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101. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 254/255
Piotr Paciorek

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In 418, the Italian bishop of Eclanum (Aeclanum: Mirabella-Eclano), Julian (380-454), engaged Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in an extensive debate about three key issues of the Catholic faith, all of which are essentially grounded in sound philosophy and can be proven by reason. These are: the state of nature after sin, the authority of law (legis auctoritate), and the free will of rational beings (libertas arbitrii), the last of which remains vigorously debated today in response to the early concept of determinism. These three issues, in particular, preoccupied Augustine’s thoughts and writings up until his death.

102. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 254/255
Marie Pauliat

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How to characterize the scriptural exegesis that Augustine of Hippo develops in the Sermons on Scripture? The interpretations of the pericope of the act of faith of the centurion (Matth. 8:5-13) allow, by comparison, to provide elements of answer to this question. Only two continuous commentaries of it are preserved in the works of Augustine: the Sermon 62 (Carthage, 399) and the Sermon Morin 6 (409). It is, however, the subject of some sixty mentions, covering all genres (letters, exegetical treatises, polemics) and almost all chronological and polemical contexts (Manicheism, Donatism, Pelagianism). With this pericope, Augustine reminds both the Manicheans that Scripture must be received with faith, and the Donatists that members of the Church come from the east and the west. The accents are very different in the two sermons: the clearly theological perspective in the Sermo Morin 6 is colored in the Sermo 62 of a discrete and complex rhetorical use which aims to prepare the exhortation not to go to the banquets of the idols that form the second part of this sermon. Augustine’s homiletic exegesis enters into full consonance with the double inscription of the sermon in its liturgical and historical contexts: the first involves developing the faith of the faithful to unify the Body of Christ and the second to lead them to put into practice the requirements of this faith in the concrete circumstances of their lives. The themes of homiletic exegesis then contribute to making the sermon one of the mediations of grace in the work in the liturgy.

103. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 254/255
Diana Stanciu

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How to characterize the scriptural exegesis that Augustine of Hippo develops in the Sermons on Scripture? The interpretations of the pericope of the act of faith of the centurion (Matth. 8:5-13) allow, by comparison, to provide elements of answer to this question. Only two continuous commentaries of it are preserved in the works of Augustine: the Sermon 62 (Carthage, 399) and the Sermon Morin 6 (409). It is, however, the subject of some sixty mentions, covering all genres (letters, exegetical treatises, polemics) and almost all chronological and polemical contexts (Manicheism, Donatism, Pelagianism). With this pericope, Augustine reminds both the Manicheans that Scripture must be received with faith, and the Donatists that members of the Church come from the east and the west. The accents are very different in the two sermons: the clearly theological perspective in the Sermo Morin 6 is colored in the Sermo 62 of a discrete and complex rhetorical use which aims to prepare the exhortation not to go to the banquets of the idols that form the second part of this sermon. Augustine’s homiletic exegesis enters into full consonance with the double inscription of the sermon in its liturgical and historical contexts: the first involves developing the faith of the faithful to unify the Body of Christ and the second to lead them to put into practice the requirements of this faith in the concrete circumstances of their lives. The themes of homiletic exegesis then con- tribute to making the sermon one of the mediations of grace in the work in the liturgy.

104. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 254/255
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker

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Augustine’s emphasis on groaning in Enarrationes in Psalmos reflects his eschatological frame for the earthly life. Augustine exhorts believers to cultivate a disposition of world-weariness appropriate to their status as pilgrims and exiles in this life, expressed by groans of suffering in earthly need and longing for heavenly fulfillment. This world-weary disposition has both an ethical and aesthetic character in that it con- tributes to the ordering of believers’ loves to a vision of heavenly beauty and enjoins an active response of solidarity with the suffering on earth.

105. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Kimberly F. Baker

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In their preaching on care for the poor, Basil and Augustine call for a transformation of one’s relationships. While the Roman patronage system rested on relationships of privilege and dependency, Basil and Augustine cultivate a different type of relationship between the giver and receiver of charity, a relationship based not on status and need but on a shared life and identity. For Basil, that relationship is rooted in the common humanity of all people, regardless of economic or social status. Giving is natural in Basil’s worldview because humanity shares in a common human nature and thus holds all goods in common. Those who fail to share with others risk cutting themselves off from their human nature. Basil’s call to care for the poor is a call to recognize that to be human is to share in what is κοινός, held in common. And for Augustine, the relationship of giver and receiver is grounded in Christ. In loving others, Christians come to discover Christ not only present in them, by virtue of their baptism, but also present in those they serve, wherever there is human need, as promised in Matthew 25. Augustine draws the attention of Christians to those in need, including those outside the usual ties of kinship and citizenship, and even church membership, and teaches them to see in the poor, people of dignity, defined not by dependency but by Christ’s loving solidarity. In laying claim to a common bond between giver and receiver, Basil and Augustine offer a counter-cultural social vision in which giver and receiver are defined not by power or need, but by mutuality and love.

106. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Andrea Bizzozero

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This article examines the link between the purity of the heart, conscience, knowledge and uisio dei. In Mt. 5:8 the vision and knowledge of God derive from a particular situation of the human heart. The vision-heart pair invites one to reflect on the anthropological structure and the conditions of possibility of the process of knowledge. The main questions here would be: How can one know God? Which faculties does one need in order to know Him? Which are the roles of the mind, the heart and the will in this knowledge? Why Augustine uses Mt. 5:8 to speak about the knowledge of God? At the same time, the expression beati mundicordes invites one to reflect on the qualities of the human condition in order to see-know God. In other words: Which features must the heart have in order to see God? If, on the one hand, it is necessary to know the starting point of this knowledge, on the other hand, it is important to show why it is in human nature to want to see God. This article will analyze the occurrences of the quotation of Mt. 5:8 in Augustine’s works before 411 in order to understand the meaning of the expression beati mundicordes and the conditions of possibility of the uisio dei. This study will investigate the Mt. 5:8 references particularly in De fide et symbolo, De sermone domini in monte, Contra Adimantum, De diuersis quaestionibus octoginta tribus, Contra epistulam Manichaei, De agone, Contra Faustum, Contra Felicem, Sancta uirginitate, ep. 92, ep. 130 and Sermo 88.

107. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Carles Buenacasa

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Catholic and Donatist sources demonstrate the importance that Donatism attached to the veneration of martyrs, whose acts were read during the feasts dedicated to them. This cult was one of the uestigia ecclesiae that linked Catholicism and Donatism. Therefore, it was important for Catholics to prove that not all those who were said to have died in the name of Christ should be considered martyrs. Augustine’s literary activity displayed a plethora of arguments seeking to show Donatists that these dotes ecclesiae did not really benefit them: martyres non facit poena, sed causa (c. Cresc. 3, 47, 51). At the same time, he strove to invalidate the justification of martyrdom that Donatists used to take from the Book of the Maccabees (Razias’ episode). According to Augustine, the tombs of Donatist martyrs came to be considered special pilgrimage sites due to the miracles and apparitions that were said to take place there. Such pilgrimages were an important source of income for the Donatist Church, generated by accommodations, religious souvenirs, food, and clothing of the pilgrims. These incomes were vital for the survival of the Donatist Church, since, unlike the Catholic Church, it could not count on imperial patronage. If the Donatists were deprived of private patronage they would end up in serious financial trouble. This article aims to analyze the Catholic/Donatist debates around the concept of martyrdom as well as the economical background underlying the efforts made by Catholics to present Donatist martyrs as mere suicides.

108. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Gaetano Colantuono

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The article deals with s. 47, stressing the lexical, linguistic, rhetoric, symbolic, argumentative aspects, related to three main topics: 1) The exegetical and controversial elements of the symbolic value of goats (hirci); (2) the analysis of the vocabulary and of the polemical antidonatist motives in the homily; (3) the legal influence (also at the lexical level) as part of the controversial christian homiletics in post-Theodosian age.

109. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Marianne Djuth

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In this essay I explore the implications of Augustine’s notion of moral conscience in the polemical treatises written during the late 300’s and the early 400’s. During this period Augustine found himself locked in controversy with both the Manichaeans and the Donatists over the fundamental truths of the Christian faith. Against this background I examine Augustine’s understanding of conscience with reference to Faustus of Milevis and Petilian of Constantine. With respect to Faustus of Milevis, I situate Augustine’s understanding of conscience in the context of his adaptation of the notion of conscience found in Paul’s Pastoral Epistles to his repudiation of the Manichaeans in three key passages: 1Tim. 1:5, 1Tim. 4:1-3, and Tit. 1:15. In the case of Petilian of Constantine I investigate the meaning of conscience in relation to three major themes found in Petilian’s letters: the subjective disposition of conscience, the hiddenness of conscience, and the responsibility for the subjective disposition of conscience. Finally, I conclude the essay by reflecting more generally on the meaning and use of the notion of conscience in polemical disputes. Not only does Augustine develop a notion of conscience that addresses personal and ecclesial concerns, but he also characterizes conscience as both stable and malleable.

110. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Enrique A. Eguiarte

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The article deals with the use of the term conscienta in S. Augustine’s early writings (388-395), namely the third book of De libero arbitrio, the first 32 enarrationes in Psalmos and De sermone Domini in monte, to trace the development of the idea of conscientia, and the shift from an anthropological concept of conscientia (coscientia mortalitatis/ conscientia itineribus) to a Theological and Moral dimension (conscientia bona/mala) in St. Augustine’s first works as a young Priest at Hippo, namely in De sermone Domini in monte, where the Moral aspects of conscientia are underlined.

111. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Susanna Elm

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Toward the end of his life, Augustine of Hippo wrote two letters (10* and 24*) to legal experts in which he reacted to recent attempts by slave-traders to sell 120 Roman North Africans «overseas» as slaves. Prompted by the fact that members of his clergy had offered them refuge in the episcopal compound at Hippo, Augustine sought to clarify the actual personal legal status of these men, women, and children. Were they slaves, coloni, or illegally captured free Roman citizens? What were their actual temporal, legal, personal conditions? Such concerns surrounding the condicio hominum temporalis, brought to light as a result of selling human beings, and their relevance and ramifications for Augustine’s thoughts and actions, especially with regard to the sin to which we are sold per originem of the First Man, are the focus of my remarks.

112. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Allan Fitzgerald

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This article examines the relation of Augustine’s appreciation of the human heart to his understanding of conscience both from a theological and a spiritual point of view by a study of the 43 sermons preached in Hippo from December 406 to mid-summer 407, that is, the fifteen enarrationes on the Psalms of Ascent (en. Ps. 119-133), enarrationes on psalms 95 and 21 (sermon 2), the first sixteen tractates on the Gospel of John (Io. eu. tr.), and the ten homilies on the First Letter of John (ep. Io. tr.)

113. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Joseph L. Grabau

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Augustine of Hippo was active in the period leading up to conciliar definitions of Christology, yet he displays remarkably distinct preferences in his treatment of Christ. Rather than repurposing his work to discover antecedent traces of the Chalcedonian definition –or the pervading influence of Nicene faith–one must remain open to Augustine’s own Christological method. For, in fact, as much as he held to a firm belief in the objective work of Christ and its proper role in the divine plan for human salvation, Augustine maintains a certain approach to biblical exegesis that reinvents our notions of Christology to include, primarily, exegetical praxis. A valuable example of this practice appears in the early ‘anti-Donatist’ homilies on John, in particular in the 9th and 15th where Augustine reads Christ into the whole of Scripture, beginning with Gen. 2:24-5. In so doing, the bishop of Hippo builds upon essentially Pauline interpretative strategies, even in his reading of the Fourth Gospel. The present contribution aims to identify those Pauline elements, chiefly among them the role of Eph. 5:31-2 and Rom. 5:14, the latter of which presents Adam as ‘forma futuri’ – that is, a prophet of Christ. In his reading of John 2 on the Wedding at Cana (homily 9) and John 4 (homily 15), Augustine develops a hermeneutic of recognising Christological prophecy in the ‘old testament’, and in so doing he develops the Pauline sentiment of Rom. 5:14 in new directions, applying it liberally to the successive Hebrew patriarchs. This new turn in studies of Romans, chapter 5, under the Christological programme of Augustine during his early anti-Donatist engagement, offers new light on possible early Christian interpretations of the Bible – especially welcome after so many reflections on Rom. 5:12 and its influence for the later Pelagian controversy.

114. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Naoki Kamimura

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In contributing to the debate on the transformation of late Roman world, some scholars have claimed that the boundaries between religious groups were fluid with external and internal factors. Christian identity was not characterised by clear indications of religious belief, observance, and practice. Some intriguing surveys have shown that the difference between Christians and pagans can be seen as part of a discursive binary. While the North African evidence of their identity allows us to consider the question of what it means to be a Christian, it is noteworthy that there is a comprehensive framework for the understanding of human behavior and thought: the ‘spiritual exercises’ in the Greco-Roman tradition. In the fourth and fifth centuries, Christian thinkers began to pursue the matter in question as being linked with the context of his concern for Christianness in late North Africa, the correlation still remains in question. In this article, therefore, first I examine how he referred to the Christian code of behavior in his letters. In particular, focusing my attention on epistolary correspondence of Augustine with two seemingly ‘pagans’, I show how he tried to impose the idea of ehe Christian norms of behavior on his correspondence –with Dioscorus (epp. 117 and 118) and with Volusianus (epp. 132, 135, and 137). Then I ask what Augustine understood by spiritual training. For the sake of clarity, I have divided the letters along he thematic line into three groups –the intellectual and therapeutic (ep. 26, 37, 56, 102, 162, 193, 202A, and 2*), the religious and eschatological (ep. 92, 130, 131, 137, and 157), and the exegetical aspect (ep. 28, 137, 149, 199, and 213). In each group I consider them chronologically as far as possible. Finally, I consider the principal feature of spiritual training, thereby coming to the enhancement of spiritual affinities, and mutual relationships of which he made use in speaking about Christian identity.

115. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Teppei Kato

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This article elucidates the main topic in the discussion between Augustine and Jerome about biblical translation, by focusing on their views about the language of the source text of translation. According to the historical study of translation, translators at the time of Cicero were allowed to show their creativity, since they presupposed the reader’s ability to compare the Greek text with the Latin translation. Cicero, accordingly, chose free translation as his own principle. Augustine expected the readers of the Bible to compare the source text with the translation, claiming that the source text should be the Greek Bible, namely, the LXX. However, Augustine preferred literal translation, for he estimated the reader’s comprehension of the source text to be low. Jerome, on the other hand, anticipated the readers at a high level, so that he basically adopted free translation as a translation method of any kind of literary work, including the Bible. Moreover, since Jerome accepted the Hebrew text as the original text, rejecting the authority of the LXX, he recommended the non-Hebrew readers ask the Hebrews to examine the accuracy of his translation. In addition, as Augustine and Jerome have different attitudes towards translation, they also have different views on the ideological state of the LXX: Augustine allowed the LXX to be a free translation, while Jerome strictly demanded it to be a literal translation, even though their own translation theories are opposite, respectively.

116. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
John Peter Kenney

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While ontological discourse is unfashionable in contemporary theology, it was prominent in the works of Augustine of Hippo. This article will concentrate on Augustine’s attribution of «esse» and related terms to God in his early works. Contrasting readings of Augustine’s ontological discourse will be reviewed, especially those of Émile Zum Brunn and Jean-Luc Marion. Texts under consideration will be drawn from Cassiciacum dialogues, the anti-Manichaean treatises, and Confessions. The article will conclude by clarifying the larger implications of Augustine’s commitment to ontological theology in the context of his account of contemplation.

117. Augustinus: Volume > 64 > Issue: 252/253
Jerôme Lagouanère

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The influence of the works of Seneca on Augustine, although often undervalued by scholars, appears decisive in the development of the concept of will in the first book of De libero arbitrio. In this paper, we analyze how the concept of bona uoluntas in the writings of Seneca may have influenced the Augustinian conception of the same concept.

118. Augustinus: Volume > 63 > Issue: 250/251
Enrique A. Eguiarte B.

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119. Augustinus: Volume > 63 > Issue: 250/251
Pablo Irízar, Enrique A. Eguiarte B.

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120. Augustinus: Volume > 63 > Issue: 250/251
Jimmy Chan

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Both the Stoics and Augustine seek to explore under what circumstances are emotions considered ‘good’? There is one distinct question that Augustine attempts to explore in the aspect of emotional wellness: “What is the theological significance of emotions?” This paper not only demonstrates the interwoven relationship between Augustine and Stoicism on emotions, but also argues that Augustine has not been able to disentangled from the Stoic thoughts on emotions, to the extent that it is necessary for him to transform the Stoic ideas of emotions for his theological and rhetorical purposes.