Mental Ascent in St. Augustine’s De quantitate animae

THROUGHOUT his works St. Augustine presents descriptions of the ascent of the mind through fixed levels or stages (Van Fleteren, 2009).  These are of interest not only because of their influence on later Christian contemplative thought, especially in the Middle Ages (for example, in the Victorines and St. Bonaventure), but also for their possible practical relevance today as aids for mindfulness and contemplation.

His earlier writings especially show the influence of Plotinus’ Enneads and possibly a lost of work of Porphyry, De regressu animae (On the Return of the Soul).  An important example is Chapter 33 of De quantitate animae (On the Greatness of the Soul).  In this work, purporting to describe a dialogue Augustine had with his friend, Evodius, several questions about the ‘magnitude’ of the soul are considered.  Magnitude is understood in two senses: (1) in regard to extension in space and time, and (2) concerning the soul’s power and capacity.  Chapter 33 — the work’s centerpiece — proposes a seven-fold categorization of the soul’s powers, which can also be interpreted as a scheme for ascent to contemplation, the highest activity of the mind.

The first level, animatio (animation) corresponds to simple vegetative and regulatory processes — which plants also possess.  Next are sensus (sensation) and ars (arts); ars is construed very broadly and encompasses directed thought, planning, and constructive activity.  Animals also, Augustine notes, possess these two powers.  It is the last four levels, however, that are of most interest.

In the fourth stage, virtus (moral virtue), the soul turns its interest away from vain and empty worldly concerns, realizing that its true treasure and source of happiness is itself.  It therefore sets out with a fervent desire for self-purification.

As a result, the soul reaches the fifth level, tranquillitas (tranquility).  Tranquility is indispensable for the mind of the eye to see clearly, so that the soul may advance further.

Once tranquility is attained, the soul must now exert itself to advance towards higher cognitions.  That is, an act of will is required.  This is the stage of ingressio, or approach.

Finally, the seventh level, contemplatio (contemplation) is reached.

Relative to the traditional three stages of Western mysticism — as, for example, found in the writings of St. John Cassian — virtus and tranquillitas roughly correspond to purification, ingressio to illumination, and contemplatio to union.

Augustine allows that contemplation has varying degrees.  The pinnacle is an ultimate mystical experience of union with God, such as “great and peerless souls” reach; for example, Porphyry reports that Plotinus attained this four times.  At this point in his life, young Augustine was very intent on achieving this ultimate experience.  However I believe his system might be applied to daily experience as we continually struggle to rise from our usual vain preoccupations with transient, delusory, worldly concerns to spiritual mindedness.  In a more secular sense, we can interpret this as an ascent from what the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow called ‘deficiency cognition’ to ‘Being cognition’, from distraction to mindfulness, or from various forms of folly to right cognition.

Note:  The translation here is that of Colleran (1950).

CHAPTER 33. The seven levels of the soul’s greatness.

The Fourth Level of the Soul (virtus)*

73. Take hold now and swing yourself onto the fourth level, which goodness and all true worth call their home. Here it is that the soul ventures to take precedence not only over its own body, acting some part in the universe, but even over the whole body of the universe itself. The goods of the world it does not account its own, and comparing them with its own power and beauty, it keeps aloof from them and despises them. Hence, the more the soul turns to itself for its own pleasure, the more does it withdraw from sordid things and cleanse itself and make itself immaculately clean through and through. It steels itself against every effort to lure it away from its purpose and resolve. It shows high consideration for human society and desires nothing to happen to another which it does not wish to happen to itself. It submits to the authority and the bidding of wise men and is convinced that through them God speaks to itself. Yet, this performance of the soul, noble as it is, still requires strenuous effort and the annoyances and allurements of this world engage it in a mighty struggle, bitterly contested. […]**

Yet, so great is the soul that it can do even this, by the help, of course, of the goodness of the supreme and true God — that goodness which sustains and rules the universe, that goodness by which it has been brought about not only that all things exist, but that they exist in such a way that they cannot be any better than they are. It is to this divine goodness that the soul most dutifully and confidently commits itself for help and success in the difficult task of self-purification.

The Fifth Level of the Soul (tranquillitas)

74. When this has been accomplished, that is, when the soul will be free from all corruption and purified of all its stains, then at last it possesses itself in utter joy and has no fears whatever for itself nor any anxiety for any reason. This, then, is the fifth level. For it is one thing to achieve purity, another to be in possession of it; and the activity by which the soul restores its sullied state to purity and that by which it does not suffer itself to be defiled again are two entirely different things. On this level it conceives in every way how great it is in every respect; and when it has understood that, then with unbounded and wondrous confidence it advances toward God, that is, to the immediate contemplation of truth; and it attains that supreme and transcendent reward for which it has worked so hard.

The Sixth Level of the Soul (ingressio)

75. Now, this activity, namely, the ardent desire to understand truth and perfection, is the soul’s highest vision: it possesses none more perfect, none more noble, none more proper. This, therefore, will be the sixth level of activity. For it is one thing to clear the eye of the soul so that it will not look without purpose and without reason and see what is wrong; it is something else to protect and strengthen the health of the eye; and it is something else again, to direct your gaze calmly and squarely to what is to be seen. Those who wish to do this before they are cleansed and healed recoil so in the presence of that light of truth or that they may think there is in it not only no goodness, but even great evil; indeed, they may decide it does not deserve the name of truth, and with an amount of zest and enthusiasm that is to be pitied, they curse the remedy offered and run back into the darkness engulfing them and which alone their diseased condition suffers them to face. Hence, the divinely inspired prophet says most appositely: Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels. [Psalms 51: 10] The spirit is “right,” I believe, if it sees to it that the soul cannot lose its way and go astray in its quest for truth. This spirit is not really “renewed” in anyone unless his heart is first made clean, that is to say, unless he first controls his thoughts and drains off from them all the dregs of attachment to corruptible things.

The Seventh Level of the Soul (contemplatio)

76. Now at last we are in the very vision and contemplation of truth, which is the seventh and last level of the soul; and here we no longer have a level but in reality a home at which one arrives via those levels. What shall I say are the delights, what the enjoyment, of the supreme and true Goodness, what the everlasting peace it breathes upon us? Great and peerless souls — and we believe that they have actually seen and are still seeing these things, have told us this so far as they deemed it should be spoken of. This would I tell you now: if we hold most faithfully to the course which God enjoins on us and which we have undertaken to follow, we shall come by God’s power and wisdom to that supreme Cause or that supreme Author or supreme Principle of all things, or whatever other more appropriate appellative there may be for so great a reality.

And when we understand that, we shall see truly how all things under the sun are the vanity of the vain. For “vanity” is deceit; and “the vain ” are to be understood as persons who are deceived, or persons who deceive, or both. Further, one may discern how great a difference there is between these and the things that truly exist; and yet, since all the other things have also been created and have God as their Maker, they are wonderful and beautiful when considered by themselves, although in comparison with the things that truly exist, they are as nothing. […] Furthermore, in the contemplation of truth, no matter what degree of contemplation you reach, the delight is so great, there is such purity, such innocence, a conviction in all things that is so absolute, that one could think he really knew nothing when aforetime he fancied he had knowledge. And that the soul may not be impeded from giving full allegiance to the fullness of truth, death — meaning complete escape and acquittal from this body — which previously was feared, is now desired as the greatest boon.

* We omit here his discussion of animatio, sensus and ars, which are not directly related to contemplation.
** In the omitted material St. Augustine describes how at this stage an exaggerated fear of death may arise as a person, increasingly aware of faults, fears condemnation by God.  This concern seems rather foreign to the thought of Plotinus and Porphyry.

Bibliography

Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo: De quantitate animae. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1841), Patrologia Latina (PL) 32:1035−1080 (Latin text). CSEL 89 (1986), pp. 129−231.

Colleran, Joseph M. (tr.). St. Augustine: The Greatness of the Soul, The Teacher. Ancient Christian Writers 9. Newman Press, 1950; 1−112.

Fokin, Alexey. St. Augustine’s paradigm: ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab inferioribus ad superiora in Western and Eastern Christian mysticism. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7.2 (2015): 81−107.

Garvey, Mary Patricia. Saint Augustine: Christian or Neo-platonist? Marquette University Press, 1939. (See pp. 146−160.)

Maslow, Abraham H. (1971). The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Viking (republished: Arkana, 1993). Ch. 9. Notes on Being-Psychology. pp. 121−142.

McMahon, John J. The Magnitude of the Soul. Fathers of the Church: Writings of Saint Augustine 2. New York, 1947; 51−149.

Tourscher, Francis Edward. De Quantitate Animae: The Measure of the Soul; Latin Text, with English Translation and Notes. Peter Reilly Company, 1933.

Van Fleteren, Frederick. Ascent of the Soul. In: Allan D. Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, Eerdmans, 2009; pp. 63−67.

1st draft, 13 Oct 2020

Christian Platonism as Spirituality


Art: Fyodor Bronnikov, Pythagoreans Celebrate Sunrise, 1869.

FOR some time I’ve hesitated to address the question, ‘What is Christian Platonism?’, believing this is something too important to treat lightly.  Just when it seemed I could delay no longer, W. R. Inge’s book, The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought (Hulsean Lectures, 1925−1926), became available online. As Inge’s definition and understanding of Christian Platonism, it turns out, corresponds closely to my own, and also has the imprimatur of a respected authority, let this suffice as a working definition for now.

As Inge explains in the first lecture, the key features of Christian Platonism might be summarized as follows:

• Christian Platonism is, first and foremost, a form of personal spirituality. It is not the abstract application of Platonic philosophy by Christian theologians (whom we might rather call Platonizing Christians).  It is, as Inge puts it, a religion of the spirit.  As such, it is based on personal religious experience, and, for that reason, not infrequently poses a challenge to dogmatic, authoritarian religion.

• This form of spirituality is very much — if not almost exactly — what St. Paul described as spiritual mindedness. As such, Christian Platonism is concerned with achieving a certain higher level of consciousness or awareness opposed to, or at least different from, our usual concerns for material and worldly things (carnal-mindedness).

• A religion of the spirit is the perennial philosophy, although this has evolved over time. It was the basis of Christ’s original teachings, which sought more to spiritually liberate individuals than to establish church hierarchies and dogmas.

• In each age there have been specific obstacles opposing the emergence of spiritual Christianity. Despite this, there have been periodic flowerings of it at opportune moments of history. Hopefully now is such a time.

Below are excerpts from this lecture, along with a few comments.

Religion of the Spirit

He begins by stating the axial age hypothesis: that during the 1st millennia before Christ, certain social and/or environmental changes led to the emergence of a different form of religion across Asia and the Mediterranean:

The study of comparative religion has revealed the remarkable fact that a new spiritual enlightenment, quite unique in character, came to all the civilised peoples of the earth in the millennium before the Christian era. The change was felt first in Asia, but the same breath passed over Greece and South Italy in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. … The essence of the new movement was the recognition of an unseen world of unchanging reality behind the flux of phenomena, a spiritual universe compared with which the world of appearance grew pale and unsubstantial and became only a symbol or even an illusion.

With this new outlook upon life came the conception of salvation as deliverance…. The chief aim … should be to escape from the ‘weary wheel’ of earthly existence, and to find rest in the bosom of the Eternal. The way to this deliverance is by the observance of discipline, which whether ascetic, in the ordinary sense of the word, or not, involves a renunciation of the world of surface experience. (pp. 7−8)

Inge tends to characterize this new spiritual religion in dualistic, world-denying terms. What this excludes (but should not) is the possibility that more integrated forms of spirituality — i.e., harmonious combination of concerns for this and the Eternal world — existed at this time.  Ancient myths could be interpreted as reflecting such integral spirituality. Further, to assume no ‘religion of the spirit’ existed before the 1st millennium BC seems rather arbitrary.  However neither of these points are crucial to his main argument.

Plato, according to Inge, inherited this newly coalescing spirituality from earlier philosophers, organizing and presenting it more clearly than ever before:

[I]t is in Plato, the disciple of the Pythagoreans as well as of Socrates … that this conception of an unseen eternal world, of which the visible world is only a pale copy, gains a permanent foothold in the West. What (he asked) if man had eyes to see that pure Beauty, unalloyed with the stains of material existence, would he not hasten to travel thither, happy as a captive released from the prison-house? Such was the call, which, once heard, has never long been forgotten in Europe. It was revived with an even more poignant longing in the New Platonism of the Roman Empire, from which it passed into the theology and philosophy of the Christian Church. (pp. 9−10)

Christian Platonism

He then proceeds to discuss how Platonism passed into Christianity.  Jesus Christ, while not, that we know of, aware of Platonism, nevertheless sought to teach the perennial spiritual religion, and in an improved form:

A Christian will be disposed to find, in this independent growth of spiritual religion, which began to influence the Jews of the Dispersion not later than the second century before Christ, a divinely ordered preparation for the supreme revelation in the Gospel. For although we cannot trace any foreign influence, either Western or Oriental, upon the recorded teaching of Christ, which seems rather to point back to the highest flights of Jewish prophecy, it is unquestionable that most of the canonical books of the New Testament, especially the epistles of St. Paul and the Johannine group, do not belong to the Palestinian tradition. (p. 10)

Christ was primarily concerned with awakening into activity the consciousness of God in the individual soul; His parting promise was that this consciousness should be an abiding possession of those who followed in His steps … . The path of life, as He showed it by precept and example, was superior to anything that either Greeks or Indians traced out; but the conception of salvation is essentially the same — a growth in the power of spiritual communion by a consecrated life of renunciation and discipline. (p. 19)

It might be mentioned here that Jesus Christ, who likely knew Greek, may indeed have known something about Greek philosophy. At the very least (and this is not inconsistent with what Inge says above), the Jewish prophetic tradition and Plato’s writings may have had certain influences in common.

As distinct from the ‘original teachings’ of Christ, Inge allows for Platonic influence of the written Gospels, especially John’s.  He passes over this rather briefly, however, seeing a much clearer connection to Platonism in St. Paul’s writings:

We are on surer ground when we look for a Platonic element in St. Paul’s theology than when we discuss possible borrowings from the mystery-cults.

The whole doctrine of the Spirit in his epistles corresponds closely to the Platonic Νους. The equation was made by some of the Greek Fathers; and the associations of the two words are so similar that I have thought ‘Spirit ’ less misleading than any other English word in translating the Νους of Plotinus. The words, ‘The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal,’ [2 Cor 4:18] are pure Platonism; and this is not an isolated instance. In Rom. i. 20 ‘the invisible things’ (νοούμενα) are understood through the things that are made, and 1 Cor. xiii. 12 [‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’] reminds us of Plato’s parable of the cave. The immateriality of Spirit was perhaps not quite clearly asserted by any writer before Plotinus. …

Other examples may be given of St. Paul’s affinity with Plato. The use of νους in Rom. vii. 23 (‘I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind’) is Platonic. … In 2 Cor. iii. 18 we read ‘we all, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image.’ Col. iii. 1, ‘If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,’ reminds us of Plato’s exhortation to ‘cleave ever to the upward path and follow after righteousness and wisdom.’ [Rep. 10.621c]. We must turn away from material things, for ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.’ … They share the tripartite psychology which divides human nature into νους (or πνεύμα in Christian theology), ψυχή and σώμα. ‘The earthly house of our tabernacle in which we groan’ is very un-Jewish, and very like the σώμα σημα of Orphism. Lastly, in the Phaedrus as in i Corinthians, love is the great hierophant of the divine mysteries, which forms the link between divinity and humanity. (pp. 11−13).

Much more could be said here concerning the connection of St. Paul and Platonism and many more verses cited.  Especially emblematic is Rom. 12:2, And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind [νοῦς], that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Curiously, whereas Stoic influences on St. Paul have elicited considerable interest lately, any Platonic elements to his writings — which are arguably even more salient and important — have received little attention.

Inge describes how each historical epoch of Church history has presented special obstacles to the wide acceptance of spiritual Christianity, treating in succession the early centuries, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Reformation and post-Reformation periods.

My point is that the religion of the Spirit, that autonomous faith which rests upon experience and individual inspiration, has seldom had much of a chance in the world since the Christian revelation, in which it received its full and final credentials. … [T]he luck of history, we may say, has hitherto been unfavourable to what I, at least, hold to be the growth of the divine seed. It has either fallen on the rock or by the wayside, or the thorns have grown up with it and choked it. (pp. 27,  29).

In the early centuries, both Eastern and Western Christianity suffered from excessive institutionalization, theocracy, and what he terms “caesaropapism”:

The religion of the Spirit has not fared much better in the West [than Buddhism in the East]. Scarcely had the persecutions ceased when the Church began to develop into the centralised autocracy which had become the type of civil government. Caesaropapism — the Byzantine type of state, which till lately survived in Russia, established itself in the East and produced a deadly stagnation in religious as well as secular life. In the West there was, in theory at least, a dual control; but the theocracy proved too strong for the Empire, which was rather an idea than a fact; and a fierce intolerance, which may be regarded as mainly Jewish in origin, but was strengthened by the Roman theory of rebellion against an Empire de iure universal, quenched or drove underground the free activities of religious thought. (p. 15)

In the Dark Ages, the loss of Greek learning in the West made it necessary to “bind the fetters of Church authority” on the masses.  Later, with the Middle Ages came the stranglehold of scholasticism and dogmatism.

Inge’s comments on the Reformation are especially interesting:

[T]he Reformation checked the progress of the religion of the Spirit. This was not the fault of the Reformers, but the inevitable result of the civil war which disrupted and distracted Christendom. In time of war the prophet and seer are not wanted. Effective partisan cries have to be devised, which will appeal to and be understood by the masses. If one side appeals to ancient and sacrosanct authority, the other side has to find a rival authority equally august and compelling.

… In the long and bitter struggle which was to decide which parts of Europe were to be Catholic and which Protestant, both sides were narrowed and hardened. The Roman Church was never again Catholic, and the Protestant Churches forgot the principles which justified their independent existence. The gains of the Renaissance were, within the religious domain, almost entirely lost. … Two religions of authority confronted each other, and real Christianity was once more driven underground. (pp. 23−24)

Inge sees both Catholicism and Protestantism as never having recovered from a descent into exaggerated dogmatism during the Reformation.  Among other things, this has left both camps ill-equipped to adapt to modern scientific discoveries.

Nevertheless, “The religion of the Spirit has an intrinsic survival value, and there have continually been “rare flowering-times of the human spirit which come and pass unaccountably, like the wind which bloweth where it listeth”:

We find it explicitly formulated by Clement and Origen, and we may appeal to one side of that strangely divided genius, Augustine. It lives on in the mystics, especially in the German medieval school, of which Eckhart is the greatest name. We find it again, with a new and exuberant life, in many of the Renaissance writers, so much so that our subject might almost as well be called the Renaissance tradition. Our own Renaissance poetry is steeped in Platonic thoughts. Later, during the civil troubles of the seventeenth century, it appears in a very pure and attractive form in the little group of Cambridge Platonists, Whichcote, Smith, Cudworth, and their friends. In the unmystical eighteenth century Jacob Bohme takes captive the manly and robust intellect of William Law, and inspires him to write some of the finest religious treatises in the English language. … The tradition has never been extinct; or we may say more truly that the fire which, in the words of Eunapius, ‘still burns on the altars of Plotinus,’ has a perennial power of rekindling itself when the conditions are favourable. (p. 28)

Whether these rare flowering-times are, as Inge suggests, unpredictable, or are connected with scientifically understandable socio-economic or evolutionary factors is unclear. The sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, for example, saw in human cultural history a cyclical alternation of Idealism, materialism, rationalism and integralism that follows more or less lawful principles.

In a very helpful passage, Inge lists what he considers the essential features of Christian Platonism:

My contention is that besides the combative Catholic and Protestant elements in the Churches, there has always been a third element, with very honourable traditions, which came to life again at the Renaissance, but really reaches back to the Greek Fathers, to St. Paul and St. John, and further back still. The characteristics of this type of Christianity are

— a spiritual religion, based on a firm belief in absolute and eternal values as the most real things in the universe;

— a confidence that these values are knowable by man;

— a belief that they can nevertheless be known only by whole-hearted consecration of the intellect, will, and affections to the great quest;

— an entirely open mind towards the discoveries of science;

— a reverent and receptive attitude to the beauty, sublimity, and wisdom of the creation, as a revelation of the mind and character of the Creator;

— a complete indifference to the current valuations of the worldling. (p. 33)

See also Inge (1899, p. 79).  This is a good starting point, but we could easily expand it.  Christian Platonists also have a strong interest in understanding Goodness itself and in gaining the beatific vision. The are often perennialist in their interest in ancient traditions, and latitudinarian towards other religions and Christian denominations.  In terms of actual ascetical practices, Christian Platonists typically understand the cardinal virtues and contemplative practices as essential.  Many follow Philo in interpreting the Old Testament in allegorical terms corresponding to Platonic ethics and psychology.

He then adds:

The Christian element is supplied mainly by the identification of the inner light with the Spirit of the living, glorified, and indwelling Christ. This was the heart of St. Paul’s religion, and it has been the life-blood of personal devotion in all branches of the Christian Church to this day. (pp. 33−34)

Far more could — and ultimately should — be said about how Christianity improves on pagan Platonist spirituality.  Perhaps the very vastness of the topic caused Inge to settle on a very general, summary statement here.  Among the Christian innovations (besides the complex and multidimensional role of Christ in personal salvation), is a stronger view of a personal, loving God in Christianity: in Platonism Man seeks to ascend to God; in Christianity, God’s love is understood as so personal, so fervent, that God reaches out to Man.  It is God’s grace, ultimately, that leads one to liberation and salvation.  Further, in Christianity social charity is integral to spiritual salvation in a way not found (or at least not emphasized) in Platonism.

Future Prospects

Inge closes as follows:

In such a presentation of Christianity lies, I believe, our hope for the future. It cuts us loose from that orthodox materialism which in attempting to build a bridge between the world of facts and the world of values only succeeds in confounding one order and degrading the other. It equally emancipates us from that political secularising of Christianity which is just a characteristic attempt of institutionalism to buttress itself with the help of the secular power. This, as we have seen, has always been the policy of the religion of authority. The religion of Christ, the religion of the Spirit, will not have a chance till it is freed from these entanglements.

It will be a pleasure to me to consider briefly three periods in English History when there was a fruitful return in the Church to ‘her old loving nurse the Platonick philosophy’ … and I hope we are only at the beginning of a new Reformation on these lines. (pp. 34 – 35).

Unfortunately, we’ve seen no such renaissance of Christian Platonism or spiritual Christianity in the nearly 100 years since he wrote. Why?  Surely part of the answer lay in the twin juggernauts of materialism and globalization. Material technological advances will likely continue unabated for the indefinite future.  Will Western society be able to resist ever-more alluring gadgetry?  Or will it be recognized that advanced technology alone is unable to supply a fulfilling, meaningful and happy life?

But while the United States and Europe may by this point be ready for a new spiritual renaissance, developing countries may still find the appeal of materialism irresistible. At the same time, globalization has produced multi-national corporations that rival in wealth and power civil governments, and which are both able and willing to manipulate public tastes and opinions for self-interest.

To the extent that organized Christianity has changed since Inge wrote (as opposed to merely declined), we have seen emerge a fairly radical dominance of the social Gospel — radical in the sense that social justice and human rights are seen as more important than spirituality, prayer and worship.  In part, this is a necessary consequence of globalization, as the conditions of the world’s poor can no longer be ignored.  Yet amidst the clamor for social change we seem to have lost sight of spirituality — including the traditional view that personal love of God (and awareness of God’s personal love for us) is by far the most powerful and productive impetus for social charity.

If we survey the current situation, then, there seems little reason to believe that a new flowering of Christian Platonism will simply happen on its own today.  However if we leave the forces that shape human consciousness to history and economics, we are slaves of blind forces, of chaos.  Plato’s Timaeus suggests that chaos is the default state of matter, and that Form must be imposed upon it from without.  For Christianity to become a genuine religion of the spirit at this time, then, may require the conscious efforts of a dedicated minority.

Bibliography

Inge, William Ralph. Christian Mysticism: Considered in Eight Lectures Delivered Before the University of Oxford. New York: Scribner; London: Methuen, 1899. (Chs. 3 & 4, “Christian Platonism and Speculative Mysticism”, pp. 77−164).

Inge, William Ralph. The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought. London: Longmans, 1926.

1st draft: 21 Sep 2020

Thomas Traherne on Extraterrestrial Life

Photo: Juno orbiter photograph (NASA/JPL/Caltech/Kevin M. Gill)

“Our solar system has more mysteries than the sands of time, and at every turn there are new discoveries to be made. It’s as if God has given us a never-ending puzzle, one that all humanity can endlessly enjoy.” [1]

IN 1610 GALILEO pointed his telescope heavenward and discovered four large moons orbiting Jupiter, changing forever how humanity saw itself. Casual speculations about other worlds, possibly inhabited, had been made since ancient times.  But now here was irrefutable evidence — direct experience of the senses — against the unchallenged premise that Earth is the only world. And as ever more powerful telescopes revealed previously unknown stars, the case for an infinitely large universe — and perhaps an infinite number of other worlds — seemed irresistible.  And would not at least some of these other worlds be inhabited?

These new discoveries supplied considerable fuel for radical atheists of the times. Yet the Anglican priest, poet and writer, Thomas Traherne (c. 1637–1674) — Oxford trained and well-versed in the writings of Francis Bacon, the pre-eminent spokesman of the new scientific method — remained unphased.  As Traherne set out to explain in Chapter 22 his work The Kingdom of God (which was not discovered until 1997):

the Wits of the Age are Atheisticaly disposed and pretend the Moon and Stars to be Inhabited, to the utter overthrow of Religion, as they design it; And many Terse Ingenuities hav of late furthered the opinion, Because the Genius of the Time is hammering at Such a thing … It Shall not be amiss, to shew cleerly that if their Discourses, were true no Detriment can accrue to Religion therby. (Kingdom of God 22, p. 369)

Indeed, in the rapidly emerging new discoveries of science Traherne saw even greater cause to believe in God.

What if the Stars should be all Inhabited, what would follow? May we conclude thence, that there is no GOD? no Religion? No Blessedness? verily it is more Apparent, that there is a God, a Religion, a Blessedness thereby. What if beyond the Heavens there were Infinit Numbers of Worlds at vast unspeakable distances. And all Those worlds full of Glorious Kingdoms? and all those Kingdoms full of the most Noble and Glorious Creatures. And all those Creatures walking in the Light of Eternitie, full of Joy, evry Moment celebrating the Praises of their Creator. And as full of Love towards each other. Would this Abolish Heaven? Verily in my Conceit, it Enricheth it. For it is more answerable to Goodness, Wisdom, and Felicitie; and demonstrates visibly, that there is a GOD. (Ibid., 372)

Traherne’s unshakeable first principle — one derived both from rational speculation and his personal experiences — is that God is infinitely good.  And infinitely good in infinitely many ways.  It is, of course, a traditional Christian doctrine that God is infinite.  But reading Traherne’s works one senses how remarkably profound and compelling he held this principle to be. He grasped and took it to heart more than any Christian writer before or since. (Indeed, his deep appreciation of infinity may have had something to do with the advances in astronomy, science and mathematics in his lifetime.)

For Traherne, God, infinitely Good and wishing with infinite Love to share His Goodness, created human beings with divine intellects and wills.  And these human faculties, being made in God’s image, are themselves infinite in scope, capacity and complexity.  Hence Man’s insatiable yearning for knowledge, beauty, goodness and love.  To meet these needs, and to reveal Himself to Man, God created a universe of infinite wonder and goodness for Man’s investigation and delight.

Running throughout Traherne’s work is St. Anselm of Canterbury’s seminal insight: “God is that beyond which no greater Good can be thought or imagined.”  In simple terms, whatever good things we can imagine Him doing for us, God — in order to be God — must be not only capable of these but vastly more.

From this premise, Traherne advanced three arguments supporting the possibility of life on other worlds. The first is because God, infinitely productive and generous, delights in creating beauty and variety.  Hence we would not expect God to leave the vast reaches of space uninhabited:

all Nature delighting in Life, is evry where productiv of Innumerable Creatures … Nature abhorres Vacuitie and Sterilitie: That the Elementary Qualities would be there in vain, if there were no Inhabitants. The Sun also and the Stars would Shine upon all those vast and Desolat Spaces in Vain, if there were none to see them…. For him that is Omnipresent and Eternal, to confine his Contentments to one litle Spot, and leav all the Rest Empty and Desolate is unworthie of his Majestie, and not very answerable to his Infinit Greatness. Neither is it suitable to his Wisdom, that Worlds of such Infinit Magnificence, Bulk, Number, Distance, and Varietie; should be Created; only for to be, and serv like Sparks of Weak, and Glittering Light, for such a litle Ball, a Point, a Mite as the Earth is, being Capable of so many more uses, if him self pleaseth. (Ibid., 371 f.)

Second, an infinite universe that contains other planets harboring life would be a gift of infinite value to Man.  It would meet our insatiable thirst for knowledge, give cause for ever increasing thanks and praise, and be most consistent with (a central theme of Traherne’s writings) the vast grandeur and infinite capacity of the human soul.

Third, by creating other worlds with intelligent beings, God would make more creatures that witness and delight in Him and His works. Moreover, sentient aliens would have and enjoy their own relationship with God:

He desires Multitudes … to see his Glory, to Enjoy his Lov, to walk in the Paths of Righteousness, and, to prize his Works, to possess his Treasures, to Praise, admire, and see his Blessedness. The Earth is too poor a Cottage, too small a centre, to be the Single and Solitary object of his care and Love. (Ibid., 372)

Remarkably, Traherne even considered that sentient aliens would behold with joy the human soul, made in God’s image and likeness:

The Soul of Man would be Glorified, and Praised, and Magnified, and seen, and Belovd, and Admired, and Delighted in, in evry Part of Heaven, in evry Planet, in evry Star, in evry Kingdom, God doth delight in those that bear his Image, and are Blest with his Similitude. (Ibid.)

If our advanced intelligence isn’t unique in the universe, would not the same apply to our moral and spiritual sensibilities?  Popular depictions of evil aliens notwithstanding, we’d expect that a species intelligent enough to master interstellar travel would have a great interest in knowing who or what made the universe — and them — and why?  We might well suppose that advanced aliens would be even more interested in discussing religion with us than vice versa!

In Traherne’s view then, not only would the existence of other worlds and intelligent species not contradict religion, but we might be disappointed if God hasn’t made them!

[As a footnote, it seems to me Traherne’s view bear some relevance to estimating the probability of advanced alien life.  A legitimate question to ask is, “If there are other intelligent species, why have none not already contacted us?”  The absence of contact so far would seem to reduce the probability estimate of there being a species capable of interstellar flight in our near vicinity of the galaxy.  But what if aliens are as morally advanced as they are technologically?  Why would they intervene in our affairs?  Wouldn’t they rather take greater delight in observing the amazing and intricate process of our development, just as we’d prefer to witness with awe a remarkable work of nature — say, the blossoming of a consummately beautiful flower — than to control or direct it? Yes, they might look with some concern about our negative tendencies. But at the same time they would see, to their joy and amazement, beings with infinitely capacious intellects and souls. Arguments like this would reduce the probability that an intelligent species might choose to initiate contact, and, in turn, increase the probability of there being intelligent alien life.]

Notes

1. New Space Adventures: Mars. Through the Roof Productions. Video documentary, 2019.

 

Bibliography

Ross, Jan (ed.). The Works of Thomas Traherne: Volume I: Inducements to Retirednes, A Sober View of Dr Twisses his Considerations, Seeds of Eternity or the Nature of the Soul, The Kingdom of God. Cambridge: DS Brewer 2005.

1st draft: 10 Sep 2020

Preface to Traherne

Art: Thomas Denny, Thomas Traherne windows (Hereford Cathedral, 2007) 

SINCE the rediscovery of Thomas Traherne’s work around the turn of 20th century, there has been wide consensus that he is a significant writer. There has been less agreement, however, on why he is significant — i.e., what his main contributions, especially for present times, consist of.

Somewhat unfortunately, many early commentators focused attention on his poetry, classifying him narrowly as an English metaphysical poet.  However, while his poetry is excellent, it is arguably,not quite as technically sophisticated as that of George Herbert or Henry Vaughan. Traherne’s best work is not his verse, but his Centuries of Meditations, which we might classify as prose-poetry.

Other writers sought to interpret Traherne as a critic of the newly emerging rationalism, especially of Hobbes.  More recently (e.g., Inge, 2009) attention has been drawn to his significance for Christian doctrinal theology.

Somewhat less attention, however, has been paid to simply understanding Traherne’s writings at face value:  as devotional works intended to stimulate and deepen the religious experience of readers. What if we simply allow that Traherne is authentically inspired?   In that case, perhaps we ought to be more interested in how he describes his work and mission than in historical or technical criticism.

Traherne’s two most sublime and famous works — the poems of the Dobell folio (Dobell, 1906) and Centuries of Meditations (Dobell, 1908) have been transmitted in manuscript form only and lack author prefaces.  However Traherne did prepare another work, Christian Ethicks, for publication (it reached print a year after his death) and this is prefaced with a ‘Note to the Reader.’  Here Traherne carefully and concisely explains his purpose.  Christian Ethicks is a systematic work, but it treats the same subjects as his poems and Centuries of Meditations.  Therefore his ‘To the Reader’ gives us insight into his intentions for these other works as well.

To the Reader, copied from the 1675 edition of Christian Ethicks is supplied below. Original spelling is retained.  Page numbers have been added in braces ({}) and paragraphs numbered in brackets ([]).  Some key points are as follows:

In the first paragraph he announces his aim to elevate the soul and inflame the heart.  He is interested in ethics not as a dry academic exercise or as theories developed by force of rational argument.  Rather he seeks to excite the intelligence and arouse the will, enabling people to seek and directly experience the religious and moral truths contained.  Here he follows the tradition of Plato — to achieve moral transformation by an ascent of the mind and heart and by recollection (anamnesis) of already known truths — and not the rationalism of Aristotle or scholasticism.

In [2−3] he contrasts his method with discussions that approach ethics either (1) dogmatically, as ‘things we must do because God so ordains’, or (2) based on practical expedience.  Indeed, a hallmark feature of Traherne’s philosophy is that ethics is what produces our greatest good, which he calls Felicity.  Felicity includes happiness, but is something more.  It also carries the sense of joy, illumination and holiness.  For Traherne, Felicity is the telos of human beings, our ethical summum bonum.  It unites in a single principle our greatest happiness, our duty, expedience, God’s will, love of God and charity to others.

Traherne has sometimes been criticized as being an impractical optimist, with no significant theory of evil.  He addresses this point in paragraph [4], taking the position that virtues are so good, beautiful and attractive in themselves that, if we can see them truly, they will by their own force overcome any attraction to baseness or sin. Hence explicit discussion of vice is a digression and a distraction from topics that matter more.

Traherne is clearly promoting what we would today call virtue ethics. In the subsequent paragraphs he alludes to a number of specific virtues, including the traditional cardinal and theological virtues.  Again in a characteristically Platonic way, he recognizes a fundamental unity amongst virtues.  At the center of them all is Goodness, the source of which is God.

The final paragraph emphasizes two things.  First, the essence of his entire system is to exhort us to God’s praise and glory.  God’s glory, for Traherne, is the essential fact of the universe.  This fact is not only virtually a logical necessity, but something Traherne claims to have experienced himself many times.  Further, we cannot doubt that it is his personal, passionate aim to convey this message to us so that we may achieve the Felicity of which he speaks.  Traherne presents his writings as a charitable outreaching to his readers, seeking to further God’s glory by making us want to further God’s glory, achieving, in the process, our own Felicity.  This kind of self-reinforcing circularity is recurring theme in his writings.

Finally and tellingly, he is careful to emphasize that we must not only understand these high truths intellectually, but “sense” them.

TO THE READER.

[1] THE design of this Treatise is, not to stroak and tickle the Fancy, but to elevate the Soul, and refine its Apprehensions, to inform the Judgment, and polish it for Conversation, to purifie and enflame the Heart, to enrich the Mind, and guide Men {ii} (that stand in need of help) in the way of Vertue; to excite their Desire, to encourage them to Travel, to comfort them in the Journey, and so at last to lead them to true Felicity, both here and hereafter.

[2] need not treat of Vertues in the ordinary way, as they are Duties enjoyned by the Law of GOD; that the Author of The whole Duty of Man *hath excellently done: nor as they are Prudential Expedients and Means for a mans Peace and Honour on Earth; that is in some measure done by the French Charon {iii} of Wisdom**. My purpose is to satisfie the Curious and Unbelieving Soul, concerning the reality, force, and efficacy of Vertue; and having some advantages from the knowledge I gained in the nature of Felicity (by many years earnest and diligent study) my business is to make as visible, as it is possible for me, the lustre of its Beauty, Dignity, and Glory: By shewing what a necessary Means Vertue is, how sweet, how full of Reason, how desirable in it self, how just and amiable, how delightful, and how powerfully conducive also {iv} to Glory: how naturally Vertue carries us to the Temple of Bliss, and how immeasurably transcendent it is in all kinds of Excellency.

[3] And (if I may speak freely) my Office is, to carry and enhance Vertue to its utmost height, to open the Beauty of all the Prospect, and to make the Glory of GOD appear, in the Blessedness of Man, by setting forth its infinite Excellency: Taking out of the Treasuries of Humanity those Arguments that will discover the great perfection of the End of Man, which he may atchieve {v} by the capacity of his Nature: As also by opening the Nature of Vertue it self, thereby to display the marvellous Beauty of Religion, and light the Soul to the sight of its Perfection.

[4] I do not speak much of Vice, which is far the more easie Theme, because I am intirely taken up with the abundance of Worth and Beauty in Vertue, and have so much to say of the positive and intrinsick Goodness of its Nature. But besides, since a strait Line is the measure both of it self, and of a crooked one, I conclude, That the very Glory of {vi} Vertue well understood, will make all Vice appear like dirt before Jewel, when they are compared together. Nay, Vice as soon as it is named in the presence of these Vertues, will look like Poyson and a Contagion, or if you will, as black as Malice and Ingratitude: so that there will need no other Exposition of its Nature, to dehort Men from the love of it, than the Illustration of its Contrary.

[5] Vertues are listed in the rank of Invisible things; of which kind, some are so blind as to deny there are any existent {vii} in Nature: But yet it may, and will be made easily apparent, that all the Peace and Beauty in the World proceedeth from them, all Honour and Security is founded in them, all Glory and Esteem is acquired by them. For the Prosperity of all Kingdoms is laid in the Goodness of GOD and of Men. Were there nothing in the World but the Works of Amity, which proceed from the highest Vertue, they alone would testifie of its Excellency. For there can be no Safety where there is any Treachery: But were all {viii} Truth and Courtesie exercis’d with Fidelity and Love, there could be no Injustice or Complaint in the World; no Strife, nor Violence: but all Bounty, Joy and Complacency. Were there no Blindness, every Soul would be full of Light, and the face of Felicity be seen, and the Earth be turned into Heaven.

[6] The things we treat of are great and mighty; they touch the Essence of every Soul, and are of infinite Concernment, because the Felicity is eternal that is acquired by them: I do not mean Immortal only but worthy to be Eternal: and it is {ix} impossible to be happy without them. We treat of Mans great and soveraign End, of the Nature of Blessedness, of the Means to attain it: Of Knowledge and Love, of Wisdom and Goodness, of Righteousness and Holiness, of Justice and Mercy, of Prudence and Courage, of Temperance and Patience, of Meekness and Humility, of Contentment, of Magnanimity and Modesty, of Liberality and Magnificence, of the waies by which Love is begotten in the Soul, of Gratitude, of Faith, Hope, and Charity, of Repentance, Devotion, {x} Fidelity, and Godliness. In all which we shew what sublime and mysterious Creatures they are, which depend upon the Operations of Mans Soul; their great extent, their use and value, their Original and their End, their Objects and their Times: What Vertues belong to the Estate of Innocency, what to the Estate of Misery and Grace, and what to the Estate of Glory. Which are the food of the Soul, and the works of Nature; which were occasioned by Sin, as Medicines and Expedients only: which are {xi} Essential to Felicity, and which Accidental; which Temporal, and which Eternal: with the true Reason of their Imposition; why they all are commanded, and how wise and gracious GOD is in enjoyning them. By which means all Atheism is put to flight, and all Infidelity: The Soul is reconciled to the Lawgiver of the World, and taught to delight in his Commandements: All Enmity and Discontentment must vanish as Clouds and Darkness before the Sun, when the Beauty of Vertue appeareth in its {xii} brightness and glory. It is impossible that the splendour of its Nature should be seen, but all Religion and Felicity will be manifest.

[7] Perhaps you will meet some New Notions: but yet when they are examined, he hopes it will appear to the Reader, that it was the actual knowledge of true Felicity that taught him to speak of Vertue; and moreover, that there is not the least tittle pertaining to the Catholick Faith contradicted or altered in his Papers. For he firmly retains all that was established in the {xiii} Ancient Councels, nay and sees Cause to do so, even in the highest and most transcendent Mysteries: only he enriches all, by farther opening the grandeur and glory of Religion, with the interiour depths and Beauties of Faith. Yet indeed it is not he, but GOD that hath enriched the Nature of it: he only brings the Wealth of Vertue to light, which the infinite Wisdom, and Goodness, and Power of GOD have seated there. Which though Learned Men know perhaps far better than he, yet he humbly craves pardon for casting in {xiv} his Mite to the vulgar Exchequer. He hath nothing more to say, but that the Glory of GOD, and the sublime Perfection of Humane Nature are united in Vertue. By Vertue the Creation is made useful, and the Universe delightful. All the Works of GOD are crowned with their End, by the Glory of Vertue. For whatsoever is good and profitable for Men is made Sacred; because it is delightful and well-pleasing to GOD: Who being LOVE by Nature, delighteth in his Creatures welfare.{xv}

[8] There are two sorts of concurrent Actions necessary to Bliss. Actions in GOD, and Actions in Men; nay and Actions too in all the Creatures. The Sun must warm, but it must not burn; the Earth must bring forth, but not swallow up; the Air must cool without starving, and the Sea moisten without drowning: Meats must feed but not poyson: Rain must fall, but not oppress: Thus in the inferiour Creatures you see Actions are of several kinds. But these may be reduced to the Actions of GOD, from whom they {xvi} spring; for he prepares all these Creatures for us. And it is necessary to the felicity of his Sons, that he should make all things healing and amiable, not odious and destructive: that he should Love, and not Hate: And the Actions of Men must concur aright with these of GOD, and his Creatures. They must not despise Blessings because they are given, but esteem them; not trample them under feet, because they have the benefit of them, but magnifie and extol them: They too must Love, and not Hate: They must not kill and murther, {xvii} but serve and pleasure one another: they must not scorn great and inestimable Gifts, because they are common, for so the Angels would lose all the happiness of Heaven. If GOD should do the most great and glorious things that infinite Wisdom could devise; if Men will resolve to be blind, and perverse, and sensless, all will be in vain: the most High and Sacred things will increase their Misery. This may give you some little glimpse of the excellency of Vertue.{xviii}

[9] You may easily discern that my Design is to reconcile Men to GOD, and make them fit to delight in him: and that my last End is to celebrate his Praises, in communion with the Angels. Wherein I beg the Concurrence of the Reader, for we can never praise him enough; nor be fit enough to praise him: No other man (at least) can make us so, without our own willingness, and endeavour to do it. Above all, pray to be sensible of the Excellency of the Creation for upon the due sense of its Excellency the life of {xix} Felicity wholly dependeth. Pray to be sensible of the Excellency of Divine Laws, and of all the Goodness which your Soul comprehendeth. Covet a lively sense of all you know, of the Excellency of GOD, and of Eternal Love; of your own Excellency, and of the worth and value of all Objects whatsoever. For to feel is as necessary, as to see their Glory.

* Anonymous, The Whole Duty of Man. London: Henry Hammond, 1658.  A popular 17th century Anglican devotional work.

** Pierre Charron, De la sagesse (translated into English as Of Wisdome, 1612).  Charron, a disciple of Montaigne, defended virtue on the basis of practical expedience.

Bibliography

Balakier, James, J. Thomas Traherne and the Felicities of the Mind. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2010.

Dobell, Bertram (ed.). The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne. London, 1903; 2nd ed. 1906.

Dobell, Bertram (ed.). Thomas Traherne: Centuries of Meditations. London, 1908.

Hunter, Stuart Charles. Prophet of Felicity: A Study of the Intellectual Background of Thomas Traherne. Diss. McMaster University, 1965.

Inge, Denise. Wanting Like a God: Desire and Freedom in Thomas Traherne. London: SCM Press, 2009.

Margoliouth, H. M. (ed.). Centuries, Poems, and Thanksgivings. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.

Marks, Carol L. Thomas Traherne and Hermes Trismegistus. Renaissance News, vol. 19, no. 2, 1966, 118–131.

Martz, Louis. The Paradise Within: Studies in Vaughan, Traherne, and Milton. New Haven and London, 1964.

Traherne, Thomas. Christian ethicks, or, Divine morality opening the way to blessedness, by the rules of vertue and reason. London, Jonathan Edwin, 1675. [Orig. edition]

1st draft: 1 Sep 2020

Martianus Capella, The Apotheosis of Philologia

Sandro Botticelli, Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman, 1483–1486.

BOOK II of Martianus Capella’s On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury (De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii) continues the mythical introduction to the work (the previous post discusses Book I).  Before she can marry Mercury, Philologia (love of study) must ascend to heaven.  In preparation for this she is greeted and praised by a succession of goddesses and other divinities, including Phronesis (her mother), the Seven Muses, Philosophy, the Graces, the Virtues, Immortality, and Astrae. The speeches of the Muses, especially noteworthy, are presented below.

Modern writers criticize Martianus for what they call his ‘turgid prose’ and elaborate descriptions.  But this is seeing him through the lens of narrow rationalism.  May we instead adopt a post-rationalist worldview, and accept that he is either (1) using art intentionally to convey a fuller message, or (2) that he just might be inspired, whether by some divine power, the collective unconscious, or both?  May we in the 21st century regain an appreciation for the prophetic sense?

In Book III Martianus himself addresses his critics:

[221] Once again in this little book the Muse prepares her ornaments and wants to tell fabricated stories at first, remembering that utility cannot clothe the naked truth; she regards it as a weakness of the poet to make straightforward and undisguised statements, and she brings a light touch to literary style and adds beauty to a page that is already heavily colored. (Stahl et al, p. 64).

Criticisms notwithstanding, the purpose of the myth in the first two books seems as explicitly religious as it is momentous: Martianus is suggesting that Philologia — this quality of love of study, of scholarship, of yearning to understand the meanings of things — is something divine.  And it seems likely he considers this a means of gradual ascent of the mind (nous) in a manner consistent with Platonism and Neoplatonism.

Small wonder, then, that this work exerted such a profound influence on education and consciousness in the West for 1000 years after he wrote, from the fall of  the Roman Empire to the Renaissance.  His message should be heard again today.  The purpose of Liberal Arts education is neither utilitarian, nor merely to make a ‘good and productive citizen.’  It is part of the far more significant process of divinization, of ‘assimilation to God insofar as possible.’

Two details concerning the following should be noted.  First, the Seven Muses are not the same as the Seven Liberal Arts, which are treated in the remaining seven books.  Second, Martianus deviates somewhat from how other writers interpret each Muse.  The English translation of Stahl et al. has been lightly edited.

[117] BEFORE the door, sweet music with manifold charms was raised, the chorus of assembled Muses singing in well-trained harmony to honor the marriage ceremony. Flutes, lyres, the grand swell of the water organ blended in tuneful song and with a melodious ending as they became silent for an appropriate interval of unaccompanied singing by the Muses. Then the entire chorus with melodious voices and sweet harmony outstripped the beauty of all the instrumental music, and the following words were poured forth in notes of sacred song:

“Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[118] Then, while the others kept quiet a moment, URANIA (Muse of astronomy) began:

“With trust in the divine will and without disputing,
Behold the assemblies of the stars,
And the sacred vaults of the heavens;
You formerly studied what cause whirled the interdependent spheres,
Now as their leader you shall assign causes to their sweeping motions.
You shall perceive what is the fabric that connects their circuits,
What bond encompasses them,
And what huge spheres are enclosed within a curving orbit;
You will see what drives on and what delays courses of the planets,
Which rays of the sun inflame the moon or diminish its light,
What substance kindles the stars in heaven,
And how great are the bodies which heaven spins around,
What is the providence of the gods, and what its mode of operation.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[119] Then sang CALLIOPE (Muse of epic poetry):

“Always a friend to the favoring Muses,
For you Magnesian rivers and the fountain of Pegasus have poured your drink,
For you the Aonid peak [Mount Helicon], green with garlands, puts forth its leaves, while Cirrha prepares violets;
You know how to chant prophecies to the sweet Muses,
And to play the lyre of Pindar,
And at your word the strings and the sacred plectrum,
Know how to pour forth the Thracian song.
Light of our lives, praise always our sacred songs,
And approve the music that we play.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks uou to rise to the lofty stars.”

[120] Thus sang POLYMNIA (Muse of rhythm and poetic meter):

“You have been exalted and, though recently of mortal blood,
Are now endowed with godhead;
At last you reap the rewards of your efforts:
The shining sky, the abodes of the gods, and the companionship of Jove.
You are used to combining and dispersing a variety of sounds,
According to the rules of rhythm,
To assessing then which syllable, marked with the macron,
Is pronounced with circumflexion,
Which with the mark of brevity the micron curves;
To assessing melodies and tones and tunes and all such knowledge,
And all that can, when the mind is urged to it,
Gain the heights of heaven.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[121] Thus sang MELPOMEME (Muse of sacred theater):

“You are accustomed to sing tragic songs for the theater,
Or wear the boot of comedy and echo the songs,
Which under your care we offered when sweet music aided us;
Now to you, maiden, our champion and our expositor,
Made immortal by the theme of your song, to you I sing.
For I am happy to adorn your bridal chamber,
And may my garlands be acceptable in your service.
May you ever seem worthy of an Olympian wedding,
Ever fairer than the other gods.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupitet asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[122] Thus sang CLIO (Muse of history and rhetoric):

“You sound forth in the guise of the rhetorician,
And set free by your passion the man accused.
You link together contrary sentiments,
Building up sophisms by heaping together arguments,
Now binding something together by the rule of grammar,
Clever at using your gift of fine speech,
To play with words that by their double meaning destroy the ordinary sense;
Now gaze upon the starry threshold of the sky,
And enjoy the holy whiteness of heaven,
For it is precious to see that in its true light.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[123] Next spoke ERATO (Muse of lyric and love poetry):

“O famous maiden, to whom the palace of the Thunderer is open,
Source of the arts, rightly is the world subject to you,
Since it was from the beginning apprehended by your rational principles.
Why the sacred lightning flashes,
Whence the echoing thunder sounds,
What drives the moisture through the opening of the sky when the storm clouds gather,
What is brought back by the clearness of spring when the rain clouds march away,
Why the circle of the year spins round to end all the hurrying centuries
—we avow that secrets unknown to others are known to you alone.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[124] Then sang TERPSICHORE (Muse of dance and chorus):

“I am delighted, dear maiden, that through this honor you gain a sight of the stars!
Your industry and the genius of your nature have won this for you.
That wakeful concentration of yours bestowed this honor on your lucubrations.
Having toiled day and night on the sacred writings,
And knowing the future and being ready to learn,
You have understood what the Stoics offer in their sacrifices when the flame puffs from the kindling.
For without misgivings, with unhesitating utterance,
You anticipate what the smoke tells on the flaming altars of the Sabaeans,
What message is brought by air thick with the ash of incense,
Or what the sure signs foretell by prophetic voices.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[125] Then EUTERPE (Muse of flute music) began:

“O maiden, our guide to skillful prophecy,
Who could ascend to heaven and bring down to pure souls,
The sacred teachings by which they were able to know themselves,
And by which they discerned
And saw with a clear light the decrees of fate and the countenances of the spirits,
And who allotted stars to be the minds of Plato and Pythagoras,
And who has ordered ephemeral creatures,
To behold the decree of heaven with all obscurity removed:
Rightly ascend to the senate of the Thunderer,
You who alone are fit to be married to Mercury.

Ascend into the temples of heaven, maiden, deserving of such a marriage;
your father-in-law Jupiter asks you to rise to the lofty stars.”

[126] Then THALIA (Muse of comedy and pastoral poetry) spoke:

“O blessed maiden, who take up the marriage bond,
Amid such a singing of the stars,
And with such approval from the universe,
Become a daughter-in-law of the Thunderer.
Of which god are you to become the wife?
He alone on wandering wing, alert for sudden storms,
Flies out beyond the stars of the universe,
And when he has crossed the straits on high, returns to Tartarus.
He alone is able to wield his famous staff before the chariot and white horses of the high father;
He alone gladly restores the fortunes of Osiris as he falls,
Whom the father of the gods knows to be weighed down by the life-giving seed he has discovered;
To Mercury his stepmother gladly gave her milky breast;
His powerful caduceus counteracts dread poison;
And when he speaks, all venom is dissolved.
He is learned among the gods; but this girl is still more learned.
Now, now the arts are blessed, which you two so sanctify,
That they allow men to rise to heaven and open to them the stars,
And allow holy prayers to fly up to the clear sky.
Through you the mind’s intelligence, alert and noble, fills the uttermost depth,
Through you proven eloquence brings everlasting glory.
You bless all subjects, and you bless us, the Muses.”

Bibliography

Cristante, Lucio; Lenaz, Luciano. Martiani Capellae: De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii. Vol. 1, Libri I – II. Bibliotheca Weidmanniana, 15.1. Hildesheim: Weidmann, 2011.

Stahl, William Harris; Johnson, Richard; Burge, E. L. The Marriage of Philology and Mercury. Columbia University Press, 1977.

Willis, James (ed.). Martianus Capella: De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii libri IX. Leipzig: Teubner, 1983. (Critical edition of Latin text.)

1st draft, 1 Apr 2020

Martianus Capella’s Fable of the Marriage of Philologia and Mercury

Sandro Botticelli, A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts (detail), 1483–1486.

 

MARTIANUS CAPELLA, an early 5th century North African writer, is most famous for a work titled, On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury (De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii).  Virtually ignored today, this work had vast influence on education for next 1000 years and shaped the curriculum of the Middle Ages. The first two books, an introduction, present an allegorical fable involving the marriage of Mercury and Philology (love of study.).  Subsequent chapters discuss, one by one, the seven traditional liberal arts (Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy and Music), supplying a compendium of existing knowledge on each.

Even less modern attention has been given to the introductory fable than to the work as a whole.  However the former merits our attention as an imaginative and creative attempt to explain the purpose of liberal education by means of a psychological allegory.  As a work of art and an expression of the collective unconscious, the fable is not dated. Indeed, the daring style — precisely because it’s so unconventional by modern standards — deserves our attention that much more.The allegory has two parts, called the Betrothal and the Marriage. Part 1 — psychologically more interesting — is supplied below.  This is taken (in abridged and edited form) from the English translation of Stahl, Johnson and Burge.  Except for Mercury, names of the gods are changed from their Latin to Greek forms.

Readers may notice similarities to the story of Cupid and Psyche, from the Metamorphosis (Golden Ass) of Apuleius.  That is not merely coincidental, as Martianus consciously emulated his illustrious predecessor Apuleius, a fellow native of Madaura (in what is now Algeria).Philology, as already noted, means the love of study, and Mercury — known both for his role as communicator and mediator, as well as for his quickness — is a familiar symbol for the intelligence.

Rather than over-analyze the charming story, I’ll trust the author’s creative instincts and let art itself appeal to readers’ imaginations to suggest psychological meanings. Overall, the story might be understood as suggesting that education in the Seven Liberal Arts is more than merely expedient; it also serves to elevate and harmonize the mind. In that sense it (just as Plato suggests in the Republic), supports ones moral and spiritual development. Indeed, insofar as it helps realize Man’s greatest potentials, it serves the entire Universe and contributes to cosmic harmony.

[5] MERCURY was moved and excited by the reciprocity of love among the gods; at the same time he saw what was clear to many people—love and marriages are universally celebrated. So he too decided to get married. His mother had encouraged him in this inclination when, on his yearly journey through the zodiac, he greeted her in the company of the Pleiades.

[6] Because of the importance of the venture, he pondered a great deal on whom he ought to marry. He himself ardently desired Wisdom, because she was prudent and holy, and purer and fairer than the other maidens. However Wisdom was like a foster sister of Athena and seemed inseparably devoted to her, as though having espoused virginity; he accordingly decided not to marry Wisdom, as this would offend Athena, his own sister.

In the same way, the splendid beauty of Prophecy inflamed his desires. She was nobly born, being the elder daughter of Forethought, and her farsighted and penetrating wisdom commended her to him. But at that very time, as it happened, she went of her own accord to young Apollo and, unable to endure her inordinate passion, she became his lover.

[7] He wanted then to ask for Psyche, the daughter of Endelechia [World Soul] and Sol, because she was extremely beautiful and the gods had taken great care over her education. On the day of her birth the gods, being invited to a celebration, had brought her many gifts. Jupiter, in fact, had placed on her head a diadem which he had taken from his favored daughter Eternity; Juno had added a band for her hair, made from a gleaming vein of pure gold. Athena loosed from her tunic the flame-red veil and breastband and, herself a virgin holy and wise, draped the virgin in the very mantle from her own bosom. Apollo also, carrying his laurel branch, showed her with that wand of foresight and prophecy the birds, the bolts of lightning, the motions of heaven itself and the stars. Urania with gentle kindness gave her a gleaming mirror which Wisdom had hung in Urania’s rooms amongst her gifts—a mirror in which Psyche could recognize herself and learn her origins. Hephaestus kindled for her ever-burning flamelets; she would not then be oppressed by gloomy shadows and blind night. Aphrodite had given to all her senses every kind of pleasure. Mercury himself had given her a vehicle with swift wheels in which she could travel at an astonishing speed, although Memory bound it and weighed it down with golden chains. So now Mercury, his earlier hopes frustrated, sought in marriage Psyche, wealthy as she was in the gifts of heaven and richly adorned by the gods. But Virtue, almost in tears and clinging fast to him, confessed that Psyche had been snatched from her company into the hand of Cupid the flying archer, and was being held captive by him in shackles of adamant. (See ‘Cupid and Psyche’ by Apuleius):

[8] So the happiness of the destiny he had planned eluded Mercury, because of the marriages of these maidens; and there did not readily seem to be anyone else who might fittingly be chosen as Zeus the Thunderer’s daughter-in-law. Virtue therefore suggested that he give the matter further thought; he ought not decide anything without the advice of Apollo; he was not meant to wander far from his company, since, as Mercury traveled through the signs of the zodiac, Apollo never permitted him to be further than one month’s journey away from himself. And so it was decided that Mercury go to his brother, Apollo, wherever he might be.

[9] Then, as usual, he gave his caduceus to Virtue, so that she could penetrate the secret parts of the world with him, and with equal swiftness could break into the more remote quarters of heaven. He himself bound on his feet his golden sandals and they made a thorough search for Apollo. They looked for him in temples where oracles poured forth in evasive ambiguity and where, by the slaughter of animals and the separation of their entrails, the viscera declared foreordained events; and in places where it was the custom for a lottery to be drawn and for prophecies to be told.

[10] But in these leading shrines and these deserted caves they found nothing of Apollo except only a few leaves of withered laurel and half-torn fillets outside the cave of the sybil of Cumae. Even through the paths of air where Apollo usually guided the varied flights of birds and the cries they uttered, and formed omens in their fleeting wings, they looked for him without success. Indeed Apollo, patron of the Pythia, distressed by contact with those who sought his advice, had long ago given up his reputation as a prophet. They pursued him to Helicon, Delos, Lycia. In one place they found old laurel and withered ivy, in another a rotting tripod, sandals stiff with mildew, and an account of prophecies lying between them.

[11] At length they learned by rumor that the rock of Parnassus rejoiced in the presence of Phoebus, although from there too it was said that he had later moved to an Indian mountain’s secret crag, shrouded in perpetual clouds. Yet Mercury and Virtue visited the Delphic temple (by way of Cirrha on the Gulf of Corinth) and the sacred cave’s prophetic hollows. In it there stood about all the impending vicissitudes of the ages, in their order: the fortunes of cities and nations, of all their kings, and of the entire human race.

[20] When Pythian Apollo saw them approach from afar, conversing thus, and realized from the first glance the reason for their coming, he rose from the throne on which he was sitting and bade the Muses meet them. Although they seemed to hasten in service to Mercury, they moved with measured pace. When his brother had been brought to sit with him and join him in his work, Apollo first began:

[21] “When their minds tremble with apprehension in perilous times, or their destiny is unknown and unsettled with the future insecure, let the race of men consult the gods, because anxiety without knowledge of the truth makes them hesitant, uncertain prospects weary them; but to us foreknowledge is permitted, for us there is no hesitation. What the gods decide is law; heaven’s decisions cause us no wistfulness, for necessity is whatever is pleasing to us. But because you have not yet settled upon a choice, you want to have my advice. You thus associate me with all your desires, and you make up your mind with my advice.

[22] “There is a maiden of ancient lineage, highly educated and well acquainted with Parnassus; upon her the constellations shine in close proximity; no hidden region can conceal from her the movements of the stars through Tartarus, nor can thunderbolts hide from her the will of Zeus: she beholds under the sea the nature of wave-born Nereus. She knows your circuits through the several kingdoms of your brothers: ever watchful, with unsparing toil she penetrates the secrets of knowledge, so that with her patient learning she can anticipate all that it is given to gods to foreknow. Indeed, very often she has rights over us, impelling gods under compulsion to obey her decrees; she knows that what no power of heaven can attempt against Jove’s will, she can attain. Sublimity may cost dear: and the crowning consideration is that either of you is a fitting match for the other.”

[23] Virtue was delighted at these words of Apollo, recognizing that he proposed for marriage a paragon of a maiden; nevertheless, to be sure that there was no detraction from the dignity of the prospective brides mentioned earlier, she asked this one’s name. When she learned that it was Philologae whose espousal Apollo was urging, she was seized with such joy and enthusiasm that she behaved with less severity of deportment than was her wont. She called to mind that Philologae was her own kinswoman, a patroness of Prophecy, who had been so well commended, and most generous to Wisdom in giving her valuable ornaments. In addition, said Virtue, Psyche, who at first lived a primitive sort of existence, has been so refined by Philologae that whatever beauty and embellishment Psyche had she acquired from the polish Philologae gave her; for the maiden had shown Psyche so much affection that she strove constantly to make her immortal. Therefore they must not delay— and indeed she knew that the Cyllenian was swift in action. Having heard the words of Apollo, Mercury replied:

[24] “Lord of the laurel, splendor of the gods, certain it is that our concord comes from our kinship, and that you, my fellow-god, bring to pass whatever you and I together find to approve. I am never more ready to give up my own will, more happy to obey orders than when your caution and judgment prompt me to obey the Delian oracle. “I think it is sacrilege to regard the Delian utterances as ambiguous, and I forgo my own decision, whatever it was. It is therefore all the more appropriate that the I gladly obey these celebrated pronouncements when he is ordered to enter into matrimony. Try then, Delian Apollo, to ensure that Zeus should give the same decision, that he should give willing approval; for you are used to moving his will, you are alert to influence his predispositions; get him to approve your commands; I pray that his holy will has shone upon what has begun.”

Book I continues, informing us that Zeus not only confirms the choice of Philologae as Mercury’s bride, but is overjoyed at the prospect. He duly commands all the Olympian gods to commence festivities and prepare gifts. Book II continues with an elaborate description of the marriage ceremony. Accompanying the bride are her handmaids, the seven Liberal Arts, to which the remaining books are devoted.

Bibliography

Apuleius. Cupid and Psyche. William Addington (tr.); John Uebersax (ed.). 2018.

Cristante, Lucio; Lenaz, Luciano. Martiani Capellae: De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii. Vol. 1, Libri I – II. Bibliotheca Weidmanniana, 15.1. Hildesheim: Weidmann, 2011.

Gersh, Stephen. Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition. Vol. 2. University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. (Ch. 8. Martianus Capella, pp. 597−646.)

Stahl, William Harris; Johnson, Richard; Burge, E. L. The Marriage of Philology and Mercury. Columbia University Press, 1977.

Willis, James (ed.). Martianus Capella: De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii libri IX. Leipzig: Teubner, 1983. (Critical edition of Latin text.)

1st draft, 24 Mar 2020

St. Augustine and Intellectual Vision

Gerard Seghers (attr). The Four Doctors of the Western Church, Saint Augustine of Hippo

ST. AUGUSTINE, in several works, but most famously in Book 12 of On the Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Gen ad lit), developed a typology of ‘vision’ that became very influential throughout the Middle Ages, and which still merits our interest today. His main concern is not vision per se, but rather to use vision as a metaphor for knowing or cognition, and especially mental insight and knowledge of divine things.  His basic scheme is a tripartite division:

Corporeal vision.  The lowest form of vision is ordinary seeing by means of the eye, or bodily vision (visio corporalis). By this vision we see objects in the material world.

Spiritual vision. Above this is the mental vision by which we see images in the mind, either as memories of past sense experience, or products of the imagination. This he calls spiritual vision (visio spiritualis) — but this term requires an explanation. This vision is not spiritual in the sense that we understand that word today.  Rather, the connection with ‘spirit’ derives from ancient theories of perception, wherein it was believed that sense experience involved stimulation of a semi-material fluid (pneuma) that permeated the body.  Therefore a more apt term might be imaginative vision.

Intellectual vision. This all leads up to what really interests Augustine: the highest level of vision, which he calls intellectual vision (visio intellectualis). Unlike the other two forms of vision, intellectual vision sees things that have no connection with physical objects or their images.  It includes what a Platonist or Neoplatonist might call the ‘intellection of Forms’ (noesis): for example, by intellectual vision we can ‘see’ that bisecting a triangle always produces two triangles, and that 5 is greater than 4.  But for Augustine, intellectual vision is much more than Platonic or Plotinian noesis, and includes a wider range of cognitive activity, including what today we would call insight or (some kinds of) intuition.

Intellectual vision is, in fact, a pivotal concept in Augustine’s philosophy.  It plays an important role for him in contemplative ascent to God, in the relationship of Jesus Christ to the individual soul, and in understanding what faith means.  Hence he takes care to supply examples so readers can understand intellectual vision and observe it at work in their own minds.  It probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest that Augustine’s notion of intellectual vision is critical to understanding his important role not only in Christian philosophy, but in the history of human consciousness.

In De Gen ad lit 12 Augustine supplies many examples of intellectual vision.  These include the ability to see and understand virtues (12.24.50; 12.31.59), truth (12.26.54), love and (within limits) God (12.28.56; 12.31.59).  He also suggests that it’s by means of intellectual vision that we can recognize allegorical meanings of Scripture, and distinguish valid from spurious spiritual visions and understand the meanings of the latter.

De videndo Deo

We also learn more about intellectual vision in a book-length letter Augustine wrote to Paulina, known as On seeing God (De videndo Deo). He is trying to help Paulina understand what it means to ‘see God,’ with particular reference to certain verses of Scripture, such as Matthew 5:8 (Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.)  More specifically, he wishes to help her see God herself.

The letter reveals in a most remarkable way his humanism and pastoral concern.  Having ‘seen’ God himself, he has an intense, earnest desire to help others do the same. (This humanistic and personal view of Augustine stands in contrast with the common modern perception of him shaped by later appropriation and narrow interpretation of his teachings by later Scholastic and academic theologians.)

His concern is to show that God is seen by intellectual, not bodily vision. But first he must help Paulina understand what intellectual vision is, or, rather, to witness its operation in her own mind. For this purpose in chapters 38 to 41 he employs a novel and effective device: he has her reflect on her inner response to the various arguments and propositions advanced in his letter up to this point. He asks her to review his preceding discussion, noting which points ones she’s found credible and which she’s doubted; and then to notice the inner ‘vision’ by which the recognizes her varying degrees of belief:

But examine in this whole discussion of ours what you have seen, what you have believed, what you still do not know, either because I have not spoken of it, or you have not understood, or you have not judged it credible. Among the points which you have seen to be true, distinguish further how you saw them: whether it was by recalling that you had seen them through the body, such as heavenly or earthly bodies, or whether you never perceived them by corporeal sight, but, by looking upon them with your mind only, observed that they are true and certain, such as your own will, about which I believe you when you speak, for it is true I cannot see it myself as it is seen by you. And when you have distinguished between these two, notice, too, how you make your distinction. (De videndo Deo 38; italics added)

Whether we believe or doubt, we see that we do so.  We also see that we we find some sources more credible than others.  Paulina does not place equal credence in the opinions of Augustine and Ambrose.  And she instinctively believes Scripture even more:

Note this, therefore, after you have carefully and faithfully examined and distinguished what you see; in making your distinction assess the actual weight of evidence on what you believe in this whole speech which I have been making to you, since I began to speak to you in this letter, and in it note to what extent you lend your faith to what you do not see. You do not put the same faith in me as you do in Ambrose … ; or if you do think that we are both to be weighed in the same balance, of course you will not compare us in any way with the Gospel, or put our writings on the same footing with the canonical Scriptures. …

Therefore, you yield faith to these words [of Ambrose and myself] in one way, but to the divine words in quite a different way. Perhaps some little doubt has crept into your mind about us; that we may be somewhat less than clear about some of the divine words, and that they are interpreted by us, not as they were said, but as we imagine them. … About the divine Scriptures, however, even when they are not clearly understood, you have no doubt that they are to be believed. But you surely observe and see this weighing of belief or non-belief, and the difficulty of knowing, and the storms of doubt, and the devout faith which is owed to the divine utterances; all these you see in your mind as they are, and you do not doubt in the least that they are in your mind in this way, either as I said them, or, preferably, as you knew them yourself. Therefore, you see your faith, you see your doubt, you see your desire and will to learn, and when you are led by divine authority to believe what you do not see, you see at once that you believe these things; you analyze and distinguish all this. (Ibid. 39f.; italics added)

Importantly, he is not equating intellectual vision with her actual beliefs or doubts, but rather with her ability to perceive differences in her degrees of belief.  He then has her note the difference between this faculty and corporeal vision.

Of course, you will not make any sort of comparison between your bodily eyes and these eyes of your heart, with which you perceive that all this is true and certain, with which you observe and distinguish what is invisibly present to you. (Ibid. 41)

Augustine is turning what might otherwise be an abstruse and sterile technical discussion about ‘seeing’ God into a spiritual exercise and practical demonstration. He is helping Paulina integrate her intellectual vision more fully into her rational consciousness. Before, she, like all of us, engaged in intellectual vision, but somewhat subliminally, as something not fully in awareness.  But by drawing her attention to it, the faculty now becomes more consciously accessible and more acute, even enlarged.  By this means she will be able to eventually exercise it in subtle perceptions of God’s presence and activity in her mind.

As we investigate the meaning of intellectual vision — and especially by observing our own mental operations — it gradually becomes clear that this is no mere abstract epistemological category, but an entire dimension or plane of psychological experience.  We begin to appreciate the reality, vastness and importance of an entire inner reality, a realm perhaps as as vast as the entire universe of sense experience.

Yet despite its importance, intellectual vision operates for most people only subliminally, in the sub- or pre-conscious mind. We constantly apply these subtle mental operations of inner vision, discernment and judgment and could not adaptively function otherwise. But by becoming more conscious of them, we may better integrate this dimension of our being into our rational mental life and social activity, so that both our outer and inner life becomes more holy, virtuous and spiritually authentic

Richard of Saint-Victor

Augustine’s concept of intellectual vision became a staple of medieval Latin Christina thought, and is especially prominent in the writings of Hugh and Richard of Saint-Victor, 12th century writers. To give but one example, Richard’s Adnotationes mysticae in Psalmos 143 distinguishes several distinct aspects of discretion [discretio]:

(1) diiudicatio is the right judgment that directs virtues toward their ends; it is the light that leads us to truth (lucerna cordis iudicium discretionis);

(2) deliberatio makes the distinction between what should and should not be done in a specific situation, taking into account the particular circumstances;

(3) dispositio considers the proper ordering of means for attaining an end;

(4) dispensatio distinguishes what’s appropriate and inappropriate, and reexamines a first judgment when required;

(5) moderatio determines the right measure of the action.

Considering that discretion is only one part of intellectual vision, we can begin to get an idea of the complexity and richness of our subtle mental life.

By the end of the 12th century, the Augustinian tradition had achieved a remarkable synthesis of rationalism and mysticism (and also, though we have not discussed this aspect here, charity as an organizing principle of social life).  This progress halted as Scholasticism and rationalistic dogmatism became a dominating force in the 13th century and beyond, even to present times.  As the rational separated itself from the mystical element of Christianity, so the mystical separated itself from the rational: Pseudo-Dionysian and ‘apophatic’ mysticism submerged the intellectual mystical tradition of Augustine.  This split between rationalism and mysticism remains today.  Augustinian intellectual mysticism may potentially supply a more integral form of Christianity for present times.

Bibliography

Augustine of Hippo. Epistolae 147. De videndo deo. Patrologia Latina 33:596−622. J. P. Migne. Paris, 1841.

Augustine of Hippo. De Genesi ad litteram. Patrologia Latina 34:245−486. J. P. Migne. Paris, 1841.

Cary, Phillip. Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist. Oxford University Press, 2000.

Clark, Mary T. (tr.).  On Seeing God (De videndo Deo; Letter 147. In: Augustine of Hippo, Selected Writings. Classics of Western Spirituality. Paulist Press, 1984; pp. 361−402.

Fraeters, Veerle. Visio/Vision. In: Amy Hollywood & Patricia Z. Beckman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, Cambridge University Press 2012; pp. 178−188.

Hill, Edmund (tr.). The Literal Meaning of Genesis. In: Augustine, On Genesis, New City Press, 2002; ch. 12, pp. 464–475.

Meagher, Robert E. Augustine: On the Inner Life of the Mind. Hackett, 1998.

Parsons, Wilfrid (tr.). Letter 147: Augustine to Paulina (De videndo Deo). Saint Augustine: Letters Vol. 3. Fathers of the Church 20. New York, 1953; pp. 170−224.

Ragazzi, Grazia Mangano. Obeying the Truth: Discretion in the Spiritual Writings of Saint Catherine of Siena. Oxford University Press, 2013; p. 126.

Richard of Saint-Victor. Adnotationes mysticae in Psalmos. Patrologia Latina 196:265−402. J. P. Migne. Paris, 1855. (196:381d−382a)

Schlapbach, Karin. Intellectual vision in Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 12, or: seeing the hidden meaning of images. Studia Patristica 43, 2006, 239−244.

Taylor, John H. (tr.). Saint Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis. Ancient Christian Writers 41 and 42. Paulist Press, 1982.

Zycha, Joseph (ed.). De Genesi ad Litteram libri duodecimo. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) 28.1. Critical text. Vienna, 1894.

1st draft, 23 Feb 2020

The Great Prayer of St. Augustine

Art: Unknown.

BETWEEN the time of his conversion and his baptism, St. Augustine retired with his family and friends to a villa in Casciago in the beautiful lake region north of Milan. There he wrote several dialogues in the manner of Cicero, including the Soliloquies. Years later Augustine described his conversion in the Confessions, but here we have, as it were, a direct window into his mind at this important period of his life. The Soliloquies opens with an inspired and impassioned prayer — full of phrases from the Neoplatonist Plotinus and the Bible.

While I was turning over in my mind many and divers matters, searching ceaselessly and intently through many a day for my very own self and my good, and what evil should be avoided, all at once a voice spoke to me— whether it was myself or another inside or outside of me I do not know, for that is the very thing I am endeavoring to find out. Reason thereupon spoke to me as follows:

Reason. Now then, suppose you had discovered something, to what would you consign it, in order that you might proceed to other matters?

Augustine. To memory, of course.

R. Is memory of such virtue that it well preserves all that has been thought out?

A. That is difficult; in fact, it is impossible.

R. It must be written down, then. But, what are you going to do now that your poor health shirks the task of writing? These matters ought not to be dictated, for they demand real solitude.

A. You speak the truth. Wherefore, I really do not know what I am to do.

2.
O God, the Founder of the Universe, grant me first of all that I may fittingly supplicate Thee; next, that I may so act that I may be worthy of a hearing from Thee; finally, I beg Thee to set me free.
O God, through whom all those things, which of themselves would not exist, strive to be.
O God, who dost not permit to perish even that which is self-destructive.
O God, who from nothing hast created this world which every eye sees to be most beautiful.
O God, who dost not cause evil, and who dost cause that it become not most evil.
O God, who, to those few who have their refuge in that which truly is, dost show that evil is nothing.
O God, through whom the universe, even with its sinister side, is perfect.
O God, by whose ordinance the uttermost discord is as naught, since the less perfect things are in harmony with the more perfect.’
O God, whom everything loves which is capable of loving whether knowingly or unknowingly.
O God, in whom are all things—and yet the shamefulness of every creature does not shame Thee, their wickedness does not harm Thee, nor docs their error deceive Thee.
O God, who hast not willed that any save the pure should know the True.
O God, the Father of Truth, the Father of Wisdom, Father of True and Supreme Life, Father of Happiness, Father of the Good and the Beautiful, Father of Intelligible Light, Father of our watching and our enlightenment, Father of the covenant by which we are admonished to return to Thee.

3.
I call upon Thee, O God the Truth, in whom and by whom and through whom all those things are true which are true.
O God, Wisdom, in whom and by whom and through whom all those are wise who are wise.
O God, True and Supreme Life, in whom and by whom and through whom all those things live which truly and perfectly live.
O God, Happiness, in whom and by whom and through whom all those things are happy which are happy.
O God, the Good and the Beautiful, in whom and by whom and through whom all those things are good and beautiful which are good and beautiful.
O God, Intelligible Light, in whom and by whom and through whom all those things which have intelligible light have their intelligible light.
O God, whose domain is the whole world unknown to sense.
O God, from whose realm law is promulgated even in these regions.
O God, from whom to turn away is to fall, to whom to turn is to rise again, in whom to abide is to stand firm.
O God, from whom to depart is to die, to whom to return is to be revived, in whom to dwell is to live.
O God, whom no one loses unless deceived, whom no one seeks unless admonished, whom no one finds unless he is purified.
O God, whom to abandon is to perish, whom to heed is to love, whom to see is to possess.
O God, to whom Faith moves us, Hope raises us, Charity unites us.
O God, through whom we overcome the enemy, Thee do I pray.
O God, through whom we obtain that we do not altogether perish.
O God, by whom we are admonished to be ever watchful.
O God, through whom we discern the good from the evil.
O God, through whom we flee evil and follow after good.
O God, through whom we are not overcome by afflictions.
O God, through whom we fittingly serve and fittingly rule.
O God, through whom we learn that that is alien to us which once we thought was meet for us, and that is meet which we used to think was alien.
O God, through whom we cling not to the charms and lures of evil.
O God, through whom deprivations do not abase us.
O God, through whom what is better in us is not under the dominion of our lower self.
O God, through whom death is swallowed up in victory.
O God, who dost convert us, stripping us of that which is not and clothing us with that which Is.
O God, who makest us worthy to be heard.
O God, who strengthenest us; who leadest us into all truth.
O God, who speakest to us of all good things; who dost not drive us out of our mind, nor permittest that anyone else do so.
O God, who callest us back to the way; who leadest us to the gate; who grantest that it is opened to those who knock.
O God, who givest us the bread of life.
O God, through whom we thirst for the cup, which when it is drunk we shall thirst no more.
O God, who dost convince the world of sin, of justice, and of judgment.
O God, through whom we are not shaken by those who have no faith.
O God, through whom we denounce the error of those who think that the merits of souls are naught before Thee.
O God, through whom we do not serve weak and beggarly elements.
O God, who dost cleanse us, who dost make us ready for divine rewards, graciously come to me.

4.
Whatever I have said, come to my aid, Thou, the one God, the one, eternal, true substance in whom there is no strife, no disorder, no change, no need, no death; where there is supreme harmony, supreme clarity, supreme permanence, supreme fullness, supreme life; where there is no deficiency and no excess; where the One begetting and the One begotten is One.
O God, who art served by all things which serve, who art obeyed by every good soul.
O God, by whose laws the poles revolve, the stars follow their courses, the sun rules the day, and the moon presides over the night; and all the world maintains, as far as this world of sense allows, the wondrous stability of things by means of the orders and recurrences of seasons: through the days by the changing of light and darkness, through the months by the moon’s progressions and declines, through the years by the successions of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, through the cycles by the completion of the sun’s course, through the great eras of time by the return of the stars to their starting points.
O God, by whose ever-enduring laws the varying movement of movable things is not suffered to be disturbed, and is always restored to a relative stability by the controls of the encompassing ages.
O God, by whose laws the choice of the soul is free, and rewards to the good and chastisements to the wicked are meted out in accord with inexorable and universal destiny.
O God, from whom all good things flow even unto us, and by whom all evil things are kept away from us.
O God, above whom, beyond whom, and without whom nothing exists.
O God, under whom everything is, in whom everything is, with whom everything is.
O God, who hast made man to Thine image and likeness, a fact which he acknowledges who knows himself.
Hear, hear, O hear me, my God, my Lord, my King, my Father, my Cause, my Hope, my Wealth, my Honor, my Home, my Native Land, my Salvation, my Light, my Life.
Hear, hear, O hear me, in that way of Thine well known to a select few.

5.
Thee alone do I love; Thee alone do I follow; Thee alone do I seek; Thee alone am I ready to serve, for Thou alone hast just dominion; under Thy sway do I long to be.
Order, I beg Thee, and command what Thou wilt, but heal and open my ears, so that with them I may hear Thy words.
Heal and open my eyes so that with them I may perceive Thy wishes.
Banish from me my senselessness, so that I may know Thee.
Tell me where I should turn that I may behold Thee; and I hope I shall do all Thou hast commanded me.
Look, I beseech Thee, upon Thy prodigal, O Lord, kindest Father; already have I been punished enough; long enough have I served Thine enemies whom Thou hast beneath Thy feet; long enough have I been the plaything of deceits. Receive me Thy servant as I flee from them, for they took me in a stranger when I was fleeing from Thee.
I realize I must return to Thee. Let Thy door be open to my knocking. Teach me how to come to Thee. Nothing else do I have but willingness. Naught else do I know save that fleeting and perishable things are to be spurned, certain and eternal things to be sought after. This I do, O Father, because this is all I know, but how I am to reach Thee I know not.
Do Thou inspire me, show me, give me what I need for my journey.
If it is by faith that they find Thee who have recourse to Thee, give me faith; if it is through virtue, give me virtue; if it is by knowledge, give knowledge to me. Grant me increase of faith, of hope, and of charity. O how marvelous and extraordinary is Thy goodness.

6.
To Thee do I appeal, and once more I beg of Thee the very means by which appeal is made to Thee. For, if Thou shouldst abandon us, we are lost; but Thou dost not abandon us, because Thou art the Supreme Good whom no one ever rightly sought and entirely failed to find. And, indeed, every one hast rightly sought Thee whom Thou hast enabled to seek Thee aright. Grant that I may seek Thee, my Father; save me from error. When I seek Thee, let me not find aught else but Thee, I beseech Thee, Father. But, if there is in me any vain desire, do Thou Thyself cleanse me and make me fit to look upon Thee.

With regard to the health of this my mortal body, so long as I am ignorant of its usefulness to me or to those whom I love, I entrust it to Thee, O wisest and best of Fathers, and I shall pray for it as Thou shalt in good time advise me. This only I shall ask of Thine extreme kindness, that Thou convertest me wholly to Thee, and that Thou allowest nothing to prevent me when I wend my way to Thee. I beg Thee to command, while I move and bear this my body, that I may be pure, generous, just, and prudent; that I may be a perfect lover and knower of Thy Wisdom; that I may be worthy of Thy dwelling place, and that I may in fact dwell in Thy most blessed kingdom. Amen. Amen.  (Source: Soliloquies 1.1−6; Migne PL 32 cols 869−872; tr. Gilligan pp. 343−350).

Bibliography

Augustini Hipponensis. Soliloquia (Soliloquiorum libri II). Migne Patrologia Latina vol. 32, cols. 869−904, Paris, 1841. Latin text.

Gilligan, Thomas F. St. Augustine: Soliloquies. In: Schopp, Ludwig (ed), Writings of St. Augustine, Vol. 1.  (Fathers of the Church, Vol. 5). CUA Press, 1947 (repr. 2008); pp. 333−426. English translation.

Contemplative Christianity in the 13th and 14th Centuries: Latin West

(click image to view in high resolution)

HERE we extend the previous timeline forward to the 13th and 14th centuries.
Legend: Olive = Benedictine; Light green: Cistercian; Purple: Dominican; Orange = Carthusian; Dark blue = Augustinian; Light blue = Other.

Recommended Reading

Egan, Harvey D. An Anthology of Christian Mysticism. Liturgical Press, 1991.

McGinn, Bernard. The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200−1350). (Vol. 3 of B. McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism.) New York: Crossroad, 1998.

Hugh of St. Victor: Noah’s Ark as an Allegory for Contemplation

Art: (c) Conrad Rudolph

the ark is the secret place of our own heart

IN THE early High Middle Ages, before Scholasticism arose to dominate Christian theology, the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris was a leading intellectual center. Some work performed there built on the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius (translated into Latin two centuries earlier) to develop what we might call a science of contemplation, laying important groundwork for later Christian mysticism. Allegorical interpretation of Scripture supported this. Hugh of St. Victor’s (c. 1096–1141) exegesis of the story of Noah’s Ark is an example.

Philo (Questions and Answers on Genesis 1.89−2.78) and St. Ambrose (De Noe et Arca; PL 14.361−416) had, much earlier, allegorically interpreted the story of Noah and the Ark. In the light of these writings, the story emerges as a far more subtle and relevant myth than people ordinarily suppose. It’s very important to attend to specific details — such as the ark was three stories high, had a window and door, and that Noah first sent out a raven.

According to art historian Conrad Rudolph, Hugh lectured on the topic using a large, 10-foot square painting summarizing the symbolism. The figure shown above is Rudolph’s reconstruction.

Now the figure of this spiritual building which I am going to present to you is Noah’s ark. This your eye shall see outwardly, so that your soul may be fashioned to its likeness inwardly. You will see there certain colours, shapes, and figures which will be pleasant to behold. But you must understand that these are put there, that from them you may learn wisdom, instruction, and virtue, to adorn your soul. …

The third [ark] is that which wisdom builds daily in our hearts through continual meditation on the law of God. …

[W]hoever makes it his endeavour to cut himself off from the enjoyment of this world and cultivate the virtues, must with the assistance of God’s grace erect within himself a building of virtues three hundred cubits long in faith of Holy Trinity, fifty cubits wide in charity, and thirty cubits high in the hope that is in Christ, a building long in good works and wide in love and lofty in desire, so that his heart may be where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. …

If, then, we have begun to live persistently in our own heart through the practice of meditation, we have already in a manner ceased to belong to time; and, having become dead as it were to the world, we are living inwardly with God. We shall then easily make light of anything that fortune brings upon us outwardly, if our heart is there fixed where we are not subject to change, where we neither seek to have again things past, nor look for those to come, where we neither desire the pleasant things of this life, nor fear things contrary. Let us therefore have right thoughts, let us have pure and profitable thoughts, for of such material we shall build our ark. These are the timbers that float when they are put into the water and burn when placed in the fire; for the tide of fleshly pleasures does not weigh down such thoughts, but the flame of charity enkindles them. …

As we have said before, the ark of the flood is the secret place of our own heart, in which we must hide from the tumult of this world. But because the feebleness of our condition itself prevents our staying long in the silence of inward contemplation, we have a way out by the door and window. The door denotes the way out through action, the window the way out through thought. The door is below, the window above, because actions pertain to the body and thoughts to the soul. That is why the birds went out through the window and the beasts and men through the door. …

But the fact that the door is situated in the side denotes that we must never leave the secret chamber of our heart through our own deliberate choice, but only as necessity may happen to demand. …

But the fact that the door is situated in the side denotes that we must never leave the secret chamber of our heart through our own deliberate choice, but only as necessity may happen to demand.  …

Now we go out by action in four ways. For some actions are carnal those, that is to say, which are concerned with physical need; others are spiritual, and are concerned with the instruction of the mind. Good men and bad go forth for both. Those who are enslaved to the outward fulfilling of their lusts are like the unclean animals that went forth from the ark. Those, however, who discharge them from necessity are animals indeed, but clean. …

Eve ‘saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes, and was good for food, and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat’. Those who in this way issue forth through thought are like the raven which did not return. For when they find outside what gives them evil pleasure, they never want to come back again to the ark of conscience. …

The other three kinds of contemplation, however, are symbolized by the going forth of the dove who, when she was sent out and found no rest for her foot, returned at evening carrying in her mouth an olive branch in leaf. She went out empty, but she did not return so. For she found outside that which she did not have within, although the thing that she brought in she did not love outside. The olive branch in leaf denotes a good state of soul.

Source: Hugh of St. Victor, De arca Noe morali. In: Hugh of St. Victor: Selected Spiritual Writings, Translated by a religious of the Community of St. Mary the Virgin,  Harper, 1962.  [ebook].

Latin: Hugh of Saint-Victor. Omnia opera. Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, vol. 176. Paris, 1854. Cols. 618−680.

Art:  Rudolph, Conrad. The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2014.