Augustine: Earlier Writings
l8 AUGUSTINE: EARLIER WRITINGS it should be remembered wherever that expression occurs in my writings.
3. Where I have said of the Father and the Son that "he who begets and he who is begotten is one/' I ought to have said "are one," for the Truth says openly 'T and my Father are one." Nor am I satisfied with the statement that when God is known in this life the soul is already happy, except, of course, by hope. Again the statement: "Not by one way only is wisdom approached," does not sound well; as if there were another way besides Christ, who said: I am the Way. This offence to religious ears should have been avoided. Christ is the Way universally, and these are different ways of which we sing in the psalm: "Show me thy ways, O Lord, and teach me thy paths." In the sentence: "These sensible things are to be utterly avoided," care should have been taken to avoid being thought to hold the opinion of the false philosopher Porphyry who said everything corporeal is to be avoided. Of course, I did not say "all sensible things" but "these sensible things," meaning corruptible things. But it would have been better to have said so. Sensible things which are corruptible will not exist in the new heaven and the new earth of the age to come.
4. Again (in Bk. II, xx, 35) I said that those who are educated in the liberal arts doubtless, in learning them, draw them out from the oblivion which has overwhelmed them, or dig them out, as it were. I do not approve of this. When even untrained persons, suitably questioned, are able to return correct answers about some of the arts, a more credible reason is that they have according to their natural capacity the presence of the light of eternal reason. Hence they catch a glimpse of immutable truth. The reason is not that they once knew it and have forgotten, as Plato and others like him have thought. Against their opinion I have argued in De Trinitate, Bk. XII, as far as the subject of that work gave me occasion. The Soliloquies begin wdth the words: Volventi mihi multa ac varia.
The Soliloquies
INTRODUCTION
De Ordine (I. iii. 6) St. Augustine tells us of his habit, during the sojourn at Cassiciacum, of lying awake in bed for half the night thinking his own thoughts, undisturbed by the two young pupils for whose education he was responsible, and for whose philosophical awakening the three disputations of that period were in part designed. The Soliloquies we may suppose, represent these private meditations and show us the kind of question that he felt to be most urgent. But they also reveal the manner of man he was in the crucial period between his conversion and his baptism. In this respect they invite comparison with the Confessions. No doubt the Soliloquies must suffer thereby. The subject, God and the soul, is fundamentally the same, but the treatment is incomparably narrower, being primarily metaphysical rather than biographical. Nevertheless here too his spiritual history has a place; the cultivation of the liberal arts, here regarded more favourably than in the Confessions; the reading of the Hortensius with the deep impression it made upon him; the influence of Ambrose; his ill-health; his abandonment of the world, riches, fame and wife; the conscientious examination of his moral state, with the claim to have progressed and the admission that temptation was not wholly overcome. There is here no philosophic calm. With all the Neoplatonic colouring, there is a quite un-Plotinian intensity of feehng, the restless heart of the Confessions that can find rest only in God. This passionate religious quest really dominates the work in spite of the weary stretches of inconclusive argument, in logical proof of the immorta Hty of the soul, which occupy so much of the Second Book. The whole is conceived in a framework of prayer. If the lengthy opening prayer, made up of phrases gathered from Plotinus and from the Bible, may seem to be overloaded, it must be regarded as his sincere and earnest confession of faith. It is remarkable how htde in the Soliloquies had to be retracted later. Only one major correction had to be made, viz., the substitution for the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence of the genuinely Augustinian doctrine of Divine
Illumination.
ANALYSIS
Book I
1, I. Introduction. 2-6. Prayer of Invocation. Enumeration of the attributes, perfections, and gracious acts of God. "I spoke not what I knew, but what I had gathered from many quarters and committed to memory, and in which I have put such faith as I was able." ii, 7—V, 1 1 . Knowledge of God a Unique form of Knowledge.
(7) I desire to know God and the soul. Nothing else besides. But knowledge of God is unique. (8) It is quite unlike senseknowledge. Even knowledge of one's best friend is no adequate analogy. (9) Plato and Plotinus may have spoken true things about God without knowing him. (10) Knowledge of mathematical truth is real knowledge, but (12) is also inadequate, for it does not lead to beatitude. "The intelligible beauty of God is superior to the certain truths of mathematics." vij 12—viii, 15. Analogy of Sensual and Intelligible Vision.
(12) Common vision requires [a) possession of sound eyes, {b) the act of directing them towards an object. So, with the vision of God, the mind {a) must have sound eyes that can look beyond temporal things. They must be healed by faith, hope and love. (13) [b) It must direct its regard to the right object, i.e., it must have right reason, which again demands faith, hope and love. (14) When the vision of God has been attained these three will still be required in this Hfe, but in the life to come faith becomes knowledge, hope becomes possession, only love must remain and increase. (15) As in the sensible world all objects to be seen must be illumined, so also in the intelligible world. As the sun is to the sensible world, so is God to the intelligible world. ix, 16—xiv, 26. Examination of his Moral State.
(16) He still fears pain, death and loss of friends, but claims
THE SOLILOQUIES 21 to have made progress in the moral Hfe. (17) Since reading the HortensiuSy fourteen years before, he has ceased to desire riches. He has recently come to despise fame and marriage. Pleasures of the table do not entice him. (18) Riches, fame, wife, might still be desirable but only as means to the cultivation of wisdom. (19) They are not desired for their own sake and therefore cannot be called cupidities. (20) So with friendships, health, life itself and even immortahty. (21) Bodily pain distracts the mind and may be the chief evil, but it can be endured. (22) Why then is wisdom withheld? (23) Long training is necessary, just as eyes must be gradually accustomed to look at the sun. This is the function of the school disciplines. (24) (Next day) "When you achieve the condition of finding no delight at all in earthly things, in that moment you will have wisdom." (25-6) Proof that sensual temptation still has power over him.
XV, 27-30. Epilogue.
(28) Truth is eternal, and (29) must exist in something equally eternal. Whatever truly exists must exist eternally.
(30) Augustine will ponder this and pray for power to understand its import.
Book II i, I . The Problem stated anew. Augustine knows that he exists, lives and has intelligence, ' and that ignorance is misery. He wants to have it proved
that he will live eternally, and [b) that he will know eternally, [{b) is not dealt with in the Soliloquies, but in its sequel, De Immortalitate Animae.] ii 2—V, 8. Truth and Falsehood in Sense-knowledge.
(2) Truth is logically indestructible, but (3) the soul perceives reahty by means of the senses which are deceptive.
Falsehood is that which appears to the percipient other than it truly is. (4) If you allow that falsehood is inevitable and eternal as truth, and that it can only be perceived by a sentient, i.e., living, soul, the soul is proved to be immortal!
(5) Without a percipient there can be neither truth nor falsehood, and (7) on these terms there is no escape from vi, 9_x, 18. Truth and Falsehood inevitably mtertwmed m solipsism.
Sense-knowledge.
(10) The false has some resemblance to the true, exemplitied by a classification of all kinds of resemblance. (13) But the false is also unlike the true. (16) Resemblance may be intended to deceive, but it can also be intended harmlessly to amuse. (17) Painters, sculptors, artists generally, try to produce imitations of the true. (18) Roscius is a real man, but in order to be a true tragedian he must be a false Hecuba, Priam or the hke. But we must seek an absolute truth unmixed with falsehood. xi, 19—xiii, 24. The School Disciplines teach absolute Truth.
(19) The school disciplines are true without admixture of falsehood, because they teach ordered scientific knowledge.
Dialectic with its definitions and divisions is the norm, and may be called truth itself. (20) Even literary studies, though they deal with the falsehoods of poetry and fables, deal with them in an objective way, givdng ordered knowledge about them. (22) A quahty may inhere in a subject as essence or as accident. That which exists inseparably in a subject cannot exist when the subject is destroyed. (23) Soul being essentially life cannot admit of death, though there is the depressing analogy of light which may not admit of darkness, but may be removed to give place to darkness. (24) The school disciplines are truth. They exist in the mind. Therefore the mind is immortal. xiv, 25-26. Further Difficulties.
(25) The argument is over-subtle. (26) We have no books, and friends who might have helped are absent. Ambrose could have solved the problem but perhaps did not even know there was a problem. XV, 27—xix, 33. Recapitulation.
(28) Truth is indestructible. (29-30) Truth and falsehood, resemblance and difference. (31) Problem of the void.
(32) Matter, form and mathematical figures. (33) Mathematical figures transcend all material things which imitate them but do not fully exemphfy them. They are in the mind and they are eternal. Therefore the mind is eternal. XX, 34 to the end. Epilogue.
(34) Phenomena of memory and forgetfulness. (35) Knowledge may be Reminiscence. At all events it has nothing to do with the senses but belongs to the mind or reason. (36) The problem of the eternal life of the soul has been solved as far as possible. There remains that of its eternal possession of inte Uigence.
The Soliloquies
THE TEXT
Book I i, I. For long I had been turning over in my mind many various thoughts. For many days I had been earnestly seeking to know myself and my chief good and what evil was to be shunned. Suddenly someone spoke to me, whether it was myself or someone else from without or from within I know not. Indeed, to know that is my main endeavour. At any rate someone, let us call him Reason, said to me: Suppose you have discovered some truth. To whom will you entrust it in order that you may proceed to further thoughts? Augustine.—To my memory, I suppose. Reason.—Can your memory properly preserve all your thoughts. Augustine.—That would be difficult, nay impossible. Reason.—Then you must write it down. But what do you do when your health will not allow the labour of writing? These thoughts must not be dictated, for they require complete solitude. A.—True. I do not know what I am to do, then. R.—Pray for health and for aid to attain to what you desire; and write this down that you may become more spirited in your quest. Then briefly summarize your conclusions in a few short theses. Do not look to attract a multitude of readers. This will be sufficient for the few who share your fellowship.
A,—I shall do as you say.
2. O God, Creator of the universe, give me first that I may pray aright, then that I may conduct myself worthily of being heard by thee, and finally that I may be set free by thee. God, by whom all things come into existence which by themselves would not exist; who permittest not to perish even that which destroys itself; who out of nothing didst create this world which the eyes of all perceive to be most beautiful; who doest no evil so that existence is good because it is thy work; who showcst