485. Once it qualifies the virtue of patience; see De patientia XVII, 14: (continued)
Augustine, Maximinus, and Imagination
that Augustine's charges arise from the art of philosophy and warns Augustine against the dangers of using the rhetorical figure of metonomy as a means of exegesis.
53 Thus, in opposition to the Nicaean interpretation of texts concerning Christ's obedience to the Father, Maximinus insists that "the divine Scripture has not come as a source of our instruction so that we might correct it."
54 Hence, Maximinus not merely rests his theological position on the Scriptures, but also refuses to make any use of any non-biblical language or philosophical thought to interpret the Scriptures.
The concept of a non-bodily or spiritual reality, however, is a philosophical concept. The ability to understand that God is incorporeal involves more than being able to speak of God as invisible or simple or spiritual—all terms that Maximinus admits.
56 To understand that God is incorporeal is to grasp that he is whole everywhere, that there is not more of him in a larger place and less of him in a smaller place, but that wherever he is—and he is everywhere—he is whole and undivided.
57 The Confessiones reveal to us the long struggle that Augustine underwent in coming to a concept of a spiritual substance—a concept that he came to from reading the libri Platonicorum within the Christian Neoplatonist circle of the church of Milan. What is all too often forgotten is that the concept of a spiritual or incorporeal substance is
53 See Collatio cum Maximino 15, 5 and 13: PL XLII, 725 and 718. 54 Collatio cum Maximino 15, 20: PL XLII, 736: "Nec enim in nostrum magisterium devenit divina Scriptura, ut a nobis emendationem accipiat." 55 It is, of course, very difficult to remain with the language contained in the Scriptures and to avoid all non-biblical language. Indeed, Maximinus does not succeed in doing so. See Contra Maximinum II, ix, 2: PL XLII, 763, where Augustine points out that Paul did not say that the Father was incomprehensible (incapabilis). Similarly, Augustine reminds Maximinus that the terms "ingenitus," "innatus" and "incomparabilis" are not biblical; see below note 66. 56 Though Maximinus holds that the Father is alone invisible, he admits that the Son is also invisible; see Collatio cum Maximino 9: PL XLII,727– 728. He speaks of both the Father and the Son as spirits; see Collatio cum Maximino 15, 15: PL XLII, 733. In Collatio cum Maximino 10: PL XLII, 728–729, he says that the Father is simple power; see below note 63. 57 See Confessions VII ,I, 2: CCL XXVII, 92–93 and Epistula CLXVI II, 4: CSEL XLIV, 550–553, for Augustine's realization of the non-corporeal nature of God and his description of the soul's incorporeality.
248 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian not found in the Scriptures or in any of the Western Fathers prior to Augustine in a fully articulated form.
58 For, apart from the Neoplatonist circle in the church of Milan, the corporealism of Stoic philosophy remained the common philosophical patrimony of the West.
59 Indeed, even after the time of Augustine, there were learned bishops, such as Faustus of Riez, who, like Tertullian in an earlier century, insisted that the soul was bodily.
60 Hence, given Maximinus's rejection of all philosophy and his insistence upon the sola Scriptura principle, it is not surprising that he lacked a concept of incorporeal reality and could only think of God as bodily and in terms of what can be imagined. All the passages in which Augustine accuses Maximinus of thinking of God in a carnal manner, of course, count as evidence that Maximinus conceived of God in bodily terms. But there is at least one other passage that, I believe, confirms the evidence presented so far. In Maximinus's long final discourse, he insists "that the Father alone is the one God, not one along with a second and a third, but that he alone is the one God."
61 Maximinus goes on to argue the point. "If he alone is not the one [God], he is a part."
62 That is, Maximinus sees no way that the Son can also be the one God without the Father being
58 See G. Verbeke, L'évolution de la doctrine du pneuma du Stoïcisme à s. Augustin (Paris and Louvain, 1945) and F. Masai, "Les conversions de saint Augustin et les débuts de spiritualisme en Occident," Moyen Âge 67 (1961), 1-40. 59 For the distinction between corporealism and materialism, see E. Weil, "Remarques sur le 'matérialisme' des Stoïciens," in Mélanges Alexandre Koyré. II. L'aventure de l'esprit (Paris: Herman, 1964), pp. 556–572. 60 For Tertullian"s position, see De carne Christi XI, 4: CCL II, 895: "Omne, quod est, corpus est sui generis. Nihil est incorporeale nisi quod non est" and De anima VII, 3: CCL II, 790: "Nihil enim, nisi corpus." Though Tertullian admitted that God was a spirit, he nonetheless held that he was a body; see Aduersus Praxean VII, 8: CCL II, 1166: "Quis negabit Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est." For the continued debate about the nature of the soul in 5th century Gaul, see Thomas Smith, "Augustine in Two Gallic Controversies: Use or Abuse?" in Collectanea Augustiniana III (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), pp. 43–55. 61 Collatio cum Maximino 15,10: PL XLII, 728: "Ego Patrem solum secundum antelata testimonia, non cum altero et tertio dico quod unus est, sed quod solus unus est Deus." 62 Collatio cum Maximino 15,10: PL XLII,728: "Si vero solus unus non est, pars est."
merely a part of the one God, for, if the Son is also the one God, then the Father cannot be the whole of the one God. Moreover, Maximinus gives a reason why the Father cannot be a part: "I deny... that the one God is composed of parts; rather, what he is is unbegotten simple power."
63 Maximinus's argument, namely, that either the Father alone is the one God or the Father is a part of the one God, presupposes that a plurality in God can only be a plurality of parts—and of the sort of parts that compose a whole greater than any of the parts. And that, of course, is precisely what it is to be a body. What Maximinus lacks is the grasp of the spiritual or non-bodily reality of God that Augustine has and that allows him to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God.
One is not a third of this Trinity, nor are two of them a greater part than one, and all of them are not something greater than each of them, because their greatness is spiritual, not corporeal."
III. Concluding Reflections I have shown that Augustine accuses the Homoian Arians and Maximinus of thinking of God in a carnal fashion, that is, of thinking of God in bodily terms or in terms of what can be imagined. Indeed, he claims that their heresy arises from interpreting Jn 5:19 in terms of imagining the Father and the Son like a master craftsman and his apprentice. There is ample evidence that Augustine made this claim against the Arians. I have also tried to argue that, given Maximinus's insistence upon a biblical theology and upon the avoidance of all nonbiblical language, he could hardly be expected to have the sort of concept of incorporeal reality that Augustine acquired only after years of struggle and then only from the works of the Neoplatonists. There is also some direct evidence from Maximinus's long final discourse that indicates that he could not think of God except as bodily, though the evidence for the absence of a concept can at best be tenuous.
63 Collatio cum Maximino 10: PL XLII, 728–729: "Nec enim ex partibus compositum unum dico Deum: sed ille quod est, virtus est ingenita simplex." 64 Contra Maximinum II, x, 2: PL XLII, 765: "nec hujus Trinitatis tertia pars est unus, nec major pars duo quam unus est ibi; nec majus aliquid sunt omnes quam singuli, quia spiritualis, non corporalis est magnitudo."
250 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian
Contemporary theologians at times bemoan the Hellenization or the Platonization of the Christian doctrine of God and the loss of the biblical doctrine of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
65 Maximinus's attempt to rely on the Scripture alone and to avoid all philosophical terms might be thought to aim at such a purely biblical formulation of the faith. However, as Augustine points out, Maximinus does introduce non-biblical terminology at times.
66 Furthermore, in supposing that he has avoided all philosophy in his theology, Maximinus has simply and unreflectively adopted the philosophy that was the common patrimony of his age, namely, Stoic corporealism, which was just as much a Hellenization of the biblical faith as the spiritualist metaphysics that Augustine learned from the Neoplatonists. Hence, in confronting Arianism, Augustine certainly thought out the Christian doctrine of God with the aid of a spiritualist metaphysics he learned
65 See Hans Küng, On Being a Christian, trans. by E. Quinn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 472–477. Küng refers to the trinitarian thought of the Cappadocian fathers as "almost ... a kind of higher trinitarian mathematics" that "scarcely reached any lasting solutions" and compares "this Greek speculation, remote from its biblical roots," to the flight of Icarus (p. 473). Augustine, of course, took over and worked out the trinitarian thought of the Cappadocians. But "[t]he real difficulties of the specifically Western doctrine of the Trinity arise from the fact that Augustine, its founder, . . . started out, not like the Greeks, from the triplicity of persons, but from the unity of the divine nature. In this respect Augustine had against him not only the Greeks and—for instance—Hilary of Poitiers in the West, but also the New Testament" (p. 475). See also M. Schmaus, "Die Spannung von Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte in der Trinitätslehre Augustins," Studia Patristica VI. Texte und Untersuchungen 81 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1962), pp. 503–518, especially 508–510. For further discussion of this question, see the introduction to Augustine's anti-Arian works in Obras completas de San Augustín XXXVIII (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1990), pp. 240–251. 66 Augustine points out that both Arians and Catholics use the non-biblical terms "ingenitus" and "innatus" of the Father and that the Arians make the non-biblical claim that the Father is incomparable to the Son. "Tu ubi legisti Patrem Deum ingenitum vel innatum. Et tamen verum est. Quod vero aliquoties dixisti, etiam Filio esse imcomparabilem Patrem, nec legis, nec verum est" (Contra Maximinum Arianum II, iii: PL XLII, 760). To Maximinus's claim that the Scriptures do not say that the Holy Spirit is adored, Augustine replies, "quasi non ex iis quae legimus, aliqua etiam quae non legimus, intelligamus" (ibid.).
from the Platonists. The alternatives he faced were not a Hellenized versus a non-Hellenized understanding of God, but a Stoic corporealist versus a Neoplatonic spiritualist understanding of God. Moreover, it is arguable that Maximinus had operative in the articulation of his Trinitarian faith an unreflective philosophical principle, ultimately derived from Platonism, that subordinates whatever is derived from another to that other from which it is derived.
67 Such a philosophical principle held unreflectively, while he supposes himself innocent of all philosophy, leads Maximinus to the conclusion that the Son, though a great God, is inferior to the Father.
68 In this case, a philosophical principle, though held unwittingly, is the norm by which the content of the biblical revelation is judged. For Augustine, on the other hand, philosophy was not the norm or standard by which the word of God was judged, but a means by which it was understood. However important philosophical reflection was for coming to an understanding of the faith, for Augustine believing came first and faith remained the norm. Indeed, Augustine is quite insistent that one who desires to understand desires to understand precisely what he believes, not something else.
67 Maximinus, for example, says, "Saepius aequalem Filium asseris Patri: cum ipse unigenitus Deus semper et in omnibus auctorem suum praedicet Patrem, a quo, ut paulo ante dixi, et vitam se consecutum hoc modo professus est" (Collatio cum Maximino 14: PL XLII, 731). 68 Thus, from the statement that Christ "a genitore suo omnia haec consecutus est, et vivit propter Patrem," Maximinius draws the conclusion that "Filius Patri subjectus est, ut charissimus, ut obediens, ut bonus a bono genitus" (Collatio cum Maximino 10: PL XLII, 714). 69 See Epistula CXX I, 2: CSEL XLIV, 706, where Augustine explains to Consentius that one who desires to understand his faith desires to understand that which he believes or to see with the light of reason that which he holds with the firmness of faith: "ut quod credis intellegas ... ut ea quae fidei firmitate iam tenes, etiam rationis luce conspicias."
The Definition of Sacrifice in the
De ciuitate Dei I n his Contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum, written in 419 or 420 in reply to the work of an unidentified heretic, most probably someone in the Marcionite tradition, Augustine of Hippo was forced to deal with the topic of sacrifice because the anonymous heretic strongly objected to the animal sacrifices of the Jewish religion and cited Saint Paul as maintaining that all who offer sacrifice offer sacrifice to demons.
1 In a communication for the Oxford Patristics Conference in 1995, I summed up what Augustine said about sacrifice in that seldom read work and pointed out that Augustine presented in it a short, but brilliant treatise on sacrifice in which he showed the relationship between the sacrifices of the Old Law, the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and the sacrifice of the Church.
2 I was particularly struck by his apparently universal claim that visible sacrifices—whether of the Old Law or of Christ or of the Church—are signs of divine realities and in fact all signify the same great divine reality: "the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
3 Augustine says, for example, that David's sacrifice in 1 Kgs 2:4 by which he asked that God would spare the people was a sign that "God shows mercy regarding the salvation of the people through the one sacrifice of which David's was the symbol."
4 Hence, when I was invited to contribute a paper to a
1 The heretic's text of 2 Cor 10:20 read: 'Sed qui sacrificant, daemonibus sacrificant' instead of the text that Augustine had: 'Sed quia quae immolant daemonibus, et non Deo immolant." See Contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum I, xix, 38: CCL 49, 68. 2 See my translation of the work in Augustine: Arianism and Other Heresies (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1995). 3 See my "Sacrifice in Augustine's Contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum," in Studia Patristica XXXIII, ed. E. A. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), pp. 255–259. 4 Contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum I, xviii, 37: CCL 49, 67: "Unde illud quod Dauid obtulit, ut populo parceretur, umbra erat futuri, qua significatum est, quod per unum sacrificium, cuius illa figura erat, saluti populi spiritaliter parcitur."
254 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian volume in honor of Frederic W. Slatterer, SJ, I thought that it would be appropriate as an offering of one Jesuit priest to another to return to the topic of sacrifice in Saint Augustine and examine some of the aspects of its treatment in book ten of De ciuitate Dei, a passage which Gerald Bonner has described as "a wonderful tour de force ... one of the most profound discussions of the nature of sacrifice in Christian literature."
5 In particular, I want to look at the definition of sacrifice that Augustine, it seems, presents in book ten, a definition that has been the subject of considerable controversy. In fact, one distinguished theologian has forcefully argued that Augustine did not offer—and did not intend to offer—a definition of sacrifice in the passage,
6 though almost all other scholars who have written on chapters five and six of book ten have, nonetheless, taken Augustine as having presented there a definition of sacrifice.
7 Moreover, the definition that he apparently offers, along with his further claim that every act of mercy done for the sake of God is a sacrifice, seems to present a view of true sacrifice as something without any obvious relation to the two actions which the Church has consistently spoken of as sacrifices, namely, the death of
5 Gerald Bonner, "The Doctrine of Sacrifice: Augustine and the Latin Patristic Tradition," in Sacrifice and Redemption. Durham Essays in Theology, ed. S. W. Sykes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 101–117, here 105. 6 Guy de Broglie, "La notion augustinienne du sacrifice 'invisible' et 'vrai,'" Recherches de science religieuse 48 (1960): 135–165. 7 Studies on sacrifice in the De ciuitate Dei are many. Besides Bonner's and de Broglie's, among the best I have found there are: Joseph Lécuyer, "Le sacrifice selon saint Augustin," in Augustinus Magister (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1946) II, 905–914; Yves de Montcheuil, "L'unité du sacrifice et du sacrement dans l'Eucharistie," in Mélanges théologiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946), 49–70; Bernard Quinot, "L'influence de l'Épitre aux Hébreux dans la notion augustinienne du vrai sacrifice," Revue des études augustiniennes 8 (1962): 129–168; Ghislain Lafont, "Le sacrifice de la Cité de Dieu. Commentaire au De Civitate Dei Livre X, ch. I–VII," Recherches de science religieuse 53 (1965): 177–219; John F. O'Grady, "Priesthood and Sacrifice in 'City of God,'" Augustiniana 21 (1971): 27–44; Basil Studer, "Das Opfer Christi nach Augustins 'De civitate Dei' X, 5–6," in Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi. Miscellanea in onore di P. Cipriano Vagaggini, ed. G. Békés and G. Franedi (Rome: Editrice Anselmiana, 1980), 93–107; and Marcel Neusch, "Une conception chrétienne du sacrifice: Le modèle de saint Augustin," in Le sacrifice dans les religions. Sciences théologiques et religieuses 3, ed. by Marcel Neusch (Paris: Beauchesne, 1994), 117–138.
The Definition of Sacrifice in the De ciuitate Dei
8 Augustine's definition of true sacrifice in fact sounds as though it fits any act of mercy that anyone might do for one's fellow human beings for the sake of God.
Christ on Calvary and the Mass.
9 Hence, I have chosen to examine the definition of sacrifice found in these chapters as the subject of this paper.
I. A First Look at the Definition of Sacrifice In chapter five, while discussing the sacrifices of the Jewish people recorded in scripture, Augustine points out that we are to understand that the animal sacrifices offered by the patriarchs of old signified "the things which are done among us in order that we might cling to God and assist our neighbor toward the same end. The visible sacrifice, then, is the sacrament, that is, the sacred sign of the invisible sacrifice."
10 In
8 Such is the heart, I take it, of de Broglie's objection to taking what Augustine says here as a definition of sacrifice. He says, "Il suffit, comme on voit, d'interpréter le dogme catholique en partant de la définition dite 'augustinienne', pour voir s'envoler presque tous les problèmes, parfois délicats, que la théologie catholique du 'sacrifice' peut conduire à poser; et peutêtre cette considération n'est-elle étrangère au succès que cette définition a quelquefois rencontré—Mais il reste permis de se demander si une si merveilleuse simplication de la théologie ne menaçerait pas le contenu du dogme lui-même. Car, si toute action inspirée par l'amour de Dieu et qui fait avancer l'humanité dans la voie du salut, méritait proprement, pleinement, et indistinctement, le nom de 'sacrifice', on comprend mal que l'Église puisse attacher quelque importance à nous entendre qualifier de ce vocable deux actions particulières, et deux seulement: celle qui s'accomplit jadis sur la Croix et celle qui se renouvelle quotidiennnement sur nos autels" (de Broglie, "La notion augustinienne," p. 140). 9 Such a view was articulated by John F. O'Grady in "Priesthood and Sacrifice in 'City of God,'" when he spoke of "[t]he notion of Augustine on sacrifice as any work which unites us with God, or any work directed to our final end" (p. 43). He says, "The Christian accepts the same demands of the Jew and of any other religious person. God wishes the offering of self, the interior sacrifice animated by charity, essentially involved in works of mercy in favor of others. ... True sacrifice unites man to God in a holy society; the invisible sacrifice forms the heart of sacrifice and signifies the offering of man himself. Further it was seen that these notions are not limited to Christianity nor even to Judaism, but Augustine sees them involved in man's nature as a person called to union with his God" (pp. 40–41). 10 De ciuitate Dei X, 5: CCL 47, 276–277: "Nec quod ab antiquis patribus alia sacrificia facta sunt in uictimis pecorum, ... aliud intellegendum est,
256 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian support of this claim he cites Psalm 50 to show that God is not pleased with holocausts, but that "sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit," for God will not reject "a heart that is contrite and humbled."
11 He points out that God speaking through the Psalmist does not reject sacrifice, but substitutes one sort of sacrifice by another. "He does not, then, want the sacrifice of a slaughtered animal, and he does want the sacrifice of a contrite heart."
12 Similarly, Augustine uses Psalm 50 to show that God did not demand animal sacrifices for their own sake, but to show that they were signs of the sacrifices that God does require.
13 He quotes the Prophet Micah to show what God does require of us, namely, "to practice justice and to love mercy and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God."
14 So too, he cites Hebrews 13:16, "Forget not to do good and to be generous, for God is pleased by such sacrifices."
15 Hence, he interprets the statement in Hosea 6:6, "I desire mercy rather than sacrifice," not to mean that God rejected sacrifice, but to mean that he preferred one sort of sacrifice to another.
16 "For what everyone calls a sacrifice," Augustine explains, "is a sign of the true sacrifice. Mercy is, in fact, the true sacrifice."
17 He adds that "all the sacrifices which we read that God commanded to be offered in many ways in the ministry of the tabernacle or the temple are directed to the love of God and of nisi rebus illis eas res fuisse significatas, quae aguntur in nobis, ad hoc ut inhaereamus deo et ad eundem finem proximo consulamus. Sacrificium ergo uisibile inuisibilis sacrificii sacramentum, id est sacrum signum est." 11 Ibid: CCL 47, 277: "Sacrificium Deo spiritus contritus; cor contritum et humiliatum Deus not spernet" (Ps 50:19). 12 Ibid.: "Non uult ergo sacrificium trucidati pecoris, et uult sacrificium contriti cordis." 13 Ibid.: CCL 47, 277–8: "Et in huius prophetae uerbis utrumque distinctum est satisque declaratum illa sacrificia per se ipsa non requirere Deum, quibus significantur haec sacrificia, quae requirit Deus." 14 Micah 6:8 in De ciuitate Dei X, 5: CCL 47, 277: "Aut quid Dominus exquirat a te nisi facere iudicium et diligere misericordiam et paratum esse ire cum Domino Deo tuo." 15 De ciuitate Dei X, 5: CCL 47, 278: "Bene facere ... et communicatores esse noliter obliuisci; talibus enim sacrificiis placetur Deo." 16 Ibid.: "Ac per hoc ubi scriptum est: Misericordiam uolo quam sacrificium nihil aliud quam sacrificium sacrificio praelatum oportet intellegi." 17 Ibid.: "illud, quod ab omnibus appellatur sacrificium, signum est ueri sacrificii. Porro autem misericordia uerum sacrificium est. ..."
18 Hence, at the beginning of chapter six, he says, "Thus true sacrifice is every work by which it is brought about that we cling to God in a holy society, every work, that is, which is directed to that final good by which we can be truly happy."
the neighbor."
19 Augustine adds, "Hence, even an act of mercy itself by which a human being is helped is not a sacrifice if it is not done for the sake of God."
20 Augustine explains, "For even if a human being performs or offers it, sacrifice is, nonetheless, a divine reality (res diuina), so that the ancient Latin people even referred to it by that name."
21 Still later in this chapter Augustine repeats that "true sacrifices are works of mercy either toward ourselves or toward our neighbors that are referred to God."
Augustine's discussion of sacrifice raises several questions: One, did he mean to offer a new definition of "true sacrifice" as an interior act of mercy or love such that visible acts of sacrifice are not genuinely sacrifices? Two, does his definition of sacrifice apply to every work of mercy done on account of God, even if the one who performs the act of mercy is not a Christian? And three, how are many true sacrifices related to the one and only true sacrifice of Christ? For elsewhere Augustine is quite clear that the sacrifice of Christ is the one true sacrifice. For example, in De trinitate IV, xiii, 17, he speaks of Christ's death as "the
18 Ibid.: "Quaecumque igitur in ministerio tabernaculi siue templi multis modis de sacrificiis leguntur diuinitus esse praecepta, ad dilectionem Dei et proximi significando referuntur." 19 Ibid. X, 6: CCL 47, 278: "Proinde uerum sacrificium est omne opus, quo agitur, ut sancta societate inhaereamus Deo, relatum scilicet ad illum finem boni, quo ueraciter beati esse possimus." 20 Ibid.: "Unde et ipsa misericordia, qua homini subuenitur, si non propter Deum fit, non est sacrificium." 21 Ibid.: "Etsi enim ab homine fit uel offertur, tamen sacrificium res diuina est, ita ut hoc quoque uocabulo id Latini ueteres appellauerint." 22 Ibid.: CCL 47, 279: "Cum igitur uera sacrificia opera sint misericordiae siue in nos ipsos siue in proximos, quae referuntur ad Deum. ..."
258 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian
23 and in De spiritu et littera XI, 18, he clearly refers to the Eucharist as "the singular and most true sacrifice."
one most true sacrifice"
II. A New Definition of Sacrifice? In his study of the meaning of "true sacrifice" in this book of De ciuitate Dei, Guy de Broglie has strongly argued that Augustine did not intend to offer a new and better definition of sacrifice, since such a move would imply that the visible sacrifice—"what everyone calls a sacrifice"—is not a true sacrifice. As de Broglie sees it, such a move would, after all, imply that the visible death of Christ on Calvary and the visible offering of the Mass are not "true sacrifices."
25 De Broglie distinguishes three senses in which Augustine uses the term "true" of various things. First, in its basic or elementary meaning the term "true" means that a thing embodies the given idea in the proper sense as opposed to something which embodies it only in an improper or merely apparent sense. With this meaning Augustine spoke, for example, of a "true Catholic" as opposed to a "false Catholic."
26 Second, in its pregnant meaning the term "true" presents as "true" something that not merely realizes the idea in its proper sense, but also possesses such a degree of perfection
23 De trinitate IV, xiii, 17: CCL 50, 164: "Morte sua quippe uno uerissimo sacrificio pro nobis oblato quidquid culparum erat unde nos principatus et potestates ad luenda supplicia iure detinebant purgauit, aboleuit, exstinxit, et sua resurrectione in nouam uitam nos praedestinatos uocauit, uocatos iustificauit, iustificatos glorificauit." 24 De spiritu et littera XI, 18, CSEL 60, 170: "Unde et in ipso uerissimo et singulari sacrificio, Domino Deo nostro, agere gratias admonemur." 25 De Broglie's article, "La notion augustinienne," was written in opposition to the claims of Yves de Montcheuil in Mélanges théologiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946), 49–70, in which de Montcheuil presented, as de Broglie saw it, "le don spirituel que l'homme fait de soi à Dieu par la charité comme le seul 'sacrifice', au sens plein et complet du terme" (de Broglie, "La notion augustinienne," p. 138, note 10). De Broglie saw it as dangerous to suppose "qu'en parlant de 'vrai' sacrifice le grand Docteur entendait nous fournir du 'sacrifice' en tant que tel une définition plus propre, plus profonde et plus satisfaisante que toutes celles auxquelles le vulgaire était préparé à souscrire" (p. 141). For such an interpretation of Augustine would imply that the sacrifice of Calvary and the sacrifice of the Mass were something less than true sacrifices. 26 De Broglie, "La notion augustinienne," p. 144; Augustine, De natura et origine animae III, 2: BA 22, 522.
that the thing is thought to embody the proper sense of the term in a richer or doubled sense. With this meaning the Gospel speaks of Nathaniel as a "true Israelite," and in this sense Augustine says that the only true life is the happy life.
27 Third, in its typological meaning the term "true" transfers to the reality symbolized the name of the symbol. In this sense Christ is not merely called the Lamb of God, but is said to be the true Lamb of God, or the true light, the true manna, and the true vine.
28 Here de Broglie comments, "But nothing is also more in harmony with the Platonic tendencies of the great African Doctor, for whom the interest of the sensible world is reduced—or almost—to that of the spiritual realities that it symbolizes."
29 In this sense, Augustine not only speaks of Christ as the "true light" or of the Church as the "true temple," but claims that "true health" is not what the doctors tell us about and that "true freedom" is what sets us free from slavery to sin.
30 De Broglie claims that the originality of the typological sense of "true" lies in the fact that it in no sense calls into question the appropriateness of the ordinary meaning of the term, though many things that fit that ordinary meaning are said to be less true than some other reality quite different from them and of which they are merely the signs or symbols.
31 When Augustine says that a true sacrifice is what is signified by the visible sacrifice, he is, then, not denying that the visible sacrifice is a sacrifice in the proper sense, but stressing that it is the interior act that in the pregnant sense realizes the proper meaning in a fuller or richer way and that in the typological sense the term "sacrifice," which properly applies to the visible sign, is transferred to the reality symbolized. Though Augustine does not, as de Broglie has shown, deny that the visible sacrifice—"what everyone calls sacrifice"—is properly a sacrifice, he clearly does place the emphasis upon the interior act of the one 27 See Jn 1:47 and Augustine, Enchiridion de fide, spe, et caritate XXIII, 92: CCL 46, 98. 28 See John 1:9, 6:32, 15:1. So too, Heb 8:2 speaks of the true tabernacle. 29 De Broglie, "La notion augustininne," p. 147: "Mais rien aussi n'était plus conforme aux tendances platoniciennes du grand Docteur africain, pour qui l'intérêt du monde sensible se réduit, ou peu s'en faut, à celui des réalités spirituelles qu'il figure." 30 Ibid. See Augustine, De ciuitate Dei XI, 9: CCL 48, 330; Enarrationes in Psalmum 130, 2: CCL 40, 1899; Sermo 385, 6–7: PL 39, 1693–1694. 31 De Broglie, "La notion augustininne," p. 148.
260 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian who offers sacrifice rather than upon the external and visible sign. An examination of the larger context of the discussion of sacrifice can, I believe, provide a plausible explanation of this fact.
III. The Context of the Discussion of
Sacrifice Augustine's discussion of sacrifice in De ciuitate Dei is found in book ten, the final book of the first part of the work which he himself described as "magnum opus et arduum."
32 The context of the definition of sacrifice in this work, which is every bit as large and difficult for the contemporary reader as it was for its author, offers, I believe, a key to understanding what Augustine was about. Its author left explicit instructions in a letter to Firmus, who served as a sort of literary agent for him in Carthage, about how the twenty-two books of the work were to be divided for future publication, if they could not be published as a whole.
33 The bishop explained that the work falls into two parts: the first ten books, which refute the vanities of the unbelievers and the last twelve, which defend the Christian religion.
34 The first five books of the first part argue "against those who maintain that the worship not of the gods, but of demons contributes to the happiness of this life," while the next five argue against "those who think that either such gods or many gods of any sort ought to be worshiped by ceremonies and sacrifices on account of the life that is to come after death."
35 Central to the first ten books, then, is the question of the
32 De ciuitate Dei I, Praefatio: CCL 47, 1. 33 The Letter to Firmus was published for the first time by Dom C. Lambot in "Lettre inédité de saint Augustin relative au 'De Civitate Dei,'" Revue Bénédictine 51 (1939): 109–121; it now numbered as Epistula 1A in CSEL 88. Epistula 2A, one of the letters discovered and first published by Johannes Divjak in 1981 in CSEL 88 and newly edited in BA 46B as Epistula 2*, reveals that the Firmus in question is not, as had been supposed, a Carthaginian priest and disciple of Augustine, but a pagan who was hesitating about receiving baptism. 34 Epistula 1A, 1: CSEL 88, 7: "decem quippe illis uanitates refutatae sunt impiorum, reliquis autem demonstrata atque defensa est nostra religio. ..." 35 Ibid.: "Si autem corpora malueris esse plura quam duo, iam quinque oportet codices facias, quorum primus contineat quinque libros priores quibus aduersus eos est disputatum qui felicitati uitae huius non plane deorum sed daemoniorum cultum prodesse contendunt, secundus sequentes proper object of worship. The final twelve books, on the other hand, describe, in three clusters of four books each, the origin of the two cities, their development, and their ends.
36 The discussion of sacrifice is found in the final, climatic book of the first part. In it Augustine continues to confront the Platonists who had in so many ways hit upon the truth about God and about human existence, though they ultimately rejected the incarnation of the Word. In praise of the Platonists, Augustine says, for example,
We have chosen the Platonists who are rightly the most noble of all the philosophers, precisely because they were able to know that the human soul, though immortal and rational or intellectual, could be happy only by participation in the light of that God who created it and the world, and they claim that none will attain that which all human beings desire, that is, the happy life, unless by the purity of chaste love they cling to that one perfect Good, which is the immutable God.
Augustine's praise for the achievements of the Platonists whose philosophy had earlier made possible the intellectual dimension of his conversion to Catholic Christianity could hardly be more fulsome.
alios quinque <aduersus eos> qui uel tales uel qualescumque plurimos deos propter uitam quae post mortem futura est per sacra et sacrificia colendos putant." 36 Ibid.: "Iam tres alii codices qui sequuntur quaternos libros habere debebunt; sic enim a nobis pars eadem distributa est, ut quattuor ostenderent exortum illius ciuitatis totidemque procursum, siue dicere malumus, excursum, quattuor uero ultimi debitos fines." 37 De ciuitate Dei X, 1: CCL 47, 271–272: "Elegimus enim Platonicos omnium philosophorum merito nobilissimos, propterea quia sapere potuerunt licet inmortalem ac rationalem uel intellectualem hominis animam nisi participato lumine illius Dei, a quo et ipsa et mundus factus est, beatam esse non posse; ita illud, quod omnes homines appetunt, id est uitam beatam, quemquam isti assecuturum negant, qui non illi uni optimo, quod est incommutabilis Deus, puritate casti amoris adhaeserit." 38 For a recent and excellent discussion of the role of the Neoplatonists in Augustine's conversion and intellectual formation, see Robert J. O'Connell, Images of Conversion in St. Augustine's Confessions (New York: Fordham University Press, 1996), especially pp. 93–203 in which O'Connell describes Augustine's gradual absorption of the philosophical insights of the Platonists.
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In book eight he explained that he prefers the Platonists to all other philosophers because they agree with us about the one God who is the author of this universe, who is not only above all bodies insofar as he is incorporeal, but is also above all souls insofar as he is incorruptible, who is our principle, our light, our good.
Later in book ten Augustine even credits Porphyry with having come to a knowledge of "God the Father and God the Son, whom he called in Greek the paternal Intellect or paternal Mind,"
40 and with having admitted the need for grace for those few who come to God by the power of their intelligence.
41 In fact, according to Augustine, Porphyry acknowledged that a universal way for the liberation of the soul existed, though he had not found it—the way that Augustine maintained is found in the Christian religion and that is ultimately the Way, Christ himself.
42 On the other hand, Augustine clearly reproaches Porphyry for refusing to accept the incarnation of the Son of God, the one mediator between God and human beings, the one Way by whom alone we are to be saved.
In the beginning of book ten, Augustine is engaged in confrontation with the Platonists on the subject of sacrifice. Though they agreed with the Christians that human happiness is only to be found in clinging
39 De ciuitate Dei VIII, 10: CCL 47, 277: "In quo autem nobis consentiunt de uno Deo huius uniuersitatis auctore, qui non solum super omnia corpora est incorporeus, uerum etiam super omnes animas incorruptibilis, principium nostrum, lumen nostrum, bonum nostrum, in hoc eos ceteris anteponimus." See also my "Ultimate Reality according to Augustine of Hippo," Journal of Ultimate Reality and Meaning 18 (1995): 20–33. 40 De ciuitate Dei X, 22: CCL 47, 296: "Dicet enim Deum Patrem et Deum Filium, quem Graece appellat paternum intellectum uel paternam mentem. ..." 41 De ciuitate Dei X, 29: CCL 47, 304: "Confiteris tamen gratiam, quando quidem ad Deum per uirtutem intelligentiae peruenire paucis dicis esse concessum." 42 De ciuitate Dei X, 32: CCL 47, 309–311: "Haec est religio, quae uniuersalem continet uiam animae liberandae, quoniam nulla nisi hac liberari potest. ... Unde tanto post ex Abrahae semine carne suscepta de se ipso ait ipse Saluator: Ego sum uia, ueritas et uita." 43 De ciuitate Dei X, 29: CCL 47, 304: "sed incarnationem incommutablis Filii Dei qua salvamur ... non uultis agnoscere."
to the one God, which is the goal of sacrifice in Augustine's definition, they, nonetheless, held that in some cases immortal spirits inferior to God deserved the worship that Greek Christians called latreia, the worship which is owed only to the one true God.
44 Against this view Augustine argues that any immortal spirit that worships God and loves us will not want to be worshiped in place of God and that any such spirit that does not worship God is wretched and undeserving of our worship. Moreover, whatever may be the case with other acts of worship, Augustine argues that "no one would dare to claim that sacrifice ought to be offered to anyone but God."
45 He also argues that God has no need of the sacrifices we offer him, whether these be the animal sacrifices of the Old Law or the sacrifice of our own righteousness, for everything we do as part of the correct worship of God benefits us, not God. Augustine then explains, as we have seen above, that the animal sacrifices offered by the patriarchs signified the same actions that we carry out in order that we might cling to God and bring our neighbor to that same end. And there follows his definition of true sacrifice as "every work by which it is brought about so that we cling to God in a holy society, every work, that is, which is referred to that ultimate good by which we can be truly happy."
46 Given that definition, Augustine goes on to list things that are sacrifices and, in fact, true sacrifices.
IV. Examples of True Sacrifices Augustine first offers three examples of true sacrifices. First, he states that "a human being consecrated by God's name and dedicated to God insofar as one dies to the world in order to live for God is a sacrifice. For this belongs to the mercy one shows to oneself."
47 Second, our body
44 Augustine discusses at length the lack of a single Latin term suitable to translate latria and points out the shortcomings of cultus, servitus, religio, and pietas. See De ciuitate Dei X, 1: CLL 47, 271–274. 45 De ciuitate Dei X, 4: CCL 47, 276: "Nam, ut alia nunc taceam, quae pertinent ad religionis obsequium, quo colitur Deus, sacrificium certe nullus hominum est qui audeat dicere deberi nisi Deo." 46 De ciuitate Dei X, 6: CCL 47, 278: "Proinde uerum sacrificium est omne opus, quo agitur, ut sancta societate inhaereamus Deo, relatum scilicet ad illum finem boni, quo ueraciter beati esse possimus." 47 De ciuitate Dei X, 6: CCL 47, 278: "Unde ipse homo Dei nomine consecratus et Deo uotus, in quantum mundo moritur ut Deo uiuat, sacrificium est. Nam et hoc ad misericordiam pertinet, quam quisque in se ipsum facit."
264 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian is a sacrifice, when we chastise it with temperance "if we do this as we ought on account of God so that we do not offer our members to sin as weapons of wickedness, but to God as weapons of righteousness."
48 So too, and for even better reasons, our soul is a sacrifice when it is offers itself to God so that, enkindled with the fire of his love, it loses the form of worldly love and is reformed for him, now subject to the immutable Form and pleasing to him because it has received some of its beauty.
Each of these sacrifices, whether of the whole human being, or of the body, or of the soul, might at first glance seem to involve nothing specifically Christian, even though the mention of each of these sacrifices is followed by a text of scripture that justifies our calling it a sacrifice. Yet this absence of anything specifically Christian is more apparent than real, for the words "consecrated by God's name" connote baptism, as a search of the Augustinian corpus readily shows.
50 Moreover, Augustine wrote De ciuitate Dei during the height of the Pelagian controversy so that, when he mentioned the virtue of temperance, he certainly had in mind the Christian virtue that was rooted in faith and in the love of God poured out in the heart by the Holy Spirit.
51 Yet, there is nothing in the description of these sacrifices that a non-Christian
48 De ciuitate Dei X, 6: CCL 47, 278: "Corpus etiam nostrum cum temperantia castigamus, si hoc, quem ad modum debemus, propter Deum facimus, ut non exhibeamus membra nostra arma iniquitatis peccato, sed arma iustitiae Deo, sacrificium est." 49 De ciuitate Dei X, 6: CCL 47, 278: "quanto magis anima ipsa cum se refert ad Deum, ut igne amoris eius accensa formam concupiscentiae saecularis amittat eique tamquam incommutabili formae subdita reformetur, hinc ei placens, quod ex eius pulchritudine acceperit, fit sacrificium!" 50 See, for example, Epistula 23, 4: CSEL 34/1, 67: "Cur non dicis: ego unum baptismum noui Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti nomine consecratum atque signatum; hanc formam ubi inuenio, necesse est ut adprobem; non destruo, quod dominicum agnosco, non exsufflo uexillum regis mei?" or Sermo 352: PL 39, 1551: 40: "Sed quia baptismus, id est, salutis aqua non est salutis, nisi Christi nomine consecrata, qui pro nobis sanguinem fudit, cruce ipsius aqua signatur." 51 See De nuptiis et concupiscentia I, iv, 5: CSEL 42: 216, for Augustine's use of Rom 14:23 and Heb 11:6 to argue that there is no true virtue without faith. The fact that the specifically Christian elements are understated rather than explicit may explain how O'Grady missed them; see above note 9.
would necessarily find unacceptable. I want to suggest that Augustine emphasized the interior and spiritual character of true sacrifice as part of his strategy to convert contemporary Platonists to Christianity and specifically to the worship of the Christian God in the Church. I suggest that a Platonist exploring the possibility of becoming a Christian would not necessarily find anything off-putting or incompatible with Platonic spiritualism at its best. Later in book ten Augustine mentions certain people who wanted to offer visible sacrifices to the lesser gods, but wanted to offer to the one God who is invisible, who is the greatest and the best, only the invisible sacrifices of a pure mind and a good will. There the bishop of Hippo insists that visible sacrifices are the symbols of invisible offerings and that "visible sacrifice must be offered only to him to whom we ourselves ought to be an invisible sacrifice in our hearts."
52 Gerald Bonner suggests that Porphyry is the "most obvious subject of these remarks" and points to a saying ascribed to Apollonius of Tyana which Porphyry cites to the effect that "the highest god has no need of sacrifices at all, and that the only fitting offering is man's reason."
53 Bonner rightly, I believe, concludes that, though Augustine was influenced by Neoplatonic thought, "It is not necessary, and may indeed be positively misleading, to emphasize that influence at the expense of the more obviously immediate influence of the Bible, on which his mature theology is fundamentally based."
54 What I would like to suggest, on the other hand, is that Augustine's emphasis upon the interior and invisible forms of sacrifice in De ciuitate Dei is not due so much to his being under the influence by Neoplatonist thinking as to his concern to present the Christian understanding of sacrifice in a way that would be most acceptable to some contemporaries who were deeply attracted to the spiritualism of
52 De ciuitate Dei X, 19: CCL 47, 293: "ita sacrificantes non alteri uisibile sacrificium offerendum esse nouerimus quam illi, cuius in cordibus nostris inuisibile sacrificium nos ipsi debemus." 53 Bonner, "The Doctrine of Sacrifice," p. 102, where he refers to Prophyry's De abstinentia II, 34. See Porphyre. De l'abstinence II. Livres II et III, ed. and tr. J. Bouffartique and M. Patillon (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1979), 100–101: quvsomen toivnun kai; hjmei`~. ajlla; quvsomen, wJ~ proshvkei. ... dia; de; sigh`~ kaqara`~ kai; tw`n peri; aujtou` kaqarw`n ejnnoiw`n qrhskeuvomen aujtovn. 54 Bonner, "The Doctrine of Sacrifice," p. 104.
266 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian
Platonism. In his recent study of De ciuitate Dei Johannes van Oort has argued that the work was basically a work of Christian apologetics meant to prepare converts—educated ones, we must suppose—for the reception of baptism.
55 In this light, one can maintain, I believe, that, while in no sense being unfaithful to the understanding of sacrifice he learned in the teachings of scripture and in the writing of such patristic authors as Tertullian and Cyprian,
56 Augustine may have emphasized the spiritual and interior character of the Christian understanding of sacrifice in a way that would allow contemporary Platonists to see that Christianity was capable of incorporating the highest ideals of Platonic spiritualism.
V. The Universal Sacrifice After the three examples of true sacrifice, Augustine repeats his claim that "true sacrifices are works of mercy, whether toward ourselves or toward our neighbors, which are offered to God," and points out that "works of mercy have no other purpose than that we may be set free from misery and, in this way, be happy."
57 He adds that we can be happy only by clinging to God. Hence, he concludes that the whole redeemed city, that is, the assembly and society of the saints, is offered to God as the universal sacrifice through the great priest who also offered himself for us in his Passion in the form of the servant so that we might be the body of so great a head.
55 Johannes Van Oort, Jerusalem and Babylon: A Study into Augustine's City of God and the Sources of the Doctrine of the Two Cities (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), especially Chapter Three: "The 'City of God' as an Apology and a Catechetical Work." See pages 173–175 where Van Oort points to Letter 2* in which Augustine urges Firmus to enter the city of God by baptism if he wants to enjoy the fruits of the work: "neque enim ille fructus est eorum, quod delectant legentem, nec ille, quod multa faciunt scire nescientem, sed ille, quod ciuitatem dei persuadent vel incunctanter intrandam uel perserueranter habitandam" (Epistola 2*, 3: BA 46B, 64). 56 For the influence of Tertullian and Cyprian upon Augustine's thought on sacrifice, see once again Bonner, "The Doctrine of Sacrifice," pp. 107–111. 57 De ciuitate Dei X, 6: CCL 47, 279: "Cum igitur uera sacrificia opera sint misericordiae siue in nos ipsos siue in proximos, quae referuntur ad Deum; opera uero misericordiae non ob aliud fiant, nisi ut a miseria liberemur ac per hoc ut beati simus. ..." 58 De ciuitate Dei X, 6: CCL 47, 279: "profecto efficitur, ut tota ipsa redempta ciuitas, hoc est congregatio societasque sanctorum, uniuersale sacrificium
The truly great work of mercy, then, is the work of our salvation, the universal sacrifice by which we are set free from the misery of sin and reconciled to God through the great priest.
59 In all his writings Augustine used the expression "universal sacrifice" only in this passage, and the most frequent use of the "universalis" in all his works is as adjective with "via" in the same book of De ciuitate Dei.
60 Such a pattern of usage suggests that Augustine linked in his mind the universal sacrifice with the universal way, the existence of which Porphyry acknowledged, but did not discover, and which Augustine knew was the incarnate Christ. Again we have evidence that in his discussion of sacrifice Augustine has the great Platonist in mind, not, of course, to convert Porphyry, but to nudge contemporary Platonists, those who were in agreement with the Christians on so many important points, to take the step and enter the city of God and become part of the universal sacrifice that is the people of God. Such, after all, was Augustine's message to Firmus in Letter 2*.
offeratur deo per sacerdotem magnum, qui etiam se ipsum obtulit in passione pro nobis, ut tanti capitis corpus essemus, secundum formam serui." 59 In "Das Opfer Christi," Basil Studer points out the puzzling fact that Augustine does not explicitly apply his definition of sacrifice to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. He says, for example, "Es ist schwer auszumachen, warum Augustin selbst nicht auf die naheliegende Möglichkeit aufmerksam geworden ist, seinen ohne Zweifel persönich tiefempfundenen Opferbegriff auf das Verständnis des Sterbens Christi auzudehnen" (p. 104). He does not explicitly apply his definition to Christ's death, I suggest, because he sees that death as the chief part of the universal sacrifice by which the whole Christ, head and body, is offered to the Father. 60 The adjective "universalis" appears in Augustine's works 75 times. It occurs most frequently with "via"—19 times and 18 of these in book ten of De ciuitate Dei where the context is Porphyry's search for a universal way of salvation. Sixteen times the adjective accompanies "concilium," and another 6 times "ecclesia." 61 Epistula 2*, 3: BA 42B, 62–64: "Nam quod in alia tua epistola te ab accipiendo sacramento regenerationis excusas, totum tot librorum quos amas fructum recusas; neque enim ille fructus est eorum, quod delectant legentem, nec ille, quod multa faciunt scire nescientem, sed ille, quod ciuitatem dei persuadent uel incunctanter intrandam uel perseueranter habitandam; quorum duorum primum regeneratione, secundum iustitiae dilectione confertur."
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Yves de Montcheuil commented on the meaning of "opus" in Augustine's definition of sacrifice with these insightful words,
If we take things from the point of view of human history in its entirety, as God sees them, we must say that there is but one sole sacrifice in the complete sense: the act by which predestined humanity . . . passes from the sin in which it is found to the full reality of salvation. "Opus"—"the great work" of human history, that by which humanity attains its goal: "that we cling to God in a holy society," so that we may be truly happy.
This universal sacrifice, then, is not merely a work of mercy, but the one all-inclusive work of mercy, because it is the sacrifice that Jesus Christ offered on Calvary in the form of the servant as the head of his body, the Church, and which is re-presented in each Eucharistic sacrifice. Christ as head offered that sacrifice in the form of the servant so that the whole city of God might as his body be the universal sacrifice offered to God.
63 In accord with his theme of the unity of sacrament and sacrifice, de Montcheuil adds,
"A work" that is broken down into a series of "works," because humanity itself is made up of distinct and successive human beings, because each human beings is also subject to time and it is not by one single "action" that one realizes perfect society with God. ...
62 Yves de Montcheuil, "L'unité du sacrifice et du sacrement dans l'Eucharistie," in Mélanges théologiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946), p. 51: "Si nous prenons les choses du point de vue de l'histoire humaine dans son ensemble, comme Dieu les voit, nous devons dire qu'il n'y a qu'un seul sacrifice au sens total: l'acte par lequel l'humanité prédestinée ... passe du péché où elle se trouve à la consommation du salut. 'Opus', 'grand oeuvre' de l'historie humaine, celui par lequel l'humanité parvient à sa fin: 'ut sancta societate inhaereamus Deo,' en sorte qu'elle soit vraiment heureuse." 63 The Latin "societas" in Augustine definition of sacrifice, which has often been translated into English as "fellowship," loses the power of the Latin term, which here clearly refers to the whole Christ, the City of God, for there is no other "sancta societas qua inhaereamus Deo." See Donald J. Keefe, Covenantal Theology: The Eucharistic Order of History. 2 vols. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), II, p. 369. 64 Ibid.: "'Opus' qui se décompose en une série d''opera', parce que l'humanité se compose elle-même d'hommes distincts et successifs, parce qu'aussi chaque homme est soumis au temps, et que ce n'est pas par une seule 'action' qu'il réalise sa société parfaite avec Dieu. ..." Yves de Montcheuil, SJ, a member of the faculty of the Institut Catholique de Paris, was executed
In his discussion of sacrifice in book ten Augustine mentions the sacrifice of Calvary only here, and he does not explicitly say that it is an act of mercy, though it is surely implied.
65 The sacrifice of Calvary is THE work of mercy, the work of our redemption by which we are reconciled to God, for as Augustine puts it in book ten: "Human being are, after all, separated from God only by sins, which in this life are washed away not by our strength, but by God's compassion, by his pardon, not by our power. ..."
66 And he explains, "the forgiveness of sins is brought about in him as priest and sacrifice, that is, through the mediator of God and human beings, the man Jesus Christ, through whom we are reconciled to God by the washing away of sins."
67 Because Augustine stressed the reality of the unity between Christ the head and his members, he saw every act of mercy performed by a member of the whole Christ as part of that universal sacrifice, the great act of mercy offered by Christ to reconcile us to the Father.
on the night of August 10–11, 1944 at Vecors, France, after his capture during a Nazi attack upon a group of young resistance fighters. He was visiting the group during his summer vacation in order to provide them with some spiritual care. During the attack he remained behind with the wounded and was subsequently executed—an end which surely fits the Augustinian characterisation of sacrifice as a work of mercy toward other human beings for the sake of God. See the Préface to Melanges théologiques, 7–12, by H[enri] de L[ubac]. 65 See Basil Studer, "Das Opfer Christi," 95. 66 De ciuitate Dei X, 22: CCL 47, 296: "Non enim nisi peccatis homines separantur a deo, quorum in hac uita non fit nostra uirtute, sed diuina miseratione purgatio, per indulgentiam illius, non per nostram potentiam. ..." 67 De ciuitate Dei X, 22: CCL 47, 296: "in ipso sacerdote ac sacrificio fieret remissio peccatorum, id est per mediatorem dei et hominum, hominem christum iesum, per quem facta peccatorum purgatione reconciliamur deo." 68 The theme of the whole Christ (totus Christus) underlies the unity of the many acts of sacrifice with the one sacrifice of Christ. See, for example, Enarrationes in Psalmum 26, enar. 2, 2: CCL 38, 155: "Sacrificium obtulit Deo non aliud quam seipsum. Non enim inueniret praeter se mundissimam rationalem uictimam, tamquam agnus immaculatus fuso sanguine suo redimens nos, concorporans nos sibi, faciens nos membra sua, ut in illo et nos Christus essemus. . . . Inde autem apparet Christi corpus nos esse, quia omnes ungimur; et omnes in illo et christi et Christus sumus, quia quodammodo totus Christus caput et corpus est."
The Image and Likeness of God In
St. Augustine's De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus A ugustine began De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus around 393. 1 He tells us in Retractationes 1,18 that he wanted to try his hand at the arduous task of a literal interpretation of Genesis, but that he was still a novice in Scriptural exegesis and was unable to carry out his project. Augustine did, however, manage to work his way through the first chapter of Genesis up to verse 26, "And God said, 'Let us make man to our image and likeness.'" And with that verse he gave up on a literal interpretation of the text. In reviewing his works in 427 he came upon this unfinished and unpublished work and intended to destroy it since he had written the twelve books of De Genesi ad litteram in the intervening years. After examining it, however, he decided to preserve it as "a useful indication" of his first attempts at Scriptural interpretation.
2 Little attention has been paid to the Liber imperfectus, which has been rightly overshadowed by the twelve books of De Genesi ad litteram, to which Augustine refers us in order to judge what he might have found unsatisfactory or worth defending in the unfinished commentary.
3 Though for Augustine's considered views on Genesis we must turn to his later masterpiece, for understanding the development of his thought it is at least equally important to examine his first efforts and those points at which "in explaining the Scriptures [his] novice efforts collapsed beneath the magnitude of the burden."
4 The final sections of this unfinished work are, I think, especially interesting for the study of the development of Augustine's thought. In 16, 55–60 Augustine presents an interpretation of Gen 1:26 in accord with which the Word, the only-begotten Son, is the Image and Like-
1 See G. Bardy, Les Revisions, BA 12, p. 571. 2 See Retractationes 1, 18. 3 Retractationes 1, 18. 4 Ibid.
272 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian ness of God the Father, while man is made unto or according to this Image and Likeness, that is, unto or according to the Son or Word. Du Roy has pointed out that the preposition "ad" has a twofold sense, signifying both an orientation or movement of return to the principle and a relation of resemblance.
5 Furthermore, though all of creation participates in the Likeness and is made through the Image and Likeness of God, only man in his rational mind is also made "ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei." Hence, man's likeness to God is understood in terms of his participation in and orientation toward the Likeness, who is the Word and the Son of the Father.
Augustine later came to reject this interpretation of "unto the image and likeness of God," replacing this anagogical approach to the economic Trinity with an analogical approach to the immanent Trinity—a change that Du Roy claims had grave consequences for Augustine's intellectus fidei with regard to the Trinity.
7 In this paper I first examine Augustine's interpretation of "ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei."
5 "Le 'ad' signifie donc à la fois une relation particulière de resemblance ('selon') et une orientation, un mouvement de retour vers le Principe, l'Unité, mouvement pour lequel nous ne trouvons pas de préposition adéquate en français ('a', 'vers')." (See Olivier du Roy, L'intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin: Genèse de sa théologie iusqu'en 391 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1966), p. 361. One might add that we do not have a single preposition in English either that does justice to the senses of the Latin. The Greek has kat' eikona kai homoiosin, which would be more literally translated into Latin as secundum imaginem et similitudinem, thus bringing out man's being formed to or in accord with the Image. In any case Augustine clearly saw man's being made ad imaginem et similitudinem as his being conformed to the Son; see De diversis quaestionibus 83, qu. 23 (cited below, p. 8). 6 Augustine derived this interpretation of Gen 1:26 from Origen, it seems, via the preaching of Ambrose. For example, in Contra Celsum 6, 63, "Eita phēsin ho Kelsos mē enidōn tēi diaphorai tou 'kat' eikōna theou' kai 'tēs eikōnos autou.'" See Gerald A. McCool, SJ, "The Ambrosian Origin of St. Augustine's Theology of the Image of God in Man," Theological Studies 20 (1959): 62–81. For Origen's doctrine on man as kat' eikona, see Henri Crouzel, SJ, Théologie de l'image de Dieu chez Origène (Paris: Aubier, 1956) and Origène (Paris: Lethielleux, 1985), especially pp. 130–137. 7 "Ce changement aura de graves conséquences sur son intellectus fidei de la Trinité car, venant à point pour le sortir des impasses de l'anagogie trinitaire (où on va au Pere par le Fils), elle va l'acheminer à la théologie analogique de l'image trinitaire en l'homme. Et au fur et à mesure que celle-ci se pré-
The Image and Likeness of God
in De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus. Then I suggest an explanation of why Augustine gave up on his project of a literal interpretation of Genesis at this point. Finally, I suggest even more tentatively some reasons why he gave up this view of man as made unto or according to the Image. In dealing with Gen 1:26, Augustine notes that an image is always like that of which it is an image, but that not everything like something else is an image of that other thing. For X to be an image of Y, X must be like Y and be derived from Y. Why then does Genesis say "image and likeness" since an image cannot fail to be a likeness? Augustine tentatively suggests that something like (simile) and likeness (similitudo) differ as someone chaste and chastity or someone brave and bravery. Thus likeness is that by which all like things are like, as chastity is that by which all chaste things are chaste. Hence, an image of us is not properly our likeness, though it is like us. Rather, Augustine continues, the likeness by which all like things are like is found where there is the chastity by which all chaste things are chaste. This likeness is in God where there is that wisdom that is not wise by participation, but by participation in which every wise soul is wise.
Hence, the Likeness of God, through which all things were made, is properly called likeness, because it is like not by participating in some likeness, but it itself is the first Likeness, by participation in which whatever things God has made through it are like.
Hence, "image" signifies origination or generation from the Father, and "likeness" signifies that the Image is not merely like, but Likeness itself.
As nothing is more chaste than chastity itself and nothing more wise than wisdom itself and nothing more beautiful than beauty itself, so nothing can be said or can be thought or can be more like than likeness itself. Thus we understand that the Father's likeness is so like him that it fully and perfectly embodies his nature.
This Likeness of God, through which all things have been made, is able to impose its form (species) upon every nature, for every nature cisera, c'est le lien économique avec la Trinité créatrice et salvatrice qui ira en s'affaiblissant" (Du Roy, L'intelligence, p. 358). 8 H. Somers points out the anti-Arian tenor and roots of this position. See H. Somers, SJ, "Image de Dieu. Les sources de l'exégèse augustinienne," Revue des études augustiniennes 7 (1961) 105–125.
274 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian has parts like each other. Augustine argues that in order that an individual thing be one of the elements, e.g., fire or air, each of its parts must be like the rest. So too, he claims that any body whether animate or inanimate must be like others of its kind and have parts like one another, and such bodies are more beautiful in proportion to the greater likeness of their parts. So too, friendship between souls is built up by like conduct, and in an individual soul constancy demands like actions and virtues, which, in turn, are the marks of happiness. Thus the universe is composed of things that are like, but they are not the Likeness, through which they were all made. All things have been made through the wisdom of God, but only souls—and not cattle, trees and inanimate elements—are called wise.
9 So too, only the rational substance is made both through the Likeness and unto the Likeness. For there is no nature that comes between the rational substance and the Likeness.
10 Though it is aware of this only in its purest and happiest state, the human mind clings to nothing but the truth itself, which is called the Father's likeness and image and wisdom. Augustine briefly entertains the idea that man's body bears a likeness to God insofar as, being erect, he is not turned away from heaven, just as the Likeness is not turned away from the Father.
11Yet he notes that our body is very different from heaven, while the Likeness that is the Son is in no respect unlike the Father. "Whatever other things are like each other are unlike in some respect, but the Likeness itself is in no respect unlike." The Father is only the Father, and the Son is only the Son. When the Son is said to be the Likeness of the Father, we see that no unlikeness enters in, and yet the Father is not alone, if he has the Likeness. At this point Augustine left the work unfinished until the time of the Retractationes; then he repeated Gen 1:26 and added,
9 Likeness extends to everything that God has made, just as, in De libero arbitrio 2, 11, 31 number extends to all things, while wisdom is limited to souls. 10 See Paul Aubin, "L'Image dans l'oeuvre de Plotin," Recherches de science religieuse 41 (1953): 348–379, for elements in Plotinus's treatment of image and likeness that surely influenced Augustine's thought. 11 This interpretation was almost a commonplace in ancient literature. It is also found in Augustine's writings from early to late. See H. Somers., "L'image de Dieu," pp. 112–114 for the texts in Augustine and for a list of secular and patristic authors in which the theme is found.
What we have written above sufficiently explains these words of Scripture, "Let us make man to our image and likeness," so that the likeness of God, unto which man was made, can be understood as the very Word of God, that is, the only-begotten Son, not, of course, that [man] is the same image and likeness equal to the Father.
From 1 Cor11:7 Augustine sees that a man (vir) is the image of God, though he adds, "This image made unto the Image of God is not equal to and coeternal with him, of whom he is the image, and it would not be, even if he had not sinned." Thus, man himself is clearly called the image of God and is not merely made unto the Image, that is, unto the Son of God. Still not satisfied, Augustine insists that the preferable meaning in this passage involves our taking account of the plurals, "faciamus" and "nostram." "For man was made to the image not of the Father alone or of the Son alone or of the Holy Spirit alone, but to the image of the Trinity."
Hence, Augustine argues that God did not say to the Son, "Let us make man unto your image," or "unto my image," but in the plural, "unto our image and likeness," and we should not remove the Holy Spirit from that plurality. Hence, we should understand the singular in the next line of Genesis, "And God made man to the image of God," not as if God the Father made man to the image of God, that is, of his Son. "Otherwise, how could the words, 'to our image' be true, if man was made to the image of the Son alone?" Hence, Augustine insists that the words "to the image of God" should be understood as "to his own image," because God is the Trinity.
Hence, the apparent reasons for Augustine's dropping his earlier interpretation of Gen 1:26, which du Roy refers to as the anagogical approach to the economic Trinity are, first, that 1 Cor 11:7 speaks of man as the image of God and, second, that "nostram" demands that man was made to the image of God the Trinity. Initially, Augustine does not claim that the first interpretation is wrong, but only that the
12 Augustine notes that some have thought that man was originally created to the image of God and will attain the likeness of God in the resurrection of the body. Clement of Alexandria similarly reports that there are "among us those who think that man received the image by his very origin, while he will receive the likeness later by being made perfect" (Stromata 2, 22). Augustine scorns the idea of an image that is in no way like what it images, but invokes the authority of James the Apostle to avoid the appearance of relying on reason alone (James 3:9).
276 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian second is preferable (potius eligendus), but ultimately he implies that "ad imaginem nostram" could not be true, if man was made to the image of the Son. Augustine had previously commented on Gen 1:26 in De Genesi contra Manichaeos; there he was concerned primarily with warding off the anthropomorphic interpretation with which the Manichees charged Catholic believers.
13 At that point Augustine regarded the image and likeness of God as lying in the incorporeal human mind in virtue of which man is superior to the other animals, but there is no hint that he thought of the Word as the Image and Likeness, unto or according to which man was made. Yet in Soliloquia 1, 1, 4 Augustine prays to the Father, "who made man to your (tuam) image and likeness," thus leaving the text at least open to this meaning. And in De vera religione 43, 81 Augustine clearly identifies the image and likeness with the Son, while 26:49 links man's perfect form that he will attain in eternal life with his being made unto the image and likeness of God. Hence, in some of his earliest writings we find God's image and likeness identified with the Son so that man's being made unto the image and likeness of God is his being made unto and according to the Son. What then led Augustine to break off his commentary on Genesis at this point? It seems reasonable to suppose that he was encountering difficulties in giving a literal interpretation of the creation of man to the image and likeness of God.
14 Yet up to the point where the original text breaks off, there is no sign of a problem, none of the hesitancy and doubt that he expressed on so many previous points. Why then did he break off his exegesis at this point? I suggest that the problem that led Augustine to break off his first literal exposition of Genesis lay, not in 1:26, but in 1:27, specifically in the words, "male and female he created them." Why should that verse bring to a halt the literal interpretation of the text? Because at that point Augustine thought that man as he was created by God was an
13 For further evidence on this point, see Somers, "Image de Dieu," pp. 111112, which cites texts on this theme from Origen, Chrysostom, Basil and Ambrose; see also my "The Aim of Augustine's Proof that God Truly Is," International Philosophical Quarterly 26 (1986): 253–268, especially 255– 257, for Augustine's concern with the anthropomorphism in the African church. 14 He did, after all, admit that he collapsed under the burden of literally interpreting Genesis; see Retractationes 1, 18.
incorporeal soul with at most a spiritual body such that a literal interpretation of the two sexes was impossible.
15 After all, when Augustine dealt with Gen 1:27 in De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1, 19, 30, he maintained that we certainly may interpret this verse and the subsequent blessing "spiritually so that we believe it was turned into carnal fecundity after sin."
16 In speaking of "the chaste union of male and female" and "the spiritual offspring of intelligible and immortal joys," he anticipates the allegorical interpretation that he will give in De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2, 12, 16 of Gen 2, where man and woman are seen as the contemplative and active sides of the incorporeal soul. Moreover, Augustine's clear debt to Ambrose's Hexaemeron on other points regarding the doctrine of man as made unto God's Image suggests that he may here too be following Ambrose who emphasizes that man was made unto the image and likeness of God in his incorporeal soul or mind, while passing over Gen 1:27.
17 Furthermore, Augustine directed us to De Genesi ad litteram for what he approved and disapproved in the Liber imperfectus.
18 In 3.22.34 Augustine returns to Gn 1:26-27 and mentions that some exegetes have interpreted Gn 2 as describing the formation of man's body, while they held that Gn 1:26-27 refers to the creation of his spirit. 19 Of these he says, "They do not realize that making them male and female is possible only with respect to the body." Augustine does mention a subtle interpretation that explains "male and female" as referring to the contemplative and
15 For further evidence on the claim that Augustine viewed man before the fall as an incorporeal soul with at most a spiritual body, see Robert O'Connell, The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), especially the chapter on De libero arbitrio III. 16 See my "Spirituals and Spiritual Interpretation in St. Augustine," Augustinian Studies 15 (1984): 65–81, especially 75–77, for the claim that to interpret a text spiritually involves understanding terms that seem to signify corporeal realities as signifying incorporeal or spiritual realities. 17 See Ambrose, Hexaemeron 3, 7, 32 and 6, 7, 40–8.48 (CSEL 32.1, pp. 80 and 231–240). 18 See Retractationes 1.18. 19 Augustine mentions this position in De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2, 7, 9 without any sign of disapproval. Somers, "Image de Dieu," pp. 116–117, cites Basil's De structura hominis 2, as a possible, though indirect, source of this idea.
278 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian active sides of the incorporeal soul; however, such an interpretation, which was his own in De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.12.16 is certainly not a literal interpretation of the text. Hence, I suggest that, because he viewed man as God created him as a soul who fell into his mortal body only after sin, he was unable to continue with a literal interpretation of Genesis when confronted with "male and female he created them." Hence, at this point he left his work unfinished.
Why did Augustine come to reject this interpretation of Gen 1:26? There is, of course, his professed reasons, namely, that he did not see how Genesis could employ the plurals, "faciamus"and "nostram," if God made man to the image of the Son. However, there may be a better explanation that can be teased from the texts. In De diversis quaestionibus 83, qu. 23, Augustine again takes up the participation theme in much the same language as in the Liber imperfectus passage. That is, Augustine uses Plato's argument from Phaedo that, if something varies in its essential elements, then it does not have them from itself.
21Augustine says,
Therefore, those things which are like by participation admit unlikeness, but likeness itself can in no way be unlike in any respect. The result is that, when the Son is called the likeness of the Father, he cannot in any respect be unlike the Father. (For whatever things are like either among themselves or to God are like by participation in [the likeness], since it is the first species by which they are, so to speak, specified and the form by which all things are formed). He is then the same as the Father though he is the Son and the
20 Further support for this contention might be derived from Confessions 13, 24, 37 where Augustine again gives a spiritual interpretation to the command to increase and multiply, which he interprets in terms of the multiplicity of senses of Scripture. Moreover, Augustine had early held that "we would not have any such temporal relationships which arise by being born or dying, if our nature remained in the precepts and image of God and was not dismissed to this corruption" (De vera religione 46, 88). In Retractationes 1, 10, 2 Augustine completely disapproved of the idea implied in De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1, 19, 30 that the first parents would not have had children, had they not sinned. So too, in Retractationes 1, 13, 8, commenting on the above text from De vera religione, Augustine admits that at that time he "had not yet seen that it was possible that offspring not destined to die would be born from parents not destined to die, if human nature were not changed for the worse by that great sin." 21 Phaedo100d–102a.
other is the Father, that is, he is the likeness, and the other the one whose likeness he is. He is substance and the other one is substance, though there is one substance. For if [the substance] is not one, the likeness admits unlikeness, and every true reasoning rejects this possibility.
Earlier in this question Augustine had argued that everything chaste is chaste by chastity, everything beautiful is beautiful by beauty, and so on with regard to goodness, eternity and wisdom. In the case of wisdom, he tells us, God is wise not by participation in wisdom, "but because he generated that wisdom by which he is said to be wise." Now, if he generated the wisdom by which he is said to be wise, it would seem that the Father also generated the likeness by which he, i.e., the Father, is said to be like. That is, the Father is surely just as much likeness as is the Son. What we are faced with is a confusion of essential and personal terms. In dealing with this passage in the Retractationes 1,26, 2, Augustine simply points out that he dealt with this question better in De trinitate 6, 2, 3. By that time he had worked out the theory of the trinitarian relations and had at hand such lapidary formulae as, "Whatever then they are said to be non-relatively, the one is not said to be without the other, that is, whatever they are said to be that manifests their substance, they are both said to be," and "Only what both of them are not cannot be said of them in the formula, X from X. Thus we cannot say: Word from Word, since both are not the Word, but only the Son is." The point is that at the time of the Liber imperfectus and De diversis quaestionibus 83 Augustine had not yet worked out the doctrine of trinitarian relations.
22 Hence, he could speak of the Son as the Likeness, though later he came to see that likeness is an essential term. Furthermore, it seems that Augustine was exploiting most explicitly at this period a doctrine of participation. And while participation dif-
22 In his classic study, S. Augustin et la pensée grecque: Les relations trinitaires (Fribourg: Librairie de l'université, 1940, Irenée Chevalier holds that the whole of the De trinitate was written between 400 and 419 and dates Books V–VII, the central books on the doctrine of the relations, between 413 and 416. O'Connell argues for a later date for the beginning of the work, namely, 404, and argues that it was not the doctrine of relations that held up the completion of the work, but problems with the origin of the soul; see Later Works, pp.177–178.
280 Augustine Of Hippo: Philosopher, Exegete & Theologian
23 That is, I tentatively suggest that without a clear idea of efficient causality and without having worked out the trinitarian relations, it was possible for Augustine to link man's being made unto the Image of God with the Son in a way that was no longer possible once he had worked out the doctrine of the trinitarian relations and once he had come to a clearer grasp of efficient causality and had come to see that the effects of the divine efficient causality are common to all three persons. Though du Roy points to grave consequences for Augustine's theology of the Trinity that stem from his move to an analogical approach to the immanent Trinity, Augustine's development of the doctrine of the trinitarian relations brought to the theological understanding of the mystery of the Trinity an intelligibility that subsequent theology has rightly found indispensable.
fers from Plotinian emanation, it is not efficient causality either.
23 Of. De diversis quaestionibus 83, qu. 23, the notes in the BA edition point out, "Il ne s'agit pas de l'émanation plotinienne, mais non plus d'une efficience, quoique saint Augustin n'y repugne pas comme Platon." See the note by J. A. Beckaert in BA 10, Mélanges doctrinaux (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1952), p. 702.
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