(Augustine, Confessions. part 25) [217] John 14:6. [218] An interesting reminder that the Apollinarian heresy was condemned but not extinct. [219] It is worth remembering that both Augustine and Alypius were catechumens and had presumably been receiving doctrinal instruction in preparation for their eventual baptism and full membership in the Catholic Church. That their ideas on the incarnation, at this stage, were in such confusion raises an interesting problem. [220] Cf. Augustine's The Christian Combat as an example of "the refutation of heretics." [221] Cf. 1 Cor. 11:19. [222] Non peritus, sed periturus essem. [223] Cf. 1 Cor. 3:11f. [224] Rom. 7:22, 23. [225] Rom. 7:24, 25. [226] Cf. Prov. 8:22 and Col. 1:15. Augustine is here identifying the figure of Wisdom in Proverbs with the figure of the Logos in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel. In the Arian controversy both these references to God's Wisdom and Word as "created" caused great difficulty for the orthodox, for the Arians triumphantly appealed to them as proof that Jesus Christ was a "creature" of God. But Augustine was a Chalcedonian before Chalcedon, and there is no doubt that he is here quoting familiar Scripture and filling it with the interpretation achieved by the long struggle of the Church to affirm the coeternity and consubstantiality of Jesus Christ and God the Father. [227] Cf. Ps. 62:1, 2, 5, 6. [228] Cf. Ps. 91:13. [229] A figure that compares the dangers of the solitary traveler in a bandit-infested land and the safety of an imperial convoy on a main highway to the capital city. [230] Cf. 1 Cor. 15:9. [231] Ps. 35:10. [232] Cf. Ps. 116:16, 17. [233] Cf. Ps. 8:1. [234] 1 Cor. 13:12. [235] Matt. 19:12. [236] Rom. 1:21. [237] Job 28:28. [238] Prov. 3:7. [239] Rom. 1:22. [240] Col. 2:8. [241] Virgil, Aeneid, VIII, 698. [242] Ps. 144:5. [243] Luke 15:4. [244] Cf. Luke, ch. 15. [245] 1 Cor. 1:27. [246] A garbled reference to the story of the conversion of Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus, in Acts 13:4-12. [247] 2 Tim. 2:21. [248] Gal. 5:17. [249] The text here is a typical example of Augustine's love of wordplay and assonance, as a conscious literary device: tuae caritati me dedere quam meae cupiditati cedere; sed illud placebat et vincebat, hoc libebat et vinciebat. [250] Eph. 5:14. [251] Rom. 7:22-25. [252] The last obstacles that remained. His intellectual difficulties had been cleared away and the intention to become a Christian had become strong. But incontinence and immersion in his career were too firmly fixed in habit to be overcome by an act of conscious resolution. [253] Treves, an important imperial town on the Moselle; the emperor referred to here was probably Gratian. Cf. E.A. Freeman, "Augusta Trevororum," in the British Quarterly Review (1875), 62, pp. 1-45. [254] Agentes in rebus, government agents whose duties ranged from postal inspection and tax collection to espionage and secret police work. They were ubiquitous and generally dreaded by the populace; cf. J.S. Reid, "Reorganization of the Empire," in Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. I, pp. 36-38. [255] The inner circle of imperial advisers; usually rather informally appointed and usually with precarious tenure. [256] Cf. Luke 14:28-33. [257] Eph. 5:8. [258] Cf. Ps. 34:5. [259] Cf. Ps. 6:3; 79:8. [260] This is the famous Tolle, lege; tolle, lege. [261] Doubtless from Ponticianus, in their earlier conversation. [262] Matt. 19:21. [263] Rom. 13:13. [264] Note the parallels here to the conversion of Anthony and the agentes in rebus. [265] Rom. 14:1. [266] Eph. 3:20. [267] Ps. 116:16, 17. [268] An imperial holiday season, from late August to the middle of October. [269] Cf. Ps. 46:10. [270] His subsequent baptism; see below, Ch. VI. [271] Luke 14:14. [272] Ps. 125:3. [273] The heresy of Docetism, one of the earliest and most persistent of all Christological errors. [274] Cf. Ps. 27:8. [275] The group included Monica, Adeodatus (Augustine's fifteen- year-old son), Navigius (Augustine's brother), Rusticus and Fastidianus (relatives), Alypius, Trygetius, and Licentius (former pupils). [276] A somewhat oblique acknowledgment of the fact that none of the Cassiciacum dialogues has any distinctive or substantial Christian content This has often been pointed to as evidence that Augustine's conversion thus far had brought him no farther than to a kind of Christian Platonism; cf. P. Alfaric, L'Evolution intellectuelle de Saint Augustin (Paris, 1918). [277] The dialogues written during this stay at Cassiciacum: Contra Academicos, De beata vita, De ordine, Soliloquia. See, in this series, Vol. VI, pp. 17-63, for an English translation of the Soliloquies. [278] Cf. Epistles II and III. [279] A symbolic reference to the "cedars of Lebanon"; cf. Isa. 2:12-14; Ps. 29:5. [280] There is perhaps a remote connection here with Luke 10:18- 20. [281] Ever since the time of Ignatius of Antioch who referred to the Eucharist as "the medicine of immortality," this had been a popular metaphor to refer to the sacraments; cf. Ignatius, Ephesians 20:2. [282] Here follows (8-11) a brief devotional commentary on Ps. 4. [283] John 7:39. [284] Idipsum -- the oneness and immutability of God. [285] Cf. v. 9. [286] 1 Cor. 15:54. [287] Concerning the Teacher; cf. Vol. VI of this series, pp. 64- 101. [288] This was apparently the first introduction into the West of antiphonal chanting, which was already widespread in the East. Ambrose brought it in; Gregory brought it to perfection. [289] Cf. S. of Sol. 1:3, 4. [290] Cf. Isa. 40:6; 1 Peter 1:24: "All flesh is grass." See Bk. XI, Ch. II, 3. [291] Ecclus. 19:1. [292] 1 Tim. 5:9. [293] Phil. 3:13. [294] Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9. [295] Ps. 36:9. [296] Idipsum. [297] Cf. this report of a "Christian ecstasy" with the Plotinian ecstasy recounted in Bk. VII, Ch. XVII, 23, above. [298] Cf. Wis. 7:21-30; see especially v. 27: "And being but one, she [Wisdom] can do all things: and remaining in herself the same, she makes all things new." [299] Matt. 25:21. [300] 1 Cor. 15:51. [301] Navigius, who had joined them in Milan, but about whom Augustine is curiously silent save for the brief and unrevealing references in De beata vita-, I, 6, to II, 7, and De ordine, I, 2- 3. [302] A.D. 387. [303] Nec omnino moriebatur. Is this an echo of Horace's famous memorial ode, Exegi monumentum aere perennius . . . non omnis moriar? Cf. Odes, Book III, Ode XXX. [304] 1 Tim. 1:5. [305] Cf. this passage, as Augustine doubtless intended, with the story of his morbid and immoderate grief at the death of his boyhood friend, above, Bk. IV, Chs. IV, 9, to VII, 12. [306] Ps. 101:1. [307] Ps. 68:5. [308] Sir Tobie Matthew (adapted). For Augustine's own analysis of the scansion and structure of this hymn, see De musica, VI, 2:2-3; for a brief commentary on the Latin text, see A.S. Walpole, Early Latin Hymns (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 44-49. [309] 1 Cor. 15:22. [310] Matt. 5:22. [311] 2 Cor. 10:17. [312] Rom. 8:34. [313] Cf. Matt. 6:12. [314] Ps. 143:2. [315] Matt. 5:7. [316] Cf. Rom. 9:15. [317] Ps. 119:108. [318] Cf. 1 Cor. 13:12. [319] Eph. 5:27. [320] Ps. 51:6. [321] John 3:21. [322] 1 Cor. 2:11. [323] 1 Cor. 13:7. [324] Ps. 32:1. [325] Ps. 144:7, 8. [326] Cf. Rev. 8:3-5. "And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up before God out of the angel's hand" (v. 4). [327] 1 Cor. 2:11. [328] 1 Cor. 13:12. [329] Isa. 58:10. [330] Rom. 1:20. [331] Cf. Rom. 9:15. [332] One of the pre-Socratic "physiologer." Cf. Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods (a likely source for Augustine's knowledge of early Greek philosophy), I, 10: "After Anaximander comes Anaximenes, who taught that the air is God. . . ." [333] An important text for Augustine's conception of sensation and the relation of body and mind. Cf. On Music, VI, 5:10; The Magnitude of the Soul, 25:48; On the Trinity, XII, 2:2; see also F. Coplestone, A History of Philosophy (London, 1950), II, 51-60, and E. Gilson, Introduction a l'etude de Saint Augustin, pp. 74- 87. [334] Rom. 1:20. [335] Reading videnti (with De Labriolle) instead of vident (as in Skutella). [336] Ps. 32:9. [337] The notion of the soul's immediate self-knowledge is a basic conception in Augustine's psychology and epistemology; cf. the refutation of skepticism, Si fallor, sum in On Free Will, II, 3:7; see also the City of God, XI, 26. [338] Again, the mind-body dualism typical of the Augustinian tradition. Cf. E. Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1940), pp. 173-188; and E. Gilson, The Philosophy of Saint Bonaventure (Sheed & Ward, New York, 1938), ch. XI. [339] Luke 15:8. [340] Cf. Isa. 55:3. [341] Cf. the early dialogue "On the Happy Life" in Vol. I of The Fathers of the Church (New York, 1948). [342] Gal. 5:17. [343] Ps. 42:11. [344] Cf. Enchiridion, VI, 19ff. [345] When he is known at all, God is known as the Self-evident. This is, of course, not a doctrine of innate ideas but rather of the necessity, and reality, of divine illumination as the dynamic source of all our knowledge of divine reality. Cf. Coplestone, op. cit., ch. IV, and Cushman, op. cit. [346] Cf. Wis. 8:21. [347] Cf. Enneads, VI, 9:4. [348] 1 John 2:16. [349] Eph. 3:20. [350] 1 Cor. 15:54. [351] Cf. Matt. 6:34. [352] 1 Cor. 9:27. [353] Cf. Luke 21:34. [354] Cf. Wis. 8:21. [355] Ecclus. 18:30. [356] 1 Cor. 8:8. [357] Phil. 4:11-13. [358] Ps. 103:14. [359] Cf. Gen. 3:19. [360] Luke 15:24. [361] Ecclus. 23:6. [362] Titus 1:15. [363] Rom. 14:20. [364] 1 Tim. 4:4. [365] 1 Cor. 8:8. [366] Cf. Col. 2:16. [367] Rom. 14:3. [368] Luke 5:8. [369] John 16:33. [370] Cf. Ps. 139:16. [371] Cf. the evidence for Augustine's interest and proficiency in music in his essay De musica, written a decade earlier. [372] Cf. 2 Cor. 5:2. [373] Cf. Tobit, chs. 2 to 4. [374] Gen. 27:1; cf. Augustine's Sermon IV, 20:21f. [375] Cf. Gen., ch. 48. [376] Again, Ambrose, Deus, creator omnium, an obvious favorite of Augustine's. See above, Bk. IX, Ch. XII, 32. [377] Ps. 25:15. [378] Ps. 121:4. [379] Ps. 26:3. [380] 1 John 2:16. [381] Cf. Ps. 103:3-5. [382] Cf. Matt. 11:30. [383] 1 Peter 5:5. [384] Cf. Ps. 18:7, 13. [385] Cf. Isa. 14:12-14. [386] Cf. Prov. 27:21. [387] Cf. Ps. 19:12. [388] Cf. Ps. 141:5. [389] Ps. 109:22. [390] Ps. 31:22. [391] Cf. the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, Luke 18:9- 14. [392] Cf. Eph. 2:2. [393] 2 Cor. 11:14. [394] Rom. 6:23. [395] 1 Tim. 2:5. [396] Cf. Rom. 8:32. [397] Phil. 2:6-8. [398] Cf. Ps. 88:5; see Ps. 87:6 (Vulgate). [399] Ps. 103:3. [400] Cf. Rom. 8:34. [401] John 1:14. [402] 2 Cor. 5:15. [403] Ps. 119:18. [404] Col. 2:3. [405] Cf. Ps. 21:27 (Vulgate). [406] In the very first sentence of Confessions, Bk. I, Ch. I. Here we have a basic and recurrent motif of the Confessions from beginning to end: the celebration and praise of the greatness and goodness of God -- Creator and Redeemer. The repetition of it here connects this concluding section of the Confessions, Bks. XI- XIII, with the preceding part. [407] Matt. 6:8. [408] The "virtues" of the Beatitudes, the reward for which is blessedness; cf. Matt. 5:1-11. [409] Ps. 118:1; cf. Ps. 136. [410] An interesting symbol of time's ceaseless passage; the reference is to a water clock (clepsydra). [411] Cf. Ps. 130:1, De profundis. [412] Ps. 74:16. [413] This metaphor is probably from Ps. 29:9. [414] A repetition of the metaphor above, Bk. IX, Ch. VII, 16. [415] Ps. 26:7. [416] Ps. 119:18. [417] Cf. Matt. 6:33. [418] Col. 2:3. [419] Augustine was profoundly stirred, in mind and heart, by the great mystery of creation and the Scriptural testimony about it. In addition to this long and involved analysis of time and creation which follows here, he returned to the story in Genesis repeatedly: e.g., De Genesi contra Manicheos; De Genesi ad litteram, liber imperfectus (both written _before_ the Confessions ); De Genesi ad litteram, libri XII and De civitate Dei, XI-XII (both written _after_ the Confessions ). [420] The final test of truth, for Augustine, is self-evidence and the final source of truth is the indwelling Logos. [421] Cf. the notion of creation in Plato's Timaeus (29D-30C; 48E- 50C), in which the Demiurgos (craftsman) fashions the universe from pre-existent matter and imposes as much form as the Receptacle will receive. The notion of the world fashioned from pre-existent matter of some sort was a universal idea in Greco- Roman cosmology. [422] Cf. Ps. 33:9. [423] Matt. 3:17. [424] Cf. the Vulgate of John 8:25. [425] Cf. Augustine's emphasis on Christ as true Teacher in De Magistro. [426] Cf. John 3:29. [427] Cf. Ps. 103:4, 5 (mixed text). [428] Ps. 104:24. [429] Pleni vetustatis suae. In Sermon CCLXVII, 2 (PL 38, c. 1230), Augustine has a similar usage. Speaking of those who pour new wine into old containers, he says: Carnalitas vetustas est, gratia novitas est, "Carnality is the old nature; grace is the new"; cf. Matt. 9:17. [430] The notion of the eternity of this world was widely held in Greek philosophy, in different versions, and was incorporated into the Manichean rejection of the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo which Augustine is citing here. He returns to the question, and his answer to it, again in De civitate Dei, XI, 4-8. [431] The unstable "heart" of those who confuse time and eternity. [432] Cf. Ps. 102:27. [433] Ps. 2:7. [434] Spatium, which means extension either in space or time. [435] The breaking light and the image of the rising sun. [436] Cf. Ps. 139:6. [437] Memoria, contuitus, and expectatio: a pattern that corresponds vaguely to the movement of Augustine's thought in the Confessions: from direct experience back to the supporting memories and forward to the outreach of hope and confidence in God's provident grace. [438] Cf. Ps. 116:10. [439] Cf. Matt. 25:21, 23. [440] Communes notitias, the universal principles of "common sense." This idea became a basic category in scholastic epistemology. [441] Gen. 1:14. [442] Cf. Josh. 10:12-14. [443] Cf. Ps. 18:28. [444] Cubitum, literally the distance between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger; in the imperial system of weights and measures it was 17.5 inches. [445] Distentionem, "spread-out-ness"; cf. Descartes' notion of res extensae, and its relation to time. [446] Ps. 100:3. [447] Here Augustine begins to summarize his own answers to the questions he has raised in his analysis of time. [448] The same hymn of Ambrose quoted above, Bk. IX, Ch. XII, 39, and analyzed again in De musica, VI, 2:2. [449] This theory of time is worth comparing with its most notable restatement in modern poetry, in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and especially "Burnt Norton." [450] Ps. 63:3. [451] Cf. Phil. 3:12-14. [452] Cf. Ps. 31:10. [453] Note here the preparation for the transition from this analysis of time in Bk. XI to the exploration of the mystery of creation in Bks. XII and XIII. [454] Celsitudo, an honorific title, somewhat like "Your Highness." [455] Rom. 8:31. [456] Matt. 7:7, 8. [457] Vulgate, Ps. 113:16 (cf. Ps. 115:16, K.J.; see also Ps. 148:4, both Vulgate and K.J.): Caelum caeli domino, etc. Augustine finds a distinction here for which the Hebrew text gives no warrant. The Hebrew is a typical nominal sentence and means simply "The heavens are the heavens of Yahweh"; cf. the Soncino edition of The Psalms, edited by A. Cohen; cf. also R.S.V., Ps. 115:16. The LXX reading seems to rest on a variant Hebrew text. This idiomatic construction does not mean "the heavens of the heavens" (as it is too literally translated in the LXX), but rather "highest heaven." This is a familiar way, in Hebrew, of emphasizing a superlative (e.g., "King of kings," "Song of songs"). The singular thing can be described superlatively only in terms of itself! [458] Earth and sky. [459] It is interesting that Augustine should have preferred the invisibilis et incomposita of the Old Latin version of Gen. 1:2 over the inanis et vacua of the Vulgate, which was surely accessible to him. Since this is to be a key phrase in the succeeding exegesis this reading can hardly have been the casual citation of the old and familiar version. Is it possible that Augustine may have had the sensibilities and associations of his readers in mind -- for many of them may have not known Jerome's version or, at least, not very well? [460] Abyssus, literally, the unplumbed depths of the sea, and as a constant meaning here, "the depths beyond measure." [461] Gen. 1:2. [462] Augustine may not have known the Platonic doctrine of nonbeing (cf. Sophist, 236C-237B), but he clearly is deeply influenced here by Plotinus; cf. Enneads, II, 4:8f., where matter is analyzed as a substratum without quantity or quality; and 4:15: "Matter, then, must be described as toapeiron (the indefinite). . . . Matter is indeterminateness and nothing else." In short, materia informis is sheer possibility; not anything and not nothing! [463] Dictare: was Augustine dictating his Confessions? It is very probable. [464] Visibiles et compositas, the opposite of "invisible and unformed." [465] Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8. [466] De nihilo. [467] Trina unitas. [468] Cf. Gen. 1:6. [469] Constat et non constat, the created earth really exists but never is self-sufficient. [470] Moses. [471] Ps. 42:3, 10. [472] Cor. 13:12. [473] Cf. Ecclus. 1:4. [474] 2 Cor. 5:21. [475] Cf. Gal. 4:26. [476] 2 Cor. 5:1. [477] Cf. Ps. 26:8. [478] Ps. 119:176. [479] To "the house of God." [480] Cf. Ps. 28:1. [481] Cubile, i.e., the heart. [482] Cf. Rom. 8:26. [483] The heavenly Jerusalem of Gal. 4:26, which had become a favorite Christian symbol of the peace and blessedness of heaven; cf. the various versions of the hymn "Jerusalem, My Happy Home" in Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, pp. 580-583. The original text is found in the Liber meditationum, erroneously ascribed to Augustine himself. [484] Cf. 2 Tim. 2:14. [485] 1 Tim. 1:5. [486] This is the basis of Augustine's defense of allegory as both legitimate and profitable in the interpretation of Scripture. He did not mean that there is a plurality of literal truths in Scripture but a multiplicity of perspectives on truth which amounted to different levels and interpretations of truth. This gave Augustine the basis for a positive tolerance of varying interpretations which did hold fast to the essential common premises about God's primacy as Creator; cf. M. Pontet, L'Exegese de Saint Augustin predicateur (Lyons, 1944), chs. II and III. [487] In this chapter, Augustine summarizes what he takes to be the Christian consensus on the questions he has explored about the relation of the intellectual and corporeal creations. [488] Cf. 1 Cor. 8:6. [489] Mole mundi. [490] Cf. Col. 1:16. [491] Gen. 1:9. [492] Note how this reiterates a constant theme in the Confessions as a whole; a further indication that Bk. XII is an integral part of the single whole. [493] Cf. De libero arbitrio, II, 8:20, 10:28. [494] Cf. John 8:44. [495] The essential thesis of the De Magistro; it has important implications both for Augustine's epistemology and for his theory of Christian nurture; cf. the De catechizandis rudibus. [496] 1 Cor. 4:6. [497] Cf. Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; see also Matt. 22:37, 39. [498] Cf. Rom. 9:21. [499] Cf. Ps. 8:4. [500] "In the beginning God created," etc. [501] An echo of Job 39:13-16. [502] The thicket denizens mentioned above. [503] Cf. Ps. 143:10. [504] Something of an understatement! It is interesting to note that Augustine devotes more time and space to these opening verses of Genesis than to any other passage in the entire Bible -- and he never commented on the _full_ text of Genesis. Cf. Karl Barth's 274 pages devoted to Gen., chs. 1;2, in the Kirchliche Dogmatik, III, I, pp. 103-377. [505] Transition, in preparation for the concluding book (XIII), which undertakes a constructive resolution to the problem of the analysis of the mode of creation made here in Bk. XII. [506] This is a compound -- and untranslatable -- Latin pun: neque ut sic te colam quasi terram, ut sis uncultus si non te colam. [507] Cf. Enneads, I, 2:4: "What the soul now sees, it certainly always possessed, but as lying in the darkness. . . . To dispel the darkness and thus come to knowledge of its inner content, it must thrust toward the light." Compare the notions of the initiative of such movements in the soul in Plotinus and Augustine. [508] Cf. 2 Cor. 5:21. [509] Cf. Ps. 36:6 and see also Augustine's Exposition on the Psalms, XXXVI, 8, where he says that "the great preachers [receivers of God's illumination] are the mountains of God," for they first catch the light on their summits. The abyss he called "the depth of sin" into which the evil and unfaithful fall. [510] Cf. Timaeus, 29D-30A, "He [the Demiurge-Creator] was good: and in the good no jealousy . . . can ever arise. So, being without jealousy, he desired that all things should come as near as possible to being like himself. . . . He took over all that is visible . . . and brought it from order to order, since he judged that order was in every way better" (F. M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology, New York, 1937, p. 33). Cf. Enneads, V, 4:1, and Athanasius, On the Incarnation, III, 3. [511] Cf. Gen. 1:2. [512] Cf. Ps. 36:9. [513] In this passage in Genesis on the creation. [514] Cf. Gen. 1:6. [515] Rom. 5:5. [516] 1 Cor. 12:1. [517] Cf. Eph. 3:14, 19. [518] Cf. the Old Latin version of Ps. 123:5. [519] Cf. Eph. 5:8. [520] Cf. Ps. 31:20. [521] Cf. Ps. 9:13. [522] The Holy Spirit. [523] Canticum graduum. Psalms 119 to 133 as numbered in the Vulgate were regarded as a single series of ascending steps by which the soul moves up toward heaven; cf. The Exposition on the Psalms, loc. cit. [524] Tongues of fire, symbol of the descent of the Holy Spirit; cf. Acts 2:3, 4. [525] Cf. Ps. 122:6. [526] Ps. 122:1. [527] Cf. Ps. 23:6. [528] Gen. 1:3. [529] John 1:9. [530] Cf. the detailed analogy from self to Trinity in De Trinitate, IX-XII. [531] I.e., the Church. [532] Cf. Ps. 39:11. [533] Ps. 36:6. [534] Gen. 1:3 and Matt. 4:17; 3:2. [535] Cf. Ps. 42:5, 6. [536] Cf. Eph. 5:8. [537] Ps. 42:7. [538] Cf. 1 Cor. 3:1. [539] Cf. Phil. 3:13. [540] Cf. Ps. 42:1. [541] Ps. 42:2. [542] Cf. 2 Cor. 5:1-4. [543] Rom. 12:2. [544] 1 Cor. 14:20. [545] Gal. 3:1. [546] Eph. 4:8, 9. [547] Cf. Ps. 46:4. [548] Cf. John 3:29. [549] Cf. Rom. 8:23. [550] I.e., the Body of Christ. [551] 1 John 3:2. [552] Ps. 42:3. [553] Cf. Ps. 42:4. [554] Ps. 43:5. [555] Cf. Ps. 119:105. [556] Cf. Rom. 8:10. [557] Cf. S. of Sol. 2:17. [558] Cf. Ps. 5:3. [559] Ps. 43:5. [560] Cf. Rom. 8:11. [561] 1 Thess. 5:5. [562] Cf. Gen. 1:5. [563] Cf. Rom. 9:21. [564] Isa. 34:4. [565] Cf. Gen. 3:21. [566] Ps. 8:3. [567] "The heavens," i.e. the Scriptures. [568] Cf. Ps. 8:2. [569] Legunt, eligunt, diligunt. [570] Ps. 36:5. [571] Cf. Matt. 24:35. [572] Cf. Isa. 40:6-8. [573] Cf. 1 John 3:2. [574] Retia, literally "a net"; such as those used by retiarii, the gladiators who used nets to entangle their opponents. [575] Cf. S. of Sol. 1:3, 4. [576] 1 John 3:2. [577] Cf. Ps. 63:1. [578] Ps. 36:9. [579] Amaricantes, a figure which Augustine develops both in the Exposition of the Psalms and The City of God. Commenting on Ps. 65, Augustine says: "For the sea, by a figure, is used to indicate this world, with its bitter saltiness and troubled storms, where men with perverse and depraved appetites have become like fishes devouring one another." In The City of God, he speaks of the bitterness of life in the civitas terrena; cf. XIX, 5. [580] Cf. Ps. 95:5. [581] Cf. Gen. 1:10f. [582] In this way, Augustine sees an analogy between the good earth bearing its fruits and the ethical "fruit-bearing" of the Christian love of neighbor. [583] Cf. Ps. 85:11. [584] Cf. Gen. 1:14. [585] Cf. Isa. 58:7. [586] Cf. Phil. 2:15. [587] Cf. Gen. 1:19. [588] Cf. 2 Cor. 5:17. [589] Cf. Rom. 13:11, 12. [590] Ps. 65:11. [591] For this whole passage, cf. the parallel developed here with 1 Cor. 12:7-11. [592] In principio diei, an obvious echo to the Vulgate ut praesset diei of Gen. 1:16. Cf. Gibb and Montgomery, p. 424 (see Bibl.), for a comment on in principio diei and in principio noctis, below. [593] Sacramenta; but cf. Augustine's discussion of sacramenta in the Old Testament in the Exposition of the Psalms, LXXIV, 2: "The sacraments of the Old Testament promised a Saviour; the sacraments of the New Testament give salvation." [594] Cf. 1 Cor. 3:1; 2:6. [595] Isa. 1:16. [596] Isa. 1:17. [597] Isa. 1:18. [598] Cf. for this syntaxis, Matt. 19:16-22 and Ex. 20:13-16. [599] Cf. Matt. 6:21. [600] I.e., the rich young ruler. [601] Cf. Matt. 13:7. [602] Cf. Matt. 97 Reading here, with Knoll and the Sessorianus, in firmamento mundi. [603] Cf. Isa. 52:7. [604] Perfectorum. Is this a conscious use, in a Christian context, of the distinction he had known so well among the Manicheans -- between the perfecti and the auditores? [605] Ps. 19:2. [606] Cf. Acts 2:2, 3. [607] Cf. Matt. 5:14, 15. [608] Cf. Gen. 1:20. [609] Cf. Jer. 15:19. [610] Ps. 19:4. [611] That is, the Church. [612] An allegorical ideal type of the perfecti in the Church. [613] 1 Cor. 14:22. [614] The fish was an early Christian rebus for "Jesus Christ." The Greek word for fish, was arranged acrostically to make the phrase Jesus Christ, GodUs Son, Saviour; cf. Smith and Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, pp. 673f.; see also Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne, Vol. 14, cols. 1246-1252, for a full account of the symbolism and pictures of early examples. [615] Cf. Ps. 69:32. [616] Cf. Rom. 12:2. [617] Cf. 1 Tim. 6:20. [618] Gal. 4:12. [619] Cf. Ecclus. 3:19. [620] Rom. 1:20. [621] Rom. 12:2. [622] Gen. 1:26. [623] Rom. 12:2 (mixed text). [624] Cf. 1 Cor. 2:15. [625] 1 Cor. 2:14. [626] Cf. Ps. 49:20. [627] Cf. James 4:11. [628] See above, Ch. XXI, 30. [629] I.e., the Church. [630] Cf. 1 Cor. 14:16. [631] Another reminder that, ideally, knowledge is immediate and direct. [632] Here, again, as in a coda, Augustine restates his central theme and motif in the whole of his "confessions": the primacy of God, His constant creativity, his mysterious, unwearied, unfrustrated redemptive love. All are summed up in this mystery of creation in which the purposes of God are announced and from which all Christian hope takes its premise. [633] That is, from basic and essentially simple ideas, they proliferate multiple -- and valid -- implications and corollaries. [634] Cf. Rom. 3:4. [635] Cf. Gen. 1:29, 30. [636] Cf. 2 Tim. 1:16. [637] 2 Tim. 4:16. [638] Cf. Ps. 19:4. [639] Phil. 4:10 (mixed text). [640] Phil. 4:11-13. [641] Phil. 4:14. [642] Phil. 4:15-17. [643] Phil. 4:17., [644] Cf. Matt. 10:41, 42. [645] Idiotae: there is some evidence that this term was used to designate pagans who had a nominal connection with the Christian community but had not formally enrolled as catechumens. See Th. Zahn in Neue kirkliche Zeitschrift (1899), pp. 42-43. [646] Gen. 1:31. [647] A reference to the Manichean cosmogony and similar dualistic doctrines of "creation." [648] 1 Cor. 2:11, 12. [649] Rom. 5:5. [650] Sed quod est, est. Note the variant text in Skutella, op. cit.: sed est, est. This is obviously an echo of the Vulgate Ex. 3:14: ego sum qui sum. [651] Augustine himself had misgivings about this passage. In the Retractations, he says that this statement was made "without due consideration." But he then adds, with great justice: "However, the point in question is very obscure" (res autem in abdito est valde); cf. Retract., 2:6. [652] See above, amaricantes, Ch. XVII, 20. [653] Cf. this requiescamus in te with the requiescat in te in Bk. I, Ch. I. [654] Cf. The City of God, XI, 10, on Augustine's notion that the world exists as a thought in the mind of God. [655] Another conscious connection between Bk. XIII and Bks. I-X. [656] This final ending is an antiphon to Bk. XII, Ch. I, 1 above. (..end, Confessions.) [Note: Dr. Outler's book continues in a second series on the Enchiridion, with document number agenc-01.txt, also located at this archive.] ---------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01: agcon-25.txt .
