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Augustine's City of God and the Modern Historical Consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Ernest L. Fortin
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Extract

Contemporary Augustinian scholarship is distinguished among other ways by its emphasis on Augustine's alleged contribution to the development of the modern notion of history. Except for a few sporadic references to a possible theology of history in the City of God, one finds little in the literature of the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries to indicate that the content of that work might be of particular relevance to the problem at hand. The same is not true of the post-World War I period, which witnessed a sudden surge of interest in this hitherto neglected subject, to such an extent that there has scarcely been a major treatment of Augustine's thought written since that time which does not dwell on it at considerable length. Augustine, Langdon Gilkey has recently asserted, is “the father of the historical consciousness,” the first author to exhibit an awareness of the fundamentally historical character of human existence, the only early Christian writer to have brought the whole of history within the compass of a “purposive unity.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 1979 , pp. 323 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1979

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References

1 Marrou, H.-I., “Geschichtsphilosophie,” in Reallexicom für Antike und Christentum, vol. 10 (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

2 Gilkey, L., Reaping the Whirlwind (New York, 1956), p. 175Google Scholar. Cf. ibid., p. 162: “With Augustine the Western, and so the modern, sense of temporal passage comes to definitive and formative expression”; p. 163: “With him (Augustine) begins the tradition of philosophy of history.”

3 Ibid., p. 164.

4 Ferrero, G., Words to the Deaf, trans. Redman, B. R. (New York, 1926), p. 159Google Scholar.

5 Scholz, H., Glaube und Unglaube in der Weltgeschichte (Leipzig, 1911)Google Scholar.

6 Padovani, U. A., “La Città di Dio di SantʼnAgostino: teologia e non filosofia della storia,” Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica, Supplemento speciale al vol. XXIII (Milano, 1931), pp. 220–263Google Scholar.

7 Kamlah, W., Christentum und Geschichtlichkeit, 2nd ed. (Cologne-Stuttgart, 1951)Google Scholar.

8 Ratzinger, J., Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche (Munich, 1954)Google Scholar; idem, “Herkunft und Sinn der Civitas-Lehre Augustins,” Augustinus Magister, vol. 2 (Paris, 1954), 965–979Google Scholar.

9 Gilkey, L., Reaping the Whirlwind, p. 175Google Scholar. Cf. ibid., p. 174: ”In the end, Augustine is not even interested in the kind or level of order and justice among social institutions.”

10 Ibid., p. 163.

11 Ibid., p. 162.

12 De Doctrina Christiana 2.28.44.

13 Ibid., 2.29.45.

14 Cf. De Ordine 2.12.37; Epist. 101.2.

15 De Doctrina Christiana 2.28.44.

16 Ibid., 2.27.41.

17 De Civ. Dei 18.40. Cf. Contra Faust. Manich. 18.4; Epist. 101.2.

18 De Doctrina Christiana 2.28.42; De Vera Religione 26.49.

19 Cf. De Civ. Dei 5.11.

20 Ibid., 5.25. Jovian's reign lasted less than eight months, from June 363 to February 364.

21 Ibid., 5.21; cf. 5.19 and 4.33. On the limits of historical knowledge according to Augustine, see Ziegler, A. W., “Die Grenzen geschichtlicher Erkenntnis: Beiträge zur augustinischen Geschichtstheologie,” Augustinus Magister, vol. 2 (Paris, 1954), 981–989Google Scholar.

22 De Civ. Dei 5.9.2 and 5.10.2.

23 Ibid., 5.9,4.

24 Sermo 362.7.

25 Cf. De Civ. Dei 18.53.1.

26 Ibid., 12.24.3.

27 See, for example, T. E. Mommsen, “ St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress,” reprinted in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Ithaca, 1959), pp. 265–267. Markus, R. A., “The Roman Empire in Early Christian Historiography,” Downside Review, 81 (1963), 340–341CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Retractationes 2.43.1; De Civ. Dei 1.1 and 3; 2.3; 4.1–2; 6, Pref., etc.

29 Cf. De Civ. Dei 2.3: “There are indeed among them some who are thoroughly well educated men and have a taste for history, in which the things I speak of are open to their observation; but in order to irritate uneducated people against us, they feign ignorance of these events and do what they can to make the vulgar believe that those disasters, which in certain places and at certain times uniformly befall all mankind, are the result of Christianity, which is being everywhere diffused and is possessed of a renown and brilliancy that quite eclipse their own gods.” See also ibid., 4.1.

30 Cf. Epist. 91.1; 138.2.9.

31 De Civ. Dei 1.2; 1.36, passim.

32 Cf. ibid., 4.7.

33 For the comprehensive scope of Orosius' Historiae adversum Paganos, see I. 1: “I intend to speak of the period from the founding of the world to the founding of the City (Rome); then up to the principate of Caesar and the birth of Christ … down to our own time.”

34 Cf. Otto, of Freising, , Chronicon sive Historia de Duabus Civitatibus, ed. Hofmeister, A. (Hanover and Leipzig, 1912), p. 9Google Scholar.

35 Cf. Marrou, H.-I., “Saint Augustin, Orose et l'augustinisme historique,” La storiografia altomedievale, Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di studi sull' Alto medioevo, 17 (Spoleto, 1970), 64–65Google Scholar.

36 The point is already adumbrated in the Prologue: “I found the days of the past not only equally oppressive as these but also the more wretched the more distant they are from the solace of the true religion.” See also 5.1; 7.6; 7.43. In 2.14, Orosius goes so far as to say that not only is Sicily at peace for the first time ever but even Etna “now only smokes harmlessly as if to give faith to its former activity.”

37 Hist. adv. Paganos 3.8; 5.1; 6.1; 6.17; 6.19–20; 6.22; 7.2, et passim. Since Peterson, E., Der Monotheismus als politischer Problem (Leipzig, 1935), p. 88Google Scholar, Orosius' political theology is often referred to as an “Augustus theology.”Cf. Dvornik, F., Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, vol. 2 (Washington, 1966), p. 725Google Scholar; Marrou, H.-I., “Saint Augustin, Orose et l'augustinisme historique,” p. 81Google Scholar.

38 Hist. adv. Paganos 5.2.

39 Ibid., 7.27.

40 Cf. ibid., 5.1–2; 7–41.

41 Ibid., 7.41: “For what loss is it to the Christian who is eager for eternal life to be taken away from this world at any time and by whatever means? Moreover, what gain is it to the pagan in the midst of Christians, obdurate against the faith, if he protracts his day a little longer, since he, whose conversion is despaired of, is destined to die?”

42 Ibid., 5.2.

43 In the Prologue Orosius notes that Augustine was in the process of completing the eleventh book of the City of God when his own Seven Books appeared.

44 De Civ. Dei 18.52.1.

45 Ibid., 18.51,2.

46 Ibid., 17.13.

47 Ibid., 4.6 and 18.21. Cf. Marrou, , “Saint Augustin, Orose et l'augustinisme historique,” p. 75Google Scholar; Corsini, E., Introduzione alle “Storie” di Orosio (Turin, 1968), pp. 203–204Google Scholar.

48 Cf. Courcelle, P., “Propos antichrétiens rapportés par saint Augustin,” Recherches augustiniennes, 1 (Paris, 1958), 178–183Google Scholar.

49 Hist. adv. Paganos 7.33.

50 Markus, R. A., Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge, 1970), p. 35Google Scholar.

51 See the recent discussion of Markus's, thesis by Madec, G., “ Tempora Christiana: Expression du triomphalisme chrétien ou récrimination paíenne,” in Scientia Augustiniana: Studien über Augustinus, den Augustinismus und den Augustinerorden, eds. Mayer, P. and Eckermann, W. (Wurzburg, 1975), pp. 112–136Google Scholar.

52 For examples of Old Testament prophecies that may be thought to have been realized in New Testament times, see De Civ. Dei 18.46–50.

53 Epist.111.2. See also De Catechizandis Rudibus 27.53–54; Sermo 81.7–9; Sermo Denis 24.10–13; Madec, , “ Tempora Christiana,” pp. 124–125Google Scholar.

54 Cf. Hippolytus In Danielem 4.8–9. Swain, J. W., “The Theory of the Four Monarchies: Opposition History under the Roman Empire,” Classical Philology, 35 (1940), 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Markus, R. A., “The Roman Empire in Early Christian Historiography,” p. 342Google Scholar; idem, Saeculum, pp. 48–49.

55 For a detailed account of the initial enthusiasm provoked by the Christianization of the Empire and the subsequent reaction against it, see Williams, G., “Christology and Church-State Relations in the Fourth Century,” Church History, 20, no. 3 and 20, no. 4 (1951), 3–33 and 3–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Cf. Eusebius Laus Constantini 1.6; 3.5–6, passim, and the discussion by Cranz, E., “Kingdom and Polity in Eusebius of Caesarea,” Harvard Theological Review, 45 (1952), 47–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 16, with references to Eusebius Hist. Eccl., 8.2, and De Martyr. Palest. 12. Cf. Gibbon, chap. 18: “The courtly bishop, who had celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic events.” The year in which Constantine convoked the Council of Nicaea was also that in which he had his own son and his sister's son murdered. Orosius is candid enough to say that this was done for “unknown reasons,” Hist. adv. Paganos 7.28.

58 Cf. De Civ. Dei 4.33; 5.25; 1.8,2, with Bardy's, G. remarks on this text in Augustin, Saint, La cité de Dieu, Bibliothéque augustinienne, vol. 33 (Paris, 1959), 767–769Google Scholar.

59 The designation had been applied to Christians in some early texts, e.g., Praed. Petri, frg. 5; Clement of Alex., Stromata, 6.5,41, and Aristides Apol. 2.

60 Cf. De Civ. Dei 19.17.

61 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 20.

62 De Civ. Dei 5.25 a n d 26. Cf. Duval, Y.-M., “L'éloge de Théodose dans la Citi de Dieu (5.26.1),” Recherches augustiniennes, 4 (Paris, 1966), 135–179Google Scholar.

63 De Civ. Dei 18.46; cf. ibid., 3.30.

64 Cf. De Civ. Dei 19.6.

65 Ibid., 19.4.4.

66 Ibid., 19.4.3.

67 Ibid., 19.27.

68 Ibid., 19.7.

69 Ibid., 19.27; cf. Enar. in Psalm. 146.1–2.

70 Cf. Kant, I., The Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View, Fourth Thesis, in Immanuel Kant, On History, ed. Beck, L. W., (Indianapolis, 1963), p. 15Google Scholar; “Thus man expects opposition on all sides because, in knowing himself, he knows that he, on his own part, is inclined to oppose others. This opposition it is which awakens all his powers, brings him to conquer his inclination to laziness and, propelled by vainglory, lust for power, and avarice, to achieve a rank among his fellows whom he cannot tolerate but from whom he cannot withdraw.” Idem, Perpetual Peace, First Supplement, ibid., p. 106: “The guarantee of perpetual peace is nothing less than that great artist, nature (natura daedala rerum). In her mechanical course we see that her aim is to produce a harmony among men, against their will and indeed through their discord. As a necessity working according to laws we do not know, we call it destiny. But, considering its design in world history, we call it ‘providence,’ inasmuch as we discern in it the profound wisdom of a higher cause which predetermines the course of nature and directs it to the objective final end of the human race.”

71 Idea for a Universal History, p. 16: “Man wishes concord; but Nature knows better what is good for the race; she wills discord. He wishes to live comfortably and pleasantly; Nature wills that he should be plunged from sloth and passive contentment into labor and trouble, in order that he may find means of extricating himself from them. The natural urges to this, the sources of unsociableness and mutual opposition from which so many evils arise, drive men to new exertions of their forces and thus to the manifold development of their capacities.”

72 Ibid., Seventh Thesis, p. 18: “The friction among men, the inevitable antagonism, which is a mark of even the largest societies and political bodies, is used by Nature as a means to establish a condition of quiet and security. Through war, through the taxing and never-ending accumulation of armament, through the want which any state, even in peacetime, must suffer internally, Nature forces them to make at first inadequate and tentative attempts; finally, after devastations, revolutions, and even complete exhaustion, she brings them to that which reason could have told them at the beginning and with far less sad experience, to wit, to step from the lawless condition of savages into a league of nations.”

73 Ibid., Fifth Thesis, p. 16: “The highest purpose of Nature, which is the development of all the capacities which can be achieved by mankind, is attainable only in society, and more specifically in the society with the greatest freedom. Such a society is one in which there is an all-pervasive opposition among the members, together with the most exact definition of freedom and fixing of its limits so that it may be consistent with the freedom of others.”

74 Perpetual Peace, Appendix I, p. 117: “Taken objectively, morality is in itself practical, being the totality of unconditionally mandatory laws according to which we ought to act. It would obviously be absurd, after granting authority to the concept of duty, to pretend that we cannot do our duty, for in that case this concept would itself drop out of morality (ultra posse nemo obligatur). Consequently, there can be no conflict of politics, as a practical doctrine of right, with ethics, as a theoretical doctrine of right.”

75 Perpetual Peace, First Supplement, pp. 111–112: “Now the republican constitution is the only one entirely fitting to the rights of man. But it is the most difficult to establish and even harder to preserve, so that many say a republic would have to be a nation of angels, because men with their selfish inclinations are not capable of a constitution of such sublime form. But precisely with these inclinations nature comes to the aid of the general will estab lished on reason, which is revered even though impotent in practice. Thus it is only a question of a good organization of the state (which does lie in man's power), whereby the powers of each selfish inclination are so arranged in opposition that one moderates or destroys the ruinous effect of the other. The consequence for reason is the same as if none of them existed, and man is forced to be a good citizen even if not morally a good man. The problem of organizing a state, however hard it may seem, can be solved even for a race of devils, if only they are intelligent.”

76 Cf. De Civ. Dei 2.21; 19.21 and 24.