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Timor Mortis: The Fear of Death in Augustine’s Sermons on the Martyrs*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Elena Martin
Elena Martin*
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

In the late fourth and early fifth centuries Augustine of Hippo preached a number of sermons at the annual celebrations of martyr festivals. These festivals commemorated the martyr’s ‘birthday’: the day of the martyr’s death on earth and entrance into the eternal life of heaven. They were popular occasions, drawing in larger and more diverse crowds than ordinary services, and attracting a certain air of festivity and merriment in North Africa. Martyr festivals provided the ideal location for the discussion of the afterlife: eschatological hopes had long given meaning to martyrdom, exposing the order permeating chaos, pointing towards beauty amid human suffering, and revealing death as the gateway to true life.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 45: The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul , 2009 , pp. 31 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2009

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Ecclesiastical History Society for the financial support that has enabled me to undertake this research. I am also very grateful to Dr Carol Harrison for her advice and comments on this paper. Any remaining errors are my own.

References

1 For background, see Boeft, Jan Den, ‘“Martyres sunt sed homines fuerunt”: Augustine on Martyrdom’, in Bastiaensen, A. A. R., Hilhorst, A. and Kneepkens, C. H., eds, Fructus centesimus: Mélanges offerts à Gerard J. M. Bartelink à Poccasion de son soixante-cinquième anniversaire, Instrumenta Patristica 19 (Dordrecht, 1989), 115–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frend, W. H. C., The North African Cult of Martyrs: From Apocalyptic to Hero-Worship’, in Dassmann, E., ed., Jenseitsvorstellungen in Antihe una Christentum: Gedenkschrift für Alfred Stuiber, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband 9 (Münster, 1982), 154–67 Google Scholar; Bavel, Tarcisius J. Van, ‘The Cult of the Martyrs in St. Augustine: Theology Versus Popular Religion?’, in Lamberigts, M. and Deun, P. van, eds, Martyrium in Multidisciplinary Perspective: Memorial Louis Reekmans, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 117 (Leuven, 1995), 351–61.Google Scholar

2 Straw, Carole, ‘Settling Scores: Eschatology in the Church of the Martyrs’, in Bynum, Caroline Walker and Freedman, Paul, eds, Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, PA, 2000), 21–40.Google Scholar

3 Dodaro, Robert, ‘“Christus Iustus” and Fear of Death in Augustine’s Dispute with Pelagius’, in Mayer, Cornelius and Zumkeller, Adolar, eds, Signumpietatis: Festgabefür Comelius Petrus Mayer OSA zum 60 (Würzburg, 1989), 341–61 Google Scholar; Rebillard, Éric, In hora mortis: Évolution de la pastorale chrétienne de la mort aux IVe et Ve siècles dans l’occident latin (Rome, 1994), esp. 51–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Coyle, J. Kevin, ‘Adapted Discourse: Heaven in Augustine’s City of God and in His Contemporary Preaching’, Augustinian Studies 30 (1999), 205–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Brown, Peter, ‘Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity’, Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000), 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Quasten, Johannes, ‘“Vetus superstitio et nova religio”: The Problem of Refrigerium in the Ancient Church of North Africa’, HThR 33 (1940), 253–66.Google Scholar

6 See, for example, Allen, Pauline and Mayer, Wendy, ‘Computer and Homily: Accessing the Everyday Life of Early Christians’, Vigiliae Christianae 47 (1993), 260–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Sermo 306D.4; Enarratio in Psalmum 38.19. All references to Augustine’s Sermones are to John E. Rotelle, ed., Edmund Hill, trans., The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the Twenty-First Century, part III, vols I-II (New York, 1990–97) [hereafter: S. and WSA III respectively]. References to the Enarrationes in Psalmos [hereafter: En. Ps.] are to the same series, trans. Maria Boulding, vols 15–20 (New York, 2000–04).

8 S. 280.3,305A.8, 306D.4.

9 S. 280.3, 302.4, 335D.3, 345.2. Cf. Tractates on the Gospel of John, 43.12(1–2). All references to the Tractates are to the translation by John W. Rettig, Fathers of the Church 78–79, 88, 90, 92 (Washington, DC, 1988–95) [hereafter: Io. Ev. Tr.].

10 S. 280.3.

11 S. 301.3.

12 S.280.3.

13 S. 297.3-4, 299.8, 335B.1.

14 See further S. 361.2.

15 S.335E.3.

16 S. 65.8 (WSA III/3: 196). Cf. The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. Dyson, R. W., Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, 1998)Google Scholar, 13.2 [hereafter: Civ.].

17 S. 273.1.

18 Civ. 21.24.

19 S. 306.5, 306E.9. Cf. Civ. 13.2.

20 S. 335B.5(WSA, III/9:219).

21 S. 302.2 (WSA, III/8:301).

22 S. 299D.1, 301.8, 302.7, 305A.9, 328.6,331.3.

23 Bremmer, Jan N., ‘Contextualising Heaven in Third-Century North Africa’, in Boustan, Ra’anan S. and Reed, Annette Yoshiko, eds, Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (Cambridge and New York, 2004), 159–73 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Orbán, A. P., ‘The Afterlife in the Visions of the Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis’, in Bastiaensen, et al., Fructus Centesimas, 269–77.Google Scholar

24 Coyle, , ‘Adapted Discourse’, 219 Google Scholar: ‘In the homiletic discourses, Augustine does not discuss matters such as the [resurrected] body’s weight, height, or hair …. The one truly graphic description of risen bodies is in the City of God.’ See further Civ. 21 for Augustine’s explanation of how the bodies of the damned will endure unending punishment, and for a description of the resurrected bodies of the saints in the eternal City of God.

25 S. 306.6-7.

26 Ibid.; Civ. 19.

27 S. 277.13-19. Cf. Civ. 22.29.

28 S. 303.2.

29 S. 305A.8 (WSA, III/8:331). Cf. Civ. 22.30.

30 See further Alfeche, M., ‘The Use of Some Verses in 1 Cor. 15 in Augustine’s Theology of Resurrection’, Augustiniana 37 (1987), 122–86.Google Scholar

31 En. Ps. 140.16. See also, in this volume, Frances Young, ‘Naked or Clothed? Eschatology and the Doctrine of Creation’, 1–19.

32 S. 280.5 (WSA, III/8: 75). Cf. Civ. 22.19.

33 S. 299E.1-2.

34 En. Ps. 36(3)15 (WSA, III/16: 141).

35 S. 280.4, 302.7.

36 S. 273.2, 309.1.

37 S. 284.5, 285.5, 2973.3. 306E.1.

38 S. 328.2, 335A.1.

39 S. 274.1, 277.1, 280.1-2, 300.1, 313A.3.

40 S. 299E.1-2, 313D.4, 335E.2.

41 En.Ps. 40.2, 137.3, 14; S. 286.6, 301.2, 306D.1-2.

42 S. 280.4, 314.1, 316.2.

43 S. 275.1, 276.2.

44 S.299F.1.

45 Civ. 21.9, 10;S. 275.3, 317.1.

46 S. 159A.11, 280.1, 281.3, 282.1, 3.

47 S. 335A.1-2.

48 S. 274, 275.2-3, 276.1, 4.

49 S. 329.2 (WSA, III/9:183).

50 5. 301.9 (WSA, III/8: 287–88).

51 For example Civ. 21.13, 17, 23.

52 Bonner, Gerald, Freedom and Necessity: St. Augustine’s Teaching on Divine Power and Human Freedom (Washington, DC, 2007), 14, 20.Google Scholar

53 S. 326.1 (WSA, III/9: 170).

54 S. 304.3, 306.2, 345.6.

55 S. 306.10 (WSA, III/9:24).

56 S. 302.7, 325.1.

57 S. 159A3, 273.9, 277.2, 284.3, 297–1-3, 299–8, 299F.4, 305A.2, 330.4, 335B.3, 335C.1, 335H.2.

58 S. 169.15, 281.3, 284.4, 306A, 335B.2, 4.

59 S. 299D.1 (WSA, III/8: 256).

60 S. 277A.2, 299F.2-3, 304.4, 313C.1, 314.1, 335B.2, 4.

61 S. 280.4, 306A, 331.1. For the anti-Pelagian undertones of this assertion, see Dodaro, ‘Chrisms Iustus’, 349.

62 En. Ps. 140.22; S. 274, 276.1-2, 277A.2, 280.1, 281.1, 283.4, 284.1-3, 285.1, 299C.4, 302.8, 305A2.5, 313A.5, 328.3, 329.2,330.1, 332.3,335B.4, 335F.2 335J.1. For Augustine this point distinguishes the true martyrs of the Catholic Church (martyres veri) from the false martyrs of the Donatisi Church (martyres falsi). While the Donatist martyrs appear to have conquered the fear of death by welcoming martyrdom, Augustine repeatedly asserts that it is the cause, not the punishment, which makes a martyr (S. 325.2, 327.1-2, 328.4, 7, 335.2, 335C.5, 335G.2, 359B.16-20). The true martyr’s motivation is pure and chaste love; this love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, which is received only by those who are in the unity of the Catholic Church (Io. Ev. Tr. 93.1).

63 S. 159A.1,302.9, 306.10,315.8, 317.3, 325.1, 335C.12,335D.3, 335H.1.

64 S.332-3.335H.2.

65 S.299F.4, 315.8, 317.4, 345.6.

66 S. 297.8, 299A.2,301.3, 7–8,313A.2.

67 S. 305A.10, 306C.3, 5.

68 S.331.5.

69 S. 286.5 (WSA, III/8: 103).