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The first of the problems that arose among the early Christian believers in Jesus centered around the relationship of the Mosaic Law to gentile believers. The main problem was whether the Jewish Law was binding on the gentile peoples after their acceptance of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's letters, we can see that the debate over the Law was not resolved in the early period, as we can see in the writings of later church fathers. This article will focus on how the Law is interpreted through the correspondence between Jerome and Augustine, two famous church fathers who lived in the fourth century, and an incident between Peter and Paul in Paul's Letter to the Galatians. This correspondence between these two church fathers will be discussed through their explanations of the binding force of the Jewish Law on the gentile people. While Jerome will argue that the alleged scene between Paul and Peter in the Epistle to the Galatians is a fiction that was organized within a plan, Augustine will argue that Jerome's interpretation would mean that an event that does not exist in reality is recorded in the New Testament, which would undermine the authority of the sacred texts. more...

Ambiguity is intrinsic and intended within biblical poetry. Psalm 62 demonstrates ways in which biblical poetry conveys this ambiguity. The form of poetry itself—its paratactic and terse shape—is the soil in which inference, reasoning, and imagination grow. There is, furthermore, an overlap between ambiguous language in general and ambiguity in poetry due to its form and intent. This essay directs modern notions of delimitation toward the realities of biblical poetry and encourages proper awareness and appreciation of ambiguity within Holy Scripture by considering its role within Psalm 62. Here the reader is challenged not only by the content of the psalm but by its form, repetition, and nuance so as to humble intellectual hubris, invite careful attention to detail, and prompt prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit’s work of illumination and inspiration of Holy Scripture. more...

The structure of Augustine's theological system seeks to solve the problem of human salvation. From the ontological and epistemological point of view, Augustine considers elements involved in the realization of human salvation, among which the most important elements are the Holy Spirit. It seems that according to Augustine's theological system, the Holy Spirit plays a role in human salvation in three areas: a- introducing Christ to others; B- Birth of faith in the hearts of believers; C- Partial realization of the grounds for the formation of moral virtues in believers. The Holy Spirit plays a key role for human salvation in these three areas, especially in the realization of moral virtues. Although Augustine has talked and reflected a lot about the Holy Spirit and his functions in the system of existence, he did not pay attention to this position in the design of his system and did not reflect it in the formulation of human salvation, which itself causes defects. He becomes human in the realization of salvation. Therefore, the current study tries to analyze and examine the place of the Holy Spirit in the salvation system by referring directly to Augustine's works and with an analytical-descriptive approach. more...

How do infants praise the Lord? While we cannot say definitively how this is so, exploring this idea—particularly in the context of intergenerational worship and formation—offers rich theological insights. Scripture declares, "Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise" (Matthew 21:16; Psalm 8:2, NKJV), suggesting that (1) infants indeed praise God, and (2) their praise is perfected by Him. Rather than dismissing this as purely metaphorical, this article draws on St. Augustine's concept of the jubilus, a song with no intelligible words, to explore how infants' babbling might be seen as a form of praise and worship, and what we might learn from it if it is thus seen. The article concludes by demonstrating how this reflection on infants' praise might challenge us to reevaluate and enrich our approaches to Contemporary Praise & Worship and intergenerational formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article examines the influence of Augustinian thought in the development of Arthur Prior's tense logic. In particular, the article investigates Prior's use of the 11th chapter of Confessiones and debates whether Augustinian temporality can correctly be characterized as a form of presentism. The investigation follows two distinct paths: The first part demonstrates the significance of Augustinian thought in the development of presentism and discusses the validity of Prior's claim that this ontological doctrine "embodies the truth" behind Augustine's view of past, present, and future. This line of inquiry will show that Augustine's discussion in Confessiones does contain elements that could be applied in developing such a view of the ontology of time. The second part of the article, however, will highlight the dangers of applying concepts of the modern philosophical debate anachronistically when interpreting Augustine, as his view of time is then not adequately represented and often severely misunderstood. Understanding the historical roots of presentism accentuates the need for an explicit and careful definition of the concept in the contemporary debate about time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The present paper is rooted in an older concern, regarding Augustine's contradictions1. In the history of ideas there is a common place that authors contradict themselves and that their ideas migrate from one pole to another. This paper aims to present the case study regarding Augustine's contradictions. I propose to focus on an issue that interfered later with the Church's politics, namely the subject of peace and war, as we find them in De Civitate Dei and Epistola 185. Even though the issue of peace and war appears in several of his writings, those mentioned before seem more relevant for the topic, as they were also approached previously by other authors. I equally propose to highlight that Augustine echoes some ideas on war that can be read under Plato's pen, although he was more of a Plotinus's follower. But, as a personal touch, I would try to incorporate it within the entire dual thought of Augustine, that was echoed in the following centuries in the thought of the scholastics and the policy of The Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Oksident is the property of Oksident and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

Copyright of Journal of Philosophical Investigations / Pizhūhish/hā-yi Falsafī is the property of University of Tabriz and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

The following essay appraises two lives from an historian's perspective. The awareness by the one man, Augustine, of the other, Apuleius, necessarily through the latter's repute and writings, reflects significant lived experiences shared by both. This familiarity, we suggest, shaped important ways in which Augustine configured his own life story and thinking. Most of the linkages attested in the evidence—ones of place, experience, and thought—were African in nature. These commonalities suggest the substantial impact of a local African cultural world, which, no matter how much formed by external ideas and concepts, was a lived-in medium that formed the perception and presentation of their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This text is the translation of the first of two sessions of a lecture course given by Derrida at the Sorbonne in 1961–62. It was clearly intended as an introduction or survey of the concept or notion of 'world' from the Greek kosmos and the Latin mundus to the Christian sense of a fallen world, the Kantian 'idea' of world, and the Heideggerian rethinking of the very question of world in 'On the Essence of Ground'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Curiosus is the one who delights in a kind of knowledge viewed as a purpose in itself, which knowledge diverts the soul from God and from the knowledge of the eternal, and curiositas preserves in Augustine the older pejorative meaning, I cannot love in excess a good which is not summum bonum, such a thing belongs to concupiscentia and cupiditas. Augustine’s ideal is not science, his ideal is wisdom, the liberal arts must be subordinated to philosophy as they will be subordinated to theology in the case of Bonaventure, scholarly curiosity does not belong to culture. Curiosity takes the thought away from God, it takes the mind away from the knowledge of God by directing it towards the knowledge of the inferior nature in which the mind degrades, curiosity is not evil but it cannot be a purpose in itself and a disinterested one. Curiosity is not good, Augustine seems to say, but it is also not to be rejected, in the same way pleasure is not the end, pleasure is the beginning, it can lead us to the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In this article, I explore the moral significance of human interiority, examining how one's inner life has moral import vis-à-vis external, observable, or public behaviour. Contrary to views that problematize interiority or introspection, pitting them against truthful self-understanding, sociality, or public moral behaviour, I will draw on Augustine and Iris Murdoch as resources for reconsidering interiority's role in moral growth. First, I will show how both depict objective, 'public' moral behaviour as being fundamentally contingent upon subjective, 'personal' judgement, deliberation, and reflection. Then, I will consider three overlapping areas of interest regarding subjectivity in Augustine and Murdoch: self-examination, humility, and love. In drawing on Augustine and Murdoch as resources for an enriched account of interiority vis-à-vis moral growth, I hope to reaffirm the significance of subjectivity for 'public', objective moral behaviour while re-examining settled, conventional characterisations of subjectivity and objectivity by suggesting that our perspectives and responses to questions concerning the good are irreducibly and inextricably personal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article is an attempt to answer the question about the world created, which pointing to God also becomes a sign of the loneliness of man seeking Him. The reflections were based on the analysis of Book X of the Confessions of St. Augustine. The article is divided into four parts. In the first, the theory of the sign was shown, which refers to the thing it signifies, but assumes knowledge of it. Without knowledge of things, the sign is incomprehensible. The second part describes the beginning of the journey of seeking God, which is the question of love for Him. Man seeks God as the object of his love and turns to creatures. He receives two answers: "We are not your God" and "He created us". The third part presents the world as a sign that speaks through the beauty of the world and points to the Creator, and the man who admires the beauty of creatures becomes a lover of God. The fourth part shows that the world is a sign that prevents us from meeting God and satisfying the thirst for love. The created world becomes a sign of man's loneliness, awakening in the encounter of love seeking God with the world's negative response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The beauty of the world created, by Saint Augustine has been significantly enhanced, especially through inspiration coming from philosophy and biblical exegesis. The Bishop of Hippo was deeply convinced of the beauty (pulchritudo, pulchrum, species) of the visible world. The basic elements of the structure of every being, and therefore also of its beauty, include: number (numerus), measure (mensura), weight (pondus) and order (ordo). The beauty of the created world is the beauty that includes the visible world, man and angels. Both all creatures and each of them individually and in all their diversity are a song of praise to God the Creator, the Supreme Good and Beauty, who is a great Artist (artifex magnus). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article is a case study of one marriage in a late antique Italian bishopric family. The marriage of Julian of Eclanum provides a closer look at the struggle of theological schools that acсompanied the introduction of celibacy in the Roman Church, comparing the views of Augustinians, Pelagians and Antiochian theologians on marriage and evaluate these views in a broader cultural context. Documents related to Julian’s wedding, analyzed in the previous studies of J. Lössl, indicate the formation of a social network of leading Italian theologians, largely woven from noble episcopal families – such as that of St. Paulinus of Nolan, Aemilius of Benevento, Memor and Julian of Eclanum. The author traces how this social network of Italian ecclesiastics interacted and intertwined with the social network of theologians of Antioch, the latter being previously studied by A. Shor. The main focus of the article is the lively exchange of theological thoughts about marriage between these two social networks – Italian and Syrian. The mutual support of the two schools led to the unjustified condemnation of the “Pelagians”, backing the “Nestorians” at the Council of Ephesus in 431. However, their interaction also had such positive results as two treatises by Julian of Eclanum and Theodore of Mopsuestia, issued in close collaboration. Both of these treatises – Julian’s Ad Florum and Theodore’s Against those who say that men sin by nature and not by will – offer an optimistic theology of marriage and of sexuality as its integral dimension. The boldness of these theses is in sharp contrast to the approach of both the Augustinians, who insisted on celibacy, and other Pelagians, who also preferenced virginity, but emphasized the voluntariness of this choice. At the same time, the ideas of Julian and Theodore quite organically fit into the context of Antiochian anthropology. The author concludes that Julian’s marriage was, not least of all, an ecumenical gesture aimed at returning to common sources and strengthening ties with the Christian East. more...

There are surely few writers who have had a more profound impact on European culture, and in the broadest range of fields, than St. Augustine, and this despite the fact that he was North African. Nonetheless, while Augustine is still called upon in debates on interfaith dialogue and in theological and philosophical disputes, one area of his large corpus has received scant attention—his philosophy of education. Although there are references throughout Augustine's writings to his philosophy of education, he devotes only a single text to its elaboration—De Magistro—On the Teacher. The fact that this work has been largely overlooked by scholars is disappointing, because the De Magistro, despite its use of theological language, retains a very modern and contemporary thematic with interesting insights for any contemporary theory of education. In this article we provide a primer in reading Augustine's De Magistro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article seeks to delineate the often misunderstood idea of speculation that has conceptually been converted from an epitome of pure thought into an economic category of profitability and self-interest. But to define speculation already means to pose a problem. In Augustine speculation designates the mutual relationship between reflection and the mirrored appearance of God's gaze. This dictates an unattainable task of catching God's gaze, which is more inward than my innermost self and which models our thoughts accordingly. Such extimate activity as defined by Lacan is the formal condition for the construction of visibility and is inscribed into contemplation. The article postulates that this fundamental discrepancy was also the foundation upon which Hegel carved a positive determination of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This paper looks at tensions arising in the educational thought of late antiquity from the conflict between assumptions regarding the low worth of practical knowledge and the contribution practical education can make to the wider purposes educational thinkers assigned to learning. Drawing on the educational writings of Augustine, Martianus Cappella and Boethius, I argue that there are vagaries and contradictions in their depreciation of the practical and a fuller, more hopeful, appreciation of the potential of practical education emerges. This assertion has contemporary significance due to the ancient binary's foundational and contemporary status as a tool of legitimation to reinforce the lower status of the practical and justify societal and economic determinants at the base of educational stratifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) is the property of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

Michael Lamb's recent book A Commonwealth of Hope presents an opportunity for bioethicists to engage in critical self-evaluation in order to consider anew why and how to engage difficult bioethical problems and questions with those who maintain diverse moral and metaphysical perspectives. Drawing on an account of the virtue of hope from Augustine of Hippo, Lamb develops a political theory in which hope provides common ground for political cooperation between diverse citizens of a commonwealth. The purpose of this introduction is to sketch out a framework by which to assess and evaluate whether bioethics demonstrates hope. This article provides a summary description of Lamb's presentation of Augustine's virtue of hope and his concept of politics. Then it considers implications of Lamb's politics of hope for bioethics, identifying three features of hopeful bioethics, with which bioethicists can engage in self-reflection and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

As William Cavanaugh has remarked, the scholarly notion of religion "should often be surrounded by scare quotes. Its flexibility and occasional nebulousness make evaluating its role in conceiving of, effecting, and justifying violence even more difficult. At the same time, it sticks around and remains a vital category of contemporary analysis. What if getting behind the Wars of Religion—the period to which Cavanaugh traces the emergence of his "myth of religious violence"—could plant the seeds for a new paradigm in understanding the relationship between religion and violence? In this article, I analyze the Chronicon of Jean Hocsem, a fourteenth-century canon from Liège. Untranslated into English and rarely written about, Hocsem's text offers an unexpectedly political perspective on this question. Combining insights from Augustine's City of God as well as Aristotle's Politics and basing his ideas on his own experience of nearly constant conflict, Hocsem develops the idea that class antagonisms and human frailty make violence—especially political violence—inevitable. He takes this approach within a polity ruled by a prince-bishop, though one he would not have thought of as "religious". Hocsem's solutions are thus avowedly political. His pessimism about such questions leads to an emphasis on mitigating violence through the institution of proper socio-political structures. This reading of Hocsem and his politicizing of the question of violence opens new possibilities for scholars, further calling into question any easy relationship between the modern categories of "religion" and violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Obnovljeni zivot is the property of University of Zagreb, Society of Jesus and Faculty of Philosophy & Religious Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

The following paper brings together the history of the Atlantic slave trade in the seventeenth century and Hugo Grotius's treatment of slavery, war, and trade in the De iure belli ac pacis. In this paper I focus on the practices of slave raids during the trade in the 1630s through the 1640s in Central and West Africa. The practice of slave raids was often described and categorized by both Africans and Europeans as war or acts of war. I argue that given Grotius's depictions of a solemn war, it is difficult to legally distinguish an intent to enslave in a raid from an act of war against an enemy nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Augustine and Mozi are doubtlessly two of the most important theorists about love in the Western and Chinese traditions. Augustine has made a sharp distinction between caritas and cupiditas, whereas Mozi proposes the theory of impartial love (jian'ai 兼爱). Hannah Arendt has made her irreplaceable contribution to the understanding of the Augustinian concept of caritas in her work with the title Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin, Versuch einer Philosophischen Interpretation (1929). She treats the central question of whether for Augustine love towards neighbors has an independent value. In the Chinese tradition, Mozi proposes the theory of impartial love as a remedy for disposing of the disorders of society on the one hand, but on the other hand to love others impartially comes ultimately from the divine command of tian or Heaven, and tian seems to be the final authority or standard for being morally good and righteousness. It needs explanation or clarification if Mozi commits an inconsistency by holding two different ethical principles. In this article, I will first concentrate on discovering the fundamental characteristics of caritas and cupiditas, and then turn to dealing with the problem of the instrumentalization of the others in the love towards neighbors if they are used as tools to ascend to God's love. In the last part, I will discuss the impartial love of Mozi and compare it with that of Augustine to see their distinctions and similarities. We will see that through the comparison we can obtain a better understanding of the concept of love in different traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The spread of the Leçons de ténèbres in the French capital and later in large provincial cities contributed to the evolution of musical practices and the listeners' sensibilities and favored the incorporation of religious music into secular musical calendars. This explains why, from the end of the seventeenth century, the genre has been the focus of criticism from clerics and lay people of different persuasions, who denounced the contamination of the church by opera, using the conventional argument of antitheatricality. Initially focused on the Lessons, the criticism's terms and arguments used against the Lessons became instrumental in the Jansenist's critique of modern music throughout the eighteenth century, particularly to contest Jesuit musical patronage and Jesuits' sensualist conception of music for religious services. While Jansenist criticism portrays an irreducible opposition between opponents and supporters of modern music, the latter being equated with the Jesuits, the article highlights the ambiguities of Jansenist positions. An analysis of these criticisms reveals a double reference to the Augustinian tradition, on the one hand concerning the opposition between musica luxuriantis and musica sapientis and, on the other, a moral reflection on musical pleasure's legitimacy based on individual introspection. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the condemnation of all modern forms of religious music appeared to contradict the claim to a part of this Augustinian heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article analyzes the concept of the heart in Blaise Pascal's (1623–62) Pensées in the context of the Platonic tradition. Augustine (354–430) is described as the main author who mediated to Pascal Plotinus's view of nous as the intuitive and integrative faculty, superior to discursive and conceptual reason, which can be, ultimately, identified with Pascal's coeur. The heart in Pascal's philosophy is seen as the response to his diagnosis of modernity as the fallen, fragmented, and polarized mode of consciousness. From that perspective, Pascal's opposition against that fragmented and polarized consciousness of reality, divorced from the Christian Platonic holistic and contemplative vision, can also be seen in the context of his criticism of the Jesuits as the representatives of that emerging, modern worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

There is a belief among scholars of Augustine’s philosophy that he derived the notion of the positively understood infinity of God from Plotinus. Another opinio communis holds that Origen inherited a negative understanding of infinity from the ancient philosophers and therefore considered God’s power to be finite. This paper aims to demonstrate that both opinions are erroneous. Although Augustine was familiar with Plotinus’ thought, his reflections on the infinity of God have more in common with the theses put forward by Origen than with Neoplatonism. In both authors, the issue arises when they are commenting on the same biblical passages, and both authors wrestle with the same aporia caused by accepting the doctrine of God’s infinite power and knowledge. If, according to Aristotle’s logic, infinity cannot be encompassed by anything, can the divine intellect encompass infinite ideas? Both authors answer this question in the affirmative. The article posits that Augustine may have adopted the doctrine of the infinity of God directly from Origen, since he had access to many of his works translated into Latin, or through Novatian and Hilary of Poitiers, as they were both influenced by Origen’s thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) is one of the important figures of European culture. In addition to his strictly theological interests, he also showed interest in other fields of knowledge related to the artes liberales. He presented the fullest spectrum of his interests in his Etymologies. For the Bishop of Seville, music was an important field of knowledge. He dealt with it on practical grounds and tended to describe it in a concise, clear and diverse manner in his encyclopedia. The musical terminology used by the Bishop of Seville is extremely rich and sometimes difficult to translate into modern languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Enarrationes in Psalmos are an important source for understanding the Augustinian theology of desire, linking it to his systematic theology and his pastoral practice. In this paper I illustrate by overviewing the expositions on Psalms 10 (11 in the Masoretic numbering), 11 (12), 12 (13), 23 (24), and 26 (27). These Psalms teach us to love, trust, and seek God only, a failure to do which marks the Donatist schism. Augustine mingles ideas from pagan philosophy’s quest for eudaimonia or beata vita-the good, happy, and blessed life-with biblical ideas. We want a stable happiness, and we must pursue wisdom; we can find stability in the rock that is Christ, to follow whom is to pursue wisdom rightly. Our desires must be converted to God, the only complete and perfect good and the source of eternal happiness, whom we must single-mindedly pursue with prayer and faith. While we must desire the eschaton and look to no earthly satisfaction, earthly goods may be received as gifts from God. One thing we can learn from studying the Enarrationes is how closely connected are the ideas of right love, the right church, and the right end; all three go together in Augustine’s theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The following article is a slight adapatation from past PAMLA President Martin Kevorkian's address at the 2021 conference in Las Vegas, in which the conference theme was "City of God, City of Destruction." In the address, Kevorkian discusses horror films, specifically Wes Craven's Scream, and the fundamentalist Christian language and themes included in it and its references to high school students studying English in the classroom, as well as Scream's relation to literary genres and narratives of predestinarian conversion and how those play out in Augustine's City of God too. Also discussed is Las Vegas and the desert themes in Dante's Inferno. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article will explore the role of what Ricoeur calls 'archaism' in his work on the third aporia of time in Time and Narrative. Presented in some detail in the conclusion of the third volume, the concept remains undeveloped. In this article we will identify the three characteristics, two forms and three dispositional states (praise, lamentation and hope) that help us to understand it, specifically in the Augustinian context. We have two main goals. We need to see whether there is a problem of origins in the Aristotelian cosmological conception of time as movement and succession and in the Augustinian psychological conception of time in respect of past, present and future against the limit of the Eternal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article delves into the concept of miracles from the perspective of the Catholic Church, tracing the evolution of human consciousness from fear to awe to curiosity, leading to the phenomena of mythologization, religious experiences, philosophical explanations, and rational understanding of everyday events through science and technology. The relevance of the study is due to the great influence and role of the Catholic Church in the modern world. Miracles as one of the key phenomena related to Catholic values are examined. By means of categorial and discourse analyses, along with the case study method, the work highlights the theological interpretation of miracles, distinguishing between official Christian doctrines and vernacular religious practices. It explores the process of institutionalization of religion and the significance of miracles within the context of Catholicism, emphasizing their role as divine revelations and signs of the supernatural. The article discusses the theological views on miracles of such thinkers as Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas, underscoring how miracles attest to faith and the resurrection. Contemporary examples of miracles recognized by the Catholic Church, such as those at Lourdes and involving figures like St. Padre Pio and Carlo Acutis are outlined. The process of canonization and the phenomenon of stigmata are described. The discussion extends to the philosophical debates on miracles, contrasting rationalistic criticisms from figures like David Hume and Baruch Spinoza with the religious significance attributed to miraculous events. The article also critiques the positivist perspective that subjugates religion to reason and science, emphasizing the enduring nature of miracles in religious discourse despite scientific advancements. In conclusion, the study advocates for a reconnection with the miraculous, religious, and metaphysical realms, positing that embracing mystery and awe can imbue life with meaning, wonder, and purpose, countering the secularization thesis that diminishes the role of miracles and spirituality in the modern world. more...

The article explores the extent to which medieval polemical authors resorted to patristic originals and how much they adopted patristic argumentation. The authors used computational text reuse analysis using BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) to compare 189 classical and medieval texts, mainly from open repositories of digitized texts, to find similarities. The corpus includes classical works, particularly Augustine’s anti-heretical treatises, canon law, inquisition manuals, exempla collections and florilegia, sermons, and theological commentaries. The lack of medieval texts after ca. 1200 in machine-readable format is the greatest hindrance to building a representative medieval corpus. The authors propose that although medieval polemicists saw Augustine and other Church fathers as models of Christian champions fighting heresy, intensive engagement with patristic theology took place in medieval works with limited circulation and influence. (Abstract created with the help of Perplexity.ai.) more...

The views on the soul in the philosophical-theological thought of Au-relius Augustine (354–430 AD) hold a special place. When considering practically any of his teachings—whether it be his doctrine on the cosmos, time, memory, the relationship between free will and divine predestination, or his philosophy of history and pedagogy—we are inevitably compelled to take them into account or directly engage with them. His works are also associated with the so-called "psychologism" of Augustine, a concept high-lighted by numerous scholars delving into his truly vast creative heritage. The purpose of this paper is to explore the research devoted to the concepts of the soul (both individual and cosmic) in the works of Augustine or related to them. Additionally, it aims to identify works that address the issue of how Augustine's ideas about the soul were perceived in the early Middle Ages, using Cassiodorus [c. 487 – c. 578 AD] as an example. The studies, which encompass the aspects of Augustine’s psychological conception, are examined according to thematic principles, and divided into the following groups: (I) Studies dedicated to the exploration of Augustine’s cosmology, human existence, and soul (Among them: “Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind” by Gerard O’Daly [1987]; “Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized” by J. Rist [1994]; “The World-Soul and Time in St. Augustine” [1983] and “Augus-tine’s Theory of Soul” [2003] by Roland Teske, and others). (II) Works demonstrating the influence of early teachings, traditions, and texts on Augustine (for example, “The Divine Sense: The Intellect in Patris-tic Theology” [2007] by Anna Williams and “Memory in Plotinus and Two Early Texts of St. Augustine” [1976] by Gerard O’Daly, among others). (III) Studies focused on the examination of individual works of Augustine with regard to their psychological aspects (Including: “An Analysis of Saint Augustine’s De immortalitate animae” [1980] and “The Fall of the Soul in Saint Augustine: A Quaestio Disputata” [1986] by Richard Penaskovic; “Augustine, Conf. IX, 10, 24” [1958] by John Taylor, and others). (IV) Papers indicating Cassiodorus’s reception and assimilation of Au-gustine’s teachings on the soul (e.g., e.g. “The Manuscripts of Cassiodorus’ De anima” [1959] by J.W. Halporn; “Cassiodoro e la grecità” [1986] by A. Garzya, “Il sottofondo culturale del De anima di Cassiodoro” [1995] by R. Masulo, etc.). more...

During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republican China period, Augustine’s book, Confessions, had been translated into Chinese. Out of the six Chinese versions of the book available, the one published by the Commercial Press in 1963, translated by Mr. Zhou Shiliang 周士良, is the most widely used version in mainland China. It is worth noting that this version was preceded by five other Chinese translations. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the translation of Augustine’s Confessions in mainland China. This study examines the distinct features of the Chinese versions during the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period. Additionally, this article explores the transmission of the translated book title, Chanhui Lu 懺悔錄 (Confessions), and the discussions surrounding its precise meaning and translation during the Republic of China period. Ultimately, this study sheds light on the eastward transmission of Augustine’s Confessions in mainland China. more...

In the scientific world, Professor Jean-Martin Charcot is known for his contribution to the establishment of the anatomo-clinical method in neurology in Paris at the Salpêtrière hospital. However, media attention in the late 1800s has focused on his work on hysteria. In this article, we aim to review how he has been depicted in two recent French movies: Augustine (2012) and Le Bal des Folles (The Mad Women’s Ball) (2021). We will compare his image in those two films to articles at the time of his death and contrast how he is represented in other biographical works. Both in the newspapers and in the movies, Charcot’s public lessons and experimental work on hypnosis in hysteria are put forward. The two movies offer a new perspective, as both directors were women, and both movies focus on a woman patient’s journey at La Salpêtrière. His depiction remains superficial in Le Bal des Folles, portraying a cold, insensitive, and despotic approach to patients. He plays a more central role in Augustine, in which he develops intimacy with one of his patients and a more human and caring side is displayed, in parallel to his authoritative and meticulous figure. Both movies refer to him as a divine authority, but they also allude to his scientific method. In summary, Charcot’s recent representations in cinema add a woman’s perspective to life under Charcot at La Salpêtrière, which continues to shape further the image we have of this founder of modern neurology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

During the Czechoslovak normalization era (roughly from the 1970s to the 1980s), the Czech lawyer Vladimír Čermák, who later became a Justice of the newly established Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic after the breakdown of the Communist regime, authored a monumental piece called The Question of Democracy. Although this ambitious work has no equal in the Czech context, no attention has been paid to it in the English-speaking world. The present article aims to fill this gap by analyzing the most original aspects of Čermák's political thought. First, I present Greek tragedy, Plato, and Augustine as the main influences on his thought, which was further shaped by Čermák's experience with the First Czechoslovak Republic and the Communist era. Second, I show that the most important category permeating all of his intellectual project is the principle of polarity, combined with the concept of polémos as derived from Greek tragedy. Third, I focus on the consensually anchored value order of society, which is created through an interplay between positive and negative forces. Čermák's idea that all law must be measured against the value order has deeply influenced the value-based jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. Finally, I position Čermák's thought in the context of contemporary political theory, arguing that the contrast with the work of the radical political theorist Chantal Mouffe is particularly illuminating. Even though Čermák and Mouffe share a similar attitude to democracy—in that the primacy of strife renders universal rational consensus impossible—I maintain that Čermák's theory, due to its emphasis on the categories of good and evil, can be more usefully described as "secular Augustinianism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The classic 'privation theory' of evil defines evil as an absence (or 'privation') of a good that ought to obtain. Despite its historical importance, privation theory is faced with a number of serious difficulties. I outline two of these difficulties and argue that they continue to pose a threat. I then present 'corruption theory', an alternative theory of evil reconstructed from some of Augustine's writings on the subject. I argue that this theory shares the strengths of privation theory, while evading its problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Twentieth-century theologians advanced a consensus position that the doctrine of deification was alien to Augustine's theology—even impossible to square with his other commitments—and that even if traces of the doctrine could be detected, they were, at best, of marginal importance to his intellectual topography. This position, however, has been persuasively challenged by several investigations during the past three decades. This article builds upon these latter investigations to demonstrate how the notion of deification is prevalent throughout his corpus—whether linguistically evident by his use of technical terms such as deificare and cognates, or more often, conceptually in his reflections upon anthropology, Christology, and ecclesiology. The article concludes by noting two of Augustine's distinctive contributions to the post-Nicene development of deification—that is, an emphasis upon the sacramental and ecclesiological contours of the doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This paper aims to develop the notion of 'therapy of desire' as a hermeneutic key for understanding Kierkegaard's view of desire. First, I develop the notion of 'therapy of desire' as it has appeared in the secondary literature on Kierkegaard and Augustine, particularly in Lee C. Barrett. In my reading, I underscore how a 'therapy of desire' implies that the desire can be 'healed' and that the desirer has 'agency' over his/her desires. Second, I conduct a textual analysis of Kierkegaard's discourse on Lk 22:15, which deals with the desire for the Eucharist. In employing the notion of 'therapy of desire' as a hermeneutic key to interpret it, I characterize Kierkegaard's view of desire as a lack of satisfaction and verify how the ideas of 'agency' and 'healing' appear in Kierkegaard's text. Finally, I show how the characterization of desire as a constant lack of satisfaction that consists in a gift from God, that implies the possibility of undertaking a healing process and that underscores the agency of the desirer, differs from some Lutheran ideas, namely the relationship between grace and deeds and the understanding of original sin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

In the unpublished seminars given in the United States and France between 1989–1991, Manger l'autre: Politiques de l'Amitié and Rhétoriques du Cannibalisme , Derrida analyzes the rhetorical function that the act of eating has in the Western tradition's philosophical texts. In this paper I analyze the reading Derrida makes in those seminars of Saint Augustine's Confessions, in order to show that they are entangled with a critique of political sovereignty. For Derrida, Augustine has a cogito of his own, which is a cogito du manger l'autre. Augustine's formulation is "I think, eat and drink" (ego cogito, manduco et bibo), and Derrida understands it as a way of constituting both the self of the ego and the self of the community. The first form of Christian community configured through the intake of food is the fraternity of milk: infants that suck the same milk from the breast of their nurse or mother. The second configuration of the community is, of course, the sacrament of Eucharist, in which the body of the father is divided (partagé) among the brothers. I show how the analysis Derrida makes of Augustine in these seminars is a way of deconstructing the very concept of community and its relation to sovereignty. This is attempted by Derrida through the problem of jealousy: the brothers of milk will always be jealous of each other, being themselves the condition for the breaking of the community and their sovereignty. But the second form of community is also threatened by food: since the holy wafer is an edible thing and the act of incorporation of food is really an act of theophagy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This paper suggests a "neoclassical" reading of Ernan McMullin's thought on science and theology. McMullin's Augustinian convictions on God and the God–world relation coincide with those of some prominent scholars from two renowned schools of neo-scholastic philosophy of the twentieth century in Louvain and Milan. The school of Milan, thanks to the work of some disciples of its leading figure, Amato Masnovo, developed a neoclassical version of neo-scholasticism, articulating a fundamental theory of knowledge, as well as an essential, rigorous path to God. We recall the main tenets of a neoclassical path to God, and we interpret this path as a possible contribution to the science–theology dialogue, in line with McMullin's Augustinism. A neoclassical approach to science and theology, with its rediscovery and reactualization of some ideas of classic philosophy in an interdisciplinary context, grounds the intelligibility of the universe and safeguards its mystery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Augustine's sermons on the Psalms of Ascent, part of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, are a unique entry in the venerable tradition of those writings that aim to help us ascend to a higher reality. These sermons transform the ascent genre by giving, in the place of the Platonic account of ascent, a Christian ascent narrative with a Trinitarian structure. Not just the individual ascends, but the community that is the church, the body of Christ, also ascends. The ascent is up to God, the Idipsum or the Selfsame, the ultimate reality, confessed by the church as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Through the grace of the Incarnation, God the Son enables us to ascend, making himself the way of ascent from the humility we must imitate at the beginning of the ascent all the way up to Heaven, where he retains his identity as Idipsum. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit works in the ascending church to convert our hearts to the love of God and neighbor. I review the Platonic ascent tradition in Plato's Republic and Plotinus' Enneads; overview ascent in some of Augustine's earlier writings; introduce the narrative setting of the sermons on the Psalms of Ascent; and analyze the Trinitarian structure of their ascent narrative. I close with some reflections on the difference between a preached Trinitarianism that encourages ascent and a more academic effort to understand God such as we find in Augustine's de Trinitate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Giorgio Agamben's references to a 'coming community' keep readers hunting for its characteristics, specifically for prescriptions that would signal how its political culture might be developed and maintained. His ambivalence toward Augustine prevents him, as well as readers, from discovering contributions the prelate's preferences for compassionate collectives – which especially mark his polemical treatises, correspondence, and sermons – might make to giving a shape to the coming community that comports with many of Agamben's other politically significant remarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The Psalms saturated Augustine's sermons. He believed they were God's words to the church as inspired Scripture, and the church's words to God as prayer and praise. In the Psalms, he saw kenosis, the downward-directed God in Christ who emptied himself to take on human nature to stand in solidarity with the church and creation. He saw, too, the possibility of deification, the upward-directed church in Christ raised to share in the divine nature. Furthermore, Augustine believed that Christ himself spoke in the Psalms so that in them the church could hear his voice and come to know its own voice. In this essay, I examine why Augustine cherished the Psalms, and I consider how this might inspire contemporary preachers to cherish them and preach them. Moreover, I offer Augustine's Christocentric preaching of the Psalms as a paradigm for how preachers might facilitate Christological formation among their congregants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...