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Forming the Saeculum: The Desacralization of Nature and the Ability to Understand it in Augustine’s Literal Commentary on Genesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Stanley P. Rosenberg
Stanley P. Rosenberg*
Affiliation:
Centre for Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford
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Extract

Augustine’s view of the saeculum continues to be contested ground; his textual and terminological ambiguities, his own intellectual developments, and possible contradictions have fed contrasting interpretations. Understanding Augustine’s view of the saeculum — that which exists as part of the created order, which is neither in itself sacred and identified with a specifically Christian status nor profane reflecting antichristian or pagan institutions and mores — is obviously critical to unravelling his political theology, which has largely been the focus of discussions since the magisterial work of R. A. Markus in 1970, but it has another purpose too. It contributes to a chapter in the history of science by clarifying the evolution of a view of the natural world which would influence medieval and early modern developments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 46: God’s Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World , 2010 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2010

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References

1 Markus, R. A. provides insight on the developing state of the question in his Christianity and the Secular (Notre Dame, IN, 2006)Google Scholar. These published lectures respond to the debate spawned by his earlier work, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge, 1970, rev. edn 1988). Critics include Hollerich, Michael, ‘John Milbank, Augustine and the Secular’, Augustinian Studies 30 (1999), 311–22 Google Scholar, and Oliver O’Donovan, ‘Romulus’s City: The Republic without Justice in Augustine’s Political Thought’, paper delivered at the Society for the Study of Theology annual conference, Durham, 1 April 2008. Two others contributing critically to this debate are Milbank, John and Taylor, Charles. While Milbank is best known for his Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar, the density of the argument encourages one to look at his ‘An Essay against Secular Order’, Journal of Religious Ethics 15 (1987), 199–244, and ‘“Postmodern Critical Augustinianism”: A Short Summa in Forty Two Responses to Unasked Questions’, Modem Theology 7 (1991), 225–37. Taylor’s, Charles work has seen many versions but is brought together, if rather discursively, in his A Secular Age(Cambridge, MA, 2007).Google Scholar

2 See J. Patout Burns,‘Ambrose Preaching to Augustine:The Shaping of Faith’, in Schnaubelt, J. and Van Fleteren, F., eds, Augustine: Second Founder of the Faith, Collectanea Augustiniana I (New York, 1990), 373–86.Google Scholar

3 Sermones 229.Q-V. The tone, emphases, theology, and terminology suggest an early date but these sermones are only available in extracts and lack any internal evidence for dating. More broadly, attempts to date most of Augustine’s sermons are at best cautious approximations. A recent translation of Augustine’s sermons has been included in the series, The Works of Saint Augustine, a Translation for the 21st Century. For these particular sermons, see Augustine, , Sermons 184-229Z, trans. Edmund Hill, ed. Rotelle, John E. (New Rochelle, NY, 1992).Google Scholar

4 These figures do not include sermons and letters discovered since Marrou, H. I. offered these calculations in St. Augustine and his Influence through the Ages, trans. Patrick Hepburne-Scott (London, 1957), 83.Google Scholar

5 The text of De Genesi ad litterain [= De Genesi] is from the critical edition of Agaësse, P. and Solignac, A., La Genèse au sens Littéral en Douze Livres, Traduction, Introduction et Notes, 2 vols, Bibliothèque Augustinienne 48–49 (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar. Translations are based (with some emendations) on the work of Taylor, John Hammond SJ, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 2 vols, ACW 41–42 (New York, 1982). Examples of Augustine’s various renditions of the phrase are found in De Genesi 7.21.31, 10.4.6, 10.9.16.Google Scholar

6 Markus (Saeculum, 11, 43) touches on this in arguing for the significance of Augustine’s reflections on the time in De Genesi as foundational to his later reflections on history in De civitate Dei.

7 For the early period, see May, G., Creatio ex Nihilo: the Doctrine of ‘Creation out of Nothing’ in Early Christian Thought, trans. Worrall, A. S. (Edinburgh, 1994).Google Scholar

8 Ammianus Marcellinus, 23.5.1; 25.2.7.

9 On Iamblichus, see Finamore, John F., Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul (Chico, CA, 1985)Google Scholar. On Proclus, see Siorvanes, L., Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science (New Haven, CT, 1996). The Corpus Hermeticum played an important role in this milieu.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Enarrationes in Psalmos 93.3; Sermo 223a.2; Sermo 36Ob.8 (Dolbeau 25.8).

11 cf. De diversis quaestionibus 79.1.

12 Though note that O’Connell, Robert argues for continuity in the work supporting his thesis on the Plotinian fall of the soul in his The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works (New York, 1987).Google Scholar

13 Retractio 1.17.

14 See Agaësse and Solignac, La Genèse au sens Littéral, i: 25–31. Clark, Elizabeth posits a beginning date of 401 and an ending date of 416 in ‘Vitiated Seeds and Holy Vessels: Augustine’s Manichean Past’, in eadem, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith (New York, 1986), 291—349 Google Scholar. Peter Brown concurs with this dating, as noted by Teske, R. in ‘Peter Brown on the Soul’s Fall’, Augustinian Studies 24 (1993), 103—31.Google Scholar

15 Markus, Saeculum (1988 edn), 138; this change is found in epistula 93, which can be securely dated to 408.

16 Lacroix, B. argues for a late change in Augustine’s position: ‘La date du xic livre du De civitate Dei’, Vigiliae Christianae 5 (1951), 121–22 Google Scholar. Mommsen, T. E. argues otherwise: ‘Orosius and Augustine’, in Rice, Eugene F., ed., Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Ithaca, NY, 1959), 325–48.Google Scholar

17 Cf. Markus, R. A., ‘De civitate Dei: Pride and the Common Good’, in Schnaubelt, and Fleteren, Van, eds, Augustine: Second Founder, 245–59.Google Scholar

18 Perhaps De Genesi II may be dated as early as 409 if his comments in 11.15 are spurred by the questions of the priest Victorianus, but there is little evidence for this.

19 Ibid. 4.28.45.

20 Cf. Sermo 288; De doctrina Christiana 2.3.4.

21 e.g. Lindberg, David, ‘Science and the Early Church’, in idem and R. Numbers, eds, God and Nature (Madison, WI, 1986), 19–48.Google Scholar

22 De Genesi 1.19.39.

23 Ibid. 3.6.8.

24 Ibid. 5.12.28.

25 ‘Quaeret: tunc quomodo? Respondebo: inuisibiliter, potentialiter, causaliter, quomodo fiunt futura non facta’: ibid. 6.6.10.

26 Ibid. 6.5.8.

27 See, e.g., the report offered by Guinagh, Kevin, ‘Saint Augustine and Evolution’, Classical Weekly 40.4 (4 November 1946), 26–31. Debates about Augustine’s views on evolution began as early as 1871, before the prosecution of John Scopes in 1925; the 1920s saw a series of such disputes.Google Scholar

28 ‘Mouet itaque occulta potentia uniuersam creaturam suam eoque motu ilia uersata, dum angeli iussa perficiunt, dum circumeunt sidera, dum alternant uenti, … dum uireta pullulant suaque semina euoluunt, dum animalia gignuntur uarioque adpetitu proprias uitas agunt … explicat saecula, quae illi, cum primum condita est, tamquam plicita indiderat: quae tamen in suos cursus non explicarentur, si ea ille, qui condidit, prouido motu administrare cessaret’: De Genesi 5.20.41; cf. 4.12.22; 9.15.27.

29 ‘non igitur ignorabat naturas elementorum eorumque ordinem, qui cum uisibilium, quae intra mundum in dementis natura mouentur’: ibid. 3.6.8.

30 ‘Ab ipsa enim exorta sunt saecula et ipsa a saeculis quoniam initium eius initium saeculorum est; unigenitus autem ante saecula, per quern facta sunt saecula’: ibid. 5.19.38.

31 Ibid. 8.9–17.

32 ‘Similiter erga animam naturaliter agitur, ut uiuat, ut sentiat; uoluntarie uero ut discat, ut consentiat’: ibid.

33 Cf. Sermo 8.1.

34 ‘Omnis iste naturae usitatissimus cursus habet quasdam naturales leges suas’; De Genesi 9.17.32; cf. De trinitate 10.3.

35 ‘Mens itaque humana prius haec, quae facta sunt, per sensus corporis experitur eorumque notitiam pro infirmitatis humanae modulo capit et deinde quaerit eorum causas’: De Genesi 4.32.49.

36 ‘Neque enim cognitio fiere potest, nisi cognoscenda praecedant; quae item priora sunt in uerbo, per quod facta sunt omnia’: ibid.

37 De doctrina Christiana 2.108.

38 De civitate Dei 8.11–12, cf. 11.21.

39 Quoting Romans 1.20: De civitate Dei 11.21.

40 Such a view might be interpreted as present in his earlier works.

41 A favourite text, cited often by Augustine, is Wisdom 11.20: ‘He arranged all things by measure, number and weight’; e.g. De Genesi 4.5.12.

42 Note the connection to De doctrina Christiana 2.25.40 and the locus classicus for the discussion, De civitate Dei 19.

43 Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo, a Biography (Berkeley, CA, 1967, rev. edn 2000), 139–50 Google Scholar. Note Harrison’s, Carol critique: Rethinking Augustine’s Early Theology: An Argument for Continuity (Oxford, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Rist, John offers a careful and critical review of Harrison’s work in New Blackfriars 87 (2006), 542–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 The citations above advancing this argument also demonstrate that indications of the changes were forming as he wrote Confessiones and De doctrina Christiana.

45 Cf. Cicero, De diuinatione 2.37; De fato 18; Tusculanae disputationes 1.43.102.

46 Cf. Gorman, Michael, ‘The Oldest Manuscripts of St. Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram’. Revue Bénédictine 90 (1980), 7—49, esp. 30—33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar