From jod Wed Apr 5 15:38:20 1995 Received: (from root@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) id PAA30214 for augustine-outgoing; Wed, 5 Apr 1995 15:36:17 GMT Received: from peach.wustl.edu (peach.wustl.edu [128.252.121.27]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) with SMTP id LAA53245 for ; Wed, 5 Apr 1995 11:36:12 -0400 Received: by peach.wustl.edu (NX5.67d/NeXT-3.0-SLT/GHC) id AA09457; Wed, 5 Apr 95 10:37:07 -0500 Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 10:37:06 -0500 (CDT) From: "J. Patout Burns" X-Sender: jpburns@peach To: augustine Subject: AUG-SOUL Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Precedence: bulk AUGUSTINE-SOUL Posting 9 Robert J. O'Connell, *The Origin of the Soul in Augustine's Later Works* Epilogue: On Reading the *Retractations* Appendix: Plotinus and Augustine's Final Theory of the Soul I: *Retractations* In this section, O'Connell traces stages in the development of Augustine's theory 1. The theory which dominates most of *de lib. arb.* 3 is the fall of the heavenly soul into the mortal body through sin and under the laws of the universe. 2. At the end of *de lib. arb.* 3, Augustine backed off that theory and presented four alternatives, one of which still admitted the earlier interpretation. 3. In 414/415 c.e., he learned of Origen's theory of the fall of the soul and rejected it because of its explanation of the purpose of the material universe and its undercutting the security of salvation. 4. The Pelagian controversy forced Augustine to concentrate on penal theories of the soul's origin and coming into the body. He needed to justify the withholding of divine grace from some infants and their consequent damnation. Traducianism, however, was rejected as unacceptable. 5. Augustine discovered the relevance of Romans 9:11 and began to use it regularly to reject the Origenist hypothesis. 6. In his subsequent use of Romans 9:11, however, he began to interpret, "before birth" to mean, "before living one's own proper life." Thus he contrasted the common life which all lived in Adam or as Adam with the proper life which each lives in an individual form. 7. In this way, Augustine was able to continue speaking of all having sinned in Adam and coming into individual existence burdened with a guilt which is truly one's own. O'Connell then shows how Augustine wrote the *Retractationes*. He guided readers away from his earlier theory of the fall of the heavenly soul into the earthly body, without ever admitting that he had in fact held that theory. *Contra academicos* -He rejects natural necessity for the fallen condition but accepts that the condition is due to our merits because it is inherited from Adam. -He uses Rom 9.11 to correct his original use of the soul "returning" to heaven. He should have said that the soul "goes" to heaven. The soul did not fall from a heavenly condition into these bodies. Moreover, he professes to be unable to decide between creationism and traducianism. The proposed personal theory would include parts of each. *Soliloquiae* -He ought to have avoided the expression, "we must flee entirely form these sensible realities," lest it give the impression that everything bodily must be shunned, even those things which belong to the new heaven and new earth. -The remembrance theory of knowledge espoused in this work would imply an earlier life, as put forth by Plato in *Meno*. That is rejected in favor of the presence of divine light put forth in *de Trinitate* 12. At this point, Augustine neglects the Plotinian theory in which the divine light is both past and present. *de quantitate animae* -Again he warns against the theory of remembering the arts which were learned in an earlier life. Here he does reject the Plotinian view, in which only intelligible principles were grasped in a prior existence. *Ep 166* and *de anima et eius origine* He claims that he was only consulting Jerome and guarding his right to leave the question open, not making any assertions about the origin of the soul. O'Connell concludes that Augustine was not candid about his having espoused just these views of the fall of the soul into a mortal body. Augustine does reject expressions which lead in this direction and thus warn his readers off but he does not give a very clear explanation of his earlier intentions. Thus the *Retractationes* do not serve as an interpretative guide to the original meaning of the texts but only to what should--in the light of later understanding--be avoided in them. II. Plotinus and Augustine's Final Theory of the Soul In the final section of the book, O'Connell locates in the *Enneads* the materials from which Augustine might have constructed a theory of the identity of all humans in Adam, their common sin, and their subsequent proper or individual lives. The texts are *Enneads* 4.3-5, 5.8 and 6.4-5, all of which he has earlier argued (*Early Theory of Man*) that Augustine has used. The problem is to find passages in Plotinus which Victorinus might have translated in a way which would suggest the "proprium" term to Augustine. O'Connell is able to show that Plotinus' concern focuses on the soul being appropriated by an individual body as its property, and thus being differentiated from the common soul. The body functions as an addition from the realm of "non-being" which makes the soul less than it had been as identified with the All. Still, the language might have been adequate to suggest to Augustine a reversal of the direction: that the soul becomes particular by taking a property to itself. In *Enn.*6.5.6, O'Connell also finds a description of the Ideal Man and a particular man which might have served as guidance for the development of a relationship between Adam and those generated from him. Thus he concludes that in the intellectual atmosphere of Augustine's day, his description of the common life of all in Adam and their proper lives in mortal bodies might have appeared plausible, even respectable. He also observes that the materials which Augustine might have used to build such a theory are available in those *Enneads* which Augustine can be shown to have known. Finally, O'Connell points out that Augustine consulted Plotinus' text in preparing *de gen. ad litt.* and *civ. dei*, two of the late works in which the final theory is developed. III. Comments 1. The point of the epilogue is to show that Augustine's review of his writings is not a trustworthy guide to the original meaning of the texts. Anyone who has reviewed Augustine's later interpreted his early writings to avoid Pelagian appeals to them knows that O'Connell's argument is just and well founded. In fact, he is far more sympathetic to Augustine's situation than many contemporary readers have been. 2. The argument of the appendix is appropriately and, for those who have worked through O'Connell's earlier attempts to show Plotinus' influence, perhaps unexpectedly modest. The material will assist in an evaluation of O'Connell hypothesis. A critical reader must look not only to the, often very ambiguous, text of Augustine but to the intellectual context in order to determine what the text might have meant. 3. The materials which Augustine might have drawn from Plotinus would have undergone significant modification in his later works. In particular, Augustine asserts that Adam was created in an animal body and an earthly paradise. This is, as O'Connell shows, a clear reversal of the position he was upholding in *de gen. c. Man.* and *de lib. arb.* 3. 4. I propose that O'Connell's book has two important theses which should be considered separately. First, that Augustine came to a major change about 417/418 when he began to employ the text of Romans 9:11 to exclude the fall of individual souls into mortal bodies through sins committed individually in a prior life. He may have been rejecting not only the Origenist theory but his own preferred theory. Second, that Augustine continued to hold a theory of the fall of the human soul into a mortal body due to a sin which had been committed in solidarity or unity with Adam and all other human souls in a prior existence. Most of the discussion of methodology has centered on the first thesis. If the critics are satisfied, or at least willing to suspend judgment, on that count, then we might take the first assertion as accepted, or at least conceded for purposes of argument, and proceed to a closer examination of the second thesis. It is this second thesis, I believe which proves more interesting to those who are interested in the consequences of Augustine's theory of the fall in Western theology and culture. J. Patout Burns Religious Studies Washington University in St. Louis jpburns@artsci.wustl.edu 314-935-4770 From jod Thu Apr 6 19:42:26 1995 Received: (from root@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) id TAA39548 for augustine-outgoing; Thu, 6 Apr 1995 19:40:42 GMT Received: from jcvaxa (jcvaxa.jcu.edu [143.105.8.2]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) with ESMTP id PAA47735 for ; Thu, 6 Apr 1995 15:40:38 -0400 Received: from jcvaxa.jcu.edu by jcvaxa.jcu.edu (PMDF V4.3-7 #9465) id <01HP0TNZ5VGG8ZDWI6@jcvaxa.jcu.edu>; Thu, 6 Apr 1995 15:40:27 EST Date: Thu, 06 Apr 1995 15:40:27 -0500 (EST) From: "R. J. O'CONNELL, S.J." Subject: Aug Soul To: augustine Message-id: <01HP0TNZ7QYQ8ZDWI6@jcvaxa.jcu.edu> X-VMS-To: IN%"augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Sender: owner-augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Precedence: bulk From: ROCONNELL Sorry sorry sorry (again) for the long silence: my back has been "out" for the past month and more and typing is a crucifixion. But I could not pass up the last of Patout's summaries without seding along some loud huzzahs: a spendid job, and I can't see how it could have been done beter. Thanks, Patout! One small query: I don't quite understand your difficulty with the footnote con-cerning Romans V, 12: it seems to me I urnished all the info you require, or did you read me as having promised something more than that? One more thing: there's been some discussion of whether I claim Augustine held the "fall" theory in the Confessions. The answer is that my "Augustine's Confessions: The Odyssey of Soul" is built on the hypothesis that he is proposing (what he consideres a Christianized) version of the Plotinian view of man as fallen soul--including several other features alongside that of the fall. But I also dealt with this question in thel986 Congress in Rome, in a talk published in the Acta (Augustinianum 25). Atti II, pp. 45-58. Just a sample from that talk: Note the frequency of terms in re-: particularly redire expressions implying that our going to God is a going back to Him. A key instance: A. tells us that the reading of the Hortensius (3,8) made him burn to "fly back from earthly realities" to God: revolare, like the winged fallen soul in the Phaedrus, and that he began to "return" to God, like the Prodigal to his Father's House (redirem). Ending Book IV, he says we must "go back" redeamus) to where we came from, having "plunged down" (ruimus) from our "home" (domus), which is God's "eternity" (4,31). Similar messages in 7, 22, definition of iniquitas, read in connection with 11,39 (fall into times, plural), note use of same image from Ecclus of proud man spilling out his insides as in GenMan and De Mus descriptions of Adam's fall. Add: i3, 9, "the angel fell, man's soul fell" from the Heaven of Heavens. . . But maybe a reading of Odyssey is what is called for in this connection, even if Jim O'Donnell didn't deem it worth listing in his bibliography! From jod Sun Apr 16 04:26:39 1995 Received: (from root@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) id EAA20235 for augustine-outgoing; Sun, 16 Apr 1995 04:23:49 GMT Received: (from jod@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) id AAA32771 for augustine; Sun, 16 Apr 1995 00:23:46 -0400 From: "James O'Donnell" Message-Id: <199504160423.AAA32771@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> Subject: AUG: volunteers? To: augustine Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 00:23:45 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23-upenn2.9] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 199 Sender: owner-augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Precedence: bulk I need a few of the usual suspects to respond to a short survey of questions about the Aug. seminars from last spring and since then. Veterans only need apply, message to jod@ccat.sas.upenn.edu. From jod Mon Apr 17 23:53:51 1995 Received: (from root@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) id XAA09910 for augustine-outgoing; Mon, 17 Apr 1995 23:52:04 GMT Received: from homer07.u.washington.edu (homer07.u.washington.edu [140.142.77.11]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) with SMTP id TAA38833; Mon, 17 Apr 1995 19:52:00 -0400 Received: by homer07.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW95.02/UW-NDC Revision: 2.32 ) id AA62783; Mon, 17 Apr 95 16:52:55 -0700 X-Sender: vance@homer07.u.washington.edu Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 16:52:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Eugene Vance To: "James O'Donnell" Cc: augustine Subject: Re: AUG: volunteers? In-Reply-To: <199504160423.AAA32771@ccat.sas.upenn.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Precedence: bulk What do you mean by veteran? If I can be counted as one, I'd be happy to polish my shoes, get out my uniform, and answer your questionnaire. EV From jod Tue Apr 18 01:01:10 1995 Received: (from root@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) id BAA35167 for augustine-outgoing; Tue, 18 Apr 1995 01:00:40 GMT Received: from rs6a.wln.com (rs6a.wln.com [192.156.252.2]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) with SMTP id VAA19540; Mon, 17 Apr 1995 21:00:34 -0400 Received: by rs6a.wln.com (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.06) id AA78649; Mon, 17 Apr 1995 18:06:08 -0700 Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 18:06:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Larry Swain Subject: Re: AUG: volunteers? To: Eugene Vance Cc: "James O'Donnell" , augustine In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Precedence: bulk Aye, Aye sir! You can count on me, sah! On Mon, 17 Apr 1995, Eugene Vance wrote: > > What do you mean by veteran? If I can be counted as one, I'd be happy to > polish my shoes, get out my uniform, and answer your questionnaire. EV > From jod Sun Apr 23 15:13:21 1995 Received: (from root@localhost) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) id PAA30852 for augustine-outgoing; Sun, 23 Apr 1995 15:09:19 GMT Received: from afep.yorku.ca (afep.yorku.ca [130.63.236.54]) by ccat.sas.upenn.edu (8.6.12/CCAT) with ESMTP id LAA29567 for ; Sun, 23 Apr 1995 11:09:16 -0400 Received: (from yku01394@localhost) by afep.yorku.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) id LAA07865 for augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu; Sun, 23 Apr 1995 11:10:08 -0400 Date: Sun, 23 Apr 1995 11:10:08 -0400 From: "Glen Davis" Message-Id: <9504231110.ZM31671@afep.yorku.ca> X-Mailer: Z-Mail Lite (3.2.0 26may94) To: augustine Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-augustine@ccat.sas.upenn.edu Precedence: bulk My name is Glen Davis (yku01394@yorku.ca) I very interested in joining your group. a)