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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 February 2018
A constant in Augustine's long literary career is his understanding of God's presence as ubique totus, or ‘whole and everywhere’. I will first consider how Augustine came to perceive of the divine presence in this life (here I will look especially at the Confessions); second, how he theologically articulates the nature of the divine presence (here I will draw on Ep. 187), and, finally, how he understands the divine presence in the life to come (and here I will focus on the conclusion of the City of God). I suggest that a fundamental continuity obtains between how Augustine understands seeing God in this life and the next and that this continuity is predicated on his conception of the divine presence as ubique totus.
1 Serm. 88.5.5 (PL 38 542): Tota igitur opera nostra, fratres, in hac vita est, sanare oculum cordis, unde videatur Deus.
2 Cf. Green, Joel B., Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible, Studies in Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), pp. 140–80Google Scholar; Griffiths, Paul, Decreation: The Last Things of All Creatures (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2014)Google Scholar; Richard Middleton, J., A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2014)Google Scholar; Wright, N. T., Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: Harper, 2008)Google Scholar.
3 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 585): quantum ab illa quae futura est distet haec uita.
4 I have used the translation of Augustine's letters by Teske, Roland J. in the Works of St. Augustine, Letters, 4 vols., WSA II/1–4 (New York: New City Press, 2001–5)Google Scholar.
5 Ep. 148.2 (PL 33 623): si tantam quisquam mutationem huius corporis futuram putat, cum ex animali fuerit spiritale.
6 Ep. 148.3 (PL 33 623): longe aliud erunt haec corpora, et non erunt ipsa.
7 Ep. 148.3 (PL 33 623): Aut enim istius erunt, et non videbunt: aut non erunt istius, si videbunt; quoniam tanta commutatione longe alterius corporis erunt.
8 A parallel discussion is found in Augustine's description of three types of vision outlined in De Genesi ad litteram 12. Here Augustine carefully parses the different senses in which we use the word ‘to see’. First, we ‘see’ a physical object with the eyes – a human body, a tree or the sun. Second, we ‘see’ this object in our mind. In this case, an immaterial likeness of the physical object is made present to the soul, perhaps as a memory or as the figment of our imagination. Finally, the mind ‘sees’ realities that have no image either material or immaterial. This last category includes things such as the human soul, virtues and even God. All three senses of ‘seeing’ may simultaneously be at play, explains Augustine. For example, in Christ's injunction, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12:31), Augustine notes that one first ‘sees’ the actual letters on the page of scripture. Next, the spirit ‘sees’ the neighbour. Finally, the mind ‘sees’ love abstracted from any material or immaterial image. Augustine calls these three visions bodily (corporale), spiritual (spiritale) and intellectual (intellectuale). Cf. Gen. ad lit. 12.6.15–12.7.16.
The highest form of seeing (‘intellectual’) is not a vision grasped by any image, and yet it remains sight. At this apogee of human vision, suggests Augustine, we can at last begin to approach an understanding of what it will be to ‘see’ God. Although this sight is reserved for the eschaton, we do, in our state of epistemic poverty, have an analogue for how we shall see God. The human capacity to abstract to an ‘intellectual’ vision is, already in this life, a sign (signum) pointing to the eternal and perfected visio dei to come. Augustine suggests that when Paul was taken away from the body (with either his spirit leaving the body as when one dies or by being completely alienated from the senses of the flesh) he experienced this third, ‘intellectual’ vision of God. For this reason the Apostle called it the ‘third heaven’ (2 Cor 12:2). Cf. Gen. ad lit. 12.28.56.
9 James O'Donnell offers an extensive list of Augustine's use of the phrase ubique totus throughout his corpus as a means of articulating the divine presence. O'Donnell, , Confessions: Commentary on Books 1–7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 22–3Google Scholar.
10 In a classic article, Stanislaus Grabowski comments, ‘Predicated of creatures, material or spiritual, presence is a quality, a positive attribute, a certain perfection. When it is asserted of the Supreme Being, the limitations and imperfections proper to presence in created beings must be removed from it.’ ‘St. Augustine and the Presence of God’, Theological Studies 13 (1952): 340.
11 Ep. 148.1 (PL 33 622): ne scilicet Deus ipse corporeus esse credatur, et in loci spatio intervalloque visibilis.
12 Ep. 148.1 (PL 33 622).
13 Ep. 148.2 (PL 33 623): longe tolerabilius est corpori aliquid arrogare, quam Deo derogare.
14 Ep. 148.3 (PL 33 623): substantiam incorporalem et ubique totam nullo modo videbit.
15 I use the translation of the Confessions by Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
16 Conf. 1.2.2–1.3.3 (CCSL 27 1–2).
17 Conf. 1.3.3 (CCSL 27 2): an ubique totus es et res nulla te totum capit?
18 Augustine inherits the phrase ubique totus from the Latin tradition. Cf. Arnobius, Adv. nationes 6.4; Hilary, Trin. 2.6; Jerome, In Eph. 1.2. However, Grabowski rightly points out that in Augustine's theology the phrase has a more ‘technical ring’. Grabowski, ‘St. Augustine and the Presence of God’, p. 345.
19 Conf. 3.6.11–3.7.12 (CCSL 27 32–3).
20 Conf. 3.7.12 (CCSL 27 32–3).
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.: quod unde viderem, cuius videre usque ad corpus erat oculis, et animo usque ad phantasma?
23 Conf. 4.7.12 (CCSL 27 46).
24 Conf. 4.16.28 (CCSL 27 54).
25 Conf. 4.16.29 (CCSL 27 54).
26 Trin. 5.1.2 (CCSL 50 207): ut sic intellegamus deum si possumus, quantum possumus, sine qualitate bonum, sine quantitate magnum, sine indigentia creatorem, sine situ praesentem, sine habitu omnia continentem, sine loco ubique totum, sine tempore sempiternum, sine ulla sui mutatione mutabilia facientem nihilque patientem. Quisquis deum ita cogitat etsi nondum potest omni modo inuenire quid sit, pie tamen cauet quantum potest aliquid de illo sentire quod non sit.
27 It is telling that in the above quotation (Trin. 5.1.2), each positive descriptor (proper to the via postiva) is affirmed, while immediately the finite connotations of the word are denied: good without quality; great without quantity, creative without need; presiding without position, etc. On this side of the eschaton, even the description of God's presence as ubique totus offers little positive content. Instead, how we would logically imagine ‘wholly everywhere’ – its positive content – is denied: Augustine is quick to point out that ‘wholly everywhere’ is said ‘without place’. The truthful articulation of God's presence as ubique totus does not grasp the divine quid sit.
28 Conf. 7.1.1 (CCSL 27 92).
29 Conf. 5.10.19 (CCSL 27 68).
30 Cf. Conf. 5.10.19 (CCSL 27 68).
31 Conf. 7.1.1 (CCSL 27 92): corporeum tamen aliquid cogitare cogerer per spatia locorum siue infusum mundo.
32 Conf. 5.2.2 (CCSL 27 57): videlicet nesciunt, quod ubique sis, quem nullus circuminscribit locus, et solus es praesens etiam his, qui longe fiunt a te.
33 Conf. 7.5.7 (CCSL 27 96).
34 Conf. 6.3.4 (CCSL 27 76): tamen gaudens erubui non me tot annos aduersus catholicam fidem, sed contra carnalium cogitationum figmenta latrasse.
35 Conf. 6.3.4 (CCSL 27 76): tu enim, altissime et proxime, secretissime et praesentissime, cui membra non sunt alia maiora et alia minora, sed ubique totus es et nusquam locorum es. Augustine's Christian articulation of the divine presence as ubique totus finds its most clear parallel in Ambrose's De fide 1.16.106: complens omnia, nusquam ipse confusus, penetrans omnia, nusquam ipse penetrandus, ubique totus eodemque tempore vel in caelo, vel in terris, vel in novissimo maris praesens.
36 Perhaps the most obvious parallel is Plotinus, En. 6.4–5, the two treatises both titled, ‘On the Presence of Being One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole.’ The Plotinian metaphysic informing Augustine's understanding of ubique totus is addressed by Olivier du Roy, who writes, ‘Chez Augustin en tout cas, ce thème est certainement d'origine plotinienne et provient sans doute de Enn. 6.4–5. . . . Ce thème n'apparaît donc qu'en 388, au moment du séjour d'Augustin à Rome.’ L'Intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin: Genèse de sa théologie trinitaire jusqu'en 391 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1966), p. 470. Cf. O'Connell, Robert. J., ’Ennead VI, 4 and 5 in the Works of St. Augustine’, Revue des Études Augustiniennes 9 (1963), pp. 1–39 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The quest to conceive of the divine presence as ubique totus is presented in narrative form in the Confessions but appears frequently elsewhere in Augustine's corpus. In Ep. 147 he writes, ‘For nowhere is he not present. He fills the heavens and the earth and is not enclosed in small places or spread out in large ones but is whole everywhere (ubique totus) and contained by no place. One who understands this with a penetrating mind sees God, even when he is thought not to be there.’ nusquam enim absens est qui coelum et terram implet; nec spatiis includitur parvis, magnisve diffunditur, sed ubique totus est, et nullo continetur loco. Hoc qui excedente mente intellegit, videt Deum, et cum absens putatur. Ep. 147.29 (PL 33 609).
37 Cf. Retrac. 2.49.
38 Ep. 187.7 (PL 33 835).
39 Ep. 187.11 (PL 33 836): Quamquam et in eo ipso quod dicitur Deus ubique diffusus, carnali resistendum est cogitationi, et mens a corporis sensibus avocanda, ne quasi spatiosa magnitudine opinemur Deum per cuncta diffundi, sicut humus, aut humor, aut aer, aut lux ista diffunditur (omnis enim huiuscemodi magnitudo minor est in sui parte quam in toto).
40 Ep. 187.14 (PL 33 837): Non tamen per spatia locorum, quasi mole diffusa, ita ut in dimidio mundi corpore sit dimidius, et in alio dimidio dimidius, atque ita per totum totus; sed in solo coelo totus, et in sola terra totus, et in coelo et in terra totus, et nullo contentus loco, sed in seipso ubique totus.
41 Ep. 187.12 (PL 33 836).
42 Ep. 187.14 (PL 33 837): Sed sic est Deus per cuncta diffusus, ut non sit qualitas mundi; sed substantia creatrix mundi.
43 Grabowski, ‘St. Augustine and the Presence of God’, p. 348.
44 Conf. 3.6.11 (CCSL 27 33).
45 Ep. 187.16 (PL 33 838): Unde fatendum est ubique esse Deum per divinitatis praesentiam, sed non ubique per habitationis gratiam.
46 Ep. 187.17 (PL 33 838).
47 Ep. 187.14 (PL 33 837).
48 Ep. 187.18 (PL 33 838).
49 Ep. 187.18 (PL 33 839): Sicut autem nec ab illo abest, in quo non habitat, et totus adest, quamvis eum ille non habeat; ita et illi in quo habitat, totus est praesens, quamvis eum non ex toto capiat.
50 Ep. 187.19 (PL 33 839): quanto excellentius Deus natura incorporea et immutabiliter viva, qui non sicut sonus per moras temporum tendi et dividi potest, nec spatio aerio tamquam loco suo indiget, ubi praesentibus praesto sit, sed aeterna stabilitate in seipso manens, totus adesse rebus omnibus potest, et singulis totus, quamvis in quibus habitat, habeant eum pro suae capacitatis diversitate.
51 I have used the translation of the City of God by Henry Bettenson (repr.; New York: Penguin, 2004).
52 The axial text for Augustine's conception of the resurrected body is 1 Cor 15:50 (‘Flesh and blood will not inherit the Kingdom of God’). In Augustine's earlier writings he took this passage literally, insisting that the resurrected body will not be constituted by ‘flesh and blood’. Cf. De fide et symbolo 10.24 [393]; De agone christiano 32.34 [397]. However, in his mature corpus, Augustine understands Paul's reference to ‘flesh and blood’ to refer to the ‘works’ of the flesh, that is, to the body's concupiscence. The resurrected body, by contrast, will be perfectly subject to the spirit. Cf. Retract. 1.16 and 2.29 [426/27]; Enchir. 23.91 [423/24]; Civ. 13.20; 22.21 [426]; Serm. 242.8.11 [405/10]. See also Daley, Brian, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002), p. 143 Google Scholar.
While Augustine's mature writings take Paul's ‘spiritual body’ to mean its moral orientation, he does emphatically insist that the resurrected ‘spiritual body’ will be a body of flesh and blood; it will have corporeal existence: ‘The spiritual body will be subject to the Spirit; but it will be flesh not spirit.’ Civ. 22.21. See also Gen. Lit. 7.7.18: ‘Our spiritual body [1 Cor. 15] is called “spiritual” because it will be subject to the Spirit, vivified by the Spirit alone. But it will still have a corporeal substance’. Cf. Paula Fredriksen, ‘Vile Bodies: Paul and Augustine on the Resurrection of the Flesh’, in Burrows, Mark and Rorem, Paul (eds), Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 85.Google Scholar
Fredriksen's description of Second Temple Jewish conceptions of the resurrection of the body apply equal well to those of Augustine and to the political themes operative in the City of God: ‘The person is identified not with the soul, but with the soul and body taken together. This anthropology is dichotomous but not dualist. And the insistence on terrestrial redemption, the insistence that the quality of physical existence, but not the fundamental fact of physical existence itself, would be changed, serves to affirm Creation. Further, while individuals rise and are judged as individuals, the fundamental metaphors are social – eating together, worshipping together, living at peace with one another. Finally, given the idiom of the Babylonian Captivity, in which much of this construct is expressed, Jewish restoration theology is, at least implicitly but often explicitly, political. The image of eschatological society serves as a counterpoint to and commentary on current unrighteous kingdoms that will be displaced by the Kingdom of God.’ Fredriksen, ‘Vile Bodies’, p. 80.
53 The direct contemplative vision of God as the beatitude of the saints is frequently attested to in Augustine's writings. Cf. En. Ps. 26.2.9; 43.5; Serm. 362.29.30–30.31; Ep. 130.14.27.
54 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 858). As an aside, this is another wonderful example of the serious manner in which Augustine engaged with textual criticism. We can imagine Augustine the scripture scholar at his worktable, with various codices and manuscripts piled high, weighing the merits of divergent readings, comparing the vetus Latina with Jerome's translation of the Hebrew text and the Septuagint.
55 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 858): Corde suo ergo se dixit hoc uidisse propheta.
56 In Civ. 22.29 Augustine uses both cor and spiritus to describe ‘inner’ vision.
57 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 859).
58 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 859): Habebunt tamen etiam illi oculi corporei officium suum et in loco suo erunt, uteturque illis spiritus per spiritale corpus.
59 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 859): Longe itaque alterius erunt potentiae, si per eos uidebitur incorporea illa natura, quae non continetur loco, sed ubique tota est.
60 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 859): Non enim quia dicimus Deum et in caelo esse et in terra (ipse quippe ait per prophetam: Caelum et terram ego impleo), aliam partem dicturi sumus eum in caelo habere et in terra aliam; sed totus in caelo est, totus in terra, non alternis temporibus, sed utrumque simul, quod nulla natura corporalis potest.
61 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 860): non cogit ut Deum per hanc faciem corporalem, ubi sunt oculi corporales.
62 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 860).
63 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 860–1).
64 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 859): Vis itaque praepollentior oculorum erit illorum.
65 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 860).
66 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 856).
67 In the conclusion to the City of God, Augustine allows himself greater speculative licence to entertain the possibility that the eyes of the resurrected body will see God. Earlier, in Ep. 92 [408], he dismissed the idea that humans can physically see the divine essence as dementia. This is a position Augustine continued to hold to resolutely, as is clear throughout De Trinitate. In Ep. 147 and 148 (413/414), he admits that while some hold to the idea that the eyes of the resurrected body will see the divine substance, he prefers to follow Ambrose in maintaining that the vision of the divine substance is a vision reserved to the heart (cf. Ep. 147.48). Augustine writes, ‘But there are others who have no doubt that God is not a body but think that those who will rise for eternal life will also see God through the body, for they hope that the spiritual body will be such that even what was flesh will become spirit’ (Ep. 147.49). At least this opinion, which is ‘more tolerable, even if it is not true’, does not conceive of God as extending in space; rather, the opinion is predicated on the transformation of human flesh into spiritual body at the resurrection. Nevertheless, in Ep. 147 Augustine warns against transferring ‘from this world to that vision of God, which is promised us in the resurrection, the concupiscence of the eyes’ (Ep. 147.51). Augustine commends the same scepticism in Ep. 162 [414] and Serm. 277.13–19 [413], holding as improbable the hypothesis that the physical resurrected eyes will see the divine essence. Augustine does not deal with this question for the next ten years, and it is interesting that when he does return to it in the final book of De civitate dei (426), he seems more open to speculation about the possibility of seeing the divine essence with resurrected eyes.
68 Civ. 22.29 (CCSL 48 861–2): Quam ob rem fieri potest ualdeque credibile est sic nos uisuros mundana tunc corpora caeli noui et terrae nouae, ut Deum ubique praesentem et uniuersa etiam corporalia gubernantem per corpora quae gestabimus et quae conspiciemus, quaqua uersum oculos duxerimus, clarissima perspicuitate uideamus, non sicut nunc inuisibilia Dei per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspiciuntur per speculum in aenigmate <et> ex parte, ubi plus in nobis ualet fides, qua credimus, quam rerum corporalium species, quam per oculos cernimus corporales . . . ita quaecumque spiritalia illa lumina corporum nostrorum circumferemus, incorporeum Deum omnia regentem etiam per corpora contuebimur . . . ita Deus nobis erit notus atque conspicuus, ut uideatur spiritu a singulis nobis in singulis nobis, uideatur ab altero in altero, uideatur in se ipso, uideatur in caelo nouo et terra noua atque in omni, quae tunc fuerit, creatura, uideatur et per corpora in omni corpore, quocumque fuerint spiritalis corporis oculi acie perueniente directi.
69 The final chapter of the City of God (22.30) begins by quoting this text.
70 Augustine's insistence that God will be seen in and through one another is a resounding endorsement of his earlier principle that in the Heavenly City ‘the life of the saints is social’ (Civ. 19.5). Here, even the eschatological vision of God is communicated through other creatures.