodatus. When his mother returned to Africa, he remained with Augustine ( conf. 6.15.25), and was present later when Monnica died at Ostia ( conf. 9.12.29–31). He returned to Thagaste with Augustine, continued his education (Madec, 89), but died around 389 ( conf. 9.6.14).

→ Confessiones; Family, Relatives; Life, Culture, and Controversies of Augustine

BIBLIOGRAPHY

W. H. C. Frend, The Family of Augustine: A Microcosm of Religious Change in North Africa, Atti, 1986, 1:135–51; G. Madec, Introduction: ‘De Magistro,’ BA 6 (1976), 9–40; G. Madec, Adeodatus, AugLex, 1:87–90; O’Donnell, 1992, 2:207; A. Solignac, Augustin et la mère d’Adéodat, BA 13 (1962), 667–69.

ALLAN D. FITZGERALD, O.S.A.

Adimantum, Contra (Against Adimantus). Augustine reports ( retr. 1.22) that when a book (disputationes) ascribed to Adimantus, who was a disciple of Mani, came into his hands, he decided, probably in 394, to refute its contention that the Old Testament is radically at odds with the New Testament. The focus of this work is therefore entirely on Manichean biblical interpretation.

Augustine’s procedure is to cite passages from Adimantus and follow them with his comments. This has the value of preserving parts of a Manichean source which would otherwise be lost. But the treatise that Augustine produces is something of a hodgepodge, and he never considered it finished. So Retractationes 1.22 adds that, after writing his text, he misplaced it; it was found again only after he wrote a second one. The two texts were then evidently integrated: some questions I have answered twice.

Adimantus’s work seems to have been a collection of quotations from the Old Testament contrasted with selected New Testament passages. The idea of a fundamental disharmony between the two Testaments was not new, going back at least to Marcion and being firmly rooted in gnostic traditions. Opponents of these movements affirmed the Old Testament as God’s promise of the redeemer and as a time of preparation for his arrival; the New Testament is the record of the promise’s fulfillment. Here Augustine follows a similar strategy: there is an integral unity between the two Testaments, such that what Manichees find unacceptable in the Old Testament reappears in the New Testament, and what they find praiseworthy in the New Testament is already in the Old Testament. As to the contradictory passages advanced by Adimantus, Augustine finds others which dispel the contradictions. He feels free to do this because Scripture must be accepted in its entirety, not dismembered to suit polemical agendas (c. Adim. 3 and 14).

The tone of the work is therefore, for the most part, exegetical rather than theological, yet its basic strategy runs the risk of depriving the New Testament of any note of newness. Augustine later realized this when he wrote in Retractationes 1.22 that not every, but almost every, precept and promise of the New Testament is already found in the Old Testament. Still, even here he emphasizes that, though the same God inspired both, the New Testament renders in clearer fashion the revelation sometimes obscurely proclaimed in the Old Testament (c. Adim. 2).

Who was Adimantus? Faustus identifies him (c. Faust. 1.2) as the most important Manichean teacher after Mani himself. This would indicate that Manichei discipulus is to be taken in the strict sense: Adimantus was one of Mani’s twelve disciples. Furthermore, in Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum 2.12.41, Augustine says he was also known as Addas, the name of a disciple of Mani known to us from the Acta Archelai and from a Manichean writing in Middle Persian: both of these sources say Addas (or Addai) was celebrated for his writings, and that he was sent by Mani to carry out missionary work (in Egypt, according to the latter source).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edition

CSEL 25/1, 115–90.

Studies

F. Decret, Adimantus, AugLex, 1:94–95; F. Chatillon, Adimantus Manichaei discipulus, Revue du moyen âge latin 10 (1954): 191–203.

J. KEVIN COYLE

Adnotationes in Job (Comments on Job). Both Pelagius in his Epistula ad Demetriadem and Julian of Eclanum in his Expositio libri Job praised Job as a man in whose heart the law had been written (cf. Rom. 2:15). Living before the Law of Moses and the gospel of Jesus Christ, Job provided concrete evidence that human nature is naturally holy and self-sufficient in doing good. Since Job did good on his own without the help of divine grace, any human being could. Perhaps because of this line of thought, Augustine showed little interest in the person of Job and dealt with him only when others raised the topic. In order to refute the Pelagians he cites those passages where Job humbly confesses his personal sinfulness. In his De peccatorum meritis et remissione he insists that Job himself was a sinner and was well aware of his own sin. Toward the end of his life he repeats the same argument in Contra Julianum .

Adnotationes in Job is hardly a commentary but merely notes on Job, possibly written in preparation of a more complete commentary. In his Retractationes Augustine distances himself from the Adnotationes in Job on three accounts. First, he asks whether the work should be considered his since others collected the notes he had written in the margins of the biblical manuscript. Second, the notes are so brief that they are extremely obscure and scarcely comprehensible. Third, his copy of the work is defective and he is unable to emend it. Indeed, the surviving notes do end at Job 40:5. Nevertheless, despite all this, some specifically Augustinian themes emerge from the text. The Adnotationes in Job, which was probably written in 399, clearly emphasizes the pervasiveness of sin and its effects. For Augustine the story of Job describes not just one man but the universal human condition. Furthermore, the notes also insist on the interior nature of sin, which may exist in a human being without necessarily being externally expressed, as in the case of Job’s sons, who may have blasphemed God in their hearts (cf. Job 1:5).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edition

Adnotationes in Iob liber unus, ed. J. Zycha, CSEL 28/2 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1895), 509–628.

Studies

W. Geerlings, Adnotationes in Iob, AugLex, 1:100–104; K. B. Steinhauser, Job Exegesis in the Pelagian Controversy, CollAug, 1999; J. Ziegler, Einleitung, in Iob, Septuaginta 11,4 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 39–40.

KENNETH B. STEINHAUSER

Adomnán (ca. 628–704). Adomnán (Adam-nanus) was the ninth abbot (679) of the island monastery of Iona off the west of Scotland. Today he is remembered for his Vita Columbae, but during the medieval period his fame — he is one of the few Irish writers who was labeled illustrious (cf. O’Loughlin 1995) — depended on his other book, De locis sanctis, which deals with places mentioned in Scripture. Posing as the account of a pilgrim gallic bishop, Arculf, it is a manual for solving exegetical problems using geographical knowledge. The work was summarized several times (e.g., in Caduin, 37; cf. Tobler and Molinier 1879, 203–10), most notably by Bede in his own De locis sanctis (CCL 175:244–80), and was also excerpted by him ( Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 5.15–17; and cf. Laistner 1943, 109); it became either directly or through these excerpts/summaries one of the standard medieval works on the Holy Places.

The work depends on Augustine in several ways. It was conceived to fulfill the desire mentioned in De doctrina Christiana 2.32.50 and 2.39.59 that there should be a handbook which, by drawing on knowledge of the places and customs mentioned in Scripture, would help to interpret difficult passages. Adomnán noted places about which there were contradictory passages (e.g., Gen. 50:13 says Jacob was buried near Hebron [cf. De locis sanctis 2.10.2], but Acts 7:16 says Shechem), and then used empirical knowledge of the places to resolve these apparent conflicts (aenigmates) (cf. O’Loughlin 1992). The information is presented as if it were the result of questioning an eyewitness, but in fact it is a compilation of other texts on Palestine, snippets from exegetes such as Jerome, and a careful piecing together of clues in the Scriptures. The rationale for the eyewitness approach derives from the requirements of historica cognitio in these matters, as set out in De civitate Dei 16.9.

De civitate Dei (20.20, quoted at 2.10) also furnishes him with the notion of burial in the tomb as being linked to waiting for the resurrection. Adomnán exploited the theme with reference to every tomb in Palestine, producing, in effect, a theology of bodily resurrection. However, the most significant use of Augustine is in dealing with the chronology of the days before the passion. While drawing heavily upon De consensu evangelistarum 2.77–78, he rejected Augustine’s attempt at a solution and based his own on noting the places rather than the times mentioned (cf. O’Loughlin 1997).

Adomnán may be a minor figure in the Latin tradition, yet the fact that he set his work within an Augustinian context is a useful indicator of the significance of Augustine within the insular world of the late seventh century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Editions

D. Meehan with L. Bieler, eds. and trans., De locis sanctis (Dublin, 1958), reprinted in CCL 175:175–234; T. Tobler and A. Molinier, Itinera Hierosolymitana (Geneva, 1879), 203–10.

Studies

M. L. W. Laistner, A Handlist of Bede Manuscripts (New York, 1943); T. O’Loughlin, "The Exegetical Purpose of Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis," Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 24 (1992): 37–53; T. O’Loughlin, "The Library of Iona in the Late Seventh Century: The Evidence from Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis," Ériu 45 (1994): 33–52; T. O’Loughlin, Adomnán the Illustrious, Innes Review 46 (1995): 1–14; T. O’Loughlin, "Res, Tempus, Locus, Persona: Adomnán’s Exegetical Method," Innes Review 48 (1997): 95–112; T. O’Loughlin, Why Adomnán Needs Arculf: The Case of an Expert Witness, Journal of Medieval Latin 7 (1997): 127–46.

THOMAS O’LOUGHLIN

Adulterinis conjugiis, De (On Adulterous Marriages). The two books of De adulterinis conjugiis constitute the only treatise from the first five centuries devoted solely to the topic of divorce and remarriage. In the Retractationes Augustine treated the work between De anima et eius origine (419/20) and Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum (420); thus this work is dated either to late 419 or early 420. De adulterinis conjugiis responds to questions proposed in letters written to Augustine by a certain Pollentius, whose identity is otherwise unknown. Augustine’s replies to his first letter were made public by some friends before he had the chance to respond to the queries in his second letter. Therefore he was forced to publish the later replies in a second book (2.1.1).

Book 1 is concerned primarily with the interpretation of biblical texts, particularly 1 Corinthians 7:10–18 and Matthew 19:9. In 1 Corinthians Paul had written: To the married I give this command — not I but the Lord — that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife. Matthew 19:9 reads: And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery. Reading Paul in the light of Matthew, Pollentius had argued that a distinction should be made between divorce because of unchastity and divorce on other grounds. In both cases divorce is allowed. When adultery has occurred, Pollentius suggested, remarriage is allowed as well. Paul’s prohibition of remarriage, he argued, applied only in cases where spouses separated for reasons other than adultery.

Augustine clearly rejects Pollentius’s interpretation. He argues that Matthew 19:9 implies that the only legitimate reason for the separation of spouses is adultery. He notes that neither the Gospel nor Paul admits any other grounds for divorce; unilateral separation even for the sake of pursuing a life of continence is to be rejected. And in cases of divorce because of adultery, he argues, the marriage remains intact and remarriage is forbidden. In response to Pollentius’s objection that in Matthew 19:9 Jesus makes a clear exception for divorce in the case of adultery, Augustine responds that except for unchastity means that remarriage after a spouse has been divorced because of adultery is less culpable than remarriage in other cases; nonetheless, it is still prohibited (1.9.9). He appeals to the fact that the Gospels of Mark (10:11–12) and Luke (16:18) contain the prohibition of divorce in an unqualified form, and therefore the qualified prohibition of Matthew 19:9 must be read in the light of these other Gospels (1.11.12).

In book 1 Augustine also discusses the text of 1 Corinthians 7:12–16, the passage of the so-called Pauline privilege, where Paul suggests that Christians are not bound to remain in marriages with non-Christians when the non-Christian wishes to separate. In this case, Augustine acknowledges, the apostle has made an allowance for separation between a Christian and a non-Christian when the Christian’s faith is endangered. He emphasizes, however, that a separation which is lawful (licere) may not always be expedient (expedire), and that, when the non-Christian presents no obstacle to the Christian’s faith, charity might dictate that the spouses should remain together, so that the non-Christian partner might be converted (1.14.15; cf. 1.17.18).

In book 2 Augustine turns to some additional questions that Pollentius had raised in a second letter. He begins with 1 Corinthians 7:39, where Paul had written: A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if the husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, only in the Lord. Pollentius had suggested that the death to which Paul refers is the spiritual death caused by adultery. In this sense Pollentius had taken Paul to agree with Matthew 19:9, the passage in which (as he interpreted it) Jesus allowed an exception to the rule against divorce and remarriage in cases where a spouse was guilty of adultery.

Augustine rejects Pollentius’s interpretation, arguing that even when a spouse has been legitimately put away because of adultery, the bond of chastity (vinculum pudoris) remains until the death of either spouse (2.4.4). Like the sacrament of baptism, which remains valid even after serious sin and excommunication, the bond of the marital contract remains in itself (manente in se vinculo foederis conjugalis) when a woman has been put away because of adultery; the bond will remain intact, he argues, even if she is never reconciled with her husband (5.4).

The remainder of the work treats a variety of pastoral objections that Pollentius had raised to this strict teaching. Regarding the difficulty that a man might experience with forgiving an adulterous wife, Augustine argued that a Christian must be prepared to forgive any sin that has been forgiven by Christ (2.6.5). When Pollentius objected that few people are able to live continently and that for this reason remarriage after divorce (on the grounds of adultery) ought to be allowed, Augustine responded that a person who divorced a spouse because of adultery was in no different situation than one whose spouse was seriously ill or in captivity: continence is required until the death of the spouse (2.10.9). Arguing, characteristically, for the priority of grace in the Christian life, Augustine suggested that the burden of continence, even if not freely chosen, need not be terrifying: The burden will be light, if it is Christ’s burden; it will be Christ’s, if faith is present to obtain what he commands from the one who commands it (2.19.20).

→ Adultery; Marriage; Penance; Sin

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Editions

BA 2, ed.