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Rod, Line and Net: Augustine on the Limits of diversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Gillian Clark
Gillian Clark*
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
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Extract

Augustine of Hippo is especially appropriate for the theme of this volume. He is acknowledged as a Father and Doctor of the Church, that is, as an authoritative Christian writer from the early centuries of the Church, and as a major theologian. Patristics, the study of the Fathers, used to be where it all started in terms of Church teaching: wherever possible, doctrines and practices were traced back to the Fathers. In the last half-century of early Christian studies there has been much more emphasis on ecclesiastical history, on the intellectual and political detail of a specific historical context. So patristics is where it all starts in that we can see Church leaders working out their responses to problems and tensions that recur through the history of the Church. In the case of Augustine, there is an unusual range of evidence from his own sermons and letters and theological treatises, and from records of Church councils in Roman Africa from the years when he was bishop (395 to 430). On the older model of patristics, Augustine was taken as the source for some of the most extreme forms of Church discipline. His writings were conflated to produce coherent ‘Augustinian’ doctrine. Phrases and sentences, images and speculation, were taken out of context to be used for purposes he never envisaged. On the newer model of early Christian studies, we can trace Augustine’s reflections about when and how to discipline people who appear to be rejecting the fundamental Christian principles, love of God and love of neighbour.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 43: Discipline and Diversity , 2007 , pp. 80 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2007

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References

1 For example, Eugène Portalié S. J., A Guide to the Thought of St Augustine, trans. Vernon J. Bourke (London, 1960).

2 Epislula 153.16 (413/4), trans, in Atkins, Margaret and Dodaro, Robert, Augustine’s Political Writings (Cambridge, 2001), 80 Google Scholar. Where translations are unattributed, I am responsible.

3 Clark, Gillian, ‘Desires of the Hangman: Augustine on Legitimized Violence’, in Drake, Hal, ed., Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices (Aldershot, 2006), 137–46 Google Scholar. ‘Paternal’ punishment: Ep. 133.2. Augustine’s own powers: Lenski, Noel, ‘Evidence for the Audientia Episcopalis in the New Letters of Augustine’, in Mathisen, Ralph, ed., Law, Society and Authority in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2001), 83–97 Google Scholar; Dossey, Leslie, ‘Judicial Violence and the Ecclesiastical Courts in Late Antique North Africa’, ibid., 98–114.Google Scholar

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5 Retractationes, 1.13.6 [hereafter: Augustine, Retr.] (ed. A. Mutzenbecher, CCSL 57 [Turnhout, 1984], 39).

6 Canon: Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, 2.24-9 [hereafter: Augustine, Doct.chr.] (ed. J. Martin, CCSL 32 [Turnhout, 1962]). Rule: George Lawless OSA, Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule (Oxford, 1987). Tyconius: Babcock, William S., Tyconius: the Book of Rules (Atlanta, GA, 1989)Google Scholar, with Augustine’s discussion, Doctr. chr., 3.92-132.

7 Confessions, 3.11.19 [hereafter: Augustine, Conf] (ed. L. Verheijen, CCSL 27 [Turnhout, 1981]).

8 Regula fidei: Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Creeds (London, 1972), 76–88.Google Scholar

9 Doctr. chr. 3.3 (CCSL 32, 78).

10 Ibid.

11 Matt 13: 47–50; Augustine, De civitate Dei, 18.49 (ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCSL 48 [Turnhout, 1955], 647) [hereafter: Augustine, Civ.]. ‘Reprobates’ are people who are condemned.

12 Pollmann, Karla and Vessey, Mark, eds, Augustine and the Disciplines (Oxford, 2005)Google Scholar. For Augustine’s uses of disciplina see Huebner, W., ‘Disciplina’, in Mayer, C., ed., Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. 2, fasc. 3–4 (Basel, 1999), 457–63.Google Scholar

13 Kaster, Robert A., Guardians of Language: the Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, CA, 1988)Google Scholar; Clark, Gillian, ‘City of God(s): Augustine’s Virgil’, Proceedings of the Virgil Society 23 (2004), 83–94 Google Scholar; Augustine as grammaticus: Catherine Conybeare, The Irrational Augustine (Oxford, 2006), 11–59.

14 Conf, 12.31.42 (CCSL 27, 240).

15 Doctr. chr., 3.38 (CCSL 32, 99–100); the interruption occurred at 3.78 (Retr., 2.4.30).

16 Athanassiadi, Polymnia, ‘The Creation of Orthodoxy in Neoplatonism’, in Clark, Gillian and Rajak, Tessa, eds, Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin (Oxford, 2002), 271–91 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Averil Cameron’s paper ‘Enforcing Orthodoxy in Byzantium’, 1–24, in this volume.

17 David Bagchi, ‘Defining Heresies: Catholic Heresiologies, 1520–50’, 241–51, in this volume.

18 De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, Prol. 1. [hereafter: Augustine, Haer.] (ed. R. Vander Plaetse and C. Beukers, CCSL 46 [Turnhout, 1969], 286).

19 Ibid., 7 (CCSL 46, 289).

20 Donatism and Pelagianism have been intensively studied: Carol Harrison, Augustine: Christian Truth and Fractured Humanity (Oxford, 2001) offers an excellent introduction.

21 On the ‘Divjak letters’ and ‘Dolbeau sermons’, see Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (2nd edn, London, 2000), 441–81.

22 The most sustained attempt to think away Augustine’s later reputation is James O’Donnell, Augustine: Sinner and Saint; a New Biography (London, 2005).

23 Maier, Jean-Louis, Le dossier du Donatisme, 2 vols (Berlin, 1987 and 1989)Google Scholar. Texts in English translation: Tilley, Maureen, Donatisi Martyr Stories (Liverpool, 1996)Google Scholar; Edwards, Mark, Optatus: Against the Donatists (Liverpool, 1997)Google Scholar; Atkins, and Dodaro, , Augustine’s Political Writings, 127–203 Google Scholar. Lancel, Serge, St Augustine, trans. Nevill, Antonia M. (London, 2000), 287–305 Google Scholar, is especially helpful on the Council of Carthage (410/11).

24 Ep. 87.4 (ed. A Goldbacher, CSEL 34.2 [1898], 400); Bonner, Gerald, ‘Die Christi Veritas ubi nunc habitas: Ideas of Schism and Heresy in the Post-Nicene Age’, in Klingshirn, William and Vessey, Mark, eds, The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus (Ann Arbor, MI, 1999), 63–79.Google Scholar

25 The Song against Donatists: Bonner, Gerald, St Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies (2nd edn, Norwich, 1986), 253–7.Google Scholar

26 Lancel, St Augustine, 281.

27 Enarrationes in psalmos, 21 [22] [hereafter: Augustine, En. ps.], trans., Hill, Edmund, Nine Sermons of Saint Augustine on the Psalms (London, 1958), 57.Google Scholar

28 For other texts, see Doyle, Daniel, ‘Spread throughout the World: Hints on Augustine’s Understanding of Petrine Ministry’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 13: 2(2005), 233–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 En.ps. 95.11 (ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont, CCSL 39 [Turnhout, 1956], 1350). There was a small Donatisi community in Rome (Augustine, Haer. 69).

30 ‘Circumcellions’ probably means those who lived circum cellas, around the shrines [cellae] of Donatist martyrs; see further Shaw, Brent D., ‘Bad Boys: Circumcellions and Fictive Violence’, in Drake, , ed., Violence, 177-94 Google Scholar. On the sequence of events and the theological questions, see Bonner, , Augustine, 237–311 Google Scholar. On the construction of Donatism, see the classic study of Frend, W. H. C., The Donatist Church: a Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar; Dearn, Alan, The Polemical Use of the Past in the Catholic/Donatist Schism (forthcoming).Google Scholar

31 Contra epistulam Parmeniani, 3.4.24 (ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 51 [Vienna, 1908], 131).

32 This paper was presented two weeks after the London bombings of 7 July 2005.

33 Ep. 111.1, trans, in Kirwan, Christopher, Augustine (London, 1989), 209–18 Google Scholar; see 210 on the problem of toleration. Rist, John, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge, 1994), 239–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses the ‘theory of persecution’, but overstates the penalties: see below. (The reference 240 n. 60 should be to Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.53 (ed. T. Mommsen, Theodosiani libri XVI [Berlin, 1904–5], 873), which is concerned with Jovinian not with Donatists.)

34 Tractatus in Iohannis epistulam ad Parthos, 7.8 (PL 35, 2033).

35 Russell, Frederick, ‘Persuading the Donatists’, in Klingshirn, and Vessey, , Limits of Ancient Christianity, 115–30.Google Scholar

36 Ep. 93.5 (ed. K.-D. Daur, CCSL 31a [Turnhout, 2005], 170).

37 Ep. 185.14 (ed. A. Goldbacher, CSEL 57 [Vienna, 1940], 13).

38 I Cor. 13: 1–3; Ep. 173.5-6(Atkins and Dodaro, Augustine’s Political Writings, 155).

39 Clark, Gillian, Christianity and Roman Society (Cambridge, 2004), 99–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 On this problem, see Richard Price, Augustine (London, 1996), 40–3.

41 Luke 14: 16–24; Augustine, Ep. 185.24-5 (CSEL 57, 22–5).

42 Bonner, Augustine, 312–93; B. R. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters (Woodbridge, 1998).

43 De dono perseverantiae, 20.53 (PL 45, 1026).

44 See Bonner, Augustine, 343 n. I, for other uses of ‘the case is closed’.

45 Sermo, 131.9-10 (PL 38, 733–4).

46 Ep. 186.2 (CSEL 57, 47); Doyle, ‘Spread throughout the World’, offers evidence for Augustine’s respect for Rome.

47 Collectio Avellana, 45, ed. O. Günther, CSEL 35 (Vienna, 1895–8), 99–103, 101.

48 Hess, H., The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Sardica (2nd edn, Oxford, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and see the papers by Thomas Graumann, David Hunt, and Christopher Stephens in this volume.

49 Merdinger, Jane, Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine (New Haven, CT, 1997)Google Scholar.

50 Harries, Jill,Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 88–93 on examples from Augustine’s experience.

51 Codex Theodosianus, 16.5.38 (ed. Mommsen, 867).

52 McLynn, Neil, ‘Augustine’s Roman Empire’, in Vessey, Mark, Pollmann, Karla, and Fitzgerald, Allan D. O.S.A., eds, History, Apocalypse and the Secular Imagination (Bowling Green, OH, 1999), 29–44 Google Scholar, at 34–40.

53 Clark, Christianity, 30–1.

54 Markus, Robert, ‘Donatism’, in Fitzgerald, Allan D., ed., Augustine Through the Ages: an Encylopedia (Grand Rapids, MI, 1999), 284–7 Google Scholar; TeSelle, Eugene, ‘Pelagius’, ibid., 633–40 Google Scholar.

55 Dodaro, Robert, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge, 2004), 72–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 Civ. 18.41 (CCSL 48, 636). On book 18 in context, see O’Daly, Gerard, Augustine’s City of God: a Reader’s Guide (Oxford, 1999), 183–95 Google Scholar.

57 Civ., 18.48 (CCSL 48, 646–7).

58 Babylon, used to symbolize the ‘earthly city’, the community of those who want what they themselves want.

59 Civ., 18.51 (CCSL 48, 648–9).

60 Ibid. (CCSL, 48, 649)

61 Ibid., 10.23 (ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCSL 47 [Turnhout, 1955], 297).

62 Ibid., 8.9 (CCSL 47, 225–6).

63 Clark, Gillian, ‘Augustine’s Porphyry and the Universal Way of Salvation’, in Karamanolis, George and Sheppard, Anne, eds, Studies on Porphyry (London, 2007 forthcoming)Google Scholar.

64 Ep. 95.4 (CCSL 31a, 218).

65 Doctr.chr. 1.1 (CCSL 32, 1).

66 Ep. 95.3.