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… ETIAM PER PRAEPOSTEROS HOMINES …: A NOTE ON AUGUSTINE, CONFESSIONES 9.18
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2019
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In Book 9 of his Confessions, Augustine recounts that his mother Monica told him how ‘a weakness for wine gradually got grip upon her’ as a little girl. After some time, so the story goes, God healed her from her bad habit. In this context, Augustine observes: ‘When father and mother and nurses are not there, you are present. You have created us, you call us, you use human authorities set over us to do something for the health of our souls.’ Even though at first sight this passage does not seem to pose any problems, one wonders about the exact meaning of the last part: etiam per praepositos homines boni aliquid agis ad animarum salutem. First, it is to be noted that Henry Chadwick's translation cited here leaves etiam untranslated. Moreover, it is not certain at all that Augustine really wants to say that God heals human souls ‘even by those human beings who are set over us’. As the subsequent lines of this paragraph make clear, God freed Monica from her sin through her servant, who scoffingly called her young mistress ‘a little boozer’ (meribibulam). This renders the phrase etiam per praepositos homines problematic, on the one hand, because the meaning of etiam (which often implies a kind of gradation) is unclear and, on the other, because it is difficult to regard Monica's servant as one of the ‘human authorities’. Nothing in the text compels us to identify this servant with the old famula of Monica's parents who, according to the preceding paragraph (9.17), was ‘vehement with a holy severity in administering correction and soberly prudent in her teaching’. At any rate, the ancilla mentioned here (9.18) is depicted not as an authoritative person but rather as someone who quarrels with her young domina (that is, with Monica), not in order to heal or educate her but merely to irritate her.
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References
1 August. Conf. 9.18 = ed. L. Verheijen (CCSL 27) (Turnhout, 1981), 144, lines 34–5 (all references follow this edition of the Confessiones). I use (and sometimes slightly modify) Henry Chadwick's translation: Saint Augustine, Confessions (Oxford, 1991), here 167.
2 August. Conf. 9.18 = 144, lines 47–9: Absente patre et matre et nutritoribus tu praesens, qui creasti, qui uocas, qui etiam per praepositos homines boni aliquid agis ad animarum salutem.
3 Cf. Pusey, E.B. (transl.), The Confessions of St. Augustine (London, 1942), 190Google Scholar: ‘[…] who also by those set over us, workest something towards the salvation of our souls […].’ For similar translations of this sentence, see e.g. Pilkington, J.G. (transl.), The Confessions of St. Augustine (Garden City, NY, 1900), 175Google Scholar; de Labriolle, P. (transl.), St. Augustin, Confessions. Livres IX–XIII (Paris, 1926), 224Google Scholar; Flasch, K. and Mojsisch, B. (transl.), Aurelius Augustinus, Bekenntnisse (Stuttgart, 1989), 237Google Scholar; Bernhart, J. and Ulrich, J. (transl.), Augustinus, Bekenntnisse / Confessiones (Frankfurt am Main, 2007), 201Google Scholar; Reale, G. (transl.), Agostino, Confessioni (Milan, 2012), 847Google Scholar.
4 August. Conf. 9.18 = 144, lines 53–5: Ancilla […] obiecit hoc crimen amarissima insultatione uocans meribibulam.
5 See OLD s.v. etiam, 4; Fleck, F., Interrogation, coordination et subordination: le latin quin (Paris, 2008), 183Google Scholar: etiam in the sense of ‘even’ expresses both an ‘implicature existentielle’ (i.e. other xs also do f) and an ‘implicature scalaire’ (the constituent focalized by etiam [x e] is the one that is the least expected to be the subject of f).
6 August. Conf. 9.17 = 143, lines 21–4 (Chadwick's translation, 167; modified).
7 August. Conf. 9.18 = 144, lines 59–62.
8 See P. Knöll, S. Aureli Augustini Confessionum libri tredecim (CSEL 33) (Vienna, 1896), xxxv (correction to p. 212, line 7).
9 See d'Andilly, R. Arnauld (transl.), Les Confessions de S. Augustin (Paris, 1667)Google Scholar, GGg iiij. Antoine Arnauld's Castigationes libri Confessionum Divi Augustini are to be found at the end of this bilingual edition. They were reprinted (without the edition and without the translation of the Confessiones) in A. Arnauld, vol. 11 (Paris and Lausanne, 1777); for the quotation, see that volume, at 868.
10 Arnauld d'Andilly (n. 9), 441: ‘[…] Dieu, qui estes toûjours present, qui nous avez créez, qui nous appellez à vostre service, & qui par l'entremise mesme des méchans, faites du bien aux ames pour les sauver […].’ Cf. Moreau, L. (transl.), Les Confessions de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1840), 300Google Scholar: ‘[…] par la voie même des hommes de perversité […]’.
11 Antoine Arnauld did not know the variant praesitos (F). This is the only variant reading mentioned in the critical editions.
12 A search in the database Library of Latin Texts-A gives the following results: 935 occurrences of peruersu* (= peruersus or peruersum; 137 of them in Augustine); 114 occurrences of praeposteru* (= praeposterus or praeposterum; 11 of them in Augustine); Augustine seems to have used the adjective peruersus (also including the adverb peruerse) 603 times, the adjective praeposterus (also including the adverb praepostere) only 31 times.
13 Cf. Elvenich, P.I., ‘Loci aliquot tum emendati tum accuratius illustrati in Ciceronis Oratione pro Archia’, RhM 1 (1827), 212–22Google Scholar, at 217: ‘[…] rarior et exquisitior lectio per se praeferenda est’. See also Trovato, P., Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lachmann's Method. A Non-Standard Handbook of Genealogical Textual Criticism in the Age of Post-Structuralism, Cladistics, and Copy-Text. Foreword by Reeve, M.D. (Padua, 2014), 117–21Google Scholar.
14 Both of Arnauld's conjectures were still mentioned in Patrologia Latina 32 (Paris, 1877), 772 n. 1; praeposteros was still recorded in the apparatus criticus of Knöll's CSEL edition (n. 8), 212. Both peruersos and praeposteros are absent in de Labriolle's Budé edition (n. 3), in the edition of the Bibliothèque Augustinienne: Les Confessions. Livres VIII–XIII (BA 14) (sine loco, 1962), 106, in the Teubner edition of Skutella, M., Jürgens, H. and Schwab, W. (edd.), S. Aureli Augustini Confessionum libri XIII (Stuttgart, 1969), 195Google Scholar, in Verheijen's CCSL edition (n. 1), and in the edition and commentary of Simonetti, M., Chiarini, G., Madec, G. and Pizzolato, L.F., Sant'Agostino, Confessioni. Volume III (Verona, 1994), 132Google Scholar. See also Alexanderson, B., Le texte des Confessions de saint Augustin. Manuscrits et stemma (Gothenburg, 2003), 78Google Scholar: ‘[…] praepositos a provoqué beaucoup de conjectures, à mon avis sans raison […]’. — After receiving the proofs of this article, I became aware that the conjecture praeposteros had already briefly been defended by Tränkle, H., ‘Textkritische Bemerkungen zu Augustins Confessiones’, Hermes 127 (1999), 208–36Google Scholar, at 216 n. 35.
15 A. Schröder, Zum Text der Augustinischen Konfessionen IX, 8 (Dillingen an der Donau, 1929), 4; see also 5: ‘[…] der du ja auch der Wirkende bist da, wo durch die Vorgesetzten etwas Gutes erreicht wird’. Likewise, Albertus Horsting maintains that in this passage Augustine ‘makes the point that earthly guardians (praepositos homines) cannot benefit us if God does not also watch over us’; see his edition of Prosper Aquitanus, Liber epigrammatum (CSEL 100) (Berlin, 2016), 53.
16 See August. Conf. 9.17.
17 Schröder (n. 15), 5.
18 Schröder (n. 15), 6.
19 O'Donnell, J.J., Augustine: Confessions. III: Commentary on Books 8–13. Indexes (Oxford, 1992), 118Google Scholar.
20 August. Conf. 9.18 = 144, lines 56–7: Sicut amici adulantes peruertunt, sic inimici litigantes plerumque corrigunt (Chadwick's translation, 168).
21 For Augustine's views on slaves and their duty of obedience, see Garnsey, P., Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge, 1996), esp. 206–19Google Scholar and 230–2.
22 The oxymoron insania sanasti (144, line 65) is bound up with other medical metaphors and similes used in this context (144, lines 46–65: aduersus latentem morbum […] tua medicina; ad animarum salutem; curasti; sanasti; tamquam medicinale ferrum; uno ictu putredinem illam praecidisti; sanare). On such metaphors, see Claes, M. and Dupont, A., ‘Augustine's sermons and disability’, in Laes, C. (ed.), Disability in Antiquity (London and New York, 2017), 328–41Google Scholar, at 334–5 (with further bibliographical references).
23 On the subtle difference between peruersus and praeposterus, see Ramshorn, L., Lateinische Synonymik, Zweiter Theil (Leipzig, 1833), 365Google Scholar; TLL 10.2.1.781–3, s.v. praeposterus. In classical antiquity, the combination of peruersus and praeposterus was already used by Lucretius (4.833; cf. Sedley, D., Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom [Cambridge, 1998], 47)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Cicero (Clu. 71); for the combination in Augustine, see e.g. De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum 1.47 = PL 32 (Paris, 1877), 1331, lines 26–9; De utilitate credendi 16.34 = ed. I. Zycha (CSEL 25.1) (Vienna, 1891), 43, line 12; De doctrina christiana 3.24 = ed. I. Martin (CCSL 32) (Turnhout, 1962), 92, line 23; In Evang. Iohan. 8.12 = ed. R. Willems (CCSL 36) (Turnhout, 1954), 89, line 6 (nonne peruersi et praeposteri sumus?); Sermo cum pagani ingrederentur 14 = Vingt-six sermons au peuple d'Afrique, ed. F. Dolbeau (Paris, 1996), 257, lines 275–6 (peruersus es, praeposterus es). For the connection of insanus and peruersus, see e.g. August. C. acad. 3.19 = ed. W.M. Green (CCSL 29) (Turnhout, 1970), 45, lines 21–2; Ep. 53.3 = ed. A. Goldbacher (CSEL 34.2) (Vienna, 1895), 154, line 17 (peruersius et insanius); Sermo Guelferbytanus XXVIII = Sermones post Maurinos reperti, ed. G. Morin (Rome, 1930), 540, line 18 (o insani, o peruersi!); Contra Cresconium 2.23 = ed. M. Petschenig (CSEL 52) (Vienna, 1909), 383, lines 12–13; Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 118, sermo 2.1 = edd. E. Dekkers and I. Fraipont (CCSL 40) (Turnhout, 1956), 1669, line 33 (doctrinae insanae peruersitate); De correptione et gratia 8.19 = PL 44 (Paris, 1865), 927, lines 33–4; Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum 4.119 = ed. M. Zelzer (CSEL 85.2) (Vienna, 2004), 133, lines 26–7 (insana loqueris, peruersa […] loqueris). If insanus is a hyponym of peruersus, while peruersus is interchangeable with praeposterus, one may safely conclude that Augustine understands insania as a state of being praeposterus.
24 Sall. Iug. 85.12: Atque ego scio, Quirites, qui, postquam consules facti sunt, et acta maiorum et Graecorum militaria praecepta legere coeperint: praeposteri homines, nam gerere quam fieri tempore posterius, re atque usu prius est.
25 See August. De beata uita 4.31 = ed. W.M. Green (CCSL 29) (Turnhout, 1970), 82, line 187, where he calls Sallust ‘the most diligent weigher of words’. On Augustine's reception of Sallust, see e.g. Hagendahl, H., Augustine and the Latin Classics (Stockholm, 1967), 225–44Google Scholar and 631–49; Tornau, C., Zwischen Rhetorik und Philosophie: Augustins Argumentationstechnik in De civitate Dei und ihr bildungsgeschichtlicher Hintergrund (Berlin and New York, 2006), 204–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van Dusen, D., The Space of Time: A Sensualist Interpretation of Time in Augustine, Confessions X to XII (Leiden and Boston, 2014), 71–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Cf. Evans, G.R., ‘Augustine's paradoxes’, in Wickham, L.R., Bammel, C.P. and Hunter, E.C.D. (edd.), Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Leiden and New York, 1993), 52–69Google Scholar, at 62 (on ‘the ultimate paradox of the presence and effectiveness of the will for evil in God's world’).
27 August. Quaestiones in Heptateuchum: Quaestiones Iudicum 49.11 = ed. I. Fraipont (CCSL 33) (Turnhout, 1958), 363–4, lines 1064–7 and 1071–3 (cf. John 11:49–51).
28 August. De consensu euangelistarum 2.137 = ed. F. Weihrich (CSEL 43) (Vienna, 1904), 240, lines 24–6.
29 August. In Evang. Iohan. 46.6 = ed. Willems (n. 23), 401, lines 30–1 (cf. John, 10:12–13); Ep. 208.5 = ed. A. Goldbacher (CSEL 57) (Vienna, 1911), 345, lines 8–9.
30 August. Ep. 199.22 = ed. Goldbacher (n. 29), 263, lines 2–4.
31 August. Ep. 93.7 = ed. A. Goldbacher (CSEL 34.1) (Vienna, 1895), 452, lines 9–13 (cf. Pseudo-Paul, 1 Tim. 1:20).
32 August. Ep. 264.1 = ed. Goldbacher (n. 29), 635, lines 9–11.
33 August. Enchiridion 8.27 = ed. E. Evans (CCSL 46) (Turnhout, 1969), 64, lines 53–4; cf. 3.11 = 53, lines 29–34.
34 August. De Genesi ad litteram 11.6 = ed. I. Zycha (CSEL 28.1) (Vienna, 1894), 339, lines 26–8.
35 Cf. Drews, F., Menschliche Willensfreiheit und göttliche Vorsehung bei Augustinus, Proklos, Apuleius und John Milton (Heusenstamm, 2009), 1.132–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I thank Callan Ledsham (Melbourne) for polishing a first draft of this paper.