Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (continued)
INTRODUCTION
ascent as structured by Plotinus: Consider only the statement from Ennead 1.6.7: "In order to attain to the Good, we must mount up to the supernal regions" where we shall be "ravished with delight."
Augustine's earliest enumeration of the Ascent to God is elaborated in his work De Quantitate Animae (A.D. 388), in which he discusses the seven steps of soul energy leading to union with God. They are animatio (the soul animating the body), sensus (the soul perceiving sensible things), ars (the soul as source of artistic skills), virtus (the soul directing itself toward good things), tranquillitas (the soul stabilized), ingressio (the soul fixing its attention above), and contemplatio (the soul serenely gazing on Truth). This work is of special interest as containing his earliest mystical theory but he included a wide variety of structures for ascent in later writings. In the Confessions he described his own experiences as those of the Prodigal Son returning to the Father. In the Gospel he had read of the young man who "entered into himself." He found that the Plotinian schema of introversion and ascent coincided with the actions of the Prodigal Son. This strengthened and maintained the Augustinian redite ad cor.°° Moreover, the "steps of ascent" are not to be understood spatially but psychologically, as ever higher awakenings of the self, and they are to be understood metaphysically as an evolution toward unity. Ascent is more aptly expressed as a convergence of soul energies in conversion to God.
Descent of Christ We have noted that the apparent similarity of the conversion theme to Neoplatonic thought conceals a drastic dissimilarity in respect to how conversion is effected. With a decisiveness to be taken seriously, Augustine says: "But I did not find in the books of the Platonists: 'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not; but as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, as many as believed in His name.' ''5!
Indeed, he did not find in the Platonic books that "the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us," nor
7 50. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.77-8.88; City of God, VII.10.16; VIII.5; 10. 51. Conf., VIL.9.