Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (continued)
INTRODUCTION
question is found in the report by M. André Mandouze at the International Augustinian Congress in Paris in 1954.°! There one finds the opposing positions.
Dom Cuthbert Butler in his 1922 book Western Mysticism called Augustine the prince of mystics while Portalié saw "in the admirable fusion of a profound intellectualism with an enlightened mysticism ... the characteristic trait of Augustine." Agreeing with Butler was P. Fulbert Cayré, who declared that Augustine was certainly a mystic whose loving approach to God was suffused with intellectualism. On the other hand, P. de la Taille criticized Butler's position and that of Cayré by expressing grave doubts that Augustine had experienced the states of "spiritual marriage." Paul Henry in his work La Vision d'Ostie taught that the mystical element of religion noted by F. von Hugel in The Life and Works of St. Catherine of Genoa, namely, the aspiration to God and things divine, was the supreme principle of explanation of his work and teaching. For him Augustine was a mystic, however, only in the broad sense of that word. Charles Boyer defended the mysticism of Augustine in the strict sense. But R. P. Cavallera maintained against Boyer that although the pages of the Confessions are religious, they do not describe "infused contemplation," since it is impossible to discover in his religious experience "the character of passivity essential to every mystical state."
Nevertheless, Endre von Ivanka emphasized the continuity for Augustine between natural knowledge and mystical knowledge: from the one same tendency toward God knowledge arises from man's intellectual nature, from grace, and from the light of glory as different degrees of participation.
In 1936 P. E. Hendrikx denied that Augustine was a mystic if "mystical" has the strict technical sense connoting the infusion of the gift of contemplation with a specific feeling of passivity leading to "divine nuptials." He agreed with Joseph Geyser against Johannes Hessen whose thorough knowledge of Plotinus enabled him to interpret the Augustinian experience more adequately. Hendrikx would only call Augustine a mystic if one takes the word "mystic" in its general meaning as fervor with the nuance of "religious fervor" that the word "enthusiasm" adds.
81. Augustinus Magister II]. Congres International Augustinien (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1954).