1,673 research outputs found
Eloquent Wisdom: The Role of Rhetoric and Delight in the Theology of Saint Augustine of Hippo
Get PDFThis study examines Augustine’s conception of the role of delight (delectatio) in the divine acts of creation and redemption. In the first part of the dissertation, I argue that Augustine, who was trained as a rhetor and taught rhetoric before his conversion, came to conceive of theology as the fulfilment of Cicero’s conviction that wisdom and eloquence ought to be united. His approach to Cicero’s rhetorical theory as found in De inventione, De oratore, and Orator shares many similarities with that of Late Antique rhetors (especially Marius Victorinus) in whose works the orator functions less as a statesman than as a physician of the soul. Accordingly, an orator’s role is not to sway the senate or deliberate in law courts (as in Cicero’s thought) but to inform and persuade people towards a fruitful return to the divine.
In the second part of the dissertation, I demonstrate how this approach influenced Augustine’s understanding of redemption. He conceives of God as Cicero’s ideal orator, in whom wisdom and eloquence are perfectly united. God engages in a rhetorical contest with the devil whom Augustine portrays in terms of the false orators in Cicero’s De inventione. The devil’s rhetoric comprises an illicit delight in actual sin and an inordinate delight in created goods, both of which exert their power over the human will through suggestion, delight and persuasion and result in a bondage to sin and death. By contrast, God ‘utters’ creation as a delightful song and opposes death’s nihilistic rhetoric by pouring his own delight into the hearts of the faithful; this delight persuades the will to move towards a joyful participation in the divine that is the happy life for which all people long. Ultimately, Augustine identifies this spiritual delight most closely with the Holy Spirit who functions as God’s eternal eloquence
Memory in the theological anthropology of St. Augustine: “In memoria est cogitandi modus”
Get PDFThe place of memory in the theological anthropology of St. Augustine has its roots in the platonie epistemological tradition. Augustine actively engages with this tradition in his early writings in a manner that is both philosophically sophisticated and doctrinally consistent with his later, more overtly theological, writings. From the Cassiciacum dialogues through De musica, Augustine points to the central importance of memory: he examines this power of the soul as something that mediates sense-perception and understanding, while explicitly deferring a more profound treatment of it until Confessiones and De trinitate. In these two texts, memory is the foundation for the location of the imago Dei in the mind. It becomes the basis for the spiritual experience of the embodied creature, and a source of the profound anxiety that results from the sensed opposition of human time and divine time (aeterna ratio). This tension is contained and resolved, to a limited extent, in Augustine's Christology, in the ability of a paradoxical incarnation to unify the temporal and the eternal (in Confessions 11 and 12), and the life of faith (scientia) with the promised contemplation of the divine (sapientia, in De trinitate 12-14)
Image and analogy in Augustine's De Trinitate and the Dionysian Corpus: A comparative study
Get PDFA survey of Christian doctrine quickly exposes the importance of any study of the theology of image, as it stands in at least some relation to the Doctrine of the Trinity, as well as Christology and the Doctrine of Creation. It is in recognition of this importance that leads one to a comparative study of Saint Augustine (354-430 AD) and the Pseudo Dionysius (5th Century), who represent different understandings of the theology of image. The significance of a comparative study of these two is amplified when it is recognized that the former is perhaps the most influential Christian thinker in the West, while the later fulfils the same role, through his interpreters, in the East. The approach of this study proceeds from an Augustinian point of view, with chapters following the basic movements of the De Trinitate, moving form exteriora, to interiora. Hence this thesis includes a study of the role and ontologicai place of the images of the scriptures. It then proceeds to discuss the Trinitarian vestigia in comparison with the various triads manifested by the Dionysian Corpus, and concludes with a two chapter discussion of the image of God in Man. One of these last two chapters is devoted to a study of Augustine and Dionysius in relation to a diverse sampling of Fathers' interpretation of Genesis 1:26. The second chapter takes up the implications of the breach with tradition made by Augustine, particularly as it affects the relationship between image and archetype. The conclusion calls for further study, specifically evaluation of the differences detected in this paper, through the lense of Catholic doctrine, a study of the Medieval Latins and an understanding of Doctrinal Development
Augustine and Victorinus: An Analysis of a Trinitarian Argument
Get PDFIn this thesis, I am examining the philosophy of Augustine from his work On the Trinity, to the earlier work of Marius Victorinus’ Theological Treatise on the Trinity, looking for conceptual similarities in their philosophy. I contend that Augustine used the argument form developed by Marius Victorinus, specifically the example he uses of “esse, vivere, intelligere” to explain how three substances can exists as one substance without paradox or contradiction; this then was understood and re-worked by Augustine to explain the image of God in humanity found in the human mind
Augustine and Victorinus: An Analysis of a Trinitarian Argument
Get PDFIn this thesis, I am examining the philosophy of Augustine from his work On the Trinity, to the earlier work of Marius Victorinus’ Theological Treatise on the Trinity, looking for conceptual similarities in their philosophy. I contend that Augustine used the argument form developed by Marius Victorinus, specifically the example he uses of “esse, vivere, intelligere” to explain how three substances can exists as one substance without paradox or contradiction; this then was understood and re-worked by Augustine to explain the image of God in humanity found in the human mind
Italian-American Religious Orders in the Development of Chicago Catholicism in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Get PDFMother Cabrini and the Sisters of the Sacred Heart Ellen Skerrett
Fr. Augustine Morini and the Servites Conrad Borntrager, O.S.M.
The Scalabrinians Dominic Candeloro, Ph.D
Austin also must be remembered. The Augustinian legacy in Milton's work
Get PDFWhen I started working on this project, with a limited knowledge of Augustine, but determined to spot his presence in Miltonâs poetry, I was little aware of the intricacy of the relationship between the two authors. At this stage of my research, I do subscribe to Savoyeâs opinion, that this relationship is pervasive. However, one could safely add, it is as pervasive as it is hidden, primarily because of changed cultural paradigms, so that Miltonâs references are no longer familiar to the reader.
As I have pointed out in my presentation of the state of the art, these articulations are hardly made explicit in Miltonâs Oeuvre and also in critical literature they are hardly brought to the surface. My objective has been to make them a little more visible.
I have started my own process of discovery from the works where Milton more openly (but not completely) acknowledges his Augustinian sources, although arguably mediated. As concerns Samson Agonistes, I have presented a reading through Augustinian lenses. I am by no means claiming that mine is the best of all possible readings, but through those lenses I have been able to see a coherence, in Miltonâs dramatic poem, that is not generally recognized.
On the other hand, I thoroughly agree that âone cannot simply take any English poet and turn the post-structuralist critical machine loose on him or her in good faithâ. In particular, I am aware that I have read Miltonâs works against the current critical grain which, with a powerful turn impressed by Empsonâs Miltonâs God, is continually surfacing Miltonâs idiosyncrasies in order to cancel the received picture of a Christian author. Rather, I agree with Cirillo that Miltonâs perspective is that of âa professed Christian poet whose Christian consciousness, no matter how heterodox, colored virtually everything he wrote.â.We may ask, echoing Febvre on Rabelais, âMais de quel christianisme? In accordance with very traditional, even traditionalist Milton Criticism, I think it can safely be stated that Milton is a post-Reformation religious author, and one whose endeavour to âjustify the ways of God to menâ had to come to terms with the difficult task to find signs of providential history in the aftermath of a civil war and in the adverse context of the Restoration. His last published poems deal with this problem in different terms. As readers, we can come to different conclusions as to the texts. Behind them there is the man, âest abyssus humanae conscientiae,â in front of which, after Augustine, I can only say: "nescio"
St Augustine and his knowledge of manichaeism
Get PDFThe author examines the scope and sources of St Augustine’s knowledge of Manichaeism. He mostly follows the thesis of J.K. Coyle, that as a Christian and anti-Manichaean polemicist, Augustine obtained additional information about the "Religion of Light". To illustrate Augustine-the-Manichaean and Augustine-the-polemicist’s knowledge of the religion of Mani, the author includes two lengthy excerpts from his writings: from the 7th book of Confessiones and the treatise De natura boni, which features a quotation from the Manichaean work Treasure. The author provides a special comment on this extract
CONPI_0016
No full textA rose window with knight and shield over two lancet windows, one of Saint Augustine, the other of another saint (S. Dominic? or S. Dominic of Osma?) INSCRIPTION: S AUGUSTINE / S [DOMINIC?]full vie
Augustine (Big Hysteria): Writing the Body
No full textAn account of the case history of Augustine and its conversion into theatrical production by the author
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