Book contents
- The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity
- The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Plates
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Modes of Knowing and Ordering Knowledge in Early Christianity
- 2 The Beginnings of a Christian Doctrine of the Spiritual Senses before Origen
- 3 Health, Medicine, and Philosophy in the School of Justin Martyr
- 4 Learning Through Experience: The Structure of Asceticism in Irenaeus of Lyons
- 5 The Order of Education and Knowledge in Clement of Alexandria
- 6 Origen’s Institutions and the Shape of Biblical Scholarship
- 7 Dialogue and Catalogue: Fate, Free Will, and Belief in the Book of the Laws of the Countries
- 8 Iamblichus on Divination and Prophecy
- 9 Cyprian, Scripture, and Socialisation: Forming Faith in the Catechumenate and Beyond
- 10 Sacrificial Knowing: Cyprian and Early Christian Ritual Knowledge
- 11 Learning the Language of God: Tables in Early Christian Texts
- 12 The Aëtian Placita and the Church Fathers: Creative Use of a Distinctive Mode of Ordering Knowledge
- 13 Nicaea’s Frame: The Organisation of Creedal Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Modernity
- 14 The Arian Controversy and the Problem of Image(s)
- 15 Imagining Ephrem the Author
- 16 Homilies as ‘Modes of Knowing’: An Exploration on the Basis of Greek Patristic Festal Sermons (c. 350–c. 450 CE)
- 17 Dissemination of Biblical Narratives, Motifs, and Figures through Early Christian Inscriptions and Homilies
- 18 How to Make Use of Pagan Knowledge without Separating Oneself from the Church’s Milk: The Function of Otherness in Gregory of Nyssa’s Theory of Self-Perfection
- 19 Female Characters as Modes of Knowing in Late Imperial Dialogues: The Body, Desire, and the Intellectual Life
- 20 The Christianity of Latin Christian Poetry
- 21 Ambrose’s Hymns as Modes of Knowing the ‘Real’
- 22 Confused Voices: Sound and Sense in the Later Augustine
- 23 Precision and the Limits of Autopsy in Augustine’s Critique of Pagan Divination
- 24 The Duplex Via: Authority and Reason at Cassiciacum
- 25 The Object of Our Gaze: Visual Perception as a Mode of Knowing
- 26 Reconsidering the Tholos Image in the Eusebian Canon Tables: Symbols, Space, and Books in the Late Antique Christian Imagination
- 27 Condemning the Glutton of the Monastery: Rhetorical Strategies and the Epistemology of Philoxenos of Mabbug
- 28 Evagrius of Pontus on Λύπη: Distress and Cognition between Philosophy, Medicine, and Monasticism
- 29 Liturgical Modes of Knowing: Coming to Know God (and Oneself) in Sixth-Century Hymns and Homilies
- 30 Prolegomena to Philosophy and the Ascetic Ordering of Knowledge
- 31 Bureaucratic Modes of Knowing in the Late Roman Empire
- 32 The Dissemination and Appropriation of Legal Knowledge in the Age of Justinian
- 33 The Ordering of Knowledge in Four Late Patristic Christological Handbooks
- 34 World and Empire: Contrasting the Cosmopolitan Visions of George of Pisidia and Maximus the Confessor in Seventh-Century Byzantium
- 35 Boethius on the Ordering of Knowledge
- 36 Ordering Emotional Communities: Modes of Knowing in Gregory the Great
- 37 Creating Knowledge and Knowing Creation in Theological and Scientific Writing in Late Antique Western Christendom
- 38 Hierarchies of Knowledge in the Works of Bede
- 39 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- General Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
23 - Precision and the Limits of Autopsy in Augustine’s Critique of Pagan Divination
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2023
Book contents
- The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity
- The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Plates
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Modes of Knowing and Ordering Knowledge in Early Christianity
- 2 The Beginnings of a Christian Doctrine of the Spiritual Senses before Origen
- 3 Health, Medicine, and Philosophy in the School of Justin Martyr
- 4 Learning Through Experience: The Structure of Asceticism in Irenaeus of Lyons
- 5 The Order of Education and Knowledge in Clement of Alexandria
- 6 Origen’s Institutions and the Shape of Biblical Scholarship
- 7 Dialogue and Catalogue: Fate, Free Will, and Belief in the Book of the Laws of the Countries
- 8 Iamblichus on Divination and Prophecy
- 9 Cyprian, Scripture, and Socialisation: Forming Faith in the Catechumenate and Beyond
- 10 Sacrificial Knowing: Cyprian and Early Christian Ritual Knowledge
- 11 Learning the Language of God: Tables in Early Christian Texts
- 12 The Aëtian Placita and the Church Fathers: Creative Use of a Distinctive Mode of Ordering Knowledge
- 13 Nicaea’s Frame: The Organisation of Creedal Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Modernity
- 14 The Arian Controversy and the Problem of Image(s)
- 15 Imagining Ephrem the Author
- 16 Homilies as ‘Modes of Knowing’: An Exploration on the Basis of Greek Patristic Festal Sermons (c. 350–c. 450 CE)
- 17 Dissemination of Biblical Narratives, Motifs, and Figures through Early Christian Inscriptions and Homilies
- 18 How to Make Use of Pagan Knowledge without Separating Oneself from the Church’s Milk: The Function of Otherness in Gregory of Nyssa’s Theory of Self-Perfection
- 19 Female Characters as Modes of Knowing in Late Imperial Dialogues: The Body, Desire, and the Intellectual Life
- 20 The Christianity of Latin Christian Poetry
- 21 Ambrose’s Hymns as Modes of Knowing the ‘Real’
- 22 Confused Voices: Sound and Sense in the Later Augustine
- 23 Precision and the Limits of Autopsy in Augustine’s Critique of Pagan Divination
- 24 The Duplex Via: Authority and Reason at Cassiciacum
- 25 The Object of Our Gaze: Visual Perception as a Mode of Knowing
- 26 Reconsidering the Tholos Image in the Eusebian Canon Tables: Symbols, Space, and Books in the Late Antique Christian Imagination
- 27 Condemning the Glutton of the Monastery: Rhetorical Strategies and the Epistemology of Philoxenos of Mabbug
- 28 Evagrius of Pontus on Λύπη: Distress and Cognition between Philosophy, Medicine, and Monasticism
- 29 Liturgical Modes of Knowing: Coming to Know God (and Oneself) in Sixth-Century Hymns and Homilies
- 30 Prolegomena to Philosophy and the Ascetic Ordering of Knowledge
- 31 Bureaucratic Modes of Knowing in the Late Roman Empire
- 32 The Dissemination and Appropriation of Legal Knowledge in the Age of Justinian
- 33 The Ordering of Knowledge in Four Late Patristic Christological Handbooks
- 34 World and Empire: Contrasting the Cosmopolitan Visions of George of Pisidia and Maximus the Confessor in Seventh-Century Byzantium
- 35 Boethius on the Ordering of Knowledge
- 36 Ordering Emotional Communities: Modes of Knowing in Gregory the Great
- 37 Creating Knowledge and Knowing Creation in Theological and Scientific Writing in Late Antique Western Christendom
- 38 Hierarchies of Knowledge in the Works of Bede
- 39 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- General Index
- Plate Section (PDF Only)
Summary
According to Augustine, the limits of human autopsy restricted certain modes of knowing which relied on detailed observations. This claim unites Augustine’s criticism of the power of daemons and of astrology to predict the future. The minute calculations that astrology requires are beyond human sense perception (Conf. 7.6.9–10; Doctr. chr. 2.23.34; Civ. 5.1–6), so are the tricks used by daemons which Augustine equates to abilities specific to animals, such as the olfactory skill of dogs (Div. 3.7; cf. Civ. 9.15). This chapter examines the influence of a variety of texts on Augustine’s thought, including Ambrose’s Hexaemeron, Cicero’s De divinatione, and Apuleius’ De deo Socratis. I argue that Augustine consistently focuses his rhetoric against pagan divination on the limits of human sense perception through a unique combination of criticisms, inspired by both the Christian and the classical canons.
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- The Intellectual World of Late Antique ChristianityReshaping Classical Traditions, pp. 426 - 442Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023