Contemplation and Classical Christianity: A Study in Augustine PDF
Preview Contemplation and Classical Christianity: A Study in Augustine
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES General Editors Gillian Clark Andrew Louth OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi THE OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES series includes scholarly volumes on the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. CoveringawiderangeofGreek,Latin,andOrientalsources,thebooksare of interest to theologians, ancient historians, and specialists in the classical andJewishworlds. Titlesintheseriesinclude: OrigenandScripture TheContoursoftheExegeticalLife PeterW.Martens(2012) ActivityandParticipationinLateAntiqueandEarlyChristianThought TorsteinTheodorTollefsen(2012) IrenaeusofLyonsandtheTheologyoftheHolySpirit AnthonyBriggman(2012) ApophasisandPseudonymityinDionysiustheAreopagite “NoLongerI” CharlesM.Stang(2012) MemoryinAugustine’sTheologicalAnthropology PaigeE.Hochschild(2012) OrosiusandtheRhetoricofHistory PeterVanNuffelen(2012) DramaoftheDivineEconomy CreatorandCreationinEarlyChristianTheologyandPiety PaulM.Blowers(2012) EmbodimentandVirtueinGregoryofNyssa AnAnagogicalApproach HansBoersma(2013) TheChronicleofSeert ChristianHistoricalImaginationinLateAntiqueIraq PhilipWood(2013) ChristintheLifeandTeachingofGregoryofNazianzus AndrewHofer,O.P.(2013) AsceticPneumatologyfromJohnCassiantoGregorytheGreat ThomasL.HumphriesJr.(2013) OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi Contemplation and Classical Christianity A Study in Augustine JOHN PETER KENNEY 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©JohnPeterKenney2013 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2013 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicence,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013938313 ISBN 978–0–19–956370–8 Asprintedandboundby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi Dedicated in grateful remembrance: James J. Jason and Madeline F. Jason OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi Preface “WhatelseisthefaceofGodthanthetruthitselfforwhichwesighed and to which, as the object of our love, we are restoring ourselves as pureandbeautiful?”1 This book is about what ancient Christians called contemplation— contemplatio or theōria—immediate knowledge of a transcendent God discovered within the soul. That God should exist outside the physicalcosmoswasachallengingconceptioninantiquity.2Thatthe soulmightcometoperceiveultimaterealitythroughspiritualreflec- tionandrecoveritsrootsbeyondspaceandtimewasmorearresting still. Whattheancientscalledcontemplationwenowcall“mysticism”,a vague conception encompassing a wide array of phenomena. The notion of “mysticism”, as an unusual and intensely personal experi- ence, settled into the modern conceptual vernacular through the effortsofthinkerssuchasWilliamJames,whoseVarietiesofReligious Experience,firstpublishedin1902,treatedcontemplationinpsycho- logicalterms.Thatapproachsoughttoidentifythecommoncharac- teristics of “mystical experience” and to examine the scope of this phenomenon across the world’s religious cultures.3 This “common- core”theoryinitiallypostulatedasinglesetofdefiningcharacteristics, suggesting that at the foundations of the world’s religions lay a primordial, universal experience. Hence this theory also came to be known as “perennialism”, the putative identification of enduring spiritual truth. Yet there was no stable consensus on the nature of thatexperience,andsotheoristsinthecourseofthetwentiethcentury gradually settled on a cluster of common “mystical” experiences of differenttypes.4Thismodifiedcommon-coreapproachwasnonethe- less regnant throughout the century, exerting a strong influence on 1 Deordine1.8.23. 2 Teske2008,22–3and28–33;Brown1967,86. 3 Katz1978,22–74. 4 E.g.forStace(1960)thereweretwocommonmysticalexperiences:extrovertive and introvertive, while forZaehner (1957) there were three: theistic, monistic, and naturemysticism. OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi viii Preface thestudyofancientandmedievalChristiantheology.Butperennialism offered only a limited, psychological understanding of theological texts. Indeed theology itself was regarded as an impediment to discovering the experiential accounts at the base of such texts. The authenticity of experience was sought, not the abstractions of theology. Yet ancient and medieval texts resist this exegetical reductionism by the richness and force of their theological accounts of contem- plation. Since antiquity, contemplation had been understood as a mode of knowing accomplished through the transformation of the inner self. To read such texts solely or primarily as experiential descriptions—at the expense of their theology—seems an impover- ishedhermeneutic,groundedinantecedentcommitmentsthatthem- selves invite scrutiny. Alert to this dissociation from ancient and medieval theology, contemporary scholarship has increasingly pushed back against the hegemony of common-core theories. By rejecting a bright line between authentic experience and theological interpretation, theology can be restored to the centrality it occupied in the texts themselves. Personal experiential accounts may be reviewed with their cognitive content in view, while the theological dimensionsofthetextsmaybeseenasnaturalamplificationsdrawing outandframingtheinherentsignificanceofthosepersonalaccounts themselves. This more capacious reading requires attention to trad- itions of theology and philosophy, since it is only when a text is understood against that background that its meaning can be fixed withanyprecisionanditsnoveltyassayed.5 Thisbookispartofthathermeneuticaltradition.Itsaimistwofold: to retrieve conceptions of contemplation found in the early texts of St Augustine and then to consider them in reference to Augustine’s classic depiction in the Confessions. That true knowledge of reality canbeachievedonlybyintenseinteriorcognitionseparatefromsense experiencemayseemradicallycounterintuitive.Thatthisknowledge must be prepared by the soul’s moral renaissance may seem odder still.Yetthoseweretheclaimsthatsupportedtheancientpracticeof contemplation.Itisonlywhenthemoralselfhasbeenreformedthat 5 Particularly important in initiating this methodological shift were the first volumeofBernardMcGinn’smulti-volumeseriesonthehistoryofWesternChristian mysticism (1991) and Andrew Louth’s study of early Christian mystical tradition (1981). OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,21/10/2013,SPi Preface ix anytrueknowledgeworthhavingcanbedisclosed,andtheimmediate presenceofGoddiscerned.Onlythencanknowledgeofwhatisreally realbediscovered—knowledgethatiscertainandstableandsecure.It is this ancient Christian notion of the soul’s immediate understand- ingofGodthatisthesubjectofthisinquiry. Assuchthisessayisa“prequel”ofsorts.Itfollowsfromanearlier study of contemplation in the Confessions.6 That work discussed difficultiesassociatedwithreadingthemodern,psychologicalconcep- tionof“mysticism”backintoAugustine’sclassicworkandtheensuing confusion and controversy that this reading entailed. But with that model discarded, Augustine’s representation of contemplation could thenbeinspectedagainstthebackgroundofhisacknowledgedsources, the “books of the Platonists” from the Roman school of Plotinus. Augustine was transformed by encountering these pagan works and the Confessions tells the story, not of his pursuit of mystical experi- ence, but of those moments when he came to discern directly the existenceandnatureofatranscendentGod.Thepresentstudymoves backchronologicallytotheearlierworksAugustinewroteduringthe timeof hisfirst encounterswiththetranscendent.Thisistheperiod that the autobiographical narrative of the Confessions relates and these early works record Augustine’s initial reflections on God and thesoul.Particularattentionwillbeaccordedtohisearliestpresenta- tionsofcontemplationintheworkswrittenbeforehisbaptism,inits immediate aftermath, and in the early years of his clerical life as a priestandbishop.Indoingsowecanthenconsider thefoundations ofhismature representation of Christiancontemplation inthe Con- fessions.Thepurposeofthisretrospectiveinquiryisthustoachievea moresecuregraspofwhatAugustineunderstoodcontemplationtobe and thereby to discern more clearly the grounds for his claim that Godtranscendsthecosmos. What this work is not is a quest for the historical Augustine. Its intent is neither to chart his personal story as such nor to map the nexusofinfluencesuponhimwithinthecultureofhistime.Neitheris it a study in his intellectual development as a whole. Rather, it is a reflection on a specific idea and practice as iterated by Augustine in his early writings and then in the Confessions. Both his life and the larger development of his theology are inevitable and ancillary 6 Kenney2005.
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